What Makes Life Meaningful?
Summary
TLDRIn this episode of the Word on Fire Show, host Brandon Vaught discusses the profound topic of meaning with Bishop Robert Barron. They explore the concept of 'Summum Bonum' or the supreme good, emphasizing the importance of aligning one's life with objective values. The conversation delves into the contemporary crisis of meaning, suggesting that true happiness and fulfillment lie in recognizing and pursuing these higher values rather than seeking them within oneself. The discussion also touches on the role of family as a fundamental source of meaning and the idea that even the most evil actions are motivated by a perceived good, reflecting on the nature of the human will and its inherent orientation towards the good.
Takeaways
- 📚 The Word on Fire Show with Brandon Vaught discusses life's meaning with Bishop Robert Barron, emphasizing the pursuit of the 'summum bonum' or supreme good beyond material values.
- 🎓 Bishop Barron highlights the importance of education in recognizing and pursuing objective values, such as beauty, truth, and goodness, which contribute to a meaningful life.
- 🎙️ The 'Four Horsemen of Meaning' discussion on Jordan Peterson's podcast involved deep dialogue on meaning, consciousness, and the symbolic tradition, attracting significant viewership despite its length.
- 👨🏫 Bishop Barron's definition of meaning is being in a purposive relationship to a value, suggesting that a religiously meaningful life is one that is directed towards the highest good, which he identifies as God.
- 🌐 The conversation touches on the current 'meaning crisis', suggesting that the lack of connection to a transcendent good is a source of widespread depression, anxiety, and a sense of aimlessness.
- 👨👧👦 The bishop, as a father, critiques children's movies that often depict meaning as something found within oneself, arguing instead that true meaning is discovered through objective values and relationships.
- 📊 Lifeway Research and Pew Research Center polls indicate that a majority of people believe in an ultimate purpose for life and that family is a top source of meaning, reflecting a yearning for connection to something greater.
- 🤔 Bishop Barron challenges the notion that people commit evil for the sake of evil, arguing from a Thomistic perspective that all acts of the will are seeking what appears to be good, even if misguided.
- 💡 The bishop offers advice for those struggling to find meaning, suggesting acts of love and appreciation for the beauty in the world as ways to break out of self-preoccupation and connect with objective reality.
- 🌟 The discussion underscores the idea that true happiness and meaning come from aligning oneself with objective values and the supreme good, rather than from subjective desires or self-invention.
- 📚 The Word on Fire Institute offers resources like the 'Evangelization and Culture Journal' to explore topics like freedom, providing a platform for intellectual and spiritual growth.
Q & A
What is the main topic of discussion in the 'Word on Fire' show with Bishop Robert Barron?
-The main topic of discussion is the meaning of life and how to find it, with a focus on the concept of 'sumo bonum' or the supreme value beyond the objective goods found in the world.
What is the 'Evangelization and Culture Journal'?
-The 'Evangelization and Culture Journal' is a quarterly publication for members of the Word on Fire Institute, which includes articles, interviews, and other content on various topics related to faith and culture.
Outlines
📚 Introduction to the Meaning of Life Discussion
The transcript begins with an introduction to the 'Word on Fire' show, hosted by Brandon Vaught, who is joined by Bishop Robert Barron. They aim to discuss the fundamental question of the meaning of life. Bishop Barron is introduced as a guest who has recently participated in a thought-provoking discussion on Jordan Peterson's podcast, titled 'The Four Horsemen of Meaning,' which has garnered significant attention. The show also promotes their quarterly journal, 'Evangelization and Culture,' and encourages viewers to become members of the Word on Fire Institute for access to the journal and other benefits.
🎵 The Pursuit of Supreme Value and the Crisis of Meaning
In this paragraph, Bishop Barron delves into the concept of meaning, drawing from his participation in the podcast with Jordan Peterson and others. He emphasizes that while people often find meaning in objective goods, the ultimate goal is to guide them towards the 'sumo bonum' or supreme value. He discusses the idea that a meaningful life involves a purposive relationship with values and the supreme good, which he identifies as God. The Bishop also touches on the current 'meaning crisis' characterized by high suicide rates and addiction, attributing this to a departure from the belief in a transcendent good and the mistaken belief that individuals can generate their own values.
