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#070_ STORY INSPIRE: You Didn’t Waste Your Life — Here’s How to Start Again · INSPIRE STORY

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Speaker 1: Hi, everyone. I spent decades unpacking the biblical stories upon
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Speaker 1: which these lectures are based. I did that because they
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Speaker 1: form the foundation of our culture. You need to know
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Speaker 1: what they are so that you share something in common
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Speaker 1: with everyone else. You need to understand what they mean
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Speaker 1: so that you can find their application in your life.
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Speaker 1: Knowing the meaning of these stories can get you through
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Speaker 1: some very dark times. Welcome to the lecture. Thank you, everyone.
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Speaker 1: Thank you very much for coming tonight. It's very good
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Speaker 1: to see you all here. And so, I always sit backstage.
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Speaker 1: I'm preparing for these talks all the time, really. I finished,
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Speaker 1: I think, what's the final draft of the book that
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Speaker 1: this tour is based on today, by the way? Hmm. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And I've been working on it. Well, I've been working
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Speaker 1: on it for 40 years really, but well, you know,
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Speaker 1: because it's a continuation of ideas that I've been developing
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Speaker 1: really for four, four decades. And, but I've been writing
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Speaker 1: it specifically for about three years, I guess. I actually
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Speaker 1: wrote three books at the same time, um, as it
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Speaker 1: turned out. Um, so they'll come out one after the
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Speaker 1: other over the next couple of years. Um, So I'm
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Speaker 1: writing that constantly. And then I'm spending each of these
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Speaker 1: occasions that I have the privilege to engage in thinking
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Speaker 1: on my feet, trying to clarify what I'm writing, trying
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Speaker 1: to clarify my investigations. And I usually focus that. I
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Speaker 1: always focus that in preparation for a given lecture by
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Speaker 1: noting what question is perplexing me. This is really what
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Speaker 1: you do when you think. When you think. I've thought
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Speaker 1: recently that thought is actually secularized prayer. I'll tell you
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Speaker 1: why I believe that. I truly believe it's the case.
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Speaker 1: There's endless reason to believe that. the religious enterprise per
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Speaker 1: se preceded any attempt to formalize thinking. We don't really
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Speaker 1: have any records of formalized thought as such, let's say,
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Speaker 1: prior to the Greek philosophers, prior to Socrates in particular,
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Speaker 1: who taught people to think. What were people doing before
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Speaker 1: that at a psychological level? Well, they were engaged in
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Speaker 1: some variant of a religious enterprise, There were no faithless
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Speaker 1: people in the distant past. The manner in which people
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Speaker 1: interacted with the world was a religious manner. There was
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Speaker 1: no alternative to that. People might have debated with one
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Speaker 1: another about what the appropriate faith was, but everyone existed
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Speaker 1: within a conception of the world that we would regard
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Speaker 1: today as clearly religious. What do you do when you think? Well,
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Speaker 1: the first thing you do is you admit that you
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Speaker 1: don't know something.
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Speaker 2: Right?
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Speaker 1: So that's a gesture of humility. If you want to
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Speaker 1: think about something, we have to have a problem. It
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Speaker 1: has to be a problem you're interested in, let's say,
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Speaker 1: or a problem that bothers you, a problem that plagues
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Speaker 1: your conscience or calls to you. You have to have
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Speaker 1: a problem. You have to accept that problem as your own,
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Speaker 1: so that's a Move of responsibility. And then you have
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Speaker 1: to proclaim your ignorance. Not least to yourself. Right? Because
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Speaker 1: if you have a problem. You have a problem. Because
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Speaker 1: you don't have the solution. And if you don't have
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Speaker 1: the solution. Then you're not everything you could be. Not
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Speaker 1: least because you have the problem. And so then what
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Speaker 1: do you do? If you're thinking. You know people say.
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Speaker 1: Well I thought up this. Or I thought of this. And.
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Speaker 1: It's a strange way of apprehending what happens because when
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Speaker 1: you say, I think, it's not like you know what
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Speaker 1: you're doing, right? You don't know how you think. You
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Speaker 1: have no notion whatsoever of the causal sequence that allows
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Speaker 1: you to conjure up something essentially out of nothing that
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Speaker 1: addresses something that you didn't know. And it's a complete
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Speaker 1: bloody mystery. It's like, think about it this way. If
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Speaker 1: you didn't know the answer, then how could you think
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Speaker 1: it up? Right? It's the same problem obtains when you dream.
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Speaker 1: It's like, obviously, that's not a voluntary activity. Where did
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Speaker 1: the dreams come from? Well, they say, well, they happen
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Speaker 1: in my head. It's like in there in the goo.
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Speaker 1: That's the idea, is it? It's a very weird way
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Speaker 1: of looking at the situation because the disjunction between the
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Speaker 1: dream as a phenomena and the matter of your brain
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Speaker 1: is so great that attempting to casually reduce one to
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Speaker 1: another to the other is well it's just a non-starter
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Speaker 1: it's preposterous in some ways and we certainly don't understand
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Speaker 1: the relationship between conscious or unconscious experience say if dreams
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Speaker 1: are more on the unconscious side we don't understand that
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Speaker 1: and the material substrate of the brain at all. There's
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Speaker 1: been decades now of pretty intense work on consciousness from
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Speaker 1: the neuroscience perspective. It isn't obvious that we've really got
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Speaker 1: anywhere at all with it. It's a great mystery. So anyways,
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Speaker 1: you're thinking away, what do you do? Well, as I said,
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Speaker 1: you admit that you have a problem, so that's a
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Speaker 1: gesture of humility. It's also a confession of sorts, right?
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Speaker 1: Is that you don't know. And you have to admit
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Speaker 1: that to yourself. So This is what scientists do when
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Speaker 1: they're thinking you have to grapple with the fact that
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Speaker 1: you're bereft. And then what do you do? One of
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Speaker 1: the things I learned when I was a scientist was
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Speaker 1: that scientists lie about science all the time. It's built
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Speaker 1: right into the scientific process. When you publish a scientific paper,
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Speaker 1: you write the introduction. The introduction describes how you generated
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Speaker 1: your hypothesis and why. And all of that's complete nonsense.
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Speaker 1: Because what you do is you tell a story about
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Speaker 1: how you reviewed the literature and how it sequentially influenced
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Speaker 1: you to logically take the next step forward and come
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Speaker 1: up with the research question in mind. That isn't how
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Speaker 1: it works. Ever, or virtually ever. First of all, if
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Speaker 1: your research question is so obvious that you could have
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Speaker 1: just derived it from a review of the literature... it
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Speaker 1: hardly is original or worth pursuing, so there has to
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Speaker 1: be a leap of originality in there somewhere that isn't
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Speaker 1: accounted for by the mere facts. The truth of the
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Speaker 1: matter is that you have a hypothesis, you have an intuition,
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Speaker 1: you have an insight that something might be the case,
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Speaker 1: and you get that because you admitted in ignorance that
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Speaker 1: you didn't know, and you received something that approximates a revelation.
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Speaker 1: That's what an intuition is. That's what an insight is.
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Speaker 1: That's what it means to move towards illumination. Those are
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Speaker 1: all words with a religious connotation. That's where scientific hypotheses
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Speaker 1: come from, right? And sometimes they strike people even with
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Speaker 1: the force of revelation is that the greatest of scientists
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Speaker 1: in their autobiographical accounts often insist upon the fact that
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Speaker 1: they're struck by a realization, right? It's very strange language.
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Speaker 1: It's like, well, where does that realization come from? It's
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Speaker 1: the same question as where do your thoughts come from? Well,
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Speaker 1: what you have to do to think, at least in
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Speaker 1: the initial stages, you have to admit that you don't know.
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Speaker 1: And then you have to, well, what? You'll have to
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Speaker 1: want to know. Well, there's no real difference between that
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Speaker 1: and Christ's injunction in the Gospels, right? The injunction from
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Speaker 1: Christ is that you should knock and the door will
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Speaker 1: open and you should ask and you'll receive and you
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Speaker 1: should seek and you'll find. And that's all predicated on
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Speaker 1: the idea that you're actually knocking, right? That it's a
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Speaker 1: gesture that indicates an intent to walk through the door
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Speaker 1: and that you're actually asking because you want and that
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Speaker 1: you're seeking because you want to find. It has to
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Speaker 1: be the genuine article. And then what is the consequence
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Speaker 1: of that? And the consequence is, well, Something appears in
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Speaker 1: the theater of your imagination. That's a much more accurate
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Speaker 1: way of describing what happens than that you thought it up.
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Speaker 1: You thought out your dreams, did you? That's why dreams
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Speaker 1: can contain information that you don't know. How do you
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Speaker 1: account for that? Well, is it necessary to portray it
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Speaker 1: as a revelation? Well, it's a description. If you want
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Speaker 1: to attribute it to the workings of the unconscious mind...
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Speaker 1: Go right ahead. But it's not like you've made any
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Speaker 1: progress in solving the problem. You've just replaced one mystery
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Speaker 1: with another. And so I think that the biological and
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Speaker 1: the divine... dovetail, and if you want to take a
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Speaker 1: bottom-up approach to the problem of Revelation and attribute it
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Speaker 1: to something like an implicit unconscious that emerges out of
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Speaker 1: the material realm but has its own structure, it's like, well,
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Speaker 1: go right ahead. You're treading on religious ground and When
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Speaker 1: you do that anyways, not just treading, you're fully there.
