Speaker 1: One of the obstacles to religious belief in the modern world,
especially in a let's say, scientific materialist, reductionist world, is
of course the question of miracles. People don't understand, you know,
what are these miracles? Are they simply extraordinary things, supernatural
quote unquote events that happen, And because they're supernatural, they
convince people of the truth of a certain faith or
a certain belief, and therefore they can get people to
believe in something in a manner that issues the usual
reasonable ways in which we evaluate whether something is true
or not. You know, that is of course the criticism
of a lot of the neu atheist types, and I
thought it would be interesting to look at the question
of miracles, of why it is that there are miracles
in religion, why there are miracles in Christianity, what those
miracles look like, what they mean, and what they possibly
help us understand about how reality functions, and how they
are not in fact simply freak events that issue normal,
reasonable patterns of being, but rather they are events that,
let's say, shine a brighter light on the way in
which reality functions, and are even in some ways. The
fact that they're so surprising and so extraordinary is because
they show the pattern of reality in ways that are
more than what we're used to seeing. They kind of
compress reality into these hyper events we could call them,
that seem to contain more meaning in them, and so
they're not just freak events. So we'll look at that
and hopefully it will help people at least understand. I
can't prove to you that miracles exist, and that's not
the point, but the point is to at least help
people understand, you know, why miracles are there and what
they can help us understand. This is Jonathan Pejol. Welcome
to the Symbolic World. So before we start, if you
appreciate what we're doing here the Symbolic World, please go
to the symbolic world dot com. You can become a
member of the Symbolic World and participate in a wonderful
online community that is through our website that they have
their own conversations and their own exchanges. But you can
also become a paying member and support what we're doing.
And paid members have access to Q and A every month,
to an extra video, and also some discounts to courses
and different things that we offer. And so if you
enjoy it, we're doing. Please consider supporting us. All right,
So the question of miracles, now, the first thing that
we need to get rid of is the idea that
a miracle is simply some extraordinary thing that happens or
some unexplainable things that happens. That is not what a
miracle is. And so a miracle, you know, And so
you can have unexplained things that happen that you don't
know the causalities for. Of course, those types of things
did happen to you all the time. You can also
have things that happen in a very strange way. But
usually what makes something a miracle is that it is
a kind of strange thing that happened, something which doesn't
have a complete explanation for it, let's say, at least
in the way it's described. But that usually it points
towards meaning. And that's the difference. So, you know, think
about how if let's say you're walking, let's say in
the middle of a forest, there's a cliff, and then
a rock falls off the cliff and hits the ground.
Now that's obviously not a miracle. That's something that happens. Now,
what would make it a miracle, is I don't know.
If I'm walking through that road and I get attacked
by thieves and the thieves are going to rob me,
and then suddenly the rock falls, it hits the thief
in the head, the thief passes out, and then I
walk away from the event unscathed. Now that's closer to
a miracle. And it's the same event that happened, but
one of them, you know, it's helping me towards a purpose,
and the other it's unexplained and the causality of the
event don't seem related, and it's pointing me towards the purpose,
and the other one is just something that happened. And
so this is the way to understand miracles. Now in scripture,
I'm going to use the miracles of Christ because trying
to just you know, we could use all kinds of
other types of miracles, but the miracles of Christ are
particularly exemplary in this thing. And so the miracles of
Christ are always pointed towards a restoration of purpose and
a capacity to show more meaning in an event than
what is usually normal for an event to happen. The simple,
the simplest example of them is, of course, the healing
miracles and so when Christ heals someone, what he's doing
is he's restoring something to its purpose. Now, a purpose
is something which is not in the factuality of an event, right,
and so if you look at the facts of something,
you cannot discern the purpose. Purpose has to do with life,
Purpose has to do with consciousness, Purpose has to do
with intelligence. These are the mechanism by which we understand purpose,
and the purposes are not in the reduction the reduced
factualities of an event. And so this is what I
mean is that there's no scientific difference between a sick
by and a healthy body, Like both of them have cells.
Both of them, you know, have a certain amount of cells,
are doing certain things, are causal to certain possibilities, and
you know, the idea that one is better than the
other is not cannot be captured by simple analytic concerns
of science and of calculating quantities and predicting, predicting, let's say,
predicting phenomena by the capacity to appropriately quantify the phenomena
and show its different mechanical causalities. There's no difference between
a healthy body and a sick body. That the difference
the gap between the healthy body and the sick body
is perceived in the sense of purpose. We know what
ideally a human being should be and even that you know,
and we have a sense like we see certain humans
that we admire. We see certain humans that are doing
things that we care about and that we can see
that you know, we care about those those things, and
people that are able to do them, they they are
better people, not in a moral sense, but they're more
they're closer to what we think a person should be.
