The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - May 12, 2022


252. This Lesson From The Bible Will Make You Unstoppable ｜ Franciscan University


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 2 minutes

Words per Minute

171.43086

Word Count

10,723

Sentence Count

933

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

11


Summary

In this episode, Father Dave and Dr. Jordan Peterson discuss the relationship between faith and suffering, the power of the serpent, and the beauty of the setting sunsets. Dr. Peterson and Father Dave also discuss the importance of gratitude and the role that gratitude can play in our lives. Father Dave is the President of the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio. He is a priest, author, and speaker who has written seven books and produced several evangelistic films, including Sign of Contradiction, Metanoia and Letters to Myself from the End of the World through the Ministry of the Wild Goose. He was ordained a priest in 1996 and served as a missionary in the Province of the Third Order Regular of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. He also earned a Master of Divinity, an MA in Theology, a Doctorate in Education, and an Executive Jurist Doctorate, and is a member of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, a province of the Fraternal Order Regular, a well-known Catholic speaker and author. He is the author of seven books, and has produced seven films and a video series, including Letters to myself, from the end of the world through the ministry of The Wild Goose, as well as Letters To Myself From the End Of The World, a series of films and video series. In addition to being a speaker, he is a Catholic priest and author, a liturgist, a lay leader, a pastor, and a professor of the liturgical liturgy. . He also serves as the president of the Diocese of the Archdiocese of St. Patrick in St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, a diocese, and teaches liturgy at St. Francis of Assisi, a Catholic university in the United States. in the diocese of Baltimore, Maryland, and serves as a consultant to the Archbishop of Baltimore. , and is an author, speaker, and lay leader in the order of the Knights of the Sacred Heart, a priest and a lay brother. Dr. Michaela Peterson is a pediatric psychologist, a pediatric neurologist and pediatric neuropsychologist. Theologian, a former priest, a fellow Catholic priest, and family physician, a professor, a public speaker, anesthesiologist, a communicator, a writer, a poet, a podcaster, and author of two-time Anglican priest, an author and a worship leader, and so much more.


Transcript

00:00:01.000 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.
00:00:06.000 Dr. Jordan Peterson has created a new series that could be a lifeline for those battling depression and anxiety.
00:00:12.000 We know how isolating and overwhelming these conditions can be, and we wanted to take a moment to reach out to those listening who may be struggling.
00:00:19.000 With decades of experience helping patients, Dr. Peterson offers a unique understanding of why you might be feeling this way in his new series.
00:00:27.000 He provides a roadmap towards healing, showing that while the journey isn't easy, it's absolutely possible to find your way forward.
00:00:35.000 If you're suffering, please know you are not alone. There's hope, and there's a path to feeling better.
00:00:41.000 Go to Daily Wire Plus now and start watching Dr. Jordan B. Peterson on depression and anxiety.
00:00:47.000 Let this be the first step towards the brighter future you deserve.
00:00:52.000 Welcome to episode 252 of the JBP podcast. I'm Michaela Peterson.
00:00:59.000 You're about to hear what I think is a fascinating interview Dad had at the Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.
00:01:06.000 It condenses a lot of what he's been thinking about recently.
00:01:09.000 The interviewer asked Dad about gratitude, faith, and suffering, specifically, why he thinks pain should be a guiding principle in our lives.
00:01:17.000 They also discussed the symbol of the snake, the relationship between faith and suffering, the effect we have on other people, and the beauty of sunsets.
00:01:25.000 I hope you enjoyed as much as I did.
00:01:32.000 Father Dave became president of Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2019,
00:01:52.000 the first Franciscan alumnus to lead the university.
00:01:56.000 Father Dave also earned a Master of Divinity, an MA in Theology, a Doctorate in Education, an Executive Jurist Doctorate.
00:02:06.000 He is a member of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, province of the Franciscan Third Order regular.
00:02:12.000 He was ordained a priest in 1996.
00:02:15.000 A well-known Catholic speaker and author, Father Dave has written seven books and produced several evangelistic films and video series,
00:02:23.000 including Sign of Contradiction, Metanoia, and Letters to Myself from the End of the World through the Ministry of the Wild Goose.
00:02:31.000 Please welcome Father Dave and our speaker, Dr. Peterson.
00:02:35.000 Well, thank you so much.
00:02:45.000 And again, I'm just very pleased that the turnout and everybody being able to join us this evening.
00:02:52.000 As Dr. Peterson and I were talking this morning, one of the things that he was mentioning was that he often doesn't come to universities anymore for many reasons.
00:03:02.000 And we asked him, well, then why did you accept our invitation?
00:03:07.000 And his response was, because you seem different.
00:03:12.000 I hope that was a compliment.
00:03:22.000 And it's been a blessing to have Dr. Peterson with us.
00:03:24.000 He's been so generous with his time all morning, spending time joining us and seeing our campus, joining us for liturgy.
00:03:31.000 So it's been a great blessing and honor to have you with us.
00:03:33.000 So thank you so much.
00:03:34.000 Thanks very much for the invitation.
00:03:37.000 So I appreciated Dr. Peterson's discussion on the corpus of the scripture of the Bible and the book.
00:03:47.000 And one of the things that he and I had talked about was to discuss a book, not the book.
00:03:55.000 Fair enough?
00:03:56.000 Yeah, definitely.
00:03:58.000 So when I was praying and discerning about which chapter I wanted to talk about, what I thought was most appropriate,
00:04:05.000 there were a few things that were going through my mind.
00:04:08.000 On Monday, we're starting the holiest week of the year for us.
00:04:12.000 We're entering in a holy week, which is a time that invites the church and the people of God to look at the cross that is ultimately going to lead us to the cross.
00:04:21.000 And how suffering is so central to the Christian experience and Christian redemption comes about through suffering.
00:04:28.000 So there was that that I was continuing to think about, but I was also pleased, Lord, reflecting on the fact that we're near the end of the pandemic.
00:04:37.000 And one of the things that I've been praying about over the last many weeks and months is how the pandemic has placed in forefront of our culture suffering and death and pain.
00:04:49.000 And it seems to me that we have not dealt with that very well.
00:04:53.000 And we've got to the place where so many people are riddled in fear as if suffering is to be run away from at every cost, at every opportunity.
00:05:03.000 The idea that there actually could be something beautiful and holy and salvific about suffering.
00:05:08.000 So when I was reading through your book and I saw in the last chapter, you speak about suffering and being able to do that with a sense of gratitude.
00:05:17.000 I just felt that that was the place that maybe we could talk about this evening.
00:05:21.000 And what does that look like?
00:05:23.000 The very beginning of the chapter, you say a much of your life you have been searching for certainty.
00:05:29.000 And then you pivot very quickly to speak about suffering.
00:05:32.000 So maybe two questions.
00:05:34.000 Your search for certainty.
00:05:36.000 How has that brought you to what you spoke about earlier this evening?
00:05:40.000 And why did you make such a quick pivot to talk about suffering?
00:05:44.000 Well, I think it's because if you're looking for certainty, the reality of suffering is certain.
00:05:58.000 I mean, what do you accept as evidence above all else?
00:06:04.000 That's a good question.
00:06:05.000 That's a hard question.
00:06:06.000 But I would say pain is up there.
00:06:08.000 It's very difficult not to believe in the reality of your own pain.
00:06:13.000 It's somewhat easier not to believe in the reality of other people's pain.
00:06:17.000 That's not so easy either, you know.
00:06:19.000 But your pain seems to be undeniably real.
00:06:25.000 And so it does beg a question, which is, you know, if pain is undeniably real, is that which overcomes pain even more real?
00:06:35.000 And I think that's, in some sense, that's the idea that lurks behind the idea of the resurrection.
00:06:42.000 I mean, I was going to tell a story during this lecture today, although there wasn't really a place for it.
00:06:50.000 But maybe this is a good place for it.
00:06:52.000 I'll tell you something else I've been thinking about, which really knocked me for a loop, let's say, which I probably still haven't really recovered from.
00:07:02.000 So a long while back, I had planned to do a series on Exodus.
00:07:07.000 I did a biblical series on Genesis, which people seem to appreciate, which I found extremely useful.
00:07:15.000 It was quite a privilege to have the time and the space to walk through those books and try to understand them first psychologically.
00:07:28.000 And I like to speak about things psychologically before I would ever dare to speak about them religiously.
