The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - What Happens When Good Men Say Nothing

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00:01:43.520 Wayfair, every style, every home. Hi, everyone. I spent decades unpacking the biblical stories

00:01:50.560 upon which these lectures are based i did that because they form the foundation of our culture

00:01:56.560 you need to know what they are so that you share something in common with everyone else

00:02:02.400 you need to understand what they mean so that you can find their application in your life

00:02:08.080 knowing the meaning of these stories can get you through some very dark times welcome to the lecture

00:02:14.400 thank you everyone

00:02:16.920 thank you very much for coming tonight

00:02:18.900 it's very good to see you all

00:02:21.340 here

00:02:21.800 so

00:02:24.300 I always sit backstage

00:02:29.180 I'm preparing for these talks

00:02:31.180 all the time really

00:02:32.200 I finished

00:02:35.780 I think what's the final draft of the book

00:02:39.060 that this tour is based on today

00:02:40.880 by the way

00:02:41.520 yeah and i've been working on it well i've been working on it for 40 years really but

00:02:50.720 well you know because it's a continuation of ideas that i've been developing really for four

00:02:56.920 four decades and but i've been writing it specifically for about three years i guess

00:03:03.280 i actually wrote three books at the same time um as it turned out um so they'll come out

00:03:10.260 one after the other over the next couple of years.

00:03:15.200 So I'm writing that constantly,

00:03:18.280 and then I'm spending each of these occasions

00:03:23.280 that I have the privilege to engage in,

00:03:27.580 thinking on my feet, trying to clarify what I'm writing,

00:03:31.600 trying to clarify my investigations.

00:03:35.000 And I usually focus that, I always focus that,

00:03:38.920 in preparation for a given lecture

00:03:42.720 by noting what question is perplexing me.

00:03:50.580 This is really what you do when you think.

00:03:54.420 When you think.

00:03:55.900 I've thought recently that thought is actually secularized prayer.

00:04:01.800 I'll tell you why I believe that. 0.53

00:04:03.800 I truly believe it's the case.

00:04:08.920 And there's endless reason to believe that the religious enterprise, per se, preceded any attempt to formalize thinking.

00:04:20.380 We don't really have any records of formalized thought as such, let's say, prior to the Greek philosophers, prior to Socrates in particular, who taught people to think.

00:04:32.700 What were people doing before that at a psychological level?

00:04:37.720 Well, they were engaged in some variant of a religious enterprise.

00:04:42.480 There were no faithless people in the distant past.

00:04:49.500 The manner in which people interacted with the world was a religious manner.

00:04:55.320 There was no alternative to that.

00:04:57.360 People might have debated with one another about what the appropriate faith was,

00:05:02.720 was but everyone existed within a conception of the world that we would regard today

00:05:08.320 as clearly religious what do you do when you think well the first thing you do

00:05:15.680 is you admit that you don't know something right so that's a gesture of humility if you want to

00:05:22.980 think about something we have to have a problem it has to be a problem you're interested in let's

00:05:28.340 say, or a problem that bothers you, a problem that plagues your conscience or calls to you.

00:05:34.980 You have to have a problem.

00:05:36.380 You have to accept that problem as your own.

00:05:39.000 So that's a move of responsibility. 0.86

00:05:42.520 And then you have to proclaim your ignorance, not least to yourself, right?

00:05:47.860 Because if you have a problem, you have a problem because you don't have the solution.

00:05:52.520 And if you don't have the solution, then you're not everything you could be.

00:05:58.340 you not least because you have the problem and so then what do you do if you're thinking you know

00:06:04.420 people say well i thought up this or i thought of this and it's a strange way of apprehending what

00:06:12.660 happens because when you say i think it's not like you know what you're doing right you don't know

00:06:20.080 how you think you have no notion whatsoever of the causal sequence that allows you to conjure up

00:06:29.840 something essentially out of nothing that addresses something that you didn't know and it's a complete

00:06:36.120 bloody mystery it's like think about it this way if you didn't know the answer then how could you

00:06:43.500 think it up right it's the same problem obtains when you dream it's like obviously that's not a

00:06:51.640 voluntary activity where did the dreams come from well they say well they happen in my head it's like

00:06:57.080 in there in the goo that's the idea is it okay it's it's a very weird way of looking at the

00:07:05.020 situation because the disjunction between the dream as a phenomena and the matter of your brain

00:07:12.740 is so great that attempting to casually reduce one to another to the other is well it's just a

00:07:20.340 non-starter it's preposterous in some ways and we certainly don't understand the relationship

00:07:26.740 between conscious or unconscious experience say if dreams are more on the unconscious side

00:07:32.680 we don't understand that and the material substrate of the brain at all you know and

00:07:39.900 There's been decades now of pretty intense work on consciousness

00:07:44.180 from the neuroscience perspective.

00:07:45.960 It isn't obvious that we've really got anywhere at all with it.

00:07:48.860 It's a great mystery.

00:07:51.940 So anyways, you're thinking away, what do you do?

00:07:54.540 Well, as I said, you admit that you have a problem,

00:07:57.320 so that's a gesture of humility.

00:07:58.980 It's also a confession of sorts, right?

00:08:01.240 It's that you don't know, and you have to admit that to yourself.

00:08:05.780 So this is what scientists do when they're thinking,

00:08:08.440 you have to grapple with the fact that you're bereft and then what do you do one of the things

00:08:15.300 i learned when i was a scientist that was that scientists lie about science all the time it's

00:08:21.180 built it's built right into the scientific process so when you publish a scientific paper

00:08:27.480 you write the introduction the introduction describes how you generated your hypothesis and

00:08:35.500 why and all of that's complete nonsense because what you do is you tell a story about how you

00:08:41.080 reviewed the literature and how it sequentially influenced you to logically take the next step

00:08:51.640 forward and come up with the research question in mind that isn't how it works ever or virtually

00:08:58.020 ever first of all if your research question is so obvious that you could have just derived it from

00:09:04.600 a review of the literature it hardly is original or worth pursuing so there has to be a leap of

00:09:10.900 originality in there somewhere that isn't accounted for by the mere facts the truth of the matter is

00:09:16.900 is that you have a hypothesis you have an intuition you have an insight that something might be the

00:09:25.340 case and you get that because you admitted in ignorance that you didn't know and you received

00:09:33.060 something that approximates a revelation that's what an intuition is that's what an insight is

00:09:40.260 that's what it means to move towards illumination those are all words with the religious connotation

00:09:46.500 that's where scientific hypotheses come from right and sometimes they they strike people

00:09:52.420 even with the force of revelation is that the greatest of scientists in their autobiographical

00:09:59.380 accounts often insist upon the fact that they're struck by a realization right it's very strange

00:10:08.760 language it's like well where does that realization come from it's the same question as where do your

00:10:13.460 thoughts come from well what you have to do to think at least in the initial stages you have to

00:10:20.080 admit that you don't know and then you have to well what you'll have to want to know well there's

00:10:27.640 no real difference between that and christ's injunction in the gospels right the injunction

00:10:32.540 from christ is that you should knock and the door will open and you should ask and you'll receive

00:10:39.120 and you should seek and you'll find and that's all predicated on the idea that you're actually

00:10:44.860 knocking right that it's a gesture that indicates an intent to walk through the door and that

00:10:51.640 you're actually asking because you want and that you're seeking because you want to find it has

00:10:57.620 to be the genuine article and then what is the consequence of that and the consequences well

00:11:04.320 something appears in the theater of your imagination that's a much more accurate way

00:11:10.080 of describing what happens then that you thought it up you thought out your dreams did you that's

00:11:17.000 why dreams can contain information that you don't know how do you account for that well

00:11:22.680 Well, is it necessary to portray it as a revelation?

00:11:27.840 Well, it's a description.

00:11:29.460 If you want to attribute it to the workings of the unconscious mind, go right ahead.

00:11:35.320 But it's not like you've made any progress in solving the problem.

00:11:38.260 You've just replaced one mystery with another.

