Father Robert Spitzer, S.J.: Human Purpose, Dignity, and Identity According to Jesus

thank you and at the at the end of father Spitzer's talk you'll you can write down questions at any time on file cards that have been provided and people will come up and down the aisles collecting those and then we'll bring them up and give them to father Spitzer there'll be plenty of time for a question and answer at the end of his formal talk oh let me say a few things about father Spitzer he is an internationally renowned and admired Catholic leader he was president of Gonzaga University from 1998 to 2009 where he significantly increased the programs and curricula and faith ethics service and leadership and he led efforts to build 20 new facilities increased the student population by 75 percent and raised more than 200 million dollars for scholarships and capital projects that's a remarkable accomplishment and I know something about the way father Spitzer his tenure as president at Gonzaga and he did wonderful things for thee for its central mission of focusing on faith in Christ and bringing that to the students he's currently the president of the magis Center whose mission is to restore reconstruct and revitalize belief in God the transcendent dignity of every human person the significance of virtue the higher levels of happiness love and freedom and the real presence of Jesus Christ his TV appearances have included being on Larry King Live including debating Stephen Hawking the Today Show where he debated the topic of euthanasia the History Channel in a program called gob and the universe a PBS series called closer to the truth and the Hugh Hewitt radio show he currently appears weekly on e w TM television and show properly called father Spitzer's universe besides hundreds of presentations to colleges and universities father Spitzer has spoken to Tony Blair's cabinet in London officials of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia both sides of the conflict in Northern Ireland government officials in El Salvador and numerous other hotspots where he has been asked to speak and to intervene in 1989 he received Georgetown University's Edward Budden award for most outstanding professor at the University in 1997 repeat Seattle University's award for most outstanding professor in 2009 he was awarded Gonzaga University's highest honor the desmet medal currently he's working on a project I'd like to tell you something about it's called credible Catholic dot-com and can be accessed that way credible Catholic calm this is a program the motivation for which was 42 percent of young Catholics are leaving the faith 50 percent of that number are leaving because they don't think that the faith can reconcile can be reconciled to science that it's either science or faith but not both father Spitzer is dedicated to showing that the two are compatible so this this curriculum credible Catholic comm is aimed at middle schools and high schools and father Spitzer Helmut how far has have been disseminated already okay so a hundred and sixteen out of a hundred and ninety two dioceses in the United States and the whole country of Ireland it's reached many many thousands hundreds of thousands of young people already with more to come so it's not that we can do nothing father Spitzer exemplifies that something can be done he's also published ten books and numerous articles on the human person leadership in business happiness and science and Christian faith a topic on which he is particularly famous in his Jeanne buck I mentioned he will be speaking in this auditorium tomorrow night at 7:30 well father Spitzer has a way of taking complex ideas and making them understandable and he is the kind of leader that the church the educational institutions especially the University and the larger society need so please welcome father Roberts [Applause] thank you so much Phil for that very generous introduction professor lagoon lagoon Co I just want to thank you for a truly excellent talk prescient challenging clear and quite humorous I really enjoyed it immensely I'm gonna try and give at least a part of a solution who knows whether the solution really exists it's such truly a juggernaut indeed Guardian not that we face in liberalism and especially it's almost stranglehold over culture I think I'm just going to go right back to the Christian apologists a st. Ignatius of Antioch & Company who began to emerge in the Roman Empire and see the solution that might exist for restoring the strong God's I think our our reno's book there the return of the strong gods which Professor Lagoo Coe outlined very precisely is a good place to start remember what he just said about those strong gods yes it's religion it's transcendence its objective metaphysics that's really important objective morality and these things of course have in them a hierarchy there's also some objective dimensions and rankings of powers within human beings like Plato struck tripartite soul and and Aristotle's ranking of happiness more on that in a moment but these are the strong gods and the strong gods alas our hierarchies and of course the weak gods have been blended into a kind of a mush in a way and there's nothing that stands out there's nothing that directs the human person there's nothing that gives instruction there's nothing that says this part of you is higher than that part of you this part of society is higher than that part of society the hierarchies have gone but how how to restore them when there is a juggernaut of what might be called liberalism a juggernaut of what might be called the the weak gods that is manifest in the society here's what I gleaned from Ignatius of Antioch I mean obviously he paid the price in martyrdom for bringing out his nasty little hierarchies and his religion and his gods however as god I should say no no yes however in the syncretism of Rome and Rome after all if you really want you know the the ultimate sort of synchronicity culture combined with autocracy a real totalitarianism Rome is a great example and yet the Christians in 300 years kind of reached around the corner and grabbed it and they did it because of course God intervened so the first thing I just want to say is we've got grace on our side ladies and gentlemen and we should not forget this God can even influence Constantine to make the Christian religion the religion of Rome and by the way she does a lot of other things in history and I just can't go into right now or you just you or you look at history and you go I mean who could have gotten up in the morning and and just you know looked at the situation and not despaired and yet a few years later the entire situation is turned around people are just scratching their heads and going how did that happen exactly so we do have grace on our side and we shouldn't despair but we have to invoke that Ignatian motto and the Ignatian motto is this work as if everything depends on you and pray as if everything depends on God and you'll get there we don't want to say I prayed to God my work is done and we don't want to say I'm working real hard God let me handle it both things are a recipe in my view for suicide and the sure victory of what might be called an autocratic liberalism so where to begin what did the Christians do they return to rationality oh yes they prayed but they became rational apologists that's what they did and of course in this democracy that we have with all of the freedoms that we have there is still one thing that's really respected and that seems to be reason science as such you know a huge prestige in our culture precisely because reason empirical rational reasoning empirical mathematical reasoning still enjoys a prestige a prestige I might add and I'll be talking a lot more about tomorrow which is really appreciated in our culture and which I think Christianity can use to its advantage to restore what Rena would call the strong God the hierarchies the really objective metaphysics the objective hierarchical moral order etc I think we can use science to our best advantage reason to our best advantage and I'm going to suggest that this is a partial solution there are other things that we have to do besides pray and invoke reason and I'm gonna give you a sample of a way that I have had a lot of success in using to bring the strong guys to bring metaphysics religion transcendence etc back into the form and into the for in a culture that is trying to push the hierarchy down to a single level so I'll give that in a moment but I think we have to remember you know something that my old metaphysics professor Paul Weiss once said you can never allow any