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[Music] out.
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[Music] Hey man, sorry about that. I don't know what the heck happened. I think the like Wi-Fi or something at the restaurant I'm driving by picked it up. I'm actually swinging by an In-N-Out Burger.
>> Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?
>> Yeah. Can you hear me?
>> Yeah. Okay. Um Yeah. So you um it seemed like your main argument is so you you you cited Daycart uh that uh sort of like the cartisian doubt stuff um about you becoming the final judge of revelation basically by uh by personal experience right so it's like but the issue with that I think is just like calling something supernatural truth without a public revelation is just like it's just I think it's just like um emotionalism that's like made to seem theological because every cult leader and mystic and mystic in history can say I can't fully explain it but I know X or Y is true
>> and
>> agreed. I that's why I don't
>> let me just finish this thought real quick and then I'll let you go. Okay. He said um if if God told you to be orthodox that you would >> and um we would believe that he already has through his divine revelation. It came through the apostles and the fathers in 2,000 years of history. So if you just want like a private telegram from heaven about where the church is, we don't believe that's how that works. Now some people do have miraculous dreams and experiences that make them orthodox. That does happen, but we don't want to put God to the test in that sense. And regarding like uh your claim that no one knows anything with perfect certainty uh but you're perfectly certain that experience is reality that's self-refuting because that cartisian certainty it doesn't get you out of that. And so I just think that epistemologically it's not very strong. That's my that's my opinion. Feel free to respond. Take as much time as you want.
>> So I I was just going to say that that the uh cartisian certainty only I think deals with what I call rational certainty. Um I don't think you can have perfect rational certainty of anything. And so when I claim that someone knows something through a direct experience, as I said before, I would only say that that they know that the experience happened. How we immediately once you begin to interpret an experience that you've had, you're now engaging in the process of reason. Right? It's the difference between the raw data and the analysis of the data itself. Okay? So what people would say is, "Okay, you might have had some kind of a personal experience, Jacob, but you're like you're not reasoning about it correctly and and and I think you're misinterpreting these emotional experiences that you've had for uh communication from God." Something like that, right? Um now, I would say that there's a certain side to which that's valid. That's why I don't believe in a what I call a feelings alone epistemology, right? But I also don't doubt that God can reveal things to me and commune with me and and help me to know what things are right sort of supernaturally. And so uh um what I'm saying is that there's this again it's sort of that's why I say collective witness. You don't just rely on one witness. If you're just relying on feelings that's wrong. If you're just relying on authority like a like a solos scriptura person says this is the authority of the Bible is it. I just believe it because the Bible says so. I think you're you're missing something there. You're not engaging the power of reasons to even check as to why you believe that the Bible is true or the spiritual manifestations. My thing is all of these things can witness to you uh what is true and you have to utilize all of them, right? Um and when you use all of those things, that's your best approximation to what the truth is. um because those are the faculties God gave you for uh that that purpose.
>> Yeah. Okay. So, just like one more one more point. I I understand that you're uh you're saying that it's a it's a multiaceted case, but I think that the the central thing about about Decart is just that you can't you really just can't have it both ways because the moment you say we can't have rational certainty, you've made a rationally certain statement about certainty itself. So it's it's uh self-refuting and self- falsifies. So that's the issue. It's a performative contradiction in saying it if that makes sense. And then the other issue I see like practically I think it's a little bit absurd because if reason can't give you certainty then you can't be certain about Daycart Joseph Smith or your own logic and saying that. So the whole conversation collapses into guessing. And so I don't think that makes sense. And since orthodoxy doesn't really rely in any way on cartisian certainty, it rests in historical revelation. God became man, right? And then he left the church and they confess the same faith. That's not a guess, you know, it's not like a uh it's not a uh cartisian analysis with the assumption that you can't rationally find truth. So I think the problem with what you're claiming is that you start mainly leading in with skepticism and then it ultimately I think as a reductio I think it reduces into subjectivity heavily and so I think our position of starting with the person of Christ which is what the Orthodox church did we start with his person that's what Nika was is we're figuring out who is Christ and through the ecumenical councils we're where we have the revelation once and for all delivered and we're explaining that revelation and defining the boundaries of it. So I think that that just makes more sense. So uh I just think the Cartisian thing it eats its own tail because if you say we can't have rational certainty that's a rationally certain statement and so it's already self-refuting and a performative contradiction. So that's my stance on your epistemology.
No, I I wouldn't say that the uh cartisian uh certainty or I wouldn't say that it is a um I wouldn't say that it's a rational certainty that we don't have rational certainty. Uh no um sorry the window um so because I think that the cart could have been wrong. I'm just I'm in the
>> You cut out there. I'm sorry. You cut out.
>> Sorry. I was just saying that Deart could have been wrong in in his analysis. Maybe we can have rational certainty, but I'm not convinced that we can. What I'm saying is all that we have is more is greater or lesser confidence about certain sub uh certain ideas. Even your epistemological foundation, what you're saying is around the history and personhood of Christ, you don't have a perfect epistemological certainty that that's true. Jesus may not may Jesus may have just been a Jewish preacher that had a lot of ideas and and you could be wrong. I don't think you're wrong. Like I think Jesus was who the New Testament makes him out to be. But you can't claim perfect epistemic certainty around that proposition. It's just a it's just a presupposition that you're that you said as as you said before is your starting point, but you haven't justified that starting point.