00:07:33.000 I think you leave that for last resort in some sense.
00:07:36.000 I was thinking about some of the ideas that I talked about today, you know, about the Bible being the foundation of the lens through which we look at the world.
00:07:53.000 We have this idea that the Bible is a living text.
00:07:56.000 And, you know, if we embody it, then it's a living text.
00:07:59.000 That's actually accurate.
00:08:00.000 And I think to the degree that we're avatars of the Judeo-Christian tradition, that we do embody it for better or for worse.
00:08:11.000 And we're stuck with that or blessed by it or both.
00:08:18.000 The reason I didn't tell you the story was because I didn't know how to weave it into the theme that I was developing tonight.
00:08:25.000 But it's relevant to the theme of suffering and what might the reality of suffering and perhaps what might be more real than suffering.
00:08:32.000 So I'll tell you the story.
00:08:34.000 Hopefully I can do this reasonably briefly.
00:08:36.000 In the in when when Moses is leading the Israelites through the desert.
00:08:42.000 I'm very compelled by that story.
00:08:49.000 You know, so for example, one of the things that's really interesting about it is that the story begins with a tyrannical state.
00:08:58.000 And then it's the Spirit of God that leads the Hebrews.
00:09:04.000 Maybe it's the Spirit of God that characterizes the Hebrew longing for freedom.
00:09:11.000 And that's kind of an interesting idea, you know, psychologically.
00:09:15.000 You think that what's the Spirit of God?
00:09:18.000 The Spirit of God is that which manifests itself within you in opposition to tyranny.
00:09:23.000 Could be, you know, that's that's not a bad idea.
00:09:29.000 It's quite an idea. It's a remarkable idea.
00:09:31.000 And maybe it's true.
00:09:33.000 It's certainly the case that that's how God is presented in that story.
00:09:37.000 And in many other ways, but that being paramount above all.
00:09:46.000 And, you know, there's a there's another corollary to that, which is what we shouldn't be subjects of tyranny.
00:09:52.000 If we're children of God and for Israel and Israel means we who struggle with God, it's not appropriate for us to be subject to tyranny.
00:10:03.000 And that's interesting, too, because I think we we we sort of accept that idea at face value in the West is that, yeah, slavery is wrong, obviously.
00:10:15.000 It's like it's not so bloody obvious, these things.
00:10:18.000 You know, one of the things that I'm really curious about in relationship to the postmodern types,
00:10:22.000 who make group membership the sine qua non of existence is why is slavery wrong?
00:10:28.000 Exactly. It's like it's just one for all groups and one group lords it over another.
00:10:33.000 It's like that's not wrong. It's just tough luck for the for the oppressed group.
00:10:38.000 It's there's no wrong there because it's only wrong if we're sovereign individuals.
00:10:42.000 Right. With some intrinsic worth who are not to be subject to arbitrary tyranny.
00:10:48.000 That's when it's wrong and you have to accept all those other axioms before you get to say anything about slavery being wrong at all.
00:10:56.000 Otherwise, it's just, hey, like Marx pointed out, it's just brute economics.
00:11:02.000 And so you can make a moral judgment about that if you want.
00:11:05.000 But what's your criteria for saying that it's wrong?
00:11:09.000 You know, and of course that would upset people on the radical left who want to presume that it's intrinsically wrong,
00:11:16.000 without having to presume all the things that you have to presume to make it intrinsically wrong.
00:11:20.000 And without even noticing that that's just a sleight of hand.
00:11:23.000 In any case, so that's part of that biblical narrative too.
00:11:26.000 We're not the sorts of creatures who should be subject to tyranny.
00:11:29.000 And then the tyranny might be, well, is it the tyranny of a state?
00:11:32.000 Or is it the tyranny we impose on ourselves?
00:11:35.000 And I would say, probably both. Why not both?
00:11:38.000 The story could be referring to both.
00:11:39.000 We tyrannize ourselves with our own presuppositions all the time.
00:11:43.000 And then you might ask yourself, why?
00:11:46.000 Why don't we just give up our tyrannical presuppositions?
00:11:49.000 You know, because they're not worthy and they're oppressive.
00:11:54.000 But we don't give them up and we often celebrate them.
00:11:57.000 And I think the story has an answer for that too, because it's out of the tyranny into the desert.
00:12:04.000 It's like, is that better or worse?
00:12:06.000 How about worse?
00:12:08.000 And so what if it's the case that even to escape from the tyranny of your own presuppositions,
00:12:14.000 that you don't go from the tyranny to the Promised Land, you go from the tyranny to the desert.
00:12:20.000 And who the hell, excuse me, wants to do that?
00:12:25.000 And the answer is no one with any sense.
00:12:27.000 It's like, hey, I'll just keep the tyranny. Thank you very much.
00:12:29.000 At least I know where everything belongs there.
00:12:33.000 And fair enough. I mean, this is a very serious question.
00:12:36.000 And it's an open question in the Exodus narrative whether the desert is worse or better than the tyranny.
00:12:42.000 And so, and you know, you see this in the real world.
00:12:45.000 Lots of people in the Soviet Union pined for the days of Stalin.
00:12:49.000 So I read a book once that was reminiscences of an extermination camp written by the guards.
00:12:58.000 The good old days.
00:13:00.000 You know, so I don't think there's a tyranny that's so brute that we can't long for it if it's been shattered.
00:13:07.000 And so that's quite something all that packed up in that story.
00:13:11.000 Anyways, the Israelites are out in the desert and they're there for 40 years.
00:13:17.000 And you might think, well, what kind of leadership do they have?
00:13:19.000 It's not that big a desert.
00:13:21.000 And the answer is, yeah, but you know, the desert after a tyranny, that's no bloody joke.
00:13:25.000 And maybe it takes three generations to get through it.
00:13:28.000 And that's possible.
00:13:29.000 And so there's all that.
00:13:32.000 And then the Israelites are wandering around in the desert.
00:13:34.000 And what happens?
00:13:35.000 Well, the same thing happened to them as it's happening to us.
00:13:39.000 They're worshipping false idols.
00:13:40.000 And they're tempted.
00:13:41.000 And it's no wonder they're tempted because, well, they're in the desert.
00:13:46.000 It's like it's not going so well.
00:13:47.000 It's no wonder they're having a crisis of confidence.
00:13:50.000 You know?
00:13:51.000 And maybe they're pining for the old days.
00:13:53.000 And they're not so sure that the God who informed them that being the subjects of tyranny
00:13:59.000 was wrong because now here we are in the desert.
00:14:02.000 And so they lack faith.
00:14:06.000 And it's understandable.
00:14:10.000 But despite it being understandable, and this is one of the harsh things about the story,
00:14:15.000 what does God do when he hears their complaints?
00:14:19.000 He sends poisonous snakes in there to bite them.
00:14:22.000 I think that's pretty brutal.
00:14:24.000 You know, and that's the sort of thing that makes the technical atheist type sort of recoil
00:14:28.000 about the conceptions of God in the Old Testament.
00:14:31.000 It's like it's not exactly what you'd expect in some sense from an all-merciful being.
00:14:37.000 It's like you've got these poor Israelites.
00:14:40.000 First of all, they were in the tyranny.
00:14:42.000 Then they had to go across the Red Sea.
00:14:44.000 Now they've been wandering around in the desert.
00:14:47.000 And that's not good.
00:14:49.000 And so your best solution is to send a bunch of snakes in to bite them?
00:14:54.000 But you think, well, you know, even if you're in the desert after a tyranny and you lose faith,
00:15:00.000 then the snakes are going to bite you.
00:15:02.000 Right?
00:15:03.000 Because that's what happens.
00:15:04.000 Because if you're in, you know, a little analog of hell and you lose your faith,
00:15:11.000 is that going to make it worse or better?
00:15:14.000 And the answer is, well, I have reason to lose my faith.
00:15:17.000 It's like, fair enough.
00:15:19.000 That isn't the question.
00:15:21.000 The question is, what happens if you lose it?
00:15:23.000 Or you start looking for faith in the wrong directions?
00:15:26.000 And the answer is, hell gets a little deeper.
00:15:30.000 That's one of the things that really frightened me.
00:15:32.000 I spent a lot of time studying atrocity.