And that is the gap between a sick body and
a healthy body. And so when someone gets sick, or
when they're infirmed, or when they lose a hand, or
when something happens to them, when they're blind, when they
can't hear, whatever, we can see the gap between their
situation and what they would like to be and the
or the or what most people see as being closer
to the ideal of what it is to be human.
And this is what the miracle does. The miracle reorients
the body towards its purpose. It's able to take something
which we can see the gap between the purpose that
and the reality and then bring it back towards purpose.
And so this is what miracles always do, is and
in doing that, what it what it what the miracle
does is that it reveals that purpose. It makes something
shine because in restoring it to its purpose, it's showing
you what is the ideal? What is the reason for
these things to exist? And this is, of course, like
I said, what miracles are always doing. Now the idea.
The problem is that this miracle, you could say, is
there all the time. It's there kind of hidden in
the world all the time, which is that you cannot
get the qualities, the higher qualities of something from its
lower constituents. And so the lower constituents of a body.
Let's say you take, you take again, and we take.
Let's use the sports team. I always like that because
it's very simple. You know, a sports team is doing
a bunch of stuff, right, They're dribbling, they're passing the ball,
they're doing all these things. And if there was like
an alien that came and looked at what they were doing,
they couldn't discern just from the constituents of the game,
what the reason for the game is, what the purpose
of the game is. The only way they would be
able to do it is through analogy. And so what
they would do is they would look at the constituents
of the game, and then they would they would create
an analogy to something that they already know it's function.
And so if I look at basket, if I've never
seen basketball before, I know what a sport is, and
I know what I know how a sports function because
I've seen baseball or football. And so I look at
basketball and I see the things they're doing. They're running,
they're bouncing things, they're throwing things, they're throwing them to
each other, and I'm like, what the hell are they doing?
And then finally I get an insight and I think, oh,
this is like this other being that I've already identified
its higher qualities, and in doing that, and then maybe
I compare it to I see that it's similar to
what they do during during uh let's say football or
soccer or bath or baseball. And then all of a sudden,
I say, oh, it's a sport, right, But the only
way I can do that is by analogy to other
higher identities. And then suddenly I get an insight into
what it is that the sport is doing. That jump
that's a that's a miracle, folks, that's what the miracle is. Now,
the miracle in the the more the most specific sense.
The reason why they appear miraculous to us is because
the person doing it is restoring the being to its
purpose in a in a in a like in a
in a seemingly magical way. It's like, all of a sudden,
this sick person becomes healthy and then you see what
it's like. But you know you could see that. So
think about you know, think about a sports game again,
and the players they're not We do it all the time,
by the way, this restoring towards purpose. You know, the
players aren't playing really well. And then the coach comes
down I've mentioned this in another video, like a profit
comes into the game, into the team, and then through will,
through influence, through meaning, through all the things that miracles
are constituted in. Right, the coach takes his wand out
and hits it on the ground and said, you know,
now you will focus again and you'll come back together
towards the reason and brings people back into the reason
for the sport and then reveals the meaning for the sport.
And doing that and that is like a little miracle.
It's a very small one. It's not a very big one,
but it's a little miracle. All of a sudden, these
players are now coming back together in a dance, in
the proper dance towards the purpose that brings them together
in the first place. It's a kind of restoration. And
so this so a way to understand the structure is
that when you don't see the purpose of things, it's
something akin to death. It's something akin to death in
the sense that you have a bunch of particles that
aren't aligned or you don't know how they're aligned towards
something towards a purpose. So imagine, now you have a
dead body and then you have a living body. The
dead body has as many particles, has as many cells,
has as many all these things. Then the living body
maybe those cells are dead. But what's the difference, Like,
you have as much matter in a dead body than
you do in a living body, and so the dead
body has all this stuff. And so the difference between
something that's dead relatively in the sense that you don't
know what its purpose is. And then all of a
sudden you see the purpose and it comes together, and
all of a sudden, now this massive facts and this
massive stuff appears into the reason why it's together. In
the first place, and that is a kind of you
can think about that in the experience as a breath
from heaven. Right, the meaning descends onto the thing, and
then all of a sudden you can see in your
experience that it is one. But you can do that
through will too. It's not just seeing it that it
is one. You can actually make it one. And like
I said, the coach, for example, that comes into the
basketball team by his influence and his will, he says,
be one, and then the players respond and they come together,
and all of a sudden, this dead team that was
now everybody was fragmenting and moving in all their different directions,
is now joining together towards this purpose, all right. And
so this type of little miracle happens all the time constantly.
