https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=y-UYHCUm3eA
Maybe I derived this criticism from Nietzsche, but people have asked me whether or not I believe in God, and I’ve answered in various ways. No, but I’m afraid he probably exists. That’s one answer. Yeah, no, but I’m terrified he might exist. That would be a truthful answer to some degree, or that I act as if God exists, which I think is I do my best to do that. But then there’s a real stumbling block there, because there’s no limit to what would happen if you acted like God existed. You know what I mean? Because I believe that acting that out fully. I mean, maybe it’s not reasonable to say to believers, you aren’t sufficiently transformed for me to believe that you believe in God, or that you believe the story that you’re telling me. You’re not a sufficient, the way you live isn’t a sufficient testament to the truth. And people would certainly say that, let’s say, about the Catholic Church, or at least the way that it’s been portrayed, is that with all the sexual corruption, for example, it’s like, really, really, you believe that the Son of God, that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and yet you act that way, and I’m supposed to buy your belief. And it seems to me that the Church is actually quite guilty on that account, because the attempts to clean up the mess have been rather half-hearted in my estimation. And so I don’t think people, people don’t manifest, Christians don’t manifest this, and I’m including myself, I suppose, in that description, perhaps, don’t manifest the transformation of attitude that would enable, that enables the outside observer to easily conclude that they believe. Yeah, now the way to deal with that, or the way to understand that is that they do, but they do in a hierarchy. There’s a hierarchy of manifestation of the transformation that God offers the world, and we kind of live in that hierarchy, and those above us hold us together, you would say. And so in the Church, there’s a testimony of the saints, there are stories, there are hundreds and hundreds of stories of people who live that out in their particular context to the limit of what it’s possible to live it. And even today, there are, there are saints, living saints, who, for example, in the Orthodox tradition, we have this idea of what they call it the gift of tears, or the joyful sorrow of people who live in prayer with weeping, constant weeping. And it’s this kind of strange mix of joy and sadness, which they, which kind of overwhelms them, and they live in that joy and sadness nonstop, and they pray, you know, without end. And so that exists, but then we, in this, that’s one of the reasons why, that’s kind of one of the reasons why, when I talk about this idea of attention, like it manifests itself in the Church as well, is that you often say, and I understand it, when you say something like, you know, I act as if God exists, or, you know, I’m afraid to say that God exists. And I think it’s because you think, or you tend to think that the moral weight, like of that is so strong, that you would, you would crumble under it, that you would just be crushed under it. And I believe that. And I think that that’s, I think that I understand that. But the first thing that, to act as if God exists, let’s say it this way, to act as if God exists, the first thing that it asks of you is not a moral action. The first thing that it asks, asks, asks of you is attention. That’s why to act as if God exists is, first of all, to worship. So I have another question for you. Yeah, go for it, go for it. This idea of theosis, I think it’s lack of, I’m tormented by the possibility that it’s lack of courage that stops people from from bringing into being that union with God. You think that possibility, that possibility sits there in front of all of us, and it was actually realized once in history. Well, I would say that at least in the tradition of the church, it was perfectly manifested in Christ, but there are other saints that have reached theosis. And that’s what we’re all called to, that we’re all called to become one with God to the extent that that’s possible. Well, then I guess we’re stuck with the old problem, which is if that’s the case, then why does the world seem so unredeemed? Yeah. Well, because we’re distracted, you know, with reason, where we tend to attend to the lower things, you know, we get distracted by, you know, our emotions, we get distracted by all these things around us that are trying to get our attention, and then we aim towards these smaller things. You know, we aim towards whatever it is, right? We aim towards making money, we aim towards getting this or having some prestige. And these, because the problem is that these things all give us a small sense of satisfaction. And so they are like little idols, I guess you could call them. And so we just aim towards these lower things, and that’s one of the reasons why we struggle to see this higher ideal, you know. And so that’s one of the reasons why I guess, what’s one of the reasons for church as well is that, you know, it kind of forces you, even if you’re distracted or whatever, to come together at least once a week or whatever, stand together and sing together. Yes, well, and to constant, I know I understand that. Yeah. You know, I remember cynicism that was sort of in the air, I suppose, when the Christianity of my youth started to decompose, when people started to not attend church in droves. The cynical justification in part was, well, those are one hour a week Christians, how hypocritical can you get to claim allegiance to this high ideal and then to go back and live your tawdry life? How could anyone participate in anything like that? And what we’ve replaced it with is never doing it, even for an hour a week, which is actually quite a lot of time compared to none. Yeah. So the replacement has not been an improvement by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah. And so and then we replace it because we need to come together and we need to commune and we need to celebrate. And so we end up doing it in these kind of secondary places like sports or politics and all these other places, you know, will replace that. But ultimately, like I said, one of the things that help us to trust, let’s say, or to find some respite is that we do it together, like we’re doing this together. And so when you see there’s some comfort in knowing that some people have dedicated their life to God and have lived that way, and it serves as a smaller example, but also as a comfort in those moments. Because usually in the stories of the saints, you’ll find times when they’re struggling, when they’re completely off the rails, when they’re struggling with thoughts, with passions, with desires. No, you see that in the Old Testament stories. I mean, Abraham is all of the all the patriarchs. I mean, they lived full lives complete with catastrophic failure and malevolence and murder and genocide and war and mean and yet were redeemed. And so I think that that’s one of the things that helps us to, like you said, to see. It’s like you don’t have to, obviously you don’t look at the person who goes to church once a year or whatever. That person has their own thing to deal with. You find and you see these people that are the opposite, that really live. And everybody has met, I would say, probably a few people like that. At least I’ve met a few that are just I’ve met some priests, monk priests that are glowing, like they’re just glowing. And you see it in their eyes that they live at a level of peace and acceptance that I don’t have access to. And so it’s like that type of encounter is also part of your transformation because it gives you it tells you like, oh, yeah, I see it in your eyes. Like I can see that that this exists. You know, it’s not just something we talk about.