Latest / Reformed Thinking / Why Counterfeit Virtue So Often Looks Genuine | Jonathan Edwards

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Why Counterfeit Virtue So Often Looks Genuine | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to reform Thinking. You know, usually when we
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evaluate whether someone is a good person, we rely on a a
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fairly straightforward set of criteria.
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It's kind of like looking at a Ledger.
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You know, we see someone returning a lost wallet with all
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the cash still inside. Or we see them volunteering at a
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local animal shelter on the weekends.
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Oh, sure. Or maybe we just notice how
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fiercely they protect their own children, and we mentally check
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a box. We say yes, that is a decent
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human being. We see the action, we categorize
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it, and we feel a sense of resolution.
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Yeah, we like things to be observable and easy to
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categorize. I mean, it brings a sense of
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predictable order to our social world.
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It really does. We build entire communities on
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the assumption that these observable actions are the
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absolute bedrock of human goodness.
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But then, you know, you step into the philosophical and
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theological framework of Jonathan Edwards, and suddenly
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that neat little Ledger is thrown completely out the
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window. Oh, completely.
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We are looking at a moral landscape today that is
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surprisingly uncomfortable. Our mission for this deep dive
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is to break down a rather startling piece of writing by
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Edwards. Yeah, it's a tough one.
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He wrote an essay investigating why the everyday traits you and
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I consider entirely good things like pity, gratitude, and
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patriotism are so often mistaken for true virtue.
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It is a striking premise when you really think about it.
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I mean, we build our entire societal structures on these
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traits. We write songs about them.
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Right. We hand out civilian awards for
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them, and here we have a text arguing that we might be
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completely misinterpreting what they actually are at their core.
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OK, let's unpack this for you. What if the things you think
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make you a good person are actually just an extended,
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narrow form of self love? That is the big question.
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Edwards makes a massive claim here.
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He draws a thick, permanent line separating our natural
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affections from true universal virtue.
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And I'll be honest, reading this the first time I felt my own
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defenses going up. Oh.
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I think everyone does. I thought about my love for my
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family and my friends, and it felt like, you know, he was
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attacking the best parts of human nature.
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That is a very natural reaction to this text.
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To really grasp what is happening here, we need a clear
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structural overview of his argument.
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Please. Because it's heavy.
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Yeah, so the text is not saying that pity or gratitude are bad
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things. Edwards isn't suggesting we
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should abandoned our families or, you know, become emotionless
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stoics, right? Or stop being thankful when
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someone helps us out. Rather, he's arguing that these
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traits lack the essential nature of true virtue.
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Which he defines very specifically.
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Yes, according to his framework, true virtue is defined as
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benevolence to being in general. Benevolence to being in general.
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That is a phrase we really need to hold on to today.
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But let's put this on the ground.
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What does that actually mean for someone just driving to the
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grocery store on a Tuesday afternoon?
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Well, he means a comprehensive, all-encompassing love for the
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entire universe of existence, with God positioned at the very
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head of it. Wow.
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If an action or a feeling does not spring from that universal
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benevolence, it might be useful, it might be socially beneficial,
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but it falls short of being true virtue.
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So it means that true goodness isn't just about how you treat
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the cashier at the grocery store, right?
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It's about whether your kindness to that cashier is an outflow of
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a much larger love for the Creator and all of His creation.
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Spot on. So we're talking about a
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completely different standard of measurement.
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He's looking at the engine, not just the speed of the car.
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I like that. And he gives us a road map for
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our own self deception, explaining why we get is so
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mixed up. The first major reason he points
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out is what we might call the illusion of partial resemblance.
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The illusion of partial resemblance.
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Yeah, our natural affections look an awful lot like virtue.
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Let's dig into that illusion. Because they share the general
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nature of virtue, which is love, right?
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Right. When we look at natural
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affections, we see things that look incredibly similar to love.
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They just operate within a restricted private sphere.