00:15:34.000 And when I realized on a metaphorical level that the reason hell is a bottomless pit
00:15:40.000 is because no matter how bad it is, there is some bloody stupid thing you can do that will make it worse.
00:15:45.000 And that's right.
00:15:46.000 You know, and that's a terrifying realization to really understand that.
00:15:50.000 And so, okay, poisonous snakes.
00:15:54.000 And so now the Israelites are not only lost, but they're being bitten by venomous creatures.
00:15:59.000 And, you know, there's an echo of the snake in the Garden of Eden in that story.
00:16:04.000 And so finally the Israelites, they get kind of tired of being bitten by the snakes.
00:16:10.000 And they go to Moses and say, you want to have a chat with God?
00:16:14.000 Because you seem to be in there fairly tight with him.
00:16:16.000 How about you get him to call off the snakes and maybe we'll behave a little better.
00:16:21.000 How's that for a deal?
00:16:23.000 And Moses says, okay, I'll see what I can do.
00:16:26.000 And he goes and has a chat with God, which is no trivial matter.
00:16:30.000 And God doesn't do what you'd expect.
00:16:32.000 Because what you'd expect, like, and this would even work in terms of making it a comprehensible narrative.
00:16:37.000 You'd think, okay, all right, guys, you've been bit enough.
00:16:41.000 No more snakes.
00:16:43.000 But that isn't what happens.
00:16:45.000 And I think the reason that it doesn't happen is because there's no getting rid of the snakes.
00:16:49.000 I think that's also why there's a snake in the Garden of Eden is there's just no getting rid of the snakes.
00:16:55.000 You have to learn to contend with them.
00:16:57.000 It's more that.
00:16:58.000 It's more that.
00:16:59.000 Or maybe it's better to learn to contend with snakes than it is to inhabit a world where there's no danger.
00:17:04.000 Maybe it's something like that.
00:17:06.000 I don't know.
00:17:07.000 Anyways, God says something extremely surprising and very interesting from the perspective of a clinical psychologist.
00:17:15.000 He tells Moses to cast snake in bronze and to raise it up on a staff.
00:17:23.000 And the staff seems to me to be a reference to the staff of Moses.
00:17:28.000 And that staff of Moses is something like the thing you put in the ground to orient yourself with.
00:17:33.000 It's the staff of God too.
00:17:35.000 And it's sort of like an axiom.
00:17:36.000 And maybe it's like the tree of life.
00:17:38.000 It's like here I stand.
00:17:40.000 It's a center point.
00:17:42.000 It's all of that.
00:17:43.000 In any case, you put the snake up on the staff.
00:17:46.000 That's also the symbol of healing, right?
00:17:48.000 The physician symbol of healing the staff with the snakes.
00:17:51.000 And so it is a symbol of transformation.
00:17:54.000 And partly that's because snakes shed their skin and are reborn.
00:17:57.000 And so they're viewed as agents of transformation.
00:18:00.000 And so that's all lurking in that symbol.
00:18:02.000 And then God says, get the Israelites to go look at the snake on the staff.
00:18:07.000 And then the poison won't poison them anymore.
00:18:10.000 And I read that as a clinician.
00:18:12.000 I thought that's really interesting because one of the things that we learned,
00:18:15.000 all schools of psychotherapy learned in the last hundred years,
00:18:18.000 is that if you get people to voluntarily confront what makes them afraid
00:18:22.000 and what makes them want to avoid, then they get better.
00:18:25.000 It's curative.
00:18:26.000 And so that's the message there.
00:18:28.000 It's like, well, if something is terrifying you, pay more attention to it.
00:18:34.000 And that's actually what you teach people in psychotherapy.
00:18:37.000 I mean, there's a variety of psychotherapeutic techniques,
00:18:39.000 but exposure is probably the cardinal technique.
00:18:47.000 It's like, if I can find out what you're avoiding
00:18:49.000 and get you to confront it voluntarily, you'll get better.
00:18:52.000 And the reason seems to be is that if you get people to confront what they're afraid of,
00:18:57.000 and sometimes what disgusts them, but what they'd like to avoid, let's say,
00:19:00.000 if you get them to confront it voluntarily, that could be the future even, you know, the indeterminate future,
00:19:05.000 they don't get less afraid.
00:19:07.000 They get braver.
00:19:09.000 They get braver.
00:19:10.000 And that's different.
00:19:11.000 It's not like they get accustomed to what they're looking at and they're no longer afraid.
00:19:15.000 That kind of happens, but it isn't really what happens.
00:19:17.000 What really happens is they discover there's a lot more to them than they thought.
00:19:21.000 And so they're not as easily intimidated then.
00:19:24.000 And so if you run a clinical client through a session of exposure therapy,
00:19:28.000 maybe they're afraid of an elevator or something like that,
00:19:30.000 you get them so they'll go in the elevator.
00:19:32.000 And sometimes they're often women because women have anxiety disorders more often than men.
00:19:37.000 One of the unintended consequences of that often is they'll go home and have the fight with their husband
00:19:42.000 that's been brewing for 30 years because they're now braver.
00:19:46.000 They see themselves in a different light because they've confronted this thing that terrifies them.
00:19:50.000 And so it's so interesting in that story that God's cure for the venomous serpent is voluntary exposure to the source of terror.
00:20:00.000 It's so interesting that that's the case.
00:20:02.000 But that, and this is relevant to the issue of suffering, right?
00:20:06.000 To confronting suffering dead on to actually focus your attention on that which you would like to avoid.
00:20:13.000 One of the remarkable parts of that story is also that one of the scariest words ever is,
00:20:19.000 if I was God, they wouldn't have been bitten in the first place, right?
00:20:22.000 So they put the, they've got the serpent, the serpent's on the pole, but they're still going to get bit.
00:20:26.000 And I think that that's what's essential about that is just because the serpent is there,
00:20:30.000 it doesn't mean that everything is fixed. It now looks like...
00:20:32.000 The snakes are still there.
00:20:33.000 But the transformation that takes place is the focus of the suffering becomes a symbol of faith for them.
00:20:39.000 And that's obviously in the cross.
00:20:41.000 Well, and part of the faith is the faith that enables them to go look at the serpent to begin with.
00:20:45.000 Absolutely.
00:20:46.000 Okay, so that leads us to the next part, which is in John.
00:20:49.000 Because Christ says, thousands of years later, that he has to be lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness.
00:20:54.000 It's like, okay, what in the world is going on there?
00:20:58.000 Because that's a hell of a thing for anyone to say about anything ever.
00:21:02.000 And it's, right, because what does that mean?
00:21:05.000 Why would the Son of God compare himself to a serpent?
00:21:07.000 And why that particular serpent and that serpent in the wilderness?
00:21:11.000 And I knew this old idea that lurks in all sorts of stories, in this corpus of stories that I talked about.
00:21:17.000 You know, there's an idea that the hero rescues his father from the belly of the beast.
00:21:22.000 That's a very, very old idea.
00:21:24.000 And what that seems to mean, to some degree, is that if you, if you look into the abyss, then that, what, reacquaint, it reacquaints you with the wisdom and possibility of your tradition.
00:21:38.000 It's something like that.
00:21:39.000 It forces that.
00:21:41.000 It forces a maturation and a recognition of what's fundamentally important.
00:21:45.000 That confrontation with what's terrifying.
00:21:47.000 Well, so Christ says he has to be lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness.
00:21:53.000 I thought, what does that mean?
00:21:56.000 I thought a lot about the relationship between the serpent in the Garden of Eden and the idea of Satan.
00:22:02.000 Because there's an association there between those two ideas.
00:22:05.000 And that's a very strange association, too.
00:22:08.000 Because there's nothing in the biblical story, in Genesis, that indicates that the serpent is Satan.
00:22:14.000 That's an idea that aggregates across hundreds of years or thousands of years, that equation.
00:22:21.000 And I tried to think that through.
00:22:23.000 I thought, well, the snake is the thing that threatens us.
00:22:27.000 And that's true biologically.
00:22:30.000 We're wired to be afraid of serpents, especially poisonous ones.
00:22:34.000 And they've been in an antagonistic relationship with mammals for like 60 million years.
00:22:39.000 Very long time.
00:22:40.000 But, in some sense, the idea of Satan is, he's the ultimate in serpents.
00:22:50.000 And so that's why that equation is drawn across time.
00:22:53.000 It's like, well, what threatens you?
00:22:55.000 Well, snakes.