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Speaker 1: Certainly people like Carl Jung realized that by like 1930,
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Speaker 1: you know. And that was part of his beef with Freud.
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Speaker 1: Because Jung realized that the God that Nietzsche had dispensed
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Speaker 1: with in some sense made itself manifest anyways in the unconscious.
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Speaker 1: And he was absolutely right about that. And so... What
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Speaker 1: do you do when you ask a question? Well, you
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Speaker 1: open yourself up to revelation. Now, that's not the end
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Speaker 1: of thinking. And the reason for that is that, as
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Speaker 1: it's put in the New Testament, you have to test
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Speaker 1: the spirits to see if they're of God. And what
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Speaker 1: does that mean? Well, you have to critically evaluate what
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Speaker 1: it is that you've received. Because perhaps the revelation that's
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Speaker 1: been delivered to you in consequence of your search... has
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Speaker 1: been delivered by the wrong spirit. And what would that mean? Well,
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Speaker 1: here's a way of thinking about this. This is extremely
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Speaker 1: useful to know. Imagine that you're trying to settle an
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Speaker 1: argument with your wife. Now, if you had any sense,
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Speaker 1: when you were trying to settle the argument, you would
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Speaker 1: aim up. Right? I'm dead serious about this. You would
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Speaker 1: step back and you'd take stock and you'd think, okay,
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Speaker 1: If I could have what I wanted, if I could
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Speaker 1: have the proper door open, if I could ask and
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Speaker 1: receive in the proper manner, if I could seek and
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Speaker 1: find what I wanted to find, what would it be?
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Speaker 1: And then you'd think, well, I would like to reestablish
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Speaker 1: the harmonious peace and playful spirit that... characterizes my relationship
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Speaker 1: with my wife and all those people I love when
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Speaker 1: those relationships are at their best and I would sacrifice
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Speaker 1: everything to that end and I would seek for the
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Speaker 1: solution to the problem of our conflict in that spirit.
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Speaker 1: And then if you did that and you were sinless
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Speaker 1: in your aim, if you were precise in your aim,
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Speaker 1: if you were oriented towards the establishment of that microcosm
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Speaker 1: of the Garden of Eden, then the spirit that would
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Speaker 1: respond to your request would be the spirit of the
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Speaker 1: God of your ancestors that would deliver you the message
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Speaker 1: that would move you one step forward, one step closer
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Speaker 1: to the kingdom of heaven. But you'd bloody well better
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Speaker 1: make sure you have your act together before you... Make
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Speaker 1: a request like that because the alternative is that you
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Speaker 1: call something unholy up to answer you. And you get
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Speaker 1: a revelation from that spirit instead. And you might say, well, Dr. Peterson,
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Speaker 1: you're degenerating into archaic and superstitious language. It's like, don't
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Speaker 1: be so sure about that. Because you might imagine that
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Speaker 1: you harbor an endless number of resentments in your bitter
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Speaker 1: little soul about your wife and about all the other
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Speaker 1: people that you interact with and instead of orienting yourself
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Speaker 1: properly towards what's highest and seeking for the insight that
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Speaker 1: would establish peace and harmonious tranquility, you decide that you
13:48
Speaker 1: could toss a little insult in there and maybe obtain
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Speaker 1: a little bit of a victory and You know, get
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Speaker 1: back at her for the last time that you argued
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Speaker 1: when she defeated you. Or maybe the last hundred times
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Speaker 1: that that's happened. Who knows? And that you've had enough
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Speaker 1: of taking guff from people. And it's time for you to,
14:06
Speaker 1: you know, make your own stance. And if you can
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Speaker 1: throw a little intellectual pride in there, so much the better.
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Speaker 1: And that's the spirit in which you ask the question.
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Speaker 1: And that's exactly the spirit that responds. Right? And so
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Speaker 1: then you get a revelation that's not exactly from... You
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Speaker 1: might say the divine source itself. Because you've called some
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Speaker 1: lesser devil up. In the recesses of your imagination. And
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Speaker 1: that's what informs you as to your proper. What would
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Speaker 1: you say? Your proper strategy moving forward. That's what crafts
14:40
Speaker 1: your cynical and sarcastic and bitter words. That's what inspires
14:46
Speaker 1: you to use power when you could use invitation. That's
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Speaker 1: what inspires you to proclaim your correctness. the pharaonic tyrant
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Speaker 1: who continues to double down. That's what you've invited into
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Speaker 1: your life, into your soul. And so you better test
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Speaker 1: the spirits that you call on to see if they're
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Speaker 1: of God, because God only knows how misaligned your aim is.
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Speaker 1: And that misalignment of aim, that is sin. That's what
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Speaker 1: sin means. It means, it's an archery term, it means
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Speaker 1: to miss the target. And so God, heaven help you
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Speaker 1: when you... What would you say? First practice to deceive.
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Speaker 1: Heaven help you when you aim in the wrong direction
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Speaker 1: and wait for the inspiration to strike you. And that's
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Speaker 1: worth thinking, you know. That's worth thinking about. Because your thoughts...
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Speaker 1: You can speak of this just in the most practical sense.
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Speaker 1: Your thoughts are... tools, they're aids to your progression forward, right?
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Speaker 1: I mean, you think so that you can maneuver in
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Speaker 1: the world more effectively. And so, what is it that
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Speaker 1: determines what thoughts make themselves manifest to you? And the
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Speaker 1: answer to that is straightforward. Your aim. That's what determines it.
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Speaker 1: That's what determines. That's what determines not just what you think,
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Speaker 1: but What you see, literally, what determines which pathways forward
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Speaker 1: open to you, which determines what constitutes obstacles and what
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Speaker 1: constitutes aids. Your aim determines who your friends are and
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Speaker 1: who your enemies are. Your aim... Your aim... Is the
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Speaker 1: structure through which you see the world. And your character is.
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Speaker 1: Your sequence of aims. That's what you see unfolding. In
16:58
Speaker 1: front of you when you go see a movie. You
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Speaker 1: see someone characterized. As a series of aims. And you
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Speaker 1: derive from that. The manner in which they view the world.
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Speaker 1: You identify them with. With them emotionally. You come to
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Speaker 1: see the obstacles. And the pathways forward. And the friends
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Speaker 1: and foes that. make up their world because you understand
17:20
Speaker 1: their aim. And so it matters for you to get
17:25
Speaker 1: your aim right. And so when I'm sitting backstage before
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Speaker 1: I come on stage to talk, I try to first
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Speaker 1: knock and ask, like, what's the problem I'm trying to address?
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Speaker 1: It has to be a real problem. It has to
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Speaker 1: be something I'm wrestling with. something I'm grappling with, something
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Speaker 1: that I believe is worth sacrificing for, worth pursuing, worth communicating,
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Speaker 1: worth contemplating. And it has to be a genuine question.
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Speaker 1: And the question for tonight was, what is it, how
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Speaker 1: is it that we could best conceptualize faith? Right? And
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Speaker 1: so that's the question that I'm Hoping. To answer. And
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Speaker 1: what's the spirit in which. I hope that answer will
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Speaker 1: be delivered. Well. We set the stage with the music.
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Speaker 1: And David Carter is a very good musician. And he
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Speaker 1: gives it his all. And that. Orients us upward in
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Speaker 1: the way music does. And it focuses. The attention of
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Speaker 1: everyone in the audience. And as my daughter indicated. We're
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Speaker 1: very happy. With our audiences. Which is why we continue
18:46
Speaker 1: to do the tours. And why are we happy with them?
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Speaker 1: It's well. First of all. Look it. Here you are.
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Speaker 1: And that's a miracle. For anyone who has any sense.
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Speaker 1: It's like. There's 5500 of you. It's like. What the
19:00
Speaker 1: hell are you doing here? It's. Seriously. Like. You have
19:08
Speaker 1: to be a complete fool as someone who has the
19:12
Speaker 1: privilege to address a crowd like this to not constantly
19:19
Speaker 1: be struck by the sheer improbability of this happening, of
19:25
Speaker 1: all the things that have to come together in this
19:27
Speaker 1: strange way they have come together in order to make
19:31
Speaker 1: something like this possible. And so, if you have the
19:34
Speaker 1: least bit of sense, you walk on stage... What would
19:38
Speaker 1: you say? With your jaw dropped, realizing that nothing more
19:46
Speaker 1: improbable in some sense than this is likely. and yet
19:51
Speaker 1: here it is and so and then what else well
19:54
Speaker 1: my sense these events tend to be very positive why
19:59
Speaker 1: well because the people who are attending by and large
20:03
Speaker 1: are knocking and asking and seeking and people differ in
20:08
Speaker 1: their sophistication in that regard you know I mean you
20:13
Speaker 1: meet some people who have clear vision and their ability
20:18
Speaker 1: to detect up even under trying circumstances is unparalleled and
20:24
Speaker 1: you see other people who are just starting to stumble
20:27
Speaker 1: out of the pit up the hill and their vision
20:31
Speaker 1: is still obscured but they have some sense that up
20:34
Speaker 1: exists and they're willing to take a risk to pursue
20:39
Speaker 1: it and By and large, the audiences that come to
20:43
Speaker 1: these events are upward aiming. And so it's a celebration
20:49
Speaker 1: of Jacob's ladder, this endless spiral up towards the pinnacle
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Speaker 1: and a mutual attempt to walk that golden ladder. And
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Speaker 1: so when I sit backstage and conjure up a question,
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Speaker 1: Or allow one to make its appearance to me. I
21:15
Speaker 1: remember that I'm engaged in a serious quest. In the
21:22
Speaker 1: most engaging possible way. And that I have the privilege
21:27
Speaker 1: of undertaking that endeavor. In a public manner. That allows
21:34
Speaker 1: me to. craft my words and see them appear and
21:39
Speaker 1: then to test them simultaneously in real time to see
21:44
Speaker 1: if they land. And that's a good deal. Like, that's
21:48
Speaker 1: a seriously good deal. It's hard to imagine, especially for
21:52
Speaker 1: someone constituted like me, it's hard to imagine anything better.
