Bishop Robert Barron: Christianity and the Catholic Church

Lex Fridman (01:22.640)

I'm saying something that's substantive,

Lex Fridman (01:25.800)

but it's more in like a via negativa mode.

Lex Fridman (01:28.080)

It's more like what God is not,

Bishop Robert Barron (01:29.360)

because there's nothing in the world

Lex Fridman (01:31.600)

that would correspond to those descriptions.

Lex Fridman (01:33.860)

So anything in the world would be a being of some type

Lex Fridman (01:36.840)

or an event of some type,

Bishop Robert Barron (01:38.640)

some particular mode of existence.

Lex Fridman (01:41.240)

And God is not an entity in the world.

Bishop Robert Barron (01:45.040)

I would say that's the fundamental mistake

Lex Fridman (01:46.800)

that atheists old and new make all the time,

Bishop Robert Barron (01:49.480)

is they think of God as a big being.

Lex Fridman (01:53.080)

When Aquinas says that God is not in any genus,

Bishop Robert Barron (01:57.480)

even the genus of being,

Lex Fridman (01:59.160)

it's one of the strangest remarks in the whole tradition,

Lex Fridman (02:01.280)

but it's really interesting.

Lex Fridman (02:02.620)

So you say, well, at the very least,

Lex Fridman (02:03.860)

God must be a being, right?

Lex Fridman (02:05.180)

And Aquinas's answer is no, he's not in the genus of being.

Lex Fridman (02:09.080)

So we talk about God being beyond being and so on.

Lex Fridman (02:12.480)

To say in God essence and existence coincide

Bishop Robert Barron (02:15.320)

is to say God's very nature is to be,

Lex Fridman (02:18.480)

and that can't be true of any contingent thing in the world.

Lex Fridman (02:21.720)

So what I'm doing there is I'm gesturing

Lex Fridman (02:23.660)

the way the tradition does toward God,

Bishop Robert Barron (02:26.120)

using language that's at the same time

Lex Fridman (02:29.340)

philosophically precise and gnomic.

Bishop Robert Barron (02:32.320)

It's both accurate, it's true.

Lex Fridman (02:34.400)

God, essence and existence coincide.

Lex Fridman (02:36.700)

What God is is the same as God's active to be.

Lex Fridman (02:40.800)

But now what does that mean?

Bishop Robert Barron (02:42.280)

I'm not quite sure,

Lex Fridman (02:43.120)

because nothing in our ordinary experience

Bishop Robert Barron (02:45.200)

corresponds to that.

Lex Fridman (02:46.800)

Everything in our experience is a being of some type.

Lex Fridman (02:50.280)

So it's existence received according to the mode

Lex Fridman (02:53.660)

of some essence.

Bishop Robert Barron (02:56.200)

That's not true of God,

Lex Fridman (02:58.440)

which is why he can't be found in the world.

Lex Fridman (03:00.180)

And that's, as I say, the fundamental mistake is,

Lex Fridman (03:04.200)

oh, I guess theists are those that believe

Bishop Robert Barron (03:05.780)

there's this being alongside the other beings

Lex Fridman (03:08.600)

in the universe.

Lex Fridman (03:09.440)

And then atheists say, oh no, there is no such being.

Lex Fridman (03:12.320)

And that's precisely wrong.

Bishop Robert Barron (03:13.800)

That's just a category error.

Lex Fridman (03:16.760)

Dawkins, I think, cites Bertrand Russell.

Bishop Robert Barron (03:20.260)

To the effect that proving the nonexistence of God

Lex Fridman (03:22.760)

is a bit like proving the nonexistence of a China teapot

Bishop Robert Barron (03:26.160)

orbiting between Earth and Mars.

Lex Fridman (03:28.640)

No, that's precisely what God is not,

Bishop Robert Barron (03:31.480)

some entity that's sort of hidden

Lex Fridman (03:34.080)

among the other entities of the universe.

Bishop Robert Barron (03:36.920)

God is the reason why there's a contingent realm at all,

Lex Fridman (03:41.140)

is the way to put it.

Bishop Robert Barron (03:42.560)

In more theological language,

Lex Fridman (03:43.820)

God's the creator of all things.

Lex Fridman (03:45.840)

So if God is outside of our world,

Lex Fridman (03:48.880)

is it possible for us to visualize,

Lex Fridman (03:51.600)

to comprehend, to know God?

Lex Fridman (03:54.420)

Not utterly, of course.

Lex Fridman (03:55.780)

And I would say our knowledge begins always in this world,

Lex Fridman (03:58.800)

begins in ordinary experience.

Lex Fridman (04:00.420)

But I think we can, through metaphysical analysis,

Lex Fridman (04:03.160)

through philosophical reasoning,

Bishop Robert Barron (04:05.100)

can come to some knowledge of a reality

Lex Fridman (04:08.340)

which is transcendent to our experience.

Lex Fridman (04:10.560)

So we gesture toward it.

Lex Fridman (04:12.580)

I always like Aquinas who says the language about God

Bishop Robert Barron (04:15.160)

that we use is analogical.

Lex Fridman (04:17.120)

So it's not univocal, meaning what I say about that can

Bishop Robert Barron (04:21.360)

or about this bottle, I can say about God.

Lex Fridman (04:23.560)

No, that makes God an entity.

Bishop Robert Barron (04:25.520)

At the same time, it's not simply equivocal.

Lex Fridman (04:28.380)

So if I say, well, that thing is and God is,

Bishop Robert Barron (04:31.560)

I mean totally different things.

Lex Fridman (04:33.380)

No, no, I mean something analogous.

Lex Fridman (04:36.000)

So to be God is to be, to be.

Lex Fridman (04:38.260)

So the real meaning of being is the being of God.

Bishop Robert Barron (04:42.100)

The being of that thing or this thing,

Lex Fridman (04:44.380)

or the being of galaxies or subatomic particles

Bishop Robert Barron (04:47.660)

would be analogous to God's manner of being.

Lex Fridman (04:50.600)

So on that basis, I can make some statements.

Bishop Robert Barron (04:53.440)

I can, I can theorize.

Lex Fridman (04:56.280)

And even at the limit, as you suggest, I can visualize.

Lex Fridman (04:59.320)

So we have metaphors for God,

Lex Fridman (05:01.200)

and the Bible is replete with those, right?

Lex Fridman (05:04.280)

So God is a rock.

Lex Fridman (05:06.200)

You know, God's like a lion.

Bishop Robert Barron (05:07.460)

God's like this and that.

Lex Fridman (05:08.720)

Or the Bible will sometimes imagine God

Bishop Robert Barron (05:11.200)

as a human being walking around, you know.

Lex Fridman (05:14.020)

Now, only the crudest fundamentalism would say,

Bishop Robert Barron (05:15.960)

well, that's a univocal, accurate description of God.

Lex Fridman (05:20.160)

It's an image that's catching something

Bishop Robert Barron (05:22.440)

of God's manner of being.

Lex Fridman (05:25.200)

Then what does it mean to believe in God?

Lex Fridman (05:31.260)

So there's a word, and we have to limit ourselves

Lex Fridman (05:34.460)

to human interpretable words today.

Bishop Robert Barron (05:37.300)

There's a word called faith.

Lex Fridman (05:39.420)

What does faith mean?

Lex Fridman (05:40.940)

So if we can't really directly know God,

Lex Fridman (05:45.660)

you kind of sneak up to the idea of God with metaphors.

Bishop Robert Barron (05:50.060)

Better he sneaks up on us.

Lex Fridman (05:51.960)

Because I like the language of grace.

Bishop Robert Barron (05:53.760)

God's action comes first.

Lex Fridman (05:55.880)

So if I stay perfectly within the realm of I'm seeking

Bishop Robert Barron (06:00.540)

with my kind of eagle eyes and my inquiring mind,

Lex Fridman (06:04.660)

I'm not gonna find God that way.

Bishop Robert Barron (06:06.160)

I might find a path that opens up.

Lex Fridman (06:09.740)

But I would say finally God finds me,

Lex Fridman (06:12.140)

and I think then the language of faith

Lex Fridman (06:14.020)

begins to make more sense.

Bishop Robert Barron (06:16.460)

I'm with Paul Tillich, though, the Protestant theologian,

Lex Fridman (06:18.860)

said the most misunderstood word

Bishop Robert Barron (06:20.660)

in the religious vocabulary is faith.

Lex Fridman (06:22.900)

Because he said the way we take it usually

Bishop Robert Barron (06:24.880)

is something subrational.

Lex Fridman (06:26.780)

You know, I have proof of this.

Bishop Robert Barron (06:29.320)

I really know this, and I only kind of believe that.

Lex Fridman (06:32.340)

Like, that's just a personal opinion or impression.

Lex Fridman (06:35.920)

But that's to identify faith with the kind of infrarational.

Lex Fridman (06:40.220)

And that's not it.

Bishop Robert Barron (06:41.780)

I mean, I don't want something infrarational.

Lex Fridman (06:43.540)

I don't want superstition or childish credulity.

Lex Fridman (06:47.340)

So authentic faith is the darkness beyond reason

Lex Fridman (06:51.540)

and on the far side of reason.

Bishop Robert Barron (06:52.900)

It's super irrational, not infrarational.

Lex Fridman (06:55.860)

And that's a very important move.

Bishop Robert Barron (06:58.100)

At the limit of what I can know,

Lex Fridman (06:59.980)

at the limit of my striving and my vision,

Bishop Robert Barron (07:02.540)

there's this horizon that opens up.

Lex Fridman (07:04.940)

And I think that's true even in ordinary ways of knowing.

Bishop Robert Barron (07:08.140)

There's a kind of a horizon

Lex Fridman (07:09.300)

that lures us beyond what I've got.

Bishop Robert Barron (07:11.620)

Faith has to do more with that kind of darkness

Lex Fridman (07:14.380)

rather than a darkness prior to reason.

Bishop Robert Barron (07:18.060)

The darkness beyond the horizon prior to reason,

Lex Fridman (07:22.000)

first of all, the poetry of your language is incredible.

Bishop Robert Barron (07:24.420)

To be, to be, I have a million questions.

Lex Fridman (07:27.260)

Yeah, go ahead.

Bishop Robert Barron (07:28.540)

I do too on this.

Lex Fridman (07:30.180)

So first of all, let me just jump around.

Bishop Robert Barron (07:32.420)

You mentioned to be, to be a few times.

Lex Fridman (07:34.800)

What does that mean?

Lex Fridman (07:36.340)

Well, to be me is to be a human being, right?

Lex Fridman (07:39.660)

To be this is to be a table,

Bishop Robert Barron (07:40.800)

to be this is to be a microphone.

Lex Fridman (07:41.700)

So it's, I'll use Aquinas's language.

Bishop Robert Barron (07:44.000)

It's the act of being poured, if you want,

Lex Fridman (07:47.440)

into the receptacle of some essential principle.

Lex Fridman (07:50.180)

So it's got an ontological structure.

Lex Fridman (07:52.420)

It's an existent, it's a thing that exists,

Lex Fridman (07:56.660)

but it's existing in a limited way

Lex Fridman (07:59.340)

according to an essential principle.

Lex Fridman (08:01.140)

So God, so what's God?

Lex Fridman (08:04.940)

What's God's name?

Lex Fridman (08:05.760)

What kind of being is he?

Lex Fridman (08:07.940)

We'll go back to Moses now.

Lex Fridman (08:10.640)

When the Israelites asked me, you know, what's your name?

Lex Fridman (08:13.140)

What should I tell them?

Lex Fridman (08:14.220)

And he says, you know, famously, I am who I am.

Lex Fridman (08:17.160)

But see, Aquinas reads that as a very accurate remark.

Lex Fridman (08:20.660)

So Moses is wondering, okay, there's a lot of gods

Lex Fridman (08:24.080)

and there's a lot of things, a lot of entities.

Lex Fridman (08:25.740)

Well, which one are you?

Lex Fridman (08:26.580)

You gotta be one of them.

Lex Fridman (08:27.500)

So tell me your name.

Lex Fridman (08:29.260)

In philosophical language, give me the essence

Lex Fridman (08:31.260)

that receives your act of existing, right?

Lex Fridman (08:34.440)

And God's answer blows the mind of Moses

Lex Fridman (08:37.300)

and the whole tradition.

Lex Fridman (08:38.140)

I am who I am.

Bishop Robert Barron (08:40.000)

To be God is to be.

Lex Fridman (08:43.380)

So I'm not this or that.

Bishop Robert Barron (08:44.520)

I'm not up or down.

Lex Fridman (08:45.360)

I'm not here or there.

Bishop Robert Barron (08:46.700)

God is that whose center is everywhere

Lex Fridman (08:48.420)

and whose circumference is nowhere, as the mystics put it.

Lex Fridman (08:51.640)

Now, can I get a clear and distinct idea of that?

Lex Fridman (08:54.500)

No, and in a way, that's the whole point.

Bishop Robert Barron (08:56.780)

If I could, I'd be talking about a being of some kind.

Lex Fridman (09:00.100)

So to be God is to be.

Bishop Robert Barron (09:01.200)

To be is to, and that's, you know,

Lex Fridman (09:03.260)

Moses, take off your sandals, you're on holy ground.

Lex Fridman (09:06.060)

So I'm gonna go over confidently

Lex Fridman (09:07.340)

and find out what this thing is, this burning bush.

Bishop Robert Barron (09:09.780)

I'm gonna find out.

Lex Fridman (09:11.480)

No, no, no.

Bishop Robert Barron (09:12.900)

Take off your shoes, you're on holy ground

Lex Fridman (09:14.500)

because you're not in charge here.

Bishop Robert Barron (09:16.340)

You're not in command.

Lex Fridman (09:17.660)

Because if you've got shoes on,

Bishop Robert Barron (09:19.940)

you can walk wherever you want.

Lex Fridman (09:21.180)

You can walk with confidence.

Lex Fridman (09:22.500)

But you take your shoes off, you're much more vulnerable.

Lex Fridman (09:26.380)

And that's appropriate when you're talking about God.

Lex Fridman (09:29.580)

But here's another interesting thing.

Lex Fridman (09:30.740)

I didn't think about the burning bush

Bishop Robert Barron (09:31.940)

in this connection before,

Lex Fridman (09:33.580)

but it's a bush that's on fire but not consumed.

Bishop Robert Barron (09:39.060)

Beings are competitive with each other.

Lex Fridman (09:41.500)

And so these can't be in the same place at the same time,

Bishop Robert Barron (09:43.940)

these two beings.

Lex Fridman (09:44.900)

They're mutually exclusive if you want.

Lex Fridman (09:48.740)

But as God comes close to a creature,

Lex Fridman (09:52.820)

he doesn't destroy it or consume it.

Lex Fridman (09:55.780)

But the creature becomes more beautiful

Lex Fridman (09:57.620)

and more radiant, right?

Lex Fridman (09:59.700)

And see, compare it to the classical gods and goddesses.

Lex Fridman (10:03.080)

When they come bursting into life and experience,

Bishop Robert Barron (10:06.580)

things are incinerated and people give way

Lex Fridman (10:09.140)

and they're overwhelmed.

Bishop Robert Barron (10:10.700)

Then there's this biblical idea of God comes close

Lex Fridman (10:13.660)

and sets things on fire but doesn't burn them up.

Lex Fridman (10:17.060)

And that's because he's not a competitive being

Lex Fridman (10:19.140)

in the world.

Bishop Robert Barron (10:20.140)

If he were a big being, then he'd be competing for space,

Lex Fridman (10:25.140)

so to speak, on the same ontological grid.

Lex Fridman (10:27.980)

But he's not like that.

Lex Fridman (10:30.180)

So God can come close and we come more fully alive.

Bishop Robert Barron (10:35.140)

Now we're starting to gesture toward the incarnation,

Lex Fridman (10:37.240)

I mean, the central Christian doctrine,

Bishop Robert Barron (10:38.820)

that God can actually become a human

Lex Fridman (10:42.340)

without overwhelming the human he becomes, right?

Lex Fridman (10:45.980)

So I mean, that's kind of the next step.

Lex Fridman (10:47.980)

But the basic idea of God is noncompetitively

Bishop Robert Barron (10:51.740)

transcendent to the world.

Lex Fridman (10:53.340)

That's another way to get at it.

Bishop Robert Barron (10:54.900)

Noncompetitively transcendent to the world

Lex Fridman (10:57.940)

so as beyond being as the source of being.

Bishop Robert Barron (11:01.780)

Right.

Lex Fridman (11:03.020)

Let me make it maybe more imagistic.

Bishop Robert Barron (11:06.100)

I think a really good analogy would be author to book.

Lex Fridman (11:10.300)

Right, so like Tolkien or someone that writes

Bishop Robert Barron (11:13.160)

one of these big sprawling novels.

Lex Fridman (11:16.260)

And Tolkien's good too because he creates a whole world.

Bishop Robert Barron (11:18.580)

He creates a new nature, a new language, new history,

Lex Fridman (11:21.180)

all that, think of the thousands of characters

Lex Fridman (11:23.320)

and the plots and subplots and all of it.

Lex Fridman (11:26.300)

Tolkien is utterly responsible

Lex Fridman (11:28.620)

for every bit of that story, right?

Lex Fridman (11:31.540)

Every character, every plot, every subplot,

Bishop Robert Barron (11:34.180)

every description, he's completely responsible.

Lex Fridman (11:36.780)

He's involved in every nook and cranny of it.

Lex Fridman (11:39.580)

But he's not in the story, he's not in the book.

Lex Fridman (11:43.140)

You're not gonna find him as a character in the book.

Lex Fridman (11:45.760)

So that's the category mistake of the atheist in a way

Lex Fridman (11:48.460)

is I'm looking for God, he's a character

Bishop Robert Barron (11:50.540)

in this story somewhere.

Lex Fridman (11:51.900)

No, he's the author of the story.

Bishop Robert Barron (11:54.620)

Mysteriously present to every aspect of the story,

Lex Fridman (11:58.540)

but not a character in it.

Bishop Robert Barron (12:00.780)

Right, he is deeply in the story somehow.

Lex Fridman (12:03.940)

Right. He's present,

Lex Fridman (12:04.820)

but he's not, even if he is a character,

Lex Fridman (12:08.700)

he's not really, the full embodiment is not a character.

Lex Fridman (12:13.100)

And people inside the book

Lex Fridman (12:16.460)

can't really know about the author.

Bishop Robert Barron (12:18.500)

Right.

Lex Fridman (12:19.780)

No, right. Well, see, Augustine says,

Bishop Robert Barron (12:22.300)

God is simultaneously intime or intimo meo

Lex Fridman (12:25.340)

et superior sumo meo.

Bishop Robert Barron (12:26.860)

He's closer to me than I am to myself,

Lex Fridman (12:30.300)

and he's higher than anything I could possibly imagine

Bishop Robert Barron (12:33.340)

at the same time.

Lex Fridman (12:34.380)

But see, once you get the insight

Bishop Robert Barron (12:36.460)

that God is the sheer act of to be,

Lex Fridman (12:38.940)

well, of course that's true.

Lex Fridman (12:40.260)

So right now, God is sustaining us in existence.

Lex Fridman (12:45.780)

True.

Bishop Robert Barron (12:46.940)

Aquinas says, God is in all things by essence,

Lex Fridman (12:50.140)

presence, and power, and most intimately so.

Lex Fridman (12:53.460)

And he's nowhere in this room.

Lex Fridman (12:56.780)

Okay, well, where's God?

Bishop Robert Barron (12:58.140)

He's nowhere in this room.

Lex Fridman (12:59.700)

He's totaliter aliter, we say.

Bishop Robert Barron (13:02.100)

He's totally other.

Lex Fridman (13:03.940)

Same time.

Lex Fridman (13:05.020)

But once you crack that code, though,

Lex Fridman (13:06.840)

I think you see it of why that would be true.

Lex Fridman (13:09.500)

And see, now I'm getting from more philosophical language

Lex Fridman (13:12.180)

to more mystical language,

Bishop Robert Barron (13:13.260)

because all the mystics talk that way

Lex Fridman (13:15.220)

in these high paradoxes about God's availability

Lex Fridman (13:18.740)

and unavailability.

Lex Fridman (13:20.660)

I've often thought in the Bible, story after story,

Bishop Robert Barron (13:24.220)

God can neither be grasped nor hidden from.

Lex Fridman (13:30.060)

So the first sinful instinct is to grasp at God.

Bishop Robert Barron (13:32.940)

I've got him, I understand him, I can manipulate him.

Lex Fridman (13:36.340)

No, no, no.

Bishop Robert Barron (13:37.180)

Story after story is told, you can't do that.

Lex Fridman (13:39.700)

Well, then the other extreme of the sinner,

Bishop Robert Barron (13:41.420)

all right, then I'm gonna run from God.

Lex Fridman (13:43.480)

I'm gonna avoid God.

Bishop Robert Barron (13:45.680)

Jonah and the whale, so he has the call from God,

Lex Fridman (13:50.020)

and he said, no, no, I'm gonna refuse that.

Bishop Robert Barron (13:51.780)

I'm gonna run as far away.

Lex Fridman (13:53.380)

I'm gonna go to Tarshish, which meant Timbuktu for them,

Bishop Robert Barron (13:55.940)

at the end of the world.

Lex Fridman (13:58.260)

God's got the whale, swallows him up,

Lex Fridman (13:59.900)

and brings him right back where God wants him.

Lex Fridman (14:01.860)

It's a poetic way of saying

Bishop Robert Barron (14:03.580)

you can't escape the press of God.

Lex Fridman (14:05.880)

At the same time, Tower of Babel.

Bishop Robert Barron (14:07.500)

I'm gonna build a tower up to God.

Lex Fridman (14:09.020)

I'm gonna grab hold of God.

Bishop Robert Barron (14:11.140)

No, no, no, you can't do that.

Lex Fridman (14:12.900)

So, live in the space in between those two things,

Bishop Robert Barron (14:15.420)

which would be the space of friendship with God,

Lex Fridman (14:19.380)

falling in love with God

Bishop Robert Barron (14:20.740)

is neither grasping nor hiding from God.