00:22:56.000 Yeah, they're pretty nasty.
00:22:57.000 Well, there's snakes and then there's, well, the origin of snakes.
00:23:03.000 So maybe you conquer a snake and that's one thing.
00:23:06.000 And maybe the next thing is you go out and you find nests of snakes and you root them out.
00:23:10.000 But then there's the snakes that are in the hearts of your enemies.
00:23:13.000 That's a harder snake to deal with.
00:23:16.000 And then there's the snake that's in your heart.
00:23:18.000 And that's the hardest snake to deal with, right?
00:23:20.000 And that's where the equation between the serpent and Satan comes.
00:23:23.000 Because the worst of all snakes is the serpent in your own heart.
00:23:26.000 And so there's a, there's a psychologization of the idea of the predator.
00:23:31.000 And it becomes something that's more spiritual.
00:23:33.000 It's that you're most vulnerable to the worst impulses within you, right?
00:23:43.000 That's the worst predator.
00:23:46.000 Okay.
00:23:47.000 So there's the idea of the, the concretization of the idea of the serpent becoming psychologized
00:23:52.000 up into this figure of the adversary himself.
00:23:55.000 And that abides within you.
00:23:59.000 Analogously, perhaps, is this reference that Christ makes to himself in relationship to the snake.
00:24:07.000 Because I thought, well, what's the passion?
00:24:11.000 If the snake is what you're afraid of, in this concretized sense,
00:24:17.000 then the passion is the sum total of all possible fears.
00:24:22.000 And I think that's right.
00:24:24.000 You know, Carl Jung, he thought about the story of the passion as an archetypal tragedy.
00:24:28.000 And here's what he meant by that.
00:24:31.000 So imagine that you took all the tragedies that were ever written.
00:24:34.000 And you sort of, you distilled them.
00:24:38.000 So that you got the ultimate tragedy.
00:24:40.000 Because the fact that you can identify a bunch of different stories as tragic means they have something in common, right?
00:24:45.000 And so you could imagine you could pull out the central pattern of tragedy.
00:24:49.000 And we could flesh out some of what that might be.
00:24:52.000 Like, it's tragic when something bad happens to someone.
00:24:55.000 Well, what if they deserve it?
00:24:58.000 Okay, well, then it's not so tragic.
00:25:00.000 It still might have an element of tragedy.
00:25:02.000 But it's really tragic if something really terrible happens to someone who clearly doesn't deserve it.
00:25:07.000 So what's the most tragic story?
00:25:10.000 Well, it's the worst possible thing happening to the person who least deserves it.
00:25:14.000 Well, that's core to the passion story.
00:25:16.000 That's for sure, right?
00:25:17.000 Because not only is Christ innocent.
00:25:20.000 He's not merely innocent.
00:25:23.000 He's also good.
00:25:24.000 And not just good.
00:25:25.000 He's as good as it gets.
00:25:27.000 And yet, his life is this...
00:25:30.000 The tragic...
00:25:32.000 The tragedy of the passion is the worst of all possible punishments visited upon the least deserving person.
00:25:38.000 But it's way worse than that.
00:25:41.000 That just barely begins to scrape the surface.
00:25:43.000 Because it's torture.
00:25:46.000 And a terrible torture.
00:25:48.000 Because the Romans designed crucifixion to be a terrible torture.
00:25:51.000 Like, consciously.
00:25:52.000 And so, it's tragedy at the hands of your fellow man.
00:25:57.000 And your fellow man motivated by the spirit of Cain in the most fundamental sense.
00:26:02.000 How can I inflict the most misery possible in the shortest period of time, let's say.
00:26:07.000 Subject to that.
00:26:08.000 At a young age, with foreknowledge, as a consequence of betrayal by your best friend.
00:26:13.000 At the hands of a mob.
00:26:15.000 Of your own people.
00:26:17.000 Who are simultaneously under the thumb of a tyranny.
00:26:20.000 That's part and parcel of what's persecuting you.
00:26:23.000 Who persecute you.
00:26:25.000 Knowing you're innocent.
00:26:27.000 Not just innocent.
00:26:28.000 But also good.
00:26:29.000 And who choose to punish you.
00:26:31.000 Instead of punishing someone they know to be criminal.
00:26:34.000 It's all of that.
00:26:36.000 It's like the sum total of all possible fears.
00:26:38.000 And I think that's right.
00:26:40.000 And it's so interesting to me that.
00:26:42.000 Psychologically.
00:26:43.000 That.
00:26:44.000 Not speaking religiously.
00:26:46.000 To the degree that that's possible.
00:26:47.000 When speaking about such things.
00:26:49.000 Is that.
00:26:50.000 Our culture has put at it's center.
00:26:53.000 An archetypal tragedy.
00:26:56.000 It's as if we're attempting to inoculate ourselves against the catastrophe of life.
00:27:03.000 And.
00:27:04.000 But what's.
00:27:05.000 Also so fascinating about the story of the passion is that.
00:27:09.000 The crucifixion is not the end of the story.
00:27:12.000 The end of the story is the resurrection.
00:27:14.000 And so.
00:27:15.000 The implication there is the same as the implication.
00:27:18.000 Of.
00:27:19.000 Going into the abyss to rescue your father from the belly of the beast.
00:27:24.000 It's like.
00:27:25.000 The tragedy isn't the end of the story.
00:27:27.000 The resurrection is the end of the story.
00:27:29.000 And so then you wonder what that means psychologically.
00:27:32.000 Because what you see in psychotherapeutic session.
00:27:35.000 In the psychotherapeutic milieu.
00:27:38.000 Is that.
00:27:39.000 If you get people to expose themselves to what they're terrified of.
00:27:43.000 Being terrified isn't the end of the story.
00:27:47.000 Recovering is the end of the story.
00:27:49.000 And so that begs the question is like.
00:27:51.000 Well.
00:27:52.000 To what degree are we capable of.
00:27:54.000 Bearing suffering and prevailing.
00:27:56.000 And the answer might be.
00:27:58.000 To the degree that we're capable of confronting it forthrightly.
00:28:01.000 And that might actually just be true.
00:28:03.000 And.
00:28:04.000 You know you think well.
00:28:06.000 How could it be otherwise in some sense.
00:28:08.000 Like what's going to call the best out of you.
00:28:10.000 If it isn't the most.
00:28:11.000 What's most challenging.
00:28:12.000 Because it's not that easy to get the best called out of you.
00:28:15.000 It's not going to just happen because someone rings your doorbell.
00:28:17.000 Right.
00:28:18.000 You have to be shook to the core.
00:28:19.000 Before.
00:28:20.000 You're going to undertake.
00:28:21.000 What's necessary to.
00:28:22.000 Make the sacrifices that are.
00:28:24.000 Required to put you in.
00:28:26.000 Alignment.
00:28:27.000 Alignment.
00:28:28.000 That's.
00:28:29.000 That's.
00:28:30.000 That doesn't happen.
00:28:32.000 With no reason.
00:28:33.000 So.
00:28:34.000 Well.
00:28:35.000 So.
00:28:36.000 Are you grateful for your suffering as a consequence of that.
00:28:42.000 I don't know.
00:28:43.000 That's a high standard.
00:28:44.000 Man.
00:28:45.000 That's a high standard.
00:28:46.000 And.
00:28:47.000 And maybe it's unrealistic.
00:28:48.000 But.
00:28:49.000 But I think one of the things that.
00:28:50.000 That.
00:28:51.000 Faith brings us to.
00:28:52.000 Is.
00:28:53.000 And we were talking about it when we're in the.
00:28:55.000 In the chapel.
00:28:56.000 In the friary.
00:28:57.000 Is that.
00:28:58.000 The cross.
00:28:59.000 And it's.
00:29:00.000 It's.
00:29:01.000 Very.
00:29:02.000 Catholic.
00:29:03.000 Is that we always see Jesus there.
00:29:04.000 That the corpus.
00:29:05.000 Is there.
00:29:06.000 And.
00:29:07.000 Because you talk about.
00:29:08.000 In the.
00:29:09.000 In your chapter.
00:29:10.000 But what does it look like to transcend.
00:29:11.000 Suffering.
00:29:12.000 And what does that individual look like.
00:29:13.000 And.
00:29:14.000 In some ways our.
00:29:15.000 Our businesses are similar.
00:29:16.000 Right.