21:57
Speaker 1: I mean, I've always enjoyed being a professor and took
22:02
Speaker 1: it seriously and Now I have the opportunity to speak
22:07
Speaker 1: to a different audience every night about exactly what it
22:11
Speaker 1: is that I'm most compelled to investigate to exactly the
22:16
Speaker 1: audience that's only there because they actually want to be there.
22:21
Speaker 1: It's like, well, that's a fine deal. And so I
22:29
Speaker 1: hope with that contemplation and that Effort and gratitude for the. Unlikely.
22:40
Speaker 1: Gift of this opportunity that. I can call upon the
22:46
Speaker 1: spirit of revelation. To aid me in crafting my words.
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Speaker 1: And dig more deeply. Into the problem at hand. That being.
23:00
Speaker 1: How do we conceptualize faith? Now. I'm going to tell
23:05
Speaker 1: you a way we shouldn't conceptualize it. It's called Peterson Academy.
23:11
Speaker 1: Peterson Academy. Peterson Academy. It's called Peterson Academy. Peterson Academy.
23:15
Speaker 1: If you want an actual education with hand-selected professors from
23:19
Speaker 1: top universities around the world.
23:22
Speaker 3: Bringing the best professors together, making sure they're not censored
23:25
Speaker 3: in any way, giving them the audience and the remuneration
23:27
Speaker 3: and appreciation they deserve.
23:28
Speaker 1: And you were true to your word. You gave me
23:29
Speaker 1: absolute intellectual autonomy. I have had it through every course.
23:33
Speaker 1: We figure we can offer people a high quality university
23:36
Speaker 1: level education for under $ 2, 000. Well, congratulations, Jordan. It's honestly brilliant.
23:41
Speaker 1: Can't wait to enroll myself. I'll be doing that straight
23:43
Speaker 1: after this. Fungio. There's an insistence in the biblical texts
24:01
Speaker 1: that God is, in the final analysis, ineffable. Okay, so
24:07
Speaker 1: what does that mean? It means beyond categorization, right? It
24:15
Speaker 1: means outside of space and time. It means that whatever
24:21
Speaker 1: existence God has is of a higher order than the
24:27
Speaker 1: existence of what we regard to be objectively true. The
24:36
Speaker 1: reality of the objective is one form of reality. The
24:41
Speaker 1: reality of the transcendent is a higher form of reality.
24:45
Speaker 1: And it's not to be reduced to the objective. This
24:48
Speaker 1: is partly why Christ says in the Gospels, not everyone
24:53
Speaker 1: who says, Lord, Lord, Will enter the kingdom of heaven.
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Speaker 1: But only those. That do the will of my father.
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Speaker 1: What does that reference mean? Faith is not.
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Speaker 2: Belief.
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Speaker 1: In a set of facts. It's. It's the precondition. For.
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Speaker 1: Observing the facts that matter. And that's a much deeper
25:21
Speaker 1: form of truth. It's a much deeper definition. Understanding of
25:26
Speaker 1: the structure. Of reality. God can't be reduced to. What's
25:33
Speaker 1: simply material. Here's an example. There are multiple examples of this.
25:41
Speaker 1: When God comes to the prophet Elijah. Elijah is. Elijah
25:47
Speaker 1: is the prophet. Who accompanies Moses. On Mount Tabor. When
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Speaker 1: Christ is transfigured. And the disciples realized that he's the Savior.
25:58
Speaker 1: So Elijah is a major prophet. His account in the
26:04
Speaker 1: Old Testament is rather short, but it's crucial. Elijah is
26:10
Speaker 1: the prophet who finally realizes and establishes the proposition that
26:20
Speaker 1: God is not to be found in the world of nature.
26:26
Speaker 1: Elijah is the prophet who defeats the priests of Baal.
26:33
Speaker 1: The God of nature. In a final showdown. And follows
26:39
Speaker 1: that with a flight. Made necessary by his victory. Which
26:46
Speaker 1: displeases Jezebel. Who's the foreign queen of the Israelites. Who...
26:53
Speaker 1: brought the worship of Baal to the forefront, the worship
26:56
Speaker 1: of nature, something we're toying with now, more than toying with,
27:02
Speaker 1: he has to flee into the desert. And when he's
27:06
Speaker 1: in the desert, in a cave, the awe-inspiring majesty of
27:12
Speaker 1: the natural world presents itself to him. He experiences a conflagration,
27:17
Speaker 1: a fire, a terrible fire, a forest fire, a raging inferno.
27:23
Speaker 1: Which is certainly capable of eliciting the kind of awe
27:28
Speaker 1: that is akin to a religious experience. He experiences a thunderstorm.
27:33
Speaker 1: A great thunderstorm. And with a tremendous wind, right? The
27:40
Speaker 1: motion of the invisible. That also has that uncanny element
27:45
Speaker 1: that elicits awe and joy. Can be confused with the divine.
27:55
Speaker 1: Even if it's a pointer. Proper pointer to the divine.
27:59
Speaker 1: And he experiences an earthquake. Which brings him to his knees.
28:04
Speaker 1: You might say. And despite that Elijah. Has a realization
28:10
Speaker 1: in his pursuit of the God of Israel. And his
28:14
Speaker 1: realization is that. God is not in the storm or
28:18
Speaker 1: the fire. Or in the. Majesty of nature. God is
28:25
Speaker 1: not identical to any of that. He's instead. Best. Better
28:32
Speaker 1: construed as the still small voice that calls within. That's
28:37
Speaker 1: a radical claim. A radical idea. In some ways it's
28:41
Speaker 1: a minimization of God. It's certainly what you'd. Propose if
28:47
Speaker 1: you were. One of the said worshippers of nature. That
28:50
Speaker 1: now God is something that. What is subjective? Psychological? Well
28:57
Speaker 1: not exactly. Because the still small voice within your conscience.
29:02
Speaker 1: That's not exactly subjective. Right? I mean it makes it
29:06
Speaker 1: self manifest to you. And in so far as that occurs.
29:12
Speaker 1: It's in the realm of subjective experience.
29:16
Speaker 3: But.
29:17
Speaker 1: It's not subjective in that you don't control it. In fact,
29:23
Speaker 1: it operates autonomously despite you. And that's a remarkable thing.
29:30
Speaker 1: And so it also speaks to you or otherwise impels
29:37
Speaker 1: you in a manner that eschews force because your conscience
29:45
Speaker 1: might plague you and things might bother you and problems
29:49
Speaker 1: might present themselves to you as yours to take responsibility
29:55
Speaker 1: for but you're not compelled in the manner of a automaton,
30:02
Speaker 1: a robot, a deterministic robot, to act out without choice
30:07
Speaker 1: the dictates of your conscience. It informs, it reveals, but
30:14
Speaker 1: it doesn't compel. And that's a remarkable phenomenon. And Phenomenon
30:25
Speaker 1: is a word that is derived from the Greek. And
30:29
Speaker 1: it means to shine forth. Right? That's what phenomena do
30:33
Speaker 1: in the world. They shine forth and attract your attention.
30:38
Speaker 1: Compel you. Or call to you. Or warn you. In
30:44
Speaker 1: the case of conscience. To stay on the straight and
30:47
Speaker 1: narrow path. That leads uphill. And so that's God saying.
30:53
Speaker 1: That's God. And what is faith in relationship to God
30:57
Speaker 1: construed in that manner? Faith is the willingness to abide
31:01
Speaker 1: by the dictates of your conscience. You see, it's not
31:04
Speaker 1: a statement about the nature of material reality that just
31:09
Speaker 1: moves the phenomena back into the realm of the world
31:14
Speaker 1: of nature. The faith is the willingness to attend to
31:18
Speaker 1: your conscience. And there's faith either way in that situation.
31:23
Speaker 1: The atheistic types, the materialists and the determinists, they make
31:28
Speaker 1: the insistence that faith is tantamount to superstition and unnecessary
31:36
Speaker 1: given the availability of evidence. It's like in relationship to
31:42
Speaker 1: your conscience, you have two choices. Both are faith predicated.
31:46
Speaker 1: You can either listen to it and act in accordance
31:49
Speaker 1: with it Or ignore it and take an alternative route.
31:53
Speaker 1: And the evidence is essentially the same in both cases.
