1 00:00:00,360 --> 00:00:03,000 Speaker 1: This very much changes how we would think of hell 2 00:00:05,400 --> 00:00:10,039 and of Christ saving us from it. Hell is not 3 00:00:10,119 --> 00:00:15,279 a place somewhere where a soul, whatever that is, goes 4 00:00:16,559 --> 00:00:20,239 gets prodded with picked sforks set on fire for an 5 00:00:20,239 --> 00:00:25,719 eternal succession of moments. Hell then would be the hell 6 00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:29,679 that we've made of our lives. Hell would be the 7 00:00:29,719 --> 00:00:32,880 hell that we've made of our experiences, in our relationships, 8 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:35,880 the hell that we've crafted through our own corruption and 9 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:39,560 our own evil. Not only is that the hell that 10 00:00:39,640 --> 00:00:43,320 could become eternal if there's nothing else, but that's the 11 00:00:43,320 --> 00:00:46,719 hell that Christ saves us from. That's the hell that 12 00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:50,679 Christ sets us free from. That's the hell that Christ 13 00:00:50,759 --> 00:00:55,679 purifies us from and transforms us out of the hell 14 00:00:55,719 --> 00:01:07,879 we've made for ourselves. 15 00:01:09,400 --> 00:01:23,640 Speaker 2: This is Jonathan Pejol Welcome to the Symbolic World. In 16 00:01:23,799 --> 00:01:27,040 early twenty twenty four, we put together the very first 17 00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:30,920 Symbolic World Summit live in Florida. It was an amazing 18 00:01:30,959 --> 00:01:34,159 event with so many great speakers. Martin Shaw was there, 19 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:40,439 Richard Rowland, Jordan Peterson, Deacon Nicholas kotar vesper Stamper, Father, 20 00:01:40,480 --> 00:01:43,640 Siloan j Justiniano, who else, who else? And of course 21 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:45,640 I was there, and I spoke, and I've brought my 22 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:48,560 family and it was just just a wonderful time. And 23 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:50,760 so after all this time, we finally were able to 24 00:01:50,760 --> 00:01:54,200 put together all these videos in a video package professionally done, 25 00:01:54,359 --> 00:01:57,519 very beautifully edited and easy access. And so for those 26 00:01:57,519 --> 00:01:59,959 who missed it, you can access it from the Symbolic 27 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:02,599 world dot com. We'll post a link in the description. 28 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:05,439 But in the meantime, we are decided to put up 29 00:02:05,439 --> 00:02:07,799 one of the talks, father Stephen de Youong's talk, to 30 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:11,080 give you a little glimpse of what the event was like. 31 00:02:11,199 --> 00:02:11,840 Speaker 3: And it was. 32 00:02:12,039 --> 00:02:15,159 Speaker 2: It was a wonderful talk about the afterlife and all 33 00:02:15,199 --> 00:02:17,840 of all of the big questions that we ask ourselves. 34 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:19,599 And so please enjoy. 35 00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:21,759 Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, Father Stephen de Young. 36 00:02:28,400 --> 00:02:30,400 Speaker 1: I was expecting him to just to say, and now 37 00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:33,360 a man who needs no introduction, So that was nice 38 00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:38,960 as an alternative. And it's good to be speaking to 39 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:44,960 all of you at Pigotfest twenty four just the official 40 00:02:45,039 --> 00:02:48,960 name of this gathering if you're not aware. Uh So, 41 00:02:51,479 --> 00:02:55,319 the topic I chose to talk about today when I told, well, 42 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:58,280 when I first decided, before I even told Jonathan or 43 00:02:58,319 --> 00:03:01,159 anybody what it was going to be is something that 44 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:03,120 was sort of out at the edge of my thinking 45 00:03:03,159 --> 00:03:07,680 at that time that I was still kind of working at. 46 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:12,039 And fortunately it hasn't moved to the center of my thinking, 47 00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:15,680 but it's enough in the field that I feel comfortable 48 00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:18,680 and confident now sort of talking about it. 49 00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:22,639 Speaker 3: If you ask the average. 50 00:03:23,639 --> 00:03:26,800 Speaker 1: Person walking around, not even at a church, just person 51 00:03:26,840 --> 00:03:31,280 walking down the street, if you ask them about the 52 00:03:31,319 --> 00:03:34,400 afterlife or what happens when you die, you will get 53 00:03:34,439 --> 00:03:37,960 some version of well, good people go to heaven, bad 54 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:42,120 people go to hell. Maybe if they're very kindly, they'll 55 00:03:42,159 --> 00:03:45,240 leave off that last part, but usually get some version 56 00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:47,240 of that because everybody has somebody who they think is 57 00:03:47,280 --> 00:03:50,479 a bad person, a cousin or something who they think 58 00:03:51,639 --> 00:03:55,879 really deserves to be in hell, and they'll differ on 59 00:03:55,960 --> 00:03:59,479 sort of how that judgment call is made, right, like 60 00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:01,479 what makes you a good person or a bad person. 61 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:02,439 Speaker 3: There are all those variants. 62 00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:06,120 Speaker 1: So if you're a little more acquainted with the Christian tradition, 63 00:04:07,439 --> 00:04:12,560 you know that that's not actually Christian eschatology. That's not 64 00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:17,920 the Christian view of what happens when we die, even 65 00:04:17,959 --> 00:04:20,160 though a lot of Christians will talk that way an 66 00:04:20,199 --> 00:04:23,720 awful lot we have at the end of the Nicene 67 00:04:23,759 --> 00:04:27,720 Creed that we believe in the resurrection of the body 68 00:04:29,079 --> 00:04:32,319 and the life of the world to come, or the 69 00:04:32,319 --> 00:04:37,000 life of the age to come, And for a lot 70 00:04:37,040 --> 00:04:39,759 of us, and by a lot of us, I'm including 71 00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:45,800 even a lot of theologians, what exactly that means, how 72 00:04:45,920 --> 00:04:51,879 exactly the bodily resurrection works with everything else we think 73 00:04:52,720 --> 00:04:56,439 about what happens when we die, what the life of 74 00:04:56,480 --> 00:05:00,959 this world to come looks like, how to think it, 75 00:05:01,639 --> 00:05:07,079 how to try to envision or even imagine it. There's 76 00:05:07,079 --> 00:05:11,480 sort of no guidance out there. It's something we affirm, 77 00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:14,920 but I don't think we have a really firm grasp 78 00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:19,279 of what it means. And so to try to figure 79 00:05:19,279 --> 00:05:23,920 out what it means, if you've listened to a redity 80 00:05:23,959 --> 00:05:26,839 of my stuff, you kind of know. I try to 81 00:05:26,879 --> 00:05:30,000 go back to the beginning of things, Right where did 82 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:33,319 this start? Who was the first person to start thinking this, 83 00:05:33,959 --> 00:05:37,000 How did they see it, how did they envision it, 84 00:05:38,360 --> 00:05:41,519 what did it mean for them? And so if we're 85 00:05:41,560 --> 00:05:47,639 talking about the bodily resurrection in terms of this grand 86 00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:49,879 scheme of things I talk about where sometimes I go 87 00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:51,160 back into the Neolithic era. 88 00:05:51,759 --> 00:05:52,920 Speaker 3: It's relatively new. 89 00:05:54,839 --> 00:05:57,279 Speaker 1: It's relatively new, at least in terms of people talking 90 00:05:57,279 --> 00:06:02,839 about it in this way. It is inherited by Christianity 91 00:06:02,920 --> 00:06:05,879 out of Judaism, but even within Judaism, if we're talking 92 00:06:05,920 --> 00:06:10,639 about the first century BC the second century BC, this 93 00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:15,680 wasn't a universal sort of Jewish belief. This is something 94 00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:20,639 that arose specifically within Phariseic Judaism. This is something that 95 00:06:20,759 --> 00:06:24,360 set the Pharisees apart from all the other countless sects 96 00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:29,959 of Judaism at the turn of the era. And so 97 00:06:30,160 --> 00:06:33,879 as they were first thinking about this, what was it 98 00:06:33,959 --> 00:06:34,519 that they meant? 99 00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:38,800 Speaker 3: What were they thinking? That's what we're after. 100 00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:43,839 Speaker 1: And for the record, just in advance, as people hear 101 00:06:43,879 --> 00:06:47,920 this talk, there's someone out there who is going to say, 102 00:06:48,639 --> 00:06:51,240 I heard you say something different in a Bible study 103 00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:57,120 in twenty seventeen. The answer to that question before you 104 00:06:57,199 --> 00:07:01,639 ask it is I was wrong then. I might still 105 00:07:01,680 --> 00:07:05,079 be wrong now, but I was definitely wrong. Then I 106 00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:10,480 have changed my mind. But so in order to get back, 107 00:07:10,560 --> 00:07:14,120 we have to sort of go back into the ground, right, 108 00:07:14,199 --> 00:07:16,480 go back into the beginning, go back into the basis 109 00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:18,240 of this. And if we're going to go back into 110 00:07:18,279 --> 00:07:21,959 the ground on this or any other topic. I feel 111 00:07:21,959 --> 00:07:25,480 like we need a guy, a guide, someone to guide us, 112 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:29,319 someone to take us there, someone to point it out 113 00:07:29,319 --> 00:07:38,079 to us. Virgil is boring. It's not his fault. It's 114 00:07:38,120 --> 00:07:48,160 because Latin is boring. You could move, but stop me 115 00:07:48,199 --> 00:07:53,319 when I tell a lie. Anyway, So we need a Greek, 116 00:07:53,399 --> 00:07:57,839 We need a German, right, one of the two. 117 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:00,959 Speaker 3: To go to guide us back. 118 00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:03,639 Speaker 1: And so I've chosen someone who at the very least 119 00:08:03,879 --> 00:08:11,040 is never boring, and that's Friedrich Nietzsche. So the shade 120 00:08:11,079 --> 00:08:13,600 of Friedrich Nietzsche is going to lead us back into 121 00:08:14,759 --> 00:08:18,839 the ground to help us understand the bodily resurrection. I 122 00:08:18,839 --> 00:08:22,079 can see that some of you are confused, but this 123 00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:27,439 is going to work, I promise. So the first thing 124 00:08:27,480 --> 00:08:32,039 we have to address is we have that word bodily 125 00:08:33,159 --> 00:08:38,360 in front of resurrection, the resurrection of the body. 126 00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:41,519 Speaker 3: This is a distinctive right. 