Lex Fridman (14:25.260)

You mentioned, again, a lot of beautiful poetic things.

Bishop Robert Barron (14:28.700)

You mentioned grace.

Lex Fridman (14:30.380)

Yeah.

Bishop Robert Barron (14:31.220)

You mentioned sin.

Lex Fridman (14:32.320)

You mentioned incarnation.

Bishop Robert Barron (14:35.140)

Is there a philosophical, pragmatic way

Lex Fridman (14:37.540)

to start talking about the pillars of Christianity?

Lex Fridman (14:40.740)

What are the defining things that make Christianity to you,

Lex Fridman (14:46.100)

and broadly speaking, to those that follow the religion?

Bishop Robert Barron (14:51.660)

In a way, what we're doing so far

Lex Fridman (14:53.340)

is a necessary propaedeutic,

Bishop Robert Barron (14:55.160)

because we're talking about God.

Lex Fridman (14:58.300)

What makes Christianity distinctive, of course,

Bishop Robert Barron (15:00.100)

is the claim of the incarnation.

Lex Fridman (15:01.860)

So, we come up out of Judaism.

Bishop Robert Barron (15:03.380)

We come up out of this great monotheistic tradition.

Lex Fridman (15:06.140)

And the Bible itself and all the great commentaries

Bishop Robert Barron (15:09.100)

within Judaism, I think, would agree

Lex Fridman (15:11.380)

with this basic theistic stuff that I've been talking about.

Bishop Robert Barron (15:15.500)

Take Moses Maimonides, for example.

Lex Fridman (15:18.420)

Now, what makes Christianity distinct,

Bishop Robert Barron (15:20.900)

this supremely weird claim that God becomes one of us,

Lex Fridman (15:25.820)

God becomes a creature, but without ceasing to be God

Lex Fridman (15:30.540)

and without overwhelming the integrity

Lex Fridman (15:32.020)

of the creature he becomes.

Lex Fridman (15:33.540)

What we see in the burning bush,

Lex Fridman (15:35.300)

that principle which obtains across the board,

Lex Fridman (15:37.940)

so the closer God comes to me,

Lex Fridman (15:39.440)

the more radiant I become, right?

Lex Fridman (15:42.140)

But take that now to the nth degree,

Lex Fridman (15:44.620)

would be what we mean by the incarnation,

Bishop Robert Barron (15:46.340)

the incarnation of the Son of God becoming a creature

Lex Fridman (15:51.460)

in such a way as to make humanity radiant and beautiful.

Bishop Robert Barron (15:57.340)

That's the pillar of Christianity.

Lex Fridman (15:58.860)

It's the incarnation.

Lex Fridman (16:01.780)

And what follows from that is the redemption

Lex Fridman (16:03.820)

of all of reality, so not just of human beings,

Lex Fridman (16:07.540)

but in becoming a creature, God divinizes the world.

Lex Fridman (16:14.460)

The Greek fathers always said God became human,

Bishop Robert Barron (16:17.540)

that humans might become God.

Lex Fridman (16:19.460)

And that's a good way to sum up, I think,

Bishop Robert Barron (16:21.500)

the essence of Christianity.

Lex Fridman (16:23.220)

Why is this such an important thing?

Lex Fridman (16:25.060)

So it's a distinctive thing,

Lex Fridman (16:26.820)

but why is it so important philosophically

Lex Fridman (16:30.020)

to what it means to be a Christian?

Lex Fridman (16:34.140)

What impact did that have on our world,

Bishop Robert Barron (16:36.980)

on human civilization, on human nature,

Lex Fridman (16:39.460)

on our morals of why live, what to live for,

Lex Fridman (16:43.300)

and the meaning of it all?

Lex Fridman (16:44.500)

Why is incarnation so important?

Bishop Robert Barron (16:46.460)

Well, I think it's massively important

Lex Fridman (16:48.060)

because it's the divinization principle

Bishop Robert Barron (16:49.900)

that God wants to divinize his creation

Lex Fridman (16:52.300)

and sort of in this concentrated point

Bishop Robert Barron (16:54.580)

of Jesus of Nazareth.

Lex Fridman (16:56.220)

But then we talk about the mystical body of Jesus,

Lex Fridman (16:58.500)

so that goes right back to Paul.

Lex Fridman (17:00.220)

As we're grafted onto Christ,

Bishop Robert Barron (17:02.180)

we talk about that as the church,

Lex Fridman (17:04.380)

we become like cells and molecules in an organism.

Bishop Robert Barron (17:08.420)

That's the church, it's not an organization,

Lex Fridman (17:10.460)

that's a deformation of ecclesiology.

Bishop Robert Barron (17:13.980)

The church is this organism that begins with Jesus

Lex Fridman (17:17.060)

and then he's drawing all of humanity,

Lex Fridman (17:20.780)

but ultimately all of nature,

Lex Fridman (17:23.180)

all of creation to himself.

Bishop Robert Barron (17:26.380)

When the Son of Man is lifted up,

Lex Fridman (17:27.580)

he will draw all things to himself,

Bishop Robert Barron (17:29.420)

that idea of the gathering in of a scattered creation.

Lex Fridman (17:34.420)

So in that way, it's at the heart of it.

Bishop Robert Barron (17:36.340)

Then there's all kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (17:37.820)

If God becomes human,

Bishop Robert Barron (17:39.660)

that means there's a dignity to humanity,

Lex Fridman (17:41.420)

which goes beyond anything any humanist

Lex Fridman (17:43.900)

of any stripe has ever said, right?

Lex Fridman (17:46.420)

Ancient, medieval, modern, contemporary.

Bishop Robert Barron (17:50.180)

Christianity is the greatest humanism imaginable.

Lex Fridman (17:53.020)

God became one of us in order to divinize us.

Bishop Robert Barron (17:56.740)

The goal of my life is not just to be a good person,

Lex Fridman (17:59.420)

not just to be materially successful,

Bishop Robert Barron (18:02.700)

not just to be a member of society.

Lex Fridman (18:05.420)

The goal of my life is to become

Bishop Robert Barron (18:07.460)

a participant in the divine nature.

Lex Fridman (18:09.380)

And so I don't think there is a humanism greater than that,

Bishop Robert Barron (18:12.260)

even conceivably.

Lex Fridman (18:13.940)

So that's where I think humanism

Bishop Robert Barron (18:16.620)

is profoundly influenced by the incarnation.

Lex Fridman (18:20.380)

And just our notion of God is noncompetitive to us.

Lex Fridman (18:25.140)

And it's so important, because I think in so many systems

Lex Fridman (18:27.580)

from mythology onward,

Bishop Robert Barron (18:29.460)

you have these competitive understandings of God.

Lex Fridman (18:32.780)

When Jesus says to his disciples the night before he dies,

Bishop Robert Barron (18:35.660)

I no longer call you servants but friends,

Lex Fridman (18:38.180)

it's an extraordinary moment.

Bishop Robert Barron (18:40.260)

Because every God who's ever been served,

Lex Fridman (18:43.620)

well, that's the best we can hope for

Bishop Robert Barron (18:45.580)

is that we'll be as the servant of God.

Lex Fridman (18:48.020)

You know, I'll try to obey you, Lord.

Bishop Robert Barron (18:50.220)

I'll try to do what you want.

Lex Fridman (18:51.540)

But when Jesus says, I no longer call you servants

Bishop Robert Barron (18:54.860)

or slaves, he would have said in the Greek there, you know.

Lex Fridman (18:58.300)

But friends, I don't know,

Bishop Robert Barron (19:01.420)

I can't imagine anything greater than that,

Lex Fridman (19:03.380)

becoming God's friend.

Bishop Robert Barron (19:04.860)

That's a call to become one with God.

Lex Fridman (19:08.620)

It's possible to become one with God.

Bishop Robert Barron (19:12.140)

Now I should mention,

Lex Fridman (19:13.460)

you're one of the greatest religious communicators

Bishop Robert Barron (19:15.920)

I've ever experienced.

Lex Fridman (19:17.580)

A huge number of people are fans of yours.

Bishop Robert Barron (19:19.900)

You've done a lot of great conversations.

Lex Fridman (19:23.300)

You've done Reddit AMAs,

Bishop Robert Barron (19:25.140)

which is a very unique, bold, brave thing.

Lex Fridman (19:29.800)

And on one of them, somebody asked,

Lex Fridman (19:34.080)

what's the most challenging of the seven deadly sins?

Lex Fridman (19:37.140)

So first, what are the seven deadly sins?

Lex Fridman (19:41.060)

What do they have to do with Christianity?

Lex Fridman (19:43.660)

How essential, how crucial they are to the religion?

Lex Fridman (19:47.820)

And what's the most challenging in our modern day?

Lex Fridman (19:51.580)

Yeah, to name them, pride, envy, anger,

Bishop Robert Barron (19:55.900)

sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust

Lex Fridman (19:59.340)

are the seven deadly sins.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:00:01.440)

throughout the 20th century,

Lex Fridman (1:00:02.960)

and Stalin has a role to play.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:00:05.760)

There's a dark aspect to,

Lex Fridman (1:00:08.880)

somehow evil helps us make progress.

Lex Fridman (1:00:14.720)

And I don't know how to put that in the calculation.

Lex Fridman (1:00:18.440)

It's a, I don't, you know, on the local scale,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:00:21.800)

I want to alleviate suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:00:23.680)

I'm probably lean, heavily lean pacifist.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:00:29.360)

Not out of weakness, but out of strength,

Lex Fridman (1:00:31.400)

but man, it does seem that history is sprinkled with evil,

Lex Fridman (1:00:37.400)

and that evil does somehow nudge us towards good.

Lex Fridman (1:00:42.280)

Yes, sometimes we can see it,

Lex Fridman (1:00:44.160)

and that's where the idea comes from,

Lex Fridman (1:00:46.560)

that evil's permitted to bring about some greater good,

Lex Fridman (1:00:49.840)

and we can sometimes really see it.

Lex Fridman (1:00:53.600)

Can we always see it?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:00:54.880)

No.

Lex Fridman (1:00:55.720)

In fact, typically we don't see it,

Lex Fridman (1:00:57.320)

but now you bring another factor into this,

Lex Fridman (1:00:59.160)

which is the difference between our minds and God's mind.

Lex Fridman (1:01:02.840)

So our minds, I mean, look, even,

Lex Fridman (1:01:04.560)

they're remarkably capacious,

Lex Fridman (1:01:06.120)

but they take in a tiny, tiny, tiny swath of space and time,

Lex Fridman (1:01:11.720)

and even our eyes kind of take in

Lex Fridman (1:01:13.880)

so much of the light spectrum,

Lex Fridman (1:01:15.000)

and these little ape sensorium that we have

Bishop Robert Barron (1:01:18.120)

that could just take in a little tiny bit of reality, really.

Lex Fridman (1:01:22.600)

How are we ever in a position to say,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:01:25.440)

oh no, there's no possible good

Lex Fridman (1:01:26.720)

that would ever come from that?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:01:28.160)

Even the greatest evil that Dostoevsky can conjure up,

Lex Fridman (1:01:32.600)

and Stephen Fry, still, how could we have the arrogance

Bishop Robert Barron (1:01:37.640)

to say, I know there's no good

Lex Fridman (1:01:41.280)

that could ever come from that.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:01:42.480)

I know there's no morally justifiable reason

Lex Fridman (1:01:45.640)

why God would ever permit that,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:01:47.280)

because I think that's hubris to the nth degree

Lex Fridman (1:01:50.120)

for us to say that,

Lex Fridman (1:01:51.760)

and that's the assumption behind this claim

Lex Fridman (1:01:54.200)

that God can permit evil to bring about a greater good.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:01:57.600)

Now, God understands it,

Lex Fridman (1:02:00.040)

but we're like little kids, like a four year old,

Lex Fridman (1:02:04.720)

and their parents make a decision,

Lex Fridman (1:02:06.240)

and we say, what in the, why in the world

Lex Fridman (1:02:08.360)

would you do this to me?

Lex Fridman (1:02:10.760)

This is my pastoral experience.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:02:12.240)

Years ago, there was a young father,

Lex Fridman (1:02:14.320)

and his son was like three or something,

Lex Fridman (1:02:16.440)

and he was in the hospital for something,

Lex Fridman (1:02:18.560)

I forgot what it was,

Lex Fridman (1:02:19.400)

but he had to undergo surgery, right?

Lex Fridman (1:02:21.400)

So after the surgery, he's in great pain,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:02:23.640)

this poor kid, this three year old kid,

Lex Fridman (1:02:25.600)

and the dad was there with him, holding his hand,

Lex Fridman (1:02:28.800)

and the son, this is what the father told me,

Lex Fridman (1:02:31.680)

he said, he's looking at me like, what gives here?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:02:35.600)

I mean, why would you, you love me,

Lex Fridman (1:02:37.800)

I've always assumed that,

Lex Fridman (1:02:40.160)

and yet you're presiding over this somehow,

Lex Fridman (1:02:42.120)

you're approving of this,

Lex Fridman (1:02:43.760)

and doing nothing to get me out of it, right?

Lex Fridman (1:02:46.480)

And he said, the kid couldn't articulate that,

Lex Fridman (1:02:48.400)

but his eyes did, and the father said,

Lex Fridman (1:02:51.560)

it was just killing me,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:02:52.600)

because I knew I couldn't explain it to him.

Lex Fridman (1:02:55.680)

And it's true, I mean, he could vaguely gesture toward,

Lex Fridman (1:02:58.200)

but the kid didn't understand surgery,

Lex Fridman (1:03:00.040)

and cutting his body, and taking things out of it,

Lex Fridman (1:03:02.160)

and that this was gonna make him much better

Lex Fridman (1:03:04.680)

in the long run, but I remember thinking,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:03:06.680)

that's a great metaphor for us vis a vis God,

Lex Fridman (1:03:08.880)

is here's God, infinitely loving God,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:03:11.120)

who's with us all the time, and we say,

Lex Fridman (1:03:13.400)

what are you doing?

Lex Fridman (1:03:14.720)

Why aren't you taking this away from me?

Lex Fridman (1:03:17.160)

And the answer, I mean, ultimately is trust,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:03:20.040)

trust me, trust me, surrender to me.

Lex Fridman (1:03:24.040)

And when we don't, that's,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:03:26.840)

we get in trouble with the old pride,

Lex Fridman (1:03:29.080)

and the hubris, and all that kind of stuff.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:03:31.320)

Yeah, no, but trust me when I tell you,

Lex Fridman (1:03:33.440)

I mean, I completely get it in my own life,

Lex Fridman (1:03:36.160)

and as a priest, you're dealing with suffering all the time,

Lex Fridman (1:03:38.960)

with people in pain all the time.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:03:41.440)

I remember as a young priest,

Lex Fridman (1:03:43.400)

there was a policeman in our parish,

Lex Fridman (1:03:47.120)

so he had a gun, and inexplicably,

Lex Fridman (1:03:50.440)

no one had any clue.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:03:52.800)

He got up one night, shot his son to death,

Lex Fridman (1:03:55.480)

and then shot himself.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:03:57.080)

This is my parish.

Lex Fridman (1:03:58.240)

So I went to the wake, I remember, I show up,

Lex Fridman (1:04:01.280)

and I'm this young, 27 year old goofball priest,

Lex Fridman (1:04:04.720)

and I roll my collar around, and I walk in,

Lex Fridman (1:04:07.080)

and there were two coffins,

Lex Fridman (1:04:09.000)

the two coffins in the room,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:04:10.200)

there's the son and the father.

Lex Fridman (1:04:11.760)

And the mother was there, and she went like this to me.

Lex Fridman (1:04:17.520)

She saw me, okay, you're the religious guy here, what?

Lex Fridman (1:04:21.760)

And just by instinct, I went like that too.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:04:26.080)

I went like, I don't know what to tell, I can't,

Lex Fridman (1:04:29.920)

I don't have an answer for you.

Lex Fridman (1:04:32.240)

But I was there,

Lex Fridman (1:04:34.520)

and I'm not saying to pat myself on the back,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:04:36.040)

this is, that's where the church goes,

Lex Fridman (1:04:38.800)

because Jesus went there.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:04:41.760)

Now we're gesturing toward a more theological response.

Lex Fridman (1:04:44.920)

The first one's more austerely philosophical,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:04:47.120)

God permits evil to bring about a good.

Lex Fridman (1:04:49.500)

But the theological response is, that's where Christ went,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:04:52.480)

is he went all the way down.

Lex Fridman (1:04:54.040)

He went all the way down into our suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:04:56.720)

And see the cross as the limit case of evil,

Lex Fridman (1:05:01.720)

humiliation and cruelty and institutional injustice

Lex Fridman (1:05:08.080)

and psychological suffering and spiritual suffering

Lex Fridman (1:05:11.160)

and death, it's all there.

Lex Fridman (1:05:13.760)

And that's where the Son of God went.

Lex Fridman (1:05:16.000)

And I would say that's why, as a priest, I went there.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:05:19.360)

That's my job, is to go to those places.

Lex Fridman (1:05:22.100)

So that's the ultimate answer to the problem.

Lex Fridman (1:05:26.160)

So there is, we can't comprehend it,

Lex Fridman (1:05:30.840)

but there is meaning to the suffering and the injustice.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:05:34.040)

We trust it because we know on other grounds

Lex Fridman (1:05:37.320)

of God's existence.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:05:38.160)

See, I would resist the claim that,

Lex Fridman (1:05:39.720)

well, this is such a knockdown argument,

Lex Fridman (1:05:42.440)

so now we know there is no God.

Lex Fridman (1:05:43.720)

I would say, no, there are all kinds

Bishop Robert Barron (1:05:45.360)

of other rational warrants for God.

Lex Fridman (1:05:46.960)

And so I know that God exists.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:05:49.680)

I know that God is infinite love,

Lex Fridman (1:05:51.360)

and now I gotta square that with this experience.

Lex Fridman (1:05:54.040)

And the way I do that is by a trusting confidence

Lex Fridman (1:05:58.160)

that God knows what he's about.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:06:01.160)

Again, I know how inadequate that always seems

Lex Fridman (1:06:03.600)

to anyone who's suffering, including myself,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:06:05.680)

when I'm in great suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:06:07.660)

But I think that's the best that we've done

Bishop Robert Barron (1:06:09.940)

in the great tradition.

Lex Fridman (1:06:11.280)

So if you were to steel man the case against God

Bishop Robert Barron (1:06:16.160)

or the existence of God, you find the most convincing

Lex Fridman (1:06:20.160)

argument is there's evil in the world,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:06:23.400)

therefore there's no God.

Lex Fridman (1:06:24.560)

There's too much of it.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:06:25.600)

If I were to steel man that argument,

Lex Fridman (1:06:27.000)

I'd do what Stephen Fry does.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:06:28.320)

I would do what Dostoevsky's Ivan does.

Lex Fridman (1:06:30.180)

I would do exactly that.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:06:31.500)

I would say there's just too much.

Lex Fridman (1:06:34.200)

And then if you wanna keep pressing it, animal suffering.

Lex Fridman (1:06:37.300)

So we talk about human suffering,

Lex Fridman (1:06:39.000)

but the suffering of animals over the eons and so on,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:06:44.040)

isn't there just too much suffering

Lex Fridman (1:06:46.560)

to be reconciled with an infinitely good God?

Lex Fridman (1:06:49.320)

And that's, again, Thomas Aquinas.

Lex Fridman (1:06:51.000)

I've just used his very steel man argument.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:06:55.040)

You mentioned that, again, on Reddit,

Lex Fridman (1:06:57.280)

somebody asked who your favorite communicator

Bishop Robert Barron (1:07:02.080)

of atheist ideas was, and you mentioned Christopher Hitchens.

Lex Fridman (1:07:06.880)

Are there other ideas for atheism

Lex Fridman (1:07:12.200)

that you find particularly challenging?

Lex Fridman (1:07:15.040)

Well, that's the one, is the problem of evil.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:07:18.080)

The other objection in Aquinas,

Lex Fridman (1:07:19.760)

which has a lot of contemporary resonance,

Lex Fridman (1:07:22.420)

is can't we just explain everything through natural causes?

Lex Fridman (1:07:26.400)

Why would you have to invoke a cause

Lex Fridman (1:07:28.040)

beyond the causes in the world?

Lex Fridman (1:07:30.480)

So as I'm trying to explain, let's say for Aquinas,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:07:33.720)

motion, causality, finality,

Lex Fridman (1:07:37.080)

can I just do that with natural causes?

Lex Fridman (1:07:39.260)

Wouldn't that suffice to explain it?

Lex Fridman (1:07:41.520)

So I get like when naturalists are speaking

Bishop Robert Barron (1:07:44.840)

or people that are pure materialists,

Lex Fridman (1:07:46.520)

they'll just say, no, that's perfectly adequate.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:07:49.040)

A scientific account of reality is utterly adequate

Lex Fridman (1:07:52.440)

to our experience.

Lex Fridman (1:07:55.140)

So I would steel man that and say,

Lex Fridman (1:07:56.860)

well, show me why we need something more.

Lex Fridman (1:07:59.680)

And to do that, you gotta get out of Plato's cave,

Lex Fridman (1:08:02.680)

it seems to me.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:08:03.720)

Because my objection to naturalism

Lex Fridman (1:08:08.400)

is it's staying within the realm

Bishop Robert Barron (1:08:12.160)

of the immediately empirically observable

Lex Fridman (1:08:15.920)

and making the mistake of saying

Bishop Robert Barron (1:08:17.400)

that's all there is to being.

Lex Fridman (1:08:19.760)

That's all there is that needs to be explained.

Lex Fridman (1:08:22.840)

And long before we get to religion,

Lex Fridman (1:08:25.640)

just stay with Plato.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:08:27.400)

The first step out of the cave,

Lex Fridman (1:08:28.840)

if you combine it now with the parable of the line,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:08:31.080)

is mathematical objects.

