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The Logos Project - Can the Catholic church digest modernity? · Mahon McCann

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SPEAKER_01: Dom from the Logos Project, thank you for joining me very much, sir.
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SPEAKER_01: This is our second conversation.
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SPEAKER_01: We started out on your channel discussing the meaning crisis,
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SPEAKER_01: and we're going to keep it going today.
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SPEAKER_01: So thank you for joining me, man.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: You're very welcome.
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SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Mahan.
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SPEAKER_02: It's great to be on your channel.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
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SPEAKER_02: that was a great conversation we had over on my channel,
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a kind of continuation of the one we had in Rome where we
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bumped into each other.
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SPEAKER_02: So I'm excited to keep it going, really.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Yes, 100%, man.
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That was kind of where we got to in the last conversation was
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the topic of like the
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SPEAKER_01: Catholic response to modernity in some sense.
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I was suggesting that the next thing is almost like a folding
0:41
in of modernity,
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SPEAKER_01: the Enlightenment,
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SPEAKER_01: scientific revolution in some way into the great tradition,
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similar to what Aquinas did in the medieval period with the
0:51
pagan philosophers
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SPEAKER_01: where he brought,
0:52
SPEAKER_01: you
0:54
neoplatonic thought within christianity that there's now a
0:57
challenge for that to
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happen and you know you know quite a few thinkers so hopefully
1:01
that's what we'll
1:02
get to but maybe starting off i mean like what what do you
1:05
think modernity is maybe
1:07
like what do you what does it mean to you and like what do you
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think about when
1:11
SPEAKER_01: when you hear that word
1:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
1:13
SPEAKER_02: well,
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SPEAKER_02: just as a very brief caveat,
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when it comes to how I understand modernity and how I
1:19
understand even the Catholic
1:20
SPEAKER_02: response,
1:21
SPEAKER_02: I'm very much like a very excited amateur.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: So don't quote me, you know, on my channel.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, on my channel, I interview the actual experts, right?
1:33
But to me,
1:34
modernity really is the product of the disintegration of the
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Catholic form,
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right?
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SPEAKER_02: It's really the rise of classical liberalism,
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which is a kind of alternative view of the world that replaced
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the view of
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SPEAKER_02: Christendom,
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SPEAKER_02: the view of the church.
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SPEAKER_02: And so it has all of these presuppositions.
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It has a way of interpreting reality that is actually
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totalizing,
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I think.
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SPEAKER_02: So it's not just like we were talking about this off air.
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SPEAKER_02: It's not just one of the other heresies.
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SPEAKER_02: that kind of branches off and that gets dealt with,
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SPEAKER_02: but within Christendom,
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SPEAKER_02: it's almost like a repudiation and apostasy of the whole,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: that results from the fracturing,
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SPEAKER_02: the many fracturings.
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So a lot of people give intellectual genealogies and those are
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always to some
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SPEAKER_02: extent inadequate,
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SPEAKER_02: right?
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And a bit arbitrary because something always has something that
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caused it before it.
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SPEAKER_02: So you can go back to Adam and Eve basically, right?
2:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: But,
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SPEAKER_02: so I would really say it's the,
2:41
SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: a lot of times people point to nominalism,
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SPEAKER_02: William of Ockham.
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SPEAKER_02: Some people will also point to Duns Scotus.
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There have been some recent Catholic theologians who have
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pushed back on that narrative.
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SPEAKER_02: But honestly,
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I tend to agree that Scotus kind of goes in a direction that
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leads to Ockham
3:01
SPEAKER_02: eventually,
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SPEAKER_02: but people disagree about that.
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SPEAKER_02: But long story short,
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I think that you could summarize it to put it in simplistic
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terms for myself,
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really.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: In a view of God that absolutizes his power, right?
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SPEAKER_02: Schindler talks about this in one of his books.
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SPEAKER_02: It's a kind of inversion of potency over actuality.
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SPEAKER_02: And it starts with hypothetical scenarios when it comes to God's power.
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SPEAKER_02: Could God do this?
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SPEAKER_02: Could God do that?
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SPEAKER_02: And what happens then is that theologizing and philosophizing
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starts to begin it begins on the premise of abstract hypotheses
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of potential things
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as opposed to actual things and so we move away from reality
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and we start to
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potentialize everything and that has a kind of downstream
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effect where um the
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actuality of god uh becomes secondary and then uh you have
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divisions within
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christendom you know everything is within a competitive
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framework the protestant
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SPEAKER_02: reformation kind of
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Draws this out and the fight with the Catholic Church in terms
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of faith and works
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and how merit works and money's involved and corruption and
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things like that.
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And so eventually it creates these rifts that then create a
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kind of stage for
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SPEAKER_02: what's been called the wars of religion.
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But really,
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there's a great book that I don't know if you've heard of
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before.
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SPEAKER_02: It's by William Cavanaugh.
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SPEAKER_02: It's called The Myth of Religious Violence.
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It's really a fascinating book because he calls into question
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the way in which we
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SPEAKER_02: use the terms,
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SPEAKER_02: specifically the term religion.
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SPEAKER_02: The way us modern people use this term religion is
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SPEAKER_02: is actually not the way in which it was used in the past.
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SPEAKER_02: It's a novelty.
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SPEAKER_02: It's a creation.
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SPEAKER_02: It's an ideological creation.
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SPEAKER_02: And it comes always alongside its Siamese twin, the secular.
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And this secular-religious divide is a modern construction that
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actually is ideological.
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SPEAKER_02: It actually creates conflict.
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That's the argument of the book by Kavanaugh,
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is that this creation of the category of religion
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SPEAKER_02: actually creates conflict.
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When I first heard that,
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I was like,
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what in the world is he talking about?
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SPEAKER_02: But if you really think about it,
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you go back to the 14th century and you talk to someone in the
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Far East and you ask
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SPEAKER_02: them what religion they are.
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SPEAKER_02: They'll look at you like, what are you talking about?
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SPEAKER_02: There's no such thing as religion.
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SPEAKER_02: When they lived the Buddhist values,
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SPEAKER_02: these were social,
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SPEAKER_02: political,
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SPEAKER_02: structural values of their life.
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SPEAKER_02: If you ask Thomas Aquinas how many religions there are,
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SPEAKER_02: he'd probably say seven,
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SPEAKER_02: eight,
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SPEAKER_02: nine,
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SPEAKER_02: because he's talking about the Benedictines,
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SPEAKER_02: the Dominicans,
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SPEAKER_02: the Franciscans.
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SPEAKER_02: He's not talking about Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, right?
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We've kind of abstracted religion and we've essentialized it in
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an ahistorical kind of way.
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SPEAKER_02: And then we've set them all side by side, right?
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And then we've given them,
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we've made them into things that individuals can choose,
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right?
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SPEAKER_02: So anyway, I'm rambling.
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SPEAKER_02: Like a menu?
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SPEAKER_02: that sees the world in a mechanistic way.
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SPEAKER_02: And so,
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SPEAKER_02: yeah,
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SPEAKER_02: so people draw it back to William of Ockham,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: and through the Reformation,
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SPEAKER_02: Christendom starts to splinter,
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SPEAKER_02: and we have to create a kind of neutral space to appease people,
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SPEAKER_02: talk about articles of peace.
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SPEAKER_02: You can have your religion, you can have your religion.
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SPEAKER_02: And what happens is that humanity continues to fracture,
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SPEAKER_02: and this neutral space becomes a neutralizing space,
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SPEAKER_02: a neutralizing of a common good,
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SPEAKER_02: a common value.
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SPEAKER_02: And I mean,
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I think it culminates in the 20th century with the world wars
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and many other
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SPEAKER_02: things,
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SPEAKER_02: you know,
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SPEAKER_02: but atheistic humanism.
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And I think that's the world that we're in and basically a
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world without God
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SPEAKER_02: because we've repudiated the church and the tradition.
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SPEAKER_02: That's how I would read modernity.
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SPEAKER_02: And that sounds kind of apocalyptic, but I don't think there's no hope.
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SPEAKER_02: I just think it's that bad, you know?
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SPEAKER_02: So what do you think?
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: Oh, man, that's such a good answer.
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SPEAKER_01: And there's so many things there in like the idea.
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SPEAKER_01: I remember D.C.
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Schindler said that the freedom of religion precludes the
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existence of religion.
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SPEAKER_01: Like as soon as all religions can be free and you can have all of them,
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you actually have none because a religion is a metaphysics and
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mythology morality.
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SPEAKER_01: It's something you live in.
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SPEAKER_01: It's your reality.
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So as soon as there's all realities are equal and you can live
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in them,
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there is no reality.
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SPEAKER_01: They're all subjective or something like that.
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SPEAKER_01: And so we're in a real bind, man.
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SPEAKER_01: It really I'm reading Charles Taylor at the moment, secular age.
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SPEAKER_01: He does a great genealogy of it, like very detailed.
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SPEAKER_01: And this kind of he describes it as like the term social imaginary.
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He uses a Wittgenstein quote that we become trapped in a
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picture in a way.
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So it's almost like this picture of reality that's like through
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materialism,
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SPEAKER_01: through this idea of like a third space almost between religions,
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SPEAKER_01: probably because of the fracturing of religions.
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SPEAKER_01: You get this material universe,
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SPEAKER_01: material causes,
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SPEAKER_01: we're evolved through unguided processes,
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SPEAKER_01: and that we can somehow live without religions,
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SPEAKER_01: without mythology,
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SPEAKER_01: without superstition,
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SPEAKER_01: which is the kind of enlightenment angle of like,
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SPEAKER_01: we're leaving the darkness into the light.