127 00:08:41,679 --> 00:08:44,840 Speaker 1: This is depending on the era we're talking about. If 128 00:08:44,879 --> 00:08:49,279 we're talking about the first, say, four centuries of Christianity, 129 00:08:49,360 --> 00:08:56,320 this is something that distinguishes Orthodox Christianity from say, Gnostic 130 00:08:56,399 --> 00:09:00,320 sex and groups who believed in a kind of resurrection, 131 00:09:00,960 --> 00:09:02,960 who believed in a kind of eternal life, but that 132 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:11,000 was decidedly not bodily, decidedly disassociated from this world, this earth, 133 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:15,919 this life, And so the word bodily is serving a 134 00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:19,519 function here. But the way we normally think about this 135 00:09:19,799 --> 00:09:25,679 is well, okay, at some point in the future, Christ returns, 136 00:09:27,799 --> 00:09:31,480 my physical body gets pulled back together, and my soul 137 00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:35,559 comes and reinhabits it. My soul's off floating somewhere else, 138 00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:39,759 and then it comes back down and comes back. 139 00:09:39,639 --> 00:09:42,279 Speaker 3: Into my body, and it's my body. 140 00:09:45,039 --> 00:09:47,480 Speaker 1: There are a bunch of sort of obvious problems when 141 00:09:47,519 --> 00:09:51,879 we start pushing at that, though, because, for example, the 142 00:09:51,919 --> 00:09:56,600 matter that makes up my body today is a completely 143 00:09:56,600 --> 00:09:57,440 different set. 144 00:09:57,240 --> 00:10:00,240 Speaker 3: Of matter than what made up my body tenure. 145 00:10:00,039 --> 00:10:09,720 Speaker 1: Years ago, right, And once I die, my body will decompose, right, 146 00:10:09,879 --> 00:10:13,360 and will become part of plants and trees and snails 147 00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:21,080 and right all sorts of things, eventually maybe someone else's body. 148 00:10:21,840 --> 00:10:26,720 Speaker 3: So what does it mean to say that the body. 149 00:10:27,759 --> 00:10:31,159 Speaker 1: That I will have for eternal life is my body 150 00:10:32,120 --> 00:10:37,320 is the same body as this body? Now this is 151 00:10:37,399 --> 00:10:39,799 kind of an open question or a puzzle. So this 152 00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:44,440 is the first place where our friend Nietzsche may help 153 00:10:44,559 --> 00:10:50,200 us to the despisers of the body. While I speak 154 00:10:50,240 --> 00:10:53,600 my word, I wish them neither to learn afresh nor 155 00:10:53,679 --> 00:10:56,480 teach a new, but only to bid farewell to their 156 00:10:56,480 --> 00:10:58,360 own bodies, and thus be dumb. 157 00:11:00,039 --> 00:11:00,320 Speaker 3: Body. 158 00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:03,200 Speaker 1: And I am body? Am I and soul? So saith 159 00:11:03,240 --> 00:11:07,200 the child? And why should one not speak like children? 160 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:11,440 But the awakened one, the knowing one saith body, am 161 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:15,519 I entirely and nothing more. And soul is only the 162 00:11:15,600 --> 00:11:19,519 name of something in the body that's from Thus spake 163 00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:26,879 Sarah Thustra. It's fourth discourse. Part of our problem here 164 00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:32,120 is that we've adopted this platonic view of the soul. 165 00:11:35,039 --> 00:11:39,080 We've adopted this view that the soul is our real self, 166 00:11:41,639 --> 00:11:46,480 that it is this existing thing that inhabits our body. 167 00:11:47,919 --> 00:11:50,159 Speaker 3: And this has a bunch of effects. 168 00:11:51,279 --> 00:11:53,519 Speaker 1: On how we see the body, how we see ourselves, 169 00:11:53,559 --> 00:12:01,360 how we see the world. A very practical one. If 170 00:12:01,399 --> 00:12:05,120 my soul, the soul that inhabits my body, is me, 171 00:12:05,639 --> 00:12:13,919 that's the actual me. I have disassociated my identity who 172 00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:21,000 I am from my body. My body is now no 173 00:12:21,080 --> 00:12:23,679 longer who I am. 174 00:12:23,799 --> 00:12:24,200 Speaker 3: Really. 175 00:12:26,600 --> 00:12:29,600 Speaker 1: If you ever wondered how someone could get the idea 176 00:12:29,759 --> 00:12:32,320 that they are in the wrong body, there you go, 177 00:12:34,600 --> 00:12:43,720 there you go. But this is not how the Jewish 178 00:12:43,759 --> 00:12:48,879 traditions saw the soul. There are a lot of ways 179 00:12:48,919 --> 00:12:52,559 that we can see this in the Hebrew scriptures. One 180 00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:56,840 of them is that very often the speaker will talk 181 00:12:56,879 --> 00:13:02,519 to his soul, Lord, oh my soul. Well, if you 182 00:13:02,639 --> 00:13:05,919 are your soul, who is it who's talking. 183 00:13:08,240 --> 00:13:08,840 Speaker 3: In that song? 184 00:13:14,360 --> 00:13:19,159 Speaker 1: The soul was seen not as this existing thing, this existing, 185 00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:22,840 nebulous thing, like a forced ghost in Star Wars or something, 186 00:13:24,759 --> 00:13:28,600 or a sphere. If your origin, any originists out there, 187 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:32,559 don't put your hand up, you'll get flagged. 188 00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:35,399 Speaker 3: Right. 189 00:13:36,679 --> 00:13:43,480 Speaker 1: But the soul was the life of a body, right, 190 00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:49,240 as Nietzsche alludes to there, the soul is something in 191 00:13:49,279 --> 00:13:51,399 the body. The soul is what is making the body alive, 192 00:13:51,519 --> 00:13:57,600 making it function. This is very practical. When you see 193 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:01,440 someone or even an animal die, you are looking at 194 00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:05,360 the same set of matter you were seconds ago when 195 00:14:05,360 --> 00:14:09,759 it was alive. But the life is what is gone, right, 196 00:14:09,799 --> 00:14:15,399 the life is what is gone. And this means something 197 00:14:15,519 --> 00:14:21,960 very important about identity. It means identity is not. 198 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:23,159 Speaker 3: An inward thing. 199 00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:28,679 Speaker 1: We're used to looking at identity as if we were adolescents. 200 00:14:30,639 --> 00:14:34,200 Right when you're an adolescent. What makes me me is 201 00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:38,440 what makes me different than everybody else. Right, you go 202 00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:42,840 and you get the T shirt at hot topic it 203 00:14:42,840 --> 00:14:44,759 says you laugh at me because I'm different, But I 204 00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:49,759 laugh at you because you're all the same, right, and 205 00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:52,840 no one understands your pain, especially your mom and dad. 206 00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:59,159 Speaker 3: Right. So, but a lot of us don't outgrow that. Right. 207 00:14:59,480 --> 00:15:01,320 Speaker 1: What makes that me is the way that I'm not 208 00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:05,080 my parents, the way that I'm not my family of origin, 209 00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:09,399 the way that I'm not whatever is going on in society, 210 00:15:09,480 --> 00:15:11,559 the way that I'm different than everyone else. 211 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:13,080 Speaker 3: This is an abstraction. 212 00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:21,240 Speaker 1: Right, we move inward, and this ends in nihilism because 213 00:15:21,279 --> 00:15:26,759 when you abstract every connection you have, everything you've inherited, 214 00:15:27,159 --> 00:15:29,519 everything you've learned, everything that you're a part of. 215 00:15:29,879 --> 00:15:35,360 Speaker 3: You're left with nothing. Your identity is nothing. 216 00:15:37,399 --> 00:15:41,279 Speaker 1: There's this brief stage where identity becomes completely protean, where 217 00:15:41,279 --> 00:15:42,480 it can change every day. 218 00:15:43,279 --> 00:15:44,840 Speaker 3: That's kind of fun for a while. 219 00:15:46,679 --> 00:15:50,759 Speaker 1: Right, But eventually you realize that it being able to 220 00:15:50,879 --> 00:15:54,559 change every day means it is actually nothing in particular, 221 00:15:55,799 --> 00:16:01,600 and that is a bad point to reach. So, if 222 00:16:01,639 --> 00:16:05,840 identity is more concerned with your body and your soul, 223 00:16:05,919 --> 00:16:10,799 is what is giving your body life. Then that means 224 00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:14,720 we find our identity outside of ourselves, not by delving 225 00:16:14,759 --> 00:16:22,120 inside ourselves. We find our identity in the relationships that 226 00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:26,879 we have to our family of origin, to our society 227 00:16:26,919 --> 00:16:31,559 and our culture, to our friends and loved ones. These 228 00:16:31,559 --> 00:16:35,720 are the things that make us who we are. These 229 00:16:35,759 --> 00:16:38,440 are the things that make us who we are, and 230 00:16:38,480 --> 00:16:42,279 these are always for the record, something chosen. One possible 231 00:16:42,320 --> 00:16:45,519 objection to this idea. One reason people don't like it 232 00:16:45,559 --> 00:16:47,360 is they say, well, all those things were just given 233 00:16:47,399 --> 00:16:47,600 to me. 234 00:16:48,799 --> 00:16:51,120 Speaker 3: I didn't choose them. I want to choose who. 235 00:16:50,960 --> 00:16:57,120 Speaker 1: I am by rebelling against those things. I didn't choose 236 00:16:57,120 --> 00:16:58,639 what family I was going to be bored in. I 237 00:16:58,639 --> 00:17:00,720 didn't choose what country I was going to be born in, 238 00:17:00,759 --> 00:17:02,720 what culture I was going to inherit, what religion I 239 00:17:02,759 --> 00:17:05,160 was going to be raised in. I didn't choose any 240 00:17:05,200 --> 00:17:10,240 of those things. But ultimately, we do choose all of 241 00:17:10,279 --> 00:17:15,480 those things. Even if you were married off at age 242 00:17:15,519 --> 00:17:18,160 thirteen in an arranged marriage to someone you'd never met 243 00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:22,920 before that marriage, you choose to be a husband or 244 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:27,279 wife not just every day, but a countless number of 245 00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:36,559 times during each day. You can do otherwise, you can move, 246 00:17:36,680 --> 00:17:40,279 you can object. So all of these things are ultimately chosen. 