DCC Lecture Series | Bishop Robert Barron - What is Faith

good evening everyone my name is father Michael Martin for those who might not know me I'm the director of the Duke Catholic Center and so glad to welcome all of you here tonight let's begin with the prayer the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen let's just pause in silence and realize that God is in our midst gracious and loving God we give you thanks this night for calling us here together to empower us to be gifted people of faith who are not afraid to embrace all that it is that is your truth in our lives challenge us tonight open our minds and hearts so that we might learn more about you and desire to allow that knowledge to transform our lives so that as others see us and hear from us they might be more convinced of your presence in our midst bless our speaker tonight father baron allow him to be your instrument we give thanks to You Lord God for His presence and his ministry in our church allow all of us as we listen tonight to be challenged more and more to grow in our knowledge of the faith during this Lenten season Lord God we also allow us to be converted in mind and heart allow our Lenten observances to challenge us so that we might grow closer to you and one another we ask Lord your blessing upon this our campus this university we know we have some visitors from other universities on theirs as well that as we try and live our faith on campus that it be something that we're able to do that doesn't frighten us but rather that we're emboldened to go out and to allow our presence to transform and build your kingdom wherever we may find ourselves we ask all this in Jesus name in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen we're so glad that you could come and be with us this evening for this presentation by the Duke Catholic Center as some of you know we have programming that runs throughout the course of the year that is held in different locations on campus where we try and offer opportunities for our students to grow in their knowledge of the faith and so we're grateful to some of our student leaders who coordinate those efforts and we encourage you that as as much as you turned out tonight for this evening's presentation that you keep an eyeball out for some of the other opportunities to learn more about your faith many of you as you came in this evening we're handed some cards we ask you at the end of the evening to fill those out that'll just give us a little bit of feedback on tonight's program as well as give us direction about opportunities in the future that might help all of you to grow in your faith those will be collected on your way out of the chapel this evening at the end of our presentation this evening we will have some time for questions and answers you'll notice that there are three microphones set up here in the chapel and so what we'd ask you to do is simply when that period comes I'll instruct you just come up and stand and wait at one of the microphones and then I'll call on folks and that might have questions and you can ask whatever you'd want a father Baron certainly you might want to ask him who he's picked in his bracket for the NCAA tournament we know there's only one acceptable answer for the winner after this evening's presentation you're more than welcome we have some refreshments out in the in the lobby you're more than welcome to join us and to stay around for some fellowship when I came to Dukes campus five years ago I want to say it was my second day on campus or second day of class and I was I won't say accosted I was being introduced to two of our then undergrads Amy wigger and Emily Mattoon amy is now a master's student in theology at the University of Notre Dame so that she can continue to critique the theological imperfections of my homilies with a degree and Emily Mattoon is now a student here in our our medical school so that she can continue to critique my nutritional choices with a degree but Amy and Emily I think they were trying to size me up a little bit and figure out you know who this new the new guy was and so they asked me this series of questions about this and then they were friendly enough and it was a nice conversation but it at the end I can't remember if it was Amy or Emily at that point they were somewhat indiscriminant but one of them said well what do you think about Father Baron and I answered whose father Baron that that was the wrong answer I I think I had gotten all the right answers to that one whose father baron and so it was students who introduced me to the gentleman who sits to my right and since that time not only has he helped to form my own faith but more importantly has formed the faith of so many people not only around our country but certainly worldwide and so we're honored tonight to have with us father Robert Barron father Albert is the founder of word on fire Catholic ministries he is also the rector of Mundelein seminary and the host of Catholicism groundbreaking and award-winning documentary about the Catholic faith he received a master's degree in philosophy from the Catholic University of America in 1982 an adapter itand in sacred theology from the Catholic Institute of Paris in 1992 he's published numerous books essays and articles on theology and the spiritual life he's also appeared on several media outlets including NBC PBS Fox News CNN and EWTN his web site word on fire org has reached over 3.8 million people and his weekly YouTube videos have been viewed by over 9 million times his pioneering work in evangelizing through the new media led Cardinal Francis George the Archbishop of Chicago to describe him as quote one of the church's best messengers unquote his topic his topic this evening is faithful and intelligent the Catholic intellectual tradition and you join me in welcoming to Duke University father Robert Barron thank you all god bless you all thank you for that warm reception my father Mike thank you for that nice introduction it is my first time to do I've been in this part of the country a few times before but never to the great Duke University and very much enjoyed my stroll through campus today yesterday I gave to talk to father Scott McHugh's of parish now that's in the country of the other team which will not be mentioned here but now I'm in Duke Territory so I'll be very careful about them but good to be with you thank you for having me you know this morning when we walked over we made a beeline to the famous chapel which I wanted to see I was very intrigued because I loved the Gothic churches in France which I came to know well and of course you walk in this Chapel looks like you're walking into chard but the front door with the figures around it intrigued me right away because I recognized Luther pretty immediately but I and then I there's a colonial figure it's Thomas Jefferson but then there was Savonarola which surprised me there's a savannah roller revival going on within Catholicism right now a lot of Catholics getting interested again in this figure which I guess the fathers and mothers of Duke thought was a prototype of the Reformation but a lot of Catholics are getting interested in him but the one that really intrigued me was robert e lee is there i'm the facade and i'll tell you what a trigger to my mind was something that i had been thinking about sharing with you one of a part of robert e lee's genius as a military tactician was he knew how to seize the high ground lee in the early years of the civil war even though he was greatly outnumbered usually which sees the high ground dig in and forced the Union to come at him which gave him a huge advantage that's a metaphor I've been using for some years actually for a problem we face as Catholics or as Christians in this wider culture since roughly the end of the 18th beginning the 19th century what secular modernity has done is they've seized the high ground they've dug in and forced us to come up the hill prove that you're