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And let's look at how this resemblance plays out in our
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daily lives. Pity is a really great place to
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start. Yeah, think about what pity
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actually does. Well, pity resembles universal
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benevolence because it makes a person uneasy when others are in
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distress. Yes, absolutely.
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If you see someone hurting, maybe a friend who just lost
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their job, or even a stranger crying on a park bench, natural
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pity creates an internal discomfort.
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You feel a literal pang in your chest.
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Exactly. And you want to relieve their
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pain. That is partially the same
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effect that true benevolence would have.
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True benevolence also desires the relief of suffering.
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But the difference is the scope and the origin, isn't it?
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It is. Pity is often reactionary and
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localized. It's triggered by the immediate
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sight of suffering right in front of you, right?
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It doesn't necessarily arise from a sweeping love for all
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existence. And the text also brings up
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natural gratitude, which is even more interesting to me.
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Oh. Gratitude's a big one.
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Because we are taught from childhood that saying thank you
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is the absolute mark of a good person.
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Gratitude resembles love, but it's often just a requival of
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kindness. You're basically returning a
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transaction. A transaction.
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Yes, someone did something beneficial for your private
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system and you are balancing the scales with affection.
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I was thinking about the specific biblical example
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Edwards uses here because it perfectly illustrates this
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transactional nature of gratitude.
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He talks about Saul and David from the Old Testament.
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Well, that's a brilliant illustration.
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Just for context for you listening, King Saul is actively
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hunting David with an army trying to kill him him out of
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pure jealousy, and David gets a chance to assassinate Saul in a
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cave. Saul is completely vulnerable,
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but David cuts off a corner of Saul's robe and spares his life
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instead. And when Saul realizes this
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later, the emotional reaction is intense.
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Oh, He weeps loudly. He does.
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He calls David his son. He acknowledges David's
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righteousness and he feels this immense surge of gratitude.
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Because if you just took a snapshot of that single moment
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outside The Cave, Saul looks incredibly virtuous.
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He really does. He looks humble, loving and
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deeply grateful. But Saul had no real friendship
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for David, he was just moved by the immediate occasion.
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Saul's gratitude was entirely dictated by the fact that his
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own life was spared. Yeah, it was self preservation
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echoing back as temporary affection.
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And we know how it ends. Right.
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A few chapters later, the emotional high wears off and
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Saul is right back out in the wilderness hunting David again.
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The gratitude had the appearance of virtuous love for a brief
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season, but because it lacked that benevolence to being in
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general, it evaporated the moment the private benefit was
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no longer the focal point. Sauls affection was restricted
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entirely to his own survival, and that captures the
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psychological blindness Edwards identifies so well.
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The blindness. Yeah, people can find their
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views to their private system. I was trying to come up with an
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analogy for this. Think about it like having a
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perfectly manicured, beautiful garden in your own backyard.
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OK, I'm with you. You have blooming roses, a
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tranquil water feature, perfect green grass.
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It's undeniably beautiful and you spend hours tending to it.
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Sounds nice, but you are completely ignoring the fact
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that the rest of the city around you is on fire.
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Oh wow. Inside the fence of your private
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sphere, the affection looks gorgeous.
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You are a great gardener. But outside that fence, it
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completely fails to account for the whole.
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That analogy really hits the mark.
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People focus entirely on their backyard garden and they shut
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out everything else to which they stand.
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Related. Everything else.
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The argument here is that if your private system contain the
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sum total of universal existence, then your benevolence
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to it would have true beauty. Right, if your backyard was the
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entire universe. Yeah, then tending to it would
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be the ultimate virtue. Things considered, it would be
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virtuous, but your private system is just an infinitely
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small fraction of reality. And most notably, people leave
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the divine being entirely out of their view.
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This is a huge point. This part really caught my
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attention because it diagnosis a very modern condition.