31:59
Speaker 1: You don't know. If you're called upon to take a
32:02
Speaker 1: problem that's calling to you seriously. You have no evidence
32:07
Speaker 1: a priori what the outcome of your decision to listen
32:11
Speaker 1: will be. And so if you abide by the still
32:17
Speaker 1: small voice. That Elijah identified as. An element of the
32:23
Speaker 1: one true God. Then your faith is your decision to act.
32:28
Speaker 1: That's why Christ says in the gospels. As I indicated that.
32:34
Speaker 1: True faith is indicated by. The willingness to do the
32:38
Speaker 1: will of. The heavenly father. That's the poetic representation. And
32:45
Speaker 1: so that's a God that's. ineffable and indescribable, incomprehensible, who
32:55
Speaker 1: invites but does not command, who defines the straight and
33:00
Speaker 1: narrow pathway forward that exists in relationship to you because
33:05
Speaker 1: you have a relationship with your conscience, even if it's
33:07
Speaker 1: an uncomfortable one, which it tends to be if you
33:10
Speaker 1: deny its voice, which also makes you a very dangerous
33:16
Speaker 1: person to yourself and others indeed. That's a characterization of God.
33:22
Speaker 1: Or a definition. And faith is the pattern of decision
33:32
Speaker 1: that emerges from that encounter. Conscience is not the only
33:41
Speaker 1: way that God makes himself manifest in the Old Testament
33:47
Speaker 1: and New Testament stories. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
33:51
Speaker 1: The stories are in fact. A sequence of characterizations. Of
33:57
Speaker 1: what the ancient Hebrews regarded as an essential unity. They're
34:02
Speaker 1: a set of characterizations. Of what is to be celebrated.
34:08
Speaker 1: Or put in the highest place. Or aimed at. Or
34:13
Speaker 1: related to. In the manner that. produces integrity in the
34:23
Speaker 1: soul and harmony and productive generosity in the community. How
34:32
Speaker 1: is that character represented or portrayed? In the story of
34:42
Speaker 1: the opening stories of Genesis, God is portrayed as the
34:50
Speaker 1: victor over Leviathan. Leviathan is the great dragon of the
34:55
Speaker 1: chaotic waters. There's a very primordial set of images underlying
35:02
Speaker 1: that text. The God who confronts the dragon. And wins
35:12
Speaker 1: the treasure that confrontation brings. Allows. Bestows. The. Abysmal. Dragon
35:25
Speaker 1: that lives in the depths. Is the inhabitant. Of the original.
35:31
Speaker 1: Primordial waters. The Tohu Vabohu. Upon which the spirit of God.
35:37
Speaker 1: Rests or broods at. Not only at the beginning of time.
35:41
Speaker 1: But throughout the entire. Expanse of time itself. And who. Who.
35:48
Speaker 1: wrestles with that chaos and possibility and potential because that's
35:55
Speaker 1: the primordial water and in doing so extracts out the
35:59
Speaker 1: order that is good. Human beings are conceptualized in that
36:06
Speaker 1: story as made in that image. And what are we
36:11
Speaker 1: to understand of that? Well, What's the world? Is the
36:19
Speaker 1: world a set of facts and phenomena that force us
36:25
Speaker 1: as automatons to react in a deterministic manner that's pre-programmed
36:33
Speaker 1: and will-less? That appears not even possible in principle. Because...
36:42
Speaker 1: The manner in which things unfolds is in principle indeterminate
36:47
Speaker 1: and uncertain. And there's no deterministic causal pathway forward that
36:54
Speaker 1: can properly compute the transforming horizon of the future. And
37:01
Speaker 1: that is what you actually experience despite your delusions. Otherwise,
37:10
Speaker 1: you see the world differently. You, as the enlightenment, post-enlightenment
37:17
Speaker 1: materialists that we all are, you see the world as
37:20
Speaker 1: a set of objects that, what? Compel you forward. That's
37:26
Speaker 1: not how you experience the world. The fact that you
37:31
Speaker 1: believe that is an indication of the grip of that
37:37
Speaker 1: enlightenment view that is now coming to an end. What
37:42
Speaker 1: is it that you perceive and contend with? It's the
37:47
Speaker 1: same thing that the spirit that broods on the water,
37:51
Speaker 1: that's chaos and potential, wrestles with at the beginning of time.
37:56
Speaker 1: What is that? That's the potential that surrounds you. Your
38:01
Speaker 1: consciousness does not deal with what's fixed. It deals with
38:05
Speaker 1: what's fluid, right? It deals with what is yet to be.
38:10
Speaker 1: You peer into the future like a driver looking down
38:13
Speaker 1: the road. You've already run over what's all right in
38:16
Speaker 1: front of your car. You look into the future and
38:20
Speaker 1: you craft your strategy and your attention and your actions
38:25
Speaker 1: to make of that future the continuing voyage to your destination.
38:32
Speaker 1: And that sequence of destinations is The endless journey to
38:37
Speaker 1: the promised land. The endless wandering up Jacob's ladder. Or
38:41
Speaker 1: the climbing of the holy mount. The attempt to reestablish
38:46
Speaker 1: the garden of Eden. Or to bring about the paradise
38:50
Speaker 1: that is lost to us because of our sin. When
38:55
Speaker 1: you awaken in the morning. In anxiety, let's say. Because
39:01
Speaker 1: of the desperate straits that you foolishly found yourself in. Or...
39:06
Speaker 1: in the hope that an exciting adventure awaits you when
39:11
Speaker 1: you sit up and put your feet on the ground
39:16
Speaker 1: and begin to contend with the day, that anxiety and
39:22
Speaker 1: hope is the apprehension of the potential that is your
39:30
Speaker 1: deepest reality upon the occasion of the emergence of your consciousness.
39:40
Speaker 1: You know that you have opportunities and obligations to shape
39:47
Speaker 1: Whatever it is that's offering itself to you in the
39:51
Speaker 1: course of that day. And you can do that badly.
39:54
Speaker 1: Or you can do it well. And you can do
39:56
Speaker 1: it bitterly and resentfully. Or you can do it gratefully.
40:00
Speaker 1: You can do it aiming down. You can do it
40:03
Speaker 1: when you call upon the foul spirits to reveal their
40:07
Speaker 1: mysteries to you. Or you can do it aiming up.
40:11
Speaker 1: And you're always doing that. With every.
40:15
Speaker 1: Word you utter, with every breath you take, with every
40:18
Speaker 1: glance you make, you're wrestling with possibility and transforming it
40:27
Speaker 1: either into some slice of the hell that you could
40:34
Speaker 1: bring about with your foolishness or some improved representation of
40:40
Speaker 1: the earthly domain that's attempting to transform itself into heaven.
40:46
Speaker 1: And that's your inevitability and your responsibility. And you know
40:55
Speaker 1: that because your conscience calls you out when you fail
40:59
Speaker 1: to perform that shaping and wrestling, subduing and naming that's
41:07
Speaker 1: Adam's responsibility. When you fail to perform that In the
41:12
Speaker 1: manner that. Indicates that you've brought your best to the table.
41:19
Speaker 1: And so. That's an early characterization of man. Of God
41:25
Speaker 1: and man. And Adam and Eve in that early stage.
41:30
Speaker 1: Walk with God in the eternal garden. The walled garden
41:34
Speaker 1: that's the optimal balance of social structure. Hence the walls
41:40
Speaker 1: and natural abundance. Hence the garden that is the permanent
41:48
Speaker 1: environment of human beings. And Adam and Eve walk with
41:53
Speaker 1: God in that garden prior to the emergence of pride
41:58
Speaker 1: and sin. Because they're aiming up. And that possibility exists
42:07
Speaker 1: for you. Insofar as you truly aim up. And make
42:14
Speaker 1: the sacrifices necessary to realize that aim. And that sacrificial
42:23
Speaker 1: path of expanding opportunity. Is the establishment of the covenant
42:30
Speaker 1: between the chosen people and God. And that's the story.
42:38
Speaker 1: That's the biblical story. That's the story of Abraham. That's
42:41
Speaker 1: the story of Cain and Abel. That's the story of Exodus.
42:46
Speaker 1: That's the story of Jacob and Esau. This story of
42:51
Speaker 1: willingness to shed, sacrifice everything that's immature, prideful, power-hungry, and
43:04
Speaker 1: unwilling in the attempt to grow in character, to develop integrity,
43:12
Speaker 1: to become the father of nations, to become the leader
43:16
Speaker 1: who invites people away from the tyrant and their own
43:22
Speaker 1: slavish habits and encourages them to cross the desert of
43:28
Speaker 1: their own lostness in search of the promised land. That's
43:38
Speaker 1: The story and faith is the willingness to embark on
43:45
Speaker 1: that adventure. Faith is the willingness to embark on that adventure, right?
43:52
Speaker 1: In the presumption that there isn't up in the aftermath
43:58
Speaker 1: of the decision to commit to that. In the story
44:03
Speaker 1: of Jacob and Esau, Jacob is not a good person.
44:09
Speaker 1: In this story. He is a spoiled. Academically oriented. Tent dwelling.
44:17
Speaker 1: Mama's boy. Who conspires. With his treacherous. Mother. To. Deceive
44:28
Speaker 1: and manipulate. Esau. Who. Out of the rights he has.
44:34
Speaker 1: As the first born. That's Jacob.
44:37
Speaker 3: Jacob.