00:11:41.400 And so I think that the biological and the divine dovetail,

00:11:46.580 and if you want to take a bottom-up approach to the problem of revelation

00:11:51.140 and attribute it to something like an implicit unconscious

00:11:55.440 that emerges out of the material realm but has its own structure.

00:11:59.500 It's like, well, go right ahead.

00:12:01.620 You're treading on religious ground when you do that anyways.

00:12:06.000 Not just treading, you're fully there.

00:12:08.740 Certainly people like Carl Jung realized that by like 1930, you know.

00:12:13.700 And that was part of his beef with Freud

00:12:16.380 because jung realized that the god that nietzsche had dispensed with in some sense made itself

00:12:23.620 manifest anyways in the unconscious and he was absolutely right about that and so what do you do

00:12:31.720 when you ask a question is well you open yourself up to revelation now that's not the end of

00:12:37.140 thinking and the reason for that is that as it's put in the new testament you have to test

00:12:44.860 the spirits to see if they're of god and what does that mean well you have to critically evaluate

00:12:51.660 what it is that you've received because perhaps the revelation that's been delivered to you in

00:12:58.940 consequence of your search has been delivered by the wrong spirit and what would that mean well

00:13:06.660 here's a way of thinking about this is extremely useful to know imagine that you're trying to

00:13:13.740 settle an argument with your wife. Now, if you had any sense, when you were trying to settle the

00:13:20.940 argument, you would aim up, right? I'm dead serious about this. You would step back and you'd take

00:13:27.400 stock and you'd think, okay, if I could have what I wanted, if I could get what I, if I could have

00:13:34.100 the proper door open, if I could ask and receive in the proper manner, if I could seek and find

00:13:40.700 what i wanted to find what would it be and then you'd think well i would like to re-establish

00:13:48.960 the harmonious peace and playful spirit that characterizes my relationship with my wife and

00:13:57.240 all those people i love when those relationships are at their best and i would sacrifice everything

00:14:04.480 to that end and i would seek for the solution to the problem of our conflict in that spirit

00:14:13.360 and then if you did that and you were sinless in your aim if you were precise in your aim if you

00:14:18.700 were oriented towards the establishment of that microcosm of the garden of eden then the spirit

00:14:26.900 that would respond to your request would be the spirit of the god of your ancestors that would

00:14:33.820 deliver you the message that would move you one step forward to the one step closer to the kingdom

00:14:42.620 of heaven but you'd bloody well better make sure you have your act together before you make a

00:14:49.360 request like that because the alternative is that you call something unholy up to answer you

00:14:54.800 and you get a revelation from that spirit instead and you might say well dr peterson you're

00:15:01.580 degenerating into archaic and superstitious language it's like don't be so sure about that

00:15:06.660 because you might imagine that you harbor an endless number of resentments in your bitter

00:15:12.400 little soul about your wife and about all the other people that you interact with and instead of

00:15:19.840 orienting yourself properly towards what's highest and seeking for the insight that would establish

00:15:29.400 peace and harmonious tranquility you decide that you could toss a little insult in there and maybe

00:15:37.180 obtain a little bit of a victory and you know get back at her for the last time that you argued when

00:15:43.180 she defeated you or maybe the last hundred times that that's happened who knows and that you've

00:15:48.800 had enough of taking guff from people and it's time for you to you know make your own stance and

00:15:54.240 if you can throw a little intellectual pride in there so much the better and that's the spirit

00:15:59.200 in which you ask the question and that's exactly the spirit that responds right and so then you

00:16:06.720 get a revelation that's not exactly from you might say the divine source itself because you've called

00:16:13.260 some lesser devil up in the recesses of your imagination and that's what informs you as to

00:16:20.220 your proper what would you say your proper strategy moving forward that's what crafts your

00:16:26.960 cynical and sarcastic and bitter words that's what inspires you to use power when you could 0.55

00:16:33.360 use invitation that's what inspires you to proclaim your correctness like the pharaonic tyrant who

00:16:41.700 continues to double down that's what you've invited into your life into your soul and so you better

00:16:49.720 test the spirits that you call on to see if they're of God because God only knows how misaligned

00:16:57.660 your aim is and that misalignment of aim that is sin that's what sin means it means

00:17:04.600 it's an archery term it means to miss the target and so God heaven help you when you

00:17:12.340 what would you say first practice to deceive heaven help you when you

00:17:18.080 aim in the wrong direction and wait for the inspiration to strike you and that's worth

00:17:26.420 thinking you know that's worth thinking about because your thoughts you can speak you can

00:17:31.440 speak of this just in the most practical sense your thoughts are tools they're aids to your

00:17:38.940 progression forward right I mean you think so that you can maneuver in the

00:17:43.140 world more effectively and so what is it that determines what thoughts make

00:17:50.640 themselves manifest to you and the answer to that is straightforward your

00:17:56.040 aim that's what determines it that's what determines that's what determines

00:18:03.320 Not just what you think, but what you see.

00:18:10.100 Literally, what determines which pathways forward open to you,

00:18:17.280 which determines what constitutes obstacles and what constitutes AIDS.

00:18:23.540 Your aim determines who your friends are and who your enemies are.

00:18:26.820 your aim

00:18:29.200 your aim

00:18:33.480 is the structure

00:18:35.960 through which you see the world

00:18:37.180 and your character is

00:18:38.780 your sequence of aims

00:18:41.500 that's what you see unfolding

00:18:43.480 in front of you when you go see a movie

00:18:45.860 you see someone characterized

00:18:47.380 as a series of aims

00:18:48.880 and you derive from that

00:18:51.140 the manner in which they view the world

00:18:53.580 you identify them

00:18:55.480 with with them emotionally you come to see the obstacles and the pathways forward and the

00:19:02.060 friends and foes that make up their world because you understand their aim and so it matters for

00:19:10.300 you to get your aim right and so when i'm sitting backstage before i come on stage to talk i

00:19:18.720 try to first

00:19:21.660 knock and ask

00:19:23.580 like what's the problem I'm trying to address

00:19:25.900 it has to be a real problem

00:19:27.400 it has to be something I'm wrestling with

00:19:29.200 something I'm grappling with

00:19:30.900 something that I believe is worth

00:19:33.160 sacrificing for

00:19:35.140 worth pursuing

00:19:36.420 worth communicating

00:19:41.420 worth

00:19:42.820 contemplating

00:19:44.200 and it has to be a genuine question

00:19:47.540 And the question for tonight was, what is it, how is it that we could best conceptualize faith, right?

00:19:55.980 And so that's the question that I'm hoping to answer.

00:20:03.800 And what's the spirit in which I hope that answer will be delivered?

00:20:09.360 Well, we set the stage with the music, and David Cotter's a very good musician,

00:20:15.400 and he gives it his all and that orients us upward in the way music does and it focuses

00:20:22.440 the attention of everyone in the audience and as my daughter indicated we're very happy

00:20:28.940 with our audiences which is why we continue to do the tours and why are we happy with them it's well

00:20:35.160 first of all look at here you are and that's a miracle for anyone who has any sense it's like

00:20:43.220 there's 5500 of you it's like what the hell are you doing here it's seriously like 0.99

00:20:49.820 you have to be a complete fool as someone who has the privilege to address a crowd like this 0.99

00:21:01.120 to not constantly be struck by the sheer improbability of this happening of all the 1.00

00:21:11.220 things that have to come together in this strange way they have come together in order to make

00:21:16.960 something like this possible and so if you have the least bit of sense you walk on stage

00:21:23.080 what would you say with your jaw dropped realizing that

00:21:28.880 nothing more improbable in some sense than this is likely and yet here it is and so and then what

00:21:38.500 else well my sense these events tend to be very positive why well because the people who are

00:21:47.340 attending by and large are knocking and asking and seeking and people differ in their sophistication

00:21:56.840 in that regard you know I mean you meet some people who have clear vision and their ability

00:22:03.740 to detect up even under trying circumstances is unparalleled and you see other people who are just

00:22:11.720 starting to stumble out of the pit up the hill and their vision is still obscured but they have

00:22:18.620 some sense that up exists and they're willing to take a risk to pursue it and by and large the