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Edwards writes that people treat God as a shadowy imaginary
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being, shadowy be because he isn't perceived by our external
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senses. We just leave him out of our
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calculations entirely. We calculate right and wrong
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solely based on the physical people right in front of us.
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Right. We are conversant with our
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friends, our coworkers, our family members through our
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external senses. We see them, hear them, interact
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with them. So they feel intensely.
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Real exactly. Their approval or disapproval
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feels immediate and heavy. While the creator, who is the
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actual head of the system gets sidelined.
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It's so easy for human beings to do this.
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It's almost our default state. You can be a wonderful loyal
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friend, a loving parent, and a reliable neighbor, all while
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completely ignoring the Architect of the Universe.
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In your private system, you look like a St.
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In the universal system, you are essentially ignoring the most
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significant being in existence. What is a fatal flaw in the
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architecture of your morality according to this framework?
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The fatal flaw. If God is the fountain and head
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of universal existence, any moral system that leaves him out
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as a shadowy afterthought cannot possibly be considered true
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virtue. It just doesn't work.
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It is mathematically and philosophically incomplete.
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You're calculating the orbit of the planets while completely
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ignoring the gravitational pull of the sun.
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That's a great way to put it. But wait, if this private system
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is just about me in my backyard, how do you explain something
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like patriotism? Oh, patriotism.
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Yeah, entire generations of people have sacrificed their
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lives for their country. That doesn't look like a narrow
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private garden. It looks massive.
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It looks like the very definition of a broad universal
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love. And that brings us to the
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mechanics of scale. We are highly susceptible to
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being deceived by large numbers. Deceived by scale.
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Edwards uses a striking historical example to make this
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point. The Romans.
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The Roman error, Yeah. For the Romans, love of their
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country was considered the absolute pinnacle of virtue.
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Patriotism was their civic religion.
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It was extolled by their philosophers, celebrated in
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their literature, and rewarded by their political system.
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To sacrifice yourself for the glory of Rome was the ultimate
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good. But look at the dark underbelly
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of this Roman virtue. It's dark.
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This exact affection, this highly praised love of country,
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was employed to destroy the rest of mankind.
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Yes, their patriotism fueled the Punic Wars, the complete
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leveling of Carthage. It fueled the conquest of Gaul,
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the subjugation of entire civilizations across Europe and
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North Africa. It was relentless.
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Their private affection for Rome was an absolute nightmare for
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everyone who is not Roman. And this happens because of the
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contracted limits of the human mind.
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When a private affection extends to a large number of people,
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like an entire political party or an expansive nation, it fills
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up our mental capacity. It's just too big for us to
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process. Right.
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It looks so massive to us that eating grosses our sight.
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We look at an empire and we mistake it for the universal
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system. We can't see past the border.
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Exactly. The larger the number, the more
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it bears the image of the universal, and the easier it is
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to be deceived by it. OK, I have to push back on this
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a little bit. Go ahead.
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If we get tricked by scale, you know, if we mistake large groups
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for true virtue because they fill up our vision, why don't we
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applaud raw self-interest? Self love is the most common
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natural affection of all. Why doesn't that fool us?
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Because self love is simply too obviously narrow.
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Obviously narrow. Yeah, the object of self love is
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just one single person, right? No matter how much you love
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yourself, your singular physical presence cannot engross the view
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of society, right? Everyone around you can clearly
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see that you are just one individual.
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The human mind is large enough to recognize that one person is
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not the universe. Unless a person is so consumed
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by pride that they imagine themselves to be the entire
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world, which is a pathology all its own.
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Well, yeah, Barring that level of extreme delusion, yes.
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Therefore we do not applaud raw self-interest as a high moral
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good. Makes sense.
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But when that self-interest is expanded to include millions of
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people in a nation, the boundaries are far of a way that
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we can no longer see them clearly.
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We lose sight of the fence. We lose sight of the fence
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around the garden because the garden is the size of a
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continent. Think about your own life,
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because most of us are not Roman emperors conquering Gaul, but we
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deal with this exact deception of scale in our modern lives.
