https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=667Nc7Ia4iY
You know, one of the conversations I saw you had with Jordan Peterson after, you know, some of the experiences he had, medical problems, that you had a conversation with him and he came to tears thinking about, again, this participatory, this logo stuff, which it seems like he has his finger on most of it, but when it comes to it literally incarnating, that it was an actual historical person, that God became a man and it’s not some pragmatic truth we live by, but it’s a reality. I remember you telling him that and it brought him to tears because it’s the only thing that makes all of what he’s talking about come back together because that’s what the incarnation is. It’s the recapitulation of everything back into the participation of God. Yeah. And that mean that’s the hardest thing. It’s like it’s the hardest sell for secular people because people are so ruined, like we’re so ruined, you know. And there’s a way, like the way that I tend to try to do that is I tend to go slowly and try to point, show people the story of Jesus because it’s, you know, we can say that, like Jesus, the incarnation is the summit of the world, right? It’s the place where heaven and earth meet. It’s the place where the divine logos, you know, empties himself into all these terms. They sound so weird, but it’s really there in the story, right? This story is a crazy story where everything collapses and everything is united and everything is, you know, and it’s an amazing thing. You just kind of, especially for secular people, you just kind of have to bring them in slowly because the story of the crucifixion will just shatter you. Once you start to see it, like for what’s actually going on in that story, it’s a crushing story. It’s like everything is there, like the whole cosmos is in that story. Right. I couldn’t agree more. Can we speak a little bit more than about the incarnation and why this is so essential for this logos theology and for what we were talking about theosis? Because we’re called to participate in God and by the grace of God and the engagement with his uncreated energies, if we as created entities, which are limited, can engage with these uncreated energies of logic and reason and love and mercy and compassion and truth and beauty and honor and glory, we can become more and more like God. This is the gift of God’s incarnation. This is the opportunity that we’re all called to. You know, and then the cross, again, we could get into the semiotics of it being this point in which this all this stuff fully comes back together. Could you speak a little bit to the importance of the incarnation in regards to all this logos theology? I mean, the incarnation is the key and it’s a key. It’s really is a key. It’s a key in terms of story. It’s a key in terms of understanding. Because one of the things, for example, like even if you take Jungian, you can Jungian ideas, right, there’s a sense in which we have this problem, which is that, you know, intelligence seems to be the seems to be the characteristic of humans. And so even in the old world, they would ask questions sometimes like, are the gods, do they exist? Are they a projection of us, a projection of our own psychic or our psychic thoughts and our own structures of mind? You know, and so there’s actually a legitimate concern about that and a legitimate question. But that gets solved in the incarnation because it’s in some ways you could say it. This is a crazy thing, but it’s totally orthodox, by the way, is to say that the man, Jesus Christ created the world. Yes. And like St. Maximus says crazy things, he says, you know, when Christ was on the cross, he was creating the world. And so it’s like, yeah, it’s like that that solves. People don’t realize just how many problems that solve, even in terms of metaphysics and in terms of understanding, you know, the nature of the world and how we don’t have to deny the fact that intelligent categories mirror through the human mind. It’s actually not a problem. It’s actually our role. It’s actually what we’re there for. That’s what God created us is to be that intermediary, that intermediary space between the invisible principles and the indefinite aspect of the world. And so but that culminates, right? So it’s like the whole structure is like the structure that points and points and points. And so just like in you, let’s say there’s that noetic aspect, you know, where it all comes together and you have that space, the eye of the heart where you can encounter God, all the cosmos also has that same structure. It’s like it points, it points, it points. Right. When the figure of Jesus Christ appears, it’s like, that’s it. That’s the point. That’s that point where it all comes together. And it’s objectively, it’s objectively real in the story. You can see why it’s real in the way that Jesus interacts with people, what he’s doing, all the different prophecies that he’s kind of bringing together towards the cross. But then it’s the surprise, man, the surprise of the cross. Like what, who could have expected that? And then what, but