rational prove that you make sense we're setting the terms now you come up and satisfy our demand in fact early on when we were planning for this trip I gave a talk at the Divinity School earlier and one of the topics proposed was does the Christian faith make sense in the secular Academy and I said no no I'm not gonna talk about that that's Robert Ely stuff I'm not going to go charging up there he'll I'm not going to say secular modernity sets the tone for the church in fact I'm gonna argue the university came up out of the church the the church came first as John Paul said the university came ex corde ecclesiae came from the heart of the church I am the very inadequate representative of the oldest intellectual tradition in the West Ambrose Agustin Chrysostom Jerome and some Thomas Aquinas Bonaventure Ignatius John Henry Newman John Paul the second and I got to prove that I'm sufficiently rational I mean I think rationality of the church should be taken for granted and in fact I would argue the secular Academy ought to prove to us that it's sufficiently rational so I want to take roughly and sort of turn things around I don't think we should go charging up the hill of the secular Academy as though that sets the tone we should make no apologies for the rationality of our tradition so that's point one inspired by looking at the Duke Chapel this morning here's my basic point everybody Jesus the Word made flesh is the icon according to which we understand the nature of reality oh Jesus a distant figure ethical teacher inspiring moral figure if that's all he is the heck with them the Christian claim is far more maximal than that the word the law goes the pattern if you want the pattern of the divine mind by which the whole the universe has been created has become flesh and now we can see him think of those epistatic testimonies is the word of life which we saw with our eyes and touch with our hand the icon became visible and that's the pattern according to which we see all of reality you know I don't if you read the New York or a magazine I get the New Yorker largely for the cartoons which I love because you know there clever and they're funny and usually I get them but occasionally there'll be a cartoon I don't get and I bring it down to a friend of mine father John Lodge who also reads The New Yorker and it's kind of a wagon then he'll explain to me why that that cartoon is funny and and here's why I bring it up is John doesn't point out to me anything I had not seen in the cartoon nothing I had missed in the caption what he points out though is that mysterious elusive thing called the pattern when you get a joke it's a very mysterious thing I mean you see everything you read the caption you understand it but you don't get it because the pattern hasn't emerged victim Stein the great 20th century philosopher said the most puzzling issue in all of philosophy is how to see something as something very interesting isn't we see things but then we see them as something that means we get the pattern here is the maximal Christian claim that Jesus is the pattern the law goes he's the reason ability by which we get the world that without him the world remains opaque to us no matter how clever we are in the various disciplines no matter how much we learn in the various fields without him we don't get it turn around Jesus is a kind of epistemic Trump if I can put it that way meaning no view of the world can finally Trump him can outmaneuver him he's the law Gauss by which we understand the world now mind you under that law Gauss capital lambda there's all kinds of smaller law boy think of all the different disciplines the Catholic imagination though it has always been very hospitable to a wide variety of perspectives viewpoints disciplines think of the great saint bonaventure of Franciscan Master from the Middle Ages who saw Christ as the center of all the other disciplines good all the law guy makes sense in relation to him who is the law goes so that's if you want to put it this way a sort of challenging claim I make first I'm not going to go charging up the hill of secular modernity at the same time I hope it's an inviting claim it's a generous claim that all the log oil of the world can find their relation to him GK Chesterton a great hero of mine said that the church is the trysting place of all the truths in the world that's the generous quality of a Catholic intellectual tradition ok how about this you know from the from the scriptures that Jesus is the icon we hear Paul say the image the icon of the invisible God in whom all things in heaven and earth were created in whom all things hold together there's the maximalism I'm talking about he's the lens he's the pattern here's Hans arose von Balthasar Christ is the unchangeably valid blueprint in every situation in the world and in history that's the Christian claim if if that's not the case then the first verse of John's Gospel is wrong that's the Christian claim ok what I want to do now the course of this presentation is to specify this by looking at four applications of this idea for consequences of the view that Jesus is the lens and let me lay them out to you first I'll go through a one by one first of all Jesus teaches us about God's non-competitive transcendence and I'll explain what I mean by then secondly the icon of Jesus teaches us a radical humanism third the icon of Jesus teaches us everything we need to know about creation ex nihilo and finally the icon of Jesus reveals to us the dynamics of the Paschal mystery and I'm going to argue those four things help to illumine the way we see all of reality okay that's the program I'll be following tonight if you're keeping score we got those four things I'll be moving through so first of all the non-competitive transcendence of God the most fundamental Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth is also God Jesus of Nazareth is divine the counsel of Kelsey even caught this paradox when it said in Jesus two natures divine and human come together without mixing mingling or confusion in the unity of one person that's the ancient claim in Jesus person come together to nature's divine in human without mixing mingling or confusion and you say well that's a lot of old-fashioned you know Greek theological language it has an extraordinary implication let me explain why in saying this the Council of Kel Seaton held off three options one option very lively in the ancient church monophysitism that Jesus is God and his humanity as sort of an afterthought mono fuses one nature he's divine Kelsey Dean said no to then on the other extreme nestorianism very popular today by the way that Jesus is like a super saint he's a human person with a very intense relationship to God quelle scene said no to that there was also a middle position very popular at the time the Aryan position that Jesus is a little bit divine a little bit human he's a mixture of the two like a demigod think here of the ancient Greek and Roman myths think of a Hercules or Achilles semi-divine semi-human watch how Cal Seton says no to monophysitism no to nestorianism and no to Arianism what does it claim weirdly strangely intriguingly Jesus is fully human and fully divine the two natures coming together without mixing mingling or confusion now was that tell us it tells us that God is very strange it tells us that God we're talking about is not a finite or limited nature that God is not one being among many even the highest being how come because the beings of the world always relate to each other in a competitive or mutually exclusive way you can't come up here and take my place without supplanting me I could turn this podium into ash by burning it the antelope could become a lion but only by being devoured right there's a competitiveness among finite nature's a mutual exclusivity but then again listen to calcium in Jesus divinity and humanity come together but without competition without mixing mingling confusion without