44:38
Speaker 1: And he does that successfully. In a sequence of manipulative
44:44
Speaker 1: actions that span his childhood and his adolescence. He literally
44:52
Speaker 1: comes out of the womb attempting to pull Esau down.
44:59
Speaker 1: Jacob means he who grips the heel. And it means
45:06
Speaker 1: it's It's a description of the spirit that usurps and destroys.
45:14
Speaker 1: And that's Jacob. Now, many of the heroes that are
45:19
Speaker 1: characterized in the Old Testament are deeply flawed people when
45:23
Speaker 1: they initiate their transformative adventure. And that is realistic and
45:29
Speaker 1: it's optimistic because... You are a deeply flawed person when
45:34
Speaker 1: you embark upon the adventure of your life. And if
45:38
Speaker 1: it was hopeless for those who are deeply flawed to
45:42
Speaker 1: transform upward, then you would be lost. But the stories
45:49
Speaker 1: that sit at the base of our culture assure us
45:53
Speaker 1: that if... You determine to aim upward. Regardless of your
45:59
Speaker 1: state of reprehensible sin, you can establish a covenant with
46:06
Speaker 1: what is highest and progress. In the story of Jonah,
46:14
Speaker 1: Jonah is called upon by God to speak his mind
46:20
Speaker 1: to the citizens of Nineveh Who have degenerated into a
46:25
Speaker 1: kind of woke idiocy. And who are being threatened by
46:32
Speaker 1: God with destruction as a consequence. And God comes to
46:37
Speaker 1: Jonah as the voice of conscience. And says, you need
46:43
Speaker 1: to stand up in the city of Nineveh. And tell
46:48
Speaker 1: those faithless and corrupt people. That I am not happy
46:55
Speaker 1: with their conduct. And that if they don't straighten themselves out,
47:01
Speaker 1: I'm going to destroy them. And Jonah says, I don't
47:08
Speaker 1: think so. There's 150,000 of them. There's one of me.
47:13
Speaker 1: I'm a nobody. Plus, I don't like them. And if
47:23
Speaker 1: you feel like you want to give them a good smiting,
47:27
Speaker 1: I'm on board with that. And so Jonah, being a
47:33
Speaker 1: sensible individual, makes tracks in the opposite direction and heads
47:41
Speaker 1: by ship for a port that is literally as far
47:44
Speaker 1: away from Nineveh as it was possible to get at
47:47
Speaker 1: that time. On the ship, he... Proceeds. Promptly falling asleep.
47:56
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Well that's what you do. When
48:00
Speaker 1: you reject the call of conscience. You take refuge in
48:06
Speaker 1: blind unconsciousness. And that's what Jonah does. To reconcile himself
48:14
Speaker 1: to the fact that. The divine itself had commanded him.
48:18
Speaker 1: To utter the words that could redeem him. the corrupt state.
48:24
Speaker 1: He falls asleep on board and the ship falls into
48:29
Speaker 1: peril as it always does when people refuse to say
48:35
Speaker 1: what they're called upon to say and drift into unconsciousness.
48:39
Speaker 1: The waves rise and the wind blows and the ship
48:43
Speaker 1: is in peril and the sailors have an intuition that
48:46
Speaker 1: someone on board is not right with their God. And
48:51
Speaker 1: they gamble to. They draw lots. To identify. The likely perpetrator.
48:59
Speaker 1: And the pointer. Points to. Jonah. And they wake him up.
49:05
Speaker 1: And they say. Sleeping. Though you may be. You can
49:11
Speaker 1: now see that. The ship. That contains you. Is in
49:16
Speaker 1: great peril. And we have been. granted the intuition that
49:21
Speaker 1: someone on board is not right with their God and
49:26
Speaker 1: Jonah who's basically the kind of honest person who might
49:32
Speaker 1: receive a message like that from God says I'm afraid
49:38
Speaker 1: that's me And the sailors say, well, who's your god?
49:46
Speaker 1: And they're expecting that he's some forest pan or some
49:51
Speaker 1: god of the tavern, some local pagan sub-deity that rules
49:56
Speaker 1: over some dismal and tiny expanse of space and time.
50:01
Speaker 1: And Jonah says, no! My God is the creator of
50:05
Speaker 1: heaven and earth themselves. And the sailors say, you probably
50:12
Speaker 1: shouldn't irritate him. And so the ship is in peril
50:21
Speaker 1: and the waves rise. And that is what happens when
50:24
Speaker 1: good people refuse to say what they know to be true.
50:32
Speaker 1: When they refuse to embody. The logos. That hovers over.
50:38
Speaker 1: The realm of possibility.
50:40
Speaker 3: Itself.
50:41
Speaker 1: And with the force of truth. Extracts out from that domain.
50:46
Speaker 1: The order that is good or very good. That logos
50:51
Speaker 1: is speech. Right? And that's. Truthful speech. And. When you
50:58
Speaker 1: are called upon to speak by your conscience and you
51:01
Speaker 1: reject the call of truthful speech, you refuse to bring
51:07
Speaker 1: into being the order that is good and consign what
51:12
Speaker 1: you were called to contend with to hell. And that's
51:17
Speaker 1: what happens in totalitarian states when everyone decides that the
51:26
Speaker 1: sensible thing is to hold their tongues and let someone
51:32
Speaker 1: else take the risks. And so the sailors, who are
51:39
Speaker 1: good people in their own right, decide to head for
51:42
Speaker 1: shore with Jonah safely on board the ship. But the
51:49
Speaker 1: storm mounts to the point where that's impossible. And The
51:54
Speaker 1: reluctant prophet calls upon them to toss him into the
51:59
Speaker 1: briny blue sea to his death. And that's a rough story.
52:06
Speaker 1: Indicating as it does that if you're an ordinary person
52:11
Speaker 1: and you receive a message from the divine to redeem
52:15
Speaker 1: even the city of your enemies and you reject that
52:19
Speaker 1: call that you will put the ship of state Itself.
52:25
Speaker 1: In peril. And risk. Your own. Descent. Into the abyss.
52:31
Speaker 1: And you might think. That's. Pretty harsh. And. That just means.
52:38
Speaker 1: That you're a naive. Optimist. Because that isn't the end
52:44
Speaker 1: of the story. The next thing that happens is the worst. Beast. Imaginable.
52:50
Speaker 1: The Leviathan itself. A. creature from the lowest pits of
52:56
Speaker 1: hell rises to the surface and takes Jonah in its
53:02
Speaker 1: jaws and pulls him to the bottom of the world itself.
53:07
Speaker 1: Three days in hell. And that's how it's portrayed in
53:11
Speaker 1: the story. And what does that mean? It means that
53:15
Speaker 1: there are things that silence, when you're called upon to speak,
53:21
Speaker 1: will bring to That make death itself the preferable alternative.
53:29
Speaker 1: And if you don't understand that. You're blind and fortunate indeed.
53:35
Speaker 1: And you know nothing of history. Because there are forms
53:39
Speaker 1: of deceit induced cataclysm. That are so extreme. That rather
53:47
Speaker 1: than participate in, contribute to or experience them. a sensible
53:54
Speaker 1: person would choose death. And if you know anything about
53:59
Speaker 1: the horrors of the Nazi regime or the catastrophes of
54:04
Speaker 1: the Soviet state or of Maoist China or of North Korea,
54:08
Speaker 1: these terrible, satanic, Luciferian, Tower of Babel states that emerged
54:14
Speaker 1: in the godless 20th century, then you would understand that
54:19
Speaker 1: there are perils of malevolence Compared to which death itself
54:24
Speaker 1: is nothing. And that's what you risk having consume you.
54:31
Speaker 1: And everything that you love. When you refuse the call
54:37
Speaker 1: of conscience. To voice that which you know to be true.
54:42
Speaker 1: And you're... You Americans... You understand this deep in your
54:52
Speaker 1: bones because your whole culture, which is a derivative of
54:58
Speaker 1: the Judeo-Christian tradition, is predicated on the we hold this
55:04
Speaker 1: truth as self-evident presumption that you are made in the
55:09
Speaker 1: image of God and that you are in principle, the
55:15
Speaker 1: voice that continually redeems the corrupt state. And so that
55:21
Speaker 1: state is limited in its right to intrude upon the
55:28
Speaker 1: territory of your consciousness, because if it does so, it
55:32
Speaker 1: destroys the process of vision and speech upon which it
55:37
Speaker 1: depends for its integrity and continuity. And you might say, well,
55:43
Speaker 1: is that something you believe? Is that something that you
55:46
Speaker 1: have faith in? It's, well, do you believe that people
55:50
Speaker 1: have intrinsic value and the free will of sovereign agents?
55:56
Speaker 1: And I would say, try treating the people around you
56:02
Speaker 1: as if that isn't true and see what they think
56:07
Speaker 1: of you in consequence. What's Jonah's faith? He repents in hell. And. Humbly.
56:25
Speaker 1: Kneels before. The God who. Of his conscience. And says.
56:31
Speaker 1: If you see fit. To raise me from this pit.
56:36
Speaker 1: I will. Do what you asked. And the whale. Spits
56:42
Speaker 1: him on shore. And he goes to the. city of
56:45
Speaker 1: the corrupt enemy and he tells them what he has
56:52
Speaker 1: been requested to tell them and they repent and they
57:01
Speaker 1: put on sackcloth and ashes and they make the proper
57:04
Speaker 1: sacrifices and they reestablish their relationship with what is properly
57:09
Speaker 1: put in the highest place and The city is saved.