Lex Fridman (1:08:33.160)

And I'm with those, the many people that would say,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:08:36.480)

mathematics is an experience of the immaterial.

Lex Fridman (1:08:39.760)

I've stepped out of a merely empirical,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:08:42.860)

physical, naturalistic world.

Lex Fridman (1:08:45.020)

The minute I understand a pure number

Bishop Robert Barron (1:08:48.320)

or a pure equation or a pure mathematical relationship,

Lex Fridman (1:08:53.080)

which would obtain in any possible world,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:08:55.400)

which are not tied to space and time,

Lex Fridman (1:08:58.920)

that's a first step out of the cave.

Lex Fridman (1:09:01.400)

And then that leads to the more metaphysical reflections.

Lex Fridman (1:09:05.560)

For example, in the nature of being.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:09:07.040)

I mean, so I could talk about this thing

Lex Fridman (1:09:08.880)

as a physical object and I can analyze it

Bishop Robert Barron (1:09:10.720)

at all kinds of levels and follow all the scientists

Lex Fridman (1:09:13.800)

up and down through this thing, and fine, fine.

Lex Fridman (1:09:16.560)

But I'm still in Plato's cave.

Lex Fridman (1:09:17.960)

I'm still looking at the flickering images on the wall.

Lex Fridman (1:09:20.720)

But when I step out of that into the mathematical realm,

Lex Fridman (1:09:24.200)

I have entered a different realm of being, seems to me.

Lex Fridman (1:09:28.000)

Do you think it's possible for the cave to expand

Lex Fridman (1:09:30.360)

so large that it encompasses the whole world?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:09:32.900)

Meaning, is it possible that we're just clueless right now

Lex Fridman (1:09:38.480)

in terms of, scientifically speaking,

Lex Fridman (1:09:41.600)

with most of the world we haven't figured out yet?

Lex Fridman (1:09:45.240)

But do you think it's possible through science to know God,

Lex Fridman (1:09:49.080)

to look outside the world?

Lex Fridman (1:09:50.540)

So it's fundamentally the limit

Bishop Robert Barron (1:09:52.080)

of the empirical scientific method,

Lex Fridman (1:09:54.520)

is that we can't know some of these very big questions.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:09:57.880)

No, I'm not a scientist,

Lex Fridman (1:10:00.120)

and I was never all that good at science.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:02.280)

I was more of a humanities guy.

Lex Fridman (1:10:03.640)

But I love and respect the sciences, but I hate scientism.

Lex Fridman (1:10:06.660)

And scientism is rampant today, with especially young people.

Lex Fridman (1:10:10.480)

The reduction of all knowledge

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:11.840)

to the scientific form of knowledge.

Lex Fridman (1:10:13.200)

And I'm a vehement opponent of that.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:16.600)

There are dimensions of being that are not capturable

Lex Fridman (1:10:18.840)

through a scientific method of mere observation,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:21.480)

hypothesis formation, experimentation, et cetera.

Lex Fridman (1:10:24.220)

As great as that is, as wonderful as that is,

Lex Fridman (1:10:26.880)

but it's still, I think, within Plato's cave.

Lex Fridman (1:10:29.400)

And that's not to say it's not real.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:31.040)

It's just at a relatively low level of reality.

Lex Fridman (1:10:34.200)

You step out of Plato's cave

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:35.500)

when you go into pure mathematics.

Lex Fridman (1:10:37.960)

That's why, you know that article,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:38.960)

I just came across it recently,

Lex Fridman (1:10:40.380)

and discovered this whole literature around it,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:42.600)

is Eugene Wigner's article, 1960,

Lex Fridman (1:10:44.780)

called the unreasonable applicability of mathematics

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:49.540)

to the physical sciences.

Lex Fridman (1:10:50.600)

I think that's the title of it.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:51.560)

Or effectiveness or something like that, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:10:53.920)

But what's so cool is that he's not a religious man.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:56.080)

He was kind of a secular Jew.

Lex Fridman (1:10:57.960)

But yet he uses the word miracle

Bishop Robert Barron (1:10:59.720)

like eight times in that article.

Lex Fridman (1:11:01.680)

Because he just is so impressed by the fact

Bishop Robert Barron (1:11:03.600)

that high, complex mathematics describes so accurately

Lex Fridman (1:11:08.600)

the physical world and can be used to create things

Lex Fridman (1:11:11.580)

and to manipulate.

Lex Fridman (1:11:13.020)

And why should that be true?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:11:15.200)

That there's something very weirdly mysterious

Lex Fridman (1:11:18.320)

about that relationship.

Lex Fridman (1:11:19.900)

And I would say it's because you stepped

Lex Fridman (1:11:21.620)

into a higher order of being,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:11:23.620)

which is inclusive of a lower level being.

Lex Fridman (1:11:26.060)

That's the Platonic approach,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:11:27.740)

is that as you move, now I'm going to a different metaphor,

Lex Fridman (1:11:30.060)

you move to higher levels,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:11:31.180)

they're inclusive of the lower levels.

Lex Fridman (1:11:33.180)

Yeah, there's some magic there

Bishop Robert Barron (1:11:35.380)

that seems to, at least in our current understanding

Lex Fridman (1:11:38.020)

of science, to be not quite capturable.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:11:42.340)

Even consciousness, the idea of consciousness.

Lex Fridman (1:11:45.260)

Can I ask you, where do you think

Lex Fridman (1:11:46.780)

the laws of nature come from?

Lex Fridman (1:11:48.060)

So, I mean, sort of the Vigner question,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:11:49.900)

where does the deep mathematical structure

Lex Fridman (1:11:55.300)

of things come from?

Lex Fridman (1:11:56.280)

How do you explain that?

Lex Fridman (1:11:57.340)

The mathematical structure or the fact

Bishop Robert Barron (1:12:00.740)

that the structure is somehow pleasing and beautiful.

Lex Fridman (1:12:04.340)

Because those are two different.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:12:07.020)

Well, do the first one first.

Lex Fridman (1:12:08.060)

I'm just curious to tell you,

Lex Fridman (1:12:09.140)

where do you think it comes from?

Lex Fridman (1:12:11.020)

I tend to believe, even in terms of physics,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:12:13.260)

we don't really know what's going on.

Lex Fridman (1:12:15.200)

There's so, so, so much more to be discovered.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:12:18.620)

We're walking around in the dark

Lex Fridman (1:12:21.060)

trying to figure out a little puzzles here and there,

Lex Fridman (1:12:23.580)

and we're patting ourselves on the back

Lex Fridman (1:12:25.620)

and how many puzzles we've discovered so far.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:12:28.080)

Even Gadot's incompleteness theorem,

Lex Fridman (1:12:30.180)

what are the limits of mathematics,

Lex Fridman (1:12:32.020)

axiomatic systems?

Lex Fridman (1:12:33.060)

I don't know what is the purpose of mathematics,

Lex Fridman (1:12:37.300)

what is the power of mathematics?

Lex Fridman (1:12:38.880)

Is it just a useful tool to study the world around us,

Lex Fridman (1:12:45.720)

or is it something deeper that we're just discovering?

Lex Fridman (1:12:50.700)

All I know from my emotional perspective,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:12:53.500)

now I am an engineer, I'm a robotics AI person,

Lex Fridman (1:12:57.020)

from an emotional perspective,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:12:58.220)

I just find the whole thing beautiful.

Lex Fridman (1:12:59.980)

Yeah, but that's really cool to me.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:13:01.740)

That's a very interesting clue.

Lex Fridman (1:13:03.900)

See, one of the arguments for God

Bishop Robert Barron (1:13:05.460)

is based on the intelligibility of the world.

Lex Fridman (1:13:08.420)

It's like Wigner, it's a very peculiar fact,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:13:10.540)

it seems to me, that the world is so radically intelligible.

Lex Fridman (1:13:13.260)

Why should that be true?

Lex Fridman (1:13:14.500)

Why should it be the case

Lex Fridman (1:13:15.980)

that being has this intelligible structure to it?

Lex Fridman (1:13:18.900)

So it corresponds to an inquiring mind.

Lex Fridman (1:13:21.660)

So Aquinas can say that the intelligible in act

Bishop Robert Barron (1:13:25.500)

is the intellect in act.

Lex Fridman (1:13:27.340)

Meaning there's some deep correspondence

Bishop Robert Barron (1:13:29.660)

between this and that.

Lex Fridman (1:13:32.820)

And I'm with Wigner.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:13:34.620)

That's, I think, really weird

Lex Fridman (1:13:36.620)

and unreasonable and strange.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:13:39.060)

Now, my answer is, because the creator of the universe

Lex Fridman (1:13:44.280)

is a great mind and has stamped the world

Bishop Robert Barron (1:13:48.580)

with intelligibility.

Lex Fridman (1:13:50.420)

In the beginning was the Word, right?

Lex Fridman (1:13:52.360)

And the Word was with God,

Lex Fridman (1:13:53.340)

and all things came to be through the Word.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:13:56.500)

We shouldn't picture that so much.

Lex Fridman (1:13:58.580)

It's gesturing in this very powerful direction.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:14:01.860)

There's an intelligence that has imbued the world

Lex Fridman (1:14:04.620)

with intelligibility.

Lex Fridman (1:14:07.500)

And we discover that, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:14:09.980)

There's something about the simplicity

Bishop Robert Barron (1:14:11.420)

of the way the world works,

Lex Fridman (1:14:12.880)

that's where the beauty comes from.

Lex Fridman (1:14:15.580)

And yes, there's something profound to the mechanism,

Lex Fridman (1:14:18.620)

whatever that is, God, that brought that to be.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:14:23.220)

That thought it into being.

Lex Fridman (1:14:25.000)

That the world has been,

Lex Fridman (1:14:26.460)

and the Bible says that God said,

Lex Fridman (1:14:28.640)

"'Let there be light,' and there was light."

Bishop Robert Barron (1:14:29.900)

God said, well, again, we don't literalize the poetry,

Lex Fridman (1:14:32.620)

but it's very rich that God spoke the world into being.

Lex Fridman (1:14:37.060)

So that means it's been imbued with intelligibility

Lex Fridman (1:14:40.580)

from the beginning.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:14:42.580)

They say that the condition for the possibility

Lex Fridman (1:14:44.700)

of the Western physical sciences

Bishop Robert Barron (1:14:46.840)

was a basically Christian idea,

Lex Fridman (1:14:49.020)

namely that the world is not God.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:14:51.500)

Therefore, I can analyze it, experiment upon it.

Lex Fridman (1:14:54.140)

I don't divinize it.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:14:55.700)

I don't have a mystical relation to the world.

Lex Fridman (1:14:57.780)

It's not God.

Lex Fridman (1:14:59.020)

But secondly, that it's absolutely

Lex Fridman (1:15:01.200)

in every nook and cranny intelligible.

Lex Fridman (1:15:03.400)

And those two ideas are correlated to the idea of creation.

Lex Fridman (1:15:06.780)

So it's been created, it's not God, it's other than God,

Lex Fridman (1:15:09.820)

but yet it's touched in every dimension by God's mind.

Lex Fridman (1:15:13.500)

And when those two things are in place,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:15:15.500)

the sciences get underway.

Lex Fridman (1:15:17.240)

You know, I don't worship the world anymore,

Lex Fridman (1:15:19.660)

but I'm also utterly confident I can come to know it.

Lex Fridman (1:15:22.440)

And those are theological ideas.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:15:24.620)

Well, we live in this world,

Lex Fridman (1:15:27.220)

so we can solve quite a lot of problems of this world

Bishop Robert Barron (1:15:30.680)

by making the assumption

Lex Fridman (1:15:32.060)

that this world is fully understandable.

Lex Fridman (1:15:34.780)

And we don't need to worry about what's outside the world

Lex Fridman (1:15:36.920)

in some sense in order to build bridges and rockets

Lex Fridman (1:15:41.480)

and computers and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:15:43.700)

It's only when we get to the questions that are deeper

Bishop Robert Barron (1:15:47.220)

about why we're here at all,

Lex Fridman (1:15:49.420)

what does it mean to be good,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:15:51.100)

all those kinds of things

Lex Fridman (1:15:52.080)

do we need to reach outside of this world?

Lex Fridman (1:15:54.620)

Can I introduce another one?

Lex Fridman (1:15:55.980)

So I talked about mathematics.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:15:57.380)

I think it's stepping out of the cave,

Lex Fridman (1:15:58.740)

it's stepping out of just the purely empirical world.

Lex Fridman (1:16:02.760)

But the very fact that we use a word like universe

Lex Fridman (1:16:05.140)

to me is very interesting.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:16:06.300)

Even if you say multiple universes,

Lex Fridman (1:16:07.520)

to me it's like, well, whatever the whole is, the totality.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:16:13.500)

Universum, turn toward the one.

Lex Fridman (1:16:17.500)

Why would we call it that?

Lex Fridman (1:16:18.740)

Why wouldn't we just call it an aggregate?

Lex Fridman (1:16:20.580)

You know, it's just an aggregate of stuff.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:16:22.020)

It's an aggregate of all kinds.

Lex Fridman (1:16:23.260)

But we call it a universe.

Lex Fridman (1:16:24.940)

And my answer from the classical metaphysical tradition

Lex Fridman (1:16:28.140)

is it's the intuition of being.

Lex Fridman (1:16:30.380)

So I immediately experience things here,

Lex Fridman (1:16:32.700)

the color and shape, and I can measure them.

Lex Fridman (1:16:35.100)

But when I've really stepped out of the cave

Lex Fridman (1:16:37.260)

and I've now engaged beyond mathematics even,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:16:39.540)

I'm now into metaphysical reflection.

Lex Fridman (1:16:41.700)

I'm interested not just in this thing as an object

Lex Fridman (1:16:44.820)

and how it's colored and shaped

Lex Fridman (1:16:46.300)

and what its atoms and quarks and all that are.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:16:48.560)

That's fine.

Lex Fridman (1:16:49.620)

But I'm interested now in,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:16:51.540)

I don't mean to say this thing is real.

Lex Fridman (1:16:53.660)

So what makes this a being?

Lex Fridman (1:16:56.100)

And then what are the characteristics of being?

Lex Fridman (1:16:58.460)

So now from Aristotle to Heidegger,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:17:00.140)

this question of the nature of being.

Lex Fridman (1:17:02.740)

But see, I would say we call it a universe

Bishop Robert Barron (1:17:04.980)

because it's turned toward the one of being.

Lex Fridman (1:17:08.060)

It's this intuition that whatever,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:17:09.660)

from quarks to galaxies to whatever,

Lex Fridman (1:17:12.460)

give me a billion other universes,

Lex Fridman (1:17:15.420)

it would still be existence, right?

Lex Fridman (1:17:17.580)

It's turned toward the one.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:17:19.340)

That being unites our experience.

Lex Fridman (1:17:22.500)

And so now I'm at the metaphysical level of analysis.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:17:24.740)

I've taken another step out of the cave.

Lex Fridman (1:17:27.220)

In Plato's language, I'm at the formal level now,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:17:29.460)

beyond mathematics, the level of forms.

Lex Fridman (1:17:31.580)

And the formal is inclusive of the mathematical,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:17:34.180)

which is inclusive of the physical.

Lex Fridman (1:17:36.300)

And I think that's Eugene Wigner,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:17:37.620)

is that the mathematical includes the physical.

Lex Fridman (1:17:39.780)

It is metaphysically prior to it.

Lex Fridman (1:17:43.780)

But here we are sitting in the physical

Lex Fridman (1:17:45.460)

trying to make sense of why

Bishop Robert Barron (1:17:47.060)

the unreasonable effectiveness

Lex Fridman (1:17:48.500)

is the thing that's beyond, which is the mathematics.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:17:51.940)

My answer is God.

Lex Fridman (1:17:53.020)

And I don't know a better answer.

Lex Fridman (1:17:54.740)

And as I read Wigner, he wasn't ready to say that.

Lex Fridman (1:17:58.740)

But I think the language is gesturing.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:18:01.820)

I was reading someone recently,

Lex Fridman (1:18:02.900)

some very well known physicist,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:18:04.820)

who said his answer to Wigner's question

Lex Fridman (1:18:07.420)

is that whoever is responsible for the universe

Bishop Robert Barron (1:18:11.300)

must be a mathematician.

Lex Fridman (1:18:13.460)

And I thought, yeah, that's right.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:18:16.660)

Let me ask you about Jordan Peterson.

Lex Fridman (1:18:18.140)

We had a great conversation with him.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:18:20.740)

He has a complicated and nuanced view of faith,

Lex Fridman (1:18:24.220)

or faith period.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:18:26.960)

He has said that he believes in Jesus,

Lex Fridman (1:18:28.720)

the person and the myth,

Lex Fridman (1:18:30.340)

and some of the full richness and complexity

Lex Fridman (1:18:33.660)

that you've talked about.

Lex Fridman (1:18:35.860)

But he's surprised by his faith.

Lex Fridman (1:18:37.540)

He's not sure what to make of it.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:18:39.420)

He's almost like meta struggling

Lex Fridman (1:18:41.440)

with what the heck his faith means.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:18:43.940)

He's a super powerful intellect

Lex Fridman (1:18:45.940)

that can't compute the faith that he's experiencing.

Lex Fridman (1:18:49.180)

So what are some interesting differences

Lex Fridman (1:18:52.380)

between the two of you, or some commonalities

Lex Fridman (1:18:56.220)

in terms of your understanding of faith?

Lex Fridman (1:18:59.420)

He's a very interesting guy.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:19:00.580)

I've had a couple of conversations with him.

Lex Fridman (1:19:02.120)

And I do think he's moving in the direction of faith.

Lex Fridman (1:19:06.020)

And his lectures on the Bible are very fine, I think.

Lex Fridman (1:19:09.140)

He reminds me of the church fathers,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:19:10.540)

because the church fathers would have looked at the,

Lex Fridman (1:19:12.980)

they call it the moral sense of the scripture.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:19:15.500)

Peterson probably called it the psychological meaning.

Lex Fridman (1:19:18.060)

But I think he's doing a lot of that.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:19:19.860)

He, as I read him and talk to him,

Lex Fridman (1:19:22.580)

I think he's kind of at a Kantian level in regard to Jesus.

Lex Fridman (1:19:25.860)

What I mean there is, for Kant, Jesus is,

Lex Fridman (1:19:29.140)

it's not so much the historical Jesus,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:19:30.780)

this figure from long ago.

Lex Fridman (1:19:31.900)

It's Jesus as an archetype of the moral life.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:19:35.780)

You know, he says he's the image of the person

Lex Fridman (1:19:37.820)

perfectly pleasing to God.

Lex Fridman (1:19:39.500)

And so Jesus inhabits our kind of moral imagination

Lex Fridman (1:19:43.180)

as a heuristic, as a goal that we're tending toward.

Lex Fridman (1:19:48.100)

But the historical person of Jesus for Kant is like,

Lex Fridman (1:19:51.560)

well, let's not fuss about that so much.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:19:52.980)

It's this figure.

Lex Fridman (1:19:54.740)

And as I read Peterson, especially, and talk to him,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:19:56.940)

I think he's kind of there with the archetype of Jesus.

Lex Fridman (1:20:01.020)

And even language of like, live as though God exists.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:20:04.860)

That's the als ob of Kant.

Lex Fridman (1:20:06.460)

You know, the kind of as if attitude.

Lex Fridman (1:20:09.940)

And where I repress him when we talk

Lex Fridman (1:20:12.040)

is in the direction of, no, that's not Christianity yet.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:20:14.580)

I mean, that's enlightenment moral philosophy.

Lex Fridman (1:20:18.080)

But Christianity is very interested

Bishop Robert Barron (1:20:20.580)

in this historical figure,

Lex Fridman (1:20:22.220)

and very interested that God really became one of us.

Lex Fridman (1:20:26.500)

And he's not just an archetype of the moral life.

Lex Fridman (1:20:29.620)

He's someone, he's a person who's invaded our world

Lex Fridman (1:20:34.040)

and gone all the way to the bottom of sin

Lex Fridman (1:20:35.780)

and thereby saved us, you know.

Lex Fridman (1:20:37.260)

So the facticity of Jesus ended up the resurrection.

Lex Fridman (1:20:40.820)

So like, Peterson will talk about the resurrection

Bishop Robert Barron (1:20:43.340)

as a myth and all that.

Lex Fridman (1:20:45.220)

And you can find that in different cultures, et cetera.

Lex Fridman (1:20:47.580)

But Christianity is saying something else.

Lex Fridman (1:20:51.420)

So in Christianity, when we're talking about who is Jesus,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:20:54.900)

it's not just an archetype.

Lex Fridman (1:20:56.580)

It's not just a myth.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:20:57.940)

It's a historical figure.

Lex Fridman (1:20:59.420)

And the very grounded fact that God became one of us

Bishop Robert Barron (1:21:04.420)

is fundamental to this idea of what Christianity is,

Lex Fridman (1:21:08.180)

what it means to be a Christian.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:21:09.380)

It's the sin and the love that came here down to earth.

Lex Fridman (1:21:16.380)

It means we can be one with God.

Lex Fridman (1:21:17.820)

So that's essential.

Lex Fridman (1:21:18.720)

It's not just an archetype.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:21:19.980)

That's right.

Lex Fridman (1:21:20.940)

You know, it always strikes me,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:21:23.100)

the difference between, let's say,

Lex Fridman (1:21:24.980)

mythic expressions and the New Testament.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:21:28.820)

Read someone like Carl Jung and then Joseph Campbell,

Lex Fridman (1:21:32.300)

whom he influenced, and then now Jordan Peterson,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:21:34.220)

who's very Jungian.

Lex Fridman (1:21:35.380)

And this sort of archetypal reading of the scriptures.

Lex Fridman (1:21:37.900)

And great.

Lex Fridman (1:21:38.740)

I mean, I think it's very interesting,

Lex Fridman (1:21:39.980)

and there's a lot going on there.