00:22:26.960 audiences that come to these events are upward aiming. And so it's a celebration of Jacob's

00:22:36.680 ladder, this endless spiral up towards the pinnacle and a mutual attempt to walk that

00:22:45.180 golden ladder. And so when I sit backstage and conjure up a question or allow one to

00:22:56.220 make its appearance

00:22:58.220 to me

00:22:59.520 I remember that I'm

00:23:02.520 engaged in a serious

00:23:04.720 quest

00:23:05.400 in the most engaging

00:23:08.700 possible way and that

00:23:10.880 I have the privilege

00:23:12.560 of undertaking that

00:23:14.540 endeavor in a public

00:23:16.400 manner

00:23:16.900 that allows me

00:23:20.660 to craft

00:23:22.560 my words and see them

00:23:24.260 appear and then to test them simultaneously in real time to see if they land and that's a good 0.69

00:23:32.260 deal like that's a seriously good deal it's hard to imagine especially for someone constituted like

00:23:39.620 me it's hard to imagine anything better i mean i've always enjoyed being a professor and took

00:23:48.420 it seriously and now i have the opportunity to speak to a different audience every night about

00:23:55.760 exactly what it is that i'm most compelled to investigate to exactly the audience that's only

00:24:04.000 there because they actually want to be there it's like well that's a fine deal

00:24:09.640 And so I hope with that contemplation and that effort and gratitude for the unlikely gift of this opportunity

00:24:28.360 that I can call upon this spirit of revelation to aid me in crafting my words

00:24:36.440 and dig more deeply into the problem at hand.

00:24:43.140 That being, how do we conceptualize faith?

00:24:49.440 Now, I'm going to tell you a way we shouldn't conceptualize it.

00:24:54.220 What's it called?

00:24:55.720 Peterson Academy.

00:24:56.860 Peterson Academy.

00:24:57.740 Peterson Academy.

00:24:58.620 It's called Peterson Academy.

00:24:59.900 Peterson Academy.

00:25:01.100 If you want an actual education.

00:25:02.880 with hand-selected professors from top universities around the world.

00:25:07.960 Bringing the best professors together, making sure they're not censored in any way,

00:25:11.400 giving them the audience and the remuneration and appreciation they deserve.

00:25:14.120 And you were true to your word.

00:25:15.140 You gave me absolute intellectual autonomy.

00:25:17.360 I have had it through every course.

00:25:18.940 We figure we can offer people a high-quality university-level education for under $2,000.

00:25:24.560 Well, congratulations, Jordan. It's honestly brilliant.

00:25:26.760 Can't wait to enroll myself.

00:25:28.000 I'll be doing that straight after this.

00:25:30.540 Fun, Joe.

00:25:32.880 There's an insistence in the Biblical texts that God is, in the final analysis, ineffable.

00:25:52.740 Okay, so what does that mean?

00:25:56.160 It means beyond categorization.

00:26:00.580 Right?

00:26:01.220 It means outside of space and time.

00:26:05.480 It means that whatever existence God has is of a higher order than the existence of what we regard to be objectively true.

00:26:21.240 The reality of the objective is one form of reality.

00:26:26.160 The reality of the transcendent is a higher form of reality.

00:26:30.640 And it's not to be reduced to the objective.

00:26:34.260 This is partly why Christ says in the Gospels,

00:26:38.700 not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven,

00:26:43.980 but only those that do the will of my Father.

00:26:48.300 What does that reference mean?

00:26:51.720 Faith is not belief in a set of facts.

00:26:56.080 It's the precondition for observing the facts that matter

00:27:04.560 And that's a much deeper form of truth

00:27:07.840 It's a much deeper understanding of the structure of reality

00:27:14.360 God can't be reduced to what's simply material

00:27:20.340 Here's an example

00:27:22.420 There are multiple examples of this

00:27:24.940 when god comes to the prophet elijah elijah is elijah is the prophet who accompanies moses

00:27:35.440 on mount tabor when christ is transfigured and the disciples realize that he's the savior

00:27:43.460 so elijah is a major prophet his account in the old testament is rather short but it's crucial

00:27:52.600 So, Elijah is the prophet who finally realizes and establishes the proposition that God is not to be found in the world of nature.

00:28:09.680 Elijah is the prophet who defeats the priests of Baal, the god of nature, in a final showdown 0.91

00:28:23.680 and follows that with a flight made necessary by his victory which displeases Jezebel 0.99

00:28:33.940 who's the foreign queen of the Israelites 0.94

00:28:37.760 who brought the worship of Baal to the forefront 0.53

00:28:41.440 the worship of nature

00:28:43.120 something we're toying with now

00:28:45.220 more than toying with

00:28:46.960 he has to flee into the desert

00:28:49.820 and when he's in the desert

00:28:52.360 in a cave

00:28:53.480 the awe-inspiring majesty of the natural world

00:28:59.240 presents itself to him

00:29:00.780 he experiences a conflagration

00:29:03.180 A fire, a terrible fire, a forest fire, a raging inferno,

00:29:08.780 which is certainly capable of eliciting the kind of awe that is akin to a religious experience.

00:29:17.440 He experiences a thunderstorm, a great thunderstorm.

00:29:22.340 And with a tremendous wind, right, the motion of the invisible,

00:29:27.760 that also has that uncanny element that elicits awe

00:29:36.000 and can be confused with the divine,

00:29:41.260 even if it's a pointer, proper pointer to the divine.

00:29:44.880 And he experiences an earthquake, which brings him to his knees, you might say.

00:29:50.840 And despite that, Elijah has a realization in his pursuit of the God of Israel.

00:29:58.780 And his realization is that God is not in the storm or the fire or in the majesty of nature.

00:30:10.540 God is not identical to any of that.

00:30:13.180 he's instead

00:30:16.020 better construed

00:30:18.820 as the still small voice

00:30:20.760 that calls within

00:30:21.920 that's a radical claim

00:30:24.720 a radical idea

00:30:25.920 in some ways it's a minimization of

00:30:28.600 God 1.00

00:30:29.620 it's certainly what you'd propose

00:30:32.760 if you were

00:30:33.520 one of the said worshippers of nature

00:30:36.320 that now God is

00:30:37.540 something that

00:30:38.900 what is subjective

00:30:40.740 psychological

00:30:42.200 Well, not exactly, because the still small voice within your conscience, that's not exactly subjective, right?

00:30:50.960 I mean, it makes it self-manifest to you, and insofar as that occurs, it's in the realm of subjective experience.

00:31:02.100 But it's not subjective in that you don't control it.

00:31:07.280 in fact it operates autonomously despite you and that's a remarkable thing and so

00:31:16.380 it also speaks to you or otherwise impels you in a manner that eschews force because

00:31:28.800 your conscience might plague you

00:31:32.340 and things might bother you

00:31:34.520 and problems might present themselves to you

00:31:38.260 as yours to take responsibility for

00:31:41.640 but you're not compelled in the manner of an automaton

00:31:47.620 a robot, a deterministic robot

00:31:49.760 to act out without choice the dictates of your conscience

00:31:55.340 It informs, it reveals, but it doesn't compel.

00:32:02.760 And that's a remarkable, that's a remarkable phenomenon.

00:32:09.760 And phenomenon is a word that is derived from the Greek,

00:32:13.520 and it means to shine forth, right?

00:32:18.020 That's what phenomena do in the world.

00:32:20.060 They shine forth and attract your attention,

00:32:23.340 compel you or call to you or warn you in the case of conscience to stay on the straight and narrow

00:32:33.200 path that leads uphill and so that's god that's god and what is faith in relationship to god

00:32:42.920 construed in that manner faith is the willingness to abide by the dictates of your conscience you

00:32:48.760 It's not a statement about the nature of material reality.

00:32:54.880 That just moves the phenomena back into the realm of the world of nature.

00:33:01.480 The faith is the willingness to attend to your conscience.

00:33:06.100 And there's faith either way in that situation.

00:33:09.200 The atheistic types, the materialists and the determinists,

00:33:12.860 they make the insistence that faith is tantamount to superstitious.