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SPEAKER_01: of kind of rationality or reason that when you fuse all this together,
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SPEAKER_01: you get a,
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SPEAKER_01: what the social imaginary that he refers to.
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SPEAKER_01: It's like this background almost of like thoughts,
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SPEAKER_01: feelings,
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SPEAKER_01: models,
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SPEAKER_01: things that just shape the way that you're looking at.
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Like you just have this model of reality that becomes implicit
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in some sense.
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SPEAKER_01: It's like,
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SPEAKER_01: it starts out because he,
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SPEAKER_01: his big question is like in 1500,
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SPEAKER_01: it would have been nearly impossible not to believe in God.
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: And now it's nearly impossible to believe in God.
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SPEAKER_01: He's like, what happened?
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SPEAKER_01: And it's this growth of this kind of social imaginary that increasingly,
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SPEAKER_01: I think,
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SPEAKER_01: pushes God into like a deism,
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SPEAKER_01: like this very distant,
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SPEAKER_01: disconnected thing,
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SPEAKER_01: particularly to preserve the power of God,
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SPEAKER_01: like what you mentioned,
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SPEAKER_01: like an absent father.
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SPEAKER_01: But that becomes so distant that it's easy to just cut it off.
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SPEAKER_01: Like at some point, it's like God is like...
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SPEAKER_01: getting further and further away.
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SPEAKER_01: And then at some point we can just go snip and it's like, ah, here we go.
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SPEAKER_01: We have this perfectly imminent immediate world that we're all in.
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SPEAKER_01: You know, there's just what you see is what you get.
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SPEAKER_01: Um, it's nominalistic, it's materialistic, it's empirical.
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Um,
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and you just have then the whole point is human flourishing,
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essentially like this flat,
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um,
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flat plane of like we're just meant to progress materially and
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then we have to
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master everything we have to set up a whole economy in order to
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feed our desires
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and try and make us feel good through material things because
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it turns out that's
9:59
SPEAKER_01: actually doesn't work that well and this is like the modern
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the modern situation is purely imminent world where even the
10:07
idea of God is like
10:08
SPEAKER_01: this other,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
10:10
SPEAKER_01: um,
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SPEAKER_01: even God as a supernatural entity in a sense is like,
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SPEAKER_01: is part of that same worldview.
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SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, it's already gone.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, would you, is that landing?
10:27
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
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SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
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SPEAKER_02: Everything you were saying reminded me of this.
10:32
SPEAKER_02: He's kind of crazy.
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SPEAKER_02: This is a French philosopher, kind of crazy.
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SPEAKER_02: His story is very interesting.
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SPEAKER_02: His name was Auguste Quint.
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SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you've heard of him.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
10:43
SPEAKER_02: I've heard of him.
10:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:44
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
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he had this theory that it was very much a kind of progressive
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evolutionary view of
10:50
SPEAKER_02: enlightenment.
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And he thought that human knowledge began as,
10:55
he called it fetishism,
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right?
10:57
SPEAKER_02: And so he's kind of talking about the early religious experience of man,
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SPEAKER_02: the kind of,
11:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
11:04
SPEAKER_02: making the world something supernatural and not something scientific,
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SPEAKER_02: so to speak.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: But the next step after fetishism was metaphysics.
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SPEAKER_02: And metaphysics was kind of like,
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SPEAKER_02: in his view,
11:18
rationalizing our fetishism and kind of going beyond it and
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making it more
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SPEAKER_02: rational,
11:23
SPEAKER_02: right?
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SPEAKER_02: But after metaphysics was positivism.
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And positivism was applying pure reason in a very,
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what's the word I'm looking for?
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SPEAKER_02: Empirical way, right?
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So reducing all of the sciences to the kind of positivistic
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scientific method.
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SPEAKER_02: So that would include social sciences.
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SPEAKER_02: It would include, you know, psychology and all these kinds of things.
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SPEAKER_02: These become the ultimate sciences.
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SPEAKER_02: Everything is positivistic.
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SPEAKER_02: There's no metaphysical depth anymore.
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is shrugged off as just a kind of rationalization of our
12:01
fetishes,
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if that makes sense.
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SPEAKER_02: And so Comte kind of- That's so interesting.
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SPEAKER_02: Isn't that interesting?
12:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: And the influence of Comte on our world today is massive.
12:13
And I didn't realize that until one of my favorite authors
12:16
pointed it out to me,
12:18
Henry de Lubac.
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SPEAKER_02: He kind of wrote a genealogy of Comte's ideas.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: And yeah,
12:24
SPEAKER_02: so it seems to me that that's another strand,
12:27
another intellectual genealogy where Kant kind of describes us
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as progressing
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SPEAKER_02: towards more and more enlightenment,
12:34
SPEAKER_02: but it becomes a radically imminent and flattened out world,
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SPEAKER_02: which then I think creates the crisis that we're in among other factors.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so what you said reminded me of him.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: So that,
12:48
SPEAKER_01: that evolutionary account,
12:50
I think is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in some sense that
12:53
like there's a
12:54
SPEAKER_01: rupture because in the traditional world,
12:56
SPEAKER_01: it's like you,
12:57
SPEAKER_01: you progress,
12:58
SPEAKER_01: you don't really progress.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: You carry on the tradition.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: It's like you live up to the standard of the tradition.
13:03
And then there's this weird rupture probably around the
13:05
Renaissance or something
13:06
SPEAKER_01: where it's like,
13:07
SPEAKER_01: no,
13:07
SPEAKER_01: no,
13:07
SPEAKER_01: we're going somewhere.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: Like this is more, we're, we're developing something, you know, there's,
13:14
SPEAKER_01: And you can see this in the 20th century,
13:15
SPEAKER_01: like the utopian kind of ideals,
13:17
SPEAKER_01: which is obviously when it collapses to just the world.
13:20
But this evolutionary,
13:21
I kind of think of the Enlightenment almost as like,
13:24
SPEAKER_01: an inversion of Plato's cave in a way.
13:26
Cause Plato's cave is like the darkness of sensory experience
13:30
of materialism.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: And then you leave the cave to have an experience of God,
13:34
SPEAKER_01: but they turn it around the other way in some sense,
13:36
SPEAKER_01: like that the cave is filled with all this God stuff,
13:40
SPEAKER_01: myth ritual.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: And then you progress out of that to see the light of reason.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: And like, yeah,
13:46
SPEAKER_01: You can look at the whole of history through that lens in some sense.
13:49
I know a very well-known philosopher I know who's a great
13:52
ancient philosopher or whatever.
13:52
He described the Enlightenment as one of the few times in human
13:56
history that we
13:57
SPEAKER_01: started to see the light.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, ancient Greece, maybe a little bit.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: And then you have that.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: And then in recent memory,
14:04
it's like you kind of define history almost as these moments
14:08
where we almost just
14:08
SPEAKER_01: leapt out of history.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: out of God, out of history, out of all these things.
14:12
And it's like,
14:13
that's the eschatological vision,
14:16
I think,
14:16
that's driving so much of it.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: But it just leads nowhere, obviously.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: And then their trick is that ontology,
14:24
SPEAKER_01: as you pointed out,
14:25
SPEAKER_01: it's like we're not doing ontology or we're not doing metaphysics.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: So you
14:29
accept their metaphysics and then it pulls up the ladder of
14:32
like there is no
14:33
metaphysics it's like you already have a metaphysics but it's
14:35
like but we're not
14:36
going to do metaphysics and it's like okay well that's kind of
14:39
you know tyrannical
14:41
in a way of like you're just going to say assume your
14:44
metaphysics is the final the
14:45
SPEAKER_01: final that's right
14:47
SPEAKER_02: No, yeah, that's basically Kant's position.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: He says,
14:50
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:50
SPEAKER_02: metaphysics is a kind of primitive stage in this process,
14:54
SPEAKER_02: and then he kind of shrugs it off and says positivism is superior,
14:57
SPEAKER_02: but it's like you're making a metaphysical case here.
15:01
SPEAKER_02: It's a negative one, but it sure is a metaphysical case.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: And so, I mean, that's definitely the case.
15:06
SPEAKER_02: You brought up the Renaissance,
15:09
and I think that this is really important for some of the
15:12
theologians I really
15:13
SPEAKER_02: enjoy reading,
15:15
SPEAKER_02: such as de Lubac.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: He points to a shift that happens in the Renaissance.
15:20
With this kind of emerging humanism and what happens between
15:26
philosophy and
15:26
SPEAKER_02: theology,
15:27
SPEAKER_02: I think that genealogy starts in the Renaissance.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: And I'd love to talk to you about it,
15:32
but I wanted to bring up before I do one more character in the
15:36
Middle Ages.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: that is, um, oftentimes overlooked.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: We all talk about William of Ockham,
15:43
SPEAKER_02: but I think one guy who's really overlooked is a Franciscan.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: They're all, it's always Franciscans, right?
15:48
Uh,
15:48
I love the Franciscans,
15:49
but,
15:49
uh,
15:50
this guy is called,
15:51
uh,
15:51
Joachim of Fiore,
15:53
um,
15:53
or Flore.
15:54
Some people,
15:54
uh,
15:55
spell it differently,
15:57
but Joachim was an,
15:58
a Franciscan abbot.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, and, uh, he, there was a, a lot of fighting in the Franciscan order.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: There was, uh,
16:06
a strand of the Franciscan order that called themselves the
16:09
Spiritualists,
16:12
SPEAKER_02: and then the other strand that wanted to stay faithful to St.