government or any attempt at consensus to try and blend society with the state and to blend culture with politics there are different animals they do different things the state has power but culture that has the influence on the inner soul both the inner soul of individuals and the inner soul if we might put it this way of the collective society culture is about animating the spirit culture is about creating an ethos which lifts people up and calls them to virtue to heroes to the higher things - what RINO might call the strong gods - what we would call the one God and all of the metaphysical pursuits and objective moral pursuits that Christianity you know has as defined around itself so we don't want to make culture and politics synonymous political people should do what political people are supposed to do they should provide social services they should provide protection they should provide the governmental services that are required but they should stay out of the new think business they should stay out of the cultural conformity business culture ought to be determined from within not by a police force not by you know pure of you know batting down people whose ideas you don't like culture ought to be determined by first of all the beliefs of people and of course a rational underpinning of those beliefs to try and get to the most amount of synthesis that we can not by taking out differences in hierarchies but instead by trying in some sense to use rational means to find out what really is truly right for the human person truly good not only for the human person but truly good for the collective of humanity and is truly good in the eyes of God in the eyes of the Creator in the eyes of the Redeemer that's what we have to do is I believe bring rationality to the floor I think that's what what Christianity did but Christianity formed a culture independent of the pallas later when Constantine came along yes the two became one but Christianity was busy forming a culture and they not only formed a culture with reason they formed a culture with love as well remember that Christianity starts and and gets its cultural influence by serving people educationally and in healthcare and in Social Welfare and of course to this day the Catholic Church is still the largest healthcare institution internationally it's still the largest public education system internationally it's still the largest public welfare system internationally I mean the statistics are overwhelmingly show that about 26% of all such facilities are still under the Catholic Church in one form or another and that's because they had an ethos of attending to the needs of people along with a really sublime rational justification of it that dependent upon the interior of human experience on st. Augustine's Confessions yet at the same time great systemic philosophy ala st. Thomas Aquinas but so many others that preceded them so let's just take a look at the first thing that we have to think about is prayer counts the second thing that really matters in the creation of a culture is is that we be rational but that we also be charitable at the same time that that ethos of Christ but you know that they should prevail and this will slowly but surely allow the idea of God and grace to again repopulate the culture so that politics just simply can't take it over and Eclipse it and and and and you know bring force to bear to push God out or to push you know reason out and to push the strong gods of metaphysics and an objective morality and transcendence out of the proverbial stage but the second thing you know Paul Weiss indicated you really shouldn't collapse society into the state society that's the group of people that exist through a culture or in a society here there's a society in the United States but it's not reducible to the state the Society has a variety of not just ideas but beliefs and strong believes rationally justified beliefs and that's grounded in turn in our sense of worship it's grounded in turn in our sense of you know the various powers of the soul the Society is giving us some direction upon where our soul is to go we're not just physical as embodied beings we do have souls that empathize with one another we do have souls that have a conscience that can perceive morality and can be formed in morality we have you know the desire for perfect truth love goodness beauty in home a desire to be in communion with God a desire for transcendence an amazement at transcendence the sacred the beautiful in that sense the testing we've got a soul that can't be reduced to mere embodiment and physical processes white you know right today you know David Chalmers and this hard problem of consciousness can't even come close to explaining processes like our inner subjectivity and our self consciousness you know there's a great book that he's written on this just showing that physical processes in any way you configure them will not be able to explain those powers of the soul which I'll be talking about in a moment empathy and conscience etc so my point is that's society society that's the group of us here speaking about ideas and yes debating ideas and having ideas that we think are better or worse than others for rational reasons better or worse or because we can perceive that some of those ideas will lead to disaster and dehumanization whereas other ones will lift up the human soul and enable us to progress but whatever it is we ought to be using our minds to determine a hierarchy of what's best the very thing that animates Aristotle at the beginning of the Nicomachean ethics where he basically is talking he's trying to say look we want to know where to go in life what's the good life don't tell me there's no such thing as good I shouldn't call them you know what I've discerned is good and and and other people have discerned is less good if you have good rational grounds that Aristotle why not we don't want to remain in perpetual ignorant brought down by the lowest common denominator we want to use our minds to elevate ourselves a boy when st. Thomas Aquinas and the Christian world discovered Aristotle I don't mean this in any kind of a you know a heretical sense but they baptized him in a sense I mean essentially they wanted that rational synthesis where st. Agustin brought the rationality of Plato and the soul of Plato right into the heart of but Jesus's revelation so also Aquinas did this with Aristotle but it was always the genius of my view of the Christian Church it was always the genius of Christians to bring together mind rationality reason today we say science to bring it together with revelation with religion with Jesus's revelations specifically of how we ought to not only conduct our lives but the path to eternal salvation in him so that was our genius and I think it may be a partial solution to how to get out of the the juggernaut of what might be called liberalism I'm just going to go to this chart here for just a second some of you have heard me referred to this and in past talks I have a book out called finding true happiness I'm not giving you a shameless ad for the book you can get a lot of this a book by simply going to credible Catholic calm and just clicking on the big book vol 13 free but if you want to buy the book please do what's my point my point is Aristotle have made a statement a long time ago which I think provides a key to getting us out of the juggernaut of liberalism what is it he said happiness is the one thing you can choose for itself everything else is chosen for the sake of happiness this is a mere rational statement or Aristotle's trying to say what I glean from my experience of my study of humanity is this we all want to be happy it's the one thing we can choose for itself and my definition of that one word happiness it is going to determine the kind of friends I'm going to make the kind of spouse I would I would have chosen if I hadn't become a priest the kind of job that I will pursue or the career that I will pursue it'll determine the way I judge myself my judge my life am I going somewhere am I not going somewhere my life worth something is my life not worth something etc etc it's gonna determine everything said Aristotle that little world were clicking around in the back of our minds is so powerful it can put any political regime and any liberal juggernaut to shame that's how powerful it is in the individual mind and heart said Aristotle and not only that it's powerful too in the collection of human beings you know when Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote his treatise unhappiness and both in the Summa contra genteel ascend in the sympathia