THIS WILL CHANGE HOW YOU SEE REALITY FOREVER - @JonathanPageau

It starts of course with forgetting God, but it ends with forgetting yourself. It starts with leaving church and it ends with losing your mind or becoming mentally ill or not, you know, not knowing how to exist. The mental health crisis is just downstream from basically forgetting God.

Do you actually think people who say they believe in evolution actually live their lives as if they believe in evolution? I mean, no, obviously not. Funniest thing about this is, have you noticed that believing in evolution and making that your story, right? Making it really the story that you think is true, why does it lead to people not having children anymore? What how is it how did this happen? How did it happen that people use Darwinism to attack Christianity and kind of try to debunk it and then believe in this and then lead to a demographic collapse?

It's why we're dealing with all these problems in Europe which will be Darwinian. We all believe in evolution, right? But then if you talk about birth rate and demography and you talk about mass immigration, oh, you're the devil. >> Yeah, >> but wait, aren't you the Darwinian? Aren't you the evolutionist? So why what why talk about these things?

Yeah, I've never thought of that. That's crazy.

People who who might struggle with like the biblical timeline and like age of the universe whole thing. Well, there's no human memory that is older than, you know, maybe 10,000 years. side. We don't know exactly, but there's no human memory from before that. And so there is no world outside of consciousness. The Big Bang is born in human consciousness. It has to be. There's no other way to talk about it.

You have this brilliant quote where you say that without theosis, Christianity is arbitrary.

The way that a lot of Western people think about it is here are some rules. Now that you break the rule, then you should be punished for breaking the rule. Right? And so what God has to do is he sends his son to take the punishment for you.

Here we have a god who wanted to forgive mankind its sins. Why didn't he just forgive them? Why was it necessary to have a human sacrifice? Is that not the most disgusting idea you ever heard? And to me that is just it's like not only I don't think it makes sense in terms of the Bible, but it is it is to me just insane. I I found in Orthodoxy a great freedom from that kind of weird cruel God.

It's it's you. Thank you very much. You too. It's a pleasure and an honor as always to speak with you and to have you back on the show. I'm very excited about our conversation today. Last time you're on the show. We covered everything. It was kind of nuts. People loved it. We even got you to talk about things that you never usually talk about. And I don't know how we're going to top that, but I'm going to try I'm going to try and push you to your limits and and see where this conversation goes. And so to kick things off, I wanted to just ask you this one question and we'll see where things go, which is if you had to diagnose the crisis of our modern age in one sentence, what would it be?

I mean, we're going through the end of a world, you don't necessarily have to think of it as the end of the world. That's hard to tell, but for sure we're at the end of something. I think that's the way that I would I would really reduce it to one sentence. We can I don't know how big the end is but you you know the end of something has characteristics you can tell what it is what it looks like you know it looks like things breaking down then reaction to that breakdown with you know kind of overcompensation with with authority and tyranny and uh and so you can see it with the fragmentation of identity confusion mixture all of these things are are signs that we're reaching the edge so you can imagine you can imagine a world as anything that has its own kind of inner coherence, you know, and therefore holds together as a as a whole. And so you can understand a world in time, in terms of ages, in terms of stories, you can understand it in space, in terms of the relationship between a center and a periphery, for example, you know, on the the the edge of something and then the middle of something. And so uh you know as you move towards the edge then some things happen which is that the relationship to the reason to the meaning starts to break down because you're getting further away from the memory let's say in time of the origin or you're getting further and further away from the center from the axis that kind of holds you together in terms of uh you know whatever it is. And so that has characteristics. One is of course as you get further from the origin and and as you get further from the uh you could say the center you things start to be further and further from each other. Right? So if you think of a wheel let's say you have a wheel and then as you get further from the center the spokes they get further from each other and as they get further from each other they start to forget why they're together or they they struggle to formulate it. the strength of the of the cohesion is less solid than when you're close to the center. And this is also true in time. You know, if you as you move forward and forward in time, you you forget why it was you were to you were together. And we have ways of remembering why we're together. And those are usually celebrations, different types of rituals, uh different types of things that we hold in common. But as you move further and further from the center, then those things start to break apart. we start to forget even why we're doing them. And then not only forget, but there even starts to be a hostility towards the things that hold us together. And so you could imagine secularism as a breakdown of the unifying principle of Christianity. You can imagine the type of revolutionary actions or you could or let's say subversive actions that make us hate our own families, our own nations, our own, you know, just whatever it is that you participate in. And so, and then also as you move forward, you start to feel the influence of the outside more and more, right? Because you're closer to the edge. And so, the outside is more present. And therefore, that can look like all kinds of things. It can look like, let's say, a kind of fetishization of the strange or of the stranger. It can be an actual invasion. It can be also so much mixture that you can't tell the difference between what's inside, what's outside. Uh, you know, and so all of these characteristics, they're very structural. You know, it's not uh once you start to see how it works, you realize, yeah, this is how it works for anything. It's not like a you know and it's not necessarily moral at the outset right uh as you let's say you go through a day you know that has the same structure you wake up in the morning you have different purposes that you have to accomplish you move towards them you come to the evening and then you start to rest you forget you know the things that you did during the day are less relevant and then you die for a cycle you go to sleep and then you start over on the next day and it's the same for a year it's the same for uh but then you also have these these great human cycles that we participate in and these also these human identities that we participate in.

It kind of echoes very closely to the answer that Dr. Ian McIllchrist gave and Dr. Zack Poru gave when they were on the show and I asked them a similar question and that is essentially that we're going through some kind of ontological crisis. There's a breakdown of categories and in Zack Poru's language he would describe that humanity is kind of disconnected from the source of reality itself. We've gone really really far and it's almost like we're not real anymore. Um and and so just there's just chaos at the fringe. It's like static on TV. It's kind of like noise at that point.

And so in order to kind of get back into reality, we need Christ. Uh Dr. Iman Gilchrist surprisingly was also talking about the importance of that. And so we have this problem. We have this um kind of uh epochs, these cycles of errors. Is that inevitable though? Should we be looking for a solution or do you think this is just something that feels inevitable the way you're describing it?

Um well two things one is yes it is inevitable to some extent this is just natural patterns things that start and move towards their end but even though it's inevitable it doesn't mean it it doesn't mean that it doesn't have consequences. It doesn't have consequences on us. It doesn't have consequences on our families on the people around us. So as you kind of experience the breakdown see the thing about the breakdown is that it's a fractal breakdown. It starts of course with forgetting God, but it ends with forgetting yourself. You know, it starts it starts with um leaving church and it and it ends with losing your mind or becoming mentally ill or not, you know, not knowing how to exist or all of the mental health crisis is just downstream from from the you know from basically forgetting God. And and in that is the breakdown of the nation of the family of all the not just that all of the places where we come together where it's different clubs different organizations people don't realize how much ancient people not just that old just even like not even a hundred years ago people had multiple clubs they would go out and they would meet with people for different purposes there were different charity groups different just you know if you were in a Catholic world you had would here we had like the Knights of Columbus and like the Daughters of Isabelle and like all of these different groups and these different associations. Uh and that's just all kind of fragmenting and breaking down and so you know and so we're we're this is exactly you could say it's inevitable but it also hurts like it's painful and you're and you're in danger of losing your soul like of losing and so the idea in some ways is to understand to be something like a remnant. You have this image in scripture which is that even though everything breaks down, there's always someone who's capable of building the ark that will cross over the chaos. There's always someone who's able to remember God at the bottom of the of the sea like Jonah and then, you know, recover meaning and recover purpose. And what's going to happen is either that will stave off some of the worst aspects of the chaos or it will be the seed that is planted in the new world. Either way it's the same thing that we have to do which is to recover uh recover the light recover the center and this is different by the way then imposing a kind of order with force because the one of the things I didn't mention at the outset is that as you see things break down there's a reaction from the center you could say which is the desire to enforce uh rules and those those two are go together that is as things break down the enforcement from the center becomes more and more just become stronger and stronger and therefore that's why chaos and tyranny are always you know they're like twin brothers. So as you see people break down. You have these global this global layer of tyranny that like know showed itself during COVID that is showing itself in different ways and you can feel that you know, it's not just breaking down. There's also a lot of uh you know levels of control and of surveillance and all of these things that that that are you know related to modernity are setting themselves up at the same time.