🌟 Discovering Meaning Through External Values
Bishop Barron continues the conversation by discussing the objective nature of values and how they exist independently of individuals. He argues against the idea that meaning comes from within, suggesting instead that true happiness and meaning are found by aligning oneself with these objective values. He uses examples from art, morality, and intellect to illustrate how values can impact and transform individuals. The Bishop also addresses the misconception that meaning is a personal creation, stressing that it is, in fact, an external discovery that leads to a fulfilling life.
🔍 The Role of Family and Ultimate Purpose in Life
The discussion shifts to recent polls and surveys that explore people's perceptions of meaning in life. The Lifeway Research Group found that a majority of Americans believe in an ultimate purpose for their lives, despite the decline in religious beliefs. The Pew Research Center's global poll revealed that family is the top source of meaning across all countries. Bishop Barron reflects on these findings, suggesting that while people recognize the importance of family and other values, the ultimate purpose may be tied to a higher, transcendent good.
🤔 Addressing the Struggle for Meaning and the Role of Love
In the closing part of the transcript, Bishop Barron offers advice to those struggling to find meaning in life. He suggests performing acts of love for others as a way to break out of self-preoccupation and connect with a higher value. He also recommends finding and appreciating beauty in the world as a means to discover meaning. The Bishop emphasizes the importance of looking beyond oneself and engaging with the world to find genuine purpose and happiness.
💬 The Debate on the Nature of Evil and the Human Will
The final paragraph addresses a listener's question regarding a previous discussion between Bishop Barron and Jordan Peterson about the nature of evil. Bishop Barron explains his perspective, rooted in the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, that all acts of the will are directed towards what appears to be good, even if the objective outcome is evil. He argues that the will is inherently structured to seek the good, and even in the most morally corrupt actions, there is a trace of the divine in the will's very nature to pursue the good, offering a glimmer of hope even in the darkest of situations.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Sumo Bonum
💡Meaning of Life
Highlights
The Word on Fire Show discusses the meaning of life with Bishop Robert Barron, emphasizing the pursuit of the 'summum bonum' or supreme good.
Bishop Barron's definition of meaning: being in a purposive relationship to a value, especially the supreme value in a religiously meaningful life.
The new issue of the Evangelization and Culture Journal focuses on the topic of freedom, featuring contributions from various authors.
The 'Four Horsemen of Meaning' discussion on Jordan Peterson's podcast explores the concept of meaning with four prominent thinkers.
Bishop Barron's view that meaning is found in objective values that exist in the world, rather than being subjectively created.
The crisis of meaning in modern society, linked to high rates of suicide, depression, and addiction.
The importance of recognizing objective moral values and their impact on our lives, as opposed to generating values internally.
The role of education in helping individuals discern and pursue higher expressions of value.
The concept that a meaningful life involves aligning oneself with the highest good, which is identified as God in religious terms.
LifeWay Research poll reveals that 81% of Americans believe in an ultimate purpose and plan for every person's life.
Pew Research Center's global survey shows family as the top source of meaning across all countries.
Bishop Barron's advice for those struggling to find meaning: perform an act of love for the good of another.
The suggestion to find and appreciate objective beauty or goodness in the world as a means to discover meaning.
The disagreement between Bishop Barron and Jordan Peterson on whether evil can be committed for its own sake.
Bishop Barron's perspective on the will always seeking the good, even in the actions of those who commit evil.
The hopeful message that even in the most morally desperate situations, there is a trace of divinity in the human will.