00:33:17.460 superstition is unnecessary given the availability of evidence it's like

00:33:26.440 in relationship to your conscience you have two choices both are for faith predicated you can

00:33:32.800 either listen to it and act in accordance with it or ignore it and take an alternative route

00:33:38.720 And the evidence is essentially the same in both cases.

00:33:45.740 You don't know if you're called upon to take a problem that's calling to you seriously.

00:33:52.060 You have no evidence a priori what the outcome of your decision to listen will be.

00:33:57.920 And so, if you abide by the still small voice that Elijah identified as an element of the one true God,

00:34:09.960 then your faith is your decision to act.

00:34:14.060 That's why Christ says in the Gospels, as I indicated,

00:34:16.900 that true faith is indicated by the willingness to do the will of the Heavenly Father.

00:34:27.920 That's the poetic representation.

00:34:30.900 And so that's a God that's ineffable and indescribable, incomprehensible,

00:34:40.100 who invites but does not command,

00:34:43.380 who defines the straight and narrow pathway forward

00:34:47.980 that exists in relationship to you,

00:34:50.660 because you have a relationship with your conscience,

00:34:52.880 even if it's an uncomfortable one,

00:34:54.580 which it tends to be if you deny its voice,

00:34:58.860 which also makes you a very dangerous person to yourself and others.

00:35:03.820 Indeed, that's a characterization of God or a definition.

00:35:12.780 And faith is the pattern of decision that emerges from that encounter.

00:35:24.580 Conscience is not the only way that God makes himself manifest in the Old Testament and New Testament stories,

00:35:34.820 not by any stretch of the imagination.

00:35:36.840 The stories are, in fact, a sequence of characterizations of what the ancient Hebrews regarded as an essential unity.

00:35:46.900 They're a set of characterizations of what is to be celebrated or put in the highest place or aimed at or related to in the manner that produces integrity in the soul and harmony and productive generosity in the community.

00:36:16.900 How is that character represented or portrayed?

00:36:26.380 In the story of the opening stories of Genesis,

00:36:32.180 God is portrayed as the victor over Leviathan.

00:36:38.640 Leviathan is the great dragon of the chaotic waters.

00:36:42.660 is a very primordial set of images underlying that text.

00:36:50.420 The God who confronts the dragon

00:36:54.160 and wins the treasure

00:36:58.680 that that confrontation allows,

00:37:03.300 bestows

00:37:04.700 the

00:37:08.580 abysmal

00:37:10.320 dragon that lives in the depths

00:37:12.800 is the inhabitant

00:37:14.180 of the original

00:37:16.360 primordial waters

00:37:17.920 the tohu vabohu

00:37:19.740 upon which the spirit of God

00:37:22.320 rests or broods at

00:37:24.580 not only at the beginning of time

00:37:26.820 but throughout the entire

00:37:28.700 expanse of time itself

00:37:30.400 and who

00:37:31.960 wrestles with that

00:37:35.060 chaos and

00:37:37.720 possibility and potential

00:37:39.540 because that's the primordial

00:37:41.660 water and in doing

00:37:43.620 so extracts out the order

00:37:45.520 that is good

00:37:46.320 human beings are

00:37:49.240 conceptualized in that

00:37:51.420 story as made in that

00:37:53.740 image and

00:37:55.120 what are we to understand

00:37:57.960 of that

00:37:59.800 well

00:38:00.180 So, what's the world? Is the world a set of facts and phenomena that force us as automatons to react in a deterministic manner that's pre-programmed and will-less?

00:38:21.580 that appears not even possible in principle

00:38:25.780 because the manner in which things unfolds

00:38:30.400 is in principle indeterminate and uncertain.

00:38:33.860 And there's no deterministic causal pathway forward

00:38:39.560 that can properly compute

00:38:43.020 the transforming horizon of the future.

00:38:46.700 And that is what you actually experience.

00:38:51.580 Despite your delusions, otherwise, you see the world, you, as the enlightenment, post-enlightenment materialists that we all are,

00:39:04.760 you see the world as a set of objects that, what, compel you forward.

00:39:11.800 That's not how you experience the world.

00:39:14.200 the fact that you believe that is an indication of the grip of that

00:39:20.200 enlightenment view that is now coming to an end

00:39:26.600 what is it that you perceive and contend with

00:39:32.120 it's the same thing that the spirit that broods on the water

00:39:37.480 that's chaos and potential wrestles with at the beginning of time

00:39:42.480 What is that?

00:39:43.540 That's the potential that surrounds you.

00:39:46.740 Your consciousness does not deal with what's fixed.

00:39:50.320 It deals with what's fluid.

00:39:53.060 Right?

00:39:53.340 It deals with what is yet to be.

00:39:56.220 You peer into the future like a driver looking down the road.

00:39:59.940 You've already run over what's all right in front of your car.

00:40:03.800 You look into the future and you craft your strategy and your attention and your actions

00:40:10.080 to make of that future the continuing voyage to your destination.

00:40:18.720 And that sequence of destinations is the endless journey to the promised land,

00:40:24.480 the endless wandering up Jacob's Ladder, or the climbing of the Holy Mount,

00:40:29.020 the attempt to re-establish the Garden of Eden,

00:40:32.760 or to bring about the paradise that is lost to us because of our sin.

00:40:40.080 When you awaken in the morning, in anxiety, let's say, because of the desperate straits that you foolishly found yourself in,

00:40:51.120 or in the hope that an exciting adventure awaits you when you sit up and put your feet on the ground and begin to contend with the day,

00:41:05.040 that anxiety and hope is the apprehension of the potential that is your deepest reality

00:41:17.220 upon the occasion of the emergence of your conscience, your consciousness.

00:41:25.160 you know that you have

00:41:27.540 opportunities and

00:41:29.620 obligations to

00:41:31.480 shape whatever

00:41:33.540 it is that's offering itself

00:41:35.420 to you in the course of that

00:41:37.540 day and you can do that

00:41:38.980 badly or you can

00:41:41.500 do it well and you can do it bitterly

00:41:43.580 and resentfully or you can do it

00:41:45.500 gratefully you can do it aiming

00:41:47.620 down you can do it

00:41:49.580 when you call upon the foul spirits

00:41:51.820 to reveal their mysteries

00:41:53.740 to you or you can do it aiming up and you're always doing that with every word you utter with

00:42:02.380 every breath you take with every glance you make you're wrestling with possibility and transforming

00:42:11.660 it either into some slice of the hell that you could bring about with your foolishness or some

00:42:22.780 improved representation 0.99

00:42:25.100 of the

00:42:26.660 earthly domain that's attempting

00:42:29.360 to transform itself into heaven.

00:42:31.940 And that's

00:42:33.220 your

00:42:35.080 inevitability

00:42:37.320 and your responsibility.

00:42:39.700 And you know that

00:42:41.500 because your conscience calls

00:42:43.360 you out when you fail

00:42:45.480 to perform

00:42:47.520 that shaping and

00:42:49.440 wrestling, subduing

00:42:51.440 and naming, that's Adam's

00:42:53.300 responsibility. When you fail

00:42:55.440 to perform that

00:42:56.580 in the manner that

00:42:58.680 indicates

00:43:01.140 that you've brought your best to the

00:43:03.440 table. And so

00:43:05.600 that's

00:43:07.480 an early characterization of man

00:43:09.600 of God and man.

00:43:12.100 And Adam

00:43:13.600 and Eve in that early

00:43:15.000 stage walk with God

00:43:17.440 in the eternal garden, the

00:43:19.440 walled garden that's the

00:43:21.340 optimal balance of social structure hence the walls and natural abundance hence the garden that is the

00:43:33.020 permanent environment of human beings and adam and eve walk with god in that garden

00:43:41.020 prior to the emergence of pride and sin because they're aiming up and that's

00:43:48.540 That possibility exists for you insofar as you truly aim up and make the sacrifices necessary

00:44:02.400 to realize that aim.

00:44:06.380 And that sacrificial path of expanding opportunity is the establishment of the covenant between

00:44:16.440 the chosen people

00:44:18.280 and God.