logica he kind of starts the whole you know ethical treatment about treatment of virtues everything else it all starts with happiness and st. agustín's confession dare I say it he puts it four different words for happiness throughout the confessions he begins with low-level happiness like like to us right mere pleasure seeking he then goes right to Felix which is kind of a ego comparative happiness he he then goes to Beatus the attitude oh right Theotis which is the kind of happiness that comes from contribution and virtue and finally the kind of happiness that comes from being United with God sebelum itas or doubting but that the key point for st. Agustin is he's going through he sees that there's these different kinds of happiness connected to different parts of our being and I think this is completely valid today and I think it supersedes a lot of psychoanalytic paradigms and the reason I do is because psychoanalytic paradigms like you take the man's lobbying paradigm or you know or you know other really excellent paradigms when it comes down to level three and level four that I'll describe when it comes down to getting close to the powers of the soul that are transcendent and moral it starts having trouble because a psychoanalytic paradigm generally is grounded in an empirical methodology and so the powers of the soul that are a little higher empathy conscience and and and you know the desire to move beyond myself or transcendence the desire for perfect truth love goodness beauty and home to be connected with God the amazement that the sacred etc all of these things are hard to grasp in a mere psychoanalytic paradigm I think it's much better just to go back for a second and study those powers of the soul so just let me go through this chart for just one second level one by the way notice this right from the beginning it's a hierarchy it's one of those bad boys as Professor really good Co might say and of course it is a hierarchy but it's based on reason it's a rational hierarchy it's Plato's and Aristotle's rational hierarchy it says the happiness which is most pervasive enduring and deep as the highest that's the best that's the direction you want to go for no other reason then don't you want to make the most difference with your life that you can well why wouldn't you want the most that the happiness that gives you the most pervasive effect don't you want to be as happy as you can for as long as you can of course for merely rational reasons why wouldn't you want to be happy in the most enduring way not just the most pervasive way the most enduring way but why wouldn't you how about deep you don't you want to be happy in a way where you can make real contributions the real high end quality creative contributions with your mind your moral power your ability for ideals your empathise and loves your transcendence and spiritual life don't you want to make a hoe or do you just want to invent a better spaghetti I mean I like spaghetti don't get me wrong the plam trying to get through is of course as Plato says it's natural Arizona's natural you want something that's more pervasive more enduring more deep or that is to say a higher quality with your time with your energy as the old slogan goes you only go around once in this world may as well go with pervasive enduring and deep rather than shallow superficial and stupid so having said that lets go through the hierarchy the rational hierarchy here level one that's the lowest that comes from merely sensual pleasure or merely material aggrandizement what does it mean Bob Spitzer sees the bowl of linguine smells it lunges toward it Wolf's it down and goes YUM he becomes happy but it would be a mistake if Bob Spitzer lived for linguine alone not only would it mean that I'd be more overweight than I already am but there be the opposite consequence of a wasted alternative consequence of a wasted life secondly we've got level 2 and that's called ego comparative happiness by the by 71% of our culture is dominant ego comparative who is achieving more who's achieving less what does it mean I mean I get an ego jolt when I focus the locus of control on me that's good and that involves a comparison somebody comes up in this spitzer you are an incredible chess player and you have achieved much and i say please keep talking about this topic I'm very interested of course it makes me happy but again in a rather superficial way but no question suddenly 1% of our culture is is fixed on ego comparative happiness who's achieving more who's eating who's got more power who's got less power who's got more status who's got less says who is more popular who is less popular who's more intelligent who is less intelligent who's more athletic certainly not me who's less athletic who's you know and you could go right through every character who is more beautiful who's less beautiful who went to the I just read so-and-so's Facebook who went to the best parties who went to the light no parties etc who's a winner and who's a proverbial loser the point of course is clear what we're dealing with in in in this situation his mere ego comparative status seeking which does bring you some ego jolts no question about it but at the end of the day as Saint Agustin discovered so beautifully in his confessions it will leave you empty indeed because your nature will never be fulfilled you were created for much more than that you don't have to appeal as you're making a rational case to the obvious judeo-christian claim that we are made in the image and likeness of God which we are but if you want to make the claim in the city in the public square if you want to make that the claim in the civil domain you might want to just say you know I think I've got something more to me than just mere ego comparative identity and I'll get to what will manifest this in a moment but we're going to a higher level of happiness still contributed happiness this is the kind of happiness that comes from the opposite way of achieving level two remember level two shifts the locus of control to me level three is investing me in the good of people and processes outside of me so I want to make a contribution to somebody or something some ideal some good beyond myself typically this is portrayed by a person getting to 80 years old and going what was the difference between the value of my life and that of a rock and they have to go well The Rock probably made more difference to culture in to society and to the people around me than I did that would be incipient despair and we would feel it and not just in the grips of our souls we would feel it we would know that we were in some sense beneath ourselves we're caught up in a Kafka esque sort of a thing you know and order its final words you know he's dying there and he goes like a dog you know I just wasted everything I just went down like a mere beast well the point I'm trying to get to is you know we do need to make a difference we don't want to get to 80 years old and figure out that we did nothing our lives really didn't make a difference so there's another kind of happiness when we're making an optimal positive difference to the people around us we're making an optimum positive positive difference to our family to our friends to our community to our church to the kingdom of God we're making an optimal positive difference even to the society or to the culture if we're so lucky I mean a professor good go is very lucky he's got influence in the culture in so many different ways and so all these things when we look at you know what can I do to make an optimal positive difference before I leave this world so that my life was not just wasted but my life was invested in making the world a better place for my having live according to the talents I've been given the energy I've been given that the opportunities I've been given yeah we all live situationally but we all have the opportunity to make a difference to family to friends etc but there's even a fourth level of happiness a higher one still that we need to you know that requires fulfillment and that's transcendence don't worry I'm gonna get to the rational case not only for why we ought to pursue these kinds of happiness the higher levels but how the lower levels can destroy us that's where we can make the case that's where we can bring this hierarchy back in and along it's not just a hierarchy of happiness here we're bringing in strong gods all over the place we're bringing in right from the the top of the line their transcendence and God that's level four and I'll talk about it more and level three we're bringing in not just contribution but of course we have to do it in