Transcripts
people find real values objective goods
in the world
but our job is now to lead them to the
sumo bonum that's beyond even these
great values they discover
welcome back to the word on fire show i
am brandon vaught the senior publishing
director at word on fire what is the
meaning of it all what's the meaning of
life how do we find it that's what we're
going to be discussing today with bishop
robert baron who joins us in studio
bishop good to see you hey brandon
always good to be with you
we got a new issue of the evangelization
and culture journal which just came out
this of course is our quarterly journal
for members of the word on fire
institute if you're not yet a member
now's a good time to sign up you can get
a free copy of this journal but the new
edition is on the topic of freedom i
know you've had a chance to check it out
bishop maybe say a few words about it
yeah it's fantastic you know chapeau to
um todd warner our great editor who does
a marvelous job in the design team uh
it's just a beautiful
magazine to hold in your hands and to
look at and it's filled with good stuff
um i just finished the interview with
bobby mixo who's been with us for a long
time and uh robert george himself has a
good article there about um
is he's the one conflating two things
with the newman and john stewart mill i
think that was robert george's article
uh elizabeth scalia's got a piece in
there i've got an interview about
my book on the creed so all kinds of
great stuff in that
pick up your copy at
wordonfire.institute when you sign up
you'll get a copy of that journal a free
book lots of other stuff including some
great courses inside of our institute
okay let us turn to the topic of meaning
i want to get right into this because
this is a long and loaded topic here
maybe we could begin with a recent
discussion you had with three other
gentlemen on jordan peterson's podcast
so the group included jordan peterson
yourself jonathan pagio and john
verveiki
the title of this video which you can
find on youtube was the four horsemen of
meaning i want to come back to that in a
second the discussion lasted over two
hours it already has over 500 000 views
um maybe first tell us
how did this come about what are the
four horsemen of meaning what does that
allude to and what were your initial
impressions of the discussion
yeah i think it came out of the
conversation i had with jordan peterson
now almost a year ago so he and i did a
i think over two hour conversation and
we hit on some of those same topics and
then jonathan pajot who's the wonderful
icon writer and i like a
sculptor of icons and a guy that's very
wise in regards to the symbolic
tradition and then verveiki is a fellow
i didn't know him that well but he's a
psychology professor at the university
of toronto and looking into the question
of consciousness and how that relates to
meaning so i think it was peterson's you
know camp kind of reached out to me and
said would you be willing to sit down
with the three of them and talk about
this whole question and how it's um
you know intriguing a lot of younger
people today so i said yeah i'd love to
so i think i did i think i was down at
the cathedral in l.a and we hooked up
the cameras and lights and and i
broadcast from there and it as you say
went on for well over two hours
and it's something i kind of like now uh
you know i worried about the short
attention span of a lot of millennials
and youngers you know given
given the social media but uh now it
seems like a lot of people are get are
very interested in these long-form
podcasts think of you know joe rogan is
on for three hours with people and
peterson too typically goes two hours
and we were talking at a pretty high
level too it's not like just a real
user-friendly
mode of discourse but that's how it came
about and
the four horsemen thing of course goes
right back to the book of revelation but
that was picked up by the new atheists
right the four horsemen of
atheism they call themselves i guess the
hitchens dawkins harris and dennett
right so i think they're now playing on
that that we're
i guess the four horsemen riding in the
other direction you know the direction
of meaning
at the very beginning of the discussion
jordan
began by asking each one of the other
three guests how they would define
meaning and here was your definition you
said meaning is to be in a purposive
relationship to a value
and then you added to be to live a
religiously meaningful life is to be in
purpose of relationship to the sunum
bonum or the supreme value
say more about that what do you mean by
that definition of meaning i was trying
to make it as simple as possible um
and i was using dietrich von hildebrand
there whom i rely on a lot in these
matters that uh
these basic values appear and they
shouldn't be analyzed um
uh to dust what i mean is they they
appear
they're there in the world
best to say aesthetic values beautiful
things when you hear beethoven's seventh
symphony you'd say yeah that's
beautiful
uh moral values appear
so the the
the uh