Lex Fridman (1:21:42.300)

There's a sort of calmness, though, about it.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:21:44.360)

Like, yeah, interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:21:45.700)

And that's in this culture and that culture,

Lex Fridman (1:21:47.500)

and it's the form of the moral life,

Lex Fridman (1:21:49.380)

and mm hmm, I understand all that.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:21:51.420)

Then you read the New Testament.

Lex Fridman (1:21:53.220)

Whatever those people are talking about, it's not that.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:21:57.220)

They are grabbing you by the shoulders

Lex Fridman (1:22:00.920)

and shaking you to get your attention,

Lex Fridman (1:22:03.020)

to tell you about something that happened to them, right?

Lex Fridman (1:22:06.900)

Like the resurrection, you know,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:22:08.860)

the myth of the dying and rising God

Lex Fridman (1:22:10.660)

and how powerful it is in shaping our consciousness.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:22:13.540)

Mm hmm, that's fascinating.

Lex Fridman (1:22:15.000)

That's not the New Testament.

Lex Fridman (1:22:16.340)

The New Testament is, did you hear?

Lex Fridman (1:22:18.460)

Did you, Jesus of Nazareth, whom they put to death,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:22:22.100)

God raised him from the dead,

Lex Fridman (1:22:23.620)

and he was seen by 500, and he was seen by Peter.

Lex Fridman (1:22:26.660)

And then lastly, I saw him.

Lex Fridman (1:22:29.720)

That's how Paul talks.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:22:31.260)

It's not the detached, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:22:34.920)

psychologist musing on archetypal things.

Lex Fridman (1:22:37.980)

And I think that makes a huge difference

Lex Fridman (1:22:40.580)

when it comes to Christianity.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:22:41.660)

The intensity of the historical details are essential here.

Lex Fridman (1:22:46.740)

So if you look at Hitler and Nazi Germany,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:22:50.980)

it's not enough to say, well, power corrupts,

Lex Fridman (1:22:53.380)

and sometimes, so looking at the archetype of Hitler,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:22:57.060)

it's much, much more important,

Lex Fridman (1:22:58.700)

much more powerful to look at the details

Bishop Robert Barron (1:23:01.660)

of how he came to power,

Lex Fridman (1:23:03.720)

what are the ways he did evil onto the world,

Lex Fridman (1:23:06.540)

and then you can get really intense

Lex Fridman (1:23:09.020)

about your struggle with some of the complexities

Bishop Robert Barron (1:23:12.220)

of human nature and power on institutions

Lex Fridman (1:23:14.740)

and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (1:23:15.860)

So the historical nature of the Bible.

Lex Fridman (1:23:18.420)

We're an historical religion.

Lex Fridman (1:23:19.980)

And we've been, it's important.

Lex Fridman (1:23:21.360)

We generate philosophical reflection.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:23:23.980)

We can find common ground with archetypal thinking

Lex Fridman (1:23:26.660)

and all that, we can.

Lex Fridman (1:23:28.060)

And the church fathers used Greek philosophy,

Lex Fridman (1:23:30.820)

and Aquinas uses Aristotle, and all that's great.

Lex Fridman (1:23:33.460)

But we're an historical religion,

Lex Fridman (1:23:35.380)

and that matters immensely.

Lex Fridman (1:23:37.520)

Is the Bible the literal word of God?

Lex Fridman (1:23:40.740)

How do you make sense of the words that make up the Bible?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:23:44.440)

I think the best way to get at the Bible

Lex Fridman (1:23:46.060)

is to think of it as a library, not a book.

Lex Fridman (1:23:48.380)

So it's a collection of books, right,

Lex Fridman (1:23:50.160)

from a wide variety of periods, different authors,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:23:53.500)

different audiences, and different genre.

Lex Fridman (1:23:56.460)

So in the Bible, you find poetry, you find song,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:23:59.420)

you find something like history, not in our sense,

Lex Fridman (1:24:02.140)

but something like history.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:24:03.580)

You find gospel, which is its own genre.

Lex Fridman (1:24:05.740)

You find epistolary literature like Paul.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:24:08.780)

You find apocalyptic.

Lex Fridman (1:24:10.840)

There's all this in the Bible.

Lex Fridman (1:24:13.000)

So is the Bible literally the word of God?

Lex Fridman (1:24:15.540)

It's like saying, is the library literally true?

Lex Fridman (1:24:18.620)

It depends on what section you're in, right?

Lex Fridman (1:24:20.900)

So parts of like one and two Samuel, one and two Kings,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:24:26.100)

number of places in the Old Testament.

Lex Fridman (1:24:27.300)

Are there elements of the historical in there?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:24:29.260)

Sure, but it's theologically interpreted history.

Lex Fridman (1:24:31.980)

It's not like our sense of history of, you know,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:24:33.940)

give me 10,000 footnotes and I'm gonna look

Lex Fridman (1:24:37.940)

at all the source material I can possibly find.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:24:40.180)

It's more like ancient history, like Herodotus,

Lex Fridman (1:24:42.780)

people like that.

Lex Fridman (1:24:44.440)

But then there's poetry and there's myth

Lex Fridman (1:24:46.220)

and there's legend and there's song

Lex Fridman (1:24:47.800)

and all that stuff in the Bible.

Lex Fridman (1:24:48.880)

So God breathes through all of it, I would say.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:24:55.820)

He inspired all of it, right, inspirare.

Lex Fridman (1:24:58.500)

He's breathing through all of it.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:25:00.440)

God is speaking through all of it.

Lex Fridman (1:25:02.820)

But he speaks in different voices.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:25:05.060)

He uses different human instruments

Lex Fridman (1:25:06.980)

and he uses different genre and different types of language.

Lex Fridman (1:25:09.760)

So we have to be sensitive to that

Lex Fridman (1:25:10.980)

when we're interpreting the Bible.

Lex Fridman (1:25:12.260)

So the different instruments are more or less,

Lex Fridman (1:25:16.060)

some are more perfect than others in terms of music?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:25:18.140)

No, I wouldn't say that.

Lex Fridman (1:25:18.980)

I wouldn't say more perfect.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:25:19.820)

I'd say they're just different.

Lex Fridman (1:25:20.820)

It's like a symphony and God's like a conductor

Lex Fridman (1:25:23.360)

and there's all kinds of different instruments

Lex Fridman (1:25:24.700)

in the orchestra and he loves to breathe through the Psalms.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:25:27.840)

I prayed the Psalms this morning, I do every day.

Lex Fridman (1:25:29.860)

In my office, you know, those are songs.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:25:32.760)

They probably were literally sung, most of them,

Lex Fridman (1:25:34.620)

at one point.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:25:35.660)

He breathes through apocalyptic.

Lex Fridman (1:25:38.380)

Like we're reading the book of Revelation now

Bishop Robert Barron (1:25:39.900)

in the Easter season and it's this wild and woolly book.

Lex Fridman (1:25:43.420)

It should be filmed by Spielberg or somebody today.

Lex Fridman (1:25:47.820)

And he speaks through the Gospels.

Lex Fridman (1:25:49.720)

The Gospels correspond in genre

Bishop Robert Barron (1:25:51.900)

to what I call ancient biography.

Lex Fridman (1:25:54.180)

That's the genre of the Gospels.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:25:56.180)

It's wrong to call them like mythic or simply literary.

Lex Fridman (1:25:59.340)

They're like ancient biographies.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:26:02.780)

You have the Pauline letters which are about

Lex Fridman (1:26:05.780)

particular cities that Paul was visiting

Lex Fridman (1:26:07.700)

and particular people he knew.

Lex Fridman (1:26:09.400)

So you just gotta be sensitive to the genre all the time.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:26:12.380)

Let's return back to human institutions

Lex Fridman (1:26:14.580)

and talk about history of human civilization and politics.

Lex Fridman (1:26:19.260)

So one question to ask is was America founded

Lex Fridman (1:26:23.340)

as a Christian nation in your view?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:26:26.100)

If we look at the Declaration of Independence,

Lex Fridman (1:26:28.780)

what did the words mean?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:26:30.720)

We hold these truths to be self evident

Lex Fridman (1:26:32.780)

that all men are created equal,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:26:34.820)

that they are endowed by their creator

Lex Fridman (1:26:36.900)

with certain inalienable rights

Bishop Robert Barron (1:26:39.220)

that among these are life, liberty,

Lex Fridman (1:26:41.820)

and the pursuit of happiness.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:26:43.860)

It seems like God is breathing through those words too.

Lex Fridman (1:26:47.540)

Yeah, I think so.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:26:49.260)

The founders would be some kind of combination of deism,

Lex Fridman (1:26:53.260)

certainly Christianity is coming up through them,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:26:56.940)

enlightenment, rationalism, all in kind of a mix.

Lex Fridman (1:27:01.060)

So you're not gonna find in our founding fathers

Bishop Robert Barron (1:27:03.300)

simply a Thomas Aquinas or like a purely

Lex Fridman (1:27:06.720)

classically Christian understanding.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:27:08.220)

It's Christianity in those various expressions.

Lex Fridman (1:27:11.700)

Because actually I would see the enlightenment

Bishop Robert Barron (1:27:13.560)

as a sort of child of Christianity.

Lex Fridman (1:27:16.780)

We could talk about that.

Lex Fridman (1:27:17.600)

But having said all that, yes,

Lex Fridman (1:27:20.560)

I think they are expressing at least the residue

Bishop Robert Barron (1:27:24.620)

of a once deeply integrated Christian sense of things

Lex Fridman (1:27:28.500)

that our rights are not created by the government.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:27:32.820)

They're not doled out by the government.

Lex Fridman (1:27:36.060)

They come from God.

Lex Fridman (1:27:37.420)

And the other thing I find really interesting is equality

Lex Fridman (1:27:39.780)

because look in classical philosophy, political philosophy,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:27:43.700)

Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, it's not equality.

Lex Fridman (1:27:47.260)

For them it's our inequality that's really interesting.

Lex Fridman (1:27:50.180)

So Plato divides us into these three classes

Lex Fridman (1:27:52.440)

and Aristotle says only a tiny little coterie

Bishop Robert Barron (1:27:55.100)

of property males of sufficient education

Lex Fridman (1:27:58.100)

should be in the political life.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:27:59.300)

The rest should all be in private life.

Lex Fridman (1:28:01.220)

And then some are suited for slavery.

Lex Fridman (1:28:03.180)

So I mean he divides us dramatically.

Lex Fridman (1:28:05.740)

Same with Cicero and so on.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:28:08.520)

Where does this come from, this weird idea

Lex Fridman (1:28:10.260)

that we're all equal?

Lex Fridman (1:28:12.040)

I mean how?

Lex Fridman (1:28:12.880)

We're not equal in beauty, not equal in strength.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:28:14.100)

We're not equal in moral attainment.

Lex Fridman (1:28:16.120)

We're not equal in intelligence.

Lex Fridman (1:28:18.420)

So what is it?

Lex Fridman (1:28:20.180)

And I think the residue especially comes through

Bishop Robert Barron (1:28:22.500)

in that little word that all men are created equal.

Lex Fridman (1:28:27.520)

That's our equality, that we're all equally children of God.

Lex Fridman (1:28:31.460)

So take God out of the picture.

Lex Fridman (1:28:32.860)

I think we are gonna slide rapidly

Bishop Robert Barron (1:28:35.900)

into an embrace of inequality.

Lex Fridman (1:28:38.500)

Now in the classical world, yes,

Lex Fridman (1:28:40.740)

but heck, look at the 20th century.

Lex Fridman (1:28:42.560)

I mean when God is excluded in a very systematic way,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:28:45.940)

I think you saw the suspension of rights

Lex Fridman (1:28:48.220)

and the suspension of equality like mad.

Lex Fridman (1:28:51.740)

So no, I think it's very important

Lex Fridman (1:28:54.480)

that God is in the picture and that we're a nation under God.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:28:57.520)

It matters enormously.

Lex Fridman (1:28:58.460)

That's not pious boilerplate.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:29:00.320)

That's at the rational foundations of our democracy.

Lex Fridman (1:29:03.500)

So do you think Nietzsche was onto something

Bishop Robert Barron (1:29:05.580)

with the idea, looking into the 20th century,

Lex Fridman (1:29:09.340)

that God is dead?

Lex Fridman (1:29:10.580)

That there is a cultural distancing from a belief in God?

Lex Fridman (1:29:19.140)

Yeah, I'd be somewhat sympathetic

Bishop Robert Barron (1:29:20.700)

to Jordan Peterson's reading of Nietzsche there.

Lex Fridman (1:29:23.460)

Namely, it's not Nietzsche crowing from the mountaintop.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:29:26.500)

Hey, God is dead.

Lex Fridman (1:29:28.580)

It's more of a lament.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:29:30.100)

God is dead and we've killed him.

Lex Fridman (1:29:32.100)

And what will happen in the wake of that?

Lex Fridman (1:29:35.420)

And I think, yeah, much of the totalitarianism

Lex Fridman (1:29:38.340)

of the 20th century follows from that questioning of God

Lex Fridman (1:29:44.000)

and the dismissal of God from public life.

Lex Fridman (1:29:46.940)

So I would be sympathetic with that.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:29:50.220)

When we're beyond good and evil,

Lex Fridman (1:29:51.980)

and all that's left is the will to power,

Lex Fridman (1:29:54.400)

and then why are we surprised at the powerful rise

Lex Fridman (1:29:58.040)

and that they use the powerless for their purposes?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:30:01.180)

When we forget ideas like equality and rights,

Lex Fridman (1:30:04.060)

which are grounded in God,

Lex Fridman (1:30:05.300)

why are we surprised that death camps follow?

Lex Fridman (1:30:08.980)

So I think there's a correlation there for sure.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:30:11.500)

I don't know, I believe that there's a capacity

Lex Fridman (1:30:13.660)

to do good in all of us and a capacity to do evil,

Lex Fridman (1:30:17.740)

and there's something that tends towards good,

Lex Fridman (1:30:20.480)

whatever that is.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:30:22.060)

I tend to think that if that community,

Lex Fridman (1:30:24.940)

that love that we talked about, they find each other,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:30:27.700)

they find the good.

Lex Fridman (1:30:30.780)

If you don't constrain the resources,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:30:32.300)

if you don't push them,

Lex Fridman (1:30:33.220)

if you don't artificially create conflict

Bishop Robert Barron (1:30:37.460)

through power centers and evil charismatic leaders,

Lex Fridman (1:30:41.300)

then people will be good to each other.

Lex Fridman (1:30:42.980)

And whether that's God or some other source

Lex Fridman (1:30:47.100)

of deep moral meaning,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:30:52.180)

that seems to be essential for a functioning civilization.

Lex Fridman (1:30:56.380)

And it's hard, I mean, that's what humans are.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:30:58.300)

We're searching for what that God is, what that means.

Lex Fridman (1:31:01.460)

You know what that triggers in my mind?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:31:02.780)

I wonder if you agree with this,

Lex Fridman (1:31:04.060)

that the modern sciences drew their strength

Bishop Robert Barron (1:31:06.260)

from their narrowness.

Lex Fridman (1:31:07.540)

And what I mean there is they almost completely bracketed

Bishop Robert Barron (1:31:10.740)

formal and final causality in the Aristotelian sense,

Lex Fridman (1:31:13.100)

and they focused on efficient and material causality.

Lex Fridman (1:31:16.220)

And that gave, as I say, great strength,

Lex Fridman (1:31:18.220)

but from the narrowness of focus.

Lex Fridman (1:31:20.140)

But for Aristotle, the more important causes

Lex Fridman (1:31:22.660)

are the final and the formal causes.

Lex Fridman (1:31:24.900)

And so final causality there, what's drawing us?

Lex Fridman (1:31:28.400)

So for Aristotle, he'd look at someone like me and say,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:31:30.440)

okay, you have a intelligible structure,

Lex Fridman (1:31:34.980)

and that leads you to seek certain things

Lex Fridman (1:31:37.580)

for the perfection of that structure, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:31:40.060)

And fair enough, I think that's right.

Lex Fridman (1:31:41.780)

So I seek the good.

Lex Fridman (1:31:42.700)

Right now, I'm seeking the good of being with you.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:31:44.780)

I said, yeah, I'll sit down with Lex Friedman

Lex Fridman (1:31:47.060)

and we'll talk about deep and important things.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:31:49.540)

That's the good I sought this morning when I woke up.

Lex Fridman (1:31:52.320)

Now, why am I seeking that?

Lex Fridman (1:31:54.360)

Well, for a higher reason, a higher good, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:31:56.980)

Because it's part of my work, my ministry is to, you know,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:32:01.620)

the church reaching out beyond itself to the wider culture,

Lex Fridman (1:32:04.740)

and okay, well, why do you want that?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:32:08.160)

Well, because I want to bring more and more people

Lex Fridman (1:32:10.100)

into what I think is beautiful and true and good

Bishop Robert Barron (1:32:13.000)

in the church.

Lex Fridman (1:32:13.900)

Well, how come you want that?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:32:15.660)

Well, because a long time ago,

Lex Fridman (1:32:17.500)

I was kind of myself brought into that realm

Lex Fridman (1:32:19.820)

and find it very compelling.

Lex Fridman (1:32:21.340)

Yeah, but then why do you want that?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:32:22.560)

Well, because ultimately, I want to be friends with God.

Lex Fridman (1:32:25.380)

Now, I've given you one example there,

Lex Fridman (1:32:27.020)

but any act of the will, it seems to me,

Lex Fridman (1:32:30.700)

has to be analyzed that way.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:32:32.780)

The will seeks something.

Lex Fridman (1:32:34.180)

It seeks the good, right, by definition.

Lex Fridman (1:32:36.440)

But the good always nests like a Russian doll

Lex Fridman (1:32:38.920)

in a higher good, right,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:32:40.780)

which then nests into still higher good.

Lex Fridman (1:32:43.100)

Until you come, this is Aquinas,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:32:45.520)

to some, in this sense, uncaused cause,

Lex Fridman (1:32:49.500)

an uncaused final cause,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:32:51.300)

there has to be some summum bonum, right,

Lex Fridman (1:32:53.520)

some supreme good that you're looking for.

Lex Fridman (1:32:57.660)

And that's God, by the way.

Lex Fridman (1:32:59.820)

That's another, I think, rational path to God,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:33:01.780)

is every single moment, every day,

Lex Fridman (1:33:04.620)

we are implicitly seeking God.

Lex Fridman (1:33:07.020)

So with your Word on Fire ministries

Lex Fridman (1:33:10.900)

and the website and the communication efforts,

Lex Fridman (1:33:13.180)

what is the thing you're seeking?

Lex Fridman (1:33:15.240)

Just you, if we can pause and for a brief moment,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:33:19.900)

allow you to be prideful.

Lex Fridman (1:33:21.280)

Or, of course, just joking,

Lex Fridman (1:33:24.800)

but what is your local efforts,

Lex Fridman (1:33:27.280)

your small little pocket of the world

Lex Fridman (1:33:29.320)

with small, in quotes, with Word on Fire?

Lex Fridman (1:33:35.460)

Yeah, it's just using the media,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:33:37.760)

especially the new media, the social media,

Lex Fridman (1:33:39.460)

to get the gospel out.

Lex Fridman (1:33:41.200)

So I started, what, 20 some years ago,

Lex Fridman (1:33:43.800)

just on a radio show in Chicago, 515 on Sunday morning.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:33:47.600)

I had a 15 minute sermon show.

Lex Fridman (1:33:49.960)

And I asked the people in this parish I was at,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:33:51.680)

I said, I need $50,000 to get on for 15 minutes

Lex Fridman (1:33:55.360)

at 515 on Sunday morning.

Lex Fridman (1:33:56.880)

And they all laughed when I proposed that,

Lex Fridman (1:33:58.800)

but they gave me the money.

Lex Fridman (1:34:00.040)

So that's how I got started,

Lex Fridman (1:34:00.980)

just doing a sermon on the radio.

Lex Fridman (1:34:02.720)

And then it branched off into video stuff and TV.

Lex Fridman (1:34:06.320)

And then I did a documentary.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:34:08.320)

I went all over the world

Lex Fridman (1:34:09.280)

and kind of told the story of Catholicism.

Lex Fridman (1:34:11.800)

So that's how we started.

Lex Fridman (1:34:12.940)

And now I'm using all the new media and social media.

Lex Fridman (1:34:15.800)

But what I really love, what we're doing today,

Lex Fridman (1:34:18.080)

something I really like,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:34:19.200)

which is having a conversation

Lex Fridman (1:34:20.960)

outside of just the narrow Catholic world

Bishop Robert Barron (1:34:23.120)

or even the narrow Christian world,

Lex Fridman (1:34:24.480)

but to look out to the wider culture

Lex Fridman (1:34:26.700)

and who's talking about interesting things

Lex Fridman (1:34:29.060)

and how can the church engage there?

Lex Fridman (1:34:31.160)

And so that's the purpose of Word on Fire.

Lex Fridman (1:34:34.120)

Is it overwhelming to face so many different atheists

Bishop Robert Barron (1:34:40.840)

than complex thinkers like Jordan Peterson

Lex Fridman (1:34:44.560)

and some of the more political style thinkers

Lex Fridman (1:34:47.500)

that you've spoken with?

Lex Fridman (1:34:49.160)

Is that, what is it, Dave Rubin,

Lex Fridman (1:34:52.640)

who's also has a way different worldview as well?

Lex Fridman (1:34:58.920)

Is that terrifying?

Lex Fridman (1:35:00.040)

Is that exciting to you?

Lex Fridman (1:35:01.640)

Is it challenging?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:35:03.640)

Yeah, maybe all of the above, but more exciting.

Lex Fridman (1:35:06.520)

I would say I like doing that.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:35:08.000)

I was a teacher for a long time.

Lex Fridman (1:35:09.280)

I taught in the seminary for like 20 years.

Lex Fridman (1:35:10.840)

And so I've been engaging these questions for a long time.

Lex Fridman (1:35:13.240)

I'm a writer.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:35:14.080)

I've written about 20 some books.

Lex Fridman (1:35:15.520)

And I write some at a popular level.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:35:17.800)

I write some at a high academic level.

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And I like doing all that.