00:29:17.000 People are bringing their brokenness to you.
00:29:18.000 And they bring their brokenness to me.
00:29:19.000 But I believe in a God that.
00:29:21.000 That can transform that.
00:29:22.000 So I was asking myself.
00:29:23.000 Well what does that look like.
00:29:24.000 And.
00:29:25.000 And I recall.
00:29:26.000 A priest that I met in Africa.
00:29:27.000 And I believe what he had was.
00:29:28.000 Lou Gehrig's disease.
00:29:29.000 So by the time I met him.
00:29:30.000 He was no longer.
00:29:31.000 Able to really move his arms or legs very well.
00:29:34.000 We were praying that the Lord would heal him in that.
00:29:36.000 And then he began to share his story with me.
00:29:39.000 And what had taken place.
00:29:40.000 In he and his community.
00:29:42.000 In the midst of his sickness.
00:29:43.000 In the midst of his suffering.
00:29:45.000 Was he said.
00:29:46.000 People didn't used to go to church very much.
00:29:48.000 But since I've been sick.
00:29:49.000 People are coming.
00:29:50.000 And that they wouldn't line up for confessions.
00:29:52.000 But since I've been sick.
00:29:54.000 There's a long line of people coming to confession.
00:29:56.000 He said the church was half full.
00:29:59.000 And now it's packed.
00:30:01.000 He said people begin to speak.
00:30:03.000 And they say that I'm more empathetic.
00:30:05.000 That I'm more compassionate.
00:30:06.000 That I'm more loving.
00:30:07.000 That I'm more kind.
00:30:09.000 And I'm embarrassed to admit that at that moment.
00:30:11.000 As he was sharing his story about the transformation.
00:30:13.000 That was taken both in he.
00:30:15.000 And in the community.
00:30:16.000 I was praying.
00:30:17.000 Lord please don't heal him.
00:30:19.000 Because if we believe that this is what I want to be.
00:30:23.000 Right?
00:30:24.000 I want to be loving.
00:30:25.000 And I want to be kind.
00:30:26.000 And I want to be generous.
00:30:27.000 And I want to be empathetic.
00:30:28.000 But I don't want it to be through the cross.
00:30:29.000 There's got to be another way that we can discover that.
00:30:32.000 Wouldn't that be nice?
00:30:33.000 Wouldn't it though?
00:30:34.000 Right?
00:30:35.000 The key to the central Christian reality is it's through that cross.
00:30:38.000 That we are transformed.
00:30:40.000 It's by.
00:30:41.000 One of the things I was reflecting on.
00:30:42.000 Jesus embraces his cross.
00:30:44.000 His suffering.
00:30:45.000 And says yes to that.
00:30:46.000 A yes which.
00:30:47.000 I just can't imagine.
00:30:48.000 Mary says yes to it too.
00:30:50.000 Yes, yes.
00:30:51.000 She offers her son to that.
00:30:52.000 That's the question that I want to talk about.
00:30:53.000 Is which is more difficult.
00:30:54.000 For he does.
00:30:55.000 Good question.
00:30:56.000 Thank you.
00:30:57.000 I'd rather not do either.
00:30:58.000 Just a second.
00:30:59.000 Good question.
00:31:00.000 Thank you very much.
00:31:01.000 I think we're done.
00:31:02.000 Thank you for coming.
00:31:03.000 Right?
00:31:04.000 But isn't that in fact the case?
00:31:06.000 Is that when Jesus embraced his suffering, he gives life to the world.
00:31:10.000 He breaks the power of this evil one over the snake and gives life.
00:31:14.000 Suffering is no longer meaningless.
00:31:16.000 Actually it's salvific.
00:31:18.000 But the same thing happened with this priest in this community in Nairobi, Africa.
00:31:22.000 Is that he embraced the suffering and it transformed him, yes.
00:31:25.000 But it also transformed the community around him.
00:31:28.000 Because they saw the way and the manner with which he suffered.
00:31:32.000 And he embraced that.
00:31:33.000 And he found that to be transformative.
00:31:35.000 Isn't that what it means when you talk about transcending this?
00:31:38.000 And you talk about how the impact that that can have on another person watching.
00:31:42.000 That's what the invitation, that's what the gospel is inviting us to.
00:31:45.000 Yeah.
00:31:46.000 That seems right to me.
00:31:47.000 Okay.
00:31:48.000 So how do you reconcile this?
00:31:49.000 Thank you.
00:31:50.000 Another point.
00:31:51.000 This is going great.
00:31:52.000 Reconcile them in what's said.
00:31:53.000 So you tell the story and you tell the story beautifully of the past and the resurrection.
00:31:57.000 But how do you personally approach that?
00:32:00.000 How do you reconcile this reality?
00:32:02.000 I think that's what you try to do in your life.
00:32:05.000 You know, I mean, this is an idea that I derived, I would say, in large part from reading Jung, Carl Jung.
00:32:15.000 He talked about, psychologically again, about the two great ideas about Christ.
00:32:21.000 You know, there's the idea in John that Christ is the word that was there at the beginning of time and at the end of time.
00:32:28.000 It's this temporally eternal divine word.
00:32:34.000 Impersonal in some sense, almost.
00:32:37.000 What do you mean by that?
00:32:39.000 Well, because it's something that extends from the beginning of time to the end of time isn't so evidently human.
00:32:44.000 You know, it's elevated beyond the confines of what's merely human.
00:32:50.000 But it lacks something as a consequence of that too, right?
00:32:53.000 It lacks time and place.
00:32:54.000 And the way Christianity...
00:32:56.000 The nature of the incarnation.
00:32:57.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:32:58.000 Exactly.
00:32:59.000 It bridges that gap.
00:33:00.000 I had a student once who asked me, why don't we just tell the same archetypal story over and over?
00:33:04.000 Why do we need all these variations?
00:33:06.000 And I thought, that's a really good question.
00:33:09.000 I'm not exactly sure about that.
00:33:11.000 And then I thought, oh, it's related to this issue, is that there's the divine word, but there's the incarnation.
00:33:17.000 And the incarnation indicates that the specifics of time and place are just as important as the eternal that surrounds it.
00:33:25.000 And so then I would say, well, that's probably true in each of our lives.
00:33:28.000 Is that, well, how do we reconcile this?
00:33:30.000 Well, that's your ethical adventure.
00:33:33.000 How do you reconcile that?
00:33:35.000 And we each do it in our own way and with tremendous difficulty, I would say.
00:33:39.000 And we do it aided and abetted if we're fortunate by people that love and care for us.
00:33:44.000 But that is the challenge.
00:33:45.000 You know, a huge part of the challenge of life.
00:33:48.000 And this is something I try to concentrate on in this last chapter is, how do you bear the suffering that is at the crux of life without becoming tempted and embittered?
00:34:02.000 That's really, really difficult.
00:34:04.000 Now, you know, someone might point out, go ahead and be bitter.
00:34:08.000 See where that gets you.
00:34:09.000 And if you have any sense, and generally people have at least some, they know that being sick and bitter is worse than just being sick.
00:34:17.000 And that being right is worse.
00:34:19.000 But it's very hard temptation to avoid.
00:34:23.000 Sometimes you want to be bitter just out of spite, in some sense, because things are so terrible.
00:34:29.000 All you've got left is your willingness to shake your fist, you know, and say, well, you know, really?
00:34:35.000 Is this, like, this many poisonous snakes?
00:34:39.000 Really?
00:34:40.000 That's, like, maybe I could have learned with just one or two, not a hundred.
00:34:44.000 And so, but we're stuck.
00:34:47.000 We're all stuck with that.
00:34:48.000 And I think we're stuck with it at every level of our life, in some senses.
00:34:52.000 How do we maintain a high order moral orientation in spite of suffering and malevolence?
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00:37:47.000 When I was a young seminarian, one of the things that I struggled with, I worked in a neonatal intensive care.
00:37:52.000 In this summer, I baptized over 20 babies and all the babies died.
00:37:56.000 And it was very, I was a seminarian, I was supposed to have all the answers, right?
00:38:01.000 And they'd come to me and they'd say, you know, tell me real quick, why did this happen?
00:38:04.000 You know, this God, why did he allow this to happen?
00:38:07.000 And I came to the place, a couple things.
00:38:09.000 One is that I didn't have to, I didn't have to defend God.