one supplanting the other what does that entail it has to entail that God is not one of the finite natures in the world not one being among many not even the supreme being why because the supreme being would be in competition with a finite another finite being which is why our great tradition speaks of God not as ends tsumo highest being what's the highest being I don't know Jupiter or something or a seraph I don't know the highest being the most the biggest thing around that's what God isn't rather following Thomas Aquinas our tradition speaks of God is epsom sa subsistence the subsistent act of to be itself not a being but being itself think you're saying and some we know and some from the ontological argument if we know of them today and some says God is that than which nothing greater can be thought right and you say well sure he means the Supreme Being there's us and things higher than us and up and up and done the highest thing that must be God but think about it for a second God is that than which nothing greater can be thought if God were simply a Supreme Being then God plus the rest of beings would be greater than God alone right if God were like Zeus or Jupiter the some high being then Jupiter plus the world is greater than Jupiter alone but that can't be true God is that than which nothing greater can be thought God is strangely other uniquely other Katherine Tanner the contemporary theologian says that God is utterly other meaning his transcendence is a strange transcendence in my language God is non competitively transcendent to the world his very other nests making possible the most intimate connection now here I'll quote San Agustin Agustin said the true God is in Timmy or in Timo Mayo at Superior sumo male God is closer to me than I am to myself and higher than anything I can imagine is God in this room well no of course not this room was made up of beings exclusively all of us the walls ceiling this room is full of beings God's not in this room God is totally Terry Terry we say right totally other but is God in this room yes because if zoom sa the sheer act of being itself is the ground of everything in this room in Tim amor in see more Mayo at superior Summa male that's the strangeness of God the non-competitive transcendence of God look how the Bible catches this the prophet Isaiah as high as the heavens are above the earth so higher my thoughts above your thoughts and my ways above your ways and a few verses earlier could a mother forget her baby even if she forgets I will never forget my own I have carved you in the palm of my hand what reality can be simultaneously superior sumo Mayo at in Tamir in Teemo Mayo but the God who is epsom sa non-competitively transcendent to the world here's an image now that catches this I think Moses on Mount Sinai he sees a bush that's on fire but not consumed and from that bush comes eventually the name of God if I people ask me what's your name what will I tell them and God responds I am Who I am one way to read that is stop asking me stupid questions you know I mean he's well which one are you which being are you saying I am Who I am I'm not this or that I'm not here or there up or down I am is my name but now what's the image see that catches this philosophical idea the burning bush the bush that has become luminous and radiant and beautiful and is not consumed when the true God comes close we are enhanced and rendered luminous and we are not consumed contrast that by the way to the ancient myths the Greek and Roman myths when the gods break into human affairs what happens people are incinerated things have to give way as this bullying competitive divinity crashes in then look at this biblical image the closer the true God gets the more radiant and luminous the world becomes do you see how the Incarnation is simply the fullest expression of this dynamic there's the way the true God exists I'm going to come back to it a little bit because so much of the atheism old and new is predicated upon the assumption that God is a threat to human flourishing can I argue please everybody emphatically that's utterly unbiblical they got that idea from a very poor presentation of the Kris faith because the true God of the Bible is the one who is precisely non-competitive with human flourishing okay point number two still reading off the icon of Jesus radical humanism I argue that no ideology no philosophy no religion has ever proposed a more profound humanism than classical Christianity why do I say that I say it with this patristic adage in mind you hear it all the Father's Day use fit homo homo fear at Davos that means God became human that humans might become gone it's an adage repeated by all the church fathers as a way of explaining the essence of Christianity God became one of us there's the familiar the Incarnation but why but why so that we might become God that we might be deified by this contact and again I'll stand by this I don't know any ideology religion philosophy that ever makes a boulder claim for us human beings than that God became one of us that we might become deified divinized now let me just develop this by narrowing the focus a little bit and again staying with an early controversy in the life of the church just a few centuries after the Council of Cal Seton which gave us this non-competitive transcendence there was a great argument over I know it sounds very arcane an argument over how many wills there are in Jesus it's called the Manasseh lite controversy that just means one will because the claim was being made that in Jesus there's one will divine he's got the Divine Will which totally governs his whole person but the Orthodox tradition think of Maximus have confessed the Confessor here said no no there are two wills and Jesus divine and human because again the logic of Cal Seton he's fully divine and fully human so don't say is human will has been a limit or overwhelmed by the Divine Will there are two wheels in him both divine and human that means look in Jesus there's a play between an infinite freedom and a finite freedom and in fact the infinite freedom of his Divine Will is what grounds and enables the finite freedom of his human will now how can I bring up this ancient controversy because go back now to the beginning of a modern period so many the modern philosophers are preoccupied with the issue of freedom right think of you only death day for the for the French I saw Thomas Jefferson on the facade of the Duke Chapel the freedom don't tread on me life liberty pursuit of happiness I follow my own path you want to make it Americans eyes you know water with tears talk about freedom right here it's so much in the rhetoric today think of Conn's here maybe the greatest of the modern philosophers whose supreme value was autonomy autonomy to overcome heteronomy law coming from outside cotton wants to ground the moral life in the autonomy of the will throwing off the shackles of oppressive society and ultimately an oppressive church think here on the 18th century deism beguile the greatest minds of the time someone like Thomas Jefferson what was so attractive about deism this view that well there's a God but he's distant you know out there somewhere way back at the beginning the clockmaker of the universe what was so attractive was the Dia's god left us alone i could be free without the fussy interference of a distant god take a further step once you dist an see a god and you say he has nothing to do with my freedom finally let's just get rid of God all together why don't we just say we have no need of God in fact even the very idea of God is oppressive to my autonomy now whom do you get you get the great atheists of the 19th century think you're of Ludwig Feuerbach the father of modern atheism God is nothing but a neurotic projection of my idealized self-consciousness stop kneeling down and begging this this fantasy of your mind get rid of God and you'll become fully whom you're meant to be that's why fire box