16:14
Francis and to be in communion with the Bishop of Rome,
16:18
the Pope at the time.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: Eventually,
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Bonaventure,
16:22
SPEAKER_02: interestingly enough,
16:22
is the one who shows up after there's all this carnage in the
16:25
Franciscan order and
16:26
SPEAKER_02: tries to set things right.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: But the legacy of Joachim,
16:30
SPEAKER_02: I would argue,
16:31
SPEAKER_02: and it's not me arguing this,
16:32
SPEAKER_02: it's actually Henry de Lubac,
16:35
SPEAKER_02: creates and affects the entire movement of modern philosophy,
16:39
SPEAKER_02: especially German idealism.
16:41
And so to summarize a little bit Joachim's view is that he
16:45
argued for a view of
16:47
SPEAKER_02: history that had three main parts,
16:51
SPEAKER_02: so to speak.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: And these are progressive parts.
16:54
SPEAKER_02: The first part he called the part of the
16:56
SPEAKER_02: the time of the Father.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: This is the Old Testament.
16:59
SPEAKER_02: The second time he called the time of the Son.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: This is the time of the Church.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: But Joachim foretold and foresaw,
17:06
SPEAKER_02: so to speak,
17:07
SPEAKER_02: a third time period called the time of the Holy Spirit.
17:11
And this would be a kind of a move beyond the earthly structure
17:15
of the Church and
17:16
SPEAKER_02: its mediation,
17:18
SPEAKER_02: right,
17:18
SPEAKER_02: into something that was deracinated by
17:22
from the ecclesiocentric view of tradition and of actuality and
17:28
of mediation and
17:29
SPEAKER_02: all that kind of stuff.
17:33
And so this kind of starts to create a lot of what we see in
17:37
the nominalist
17:38
controversy with the individual being an autonomous person that
17:46
has the capacity,
17:48
SPEAKER_02: the power,
17:48
SPEAKER_02: the potential to
17:50
to choose and actualize for himself certain things over and
17:52
against the given,
17:54
right?
17:55
The structures of mediation that make up our culture and the
17:59
form of the church.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: So I think this is deeply connected.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: Joachim's view eventually starts to develop in philosophy,
18:06
which severs itself from the tradition precisely as something
18:11
that goes beyond
18:14
SPEAKER_02: through free thinking,
18:15
SPEAKER_02: right?
18:16
SPEAKER_02: The givenness of the church's form in history.
18:19
And so I think that's one of the elements that creates this
18:23
severance amongst others.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: So William of Ockham and nominalism,
18:27
SPEAKER_02: but you have Joachim of Fiore and spiritualism,
18:30
which really creates a kind of secular space where the church
18:34
kind of becomes the
18:36
SPEAKER_02: secular world as opposed to the world being converted by the church.
18:40
And you saw a lot of this in the 20th century after the Second
18:45
Vatican Council.
18:46
SPEAKER_02: There was a massive crisis in the Catholic Church.
18:49
SPEAKER_02: And this is actually what prompted de Lubac to write his last book.
18:54
It's a two-volume book called The Spiritual Posterity of
19:00
Joachim of Fiore.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: So that would be one thing.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: But if I'm talking too much, please cut me off.
19:06
SPEAKER_02: But to go back to the Renaissance... No, no.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: I just thought... Yeah.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: That's really good because the Renaissance...
19:12
SPEAKER_01: Because there's an element as well that Taylor talks about,
19:14
which is like the Reformation spirit that starts within the
19:19
church itself,
19:20
where there's an emphasis on trying to raise common people up
19:23
to higher levels of
19:25
SPEAKER_01: practice,
19:26
SPEAKER_01: like getting rid of the kind of multi-speed Christianity,
19:28
SPEAKER_01: where it was like...
19:30
everybody can kind of do different things it was like no no we
19:32
all need to like
19:33
level up and get you know to saying so there was more of an
19:36
emphasis on individual
19:38
progress in some sense within this which seems very connected
19:42
to what you're saying
19:43
SPEAKER_01: of thinking about people as
19:45
as each going to be,
19:47
you know,
19:48
yeah,
19:49
I don't know,
19:49
vessels of the Holy Spirit.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: And then modernity,
19:53
SPEAKER_00: I suppose,
19:53
just takes that out and we just become buffered selves and
19:56
individuals that are
19:58
SPEAKER_01: exempt from spirits in some sense.
20:01
But yeah,
20:02
that Renaissance,
20:03
what was it that Lubach saw in the Renaissance that
20:07
SPEAKER_01: Because Renaissance is very individualistic.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: That is the interesting thing.
20:11
The great artist,
20:12
the genius of the artist in a way that's very modern,
20:15
I would say.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: It's really not.
20:19
SPEAKER_01: And for me as an atheist, my history used to start at the Renaissance.
20:23
SPEAKER_01: Everything before that was just blacked out.
20:25
I was like,
20:26
yeah,
20:26
the Renaissance,
20:26
that was when stuff actually started happening.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no.
20:31
And one thing that I appreciate about a lot of these thinkers
20:33
like de Lubac,
20:34
SPEAKER_02: and we'll talk about hopefully Ratzinger,
20:37
SPEAKER_02: and of course,
20:38
SPEAKER_02: Balthazar and many others,
20:39
SPEAKER_02: is that they're very good in their criticisms,
20:44
because they affirm the aspects that ought to be incorporated
20:48
in each period.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: Even if it was a tumultuous,
20:51
SPEAKER_02: intellectually speaking,
20:52
SPEAKER_02: period that created problems,
20:55
they're able to move beyond those problems while assimilating
20:58
those aspects that
21:00
SPEAKER_02: ought to be assimilated.
21:01
SPEAKER_02: So in the Renaissance,
21:02
SPEAKER_02: I do think there's a lot of good,
21:04
SPEAKER_02: but you're right,
21:04
SPEAKER_02: I also think it created some serious problems.
21:08
The Lubac,
21:08
so I don't know how I could tell the story without starting
21:12
with Blondel,
21:13
honestly.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: So maybe,
21:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
21:16
SPEAKER_02: it's funny,
21:17
SPEAKER_02: when we were in Rome,
21:19
SPEAKER_02: I checked my phone and I got a notification that said that Pope Leo...
21:23
is going to be declaring John Henry Newman a doctor of the
21:27
church,
21:27
which just made my day.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: I absolutely love John Henry Newman.
21:31
SPEAKER_02: But John Henry Newman was a 19th century theologian.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: Of course,
21:36
SPEAKER_02: some people know his story,
21:37
SPEAKER_02: but he was an Anglican at first,
21:39
SPEAKER_02: trying to find a via media,
21:41
SPEAKER_02: middle way between Roman Catholicism and like low church prosentism.
21:46
He wanted a kind of patristic Protestantism that was faithful
21:51
to the tradition.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: And eventually he realized that he couldn't do that.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: And so he became Catholic, right?
21:57
But he really is a kind of proto,
22:01
I call it a proto-resourcement theologian.
22:04
SPEAKER_02: So
22:05
SPEAKER_02: Ressort small is a term in Catholic theology that refers to a movement,
22:11
SPEAKER_02: a group of theologians,
22:12
SPEAKER_02: but it's not as black and white as I'm making it out to sound.
22:16
Some theologians can be categorized this way,
22:19
some can't,
22:20
some are like on the fence.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: But there's a kind of movement,
22:23
SPEAKER_02: especially in France,
22:24
SPEAKER_02: but also in Germany in the 20th century,
22:27
SPEAKER_02: that wants to go back to a heavier emphasis on the fathers of the church,
22:33
SPEAKER_02: So as to read the medievals in light of the fathers,
22:36
as opposed to reading the medievals in light of subsequent more
22:40
modern commentaries
22:41
SPEAKER_02: on the medievals.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: And I'm bringing this up because Newman was,
22:46
SPEAKER_02: because he was Anglican and not Roman Catholic,
22:49
SPEAKER_02: was very much shaped by the fathers.
22:51
SPEAKER_02: And then him becoming Roman Catholic, you know, you see this, this, um,
22:56
SPEAKER_02: this way of thinking in Newman where he's actually responding to modern
23:00
SPEAKER_02: philosophical objections and concerns with the fathers.
23:05
And this proved to be so effective and he writes so well and
23:09
he's so insightful
23:10
that he ends up influencing massively a whole generation of
23:15
theologians the next
23:16
SPEAKER_02: century.
23:17
So I think things start with Newman when it comes to the
23:19
Catholic response.
23:20
SPEAKER_02: And I promise you this is tied to the Renaissance.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: No, no, I'm totally, I'm following him in.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: that makes sense?
23:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: So Pope Leo XIII,
23:30
SPEAKER_02: so not our Leo right now,
23:32
SPEAKER_02: but Pope Leo XIII,
23:34
SPEAKER_02: you know,
23:35
SPEAKER_02: saw that things were changing.
23:36
He's known for his famous encyclical letter,
23:39
rerum novarum,
23:41
which means on new things,
23:43
right?
23:43
SPEAKER_02: And here we have the Industrial Revolution, right?
23:46
The rise of these economic ideologies,
23:49
such as capitalism and communism,
23:51
things like that.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: And Leo is
23:53
is trying to articulate a Catholic social teaching response to
23:58
the effects of
23:59
SPEAKER_02: modernity on economics,
24:02
SPEAKER_02: labor,
24:02
SPEAKER_02: and human dignity,
24:03
SPEAKER_02: right?
24:04
SPEAKER_02: So things are, there's like, you know, tectonic plates are moving here.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: And Leo, who, by the way, described Newman as my cardinal, right?
24:13
SPEAKER_02: So Newman was made a cardinal, and Leo described him as my cardinal.
24:17
SPEAKER_02: So there was a predilection there.