>> Okay. So here's the thing. I'm not claiming you need like a cartisian infallible certainty. That's your claim. And you're starting out with the idea that you're absolutely certain that no one can be absolutely certain, which is self-defeating. That's a defeating claim. And then you go, okay, well, I'm not absolutely certain. I might be wrong. But so then it ends up reducing into just kind of a shrug like, well, maybe I'm right that you can't be certain. And then based off of that, uh, I think you can be certain when you have feelings and it reduces, I think, into nonsense there.
>> No, that that I wouldn't say that's my position at all. Um, my position is very clearly that you can't have perfect epistemic certainty on a rational level. I don't think that that exists. And and unless you were to demonstrate to me how one can have perfect rational certainty, then that claim would fall apart. And I don't think you or anyone can do that. And I've tried to find a system to do that because it'd be really cool if I found some sort of a methodology that could render perfect rational certainty. But as Dart I think Deart's great uh sort of assertion still stands in the sense that no one has been able to refute it. So until he could be wrong, but I I don't have a perfect uh epistemic uh certainty on a rational level. However, I can say that I've had certain experiences and I can say that with certainty. Now, maybe I'm misinterpreting those experiences, but you this is what Deart did say. We could know and I think he was brilliant about it. I think, therefore, I am. In other words, the direct experience of existence itself is like it's as real as things get. It is reality just you're directly encountering reality. Now you may use your power of reason inappropriately and misinterpret what that is. But the baseline experience is and this is what I actually argue in my series. I actually think that the f that knowledge what knowledge is fundamentally it is direct experience. It isn't some we can talk about it. We use words. We use reason to try and articulate the experiences the encounters with reality that we have. But ultimately the only thing that is fundamentally that you can know what it means to know something is to encounter something directly not
>> okay articulation.
>> So okay here's the thing. So your your your claim is that you say perfect epistemic certainty doesn't exist but that statement itself assumes certainty about that fact. And then you go, well, I'm not certain about that fact. Which makes your claim
>> hold which weakens the claim.
>> I don't want it to be misrepresented. I'm not it is not that I'm certain about that fact. It is that that fact seems most likely true amongst the alternatives. My there is no rational fact that I'm going to state that is perfectly epistemically certain. It is simply what I believe is the most likely thing. And I'm willing to be convinced otherwise if someone can show me good reason to doubt that claim.
>> Okay. So, let me really let me try to steal man you so that way I can 100% say what you're saying and we're not talking past. Okay. And then I'll try to explain what my issue is. All right. Okay. So, you're probably sure that certainly that certain probability doesn't or not probability. You're probably sure that certainty is not true. That's your claim.
>> My claim is I think it is most likely that you cannot have perfect rational certainty about almost anything. Uh and I I guess maybe I should phrase it that way because um yeah, let's just leave. My issue is you really can't you can't claim probability here without presupposing or assuming certainty somewhere else. So otherwise the probability itself just reduces to meaninglessness.
>> Things are true by virtue of the terms being used. You know what I mean? Like 2 plus 2= 4 is true 100% just by virtue of the terms being used.
>> Okay. So you're saying like there's certain things that are just self-evidently true. I don't that might be more of a divide.
>> Like a square has four sides. That statement is true, but it's true. This is the difference between inductive and deductive logic. Deductive logic something is true because of the like that's what a square is. We've defined the square as the thing that has four sides. So to say that a square has four sides is just to state what we have defined. However, if I say that I this steering wheel in front of me is real, that statement that is based on me trusting that my eyeballs are not playing a trick on me right now and that I'm not actually driven dreaming and living in the matrix. This is sort of what Deart was saying. He's saying in this realm of inductive logic where we have to trust other things like our senses, you can't have
>> So here's what
>> here's the issue. Let's let's let's not let's not I I I'm not claiming perfect absolute epistemic certainty in the in the in the um and I do understand that like the transcendent that is experienced is extremely compelling and I agree. So let's establish some like shared ground. But why do I think your your epistemology is shaky? It's because I think if you appeal to mathematical certainty or the shape of the square or whatever to justify probability as your standard, the whole point of math is that it's certain. So you admit at least one domain of absolute certainty in that claim. Even if you say, well, I mean, it's just the best tools we have, but you're still making a positive claim. So you just have to keep shrinking the size of your claim when pressed on this, which I think ends up working against your thesis here altogether.
>> Well, I'd be curious to hear what um do you believe in perfect epistemic certainty? perfect epistemic certainty like in the sense of like
>> fundamentally what my claim is is that you can't have perfect epistemic rational certainty about anything and so all you can do is have better or worse reasons for higher or lower levels of confidence that's the essence of my epistemological structure so if you I I just want to know fundamentally I mean we it there's only two things you either can have perfect epistemic certainty about something or you can't. The only thing that I would say that I've ever found that you can I think have make that sort of a claim is your own existence. I think Deart is right when he says I think therefore I am. And so the only thing that is perfectly certain is that you actually are having experiences. But that's as far as it go. you can't you can't make any perfect epistemically certain statements about those experiences. Um and so again fundamentally if you disagree with me you have to show that there is something that we have perfect epistemic certainty of outside of just our own existence. Can you do that?