You know. How can I say that it's hard for
people to realize it. Like it's like that's what a
marriage ceremony is, you know. And so you have two
people that are kind of together. They you know, you're not.
It's not clear what they are. And so then you
have a ceremony and then someone comes and says, I
declare you man and wife. You are now married. And
so all of a sudden, the body appears, the purpose appears,
and now they're aligned towards the reason why they're there
in the first place. You know, there are so many
of these types of examples that really it is in
some ways, like you know, it's the capacity to gather
things into a body, and so this is what the
miracles are always doing. And so it can appear in
different ways. It can appear as a kind of mastery
of nature, because that's what you're doing when you're doing that,
when you're a coach and you come down into the
basketball team and you say, through spiritual influence, through speaking,
through the capacity to influence people's minds and to influence
people's attention and to influence people, you're able to gather
them into a body and all of a sudden to
become one and in an purpose. It's like, that's what,
that's what magic is, folks. I don't know what to say.
It's like, that's that's really what the the that's really
what the deepest aspect of the magic is the way
that C. S. Lewis, for example, talks about the magic
in the world, and so that can appear as a
type of mastery of nature, you know, and so nature
is chaotic things, things don't function, and then you you're
able to bring them together. So for example, Christ healing,
you know, stopping the storm, or Christ walking on water,
or all these things that are just weird and strange.
What they're doing in the event of the of the
thing is they're manifesting at an even higher level, this
type of mastery of nature through being, through logos, through
through spiritual influence, that it shows you how this, how
this works, and so and the reason why, the reason
why they these look strange. On August twenty seventh, we
are going to start to ascend the mountain of Purgatory.
Richard and I continue on the second Dante class, so
you can please go and sign up. You know, the
first class was just an absolute blast and everybody really
enjoyed it. So we're hoping that everybody will continue on
the track with us.
Speaker 2: And yes, so we're as Jonathan said, we're starting August
to twenty seventh. You can get the course now at
Symbolic World Courses. There are payment plans and everything there
to make it convenient for you. It's going to be incredible.
Purgatorio is actually my favorite book of the whole comedy
to teach. It's the one that most people when you're
in school you start, you read in front of them.
That's all you read. If you read Dante at all
in like high school or called, you probably only read Inferno.
Purgatory is my favorite one to teach. It's the one
that is kind of, you could say, in a certain sense,
the most relevant to where many of us are in
our Christian life. That is to say, Purgatorio is about
the purification, right, It's about the process of becoming saints
and so whereas you know, Inferno is like about sort
of rejecting sin. And then Paradise is about what is
what even is holiness? And Paradise is the hardest one
to teach. We are going to be doing it later
this year. Paradise is the hardest one to sease though,
because it's very hard to explain to somebody exactly what
it means to be holy. But I think all of
us can understand what it's like to try to become holy.
So anyway, join us for Purgatorio. It's kind of be
really awesome. All the juicy stuff is in Inferno, you know,
because like it's really fun to look at these sinners
getting there you know what's coming to them or whatever.
But Purgatorio is in many ways it's the most practical
because it's it really hits us right we're at right now.
So August to twenty seven of the folks, please please
please come and join us for the class. You won't
regret it. It'll be five amazing weeks of really getting
deep into the question of what does it mean to
be purified? And I think you'll enjoy it.
Speaker 1: So all right, we'll see there everybody. The reason why
they these look strange, the best way to understand it
is to understand that they're like a missive from a
higher aspect of reality. This sounds weird when I say it,
It sounds kind of woo woo. There's nothing woo woo
about it. That is, the players that are not archaotic
and not functioning together right, the only way that they
can now come together into one is that they receive
a purpose from heaven. They connect to a purpose from
above them. And you can't find that purpose in the
things they're doing, like I said, But if they perceive
it and now they come together and they participate in it,
now all of a sudden they become a unified body.
That is, that is manifesting the influence of that which
is above them, which is the reason why they're there,
the reason of the basketball game. Okay, now there are
other there are higher levels of that that that there
are ways in which all of reality can come together
into higher participations. That is, this, this pattern of influence
from above which coheres reality below, is one which happens
at every level of reality. It doesn't just happen at
the level of the of the of the coach and
the basketball players. It happens in the body of the
basketball players, because the basketball player, you know, has all
these processes in his body that aren't related to playing basketball.