a way that's virtuous otherwise it lists undermine but they're very good we're trying to do and there's some real difficulties with living for level one and level two although now is is level two okay sure level two is good ego comparative happiness will give me some self-esteem it'll give me some strength when I'm debating people who don't agree with me cetera et cetera and and I'll be able to stand up strongly and that's a good thing self-esteem is a good thing competitiveness is a good thing the seeking of excellence is a good thing but not when you make it an end in itself if you join the Mensa Society and you're 80 years old you go you know I had a better idea than 99.9 percent of the world the rest of these guys are just a bunch of SAP's but I I was the guy with the 200 IQ who did nothing for anyone ever obviously incipient despair once again is not enough to be the great guy we need to make a difference with the gifts that we have so level 4 we're little ultimate icers let me put it that way I'm doing this from the vantage point of the secular case I can tell you Jesus would agree that God is the high sir I remember when he's asked what's the highest of all the virtues of all the commandments he says first right oh right away Shema yes I hear o Israel the Lord your God is one and you shall love the Lord your God with all your mind soul heart and strength the second is like it so he elevates it you shall love your neighbor as yourself so you can see the priority of level of four here of faith in God but we can make a rational case for this we have a yearning for God in two different ways the first way is we have a desire for perfect love goodness beauty and home and we will be satisfied with nothing less I mean my little nieces you they they want perfect truth they'll come up and I'll go Uncle Bobby well why is this I say because of that well why is that well because of that why is that funny have to go timeout because you're in the deepest modes of quantum theory and they're like they're literally like little Exocet missiles they're just going to keep going and keep going and keep going cuz they know I didn't give them the complete set of correct answers to the complete set of questions I have not yet answered their desire for a perfect truth the whole thing the complete set of correct answers a complete set of questions that's what they want until they grow jaded but in the meantime they wanted and that's in the human spirit they not only want that they want perfect love I once had a student at Georgetown he tells me he says you know I I don't want perfect love I'm more realistic than that so one of my good physics here anyway he says I'm more realistic now oh that's good you never had a girlfriend that really you know just kind of got tired of you know she's always disappointing you she was never perfect home for you she was never perfect meaning in life she was never perfect understanding of you never perfect response to you she was always exemplifying merely human things like she'd get stressed make mistakes and even get tired and you just finally said you know I've had it she's not the one I said well Steve what were you looking for look I'd say so yeah but you're looking for it in all the wrong places it's Connie who's perfect love that poor woman you know I mean you're trying to extract divinity out of her and she's not there yet the point I'm trying to get to is of course we want perfect love and we want perfect goodness and justice if we didn't want perfect goodness and justice why are you all here today we're looking for a better more just more a better society of course we're searching constantly what why do we have people who are so disappointed with the order of things the legal orders is just not just and it's not it's perfectly just why is it that a little ten-year-old child for that when he first discovers well you know that his parents are not perfectly just or right for the first time and he's so outraged that he just screams out that's not fair with his lower lip extended and you're outraged how could you disappoint me you know God I've got your imperfections down they know little kids know perfect judge they know they know perfect look they can tell authenticity they know perfect truth that when you haven't gotten there just like us they can recognize imperfections and truth love goodness beauty in home all the time I'm not at home here that's not beautiful enough there's a pimple on my face whatever it is the point is we want these things and that's a sign of God because God alone is perfect truth love goodness beauty animal and you would never be able to endlessly recognize all the imperfections in truth all and ask another question all the imperfections of the love and quest for more all the imperfections in justice and good and quest for more all the imperfections and beauty and try to improve it all the imperfections in your home and try to make it even better you never do it unless you were you had a sense of what perfect truth justice beauty goodness and home would be like you didn't know what perfect truth love goodness beauty and home it would be like you'd never endlessly recognize the imperfections you would be free the Apple could have dropped on Newton's head and like a cow he would have picked it up and eaten it point I'm trying to get to his or different when animals run out of biological opportunities in danger here's a strong God coming I'm going to make a difference between the animal kingdom and you when animals this is the truth when animals run out of biological opportunities and dangers when you no longer pet them that's a biological opportunity of affection you no longer feed them the biological opportunity of getting sustenance you no longer threaten them the biological danger when animals run out of biological opportunities and dangers they slip out of their state of Ko nation and into a state of slumber and fall asleep human beings don't do that when we run out of biological opportunities and dangers we think about the questions we have not yet answered and are curious about we think about the loves that could be better and we don't have them we think about the justice and good that we didn't get and we are basically stewing and brewing and that's not fair etc we are actually looking for greater truth love goodness beauty and home animals don't do this you little ultimate eyes errs you the point I'm trying to get to is this this hierarchy is perfectly justified but there's a second level on which we yearn for God we yearn for communion with God not just to perfect truth love goodness beauty and home we want those yes and God is it so we want God but more than that we want God himself as the perfect interpersonal interrelated being of true love and empathy of true goodness and purity we want to be in connection with God not just as creator but with the one who truly is the one that will call us to himself we have a sense of that we have a sense of reverence and in our instinctive awareness of sacredness we absolutely have this sense and we want a connection with God let me just pause for a moment and give you the results I'll tell you how much we need God don't for a moment think that we do not want a connection with God and need desperately a connection with God has everybody noticed what's been going on in in the the the surveys very recently that were published first of all by the National Center for Disease Control on suicides in the last 15 years there has been in this culture a 51 percent increase in this in the rate of suicides 51 percent increase by the way we are going to exceed Europe we ought to be worried about this our suicide rate among young people's Millennials and Gen Z's is out of control and by the way 46 percent increase according to the latest Columbia University study 46 percent increase in depression in the last 15 years same period among the same group Millennials and Gen Z's so like what are we dealing with here what's the cause of all of this well I could venture a correlation but then I have five studies to prove it I think it correlates with the Pew study that Phil rollin dr. rollin just mentioned and that is that 42% of our kids are leaving not just the Catholic Church but at the mean age of 13 they are going to make a decision that they want to leave faith in God altogether 42 percent as Phil just mentioned 50% of that 42 percent so 21 percent of our Catholic kids going to church right now well do so because of faith and science they don't think there's enough evidence for God and so they think that science and and faith are contradictory science is truth therefore