Yeah. It's interesting when you said the it's like what starts with this little simple thing like you you just leave the church, you don't go back and then the next thing that happens is you lose your mind. And I think a lot of people that might not be familiar with this kind of dialogue might just think well that's crazy. How could that happen? But like for example, the things that I talk about a lot on the show at the moment, which is okay, we've got Europe and we have this issue of mass migration from the Middle East and North Africa and all of a sudden it's bringing all the jihad and terrorism and the sexual grooming gangs and all these kinds of things that we're hearing about in the news and we know that if if things continue um many of these Western European countries will be, you know, 30 40 50% Muslim in in like 50 years and you know everything that's going along with it. But that wouldn't happen if Westerners were actually having babies. We've stopped having babies. Governments therefore importing people. We're not having babies because of the breakdown of the marriage. Marriage doesn't make sense anymore. We're aborted. Like 28% of uh Gen Z have been aborted. They're not with us anymore. They're not going to come back just because we decide to maybe start deporting migrants. So, and and and this is these are the kinds of things that wouldn't have happened if we were living a kind of Christ-c centered life. It's like you have this one thing going to church, understanding these kind of Christian concepts and and living that life. You stop doing that. Everything breaks down. Marriage makes no sense anymore. Everyone's on, you know, doing Only Fans or, you know, polyamory is now big and swinging. And because I think this brings us to another bit of a hurdle that people are facing at the moment, which is there are now 40,000 denominations of so-called Christianity, each presenting a very different version of Christ. And you know, if we're not careful, are we just going to send people back to the same kinds of Christianity that maybe led us to this destination in the first place um that was kind of weak and quite cowardly? I don't really know. Um and so I guess the question I have is, you know, how do we know which Christ to look towards? Um without being too pmical um you know, I'm not trying to do this in an argumentative sense, but I think these are some real questions that we got to start asking. Um, and maybe I could ask you even as a supplement to, you know, how do we know which Christ to look at is what do you think some of the biggest problems are with modern forms of Christianity that exist?

Yeah, I think that modern modern forms of Christianity, like everything else, has forgotten, like you could say, forgotten the deepest aspects of what it is that Christ offers, like what it is that the incarnation is is giving us, what it's showing us, you know, what it is actually. And so this has this has consequences of course you know and I'm not a I'm not a radical in that sense. I I do believe that you know as St. Paul says you know it's like whatever if they preach Christ and that's good like it's a good thing. I I I'm not I think that the fact that there are all these churches everywhere of different denominations is not a bad thing in in itself but it is a problem when the version of Christ you have is very thin and it's interesting that that thinness is still attractive to people. also you know some people although it is breaking down obviously the western world is still becoming increasingly secular and so I do believe that the only thing you know just like just like Jonah at the bottom of the water the only way to is to turn and to remember and it's the same at at every level of our of our society that is remember yourself you know remember your family remember your nation remember you know your obviously remember your story and remember God is the highest one. But how high does that go? And so that's why I do believe that the that Orthodox Christianity because of its deep metaphysics and because of its the fact that it in some ways is not just a thing that you have to believe in order to go to heaven or that kind of stuff that it actually offers an entire world view that can sustain us and that can sustain our societies is is really the deepest form of Christianity. And so, you know, even now, my hope is that even for those who don't want to become Orthodox, who say, "Well, no, I'm going to remain in my Protestant church or my Catholic church or that's just where that's just where it is." I do believe that nonetheless looking to the the fathers and looking to the deeper and, you know, metaphysical and also mystical aspects of Christianity uh can infuse our faith with a meaning that's deep enough to sustain us. And the kind of questions that had led people to secularism, the kind of how can I say this like the kind of how can these miracles be true or you know how can God be in two places at the same time? Like just kind of ridiculous type or no the Bible has contradictions like these kinds of things. Once you really grasp the mindset and the the world view that Christianity offers and how the incarnation changes everything uh that gives you the proper anchor to be able to live life.

Now there's actually a follow-up to this which is one of the questions I hear a lot and one of the things I see not only in online discourse but like in my personal life and in conversations I have is that well you know can't you just be a good person without believing in God? And I was wondering if you could address that for us because it's something that comes up a lot and I think a lot of people have this concept that believing in God or being a Christian is just about being a good person. So how would Jonathan Pio address that?

Well, there are several problems with that. It it's actually true that it's possible, but you have to it's not just about you first of all as a as an individual. You the fact that you think you know what a good person is is already a problem. You know, goodness has layers and has different interpretations all through all through the world and those are not not relative. That is that they actually yield different worlds. And so we we live in a world where the idea of what is good is also being eroded. We don't really understand what that is. We have feelings, people have feelings and vibes about what it is to be good, but that isn't that isn't enough to sustain a world view. And so as the further we get from the Christian revelation, the more what is good is going to seem muddled and confused and relative to people's, you know, individual opinions or whatever that is. But goodness is actually an objective, a real thing. It's a it's not even a thing. It's an orientation. It's a true orientation. And um and so you can especially most people that have grown up in religious families or at least have just one remove let's say religious uh connection will just intuitively maybe know what it means to be good but that runs out and it's run out it's running out in at every level at the same time. it's running out in our societies, but then it also will run out in individuals. And uh and so it's not impossible to be good, but it's mostly because you have a deep memory of of what Christianity offered.

It also raises the question of of how you even arrive at a kind of objective sense of what is good? Like can objective good and evil exist without the concept of God? And I don't know if you've thought about this question much, but it seems to be kind of like part of the um there's discourse around like, you know, the kind of moral necessity for God to exist or morality to exist in the first place. I don't know if you want to unpack that a little bit.

Yeah, there has to be there has to be something that transcends your individual experience in order to ground the good in something that binds us together. um you know and so there are relative versions of that in the ancient worlds you know different cults different taboos different uh you know the the let's say the recognition of different uh different gods you know but how do we come to the one that is above all and you know the the Christian revelation shows us in a very mysterious way because it's the way that Christianity shows us what is good is not something that you could have predicted completely. You couldn't have predicted that goodness looks like self-sacrifice, that goodness looks like forgiving your enemies, that goodness looks like, you know, being willing to to die uh for others. This is not something that would have been obvious. Once it happens, once it's shown to you, you like, oh, you can you see it once you've internalized it. you realize that this is the height of goodness that you know the servant king is really what true kingship is about. Um but without the revelation of Christ that you know humans would not have come to this conclusion just on their own because we have these immediate desires and passions that are so strong it's almost impossible to see through them completely. And so yeah, so I think that definitely Christianity revealed the good in a way that on the one hand we can't really go back from like we once you've kind of encountered that revelation you're you're you're either Christian or you're post-Christian. Uh so you're either you know either a Christian or you're some kind of anti-Christian you know you have to there's no other solution after that revelation happens. And it's also, you know, just to go back from a kind of philosophical level, if morality is just something that exists in the mind that you can just kind of create for yourself, then you don't really have a leg to stand on when someone else comes up with a different version of things. And naturally, people then go, well, it depends on the group consensus. We're going to get a group of people and we're all going to vote what we believe to be good. Then again the same problem you just kick down the road a bit which is just well okay well this group of people might believe that you know gassing babies is a great thing for society and this group of people think that it's not and the people that don't think it's good don't have a leg to stand on because everything's kind of subjective so it necessarily needs something outside of the human mind that we that we appeal to in a sense and so yeah of course you know it's it really is ultimately feelings people have a different you know I do get that's why propaganda is so important today and so prominent is that you know this idea that consensus somehow confers legitimacy to moral decisions is obviously insane. You always have to remember that the Nazis were elected. You can always every time democracy goes away it's through the will of the people. It's this idea that tyrants just appear you know uh is ridiculous. And so there are objective goods that that that And you can see it in their fruits, right? This is what Christ says. You could judge a a a tree by its fruits. And so when people live out what Christ showed us, not just because they go to church or because they they have religious authority or whatever, but when they live it out, it you can see what it does. You know, if you've met people that really live in the light of Christ, they have a there's a kind of joy and of peace uh that that not is not only in them, but it also all around them and in the people that that are influenced by them. And that's that's really undeniable.

Yeah. Absolutely. And then I guess the the the mirror end of that is like for example, that like and this this is a lot of the time I find this is embodied particularly among like some of the older older women at our parish like the older ladies, the yayya. It's like it's almost like there they're walking around with this glow. It's beautiful and you don't feel like you're having to walk on eggshells. There's this kind of love and mercy and forgiveness. There's a generosity. The flip side is that for example, we were talking just a second ago that like a lot of the time morality has just become feelings. And then once you realize that like you're you're super powerful like you're indestructible because now you can just assert that your feelings have been injured and you need to recollect and so it's my feelings, you've hurt my feelings, I'm offended and now suddenly you've just risen to the top of the hierarchy as like you know what I mean? So, and it's like then around those people you're walking around eggshells and it feels tense and it feels dark and it's just this this the the light and light and day um day and night kind of experience.

