Discussing the Meaning Crisis with Paul Vanderklay (8or_MOFXwF0)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=8or_MOFXwF0

I feel like it’s weird because it happened on Easter Saturday for Orthodox Easter Saturday. And I really feel like I didn’t get Pascha. Like there’s no Easter this year. That’s kind of how it feels. And I’m still kind of in the cave, you know. I’m still down. We’re still kind of down in that in that cave. And so that’s kind of how it feels. But yeah, at the same time, it’s been amazing. You know, it’s been amazing. It’s been amazing to see all these people that have supported us financially. I have so many messages, prayers, people, you know, it’s just been that’s been just astounding for me. Very touching and encouraging. Just wants you to not crumble and just keep going. And so and I’m not a very practical person, which is one of my, you know, like really because I’m a carver, they think that I’m a very that I’m a practical guy. But but but no, I like I can carve the most precise little miniature. But if I cut the board for my carving, I’ll make half an inch mistake. Like that’s how that’s how it is for me. So so I yeah. So so so now like going back, I was just there yesterday and then a few days ago, stripping more stuff for my workshop, you know, putting up fans and then decontaminating with all these chemicals and stuff. And just it’s just so counter nature to me. It’s good for me. But it’s it’s it’s I really have to kick myself to get to something like that. Now, is it settled that you can move back into that area? And we have a catch 22 situation. It’s it’s that we actually probably have to go back. Because what happens is the government usually the law that was passed a few years ago was that if you’re you’re flooded and it’s a it’s a floodable area, like it’s a lake that floods your house. And if you have the government will not let you rebuild. Or if you accept, like if you accept a certain amount to rebuild, then if it floods again, they won’t give you anything. So they’ll give you an amount. It’s like a set amount. It ends up being maximum 250,000 Canadian and you leave. That’s it. You demolish your house. You’re gone. But because there are so many people flooded and because it was a dike, they’ve they made us into an exception. So they’ve said, although it will be considered floodable area, although all of this is true, we’re giving you the right to still go back and rebuild. And you have to do it fast because in six months, then you won’t be allowed to rebuild the way that you’ve rebuilt. Wow. And so which means that now we had we had our kids in the basement. And so they’ll be in a floodable area. Like it’ll be considered floodable from now on. It’s like we were living in an imaginary world. So so we don’t want to put our kids back in the basement. But now we can’t leave. We have to go back. Then we had we are we have a very small house and two of the rooms were the basement. And we have three kids. So anyway, so now the only option we have is to put a second floor on our house because we can’t we we have to go back. And we can’t no one’s going to want to buy that house for at least five, six years. Right. And so it’s like so now we’re so now we so that’s what we we that’s what we’re looking at. And I mean, thankfully, people we’ve had some help. We had the GoFundMe was was pretty successful. So that’ll be like a nice like a nice starting point to be able to do that. But I probably and also I’ve always been debt averse my whole life. So I have a very, very small mortgage. I it’s ridiculous how little my mortgage is. So I can probably borrow on my on my mortgage and then rebuild. So, you know, wow. Yeah. But it’s it’s even the dislocation. You know, these things, these things work in us in weird ways. And so, yeah, I continue to pray for you and your family. Thank you. I keep telling people, though, this is not the first time we were evacuated. We’ve been evacuated several times, but not with not the same. This is more like our kids are older and we’re we’re all we also have to deal with their emotional thing. You know, before that, it was like us, we had to deal with it. And we had some very, very small kids that didn’t know what’s going on. It’s like they were just on this trip traveling or whatever. Right. Oh, we can see our youngest daughter, who just breaks out crying because she misses her house. And yeah. And and and I realize, oh, she’s actually never lived anywhere else. Yeah. I’ve lived many places. I’ve lived all over all over the map, but she’s never lived anywhere else. So it’s so her attachment to that house is way deeper than mine. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s that’s been something that I’ve discovered, which has been touching, but also kind of OK. So I need to take this seriously. Like, I can’t just be also I can’t just treat this house like it’s just an object. I realize. So there’s history here. I need to I need to also consider that with my kids, you know, at least deal with it, talk to them and no matter what happens, you know, but we’re telling them that that house that we lived in, it’s gone. I mean, although we’re going to we’re probably going to go back there. It’s not it’s not going to be that house. It’s going to be something else. It’s going to have to. For for a child, that is a whole different thing than it is for you and your wife. Sure, for sure, for sure. Yeah. So but that’s that’s life in this world. Yeah, exactly. That will be that will be something for your kids that. And this will be this will be a major event for your children, your lives. It’ll be something that they’ll always think about and it will reshape them as they grow up. This will be something that for for for good and for ill both. You have to be. It’s. And luckily, we have, you know, we take the time to sit together and talk about it and explore, you know. And so I think the kids feel like they’re part of the discussion at least. So yeah. But, you know, you you. It’s so weird is that when you’re going through that and then you look around and you see. You know, I mean, I look at Jordan with Jordan’s going through. And and it’s crazy, you know. And so until you think, OK, life, you know, you you always have to remember that. Like Jordan always says, no matter how bad it is, it can always get worse. So you really have to really have to approach things in a different way. So and Jordan has been it’s crazy. I mean, right in the midst of, you know, him being at the hospital every day and everything. He’d write me little notes and say, how are you doing? How’s your family doing? And I’m like, Jordan, don’t you don’t have to pray me. You’ve got your own thing to deal with. You know, it’s it’s OK. Anyways, yeah. I I had I had sent him a note and just, you know, expressing my concern and telling him that I was praying for him. And and he wrote back and I don’t have to write me back. It’s OK. We don’t worry. He’s not he’s a very caring individual. And that comes through. And and how many of the times when he breaks down, when he talks about people coming up to him, expressing what, you know, what he’s done for them. So but it’s it’s, you know, a number of years ago when I was I was I got sick as a pastor of of doing little series, which is sort of a Protestant way. And so I started just preaching through the Bible serially and which allows deep dives into books of the Bible. And one of the one of the things that I came out with was was this little phrase that I I plague my congregation with, which is the age of decay, because that is that is the biblical sense of what we live in. We live in the age of decay. It’s not that isn’t reality, but it’s the age we live in. It’s the governed. It’s the governing paradigm we live within. And that’s a a deeply troubling thing for us that that houses go, relationships go, things we build go. And so it’s and it comes to all of us. None of us none of us get out of this world alive. That’s right. Exactly, exactly. So how about you? How how are things? How’s the your your your I keep I keep being astounded at how many videos you’re able to put up. And I, you know, but and now what’s great is I can actually watch the videos of the people that I know, which is which is which is intense. So I saw you talk to Sevilla and then you talk to Jean-Philippe, who’s been part of our my like little inner group that we meet every month and we talk for for about an hour, just a small group of us, like the top patrons. And we have this like this little seminar going. I was really happy that you talked to him because I really feel like he’s very perceptive and very sharp. So that was good. He was he was he was so much fun to talk to. Now, it’s it’s been I mean, the last year and a half since I started the videos. It’s been crazy, but it’s been terrific ministry. We just had a meetup last night. My thoughts have been I’ve had a whole bunch of meetups and stuff lately. So my throat’s a little worn out, I guess. But we had so Benjamin Boyce was in town. Yeah, you told me that Benjamin came. How did that go? That went great. We had we had fun. We recorded some video yesterday afternoon, took him out for dinner with my wife. And so we got to meet my wife. And then we had a meetup at church, two meetups, two days in a row. OK, just because of scheduling and just, you know, it’s so funny because we have these meetups. And most of the people who come are atheists. But they they they’re surprised as I am that here they are sitting in church and, you know, God, they’re not as dismissive of the whole thing anymore. They don’t believe, but they’re just kind of curious about the whole thing. And one atheist last night was after the meeting. So we have the regular meeting and then the after meeting and people kind of breakups and threes and fours and conversations in you. And he looked around, he says, you know, you you you’re starting a new church here. I said, well, it’s not really a church right now. But yeah, you got all these young men. And so it’s it’s been it’s been phenomenal. And the conversations, the individual conversations I’ve had with people, I kind of pause them for a few weeks because I’ve got vacation coming. And I have to I have to kind of catch up with some things. My goodness, I imagine. But it’s I don’t want to stop them. And I don’t want to. I don’t really want to regulate them in terms of me picking who I talk to, because the individuals that find me and share their story with me, that’s been that’s been transformative for me. So I this this whole journey has been just phenomenal. So we’ve been starting to meet up groups and. When Jordan kind of hit his peak, a lot of meetup groups started, a lot of those have kind of fizzled. But mine, my group continues to grow and it’s growing now, mostly with people inviting their friends to the meetup. And and so now I’ve got some of my pastors in the Bay Area and kind of pushing them to, you know, you should you should do this. And so we had another church that started a new one. And, you know, they had 20 people in their first their first their first night. And the pastor, you know, the pastor has some good skills. He’s the right guy for it. And I think this will go. So it’s been great. Yeah. And but at some point, maybe that then the name of the meetups will have to evolve. Yeah, it could be find some other. Because like you said, Jordan kind of he kind of exploded. Now you reach his peak. Then