says the no to God is the yes to man see with that little phrase by the way he sets the tone for atheism from his time through Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins they repeat the same arguments over and over again but no to God is the yes to man one of his young disciples was Karl Marx who was such an ardent follower of feuerbach he said everyone should be baptized in the feuerbach it means the brook of fire in German so we should all be baptized in the fire by then Marx took a second step how come we engage in this weird neurotic projection well because our lives economically are so unhappy why do we invent religion famously as an opium of the people it's a drug that we take to dull our sensitivity to the suffering that is caused by a bad and unjust economic system take another step now early 20th century Sigmund Freud also races down the foyer block Autobahn if you want his famous future of an illusion a title that pretty much gives away the game religion is a waking dream it's a fantasy oh how I love there to be perfect justice I know no there isn't but I dream of it I'd love there to be perfect fulfillment there never will be but I dream of it religion is that waking dream but until we wake up Freud said we will not realize who we are meant to be but no to God to this fantasy is the yes to man take one more step now in the middle of the 20th century you come to Jean Paul read his little book existentialism is a humanism it's the best expression I think of this trajectory running from Feuerbach up to him here's sart's pithy and in logical syllogism Sartre says if God exists I cannot be free but I am free therefore God does not exist that's how he summed up his existentialism now do you see what's haunting Sartre and it starts with Firebug God is necessarily a threat to my freedom God if he exists broods competitively over my freedom therefore if I want to be free indeed if I am free I must dismiss God can I suggest to you everybody the answer to this trajectory from Feuerbach to Sartre is the manasa light controversy the affirmation by the Orthodox faith that in Jesus there are two wills not one notice please how his Divine Will does not negate or supplant or deny his human will but in fact his human will like the burning bush comes fully to itself precisely in relation to the divine will that ancient theological controversy is the answer to this trajectory from Feuerbach to Sartre here's a way now of specifying this a little bit and here I'm relying on the work of a great Dominican scholar called serve a pink hairs dye just a short time ago was a professor at Freiburg in Switzerland pink Harris distinguishes two types of freedom the first he calls the freedom of indifference the second freedom for excellence and everything will hinge upon this distinction what's the freedom of indifference the view of freedom that comes up from SCOTUS and akka in the late Middle Ages and then very much informs the modern philosophers I've been describing here's the freedom of indifference freedom means liberty means to stand above the yes and no indifferent to the two and on the basis of no compulsion interior or exterior to decide do I come to Duke to give this talk or do I stay home I hover above the yes and no and then I freely decide without any compulsion that's freedom its autonomous self direction again think of the moderns including Thomas Jefferson and the people that inspired our culture are very strong precisely on this autonomous sense of freedom now I'm that reading what's the threat to freedom anything heteronomous now again think of cons here any heteronomous other people societies churches laws ultimately god the supreme threat to my capacity to determine the meaning of my life you ever read the 1992 decision of US Supreme Court in the matter of Casey versus Planned Parenthood it was an abortion related case but what's really breathtaking is the way the justices expressed their judgement here's part of it it belongs to the very nature of Liberty to determine the meaning of one's own life of nature of the universe and of existence what was that all that's all I get to decide you see how breathtaking that is it's this if you want freedom of indifference run amok now pink hair is contrast that to another view of freedom which is on display not only in the classical medieval philosophers but also very much in the Bible this he calls freedom for excellence here's what he means on this reading freedom is that primarily autonomy freedom is rather a disciplining of desire so is to make the achievement of the good first possible and then effortless let me I'll say that formula again and I'll give you examples true freedom freedom for excellence is the disciplining of desire so as to make the achievement of the good first possible and then effortless so I stand before you now as a relatively free speaker of English I can say pretty much whatever I want to say in English what I was studying French many years ago and I was over in Paris and trying to learn the language and anyone that's wrestled were the second or third language knows what I'm talking about what I felt above all was unfree I'm in a seminar room in Paris with all sorts of you know smart articulate francophones and there I was knowing what I wanted to say with all the proper nuances but I couldn't say it right I was shackled by my incapacity to speak French over time after submitting to a whole set of disciplines and laws grammar syntax vocabulary the correction of speakers etc etc I became freer in my speaking on this reading freedom is not opposed to laws see I'm driving it but rather freedom is a consequence of law law which disciplines the desire so is to achieve the good and then make it effortless think of someone that plays a musical instrument we all know that if we struggle to play the piano or guitar or something in the beginning you're unfree but then it's not by autonomous choice that you become free it's by submitting yourself to a whole set of disciplines practices examples correction etc that you become free any golfers is a golf country out here right I'm a golfer in a very poor one I would say what what clearly doesn't work when it comes to golf take the club and swing any way you want just get out there and be yourself well I can guarantee you you'll be a lousy golfer in fact I have it with me on this trip whenever I travel my favorite magazine is Golf Digest if you've no Golf Digest and his stories about you know golfers and so on but at the heart of it is a little section that has all these illustrations and instructions of how to stand and your head your L in your elbow and shoulder in the turn and I'll find myself reading this magazine mulling over the law because the law there is placing in my body and my mind what makes me free to play the game who's the freest golfer nuttin anymore he's got the yips I think but Tiger Woods at the height of his powers was the freest golfer ever to play it drives sure hit a 3-wood hit out a fairway bunkers hit out of green side bunker spot chip pitch he could do it all now why cuz he just swung the club any way he wanted no because his freedom his desire had become disciplined by a whole set of laws that made the achievement of a good first possible and then effortless now can I suggest everybody the Monopoly controversy that insists upon the two wills and Jesus coming together an infinite freedom and a finite freedom in a non-competitive way so that the finite human freedom of Jesus is like the burning bush enhanced and brought to perfection precisely by contact with infinite freedom that doesn't make any sense on the first reading of freedom doesn't if freedom means autonomy I decide but it makes eminent sense on the second reading of freedom I think you're a Paul Paul who introduces himself often in his letters as the doulas Chris to yaizu I'm the slave of Christ Jesus but then Paul can say that st. Paul can say it's for freedom that Christ has set