Yeah. But that is also you know this weird this weird thing is going to it has a very short life short shelf life you could say because this appeal to being a victim is also a call to authority. This is what people don't understand is that in order when when someone says I'm a victim and they accuse someone of being an oppressor, they are they're invoking some kind of external authority that should let's say punish or act on the person. That's why you know this type of victim culture it leads to hate laws. It leads to the police like you want the police to come and arrest the people that avert your feelings. Um ultimately obviously it's not for everyone but this is why the problem with this type of type of morality is that it actually leads to a police state and once the police state is there you think the police state cares about your offense and your feelings. I mean, you need it to get there, but once you once it gets there, you know, and so you could see it like in in the revolutionary movements, the kind of victimhood that led to communist revolutions, you know, once the tyrant once the communist regime is there, do you think they care about you? You know, they'll kill you without thinking. They'll send you to the gulag. They have no care about your victimhood once the system gets set up. And so, you know, we we were doing these weird things where we're moving towards, you know, uh, human rights tribunals and human rights and trying to subvert the natural the the natural way that law has functioned in in our societies to move towards these these very strange uh structures of of of legal uh control. But once they're set up, you know, that whole victim oppressor thing is going to disappear.

Yeah. Now, we just you just talked here about this idea that, you know, when you're asserting yourself as a victim, you're trying to be an authority figure. Isn't there something Christlike about this though? Is is Christ a victim on the cross? He is the King of Kings. Like, how does that image kind of play out? Is this kind of um I'm offended kind of woke thing a perversion of that? Is it an appeal to that? What's going on?

Yeah. And I know this is confusing for some people and I understand why because there's a kind of parasite. there's a parasitical Christianity going on which is that people are in some ways using some aspects of Christianity and are tricking people into believing that this is true Christianity. So it's it's a very there's a very simple way you can know the difference between true Christianity and this kind of parasitic behavior. And you find this captured in the story of Judas actually. And so there's a really amazing story where there's a woman who comes to see Christ. this woman, you know, is a sinful woman and she comes in repentance and she's recognizing him as being the chosen one, as being the Messiah that has come. And so she bought this crazy expensive perfume. And then she she she pours a perfume out on Christ and and perfumes him in order to kind of show how important he is. And Judah says, you know, hey, this is a waste. You know, we should have given this to the poor, right? Um, and when he says that, it it adds in the text that Judas was stealing from the money and that he didn't really care for the poor. He was actually saying that so that he could take the money for himself. And that is the structure. The structure when people use victimhood in order to give themselves power, that is parasitic uh compassion. That is weaponized compassion. You know, when you call it, when you when you see someone in suffering and you help them, when you see someone that is is, you know, that has a rough time and you and you give them care and love, that is what Christ asked you. But when you stand on the sideline and you criticize others and you tell them you should do that and especially when that gives the person who's saying it power, that's weaponized compassion. That's not Christianity. And that's what we see in this kind of behavior, especially when people make themselves the victim and then demand retribution. Is that what Christ did? Christ didn't do that. Christ didn't didn't stand on the cross and say, "All right, everybody, now now you need to you need to pay for what it is that happened." You know, he forgave them. He forgave the people that hurt him. And so you can really recognize the difference between uh one is revolutionary, you know, one is actually a kind of downstream from Marxist thinking and the other is Christian. You know, it's funny because a lot of radicalism is actually born in the church. People don't realize that even a lot of the woke stuff was came out of different church church groups. Um and it it has to do in some with the secularization of Christianity where many of the modern kind of progressive theologians started to want to demyth my mythologize the scripture and ultimately transform it into a kind of ethical teaching right it's like well we can't really believe in the resurrection you know we can't really believe in miracles and can't you know and maybe god kind of but you know we don't you know how who knows god is up there you know god is is absent uh but what we can see is Christ social type teaching and then if we embrace that then because we kind of believe Christ is good then we think that you know this is going to lead to to good things but this is again the story of Judas is beautiful to to exemplify that is that without worship uh even charity becomes utilitarian and becomes perverted and that worship is the beginning and secular people who hear this I understand they're like why worship Why? Why? This sounds so odd and it's very simple is that you need to keep your eye above the thing you're doing and not love the thing you're doing for itself because if you love the thing you're doing for itself or if you do the thing you're doing for itself, you will lose it. You always have to look above. And this is very practical, right? It's very practical. If you're making bread and you really really like, you know, just mixing water and flour, if you just get involved in we mixing water and flour and you love it so much that you're just doing it for its own sake, you're going to get nothing. You'll have nothing. You know, you have to embed that in the other aspects which is remember that you're making bread. Like, you know, re remember that you're making bread and then the bread will come together. But even that even if you love making bread like a crazy obsessed person that'll make you miserable. You have to understand that it's to feed people and you and the feeding people has to be embedded in the fact that you are learning to love them and that ultimately has to be embedded in the in the revelation that above all of this there is a transcendent good that you look to that you attend to that you worship and so worship is the source of reality. you know, the highest attention that you give will bind everything downstream together. And you know, you can, you know, obviously in our in our everyday, we're not always remembering God. We wish we were, but you at least have to remember God sometimes, or else things are going to immediately devolve. And suddenly, you know, you you thought that you you know that you're working for the good of society, but it ends up no, you just care about money or you just care about getting that new car and that will not make you happy and it will, you know, it will further the breakdown of society.

All right. Now, Martin Shaw, um someone we both, well, you spent a lot of time talking to him and I had on the show. It was a wonderful conversation. He's such a brilliant man. He has this fantastic quote and which I'm going to completely butcher and paraphrase here, but he's as he asked this question. What kind of devilment got into the petri dish of western consciousness that meant that we domesticated someone like Christ? And I'll go on to paraphrase here a bit more and essentially turn Christ into merely a moral or ethical role model who simply requires us to be nice, to be good. And I think it's kind of echoing some of the things we just talked about here. Do you think scholasticism, Reformation, some of these things that went on, was that thing that got into the petri dish, is that where we can draw this all back to? Is it useful to do this? You know, I think it'd be interesting to have this conversation.

Yeah. Look, I let's be let's be even more radical is that I think that it's one of the problems of Christ himself. That is and you see it again in the story of Judas which is that you know Christ in some ways knew that he would have a betrayer in his in his disciples. He chose him. He chose the betrayer. And uh there's something about Christianity which is that what Christ offers is in some ways so radical that it's almost inevitable that pe even the people that follow him will have to reject it to some extent. you know that is that that's obviously uh related to to dosi's grand inquisitor narrative right which is that it's very difficult actually to look at Christ because the example he gives is so radical and so difficult and so you know I I think that Christ kind of knew that's why there's a there's talk of the antichrist immediately in Christianity right away in the first century even you know when the the disciples are still alive that that there are this this image that from out of Christianity will arise an antichrist. So I think that this is something that you know for mysterious reasons seems to play a role in expo in kind of bringing the world to fruition and revealing the true nature of Christ. But I think that you're right that in terms of proximity there's something about the move in nominalism with nominalism that wasn't the purpose of nominalism. One of the things it did bring about was a type of rationalism where the the world existed in these all these material causes. You could eliminate vertical causality, formal causes. You could just eliminate that. Uh and therefore it you know it made what Christ actually is and what he's revealing almost you know being reduced to ethical systems like you said or mechanical stuff. But I mean the figure of Christ on the cross is the most scandalous thing. Imagine like just imagine yourself. Imagine you're on some island somewhere in you know and then Christians arrive for the first time and they walk out and they're carrying a they're carrying a standard and on the standard is the is a guy that's nailed to a cross. I mean what what would you even think? Like who are these people that carry around a crucified man on a cross? This is, you know, this is the most radical proposition. Uh so, so I think that that's right. And I think that Martin is is amazing because in some ways he's helping us see that again. He's helping us in some ways notice how uh unbearable some of the things that Christ represents are to us and and how they have to leave us uneasy and you know incapable of truly following it or embodying it.

M when you were mentioning just like that there are like I think you were alluding to the fact that like there's so much about Christ that's just so strange and and unpredictable that something like that, you know, that phrase I think it's a kind of a Protestant thing maybe or evangelical in America I don't know WWJD like what would Jesus do?

Yeah, what would Jesus do? That's the weirdest thing ever.

I don't I don't have a single clue what Jesus would I don't know as I'm reading scripture I don't know what he's going to do in the next line it's just he's so unpredictable that it kind of just a phrase like that becomes useless to me. I don't know if you want to like talk about that for a second, but Christ is

Yeah, I totally agree. I think when people say what would Jesus do, they're they're tapping into their they're tapping into like just basic Christian morality, like ba, you know, downstream Christian morality. They're not tapping into what Christ would actually do. Yeah.

Uh you know, because you know, how could you? It's like you said, it's so mysterious the things that Christ does. You know, the fact that Christ calls for you to have a sword, you and then the fact that he tells Peter not to to, you know, not to attack the Roman soldier, it's like, okay, I'm going to have to sit with that my entire life before I even understand what exactly is going on. And I there's so many things in Christ's story that you basically can't figure out. It's like you you just have to look at. And I think that there are enough there's enough in Christ's story that shows you at least for me that this is this is it like this is the this is the treasure you know his story what he does what he says this is the treasure there's enough that I can grasp that I can get but once you like okay I know I have to follow this man I know I have to follow what he says and to you know, to live in in his light and then there's some things that just blow your mind you're like well what what how is this you know, the the fa the uh what is it the the parable of the shrewd servant like try to figure that one out, you know, he he basically like gives his master's money away in order to make himself and then and then his master says oh you're a shrewd you're a shrewd you're good servant shrewd servant there's so many things that Christ says that just still remain completely mysterious to me after you know an entire lifetime of being a Christian and meditating on these on these uh on these things. So, you know, yeah, we we kind of just have to we just have to let Christ continue to work in us and on us. Uh yeah, it's not it's not a he's not a tame figure. That's for sure.