247 00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:43,759 But it is all of these external things related to 248 00:17:43,799 --> 00:17:47,079 our body, related to our interactions and connections with other 249 00:17:47,119 --> 00:17:54,759 people in community, that define who we are. Why is 250 00:17:54,759 --> 00:17:57,279 this important to the concept of the bodily resurrection. This 251 00:17:57,359 --> 00:17:59,839 is important to the concept of the bodily resurrection because 252 00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:04,200 this is why the bodily resurrection is so important. 253 00:18:04,240 --> 00:18:05,079 Speaker 3: That it's bodily. 254 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:11,119 Speaker 1: We're not talking about identical matter coming back together to 255 00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:15,920 form a physical space for a soul to inhabit. We're 256 00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:23,599 talking about your identity continuing to exist, you continuing to 257 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:24,160 be you. 258 00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:31,799 Speaker 3: In every way. 259 00:18:32,839 --> 00:18:35,920 Speaker 1: This means not only the maintenance of those sort of relationships, 260 00:18:37,920 --> 00:18:41,319 but that maintained is the way that we are formed, 261 00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:45,440 what we have come to know, what we have come 262 00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:48,839 to think, how we have come to think about things 263 00:18:48,839 --> 00:18:56,559 and see the world around us. Now, another part of this, 264 00:18:58,039 --> 00:19:02,039 a part of this that we haven't thought, the part 265 00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:05,400 that's really the focus of the talk this morning, the 266 00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:07,480 part that I've been trying to think over the last 267 00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:14,079 year especially. We've thought about this in terms of space. 268 00:19:14,319 --> 00:19:17,680 What do I mean by that? We have this idea 269 00:19:17,759 --> 00:19:22,880 of the bodily resurrection. That well, that means, right, this body, 270 00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:27,599 or at least a body like it, this world or 271 00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:30,400 at least a world like it. Right, we make these 272 00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:35,079 affirmations in the Christian tradition. No, it is this world 273 00:19:35,119 --> 00:19:37,799 that will be redeemed. It is this body that will 274 00:19:37,839 --> 00:19:40,759 be redeemed. Is this creation that will be redeemed. It's 275 00:19:40,799 --> 00:19:42,400 not going to be destroyed and done away with and 276 00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:45,079 replaced with something else. It's not going to be destroyed 277 00:19:45,079 --> 00:19:47,960 and done away with and replaced with nothing in some 278 00:19:48,119 --> 00:19:49,799 kind of ephemeral. 279 00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:50,799 Speaker 3: Ghostly existence. 280 00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:55,279 Speaker 1: But I don't think we've really reckoned with how this 281 00:19:55,400 --> 00:20:04,640 relates to time, how this relates to time, because part 282 00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:08,480 of that view we have in our head is that well, 283 00:20:08,839 --> 00:20:17,240 after this bodily resurrection happens, however we conceive it, then 284 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:24,720 eternal life means we're gonna have this eternal succession of moments. 285 00:20:26,319 --> 00:20:27,640 Speaker 3: Right, It's gonna be like this. 286 00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:38,160 Speaker 1: With all the bad stuff gone, but just going on forever, right, 287 00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:44,000 just going on forever. This creates a lot of issues 288 00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:49,160 that it doesn't solve. They kind of dealt with this. 289 00:20:49,319 --> 00:20:50,960 I don't know if anybody here watched. 290 00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:52,480 Speaker 3: The Good Place back when it was on TV. 291 00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:57,200 Speaker 1: But they kind of dealt with this, right, because they 292 00:20:57,240 --> 00:21:01,359 had a very materialist view of on the show. 293 00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:04,359 Speaker 3: Right. But so ultimately all of the. 294 00:21:04,359 --> 00:21:10,759 Speaker 1: Characters spoilers end up in what's sort of heaven, right, 295 00:21:10,839 --> 00:21:15,359 And everything is wonderful, and everything is beautiful, and every 296 00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:19,119 day is beautiful weather and. 297 00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:19,440 Speaker 3: Everything is good. 298 00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:24,240 Speaker 1: But time continues as it does here, and so at 299 00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:32,920 a certain point, at a certain point, that's not bliss anymore, right, 300 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:41,160 that's not joy anymore at a certain point, I think, 301 00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:44,880 equally importantly, what does that do to our understanding of 302 00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:50,720 this life, this life that we live in, this age, 303 00:21:51,279 --> 00:22:01,759 in this world. Now, at some point the paraphrase one 304 00:22:01,799 --> 00:22:04,799 of the latter verses of amazing Grace that nobody sings. 305 00:22:04,799 --> 00:22:06,440 They just do the first one over and over again, 306 00:22:06,559 --> 00:22:08,359 or play it on the bag pipes at a funeral. 307 00:22:09,079 --> 00:22:12,920 But you know, we've been there for ten thousand years. 308 00:22:17,319 --> 00:22:20,119 We'll have no less days left to sing God's praise 309 00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:26,000 than when we'd first begun, just an unending praise chorus 310 00:22:26,039 --> 00:22:36,440 for at least twenty thousand years, right, And then what 311 00:22:36,480 --> 00:22:40,160 does that mean about the sixty seventy eighty years I 312 00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:42,200 spent on this earth, going through all this and doing 313 00:22:42,200 --> 00:22:45,359 all this well, that will be long forgotten by then, right, 314 00:22:48,559 --> 00:22:49,559 who will even care? 315 00:22:51,880 --> 00:22:56,799 Speaker 3: Distant memory? Right, distant memory. 316 00:22:57,480 --> 00:22:59,680 Speaker 1: And if we envision that we're gonna be there with Christ, 317 00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:02,759 and we see the resurrected Christ to the gospel still 318 00:23:02,799 --> 00:23:05,839 has his wounds from the cross, that'll seem a little 319 00:23:05,839 --> 00:23:10,519 odd that he went through all that in this world, 320 00:23:10,519 --> 00:23:16,480 oh way back when we barely remember it. 321 00:23:15,119 --> 00:23:19,480 Speaker 3: It doesn't fit. It doesn't fit. 322 00:23:23,799 --> 00:23:27,839 Speaker 1: Nevertheless, in this life, in this world, our identity who 323 00:23:27,839 --> 00:23:30,640 we are, if it's formed externally in this way in relation, 324 00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:37,839 that's something that happens over time. Our life in this 325 00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:43,480 world is not just spread out across space, right, that 326 00:23:43,559 --> 00:23:47,359 we move about, that we're in different places at different times, 327 00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:54,240 but it's spread out in time. Those relationships are formed 328 00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:56,400 over time. I was not always a husband. That is 329 00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:01,839 part of my identity now. But I wasn't always in 330 00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:04,720 terms of my experience of time. I wasn't always a priest. 331 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:12,640 Don't wish you met me when I was fifteen. I 332 00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:16,440 was a problem, right, But that's part of who I 333 00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:20,880 am too, right, but comes out once in a while. 334 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:28,039 But our identity is formed across this section of space, 335 00:24:28,119 --> 00:24:35,319 and this section of time. That means that, in some sense, 336 00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:41,759 for the bodily resurrection to be real, for our identity 337 00:24:41,799 --> 00:24:48,680 to be preserved in the world to come in eternal life, 338 00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:54,839 it's not just a question of the external physicality needing 339 00:24:54,839 --> 00:25:01,440 to be preserved. In some sense that time, the time 340 00:25:01,559 --> 00:25:07,000 of our life in this world, has to be preserved, 341 00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:12,960 the actual concrete moments in which the bonds between me 342 00:25:13,039 --> 00:25:20,039 and other people were forged, the actual experiences that we shared. 343 00:25:23,519 --> 00:25:31,960 I can't be a husband without my wife, I can't 344 00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:38,640 be a priest without the church. And so these concrete 345 00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:45,279 moments also have to in some sense continue to exist. 