obviously for a while, at least until something else happens, it’s going to it’s going to fade. I mean, maybe not. Who knows? Like, I you keep thinking that he’s reached the top of what he can agree. But you can keep going. But at some point, you know, it’s got like you said, it’s going to fade like a normal wave, like any wave. And so to keep the momentum going, I’m sure there are ways to rename and to rebrand the meetings, because now this whole discussion that’s going on, it’s pretty it’s pretty interesting to see John Breveke come in and and you and myself. And then there’s people like Sevilla, who’s extremely intelligent and very perceptive. And so I’m seeing these people kind of pop up and I’m thinking, you know, Benjamin Boyce is part of that as well. And there are other peripheral people that that are probably worth kind of bringing in and getting into the discussion. But I think that fostering this this type of discussion at this level. Yeah, that that could be a good path for the future in terms of people continuing the discussion, even as Jordan kind of, you know, moves on to something else or whatever it is that he decides to do. Yeah, it would be great for the discussion to continue. I’ve thought a lot about that. You know, what are we going to name these groups? And at this point, at least still Jordan’s name. Yes, it brings people brings. It’s weird. It brings people together with the right disposition to have a conversation. Yeah. And that’s and then, like I said, now, in terms of my meetup here, most of the growth is from people inviting other people. And they come and they and they’re just it was funny. We had a guy named Tim who’s actually orthodox, and he’s one of the guys who really wants to bring you to Sacramento one of these years with his church. And he says to me after the last meeting, some meetup Sunday night, we had a little group that. We decided that group was going to talk because you split up into little groups. We’re going to talk about Jordan Peterson. And he’s like, I’ve been here four times, and this is the first time we’ve talked about Jordan Peterson. There is. That’s hilarious. But people people bring up, you know, sort of whatever’s on their mind. But it always has had the nexus of. Of religion, meaning, just a lot of people just coming to sort, sort things out. It’s a it’s a place that they feel feel welcome and free to pretty much ask anything and have it be, you know, worked on both seriously, but also, you know, respectfully. So it’s for me, I’ve always, you know, there’s this there’s this place in the New Testament, and I think it was in Corinthians when the Apostle Paul runs out this Hall of Tyrannus and you just a few verses. And basically, you have the sense of the Apostle Paul renting out this all and people coming from miles around to talk with him and discuss with him. And, you know, you have a sense of kind of a Mars Hill thing where people are debating the philosophies of the day, not debating, but discussing in terms of their own personal lives. I’ve always dreamed to have that the church would be a place like that where people could come in and talk through their stuff. Yeah. Wow. There’s your dream come true. It is. It really is. And, you know, it’s it’s just crazy to me that, well, here’s this, you know, Canadian psychologist who would make up have a fit about pronouns and somewhere along the line that would start something like that. It’s incredible. I I’m probably I’m one of the some of the heat that I’m getting is that I’m not doing anything in French because French is my first language. I do live in a French place. You know, I live in Quebec and French is the language I live in, actually. And so I will probably I’m thinking of this fall starting some kind of meetup of some kind. I’ve talked to some people around me that, you know, I see on social media that I know are from the area and it seems like people are interested to do that. And so I’ve also been thinking like, what should I frame it during Peterson or frame it meaning crisis for I don’t I’m not sure. Like I’m so I’m trying to think of it, but that probably starts doing something in French and at least in the fall because it is a bit it’s a bit. I have so many prejudices about Quebec, about where I live. It’s horrible. Like, you know, I really have this this idea like it’s horrible. What I’m going to say is really horrible. But I really have this sense like it’s totally lost. It’s finished. You know, it’s all over here. And, you know, I so what’s the point, you know, what’s the point in even talking to to people around me, which is so stupid. It really is an emotional, like a very emotional, irrational thing that I’ve that I’ve developed. So I have to I have to kind of reconcile myself. And it’s interesting because this village where I’m staying, I mean, we stayed here because we had friends who were selling people we knew were selling their house and we ended up being able to get the house for a while. And now I’m discovering that this village has this massive historical cultural importance. It’s almost been forgotten by the French Canadians. There’s right next door to my house is one of the most famous singers in Quebec, who’s a who’s like a very elderly man, but he was really, you know, important part of the developing kind of Quebec culture. And down the street, there’s a house of another poet, Félix Leclerc, who is extremely known. And so now I’m learning that all these poets and artists lived around this village. And so, I don’t know, it’s connecting me. I don’t know how it’s rationed. It’s a ration, but it’s kind of connecting me a little bit to my roots and giving me more desire to do some things in French and to talk to talk to French francophone people. I it’s the providence of God. It’s all you know, I tell people, you know, people Americans like to imagine that God is somehow this, you know, as C.S. Lewis said, this benevolent grandfather is like, oh, no, God, God, when he wants to do something, he can play rough and he can he can he can flood your house. He can, you know, I’m I’m curious how much of this crisis that that Jordan sort of I mean, the man in the moment kind of found each other. How much of this is really tied to the English speaking world? And so for them, the French speaking world, how will this be different? I’m really curious. I’m really curious, too, because for sure, there’s something very English speaking about Jordan, this whole intellectual dark web thing, this whole enlightenment, David Hume thinking. It’s just not it’s just very English that this this idea of the individual, the way that Jordan frames individual, it’s very, very English. And so I’m I am also curious to see how it’s going to at least I don’t know how this question is going to be asked in the in French circles. For sure, the people that have been coming to me now just recently, I’ve had people kind of coming to me and now maybe I might be going to France and doing some things in Europe. It’s been mostly the symbolism part that they’ve been interested in and kind of recovering a coherent worldview and recovering a. A kind of symbolic approach to life, so that’s been what the Jordan Peterson stuff I don’t I didn’t I haven’t met a lot of French speaking people who have been interested in it, so I don’t know if it doesn’t totally connect. There’s something about it. I don’t know. Strange. There there’ve been a fair number of Dutchmen, you know, when when when Jordan went to the Netherlands, he had a fairly good sized audience, but the Netherlands, I mean, they’re such a small country and their English is so good that they they seem to tend to follow the you know, the English culture quite a bit. Yeah, I’ve had a lot of Swedes Swedes write me a lot of people from Sweden. And so it seems like, yeah, in the northern parts for sure, Jordan is having an impact. So I don’t know. Yeah, I mean, it’s funny in his 12 rules for life. He just didn’t he didn’t come to Montreal. And I think. I think CAA did their homework like the CAA probably did their homework and they realized that it just wasn’t the place like they were. He wouldn’t be able to draw the type of crowd that he can draw in Toronto and in other Canadian cities. That’s what I think. Maybe not. I hope it’s not secret French hostility. I know Montreal and I know Quebec and the rest of Canada have a very special. We have some disagreements. Yeah. But he lived for a while in Montreal. McGill is his is that’s where it’s his alma mater. That’s where he did his first degree. So he’s he’s attached Montreal. So I was surprised why he didn’t he didn’t come to do the 12 rules for life. But I’ll have to ask him one day. So so where do you think this this meaning crisis conversation is going, Jonathan? I really I’m excited to see I’m definitely excited to see. And it’s really pushing me also to talk about things, frame them differently. And I’m realizing that’s really interesting. And I think it’s the same for you where certain questions that are perennial that you’ve been asking or that you’ve been talking about. But all of a sudden, because there’s this discussion, you get the people of rebel wisdom and you have John Reveke and then you have other people talking about the more spiritual part of it, you could say, or the deeper questions. You have people like Ben Shapiro and Jordan were having these discussions as well. So I think that it’s it’s forcing us to reframe the way we’re talking about it so that we can come to actually discuss. And so, you know, I always tell people even the word consciousness, that’s not the Church Fathers don’t use the word consciousness. But I think it’s a perfectly appropriate word to use because we all know what it means when you use the word soul. No one knows what that word means anymore. It’s it’s ruined, you know. And so I think that that to me, the consciousness question is going to be the one I think that’s going to be the most interesting to kind of get to. And the the the problem of consciousness, the problem of how. The relationship between consciousness and existing within a narrative, I think that’s that that’s the key. That’s the that’s the key that’s going to to unlock a lot of problems. And and I hope that that’s what you know, and that’s the thing that John Reveke and I kind of we as a little disagreement. I mean, it’s not a disagreement. It’s just we know that we’re on two sides of that question and hopefully we’ll have some some chances to talk about it. There’s a there’s a group in Ontario that want to invite both of us to do like a public a public thing. And so I think that that’ll be that’ll be interesting. And also to talk about to present to me, it’s also been about rediscovering some aspects of the Christian faith that have been forgotten or lost. You know, that’s why I have chosen certain writers or certain saints that to talk about in order to bring out the more cosmic aspect, the more the aspect which is related to transformation, to mystical experience, something akin to consciousness. Although we like I said, they don’t use that word. I think that that that’s the that’s the key to, you know, the St. Ephraim St. Maximus and Gregory of Nyssa. There’s some writers that have really that really give us a perspective on these questions that we’re having today. And they’ve been they’ve been a little bit sidelined because people had other issues to other issues that were concerning them. But now it seems like it’s right