00:38:12.000 Like in my own mind and my own heart, there was something very freeing in that.
00:38:15.000 I don't know why.
00:38:16.000 And what kind of explanation, let me explain to you why this happened.
00:38:19.000 Oh, well, thank you so much.
00:38:20.000 Right.
00:38:21.000 Yeah, that makes sense.
00:38:22.000 I wish somebody would have told me that, right?
00:38:23.000 But what I did, what I would continually come to is that, and this is a mystery of the faith,
00:38:28.000 that Jesus is present in the midst of the suffering.
00:38:31.000 And I tell this story, actually the first book I wrote was on freedom.
00:38:35.000 And I spent a lot of time in that Exodus text because that's the invitation to look at Pharaoh
00:38:40.000 and be freed and that.
00:38:41.000 But that when we're children and we fall down and we scrape our knee,
00:38:46.000 our mom comes and she kisses us and she pats us on the head and said, it's going to be okay.
00:38:50.000 And it is.
00:38:52.000 I mean, really, what has she done?
00:38:53.000 She's kissed me on the head and she's patted me and said, it's going to be okay.
00:38:56.000 But we grow up and we don't think that's enough anymore.
00:39:00.000 But my experience tells me is that when Christ can do that for me, in the midst of my brokenness,
00:39:10.000 in the midst of my suffering, in the midst of my pain, it reminds me that I'm loved, right?
00:39:16.000 I remember sitting in the chapel.
00:39:17.000 It was a Thursday evening as a seminarian trying to figure all this out
00:39:21.000 and hearing the Lord breaking in the midst of that and say, Dave, I love you.
00:39:24.000 And I said, well, I appreciate that, but that's not the issue.
00:39:26.000 Let me explain the issue.
00:39:27.000 What am I supposed to tell these people?
00:39:29.000 And he reminds me that I'm loved.
00:39:32.000 And it's enough.
00:39:35.000 It's enough.
00:39:36.000 And it's the Christian mystery of suffering that it ought not be something that we try to escape,
00:39:42.000 but it's actually an invitation that we continually find Jesus.
00:39:45.000 Because I suggest that when we find God in the presence of the suffering, we can find him anywhere.
00:39:50.000 It's easy to find him in a sunset or in a baptism.
00:39:53.000 Take a brand-new baby, pour oil all over him and grease him up, and it smells the chrism.
00:39:59.000 It's wonderful.
00:40:00.000 It's easy to find him in that.
00:40:01.000 How about cancer?
00:40:02.000 Yeah.
00:40:03.000 How about that?
00:40:04.000 And divorce?
00:40:05.000 And infertility?
00:40:06.000 That when we can find, and that it's the mystery of our faith that God enters the messiness.
00:40:11.000 Rather than just fixing it from the outside, he enters this and takes this upon himself and transforms it.
00:40:19.000 When we find him there, I suggest we find him anywhere.
00:40:21.000 My experience is that our faith becomes more real.
00:40:25.000 It becomes more authentic.
00:40:26.000 It becomes more present when we can find him in the midst of that.
00:40:33.000 Yeah.
00:40:34.000 Well, what would I say about that?
00:40:41.000 Well, I guess one of the things I would say about that is that perhaps it looks like, you know,
00:40:49.000 we have something difficult to do, as it turns out.
00:40:53.000 You know, we might think, and why wouldn't we, that we would rather that things were easy and pain-free and fair enough.
00:41:03.000 But that isn't what our life is like.
00:41:08.000 It's extremely difficult.
00:41:11.000 It's difficult to maintain an ethical orientation in the midst of malevolence and suffering.
00:41:17.000 And that means, in some sense, and I suppose this is part and parcel of the Christian story, that we have some divine calling.
00:41:26.000 It's something like that.
00:41:28.000 It's like, and that divine calling is to establish what's good in the midst of what isn't.
00:41:36.000 To be Jesus in the midst of it.
00:41:39.000 To be Christ.
00:41:40.000 Yeah, well, that's the question.
00:41:42.000 See, I guess I don't know exactly what to make of that because I don't know to what degree we're called on to find Christ in the middle of that, let's say, or to be lifted up like that in the middle of that.
00:42:01.000 I think it's both and.
00:42:02.000 Yeah, well, fair enough.
00:42:04.000 I think so.
00:42:05.000 The Christ, I mean, to the degree, and this is, I think, if I can't, and this is hard.
00:42:10.000 If I can't find Christ in me, then I can't find him in them.
00:42:14.000 And if I don't see what he's done, how he's alive in me, then it's, as a priest or as a believer, it's hard for me to invite somebody else to that.
00:42:23.000 And it's hard for me to see him in somebody else.
00:42:26.000 So that's where I have to first, Paul says that it's Christ who is alive in me.
00:42:30.000 When I experience that, not just read it.
00:42:33.000 It's not just a corpus that we look at, that we read the Bible, but it's alive.
00:42:37.000 It's a living word.
00:42:38.000 When that becomes alive in me, then it allows me to be able to see that in other people.
00:42:43.000 Because I know me.
00:42:45.000 Because if I can find him in me, because I know what goes in this head.
00:42:48.000 Well, and you see, you know, when you see people who are noble in spite of their suffering, it is ennobling.
00:42:53.000 It is uplifting.
00:42:55.000 Like, really, it is.
00:42:56.000 And it's been striking to me, too.
00:43:00.000 People want to be encouraged in that direction.
00:43:03.000 I mean, part of the reason that my lectures, I would say, have been successful, to the degree that they have been, is because people find them encouraging.
00:43:12.000 And that actually seems to work.
00:43:15.000 Like, it seems to be positive.
00:43:17.000 Because it isn't necessarily...
00:43:18.000 It seems to be good news.
00:43:19.000 Well, it seems to be.
00:43:20.000 I mean, it isn't necessarily the case that that would be the case, you know.
00:43:23.000 Because it could have been that I would have said encouraging things to people, there's more to you than meets the eye.
00:43:28.000 And you're capable of more than you're demanding of yourself.
00:43:31.000 And, you know, if you took on your responsibility and faced the things that you're trying to avoid, that your life would be richer and better for you and for everyone around you.
00:43:41.000 And the result of that could have been that thousands of people would come to me and say, you know, I gave that a pretty good shot.
00:43:47.000 And your advice is really awful.
00:43:49.000 And everything is...
00:43:50.000 Well, seriously.
00:43:51.000 Like, I took on that responsibility.
00:43:53.000 It just bloody crushed me.
00:43:54.000 And I'm way worse off than I was before.
00:43:56.000 And everything's gone to hell around me.
00:43:58.000 And, like, thanks a lot, buddy.
00:44:00.000 And that...
00:44:02.000 And that...
00:44:03.000 It's not like that's a completely incomprehensible possibility.
00:44:08.000 But that doesn't seem to be what happens.
00:44:10.000 It's what generally happens is that young people in particular, but not only, come to me and say, look, I've been trying to take on more responsibility.
00:44:18.000 And to face the things I've been avoiding.
00:44:20.000 And everything is way better.
00:44:22.000 It's like, okay, well, hmm, isn't that something?
00:44:25.000 Maybe I'm something.
00:44:26.000 Well, then you ask yourself, well, what's the limit of that?
00:44:29.000 Because that's the religious question, fundamentally, is, well, if you took on all the responsibility you could take on,
00:44:35.000 and you faced everything that you needed to face, what would you be like?
00:44:41.000 Who would you be?
00:44:42.000 And how would the world transform around you?
00:44:44.000 And, well, if the partial answer is, well, if I do that a little bit, things get a fair bit better, then the next question might be, well, what if you did that completely?
00:44:55.000 And I don't think that's possible in some sense, right?
00:44:58.000 It's like, you know, perfection is a horizon that always recedes.
00:45:02.000 But it isn't obvious to me what the upper limit of that is.
00:45:06.000 And certainly we do see people, I mean, saints, let's say.
00:45:09.000 Yeah, that's what you say.
00:45:10.000 It's a Mother Teresa.
00:45:11.000 It's a Francis of Assisi.
00:45:12.000 Who kind of push the limit.
00:45:14.000 And they, miraculous things happen around them, maybe in the literal sense.
00:45:19.000 And if not in the literal sense, close enough, you know, for all intents and purposes.
00:45:24.000 And so that's heartening.
00:45:26.000 I mean, I tear myself apart about this in many ways because I think perhaps it's possible to take on too much responsibility and to crush yourself as a consequence.