me free but that makes no sense on the first reading of freedom if you're anybody's slave you're not free on the second reading it makes perfect sense the more you're enslaved to Christ the freer you are you see now why I'm speaking of a radical humanism de Youssef it homo would homo fear at Davis God became one of us that we might become God in the icon of Jesus the Word made flesh we see who God is yes we also see who we are meant to be we see humanity at its full flourishing we see if you want the burning bush that's why I never like to give a talk without quoting one of my heroes st. Irenaeus second century very early figure practically an apostolic figure because he was taught by Polycarp who was taught by John Irenaeus sums up his theology with his famous phrase Gloria Dei homo vivre ends the glory of God is a human being fully alive as he can suggest that feuerbach's no to God is the yes to man is the consequence of that teaching having been forgotten that Christians got very bad at teaching who the true God is the glory of God is not a humanity that denigrated the glory of God is precisely a human being fully alive fully free okay here's a third of application of the icon of Jesus the idea of creation from nothing creatio ex nihilo if God is not a being but if zoom sa right the sheer act of to be itself that means that whatever else exists besides God in its entirety comes from God again contrast this to a lot of views in the ancient world ancient philosophy and mythology whereby God or the gods make the world but out of something all right there's some cold primordial matter or energy or something and the gods or God shape it into the form that we see the way an artist would work with wood or clay or something well that ain't it now in the Christian reading if God is epsom sa he's that what it means to be then whatever else exists comes in every detail in every aspect of its being utterly from God now what follows from this several really interesting things that determine the way Christians think about the world first of all create CO X Nilo means that the entire universe in every nook and cranny is marked by intelligibility the medievals had a great little typical of the medieval very laconic adage NST boule this means being is knowable and ci its it seems obvious but the more you think about the stranger is every aspect of existence every nook and cranny of the world that all dimensions is marked by intelligibility why because it has been thought into being by a personal intelligent God see there's no surd there's no aspect of being outside of the causal personal and intelligent influence of God it's all been made from nothing and therefore every bit of it is marked by intelligibility now here's something you see in John Polkinghorne do his work he's a high level particle physicist from Cambridge who admit life became an Anglican priest and does some of the best writing on religion and science today Peter Hodgson comes to mind Nicholas Jokke comes to mind Albert Einstein himself comes to mind Yosef rotzinger himself comes to mind all these people acknowledge that it's no accident whatsoever that the modern physical sciences emerged precisely out of a Christian theological matrix how come that's not surprising because one of the things you need to get the sciences off the ground is this fundamentally mystical assumption that being is intelligible mind you I'm not talk about intelligent design that's something told that time a day at all something much more fundamental that being in every nook and cranny I don't care if you're looking at telescope up in the sky you look at a microscope down at the microscopic level if you're under the a view in the ocean you're no matter where you look you're going to find intelligibility where's that mystical intuition come from if not from this doctrine of create Co X Nilo in the beginning was the word and everything was made through the word intelligibility is a theological mystical assumption one reason why there's many others I could give but one reason why the war between science and religion is such a tragedy and such consummate nonsense the war I mean I would say theology is the condition for the possibility of the sciences here's the second conclusion from Karachi o X nila non-violence is metaphysically basic I was up today I was privileged to sit with Stanley Howard was one of my theological heroes and you know how central he makes non-violence to his thinking well here's one reason everybody an implication of coriaci o X Nilo is that non-violence is ontologically basic now why do I say that contrast this doctrine again with a lot of other ancient views in most of the ancient myths of creation something like a primordial violence takes place and from that violence comes order so it's a battle of the gods usually it's a God or set of gods having been conquered and their bodies cut apart and that's how the universe is made or some primordial suppression of a of a negative force leads to order you see even in the ancient philosophies a more refined version of this we're by Plato's Demiurge looking at the forms now shapes recalcitrant man or how Aristotle's prime mover of shapes prime matter into form right there's an interventionist there's an aggressive quality to the making of order then there's creatio ex nihilo god makes the world from nothing that means what that means nothing opposes him nothing stands a wart him there's no rival to him but rather through a sheerly non-violent and look in the beautiful symbolic language of the Bible through a sheerly nonviolent act of speech God gives rise to the whole of reality non-violence is metaphysically basic look at now I mentioned epic of gilgamesh and ancient things all the way to to Rambo or Dirty Harry or most of our movies what do you find that ancient myth that order comes through violence if you got a gun I'll get a bigger gun you got an army I got a bigger army and I will impose order creation through an act of violence that's a very old story then there's this story you see now why when the word became flesh he spoke to us these very strange words someone strikes you on the right cheek turn to give them the other someone press you into service form I'll go a second mile resist not evil you've been told to love your friends hate your enemies I tell you love your enemies this is not just a nice guy this is someone speaking out of this fundamental metaphysical perception that non-violence is ontologically basic and when we walk the path of non-violence we are in line with this great truth gosh again how bad we've become I think at propagating this idea we Christians here's something from Thomas Aquinas I love Thomas defined creation this way Quade umbrella Co odd crea Torah no vittatus nd that means it's a kind of relation to the Creator with freshness of being he's wonderful about that is in classical thought relation is an accident I aristotelian know what I mean here there is a being over there that wall Here I am and we have a relationship I'm standing you know in front of the wall there you are here I am and we have a relationship relationship is metaphysically secondary to substances right but now think for a second if God is making the universe every minute ex nihilo that means there isn't like God and me and now we have a relationship but rather I am every minute already a relationship Quade amor lot Co odd quiet Orem I'm a kind of relationship to the Creator Combe Novi Tatia Cindy with freshness of being God continually giving rise to the world that's why Thomas Merton by the way the great spiritual master said contemplative prayer is finding the place in you where you are here and now being created by God it's right out of this tradition the non-violence of creation here's a third implication of create Co ex nihilo and I'm happy to have a Franciscan next to me as I say the interconnectedness of all created things how st. Francis love bad idea how we celebrated it