24:19
SPEAKER_02: But before Leo wrote Rerum Novarum,
24:22
SPEAKER_02: a few years before that,
24:24
SPEAKER_02: he wrote this encyclical called Eterni Patris,
24:28
SPEAKER_02: The Eternal Father.
24:29
And it's actually an encyclical,
24:31
and it's a bit unclear what he meant by this.
24:35
It's an encyclical on the revival,
24:37
and he called it of Christian philosophy.
24:41
SPEAKER_02: Right away, to a philosopher, that should be an alarm bell.
24:44
SPEAKER_02: What does the Pope here mean by Christian philosophy?
24:47
SPEAKER_02: Isn't philosophy something distinct from theology?
24:50
SPEAKER_02: So how could philosophy be Christian?
24:53
SPEAKER_02: So then the questions of is philosophy neutral?
24:56
SPEAKER_02: Is philosophy something that is co-opted?
25:00
SPEAKER_02: Is it something that has a relationship of submission with theology?
25:05
SPEAKER_02: Or ought it be free from the tyranny of theology?
25:08
You see how this is actually tied to all of the modern
25:10
questions of church,
25:12
SPEAKER_02: state,
25:12
SPEAKER_02: freedom,
25:13
SPEAKER_02: secularism,
25:13
SPEAKER_02: everything.
25:15
And so my point is that this starts a massive debate in
25:19
Catholic theology that
25:20
finds a culminating point in the 20th century between several
25:24
French philosophers,
25:27
SPEAKER_02: actually.
25:28
SPEAKER_02: But Maurice Blondel is the first guy on the scene,
25:31
SPEAKER_02: and he actually wants to argue that philosophy is Catholic.
25:37
So he doesn't like the word Christian,
25:40
but for him,
25:40
philosophy is Catholic.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: And the way he gets to this is very interesting.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: Blondel is living in France in the late 1800s.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: And,
25:50
SPEAKER_02: uh,
25:50
SPEAKER_02: this is really a fascinating story just in itself,
25:52
SPEAKER_02: but in France,
25:54
SPEAKER_00: uh,
25:54
SPEAKER_02: church and state are not just separated,
25:57
SPEAKER_02: but at odds with each other,
25:59
SPEAKER_02: right?
25:59
SPEAKER_02: Almost like opposed to each other.
26:01
SPEAKER_02: And so is philosophy and theology.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: So is the education system in France, right?
26:06
SPEAKER_02: Like there's Catholic schools and then there's,
26:09
SPEAKER_02: uh,
26:09
SPEAKER_02: state schools and in the university level as well.
26:13
SPEAKER_02: And so, um,
26:15
The autonomy of philosophy was something that was a kind of
26:19
sine qua non of
26:20
SPEAKER_02: operating in secular universities.
26:24
SPEAKER_02: And so...
26:26
SPEAKER_02: Blondel actually decided,
26:28
SPEAKER_02: even though he was a devout Catholic,
26:29
SPEAKER_02: raised in a devout Catholic family,
26:31
SPEAKER_02: he decided to go study philosophy in a state university,
26:36
SPEAKER_02: right?
26:37
SPEAKER_02: And what he did is,
26:37
SPEAKER_02: you know,
26:38
SPEAKER_02: and at the time,
26:39
SPEAKER_02: Spinoza and Leibniz were very big in France,
26:43
SPEAKER_02: right,
26:44
SPEAKER_02: as well as Hegel.
26:45
SPEAKER_02: But for some reason, Spinoza was really big in France at the time.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: What Blondel does is he studies all of modern philosophy from within,
26:54
SPEAKER_02: so to speak,
26:54
SPEAKER_02: behind enemy lines.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: He kind of calls it that way in some of his writings, right?
26:59
But what he does is really fascinating because he is,
27:03
in one sense,
27:04
an apologist.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: He wants philosophy to be enriched by the church.
27:10
SPEAKER_02: He wants this division to be over.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: And for philosophy and theology, you know, church and state and
27:17
Catholic culture and the French people come back together after
27:22
the devastations of
27:23
SPEAKER_02: the revolution.
27:25
SPEAKER_02: And what he does is he develops a method, a two-fold method.
27:29
One is called a method of imminence,
27:32
and the other is called a method of insufficiency.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: The method of imminence is he actually...
27:38
SPEAKER_02: So there's actually a third method,
27:40
SPEAKER_02: which he calls the method of charity.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: So the method of imminence is
27:45
SPEAKER_02: beginning on the terms of modern philosophy.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: But that method is followed by the method of insufficiency,
27:51
SPEAKER_02: where on those very terms,
27:54
SPEAKER_02: he establishes modern philosophy's own insufficiency.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: Basically,
28:00
SPEAKER_02: the fact that its autonomy is not real,
28:03
SPEAKER_02: that we've been lying to ourselves,
28:05
SPEAKER_02: us modern philosophers.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: And the third one should have been the first one,
28:08
SPEAKER_02: the method of charity,
28:09
SPEAKER_02: which is actually listen to these people.
28:12
Don't just write them off like he thought some other
28:14
theologians were doing,
28:15
right?
28:17
So through this threefold method,
28:20
Blondel develops a philosophy of,
28:22
he calls it,
28:23
action.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: He begins with action.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: And what he does is he attempts,
28:27
through an analysis of the human will and of our actions in
28:31
everyday life,
28:32
to show how there's something within us that aspires for
28:37
something that philosophy
28:38
SPEAKER_02: and the imminent world cannot deliver.
28:41
SPEAKER_02: And so he develops,
28:43
SPEAKER_02: through this insufficiency of modern philosophy,
28:46
SPEAKER_02: an opening to the transcendent.
28:49
So it's almost like someone going behind enemy lines and
28:53
killing everybody in the
28:54
SPEAKER_02: bunker and putting the flag up and having the enemy come,
28:58
SPEAKER_02: you know,
28:58
SPEAKER_02: the good guys conquer the territory,
29:00
SPEAKER_02: so to speak.
29:01
But even that analogy is a bit too confrontational because what
29:04
he's doing is
29:05
actually he's going to be advocating for the integrity and to a
29:11
certain extent the
29:12
SPEAKER_02: autonomy of philosophy,
29:14
SPEAKER_02: but it's a relative autonomy within a higher order of the transcendent.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: And that the problem is really cutting off philosophy from theology,
29:22
SPEAKER_02: the imminent from the transcendent,
29:24
SPEAKER_02: which actually creates a crisis and makes philosophy less philosophical,
29:29
SPEAKER_02: makes reason less reasonable,
29:31
SPEAKER_02: and all these kinds of things.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: So this is Blondel's project in France.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: And this strongly influences Henri de Lubac, a Jesuit who was born
29:42
SPEAKER_02: in the late 1800s,
29:44
SPEAKER_02: fought in World War I,
29:46
had a head wound from the war that gave him migraines for the
29:50
rest of his life.
29:52
And he went on to write about so many different things that are
29:55
absolutely
29:56
SPEAKER_02: fascinating,
29:57
but mainly about the relationship between the natural world and
30:01
the supernatural.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: And he makes sure to qualify the supernatural as
30:08
SPEAKER_02: An adjective, not as a noun, right?
30:10
He doesn't want to juxtapose the natural and the supernatural
30:14
as if you have nature
30:15
SPEAKER_02: and supernature,
30:16
SPEAKER_02: because when you juxtapose things,
30:18
SPEAKER_02: you're putting them in the same order and making them competitive.
30:22
He wants the supernatural to be truly transcendent and
30:24
therefore able to make
30:26
SPEAKER_02: itself imminent in a non-competitive way.
30:29
SPEAKER_02: So de Lubac basically asks the question,
30:32
are the current Catholic theologians writing about the
30:36
relationship between nature
30:37
SPEAKER_02: and grace?
30:39
SPEAKER_02: And these theologians are all Thomists.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: They're following St.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: Thomas Aquinas.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: His question is, are they actually reading St.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: Thomas Aquinas correctly?
30:49
because they tend to juxtapose the two orders of nature and
30:53
grace in what he's
30:55
SPEAKER_02: going to call an extrinsicist way.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: One way I like to put it is like a Lego way.
30:59
I add two Legos together,
31:00
but I presuppose their initial disparity,
31:03
right?
31:04
SPEAKER_02: And so a competitive framework develops.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: So de Lubac asks that question.
31:08
SPEAKER_02: Then he tries to read St.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: Thomas in his historical context and comes to the conclusion that St.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: Thomas never actually taught that.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: Now, this is massively debated in some circles of the internet,
31:19
SPEAKER_02: but mostly in academic journals.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: So we can't do it justice here.
31:24
But de Lubac starts to research this,
31:27
and in the Renaissance,
31:28
he makes a discovery.
31:30
He thinks that basically what happened is that Thomas Cajetan,
31:36
a commentator on St.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: Thomas, actually separates the order of nature and the order of grace.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: And
31:45
To prove this,
31:46
he points to a thinker that came before Cajetan called Dennis
31:50
the Carthusian.
31:51
And Dennis the Carthusian argued for a particular position
31:56
against Thomas Aquinas.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: So here's Dennis' position.
32:00
Dennis basically said that we do not have a natural desire from
32:04
within nature for a
32:06
SPEAKER_02: supernatural end,
32:07
SPEAKER_02: which is something that transcends nature.
32:09
SPEAKER_02: Because according to Aristotle, Dennis says, any time
32:14
A creature has an end,
32:15
it must have the proportionate powers to reach that end.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: And so therefore,
32:20
SPEAKER_02: because grace is something freely given,
32:23
SPEAKER_02: we have to be given an extra desire for the supernatural.
32:27
And what that does is it severs the orders of nature and the
32:30
order of grace,
32:31
where we have a natural ultimate end and then a supernatural
32:35
ultimate end,
32:36
SPEAKER_02: and both these ends are stacked on top.