faith must be a fantasy please if that is of concern to you come to my lecture in this hall tomorrow night at 7:30 I will give you enough evidence to give these kids pause for more than thought I think some real initial affirmations but I digress my point is this is going on just watch it's 51 percent increase in suicides now we see the 46 percent increase in depression we see a downturn of 42 percent you know in belief in God and among Millennials and Gen Z's the same group we're talking about I'm beginning to notice a correlation but you guys uh-huh Post hoc ergo propter hoc Schmitt sir you've forced a correlation into a causation ah but I have other studies in my little quiver and here they are number one there is the d'oeuvre extent of 2004 if you have not read this 2004 terrific study she is from the American Psychiatric Association it was a really good longitudinal study with ten authors who can by the way it's all free of charge you just go to put Kaneda Durak suicides non religious affiliation just put that into your Google Bing you'll get the whole study right there what did she notice by the way she did a very careful study she inter-college because basically they took out anybody who had been clinically depressed formerly etc right so if you have a history of clinical depression you're not in the study it says so educational levels same on both the non religiously affiliated side the religiously affiliated side economic level same and non religiously affiliated religiously affiliated time so basically she's got a really good study here what did she find there are significant this we're talking about non religiously affiliated people so they are a nun according to the Pew survey and oh and he they have no religion to speak of and no religious affiliation no desire for one what did she discover non religiously affiliated people had significantly higher really significantly higher rates of depression impulsivity aggressivity substance abuse familial tensions and suicides including suicidal eye that has been confirmed by five other studies I'll send all the studies to dr. Olynyk if you want those studies I would say I'd click on those studies about three out of the five studies are on the Internet read them because I think what they verify is people who don't have religion are not just unhappier they are really just a shadow of themselves they are what Mircea Eliade a long ago called the tragedy of non religious man le odda one of the great philosophers of religion was one time saying what happened to people you know when they when they lost their religion and you know he didn't have the big surveys like we have today the the der big survey etc but what he did notice he said people would literally fall apart like some part of their nature even the most ultimate part of the nature the highest part of their nature was unfulfilled everything that dr. lococo talked about that you know the dissipation of the hierarchies everything that reno talks about in in in you know the loss of the higher gods you know it's here present is that you can see you lose this hierarchy you lose God you lose your ultimate ontological or metaphysical grounding with Ultima see namely God you lose an objective sense of morality you are going to be in despair and I don't mean incipient despair I mean depression impulsivity aggressivity substance abuse Familia attention suicidal ideation suicides etc that's what you're gonna be in and it's pretty serious stuff because our culture is going down that line now if God exists and I think there's more than enough evidence to substantiate this from science and from reason I think that's very true come tomorrow night if you want more one thing though I would say though is if God exists and we are not paying attention to what's going on in our hearts namely that the origin of our desire for God does God himself why would we desire God unless God was present to us why is it that we would desire God if God how could we be aware of God enough to desire him if somehow we didn't have a sense of him to begin with was this just communicated to us by some empty ritual no religious rituals are not empty they're filled with meaning and significance as Eliana says that goes right back to our interior disposition of being it's God's present the presents to us that makes us aware of him enough to desire him and to want to be in communion with she is the one inviting us into communion Agustin discovered this by the way in the confessions and put 5 a long time ago it's God's presence to us that makes us it's calling us within and making himself known and that's why we yearn for him and that's why when we ignore him when we don't practice religion when we don't do anything that's why we are so sad but anyway yes we are ultimate icers we look for perfect truth love goodness beauty in home because God is present to us as perfect truth love goodness beauty in home and and we yearn for communion with him because God is present to us he's inside of us he's inviting us he's calling us and we couldn't even have the desire for him were it not for his presence to us you're not going to get the awareness of God by looking around and seeing water bottles and microphones and all kinds of things in the empirical world and you're not gonna get a desire for God by merely physical processes and you're algorithmically finite physical brains you're gonna get it from God a cause commensurate with the effect if you're desiring perfect truth I'm gonna say that that perfect truth is present to you if you if you recognize every imperfection of truth endlessly you already have an awareness of perfect truth and where did you get that from you got to get it from a custom insert or the effect with perfect truth itself God's present he's calling us okay there's a strong guy but I think we can make a rational case for this and and and again go to that website credible Catholic calm you can get the case for this right there let's go quickly to what's wrong with our culture too I mean obviously I think liberalism it is is a bad trends the truly the juggernaut again if I can coin a word it's a suppression of freedoms and and suppression especially of hierarchies the strong God's metaphysics the objective moral order I think the suppressing those things out of existence is gonna kill us it's going to kill our spirit it's gonna kill the spirit of not just the West it's gonna kill the spirit world this is coming but it more than that I think there's even much more concrete manifestations of what happens when we don't have any level 3 or level 4 in our life when we get a rid of those strong gods we get a rid of contributive identity and we and the moral order level 3 and when we get a rittle level 4 transcendent identity and faith and God and communion with God if we get rid of those two levels all we've got left is level 1 and level 2 and you can see where the problems are gonna begin so let's just take a look at a big old problem called the comparison gate for just one second but if you guys kind of got the the point on the four levels right right yeah so let's go to the comparison game what happens when you take level 3 and level 4 out of the picture what happens when you take objective morality you take contribution you take God you take religion out of the picture you got level one material and sensual pleasure you got that left which we're really good at in this culture and you got level two to ego comparative and that's what you got now here's the problem in a nutshell if all you got is material essential and ego comparative success if that's all you've got then you've only got three parts to your worldview when Lou and draw that's all you have if you're a winner well I'm content let's say let's start with losing if you have a dominant level one and two identity don't lose because if you lose you're not only going to have inferiority you're not only going to have depression you're not only going to have ego sensitivities to the max you're not only going to feel judged every time you walk down the corridor you're gonna be jealous as all get-out and you're gonna try and make everybody pay for it really don't think that's not behind a lot of criminal behavior that's going on right now in this culture it's one big fat case of jealousy of people who have more because the only thing around is level one and level two and they got a better hand than I do I can't get out of it I think I'm gonna take back what rightfully belongs to me that you got from your privilege I'm not getting criminal behavior arise out of this but let's get to whatever you do don't lose right can you