No, that's what I think. And so, like that WWJD thing seems really more about how can I impose what I want Jesus to do on him since he's not, you know, he can't answer for me or you right now in the debate we're having. So, I'm just going to say, well, what would Jesus do? He's going to do this because I want him to do this. you know,

you know, it's really good. Usually, it's mostly just like to be nice. I mean, that's usually what it kind of kind of means. But I do understand like the basic thing that I would say that probably the what would Jesus do? Um, that makes sense is to say something is to move away from the acting in my own interest. And I think that that's pretty good is to say, you know, I am now in a position where I could increase my power or increase my, you know, or kind of crush this person for not for reasons even of truth or for reasons of of of of transcendent truth, but really just out of, you know, desire to show that I'm better. I think that that that's probably good enough. Like, if that's what it does, then that's not bad. You know,

it's not usually used like that, though.

No, no. Yeah, you're right. It's very generous of you. But it's it's like I mean it works for your name because you've got a J, but it's almost like it's like what people really mean is like WW A like what would Ally do, you know, or like what would Jonathan do? It's it's more like that. But like you said, it's it's Christ is so confusing, but it's not confusing in a bad way. It's like he's he's like he's containing with him within himself like all possibilities. It's that's what it kind of feels like. It doesn't feel like contradictions for the sake of like inaccuracy, which is what I think e, you know, someone that wants to like disagree with the Bible like I Alex O'Connor can just point two of these things out and say, "Huh, look how ridiculous it is." But it's like sit with it for like your life or like for a week or for an hour even and you just see there's a lot going like Christ says, you know, judge not yet lest you be judged. And then a couple of pages later it's like, you know, judge with like proper discretion or there's something like that. So there's a lot going on.

Yeah. And Christ often says things that that are opposites to each other. uh and you know and that that is because that is really because there's a pora in reality that is that the there are things that aren't good in themselves but are in some ways the reflection of other goods that have to be held in a balance and Christ does that all the time you know and even in terms of of religious you can sometimes I remember I mean I don't remember who it was but I remember reading some scholar some religious scholar who you know obviously said you Jesus is a myth, you know, and he's a copy of all the old old ancient myths, but not even a good one, right? Because they can't get the typology right. They can't even get the figures right because you can't have a figure that is like a king, but also like a shepherd, but then also like a, you know, a kind of medicine healer. He's also a healer, but then he's also like a warrior. And it's like, okay, yeah, you know, you maybe that's the point. Like maybe you're not seeing that. In fact, like you said, Christ somehow is able to pull all of the archetypes together into into one person. Yeah.

Uh and and and that is clearly I mean it's obviously clearly understood as being meaningful in scripture. That's why in Revelation you have the son of man and the lamb presented together which is here's the ruler, here's the victim, here's the, you know, here's the king. Here's the one that's acted upon and it's like this is the same person.

Yeah. Well, I think we're we're making a very good argument as to why you can't domesticate someone like that. Like he Yeah. Like he's beyond he's almost basically beyond categories to some degree. Like I mean we we understand, you know, he's the the anthropos, he's the God man. But like when you sit with these stories, it's like um and just on that point about myths, you have a quote where you say that, you know, Christ does not destroy the myths or Christianity does not destroy the myths. Christianity fulfills the myths. And I'm wondering if we could talk a bit about that and perhaps I don't know I don't know maybe we've exhausted this topic but I don't know if you've like if we can go under the skin a little bit here and maybe just ask the question of like well if that's the way Christ is it's not like Christ was born and he just sat behind a desk and just told people things like

He's he's moving around. He's doing what does that reveal to us about the nature of reality? And maybe I'll just throw this in there as well, which is one of the things that has been wonderful about learning about the lives of the saints is that there is not really one size fits all for the saints. Like there's not like one category. You have to conform to this thing and that's how you become a saint. Like we have saints like St. Gabriel of Georgia, who sets fire to this huge image of Stalin and he's like a bit of a rebellion. He's a fool for Christ. And then you've got other ones that like St. Anthony the Great, he's in the mountains doing his thing, battling demons. You've got other ones that there's such a wide variety that I'm I'm wondering whether that is related to this like this kind of multiplicity. All these possibilities are within Christ.

>> Of course, even the the two that you that you described. Yeah.

>> You know, Christ spent 40 days in the desert,

>> you know, fasting.

>> Yeah.

>> And then Christ also went into the temple,

>> right?

>> And just whipped the the people there. And so, you know, you'd say, "Oh, wait a minute." Okay. So, obviously in in the saints lives, you have basically aspects of Christ. Yes. That that that kind of become revealed. And so a lot of people will say, you know, like I've heard certain Christians say like, you know, why do we have monks? You know, because we have monks because Christ spent 40 days in the desert. That is it's an it's it's it's an aspect of Christ that is being kind of condensed and concentrated and and we can live in that aspect. No one can be fully Christ, but we can in some ways mirror Christ. Um, no, obviously we we we aspire to the fullness of Christ, but usually we are like a refraction. We're like a, you know, like a little mirrored version of Christ in our in our own context.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I love that image. It's like we're a little fractal, a little tiny piece of the body of Christ, right?

>> That's what Christian means. Christian means little Christ.

>> No way. Of course it does.

>> That's what we are. Like we're little Christ. like we're in the little really in the right sense that in some ways like more more local more you know and that's what we we we have to embody.

And of course, we receive a small piece of the body of Christ when we receive holy communion. And so I think this is also interesting because a lot of people might say, well, that's not very Christlike, right? They'll they'll find a Christian and they'll, you know, like I don't know, they'll say something, they'll do something or behave a certain way and well, that's not very Christlike. Well, which version of Christ are you talking about? Which moment in his life? Like, you know, so so there's a there's a lot to say that. So anyway,

>> yeah, it's uneasy because it, you know, you really see it. You know, if if you there are certain saints that, you know, how can I say this? Like, you know, I'm sorry, Saint, but like I really probably would not have liked St. Cyril of Alexandria. Like I just really wouldn't have liked him because he's so harsh and just so like, you know,

>> on the attack non-stop debating, you know, uh doing whatever he can to like, you know, to make sure that the right thing happens. You know, there's legends that say that when St. Cyril died, they put a massive stone over his over his tomb so that he couldn't get out at the resurrection, right? And so this is how like St. Cyril was the tough guy. Would you say, you know, it's like that is an aspect of Christ. You know, I wouldn't have liked to be a Pharisee in Christ's time. And the way that he the way that he just goes after them, you know, relentlessly. And so, you know, I mean, so I'm not saying that we should, you know, that we how we should act, but I'm saying that we should always have a little bit of reserve.

Um, you know, and so a good example is, for example, in the Orthodox Church, you'll see that there are some saints and some fathers, some some uh spiritual fathers that are extremely rigorous that demand massive amounts of rigor. Um, and then you have other saints and other spiritual fathers and even contemporary saints that are that are just feel like they're just pure compassion, right? And that they have this kind of openness and this and you would say, well, which one is Christ? Well, Christ was clearly both. You see it in his story, you know, when he says for the little children to come to him, when he, you know, when he expresses uh different aspects of compassion, you know, for uh the the the the man whose whose daughter was sick, all of these kinds of of behaviors, um, or when he weeps in front of Lazarus's tomb, you know, even though he knows he's going to resurrect him, uh there is that aspect, but sometimes Christ is also like, get your act together, man. You know, like you know, and so it's very difficult. And then you see in the church, I see it all the time is that people will criticize the rigorous ones or we'll criticize the lax ones. And you know, my hope is that we see that, you know, that Christ has two arms, you know, Christ has a left hand and a right hand. And that, you know, different aspects of the church and different different saints and different fathers participate in that in in a different different ways.

>> Yeah. Well, I think this is exactly the direction I was going to go with this, which is like, well, you know, at the moment you've got various different voices. Let's just let's just take the Orthodox um kind of online world a little bit here. Like you've got someone like yourself and then you got someone like Father Desire Trenum and then you got like Jay Dyer. Very different kind of flavors. I don't know if you want to comment on that a little bit.

>> I mean, I think that that's that's right. There are different characters and there are different aspects and different emphases that happen, you know, and you know, and and also in some ways I want to be careful. How can I say this? You know, because at first I gave this this advice to say, you have to in some ways understand that there are these different aspects, but it also the criticism that we offer each other from our different positions is also part of it. Yeah.