act of maximilian kolbe at the end of
his life you know surrendering himself
to save this other man
yeah that's just good that that's
morally good intellectual values appear
you read plato's symposium and you say
yeah that's true he's speaking a great
truth there well these things appear and
a good education our friend c.s lewis i
think would agree with this is teaching
people how to recognize those values so
they they are intrigued by the right
things that their their wills and their
passions are engaged by the right things
so i'm saying here that um a meaningful
life
is in a purposive relationship to a
value you not only appreciate the value
but now you're ordering your life toward
it you're saying my life is about
appreciating uh
that value and maybe even trying to
imitate that value so that that i can
try to do something at least akin to
what plato did something akin to what
maximilian kolbe did uh something akin
to beethoven even i don't have the the
gifts of all these people i'm in a
purposive relationship to the value that
i've discerned
i think that's what makes your life
meaningful
and then the next step well what's the
supreme value so i just named a
handful of values right and all sorts of
moral values at different levels of
importance we say to a little kid like
no no don't don't take that you know
glass of water away from your sister
well you're inculcating you're you're
awakening them to a moral value
then there's maximum kobe that you know
a moral value at the highest possible
level
same with aesthetic values
teach a little kid like yeah look at you
can you know you can draw a bird by
doing this and oh yeah that's that's
beautiful and then there's you know
there's michelangelo
so
to be in a purpose of relationship to
the highest value the sumo bonum the
supreme good
that's now to be in a religiously
meaningful life
much of the purpose of education and
formation is to move people into this
realm of objective value but not just
into it but to move into it in a
hierarchically ordered way where you
lead people to higher and higher
expressions of value and then finally we
talked about jacob's ladder last time
what goes to the very highest truth and
goodness and beauty
we name that god right and a religiously
meaningful life is one that is
purposively related to that good
there's lots of talk today about the
meaning crisis that we're suffering a
crisis of meaning and people point to
all sorts of indicators such as record
high suicide rates and opioid opioid
addictions and depression rates
addictions
do you sense that as well do you think
we're we're suffering a unique crisis of
meaning today
yeah and i'd be i think in line here
with charles taylor and other uh
philosophers
who would say look up until the
really let's say maybe late 19th early
20th century most people in most
civilizations in human history would say
you can't really be happy
outside of a relationship with a
transcendent good
so let's name it as broadly as we can
some transcendent good
without a relationship to god i can't
really be happy i can't really be
satisfied it's only in relatively recent
years in the west
that people have begun to say
no i can be
happy satisfied without that
relationship
bottom line is you can't and that's
where a lot of the
meaninglessness depression anxiety
uh sense of drift is coming from
the other thing i'd say brandon is
if the realm of value is objective
it's outside of us
it impresses itself upon us
so
go back to beethoven seventh symphony is
it's not because it pleases me that's
such a
crude superficial way of talking about
it
it
it changes me is better it
it controls me
it takes possession of me
maximilian kolbe's act is not one that i
say oh yeah that's you know i that that
pleases me to see that oh come on
probably it doesn't please me by the way
it frightens me if anything
but
it's massively valuable
and i recognize it as such
if you say as many people do today
that oh no value all comes from inside
of me as a matter of my own choice is i
generate value
that's never going to make you happy on
the contrary
if you say oh yeah it's it's whatever
you know goes along with my private
desires my superficial
tastes well i'm not going to be happy
i'm happy when the good
knocks me down and rearranges me and
chooses me and and calls me and summons
me to become an evangelist for it say
i'm using baltzar's language here you
know when you've you see a great play or
a great film or you hear a marvelous
symphony or you meet a great saintly
person and you say
wow
i never thought that was possible that's
he or it has has rearranged my thinking
and now i want the whole world to know
about this
i didn't know this was possible so i
invented it give me a break you didn't
think it was impossible but it it
grabbed you it rearranged you and then
sent you on mission see now we're
talking now we're talking all the great
heroes of the bible by the way they're
not
self inventors you know
uh boy i you know i'm gonna generate my
own meaning i mean the bible is utterly
uninterested in that