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We do everyday. Think about how extreme loyalty
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to a specific group, maybe a political affiliation, a social
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movement, or even a corporation can shape your behavior.
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It's a very practical application.
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Self love and these private affections are necessary for
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society, but if they are not subordinated to a more extensive
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principle, a person becomes a common enemy to the general
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system. Right.
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If your entire moral universe is defined by the success of your
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company, you might engage in ruthless business practices that
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harm vulnerable communities. Absolutely.
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Inside the walls of your company, you are a hero.
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You are winning market share. You are protecting your
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employees. You are paying out great
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dividends. You get a bonus.
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You get a mass bonus, but to the general system, to the wider
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community, you are a hostile force.
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You have taken a private affection, scaled it up, and
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weaponized it against the rest of existence.
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Which highlights the absolute danger of unchecked natural
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affections. They are capable of immense
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destruction precisely because they feel so morally justified
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from the inside. That's the terrifying part.
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The Romans felt incredibly righteous while they were
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dismantling other nations. So if these private affections
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are not true virtue, and if they can actually make us enemies to
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the general system, why does our own internal moral compass
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approve of them so strongly? That is the crucial question.
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If tribalism is actually destructive, why does my
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conscience feel so clear when I support my tribe?
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This moves our discussion to a really fascinating part of
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Edward's argument, the role of the conscience.
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The operation of the natural conscience requires us to
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differentiate between two types of moral approval.
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OK, lay it out for us. Natural conscience does indeed
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approve a virtue and condemn vice, but it does so from a
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secondary, inferior sense of beauty.
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Inferior sense of beauty. Yes, it does not operate from a
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true relish of essential virtue. An inferior sense of beauty.
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What does that actually look like in practice?
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Well, conscience operates heavily on the concept of
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uniformity and natural agreement.
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Uniform, Yeah. It recognizes the symmetry in
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loving those who love you and showing kindness to those who
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show kindness to you. It also operates on the
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association of ideas. Let's slow down and unpack that
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association of ideas, because this is where Edwards makes a
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staggering psychological observation.
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He argues that people connect certain behaviors with profit
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and pleasantness, and they connect other behaviors with
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hurtfulness and malignancy. OK.
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We approve of justice and fairness not necessarily because
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we have a pure, universal love for all beings, but because we
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associated just society with our own safety and profit.
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We like being safe. Right.
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We dislike theft because we associate it with the pain of
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losing our own property. So our internal judge is highly
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pragmatic. Very pragmatic, the great
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governor of the world implanted natural conscious to act in his
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stead as an internal judge. An internal.
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Judge. It is designed to maintain
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order. When it is thoroughly awakened
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and well informed, it actually agrees with God on what to
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approve. But, and I think here's the
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crucial distinction, it does not approve it for the same reasons.
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Precisely, it identifies the correct behaviors, but the
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underlying motivation is driven by self love or an appreciation
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for symmetrical order rather than a genuine benevolence to
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being in general. I was trying to think of a good
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comparison. To visualize how this works,
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think about how a smoke detector operates in your house.
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It's all like this. A modern smoke detector is a
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highly sensitive, valuable piece of equipment.
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Most of them use a tiny amount of a radioactive isotope, like a
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moricium 241 to ionize the air inside a chamber.
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Science glass, right? It measures the electrical
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current. When smoke particles enter that
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chamber, they disrupt the current and the alarm goes off.
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It senses the smoke of hurtfulness or the rapid heat of
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danger. It alerts you that something is
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wrong. Very fitting analogy.
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But the smoke detector has absolutely no concept of the
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actual nature of the fire. It does not understand the
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chemistry of combustion. It does not appreciate the
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warmth of a contained hearth versus the destruction of wild
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inferno. It just beeps.
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It is merely A reactive mechanism based on physical
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disruption. It senses particles in the air
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and it triggers A buzzer. Natural conscience in this
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framework is the smoke detector. Works so well.