Well, I think there's a lot smuggled into the entirety of your system here. It's not just that there's uh it's not just the skepticism employed by Dart that where Dart makes the claim that you really can't have any like epistemic certainty about anything and you can't have absolutely certain truth claims. But Orthodox Christianity does not teach perfect epistemic certainty in the Cartisian sense at all. But orthodoxy does affirm that there is real trustworthy and unshakable knowledge of God that is possible not through abstract reason but through participation in God's uncreated energies. And I think your paradigm you shift that.
>> Can you know something if you're not if it isn't 100% certain?
>> Yeah. So I I don't think that I think I misunderstood what your original position was and now that I understand your position better, I think I think I'm I'm understanding better what you're saying. At first, what I thought you were claiming is epistemic nihilism that you can't really know anything for certain at all and therefore uh you should just trust experience. You then beared out better what your position was. So now I have to engage your position, not the position I thought you were making.
>> And I would well and here's one of the things we have to define right up front. What do you mean by knowledge?
>> Knowledge.
>> Like what does it mean to know something? I guess I think maybe the main difference between me and you I mean I mean knowledge just means knowledge means to know something and you know like facts you know like and the petristic definition the fathers describe knowledge as the illumination of the noose
>> so which is which comes from synergy with divine grace and that's how you I mean I guess there's different types of knowledge too like conceptual which would be like more analytical and then like experiential knowledge and spiritual knowledge these are different realms in the same domain.
>> Yeah. So, but but when we're talking about knowledge, like this is the first thing you have to do when you're doing epistemology. What does it mean to say that I know something?
>> I think my issue with what my issue with your claim with your epistemology is I think it I think methodology wise, I think it's a little bit it's a little bit hard to follow because the claims are so small. So, it's like you can't really know anything for sure. It's like a very minimalistic case. you can't really know anything for sure and you can know that with very high reasonable certainty and so due to this skepticism of not really being able to know things for sure you can trust the burning of your bosom when you pray and then that gets you to LDS and that's what you're trusting
>> and that just doesn't from the outside looking in that's kind of shaky I'm not trying to be mean anything
>> I'm not but that's not my case I would remember I want to when I'm talking about epistemology I haven't gotten anywhere to a Mormon epistemology I just want to talk about epistemology straight up and epistemologically just straight up at the foundations, the very first thing we have to do is understand what we say when we say we know something. So if you're going to say that you know things, are you saying that you have perfect epistemic certainty about those things?
>> You're making a truth claim and you're claiming that what you're saying is true whenever you make a positive claim of anything. But I think even if we reduce it into like a more radical skepticism like sort of the approach you're taking um I think it just sort of distracts from what our ultimate disagreement is on which is LDS epistemology not like the very fabric of how do you know anything at all whatsoever ever
>> which that does play into the conversation I can see that but it does
>> I mean I'm willing to abandon LDS epistemology if I can show that there's a better epistemology but I want to go back to the very very beginnings of epistemology itself to figure out what the heck are we even talking about because
>> yeah like I believe
>> okay I'll let you keep going sorry
>> what I'm what what I find at the roots of epistemology is this
>> okay and that is nobody by knowledge means means they have perfect certainty that isn't what knowledge is knowledge when people claim knowledge they're claiming a level of confidence that's all they're claiming it's it's the highest level of confidence you you can you can do. So all we're dealing with in the epistemological space when we're talking about what we know and what we don't know is just things that we have more or worse reason for believing to be true. And so the only question then becomes, okay, well, what are you using to push something up the confidence scale? Like if I see something, does that push it up the confidence scale that it's real? Yeah, I think I think that's a legitimate one. If if I reason to something, if I look at history and I reason about the nature of the events involved and all that kind of stuff, does that increase my confidence that some historical claim is true? Yes, it does. So reason is another my entire model is based on what I I've kind of summarized into five witnesses that people use to increase their confidence that something is true. Okay? And so in my that that's my epistemological model. It says look I have five witnesses that I roughly speak about that are intuition, reason, empirical sort of direct experience, moral outcomes or fruits and um authority. Those are the five witnesses that I believe that you can sort of lean into. And it depends on what you're dealing with. You know, if I'm dealing with a a you know, is this steering wheel in front of me, what is going to be the witness that's the strongest to give me good confidence that it's here? Well, my eyeballs. Why? Because my eyeballs are infallible? No, it's because they're reliable. And so, I have an entire epistemological model that's based around the full use of these different five witnesses to engage those five witnesses. Anytime you're trying to understand the truth of a given truth claim, right? And I think that's a very reasonable model.
>> Do you believe that like truth is a person? Like do you agree with the statement that truth is Christ? Do you believe in that statement?
>> I don't know what people mean by that statement.
>> Okay. All right. Yeah. No, I just I I it's always interesting to see how far apart the worldviews are when comparing them because there's so much talking past and like trying to understand your your epistemology and your religion. I mean because like for me it's just like
>> understand what the terms are like like if you say is Jesus the truth. Well, what do you mean by truth?
>> Like truth incarnate like he is truth.