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So I love those ideas.

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I love those questions, love engaging people.

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And I find my own experience,

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you do run into, of course, a lot of the vitriol

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and kind of just stupidity and all that online.

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And I get it.

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And religion is such a magnet for people's hostility

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for different reasons.

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So I get that.

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Like you read it, we talked about,

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you have to wade through swamps of obscenity and everything.

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But I do it.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:35:49.240)

I like it.

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And it's worthwhile.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:35:51.320)

Because in that Reddit experience,

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so many of the issues that preoccupy young people,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:35:56.120)

I can name them for you.

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Exactly what they are.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:35:58.680)

It comes to religion.

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How do you know there's a God?

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So the God question.

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Secondly, why is there so much suffering in the world?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:36:05.720)

Third question, why do you think your religion

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is the right religion?

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Fourth, why are you so mean to gay people?

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So those are the four things that I, again and again,

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come up when dealing with young people.

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I've told my brother bishops and priests about that.

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I said, structure your adult education programs

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or structure your youth outreach

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around those four questions.

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Well, let me ask you about gay marriage.

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How do we make sense of the love between a man and a man

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and a woman and a woman and the institution of marriage?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:36:37.880)

We love friendship.

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And friendship is at the heart of things.

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And so nothing wrong with friendship

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between a man and a man, a woman and a woman.

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But go back to Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas

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about natural finalities and intelligible forms,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:36:51.320)

that there's a certain form to human being,

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which includes the physical and includes the sexual.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:36:56.840)

It has a proper finality.

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And so we'd recognize that finality is twofold,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:37:01.360)

both unitive and procreative.

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And so those two we recognize

Bishop Robert Barron (1:37:05.240)

as the appropriate expression of human sexuality.

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So that's why the church holds to sex

Bishop Robert Barron (1:37:11.600)

between a man and a woman within the context of marriage

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is the right expression.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:37:18.160)

We reach out to everybody in love and in respect

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and deep understanding and seeking to understand

Bishop Robert Barron (1:37:26.480)

their lives from the inside.

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So I mean, all of that,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:37:29.440)

I agree with the bridge building that we need to do

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to people like in the gay community

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and people in gay marriage and so on.

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So the church holds to the intelligible structure,

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if you want, of human sexuality

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and it reaches out to real human beings

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always in an attitude of invitation and love and so on.

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So it's somewhere in there

Bishop Robert Barron (1:37:49.400)

that the church takes its stance.

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And so there's probably variation

Bishop Robert Barron (1:37:56.060)

in the stances that it takes.

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So you're saying the institution of marriage

Bishop Robert Barron (1:38:00.040)

is about the unitive, which is like the friendship,

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the deep connection between two humans and the procreative.

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So being able to have children and all that kind of stuff.

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It's interesting.

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So is our gay couples seen as sinful?

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So does the church acknowledge the love?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:38:23.560)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:38:24.400)

That's the deep love that's possible between a man and a man.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:38:26.400)

I think so.

Lex Fridman (1:38:27.240)

Yeah, which is why the church says in its official teaching,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:38:29.380)

it's the physical expression, let's say,

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of sexual passion between two men that is problematic,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:38:36.760)

not their friendship, not their love for each other.

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So I think, yeah, we confirm the first.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:38:43.480)

Well, let me ask you another difficult topic

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that's just happening.

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Unlike the other ones we talked about.

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That's going on in the news now.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:38:51.520)

As we sit here today, the Supreme Court has voted

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to overturn abortion rights in a draft majority opinion

Bishop Robert Barron (1:38:58.920)

striking down the landmark Roe versus Wade decision.

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What are your thoughts on this?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:39:04.080)

First of all, the human institution of the Supreme Court

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making these decisions throughout its history.

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And second of all, just the idea, the really powerful,

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the controversial, the difficult idea of abortion.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:39:20.440)

Yeah, I mean, I'm against abortion.

Lex Fridman (1:39:22.760)

I'm pro life.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:39:25.120)

The church recognizes from the moment of conception,

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we're dealing with a human life

Bishop Robert Barron (1:39:28.900)

that's worthy of respect and protection.

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Especially as you see the unfolding of that person

Bishop Robert Barron (1:39:36.680)

across a pregnancy.

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But at every stage, we recognize the beauty

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and the dignity of that human being.

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And so we stand opposed to this,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:39:47.760)

the outright killing of the innocent.

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So that's the church's view.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:39:52.520)

Again, reaching out always in love and understanding

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and compassion to those who are dealing.

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And believe me, every single pastor, every single priest

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understands that, because we deal with people all the time

Bishop Robert Barron (1:40:03.320)

who are in these painful situations.

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But that's the moral side of it.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:40:08.880)

The legal side, I think Roe v. Wade was terribly decided.

Lex Fridman (1:40:11.680)

I think one of the worst expressions of American law

Bishop Robert Barron (1:40:14.280)

since the Dred Scott decision.

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So I stand in favor of a returning Roe v. Wade and Casey.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:40:19.800)

I think they were terrible.

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The Casey decision is instructive to me.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:40:25.080)

It belongs to the nature of freedom, that decision says,

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to determine the meaning of one's own life.

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And I don't get the language exactly right,

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but end of the universe.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:40:34.720)

Like it gives this staggering scope to our freedom,

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that we can determine the meaning.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:40:40.320)

See, but that's repugnant to everything

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we've just talked about.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:40:43.420)

That I'm inventing the meaning of my life

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and of the universe.

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And so Casey, though, was instructive in a way

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because it tips its hat toward the problem culturally,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:40:55.480)

is that I think in my freedom, I can determine everything.

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My choice is all that matters.

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And I would say, no, your choice should be correlated

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to the order of the good.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:41:06.600)

It's not sovereign.

Lex Fridman (1:41:08.140)

It doesn't reign sovereignly over being

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and it makes its own decisions.

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So I think Casey was terrible law

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and it was backing up Roe v. Wade, which is terrible law.

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So I'm in favor of the overturning of those.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:41:20.900)

I've spoken out that many times.

Lex Fridman (1:41:22.560)

Now it'll return it to the individual states.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:41:24.620)

It's not gonna solve the problem.

Lex Fridman (1:41:27.760)

The individual states will have to decide.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:41:29.800)

I just heard yesterday, we were up in Sacramento,

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the bishops having our annual meeting.

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And so we got the word from the governor and the legislators

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that they're gonna push for a constitutional amendment

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in California.

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So basically to make any attempt to limit abortion

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in any way just illegal.

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I think that's barbaric.

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So I stand radically opposed to that.

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It's such an interesting line

Bishop Robert Barron (1:41:54.120)

because if you believe that there's a,

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it's a line that struggles with the question

Bishop Robert Barron (1:42:00.740)

of what does it mean to be a living being

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or to give life to something.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:42:08.880)

Because if you believe that at the moment of conception

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you're basically creating a human life,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:42:16.760)

then abortion is murder.

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And then if you don't,

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then it's a sort of basic biological choice

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that's not taking away of a life.

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And the gap between those two beliefs is so vast

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that it's hard and yet so fundamental

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to the question of what it means to be alive

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and the fundamental question about the respect

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for human life and human dignity.

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It's interesting to see.

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And also about freedom too.

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All of those things are mixed in there.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:42:53.920)

It's a beautiful struggle.

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Maybe the freedom is the most important,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:42:57.360)

this sort of freedom run amok.

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Or in classical philosophy and theology,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:43:03.640)

freedom is not self determination.

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Freedom is the disciplining of desire

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so as to make the achievement of the good

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first possible and then effortless.

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You know what I'm saying?

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So modern freedom and the roots of that

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are people like William of Ockham in the late Middle Ages.

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Freedom means I hover above the yes and the no.

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Do I do yes or no?

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And I'm the sovereign subject of that choice.

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And on no basis I will say yes or no.

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I'm like Louis XIV or I'm like Stalin or something.

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But Aquinas wouldn't have recognized that as freedom.

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For him, I got this desire in me.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:43:46.000)

I've got this will and it's pushing toward the good.

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But the trouble is I got so many attachments

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and I'm so stupid and I'm so conditioned by my sin

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that I can't achieve it.

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So I need to be disciplined in my desire

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so as to make that achievement possible

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and then effortless so right now

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I'm freely speaking English to you.

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And you had the experience and I've had it too

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of learning a foreign language.

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And don't you feel unfree?

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You know, like when you're struggling with a language.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:44:17.760)

When I was over in Paris doing my doctoral work

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and I was okay with French,

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but my first time in a seminar

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and there's all these intelligent francophones

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around the table and they're all just,

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and I'm trying to say my little thing in my awkward French.

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And I felt unfree because my desire wasn't directed.

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But then over time I became freer

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and freer speaker of French.

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I was ordered more to the good.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:44:47.040)

That's a better understanding of freedom

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than sort of sovereign self determination.

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But our country is now I think really in the grip of that.

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I decide and that's where the Nietzschean thing

Bishop Robert Barron (1:44:57.720)

comes to my mind of the will to power.

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I'm beyond good and evil.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:45:01.920)

It's just up to me to decide.

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God help us.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:45:05.360)

No, it's the values that we intuit around us.

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Intellectual, moral and aesthetic, the values.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:45:11.000)

Think of the dog on the beach again.

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And that you get ordered to those

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by your education, by your family, by your religion.

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And that's beautiful.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:45:19.560)

That makes you free.

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Now I can freely enter into this.

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So this sovereign self determination business,

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that's not my game.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:45:28.240)

The values come in part from the tradition

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carried through the generations.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:45:33.600)

Let me ask you to put on your wise hat

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and give advice to young folks.

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So high school and college,

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thinking about what to do with their life,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:45:44.480)

career, there's so many options out there.

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How can they have a career they can be proud of

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or even just a life they can be proud of?

Lex Fridman (1:45:56.760)

I think I'd say find something you're good at

Bishop Robert Barron (1:46:00.460)

because that's from God.

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It's a gift that God's given you.

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And then dedicate it to love.

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You know what I'm saying?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:46:06.980)

You're good at science or math or sports or whatever.

Lex Fridman (1:46:11.200)

Okay, I'm gonna use that now for my aggrandizement,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:46:13.880)

for my wealth, for my privileges and to become famous.

Lex Fridman (1:46:17.560)

No, no, no, don't.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:46:19.000)

Find what you're good at,

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but now dedicate it to willing the good of the other.

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So use your science and use your mathematics

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and use your sports and use your musicianship

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to benefit the world.

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That's how I'd say them.

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So find what you're good at.

Lex Fridman (1:46:35.080)

That's from God.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:46:35.920)

Well, that's a tricky one.

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Finding what you're good at

Bishop Robert Barron (1:46:39.000)

because it's not just raw skill.

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It's also what you connect with.

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And it's also like this iterative process

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of if you wanna add love to the world,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:46:52.000)

you have to see how can you be effective at doing that.

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So it's not just the things you're good at.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:46:57.120)

There's like, I'm good at building bridges out of toothpicks.

Lex Fridman (1:47:02.720)

I'm not exactly sure that's going to be useful for the world.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:47:05.640)

Then again, to push back on that,

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the joy brings me, maybe somehow the joy radiates out.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:47:11.360)

Yeah, well, you're good at what you're doing right now.

Lex Fridman (1:47:13.200)

And you've dedicated that to bringing more light

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and illumination and joy to the world.

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That's true.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:47:21.040)

That was a searching.

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That's a process of trying stuff and figuring it out.

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And ultimately, yes, asking the question,

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how is this making the world at all better

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at every step of the way

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as opposed to enriching yourself

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and all those kinds of things?

Lex Fridman (1:47:37.240)

Right, I think that's the name of the game.

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But it's tricky.

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And if we don't have moral mentors

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and intellectual mentors, it becomes hard.

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And if you tell a kid, that's deadly to me,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:47:47.320)

just decide for yourself, just off you go.

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And you make your own choices.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:47:52.800)

I mean, your choice has to be disciplined.

Lex Fridman (1:47:55.480)

Your desire has gotta be directed.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:47:57.560)

Then you'll find your creative path.

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Everyone does it in its own way.

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But it's a guided choice.

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Your freedom is not sovereign.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:48:05.880)

It's a guided freedom.

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So in the struggle and the suffering

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you've seen in the world,

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let me ask you the question of death.

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How often do you think about your own mortality?

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Every day.

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And one, are you afraid of it, the uncertainty of it?

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And what do you think happens after you die?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:48:32.480)

Sure, I'm afraid of it.

Lex Fridman (1:48:33.320)

I mean, because I don't know what's next.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:48:37.960)

I mean, I can't know it the way I know you.

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So of course I'm afraid of it.

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And I think of it every day.

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That's true.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:48:45.440)

My prayer life compels me.

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We have this, the Hail Mary prayer.

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So you pray the rosary.

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Now and at the hour of our death, amen.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:48:54.320)

Now and at the hour of our death, amen.

Lex Fridman (1:48:56.760)

Now at the hour of our death, amen.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:48:58.080)

You pray the whole rosary.

Lex Fridman (1:48:59.800)

50 times you've reminded yourself of your own death.

Lex Fridman (1:49:03.440)

But I do.

Lex Fridman (1:49:04.280)

I think about it because it's the ultimate limit.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:49:06.440)

It's why it's beguiled every artist and writer

Lex Fridman (1:49:08.960)

and philosopher.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:49:09.800)

It's the ultimate limit question.

Lex Fridman (1:49:12.600)

But yeah, sure.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:49:14.440)

I'm afraid of it because it's the unknown.

Lex Fridman (1:49:17.920)

What do I think happens?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:49:20.800)

I think I'm drawn into the deeper embrace of God's love.

Lex Fridman (1:49:25.200)

You know, that's stating it kind of in a more poetic way.

Lex Fridman (1:49:30.080)

Do you know John Polkinghorne's work?

Lex Fridman (1:49:31.840)

Do you know that name?

Bishop Robert Barron (1:49:32.960)

John Polkinghorne was a very interesting,

Lex Fridman (1:49:34.120)

he just died recently.

Lex Fridman (1:49:35.560)

He was a Cambridge University particle physicist, right?

Lex Fridman (1:49:38.960)

High, high level scientist who at midlife

Bishop Robert Barron (1:49:43.120)

became an Anglican priest.

Lex Fridman (1:49:44.440)

He left his job at Cambridge and went to the seminary

Lex Fridman (1:49:46.800)

and became an Anglican priest, right?

Lex Fridman (1:49:48.640)

And then wrote, I think some of the best stuff

Bishop Robert Barron (1:49:50.560)

on science and religion,

Lex Fridman (1:49:51.400)

because he really knew the science from the inside.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:49:54.040)

Here's Polkinghorne's account

Lex Fridman (1:49:55.440)

that I've always found persuasive.

Lex Fridman (1:49:58.080)

He said, what survives after we die?

Lex Fridman (1:50:02.600)

So this body clearly dies and goes into the ground

Lex Fridman (1:50:06.040)

or it's burned up or it goes away, right?

Lex Fridman (1:50:08.520)

But what's preserved?

Lex Fridman (1:50:09.480)

And he says, what Aristotle would have called the form,

Lex Fridman (1:50:12.800)

Polkinghorne calls it the pattern.

Lex Fridman (1:50:14.560)

So the pattern that's organized the matter

Lex Fridman (1:50:18.560)

that's made me up over all these years,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:50:20.320)

that's obviously not the same as it was even,

Lex Fridman (1:50:23.160)

I mean, you would know how often does it all change,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:50:25.720)

all your atoms and cells and, you know.

Lex Fridman (1:50:28.360)

In other words, the little, you know,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:50:30.560)

Bobby Baron who was growing up in Birmingham, Michigan,

Lex Fridman (1:50:33.720)

I can have a picture of him and then there's me.

Lex Fridman (1:50:36.000)

And I say, oh, that's the same person.

Lex Fridman (1:50:37.400)

Well, I mean, clearly not materially speaking, not at all.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:50:40.200)

Completely different.

Lex Fridman (1:50:41.760)

But there's a unity to whatever that pattern is

Bishop Robert Barron (1:50:44.640)

by which all of that materiality

Lex Fridman (1:50:46.880)

has been kind of organized, you know?

Lex Fridman (1:50:48.640)

So Polkinghorne says, I think that pattern is remembered

Lex Fridman (1:50:53.360)

by God and remember it's the wrong word,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:50:56.160)

as though it's like derivative.

Lex Fridman (1:50:57.040)

I mean, it's known by God.

Lex Fridman (1:50:59.640)

And so God can therefore reembody me

Lex Fridman (1:51:03.480)

according to that pattern at a higher pitch,

Lex Fridman (1:51:06.440)

what we call the resurrected body.

Lex Fridman (1:51:09.320)

So Paul talks about a spiritual body,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:51:12.280)

body for sure, I mean,

Lex Fridman (1:51:13.440)

because he believes in the resurrection of Jesus.

Lex Fridman (1:51:15.840)

But it's not a body like ours from this world.

Lex Fridman (1:51:19.520)

It's a body at a higher pitch.

Lex Fridman (1:51:22.120)

So something, some pattern that's there persists.

Lex Fridman (1:51:26.200)

Pattern persists in the mind of God

Lex Fridman (1:51:28.640)

and then is used as the ground of the reembodyment of me.

Lex Fridman (1:51:32.440)

So it's not like I've just become a platonic form.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:51:35.560)

I'm gonna be reembodyed because the Christian hope

Lex Fridman (1:51:38.320)

is not for platonic escape of soul from matter.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:51:42.320)

That's never the Christian hope.

Lex Fridman (1:51:43.840)

It's for the resurrection of the body,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:51:45.760)

we say.

Lex Fridman (1:51:46.920)

And you say, what a fantastic idea.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:51:48.960)

Well, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:51:49.940)

I mean, this body is being reconstituted all the time

Lex Fridman (1:51:53.520)

according to this pattern, right?

Lex Fridman (1:51:55.480)

It's not the same matter.

Lex Fridman (1:51:57.180)

And so might there be another sort of higher material

Lex Fridman (1:52:02.380)

that is organized according to the same pattern,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:52:04.960)

which has been remembered by God.

Lex Fridman (1:52:06.680)

So therefore we can hang on to the language of body and soul

Bishop Robert Barron (1:52:09.380)

if you want, or matter and form.

Lex Fridman (1:52:11.900)

But it's the form remembered by God

Lex Fridman (1:52:14.600)

and then reconstituted in an embodied way by God

Lex Fridman (1:52:18.080)

that we call heaven, the heavenly state.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:52:21.360)

That's what I hope for.

Lex Fridman (1:52:22.680)

That's my Christian faith, my Christian hope.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:52:26.000)

Let me ask you about the big question of meaning.

Lex Fridman (1:52:29.800)

We've talked about it in different directions

Bishop Robert Barron (1:52:32.360)

from different perspectives.

Lex Fridman (1:52:33.800)

What's the meaning of our existence here on earth?

Lex Fridman (1:52:36.880)

What's the meaning of life?

Lex Fridman (1:52:39.360)

Love.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:52:40.720)

God is love.

Lex Fridman (1:52:42.280)

And the purpose of my life is to become God's friend.

Lex Fridman (1:52:45.040)

And that means I'm more conformed to love.

Lex Fridman (1:52:47.320)

And so my life finds meaning in the measure

Bishop Robert Barron (1:52:49.640)

that I become more on fire with the divine love.

Lex Fridman (1:52:52.980)

I'm like the burning bush,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:52:54.080)

is to become more and more radiant with the presence of God.

Lex Fridman (1:52:57.640)

That's what gives life meaning.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:52:59.760)

Meaning is to live in a purposive relationship

Lex Fridman (1:53:01.960)

to a value, I would say.

Lex Fridman (1:53:03.160)

So there's all kinds of values,

Lex Fridman (1:53:04.920)

as I say, moral, aesthetic, intellectual values.

Lex Fridman (1:53:07.720)

And when I have a purposive relationship,

Lex Fridman (1:53:09.400)

so right now you and I,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:53:10.720)

we have a purposive relationship to the value of,

Lex Fridman (1:53:12.800)

let's say, finding out the truth of things,

Lex Fridman (1:53:15.500)

and we're speaking together to seek that.

Lex Fridman (1:53:18.060)

Well, good.

Lex Fridman (1:53:19.200)

What's the ultimate value?

Lex Fridman (1:53:20.400)

The value of values is God.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:53:22.360)

The supreme good, the supremely knowable,

Lex Fridman (1:53:25.520)

the supremely intelligible is God.

Lex Fridman (1:53:27.960)

And so to be conformed to God

Lex Fridman (1:53:30.120)

is to have a fully meaningful life.

Lex Fridman (1:53:32.520)

And who's God?

Lex Fridman (1:53:33.820)

God is love.

Lex Fridman (1:53:34.940)

So that's where I would fit the package together that way.

Lex Fridman (1:53:38.040)

You're adding a lot of love to this world,

Lex Fridman (1:53:41.240)

and which is something I deeply appreciate,

Lex Fridman (1:53:43.320)

and that you would sit down with me,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:53:45.800)

given how valuable your time is,

Lex Fridman (1:53:47.320)

is a huge honor.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:53:48.160)

Thank you so much for talking to me.

Lex Fridman (1:53:48.980)

Well, my great pleasure.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:53:49.820)

I loved it.

Lex Fridman (1:53:50.660)

Lex, thank you.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:53:51.580)

Thanks for listening to this conversation

Lex Fridman (1:53:53.080)

with Bishop Robert Barron.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:53:54.640)

To support this podcast,

Lex Fridman (1:53:55.880)

please check out our sponsors in the description.

Lex Fridman (1:53:58.560)

And now, let me leave you with some words

Lex Fridman (1:54:00.840)

from Bishop Robert Barron himself,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:54:03.120)

which reminds me of the Dostoevsky line

Lex Fridman (1:54:05.560)

spoken through Prince Mishkin,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:54:07.580)

that quote, beauty will save the world.

Lex Fridman (1:54:10.800)

Robert says, begin with the beautiful,

Bishop Robert Barron (1:54:14.740)

which leads to the good,

Lex Fridman (1:54:16.960)

which leads you to truth.