they're interested in those people who
are knocked to the ground
and rearranged and heard they heard
a voice a higher voice
you know don't don't literalize that as
they're hearing you know a physical
voice come out of the cloud it's a
symbol for this attunement to
the supreme value that is now calling
out to me right see now we're talking
now we're into the realm
of real value and that's going to make
us happy
you know as a father of seven young kids
and an eighth on the way i think i told
you that that uh we were pregnant with
our eighth child did you watch a lot of
i lose track well congratulations i
don't think i knew that thank you no
thank you we were just joking on that
note the other day oh my goodness
you know word on fire's got um almost 60
employees and i think we have six or
seven word on fire babies gestating
i'm not sure that there's ever going to
be a year where we don't have a ward on
fire baby in the next several decades
god willing you know i was gonna say
that would have been a perfect moment
for a spit take you know in the old
vaudeville because i was drinking and
the eight's on the way
you know
[Laughter]
i should have done it
with that was yeah as a father of all
these kids you know we watch a ton of
kids movies and
i say one of the things that really bugs
me you ask my wife kathleen is how so
many of these movies follow the same
pattern of
meaning crisis
but then look within to discover true
meaning and it's not it's not even
self-invention the way you're describing
these characters recognize
meaning is something i discover not
something i create but the place to
discover it is within follow your
feelings listen to your heart look in
discover who you are find yourself
and i think like like with you it leads
to a dead end it's the exact opposite
direction you should be going that
meaning as you're saying is found
outward either among us or beyond us
there's there's some objective values we
need to latch on to and align our lives
to to find objective meaning
right i mean look at
we're such unreliable guides you know i
i'm such a sinner and i'm i'm so mixed
up about so many things and so lost that
i'm going to look inside me and my my
mind and my little desires to find
meaning i mean give me a break i i'd be
a wreck
when paul says you're right feed as
auditor
faith comes from hearing
it doesn't come from it doesn't welling
up from inside of me it comes from
hearing i've heard a word right
uh abram heard the voice of god and and
followed
um
the objectivity of the good the the
great iris murdoch the irish philosopher
is so good on that she was a platonist
and uh
brought plato in some ways up to date
for the 20th century but one of her
essays she talks about when someone's
depressed and they're and they're just
they're full of anxiety and they're
worried
she said open the window
and her her example is i think it's a
kestrel it's a type of bird it's a like
a type of falcon i think i didn't even
recognize but she said open the window
and you see the kestrel you see the bird
this gorgeous beautiful bird and you
start looking at it and she said
within like a minute
all of your anxieties fall away
and all of your preoccupation falls away
and your depression falls away and she
said before you know it you're all
kestrel and her point was
you're
so absorbed in the objective goodness of
this thing
it's begun to rearrange you and remake
you
um
that's the way it is with the good in
the platonic tradition and a lot of our
great people are platonus in that sense
the recognition i call them values
following von hildebrand the same idea
these goods these basic goods
and they will lead you to god if you let
them
but if we keep preoccupying ourselves
with ourselves we're not going to get
anywhere we're going to get stuck
let's shift now to a couple of polls a
couple of surveys dealing with the
question of meaning that have recently
come out kind of very timely in light of
your jordan peterson discussion the
first one came from the lifeway research
group and
a lot of the stuff they discovered was
stuff we would probably expect that
people think meaning in god and
relationships and family and things like
that but here's one interesting
thing i found in the poll
lifeway discovered that four out of
every five americans 81
believe that quote there is an ultimate
purpose and plan for every person's life
81 of people believe there's an ultimate
purpose and plan for every person's life
now to me that was surprising in light
of the statistics we've covered in the
past about how much religion is
dwindling in the culture i find it
interesting that so many people believe
an ultimate plan
but not a planner or an arranger an
agent of of this plan how do you but you
can't have it both ways right you can't
have it because if you say well i'm
making up my own plan well that's one
thing but they're not talking about that
they're saying there's something as it
were out there there's something already
there that's that's the purpose of my
life
it's like louis's thing right about uh
everyone finds this same letter in their