>> Okay, but what what do you mean by truth? When I talk about truth, I mean that which pertains to reality. So is Jesus with
>> like Jes like Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ is like real like he is like the ultimate reality is orthodoxy in our view. So okay let's
>> but Jesus was a person who was walking around in Palestine 2,000 years ago who had flesh and blood and was hanging out with people like I don't know what it means to say that that that person is ultimate reality you know without really fleshing that out. You know what I'm saying? Okay. So, well, let's talk a little bit more because I'm trying to understand fully what what you're saying here because like I I have no idea like I'm trying to understand what you even believe about Jesus in the first place. Like cuz when I say Jesus is the ultimate reality, I mean like the very act of being exist in itself flows from Jesus Christ and that everything that exists participates in Christ and that without him nothing would exist. And I believe that's an ontological reality of Christ. Like all things were made through him and without him nothing was made that was made. So he's not like the highest moral ideal or anything. He is being itself which through whom being is possible.
>> And I think that if
>> Jesus was Jesus a person.
>> Yes. But you're just going to confuse natures and persons because like I think the hap hypothetic union's rough for you. But if Jesus is not the ultimate reality, then ultimate reality is either impersonal matter or an unknown abstract principle. And part of what I have issues with your worldview is that God himself is not the first cause. He's just kind of organizing matter and data. He he like organizes things together, but he's not he's not uh eternal and uncreated, you know? And so I think because God the father was once a man who progressed to godhood, right? And then matter and intelligence have to be eternal because God was matter
>> who became deity.
>> And so there's infinitely
>> so there's logical collapse because no being is self-existent and no one explains why and there's no explanation how any of it exists and then you end up with eternal matter. Like matter is eternal not God. You end up with
>> every everything including God is eternal.
>> Yeah. So you just have like but you have no first cause. There's no creator.
>> There's no need for There's no need for a first cause in a in a in an eternal system.
>> There's no need for a first cause in an eternal system.
>> Yeah,
>> that's got to think about what you're saying here because it's like trying to make everything I think it's a category error because saying that an internal system doesn't need a cause like you're you're missing the point here. You're saying, okay, like there's been a long duration of things happening, but that but it's dependent on something. What is that thing dependent on? Because eternity and time doesn't explain why there is anything at all. Because even if the universe has always existed always, you still have to No, no, no. Let me finish. You still have to explain why it exists rather than nothing, an eternal and and an an eternal system is contingent on something. So that means there needs to be a cause for its being. So you fall into a similar trap the atheists fall into because like you know I think there's a philosophical necessity here cuz every finite thing within an internal system still needs still has a nature it didn't give itself. So the total system of contingent things it isn't self-explanatory and I think just declaring it as such that's an assertion but logically what was the first cause of any of it? So
>> well, that this all presupposes that fundamental reality is finite.
>> Fundamental reality is finite. You believe fundamental reality is infinite.
>> Yeah.
>> So do you. If you believe that God is infinite, you you believe that something is infinite and has no cause.
>> Yes. But you just think that what do you think that infinite cause is? That's what I'm asking you.
>> Uh it's just the nature of reality itself. But just like to ask why there's something rather than
>> I feel like you're just you're just kind of dodging because if you call reality infinite, you're just changing the label now. It doesn't really answer my question. Is this infinite reality self-existent
>> or is it just an infinite collection of things? You know,
>> it's self-existent. All all things fundamentally, whatever the the fundamental like stuff of reality, it always has been. The nature of it is to exist and it always has existed. To to talk about to talk about nothing to talk about non-existence is to in my mind it's sort of an incoherence because it it there is no such thing as nothing. There always has been something and that something has been all that there is. And that's just a philosophical sort of thing because there is something. And from nothing, nothing comes. There always has been something. The only question is what has it been? And what is its form? What is its shape? What is it? What is it like? And so you guys posit that God is that thing that has always been. And that he then out of nothing created more stuff. We just say no. that that God and all of this stuff has always existed and the only difference is is how it's organized. Something like that.
>> So if matter is eternal and self-existent, what gives it rational order? Because there has to be a rational order to all of that
>> mind.
>> And so the mind, it's like that's God now. We're getting back to there being a God, an ultimate God.
>> You're getting back to that.
>> Why not? Why not just that everything in in reality is minded like a sort of idealism or pansychism and that from that um and that amongst the to use the LDS sort of terms amongst the minds and and mindedness of reality there was a mind that began to organize things into uh a into the universe and things as we experienc I kind of think that the problem here is is just the moment you affirm an eternal self-existent mind that rightly orders the universe, you've conceded the premise, which is that a necessary, intelligent, immaterial source of being created the world. And you're just like not calling it God.
>> No, I'm I'm happy to call it God. I believe that God is the creator in that sense. I But I'm not saying he created X Nilo. I'm saying that he existed within a reality that was chaotic. And this is what the oldest biblical stories teach. And that from that he created order out of the chaos. And I do believe mind is necessary to create order. And I do believe that God is that mind that created order. But that doesn't it doesn't mean that there has to be something that existed out of nothing. When you start positing nothing, that's the problem. There's no
>> So the deity So the deity that you're describing isn't the source of all being. He's just like he just sort of like crafts and organizes pre-existing chaos and rearranges it.