32:38
Now,
32:38
that creates such a division that you have almost the radical
32:43
autonomy of nature.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: And then the supernatural becomes Disneyland.
32:49
SPEAKER_02: It becomes a nice added thing that you actually don't really need.
32:53
And so what's interesting is that Cajetan takes Dennis'
32:57
position and claims it's Aquinas'.
33:00
And then a whole line of commentary from Cajetan assumes that
33:04
this is Aquinas' position.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: And therefore,
33:07
SPEAKER_02: in Catholic theology—now,
33:09
the interesting thing here is it's not Catholic tradition
33:12
because the magisterial
33:14
SPEAKER_02: teachings,
33:15
SPEAKER_02: the teachings from councils,
33:16
SPEAKER_02: the
33:17
SPEAKER_02: And even in people like Dominic de Soto and even Robert Bellarmine,
33:22
SPEAKER_02: they don't follow Cajetan on this.
33:24
SPEAKER_02: De Soto is before Cajetan.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: But the point,
33:26
SPEAKER_02: though,
33:26
SPEAKER_02: is that within a strand of Catholic theology,
33:30
SPEAKER_02: there is a kind of extrinsicism between
33:33
SPEAKER_02: The imminent and the transcendent,
33:34
SPEAKER_02: the nature-grace relationship,
33:36
which mirrors what happens in the Renaissance with the rising
33:40
humanism and the rise
33:42
SPEAKER_02: of a retrieval of the Greeks in a kind of naturalness,
33:47
SPEAKER_02: a kind of autonomy of nature.
33:49
SPEAKER_02: What's interesting is that Cajetan,
33:52
not only is he writing this way and interpreting Thomas as if
33:55
Thomas is saying what
33:56
SPEAKER_02: Dennis the Carthusian was saying,
33:58
but he's also very interested in the humanism of his day and
34:01
the Renaissance and
34:02
SPEAKER_02: trying to negotiate with the humanism of his day.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: So de Lubac concludes that there is a break here.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: An interpretation that severs the natural and the supernatural.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: And then de Lubac spends a lot of time reading Blondel.
34:15
And Blondel is showing him how there's an insufficiency in
34:19
nature that for it to be
34:21
SPEAKER_02: integral,
34:22
SPEAKER_02: right,
34:22
SPEAKER_02: and have a consistency of its own,
34:24
SPEAKER_02: therefore relative autonomy,
34:26
SPEAKER_02: it must be in an intrinsic relationship to the supernatural,
34:30
SPEAKER_02: not an extrinsic one.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: So in other words,
34:34
like these theologians are drilling down to see where the
34:39
intellectual misstep was
34:41
so as to reestablish the proper perspective and what the
34:45
tradition actually says.
34:47
SPEAKER_02: And hopefully this will then kind of,
34:49
SPEAKER_02: you know,
34:50
SPEAKER_02: through the church's missionary work,
34:52
SPEAKER_02: right,
34:52
SPEAKER_02: and reform.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: And this is what the Second Vatican Council was
34:55
SPEAKER_02: in large part about,
34:56
SPEAKER_02: right,
34:57
SPEAKER_02: was meant to kind of recover,
34:59
SPEAKER_02: resourcement,
35:00
SPEAKER_02: right,
35:00
SPEAKER_02: the tradition,
35:02
SPEAKER_02: and then aggiornamento,
35:04
SPEAKER_02: I'm saying it wrong,
35:04
SPEAKER_02: the Italian word,
35:05
SPEAKER_02: update,
35:06
SPEAKER_02: right,
35:06
so you recover the tradition in order to respond in a new way
35:12
to the modern
35:13
SPEAKER_02: problems.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: This is part,
35:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
35:15
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:16
SPEAKER_02: this is part of the Catholic response,
35:18
SPEAKER_02: right,
35:18
SPEAKER_02: to kind of bring back together the secular and the religious,
35:23
SPEAKER_02: you know,
35:24
SPEAKER_02: to speak inadequately.
35:25
SPEAKER_02: So I'll stop there for now, but what do you think?
35:29
SPEAKER_01: That is so interesting, man.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: So if I'm understanding you correctly,
35:32
SPEAKER_01: you're kind of arguing that the mistake that starts the conflict,
35:38
SPEAKER_01: in a sense,
35:38
in modernity between almost two worlds is this
35:42
nature-supernature misinterpretation
35:45
SPEAKER_01: of Aquinas' nature-supernature distinction that creates two worlds,
35:50
SPEAKER_01: in a sense,
35:51
SPEAKER_01: one that's imminent,
35:52
SPEAKER_01: one that's transcendent,
35:54
SPEAKER_01: and then
35:55
the transcendent one becomes increasingly associated with
35:58
probably things that are
35:59
SPEAKER_01: like thought of as fanciful or whatever.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: And so naturally when you have those two things,
36:04
SPEAKER_01: some group of people is going to be like,
36:06
we're just going to choose this one when they're juxtaposed to
36:09
each other in some
36:09
SPEAKER_01: way.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: And the naturalist, the materialist, anomalous, the enlightenment,
36:13
SPEAKER_01: really seems to start to argue that it's just the natural world.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: The supernatural world isn't real.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: It's a fake world.
36:21
And then there's an element there which Taylor talks about,
36:23
which is the maturity aspect.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: A big part of the modern argument,
36:28
SPEAKER_01: I think,
36:28
is that we need to be grown up and courageous enough to accept
36:32
that this is all
36:33
SPEAKER_01: there is,
36:34
SPEAKER_01: to accept that there is no supernature.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: There's only...
36:37
SPEAKER_01: there's only what immediate material imminent reality in a sense.
36:42
SPEAKER_01: And, and that that's part of being like a virtuous person in some sense.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: So yeah,
36:48
SPEAKER_01: am I correct in saying that that's the,
36:50
SPEAKER_01: the nature super nature is the thing you're picking out.
36:54
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
36:54
And I think,
36:55
uh,
36:56
it's undervalued how important this particular question is.
37:00
The effect of separating nature and grace in the way in which
37:03
they're separated,
37:05
SPEAKER_02: I think is intimately tied,
37:07
SPEAKER_02: uh,
37:08
SPEAKER_02: And I want to just blame this strand of theology.
37:12
SPEAKER_02: I think there are Siamese twins involved here.
37:15
SPEAKER_02: There's similar things going on in philosophy,
37:19
SPEAKER_02: probably actually worse than what's happening in theology,
37:23
SPEAKER_02: because these theologians believed in the supernatural.
37:26
They believed in conversion and in preaching and in God and the
37:29
mythos and the
37:30
SPEAKER_02: the ethics and then the metaphysics, they were all Catholic, right?
37:35
SPEAKER_02: But, and so I just want to say that it's part of the question.
37:39
And I think that understanding that can help us approach this
37:45
extrinsicism,
37:46
SPEAKER_02: as the Lubach calls it,
37:47
SPEAKER_02: in a reformed,
37:49
more intrinsic perspective that will actually be more effective
37:54
in evangelizing and
37:56
SPEAKER_02: bringing back,
37:57
SPEAKER_02: you know,
37:57
SPEAKER_02: philosophy and secular people
38:00
to the church if that makes sense yeah but you you absolutely
38:03
nailed it yeah okay
38:05
and because there's a bunch of other contradictions as well in
38:07
modernity that kind
38:09
of come up things like the mind body problem subject object
38:13
relationship like we
38:14
get split between like objective things and and subjective
38:18
agents and then there's
38:20
can't kind of makes that even worse where he's got the thing in
38:22
itself and the
38:24
our perception of the thing he creates this like
38:26
epistemological dualism phenomenal
38:29
yeah numeral and then you have material and immaterial and like
38:32
all these these
38:33
problematic categories that just become split split split more
38:38
like that seem that
38:39
could be quite rooted in to be honest this fundamental split of
38:42
losing a a kind of
38:44
SPEAKER_01: an imminent imminentizing of reality that then becomes like
38:49
impossible to explain ourselves our reality yeah you know it's
38:54
almost like yeah
38:55
SPEAKER_01: they're the only tools you know for a poor workman that only has a hammer
38:58
everything looks like a nail so we start just kind of whacking
39:02
away with that and
39:03
then obviously then it becomes very complicated and very
39:05
confusing and like so yeah
39:07
you think the second council then was trying to trying to sort
39:11
out this kind of
39:12
SPEAKER_01: first mistake our first misinterpretation
39:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
39:16
SPEAKER_02: so the Second Vatican Council is the product of its own,
39:21
SPEAKER_02: and I won't make this long,
39:22
SPEAKER_02: I promise,
39:23
SPEAKER_02: but its own history,
39:24
SPEAKER_02: right?
39:24
SPEAKER_02: Which is that the Lubbock is,
39:27
so Blondel is the one that really starts to question the
39:30
narrative on nature and
39:31
SPEAKER_02: grace.
39:32
SPEAKER_02: But he's a philosopher, right?
39:34
SPEAKER_02: He's getting flack from secular philosophers as well as from theologians.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: De Lubac,
39:39
SPEAKER_02: as a priest doing theology and mining the tradition,
39:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
39:43
SPEAKER_02: De Lubac,
39:44
SPEAKER_02: because of his head wounds,
39:45
SPEAKER_02: spent a lot of time in bed,
39:46
SPEAKER_02: I think like two years as sick.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: He was sick for like two years.
39:50
So he just went through the entire collection of means
39:55
translations of the church
39:56
SPEAKER_02: fathers,
39:57
SPEAKER_02: right,
39:58
SPEAKER_02: east and west.