mailbox namely like the doll right the
sense of moral
rectitude and moral responsibility no
matter what the culture is he said is it
odd that every single person in the
world finds the same letter in their
mailbox is it likely that the wind just
happened to blow
the same letter into every single
mailbox in the world well no it's
completely impossible
and so the this moral law within us
where's that come from
it's like the intelligibility of nature
where's that come from that the the
world is is legible so that scientists
can do their work why are we morally
legible that we can
we can or the world is morally legible
and we can adjust ourselves to it
um
we're not
coming up with the plan we discover it
out there so to speak
well that's true then there has to be
something like a planner or someone that
provides the purpose
now go back to aquinas so much of his
anthropology is predicated upon this
idea
of final causality
purpose
purpose how come i do what i do so this
morning i woke up and i got out of bed
and i brushed my teeth and i said my
prayers and i put my uh suit on and i
came in here so i was operating in a
purposive way right i'm doing all kinds
of things to attain certain goods and
values
but why am i ultimately doing all of it
so i get out of bed brush my teeth get
dressed come in here do this do that
why ultimately am i doing it
there's got to be some
finely supreme and unsurpassable good
that i'm at least in coetly seeking so
now look i'm a bishop of the church so
i'm kind of aware
god is the supreme good but i mean
someone who's a total non-believer
nevertheless nevertheless there is some
first cause of the will
there has to be there's some supreme
good that you are at least implicitly
seeking
that's the good
that will give meaning to your life if
you fully surrender to its
purposes for you you know now that's a
biblical view of life and uh that people
still kind of acknowledge it at least
implicitly that's not bad that means
there's still something of the biblical
uh imagination at work
a second recent poll came from the pew
research center this one was completed
earlier this year they asked 19 000
adults about the question of meaning all
across the world
and what was uh
perhaps unsurprising is that in every
single country without variation
the top source of meaning was family
family why why do you think family is so
closely tied to meaning because it's a
it's a great good so do my little um i
call it the russian dial analysis you
know the little russian dolls that nest
in each other so i i say for now typical
person uh i woke up
i brushed my teeth i i got dressed i got
in the car i went to work well how come
well because i want to make money why do
you want money because i want to support
my family well why do you want to
support your family because my family is
a great good and their flourishing is
important to me see you've reached there
i got eight russian dolls right that
i've i've situated a very particular act
of the will like getting out of bed in
the morning and i've come by eight steps
to
a really basic fundamental value that my
family is their flourishing is a great
good terrific you found one you found
one of the most
basic
goods that there are
now
read the bible
is family the ultimate good
and the bible says it in many ways
doesn't it like abraham
you know your son isaac whom you love
i want you to sacrifice him to me
god being cruel no no that's the wrong
way to read it as we said many times
it's the bible's way of signaling
there's a higher value than even the
value of family or let's say someone
else is motivated because they love
their country
terrific you found a great value you're
a patriot loving your country is a good
thing because the country is a high
value
highest value
no no
because if god is calling you to
something that that goes against the
desire of your of your country you've
got to follow god right
so my point there is
those polls represent something very
real people find real values objective
goods in the world
but our job is now to lead them to the
sumo
that's beyond even these great values
they discover
let's close with this final question i
know we likely have listeners to this
show that are struggling with this in
their life right now they're they're
struggling to find meaning or purpose in
their life um or maybe it's the son or a
daughter of one of our listeners or a
friend a loved one who's drifting in
nihilism and lost without purpose
as a pastor now
what what do you say to someone in this
situation someone who comes to you and
says
i don't have any meaning and i don't
think my life is worth living
you know i do i get that question a lot
uh
my user response is to say something
like
perform today
the simplest act of love
will the good of of another
and i'll leave it up to the i don't know
the person's life well enough to know
what that would be but
will the good of another
because that's one of the most important
steps out of the self-preoccupation
that's making you so unhappy
and it's ordering you toward a value