>> That means he's not uncreated. He's part of the same system he's shaping. Which means that you didn't escape my trap that I laid out earlier, which is that you you've already like when you already concede a eternal mind organizing everything that is God. You said yes, that is God. But then you shifted it back to oh, God just organizes the matter. I was saying that in your system, matter is eternal and that and you just said, "Okay, yeah, all of these things are eternal out there and you moved it away from God." But then when I pushed you on it, you then said it was God.
>> No, I'm not I'm not saying that that God is matter
>> because you because you can call it an eternal mind if you like, but it's like orthodoxy calls that the logos Christ God.
>> Okay? And I don't have a problem saying that God is the creator. I have a problem saying that he created it out of nothing because from nothing nothing comes. It's it's it's the the big problem I have is the presupposition of nothing. Like there there is no such thing as nothing. their their um
>> their view is that God did not create the world out of nothing but rather from something which gets us back to the pre-existing chaos or eternal matter which you said is ordered and is it's and it's a mind that's running that but it's not God
>> but it is God but then you said it was God do you see do you see what's metaphysically impossible here because if matter is external then it shares God's defining attribute self-existence so two self-existent reality ities can't coexist. Each would limit the other. So if God depends on matter to act, he is not omnipotent. And if matter depends on God, then God is no longer eternal. And all you have is eternal matter. Do you see what I'm saying?
>> I wouldn't say that. I would not say that God um
>> uh I would not say that God is um how do I how was I gonna say? I just like drew a blank on what I was gonna say. Um, God is uh coexistent with eternal matter. And and when I say eternal matter, this is the other thing that people get into trouble with. Okay? I'm not talking about the kind of matter that you and I experience. Okay? Latter- day Saints talk about like a spiritual matter that there is some sort of a substance that has always existed. Okay? And the problem is is that even Orthodox have to conceive that because if God has always existed, right? Did God exist in any sort of a realm? So if you But here's the thing. If you admit that
>> Hold on. Hold on, though. Because the problem is is that you want to posit that God always existed. Okay. But I don't know what the heck you mean to say that God has always existed if he didn't exist in some sort of a reality, the reality that he inhabited, which would mean that there is a reality that has always existed.
>> We believe God. To say God is indistinguishable from that reality that has always existed. To say that he is that reality is just to be a a pantheist. To say that God is everything. He is reality itself. But that is not what the scriptures teach. He's the creator, but he creates within an existing system a realm that he is that he inhabits, the the divine or eternal realm. Okay. So, here's how and this is actually great because this really gets into Eastern Orthodoxy because the misunderstanding here is that when I say God is reality itself, I'm not saying the world is God. I'm saying everything that truly exists receives its being from the one who one whose being is uncreated. So that's not that's not pantheism. In pantheism no let me finish let me finish it. Make a good claim. Let me finish it. In pantheism God and the world share one essence. In orthodoxy there is a gulf between the uncreated essence of God and the created essence of everything else. And so we participate in God through his energies. That's the essence energy distinction. So that's how we resolve that conflict. But let me get back to what we're saying here because the issue in in your in your uh realm or in your uh paradigm is that you're saying that existence, right? You're you're saying that um existence and matter are eternal. Is time itself eternal? I mean, there's just a lot here that I think if you end up going this route, you you've now um like is God and all of us transversing through an infinite timeline? Like I'm just so confused. Like is the timeline the ultimate thing? Like what is the ultimate here?
>> Well, re well the problem is is that the ultimate is is the realm that even God inhabits.
>> Okay.
>> So the the ultimate isn't matter. The ultimate isn't any of those things. The ultimate is the realm that God inhabits.
>> When we talk about one of the challenges with talking about matter is that we conflate the term and we think that what but we mean by matter in LDS thought is like actual like atoms and stuff like that that those are not emergent from something more fundamental.
>> Here's the thing real quick. Real quick. Does LDS believe that the physical matter that we live in emerges from a more fundamental what we would call spirit matter? A more fundamental substance. Something akin to what an idealist would say when they say that that actually mind is fundamental. Okay. Well, let's call mind. Let's call that spirit matter. Right? You do this the same term. The the problem is that fundamentally God if he has always existed, if he has an eternal existence, um then he inhabits a realm that has always existed. And so there is no creation out of nothing unless God exists in some realm that has no properties to it.
>> Would you concede would you concede just being a dualist? Because it seems like if there is a realm that God inhabits, then that realm is more fundamental than God because God depends on that realm to exist or to act. Which means the realm not God is ultimate. Yes.
>> So it seems to me that you that you are a duelist, not a
>> not not monotheism at all.
>> I wouldn't I wouldn't Well, I would say well monist and duelist duelist doesn't have to do with monotheism
>> because the moment you put God inside something, you've turned him into a creature within a larger reality. You know what I'm saying? Well, that's the problem is that
>> what is this realm exactly? Because if it if it exists independently, it shares God's supposed internality. It's two self-existent realities. Again, that's dualism, dude.