39:59
So De Lubac's knowledge of the tradition is one of the most
40:02
incredible I've ever come across.
40:04
But de Lubac really starts the ball rolling on this,
40:06
and he kind of gets in trouble.
40:09
SPEAKER_02: You know, he gets shut down.
40:11
SPEAKER_02: There's some conflict.
40:12
SPEAKER_02: He's actually silenced for something like 10 or 15 years,
40:17
SPEAKER_02: where he's not allowed to teach anymore.
40:19
SPEAKER_02: He's not allowed to publish anymore.
40:21
SPEAKER_02: But he gets rehabilitated.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: And then the Second Vatican Council gets called in 1950.
40:28
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, in 1960, it's announced that there's going to be a council.
40:33
SPEAKER_02: In 1962, the council opens.
40:35
SPEAKER_02: De Lubach is appointed by the new pope at the time,
40:38
SPEAKER_02: John XXIII,
40:39
SPEAKER_02: as an expert for the drafting of the documents.
40:44
And so De Lubach and other people influenced by De Lubach,
40:48
such as Ratzinger from Germany,
40:51
And people in the whole resourcement movement in France,
40:55
like,
40:56
what's his name?
41:00
SPEAKER_02: Jean Danielou is another one influenced by him.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: You have Yves Congar, who's influenced by Blondel a lot.
41:07
And so you have a lot of these theologians who are coming out
41:12
of this resourcement movement.
41:14
SPEAKER_02: They're all...
41:15
SPEAKER_02: influenced by Blondel,
41:16
SPEAKER_02: and they're present at the council,
41:18
SPEAKER_02: and they're helping the bishops write these documents.
41:22
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, they're not the only ones.
41:23
You also have some more kind of neo-scholastic theologians
41:27
doing theology in line
41:29
SPEAKER_02: with the commentaries,
41:30
SPEAKER_02: the modern commentaries on Thomas.
41:33
SPEAKER_02: And so the council,
41:35
SPEAKER_02: as all councils are,
41:36
becomes a text that kind of seeks to reach agreeable compromise
41:40
between all
41:41
SPEAKER_02: parties.
41:42
SPEAKER_02: But
41:42
SPEAKER_02: the resourceful language and emphasis,
41:45
SPEAKER_02: the biblical revival,
41:47
SPEAKER_02: the patristic revival,
41:50
SPEAKER_02: really does come out in the forefront in the text of the council.
41:56
And so a lot of work is done in areas that are more strictly
42:00
theological and of
42:02
SPEAKER_02: less relevance to
42:04
SPEAKER_02: philosophy such as ecclesiology based on the church's relationship to the
42:10
SPEAKER_02: Eucharist,
42:12
sacramental theology and its connection to the social aspect of
42:16
human nature.
42:17
SPEAKER_02: But the point,
42:18
SPEAKER_02: though,
42:18
SPEAKER_02: ultimately,
42:19
SPEAKER_02: is that the Council tries to give a new reformed vision to the Church,
42:25
and this new vision is a kind of reconfiguration of all of the
42:29
truths of theology
42:31
SPEAKER_02: around the central truth of Christ,
42:34
SPEAKER_02: which opens up to the Trinitarian logic of reality.
42:37
SPEAKER_02: Through Christ,
42:38
SPEAKER_02: we kind of come to know the Trinity,
42:40
but what we know in the Trinity through Christ affects all the
42:42
other mysteries.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: And so long story short is that,
42:46
SPEAKER_02: yes,
42:46
SPEAKER_02: through this reform by kind of all these divisions that you talked about,
42:49
SPEAKER_02: right?
42:51
SPEAKER_02: Imminent,
42:51
SPEAKER_02: transcendent,
42:52
SPEAKER_02: nature,
42:52
SPEAKER_02: grace,
42:53
SPEAKER_02: objective,
42:53
SPEAKER_02: subjective,
42:55
SPEAKER_02: all of these in the texts of the council seem to be gone behind of.
43:01
And Christ is brought forward as a synthesis of intrinsic unity
43:05
of all these dichotomies.
43:07
And Christ is kind of injected as a medicine in all these
43:10
divisions to basically
43:12
SPEAKER_02: overcome them in a way that's not like ad hoc,
43:15
SPEAKER_02: like putting things back together like Lego pieces,
43:18
but like going back to the tradition and injecting that unity
43:22
of the mystery into
43:24
SPEAKER_02: modernity.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: To heal all the divisions through Christ.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: That's the vision of the council.
43:29
And what I love seeing right now is that that's also the vision
43:32
of the current Pope.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: He talks about unity,
43:35
SPEAKER_02: and he's always talking about Christ and how Christ,
43:37
SPEAKER_02: you know,
43:37
SPEAKER_02: unity without Christ is not possible.
43:39
SPEAKER_02: But I don't know if that answers your question.
43:42
SPEAKER_02: I went on a rant there.
43:43
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, so...
43:44
SPEAKER_01: No, that does.
43:45
SPEAKER_01: Well,
43:46
SPEAKER_01: it gives me the lay of the land in terms of,
43:47
SPEAKER_01: like,
43:48
SPEAKER_01: what the Second Council was trying to do and,
43:50
SPEAKER_01: like,
43:50
SPEAKER_01: where that,
43:51
SPEAKER_01: how that makes sense.
43:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm still a little bit sketchy on how,
43:56
SPEAKER_01: because,
43:56
SPEAKER_01: like,
43:57
SPEAKER_01: okay,
43:57
SPEAKER_01: if you bring Christ into,
43:59
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
43:59
SPEAKER_01: how does he,
44:00
SPEAKER_01: because,
44:01
SPEAKER_01: like,
44:02
SPEAKER_01: it seems like even stuff like the mind-body problem,
44:04
SPEAKER_01: like,
44:04
SPEAKER_01: that Descartes brings in because of his immaterial things.
44:07
mind and material body that is still you know resolved in
44:11
science it just it's like
44:12
you either go for reductive physicalism where it's like mental
44:15
processes just our
44:16
brain processes some have a non-reductive physicalism but it's
44:20
kind of hard to
44:21
explain you know how that works and like we get stuck i mean do
44:25
you think like is
44:27
the answer then to go to the tradition and be like how was this
44:30
before all of this
44:31
stuff happened or like does it have to be like all of these
44:35
kind of things
44:37
SPEAKER_01: to be refolded in in some way, or does it explicitly deal with that?
44:41
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, it's a bit of an all-over-the-place question.
44:43
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, yeah.
44:44
So a lot of what I was kind of talking about when it comes to
44:47
the council and some
44:48
SPEAKER_02: of these theologians is very theological,
44:51
SPEAKER_02: right?
44:51
SPEAKER_02: But what are the implications for the crisis of modernity,
44:55
SPEAKER_02: for the work of metaphysics and stuff like that?
44:59
SPEAKER_02: This is when post-conciliar theologians start to step in,
45:02
SPEAKER_02: like Balthazar,
45:03
SPEAKER_02: even though he was present before the council in writing already.
45:06
SPEAKER_02: Balthazar writes most prolifically after the council.
45:10
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I think that...
45:15
SPEAKER_02: Basically, what we're talking about is overcoming these dualisms, right?
45:19
SPEAKER_02: So Ratzinger is another one who writes a lot after the council.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: Ratzinger is not a philosopher.
45:24
SPEAKER_02: He's a theologian.
45:25
SPEAKER_02: But he's doing philosophy, of course, all the time.
45:28
SPEAKER_02: But Ratzinger talks about what you were talking about,
45:33
SPEAKER_02: this materialism and then this kind of reaction to it and idealism.
45:36
SPEAKER_02: And he wants to overcome these two things.
45:39
The same thing will happen in Balthazar with,
45:41
like,
45:42
objectivism and,
45:43
like,
45:43
subjectivism,
45:44
right?
45:44
SPEAKER_02: And the way they overcome them is,
45:48
SPEAKER_02: I think,
45:48
SPEAKER_02: I think sometimes consciously,
45:50
SPEAKER_02: sometimes subconsciously,
45:51
SPEAKER_02: they're drawing on Maurice Blondel.
45:53
Balthazar,
45:54
very explicitly,
45:54
Balthazar is a very,
45:56
a huge proponent of Blondel.
45:59
SPEAKER_02: Ratzinger, I think, through others is drawing from Blondel, not directly.
46:03
SPEAKER_02: But, um,
46:04
The way Blondel does it is he talks about notional things and
46:09
then real things.
46:10
SPEAKER_02: So knowing things notionally and knowing things really.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: That's why he focuses on action.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: When we act and live, we come into contact with things.
46:20
But when we know things,
46:22
our knowledge is limited and so we can't fully grasp them.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: And by going to action,
46:26
he's able to kind of synthesize the idealism and the kind of
46:30
reduced realism in a
46:32
SPEAKER_02: middle ground that opens up to both.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: Ratzinger does this by talking about freedom as the middle ground,
46:39
which is actually the unity prior to the division between
46:43
materialism and idealism.
46:45
SPEAKER_02: He speaks of freedom.
46:46
So I think they want to get back to a philosophy that is a
46:50
realist philosophy that
46:52
SPEAKER_02: is not materialism,
46:53
SPEAKER_02: but a lot more like Plato,
46:55
SPEAKER_02: basically,
46:56
SPEAKER_02: right?
46:56
SPEAKER_02: So Plato's idea of levels of reality, right?
47:00
SPEAKER_02: And participation through our... And so it's very existential, right?
47:04
SPEAKER_02: So they're going back to St.
47:05
SPEAKER_02: Thomas and they're reading him through his idea of existence, right?
47:11
SPEAKER_02: The real distinction between essence and existence.