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It senses the associative markers of right and wrong, the
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disruption of social order, the threat to personal safety, but
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it lacks a true, essential appreciation of the flame of
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universal love itself. And just like a smoke detector,
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the alarm can be muted, ignored or broken over time.
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That's a scary thought. Which is a terrifying prospect
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when you realize it is your primary internal warning system.
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But I would still rather have a smoke detector than sleep in a
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house without one, right? Oh, of course.
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Even if conscience is just a secondary alarm system driven by
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association, having it must be better than not having it.
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Yes, and that leads directly into the concept of negative
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moral goodness. Negative moral goodness is
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defined as the negation or absence of true moral evil.
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It is a goodness defined by a lack of something worse.
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Correct. Having a sensitive natural
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conscience, or possessing natural pity and gratitude, is
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not a positive true virtue, but lacking them is evidence of a
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much greater, much more destructive wickedness.
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But these alarms can get disconnected.
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The essay gets quite stark here about how we lose these natural
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safety Nets. It outlines a process of
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deterioration it. Details how sin causes stupidity
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and insensibility of conscience over time.
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Stupidity of conscience, yeah. For example, losing gratitude is
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a direct sign of increasing pride.
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Let's expand on that connection between gratitude and pride.
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How does one destroy the other? If gratitude is the natural
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requital of kindness, acknowledging that someone else
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has provided you with a benefit, then pride is the systematic
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dismantling of that acknowledgement.
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OK, how so? Pride involves habituating
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yourself to treat yourself as if you are everything.
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If you are everything and your needs are paramount, then the
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kindness of others is viewed as nothing more than your due.
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You just expect it. You begin to look upon their
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sacrifices as insignificant. When you elevate yourself to the
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center of the universe, gratitude starves to death.
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And Edwards doesn't stop with pride.
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He moves on to sensuality. This is where I want to zero in
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on a very vivid metaphor. He describes sensual appetites,
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acting like a trench. The psychology of this
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deterioration is incredibly sharp.
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Imagine a landscape where water naturally flows through various
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streams and channels. These channels represent your
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natural pity, your family affection, your basic human
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empathy. It irrigates your life.
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Yes, it waters everything, but then a deep trench of sensual
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appetite is dug through the middle of the land, a trench
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through habit and custom, a lifestyle of constantly seeking
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physical comfort and pleasure. All the water is drawn out of
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its natural channels, the empathy dries up, the familial
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love evaporates and all the emotional energy is carried into
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one single massive channel of self indulgence.
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A worldly sensual life involves the mind entirely in physical
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sensitive objects. This makes the mind completely
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unfit for spiritual contemplation.
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It's too muddy. Exactly.
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It becomes incapable of recognizing the invisible deity.
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Because the mind is entirely preoccupied with feeding the
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trench. Yes.
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Furthermore, repeatedly acting on selfish principles without
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visible punishment severs the minds understanding of the
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connection between sin and misery.
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The smoke detector gets muffled. If you act selfishly and get
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away with it, the smoke detector we talked about earlier gets a
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little quieter each time. Think about your own habits in
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light of this metaphor. Have you ever noticed periods in
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your life where your basic empathy seems to slip away?
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We all go through it. Where you find it harder to
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summon gratitude for the people who support you, or where you
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just feel numb to the suffering of others?
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Yeah, according to this framework, that emotional
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numbness is a massive warning sign.
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It means the water of your natural affections is being
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actively drained into a selfish channel.
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It's not just a phase. No, it's not just that you are
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tired, it's that your internal landscape is being re engineered
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towards self indulgence. And when these natural
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principles of pity and affection are diminished by pride and
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sensuality, the habitual disposition turns toward envy
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and malice. The water goes stagnant.
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The removal of the negative moral goodness creates a vacuum
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that is inevitably filled with active hostility.