in there. You know, it’s right in the in the fray. So, you know, I I had so much I find so much fruitful. So many fruitful questions come from interactions with, quote unquote, regular people. I had a woman in my Sunday school class asked me Sunday, she said, I just I just heard a preacher that said, you know, forgiving yourself is not in the Bible. And because that’s a big mantra right now and a lot of evangelical, you got to forgive yourself, you got to forgive yourself. And I thought about it. I thought, no, he’s right. You don’t find that in the Bible. And then I thought part of the reason you don’t find it in the Bible is that the these subtle relationships we have with consciousness, with how we imagine the self. I mean, some of these things have continued to change. And and we we don’t notice the changes until, you know, something comes up and it’s like, well, look at this. Oh, and I think you’re right. You know, the the focus on consciousness might be a substitute for the the meetup title for a Jordan Peterson thing, although that will bring that will bring fascinating other interested parties into the conversation, as you well know, a lot more psychedelic like who thought we would be having conversations about psychedelics? I mean, would you imagine like three years ago that you would be talking to people and that’s what you would be talking about to me? That was not part of it was not on my radar at all. No, that totally took me. And it was so many of the people I was talking to had been in that realm. And it’s like, how did I get here? And then when we started talking about it, the biggest surprise that I’ve had was meeting people in my church who said, oh, yeah, I converted after a psychedelic experience. I’m like, well, I didn’t know. I had no idea that I had never heard that before. Well, they’re not going to cough that up. They’re not going to say it just straight up. So. Oh, it’s true. So I, you know, I agree. I’ve been so. Yeah, this this whole thing has taken such interesting turns, and I think it will continue to take interesting turns. I think a piece of it is that. What a lot of people knew towards the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, that that materialism is pretty much played out. That’s these things take a long time to kind of filter through a culture. And I think we’re we’re getting to that point now that more and more people will look at someone like like Sam Harris and the kinds of ideas he’s promoting and just say it’s. You know, and it’s interesting because we had a last, you know, this the new atheist wave was like this last caricatural resurgence of that movement. You know, it was a lot shallower than, you know, someone like Nietzsche or the hardcore, you know, these kind of philosophical atheists that you find in the end of the 19th century. So you have this kind of caricatural moment where everybody is somewhat seduced by it. You know, all these people, they went all the way, you know, all the way into that. At least Harris talks about consciousness and it’s talking about a little bit about first person experience. But people like Dawkins, for example, completely oblivious to any of that, is ignores completely the fact that he’s a person in space who has an experience he does. That’s not even it’s not it’s like, no, it’s like he’s abstracted himself from the world and thinks that he’s looking at it through this objective scientific lens. And so I think that as that caricature comes to its reached now, its end, then it’s an opportunity like it ends up being a great opportunity because suddenly and you see it, I’m sure you’ve seen it too. You see people, you see it in their eyes that they’ve understood that secret. It’s it’s almost like a magic thing that was just veiled in front of them. They couldn’t see it. They just couldn’t understand what was significant about that. And then all of a sudden it’s like, oh yeah, wait a minute. What do I do with consciousness? Like if I even if I even if I try to encompass it back into the scientific system, then it, whoa, then it creates very strange things because it’s like, OK, so I’m you know, how does it it can’t just be this thing atop that we ignore and pretend that it’s just we take it for granted. All of a sudden it has to to to be dealt with. And so it’s that’s been the most that’s been to me the most fascinating thing is to watch people understand that. And so then it’s like, OK, now you have that you’ve had that glimpse. You’ve had that awakening moment. OK, now let’s take you what step by step. I’m going to take you step by step and show you what that means, you know, what it means in terms of what a story is, what it means in terms of of, you know, what a frame of for reality is, what it means in terms of necessary, necessary necessity of hierarchy. All these things are going to going to come back in. And then I’m going to show you in the Christian story why things are the way they are. Like, why is it that we talk about things the way we do? You know, because that’s the that’s the normal world. Right. The normal world was this is the world in which the first thing that you that you encounter is this conscious experience of being. And then on top of that, you can add, you know, the rationalization. You can add this this analytic mode. It’s fine. But that’s not the first. It’s never the first thing. I think it will be interesting to see. I think there’s a crisis in Protestantism. That and you see this in in some ways in the renewed interest to the more sacramental liturgical traditions. You know, the one of the things that I obviously can’t miss is how many people coming out of the Jordan Peterson conversation are very interested in in orthodoxy. And I think orthodoxy partly in America because it’s unlike their vast experience with Protestants, unlike some of the some of the corruption and and chaos that has been in the news in the Roman Catholic Church. Orthodoxy is sort of the new kid on the block, at least in this continent. They don’t have their hands dirty. They haven’t had any big scandals. We’ve had scandals, though. We’ve had scandals for sure. Yeah, but they’re not known. That’s true. But I think I think there’s a little bit of the I always kind of joke around and think that there is in orthodoxy enough of the foreignness because the the the the foreignness is dangerous. But it’s also an opportunity. Right. It’s dangerous because it can kind of it can it you can project into it. I know. And you see people do it. I see it. A lot of people do with Buddhism. You know, it’s like they just project whatever they want into Buddhism. And it’s like it’s everything that I want it to be just because you don’t know about it. You don’t really know what it is. You know, it’s like actually look at tantric Tibetan Buddhism and you might be surprised at what you find. But anyways. And so I think that orthodoxy has enough of the foreign to to to attract the attention to kind of titillate and, you know, kind of surprised because we’re other things are banal, you know, but it’s Christian. You know, it’s not it’s not it can connect you back to your origin also through that fascination and through that kind of surprise. Hopefully can connect you back to to the Western story, too, you know. So so that’s what I I get that sense a little bit. So I don’t know. Tell me a bit more about how you you’ve seen it. Well, I see this as a crisis. So I’ve been reading more in the refer about the Reformation lately and paying particular attention to these these turns of consciousness. And so, you know, what happened a lot with Luther is this this sacramental system that medieval Roman Catholicism had, you know, continued to work. There was so much corruption that on one hand, you know, that was that was clearly a complaint against the church. All the corruption that was happening, which which the church which Protestantism forced the church to have to address. But then also with Luther, there was this change in terms of the relationship between faith and consciousness, that that faith became very much of a psychological reality, much more than a a an embedded reality in terms of materiality. And I mean, you see this with all of the changes that happens with Protestantism. You know, the really an individualism comes into play in Protestantism. And this these things happen slowly because people don’t just, you know, change overnight with this. And Luther, who’s at the center of it, I mean, the the chaos he unleashes surprises him because Karlstad, who was right there with him, you know, goes off into the radical and it’s basically spawns the radical reformation. And so chaos ensues. But, you know, one of the things that I see now, I was having a conversation with with other people in the Christian Reformed Church because obviously the same sex marriage debates are are just running through Protestant denominations and they’re having to wrestle with it. But one of the things I noted to actually a Canadian scholar in the Christian Reformed Church is is that in some ways this when Protestants when Protestants basically say, you know, using the Bible, the Bible as such is supposed to resolve any any question that comes to the church. And what has happened with the questions about women’s ordination, the questions about same sex marriage is that Protestants are basically they they’ve they’ve they’ve given up looking to the Bible to resolve these questions. Now, however, people feel about these questions in the Bible. I’m going to push that aside. What’s what’s interesting to note is that the Protestant vision was that here with the Bible, we can answer any question and Protestants are giving up on that. Yeah. And so then you have to ask, well, what of Protestantism? And they’re kind of in this point where they it doesn’t seem they can go back to Catholicism. And so, OK, if the Bible can’t resolve this with respect to the community. Where do we go? And so I think I think we see a a continued crisis within Protestantism. And I think the I mean, if if in the Reformation, we saw a turning from an embedded sacramental vision of of of a universe made whole that the sacramental system was supposed to embody into a much more psychological phase, just like we’re seeing the end of materialism. We’re seeing the end of that merely psychological for Protestantism. And so in this new phase, which I think is going to attempt to re-embed consciousness and materiality in one coherent picture, that’s you know, Protestantism has been an effect of this this division. And so then what do Protestants do? And I think that’s that’s a completely unanswerable question at this point. Right. Yeah. What’s the what’s the solution? And I think that the. I mean, it’s interesting because in terms of the Bible, I’ve been thinking about this for quite a while, because when I was young, I I was in a very conservative, you know, Protestant denomination, I was a kind of conservative Baptist. And and it was all the Bible, like you said, it was like the Bible, the Bible. And I and I had no notion of liberal Protestants. Like I had no idea. Like I never. But then when I finally discovered this whole, you know, Episcopalian kind of direction, I realized. So Protestants both. Let’s say affirm the Bible, you know, as the word of God, that kind of language. And then they are also the ones who destroyed the Bible. They did both. And there’s something about there’s something about doing one, which