https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=AdE68PtIYiE
All right, so our generation is dumb says, hello, good sir, I hope you’re doing well. I read your brother’s book and unless I’m mistaken, it seems the two of you believe that heaven is the realm of the abstract similar to our Plato due to the realm of forms. Am I off base here? Because if that is the case, I don’t see how we can ask the saints to intercede for us. I’ve heard you dismiss the idea of heaven as a sort of higher dimension. However, if it does contain conscious entities such as saints can really get around that idea. Thank you. It’s like, so a good way to understand it would be, it’s not that it’s abstract, it’s non-manifest or above manifestation. And it continues to happen. It happens fractally, you know? And so it’s not just that that which is above is abstract, you know, but, how can I say this? And so this hierarchy is actually not a hierarchy of just concepts. It’s actually a hierarchy of beings. And so the way it works, it’s like I talked about just before, is that it actually ends up being beings that become principles of things. And so the way that the world shows itself is not at first and foremost through concepts, but through modes of being. And so these modes of being actually have embodiments and some humans will kind of rise up into that mode of being and become the principle of something. And so it’s not just abstract in the way that Plato talks about. It’s more like an ancient cosmology of gods than what Plato says. It’s more like this hierarchy of angels than what Plato said. Although there’s a connection. Plato can help us understand this and there are ways to talk about it. And I try to, of course, to talk about it in a way that is more immediate for people that are struggling with that or find it difficult to get there. But ultimately it ends up being a hierarchy of beings. Like a good way, I always use the army as a way for you to understand it. It’s like the army exists with purpose. And so there’s a hierarchy of beings in the army and there’s a general who is something like the head or the principle. And then the general will give direction and that direction will then come down into the world. And then the army can act as a body and can do something, can accomplish things. And so that’s more the way the world works than just a bunch of abstract things that exist in kind of concepts or ideas the way that Plato talks about. The ideas in St. Maximus and I think in Christianity are bound up with purpose, not just abstract ideas, not just forms in that sense.