when it happens and you realize that this is it, like this is the only way that it can be real. And it’s what it has to do with what we talked about in terms of the logy. Like reality can only be fully real if it’s constantly emptying itself, if it’s constantly empty and emptying itself, both in some ways, like towards God, but then also even higher identities always have to kind of empty themselves to give themselves to the lower participation. Right. Because, you know, you can’t have the pure cup. You only have a mitigated version of that. And so the cup gives itself, right. It kind of gives itself towards its participation with its particular. Like, oh, that’s what it is. That’s what this whole sacrifice thing from the beginning has been like these these people kind of trying to figure out, like, why do we, you know, we’re sacrificing these animals, we’re sacrificing people like, what are we doing? You know, what is this thing we’re doing in the cross? This resolves it all. It’s like, yeah, that’s actually how the world works. Right. The cross, the cross ends that that process in a sort of profane way and brings it all back together in a single person, which recapitulates that as you and Jordan Peterson talked about the limit story. I mean, the story of Christ, which isn’t a story, it’s a reality, but it’s you couldn’t write something that is more to the limit of categories that you can’t. You just cannot. And like I would dare anybody to do it. You could only maybe do something similar in the wake of the story of Jesus. But think about it. Think just about what’s going on. Like, just think about the cross. Like, think about here’s Jesus. Innocent, crucified as a criminal on the cross with a sign above his head that says he’s the king, which is ironic, but is not ironic. Ultimately, it’s like this weird thing where it’s like it’s irony and it’s a double irony and like a triple irony. It’s as if the whole world is being like turned in this tumbler where, you know, it all just collapses. Right. King of the Jews. But the Jews then are killing him for claiming that he’s fulfilling the prophecies of the Old Testament. And so this whole thing and then being humiliated, he’s God incarnate, but then he’s naked in front of his mother. I mean, the whole thing is you literally could not write something that was more limited in every dimension. And I love what you’re talking about, the sort of dissension on high to the lowly places. And that’s what the logies doing. And that’s why Christ was concerned with the prostitutes, with the poor, with the sick, with the people, the lowest people of society, because and that’s why the last will be first. You know, the lowly will be elevated. This is the reality of God. This is, you know, I had Father Turbo on and he was talking about we did a whole stream on the theology of humility. And one of the biggest takeaways I had on that, he says, he said, why, why is the ocean the most powerful body of water? It’s because it’s the lowest body of water. Yeah, all other bodies of water flow back into the ocean. That’s what God is. God had to humble himself as the lowest so that everything can return back to him. And it’s like, wow, that makes so much sense. Yeah, it’s it’s no, it’s a. Yeah, the story of Jesus, just it’s just crazy. It’s a crazy story. You know, you can never get to the end of it every time I I go back every Pascha, I just especially during this. Some of the service, like especially the services of lamentation, those services, they did just crush you. Now, there’s like there’s something. What is it that sentence it says talks about Jonah kind of Jonah, but referring to Christ, it says Jonah, Jonah came out of the fish as if from the bridal chamber. And it’s like came out of the monster as it came out of the monster as if from a bridal chamber. So can you have images like that anywhere else? Like this crazy contraction of like of yeah, anyways. And it’s weird because then you see in scripture, it talks about the idea that, you know, the lamb that was sacrificed before the foundation of the world. And so the cross is actually revealing something like it’s not just an answer to sin, it’s revealing a very deep mystery, which is actually very origin of creation itself. Right. Timothy Petitza has a wonderful image in his book, The The Ethics of Beauty, where he kind of he you know, he’s kind of he’s speculating, obviously, but his speculation is quite powerful. He says one of the things he has this image where when Adam took the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. And he and he was able to see the tree of life. Right. So it’s like it worked. Right. It’s like if you take the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then then you have access to the tree of life. Then when he came to the tree of life, he saw the cross and he saw Christ on the cross and he couldn’t handle it. Right. It was it was way too much. It’s like that’s not what he thought he would see there. You know, and that’s one of the reasons why he freaked out and covered himself and ran away, basically, because it was just too much to deal with.