leads to the other, I think, you know, I was having the discussion with a even with a Protestant reformed pastor a while ago, what he kept saying, the word of God, the word of God. And I was like, the word of God is Christ. And I was like, I tried to get them to get back to that. And it’s like, because if the word of God is or at least if you if you have this idea that when you say word of God in terms of the Bible, you it’s somehow equivalent to when you’re saying the divine logos, like in that sense, then that’s going to break apart because it the Bible itself is a it’s a garment. It’s a garment of skin. It’s a it’s a it’s a it’s an outer covering. And so because of it, it’s a material thing. I could it’s a it’s a series of words and letters and phrases. And it’s because of it, it can be broken apart. It has to be held by something above it. It has to be held by the Holy Spirit. You know, it has to be held by the the the unity of of the church. It has to be held by the unity of the faithful in the spirit of God or else. It’s going to start to fragment. It’s going to start to be poked at, you know, and even in the very desire to prove its validity in a kind of materialist way that you’re going to destroy it. And that it seems like that’s what happened where all these scholars and scientists who wanted to prove that the Bible was this and that and this started to scratch at the details of it, finding these little loopholes and holes and, oh, this text isn’t like this, this this this old manuscript isn’t like this one. And, oh, there’s differences between the manuscripts. And, oh, wait a minute. And, you know, this whole section we don’t have in this manuscript. And all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, and finally, you end up with a Bible that has all these little different color, you know, like little paraphrases and little notes like this text is not in so many manuscripts and stuff. It’s like, that’s not a Bible. That’s a that’s a you can’t at least don’t use those Bibles in your church because that’ll destroy your church. Have a Bible that has all these these these notes in them anyways. So it’s an interesting. And I think that I think that ultimately it’s not like it’s not the sacramental system, right? It’s not the sacramental system. It’s more seeing the the the unity of the church and the Holy Spirit as being the first the first place where God encounters the person. Right. Is Pentecost is Pentecost comes before the Bible. Right. Pentecost precedes the Bible. And we tend to see it in terms of systems, like in terms of bishops and whatever. And like you said, like different sacraments. But at least in the Orthodox tradition, we tend to talk about sacramentality in general. You know, not so much. Not that the sacraments are important. Of course, they’re important. But there’s a there’s a kind of a joke that people talk about where when the the Eastern Fathers encountered the Latins for the Council of Florence, you know, in the I think it’s in the 1400s, the Catholics asked the Orthodox how many sacraments there are. And the Orthodox were like, what do you mean? How many sacraments there are? And like there’s seven sacraments. Like, what do you mean? They didn’t they didn’t understand the question. It was like sacramentality is just a whole process of of how we exist in the world and how our existence in the Holy Spirit transforms reality and how it transforms things. And so it’s as much the prayers, it’s as much the the the you know, like it’s it’s the object in terms of the icons and the prayer and the church and all that. But then it’s also the manner in which we live together, like that we we exist together as a as a communion of saints. So it’s it’s a bigger thing. You know, it’s like it’s a bigger thing than the system of sacramentality. I don’t know if that makes sense. Oh, it makes perfect sense. Yeah. Well, and Protestants have always had this propensity to to to divinize the scriptures and kind of, you know, so you have the Father, Son and Holy Scriptures as your Trinity instead of. Well, this is what I mean, this is what’s happened in Protestantism again and again. And I think part of it was in the West, in a sense, so quite clearly in the Reformation, scripture replaces the seven sacraments. And the Bible itself becomes the only sacrament. And you see that in the in in both what happens to baptism, which right away you have a big fight over baptism because the understanding of what baptism is and how it functions divides in the Protestant church. And and then with the Eucharist. Light in a similar way, it splits. And so you have Calvin with his with his real presence, who’s trying to maintain some sense of of of sacrament. And you have the the the the, you know, Zwingli and tradition that says, well, it’s a it’s sort of a symbol. It’s a sign, but it’s nothing. Nothing really happens. And so, again, you see that it’s it’s just bound up with these. Deep assumptions that that theological language attempts to express and philosophical language attempts to explain. But then the way the Bible then gets handled, one of the things that that I noted when I was when I was in seminary, even in the 80s, was that for a long time in the West, the church wanted to make theology a science. OK, a science in the new sense of the term science. Now, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not the answer. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It a science. And then the Bible then was just like for a a chemist. Chemicals would be the thing that the chemist works on for a theologian. The Bible is the thing that we take apart. And all of this had its you know, a lot of it had its beginnings in the Bible. So what happens when I fight elegance, when I come into fiber or of this thing. I remember people telling me that the King James Virgin is inspired, like they’re inspired by God. Well that’s exactly right and so you see this happen again and again in the West. They were approaching the Bible. Now I think what’s going to be interesting is you know so when John and Verveki and I spoke, we had a conversation last week, you know what so when I listened so it was very interesting listening to Sevilla because she’s talking about Verveki and you and I’m kind of watching this and saying wow she’s seen some things and she’s seen some things in between the two of you and I, this question of return and I you know when I think about what’s next I don’t see, I don’t know where Protestants have in some ways ever since the Reformation been to work off your current situation. They’ve in a sense been homeless in some ways and so they’ve been kept trying to establish homes and they’re going to build their own homes in typical Protestant fashion. Nobody else got this right except us and our little group so I don’t know what this new turning that we’re seeing now will mean for Protestants. Clearly many are going back to you know but in some senses, I had one colleague say to me, you know if the East and Rome ever make up, I’m in. And so in a sense the great schism then comes into play in that I don’t know if I can go back to Rome or the East because they can’t get their act together. Yeah for sure that is definitely, I don’t see it to be honest in the eschaton. But I want to come back to the sacramentality question. My question to you is let’s say now with this kind of new perspective on consciousness and on patterns let’s say on patterning and how it’s inevitable that there’s patterning in our human engagement, patterning in the way we frame the world, frame our narratives, all that. If I would say something like that there’s a hint of sacramentality in a handshake. Could you see that that could then be in a hierarchy of sacramentality which would lead to communion, which would lead to the Eucharist as let’s say the anchor of the world, something like that, or the anchor of the church. But then that also then filters down and it helps us also then to understand how we are constantly engaging in symbolic, in the sense of condensing, in symbolic actions amongst each other. But then also when we frame our own story, our own narrative, we’re acting in this kind of symbolic way and all of that has a ultimately sacramental process. We were talking about this is something that someone asked me in a Q&A once at an event actually and it really struck me when they said it because it just I knew it. It’s one of those things where it was formatted in the right way when they said if you do like Christ says, which is if you see the good in the other and you always looking for the good in the other and you’re always looking for Christ in the person in front of you, won’t that then transform reality for you? Won’t that actually make if you participate in that and you let yourself go and you actually don’t look at people’s faults, those faults in a certain manner will be diminished. They’ll be lower in the hierarchy of attention you could say and in the hierarchy of attention as you’re engaging with others, the world will actually become more glorious. It will fill up with light and you see that because you see people who everything they look at, they always look at the negative. They always see the negative thing no matter what it is because it’s always there. It’s inevitably there. It just depends on how you structure it in that kind of hierarchy of attention. So to me that explaining it that way to me is a way to say this is what sacramentality is about. It’s about that but then it also does include baptism, marriage, all these gestures that we pose because they’re the most condensed version. If you take baptism for example, it’s like that’s the story. This is it. This is the go down to the end of the water. Go down and get the spark. You go down to the water. You leave your dead garments and you come out vested in Christ. That’s it. Doing that actually is a transformative thing. It’s not some woo woo magic. That’s how the world works. Through those types of gestures, this one is so condensed and symbolic but every time you shake someone’s hand or you say hello or you do that, you’re participating in the same process. Right. Right. Actually the conversation I had with Benjamin Boyce yesterday very much touched on. He has the recording so I don’t know what will come out but this is exactly where we went because he’s working on his own journey and so he picks at you and me and Verveki at that end of it as opposed to the two other themes that he works on in his channel. He asked, when I listen to people like Benjamin and many, many other people I talk to, they always focus on where can I find this experience? What they’re sort of saying is that they’re imagining that this experience is going to be something akin to again a psychedelic trip and that somehow in this special experience, that’s somehow where I will meet God and so I gave him the Isaiah passage where Isaiah is in the temple and the seraphim are there and they cry out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory and I said you will encounter God. You walk into Yosemite Valley and everyone’s like, well there’s his glory and I said even after a meetup we finish our two hours and then we take our little picture and I do that to kind of break the group out of the table and then they all break down and I stand in the church and I watch clusters of two, three or four people having clearly meaningful conversation. I say, well I see his glory there and in