can you win the game can you can you win it suppose you really are the most intelligent the most athletic the most successful that you've got in the most power the most status the most popularity you are you are you just a winner let's suppose you are so does that really help you out no you can't win that either first of all beware of ego sensitivities if you're a winner I go back to my own youth when I was giving a physics talk and one of my physics classes in high school and I was pronouncing the word spectroscopy as spectroscopies because I'd never heard it pronounced before I'd read an article on it and I was talking about you know spectroscopy in spectroscopy and this kid comes up to me afterwards Spencer that word spectroscopy you pronounce that spectroscopies three times and now everybody thinks you're a consummate idiot and I thought of myself as rather intelligent fella so I was breathless and and and so I went home and I played that table hundred times and then had suicidal feelings been there done that not far from the truth now you look at that and you go you mean a little insult and a thin-skinned kid who invested everything he was in level two identity could be brought to the brink of suicide because it something's yeah this is all over our culture the suicide rate among Gen Z's just to remind you and Millennials up 51% in 15 years just sayin something weirds goin on number two you just if you if you're a winner just remember this you're gonna start living for the adulation of others you're going to want people to come up and go Spitzer you are the greatest honestly I am but a mere nothing compared to your achievement in genius and so forth and so on and you get used to the adulation one day people get sick and tired of it and all they want is a little individual dignity and then they went wrong and your source of meaning in life you know you know when people start going you're not so great you're just a selfish idiot like the rest of us and of course they fight back you have such resentment because of course you need that adulation and the very fact that that education is being resisted is causing you horrible anxiety you know that that the sailors word for it puts it in front of my eyes on Timon you know it's just like you know a horrible turning out in life and you're gonna make them pay so what's my point ego rage that's another symptom ego blame it's another symptom I mean you're not gonna win you can't win you can't draw you can't lose because you're always going to live and what's the byproduct of ego comparative and central identity alone jealousy fear of failure fear of loss of esteem ego rage ego blame inferiority superiority and everything else practically that makes life absolutely miserable in a society of Plenty in a society of opportunities and we're miserable just telling you I think it's because we're dominant level 1 and level 2 and there's another symptom that goes along with it we're empty if we don't have God and if we don't have some sense of contributed purpose and some sense of inner character and integrity from virtue if we lack those three things ladies and gentlemen a sense of God a sense of contributed purpose I'm making a difference to the world and some sense of interior integrity and character I've got some virtues I've got some principles I stand for something I'm not just chopped liver the moment I get if I loose those three things what happens is just pure emptiness I call it cosmic emptiness alienation and loneliness where people are literally their sheep or men are shaving in the mirror when I'm brushing their hair whatever they're looking at themselves in the mirror and nothing is coming back they are empty and they just don't understand why they have this terrible feeling in the pit of their stomachs they'd like to go out and eat two poles of linguini just to fill up or you know that cosmic loneliness or they're surrounded by all their family and their friends and there's a very prestigious and they've been very successful and everybody loves them and they're thinking I am so lonely there's not a single person in this room that can take that loneliness away from me something's missing or that feeling of cosmic alienation you're walking down the street and you sing I'm out of kilter with everything in this world it's black and empty and void and darkness a matter of I don't fit in I'm out of kilter with everything I'm not at home here that's another way of saying I'm alienated on the highest levels our culture is filled with this back to the direct study little wonder the decrease in religion the decrease in virtue identity is leading to cosmic emptiness alienation and loneliness little wonder we feel radical increases in depression fear of the impulse of the aggressivity it's substance abuse familial tensions and suicides we can make a rational case as Christians we make a rational case not only for level 3 but for level 4 now I've sort of said why do we I've already gone through that she why is it that we need to go to level 4 level 3 is not going to do it it's a great start I'm not gonna by the way I'm not gonna go through let me just give you two paths to level 3 here's just I'm just gonna give an outline of a rational case the first thing you can do if you want somebody to get out of all that stuff terrible things of the comparison game all I can tell you right now is here's what you do you tell them the first thing number one make your own self manifestation make your own manifesto what is your purpose for a living structure it this way how can I make an optimal positive difference to my family you don't have to answer all the questions now just live for that question how can I make an optimal positive difference to my friends review and live for that question every day how can I make an optimal positive difference to my community live for that question how can I make an optimal positive difference to my church to the kingdom of God live for that question how can I make an optimal positive difference to the institution's the organization's the societal organization surrounding how can I make an optimal the difference if I'm so lucky to the culture into the society how can I do that we live for that if we live for those questions and at the end of that list of questions you put this right down there on this sheet for this I king the moment you do that you're going to see the Depression starting to lift they won't lift all the way but it'll start to lift because now you have purpose beyond yourself now you have purpose level 3 purpose which is taking the onus off of level 1 and level 2 to give you your identity Jesus Christ was right level 1 and level 2 or not enough we need something more so do that the first thing self manifestation second thing that you ought to do we ought to teach everybody to do is to look for the good news in people rather than the bad news let me tell you what ego comparative identity does to you if you are if you the only thing that matters in life is being better than somebody else more intelligent more athletic more whatever somebody else then you'll never want to look for the good news in them all it will do is heap misery upon misery on you but if you look if you can break free from having to look for the bad news if you can break free from the instinctual ability to look for what's irritating weak stupid and unkind in people if we can break free of that and look for the good news the little good things that people try to do the great good things they aspire to do the fact that they're made in the image and likeness of God they're deep-sea fish they have transcendental identity they're looking for perfect truth love goodness beauty and hope they're already in a communion with God and in addition to that they've got strengths without that I don't have they've got you know abilities they've got a gratuitous acts of kindness delightful idiosyncrasies there there's good news in every single human being if I can look for the good news in them I can have genuine empathy and if I can have genuine empathy that I gonna care about him and I'm not what I don't want to take advantage of them I don't want to do something hateful and terrible that will undermine them and destroy them I see them as made in the image and likeness of God why would I want to do that to anybody the point is suddenly a whole new you know beginning comes into mine conscience is activate empathy is activated it's good it's a good thing to look for the good news and the other it's good to make a self manifestation but we have to go more level three is not enough we've got to go to level 4 cosmic