57:14
Speaker 1: And what does that mean? It means the same thing
57:17
Speaker 1: that Abraham bargained for with God when the angels or
57:23
Speaker 1: God with whom Abraham was traveling informed him of the
57:27
Speaker 1: impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham, a man of
57:35
Speaker 1: great character by this point, objects wrestling with God, making
57:40
Speaker 1: the case that it is not fit for the benevolent
57:46
Speaker 1: deity of the ancestral Israelites to demolish a city in
57:53
Speaker 1: which there may still be some inhabitants who are good.
57:58
Speaker 1: And Abraham asks God in this wrestling whether if he
58:04
Speaker 1: goes to Sodom and finds 40 men who are upright,
58:11
Speaker 1: whether the city can still be salvaged. And God says, yes.
58:16
Speaker 1: And Abraham, who has some fortitude and a certain amount
58:21
Speaker 1: of gall, pushes God and says, 30. And God says, yes.
58:28
Speaker 1: And Abraham says, 20. And God says, yes. Yes. And
58:39
Speaker 1: Abraham pushes him. And the number is reduced to a
58:43
Speaker 1: very small. To something very small. And what does that indicate?
58:50
Speaker 1: It indicates the power of proper conduct and the truth.
58:54
Speaker 1: Because the truth of the matter is that. A city
58:58
Speaker 1: that is still uncorrupted enough. So that ten people have
59:04
Speaker 1: kept their voice. can avoid the total destruction that's a
59:10
Speaker 1: consequence of everyone adopting the lie right and so what's
59:20
Speaker 1: the terrifying implication of those two stories you're called upon
59:27
Speaker 1: to be one of those few And anything less than
59:32
Speaker 1: that is an abdication of the responsibility whose adoption stops
59:39
Speaker 1: hell in its tracks. Right. And that's the price you
59:45
Speaker 1: pay for having the temerity to be fabricated in the
59:51
Speaker 1: image of God. And that's your responsibility. Right. The responsibility
1:00:03
Speaker 1: of ultimate meaning that characterizes you as the citizen who
1:00:08
Speaker 1: is neither the vassal of tyrants nor the willing slave. Right.
1:00:18
Speaker 1: So what's Jonah's faith? His decision to speak. It's not
1:00:24
Speaker 1: his proclamation. Lord, Lord. His faith. invocation of the propriety
1:00:36
Speaker 1: of his acceptance of a set of claims, of descriptive claims.
1:00:40
Speaker 1: It's his willingness to put himself 100% on the line
1:00:48
Speaker 1: in the service of what's good. That's faith. Cain and
1:00:55
Speaker 1: Abel make the same The story of Cain and Abel
1:00:59
Speaker 1: makes the same point. Cain and Abel are the first
1:01:03
Speaker 1: two human beings born in the natural way in the
1:01:10
Speaker 1: fallen and profane world that characterizes our realm and history itself.
1:01:18
Speaker 1: The hostile brothers, each exemplifying a pattern of work, a
1:01:25
Speaker 1: pattern of sacrifice, each exemplifying the two opposing patterns of
1:01:32
Speaker 1: work or sacrifice that characterize the human endeavor as such.
1:01:38
Speaker 1: Why work and sacrifice? Because work and sacrifice are the
1:01:42
Speaker 1: same thing. And if you understand that, then you have
1:01:45
Speaker 1: a key to more deeply comprehending the entire corpus of
1:01:52
Speaker 1: the biblical stories. Why is work a sacrifice? Because you
1:01:56
Speaker 1: sacrifice the present for the future when you work. You
1:02:00
Speaker 1: sacrifice your own whim for the stability of the community
1:02:05
Speaker 1: when you work. The community and the future depend for
1:02:09
Speaker 1: their integrity and their abundance on the sacrifices made by
1:02:19
Speaker 1: civilized individuals who can forego gratification and who can Act
1:02:27
Speaker 1: in a manner that sacrifices the pleasure of the moment.
1:02:30
Speaker 1: To the assurance of the well-being of their family and community.
1:02:36
Speaker 1: And the stability and productivity of the future. That's work.
1:02:43
Speaker 1: That's what human beings do. That's what mature human beings do.
1:02:47
Speaker 1: They stop worshipping their own narrow whims. And they aim
1:02:55
Speaker 1: at the up that... Provides them with integrity. And that.
1:03:00
Speaker 1: Upon which the community itself. Is necessarily predicated. That's the sacrificial.
1:03:07
Speaker 1: Gesture that. Reconciles man. Woman and God. Cain. Refuses. To
1:03:20
Speaker 1: properly engage. In that sacrificial process. Whereas Abel. Is all in. Abel.
1:03:27
Speaker 1: Who's a shepherd. A keeper of flocks. And therefore an
1:03:32
Speaker 1: archetype of the shepherd. Who keeps the predators at bay.
1:03:36
Speaker 1: And defends the innocent and vulnerable. Who can fend for
1:03:41
Speaker 1: himself in the desert. That's all the shepherd. Takes the
1:03:45
Speaker 1: best animals in his flock. He takes the best of
1:03:50
Speaker 1: his wealth. He takes the best aspect of his riches.
1:03:55
Speaker 1: He takes. sacrifices that on the altar, which he uses
1:04:00
Speaker 1: to communicate with God, and indicates thereby his willingness to
1:04:05
Speaker 1: bring his best to the table. It's an archaic mode
1:04:11
Speaker 1: of representation. It's predicated on the idea that God is
1:04:16
Speaker 1: up like the sky. the observation that smoke rises, the
1:04:22
Speaker 1: notion that the God who inhabits heaven can detect from
1:04:26
Speaker 1: the essence of the smoke, which contains the spirit of
1:04:30
Speaker 1: the sacrifice, the intent of the sacrificer, the spirit of
1:04:37
Speaker 1: the offering, and that if it is of the highest quality,
1:04:42
Speaker 1: then we'll show that sacrificer due respect. Cain, by contrast,
1:04:53
Speaker 1: keeps what's best in reserve. He has no faith in
1:04:58
Speaker 1: the necessity to exhaust himself in the pursuit of the
1:05:06
Speaker 1: proper relationship with the divine. He buries his talents. He
1:05:12
Speaker 1: hides his light under a bushel. He falls under the
1:05:16
Speaker 1: sway of the spirit of God. deception and prideful usurpation.
1:05:22
Speaker 1: Because if you win, you don't bring your best to
1:05:28
Speaker 1: the table. You have to lie to yourself and everyone
1:05:32
Speaker 1: else to justify that. You have to assume that you,
1:05:39
Speaker 1: as the deceiver, has the upper hand not only over
1:05:45
Speaker 1: your own conscience, but over the other people that you're
1:05:48
Speaker 1: deceiving with your false offerings, over the world and over
1:05:53
Speaker 1: God himself. And that's how Cain falls under the sway
1:05:59
Speaker 1: of the Luciferian temptation. He fails in his endeavors, failing
1:06:06
Speaker 1: as he does to bring his best to the table.
1:06:10
Speaker 1: And this engenders a certain bitterness. His countenance falls. He's
1:06:17
Speaker 1: sad and unhappy and depressed and bitter and resentful and vengeful.
1:06:22
Speaker 1: And he is inclined in consequence to call God out
1:06:27
Speaker 1: for his shortcomings. Like everyone bitter does when they make
1:06:34
Speaker 1: the presumption that the fact that the world is not
1:06:37
Speaker 1: laying itself on out for them as the walk towards
1:06:41
Speaker 1: paradise they desire when they lay the responsibility for that
1:06:47
Speaker 1: at the feet of the maker of the cosmic order
1:06:50
Speaker 1: instead of taking responsibility for their own shortcomings themselves. Cain
1:07:00
Speaker 1: faces God down, which is what we all do when
1:07:04
Speaker 1: we shake the Our fist at the sky. And bemoan
1:07:08
Speaker 1: our tragic and undeserved fates. And God says to Cain. Precisely.
1:07:15
Speaker 1: Those words that Cain least wants to hear. He says. First. First.
1:07:23
Speaker 1: You blame your resentment on your failure. But that's not
1:07:26
Speaker 1: exactly true. Because other people who fail decide that there's
1:07:31
Speaker 1: an error that they're making. And they atone and repent.
1:07:34
Speaker 1: And they put themselves together. And they start making the
1:07:37
Speaker 1: proper sacrifices. And they learn in consequence of the rejection
1:07:42
Speaker 1: of their sacrifices. Instead, what you did was wrong. Fall
1:07:50
Speaker 1: prey to the temptation of the sin that crouched at
1:07:53
Speaker 1: your door, in your despair, that crouched there like a predatory,
1:07:59
Speaker 1: sexually aroused animal, which you invited in and allowed and
1:08:06
Speaker 1: encouraged to have its way with you. And so what
1:08:09
Speaker 1: does that mean? Well, failure itself is insufficient hope. justification
1:08:15
Speaker 1: for cataclysmic depression and resentment you have to brood on
1:08:19
Speaker 1: it you have to invite in the spirit of resentment
1:08:23
Speaker 1: and pride to possess you in your meditations on the
1:08:31
Speaker 1: unfair nature of the cosmic order itself which appears to
1:08:35
Speaker 1: be turned against you that entices you into this rebellion
1:08:39
Speaker 1: against God instead of the acceptance of insufficiency, the consequent repentance,
1:08:49
Speaker 1: and that proclivity to learn that's part of the upward
1:08:53
Speaker 1: striving path of Abel. And so God says, you can't
1:08:58
Speaker 1: blame God. your misery on the world and on me.