346 00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:50,720 And so it's not just a question of the bodily 347 00:25:50,759 --> 00:25:52,640 resurrection and the life of the age to come. 348 00:25:53,759 --> 00:25:55,200 Speaker 3: Being this body in. 349 00:25:55,200 --> 00:26:02,039 Speaker 1: This world, that's our starting point, but it also has 350 00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:08,400 to be a preservation of this time. It has to 351 00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:12,839 be an eternalizing of this life that I actually led. 352 00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:15,160 Not this life in a broad sense, but this life 353 00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:21,559 that I actually led in this world. So here's the 354 00:26:21,559 --> 00:26:26,279 second place where the shade of our friend Nietzsche shows 355 00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:29,079 up and has a few things to say to us. 356 00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:35,799 What if someday or night a demon were to steal 357 00:26:35,839 --> 00:26:39,839 after you into your loneliest, loneliness, and say to you, 358 00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:43,640 this life is you now live it, and have lived it. 359 00:26:44,319 --> 00:26:47,400 You will have to live once more, and innumerable times more, 360 00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:51,480 and there will be nothing new in it, but every 361 00:26:51,519 --> 00:26:54,720 pain and every joy, and every thought and sigh, and 362 00:26:54,799 --> 00:26:58,799 everything unutterably small or great in your life will have 363 00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:01,960 to return to you all in the same succession. In sequence, 364 00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,079 would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth 365 00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:10,279 and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you 366 00:27:10,319 --> 00:27:14,640 once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him? 367 00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:16,319 Speaker 3: You are a god? 368 00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:21,079 Speaker 1: And never have I heard anything more divine. That's from 369 00:27:21,079 --> 00:27:22,440 the Gay Science section. 370 00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:27,880 Speaker 3: Three point forty one, and that bit of. 371 00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,680 Speaker 1: Nietzsche is referred to as the eternal return or eternal recurrence. 372 00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:38,799 He had this idea, Did he think it was metaphysically real? 373 00:27:39,279 --> 00:27:40,759 What does that even mean in this case? 374 00:27:41,319 --> 00:27:41,440 Speaker 3: Right? 375 00:27:42,039 --> 00:27:47,880 Speaker 1: But he presented this as this view that essentially everyone 376 00:27:48,559 --> 00:27:51,359 repeats their life over and over and over again an 377 00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:56,079 infinite number of times. And he is at least using it, 378 00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,680 is at least presenting it as sort of a test 379 00:28:00,759 --> 00:28:05,640 to give yourself regarding your life. And he's saying, here, 380 00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:08,519 is there a moment in which you could look at 381 00:28:08,519 --> 00:28:09,920 that not as a horrible curse? 382 00:28:12,039 --> 00:28:12,279 Speaker 3: Right? 383 00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:15,880 Speaker 1: Is there a moment where that would not be your nightmare? 384 00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:21,720 Is how he's presenting it. When he writes, thus spake Zarathustra, 385 00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:27,039 he says, the whole thing is a meditation on this idea, 386 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,000 and so not at the conclusion, but near the conclusion 387 00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:33,480 we'll hear from him once again. 388 00:28:33,519 --> 00:28:35,319 Speaker 3: There's a dialogue going on. 389 00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,119 Speaker 1: These are a couple of excerpts between who he calls 390 00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:46,319 the ugliest man and Zarathustra. My friends, all of you 391 00:28:46,359 --> 00:28:49,559 said the ugliest man, what think ye? For the sake 392 00:28:49,599 --> 00:28:52,000 of this day? I am for the first time content 393 00:28:52,119 --> 00:28:58,240 to have lived mine entire life, And that I testify 394 00:28:58,319 --> 00:29:01,000 so much is still not enough for me. It is 395 00:29:01,039 --> 00:29:03,920 worthwhile living on the earth one day, one festival, was 396 00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,559 Zarathustra hath taught me to love the earth? 397 00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,400 Speaker 3: Was that life? I will say? Unto death? 398 00:29:11,039 --> 00:29:15,279 Speaker 1: Well once more, my friends, what think ye? Will ye 399 00:29:15,279 --> 00:29:18,839 not like me say unto to death? Was that life? 400 00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:26,640 For the sake of Zarathustra? Well once more? Later Zarathustra 401 00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:31,480 gets drunk. He sings a song. This is part of it. 402 00:29:33,599 --> 00:29:33,799 Speaker 4: All. 403 00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:38,799 Speaker 1: Joy wanteth the eternity of all things. It wanteth honey, 404 00:29:38,839 --> 00:29:43,079 It wanteth lee's, It wanteth drunken midnight. It wanteth graves. 405 00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:49,000 It wanteth graves, tears, consolation. It wanteth gilded evening red. 406 00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:54,720 What doth not joy want? It is thirstier, heartier, hungrier, 407 00:29:54,799 --> 00:29:59,759 more frightful, more mysterious than all woe. It wanteth itself. 408 00:30:00,279 --> 00:30:07,759 It biteth into itself. The rings will writheth in it. 409 00:30:07,759 --> 00:30:10,440 It wanteth love, It wanteth hate. It is over rich, 410 00:30:11,079 --> 00:30:15,519 it bestoweth it throweth away. It beggeth for someone to 411 00:30:15,599 --> 00:30:16,799 take from it. 412 00:30:16,799 --> 00:30:20,039 Speaker 3: It thanketh the taker. It would fair be hated. 413 00:30:20,559 --> 00:30:23,920 Speaker 1: So rich is joy that it thirsteth for woe, for hell, 414 00:30:24,079 --> 00:30:27,599 for hate, for shame, for the lame, for the world, 415 00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:32,240 for this world. Oh ye know it, indeed, ye, hire men, 416 00:30:33,519 --> 00:30:37,319 for you doth it long this joy, this irrepressible blessed joy, 417 00:30:37,839 --> 00:30:42,920 for your woe, ye failures, for failures, longeth all eternal joy, 418 00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:48,200 for joys all want themselves. Therefore do they also want grief? 419 00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:54,880 Oh happiness, oh pain, Oh break thou heart. Ye hire men, 420 00:30:55,039 --> 00:30:58,759 do learn it that joys want eternity. Joys want the 421 00:30:58,759 --> 00:31:04,359 eternity of all things. They want deep profound eternity. That's 422 00:31:04,359 --> 00:31:10,880 from thus spake Zarathustra, the Ninth Discourse, And what Nietzsche 423 00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:17,319 is saying is, if we've truly experienced joy in our life, 424 00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:24,160 those moments, those joys, those are what would inspire a 425 00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:24,680 person to. 426 00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:27,640 Speaker 3: Be able to look at his idea of the. 427 00:31:27,559 --> 00:31:30,720 Speaker 1: Eternal recurrence of the same as a hope and not 428 00:31:30,799 --> 00:31:34,599 as a curse, because for the sake of that joy, 429 00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:42,720 one could accept the pain, the struggles, the heartbreak of 430 00:31:42,759 --> 00:31:46,960 this life in order to have that joy again. 431 00:31:50,559 --> 00:31:51,079 Speaker 3: What if? 432 00:31:53,359 --> 00:32:03,640 Speaker 1: What if the resurrection of Christ represents the triumph of joy. 433 00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:06,319 Speaker 3: What if what it means. 434 00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:13,440 Speaker 1: Is that joy has now become eternal without accepting the rest. 435 00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:19,480 Joy has become eternal, putting to death the rest, the pain, 436 00:32:20,119 --> 00:32:28,640 the heartbreak, the sorrow. This is what I mean concretely 437 00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:33,359 by that. What if when we talk about living an 438 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:38,920 eternal life in which there is no more sorrow or 439 00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:46,359 sighing or pain, what our forefathers were really talking about 440 00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:53,960 was eternally living this life without sorrow and sighing and pain. 441 00:32:58,839 --> 00:33:03,559 They were talking about the actual times that we live, 442 00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:08,839 the actual moments we experience, all of them that are blessed, 443 00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,200 all of them that are permeated by God's love, all 444 00:33:12,279 --> 00:33:15,559 of them that are filled with joy, Those become eternal, 445 00:33:16,039 --> 00:33:22,759 Those become the life that we have forever. And everything 446 00:33:22,799 --> 00:33:31,799 else is burned away, everything else dies away, everything else 447 00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:39,440 is thrown away. So mean a number of things. This 448 00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:44,519 very much changes how we would think of hell and 449 00:33:44,599 --> 00:33:49,200 of Christ saving us from it. Hell is not a 450 00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:55,799 place somewhere where a soul, whatever that is, goes, gets 451 00:33:55,839 --> 00:33:59,519 prodded with picked sforks set on fire for an eternal 452 00:33:59,559 --> 00:34:04,880 success in moments. Hell then would be the hell that 453 00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:11,800 we've made of our lives. Hell would be the hell 454 00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:18,280 that we've made of our experiences, in our relationships, the 455 00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:20,719 hell that we've crafted through our own corruption and our 456 00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:21,239 own evil. 457 00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:26,639 Speaker 3: Not only is that the hell that could. 