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OK, looking at all of this, a very pragmatic question arises.
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If the water is constantly threatening to drain into this
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selfish trench, and our virtues are just natural affections
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prone to drying up, why hasn't society burned to the ground?
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That is a fair question. How do these flawed secondary
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principles manage to keep human society running as well as it
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does? Well, people look at natural
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affections and see that they produce the exact same practical
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effects that true virtue would produce.
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The results look identical on paper.
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Often, yes, the Supreme Ruler constituted the world in such a
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way that these natural principles tend toward the good
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of mankind. They hold things together.
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They act as a massive restraint system against vice.
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Natural pity preserves human beings from cruelty.
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If you feel uneasy seeing someone in pain, you are far
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less likely to torture them. Natural affection prevents
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injustice toward friends and family.
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And self. Love, interestingly enough,
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restrains acts of real wickedness because we fear the
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social and legal consequences of bad behavior.
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We don't want to go to prison. We.
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Do not want to go to prison, so we do not steal.
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I'm going to play devil's advocate here.
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Go for it. If natural pity stops me from
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being cruel to my neighbor and self love stops me from
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embezzling money from my employer, why does the motive
22:21
matter? The classic utilitarian
22:24
argument. If the result is peace, if
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society is functioning, people are safe, and the trains are
22:29
running on time, why should we care?
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If it is driven by universal benevolence or just a highly
22:34
evolved system of self preservation, it.
22:36
Is the ultimate utilitarian objection.
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But Edwards points out the flaw in judging something purely by
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its pragmatic effect. He uses a very grounding
22:45
comparison hunger and thirst. Hunger and thirst.
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OK, walk me through that. Hunger and thirst also tend
22:50
toward the general good of mankind.
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They motivate us to eat, to farm, to build supply chains, to
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survive. They are absolutely necessary
22:58
for the continuation of the human race, yet nobody in their
23:02
right mind calls the physical sensation of hunger a moral
23:06
virtue. Wow, I honestly hadn't thought
23:09
about it that way. It's quite the paradigm shift.
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Just because a mechanism produces a necessary survival
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outcome does not elevate it to the status of moral goodness.
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Breathing keeps me alive, but breathing isn't a virtue.
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Precisely. And there's a very pointed
23:23
observation about self love. While self love puts men upon
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seeking what looks like true virtue and restrains massive
23:31
wickedness, it is also the literal source of all the
23:34
wickedness in the world. It is the disease and the
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temporary bandage all rolled into one.
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A mechanism that merely prevents its own war symptoms is not the
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same as a cure. Man, that's heavy.
23:44
Self love might stop you from robbing a bank because you fear
23:46
jail, but self love is also the exact reason another person
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decides to rob the bank in the 1st place, believing they can
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get away with it and benefit themselves.
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Totally. Unstable.
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It is a wildly unstable foundation for morality.
23:58
We are relying on the very engine of our selfishness to
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occasionally hit the brakes on our worst impulses, and we call
24:06
those brake lights virtue. Which is why the distinction is
24:09
so vital. If we mistake the Brooks for the
24:12
engine of universal love, we will never pursue the actual
24:16
cure. We just settle.
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We will settle for a society that is merely restrained from
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destroying itself, rather than a society that is genuinely good.
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This raises the final and perhaps most urgent question of
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this discussion. We've spent all this time
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tearing down the natural affections, exposing their
24:33
narrowness, their transactional nature, their vulnerability to
24:36
pride. We have.
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Are we doomed, then? Is it possible for these natural
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earthly affections to ever actually become truly virtuous
24:44
where we just stuck with a broken system?
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We finally arrive at the concluding redemptive concept in
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the text, and the answer is yes. Oh, good.
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Natural affections and true virtue share the same names in
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our language. Love.
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Pity, gratitude, because true virtue can actually inhabit
24:59
these natural instincts. They can become a vessel for
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something greater. Yes, there is such a thing as a
25:04
truly virtuous pity, a truly virtuous gratitude, and a
25:08
virtuous love between the sexes. OK.