Bishop Robert Barron (1:54:20.000)

Thank you for listening,

Lex Fridman (1:54:21.100)

and hope to see you next time.

Bishop Robert Barron (20:01.220)

We're called capital sins sometimes,

Lex Fridman (20:03.460)

they're the head sins from which things tend to flow.

Bishop Robert Barron (20:07.380)

The most fundamental is pride.

Lex Fridman (20:11.380)

Probably most people today, if you talk about like vice,

Bishop Robert Barron (20:13.420)

or you talk about a deadly sin,

Lex Fridman (20:15.300)

they would think about lust.

Lex Fridman (20:16.820)

But the classical authors, including Dante,

Lex Fridman (20:19.020)

who does this pictorially,

Bishop Robert Barron (20:21.540)

that's the least of the deadly sins is lust,

Lex Fridman (20:23.740)

because it's the one that's most sort of dependent

Bishop Robert Barron (20:25.980)

upon the body and its passions and so on.

Lex Fridman (20:29.180)

The most important is pride.

Bishop Robert Barron (20:30.660)

Pride is the deadliest of deadly sins.

Lex Fridman (20:33.040)

And it's very simple to see why.

Bishop Robert Barron (20:34.980)

Pride is, Augustine calls it incurvatus in se.

Lex Fridman (20:38.380)

I'm caved in around myself.

Bishop Robert Barron (20:40.940)

Like a black hole, right, to get into the scientific.

Lex Fridman (20:44.340)

But the black hole to me is a great symbol,

Bishop Robert Barron (20:46.660)

you know, that it's so heavy

Lex Fridman (20:48.880)

that it draws everything, including light.

Bishop Robert Barron (20:50.780)

Nothing can escape from it.

Lex Fridman (20:52.740)

See, that's the sinner.

Bishop Robert Barron (20:54.140)

We're all sinners.

Lex Fridman (20:55.740)

We're like black holes,

Bishop Robert Barron (20:56.800)

that we draw everything into ourselves.

Lex Fridman (21:00.360)

So as a sinner, and I'll confess I'm a sinner,

Bishop Robert Barron (21:04.820)

the temptation is, okay, this is the Bishop Barron moment,

Lex Fridman (21:08.280)

and I'm drawing you now into my world and so on.

Lex Fridman (21:13.920)

What that does is it kills us off,

Lex Fridman (21:16.500)

and it darkens life, and it makes it small,

Lex Fridman (21:20.520)

and heavy, and awful, right?

Lex Fridman (21:23.460)

It's like, but see, compared to the contrasting thing,

Bishop Robert Barron (21:28.380)

is when you're lost in a moment,

Lex Fridman (21:31.420)

you're not concerned about the impression I'm making.

Bishop Robert Barron (21:33.840)

You're not concerned about drawing the world into yourself.

Lex Fridman (21:35.960)

You're not concerned about this monkey on my back

Bishop Robert Barron (21:38.260)

that's always telling me, you know,

Lex Fridman (21:39.640)

look good and sound right.

Lex Fridman (21:41.660)

But you're lost in something.

Lex Fridman (21:44.140)

You're just talking, you know, to a friend,

Lex Fridman (21:46.360)

and the two of you together

Lex Fridman (21:47.620)

are discovering something true or beautiful.

Bishop Robert Barron (21:50.300)

You're lost in a movie, or you're lost in a book.

Lex Fridman (21:53.040)

Those are the best moments in life.

Bishop Robert Barron (21:54.880)

Those are the best,

Lex Fridman (21:55.720)

because they're the least prideful moments, right?

Bishop Robert Barron (21:58.420)

That's when the light comes out.

Lex Fridman (22:00.700)

I become radiant, because I'm overcoming this tendency

Bishop Robert Barron (22:05.380)

to fall in on myself.

Lex Fridman (22:08.300)

Dante is so good, because the way he pictures Satan

Bishop Robert Barron (22:12.780)

in Divine Comedy, and you know,

Lex Fridman (22:14.260)

he's at the center of the Earth.

Lex Fridman (22:15.700)

So like a black hole that way,

Lex Fridman (22:17.220)

like he's at the center of gravity.

Bishop Robert Barron (22:19.020)

He's at the heaviest place.

Lex Fridman (22:21.060)

And there's not fire where he is, but ice,

Bishop Robert Barron (22:23.980)

which is a much, much better image,

Lex Fridman (22:26.220)

that you're frozen in place, and you're stuck.

Lex Fridman (22:29.100)

And he's got wings, right?

Lex Fridman (22:31.460)

And they used to be angel wings, because he's an angel,

Lex Fridman (22:33.720)

but now they're like bat wings for Dante,

Lex Fridman (22:35.500)

and they're flapping.

Lex Fridman (22:37.440)

And all they're doing is making the world around him colder,

Lex Fridman (22:40.540)

because he's ice, he's stuck in his own iciness,

Lex Fridman (22:43.320)

and then he's beating his wings over the ice,

Lex Fridman (22:45.660)

making everyone else colder.

Bishop Robert Barron (22:46.940)

It's a great image.

Lex Fridman (22:48.860)

And then he has, this is cool too,

Bishop Robert Barron (22:50.300)

he has three faces, Satan,

Lex Fridman (22:53.060)

because he's the simulacrum of the Trinity.

Lex Fridman (22:55.140)

So every sinner thinks he's God.

Lex Fridman (22:57.140)

So I pretend I'm God.

Lex Fridman (22:58.500)

So he's got the three faces.

Lex Fridman (23:00.380)

And from all six eyes, he weeps.

Bishop Robert Barron (23:03.780)

Also from all three mouths, he's chewing a sinner.

Lex Fridman (23:07.220)

He's got Cassius, Brutus, and Judas in the three mouths,

Bishop Robert Barron (23:11.280)

you know, the three traitors.

Lex Fridman (23:13.020)

But I thought, it's just a great image

Bishop Robert Barron (23:16.420)

of all of us sinners, is we're stuck,

Lex Fridman (23:19.480)

it's heavy, it's cold,

Bishop Robert Barron (23:22.220)

we're chewing on our past resentments,

Lex Fridman (23:25.060)

we're weeping in our sadness,

Lex Fridman (23:27.140)

and we're making the world around us colder.

Lex Fridman (23:29.280)

It's beautiful, it's great.

Lex Fridman (23:30.380)

So that's pride.

Lex Fridman (23:31.580)

See, that's an image of pride,

Bishop Robert Barron (23:33.180)

because Satan, that's his great sin, pride,

Lex Fridman (23:35.540)

which is why he needed Michael, right, Mikael,

Bishop Robert Barron (23:38.260)

who's like God, so that the great challenge to him,

Lex Fridman (23:41.040)

which we need all the time,

Bishop Robert Barron (23:43.500)

is someone to say, wait a minute, wait a minute,

Lex Fridman (23:45.420)

you're not God.

Lex Fridman (23:46.960)

But the minute we say, I'm God,

Lex Fridman (23:49.220)

whew, black hole, I now cave in on myself,

Bishop Robert Barron (23:52.660)

I suck everything into myself,

Lex Fridman (23:54.940)

and I turn into Dante Satan.

Lex Fridman (23:57.620)

So that's a great image, that's pride.

Lex Fridman (23:59.700)

That's the most fundamental.

Bishop Robert Barron (24:01.660)

That's the uber capital sin.

Lex Fridman (24:04.180)

All the other ones flow from that, in a way.

Lex Fridman (24:06.260)

So in general, empathy, humility, compassion,

Lex Fridman (24:10.180)

love thy neighbor, is the way to fight the sin of pride.

Bishop Robert Barron (24:14.700)

Right, which is why the masters tend to say,

Lex Fridman (24:16.980)

this was Bernard, St. Bernard was asked,

Lex Fridman (24:19.300)

what are the three most important virtues?

Lex Fridman (24:21.140)

And he said, humilitas, humilitas, and humilitas,

Bishop Robert Barron (24:24.660)

because it's the opposite of pride.

Lex Fridman (24:26.500)

So, but you know, they're bringing Aquinas in again,

Bishop Robert Barron (24:29.820)

because we think, oh, humility, I'm no good.

Lex Fridman (24:32.180)

That's not what it means at all.

Bishop Robert Barron (24:33.380)

It means what I was describing before,

Lex Fridman (24:35.500)

when you're just lost in something,

Bishop Robert Barron (24:37.780)

you're just lost in it.

Lex Fridman (24:39.860)

My image, I live out in Santa Barbara,

Lex Fridman (24:41.940)

and I like to walk on the beach out there,

Lex Fridman (24:44.180)

and there's a section of the beach

Bishop Robert Barron (24:45.620)

where they let the dogs run free without leashes.

Lex Fridman (24:48.500)

And when you see a dog, and he's well cared for,

Lex Fridman (24:52.620)

and his master's right there,

Lex Fridman (24:53.780)

and the master's throwing the tennis ball out into the surf,

Lex Fridman (24:56.100)

and the dog goes galloping out into the surf,

Lex Fridman (24:57.940)

and he gets it with a big smile, and comes running back.

Bishop Robert Barron (25:00.660)

That's humility.

Lex Fridman (25:02.420)

That's an image of heaven,

Bishop Robert Barron (25:03.420)

because he's just lost in that moment.

Lex Fridman (25:05.900)

He doesn't care about impressing anybody.

Bishop Robert Barron (25:07.860)

He doesn't care about what people think of him.

Lex Fridman (25:10.620)

He's just lost in it.

Lex Fridman (25:13.340)

That's it, that's heaven, right?

Lex Fridman (25:16.380)

And those moments in our life, when we get that,

Bishop Robert Barron (25:18.820)

it's a little hint of paradise.

Lex Fridman (25:21.140)

But the trouble is most of us live, frankly, most of the time

Bishop Robert Barron (25:24.620)

in various levels of hell,

Lex Fridman (25:27.860)

and we're dealing with these deadly sins.

Bishop Robert Barron (25:29.940)

Like envy flows from pride, because if I'm prideful,

Lex Fridman (25:32.540)

I'm a black hole, I'm in Curvatus In Se, I'm collapsed in,

Lex Fridman (25:35.780)

what am I really gonna be concerned about?

Lex Fridman (25:37.780)

That guy's getting more attention than I am.

Bishop Robert Barron (25:39.140)

That guy's richer than I am.

Lex Fridman (25:40.540)

That lady, she's got a bigger reputation than I do,

Lex Fridman (25:43.500)

and why don't I have that, right?

Lex Fridman (25:46.260)

So envy is a very close daughter of pride.

Bishop Robert Barron (25:50.460)

Anger flows from it.

Lex Fridman (25:51.940)

Why do I get angry?

Bishop Robert Barron (25:53.460)

The dog isn't getting angry on the beach

Lex Fridman (25:54.980)

when he's running after the tennis ball.

Lex Fridman (25:56.700)

But I get angry all the time,

Lex Fridman (25:57.660)

I sputter with anger when things aren't going my way,

Lex Fridman (25:59.980)

and you're insulting me, and you're not doing what I want,

Lex Fridman (26:02.580)

and I'm being hurt, my reputation.

Lex Fridman (26:04.660)

So anger flows from pride, you know?

Lex Fridman (26:07.540)

All of them do, all of the deadly sins do.

Lex Fridman (26:10.260)

So you said, I'm a sinner.

Lex Fridman (26:13.820)

So we're all sinners.

Bishop Robert Barron (26:15.340)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (26:17.780)

And you mentioned Satan.

Bishop Robert Barron (26:19.220)

Where's the, so there's heaven and hell,

Lex Fridman (26:22.660)

there's God and Satan.

Bishop Robert Barron (26:25.380)

Where's the line between what it means to be good

Lex Fridman (26:30.940)

and not good enough?

Bishop Robert Barron (26:34.420)

Or I hesitate to use the word sort of evil,

Lex Fridman (26:38.180)

but maybe overwhelmingly sinful.

Lex Fridman (26:43.020)

Where's the line between hell and heaven?

Lex Fridman (26:45.500)

Think of them as limit concepts, maybe.

Bishop Robert Barron (26:47.100)

They're like heuristic devices.

Lex Fridman (26:49.020)

So heaven would name this ultimate friendship with God.

Lex Fridman (26:53.580)

So think of the dog on the beach,

Lex Fridman (26:54.700)

who is just, he's fallen in love with his environment,

Bishop Robert Barron (26:58.120)

with his master, with the surf.

Lex Fridman (26:59.660)

He's just lost in it, right?

Bishop Robert Barron (27:01.260)

He's forgotten himself, he's transcended himself,

Lex Fridman (27:04.400)

and is now lost in the wonder of the beauty of that place.

Bishop Robert Barron (27:08.740)

Now, imagine the limit of that

Lex Fridman (27:11.540)

is the friendship with God that we talked about,

Bishop Robert Barron (27:14.500)

that I become the friend of God.

Lex Fridman (27:16.140)

I become so forgetful of myself,

Lex Fridman (27:19.100)

so lost in the beauty and truth and goodness of God

Lex Fridman (27:22.260)

that I found beatitude, right?

Bishop Robert Barron (27:25.980)

I found joy, the beatific vision, we call it.

Lex Fridman (27:30.220)

That's the limit case.

Bishop Robert Barron (27:31.460)

That's where we're tending.

Lex Fridman (27:32.400)

That's where God wants us to go.

Bishop Robert Barron (27:34.180)

Think of hell as the limit case in the opposite direction.

Lex Fridman (27:36.180)

That's curvatus in se.

Bishop Robert Barron (27:37.980)

That's the black hole.

Lex Fridman (27:39.480)

And we're all sinners,

Bishop Robert Barron (27:40.780)

meaning we're somewhere on that spectrum.

Lex Fridman (27:42.900)

We have good days and bad days,

Lex Fridman (27:45.180)

and we have good moments and bad moments,

Lex Fridman (27:46.740)

and I can be drawn toward sin.

Bishop Robert Barron (27:51.060)

What's God's purpose on Christianity's reading

Lex Fridman (27:54.260)

is to bring us out of that.

Lex Fridman (27:56.420)

Now, where did he go?

Lex Fridman (27:57.620)

He went all the way into it to get us out of it.

Bishop Robert Barron (28:00.380)

It's like pulling a sock back out.

Lex Fridman (28:02.780)

The sock's inside out, you have to go all the way in

Lex Fridman (28:04.300)

and pull it back out.

Lex Fridman (28:05.340)

And so God had to go all the way down.

Bishop Robert Barron (28:08.860)

There's the trajectory of the incarnation.

Lex Fridman (28:13.860)

Though he was in the form of God,

Lex Fridman (28:15.820)

and this is St. Paul,

Lex Fridman (28:16.860)

Jesus did not deem equality with God

Bishop Robert Barron (28:18.380)

a thing to be grasped at,

Lex Fridman (28:19.220)

but rather emptied himself and took the form of a slave,

Bishop Robert Barron (28:21.560)

being born in the likeness of men.

Lex Fridman (28:23.400)

But then he was known to be of human estate,

Lex Fridman (28:26.800)

and he accepted even death, death on a cross.

Lex Fridman (28:30.420)

And so Paul imagines the incarnation as this downward journey

Lex Fridman (28:34.540)

in order to get all of us, right?

Lex Fridman (28:36.820)

All of us who were stuck, were stuck in our sin.

Lex Fridman (28:40.820)

And so again, Paul says he became sin on the cross.

Lex Fridman (28:44.220)

It's a really, really powerful idea.

Bishop Robert Barron (28:46.740)

He wasn't a sinner, because then he'd need to be saved too.

Lex Fridman (28:49.460)

He's not a sinner, but he entered into our dysfunction

Bishop Robert Barron (28:53.380)

in order to pull us back out of it.

Lex Fridman (28:55.700)

So that's a really powerful message, an embodiment,

Bishop Robert Barron (29:02.100)

sort of educating the world about sin.

Lex Fridman (29:07.020)

That said, day to day,

Bishop Robert Barron (29:09.180)

there's oscillations in terms of how much each human sins,

Lex Fridman (29:15.580)

and there's a struggle against that.

Lex Fridman (29:17.980)

So that dog that loses himself on the beach

Lex Fridman (29:22.980)

may have had a lot of sex with other dogs leading up to that.

Bishop Robert Barron (29:26.860)

That was, may have been not the best dog

Lex Fridman (29:30.580)

he could be leading up to that.

Lex Fridman (29:32.540)

So how, if it's a math equation,

Lex Fridman (29:35.540)

what does the final calculation look like

Lex Fridman (29:38.780)

in terms of ending up in heaven?

Lex Fridman (29:40.940)

What does it mean to live a good life in the end?

Lex Fridman (29:44.580)

Is it the average amount of sin you do is low?

Lex Fridman (29:50.100)

Are you allowed to make mistakes?

Lex Fridman (29:52.380)

Yeah, the metric is love, right?

Lex Fridman (29:56.900)

And love is not a feeling, it's an act of the will.

Bishop Robert Barron (29:59.860)

To will the good of the other.

Lex Fridman (30:01.580)

That's Aquinas again.

Bishop Robert Barron (30:02.540)

To will the good of the other as other.

Lex Fridman (30:04.860)

You see, that's the anti black hole principle.

Bishop Robert Barron (30:07.540)

When I, I don't.

Lex Fridman (30:08.980)

Will the good of the other.

Bishop Robert Barron (30:10.500)

As other.

Lex Fridman (30:11.340)

See, because if I'm willing your good,

Bishop Robert Barron (30:13.380)

because it's good for me.

Lex Fridman (30:15.020)

So again, it's good for you that I'm on this program,

Bishop Robert Barron (30:17.940)

I guess, I'm willing your good,

Lex Fridman (30:19.140)

but that's because it's gonna be down to my benefit.

Bishop Robert Barron (30:21.700)

That's just an indirect egotism.

Lex Fridman (30:23.940)

That's why I see love is really rare and strange,

Bishop Robert Barron (30:26.500)

that I really want what's good for you as other.

Lex Fridman (30:32.340)

So not connected to the black hole tendency

Bishop Robert Barron (30:34.860)

of my own prideful ego.

Lex Fridman (30:36.700)

When I've broken that, I've forgotten self

Lex Fridman (30:39.940)

and I've moved into the space of your own good.

Lex Fridman (30:43.020)

That's what love is.

Bishop Robert Barron (30:44.220)

Now, God wants us to be,

Lex Fridman (30:46.700)

by this they will know that you're my disciples,

Bishop Robert Barron (30:48.780)

that you love one another, Jesus says.

Lex Fridman (30:50.460)

So that's it.

Bishop Robert Barron (30:52.220)

Now, I mean, life is ups and downs and back and forth

Lex Fridman (30:56.140)

and we're better or worse at that.

Bishop Robert Barron (30:59.820)

The point of a church is to graft us onto Christ

Lex Fridman (31:02.500)

that we might become more and more conformed to love.

Lex Fridman (31:05.100)

But you know, the final calculus, I'll leave that to God.

Lex Fridman (31:07.220)

I mean, but use love as the metric.

Bishop Robert Barron (31:09.820)

At the end of the day, when you examine your conscience,

Lex Fridman (31:12.660)

did I will the good of the other today?

Lex Fridman (31:14.860)

How effective was I at that?

Lex Fridman (31:17.380)

And be, just like Ignatius of Loyola, be brutally honest.

Bishop Robert Barron (31:21.220)

Or was I just willing someone's good

Lex Fridman (31:22.660)

because it was good for me?

Bishop Robert Barron (31:25.500)

Where were those moments where I was like the dog

Lex Fridman (31:27.540)

on the beach, see?

Lex Fridman (31:29.380)

And then see, play it the way,

Lex Fridman (31:30.780)

not so much God the law giver surveying

Lex Fridman (31:33.580)

and you did three of those and four.

Lex Fridman (31:35.740)

It's God wants us to be fully alive.

Bishop Robert Barron (31:39.220)

Saint Irenaeus is one of my great heroes,

Lex Fridman (31:41.100)

ancient, you know, patristic figure.

Lex Fridman (31:43.140)

And his famous line is gloria de homo vivens, right?

Lex Fridman (31:46.420)

The glory of God is a human being fully alive.

Bishop Robert Barron (31:50.820)

See, and that gets us over this sort of obsession

Lex Fridman (31:53.620)

with the illegalism and did I do enough?

Lex Fridman (31:55.860)

And is that, that's a big enough sin.

Lex Fridman (31:58.140)

God wants us fully alive.

Bishop Robert Barron (32:00.260)

The key to that is willing the good of the other.

Lex Fridman (32:02.700)

He died that we might come to a richer

Bishop Robert Barron (32:07.260)

appropriation of that.

Lex Fridman (32:08.740)

So to be fully alive is to be in love with the world

Bishop Robert Barron (32:13.740)

or to love the world deeply.

Lex Fridman (32:17.900)

And what love means is the other.

Bishop Robert Barron (32:20.860)

Is.

Lex Fridman (32:21.700)

Get out of yourself, right.

Bishop Robert Barron (32:22.540)

It's the humility, yeah, getting out of yourself.

Lex Fridman (32:26.020)

Let go.

Bishop Robert Barron (32:26.860)

That somehow is not, that's not even selfless

Lex Fridman (32:31.340)

because the word selfless requires there to be a self.

Bishop Robert Barron (32:35.460)

It's almost like just letting go.

Lex Fridman (32:38.140)

Yeah, I might talk about like a gift of self

Bishop Robert Barron (32:39.980)

that you're self aware but you give a gift of yourself.

Lex Fridman (32:43.940)

Your self becomes not a magnet drawing things into itself

Lex Fridman (32:46.780)

but it becomes a radiant source of life for others.

Lex Fridman (32:49.740)

I think Mother Teresa would have had a keen sense

Bishop Robert Barron (32:51.460)

of herself, it seems to me.

Lex Fridman (32:52.700)

But it was to light other people up

Lex Fridman (32:57.020)

so that they might be radiant.

Lex Fridman (33:00.100)

That's the game.