458 00:34:26,519 --> 00:34:30,159 Speaker 1: Become eternal if there's nothing else, but that's the hell 459 00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:37,280 that Christ saves us from. That's the hell that Christ 460 00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:44,679 sets us free from. That's the hell that Christ purifies 461 00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:50,880 us from and transforms us out of the hell we've 462 00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:57,719 made for ourselves. I'm going to read a couple of 463 00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:04,960 passages from the scriptures that I think this understanding sheds 464 00:35:05,039 --> 00:35:10,239 light on. This is from First John five, verses eleven 465 00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:14,320 through thirteen, and I'm going to translate this. You've heard 466 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:22,239 this translated a little differently because the phrase in Greek 467 00:35:22,639 --> 00:35:27,760 that's usually translated in our English Bibles eternal life, doesn't 468 00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:32,519 have an article in it anywhere, meaning it's a narthris. 469 00:35:32,559 --> 00:35:37,679 That's a technical term meaning normally, when we have adjective 470 00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:40,880 noun phrases like that in Greek, we put the indefinite 471 00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:44,320 article A or N in front of it. So I'm 472 00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:49,000 going to translate this that way. And this is the 473 00:35:49,039 --> 00:35:54,000 testimony that God gave us an eternal life, and this 474 00:35:54,119 --> 00:35:59,199 life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life. 475 00:35:59,519 --> 00:36:01,559 Whoever does not have the Son of God does not 476 00:36:01,679 --> 00:36:05,119 have life. I write these things to you who believe 477 00:36:05,159 --> 00:36:07,079 in the name of the Son of God, that you 478 00:36:07,199 --> 00:36:14,039 may know that you have an eternal life, regardless of 479 00:36:14,039 --> 00:36:17,440 how you translate at Saint John is speaking in first 480 00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:19,239 the perfect and then the present tense. 481 00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:25,119 Speaker 3: Now you will have eternal life in the age to 482 00:36:25,159 --> 00:36:27,639 come right. 483 00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:30,519 Speaker 1: But you've been given it and you have it now. 484 00:36:32,639 --> 00:36:37,679 The life you have now in Christ has this adjective attach. 485 00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:45,800 It is now become eternal, it has now become timeless. 486 00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:51,559 This is from Saint Paul one Corinthians three, verses eleven 487 00:36:51,599 --> 00:36:54,679 through fifteen. For no one can lay a foundation other 488 00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:56,840 than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 489 00:36:57,199 --> 00:36:58,119 Speaker 3: Now, if anyone. 490 00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:01,239 Speaker 1: Builds on the foundation with gold sins over precious stones, 491 00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:06,000 would hey straw. Each one's work will become manifest, for 492 00:37:06,079 --> 00:37:09,039 the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed 493 00:37:09,079 --> 00:37:11,880 by fire, and the fire will test what sort of 494 00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,920 work each one has done. If the work that anyone 495 00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,079 has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 496 00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,000 If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, 497 00:37:23,639 --> 00:37:27,320 though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. 498 00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,679 Speaker 3: We may be used to reading that with. 499 00:37:31,679 --> 00:37:36,159 Speaker 1: A whole bunch of old Western theological baggage, that the 500 00:37:36,199 --> 00:37:39,840 works here is talking about some kind of system of 501 00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:43,199 merit and demerit that's attached to actions we take, to 502 00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:48,159 things we do, and we're gonna be issued a repayment 503 00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:51,400 for those merits or demerits. 504 00:37:54,039 --> 00:37:56,360 Speaker 3: But let me submit that the word works there. 505 00:37:59,159 --> 00:38:01,079 Speaker 1: Let's take it out of our sort of English and 506 00:38:01,159 --> 00:38:03,840 Latin sensibilities and go for Greek, where it's sort of 507 00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:08,679 a verbal idea. It's talking about, not just the things 508 00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:14,159 we do, but us doing them, the moments in time 509 00:38:14,199 --> 00:38:21,119 and space where we do these things, then the judgment 510 00:38:21,159 --> 00:38:26,400 that's happening. Here are all those works, all of those 511 00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,760 things that we did, experiences that we had, choices we 512 00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:34,920 made that are wood, hay, straw, junk, garbage, drass are 513 00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:41,400 burned away. All of those moments in time, those moments 514 00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:44,559 of connection, those moments of love, of joy, of peace, 515 00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:54,760 They're refined, made eternal, made permanent. There's an old Russian 516 00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:57,519 folk tale. I figure this is a good crowd to 517 00:38:57,559 --> 00:39:01,559 tell an old Russian folktale too, This old Russian folk 518 00:39:01,599 --> 00:39:04,920 tale that there was this very bitter, miserable old woman 519 00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,559 hated everyone in her village. No one in the village 520 00:39:12,599 --> 00:39:19,440 was all that fond of her right horrible, mean, nagging 521 00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:26,360 wife to her husband, beat her children, selfish, stubborn, angry. 522 00:39:30,039 --> 00:39:35,400 When she died, the priest in her village said, we 523 00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:37,840 need to pray for her, We need to pray for 524 00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,039 her soul. We need to pray for her, that you'd 525 00:39:41,079 --> 00:39:45,079 be forgiven her sins, especially because of the kind of 526 00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:46,679 life she lived. 527 00:39:48,079 --> 00:39:52,199 Speaker 3: So they prayed. God heard these prayers. 528 00:39:52,679 --> 00:39:56,559 Speaker 1: There was one moment in her life where she showed kindness. 529 00:39:57,480 --> 00:39:59,599 There was one moment in her life where a beggar 530 00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:04,400 came and asked her for food. She had just gotten 531 00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,480 some food. She gave the beggar an onion, just this 532 00:40:08,519 --> 00:40:14,280 one moment. And so in the story, an angel takes 533 00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:21,000 that onion and he goes down to Hell and he 534 00:40:21,119 --> 00:40:25,760 extends the onion toward her, and he's going to use 535 00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:30,360 that onion to pull her out of hell, this one 536 00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:36,360 moment in her life, and she immediately grabs the onion, 537 00:40:36,679 --> 00:40:41,400 says my onion, and remains it. I told you it 538 00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:46,119 was a Russian folk tale. You should have seen that coming, right, 539 00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:55,039 But think of what's going on there. There was this 540 00:40:55,159 --> 00:40:58,880 one moment in her life, even though it was only 541 00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:02,960 that one, that she could have inhabited that one moment 542 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:09,960 of generosity. She could have inhabited that eternally had she 543 00:41:10,039 --> 00:41:14,800 not sort of pushed it away from herself, had she 544 00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:26,760 not sort of pushed it away from herself. So the 545 00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:30,039 idea of bodily resurrection, then, especially if we start thinking 546 00:41:30,079 --> 00:41:36,800 it this way, helps us kind of navigate between sort 547 00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,519 of Sylla and chryptis again the right crowd to make 548 00:41:39,519 --> 00:41:44,599 a reference to this sill chryptis of on the one side, 549 00:41:44,639 --> 00:41:49,760 a kind of gnosticism that wants to say this world, 550 00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:54,440 this life, our bodies, everything that happens here is unimportant 551 00:41:54,639 --> 00:41:58,119 and irrelevant, something to be escaped, something to be just 552 00:41:58,199 --> 00:42:04,039 overcome and superseded. And on the other side actually reincarnation, 553 00:42:08,119 --> 00:42:10,159 reincarnation the idea that we get a sort of infinite 554 00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:16,199 number of tries at this until we eventually get it right. 555 00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:26,480 In between those two, we have this one life, this 556 00:42:26,559 --> 00:42:32,199 one life to live, to become who we are, with 557 00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:35,800 the promise in Christ that who we are and who 558 00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:42,760 we become in this life that will become eternal, this 559 00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:48,800 life that we live will become eternal. And into that 560 00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:52,199 Christ then further speaks the word that we can change, 561 00:42:52,199 --> 00:42:56,519 that we can be transformed, that at whatever point we 562 00:42:56,639 --> 00:43:01,480 realize we've been living in hell and we don't want 563 00:43:01,519 --> 00:43:04,360 to live in hell one day more, let alone eternally, 564 00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,000 that He sets us free to live a different kind 565 00:43:10,039 --> 00:43:13,079 of life for the rest of our days, however many 566 00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:17,599 that may be, and that gives us a time and 567 00:43:17,639 --> 00:43:24,280 a space then that we can inhabit with Him for eternity. 