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This transformation happens when pure benevolence to being in
25:14
general mixes its influence with the natural principle.
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It mixes its influence. How does that practically change
25:20
the nature of the affection? Think of it as a governing
25:23
force. When a principle of
25:24
disinterested general benevolence enters the picture,
25:28
it guides and regulates the operations of the natural
25:30
instincts. It takes the wheel.
25:33
Edwards specifically notes that this general benevolence softens
25:36
and sweetens the mind. It makes the human mind more
25:39
susceptible to the gentler natural instincts and directs
25:43
them to their proper ends. Softens and sweetens the mind.
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I love that phrasing. It implies that without this
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universal benevolence, our minds are naturally hard and bitter,
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entirely focused on defending our private territory.
25:55
And it acts as a preservative. Remember the trench of
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sensuality and the creeping decay of pride we discussed
26:00
earlier? The dry trench.
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Genuine virtue prevents the increase of that pride and
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sensuality. It stops the natural affections
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from being drained away or turning inward into malice.
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It keeps the water flowing in the proper channels.
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I want to synthesize what this looks like on a Tuesday
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afternoon. True virtue is not about
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destroying your love for your family, your friends or your
26:21
country. Not at all.
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Edwards is not asking you to become an emotionless robot who
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only cares about abstract, universal concepts.
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It is about bringing those private, concentrated loves into
26:34
alignment with a universal. Love it is about hierarchy and
26:37
regulation. Right.
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It means loving your family, but doing so in a way that does not
26:42
demand injustice towards someone else's family.
26:44
It means feeling gratitude for a kindness shown to you, not just
26:47
because your ego is stroked, but because you possess A broader
26:51
love for the goodness of the person who helped you,
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reflecting a love for the creator of that goodness.
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That's the core of it. It is about ensuring your
26:58
private loves are earned by the right universal purpose instead
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of allowing them to become isolated, selfish factions
27:05
constantly at war with the rest of existence.
27:07
When the superior principle has a governing hand, a natural
27:11
gratitude becomes a virtuous gratitude.
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The engine changes. Exactly.
27:16
A natural parental instinct becomes a virtuous love.
27:18
The instinct remains, but the engine driving it has been
27:21
entirely replaced. We have covered incredible
27:24
ground today. We started by looking at how
27:26
easily we mistake the reflection for the light itself.
27:29
It's a tough mirror to look into.
27:31
It is so easy to look at our pity, our gratitude or our
27:35
fierce loyalty to our tribe and feel completely secure in our
27:38
own goodness. But Edwards challenges us to
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look at the boundaries of our love.
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The boundaries are what define it.
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He forces us to ask a very uncomfortable question.
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Are we loving the universal system with the Creator at its
27:50
head, or are we just fiercely, perhaps even ruthlessly,
27:53
protecting our own private spheres and calling it
27:56
righteousness? It requires a level of self
27:58
examination that most people actively avoid.
28:01
It is much easier to Polish the smoke detector and pretend we
28:04
have mastered. Fire Polish the smoke detector.
28:07
Wow. I will leave you with a final
28:08
thought to Mull over as you go about your day.
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We talked about how the Romans scaled up their private
28:14
affection and used it to destroy the rest of mankind.
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We did. Take a moment and imagine if all
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your deepest loyalties, your loudest opinions, and your most
28:24
celebrated personal virtues were suddenly scaled up and applied
28:28
to the entire universe. OK, picturing that.
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If everyone loved exactly the way you love, with the same
28:34
boundaries and exclusions, would your current way of loving bring
28:37
universal harmony? Or would your private affections
28:40
inevitably trigger a war against and someone else's private
28:42
system? A truly staggering question to
28:44
consider. Thank you so much for joining us
28:46
for this deep dive. Until next time, thank you for
28:48
listening to Reformed Thinking.