47:14
And so they're really trying to be grounded in something that
47:18
doesn't fall into
47:19
these two different pitfalls of reducing everything to ideas or
47:24
reducing everything
47:25
SPEAKER_02: to the empirical.
47:26
SPEAKER_02: But they say that you have reality and you can think about it and you can
47:32
SPEAKER_02: experience it,
47:33
SPEAKER_02: but it's a spectrum of participations.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: that we can enter in more deeply, like get out of the cave, right?
47:39
SPEAKER_02: And then really be in communion with, with the ultimate, with the good.
47:43
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, I mean, I don't know if that helps, but, but one more thing.
47:48
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, go ahead.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I was going to say.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: There's a little bit of a lag.
47:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:58
But I was just going to say that basically they're really
48:02
trying to get behind
48:03
SPEAKER_02: these dichotomies.
48:04
SPEAKER_02: And the way they do that is by going back and reading books.
48:10
SPEAKER_02: Plato, Aristotle to an extent, Thomas, Bonaventure, Chrysostom, Maximus.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: And this is their project.
48:18
SPEAKER_02: And they're not seeing,
48:19
SPEAKER_02: of course,
48:20
SPEAKER_02: these modern,
48:21
SPEAKER_02: objective,
48:21
SPEAKER_02: subjective,
48:22
SPEAKER_02: noumenal,
48:23
SPEAKER_02: phenomenal,
48:24
SPEAKER_02: idealist,
48:24
SPEAKER_02: materialist.
48:25
They're obviously not seeing any of that because what they are
48:29
seeing is just deeper.
48:30
SPEAKER_02: It's just better.
48:32
And what we're seeing in modern philosophy and to an extent in
48:35
modern theology is a
48:38
SPEAKER_02: kind of narrowing.
48:39
SPEAKER_02: a kind of thinking that it's competitive.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: You have to have something that's either idealist or either materialist.
48:47
You can't think of a sense of reality that is gradated,
48:51
mediated,
48:52
and participatory,
48:53
right?
48:54
SPEAKER_02: And just deeper where the idea and the real are facets of
48:59
being basically so that's kind of what they do yeah yes man
49:04
like that's so good and
49:05
it almost had that experience in real time in some sense like
49:08
reading plato and dc
49:10
schindler after having been trained in mostly modern philosophy
49:13
have just been like
49:13
oh yeah all of these dualisms completely dissolve when they're
49:18
actually seen
49:18
properly but the i think part of the problem is it's almost
49:21
like a big tent
49:22
SPEAKER_01: approach it's like you can't lift the
49:24
SPEAKER_01: You can't do them one at a time in some sense.
49:26
SPEAKER_01: It's like you have to get the whole thing up.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: Like the whole metaphysics, like Plato's metaphysics requires the good.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: Christian metaphysics requires God.
49:36
SPEAKER_01: And then you can have this leveled ontology.
49:38
SPEAKER_01: So like if they can't, they won't accept God.
49:40
It's like you're actually left with a very limited ontology
49:44
immediately anyway.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: Like you have,
49:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
49:46
SPEAKER_01: it's like these choice points of like if you choose no God,
49:50
SPEAKER_01: you're just going to go...
49:52
SPEAKER_01: this complete one way if you accept god as the presupposition or initial
49:56
metaphysical assumption it's like you can go the other way but
49:59
it's like we're
50:00
trapped in this weird bind where it's like we can't accept the
50:03
assumption so you
50:03
just get this like really deluded like all over the place kind
50:08
of thing that's like
50:09
you know inevitable in some sense and i think can't like tries
50:13
to undo that
50:14
but then obviously traps us within our own kind of head,
50:18
but he like can't should be Plato.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: Like he, his whole thing is like, yeah, yeah.
50:24
Like he recognizes the role of knowledge and structuring
50:26
reality and structuring our perception.
50:29
And so it's like,
50:30
oh yeah,
50:31
it's not all just out there in a mind independent reality.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: It's,
50:34
The subjective is in the objective,
50:36
the objective is in the subjective in some way.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
50:39
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
50:39
SPEAKER_01: that's literally Plato,
50:40
SPEAKER_01: like the forms,
50:41
SPEAKER_01: and then through the forms is the cause of the forms.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: God, you can climb that.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: But he just doesn't, yeah, doesn't get there in some sense.
50:49
And one of the problems in some kind of niche strands of
50:54
Catholic theology is that
50:56
there's a pitting of Plato against Aquinas because Aquinas is
51:00
depicted as merely a
51:01
SPEAKER_02: kind of
51:02
SPEAKER_02: rubber stamper of Aristotle, right?
51:05
SPEAKER_02: Which is just not the case.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: You have people like Etienne Girson in France,
51:09
SPEAKER_02: Joseph Pieper in Germany,
51:11
SPEAKER_02: and more recently Norris Clark in America,
51:15
SPEAKER_02: and Ferdinand Ulrich,
51:16
SPEAKER_02: and I'd love to talk about him for just a second,
51:18
SPEAKER_02: but Ferdinand Ulrich,
51:19
SPEAKER_02: these guys are drawing out the Neoplatonic,
51:21
SPEAKER_02: the participatory,
51:22
SPEAKER_02: the straight-up platonic,
51:24
influences right through Dionysius and Gustin and all there is
51:28
so much more in
51:29
Thomas that is much more in line with Plato than Aristotle
51:33
actually right and
51:34
that's something that these thinkers kind of try to bring out
51:37
and and use that to
51:39
respond to some of these modern thinkers like Heidegger and
51:43
Hegel especially but
51:45
one thing I wanted to focus on is I think Maurice Blondel is
51:49
not focused on enough
51:52
SPEAKER_02: His achievement is massive.
51:53
I just recently finished an intellectual biography of him by an
51:59
author called Bolivar Blanchet.
52:02
SPEAKER_02: And in the biography,
52:05
Blanchet kind of talks about his untranslated later-in-life
52:10
trilogy on thought,
52:12
SPEAKER_02: action,
52:13
SPEAKER_02: and being.
52:14
SPEAKER_02: Or actually, thought, being, and action.
52:16
SPEAKER_02: He finishes on action.
52:18
SPEAKER_02: And Blondel,
52:19
SPEAKER_02: again,
52:19
SPEAKER_02: with his method of imminence,
52:21
SPEAKER_02: with his method of insufficiency and his method of charity,
52:24
SPEAKER_02: what he's doing is he's drawing out how if we look at our thoughts,
52:28
SPEAKER_02: right,
52:28
SPEAKER_02: the different forms of thoughts,
52:30
SPEAKER_02: it's gray-dated structure in the universe.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't think thought is merely a human thing, right?
52:37
He talks about the thought structure of plants and of minerals
52:41
and of energy and
52:43
SPEAKER_02: things like that.
52:44
SPEAKER_02: But he looks at the universe through the lens of thought, right?
52:48
And basically a kind of platonic participatory structure of
52:54
thought seeking to
52:55
SPEAKER_02: think itself and how an ultimate thought thinking itself,
52:58
SPEAKER_02: and here he agrees with Aristotle,
53:00
SPEAKER_02: right,
53:00
SPEAKER_02: would be God,
53:01
SPEAKER_02: right?
53:02
But he thinks that Aristotle kind of stops there,
53:04
and so he turns to being,
53:06
right?
53:06
And here he's more with Plato,
53:08
and he talks about being in,
53:10
through,
53:11
and of itself.
53:12
SPEAKER_02: And he says there's a graded participatory structure in being.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: That culminates in the ultimate being in, through, and of itself.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: And then he turns to action and he says, well, action, same thing.
53:24
Action is a mode of actualization that is engaged with other
53:29
things in a relational way.
53:30
SPEAKER_02: So there must be a kind of ultimate pure acting, right?
53:35
SPEAKER_02: And he concludes by turning to this thought thinking itself,
53:40
SPEAKER_02: this being in,
53:41
SPEAKER_02: of,
53:42
SPEAKER_02: and through itself,
53:44
SPEAKER_02: right?
53:44
SPEAKER_02: And he looks at action as pure action,
53:46
SPEAKER_02: and he says,
53:47
these only work together as different facets of this
53:50
transcendent reality if we
53:52
SPEAKER_02: posit three poles within this ultimate unity,
53:57
SPEAKER_02: right?
53:58
And so he starts to hint at a kind of Trinitarian structure of
54:01
ultimate being.
54:02
develops an ontology of relation right and all this from within
54:06
philosophy he's not
54:07
even yet bursting up because he says i can't burst out of
54:11
philosophy and bringing
54:12
theology that would violate the proper distinction between both
54:15
but notice how he
54:18
SPEAKER_02: is very much presupposing the supernatural order within which he's doing
54:23
SPEAKER_02: autonomously his philosophy within that order not without it right
54:28
And what's interesting is that then comes later after Blondel –
54:32
this philosopher
54:34
SPEAKER_02: died very recently,
54:34
SPEAKER_02: I think 2020 or 2022 – Ferdinand Ulrich in Germany,
54:40
SPEAKER_02: right?
54:40
SPEAKER_02: And Ulrich straight up uses the data of theology –
54:45
SPEAKER_02: As a guide to,
54:48
SPEAKER_02: while remaining purely within philosophy,
54:51
to basically unpack various dimensions and move philosophy
54:56
forward through an
54:58
SPEAKER_02: ontology of gifts,
54:59
SPEAKER_02: an ontology of relation,
55:01
SPEAKER_02: of being as always being gifts,
55:03
SPEAKER_02: and of being reception,
55:05
SPEAKER_02: and of being return,
55:06
SPEAKER_02: and of being a fruitful union.