568 00:43:27,639 --> 00:43:31,079 So those have been my thoughts about the bodily resurrection. 569 00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:34,840 As Dya has kind of helped me, hopefully kind of 570 00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:38,320 helped us today. It's a different way of thinking it, 571 00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:44,239 and I'm still kind of playing it out right, but 572 00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:46,480 I hope it will get you. 573 00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:48,079 Speaker 3: Thinking as it's gotten me thinking. 574 00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:51,159 Speaker 1: Right, we can all kind of keep doing the work 575 00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:53,440 from here in terms of how we conceive it. 576 00:43:57,719 --> 00:43:58,719 Speaker 3: West even younger. 577 00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:10,000 Speaker 4: So one of the things I've been talking about with 578 00:44:10,039 --> 00:44:13,239 my wife is that I guess it's an extension of 579 00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,199 something I used to do in my clinical practice. Now, 580 00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,519 if you're dealing with people who are depressed, one of 581 00:44:18,559 --> 00:44:20,079 the things you can do with them is you can 582 00:44:20,119 --> 00:44:24,920 have them track their mood variation hour by hour. Even 583 00:44:26,039 --> 00:44:28,559 because someone who's depressed will tell you that they're depressed 584 00:44:28,599 --> 00:44:32,079 all the time, and perhaps they are, but sometimes they're 585 00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:34,119 somewhat less depressed than other times. 586 00:44:34,119 --> 00:44:37,519 Speaker 5: There's still variability. Now, it might be the variability of 587 00:44:37,559 --> 00:44:40,960 suffering in hell, but it's still variability. 588 00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:43,559 Speaker 4: And what that means is that you can help the 589 00:44:43,599 --> 00:44:48,400 person delineate when they're suffering most and least intensely, right, 590 00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:50,679 and then you can start to triangulate on that. 591 00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:51,039 Speaker 3: Right. 592 00:44:51,519 --> 00:44:54,159 Speaker 4: You might think, okay, well, when things are really bad 593 00:44:54,199 --> 00:44:58,079 for you, when is that exactly does that repeat is 594 00:44:58,119 --> 00:45:01,280 it the morning and what's the cont text? And then 595 00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:03,840 you can do an analysis of what deepened suffering, and 596 00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:05,559 then you can do the reverse, which is. 597 00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:09,760 Speaker 5: When is it that you're least miserable? 598 00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:14,079 Speaker 4: And then the next step is, well, maybe you could 599 00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:18,880 rearrange yourself so that you're doing the things that make 600 00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,119 you most miserable less of the time, and you can 601 00:45:22,159 --> 00:45:27,280 see a progression. A progression, Now you could phrase that positively, 602 00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:31,400 so you could imagine that you were watching your marriage 603 00:45:31,039 --> 00:45:37,519 like you didn't understand it, which you don't, and you 604 00:45:37,519 --> 00:45:39,800 could see your marriage and your family. Let's say you 605 00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:42,360 could see that now, and then that the light would 606 00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:47,440 be shining through right that for whatever reason. Now, under 607 00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:52,079 these circumstances, we're playing with each other, everyone's pleased to 608 00:45:52,159 --> 00:45:56,599 be here. We're concentrating on the moment. Our experience is 609 00:45:56,639 --> 00:46:00,519 suffused with joy, grace is dis sended. 610 00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:04,159 Speaker 5: We're doing something to allow that to happen. 611 00:46:05,079 --> 00:46:05,760 Speaker 6: What is it? 612 00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:10,920 Speaker 5: And could we learn to live there more often? Okay, 613 00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:11,360 so that. 614 00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:15,599 Speaker 4: You're making your pointing in that direction with regards to 615 00:46:15,639 --> 00:46:19,320 the emergence of eternity into life. Right, So then you 616 00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:21,920 could imagine that you could practice that, and people can 617 00:46:22,039 --> 00:46:25,039 do that. So it might be that you find that 618 00:46:25,119 --> 00:46:28,159 in your typical day you're only spending ten minutes in 619 00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:32,800 that state, But if you practice diligently for six months, 620 00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:35,840 you could get it up to like half an hour, 621 00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:39,159 and then you could and then within that half an hour, 622 00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:41,400 you'd see that there'd be a new seed that would 623 00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,400 be emerging, that would be a higher order of bliss 624 00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:49,079 even within that, and that can be continually. That's the 625 00:46:49,119 --> 00:46:52,039 pearl of great price, by the way, that's the mustard seed, 626 00:46:52,079 --> 00:46:55,440 that's the Kingdom of heaven. Those are all the same things. Okay, 627 00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:56,760 so I understand. 628 00:46:56,920 --> 00:46:57,079 Speaker 3: Now. 629 00:46:57,199 --> 00:47:00,639 Speaker 4: I also like your emphasis, the emphasis you place on 630 00:47:00,719 --> 00:47:03,199 the idea that that's something that has to be made 631 00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:07,960 manifest here and that we can't throw away the world 632 00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:15,159 of reality in favor of some heaven after death that's displaced. 633 00:47:15,559 --> 00:47:18,079 And you can understand why that's a danger too, because 634 00:47:20,199 --> 00:47:22,639 the world becomes a place to escape from and can 635 00:47:22,679 --> 00:47:26,159 become denigrated and our identities become something that float above it, 636 00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:28,199 which is exactly where we're at in a kind of 637 00:47:28,199 --> 00:47:30,079 postmodern transhumanist world. 638 00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:31,320 Speaker 6: Okay, so. 639 00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,079 Speaker 5: That's my understanding of what you've said. 640 00:47:35,159 --> 00:47:38,920 Speaker 4: Now, what I don't understand, and this is a terribly 641 00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,199 unfair question, but I'd like to know what your thoughts are. Well, 642 00:47:44,039 --> 00:47:47,880 I guess that the issue still is what of the dead? Right, 643 00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,039 Because it's all well and good to be digging for 644 00:47:50,159 --> 00:47:52,599 the kingdom of heaven while you're alive, but it's a 645 00:47:52,639 --> 00:47:56,840 lot harder when you're dead. And so right, right, So 646 00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,559 what I saw you doing today was reading with the 647 00:48:00,599 --> 00:48:04,119 problem of the relationship between eternity and heaven and the 648 00:48:04,159 --> 00:48:07,119 proximal and making a case that we can't abandon the 649 00:48:07,119 --> 00:48:10,760 proximal in the least, we need to elevate it to 650 00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:13,039 this status of the eternal. But it still leaves us 651 00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:16,280 with the problem of death and so well. 652 00:48:16,199 --> 00:48:18,840 Speaker 6: So that's the question. It's like, how do. 653 00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:24,280 Speaker 4: You reconcile, because you by scrapping that kind of unconscious 654 00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:28,840 traditional view of heaven and hell as as what happens 655 00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:32,440 after you die, you also scrap the problem of how 656 00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:36,400 to address the fact of the loss of death. And 657 00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:39,199 so I'm wondering where your thoughts have taken you in 658 00:48:39,199 --> 00:48:39,760 that regard. 659 00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:45,639 Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, so, and this is obviously based on the 660 00:48:45,639 --> 00:48:50,079 tradition I'm in right receive, but so that the Russian 661 00:48:50,079 --> 00:48:51,639 folk tale, you see a piece of that. 662 00:48:52,199 --> 00:48:52,400 Speaker 3: Right. 