because you think for a second if you follow Merton in contemplative prayer and you find the place in you where you are here and now being created by God what have you found you found the place where you are here now being created by God and where you are here now being created by God and where brother son and sister moon are here and now being created by God Francis is not just you know whistling Dixie there or engaging a nice little poetry that's good solid metaphysics to speak of brother son and sister moon that we are connected to each other by the deepest bonds that were a bit like an archipelago right it looks separate on the surface but when you go down deep you find it's all coming from the same place that's a Christian vision of the world how our ethical lies would utterly change if we really believed it right if we really took it seriously how everything would change that's an implication of creatio ex Neelam think of those beautiful lung rose windows I fell in love with them when I was in France those great circles of light and color but the idea is that the center is Christ it's always Christ in the middle and then wheeling around him are all the different elements of the window well see that's meant to be the cosmos that's the world that at the center is the Creator God and then everything is connected by spokes to that Center and thereby to each other that's a picture of the well-ordered cosmos how fractured our world becomes when we forget this doctrine okay how about a last one then I promise I'll bring it to a close here's a final feature of the icon of Christ who's the lens by which we see the nature of reality we're squinting through that lens to see how things really are here's the last bit what the theologians the 20th century called the Paschal mystery the life death and resurrection of Jesus so I've been looking a little bit more abstractly at Jesus but now we'll bring the focus in and look at his life death and resurrection and I'll say just a few simple things about this what was Jesus about what was he trying to do here one way to look at it the mashiach if you look in the prophets and the psalms especially the messiah the new David the Anointed One had a pretty clear job description the Moshiach was meant to gather the tribes of Israel he was meant to cleanse the Great Temple he was meant to deal with the enemies of Israel and then finally he was meant to reign as Lord of the nation's again I'm distilling that from the prophet the Psalms and many other sources that's what people expected of the Messiah how wonderful how startling that the first Christians call him Yeshua Messiah right Jesus The Anointed One jaysus Christos in Paul's Greek Jesus Christ Yeshua mashiac the anointed Jesus they meant he accomplished those four things gathering the tribes look at everything I've been talking about God's non-competitive transcendence creatio ex nihilo the Rose window non-violence that we are meant to KO in here see that's the vision that's the biblical vision what's happened is we fell apart through sin violence drove us apart from each other what was God's plan now in the Bible it was a rescue operation it was a rescue plan the means he chose was of people Israel Israel in the unity of its praise learning the mind and heart of God would now serve a magnetic purpose they would gather the tribes of the world back to God Mount Zion true pole of the earth the psalmist says there all the tribes go up Isaiah says the tribes of the Lord see the idea is Zion where Israel worshiped would become the magnetic place where all the tribes the world would be gathered together like a great rose window watch Jesus ministry now it's an Indian gathering ministry it's a gathering in Jesus OpenTable fellowship all the contemporary scholars talk about that saints and sinners the insiders the outsiders the the UPS the downs everybody welcome at his table look at Jesus going out to the woman at the well to the man born blind as the kiyose gathering in those who had been sent to the margins the night before he dies he gathers on Mount Zion to pull of the earth with his twelve disciples evocative of the twelve tribes gathering them in cleansing the temple the temple that's what was on top of Mount Zion the place of right praise to see how that's the way the Rose window comes together when Israel praises God a right they become United and their praise was meant to be so compelling that the whole world will be drawn to it the trouble is the temple become corrupt and so all the prophets call for the cleansing of the temple look at Jesus now in reference to himself you have a greater than the temple here his own person now becomes the place of right praise people come to him to be healed to have their sins forgiven to learn how to pray and that's why it's a climax of his life he goes into the Jerusalem Temple he cleanses it and then pronounces judgment upon it this place will be torn down in three days I'll rebuild it what's he talking about but the temple John tells us of his body he himself becomes the place of right praise dealing with the enemies of Israel that was a task of the Mashiach think of David the warrior all the great warrior kings of Israel is Jesus in that tradition yah in one sense but what a strange warrior he is at the cross Here I am right above me that we put that up here is just deeply weird imagine how someone coming from the ancient world in a time machine to this gathering and here we are you know it's a religious talk and for religious purposes in this sacred room we have a Roman cross a people all your minds that terrified people in the ancient world the cross was state-sponsored terrorism it was so horrific that even the greatest orders and poets the time wouldn't talk about it we speak of excruciating pain X crew che from the cross we'll put you on this instrument of torture we'll leave you there until you die and then the scavenging animals will pick apart your body that's what the cross meant that's where the enemies of Jesus put him Peter says the author of life came and you killed him extraordinary in the law Gauss comes into our flesh and we killed him that by the way tells you something whenever we're tempted to say I'm okay and you're okay we hold up the cross to say no were not all we're basically fine no we are not the author of life came and we killed him how did Jesus deal with the enemies of Israel oh if only he were a Davidic King he would have fought them to the death rather on that terrible instrument of torture he allowed all the dysfunction of the world to come at him think of those some passion narratives we read at Easter time right during the Holy Week stupidity hatred cruelty violence injustice betrayal denial see it's as though every form of human dysfunction came at him how did he fight it not with the weapons of the world but rather allowed it to wash over him and then he swallowed it up in the ever-greater divine mercy Father forgive them they know not what they do see how that word from the cross is the moment when the battle is won when the Mashiach The Anointed One dealt with the enemies of Israel and then he reigns as Lord of the nations how beautiful that Pilate put on that cross a sign right jaysus now Surenos wrecks you day Oram Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews and lest anybody miss it he put it in Greek too and Hebrew Pilate becoming thereby the first evangelist announcing the kingship of Jesus to all the nations how's he know Jesus is the king because God raised him from the dead not a myth not a symbol not a literary device but Jesus in his bodily resurrection from the dead shows what what that God's love is greater than anything that is in the world CY can Paul say I'm certain to neither death nor life neither Angels nor principalities neither height nor depth nor any other creature could ever separate us from the love of God Paul knows it because we killed God and yet God returned in forgiving love swallowing