fact this, I think I love the way you phrased it because it is sacramentality. We see him all over the place and it’s in a handshake, it’s in the child, it’s in my encounters with the homeless, it’s not a separate, you know here I’m going to go into a trance or take a psychedelic drug and oh in this special little place that’s where I see God because he’s not everywhere else. No he is, and this is where I get, you know you mentioned we should talk about God one and God two. God one is the whole earth is full of his glory. You keep bumping into him not just when you’re, you know when chemicals are rushing illuminating your brain and you’re in some ecstatic state, you bump into him with the embrace of your wife with you know and even that I’m elevating it too far with sitting down for a meal and you know all throughout and so this is part of what I think is, I think this is a function of the question of consciousness and materiality and that we have taken, we have said well spirituality is this unique set of things over here and no not just when you’re on a psychedelic or not just when you’re in a service and sort of flushed with the majesty and the beauty or if you’re Pentecostal when the Holy Spirit descends on you not just those places but that then triggers people in terms of the pantheist conversation because when they hear that then they say well God is everything and no not that’s not it either. Yeah. And well why can’t you just tell me? Well I don’t know. Like you said the idea that the earth is full of his glory I think that that’s it like that’s the way to see it that the glory of God fills, upholds, is the secret behind everything you know it’s the thing that’s hidden in the world and if you with the right eye you can encounter it you know and I think that there are you know if you read the there is the possibility of a deeper transformation you see it I mean to read the lives of the saints you do have this idea of a kind of illumination that they are transformed that their life is transformed that they participate in God’s nature that it is a kind of ecstasy a kind of a you know a kind of rapture but that but that doesn’t just come to you like it’s not it’s not an experience that you go somewhere to get it’s something that you that you encounter through a life of prayer of of contrition of you know of confession of all these these you know and of loving your neighbor and and and doing living in the life of God then you you approach those those moments if something like that is just given to you I think that it it you know there’s something counterfeit about it there’s something dangerously counterfeit about it and and you know the church fathers and the modern fathers they warn us about kind of pseudo spirituality you know this this simplistic experiential spirituality that you can that you you just have these experiences and and you know if an experience doesn’t transform you doesn’t make you love your neighbor more it’s pretty useless I mean it might be fun you know but it’s not it’s not that’s not the point right it’s the there’s something it’s supposed to transform you uh yeah well and I think you know what happens with a saint is if a protestant may use that word the point of protestant dangerous territory right but the point of product to protestantism is that we all sainthood is not for a special class of people over there sainthood is is God’s desire for all of us yeah and and when and I’m sure you’ve had this experience too when when you meet someone who has in at least in your estimation and in your experience achieved a degree of sainthood you begin to notice that for them the world is much more the world is very alive and the world is very alive with God and it isn’t just with these separate experiences I think actually the the drive to locate God only with certain kinds of elevated experiences or flow states or however we might want to say it is is part of this instrumentality that I think is at the heart of the meaning crisis yeah Owen Barfield who’s a very interesting guy um and wrote about this quite a bit in the middle of the 20th century and one of the points that he made was the the degree to which we explain is exactly the degree to which we lose meaning and and I think what’s what’s the key thing in that is in a sense our instrumentality because the desire that we have for mastery of nature is directly related to the our our ego if we if that’s the right term or our consciousnesses desire to I think live idolatrously which means that we are going to turn the entire world into our slave yeah so that we can secure for ourselves the outcomes the experiences the the patterns we wish yeah instead of actually receiving the patterns God’s patterns it’s the heart of the rebellion in the garden yeah for sure yeah and and I think that that’s you know that the whole self-help culture all of that stuff is exactly what you’re saying and and a lot of modern this kind of California Buddhism is that as well there’s a this this like I’m going to I’m going to to to meditate I’m going to do these these these different things it’s like it’s just like a technique I’m going to do it so that you know so that I have I have more energy I have you know I feel better I I’m a happier whatever and so so there is this this kind of instrumentality like you said and and I think that that’s maybe you know that’s interesting because that is something that I think when we talk about the problem with the meaning crisis and it was interesting because I I kept seeing that that’s what Bishop Baron was trying to talk to Jordan Peterson about but Jordan just wasn’t it just wasn’t on his horizon he kept trying to bring it back to worship he was saying it’s worship that’s the key key is it’s what do you celebrate that’s how it starts it’s it’s like what are the things that we celebrate and that comes way before all the other questions of like you said this this idea of I’m going to to use this technique or this technique to achieve this goal in my life or whatever the first question is what we celebrate and that’s something that that I thought that that the fact that he kept wanting to bring it back is like it’s about worship it’s about worship it’s so hard for people to understand that the the attitude of the attitude of gratitude and the attitude of of celebration of worship that’s the first ground to to reality and that’s the only way that you don’t make God an instrument you don’t make God into something that you’re going to use to get what you want is is true worship and and true you know like recognize your place like know where you are and and and elevate celebrate that which is is beyond you I think the difficulty that Jordan and almost everyone I talked to has when we when we try to lay this out as we usually do what people hear is okay well this means that it’s if you’re if your orientation is instrumental all you see are tools and this is deep in what Jordan I think articulates very well in that that which is in us we are looking out at the world with a perspective and that perspective shapes the world that we see and so if we if we see ourselves as consumers if we see ourselves as masters of the world everything everything we see is a tool and and then when you come to someone and say well write worship what they hear is the church as a tool by which I can find meaning in my life find happiness in my life and so they go to church as a tool and thinking about the church as a tool now the church is going to provide these kinds of things for me and then they go into church with that attitude and well it doesn’t work because it doesn’t work exactly and and that’s exactly so if so if you talk to people who have you know given up on the whole thing well they will tell you again and again it didn’t work right whereas when I listen to you and bishop baron and how I know you to be you don’t go to church because well I’ve I’ve you know gosh you know my house just got flooded maybe you know maybe I wasn’t praying hard enough to keep the flood waters apart and so now I’m going to go to church to to to give you know to get my blessing and and in in a sense because of this consumer and it’s way even before the consumer this instrumental approach because it’s the heart of idolatry that they can’t help but turn church idol whereas in a sense you don’t go you you certainly go to worship to have yourself reoriented by god yeah that’s a good way to say right you don’t go to church in order to well shoot I better go to church because my wife needs straightening out and my kids need this and I need more money I mean you don’t do that I’m sure I do sometimes there’s a part of us in there I’m gonna say it’s like I don’t know there’s sometimes where it’s like I yeah because the thing is the thing that happens is that the lower aspects that you mentioned this idea of finding some kind of stability finding some kind of relief even in terms of in terms of confession or or you know finding legitimacy or finding there’s all these things that actually you do end up getting but like you said it’s that but you you’ll only get them if you don’t if you don’t look for them if you don’t look like that and and that’s true about so many things in life right it is true about about so many things like it’s like if you if you go into a friendship only thinking about what it’s going to give you then you’re going to get a lot less out of that friendship than if you go into a friendship with a kind of open desire to connect with someone and to to you know to have a communion with a human person then the gratitude the let’s say the the lower aspects you’re going to actually going to get way more you know and Christ you know Christ always says that all the time he’s like don’t worry about the things of this world don’t if you don’t if you if you focus on God if you celebrate that if you celebrate God if you live in the kingdom of God then you’ll get those things don’t worry they’ll be there like that’s not the point that’s not the point of life well and and I think what happens in the enlightenment is we’re so impressed with our success at being intentional scientific consumers that we have able we have been able to achieve electricity levies flood insurance air conditioning we have been so impressed by this but Jesus says if you gain the whole world but lose your psyche I mean I think what Jesus is saying right there is basically he’s saying here’s the meaning crisis for you you’ve made an exchange yeah exactly you are living you are living comfortable consumer lives with air conditioning and all of these things but you’ve lost your soul yeah and it’s fascinating to hear people wonder and you hear people it’s like how is it why is it that we have all these great material things but our society you know the social fabric is eroding I don’t understand it’s like wait a minute didn’t Jesus tell you like didn’t I mean hasn’t it just been one of the presuppositions about the basis of western civilization that if we focus ourselves on those you know those smaller things then then we’ll lose the higher one you know it’s like you you have to orient yourself properly well and I think for for both of us we had experiences earlier in our life of going and living with very poor in very poor communities and one of the things that would happen is North Americans would come to the Dominican Republic and they would meet the Haitians and the Dominicans sort of like you know touring