1:09:03
Speaker 1: If you had done well, you'd be accepted. And Cain
1:09:15
Speaker 1: is incensed and enraged by this. Response to his. Misery and.
1:09:24
Speaker 1: Resentment and. He invites his brother. To work with him.
1:09:30
Speaker 1: In the field and. When his brother agrees. Hoping no
1:09:34
Speaker 1: doubt that Cain. Has decided to. Put some real effort
1:09:39
Speaker 1: into the game. He kills him with a rock. And
1:09:43
Speaker 1: he does that to. Spite God himself. And to take
1:09:50
Speaker 1: revenge over. To take revenge on. God's chosen son. Which
1:09:57
Speaker 1: is a foreshadowing of. An endless number of. Events that
1:10:03
Speaker 1: culminate in the death of Christ on the cross. Right. Cain.
1:10:12
Speaker 1: Has faith in his own. Proclivity for deception he. Falls
1:10:18
Speaker 1: prey to the. worship of the spirit that he's invited
1:10:22
Speaker 1: into his heart he kills his own ideal in the
1:10:26
Speaker 1: form of Abel and he's bereft in consequence because of
1:10:30
Speaker 1: course when you kill the successful when you kill the
1:10:34
Speaker 1: very idea of success itself there's nothing left for you
1:10:37
Speaker 1: but misery and failure and Cain says to God my
1:10:41
Speaker 1: punishment is more than I can bear and God marks
1:10:44
Speaker 1: him to stop The cycle of tit for tat revenge.
1:10:48
Speaker 1: And sentences him to wander alone in the land of Nod.
1:10:53
Speaker 1: Which is once again the place that children go to sleep.
1:10:57
Speaker 1: It's the domain of unconsciousness. And the wandering is the
1:11:00
Speaker 1: fact that Cain is the embodiment of the pattern of sacrifice.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: That makes him unfit for the company of other human beings.
1:11:09
Speaker 1: And destined to be the vagabond Cain. The psychopathic vagabond
1:11:15
Speaker 1: who has no community or place. Cain's descendants degenerate. They're
1:11:27
Speaker 1: more murderous than Cain. They extract a higher degree of
1:11:30
Speaker 1: vengeance than their father. They worship technology instead of God.
1:11:36
Speaker 1: And they become increasingly murderous and then genocidal. And what
1:11:42
Speaker 1: that means is that When we each refuse to make
1:11:50
Speaker 1: the offering that's of the highest sort and we fail
1:11:55
Speaker 1: in consequence and develop and invite in that spirit of
1:11:59
Speaker 1: bitterness that justifies our dissatisfaction, we participate in the process
1:12:08
Speaker 1: that not only corrupts our own soul, But that leads
1:12:13
Speaker 1: the state down the pathway to absolutely catastrophic genocidal murderousness.
1:12:22
Speaker 1: The next thing that happens in consequence of the faithlessness
1:12:27
Speaker 1: of Cain is the flood. Right. So what do we
1:12:34
Speaker 1: make of this? Faith isn't The mouthing of the proper
1:12:46
Speaker 1: holy incantations. Faith is a total commitment. A total commitment.
1:12:55
Speaker 1: A priori. To the pathway of good. When Jacob leaves
1:13:01
Speaker 1: his brother. Who's inclined to murder him for his perfidy.
1:13:05
Speaker 1: And he leaves his family and his mother. He goes
1:13:10
Speaker 1: into the desert and he builds an altar and he
1:13:12
Speaker 1: consecrates it to God. And it's a decision point in
1:13:15
Speaker 1: Jacob's life. He decides that despite his ill-spent youth, he
1:13:20
Speaker 1: is now going to aim up. Right? That's his manifestation
1:13:25
Speaker 1: of the faith that establishes the covenant between his soul
1:13:29
Speaker 1: and the God of his ancestors. And what does that mean?
1:13:33
Speaker 1: Do you aim up? Do you determine... In the aftermath
1:13:38
Speaker 1: of your failure and bitter disappointment. That the proper path
1:13:43
Speaker 1: that you should take. Toward redemption. Is to stop doing
1:13:50
Speaker 1: what you know to be wrong. And start doing what
1:13:52
Speaker 1: you know to be right. What you know to be right.
1:13:54
Speaker 1: That decision to aim up even in the smallest manner
1:13:58
Speaker 1: in which you might be capable given your blindness. That's
1:14:02
Speaker 1: what Jacob determines to do. That's what Abraham does when
1:14:06
Speaker 1: he starts out on his adventure and builds that initial altar.
1:14:09
Speaker 1: He indicates his willingness to believe that the good exists
1:14:16
Speaker 1: and to pursue that pathway and to let go of,
1:14:20
Speaker 1: shed and sacrifice everything That stands in his way. And
1:14:26
Speaker 1: that's faith. And then that's ultimately exemplified in the story
1:14:33
Speaker 1: of Job. Who's tortured by God and Satan. Who has
1:14:38
Speaker 1: everything that any man could value. Stripped from him and arbitrarily.
1:14:45
Speaker 1: And yet decides not to lose faith in himself. Despite
1:14:50
Speaker 1: his suffering. Or in God himself. Despite the apparent injustice.
1:14:56
Speaker 1: Indicating that. We're all called upon. To maintain our faith.
1:15:02
Speaker 1: In the utility. Of the upward aim. No matter what.
1:15:07
Speaker 1: Happens to us. And that's. Finally realized in its ultimate form.
1:15:18
Speaker 1: In the story of the passion. Which is. The catastrophe
1:15:25
Speaker 1: of Job multiplied and portrayed multidimensionally. The passion of Christ
1:15:33
Speaker 1: is the story of the least deserving, the person who
1:15:41
Speaker 1: least deserves betrayal and brutal torture and punishment, receiving exactly
1:15:50
Speaker 1: that in its worst form, young, While simultaneously being. The
1:15:57
Speaker 1: target of the unjust mob. And the worst of the tyrants.
1:16:05
Speaker 1: Facing a catastrophic death. In front of the people that
1:16:11
Speaker 1: he loves. It's the. Most tragic possible fate. Portrayable. And. The.
1:16:22
Speaker 1: pathway that Christ follows is the faith to continue the
1:16:31
Speaker 1: upward aim that unites man and God despite the utter
1:16:37
Speaker 1: catastrophe of the tragedies and malevolence of human existence and
1:16:46
Speaker 1: the world. And that sacrifice that Is represented by the crucifix.
1:16:53
Speaker 1: Which is a symbol. Of the voluntary willingness. To bear
1:16:58
Speaker 1: that fate. Is the symbol. That we put at the center.
1:17:04
Speaker 1: Of our communities. And have for 2000 years. To signify.
1:17:09
Speaker 1: Our dawning understanding. That. The future is ensured. Death is defeated.
1:17:17
Speaker 1: Evil overcome. And the community established. As a consequence of
1:17:23
Speaker 1: full participation in the pattern of voluntary self-sacrifice. Right. That's...
1:17:34
Speaker 1: That's faith. Thank you very much. All right, so I'm
1:17:53
Speaker 1: going to invite my daughter Michaela back out, and she's
1:17:56
Speaker 1: going to take some questions from the audience and weave
1:18:01
Speaker 1: them together in a manner that enables our inquiry to continue.
1:18:04
Speaker 1: And we'll do that for about 20 more minutes, and
1:18:09
Speaker 1: that will comprise the evening. Thank you.
1:18:25
Speaker 2: You nailed it.
1:18:26
Speaker 1: Thank you, my dear. That's a hell of a metaphor
1:18:32
Speaker 1: under the circumstances. See, that's a Freudian slip. I'm dead serious.
1:18:46
Speaker 1: That's exactly the sort of thing that Freud in his
1:18:48
Speaker 1: genius observed is that the implicit structures through which we
1:18:55
Speaker 1: view the world, the unconscious, will note concordances and patterns that,
1:19:02
Speaker 1: and express them, often as jokes, for example, that indicate
1:19:09
Speaker 1: a pattern of symbolic understanding that's beyond our comprehension. Freud
1:19:16
Speaker 1: wrote a whole book about such things, right? And that
1:19:18
Speaker 1: was part of his investigation into the mysterious workings of
1:19:21
Speaker 1: the unconscious, right?
1:19:26
Speaker 2: I'm never saying that again. Did you guys notice that
1:19:35
Speaker 2: he lectures with his eyes closed? This was the first
1:19:38
Speaker 2: time I noticed how long you keep your eyes closed
1:19:41
Speaker 2: and you've never fallen off the stage.
1:19:45
Speaker 1: So far. So far. Yes. Yeah, yeah. So far. Yeah,
1:19:50
Speaker 1: that's happened more and more in this tour in particular.
1:19:55
Speaker 1: It started to happen and it helps me concentrate on,
1:20:01
Speaker 1: what would you say? It helps me. green out everything
1:20:08
Speaker 1: from my awareness except my apprehension of the next right word. Right, right, right.