663 00:48:52,519 --> 00:48:55,800 Speaker 1: So the way this has been traditionally phrased is a 664 00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:59,719 person can't repent, they can't take action to change and 665 00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:04,519 train formed their life once they're dead for themselves, right, 666 00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:09,840 But the community of which they were a part can 667 00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:12,440 come and intercede for them. And what I think that 668 00:49:12,519 --> 00:49:15,239 Russian folktale brings out is what's happening there is not 669 00:49:15,519 --> 00:49:18,360 sort of oh, we're all begging God to change his 670 00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:21,320 mind about this person, right and decide they were a 671 00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:24,239 good person instead of a bad person. But what we 672 00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:27,719 are doing is we're trying to bring to the four 673 00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:31,320 those moments in that time, because I think what we 674 00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:33,400 mean by the resurrection of the dead on the last 675 00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:38,119 Day is us coming back to inhabit not just this 676 00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:41,280 body in some sense, this physical body of this physical 677 00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:46,880 world in some sense, but to reinhabit our lives, but 678 00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:52,280 our lives now purified of so everything that was, everything 679 00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:55,199 that was pain and suffering, and only those moments remain 680 00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:56,960 and we live those moments. 681 00:49:58,119 --> 00:49:59,119 Speaker 6: Okay, we sort of do that. 682 00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:02,599 Speaker 4: Well, we sort of do that when we pull the 683 00:50:02,679 --> 00:50:05,719 spirit of great people along with us from the past. Right. 684 00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:10,280 I mean I was sitting here thinking about what you 685 00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:14,599 were talking about. And I'm working with this employee of mine. 686 00:50:14,639 --> 00:50:17,599 Now we're building these we're building large language models, and 687 00:50:17,639 --> 00:50:21,280 we're thinking about resurrecting people essentially. And so because you 688 00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:24,000 can build a large language model of Nietzsche, for example, 689 00:50:24,039 --> 00:50:24,920 and now. 690 00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:26,239 Speaker 6: You can more or less embody that. 691 00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:28,719 Speaker 4: So we could build a large language model of Nietzsche 692 00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:31,320 and provide him with a photorealistic avatar and have him 693 00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,719 lecture again. And that is I mean, we'd already do 694 00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:36,880 that with the great people of the past to some degree, 695 00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:40,239 because we pull them along and we pull out their 696 00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:42,159 best and we carry that with us, right, And that 697 00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:45,920 is something like you could imagine that in principle being 698 00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:49,119 something like the separating of the wheat from the chaff, 699 00:50:49,519 --> 00:50:52,000 and the conservating of the wheat and the bringing that 700 00:50:52,119 --> 00:50:54,920 along with us. But the woman that you talked about, 701 00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,239 for example, her life was almost all chaff. 702 00:51:00,119 --> 00:51:02,159 Speaker 6: It And that's a terrible. 703 00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:04,079 Speaker 4: Thing to think about in relationship to your own life, 704 00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:06,840 by the way, like it's the most terrible thing to 705 00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:13,079 think about in fact, virtually by definition, does that mean 706 00:51:13,119 --> 00:51:14,039 that if your life is. 707 00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:20,559 Speaker 6: Old chaff, that you remain eternally dead. That to be 708 00:51:20,639 --> 00:51:21,199 what that means. 709 00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:23,199 Speaker 1: That is what I think is meant by eternal death 710 00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:27,719 when that phrase is used in the scriptures, and that's 711 00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:32,440 a horrible it's a horrible well, and it's and and 712 00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:35,119 one of the key elements though of the scriptures, that 713 00:51:35,199 --> 00:51:38,800 of the Christian tradition is with maybe a couple exceptions 714 00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:42,679 like Judas and and maybe Areas, there's no one who 715 00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:47,079 is that it is said, that has happened to, but 716 00:51:47,159 --> 00:51:49,000 it is out there continually as. 717 00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:51,199 Speaker 3: A possibility for us. 718 00:51:51,679 --> 00:51:53,199 Speaker 6: I mean that death. 719 00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:56,920 Speaker 1: Yes, that that is a possibility, not for other people 720 00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:02,519 but for me, right, and that spurs me to continue 721 00:52:02,559 --> 00:52:04,440 to examine my life. 722 00:52:04,679 --> 00:52:05,639 Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, to. 723 00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:09,800 Speaker 1: Continue to say that possibility being out there, that possibility 724 00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:11,480 being extended. 725 00:52:12,760 --> 00:52:12,920 Speaker 3: Right. 726 00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:17,880 Speaker 1: So whether there is anyone who will ultimately face that 727 00:52:20,199 --> 00:52:22,679 is sort of irrelevant to the question of the work 728 00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:26,599 that that idea is doing within the scriptures and within 729 00:52:26,639 --> 00:52:29,719 the Christian tradition, being that possibility and. 730 00:52:29,679 --> 00:52:32,280 Speaker 6: In some in some ways. 731 00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:40,599 Speaker 4: You you might want that to happen, because even with 732 00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:45,320 regards to Nietzsche's idea of the eternal return, I suppose 733 00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:48,320 hell might be the eternal return of everything you did 734 00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,119 stop everything you did that was stupid in your life, 735 00:52:51,639 --> 00:52:52,920 being repeated forever. 736 00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:55,199 Speaker 6: That is hell in your own life. 737 00:52:55,239 --> 00:52:57,239 Speaker 4: By the way, that's actually why you should solve the 738 00:52:57,280 --> 00:52:59,800 problems that present themselves to you, because if. 739 00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:03,159 Speaker 5: You don't, all you do is repeat them. 740 00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:05,519 Speaker 6: That's why you need to have. 741 00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:08,519 Speaker 4: It out with people, because otherwise you just do the 742 00:53:08,559 --> 00:53:12,239 same stupid thing forever well, and it gets worse as 743 00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:14,599 you do it. That seems to be not the sort 744 00:53:14,639 --> 00:53:18,119 of thing you want to preserve. And so in that 745 00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:20,800 mud mean in some ways that what you would properly 746 00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:24,880 pray for is to be submitted to the flaming swords 747 00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:26,079 that turn every which way. 748 00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:26,440 Speaker 3: Right. 749 00:53:27,679 --> 00:53:30,039 Speaker 4: The terrifying part of that, I suppose would be that 750 00:53:30,119 --> 00:53:31,039 most of you would. 751 00:53:30,880 --> 00:53:34,960 Speaker 1: Go yeah, so that the person who it would truly 752 00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,679 be that far gone would not yeah. 753 00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:39,679 Speaker 6: Well, I have thought, for I've been thinking that. 754 00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:44,000 Speaker 4: The degree to which the flaming swords that turn every 755 00:53:44,079 --> 00:53:50,119 which way are hell is proportionate to how much of 756 00:53:50,159 --> 00:53:53,480 you would have to be destroyed to pass through them 757 00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:54,400 to get to paradise. 758 00:53:55,639 --> 00:53:56,440 Speaker 6: Right right. 759 00:53:56,639 --> 00:53:58,599 Speaker 4: I don't know if that's a literal vision of hell, 760 00:54:00,079 --> 00:54:04,280 because if you're ninety nine percent dead, would the flames 761 00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:09,719 that purify would be experienced, would they be experienced as 762 00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:14,280 hell they would be if you experienced that without voluntary compliance. 763 00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:16,039 I mean that happens to you in your life all 764 00:54:16,079 --> 00:54:16,559 the time. 765 00:54:16,679 --> 00:54:19,280 Speaker 3: So right, Yeah, And. 766 00:54:22,159 --> 00:54:24,239 Speaker 1: When I sit with people as they're dying, which is 767 00:54:24,239 --> 00:54:29,559 a priest, you do, the worry and the despair of 768 00:54:29,599 --> 00:54:32,920 the family is that all of the love and all 769 00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:34,599 of the joy and all of the good is what 770 00:54:34,719 --> 00:54:43,639 is dying. That that's what's going away, right, And the 771 00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:48,039 hope that Christianity presents is no, that is what becomes eternal. 