up thereby the dysfunction of the world and that's why the same Paul could say as he creamed around the world that he knew jaysus kurios yay Zeus kurios see but we say yet Jesus is the Lord this nice pious spiritual thing to say but see it was those are fighting words in Paul's time because when people said to each other in the Roman world was Kaiser kurios Caesars the Lord is even Paul's doing how provocative he was no not Kaiser kurios gazers kurios Jesus is the Lord meaning he's the king to whom final Allegiance is do you see why Paul spent a lot of time in jail because they knew exactly what he was saying and how subversive it was and still is see what's our myth again from ancient times to now order comes to violence that's what the cross meant that's the old myth you cross us pun intended we'll do that to you we'll restore order through violence God's love is greater than anything that's in the world God's love non-violent love is the means by which order is restored that's how the temple is cleansed we see the cross as a altar where a sacrifice is made that's where the the tribes are gathered when the Son of Man is lifted up he means the cross I will draw all people to myself you see how the Messiahship of Jesus is what the first Christians proclaimed it's what we still proclaim to this day it's a decisive element of this great icon by which we read the whole world okay any breach you're close right there with those four dimensions and I hope what you see is the coming together of the highest most abstract kind of metaphysical reflection in our tradition but it's conditioned by this first century Jew this Jesus of Nazareth who died on that terrible Roman cross but whom God raised from the dead it's from that perspective that the whole Christian view of life emerges thanks everybody thanks for listening Thanks thank you thanks thanks so much for presenting that icon to us that I think helps us all to appreciate more and more what we're called to be as we're called to be that very icon right not just on this campus but in the world I know that maybe some of you may have some questions or points of clarification that you'd like father Barron to offer on some of the comments that he's made this evening or upon maybe some other thoughts that you might have here general that he's certainly willing to take a few questions so if you do have any of those questions I ask you at this time to come up to all three any of the three microphones if you'd like and feel free to type whatever it is that you might you might have awesome folks are heading to the microphones let me just maybe start by saying the the non-violence that you speak of is compelling and yet as we find ourselves in dialogue with folks who certainly don't see our metaphysical optic through that same lens oftentimes they describe and not always wanting to talk about in terms of we and they but it's described as our view does violence to them I'm just wondering how we can be that nonviolent presence while still being witnesses to a truth that is different from the way in which maybe the world and certainly some parts of the university might see it yeah and there's no connection between non-violence as I'm describing it and standing up for other views I mean I think the Christian view does stand afford a lot of the views of the secular society it's done so across the ages I mean Christians have always sort of for look at Paul when Paul preaches there are riots each month so that's always been the Christian thing that's not in itself violent that's just giving witness I think you're dead writing saying that something we've gotten very poor doing your great father Francis understood then got a lot of this in his bones his later followers like Bonaventure and others were able to articulate a higher metaphysical level but Francis got it in his bones which is why they saw him as a second Christ you know so he's a great witness to it I think we can and should stand afford views that better opposed to what we got thank you please please hi with that icon and the pattern that comes from from recognizing him comes a budget also to which we live right some things we have in some things we don't some things we can change and some things we can't but when you live in a world that sees the world through a different pattern and has a different budget would sort of hunt me I'm in the science world is that all the advancements are being made with a different budget so human life is disposable for example and how do we stand witness I guess in in line with with that in a world that pulls us into that into that pattern of life an advancement thing yeah no you're right I think the word witness is the key and we have to witness to a new way of being we have to live it I think you're right too and usually works budget but this is not just an abstraction but if you take this view it will have all kinds of implications practically financially how we make our commitments I think we have to do it always publicly the greatest challenge in here people like our lost history helping the greatest challenge in our society is the privatization of religion that we're so afraid and I get it with our with our royal history where we're so afraid of religious conflict that we privatize religion it becomes a hobby it's a personal hobby of mine personal hobby of yours and you know we tolerate you like chess li check Tylar each other's hobbies who are you to tell me you like bananas I like oranges who are you to tell me not to like oranges see when you do that you violate the nature of religion my solution is from a Christian standpoint what allows us to come forth publicly but tolerantly is precisely our document non-violence if Christians come out publicly in a violent way they are not witnessing to the God that they're meant to witness to so I think that's the thing is to find a way to be public clear at time standing of for what we have to but doing it always non-violently and we have to resist the privatization of religion I think that's what's going to do is in from the beginning Christianity was a public thing that's why didn't be first evangelist got such trouble if they were just announcing a new hobby they wouldn't have gotten in trouble you know you're the why it's not empty right but he cites this that there was an anglican bishop who said when paul preached there were riots when i preached they served me tea and he's mocking all of us you know that that our preaching has become so sort of anodyne and harmless that they service tea but when real preaching happens riots break out thank you yes please I don't mean this soon sound like a poison question it's a point of clarification though when Jesus says for instance I come not to bring peace but the sword is he stepping out of his ontological orientation yeah or you know when when god sanctions the the slaughter of innocents in the Old Testament or even in considering your point about the intelligibility of the universe I mean brother brother lion eats sister gazelle pretty often and that seems to be part of the pattern of God's thoughts just maybe you could speak to that yeah good they're all good questions there each one is conflict let me say a quick thing about I've come not to bring peace but the sword of course there he's speaking metaphorically about the trouble that will come from a clear public articulation of his view he's not repudiating the Sermon on the Mount but I think talking about the struggle that we have to anticipate second thing about the Old Testament which is a famously complex issue I stick with Origen who said in the second third century the whole Bible must always be read from the standpoint of the last book of the Bible namely the book of Revelation when remember the scene they're up in the heavenly of court and there's the scroll with the seven seals and the scroll stands for the Bible or history or whatever it's got the seven seals who will open it who will open this