>> That is sometimes people go too far. You know, you know,

>> there is for example, like I do believe that Christians should be constantly working towards the reunification of the body of Christ. Should constantly be talking to Catholics and and Protestants and seeing can we work through our difficulties? Can we find places to understand each other so that we move towards the common truth? But that obviously if you push that too far, you fall into kind of weak ecumenism, you know, kind of mixture and strange prayers that, you know, that aren't liturgical that are just these kind of compromises. And so you would say, was it good to

>> have move towards that that in that direction and the answer is

>> yeah, to some extent and at some point you kind of have to stop. And it's the same on the other side, you know, you know, like the kind of debate space and that kind of harshness, you know, it's we kind of need it, but at some point it can go too far. And so it's okay also to listen to the critics, you know, and and I I hope that people in the church can also listen to their their critics. There is the critics that are on the other side and that are saying you're going too far in your direction. Maybe I have to just wonder like, am I doing this out of pride? Am I doing this out of

>> and so I think that that's the same. And I think that, you know, Jay has, you know, has his role, you know, I think sometimes he goes too far too, but I wouldn't go I wouldn't go as far as saying no, it's completely unacceptable. Like, yeah, you know, St. Cyril was like, I said, dude, if I met St. Cyril, he was probably a lot harsher than Jay

>> Dyer. I mean, I mean, even even St. John Chrysostom, like you hear some of his like like rhetoric like his his very um full-on like very uh almost aggressive.

>> Yeah. So, so that's what that's how I see it. And so I I'm always kind of hoping that people can both play their role but also be a little attentive to sometimes how their role can maybe kind of move. And, you know, and I have my own my own tendencies, my own, let's say, temptations. And hopefully I I find moments where I can listen to the criticism and and see whether or not I'm I'm exaggerating in my own kind of place, my own kind of role.

>> Yeah. I think maybe just to kind of finish up on this note is is I don't know if you want to maybe even summarize what you said in one line. What do you think this reveals about reality when Christ is so unpredictable and and mysterious and embodying so much

>> like behind the way that we see the world and we engage with the world, there's a mystery. There is something that in some ways transcends the different aspects of the world that we exist in. And that's why that appears often as a paradox. But if you sit with that paradox and you meditate it, you'll notice that it unfolds then reasonably in the world. And so that's why the example of Christ and in some ways Christ's sacrifice, which is so radical, uh doesn't mean that everybody has to die on a cross, you know, but it does mean that everybody does have to sacrifice. So although the extreme version and most of the things Christ does are so intense, uh we can notice when they downstream how they build a world, how that world is beautiful and coherent and fruitful. Uh, and so this is something about I think the nature of reality is that behind the most reasonable aspects of it, there is a kind of paradox, a paradox and a mystery that's hiding behind it.

M so so like Christ is this seed that contains so much within it that like you just said, like when it when it's grown, when it when we see the downstream effects of that, it's it's flourishing into this this [snorts]

>> and it's interesting because [clears throat] there are some people that seem to have really seen that right in the first century and St. Paul definitely is someone who saw that and when he saw Christ on the road to Damascus, he saw what Christ was doing and and and in some ways who Christ was. And there's this crazy quote, I forget in which epistle where he talks about where he says, at this very moment, Christ is basically ascending the hierarchy, subjugating all the principalities, you know, and and and basically submitting the world to himself, you know, and you know, this was a long time before Christ took over Rome. This is a long time before the Roman emperor would convert to Christianity and the the entire empire would become Christian. But it seems like St. Paul could see

>> in the story of this guy who got nailed to a cross and died and resurrected, that this was the key to reality. This was the key to the world and that in that and that his image and his and the message, you know, the life that he was proposing would fill up the entire world.

>> Yeah. And it's, you know, even someone that doesn't like that can't grasp that yet. They're still trying to grapple with with faith or Christianity, like this is why we say like Christ is the king, like it's like even even today, like in our kind of secular mess that we have, like name me a country that's not being transformed by some aspect of Christianity, even if you're talking about, you know, the Far East or even kind of modern kind of fairly Islamic Middle Eastern countries, like nothing has transformed the world as much as Christ. You and you and you said at the beginning of the show, like you can't go back anymore. Like it's it's kind of you're either Christian or post-Christian, but nevertheless, you've been transformed by Christ. I think that that image is summing summing it up. I think that there's no that I think that there's very little doubt about that, you know, and you know, even, you know, and it's interesting, you probably had this experience where you meet, uh, you meet a very a Jewish person who's very who's a good person and is very kind and and is just just a great person. And they'll they'll often tell you, well, I'm not a Christian, obviously, I'm not a Christian, but you know, I I kind of follow Jesus like in the sense that I that I see that the things that Jesus is saying are are good, even though I can't really, you know, jive with the the whole incarnation thing. And so, like you said, in some ways, like even the people that didn't recognize Christ have been affected by him. No, you can't avoid.

>> Precisely. And I think it's a good example because like many many Jews today, their ancestors did live in Christian countries before they maybe returned to Israel or maybe they still live in the West, like they still live in Europe or the United States and have been through osmosis have been inculcated in a kind of Christian fabric, even if they might say they don't believe in it or subscribe to it literally theoretically intellectually, their behavior would suggest otherwise that they have kind of been steeped in those waters of Christ just through the process of living it, you know, living in those countries generation after generation. So that's that's something that you can kind of sit and think about for years actually, just the just the ways in which that's kind of worked.

>> Um, now perhaps to get a little bit more like Cyril of Alexandria here a little bit and we can kind of boost the energy of of some of this, we can get a little bit more polemical here because I think we've proven our our salt here that we know we're a bunch of nice guys. We love you all. [laughter] But let's talk a little bit here because you you've you have this brilliant quote where you say that without theosis, Christianity is arbitrary and you've often said that Christianity is not about right and wrong. Christianity is about the transformation of people into the life of God. You've said that the Christian life is a process of ontological transformation and healing where the church is the hospital. Now obviously I agree with that, but I wonder if you could unpack it because I don't think the Western mind has grasped this whole understanding of Christianity for a very very long time and like we've just said repeatedly now, it's just all about being good. So could you talk a bit about theosis? Can you talk about like how this is, you know, that the the theology of theosis and and removing it from Western forms of Christianity may have actually led us to where we are now.

>> Um, yeah, so yeah, free to go. Yeah. Well, the idea is that, you know, the question you have to ask yourself is, why did God create the world? Like, why did God create reality?

>> And the the real reason and the ultimate reason, I think that Christ shows us, is that, you know, that it was to join with creation in an act of love. Like that's what God created. God is so much love that he created something that is in some ways outside of him, or not fully him, you could say, so that he could then bring it close to him in this loving affection. And so that's how much God is love. And there's no other way to understand creation, uh, without it becoming very weird, you know. And so I I remember growing up of people saying, you know, God created the world so the world would worship him. And I'm like, I mean, yeah, I kind of get that. But it seems like it's missing something. There seems some there's something weird about that, you know. But if you say that that that ultimately is so that he could be united to the world, like a husband and a wife, that he would be, you know, that he would join with his creation. Uh, and so then you realize that the incarnation of Christ was not something that God had to do to get us out of hell and move us to heaven, but that it was the very purpose of reality itself. That is that is why God created the world so that he would be united with it. And whether it happened in Adam or whether it ultimately happened in Christ, that was the telos of of creation. And I think that without that, like you said, like you you suggested at the outset, then Christianity just becomes arbitrary. Then basically you have these things that you have to believe so that, you know, you don't receive the punishment of God. all this substitutionary atonement stuff, uh, that is I'm happy that it's actually being talked about again because to me, that type of Christianity is is completely unpalatable. That it reveals a God that I find

>> that I that

>> that is just that is that is just weird and cruel. And there's no there's no, uh, to me, there's there's no deep intuition that this God is the God that would that is love. And so

>> yeah.