emptiness alienation and loneliness Oda is just docume we got to get to that and so we're going to have overcome that we're gonna have to overcome the depression of not being in communion with God what can we do to do that number one you've got to participate in a church I know people don't want to hear this but it's true you can't just sit around and think about spirituality in your room that's not gonna do it every last one one of us needs revelation ladies and gentlemen if we don't have a revelation then all we will know about God is what science and reason can determine about God all we will know about God is what Aristotle could know about God or Einstein could know about God we won't know the who of God oh yes if you adhere to lawn organs proof for God's existence you will know that there exists an unconditioned unrestricted completely unique entity reality that is an unrestricted act of understanding understanding itself which is the continuous creator of all else that is in its infinite or unrestricted mind you can know that by reason you know and that's a big what what God is you can know that and you can know from science by the way I think you can know that there is a high probability of a creator not only of every universe but of if there indeed is more than one and every multi-verse if indeed there is a multiverse as I will explain tomorrow night you can know that they all have to have a beginning and you can know that there is a high likelihood of a creator of all those physical entities and that they were in consequence have to be something trans Universal something trans physical that's going to have to exist you can know you know from empirical studies good empirically based peer-reviewed medical studies of near-death experiences that there's a very high likelihood that you are going to survive bodily death on a trans physical soul come tomorrow night I'll give you all the evidence in the studies the point I'm trying to get to though is there's a lot we can note from science and a lot we can know from reason and we can get to some really good what's it what now Cardinal Newman would call informal inferences but at the same time I tell you this right now we don't know the who we're gonna need revelation and that means we're gonna need God to step into human history and God steps into human history not just to give little Bobby Spitz or his private revelation God steps into history to give whole communities and indeed the world that revelation and so you can expect that God's Way and it always has been you can see this in the history of religions and Mircea Eliade Oh makes a beautiful case for but the point I'm trying to make is God reveals himself to a community he reveals himself to privileged prophets or priests and in the case of course Jesus Christ the Messiah who comes into our midst but my point is we need revelation you're going to get it in a church you're not gonna get it just in a private revelation God is not going to give 50 billion rays of private revelations he's going to give us the revelation of himself in a way that we can together appropriate God wants us to be in religious community to worship together not just for community support but to worship together the cuz when we worship together like the combination in our voice is always greater than the sum of the parts because there's something that lifts the spirit in that communal worship that can't be gotten in our rooms by ourselves etc so you can expect that God is gonna reveal himself in a community you can expect that this is going to have we need a church we're gonna have to go to a church and the church calls us to accountability that's okay it might be a certain time that's okay God will call us to that accountability and so at the end of the day what can we get can we say you gotta participate in that church you got to submit your will to God to the revelation that he gave through the church organizations that he gave we're gonna have to participate in those churches in order to get some sense not only of the revelation and only some sense of the group lifting of spirit not only some sense of our interpersonal personhood in in the very moment of worship and religion and and and belief but we're also gonna have to have it so that we can be ultimately fulfilled so we need to have a church and indeed I believe that Jesus Christ established a church I certainly think it's the Catholic Church I do think that's the whole Commission of Peter is about you know blessed are you simon barjona for it is not flesh and blood who has revealed this to you but my Heavenly Father and can I talk about why I think the Catholic Church is because Jesus says you know you are Peter and upon this rock Petra I will build my church and the gates of the netherworld will never prevail against it I'll give you the keys to the kingdom of eminence that the Prime Minister's position that's the second position the offices a second only to the king himself who is Jesus I'll give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven and listen to this whatsoever you declare loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven whatsoever you declare bound on earth found in heaven I'm gonna give you Evan Lee authority right here on earth well that's written in our scriptures and all I can say is if Arnold Toynbee the great historian of civilization culture is correct then the Catholic Church has literally outdistanced every single solitary political religious institution it's two thousand year history is utterly baffling to any historian or sociologists of religion it makes absolutely no sense because it turns out with this vast panoply of all of its governmental and in hierarchical hierarchical structures the Catholic Church is the toughest of any institution that has ever existed secular or sacred in world history just a thought this is by the way comes from a guy who has no friend of Catholicism for most of his life Armel toid me my point my point is we ought to do some things number one we ought to note that a church is going to be essential to our identity to our happiness to our purpose in life and indeed to our salvation because we are made for eternal salvation number two we ought to find out which revelation is is is that is the fulfillment of Revelation we ought to be looking for which one we think is best and we ought to be looking at rational criteria for that and I think there's a good case to be made for Jesus Christ in his resurrection come to the talk tomorrow night on the Shroud of Turin if you want to see some evidence of the resurrection that's a real fun talk number three I think a good case can be made even for the Catholic Church but I'm sure I am talking about hierarchies talking about the best talking about a non pluralistic non-compete there are things to be discriminated there are hierarchies there is a best and it's open to rational discernment you're free you can make a choice apply rationality to it get into the public square let's debate the issue but at the same time we have a responsibility not to run away from the question but to ask and answer the question what do we think is the best you know manifestation and fulfillment of our transcendent identity that's a good question it's okay to say the best a rational case can be made let's make the rational case let's just say to the culture don't try and suppress us we are but mere agents of trying to apply the best reason that we can to the situation I think we need to know prayers and spontaneous prayers are the best way to get started on a prayer life I'll just say that's very quickly I mean you don't have to be fancy you don't have to have TR de Chardin prayers what you need is help I give up you take care of it that's a good prayer or Lord make some good come from whatever evil are I I might have caused or just simply push back the foreboding push back the depression push back the turkeys if you say that prayer enough times he'll do it I'm not kidding happens to me every once in a while use the prayer vociferously my point is there's a whole bunch of Purser's fourteen spontaneous prayers all you need to do is go to magis Entercom click on the article that says spun getting started on prayer just read it just memorize those 14 prayers there are only little prayers like help you know make some good come out of whatever harm I might have caused push back the floor boning thy loving will be done etc they're really good prayers and if you start praying these things a prayer life is going to start to burgeon my point simply we have to do something about level 4 and in this culture we cannot leave our culture