1:20:17
Speaker 1: And that's a calling on as well. I'm trying to,
1:20:22
Speaker 1: as I said, address the problem at hand in the
1:20:25
Speaker 1: most accurate possible manner. That requires detailed and devout concentration
1:20:34
Speaker 1: and The willingness to let the inquiry take itself wherever
1:20:43
Speaker 1: it goes. When Christ is baptized, after Christ is baptized,
1:20:53
Speaker 1: and the Spirit of the Holy Ghost descends on him,
1:20:56
Speaker 1: he goes where the wind blows, right? goes where the
1:21:04
Speaker 1: spirit calls him and that takes him to the desert.
1:21:07
Speaker 1: That's what happens in that situation where he's tempted by Satan, right?
1:21:11
Speaker 1: He gets to the bottom of things. That's what happens
1:21:14
Speaker 1: if you attend to the calling of the spirit that
1:21:21
Speaker 1: is attempting to make itself manifest in its descent from heaven, right?
1:21:26
Speaker 1: It takes you to the place you least want to go.
1:21:31
Speaker 1: To encounter what you least want to encounter. And that's
1:21:36
Speaker 1: the pathway to resurrection and salvation. Yeah. That's also partly
1:21:47
Speaker 1: why people don't tell the truth. That's where it will
1:21:52
Speaker 1: lead you. Just like it leads the Israelites away from tyranny,
1:21:57
Speaker 1: of course, but into the desert. Right? For 40 years.
1:22:01
Speaker 1: You can wander around lost, even if you've established your
1:22:06
Speaker 1: upward aim. You can wander around lost for a long time.
1:22:10
Speaker 1: So it's a terrifying, it's a terrifying adventure, but it's
1:22:17
Speaker 1: better than all the alternatives.
1:22:22
Speaker 2: Okay, we have, I've been told we have 10 minutes,
1:22:27
Speaker 2: so we should get through a quarter of one question. So,
1:22:41
Speaker 2: start with the important ones. If I acquire enough wisdom,
1:22:47
Speaker 2: will my hair grow back?
1:22:50
Speaker 1: Okay. I'm joking.
1:22:52
Speaker 3: You don't even have to answer that one. No offense
1:22:54
Speaker 3: to Amir. Okay.
1:22:56
Speaker 1: Poor, bald Amir.
1:23:02
Speaker 2: How do you believe God reveals people's callings or purpose?
1:23:08
Speaker 1: By gripping your interest. Assuming you're aiming up. That's the thing.
1:23:15
Speaker 1: You can rely on your interest. That instinct that signifies
1:23:25
Speaker 1: the proper pathway forward. You can rely on that if
1:23:29
Speaker 1: you take the beam from your eye and aim up,
1:23:35
Speaker 1: then things will call to you in the world. They'll
1:23:38
Speaker 1: elicit your interest. They'll fill you with enthusiasm. And insofar
1:23:43
Speaker 1: as you've established the proper relationship with what's in the
1:23:47
Speaker 1: highest place, that calling will be reliable. This is what
1:23:51
Speaker 1: happens to Moses, you see, when he's a shepherd in Midian.
1:23:57
Speaker 1: He's an ordinary man. He's established himself as an adult,
1:24:00
Speaker 1: a respectable, responsible adult, a shepherd, not a high-status job,
1:24:05
Speaker 1: but a difficult and necessary one. He's established his marriages.
1:24:12
Speaker 1: He's a man. And he's attending his flock near Mount Sinai,
1:24:19
Speaker 1: Mount Horeb, same place. That's the place where heaven and
1:24:23
Speaker 1: earth touch. And something beckons to him that calls him
1:24:27
Speaker 1: off the beaten path. Right? His beaten path. This happens
1:24:31
Speaker 1: to all of us. You have a dream. You have
1:24:34
Speaker 1: a vision. You have something that excites you and interests you.
1:24:38
Speaker 1: It's the birthplace of the dream that would, whose realization
1:24:43
Speaker 1: would constitute the adventure of your life. It's a secret
1:24:47
Speaker 1: you hold in your heart, unwilling as you are to
1:24:49
Speaker 1: share it with yourself or with anyone else because of
1:24:54
Speaker 1: your faithless fear of betrayal, let's say. It's the pearl
1:25:00
Speaker 1: of great price that you might well keep buried. If
1:25:05
Speaker 1: your orientation is appropriate, you can rely on your intuition
1:25:09
Speaker 1: and what captures your interest. And that's what Moses does.
1:25:11
Speaker 1: He goes to investigate the burning bush, right? And that's
1:25:14
Speaker 1: the tree of life that's on fire. And fire is life, right?
1:25:18
Speaker 1: Because living things metabolize and that's fire. And something intensely
1:25:22
Speaker 1: alive burns like a, like a, A child burns, you know,
1:25:27
Speaker 1: a child you love burns and captures your imagination. Or
1:25:31
Speaker 1: someone you love burns and captures your imagination. You can
1:25:34
Speaker 1: see that. Something that inspires you glows and warms your heart.
1:25:41
Speaker 1: You can investigate that. And that's what Moses does. He
1:25:44
Speaker 1: takes off his shoes, signifying his willingness to abandon his
1:25:48
Speaker 1: current identity and his current path. He understands that he's
1:25:51
Speaker 1: beginning to tread on sacred ground, which is what you
1:25:55
Speaker 1: do when you investigate what calls to you. And the
1:25:58
Speaker 1: spirit of being and becoming itself speaks to him. And
1:26:01
Speaker 1: that's what happens if you take your quest seriously. That's
1:26:06
Speaker 1: what happens. That's how you develop the wisdom that makes
1:26:09
Speaker 1: you charismatic. That's what happens to Moses. He becomes a leader.
1:26:13
Speaker 1: A leader is someone who leads his people from tyranny,
1:26:17
Speaker 1: their own tyranny, the tyranny of their marriage, the tyranny
1:26:20
Speaker 1: of their family, the tyranny of the community. There's always tyranny, right?
1:26:25
Speaker 1: And away from their slavish and immature habits, the habits
1:26:29
Speaker 1: that lead them to the worship of the golden calf.
1:26:34
Speaker 1: They listen to Moses because he's been there and done
1:26:37
Speaker 1: that and has got to the bottom of things and
1:26:40
Speaker 1: speaks the words that are compelling because of their force.
1:26:45
Speaker 1: And that's all real. And that's what happens when you
1:26:48
Speaker 1: meet someone who's pursued their destiny properly. And they're charismatic
1:26:54
Speaker 1: and admirable and their words have force. And that's because
1:27:00
Speaker 1: the voice of the benevolent father speaks through them and
1:27:06
Speaker 1: that's that's the eternal story of proper development and it's
1:27:15
Speaker 1: true and and that's the answer to that question.
1:27:21
Speaker 3: Okay great okay We can squeeze another one in here.
1:27:34
Speaker 2: I think this one was worth addressing. I'm a married
1:27:40
Speaker 2: 32-year-old man, an alcoholic, sober seven years. Should I have
1:27:45
Speaker 2: kids even if I fear I can drink again and
1:27:48
Speaker 2: ruin my family like my father did?
1:27:56
Speaker 1: So when the Israelites are on the edge of the
1:27:59
Speaker 1: promised land, Canaan, Which needs a lot of work by
1:28:03
Speaker 1: the way. Moses and the Israelites send out scouts. And
1:28:11
Speaker 1: they're sort of like prophets in a way. They're scouts
1:28:13
Speaker 1: of the future. They go to Canaan. The promised destination.
1:28:17
Speaker 1: And they check out the territory. And they come back
1:28:20
Speaker 1: with various accounts. And some of them come back and say.
1:28:24
Speaker 1: Oh my God. There's nothing but giants. In Canaan. And
1:28:29
Speaker 1: they're going to stomp us to death. All hell is
1:28:32
Speaker 1: going to break loose. We were fools to leave the
1:28:35
Speaker 1: comfort of Egypt. We were fools to walk across the
1:28:39
Speaker 1: desert led by this mountebank moses we cannot possibly progress
1:28:44
Speaker 1: into the future we have to turn tail and run
1:28:48
Speaker 1: we have to look back like lot's wife and then
1:28:51
Speaker 1: there are other scouts joshua and caleb among them who
1:28:56
Speaker 1: say we can prevail with faith and proper upward aim,
1:29:02
Speaker 1: maintaining the covenant that we have established with what has
1:29:06
Speaker 1: been put properly in the highest place, we can prevail.
1:29:12
Speaker 1: And God rewards those faithful scouts and transforms them into
1:29:20
Speaker 1: the leaders that take the Israelites into the promised land
1:29:23
Speaker 1: after Moses dies. Right, that's Joshua. Same name as Yeshua.
1:29:28
Speaker 1: Same name as Christ. Signifying that it's the spirit of
1:29:34
Speaker 1: total adventure that stabilizes the future. Faithful total adventure. So
1:29:39
Speaker 1: you were an alcoholic, a worshiper of Dionysus. Well, you've
1:29:42
Speaker 1: had seven years, like Jacob, to straighten yourself out. Have
1:29:48
Speaker 1: some faith. Right. All right, everyone. Thank you, Michaela. Thank you, everyone.