>> All right. All right. Well, Jonathan, I want you to then spend the next couple of minutes just deconstructing this [laughter] substitutionary, uh, salvation thing or or or whatever we just penal, penal the penal thing.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like tell cuz I think honestly, if I was to go into the streets of the UK or Australia and ask people like, what do you think like the purpose of Christianity and the Christian life is all about? They would say like, "Okay, isn't there meant to be this like really mean God who like requires punishment and and therefore like he sent his son to take up all this kind of stuff." That's what most people believe. I think most of the 40,000 denominations of Christianity still believe. Tear it apart for us. [laughter] And so, you know, this is obviously this is this is going to be as simplified in my version of of trying to explain it. But it all starts in some with one of the problems of believing in original sin. the way that we believe that in some ways sin infects people and has uh destroyed almost human nature that has made us um, you know, completely lost and useless. And so this is this is the basic idea. The the Orthodox tend to believe that the fall of Adam brought about death and that we live in a world of death. And because we live in a world of death, we are obviously prone to sinning because we feel our desires and our passions and it leads us to do things to to let's say satisfy our immediate pleasure and our and our desire to survive, you know, despite others. Uh, but the way that a lot of Western people think about it is, here are some rules. God gave rules and you break the rule and now that you break the rule, then you should be punished for breaking the rule, right? Uh, and then because God is infinite, once you break his rule, then the punishment is near infinite. That is that you are going to be removed from God forever because you broke his rule. And so now you're living in a world of of of sin and you constantly are breaking God's rules, uh, and you're going to hell, like you're going to die and go to hell. Everybody, the entire all of human all humans are going to die and go to hell. And so what Jesus has, what God has to do is he sends his son to take the punishment for you. So, so Jesus comes and then God pours out his anger on Jesus on the cross, punishes him for all of us. So [snorts] that he's taken the punishment and now from there, we can now if we believe him in him, we basically have faith that Jesus did that. Then we go to heaven because God now sees us through Christ, you know. And to me, that is just it's like not only I don't think it makes sense in terms of the Bible, but it is it is to me just insane. Like it's insane to think that that's how the world works. Uh, and the way that we the way that that that we understand it is that God so loved the world that when he saw that his creature had fallen into death and was prone to death and was in this cycle of acting just to preserve himself and was was [clears throat] forgetting his connection to God and was in some ways removed from his connection to God. He said, "Well, I'm going to send my son down in there to suffer with them so that he can so that he can fill the world with with his presence so that God can actually fill suffering and death with God." And that is what brings everything back to God. And so, you know, and this is what is there. This is what Athanasius, uh, the way that he presented in in on the incarnation. And this is really the way that we understand it. It's more about a loving God that sends his son to to to fill our suffering with purpose and to transform suffering into glory and to say, I'm not going to take away death. I'm not going to take away your suffering. This is the consequence of the world we live in. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you how you can how you can transform this suffering into purpose and into meaning and into glory, really. Uh, and so and so this is much different from from the kind of substitutionary atonement. So then what we do is as we follow Christ, we can see our passions being refined and we can understand that we do have to die, but if we die on purpose, that is through asceticism, through refusing your immediate desires. You see that death now becomes a method of healing. That it actually becomes a medicine that that if you if you use properly will lead you to to being free, right? If you're willing to ex to to die to your desires, to your passion, die to yourself rather than let's say, um, let's say sacrifice other things for your passions, rather sacrifice your passions so that you you learn to become something different, then you ultimately realize that you're free. And it's not a magical thing. I mean, everybody kind of knows that, you know, you in order to be free from addiction, you have to sacrifice your desire. There's no other way to be free from addiction. You have to be willing to suffer. You know, if you're if you become a smoker and you're addicted to smoking, the way out to be free is you have to be willing to suffer. Sit with that suffering. Notice, see that that suffering is aimed towards a purpose and you will become free from your addiction. That's what Christ came to teach us, not some weird mechanism to go to heaven just by like believing in some punishment that God sent on his son. Anyways, sorry. I don't want to diminish it too much, but I I definitely, you know, I I found in Orthodoxy a great freedom from that kind of weird, cruel God.

>> Absolutely. I completely agree. It's um it's it's kind of like grotesque or something. There's something a bit like icky and it just doesn't doesn't make it doesn't quite fit. it doesn't quite make sense that way if it's the other way. And I think, you know, I'm reading uh Zack Poru's book at the moment, Journey to Reality. I'm gonna have him on again soon. And he

>> my goodness, I think every catechist needs to read it because it's it breaks down these these concepts really easy. And the way he kind of he uses the analogy of um a kind of like an extension lead, like a power extension lead for for plugs. And he says basically like when when the when the snake says that you shall be as gods, what it was like, it's like you you're the power cord, right? You're plugged into the reality itself. You're plugged into God. You're in communion. You you're walking in the cool of the breeze in the garden with Christ. You're disconnecting from the source of your own reality and plugging yourself into your own extension. Lord, [laughter]

>> it's such a great image.

>> So good. And he goes, there's no there's no power in that. And he says, well, basically, you know, and so you will die, right? Which is what what God says. You don't die immediately. He describes it to like having like a laptop or an iPhone. You've still got some charge in you, but you will run out of battery. And so this is this is what happens. And then he says, basically, we've drifted so far from this for so long. Like the rust the the plugs become rusty. Baptism cleans the plug. Right? That's boom. Right? So now we've cleaned the rust away. And then holy communion is like Christ comes down. He becomes this super long extension lead. m

>> towards heaven and earth and he's plugging you back in and you can plug back into him. That's what communion is. It's like you're getting this little forgive the crude analogy, but he does a great job.

>> No, but it's actually not a bad it's actually a pretty good analogy.

>> It's amazing. Like that's you and and it's like you can't get you can't get the fullness of of God's energies otherwise, like a lightning bolt, it will just destroy you. So you're getting these holy communion like every Sunday or whatever it is you're going to church and receiving holy communion in in in micro doses almost and you're receiving that life back in you and it's ontologically changing who you are as a human being. So the the my understanding of of theosis and you'll do a better job of this and talk about this is that you like the process of salvation is theosis. It's like the it's like you're you're having a complete total category shift of what a human being is. the anthropology changes of who you are, the cosmology, but the ontology utterly transforms and that journey back into receiving God in you because the source of life and reality is now in you. You're no longer in this trajectory of death. So, it's a wonderful analogy.

>> I mean,

>> think about how tricky that snake was in the garden. Like,

>> you know, he says if you eat this, if you eat the fruit, you'll become like God, right? Uh, and the text says that, you know, Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. And so the answer is they were already like God. But the the way to be like God is like you said, is to actually just receive from God, right? To receive from God your being. And in the and to the extent that you receive from God your being, then you are like God to the extent that you can be like God because you receive your being from him. And so it's so beautiful to say, well, if you just plug back into yourself, then you'll become like God, you know, because you'll be self-sustaining. But that's not how we're like God. It's actually we become because God is the only thing that's self-sustaining. He's the source of all things and it's really in, you know, the more that you are the more that you actually kind of abandon your immediate desires, the more that you are able to negate yourself in the proper way, actually, the more that you become like God and and then ultimately the surprise, that the more you become yourself.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let me let me like you stop to exist. It's like no, you become filled and full of that of that of that of that power. And like I said, this is not like this is not like a magical superstitious thing. You know, if you're in a in a sports team, you know, it's like you can't just be the forward.

>> That doesn't mean anything. It only means something if you're connected to the purpose of the team. Yeah. So, if you're connected to the purpose of the team, then in some ways you sacrifice some of your individual glory.

>> Yeah.

>> But it's because you can't have individual glory. You have to receive it from above. Yeah. And

>> so it doesn't mean that now you can't be a forward anymore. It actually means that that's the only way you can be. Yes. And so it's like the only way you can be yourself is actually to to deny yourself in God and then you're filled with the purposes that make you who you are. So this is actually just an entire worldview that people like modern people are so

>> alienated for, but is actually completely coherent once you see it. Yeah.

>> There's no other way. There's really no other way of existing. And you know, I was even thinking about just some of the imagery here. We talk about Christ as this bridge and uh, you know, this power power cord. There's there's many analogies that we can talk about this in terms of the Orthodox view. And know when I was just on the way to church one day and I was just thinking about sewing a a rip in clothing. I was like, "Oh, Christ is a bit like that." It's like he's he's coming down into heaven. He's pierced inside. He's inside Mary. He's he he he's born forth from her and then he's pierced onto creation created matter of the wood. So you got it's like this sense of a needle. He's weaving. He's almost like stitching the rip back together through the the incarnation, the piercing on the cross, and the ascension. It's like you're you're kind of looping back in. And I think that kind of speaks more closely to like the Orthodox view of of what the whole purpose of life is, you know.

>> Yeah, I think that that's right. that I think the image that you said is quite beautiful to understand that the cross as an extension of incarnation, that the one who is the source of reality is willing to be fixed to his own creation, right? And in a way that is self-impinging, right? Self-impinging himself by becoming fixed to his own creation.

>> Um, well, look, just in the interest of time, I should probably talk about some of the other topics I wanted to talk about with you. Uh, if we can, if we've got time for it. I think for a lot of people who are starting to open up to the idea of Christianity or going to church or maybe reading the Bible as a result of just seeing the craziness of the world around us and just starting to open up. A lot of people are are struggling with a few intellectual hurdles around things like Darwinism or the age of the universe or evolution and things like that. And I'm wondering how would you address that issue for people? And maybe also how do you address it personally yourself in in your own world in your own faith?