00:44:20.520 And that's the story.

00:44:23.640 That's the

00:44:24.480 biblical story. That's the story of

00:44:26.400 Abraham. That's the story of Cain and

00:44:28.480 Abel. That's the story of Exodus.

00:44:31.900 That's

00:44:32.580 the story of Jacob and Esau.

00:44:34.240 This

00:44:34.660 story of willingness

00:44:37.940 to shed,

00:44:40.420 sacrifice everything

00:44:42.100 that's

00:44:43.980 immature, prideful,

00:44:46.440 power hungry and unwilling 0.98

00:44:50.520 in the attempt to grow in character

00:44:55.040 to develop integrity

00:44:57.760 to become the father of nations

00:45:00.600 to become the leader who

00:45:02.560 invites people away from the tyrant 0.98

00:45:06.760 and their own slavish habits 1.00

00:45:08.700 and encourages them to cross the desert

00:45:13.860 of their own lostness

00:45:16.860 in search of the promised land.

00:45:21.740 That's the story.

00:45:25.660 And faith is the willingness

00:45:29.000 to embark on that adventure.

00:45:33.480 Faith is the willingness

00:45:35.200 to embark on that adventure.

00:45:37.440 Right?

00:45:38.080 In the presumption that

00:45:39.580 there isn't up

00:45:41.240 in the aftermath of the decision to commit to that.

00:45:47.660 In the story of Jacob and Esau,

00:45:51.320 Jacob is not a good person in this story.

00:45:55.720 He is a spoiled, academically oriented, 1.00

00:46:01.620 tent dwelling mama's boy 1.00

00:46:04.360 who conspires with his treacherous mother

00:46:10.100 to deceive and manipulate Esau,

00:46:17.080 who, out of the rights he has as the firstborn,

00:46:22.040 that's Jacob.

00:46:23.960 And he does that successfully

00:46:25.980 in a sequence of manipulative actions

00:46:30.520 that span his childhood and his adolescence.

00:46:36.880 He literally comes out of the womb

00:46:39.260 attempting to pull Esau down. 0.96

00:46:45.100 Jacob means he who grips the heel.

00:46:47.840 And it means, it's a description of the spirit that usurps and destroys.

00:47:00.180 And that's Jacob.

00:47:01.180 Now, many of the heroes that are characterized in the Old Testament are deeply flawed people when they initiate their transformative adventure.

00:47:13.340 And that is realistic and it's optimistic because you are a deeply flawed person when you embark upon the adventure of your life.

00:47:23.540 And if it was hopeless for those who are deeply flawed to transform upward, then you would be lost.

00:47:32.220 But the stories that sit at the base of our culture assure us that if you determine to aim upward, regardless of your state of reprehensible sin, you can establish a covenant with what is highest and progress.

00:47:55.260 In the story of Jonah, Jonah is called upon by God to speak his mind to the citizens of Nineveh

00:48:08.360 who have degenerated into a kind of woke idiocy and who are being threatened by God with destruction as a consequence.

00:48:21.040 And God comes to Jonah as the voice of conscience and says, 0.99

00:48:28.000 you need to stand up in the city of Nineveh and tell those faithless and corrupt people

00:48:38.440 that I am not happy with their conduct. 0.98

00:48:42.960 And that if they don't straighten themselves out, I'm going to destroy them.

00:48:48.820 And Jonah says, I don't think so.

00:48:57.140 There's 150,000 of them.

00:49:00.700 There's one of me.

00:49:02.900 I'm a nobody.

00:49:04.980 Plus, I don't like them.

00:49:08.300 And if you feel like you want to give them a good smiting, I'm on board with that.

00:49:16.320 And so, Jonah, being a sensible individual, makes tracks in the opposite direction.

00:49:25.360 And heads by ship for a port that is literally as far away from Nineveh as it was possible to get at that time.

00:49:36.140 On the ship, he proceeds, promptly falling asleep.

00:49:41.820 And what does that mean?

00:49:42.880 Well, that's what you do.

00:49:45.380 When you reject the call of conscience, you take refuge in blind unconsciousness.

00:49:54.280 And that's what Jonah does to reconcile himself to the fact that the divine itself had commanded him

00:50:04.220 to utter the words that could redeem the corrupt state.

00:50:08.920 he falls asleep on board

00:50:11.600 and the ship

00:50:13.160 falls into peril

00:50:15.380 as it always does when people

00:50:18.040 refuse

00:50:19.280 to say what they're called upon

00:50:21.860 to say and drift

00:50:23.540 into unconsciousness

00:50:25.320 the waves rise and the wind blows

00:50:27.840 and the ship is in peril

00:50:29.380 and the sailors have an intuition

00:50:31.520 that someone on board

00:50:33.820 is not right with their

00:50:35.640 God and they gamble

00:50:37.780 to, they draw lots to identify the likely perpetrator and the pointer points to Jonah

00:50:49.400 and they wake him up and they say, sleeping though you may be, you can now see that the

00:50:59.000 ship that contains you is in great peril and we have been granted the intuition that

00:51:07.460 someone on board is not right with their god and jonah who's basically the kind of honest person

00:51:16.200 who might receive a message like that from god says i'm afraid that's me and the sailors say

00:51:28.020 well who's your god and they're expecting that he's some forest pan or some god of the tavern

00:51:38.540 some local pagan sub-deity that rules over some dismal and tiny expanse of space and time

00:51:46.660 and jonah says no my god is the creator of heaven and earth themselves and the sailors say you

00:51:56.480 You probably shouldn't irritate him.

00:52:03.060 And so the ship is in peril and the waves rise.

00:52:08.060 And that is what happens when good people refuse to say what they know to be true.

00:52:17.480 when they refuse to embody the Logos that hovers over the realm of possibility itself

00:52:26.440 and with the force of truth extracts out from that domain the order that is good or very good.

00:52:35.920 That Logos is speech, right?

00:52:39.340 And that's truthful speech.

00:52:42.340 And when you are called upon to speak by your conscience and you reject the call of truthful speech,

00:52:49.640 you refuse to bring into being the order that is good

00:52:55.540 and consign what you were called to contend with to hell.

00:53:02.940 And that's what happens in totalitarian states

00:53:05.800 when everyone decides that the sensible thing is to hold their tongues

00:53:16.360 and let someone else take the risks.

00:53:21.780 And so the sailors, who are good people in their own right,

00:53:26.520 decide to head for shore with Jonah safely on board the ship.

00:53:32.760 But the storm mounts to the point where that's impossible and the reluctant prophet calls upon them to toss him into the briny blue sea to his death.

00:53:47.840 And that's a rough story, indicating as it does that if you're an ordinary person and you receive a message from the divine to redeem even the city of your enemies and you reject that call,

00:54:05.680 that you will put the ship of state itself in peril

00:54:11.820 and risk your own descent into the abyss.

00:54:17.580 And you might think, that's pretty harsh.

00:54:21.360 And that just means that you're a naive optimist.

00:54:27.620 Because that isn't the end of the story.

00:54:30.720 The next thing that happens is the worst beast imaginable, the Leviathan itself, a creature from the lowest pits of hell, rises to the surface and takes Jonah in its jaws and pulls him to the bottom of the world itself.

00:54:53.060 Three days in hell.

00:54:55.080 And that's how it's portrayed in the story.

00:54:58.220 And what does that mean?

00:55:00.720 It means that there are things that silence, when you're called upon to speak, will bring that make death itself the preferable alternative.

00:55:14.040 And if you don't understand that, you're blind and fortunate indeed, and you know nothing of history.