Lex Fridman (33:00.940)

So you could probably articulate it that way too.

Lex Fridman (33:03.980)

Yeah.

Bishop Robert Barron (33:05.460)

I love love.

Lex Fridman (33:06.540)

It's such an interesting thing.

Lex Fridman (33:08.380)

But we have to be hard nosed about it.

Lex Fridman (33:09.620)

Like your friend Dostoevsky,

Bishop Robert Barron (33:11.460)

love is a harsh and dreadful thing, right.

Lex Fridman (33:13.780)

It's not a feeling.

Lex Fridman (33:14.940)

And our culture is so sentimentalized love

Lex Fridman (33:17.140)

that it's having warm feelings or doing what people want.

Lex Fridman (33:20.020)

And that's not it at all.

Lex Fridman (33:20.860)

Love is always correlated to the order of the good.

Bishop Robert Barron (33:24.500)

Because if I'm willing the good of the other,

Lex Fridman (33:26.420)

I have to know what that good is, right.

Lex Fridman (33:28.660)

So a parent does this, oh, I'll give the kid

Lex Fridman (33:30.340)

whatever she wants.

Bishop Robert Barron (33:31.540)

Well, that's not love, that's indulgence

Lex Fridman (33:33.380)

or that's sentimentality.

Lex Fridman (33:35.540)

But I have to know what the goods really are

Lex Fridman (33:37.920)

if I'm gonna will them for you, right.

Bishop Robert Barron (33:39.940)

Yeah, in some sense, you're absolutely right.

Lex Fridman (33:43.020)

A component of love is the struggle to know the other.

Bishop Robert Barron (33:47.220)

Right.

Lex Fridman (33:48.060)

It's the struggle to understand.

Bishop Robert Barron (33:49.620)

I mean, that's what I mean by empathy.

Lex Fridman (33:52.020)

It's the, yeah, it's not Valentine's Day romantic gifts.

Bishop Robert Barron (33:57.180)

It's a struggle.

Lex Fridman (33:59.700)

It's like trying to understand,

Bishop Robert Barron (34:02.540)

trying to perturb your own mind

Lex Fridman (34:04.440)

and that of another human being

Bishop Robert Barron (34:06.880)

to try to figure out who they are,

Lex Fridman (34:09.180)

what they want, what makes them happy,

Lex Fridman (34:12.820)

what are they afraid of, what are they hoping for.

Lex Fridman (34:16.340)

And it's like a dance, a dance of conversation,

Bishop Robert Barron (34:19.620)

a dance of just shared experiences

Lex Fridman (34:23.700)

and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (34:24.620)

And all of that requires for you to be,

Lex Fridman (34:27.660)

I guess, yeah, empathize.

Bishop Robert Barron (34:31.300)

Imagine yourself in their place

Lex Fridman (34:35.900)

and then love that person

Bishop Robert Barron (34:38.220)

when you're living inside that person.

Lex Fridman (34:40.900)

Yeah, several minutes ago

Bishop Robert Barron (34:42.460)

about the pillars of Christianity.

Lex Fridman (34:43.780)

So we talked about God, talked about incarnation,

Lex Fridman (34:45.540)

but you're getting now to a third key one,

Lex Fridman (34:48.580)

namely the Trinity.

Bishop Robert Barron (34:50.060)

Because we're monotheists, right,

Lex Fridman (34:52.540)

but we don't think God is monolithically one.

Bishop Robert Barron (34:54.900)

We think God is a play of persons.

Lex Fridman (34:57.380)

And the Father from all eternity

Bishop Robert Barron (35:01.780)

by a great mental act forms his interior word,

Lex Fridman (35:07.220)

as Aquinas puts it.

Lex Fridman (35:08.820)

And that's the logos, right?

Lex Fridman (35:10.060)

That's the verbum, that's the word

Bishop Robert Barron (35:12.020)

by which the Father knows himself.

Lex Fridman (35:13.420)

And we call it the Son.

Lex Fridman (35:14.780)

So the imago, it's the image of the Father.

Lex Fridman (35:17.100)

But then see, the great thing is

Bishop Robert Barron (35:18.540)

that imago is not like just a dead image on a mirror

Lex Fridman (35:21.940)

or a dead image at a pond or something.

Bishop Robert Barron (35:24.180)

It's a full reflection of the Father's being.

Lex Fridman (35:29.180)

He's one in being with the Father.

Bishop Robert Barron (35:31.580)

Therefore, the Son has everything the Father has

Lex Fridman (35:33.900)

except being the Father.

Lex Fridman (35:35.420)

But that means that the two of them look at each other

Lex Fridman (35:38.820)

and they're just crazy in love with each other

Bishop Robert Barron (35:41.540)

because the Father's the fullness of being,

Lex Fridman (35:44.980)

the Son is the fullness of being.

Lex Fridman (35:46.660)

And they're so crazy in love with each other that they,

Lex Fridman (35:49.260)

this is Fulton Sheen put it this way,

Bishop Robert Barron (35:52.100)

that there's this, ah, they just,

Lex Fridman (35:54.980)

they love each other with this sigh.

Lex Fridman (35:58.140)

And we call that the Spiritus Sanctus.

Lex Fridman (36:00.220)

That's the holy breath, right?

Bishop Robert Barron (36:01.500)

The holy sigh of love between the Father and the Son.

Lex Fridman (36:06.140)

And that's one being, one essence we say of God.

Lex Fridman (36:10.580)

But in these three persons,

Lex Fridman (36:12.540)

but all your language about like dance

Lex Fridman (36:14.220)

and play and community,

Lex Fridman (36:16.820)

the Greek Fathers talked about perichoresis,

Bishop Robert Barron (36:18.780)

which means God, the three persons kind of sit

Lex Fridman (36:21.100)

in a choir together.

Lex Fridman (36:23.180)

So they sing together, you know?

Lex Fridman (36:27.820)

And that's why, see, Christianity is unique in this claim,

Bishop Robert Barron (36:32.300)

that God is love.

Lex Fridman (36:34.860)

So every religion will say God loves,

Bishop Robert Barron (36:37.140)

you know, in some way.

Lex Fridman (36:38.100)

Love is an attribute of God.

Bishop Robert Barron (36:40.420)

God is, or love is a thing that God does sometimes.

Lex Fridman (36:43.220)

But Christianity is unique in all the religions

Bishop Robert Barron (36:45.300)

in saying that God is love.

Lex Fridman (36:47.740)

And somehow the Holy Trinity embodies that idea.

Bishop Robert Barron (36:52.060)

I mean, that philosophically has always been confusing to me,

Lex Fridman (36:56.740)

what it means to be three things

Lex Fridman (37:00.980)

and at the same time be one God,

Lex Fridman (37:04.700)

the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Lex Fridman (37:07.860)

What is this dance between these three?

Lex Fridman (37:10.580)

What exact, like how do you visualize,

Lex Fridman (37:13.500)

how do you understand this?

Lex Fridman (37:15.020)

Yeah.

Bishop Robert Barron (37:15.860)

This very fascinating, essential thing for Christianity.

Lex Fridman (37:20.180)

The first thing I'd say is what we already

Bishop Robert Barron (37:21.540)

have been sort of talking about,

Lex Fridman (37:22.500)

is if you say God is love,

Lex Fridman (37:24.140)

and most people probably say, yeah, I like that.

Lex Fridman (37:25.980)

It's a good idea, God is love.

Lex Fridman (37:27.300)

But it's very peculiar because if he is love,

Lex Fridman (37:30.980)

there has to be in his unity a lover, a beloved,

Lex Fridman (37:36.500)

and the love that they share.

Lex Fridman (37:37.660)

Otherwise he isn't loved by his very essence.

Bishop Robert Barron (37:40.340)

He would love, it would be an attribute of God

Lex Fridman (37:43.980)

or an action of God.

Lex Fridman (37:45.020)

But if it's his very nature,

Lex Fridman (37:46.820)

there has to be lover, beloved, and love shared.

Lex Fridman (37:49.820)

And the tradition eventually came to see that.

Lex Fridman (37:52.580)

The image I was using before of the Father,

Bishop Robert Barron (37:55.260)

his imago, the Son, well that's born of God's infinite mind.

Lex Fridman (38:00.260)

So of course God has an image of himself.

Bishop Robert Barron (38:02.260)

Heck, I've got an image of myself.

Lex Fridman (38:04.100)

That's something I can pull off as a puny little creature.

Bishop Robert Barron (38:07.140)

God in his infinity has a perfect imago of himself.

Lex Fridman (38:11.500)

And they have to fall in love with each other.

Lex Fridman (38:13.540)

What else can they do?

Lex Fridman (38:14.900)

Because they're in the presence of infinite good.

Lex Fridman (38:17.900)

And so it has to follow that you then have

Lex Fridman (38:20.820)

the shared love that connects them.

Lex Fridman (38:22.860)

And that's how we generate, if you want,

Lex Fridman (38:24.460)

this idea of the three persons in God.

Bishop Robert Barron (38:27.980)

Let me ask you about the church.

Lex Fridman (38:30.940)

One of the defining characteristics of Catholicism

Bishop Robert Barron (38:35.460)

is the Catholic church.

Lex Fridman (38:38.020)

What is the Catholic church?

Bishop Robert Barron (38:40.700)

I would say it's the mystical body of Jesus.

Lex Fridman (38:43.060)

So as I said before, it's not an organization.

Bishop Robert Barron (38:45.380)

If we do it that way, we're gonna miss it.

Lex Fridman (38:46.820)

It's got organizational elements to it.

Lex Fridman (38:48.900)

So I'm a bishop, I'm a office holder within the church.

Lex Fridman (38:52.980)

But the church is an organism, not an organization.

Lex Fridman (38:56.940)

So it's a organism of interconnected cells, as I said,

Lex Fridman (39:01.340)

namely all of the baptized,

Bishop Robert Barron (39:02.660)

gathered around Christ in a mystical union.

Lex Fridman (39:06.620)

That's the church.

Lex Fridman (39:07.940)

But there's buildings, there's titles.

Lex Fridman (39:10.420)

Sure, because it manifests itself institutionally then.

Lex Fridman (39:14.180)

So are the sort of heavy things about that

Lex Fridman (39:18.180)

all have to do with pride?

Bishop Robert Barron (39:19.900)

Yeah, sure.

Lex Fridman (39:20.740)

The sexiness of the buildings?

Bishop Robert Barron (39:22.540)

Yeah, no, whatever is corrupt in the church,

Lex Fridman (39:24.300)

of course, it comes from pride, from sin.

Lex Fridman (39:26.660)

And one thing I like about the New Testament

Lex Fridman (39:28.620)

is so clear on that.

Bishop Robert Barron (39:29.900)

Paul is, in his little tiny communities,

Lex Fridman (39:32.260)

so before there was a Vatican or dioceses or anything,

Bishop Robert Barron (39:35.060)

Paul had these little tiny communities of Christians

Lex Fridman (39:36.920)

like in Corinth and Ephesus.

Lex Fridman (39:39.860)

What's the one thing we know about them?

Lex Fridman (39:41.020)

Is they fought with each other.

Bishop Robert Barron (39:42.620)

Because Paul's always uprating them

Lex Fridman (39:44.660)

and telling them, come on, would you people get it together?

Lex Fridman (39:48.300)

Who's bewitched you?

Lex Fridman (39:49.980)

So from the beginning, we've been fighting with each other

Bishop Robert Barron (39:52.580)

because we're made up of sinners.

Lex Fridman (39:55.860)

So one thing we do in Catholic ecclesiology

Bishop Robert Barron (39:59.020)

is the official name for the study of the church,

Lex Fridman (40:00.980)

is to talk about the treasure in earthen vessels.

Bishop Robert Barron (40:04.700)

Paul's language again.

Lex Fridman (40:05.880)

The treasure is Christ.

Bishop Robert Barron (40:07.060)

The treasure is the love he's bequeathed to the world.

Lex Fridman (40:11.140)

That's the treasure that we have.

Lex Fridman (40:12.820)

But it's always held in these really fragile vessels,

Lex Fridman (40:15.440)

namely us, and so it's gonna be marked by corruption

Lex Fridman (40:18.300)

and stupidity and pride and everything else.

Lex Fridman (40:21.260)

Well, nevertheless, there's a hierarchy.

Bishop Robert Barron (40:23.900)

There's titles and so on.

Lex Fridman (40:26.820)

If we remove pride from the picture,

Lex Fridman (40:28.920)

so the best possible interpretation of the hierarchy

Lex Fridman (40:31.940)

that makes up this one organism, this living organism,

Lex Fridman (40:36.300)

what's the role of the pope, for example?

Lex Fridman (40:39.860)

What is the role of a bishop, for example?

Lex Fridman (40:44.540)

What is the role of the hierarchy

Lex Fridman (40:46.220)

in terms of the broader vision of Christianity,

Lex Fridman (40:49.900)

Catholicism as a religion?

Lex Fridman (40:52.560)

I'm a devotee of this guy named Johann Adam Müller,

Bishop Robert Barron (40:54.900)

who was a theologian early part of the 19th century,

Lex Fridman (40:57.600)

and he was part of the kind of romantic movement.

Lex Fridman (41:00.420)

And he said the purpose of the pope is to symbolize

Lex Fridman (41:04.860)

and embody and draw together the unity of the entire church.

Lex Fridman (41:10.740)

So he's the personal symbol of the unity of the church.

Lex Fridman (41:14.060)

Who's a bishop?

Bishop Robert Barron (41:15.080)

The bishop is the personal symbol

Lex Fridman (41:17.280)

of the unity of a diocese.

Lex Fridman (41:19.500)

Who's a pastor of a parish?

Lex Fridman (41:20.940)

He's the personal symbol of the unity of that parish.

Lex Fridman (41:24.440)

So he understood it not so much organizationally

Lex Fridman (41:27.380)

as organically, again.

Bishop Robert Barron (41:28.540)

It was like, what, that around which the pattern

Lex Fridman (41:32.460)

organizes itself.

Lex Fridman (41:34.340)

And if you don't have that unifying figure,

Lex Fridman (41:37.380)

the community will kind of reciprocate.

Lex Fridman (41:39.300)

And you see that all the time.

Lex Fridman (41:40.480)

Without headship, we would say.

Lex Fridman (41:43.060)

So it's more symbolic and organic

Lex Fridman (41:45.160)

than it is organizational.

Lex Fridman (41:47.460)

So symbols for community.

Lex Fridman (41:49.020)

But there's such fascinating peculiarities

Bishop Robert Barron (41:52.980)

to each individual symbol.

Lex Fridman (41:55.360)

There's different characteristics

Bishop Robert Barron (41:56.700)

that make up the different people.

Lex Fridman (41:58.780)

They have different ways of communicating.

Bishop Robert Barron (42:01.340)

They have different hopes and fears

Lex Fridman (42:02.740)

and all that kind of stuff.

Bishop Robert Barron (42:06.500)

If they're all symbols,

Lex Fridman (42:08.220)

what's the role of the different peculiarities

Lex Fridman (42:13.580)

of those symbols?

Lex Fridman (42:14.860)

Of being an inspiring uniter versus maybe a stronger type

Bishop Robert Barron (42:20.220)

of more judgmental kind of communicator,

Lex Fridman (42:26.860)

all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (42:27.820)

Can you maybe speak to the human part of these symbols?

Lex Fridman (42:32.820)

Yeah, well, I might just shift to another image of shepherd.

Lex Fridman (42:37.160)

So that's a classic biblical image.

Lex Fridman (42:38.960)

And as a bishop, I walk around with this thing

Bishop Robert Barron (42:40.760)

called a crozier, which is a shepherd's staff.

Lex Fridman (42:43.040)

So it's the symbol of the bishop's office.

Lex Fridman (42:45.680)

And the crozier, though, is a kind of in your face thing

Lex Fridman (42:50.360)

in a way, because it's got the end of it

Bishop Robert Barron (42:53.520)

was meant to hold off wild animals.

Lex Fridman (42:55.960)

And then the crook part of it was meant to bring sheep back

Bishop Robert Barron (42:59.000)

to the fold.

Lex Fridman (43:00.320)

So I walk in with that, oh, this is nice.

Bishop Robert Barron (43:01.760)

Oh, look at the bishop coming in.

Lex Fridman (43:03.120)

But that's a kind of in your face symbol

Bishop Robert Barron (43:05.800)

that I'm here to defend the church against predators.

Lex Fridman (43:09.920)

And I'm also here to draw people in

Bishop Robert Barron (43:12.000)

who are wandering too far away.

Lex Fridman (43:13.840)

So that's okay.

Bishop Robert Barron (43:14.680)

I mean, that's part of the role of the hierarchy

Lex Fridman (43:17.120)

and the Pope and bishops and pastors.

Lex Fridman (43:20.320)

Pastor just means shepherd, right?

Lex Fridman (43:21.800)

So I'm the shepherd of a parish.

Lex Fridman (43:24.200)

So that's okay.

Lex Fridman (43:25.040)

It's not like just all sunshine and light

Lex Fridman (43:26.920)

and what a pretty image.

Lex Fridman (43:28.320)

The one who embodies the unity of the community

Bishop Robert Barron (43:30.920)

is also the shepherd.

Lex Fridman (43:32.920)

Okay, but again, leaning on the human thing.

Bishop Robert Barron (43:36.400)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (43:37.560)

The church is an institution.

Lex Fridman (43:40.360)

And I don't know if you've heard,

Lex Fridman (43:42.360)

but there is an element of power that corrupts.

Bishop Robert Barron (43:46.160)

An absolute power corrupts absolutely,

Lex Fridman (43:48.640)

as the old saying goes.

Bishop Robert Barron (43:51.880)

Let me ask you something else that came up

Lex Fridman (43:53.680)

on the Reddit AMA.

Bishop Robert Barron (43:56.080)

Yeah, megachurches and the prosperity gospel.

Lex Fridman (43:59.400)

And you've mentioned that you may not be a fan.

Lex Fridman (44:03.760)

What are your views on this?

Lex Fridman (44:05.000)

And what are your views in general of money and power

Lex Fridman (44:08.120)

corrupting the heads of these institutions?

Lex Fridman (44:12.000)

I don't like the prosperity gospel

Bishop Robert Barron (44:13.760)

because the gospel is about Jesus journey

Lex Fridman (44:17.400)

into radical self forgetfulness on the cross.

Lex Fridman (44:21.240)

And he never makes a promise of earthly,

Lex Fridman (44:24.360)

of earthly well being.

Lex Fridman (44:27.640)

Can you explain what the prosperity gospel is?

Lex Fridman (44:29.840)

Yeah, the view that if I follow Jesus

Lex Fridman (44:31.800)

and I follow God with great trust

Lex Fridman (44:33.600)

that I will be rewarded with wealth and position

Lex Fridman (44:37.280)

and status in this world.

Lex Fridman (44:39.160)

It might be God's will when I get that.

Lex Fridman (44:41.120)

But you know, Aquinas said this,

Lex Fridman (44:42.640)

say I look at a very sinful person,

Bishop Robert Barron (44:44.240)

I say, kind of, he's got a great house

Lex Fridman (44:45.680)

and he's richer than I am and all that.

Bishop Robert Barron (44:47.720)

Aquinas says, yeah, but maybe that's a punishment.

Lex Fridman (44:51.120)

Cause maybe all that is leading him away from God.

Lex Fridman (44:53.480)

And actually that's God's way of punishing him.

Lex Fridman (44:55.320)

And the fact that you don't have wealth in a big house

Bishop Robert Barron (44:57.560)

is actually a great gift to you

Lex Fridman (44:59.160)

because now it frees you for doing God's will.

Lex Fridman (45:02.440)

So we can't read, you know, God's favor in worldly terms.

Lex Fridman (45:08.480)

I would say God's favor is, am I awakened to deeper love?

Bishop Robert Barron (45:13.120)

Then I know that I'm finding God's favor.

Lex Fridman (45:15.360)

Now, God might decide, sure,

Bishop Robert Barron (45:17.080)

I want you to have this and that.

Lex Fridman (45:18.600)

I want to provide this to you.

Bishop Robert Barron (45:20.120)

Fine.

Lex Fridman (45:20.960)

Then I say, thank you, Lord.

Lex Fridman (45:21.920)

How can I use it as an instrument of love?

Lex Fridman (45:25.840)

All the masters talk about detachment.

Lex Fridman (45:27.800)

And that's another reason I don't like the prosperity gospel

Lex Fridman (45:29.680)

is though I'm getting attached now

Bishop Robert Barron (45:31.680)

to all these material advantages.

Lex Fridman (45:34.040)

And I'm even seeing them as a sign of God's favor.

Bishop Robert Barron (45:37.280)

Let go of all that.

Lex Fridman (45:38.360)

You let go of it and use it as a vehicle of love.

Lex Fridman (45:41.040)

So if you're rich, the right question is,

Lex Fridman (45:43.360)

okay, Lord, why did you allow me to become rich?

Lex Fridman (45:46.240)

So that, what can I do?

Lex Fridman (45:47.640)

How can my riches be an expression of love?

Bishop Robert Barron (45:50.000)

If I'm popular, if I'm healthy,

Lex Fridman (45:52.360)

okay, why am I popular?

Lex Fridman (45:53.640)

Why am I healthy?

Lex Fridman (45:54.480)

How can I use that for your good?

Bishop Robert Barron (45:56.640)

I'm sick, in bed, I'm suffering.

Lex Fridman (45:59.920)

Okay, Lord, how can I use that as an expression of love?

Lex Fridman (46:03.480)

So I'd rather measure it that way

Lex Fridman (46:05.480)

than through worldly success.

Bishop Robert Barron (46:07.540)

That's why I'm against the prosperity gospel.

Lex Fridman (46:10.000)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (46:10.840)

So there's a, don't seek worldly possessions,

Lex Fridman (46:15.600)

but whatever happens to you, good or bad,

Bishop Robert Barron (46:19.280)

seek how that could be used

Lex Fridman (46:21.860)

to increase the amount of love in the world.

Bishop Robert Barron (46:23.940)

Right.