>> I'll be I'll be quite clear. I do believe that there is a reality that is even more fundamental than God. Because if God was fundamental reality itself, then he's not a person. He is like a reality. and and that is not consistent with Jesus. I get that that a lot of the Greek philosophical sort of world, that's what they sort of arrived at to what God is. And I just think that's totally incohererent and inconsistent with what the Bible actually teaches. And I actually think it's bad philosophically because
>> if if there's a reality that's more fundamental than God, then by definition that reality is God. The most fundamental reality is No, let me finish. The most fundamental reality is what everything depends on. And even if your god depends on something else, he's not the ultimate. So I don't even really want to deal with him. I want to get to your ultimate. So you've demoted God to a creature living under a higher law. There's a higher cosmology above God that he's living in. You really can't escape that. And a being that's not the ground of reality can't be divine. You understand that? So if God exists inside reality, then he's part of the he's just he's just part of the furniture of the house that is the universe. THAT'S WHAT HE IS. HE'S NOT the foundation in any meaningful sense. So he's no longer like the scriptures say the I am at all. But he's just like I am also I'm just another guy. And that's just that's just like there's the metaphysical incoherence doesn't make sense because the word fundamental means self-existent, necessary and uncaused, right?
>> Well, how we view God as self-existent, right? So the word God means exactly the same thing. You can't have a more fundamental than the fundamental because God is the fundamental. That's like saying there's something more necessary than necessity itself. The idea just self-destructs the moment you define it. That's the problem.
>> Well, no, the the problem is is that you're defining God is the is that which which there no greater can be conceived. This is perfect being theology which is the exact problem. That is not who God is in the Bible. God is a being the creator within an existent reality. There is no creation next to hero. That's a that's an incoherent notion. And so yeah, if you want to define God, if your God is the and I would say the ground of all being because to a certain extent it's the ground of all being is co-eternal with God and all of us. Like the radical claim of the theological of the theology of Mormonism is that everything is coexistent and eternal with God. Like that isn't the the crazy thing. The crazy thing is that we have a being within reality who loves us, who wants us to progress and become as he is and therefore has organized things within the the reality that just exists and must exist necessarily so that we can progress and become like him. That is the whole plan. To say that God is fundamental reality itself is to reduce God from a father and a person to an abstraction that is partless, passionless um and of necessity can't have the kind of relationship with us that Jesus Christ actually want talks about the
>> So you believe so you believe that is not consistent with what the scriptures actually teach. We can get into the scriptures, but before we do that, actually, I might need to get get going pretty soon. I got a quiz I got to take.
>> But let's let's talk about one more thing though because you're saying that um you're saying that there is a grounding, right? There is a uh what you call it a ground level of reality that's co-eternal with God.
>> The the like fundamental reality, let's call it that God exists within that is co-eter. That is that we all exist within and have always existed within. It just is. It's It's reality.
>> And you're saying that reality is God. I'm saying
>> if the ground of all being is co-eternal with all beings with all beings, right? Then it's not really the ground of anything because to ground something means to give it existence. If everything is coexistent and co-eternal with God, then nothing is grounded. Therefore, everything is self-existent. So, you've erased causality and turned creation into a meaningless word. It just doesn't even really mean anything. Is it is it meaningless if because I didn't make the paint out of nothing. If I paint the Mona Lisa,
>> if everything is co-eternal and there's no distinction between necessary and contingent being, then every finite thing would somehow be necessary and infinite, which is just nonsense. You you'd have like an infinite assert
>> you'd have an infinite finitude or finitness, an infinite finitness and a necessary contingency. It's a square circle. It does not make any sense, dude. So the god does not inhabit any reality. The god of orthodoxy does not inhabit any reality or is coexisting alongside it. He calls it into being from nothing.
>> His being is not parallel to ours. Ours is derivative from his.
>> So when we say he's the ground of being, we mean he alone is uncaused and that exist existence shares through his uncre uncreated energy. So if everything is co-eternal with God, then absolutely nothing depends on him. He's no longer God. Depends on him for what? What do you think? What what do you think God even is? Like this
>> depends. Well, that's that's my whole point is that you guys have defined God as this ground of all being under the assumption that being needs to be grounded in something and isn't eternal.
>> Do you believe everything is created?
>> What do you mean by created out of nothing? No. I believe everything has always existed in some form or another. The only question is what? That's LDS 101 cosmology and theology.
>> Okay. Okay. So if you mean everything, then the act of creation and the conditions for existence are created, right?
>> Wait, what? Rephrase that.
>> I'm just so confused by what you're saying to be honest. It it doesn't make sense because time eternal is time eternal, too? Is the timeline eternal?
>> Yes.
>> If God and all of us are all of us and God just transversing an infinite timeline, then
>> uh I would say yes. I tend to hold to an A theory of time, not a B theory of time.
>> So what's weird about this, what's in incoherent to me is it log, it's logically impossible to transverse a timeline that goes eternally backwards. So God would never be able to drive at the present if the past goes back infinitely.
>> We never be able to arrive at the present. How does that even make sense?
>> No, I I don't think that follows at all. You can have an infinite timeline that goes infinitely into the past. There's no reason. And I've never understood the arguments when people say that that's impossible. Do you believe like so you believe there was no start, no big bang, no nothing, no?
>> No, I I think I think that the the reality that we inhabit like the big bang is something like a uh uh that is an act of creation in in that where our time space continuum that we experience is emergent from something else. I think we can say that based on the science and and I think good good reasons. But I don't say that it didn't emerge from a more fundamental reality which is what I I would say is something like the what we would describe as the eternal realm. And it is also possible in LDS theology though I don't ascribe to this view for scriptural reasons that there's an infinite regress of sort of uh families of gods or whatever it is you know and in sort of an infinite realms that are popping into or or that are expanding ever outward in whatever the eternal realm is beyond the bubble that we live in.