772 00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:50,159 Speaker 3: It's the rest that dies. 773 00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:53,079 Speaker 6: Well, that would read the case. 774 00:54:54,559 --> 00:54:57,519 Speaker 4: I suppose if the world was overwhelmed by hell, then 775 00:54:57,559 --> 00:55:01,360 it would be that the catastrophe that would be eternal. Right, 776 00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:05,440 that would mean that the wrong was we conserved? What 777 00:55:05,599 --> 00:55:09,320 was we conserved the wrong thing? Well, I'm wondering. I mean, 778 00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:12,679 I'm still trying to wrestle with this issue of the dead. 779 00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:17,199 Let's say, I mean, you make the case for the 780 00:55:17,239 --> 00:55:21,039 embodiment for the resurrection of the body very powerfully. I Mean, 781 00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:24,719 one of the things our culture is very perverse about 782 00:55:24,840 --> 00:55:27,719 is the notion that identity is something that floats above 783 00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:32,639 embodiment in a manner that should be disembodied, and that 784 00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:35,840 is which is why we insist that you can define 785 00:55:35,880 --> 00:55:39,280 your own identity, which Nietzsche had something to do with, right, 786 00:55:39,360 --> 00:55:42,119 because he said we should formulate our own values, that 787 00:55:42,159 --> 00:55:44,159 we'd have to come to the point where we formulated 788 00:55:44,159 --> 00:55:44,760 our own. 789 00:55:44,639 --> 00:55:46,400 Speaker 6: That was a very bad idea. 790 00:55:46,800 --> 00:55:49,800 Speaker 4: I mean, that was a very bad idea, and I 791 00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:54,719 think the psychoanalysts actually corrected that pretty rapidly, although that's 792 00:55:54,760 --> 00:56:00,920 not particularly well known. We would we would winn the 793 00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:02,679 good and pull it along with us, right, and that 794 00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:04,840 we would build the world on the basis of that good, 795 00:56:04,840 --> 00:56:07,360 and that would be something like building the weight world 796 00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:10,800 on the foundation of Christ. It's the same idea fundamentally, right, 797 00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:13,320 is that if that's the good that's at the foundation, 798 00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:17,360 and then that makes itself manifest in the particularities of 799 00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:21,320 each person's time and place, then we pull all that, 800 00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:23,880 we gather all that as we move along, and that 801 00:56:24,039 --> 00:56:28,639 spirit suffuses us, and that's the movement towards eternity. But 802 00:56:29,199 --> 00:56:32,840 then I'm still struggling with that. I see that that's true, 803 00:56:32,840 --> 00:56:34,920 but I'm still struggling with that and the notion of 804 00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:39,880 an embodied resurrection. So I really I know you can't 805 00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:41,599 answer that, because I don't think anybody can answer that. 806 00:56:41,639 --> 00:56:44,840 I'll think we understand it. Well, it's also something we're 807 00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:47,079 stumbling towards the realization of. 808 00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:47,440 Speaker 3: Right. 809 00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:52,039 Speaker 4: Yeah, but okay, So when you're sitting with people dying 810 00:56:52,199 --> 00:56:59,159 and they're worried that the good will disappear, how is 811 00:56:59,199 --> 00:57:01,239 it that you what is it that you find to 812 00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:03,239 comfort people in those moments? 813 00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:10,840 Speaker 1: I think it is precisely this idea, this idea that 814 00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:16,400 not only are those moments not dying, not only is 815 00:57:16,400 --> 00:57:20,199 that love you shared not dying, but that is going 816 00:57:20,239 --> 00:57:24,920 to become your reality. That is going to become your 817 00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:27,480 reality eternally. And I think in terms of drawing the 818 00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:29,119 dead with us, I think that's part of the function 819 00:57:29,159 --> 00:57:32,920 of saints in the church. Right, the church is not 820 00:57:33,199 --> 00:57:34,280 just Christ, it's also the. 821 00:57:34,239 --> 00:57:35,280 Speaker 3: Communion of Saints. 822 00:57:36,039 --> 00:57:41,199 Speaker 1: Right, it's the communion of saints who are because of 823 00:57:41,239 --> 00:57:44,360 their whole life. Right, we read the lives of the saints, 824 00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:47,760 their actual stories play down in time as their identity 825 00:57:49,480 --> 00:57:52,440 right and their spirits, the spirits of the righteous made 826 00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:58,000 perfect as we call them right, are now continually part 827 00:57:58,039 --> 00:57:59,559 of and foundational to the community. 828 00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:03,519 Speaker 4: I could imagine too, that if you're evaluating your life 829 00:58:04,199 --> 00:58:08,000 and you see those moments when you exist in something 830 00:58:08,039 --> 00:58:12,000 that's at least closer to paradise than your normative existence. 831 00:58:12,079 --> 00:58:15,320 That it is during those times that the spirits of 832 00:58:15,519 --> 00:58:17,880 the spirit of what was best in the past is 833 00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:20,719 making itself manifest in the present in your life. 834 00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:24,280 Speaker 6: That is what's happening. I mean, those are the times where. 835 00:58:26,039 --> 00:58:29,480 Speaker 4: Your existence is configured and things come together so that 836 00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:34,119 the spirit of what, the eternal redeeming spirit of your ancestors, 837 00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:38,960 is making itself manifest within you. That's what's happening. And 838 00:58:38,360 --> 00:58:40,760 you can invite that in. You know, in the story 839 00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:43,960 of Cain and Abel, when Cain is bitter, Cain invites 840 00:58:46,239 --> 00:58:49,960 the predatory spirit that crouches on the predatory spirit of 841 00:58:50,039 --> 00:58:53,239 resentment that crouches on his doorstep. He invites that in 842 00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:56,480 to take possession of him. That's the accusation that God 843 00:58:56,599 --> 00:59:01,360 levels against Cain when Cain shakes his fist at the cosmos, 844 00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:06,039 and people do that when things are when the world 845 00:59:06,079 --> 00:59:11,800 reveals itself to you in love, that's an indication that, 846 00:59:12,039 --> 00:59:17,159 for whatever reason, you were fortunate enough to be wise 847 00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:22,320 enough to invite in that the spirit of what's good 848 00:59:22,760 --> 00:59:25,840 to possess you, right, and you can learn to do 849 00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:28,519 that right, And that's that's really I would say that's 850 00:59:28,559 --> 00:59:31,599 the Christian journey fundamentally to do that, and that is 851 00:59:31,639 --> 00:59:34,199 something like a conservation of the of the good of 852 00:59:34,239 --> 00:59:36,480 the past. You can see that too, even if you're 853 00:59:36,519 --> 00:59:38,800 able to do that in part because maybe you have 854 00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:42,599 a wonderful moment with your son, let's say, when he's 855 00:59:42,639 --> 00:59:43,119 a child. 856 00:59:45,960 --> 00:59:47,320 Speaker 6: If you think that through. 857 00:59:47,199 --> 00:59:50,440 Speaker 4: You understand that that's the moment in which the best 858 00:59:50,519 --> 00:59:56,000 of your father shines through you, right, And that best 859 00:59:56,039 --> 00:59:58,719 of him was an amalgam of what was best about 860 00:59:58,800 --> 01:00:02,679 fathers since time immemorial. I mean literally, because we imitate 861 01:00:03,239 --> 01:00:06,360 each other as we move down the generations and the 862 01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:11,519 centuries and so and that is the emergence of something 863 01:00:11,559 --> 01:00:13,760 eternal into the space of the proximal. 864 01:00:16,679 --> 01:00:21,719 Speaker 1: And the saints maintain their identity. It's not just their writings, 865 01:00:21,760 --> 01:00:24,239 their thoughts, what they did, what we read their lives, right, 866 01:00:24,239 --> 01:00:25,960 their identity. 867 01:00:26,039 --> 01:00:29,320 Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, that's well, that's the other thing about the 868 01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:32,559 the insistence of the resurrection of the body. That's so brilliant, 869 01:00:32,599 --> 01:00:35,719 because if you abandon the notion of the body, you 870 01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:38,679 abandon the value of the particularities of. 871 01:00:38,599 --> 01:00:39,440 Speaker 6: Time and space. 872 01:00:39,559 --> 01:00:44,440 Speaker 4: Right, it means that only what's abstract about you is real, 873 01:00:45,159 --> 01:00:49,960 and that's not. Well, that leads to this transhuman postmodernism. 874 01:00:50,039 --> 01:00:52,599 It's another pathway there. It has to be that the 875 01:00:52,639 --> 01:00:57,320 particularities are just as important as the universalities, not and 876 01:00:57,320 --> 01:00:59,639 and I think that has something to do with Jonathan's 877 01:00:59,639 --> 01:01:03,280 constant and insistence that you have to understand the reflection 878 01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:05,840 of the Kingdom of Heaven not as something that's merely 879 01:01:05,880 --> 01:01:09,159 at the pinnacle or that's the foundation, but that's the 880 01:01:09,159 --> 01:01:14,119 pinnacle and the foundation, and that suffuses the whole simultaneously, right, 881 01:01:14,159 --> 01:01:17,559 And so you don't get to abandon the particularities in 882 01:01:17,679 --> 01:01:21,360 preference to the to the general or vice versa. Right. 883 01:01:21,400 --> 01:01:24,480 I suppose vice versa is kind of what the hedonists do. 884 01:01:25,119 --> 01:01:32,199 It's only about the embodiment in the present, right, Okay, okay, 885 01:01:32,239 --> 01:01:36,880 well that's well, thank you, yeah yeah yeah yeah. 886 01:01:36,320 --> 01:01:42,000 Speaker 3: Thank you father, thank you, and thank you Jordan. 887 01:01:45,800 --> 01:01:48,679 Speaker 2: If you enjoy these videos and podcasts, please go to 888 01:01:48,719 --> 01:01:51,400 the Symbolic World dot com website and see how you 889 01:01:51,440 --> 01:01:54,599 can support what we're doing. There are multiple subscriber tiers 890 01:01:54,599 --> 01:01:57,559 with perks. There are apparel in books to purchase, So 891 01:01:57,639 --> 01:01:59,760 go to the Symbolic World dot com and thank you 892 01:02:00,079 --> 01:02:00,800 for your support.