But then all of a sudden, the coach comes in,
and the coach says, be one as a team. And
then the player is inspired, and then he says to
his body, he says, okay, now be one as a body,
and now we're going to move towards the purpose that
we're receiving from the coach. And so he does the
same to his body as the coach does to the
basketball team, and is able to mobilize reality towards reason
and purpose. You know, this is and so the idea
in a miracle is that that happens at levels that
are beyond that this one. That there are ways in
which reality can come together and participate and reveal the
meaning of things in ways that are so surprising that
they seem to break or to not account or that
the parts that constituted don't account for the qualities of
that which appears higher. And so it's a it's it
appears as a kind of glimmer. There's all these there's
all these these images that Christ uses to talk about this,
which is that there are certain facts that aren't flat facts.
There are certain facts that are actually a glimmer of
that which is coming down from above, of the purpose
that is coming down from above. And usually those appears
kind of shining. You kind of see things come together
and something is shining. He talks about the pearl in
the field. There are different ways that Christ talks about it.
And you know, can I say this, and that's that's
why we when we see that, that's when that's why
we celebrate that, you know. And so for example, like
when we see a someone being excellent at anything, we
tend to find that amazing. Why because they are able
to bring matter into purpose in a way that that
really does it, you know, does it in a way
that reveals the purpose very strongly. And so it's like
we have this sense of awe when we see someone
do something with excellence. Well, that is possible at higher
levels as well, and that is what we're seeing when
we see a miracle. So Christ's miracles are always like that.
They're always about revealing mastery of the cosmos, revealing the
way in which reality comes together in order to celebrate
that which is higher, even higher than what we can
that we tend to perceive. And the ultimate miracle is
the resurrection. Why is it the resurrection, because that's what
all the miracles are. All the miracles are aspects of
the resurrection. The resurrection is only the one that is
in some ways the most condensed, most compressed, and reveals
the most about reality. And why does it reveal the
most about reality? Because that is the that is exactly
how we perceive unity in beings. We perceive unity in
beings when we see multiple things that are that are dead,
dead to the identity in the sense that they don't
they don't see we don't know why, or they don't
seem to participate in some higher purpose, and then all
of a sudden they do. Either we perceive that they
do because we couldn't see it before. We're confused or
were remuddled, or they align themselves towards purpose through will,
through consciousness, through intelligence, to all these things in the
way in which humans and life interacts with the world. Right,
there is a difference between something alive and something dead.
And that's the difference. It's the it's the capacity of
multiplicity to join together in purpose into into one unified body.
And the resurrection is the image of that in a
way that is so strong that it breaks all our
normal It breaks all our normal ways that we think
things exist, of course, and it should it should, because
just like the purpose of the basketball team coming down
onto the players and bringing them together in this in
this body, that makes us wonder and celebrate and look
at you know, the pass and all of a sudden,
the guy coming behind and he just passes it there
and there's the guys just all of a sudden there,
and you know, he jumps up and gives it to
the other guy and then he puts it into the basket,
and you're like, how did they do that? How do
they even know where they were? And there's this sense
of awe that all of a sudden, all these players
are like coming together in this dance towards purpose. And
it's like, take that and scale that up, right, take
that experience and scale that up. And that's what the miracle.
That's what the miracle is. And the resurrection is the
the ultimate miracle because it reveals the very structure of reality,
reality and consciousness, reality in intelligence, reality and will, and
the manner in which being constrains multiplicity into unities. And
so you know, and I know that, like I'm not
going to convince atheists about whether or not the resurrection happens,
you know, whether or not these miracles happened, but hopefully
you can at least understand that it's not completely ridiculous,
that it's not just a bunch of arbitrary things that
we believe and that, you know, because they break the
rules of nature, we believe them. It has to do
with levels of emergence and qualities that show themselves in
multiplicity in ways that cannot be accounted for in multiplicity.
And it's just that it's happening at levels that are
higher than what we're used to perceiving, and so that's
my attempt at helping people at least understand it. Like
I said, I know I'm not going to convince everyone,
but hopefully it's hopefully it's enough to help you at
least think about it and think about the fact that
you know, this is not just ridiculous things that people
believe in order to justify their belief. They're actually trying
to pierce into the relationship between existence and this weird
thing that we have as intelligent beings, which is intelligence consciousness.
You know, the idea of constraining reality through will and
through and through those things and how that comes together.
So thanks your attention everybody. I'm probably going to circle
back towards this at some point because I know it's
a big issue. It's hard to talk about, but hopefully
we can get closer and closer and I can maybe
use some examples of some miracles a little more precisely
to help people see what it is that I'm talking about.
So thanks for your attention everyone, and talk to you
very soon. Bye bye. If you enjoy these videos and podcasts,
please go to the Symbolic world dot com com website
and see how you can support what we're doing. There
are multiple subscriber tiers with perks. There are apparel in
books to purchase. So go to the Symbolic World dot
com and thank you for your support.