you've identified someone as a great
value and now you want to serve that
person by an act of love
that's a marvelous way
to break out of the of the prison of the
self another one would be along those
iris murder clients is find
something beautiful
something good like that maybe it is
it's a bird you see out out the window
look at it
look at it just spend some time
study it analyze it
i think that line breathed like this as
a philosopher it was
jacques maritan so there's there's more
reality in a seed between my teeth
than in all of hegelian idealism
what he meant there was
a seed between my teeth
it's real it's real it's the simplest
stupidest thing but it by god it's real
and and it's good in to that degree
because being in good are convertible
terms it's good there's more reality in
a little
bug crawling on the ground look look at
it study it
it gets you out of yourself you know
so that's my advice is perform an act of
love
or look out the window or on the ground
or even between your teeth to find
something that's just real
and lose yourself in that
that's an important first step
well it's time now for our listener
question if you have a question that
you'd like to ask bishop barron visit
the website askbishopbarren.com
you can record your question there on
any device today we're hearing from jake
he lives in the philippines he's asking
about your original discussion with
jordan peterson not this four horsemen
of meaning one but a previous one where
the two of you were discussing evil and
good uh here's this
hi bishop question
i'm jig from the philippines i watched
an episode of jordan peterson's podcast
where you and him had a disagreement on
what motivated people to commit great
evils you said that even the most evil
action is ultimately motivated by the
desire for something good jordan
peterson disagreed and said
that there are people who commit evil
just for the sake of evil can you
explain further your argument can it be
reconciled with jordan peterson's view
thank you bishop
yeah good thank you for that um
i'm sure those who know little aquinas
will know that i was operating simply
out of a thomas aquinas perspective uh
the great aquinas says that
that that every act of the will
is seeking at least the apparent good
it's just the way the will is structured
right the the good is what's desirable
the will seeks the good that's its
nature
now
objectively speaking
can a wicked person be seeking a wicked
end yeah it happens all the time
and so that's why i don't deny for a
second that there really are wicked
people who are seeking very bad
objectively bad things
but
at least to them
it was apparently good or else they
wouldn't have willed it you can't will
something unless there's something at
least apparently good in it
adolf hitler was willing what appeared
good to him in under some aspect
a person who commits suicide
is willing
to him the apparent good of his
non-existence right
so in a way it's to me it's not really a
controversial idea it's just sort of a
commonsensical more logical observation
that the way the will is structured it's
always seeking at least something that
it thinks is good
but can it be mistaken of course
and can wicked people choose wicked
things yeah absolutely that's what makes
them wicked
but
here's the i think lovely side of that
idea is that even there
hitler the the worst people
is there something of god still there
yes because god created the will to seek
the good and even it's being done
perversely it's being done with with
deep you know confusion and inadequacy
still there's something of god in it
there's something of of that trace of
divinity in the very way the will is
structured so i guess there i'd say okay
i'd be willing to see
at least a glimmer of hope
even in the most you know desperate
moral situation
well thanks for that question jake and
thanks to all of you for listening to
this episode one more reminder to pick
up your copy of the newest issue of our
evangelization and culture journal
sponsored by the word on fire institute
this journal is on the topic of freedom
lots of great articles and interviews
artwork and a whole lot more you can get
it at word on fire dot institute when
you join the institute you get a free
copy of this journal along with all
future journals and access to all the
great courses inside the institute
library again the website's
wordonfire.institute
well thanks so much and we'll see you
next time on the word on fire show
thanks so much for watching if you
enjoyed this video i invite you to share
it and to subscribe to my youtube
channel
you
Посмотреть больше похожих видео
Understanding the Present Moment #2 (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Understanding the Holy Spirit
The Scary Part of Learning About Symbolism | Jonathan Pageau (Gospel Simplicity)
Perbaiki Shalatmu Allah Sempurnakan Hidupmu - Ustadz Adi Hidayat
How to Live a Meaningful Life
A REVOLUÇÃO de JESUS e SUA INFLUÊNCIA na GRÉCIA! - CLÓVIS DE BARROS e ILAN BRENMAN
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)