55:08
And Ulrich develops this through a metaphysics of creation,
55:12
all this stuff.
55:12
SPEAKER_02: So Blondel and Ulrich, to me, are the big heavy hitters.
55:17
SPEAKER_02: Balthazar called Blondel the greatest philosopher in modern times.
55:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's quite a compliment.
55:23
And Balthazar said about Ulrich that Ulrich finally
55:26
definitively overcomes the
55:28
SPEAKER_02: dualism between philosophy and theology.
55:31
SPEAKER_02: So I think these are two top dogs, basically, right?
55:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:36
And I think that they understand what comes after for the
55:43
development of philosophy.
55:44
SPEAKER_02: It has to be a return, an analogical return to its unity
55:49
With theology,
55:50
the natural with the supernatural,
55:52
revelation with reason,
55:54
right?
55:54
SPEAKER_02: A reintegration of Christendom through a Christocentric,
55:59
SPEAKER_02: you know,
56:01
SPEAKER_02: view of an ontology of relation,
56:04
SPEAKER_02: of gift,
56:05
SPEAKER_02: right?
56:05
SPEAKER_02: Of exchange in the Trinity.
56:06
So the conclusion of all this is that if we want to think about
56:10
ontology properly
56:11
SPEAKER_02: and kind of restore its place in philosophy,
56:14
SPEAKER_02: I think we have to think in a relational Trinitarian way.
56:18
SPEAKER_02: But I'll shut up now.
56:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:22
SPEAKER_01: Man, that was some answer.
56:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you've got to make to, it brings it together in a way.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: And I think the,
56:27
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
56:28
SPEAKER_01: because theology,
56:30
it always seemed to me anyway with Plato that like the result
56:33
of philosophy
56:34
SPEAKER_01: practiced properly was theology in some sense.
56:37
Like the end,
56:39
like if you pursued philosophy to its end,
56:41
you'd hit theology.
56:42
SPEAKER_01: Like that was Plato's.
56:44
SPEAKER_01: Like the beholding of the good is just,
56:47
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:48
SPEAKER_01: essentially the experience of God,
56:50
of recognizing that there is this ultimate reality that is the
56:55
source of everything
56:56
SPEAKER_01: and that we are in relationship to it.
56:58
SPEAKER_01: And that it's the source of our value and our reality.
57:01
SPEAKER_01: And that experience in a way was transformative and was like the basis of
57:07
SPEAKER_01: of becoming the type of person that could be a functioning,
57:10
SPEAKER_01: like,
57:10
SPEAKER_01: well,
57:10
SPEAKER_01: philosopher King and his,
57:12
SPEAKER_01: his estimation,
57:13
like a person who was capable of leading other people and of
57:17
organizing things and
57:17
SPEAKER_01: should be entrusted with,
57:19
SPEAKER_01: with responsibility was the basis of that.
57:22
SPEAKER_01: So like it makes, yeah.
57:24
And do you think,
57:25
I mean,
57:25
do you think we just haven't caught up to these thinkers?
57:28
SPEAKER_01: Like they haven't had their full effect yet.
57:30
Like they've,
57:31
they've done the job in a sense,
57:33
but it's like,
57:33
we haven't,
57:34
you know,
57:35
SPEAKER_01: It hasn't penetrated into the mainstream consciousness.
57:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm not fully sure, but my gut reaction is to say yes.
57:43
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, I've been kind of looking around.
57:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to find some good authors.
57:49
SPEAKER_02: Of course,
57:49
SPEAKER_02: I tend to swim in theological circles more than philosophical ones,
57:55
SPEAKER_02: although Blondel was insistent on saying that he was not a theologian.
57:59
SPEAKER_02: He was a philosopher.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: That was very important to him.
58:02
But I do think that people like Ulrich and Blondel have
58:07
articulated something that
58:08
SPEAKER_02: has not yet trickled down.
58:11
Not just in academia,
58:12
because as you know,
58:13
I mean,
58:14
just look at Sartre or Kant,
58:16
right?
58:16
Philosophy trickles down into the way we live our lives at the
58:20
regular layperson level.
58:21
SPEAKER_01: Foucault is the most cited academic of all time, then.
58:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there you go.
58:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right?
58:26
So I think that...
58:28
Yeah,
58:28
we're not there yet,
58:29
but these are the sources...
58:32
from which the trickle i hope comes right so yeah so yeah yeah
58:39
if people engage
58:40
with them more and uh and i guess you have thinkers like dc
58:44
schindler as well who
58:45
are obviously very inspired by these guys i know he talks about
58:47
balthazar a lot and
58:49
blondell and ulrich he wrote a whole book on ulrich bring that
58:53
on ulrich yes yeah
58:55
SPEAKER_01: and bring it bring that forward um
58:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, any final thoughts on that?
59:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
59:04
SPEAKER_02: just to say that obviously these would be a different video,
59:10
SPEAKER_02: but there's questions that are raised by modern science.
59:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
59:15
SPEAKER_02: we talked about last time the heliocentric shift,
59:19
SPEAKER_02: the discovery of evolutionary biology,
59:21
SPEAKER_02: things like that,
59:21
SPEAKER_02: right?
59:22
SPEAKER_02: And there's also some of these theologians, like Ratzinger especially,
59:27
tackling these questions of the relationship between evolution
59:30
and cosmology and
59:31
SPEAKER_02: our ontology,
59:32
SPEAKER_02: right?
59:33
SPEAKER_02: And Blondel, too, actually does a lot on that.
59:36
SPEAKER_02: And another question,
59:37
SPEAKER_02: for example,
59:38
because we're talking about the relationship between the church
59:41
culture and
59:41
SPEAKER_02: philosophy would be biblical exegesis.
59:44
SPEAKER_02: Right.
59:45
Ratzinger speaks of incorporating some of its historical
59:49
critical aspects,
59:50
SPEAKER_02: but also being able to develop a criticism of the criticism.
59:54
SPEAKER_02: Right.
59:54
Using the tools to deepen the rationality of what claims to be
59:58
reason while cutting
59:59
SPEAKER_02: itself off from faith.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:00:01
And then the church-state relationship and the question of
1:00:04
freedom of religion.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_02: How do we think that through?
1:00:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_02: And the relationship between power and authority.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_02: Schindler is writing about that.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_02: And Ratzinger writes a lot about religious pluralism.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_02: What do we do in a more globalized society?
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: These thinkers are writing and thinking about these things,
1:00:20
SPEAKER_02: have wrote and thought about these things.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_02: Many of them have died, but people are still continuing it.
1:00:24
But I do think there was a generation of giants that came
1:00:29
recently and have gone
1:00:31
SPEAKER_02: that we need to be inspired by to continue that work.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_02: So maybe I'll end it with that.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_01: Man, great, great point.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: And also putting them in dialogue, I suppose, with people.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_01: Because if it just stays in theology in some sense,
1:00:45
it probably wouldn't reach the people that it really needs to
1:00:49
reach in a way.
1:00:50
I think part of the internet as well is encouraging these
1:00:53
interdisciplinary discussions.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_01: And I think people hear the heliocentric thing,
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: they hear evolution,
1:01:01
SPEAKER_01: they hear it's all been explained.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_01: and they never hear a contrary opinion on that.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_01: Like it's, whereas there's so many questions and so much of that stuff.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_01: I also think as now, I think we're coming to the end of science.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_01: It's a very bold claim,
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: probably not entirely,
1:01:17
SPEAKER_01: but like a lot of the people,
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: scientists are saying this,
1:01:21
SPEAKER_01: like I'm not the only one,
1:01:22
SPEAKER_01: Sabine Hossenfeld or somebody,
1:01:24
SPEAKER_01: whereas like they,
1:01:25
there was only going to be so much progress made by studying
1:01:28
the natural universe
1:01:29
SPEAKER_01: that we've figured these things out.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
1:01:32
SPEAKER_01: And at some point that was going to kind of run,
1:01:35
SPEAKER_01: it was going to slow down at least like,
1:01:37
SPEAKER_01: cause we've made incredible progress.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_01: I think as that slows down,
1:01:41
people will be more open to considering the foundations of
1:01:45
these things that are,
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: it's like,
1:01:48
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:49
SPEAKER_01: metaphysics,
1:01:49
SPEAKER_01: theology,
1:01:50
SPEAKER_01: epistemology,
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: like those more fundamental questions.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, as John Vakey said, theology is the subject of the future.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think so.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks so much for having me on.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_02: I, when I talk to you, I always love it.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we could go on for probably hours, you know?
1:02:10
SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_01: It totally did.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_01: And you've given me, uh,
1:02:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I got to read Blondel.
1:02:19
If you had a recommendation for where to start with Blondel,
1:02:21
what would you,
1:02:22
what's the go-to?
1:02:23
I would say start with Blanchette's biography because it's not
1:02:27
just a biography.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: Really?
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_02: It's a book of philosophy.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_02: It's a warning.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_02: It's massive.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_02: It's like 800 pages.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_02: But it's worth your time.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like it, man.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: It really, really does.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's bringing a lot together.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_01: I'll check it out.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_01: Sounds good.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_01: Thanks very much, Tom.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_01: And people can find you,
1:02:51
SPEAKER_01: I'll include you on YouTube,
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: the Logos Project,
1:02:53
SPEAKER_01: anywhere else you'd like them to go?
1:02:55
SPEAKER_02: No, honestly, just the YouTube channel.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_02: I do have a blog,
1:02:59
SPEAKER_02: but I don't use it as much anymore,
1:03:01
SPEAKER_02: so I would just point them to the YouTube channel.
1:03:05
SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_00: Will do, man.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_00: Thanks again.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_03: Peace.