>> Yeah, I'm not uh I I people might be surprised at the way that I formulate it is that I I believe that science is a very secondary thing. I I believe that the story in scripture, the Genesis one, actually offers much more than whatever scientific description you can come up with. And one of the reasons is that a true myth or a true story that you can live in doesn't only describe phenomena, but actually also gives you purpose. It gives you direction. It also it it formulates reason and you know, and like I said, directionality. And for sure, Genesis 1 does that. That is the Big Bang and evolution and all these things doesn't tell you how to live, doesn't tell you how to be, doesn't tell you what place the human has in the cosmos. You know, it it basically is just a description of how a bunch of things, you know, interact with each other on a very mechanical level. And therefore, these are very limited explanations for us. Uh, whereas Genesis 1, you know, it's like Genesis 1 to Genesis 3 offers a the image of the structure of a world in meaning, of how it is that the world is meaningful. And that's what we care about. That's what's important. And so I tend to prioritize Genesis 1 to 3 in terms of the being the best story ever told. Now, you know, some people might disagree with me, but I don't think that then for me, the rest doesn't really matter. That is that, you know, these scientific theories that come in and and come out, like they they cycle in and cycle out and they'll be changed and they'll, you know, every scientific fact, everybody thinks that science is um solid that if you you can you can really rely on science, but it's the very opposite of that. Science is always changing, actually. Science is every scientific discovery that you that they find, there's like an expiration date on it, especially theories. You don't know when the when they'll the date will expire, but at some point it will and they'll find some other some other theory. And it doesn't always mean better. Sometimes it's radically different from the one that was before. And so when I look at things like evolution and stuff, I just kind of take it. It doesn't really bother me, you know, it doesn't mean it doesn't make a difference in how I live and what I what I think. And there's some structures in evolutionary thinking that I think are useful to help people understand things, uh, that can shed a light on certain on certain realities. But I, you know, if someone tells me that I come from an ape, like whatever, what are you talking about? I don't come from an ape. That's ridiculous. I come from heaven. You know, it's like this is this is where I come from. And the image of of of of God putting his spirit into dust. It's like that's actually how human being exists. A bunch of multiple things that has a spirit inside and that is joining it towards purpose. What is telling me that I come from an ape do? doesn't do anything except tend to pull me towards that behavior. Instead, tend to pull me towards, you know, justifying all kinds of ridiculous things humans do by saying that we're just a bunch of apes. And you see it, by the way, like you see it in like even in very popular people that speak, you know, when they go there, they're basically they're basically fantasizing about power and about, you know, that kind of thing. That's what they That's what they do when they're going towards, oh, we're made of ape. We're made from apes. Like, nah, we come from apes. We don't don't come from apes.

>> Are you referring to Joe Rogan here, Jonathan?

>> Yes, I am referring to Joe Rogan. [laughter]

>> I mean, he might because I think he's he's become a Christian or at least he's going to church. Like, he might at some point be able to reformulate his lineage, right? And kind of understand that, you know,

>> have his own evolution. What what is in the dust that God gathered together, right? It's actually all of animal kingdom. Like all of when when it when God gathers the dust into man, you could say he gathers all of you could say all of creation into man. And so yes, the animal kingdom is also part of it. And so maybe yet to some extent apes are part of that gathering into us, you know, just like other mammals or other animals are part of that gathering in. But it but the idea that that's my origin, that's insane. Like that's nuts. Well, here's another thing that I want to ask you, and I've heard you talk about this before brilliantly. Do you actually think people who say they believe in evolution actually live their lives as if they believe in evolution? I mean, no, [clears throat] obviously not. Nobody does that.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, because this is this is the thing that you see. And even people that I respect, you know, they'll say this is what evolution wants, but we should really be careful with that because obviously evolution has genocide in it. evolution as you know, rape and murder and all of these things because just getting your genes across to the next generation doesn't mean that you know it doesn't matter how you do it. [clears throat] yeah, like in terms of just that very mechanical process, Genghis Khan is the ancestor of most of of Asia, you know, so it's like he wins, right? He in terms of evolutionary terms, Genghis Khan is is a great hero. But we also everybody kind of recoils from that when they they really look at. And the funniest thing about that is

>> the funniest thing about this is

>> have you noticed that believing in evolution and making that your story, right? Making it really the story that you think is true, why does it lead to people not having children anymore? Ex how is it how did this happen? How did it happen that people use Darwinism to attack Christianity and kind of try to debunk it [snorts] and then believe in this and then lead to a demographic collapse?

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> It's just the funniest thing. So I was I think it's funny. I think that my Catholic grandmother is a better Darwinist than these Darwinists.

>> Exactly. Well, this is

>> She's like embodying it. She's actually having children.

>> Yeah. Well, this is what's really funny about the whole Richard Dawkins debate that happened ages ago and like I wish you were the part of it. I don't think you ever debated Richard Dawkins, did you? Right.

>> I don't think Dawkins would want to talk to me.

>> No, but this is I like you're the perfect guy.

>> Look at me with the puzzled eyes for two hours.

>> But you'd be the perfect guy for it because it's like, well, hold on. Okay, so Richard Dawkins believes that um religions, let's say Christianity is a product of evolution because it happens to help the group survive. And so groups of people got together and started believing in things that helped them survive. It's like, well, okay, if you're a Darwinian evolutionist, why don't you then believe in God? Like if you're a Darwinianist, none of it makes sense. Um, and and also the whole reason why we have a problem with the Nazis is that they were essentially into Darwinism, the whole eugenics thing and creating the Ubermensch.

>> Oh yeah.

>> People are repulsed by it. So when people say, "Oh, I believe in science. I believe in evolution." It's like, I don't think you do. I think you're repulsed by it. You say you don't believe in Christianity and you're repulsed by that. But you live your life as if that's true and you live your life as if evolution is repulsive,

>> you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly right. And so there is definitely a performative contradiction, uh, in all of this, which is which I haven't totally was able to disassemble like or to fully understand. You know, there's something about there's like a trick. It's like it's like the snake's trick. It's as if you embrace mechanical causes, right? Or biological causes as being the origin of you. It's as if it actually dis. probably something like actually no, your source is is meaning, your source is orientation, your source is goodness. But then you notice that there are mechanical causes, they're all kind of, you know, we do have genes, we do have an animal body, we are definitely connected to the animals. You say, no, that's the source. So you take the thing, you unplug it again, you plug it back.

>> And then for some reason, you actually stop then even the animal aspect of yourself, you actually stop playing it out.

>> Then you start to destroy yourself and you don't actually have children.

>> Yeah, it's mad.

>> It's wild to think about it.

>> Which which by the way is like the thing which is going to destroy us all, right? If we don't have babies, we are all going to die out. It's why we're dealing with all these problems in Europe, which will

>> we all believe in evolution, right?

>> Yeah. No, no one's having babies. About birth rate and demography and you talk about mass immigration. Oh, you're the devil.

>> Yeah.

>> But wait, aren't you the Darwinians? Aren't you the evolutionist? So why what why talk about these things?

>> Yeah, I've never thought of that. That's crazy. And then and then obviously that leads to the fact that Europe's going to be ripped apart. There are going to be these uh like nationalist groups that will rise up necessarily to try and deal with this. Like this is a frightening precipice we are on, people. We're all we're all dealing with this at the moment. It's going to happen.

>> Yeah. But I think like, you know, like [snorts] I said, I don't I don't mind the the the the scientific descriptions of evolution. They're fine. They're totally fine. The problem is the narrative. The problem is the story. That's not your story. That is just

>> and and it's very difficult. I think that this is where it's difficult for people is because they we abstract ourselves from the world. And this is the problem with with Dawkins and it's a problem with many of the the kind of evolutionary thinkers is that they they think that they can just stand outside of human consciousness and human memory and human existence and formulate a world outside of that. And the truth is that you can't. And that's why you end up with all of these performative contradictions. That's why you end up with someone who believes that evolution is their mythology that they that they embrace. But then what they ultimately end up doing is, you know, like myth, they they believe in evolution, they read Harry Potter, they don't have children, you know, they go to they become adult Disney people. And it's like they just have all so it's like this is exactly what Christianity was bringing together, right? It's like if you live in in in within the church and you have you have a coherent worldview that makes sense and will produce fruits, uh, that will be both the ethical fruits, you'll produce families, you'll produce communities. And so

>> yeah, I don't, you know, so if like if if people could see just the performative contradiction,

>> that there's at least priority, right? It's like

>> you can believe in the scientific things that the scientist tells you about how things function and how beings interact with each other and how chemicals move between things, like you can believe that, but that's not your story. Like that's not the meaning that you have in your life.

To tie Can I get on to this a little bit maybe just to get you a quick answer on this because I think I've heard you describe uh it really well. People who who might struggle with like the biblical timeline and like age of the universe whole thing. I think you described saying well you believe like yeah, like human civilization did start about 6,000 years ago. I remember you said something like that. How how do you approach that question?