00:45:39.000 Maybe that's a sin of pride.
00:45:41.000 Who knows?
00:45:42.000 It's certainly possible.
00:45:43.000 But my experience so far has been that when you see people bear their suffering nobly, there's nothing in that but good.
00:45:54.000 That's something.
00:45:56.000 And then when you see people take on more responsibility and decide that they're going to aim up and confront their suffering honestly and forthrightly, that their lives get better.
00:46:07.000 And the lives of people around them get better too.
00:46:10.000 And so that's very strange as well because it also means that the pathway to less suffering is through suffering.
00:46:19.000 Right?
00:46:20.000 And that's kind of, that would be hopeful if the world was constituted that way.
00:46:24.000 It's like, well, there's suffering.
00:46:26.000 How do you make it worse?
00:46:27.000 Run away.
00:46:28.000 How do you make it better?
00:46:30.000 Confront it.
00:46:31.000 Yeah, but it's suffering.
00:46:32.000 It's like, yeah, but it's there.
00:46:34.000 There it is.
00:46:35.000 It's right there.
00:46:36.000 It's a precondition for existence or something like that.
00:46:39.000 And it's like you have something important to do as well.
00:46:42.000 And you confront it and that's the pathway to transcending it.
00:46:47.000 Probably.
00:46:49.000 It's rough.
00:46:50.000 Maybe we wish it would be different.
00:46:52.000 And maybe we don't too.
00:46:54.000 Yeah.
00:46:55.000 When I was reflecting on parts of your chapter, one of the things I was reflecting on in light of also the snake, right?
00:47:01.000 I think a good suggestion is not to have a conversation with the serpent, all things being equal.
00:47:05.000 But he ultimately, they believe the lie, right?
00:47:08.000 And I think isn't one of the greatest lies of the culture of the evil one, I would say.
00:47:12.000 And I find it really interesting.
00:47:14.000 You use the word the adversary and Satan, which from a psychologist and a scientist, this morning you said, yeah, you meant that.
00:47:22.000 That there is an evil.
00:47:24.000 There is a personification of evil.
00:47:25.000 If you read anything about Auschwitz, about the Nazi death camps, about what happened in the Soviet Union.
00:47:40.000 If you read that sort of thing seriously or if you read about people who've done...
00:47:44.000 I read a lot of books about the worst serial killers.
00:47:50.000 And I mean, that's quite the competition.
00:47:53.000 And to be the worst serial killer, which people do compete for, by the way.
00:47:58.000 It's not like the high school shooters don't know about the reputations of all the other high school shooters.
00:48:04.000 It's not like they don't try to outdo them because they certainly do and they do it consciously.
00:48:10.000 I mean, if you read those accounts and you don't walk away with the notion that evil exists and that the notion of an adversary is like as real as it gets, then you just haven't read very carefully.
00:48:23.000 But how do your peers deal with that when you say that?
00:48:25.000 They don't.
00:48:26.000 You know, I mean, psychologists generally don't.
00:48:28.000 I mean, some clinical psychologists talk about evil.
00:48:32.000 But non-clinicians tend not to.
00:48:35.000 And that's because they're just never...
00:48:37.000 They just aren't confronted by it.
00:48:40.000 You are if you're a clinician.
00:48:41.000 I mean, you see things in families that are so terrible that they're inexpressible and multi-generational often.
00:48:48.000 You know, and the only language that you can really fit that sort of thing in is a religious language.
00:48:53.000 That's the only language that's serious enough.
00:48:56.000 And, you know, people, I don't know, the idea of evil is taboo idea scientifically.
00:49:01.000 It's like, have it your way.
00:49:03.000 You know, one of the things that Solzhenitsyn claimed was that the Nuremberg judgments were the most significant ethical event of the 20th century.
00:49:12.000 Or at least among them.
00:49:13.000 Because the Nuremberg judgment was that some things are wrong.
00:49:18.000 Right?
00:49:19.000 You don't get the excuse, I was following orders.
00:49:22.000 You don't get the excuse.
00:49:23.000 That's how my culture looks at it.
00:49:25.000 You don't get any excuses.
00:49:27.000 That's what a crime against humanity is.
00:49:29.000 It's like, do you believe in crimes against humanity?
00:49:31.000 The answer is either yes or no.
00:49:33.000 Because those are the two answers.
00:49:35.000 And if it's no, it's then okay.
00:49:37.000 You have the world where that's the belief.
00:49:40.000 And see how that goes.
00:49:41.000 And I'll have the world where I think that there are things that are evil.
00:49:44.000 And we'll see how that goes.
00:49:46.000 And because you're gonna not condemn the imposition of pointless suffering on people for the sake of the suffering.
00:49:57.000 That's not wrong in some fundamental and transcendental sense.
00:50:01.000 I mean, you can say no.
00:50:02.000 You know, say I don't believe in evil.
00:50:04.000 It's okay.
00:50:05.000 But that has its consequences.
00:50:07.000 And one of the consequences is you can't condemn evil.
00:50:10.000 That's a problem.
00:50:12.000 You know?
00:50:13.000 Or maybe not.
00:50:15.000 But it's not like a world where you don't condemn evil.
00:50:22.000 It isn't like there aren't consequences to that decision.
00:50:25.000 You know?
00:50:26.000 And I also think that there's no good where there's no evil.
00:50:30.000 Right?
00:50:31.000 And so, if you dispense with the idea of evil,
00:50:35.000 don't you simultaneously dispense with the idea of good?
00:50:39.000 I mean, because if something doesn't exist, how does its opposite exist?
00:50:46.000 And if evil doesn't exist, then how does good exist?
00:50:49.000 Because, in some sense, those two things are...
00:50:51.000 They're integrally linked in their reality.
00:50:55.000 One of them only can't exist.
00:50:57.000 Right?
00:50:58.000 That isn't how things work.
00:50:59.000 If there wasn't something that wasn't good, there couldn't be good.
00:51:03.000 And maybe that's the reason there's evil.
00:51:05.000 You know, metaphysically speaking.
00:51:07.000 Because you might ask yourself, well, why would God make a world
00:51:10.000 that's characterized by evil?
00:51:12.000 And the answer is, well, maybe evil can exist as a possibility,
00:51:15.000 but not a reality.
00:51:16.000 It could, if we did things right, evil could exist as a possibility
00:51:21.000 and not a reality.
00:51:22.000 Maybe to that end, Augustine says, a quote that I wrote as I was preparing,
00:51:26.000 God would not allow any evil to exist unless out of it he could draw a greater good.
00:51:31.000 This is the part of the wisdom and the goodness of God.
00:51:34.000 And as the believer, we see that ultimately in the crucifixion of Jesus.
00:51:37.000 That we call Good Friday, there's this craziness that we call it Good Friday
00:51:42.000 in the darkest day of human history.
00:51:44.000 Right.
00:51:45.000 But it's good, right?
00:51:46.000 That that day is good because of the salvation that comes about from that.
00:51:49.000 But to be able to make that step, honestly.
00:51:53.000 I think my suspicion is a lot of people that come and see you as a psychologist
00:51:57.000 is because they're not able to reconcile that.
00:51:59.000 They're not able to figure out that there is actually a good and an evil
00:52:03.000 and those two things ought to be recognized and seen.
00:52:06.000 Yeah, well it's very difficult to reconcile.
00:52:09.000 Especially if you, you know, one of the things you do that does happen to you as a clinician
00:52:13.000 and no doubt as a priest is that you see people, often people who are, often people are shattered.
00:52:21.000 Not because their life is tragic, although that does happen, but because they've been touched by malevolence.
00:52:27.000 Like, tragedy in and of itself isn't enough.
00:52:30.000 You know, you can bear a fair bit of tragedy, but if someone had it in for you,
00:52:36.000 and you know, you were betrayed, and your life was blown into pieces because of the voluntary betrayal
00:52:42.000 of someone who was aiming at your destruction.
00:52:45.000 And you think, well that doesn't happen.
00:52:47.000 It's like, yeah, well, you better wake up.
00:52:50.000 Because if you're asleep like that, it could easily happen to you.
00:52:53.000 And I wouldn't recommend it, because it happens to people all the time.
00:52:56.000 And sometimes they do it to themselves.
00:52:59.000 And that's brutal.