going on safari with you know we’re gonna experience some Haitians and and one of the things that the Americans come through and say they’re so happy now first of all they you know they’re polite and they’re hospitable so they’re not gonna oh here’s a stranger let me tell you about all the troubles I have in life no they’re they’re they’re people with social skills so they don’t do that but I think that experience that North American wealthy North Americans have of oh they’re so happy is I how can a person be happy living in desperate poverty in you know with with none of the material success comfort or security that we prioritize so highly how can they live without that and actually live normal human lives yeah no I agree I agree I I wanted to look because we wanted to talk about God one and God two so I want to try to get to that before we got to run out of run out of run out of breath so uh maybe because I think that I maybe I’m over interpreting your God one and God two because to me like the way that I I see it is that they’re the same like to me they’re there and I think you think they’re the same too um and and but I I think that maybe to me I don’t see them as being opposed or or as being as being distinct to me one flows out of the other in the sense that that would you talk about God number two flows out of God number one right and you could you could say something like the the the manner in which the infinite encounters the particular right is going to necessitate will necessarily look like will it will be will there is no other way for the infinite to encounter the particular and and so that’s going to and it’s going to be adjusted it’s going to be an answer to a specific it’s not going to just be the infinite right it’s going to be an encounter and therefore it’s going to be an answer to a prayer it’s going to be a a it’s going to be something which seems to shift things in a way that that you might not understand it’s going to be something that’s going to open up things provide opportunities good all of that is going to happen it’s going to be uh it’s going to look like will because that’s the like I said it’s only because we think we don’t consider the idea of being or consciousness we don’t consider it we think that it’s not that it’s not part of somehow not part of the universe that we that it’s or it’s some it’s some epiphenomena despite the fact that it’s by that that we actually understand everything um but as soon as consciousness comes back in you could say it’s the same about even you right that you have uh you have a your person is somehow your soul or your spirit or whatever you don’t totally have access to it it’s actually something which is which is higher than your usual conscious self that is something that is that is kind of above there and then that will come down and express itself in specific wills specific specific desires and sometimes those can be can be not in communion with each other right they they they can they can actually be in conflict with each other because you’re not united but if you can imagine an infinite and the infinite god then those wouldn’t be in in in in conflict they would actually be uh united and that would be god’s will and it would be god answering prayer it would be all that all of that it to me just it just makes sense it could be it could even be be miracles it can be all this stuff that that that we talk about god number two god acting in history to me flows out of of the god number one that you talk about so i don’t know i don’t know if that’s something it’s the way you think about it or that makes sense to you i agree with everything you just said okay and i i i came i came up with this because i was watching i’ve probably watched that thing 20 times that the exchange between peterson and sam harris in the first vancouver debate because the the night is wearing on and they haven’t really gotten to the god question in sam’s mind jordan’s been talking about it the whole time jordan jordan knows what he’s doing in that conversation he’s putting together an argument and he keeps trying to build something and sam is sort of keeps kicking it over with all of the usual tropes that sam brings to these debates yeah and so they get to the end of it and they’re like well we haven’t talked about god and i’m thinking you’ve been talking about god the whole time and so sam says to jordan tell me what you mean by god and jordan sits down and begins to talk to lay out all the ways in which this this impersonal filter and the assumptions that we have which are necessary to function psychologically to to break down a a world which is far too large for our little brains to hold together and the ramifications of that for daily life so peterson has this he sits down with his computer he opens it up says i’m going to read these because they’re they’re they’re so complicated he starts reading through them and sam then interrupts him and says no no no no no that’s not god and and no that’s that’s not what god means and i’m thinking well sam doesn’t know any history and he doesn’t know any theology and he doesn’t have any understanding of holy holy holy and the whole world is full of his glory and so what and and that i think is helpful because so in the west and bishop barron and peterson talked about this too that god sort of gets fragmented and especially in the protestant reformation and kind of blows apart and and part of this blowing apart i was trying to articulate with god number one and god number two in christianity they’re obviously together now you actually see towards the end of that conversation that peterson goes to god number two when he has his sitting at the edge of the his bed and going asking this moment of repentance that he lays out for sam harris but but this is in a sense what happens in the west is the when god number one and god number two kind of get pulled apart and this happens in providential deism where where we say well nature is and even when we use this word nature nature is this thing that’s separated from god and and there are that this gets so complicated but especially because the word nature was completely flipped around like the word nature today has is the opposite of the way that it was used you know traditionally it’s hilarious exactly and so nature so that’s another thing i began paying attention to every time someone says nature i think what do they mean by that word yeah and and what they mean by that word is something without consciousness or intentionality something mechanistic yeah yeah there you go that has that is what nature someone dies of natural causes as opposed to a murder no conscious agent willfully interfered with what we imagine to be a mechanistic playing out of the world where there is and only when you have that kind of view then suddenly you can split god up and send him away but what jordan in a sense does with his god number one is he says okay let’s give darwin his due and say we don’t need a god to make the world but in a sense what jordan is saying and i think in a deep way is you can’t have psychology without god well what kind of god well um this this god number one but you’re exactly right in that once you and i think this is why we see people who and it’s not conscious for them but people are listening to jordan and jordan is smuggling god in to the conversation and that is leading people to god number two because it can’t help them yeah i remember that moment in the same one of the samara’s talks where jordan mentions this idea he said if you ask you know if you ask something you’ll get an answer and sam says yeah i’ve done that it works and it’s like but that’s not god it’s like what what where am i like what world where am i like you ask and there’s an answer and therefore there’s a there’s a will there’s a there’s a there’s a something presents itself to you as a as a formed response you participate in that just like you participate in in in your relationship you know with the infinite obviously it’s going to manifest itself in a way that is appropriate to your to your frame that’s the that’s the whole idea and so i was like i just thought that was the strangest moment when he said basically it’s like samara’s saying that he prays and he gets answers but he doesn’t like god it’s like okay let’s just find another word if that’s all that’s bothering it’s just the word that’s bothering you let’s just get rid of the word maybe but that is the heart of our rebellion yeah that is that is that that is in a sense adam and eve saying the satan suggests well god doesn’t have your best interest at heart what that’s saying is god isn’t love and doesn’t love you and therefore you know when i when i listen to people and i think what what really is at heart of the motivation to banish god from the world even the psalmist no ancient person would say there is no god because that was just silly what they say is god is absent doesn’t see doesn’t care won’t hold me accountable that’s what the fool says the fool the psalmist says says in in his heart and and so the what i find when i listen to and this this even comes to the the complaint about calvinism which i hear often because i you know say i’m a calvinist which is what gives god the right to make decisions about me and i hear that and i think that’s that’s just nuts because tell me tell me how you are the house most of you is the product of your choices it’s it’s so naive yeah you didn’t choose when you were born to whom you were born you didn’t choose the genetic makeup you have you didn’t most of your life you don’t choose but to say well god somehow thinks he has the right to make decisions about my life it’s like well you know that’s kind of because you think that god is a guy that’s like you you know what is that horrible song like that god’s coming back home on the bus like these horrible ideas about about god as just as a and it really comes with this whole this this whole weird multi-dimensional idea you know this whole idea this horrible idea alex jones type’s idea where this idea that that the spiritual world is like another world like it’s like another dimension and and god is like in another dimension it’s like as if god is a being and people have lost the whole idea of principality the whole idea of hierarchies of beings it’s all gone it’s all on it’s all level you know um and so they don’t they don’t imagine angels as as as principalities they imagine angels as just beings that are there in space but you can’t see them and uh you know maybe you could see them and then they could they could chat with you it’s like that drives me that drives me insane and so so i think that when i hear people talk about god that way i keep thinking i keep getting angry because it’s exactly it’s like you’re taking the lowest version of god that like you know the most uneducated person believes in and you are you’re arguing against that it’s like i don’t know i don’t know who you’re arguing against i mean at least it’s not me at least it’s not any of the church fathers or any of the of the classical theists it’s jerry fallwell or i mean that’s horrible i shouldn’t say that let’s leave that out anyway some you know some is just like kind of anyways well but but so so when i was talking to benjamin voice yesterday i was saying if you look at the ten commandments and you look at the commandment god gives which when you this commandment alone should make people stop and say there