bereft of this hierarchy if we do the suicide rate just will continue to climb people's salvation in my view will be jeopardy the depression rate will continue to to increase and we will see at the end of the day that our culture is going to implode from within we need the strong gods we need the objective metaphysics we need the the practice of religion and transcendence we need the hierarchies of meaning and purpose in life we need to face the fact that level 1 and level 2 will never be an adequate purpose in life leaving us empty you know through it all we need all of these things in our life if we just simply crush them into a liberal level non-hierarchical non-objective lee analyzable you know everybody it's a free-for-all pluralism if we do that we take no responsibility for our culture as Doctor as Professor LaHood Co already said it's just going to implode the culture from within the culture is not the same as politics it's a very different animal you may have the best democratic capitalistic system with all the freedoms guaranteed in place and as he's so articulate articulately manifested it is very clear that if we don't restore those hierarchies if we don't restore a morality if we don't use reason the thing that Christianity is always used throughout the centuries always manifested throughout the century has given us a time and time again right the example of how we can bring reason to the for science to the floor then if we don't do this for our culture I think we will implode we personally will implode that our culture will implode and our democratic capitalism will implode along with the culture because politics alone is a mere empty frame without the volumetric proportional wonderful you know fullness of a high culture of virtuous culture a train Senate culture a religious culture and a culture that vibrant with ideas and above all ideals that we fearlessly proclaim that make our life worth living thank you so very much for your time [Applause] thank you so much thank you father Spitzer we have a few minutes for questions if you have questions for father Spitzer anything written down please get your up now and we'll collect them and oh good I see one coming right away oh good sorry about that I kind of went overboard how would you respond to those who defend atheism agnosticism as a path to happiness the evidence of virtuous atheists yeah I think first of all you can have a person who has an atheist who has virtue no question about that do I think that atheists are mostly happy people well I just appealed to the surveys they don't seem to be happy on the whole significantly higher rates of depression impulsive the aggressivity substance abuse Familia tensions and suicides suicidal ideation that is generally not the sign of happiness by the way professor Lagoo Co referred to Sartre and in this particular case too I refer to sart's nausea remember what the Atheist Sartre said he said really if God doesn't exist then life is absurd and if life is absurd then there's only one recourse left and that's despair that wasn't exactly a Christian person so what I'm trying to say is the idea that atheists are really happy people I would say this I think atheists can be very happy on level one two and three but they're never going to be able to overcome cosmic emptiness alienation and loneliness and I think it's a terrible thing if we don't debate with them and try to bring them to the point where they can actually see that there is a way of moving beyond the despair and the absurdity that Sartre predicts as an atheist that he himself has and and other atheists like himself will have and so I I clean a dispute that idea of you know the happy atheist like I said happy on level one two and three maybe you know can can an atheist drink a nice bottle of wine along with me sure can you know an atheist say you know you know I've got a lot of ego comparative identity along with Spitzer yes that's certainly possible can a theist say you know I'm gonna make a big difference to people beyond myself of course along with me of course but at the end of the day it's transcendence it's also the need to have that relationship with God and then to take our level three contribution or desire for contribution and apply it to our sense of transcendence it's not good enough just to make a difference for this world alone although that's a great thing to do to feed the hungry to do great things to aspire to make a difference technologically to a better world that's a great thing to do but you also want to contribute to the soul of the world it's not enough to consider you know to contribute to the embodiment or even the collective embodiment or the collective common good in the world you want to make a difference to the soul of the people out there to make their souls come alive with a real sense of friendship with God a real sense of the ggaudet that that Saint Agustin talks about you know in the later books of the confession with a real sense of kind of that liberation of being in touch with a real love that goes beyond the self and goes toward love itself and goodness itself and truth itself and being itself and at the end of the day that gets to eternal salvation as promised by Christ Jesus I think that too is really important in terms of contributed by doing so I would say atheists can get to a good chunk of level 3 but it's gonna be really tough for them to get to what I would call level 4 contributions to make a difference to the soul of somebody to make a difference to the faith of somebody to make a difference to the eternal salvation of somebody to make a difference to the transcendent joy of somebody that I don't think an atheist can do because they won't acknowledge it and that's part of sart's nausea that's part of canoes like prongs J it's not just the stranger it's the stranger to the self that come who is talking about the alienation of the self that terrible condition can they be virtuous yes atheist absolutely can be virtuous people to the extent that they understand where virtue is really coming from now here is my problem with a it's on two levels okay the first level is this there is a very good study by a guy named Parvati and I can give this study to dr. rolling and and he can send it to you but it's in of all things the Journal of business ethics this this guy makes a huge comprehensive survey of you know do religious people actually act more virtuously than non-religious people and what he says is you know atheists and religious people have a pretty good knowledge of virtue you know I'm pretty equal in some cases they have a pretty good equal knowledge of urge if if you if you're not gonna bring in certain things like sexual morality and things like that but they have pretty equal but what the difference is the poverty notices it's at the moment of the decision religious people are much more likely to choose to act according to their virtue convictions then people who do not have a sense of God that they're responsible to a moral agency outside of themselves it's at the very moment of the decision that this occurs that's in that Parvati a study and and by the way if somebody has my finding true happiness book I've got it cited in there too but anyway so I can send all these studies to you along with it so I would agree in a sense a theist and no virtue they can be happy on two-and-a-half levels I'd say but on the on the transcendent side and on the transcendent side of contribution they're not to find happiness and at the moment of making the decision they're going to be more hard-pressed than the religious person to actually act in according in accordance with their ethical conviction according to Parvati sure father I want to thank you for the wonderful presentation today we're running out of time for questions tonight we have people who will be in the atrium after we finish here we'd like to have you maybe meet some more of our friends out there afterwards I'm dr. lococo and myself we're going to be giving a talk I think it's 7:30 yes here right here here and maybe that's a time when I could take up other questions or something actually we're having a discussion more than Q&A yes and we had a couple of questions this afternoon for dr. Radford professor the GU code that we didn't get to okay so maybe we could do both of those things but thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: University of St. Thomas | Minnesota

Views: 52,342

Keywords: University of St. Thomas, Tommies, Minnesota, human happiness, dignity, identity

Id: nnEbh6JUCRE

Length: 86min 49sec (5209 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 11 2019