00:55:23.520 Because there are forms of deceit-induced cataclysm that are so extreme that rather than participate in, contribute to, or experience them, a sensible person would choose death. 0.74

00:55:42.140 and if you know anything about the horrors of the Nazi regime

00:55:46.960 or the catastrophes of the Soviet state

00:55:50.900 or of Maoist China or of North Korea 0.59

00:55:53.500 these terrible satanic Luciferian Tower of Babel states 0.57

00:55:59.100 that emerged in the godless 20th century

00:56:02.160 then you would understand that there are perils of malevolence

00:56:07.480 compared to which death itself is nothing

00:56:10.860 and that's what you risk having consume you and everything that you love

00:56:18.780 when you refuse the call of conscience to voice that which you know to be true

00:56:27.140 and you're

00:56:28.700 you americans you understand this deep in your bones

00:56:39.040 Because your whole culture, which is a derivative of the Judeo-Christian tradition,

00:56:46.300 is predicated on the, we hold this truth as self-evident presumption

00:56:53.140 that you are made in the image of God and that you are, in principle,

00:57:00.700 the voice that continually redeems the corrupt state.

00:57:05.640 And so that state is limited in its right to intrude upon the territory of your consciousness.

00:57:16.420 Because if it does so, it destroys the process of vision and speech upon which it depends for its integrity and continuity.

00:57:27.560 And you might say, well, is that something you believe?

00:57:30.820 Is that something that you have faith in?

00:57:33.080 And it's, well, do you believe that people have intrinsic value and the free will of sovereign agents?

00:57:42.360 And I would say, try treating the people around you as if that isn't true and see what they think of you in consequence.

00:57:54.860 what's

00:58:01.620 Jonah's faith

00:58:02.780 he repents in hell

00:58:05.360 and

00:58:06.520 humbly

00:58:09.020 kneels before

00:58:11.880 the God who

00:58:13.360 of his conscience

00:58:14.520 and says

00:58:16.260 if you see fit

00:58:18.740 to raise me

00:58:20.440 from this pit

00:58:21.540 I will

00:58:22.820 do what you asked

00:58:25.780 and the whale

00:58:26.420 spits him on shore

00:58:29.020 and he goes to the 0.96

00:58:30.160 city of the corrupt

00:58:32.540 enemy and

00:58:34.100 he tells them

00:58:36.160 what he has been

00:58:38.400 requested

00:58:40.920 to tell them

00:58:42.220 and

00:58:42.920 they repent

00:58:45.800 and they put on sackcloth and ashes

00:58:48.440 and they make the proper sacrifices

00:58:50.500 and they reestablish

00:58:52.360 their relationship with what is properly put in the highest place and the city is saved and what

00:59:00.320 does that mean it means the same thing that abraham bargained for with god when the angels

00:59:08.360 or god with whom abraham was traveling informed him of the impending destruction of sodom and

00:59:15.560 gomorrah abraham a man of great character by this point objects wrestling with god making the case

00:59:27.140 that it is not fit for the benevolent deity of the ancestral israelites to demolish a city

00:59:38.660 in which there may still be some inhabitants who are good and abraham asks god in this wrestling

00:59:48.760 whether if he goes to sodom and finds 40 men who are upright whether the city can still be salvaged

00:59:59.220 And God says, yes.

01:00:02.240 And Abraham, who has some fortitude and a certain amount of gall, pushes God and says, 30.

01:00:10.820 And God says, yes.

01:00:13.840 And Abraham says, 20. 0.85

01:00:18.000 And God says, yes.

01:00:24.220 And Abraham pushes him.

01:00:25.940 And the number is reduced to a very small, to something very small.

01:00:33.380 And what does that indicate?

01:00:35.460 It indicates the power of proper conduct and the truth.

01:00:39.900 Because the truth of the matter is that a city that is still uncorrupted enough

01:00:46.760 so that ten people have kept their voice

01:00:51.840 can avoid the total destruction

01:00:55.020 that's a consequence of everyone adopting the lie.

01:01:01.500 Right.

01:01:02.200 And so, what's the terrifying implication of those two stories?

01:01:11.240 You're called upon to be one of those few.

01:01:16.140 And anything less than that

01:01:18.120 is an abdication of the responsibility

01:01:21.480 whose adoption stops hell in its tracks.

01:01:27.580 Right, and that's the price you pay

01:01:31.400 for having the temerity to be fabricated in the image of God.

01:01:38.000 And that's your responsibility.

01:01:41.840 Right.

01:01:42.680 the responsibility of ultimate meaning

01:01:50.260 that characterizes you

01:01:52.300 as the citizen who is

01:01:54.460 neither the vassal of

01:01:56.400 tyrants nor the willing 1.00

01:01:58.280 slave right

01:02:00.120 so what's Jonah's faith

01:02:06.420 his decision to

01:02:08.520 speak it's not his

01:02:10.440 proclamation

01:02:11.440 lord lord his invocation of his probe of the propriety of his acceptance of a set of claims

01:02:24.280 of descriptive claims it's his willingness to put himself 100 percent on the line in the service of

01:02:35.560 what's good that's faith cain and abel make the same the story of cain and abel makes the same

01:02:45.540 point cain and abel are the first two human beings born in the natural way in the fallen and profane

01:02:57.580 world that characterizes our realm and history itself. The hostile brothers, each exemplifying

01:03:07.620 a pattern of work, a pattern of sacrifice, each exemplifying the two opposing patterns

01:03:17.840 of work or sacrifice that characterize the human endeavor as such. Why work and sacrifice?

01:03:26.100 Because work and sacrifice are the same thing.

01:03:29.500 And if you understand that, then you have a key to more deeply comprehending the entire corpus of the biblical stories.

01:03:40.020 Why is work a sacrifice?

01:03:42.040 Because you sacrifice the present for the future when you work.

01:03:45.900 You sacrifice your own whim for the stability of the community when you work.

01:03:51.780 The community and the future depend for their integrity and their abundance on the sacrifices made by civilized individuals.

01:04:06.860 Who can forego gratification and who can act in a manner that sacrifices the pleasure of the moment to the assurance of the well-being of their family and community and the stability and productivity of the future.

01:04:28.340 That's work. That's what human beings do. That's what mature human beings do.

01:04:33.020 They stop worshipping their own narrow whims and they aim at the up that provides them with integrity and that upon which the community itself is necessarily predicated.

01:04:50.300 That's the sacrificial gesture that reconciles man, woman and God.

01:04:58.640 Cain

01:05:01.600 refuses

01:05:03.840 to properly

01:05:06.300 engage in that sacrificial process

01:05:08.620 whereas Abel

01:05:09.460 is all in. Abel

01:05:12.180 who's a

01:05:13.880 shepherd

01:05:14.840 a keeper of flocks and therefore

01:05:18.020 an archetype of the shepherd who

01:05:20.160 keeps the predators at bay

01:05:22.280 and defends the innocent

01:05:24.340 and vulnerable

01:05:25.080 who can fend for himself in the desert

01:05:28.300 that's all the shepherd takes the best animals in his flock he takes the best of his wealth

01:05:36.620 he takes the best aspect of his riches he sacrifices that on the altar which he uses

01:05:45.980 to communicate with god and he indicates thereby his willingness to bring his best to the table

01:05:55.260 It's an archaic mode of representation.

01:05:58.860 It's predicated on the idea that God is up, like the sky.

01:06:04.380 The observation that smoke rises.

01:06:08.040 The notion that the God who inhabits heaven can detect from the essence of the smoke,

01:06:13.920 which contains the spirit of the sacrifice, the intent of the sacrificer,

01:06:21.240 The spirit of the offering, and that if it is of the highest quality, then we'll show that sacrificer, do respect.

01:06:35.240 Cain, by contrast, keeps what's best in reserve.

01:06:42.280 He has no faith in the necessity to exhaust himself in the pursuit of the proper relationship with the divine.

01:06:54.880 He buries his talents.

01:06:57.800 He hides his light under a bushel.

01:07:00.580 He falls under the sway of the spirit of deception and prideful usurpation.

01:07:08.220 Because if you win, you don't bring your best to the table.

01:07:14.740 You have to lie to yourself and everyone else to justify that.

01:07:21.440 You have to assume that you, as the deceiver, has the upper hand not only over your own conscience.

01:07:32.200 But over the other people that you're deceiving with your false offerings.

01:07:36.580 over the world and over God himself.

01:07:40.260 And that's how Cain falls under the sway of the Luciferian temptation.