is something special about the bible and this whole thing you know judaism that leads to christianity because when god commands you may not make an image of me from anything that i have created what what that commandment says is you cannot reduce me to anything that you can represent with your mind now this puts us in a problem because in order to relate to god we need representations and jesus comes along and says father and and i thought and when nathan jacobs had a conversation with hank hannigraph i thought nathan jacobs laid that out well in terms of how the fathers talked about father son and and that relationality in other words we need representations in order to relate and so jesus gives us one here’s father but but every such representation comes with its comes with its vulnerabilities and liabilities but but right at the beginning god says do not represent me with a calf with a big statue of a man with with any graven image because once you do that you set up exactly what you just described and exactly what we’ve done and so what happens when in a sense god number one gets banished by darwin what what christians begin to do because oh gosh you know there’s there’s way too much sunk cost in christianity god number two this relational what if god were one of us this this relational imagination this relational representation gets expanded to fill the void and you see this in a book let’s say like chuck colson’s born again where here’s a guy all his life going to the episcopal church comes home after meeting with a a born-again evangelical and says i’m a christian and his wife says what what why have we been going to this episcopal church forever i mean what was that about no i know jesus i have a personal relationship and so it’s in a sense god number two expands to make up for the god number one that nicha declares has been killed and so you know obviously i don’t believe that there is this division in god but in terms of our represent representations of god this is i think is something that has happened in the west and this helps us understand why jordan peterson lays this stuff out sam harris says oh no that’s not god who would complain about you know masturbation or what you do with your body and then they go into this this interesting conversation where jordan basically says and and i’m thinking about doing a video on this jordan acts as if god number two is real and the reason i think you laid out exactly why that can’t be helped it is the only way we can actually give god right praise so i that’s that’s for me you know why god number the language of god number one and god number two i think was helpful for explaining some of what has been happening yeah i’m just saying the where where these discussions aren’t connecting like right where they’re not and i think you’re right and i totally agree uh and i think that you know because of the because of people like sam harris and the preponderance of let’s say evangelical discourse in in north america i think that in a way that’s probably why also that i’ve talked more about your like the trends and that you know the the infinite aspect of god and this this this this kind of you know this idea that you know like the earth is full of his glory that type of of of representation but i also think it’s it’s absolutely inevitable that that will then become will like it will become a will and will become all these things that that you kind of associate with god number two you know this idea that god can reveal something to you that you can that you can have uh you know that that god can help you do can redirect you that god can all this stuff is to me is just is an inevitable consequence of of god number one but also inevitable consequence of re-understanding the world through consciousness re-understanding the world through you know the supremacy of of consciousness like the fact that you the filter all of that is is is inevitable you know sorry and and this is exactly what we’ve seen happening and this is exactly why the celebrity atheists are just completely wrong about what happens when people give up their organized religion and and i always use this commercial that was on a few years ago from i call her verizon lisa because it’s this verizon commercial where this woman walks in front of a verizon store and and the universe told me lisa you need a new smartphone and by the way your hair looks good today and and this is exactly what happens with people they say i can’t believe in god and so now they’re not going to use god but they’re going to use universe universe i know that is the most hilarious thing it’s like the universe spoke to me it’s like dude the universe doesn’t speak okay things that speak we call them beings we we have give them names we don’t we don’t use a we don’t use a a object description for things that speak that just doesn’t make any sense it’s like my hat spoke to me like your hat doesn’t speak the universe doesn’t speak but people people i mean and that’s hilarious yeah but it’s that is exactly who we are and that’s exactly why the vision of and peterson gets at this with matt dillahunty when they start talking about his lawnmower you know and and peterson knows this the the the difficult thing is and here’s the problem and c.s lewis nails this when he talks about pantheism because c.s lewis says what happens when you play you know basically when you start when you prey into the void and the void speaks back and you realize well what if what if this isn’t you know a figment of my imagination well we know we have active imaginations and we project as much as we have for sure but and this is lisas lewis’s point what if you decide what if you decide that well maybe universe has designs on you that you haven’t been um that that you haven’t been asked to consent to that in fact yeah but this is the story of humanity and it’s right there in genesis and it goes all the way through and this doesn’t end because the the heart of the heart of our rebellion is that god is god and we are not and this really we really hate that because that’s how we want to be we want to control the world we are all sauron you know looking for a way yeah yeah yeah and it’s interesting like my my wife is it is amazing i admire because she’s able when someone says the universe and they’ll say the universe you know i asked the universe whatever she doesn’t flinch at all she just she just it’s like in her mind she just replaces universe with god and she totally engaged with the person i have this like little glitch i’m like oh don’t like that doesn’t mean anything it it’s not it’s not uh it’s not uh how can you say i i think i had this discussion with david fuller when he asked me about the universe and i said the universe the fact that you can say that the universe is one that you can use the word universe that you can say it all just that that is pointing to you to something my friend it’s pointing you to the to the notion that you can unify that you can unify all of manifestation and so there’s something that pops up above it like it just happens you know universe how can you say that it’s a there’s something above it inevitably well and i think i mean for me you both you and jordan have been extremely helpful for for helping me recognize the indispensability of hierarchies because we all i mean again once once benjamin releases the conversation we had and and he talked about the social justice thing and how um you know certain people are saying they’re creating kind of a little island of privilege in that what i am oppressed instead of i think therefore i am i am oppressed therefore i am or i’m black therefore i am and and what they have to do is establish a little one little space that they won’t deconstruct and it’s like well there you go there’s your there’s your idol right there and and the re the way you know gosh you guys have you know i always keep this dollar bill on my thing to to you know look at the little pyramid with the separation of because here’s the thing once you violate that third commandment and make the the thing that cannot be deconstructed into the top of your hierarchy you have now created a hierarchy that cannot stand yeah and that’s yeah you’re right and it will fragment and it will splinter inevitably yeah and you cannot actually have a community around it because well i am black well that means everyone who is not black can’t be part of your hierarchy and you’re going to have a supremacist structure and and i think just recognizing hierarchy is is fundamental in this but then you but but then you get into the fact that what happens with christ and i realized this a number of years ago when i was going carefully through the gospel of loot is christianity is this amazingly subtle working through of of equal and hierarchical it’s it’s just back and forth and you see jesus so so when rebelism actually came to living stones which was a hierarchically a mind-blowing experience that a british film crew would come to this church and the one thing that ollie noted in my in my sermon that kind of caught his attention was you see this with christ because he’s at the top of the hierarchy and he says i’m at the bottom i’m the servant of all yeah that’s why i say christ is not at the top of the hierarchy it’s not the right way it is the right way to see it but you also have to say that christ fills the hierarchy that’s what he does he’s actually he’s actually the entire hierarchy so so it is right to say that he’s at the center he’s at the top all of that is fine but you need to really understand that he fills it up he goes to the bottom too i mean the descendant of hades the crucifixion all of that is jamming the entire world into one crucifixion is insane you know it’s like jamming the entire world into one event you know where the top and the bottom completely meet you know where where the mockery of christ declaring him the king is an actual declaration of kingship you know where it’s like all of it smashed together the story of the crucifixion is it drives you drives you insane if you think about it too much but i wanted to get to this idea that you said because i think that that’s one of the things that like for example jonathan height gets wrong is that he’s understood circumambulation he’s understood this basic pattern but he thinks that you can just put anything there and you can circumambulate that’s not how it works it doesn’t it’s not true you can’t put anything there that the thing that you put in the middle has to have the quality of the middle you can’t just put it you can’t just put any random thing in the center because if you do then that’s going to break apart it’s going to break apart either in uh let’s say in itself or it’s going to break apart in the fact that it’s going to cause war between the different the different parties like it’s going to it’s going to create the pagan problem where it’s like the the fight between the gods where the gods are warring amongst themselves you know and so that’s the that’s the the the supremacy of the let’s say the monotheistic tradition is that we’ve come to a point where what we put at the highest is the highest right it’s like we’ve said okay okay so this that you know it’s like okay so the these gods these gods these gods and then wait no the god is the highest is the is the origin of all the god is the the infinite is the thing by which all things exist and so it’s not the god of war or the god