>> Interesting. So do you believe
>> although I like I said I don't hold that position. I don't hold the infinite regress position, but I would say that one of the stronger cases for it is is an infinite timeline of the past. I
>> is is uh existence accidental and unintentional like like did it come by a purpose or is it just something that happens to exist without reason?
>> It is. It just is. It's it's I would say that it is it is incoherent to even talk about non-existence because there's no such thing as non-existence.
>> There's only different forms of existence. Saying it just is isn't an explanation. It's it's just a surrender of an explanation to be honest. It means I don't know why reality exists. I don't think there's a reason. That's not even metaphysics. That's just
>> No, it's a it's a brute fact.
>> It's a it's a starting point. Everyone has to have a starting point. And and to say that well, I can either say that everything always has existed. I have to make that claim. Or you have to claim that that out of nothing came something. And you don't make that claim, by the way. You claim that God always existed. So therefore, neither both of us are positing an infinite uh um something that is infinite. And so here's none of us are none of us are positing that there ever was a time when there truly was nothing. And so you also have to describe why it's it's out of bounds to say that fundamental reality has always existed. You can look here's the thing. God always existed.
>> Here's the thing. If exist, Here's the thing. If existence is accidental, then there's no tlos. There's no telos. I don't know how to pronounce that Greek word. There's no there's no ordering, which means that it's chaos. You're right. So, it collapses on itself.
>> And that's exactly what the Bible teaches that there was chaos and then within the chaos, God creates the order. So it fits perfect scripturally.
>> So your position is that there was chaos first and then inside the chaos of God appeared or acted to create order. That's a good that is actually a tougher question as to what why it is that um and I think this may l lend credit to the B theory of time is that okay God was within this sort of order eternally and then at some point within that timeline he decided to begin creation um meaning organization and creating order out of the chaos. One of the great mysteries I think
That every faith has to deal with is sort of like, well, if if there exists, why, why does creation begin to happen at some point in an eternal timeline?
Okay. So we push this back far enough past matter, past all that, and it seems like, like an atheist, you go all the way back to chaos. I'm not, don't worry, I'm not calling you an atheist. Just give me a second.
You're fine.
But like, you would say, like, there's chaos, and then there's organization that comes out. So my question would just be, how can a chaotic being with no, no ta, no, no, no, no telos, no ordering, uh, bring together order and intentionality without that telos? Because it seems that your, forgive my mispronunciation of that word, but it seems that your position is that there was chaos first, and so that means that chaos precedes God, and chaos is the true eternal principle. How did God go in there and correct that principle? Because it seems like he would just be finite struggling against a co-eternal disorder. So I, it doesn't make that much sense to me. How can a chaotic being with no telos bring order and intentionality? Because like you said, existence is...
I would think inherent in the nature of God and in the nature of mind is a desire for, uh, you know, creating order in the chaotic environment that they're in. And God was the greatest and God...
He's within the system. He's within the cosmological structure that you made. He's within that system of complete chaos. That I wouldn't say that that that that order is, I would describe it something more like light and darkness, good and evil. Um, and nature assumes to telos which you denied earlier. That's the issue. Do you not see that?
Because God's within a system. So if existence is accidental and there is no t and chaos is the grounding principle, how can, how can a chaotic being within telos bring order and intentionality? The answer is dualism. You're a dualist.
I wouldn't, I would not say...
You're a dualist. That's what you are. There's no amount of selfish that can get you out of that because when you say inherent to the nature of God...
What do you mean by a dualist?
When you say inherent to the nature of God is a desire for order, you're picturing a God who finds himself in disorder and wishes to fix it. That means order exists as an ideal outside of him which he tries to achieve. A being who desires order isn't the source of order. He's basically subordinated to the system. And metaphysically, what that, the problem is, if order is something distinct from God that he strives towards, then order is higher THAN GOD. YOU INTRODUCE a law above the lawgiver of scripture, an ideal above the divine.
And you've also, you're a dualist because you believe good and evil has to exist necessarily. There's chaos and God must correct it. THAT'S INCOHERENT. THAT'S INCOHERENT because either God is the principle of order or he is not God. And the issue is that desire...
I agree it's incoherent.
Desire. Desire. I'm going to finish what I'm saying and then I'll let you talk. Desire implies lack. A being who desires order lacks the very perfection he's supposed to embody. So in Orthodox theology, God does not desire order. His being is order.
So he doesn't look at chaos and go, "Oh man, damn. Look at all this freaking chaos. This shit's crazy. Let me fix that." Like Mormon God. He's real God. He doesn't have to do that.
Yeah. Okay. There's a big misunderstanding going on here. Okay. If you, I do not define God as that of which no greater can be conceived because that does rightfully lead to a to where ultimate reality and its nature are what is ultimate. Okay, that's that's it. So if if you want...
No, I get that. I get that you don't define him that way. The problem is is...
No, no, no. I'm defining God as the greatest being as in like a person.
I understand that. What you're saying is you have it. What you're telling me is you have two eternal realities. Chaos, uncreated disorder, and out of the chaos emerges God who's an organizer.