01:07:48.680 He fails in his endeavors, failing as he does to bring his best to the table.

01:07:56.180 And this engenders a certain bitterness.

01:08:00.900 His countenance falls.

01:08:02.280 He's sad and unhappy and depressed and bitter and resentful and vengeful.

01:08:08.560 And he is inclined in consequence to call God out for his shortcomings.

01:08:16.800 Like everyone bitter does when they make the presumption that the fact that the world is not laying itself out for them as the walk towards paradise they desire.

01:08:29.060 when they lay the responsibility for that at the feet of the maker of the cosmic order

01:08:36.080 instead of taking responsibility for their own shortcomings themselves.

01:08:44.260 Cain faces God down, which is what we all do when we shake our fist at the sky

01:08:52.860 and bemoan our tragic and undeserved fates.

01:08:56.000 And God says to Cain, precisely those words that Cain least wants to hear.

01:09:05.500 He says, first, you blame your resentment on your failure.

01:09:11.240 But that's not exactly true.

01:09:13.000 Because other people who fail decide that there's an error that they're making.

01:09:18.860 And they atone and repent.

01:09:20.460 And they put themselves together.

01:09:21.800 And they start making the proper sacrifices.

01:09:24.180 and they learn in consequence of the rejection of their sacrifices.

01:09:28.800 Instead, what you did was fall prey to the temptation of the sin

01:09:38.660 that crouched at your door, in your despair, 0.96

01:09:42.980 that crouched there like a predatory, sexually aroused animal, 0.99

01:09:47.600 which you invited in and allowed and encouraged to have its way with you. 0.97

01:09:55.120 And so what does that mean?

01:09:56.360 Well, failure itself is insufficient justification for cataclysmic depression and resentment.

01:10:04.380 You have to brood on it.

01:10:05.880 You have to invite in the spirit of resentment and pride to possess you in your meditations on the unfair nature of the cosmic order itself, which appears to be turned against you.

01:10:22.060 That entices you into this rebellion against God instead of the acceptance of insufficiency, the consequent repentance, and that proclivity to learn that's part of the upward striving path of Abel.

01:10:41.060 And so God says, you can't blame your misery on the world and on me.

01:10:49.640 If you had done well, you'd be accepted.

01:10:54.040 And Cain is incensed and enraged by this response to his misery and resentment.

01:11:10.920 And he invites his brother to work with him in the field.

01:11:16.900 And when his brother agrees, hoping, no doubt, that Cain has decided to put some real effort into the game, 0.92

01:11:26.600 he kills him with a rock. 0.50

01:11:29.040 And he does that to spite God himself and to take revenge over, to take revenge on God's chosen son,

01:11:42.740 which is a foreshadowing of an endless number of events

01:11:49.120 that culminate in the death of Christ on the cross.

01:11:55.560 Cain has faith in his own proclivity for deception.

01:12:02.500 He falls prey to the worship of the spirit that he's invited into his heart.

01:12:09.260 he kills his own ideal in the form of abel and he's bereft in consequence because of course when

01:12:16.360 you kill the successful when you kill the very idea of success itself there's nothing left for

01:12:23.080 you but misery and failure and cain says to god my punishment is more than i can bear and god marks

01:12:30.300 him to stop the cycle of tit-for-tat revenge and sentences him to wander alone in the land of nod

01:12:39.060 which is once again the place that children go to sleep it's the domain of unconsciousness

01:12:44.860 and the wandering is the fact that Cain is the embodiment of the pattern of sacrifice that makes

01:12:51.720 him unfit for the company of other human beings and destined to be the vagabond the psychopathic 0.90

01:13:00.760 Vagabond who 1.00

01:13:01.860 Has no community or place 0.63

01:13:04.860 Cain's descendants

01:13:08.680 Degenerate 1.00

01:13:09.700 They're 0.97

01:13:12.800 More murderous than Cain

01:13:14.720 They extract a higher degree of vengeance

01:13:16.800 Than their father

01:13:17.760 They worship technology

01:13:20.400 Instead of God

01:13:21.760 And they become increasingly

01:13:23.640 Murderous and then

01:13:25.920 Genocidal

01:13:27.500 And what that means is that

01:13:29.560 when we each refuse to make the offering that's of the highest sort

01:13:38.680 and we fail in consequence and develop and invite in that spirit of bitterness

01:13:45.980 that justifies our dissatisfaction.

01:13:51.220 We participate in the process that not only corrupts our own soul

01:13:56.900 But that leads the state down the pathway to absolutely catastrophic genocidal murderousness.

01:14:07.500 The next thing that happens, in consequence of the faithlessness of Cain, is the flood.

01:14:16.120 Right.

01:14:18.440 So what do we make of this?

01:14:20.900 faith isn't

01:14:27.100 the 0.85

01:14:28.000 mouthing of the

01:14:31.060 proper holy

01:14:32.960 incantations

01:14:34.380 faith is

01:14:35.740 a total commitment

01:14:38.680 a total commitment

01:14:40.740 a priori

01:14:42.600 to the pathway of good

01:14:44.560 when Jacob leaves

01:14:46.140 his brother who's inclined to

01:14:48.820 murder him for his perfidy

01:14:50.420 and he leaves his family and his mother he goes into the desert and he builds an altar and he

01:14:58.480 consecrates it to god and it's a decision point in jacob's life he decides that despite his ill

01:15:05.240 spent youth he is now going to aim up right that's his manifestation of the faith that establishes

01:15:12.860 the covenant between his soul and the god of his ancestors and what does that mean do you aim up

01:15:20.020 do you determine in the aftermath of your failure and bitter disappointment that the proper path

01:15:28.300 that you should take toward redemption is to stop doing what you know to be wrong and start doing

01:15:38.380 what you know to be right that decision to aim up even in the smallest manner in which you might be

01:15:45.080 capable given your blindness that's what jacob determines to do that's what abraham does when he

01:15:52.040 starts out on his adventure and builds that initial altar he indicates his willingness to

01:15:57.860 believe that the good exists and to pursue that pathway and to let go of shed and sacrifice

01:16:07.780 everything that stands in his way and that's faith and then that's ultimately exemplified

01:16:18.760 in the story of job who's tortured by god and satan who has everything that any man could value

01:16:27.760 stripped from him and arbitrarily and yet decides not to lose faith in himself despite his suffering

01:16:37.400 Or in God, despite the apparent injustice, indicating that we're all called upon to maintain our faith in the utility of the upward aim, no matter what happens to us.

01:16:54.120 And that's finally realized in its ultimate form in the story of the passion, which is the catastrophe of Job multiplied and portrayed multidimensionally.

01:17:17.240 The Passion of Christ is the story of the least deserving, the person who least deserves betrayal and brutal torture and punishment,

01:17:33.720 receiving exactly that in its worst form, young, while simultaneously being the target of the unjust mob

01:17:45.600 and the worst of the tyrants

01:17:49.040 facing a catastrophic death

01:17:53.960 in front of the people that he loves.

01:17:57.400 It's the most tragic possible fate

01:18:02.220 portrayable.

01:18:05.900 And the pathway that Christ follows

01:18:10.100 is the faith to continue the upward aim

01:18:17.760 that unites man and God

01:18:20.540 despite the utter catastrophe of the tragedies

01:18:26.160 and malevolence of human existence and the world.

01:18:33.080 And that sacrifice that is represented by the crucifix,

01:18:39.540 which is a symbol of the voluntary willingness to bear that fate

01:18:45.380 is the symbol that we put at the center of our communities

01:18:50.980 and have for 2,000 years to signify our dawning understanding

01:18:56.840 that the future is ensured, death is defeated, evil overcome,

01:19:04.640 and the community established

01:19:06.620 as a consequence of

01:19:08.460 full participation

01:19:10.440 in the pattern of voluntary self-sacrifice.

01:19:13.860 Right.

01:19:16.140 That's

01:19:16.900 that's faith.

01:19:23.280 Thank you very much.