00:53:01.000 I recall the story of one of our graduates.
00:53:04.000 She was a nurse, and she was just a bathing patient, and her head nurse was kind of watching her.
00:53:13.000 And she pulled her aside a couple of days later, and she said,
00:53:16.000 I've watched the way you treat the patients.
00:53:19.000 You treat them differently.
00:53:21.000 She said, there's a tenderness about you, and an ability to see the person.
00:53:26.000 There's just something different.
00:53:28.000 And she asked her, what do you attribute this?
00:53:31.000 And she said, I suppose two things.
00:53:34.000 I've suffered greatly.
00:53:35.000 And this was a young woman that I'd walked with, and has known horrible abuse within her family,
00:53:42.000 which is just such a violation.
00:53:44.000 But she said, I've suffered greatly.
00:53:46.000 And then she said, and I've been loved greatly.
00:53:48.000 And it was interesting that her colleague could see that.
00:53:52.000 That there was something different about that.
00:53:54.000 And she attributed it to ultimately suffering, and ultimately to being loved.
00:53:58.000 Yeah, well that does seem, it can catalyze a kind of maturity that would be evidenced in that sort of interaction.
00:54:05.000 We could probably go on for a while, but we're time, a parting thought.
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00:55:35.000 Oh, I guess perhaps...
00:55:39.000 I guess I'm hoping that perhaps that you Catholic types stop being so apologetic for your virtues.
00:55:47.000 Amen.
00:55:49.000 You know, one of the things that the radicals are really good at is weaponizing guilt.
00:55:54.000 And good people have a proclivity for guilt, you know?
00:55:58.000 Because if someone accuses you of something, especially if multiple people accuse you,
00:56:02.000 and you're a well-socialized person, a conscientious person,
00:56:06.000 you're going to tear yourself into pieces pretty hard trying to figure out if they've got a point.
00:56:11.000 And that's fine, you know? Fair enough.
00:56:13.000 But it makes you vulnerable to...
00:56:19.000 Another satanic synonym is the accuser.
00:56:23.000 Right.
00:56:25.000 This question is, well, how susceptible should you be to accusations?
00:56:29.000 And that's a tough one because, like I said, if you're a good person, it's pretty easy to feel guilty.
00:56:34.000 But the problem with that is your guilt can be weaponized.
00:56:37.000 And that's definitely happening.
00:56:40.000 So, all of you people with your privilege...
00:56:45.000 So, you know, I guess I'd part with that thought.
00:56:50.000 I think part of the reason that there's an injunction, a religious injunction to atone,
00:56:59.000 is to come to terms with your privilege so that it can't be weaponized.
00:57:03.000 Maybe.
00:57:04.000 It's more complicated than that.
00:57:06.000 It's a good start.
00:57:07.000 It's like, there are all sorts of advantages you have that other people don't have.
00:57:11.000 And no doubt, disadvantages as well, right? That are unique to you.
00:57:15.000 But let's stick with the advantages.
00:57:17.000 It's like, well, what makes you deserving of those advantages?
00:57:19.000 And it can't really be historical happenstance.
00:57:22.000 You happen to be born American, you know, which is relatively good fortune.
00:57:27.000 Because you can really not attribute that to you.
00:57:29.000 You don't deserve that in any sense.
00:57:32.000 So, how do you justify it?
00:57:36.000 And I think the answer is, by leading an ethical life.
00:57:40.000 Like, that's actually the answer.
00:57:42.000 It's not like you should lead an ethical life.
00:57:44.000 You should.
00:57:45.000 That's not the issue.
00:57:47.000 The issue is, that's how you atone for your unearned privilege.
00:57:50.000 And the advantage to that is, you can't, your guilt can't be weaponized under those conditions.
00:57:56.000 Not by other people, which is very important at the moment.
00:57:59.000 But also by you.
00:58:00.000 It's like you think, well, I've got these advantages.
00:58:03.000 Well, what am I doing about them?
00:58:04.000 I'm doing the best I can with them.
00:58:07.000 Right?
00:58:08.000 And that's how I justify them, is I try to treat them as gifts.
00:58:10.000 And I try to make the most out of them in a way that's maximally beneficial for me and for everybody else.
00:58:16.000 Simultaneously.
00:58:17.000 I'm actually trying to do that.
00:58:19.000 It's like, well, who could ask for more than that?
00:58:23.000 And I think that's, well, that's one weapon in the culture war.
00:58:31.000 It's like, if you're living an ethical life, you know, if you're doing your best,
00:58:37.000 well, maybe you can stop apologizing for your privilege.
00:58:41.000 And maybe that would take one weapon away from the people who want to burn everything down.
00:58:46.000 Because they definitely want to burn everything down.
00:58:49.000 Yeah.
00:58:50.000 So...
00:58:51.000 I invite the chorale if you guys want to come up and get set.
00:58:54.000 We're going to have a closing hymn.
00:58:56.000 Just to that end, though, one of the things that you and I talked about,
00:58:59.000 and I think it's important about the university, is that the goal for our students is just that.
00:59:04.000 You know, it's to be able to go out into a world and be holy and be a saint.
00:59:10.000 And ultimately, I think that that's what the world needs, is men and women that are going to live courageously.
00:59:15.000 I love how in this chapter you spoke so often times about courageously.
00:59:18.000 Well, this is hard.
00:59:20.000 It's hard to live this life.
00:59:21.000 It's hard to be faithful.
00:59:22.000 It's hard to be good.
00:59:23.000 It's hard to be right.
00:59:24.000 And yet, it's the challenge that I think our student body has accepted the call that the Lord has on their life to be a saint.
00:59:30.000 Yeah.
00:59:31.000 Well, I think that's the basis of any real education, is that, you know, it's a call to nobility.
00:59:36.000 It's a call to virtue, fundamentally.
00:59:39.000 Because what good is education if it's not a call to virtue?
00:59:42.000 So, I also asked the doctor if he would mind if we prayed with him before, through the evening.
00:59:49.000 His wife wasn't able to join us, but you're certainly welcome any time.
00:59:53.000 I offered him a job earlier, and he didn't say no.
00:59:56.000 He didn't say no.
00:59:57.000 But, I must say, in many of our conversations today, some of the things that we're doing here,
01:00:10.000 and some of the things that you're working on, I think there's a great synergy and a great way that we can collaborate.
01:00:14.000 So, I look forward to that.
01:00:15.000 Oh, wouldn't that be good?
01:00:16.000 This is a collaboration, I suppose.
01:00:18.000 Amen.
01:00:19.000 John Paul is going to come up, and I just invite you, if you want to just, why don't you stand?
01:00:24.000 You remain seated.
01:00:25.000 And we're just going to invite the congregation to stand.
01:00:29.000 We're just going to ask the Lord's blessing upon Dr. Peterson, and also his wife, and his son and daughter,
01:00:35.000 that the Lord would continue to pour his blessings upon them.
01:00:37.000 And John Paul is just going to lead us in a song, just a very simple song of blessings.
01:00:41.000 So, we ask the Lord to bless you, Dr. Peterson.
01:00:44.000 Lord bless you, and keep you.
01:00:53.000 May his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.
01:01:01.000 Lord burn his face toward you, and give you peace.
01:01:15.000 Heavenly Father, I thank you for bringing our brother to us today.
01:01:20.000 I ask your blessing to be upon he and his wife, his son and his daughter.
01:01:25.000 Let them continue to know your love and your peace, your healing.
01:01:28.000 Father, I pray your protection upon his work.
01:01:33.000 Continue to inspire him.
01:01:36.000 Give him courage.
01:01:37.000 Give him strength.
01:01:39.000 That his mother, Teresa, remind us we are but a pencil in the hand of God.
01:01:44.000 And that you would continue to pour out your blessing, that he would write well.
01:01:48.000 Fill him with your grace, your presence.
01:01:51.000 In the midst of his own suffering, may he discover and find you there.
01:01:54.000 May the Lord pour out his blessings upon you, Dr. Peterson.
01:01:58.000 God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
01:02:00.000 Amen.
01:02:01.000 Thank you very much for joining us.
01:02:02.000 Thank you very much.
01:02:03.000 Thank you all.
01:02:09.000 Thank you.
01:02:10.000 It's a pleasure to have you here.
01:02:11.000 Thank you, everyone.
01:02:12.000 Much appreciated.
01:02:32.000 Thank you.