>> Well, there's no human memory that is older than, you know, maybe 10,000 years. Side. We don't know exactly, but there's no human memory from before that. There is no matter how you understand it in mechanical terms, there's clearly something that happened, you know, about at the time that that that the Bible talks about the beginning of of our of our existence, that coordinates all human memory towards towards that that moment. And so, you know, there is no, and so you can't, whatever was before is not connected to our humanity. There's there's no other way of formulating it. It's like a it's like a complete mystery or a complete uh strangeness. And so you that's that's kind of how I see it. You could think about it like in terms of biblical terms, that some ways we don't have a memory from uh before the flood. Yeah.

>> Like we have a memory until the beginning till after the flood.

>> Um, and then that that's the only kind of memory we have. And so there's no reason to, and maybe this is also the thing is that you can't really formulate a world outside of human consciousness. The categories we use, uh, even to do science are human categories. They're born in consciousness. And so there, you know, when people talk about what the world was before humans existed, this is just just blah blah blah. Like there is no world outside of consciousness. And so the world is born in human consciousness. So no matter how old that is, that is the Big Bang is born in human consciousness. It has to be, there's no other.

way to talk about it. There's no other way to talk about how even the past is has to be born in human consciousness. And so there's and so this is the priority. So it doesn't mean you have to you have to completely ignore those things, but you have to understand the the hierarchy of how you tell the story. the priority of it and and you you can't abstract yourself from human consciousness and therefore you always have to see it through that.

So saying that the world is about 7 8,000 years old or 10,000 years old is is the best beginning yeah >> for a story and then you can say other things downstream from that but that's the best beginning >> like like almost epistemologically is that would that be the right way of talking about it? >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

It's it's >> but there is a connection between epistemology and ontology because there is no ontology. There is really no access to ontology outside of epistemology. That's why in Christianity we know we have this concept of the logos which is what joins the notion of ontology and epistemology together. And so the you know this image of the son of man as being the reference of all things.

Um it's like this is the this is the mistake that modern scientists try make is that you know when they for example like when they talk about the solar system >> and when when someone says says to you that the the sun coming up in the morning is an illusion because actually the earth is turning and you know all of that it's like no no no no no no no the sun coming up in the morning is prior the sun coming up in the morning is the primary experience from that you can then deduce other perspective that you could imagine, but nobody's ever seen the solar system. >> You can't see the solar system. What are you talking about? >> Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's it's there's there's some real sense in if if I can like kind of the cliche would be like does a if a tree falls and there's no one to hear it, does it, you know, did it make a sound kind of thing? But there's a real sense in which like stars don't exist without a mind to perceive of it. Like if you think about like like a a flower doesn't know how beautiful it looks. It there's nothing. It's just it just it looks beautiful. I don't know how it's creating all these beautiful patterns to attract insects and the intricate it has no idea what it looks like.

In the same sense like stars like it might be emitting light but stars don't know they're emitting light. They don't know where they are in existence. There's no concept of time and space for a star. It's inanimate. >> And so but also at what level? >> Yeah, >> this is funny. It's like is it is it at the subatomic level? >> Where do things exist? Do they exist at the subatomic level? Do they list at the atomic at the molecular at the at the percept like >> how do beings how do you clump beings together? You know do do these the these weird like subatomic particles that are paired across the universe do they form a being? >> Yes. >> And if not why not like we we function in human categories. There's no other way to talk about reality outside of intelligible human categories, >> right? Yeah.

And I think this this is when you're talking about like, oh, when the sun comes up, it means this and that. And some people have said, well, oh, like clearly Christ is just a metaphor for like the rising of the sun because like the sun rose again, whatever. And it's like how how >> getting it upside down. They're getting it upside down. >> Yeah. >> They're getting that the sun the rising sun is a metaphor for Christ. >> Yeah. So this is this is I guess the Christian perspective. It's like you understand the world through Christ. Like it's it's it's not the other way around. >> Yeah. Well, that's because that's again because because consciousness has priority. >> Yeah. >> That you can't understand the world outside of consciousness. >> Yeah. >> And so the sun the sun is reflected in human consciousness and in human categories and in human purposes. And therefore the sun is the one that is a metaphor for let's say the peak of what human >> experience is. And it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It doesn't mean that it's all relative or that it's all it's all, you know, whatever you want it to be. No, not at all. It's completely coherent. Yeah.

But this is why God says that man has dominion over creation is because ultimately man is co-creator. Not only in the fact that man can make things, which is already something, but also because the world exists in man. The the world exists in man's perception. There is no way of escaping that. All the categories that we use to define things, to separate things, to measure distances, to measure uh re uh you know relations, to talk about relevance. All of these are the categories of of human consciousness. >> Um >> and so I mean I don't think there's really there's really no way out away from from that.

All right. So to wrap things up, I know we're out of time. There are a couple of questions, last minute ones which um some of the fans of the show left. U and that is given the biblical prohibition against making uh and bowing to images, what is the principal theological basis in Orthodox Christianity for physically venerating icons? Uh why should this uh not be understood as idolatry? And what role does the incarnation play in justifying icons? >> All right, that'll be the last question. That's a big one. And so we can we can definitely answer that. And so In the Old Testament, God reveals himself in in different ways, you know, and obviously in the Old Testament, he mostly reveals himself through voice, through his name, right? Through ways in which you can hear him. >> And then what happens is that once we know the name of God, then there are all these things that we do. We elevate the name of God, right? In the Psalms, there's all these stories about how, you know, we lift up your name, right? We lift up the name of God. That's, you know, that's equivalent of bowing down because you're putting something above your head, right? You're saying this is higher than me. I'm lower than this. Um, but there's no way that people think that the name of God is God himself. That's ridiculous. Obviously, God's name is not God, but God's name is the means by which he reveals himself to us. So, what we see in the Old Testament is that God reveals himself through through these different means. when he says to build an an ark of the covenant and that becomes the throne of God. Then we find Psalms again that says I bow down before your throne, right? I bow down before the means by which you're revealing yourself to us. Now there's a mysterious thing in scripture which is that God said that he made us in the image of God and then he gives a prohibition against making images. Now it's funny because he doesn't make a prohibition against having a name for God. He doesn't give it prohibition against having a house for God. He gives it prohibition against having an image. And you think, why is that? You know, because why does he give us his name, but he doesn't give us an why don't we have an image of God? So, obviously, we're not allowed to bow down before false gods. That's an easy one. But the question is, why can't we have an image of God that we could venerate in the same way that we venerate the name of God? And the answer is, well, God was going to give us one. And that's the incarnation. Christ is the image of God. St. Paul says it. He is the visible image of the invisible God. And just like when God gives us his name, we elevate his name. We venerate his name. Just like when God gives us a throne, we bow down before his throne, we venerate his throne. Then when God gives us an image, then we bow down and we venerate the image. Now what? So you could go even further and say just like all the ten commandments are pointing towards Christ, right? that in some ways Christ is the reason for the ten commandments which is why someone who said who says that you can't bow down before the image of Christ but doesn't celebrate the Sabbath it's kind of funny because it's like there's the Sabbath law right there you don't do it and then there's because Christ transformed that into his resurrection but it's the same with images is that the reason for the second commandment is Christ >> not just that Christ in some ways makes it now acceptable or now that now that Christ is incarnate we're allowed to bow down to images. No, no, no. The reason, the purpose of the second commandment is so that Christ will reveal the image of God to us. And once he's done that, then we celebrate, then we venerate just like we did his name, just like we did his throne, we do the same for his image. >> Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. I think you summarized that beautifully. And as a icon carver yourself, uh it's beautiful to hear that from you. There's a real sense in which like we're constantly surrounded by images today and we're being influenced and we are kind of venerating images all the time. Uh especially even in the kind of Protestant world. They're making movies. They're making films. Even the most hardcore iconoclastic Protestant churches will have like a nativity scene outside the church at Christmas, with wooden idols. So it's not to say that these icons are Christ, right? But it's some in the sense that a soldier in a in a trench in World War II will take a picture of his wife and kids and kiss it and try to be close to that. We kind of what we see we become in a sense and so we're we're getting close to that. I think it's so beautiful. Jonathan, thank you so much for everything you're doing. I I'm a huge fan of everything you're, you know, everything you're doing at Symbolic World. I've already told you this countless times. I have a special thank you from my godfather Manuel who wants to say thank you because we have at least in our parish alone something like 15 converts because of your content as a result of watching your your show. They've been really helped. So, glory to God. Keep doing what you're doing. It's plenty of people. >> I encourage everyone to go and check out your work and to buy your books. Even my kids are fans of your work. We love the Giant Jack and the Giants book. We got the three at Christmas and they loved the Jack and the Giants one in particular. Just keep doing what you're doing. I'd love to have you back on the show again. Maybe we'll do a live stream. The channel's growing pretty quickly at the moment and so I'd love to have you back on again and uh just thank you for making [music] the time. Really appreciate it. >> Thanks Ali. It's good to talk to you. >> Awesome. Thank you. All right. God bless. Speak soon. Bye.