No, I don't. I don't believe that. Hold on. Let's go back.
Oh, he's eternal along with all the other matter. I get that.
Straw man. Let's make sure you're engaging with what I actually believe. I do not believe that the fundamental nature of things is mere chaos. I believe it is, it is a, it's like, like I said, like light and darkness, chaos, order, and disorder. That those are the nature of inherent reality itself. And within that reality itself are minds. And God is the mind that, uh, out of, in that fundamental reality of light and darkness, chose the light and has always chosen the light and wants us to choose the light with him so that we can take the order and chaos that are kind of meshed together. If you read Second Nephi 2, it talks about this. And he wants us to, uh, use our agency, which is part of our nature as agents or intelligences, as we would talk about them in LDS thought, um, to progress and to create more order, more light, and to work within this dualistic reality of light and darkness to bring about, you know, the kingdom of God, the, the highest and best, all of that stuff. And so we have entities here that you have conflated. And this is where I just fundamentally, like, you can say, well, that's not God, that's not what you mean by God. Well, great. I don't worship reality itself. I worship my Father in Heaven who is within that reality and teaching me and all of us and empowering us to be able to bring about the kingdom of God, the light, uh, out of the darkness, chaos, or, uh, order out of the chaos, to be co-creators with him in sort of painting the the tapestry of this canvas of reality into something beautiful. Uh...
So as you said, you, you said it's not chaos, it's light and darkness. And I think that that kind of sounds more refined, but I think it, it gets your system deeper into contradiction because it just shows that it's eternal dualism. Because what you're saying is, look, from these two principles, light and darkness, that's, uh, those are the two principles that reality is grounded on. That's not creation, that's dualism. And dualism cannot explain unity because if light and darkness are equally ultimate, there's no reason one should triumph over the other. You get that? And so then if you say, look, light and darkness are both...
We can, we can make it triumph over the other.
If light and darkness are both eternal, you've divided being into two uncreated substances that eternally oppose each other. And also, you've now kind of given evil an ontology too. It has a positive existence in LDS. There's a lot of issues in that. And a God who shares eternity with darkness is not omnipotent. He, he's entirely dependent on these definitions, these Platonic ideals you have that are floating out there. I reject that God is omnipotent in a radical, uh, in a radical sense like the...
So where does order come from though? Where does order come from?
Where does order come from?
The light exists because you said there's light and darkness that exists in this matrix. The light is obviously independent of God. So where does the light come from? What...
I would say, where does this light come from?
They are, I would say something along the lines of them being undifferentiated and that we're the ones who separate the light from the darkness. So when you say, like, mixed, that there's a mixture of chaos and order that grounds reality, how can you have a hole with chaos? So it does end up being dualism. Do you just concede you're a dualist?
I'm not sure why. Like when you say...
Because if, because here's the thing, if darkness and light are fundamental to reality, then darkness cannot be overcome. That's a contradiction.
So no real distinction there.
It, it can be, it can be differentiated. It can be separated from each other. And that we can very much, and this is what I think, this is a good, and some of this is getting into areas that obviously are not part of, like, official LDS thought and stuff. These are obviously my own sort of philosophical takes on it. Um, but it's a separation between the light and the darkness that creates a realm of light that, that people can inhabit. And that is one of the great things that's going on within the great cosmic drama is the, he's separating the sheep from the goat, the light from the darkness. And those, the children of the light will be gathered together and the darkness will be expelled. That is, it's the great differentiation. And the only question is, is where do we want to be in the great cosmic order that's emerging? So, if you're saying good and evil can be separated from each other, that means they're like two independent substances, which I think would mean that evil has a real eternal being of its own. Would you agree with that?
I'm, I'm open to that. I don't know that I would stake my claim on that, but I would say, I would, I would tend to say yes, that I would, I would tend to believe, at least right now, and some of this is just even in my own mind is very much still formulating, uh, the idea of, um, there being a fundamental sub, a substance that is divisible, that is good and evil sort of like wrapped into one, but it, it doesn't really have any, um, any power until it's divided, right? And the great work of creation is actually the distinction of things into good and evil. Uh, the breaking apart. There's, have you ever heard of me?
If dark, like, because if darkness doesn't exist, then reality doesn't exist in your paradigm because you already said that darkness and light were fundamental to your paradigm. So I'm just going to say one more thing and then, you know, we can wrap it up. You can say whatever you want to your audience. It just seems like dualism means that there's like, you, you have two ultimate principles that you've given me. One, evil, light and darkness, right? Each eternal and self-existent, locked in eternal opposition to each other, and they're defined by their differences to each other. Because if good and evil are both absolute, then each is partly on good and on evil because each depends on the other to define itself. So you can't know light without darkness or good without evil. So neither is self-explanatory. And so the moment they're defined by conscious, they stop being ultimate. You understand that? So the contradiction is that if evil has its own being, it either causes itself or receives being from something else. If it causes itself, right...
Nothing is ultimately self-existent. And that again, there's sort of this assumption that is causing the disconnect.
I, I think this just ends up collapsing into absurdity. I've had a great time. I got to take this quiz, man.
Hey, no worries. Good chatting, man.
All right, take it easy. Bye-bye. All right. [Music]