Lex Fridman (46:24.780)

The image I love for this is the Wheel of Fortune,

Bishop Robert Barron (46:27.320)

which is a device on a lot of the Gothic cathedrals.

Lex Fridman (46:29.840)

And it's this great circle, right, this wheel.

Bishop Robert Barron (46:32.400)

At the top of it is a king.

Lex Fridman (46:34.280)

And then it turns this way,

Lex Fridman (46:35.200)

and the king has lost his crown.

Lex Fridman (46:36.520)

And the bottom is a pauper.

Lex Fridman (46:37.920)

And then over here is a king,

Lex Fridman (46:39.600)

is a guy climbing up to power, right?

Lex Fridman (46:42.520)

And then in the middle is a depiction of Christ.

Lex Fridman (46:45.740)

And the idea is just very simple, but very profound,

Lex Fridman (46:47.720)

that the wheel is life, you know?

Lex Fridman (46:49.400)

It's sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down.

Bishop Robert Barron (46:51.880)

Sometimes you have power and popularity and prestige.

Lex Fridman (46:55.160)

Other times you're losing it, you're going down.

Bishop Robert Barron (46:56.760)

Other times you got none of it.

Lex Fridman (46:57.940)

Other times you're coming back up.

Bishop Robert Barron (46:59.440)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (47:00.280)

Don't live on the rim of the wheel.

Bishop Robert Barron (47:01.840)

It'll make you crazy.

Lex Fridman (47:02.840)

Every point on the rim of the wheel is a point of anxiety.

Bishop Robert Barron (47:06.240)

Where you should live is the center of the wheel,

Lex Fridman (47:08.240)

where Christ is, right?

Bishop Robert Barron (47:10.040)

Because that's the link now to the eternity of God.

Lex Fridman (47:13.320)

That's the point of love,

Bishop Robert Barron (47:15.640)

where love can flow through you to the world.

Lex Fridman (47:17.560)

And then you can look at the wheel.

Lex Fridman (47:19.920)

You're a Beatles fan, right?

Lex Fridman (47:21.220)

I think I discovered that.

Bishop Robert Barron (47:22.060)

I love the Beatles.

Lex Fridman (47:23.320)

And the song that always comes to my mind

Bishop Robert Barron (47:25.520)

when I think of that image is John Lennon,

Lex Fridman (47:27.800)

the end of his life.

Lex Fridman (47:29.680)

So a guy that, I mean, rode the wheel of fortune like crazy.

Lex Fridman (47:32.920)

You know, he was at the top of the world in every way.

Lex Fridman (47:36.480)

And then Beatles break up and he kind of loses it.

Lex Fridman (47:39.060)

And then he's at the lost weekend in the 70s

Bishop Robert Barron (47:41.360)

at the very bottom.

Lex Fridman (47:42.600)

When he died, he was just kind of coming back up again.

Lex Fridman (47:45.300)

But the song I always think of is watching the wheels,

Lex Fridman (47:48.280)

right?

Bishop Robert Barron (47:49.120)

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.

Lex Fridman (47:50.280)

I really love to watch them roll

Bishop Robert Barron (47:51.800)

because I'm no longer riding on the merry go round.

Lex Fridman (47:54.420)

That's right out of the medieval mystics,

Bishop Robert Barron (47:56.020)

that he's not riding on the wheel.

Lex Fridman (47:59.280)

He's just watching it go round and round.

Bishop Robert Barron (48:01.360)

That's the point of, the Greeks called it apotheia,

Lex Fridman (48:04.560)

and the Latins called it indifference, you know?

Bishop Robert Barron (48:08.960)

Not like I'm blasé, it just means I'm detached

Lex Fridman (48:12.640)

from success, failure, less success, more success.

Bishop Robert Barron (48:16.880)

I'm detached from that.

Lex Fridman (48:18.160)

I'm sitting here watching the wheel go round and round

Bishop Robert Barron (48:20.660)

because I'm not riding on it anymore.

Lex Fridman (48:22.600)

The mystics have always made that transition.

Bishop Robert Barron (48:25.640)

Let me ask you a difficult question

Lex Fridman (48:27.840)

about the darker side of human nature,

Bishop Robert Barron (48:29.960)

of human power, of institutions.

Lex Fridman (48:34.440)

What's your view on the long history

Lex Fridman (48:36.120)

and widespread reports of sexual abuse of children

Lex Fridman (48:39.680)

by a Catholic priest?

Lex Fridman (48:40.840)

So this is a difficult topic,

Lex Fridman (48:43.000)

but maybe an important one to shine a light on.

Bishop Robert Barron (48:45.480)

Yeah, it's awful, you know, and it's been a problem.

Lex Fridman (48:48.440)

Go back to Peter Damian back in the 11th century

Bishop Robert Barron (48:51.200)

was talking about it.

Lex Fridman (48:52.320)

So it's been a problem, and whenever really sinful

Bishop Robert Barron (48:54.980)

human beings have been in close proximity to children,

Lex Fridman (48:57.440)

we find this issue.

Lex Fridman (48:59.360)

Has it been around the church?

Lex Fridman (49:00.520)

Yes.

Bishop Robert Barron (49:03.320)

Has it surfaced in a kind of sickening way

Lex Fridman (49:06.000)

in the last 30 years?

Bishop Robert Barron (49:07.000)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (49:07.900)

So I'm glad the church has made important strides,

Lex Fridman (49:12.560)

and it has.

Lex Fridman (49:13.880)

Back in 2002, there was a thing called the Dallas Accords

Bishop Robert Barron (49:16.840)

where the bishops of America

Lex Fridman (49:18.400)

put a lot of these protocols in place

Bishop Robert Barron (49:20.400)

that really have been effective

Lex Fridman (49:22.640)

at ameliorating this problem.

Bishop Robert Barron (49:24.800)

The numbers spiked in the 70s and 80s,

Lex Fridman (49:27.360)

and that's been demonstrated over and over again.

Lex Fridman (49:29.360)

And then they fell dramatically after that.

Lex Fridman (49:31.440)

So that's not to excuse anything,

Lex Fridman (49:33.760)

but it's to say I think progress has been made with it.

Lex Fridman (49:36.360)

What's the impulse to secrecy?

Bishop Robert Barron (49:38.920)

Yeah, well, to protect institutions.

Lex Fridman (49:40.960)

That's always, that's a sinful instinct.

Bishop Robert Barron (49:43.520)

I'm not all together.

Lex Fridman (49:44.360)

I mean, sure, an institution is worth protecting,

Lex Fridman (49:46.280)

but if it reaches the point where you're indifferent

Lex Fridman (49:48.080)

to people's wellbeing, then you're in trouble.

Lex Fridman (49:52.240)

So institutions role should be transparent and honest

Lex Fridman (49:57.400)

with the sins of its members and of itself.

Bishop Robert Barron (50:01.320)

Sure, yeah.

Lex Fridman (50:02.320)

So maybe you can speak to the fact as a priest, a bishop,

Bishop Robert Barron (50:09.840)

as part of Catholicism, you're not allowed to marry,

Lex Fridman (50:15.360)

not allowed to have sex, you're sworn to celibacy.

Lex Fridman (50:22.360)

What is behind that idea?

Lex Fridman (50:25.080)

What is the sort of, we've talked about some broad stroke

Lex Fridman (50:28.080)

ideas of love, what's behind the idea of celibacy?

Lex Fridman (50:33.520)

And that's a good way to get at it.

Bishop Robert Barron (50:34.520)

It's a path of love.

Lex Fridman (50:35.760)

So the church is always in favor of inculcating love.

Bishop Robert Barron (50:39.320)

Marriage is a path of love, but so is celibacy.

Lex Fridman (50:43.300)

Saint Paul talks about someone who is preoccupied

Bishop Robert Barron (50:46.520)

with the things of this world and family

Lex Fridman (50:48.640)

and those who are free from that

Bishop Robert Barron (50:50.720)

are freer for doing the work of God.

Lex Fridman (50:53.440)

So that's kind of a pragmatic justification for celibacy.

Lex Fridman (50:56.320)

And we still, I think, take that seriously.

Lex Fridman (50:59.120)

I look at my own life.

Bishop Robert Barron (50:59.960)

I mean, celibacy has enabled me to do all kinds of things

Lex Fridman (51:03.040)

and go places and minister in a way that I could not

Bishop Robert Barron (51:07.940)

if I had been married.

Lex Fridman (51:09.360)

So I get it, I get the pragmatic side.

Lex Fridman (51:11.260)

But I'm more interested in the sort of mystical side of it.

Lex Fridman (51:17.320)

Remember Jesus was challenged about the person

Bishop Robert Barron (51:18.960)

who had a whole series of husbands and then they all died.

Lex Fridman (51:22.520)

And so in heaven, which husband will the wife have?

Lex Fridman (51:26.760)

And his answer is, in heaven, people don't marry

Lex Fridman (51:30.440)

and they're not given in marriage.

Bishop Robert Barron (51:31.520)

There's a higher way of love.

Lex Fridman (51:34.360)

It's a more radical way of love.

Bishop Robert Barron (51:35.780)

It's not tied to a particular,

Lex Fridman (51:37.560)

but I think through God is tied to everybody.

Bishop Robert Barron (51:40.880)

The celibate, and this has been

Lex Fridman (51:42.400)

to the beginning of the church, not as a law,

Lex Fridman (51:45.080)

but there were celibates

Lex Fridman (51:46.600)

from the very beginning of the church,

Bishop Robert Barron (51:48.080)

including Jesus, of course, and Paul.

Lex Fridman (51:50.480)

They sense something, that that way of living

Bishop Robert Barron (51:55.760)

mystically anticipates the way we'll love in heaven.

Lex Fridman (51:58.780)

It's a sign even now within this world

Bishop Robert Barron (52:02.560)

of how we will all love in heaven.

Lex Fridman (52:04.800)

So in that way, it's a bit like pacifists.

Bishop Robert Barron (52:10.120)

I'm glad there are pacifists in the church.

Lex Fridman (52:12.400)

And I've known some very powerful witnesses to pacifism.

Bishop Robert Barron (52:17.400)

I'm glad they're pacifists because they witness even now

Lex Fridman (52:22.420)

to how we will be in heaven when every tear is wiped away

Lex Fridman (52:25.340)

and we beat our swords into plowshares

Lex Fridman (52:26.940)

and heaven's a place of radical peace,

Bishop Robert Barron (52:29.980)

that some people even now live it.

Lex Fridman (52:32.060)

At the same time, I'm glad not everyone's a pacifist

Bishop Robert Barron (52:35.100)

because I would hold with the church to just war theory

Lex Fridman (52:38.260)

that sometimes all we can do in this finite world

Bishop Robert Barron (52:42.140)

is to fight manifest wickedness.

Lex Fridman (52:45.580)

So.

Lex Fridman (52:46.580)

And just in the same way there's just sex?

Lex Fridman (52:49.660)

Well, no, right, I'm glad there are celibates,

Lex Fridman (52:51.740)

but I'm glad not everyone's a celibate.

Lex Fridman (52:53.620)

I wouldn't want that.

Bishop Robert Barron (52:54.440)

I mean, because married love is a marvelous expression

Lex Fridman (52:58.860)

of the divine love.

Lex Fridman (52:59.760)

So that's why it's good there are some.

Lex Fridman (53:01.980)

And it's always been a small number.

Bishop Robert Barron (53:03.740)

The actual experience of it, would you,

Lex Fridman (53:07.540)

the spiritual nature of it, is it similar to fasting?

Lex Fridman (53:10.780)

So I've been enjoying fasting recently, so not eating.

Lex Fridman (53:15.000)

Yeah.

Bishop Robert Barron (53:16.120)

For several days, that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (53:18.860)

And that somehow brings you even deeper.

Bishop Robert Barron (53:21.780)

I'm in general in love with everything,

Lex Fridman (53:24.060)

with nature and everything.

Bishop Robert Barron (53:25.100)

I see the beauty in the world.

Lex Fridman (53:26.700)

But there's a greater intensity to that

Bishop Robert Barron (53:29.660)

when you're fasting, for example.

Lex Fridman (53:31.640)

Yeah, I might use the language of sublimation

Bishop Robert Barron (53:34.240)

or redirection of energy and all that.

Lex Fridman (53:37.100)

I think that's true.

Bishop Robert Barron (53:38.700)

There's a certain sublimation of energies into prayer,

Lex Fridman (53:43.700)

into mysticism, into ministry, a redirection of energies.

Lex Fridman (53:50.540)

So it's meant to be life enhancing.

Lex Fridman (53:52.740)

The same way fasting is.

Bishop Robert Barron (53:53.860)

It's meant ultimately to be life enhancing

Lex Fridman (53:55.500)

and make you healthier and happier.

Lex Fridman (53:57.340)

So celibacy is a path of love.

Lex Fridman (54:00.060)

And I think it does involve a certain redirection

Bishop Robert Barron (54:01.940)

of energies, I'd say that.

Lex Fridman (54:03.460)

Don't you think, do you think it's a heavy burden

Lex Fridman (54:08.900)

for some humans to bear?

Lex Fridman (54:11.100)

Sure.

Lex Fridman (54:11.940)

For some priests to bear?

Lex Fridman (54:12.760)

Sure.

Bishop Robert Barron (54:13.600)

I'm just saying, given the sexual abuse scandal,

Lex Fridman (54:19.900)

is that the thing that breaks humans?

Bishop Robert Barron (54:22.260)

No, I wouldn't tie that to celibacy.

Lex Fridman (54:24.260)

And that's been demonstrated over and over again.

Bishop Robert Barron (54:27.380)

There's a priest named Andrew Greeley

Lex Fridman (54:28.740)

who was a priest from my home diocese of Chicago.

Lex Fridman (54:30.820)

And Andy did a lot of research,

Lex Fridman (54:32.980)

he was a sociologist of religion,

Bishop Robert Barron (54:34.220)

did a lot of research into that very question.

Lex Fridman (54:36.120)

And there really is not a correlation

Bishop Robert Barron (54:37.780)

between celibacy per se and the sexual abuse

Lex Fridman (54:40.940)

of children or of anybody.

Lex Fridman (54:42.760)

So I wouldn't make that correlation.

Lex Fridman (54:44.460)

So bad people, sinful people are going to do

Lex Fridman (54:47.320)

what they're going to do.

Lex Fridman (54:48.540)

I think people who have a tendency toward

Bishop Robert Barron (54:52.860)

abusing children sexually are drawn to situations

Lex Fridman (54:55.820)

where they get ready access to kids

Lex Fridman (54:58.540)

and they get institutional cover.

Lex Fridman (55:00.740)

So that's the only thing that can go through the list

Bishop Robert Barron (55:03.220)

from sports and Boy Scouts, et cetera.

Lex Fridman (55:06.020)

And that's been proven again and again.

Lex Fridman (55:08.000)

So I would tie it more to that.

Lex Fridman (55:09.620)

I wouldn't tie it to celibacy.

Lex Fridman (55:11.140)

So the challenge of course is all kinds of,

Lex Fridman (55:13.420)

you said institutional cover,

Bishop Robert Barron (55:15.300)

there's all kinds of institutions that cover

Lex Fridman (55:17.820)

for people that do evil onto the world,

Bishop Robert Barron (55:22.740)

that do sinful things onto the world.

Lex Fridman (55:25.540)

But there's something about the church

Bishop Robert Barron (55:27.180)

which is, as an organism, is supposed to be an embodiment

Lex Fridman (55:32.860)

of good in this world, of love in this world.

Lex Fridman (55:35.800)

And it breaks people's hearts to see this kind of,

Lex Fridman (55:39.300)

even a small amount, this kind of thing happen

Bishop Robert Barron (55:42.940)

within the church.

Lex Fridman (55:43.780)

It wakes you up to the cruelty, the absurdity

Bishop Robert Barron (55:46.940)

of the world sometimes.

Lex Fridman (55:48.340)

Like it's back to the question of why do bad things

Lex Fridman (55:54.620)

happen to good people?

Lex Fridman (55:56.740)

Why does God allow this kind of thing to happen?

Lex Fridman (56:00.060)

And sort of maybe an unanswerable question.

Lex Fridman (56:02.540)

Do you have an answer to that question?

Bishop Robert Barron (56:04.220)

I can gesture toward it using rather abstract language,

Lex Fridman (56:08.000)

which is true enough,

Bishop Robert Barron (56:10.140)

it's completely emotionally unsatisfying,

Lex Fridman (56:12.860)

but it's naming it truthfully enough.

Lex Fridman (56:15.420)

And it goes back to Augustine,

Lex Fridman (56:16.920)

which is God permits evil to bring about a greater good.

Bishop Robert Barron (56:24.060)

Now again, I know how unsatisfying

Lex Fridman (56:25.860)

that sort of spare, austere language can sound,

Lex Fridman (56:29.140)

but it gets us off the horns of a dilemma.

Lex Fridman (56:32.340)

Aquinas, when he lays out a question,

Bishop Robert Barron (56:34.860)

he always has the objections first.

Lex Fridman (56:36.980)

So is there a God?

Bishop Robert Barron (56:38.380)

Well, objection one, objection two, objection three.

Lex Fridman (56:40.860)

And he's really, you talk about steel manning

Lex Fridman (56:43.100)

and argument, Aquinas is great at that.

Lex Fridman (56:46.300)

One of the really steel manned arguments,

Lex Fridman (56:49.340)

is that the right grammatical form?

Lex Fridman (56:51.460)

What's the past participle of the steel man?

Lex Fridman (56:55.020)

But one of the best arguments, he formulates it this way.

Lex Fridman (57:00.940)

If one of two contraries be infinite,

Bishop Robert Barron (57:03.400)

the other would be altogether destroyed.

Lex Fridman (57:05.400)

And as an example from his medieval physics,

Bishop Robert Barron (57:08.480)

he goes, if there were an infinite heat,

Lex Fridman (57:09.780)

there'd be no cold, right?

Lex Fridman (57:11.520)

But God is described as infinitely good.

Lex Fridman (57:15.820)

Therefore, if God exists, there should be no evil.

Lex Fridman (57:18.600)

But there is evil.

Lex Fridman (57:20.040)

Therefore, God does not exist.

Bishop Robert Barron (57:22.040)

That's a darn good argument.

Lex Fridman (57:23.440)

That's a really persuasive argument.

Lex Fridman (57:25.120)

And I think, I've done this for a long time

Lex Fridman (57:27.900)

in apologetics and in sort of higher philosophy,

Bishop Robert Barron (57:31.760)

that's the best argument against God.

Lex Fridman (57:33.600)

But here's something, before I press head with it,

Bishop Robert Barron (57:36.200)

something I find really interesting.

Lex Fridman (57:37.720)

I think the three best arguments against God

Bishop Robert Barron (57:40.600)

all come from within the religious tradition.

Lex Fridman (57:43.480)

Namely, the book of Job.

Lex Fridman (57:46.880)

So Job, he's great.

Lex Fridman (57:48.880)

I mean, he's a great guy.

Bishop Robert Barron (57:50.240)

He does everything right.

Lex Fridman (57:51.560)

He's God's great servant,

Lex Fridman (57:53.560)

and he's punished in every possible way.

Lex Fridman (57:57.360)

He has every possible suffering.

Bishop Robert Barron (57:59.720)

Aquinas's argument from the Summa,

Lex Fridman (58:01.840)

from the Summa, and then to your friend and mine, Dostoevsky.

Bishop Robert Barron (58:06.080)

I think in the Brothers Karamazov, Ivan's argument,

Lex Fridman (58:10.160)

when he's trying to wreck the faith of Alyosha.

Lex Fridman (58:13.160)

And these examples drawn, they think, from Dostoevsky,

Lex Fridman (58:18.200)

from the headlines of his own time,

Bishop Robert Barron (58:20.560)

of the most abject cruelty to children,

Lex Fridman (58:24.480)

like an innocent child being made to suffer.

Lex Fridman (58:27.920)

How in God's name could that happen

Lex Fridman (58:32.040)

if God exists and he's all good?

Lex Fridman (58:34.400)

So I get it, but see, the book of Job,

Lex Fridman (58:36.920)

Thomas Aquinas, Dostoevsky,

Bishop Robert Barron (58:38.360)

these are all profoundly believing people.

Lex Fridman (58:41.000)

It's like when I hear Stephen Fry,

Bishop Robert Barron (58:43.240)

the famously atheist writer,

Lex Fridman (58:46.400)

he will bring out this argument with great authority.

Bishop Robert Barron (58:50.200)

He does, of children with bone cancer

Lex Fridman (58:53.480)

and worms that go into the eyes of children

Lex Fridman (58:55.680)

and blind them before they kill them.

Lex Fridman (58:57.240)

And, but he's been preceded by the author of Job,

Bishop Robert Barron (59:01.720)

Thomas Aquinas and Dostoevsky, who stood right,

Lex Fridman (59:05.960)

think of Job, in the whirlwind.

Lex Fridman (59:08.880)

He stands there in the whirlwind, you know?

Lex Fridman (59:12.080)

So you can't blame the Christian tradition

Bishop Robert Barron (59:15.360)

for not dealing with this problem,

Lex Fridman (59:17.440)

for brushing it under the carpet.

Bishop Robert Barron (59:20.200)

I mean, it has stood in the whirlwind of this problem.

Lex Fridman (59:23.520)

It's still a difficult problem to deal with,

Bishop Robert Barron (59:25.560)

that there's all this cruelty of the world.

Lex Fridman (59:29.760)

There's a lot of example through history,

Bishop Robert Barron (59:31.920)

just in my own family history with the Soviet Union,

Lex Fridman (59:36.800)

with Stalin, the atrocities that Stalin has brought onto

Bishop Robert Barron (59:45.480)

the people of the Soviet Union

Lex Fridman (59:47.000)

throughout the 20th century is nearly immeasurable.

Lex Fridman (59:51.040)

And yet, when you look at the entirety of human history,

Lex Fridman (59:57.120)

you will see progress, not just the Soviet Union,

Lex Fridman (59:59.840)

but the entirety of the civilization