thing who will interpret it and no one can do it and then we hear all the Lion of Judah is coming oh great here comes lamb Judah and who comes out but a lamb and then the Greek is peculiar there it's translated usually as standing as those slain so I'm waiting for the lion who's going to come out to interpret the whole of the Bible in all of history and I get a lamb a little lamby who's more to it slain of course what's being described there but Jesus crucified he's and he opens the seals say origins point was that's the only standpoint from which the whole of the Bible should be interpreted if you interpret the Bible in a way that runs counter to that you're miss reading it and then from that perspective Origen furthermore read those famous texts that you cite allegorically as allegories of the great spiritual struggle against evil are there certain forms of evil that have to be resisted all the way down like we hear of the prophet Samuel hacking ag-gag to pieces over the scene and king egg gag when saul didn't kill him and so samuel is so full of righteous anger that he hacks him to pieces and you say this is the word of the Lord you know when you read that it mez well see how did Origen long time ago read that well egg egg represents a sin that stanza for God's purposes and what we do usually all of us sinners we play around with evil rather than really deal with it will tame it to some degree that we keep a little bit for ourselves you know where the idea is you have to eliminate evil completely from your life it's like if I were to Cardinal George of Chicago and Senora Miz I'm really happy as a priest and that's why I'm celibate you know 90 percent of the time you know I mean how would that go over there are certain forms of dysfunction or husband to his wife you know I love you that's why I'm faithful to you 60% of the time there are certain forms of dysfunction that have to be hacked to pieces so that's how Origen read those texts and I still think that's a good way to approach him and I forget in the last bit of your your question was about the animals consuming each other I wouldn't consider that as violence I'm I think that's not violence is why I'm using it which is always backed up by by a malicious will so an animal one devouring other is not a malicious will so that's quick answers to three complex questions over here for the very place yes please go ahead thank you Father um moving away from the question of violence for a minute if that's all right um I wanted to ask about the intelligibility that is know stamped on existence on being I'm inclined to agree a background in science and I've always been an avowed rationalist myself however I feel that one of the things that you encounter if you sort of follow rationalism to its limit and not to be in commensurable kind to Pascal or Kierkegaard here but is that you come to be forced to acknowledge that there is paradox and mystery that is also stamped upon being and I was wondering how you can see a rational and a rational mind that is built to comprehend intelligible things having a relationship with mystery and paradox that also seems to be inherent in the world yeah I'm with you on that I think that's right but I would distinguish mystery and paradox from the irrational I don't think they're irrational they're kind of super irrational or it's a rationality so rich and complex that it can't be grasped outside of that sort of crashing together of tensive opposites so I think the paradoxical of the mysterious is is not irrational and there's were someone like Pascal who influenced Kierkegaard a lot the curl I say their own kind of lays on the connais pas right that the heart has its reasons that reason knows not that's the heart has its reasons it's not irrational but it's beyond reason in the conventional sense so maybe I pursue it that way because I mean God is the ultimate mystery and yet we say God is purely intelligible he's the he's the Telos the the lure of the mind what the mind wants to know is God and what's God but this sheer mystery of 3 and 1 you know so mystery is not irrational it's super irrational maybe thank you for them up by us please sorry I'm sorry I said intelligible but not perhaps by us yeah no quite right and that's why you know Thomas Aquinas says that in heaven the Saints understand for the first time how how unintel how mysterious God is it's not as though that it's all cleared up in heaven they see for the first time how mysterious God is you know why don't we say this might be our last question of the night please thank you please go ahead to this gentleman's question and you spoke wonderfully on how the word that Jesus himself embodies and presents to us uses the nonviolent narrative to kind of turn the violent order of this world on its head how do we reconcile that with our modern world and recent Vatican statements to the UN which submit to a seeming necessity for violence in cases like Isis yeah good and you know the church has a tradition of just war and I think the just war from Augustine on is seen as a kind of concession it's never a hey this is great is the way to go it's a kind of concession to the sinfulness of the world in a sort of with regret we accept this as sometimes the only thing we can do in the face of overwhelming injustice even as there are people permanently witnessing to the non-violence but it's a kind of concession to sin is the way Augustine and company do it which is why in Thomas acquaintance for example the war is justified only as the last resort if we really took that seriously it's the last possible resort so I think there's there's room for that but within the overarching and dominance of non-violent view but read some like origin before Agustin origin non-violence I mean he just didn't see was possible for Christians to be in the Army for example and a lot of the first Christians felt that way they were maybe closer to the radicality of Jesus message but to be fair to Agustin and company I think it's a concession to sin rather than a sort of you know enthusiastic embrace of violence it's a kind of you know in these extreme cases I'm saying that now in the building where Stanley Howard was lives and we've had these conversations where he's you know a strict advocate of non-violence and I you know I respect that very much if I can just close with a simple Franciscan story that in our Franciscan tradition were blessed to have two of the Great's of the Christian tradition Francis of Assisi and Anthony of Padua who were contemporaries and Anthony as you may know came to Francis and was just totally mesmerized by some of the early Franciscan missionaries that he had encountered such that he wanted to become a follower of Francis and and so Francis realizing that he had this incredible gift of Anthony this eloquent preacher this you know tremendous intellect and yet Francis's mentality was to be a lesser brother someone who does not vault himself into the limelight and yet not wanting to deny this great gift Francis invited Anthony to teach theology to the to the Friars with this one caveat he said teach sacred theology always in a spirit of prayer and devotion I think Francis and his simplicity realized that our minds as powerful as they are need to be enlightened by Christ and lift it up in prayer and so as challenging as wonderful as tonight has been let's remember that we began in prayer and let's also close in prayer together as we pray glory be to the Father and to the son as it was in the beginning is amen join me in thanking father Robert

Channel: dukecatholic

Views: 249,920

Rating: 4.7135134 out of 5

Keywords: Fr. Barron, Duke Catholic Center, Faithful, Intelligent, Faithful & Intelligent? The Catholic Intellectual Tradition & You, Catholic, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Duke Divinity, Goodson, Intellectual, Religion, Faith

Id: dp21zP50cSE

Length: 79min 8sec (4748 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 20 2015