01:19:34.640 Alright, so I'm going to invite my daughter Michaela back out

01:19:41.860 and she's going to take some questions from the audience

01:19:45.820 and weave them together in a manner that enables our inquiry to continue

01:19:50.360 and we'll do that for about 20 more minutes

01:19:54.320 and that will comprise the evening.

01:20:04.640 you nailed it thank you my dear

01:20:13.460 that's a hell of a metaphor under the circumstances

01:20:19.520 see that's a freudian slip i'm dead serious that's exactly the sort of thing that freud

01:20:33.800 in his genius observed is that the implicit structures through which we view the world

01:20:41.800 the unconscious will note concordances and patterns that and express them often as jokes

01:20:50.540 for example that indicate a pattern of symbolic understanding that's beyond our comprehension

01:20:59.060 and that Freud wrote a whole book about such things right and that was part of his investigation

01:21:05.000 into the mysterious workings of the of the unconscious right well I'm never saying that

01:21:12.860 again did you guys notice that he lectures with his eyes closed this was the first time I noticed

01:21:24.680 how long you keep your eyes closed and you'd never you've never fallen off the stage

01:21:29.380 so far so far yes yeah yeah so far yeah that's happened more and more in this tour in particular

01:21:38.840 and it started to happen and i it helps me concentrate on what would you say it helps me

01:21:49.960 screen out everything from my awareness except

01:21:55.540 my apprehension of the next right word right right right and that's a calling on as well

01:22:05.220 i'm trying to as i said address the problem at hand in the most accurate possible manner that

01:22:13.400 It requires detailed and devout concentration and the willingness to let the inquiry take itself wherever it goes.

01:22:33.740 When Christ is baptized, after Christ is baptized, and the spirit of the Holy Ghost descends on him,

01:22:42.500 He goes where the wind blows, right?

01:22:49.400 He goes where the Spirit calls him, and that takes him to the desert.

01:22:52.960 That's what happens in that situation, where he's tempted by Satan, right?

01:22:57.360 He gets to the bottom of things.

01:22:59.220 That's what happens if you attend to the calling of the Spirit

01:23:07.300 that is attempting to make itself manifest in its descent from heaven.

01:23:11.760 Right? It takes you to the place you least want to go, to encounter what you least want to encounter.

01:23:21.040 And that's the pathway to resurrection and salvation.

01:23:26.560 Yeah.

01:23:32.460 That's also partly why people don't tell the truth.

01:23:37.060 That's where it will lead you. 0.84

01:23:38.580 Just like it leads the Israelites away from tyranny, of course, but into the desert, right? 0.84

01:23:45.340 For 40 years, you can wander around lost, even if you've established your upward aim. 0.86

01:23:53.200 You can wander around lost for a long time.

01:23:55.900 So it's a terrifying, it's terrifying adventure, but it's better than all the alternatives.

01:24:04.820 okay we have i've been told we have 10 minutes

01:24:12.260 so we should get through a quarter of one question

01:24:16.500 so uh

01:24:24.300 start with the important ones um

01:24:29.500 if i acquire enough wisdom will my hair grow back

01:24:34.440 okay i'm joking you don't even have to answer that one no offense to amir okay poor bald amir

01:24:43.840 oh how do you believe god reveals people's callings or purpose

01:24:54.180 by gripping your interest assuming you're aiming up that's the thing you can rely on your

01:25:02.160 interest, that instinct that signifies the proper pathway forward. You can rely on that

01:25:14.440 if you take the beam from your eye and aim up. Then things will call to you in the world.

01:25:23.680 They'll elicit your interest. They'll fill you with enthusiasm. And insofar as you've established

01:25:29.800 the proper relationship with what's in the highest place that calling will be reliable

01:25:35.880 this is what happens to Moses you see when he's a shepherd in Midian he's an ordinary man he's

01:25:44.460 established himself as an adult a respectable responsible adult a shepherd not a high status

01:25:50.660 job but a difficult and necessary one he has he's established his marriages he's a man

01:25:58.600 and he's attending his flock near mount sinai mount horeb same place that's the place where

01:26:08.520 heaven and earth touch and something beckons to him that calls him off the beaten path

01:26:14.680 right his beaten path this happens to all of us you have a dream you have a vision you have something

01:26:21.180 that excites you and interests you it's the birthplace of the dream that would

01:26:26.220 whose realization would constitute the adventure of your life it's a secret you hold in your heart

01:26:34.220 unwilling as you are to share it with yourself or with anyone else because of your faithless fear

01:26:42.000 of betrayal let's say it's the pearl of great price that you might well keep buried

01:26:48.840 if your orientation is appropriate you can rely on your intuition and what captures your interest

01:26:56.400 and that's what moses does he goes to investigate the burning bush right and that's the tree of life

01:27:01.420 that's on fire and fire is life right because living things metabolize and that's fire and

01:27:07.620 something intensely alive burns like a like a child burns you know a child you love burns and

01:27:14.740 captures your imagination or someone you love burns and captures your imagination you can see

01:27:20.640 that something that inspires you glows and warms your heart you can investigate that and that's

01:27:29.480 what Moses does he takes off his shoes signifying his willingness to abandon his current identity

01:27:34.880 and his current path he understands that he's beginning to tread on sacred ground which is

01:27:40.560 what you do when you investigate what calls to you and the spirit of being and becoming itself

01:27:46.380 speaks to him and that's what happens if you take your quest seriously that's what happens that's

01:27:53.260 how you develop the wisdom that makes you charismatic that's what happens to Moses he

01:27:57.460 becomes a leader a leader is someone who leads his people from tyranny their own tyranny the

01:28:04.640 tyranny of their marriage the tyranny of their family the tyranny of the community there's always 0.99

01:28:09.360 tyranny right and away from their slavish and immature habits the habits that lead them to 0.99

01:28:15.720 the worship of the golden calf they listen to moses because he's been there and done that and 0.93

01:28:24.200 has got to the bottom of things and speaks the words that are compelling because of their force

01:28:30.060 And that's all real.

01:28:32.300 And that's what happens when you meet someone who's pursued their destiny properly.

01:28:38.080 And they're charismatic and admirable.

01:28:42.340 And their words have force.

01:28:45.080 And that's because the voice of the benevolent Father speaks through them.

01:28:51.420 And that's the eternal story of proper development.

01:29:00.060 it's true. And that's the answer to that question. Okay, great. Okay, we can squeeze another one in

01:29:19.560 here. I think this one was worth addressing. I'm a married 32-year-old man, an alcoholic,

01:29:28.320 sober seven years should i have kids even if i fear i can drink again and

01:29:34.100 ruin my family like my father did 0.61

01:29:36.360 so when the israelites are on the edge of the promised land canaan

01:29:47.180 which needs a lot of work by the way

01:29:50.080 um moses and the israelites send out scouts

01:29:55.120 and they're sort of like prophets in a way they're scouts of the future they go to canaan

01:30:01.280 the promised destination and they check out the territory and they come back with various

01:30:07.120 accounts and some of them come back and say oh my god there's nothing but giants 0.97

01:30:12.980 in canaan and they're going to stomp us to death all hell's going to break loose we were fools to 0.95

01:30:20.680 leave the comfort of egypt we were fools to walk across the desert led by this mountain bank 1.00

01:30:26.680 moses we cannot possibly progress into the future we have to turn tail and run we have to look back 0.99

01:30:35.260 like lot's wife and then there are other scouts joshua and caleb among them who say we can prevail

01:30:44.180 with faith and proper upward aim maintaining the covenant that we have established with

01:30:51.800 what has been put in the proper properly in the highest place we can prevail and

01:30:58.800 god rewards those faithful scouts and transforms them and them into the leaders that take the

01:31:07.380 israelites into the promised land after moses dies right that's joshua same name as yeshua

01:31:13.760 same name as christ signifying that it's the spirit of total adventure that stabilizes the future

01:31:22.620 faithful total adventure so you were an alcoholic a worshiper of dionysius while you've had seven

01:31:29.240 years like jacob to straighten yourself out have some faith right

01:31:36.280 all right everyone thank you michaela thank you everyone

01:31:59.240 Thank you.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - August 23, 2026

What Happens When Good Men Say Nothing

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