of this or the god of that no we’ve we’ve brought it all into the the the the thing by which everything exists so it’s like we’re circumambulating the highest thing by its very definition right it’s and that’s why i always get annoyed when when when uh people like sam harris and and then say you’re an atheist you just you just not you’re all the believers are atheist they’re just atheists towards other gods like you can’t you you’re you’re being dishonest in comparing you know mars with the the absolute with the you know with the the the the absolute transcendent god those two things are not the same we’re not we’re not talking about the same thing and so so i think that that’s that’s maybe one of the problems with but i mean it all it’s great that that secular atheists have understood at least that circumambulation is the manner in which the world exists they’ve they’ve kind of seen it uh but they still have this flat they still have this flat way of looking at it i think one of the best illustrations of that i’ve come across recently is you know who scott alexander is starslake codex he has a blog he’s a he’s a psychiatrist on the east coast he writes pseudonym pseudonym pseudonymously and he he wrote a a piece recently rodreer picked it up as well it was called gay rights r i t e s are civil rights r i t e s he was in guatemala and noticed their easter pageantry and he compared that with kind of traditional american civil religious um fourth of july parades to the pride parade in san francisco and he was making the point exactly as jonathan height does that what these parades are doing is functionally equivalent to jonathan height’s circumambulation but what he can’t see is exactly the point that you just made that that which you elevate and celebrate in your parade is not just well we need a glue to hold society together the glue matters and and there’s a difference between a paschal procession and uh and a pride uh carnival and that’s and and they appear in the very manifestation of the two like one looks like a carnival one looks like a orderly procession of of you know and and so it’s like you can just look at what they look like and you can see that one is on the edge and one is actually turning around the middle one is is a clown you know kind of uh there’s a difference between marty graw and easter and yes we we’re not able to tell the difference anymore we think right every day we think they’re the same right and and i just want to say jonathan i have learned so much from you and your work i think is astoundingly valuable when i first you know i mean i stumbled into this old jordan peterson thing gosh how did that happen well scott of course but you know but and and then you know well there’s this there’s this eastern orthodox icon carver it’s like what just a random guy and and i some of the first videos i listen to you i’m just thinking what is he talking about and but after a while i began to say oh wow oh wow i have learned i have learned so much from you and i’m i’m really i’m deeply grateful and indebted to your work because it i mean and so many of these things that you have that you have illustrated i think so well have have helped me see a lot and so if if if there are moments that you say why am i making these darn videos moments like that talking to these random strangers and asking me i i look at the kinds of questions you’re asking your question answer videos sometimes and it’s like oh gosh i’m glad i part of the reason i haven’t started a question to answer thing is like i don’t i hope they don’t ask me the kinds of questions they ask jonathan i don’t know if i could answer them but i’m deeply grateful for your work thank you thank you so much that’s very that’s that’s it’s not only very touching but it does you know to hear that from you uh you know i it’s really it’s very helpful like it’s helpful like you said in those moments where i’m like okay what is going on what am i doing i’m a youtuber you know i hear my kids i hear my kids tell their friends that their father’s a youtuber and i’m like oh man but my my wife and oldest son actually have a phrase to try to make sure people don’t watch my videos they’re like well so i hear your father’s on youtube he’s like yeah he does like two hour videos about religion and philosophy and once people hear that they’re like i’m never gonna listen to that i don’t want you to listen to my dad anyways but i’ve also i’m also really impressed i think like i’m also impressed that the the the fact that you’ve been able to kind of reach out to just the everyday list i don’t know how you do it like the fact that you’re able to have all these conversations with all these people that are watching your videos it’s like you’re taking people on this like therapeutic reconnection you know taking them taking their hand and kind of guiding them slowly towards uh towards god towards the church but in such a just a real therapeutic way you know it’s it’s uh yeah it’s pretty it’s pretty amazing it’s like hopefully yeah hopefully all of this like this whatever it is that we’re doing like you know whatever it is that we’re doing is exactly right discussion this weird thing that you know it’s like uh yeah anyways i i i let’s just say that i think that i think both of you i’m very grateful as well like i’m grateful to see that to see people come to you and i hear people all the time like they they they they’re like i listen to paul every day i listen to paul every day and it’s like kind of like yeah they don’t go to church yet but it’s like paul’s my pastor they’ll say things like that you know but they but they don’t go to church yet but it’s like they know they kind of know that it’s in their future they kind of know it but it’s like yeah you know i’ll get there but for now you know so so i think that that’s awesome i think that’s great yeah thank you well i i one of the talking it takes a lot out of me because it’s intensive listening that you have to do for people i don’t know i wouldn’t believe that it takes a lot out of you because it’s like if you keep going like this though i don’t and this is i mean the crazy so one of the guys in our meetup you know he was before jordan came to sacramento he was ready to kind of kiss jordan goodbye because he was he was kind of done with all things but they went to the vip thing and and i he and i had the same experience because he’s he’s a psychologist and i’m a pastor we watched jordan work that 160 line of of vips who had paid to shake his hand and get their picture and how he was able to maintain you know listening intensity with each person that came through that line i i know what it’s like to work a line and i i can’t imagine how he’s able to do that how he was able to do that on his book tour night after night that’s that that that was phenomenal i i couldn’t imagine it because i love the conversation with randos as they call themselves um because every and here’s the crazy thing about human beings um you know they are they’re image bearers of god and every single person that comes to me especially if they can just tell their story and you know many of the stories i can’t publish because they’re too personal and it would involve parents or children or something like that but it’s a it’s a like we said earlier it’s a holy thing that becomes holy ground where you know where they they share the pain and the tragedies and the victories of of common life and it’s i mean god is god has been all over their lives and they haven’t recognized him sometimes or seen him and as the the the great privilege of being a pastor is to is to steward those stories and and hopefully allow others to see god through the stories of of ordinary people that’s that’s one of the things i learned from my father and his ministry and i think he learned from his father and his ministry so i i i have to figure out how to do that in a sustainable way so wow well anyways it seems like you’re succeeding in my in my perspective because i i couldn’t like i think that i yeah but so so i think at least for sure the fact and even if you tell me also i didn’t know that a lot of the videos you’re not putting up so it means that you’re having even more conversations than the ones we’re seeing so that’s pretty cool i think that’s great people are people are image bearers of god and and even if they’re far from god or can’t see god anywhere god’s glory is you know their life is littered with god’s glory and and god is working in the things that they don’t see and it is a it is an amazing thing when when they come to a place where you know suddenly they came around a corner and oh my goodness there’s there’s god and it’s the c.s lewis pantheism quote and okay well what what do i do now yeah that’s exactly right what do you do now when you find the burning bush do you do you you know run away that’s a reasonable thing when you hear the voice that says take off your shoes you’re on holy ground well the the best thing to do is obey but we’re we’re messed up creatures or something all right paul i think i think i think this is the longest conversation we’ve had i think we’ve like almost two hours so i i you know i didn’t want to you know with with everything going out in your life i didn’t want to bother you with a conversation but um i i i so enjoy you jonathan i love your laugh um you’re you have this weird giggle that you get to a point and yeah yeah i always laugh in the worst i would my problem is i laugh in the worst possible places like the reason why i did i did a video on laughter where i kind of i i did a video like it’s like the meaning of laughter or something and uh and i was pretty harsh on laughter but i think it’s also just trying to understand why i laugh when things get weird or when it gets so so anyways look i’m happy if if it’s enjoyable yeah so anyway thank you jonathan i do appreciate this and yeah you recorded it so you know whatever you want to do yes i recorded it and i think i missed like the very beginning because we started right away and then it was like oh wait i need to record this so i’ll see i’ll kind of see how i i edit do you want do you want to put it up on your channel as well because i’d love to sure all right so what i’ll do is we have a lot of people in common yeah we do have some that aren’t so we should probably both post it so i will send you i’ll send you the link and uh yeah and so i think that yeah that’d be great okay we can plan another future discussion and hopefully at some point we’ll speak at the same place you know that’d be great i am i am talking to this one church that that would really love to have you out and so then if that happens maybe we can do some joint things and and i when i talk to jon verveke maybe the three of us should do a three-way video at some point too that could be fun that could be a lot of fun yeah definitely definitely all right paul all right jonathan take care all right bye bye if you enjoy the symbolic world content there’s a lot of things you can do to help us out if you’re not subscribed please do uh go ahead and share this to all your friends if you can get involved in the discussion we have a facebook group in which people can talk about these subjects i will put all those links in the description and also if you can please support us financially by going to my website www.thesymbolicworld.com slash support and i also have a patreon and a subscribe star so thanks again and i will see you soon