Father Spitzer’s Universe - 2018-04-11 - Fundamental Principle Of Identity And Culture: Beneficence

[Music] [Music] and hello and welcome once again to father Spitzer's universe where no man has gone before what we show up every Wednesday I'm Doug Keck your host coming to you live from our EWTN studios in Irondale Alabama this is the mothership where Mother Angelica started it all only two years ago fortunately since the passing of Mother Angelica and we keep her in our prayers we just had a a fine mass in honor of Mother Angelica this past week just a reminder to send us your emails you can check us out on Facebook you can tweet us on that thing called Twitter and for all things are relate to the great father Spitzer make sure you check out the majus Center website Maja's Center one word.com today's topic we're talking about the fundamental principle of identity and culture and we'll get into the beneficence in a moment and speaking of Mother Angelica I have to mention the last of a series of her mini books is out a consolidation of one of our last group and this one is very practical I like practical things practical holiness guide to rectal Holies flying off the shelves see if you can still get one from our religious catalogue and that as religious catalogue website of course RC ewtn.com is our website there for religious catalogue and don't forget also a picture on your screen you see the 10 Universal principles that's the book that we're using and actually into the final chapter we'll be talking about that momentarily as we once more transverse the continent and find ourselves out on the west coast where father Spitzer resides ensconced in his studio high above the Christ Cathedral campus in Orange County California there is coming once more into focus great to see you once again father how are you great to be with you gun doing great so let's say a prayer get things kicked off because we've got a lot of hit absolutely in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen heavenly father we are blessed indeed as we continue our celebration of this Easter season continue to fill us with the hope of Easter with the trust in your unconditional mercy that you have given us through the passion of your son filled with this hope and trust Lord inspire us to follow you always so that we might inherit the the promise the full promise of the heavenly kingdom that you have predestined for us from the beginning of time we ask all of these things through Jesus Christ our Lord amen a marry seat of wisdom pray for us name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen okay before we get into talking about our topic and getting into the chapter fundamental principle of identity and culture which is section 4 in in the book we'll be getting to that we always kind of use the first half of the show to kind of catch up on some questions from prior shows now here's one I don't know if there's a relative of yours named Bruce who sent this but we've got do your father Spitzer this this book you wrote new proofs for the existence of God is one of those difficult I've read I found it to be the most inspiring solid foundation to understand everything I ever wondered about I've always believed in God now I understand why thank you for this book so you can let Bruce know that we read his letter father yeah tell Bruce the check is in the mail no really thank you Bruce very very much sincerely I it makes it all worthwhile good I wanted to see that okay and I'm sure that's one of many sentiment that's out there for many of our viewers next up something that's going to be talked about a little bit in this program as well as we get into the book hello father is the golden rule and escape clause for how we treat other people I mean if we don't really care how people treat us does that give us a justification for not treating them as well as we could or as you say in your book provide an optimal contribution to them and this is flora you know flora that's a great question and it really does concern what's going on but to be frank with you know it really isn't an escape clause because you know if somebody you know it's it's the rare person who doesn't care about how somebody is going to treat them I mean the presumption in both the silver rule and the golden rule is that we do care and so that's why the silver rule the the the last nine principles we've talked about really are based on the silver rule right do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you don't do a harm to others that you don't want done to you well the reason that rule is so solid and why most people understand it is because they really don't want to harm done to them and frankly if you really do don't care whether a harm has done to you that might almost be a masochistic point of view okay and probably not overly psychologically healthy let alone spiritually healthy so probably that the assumption would have to be a flora that most people do very much care about not only people not doing a harm to them they also would like people to do good for them and to help them and and so Christ being aware of that fact presumes it and therefore says look do the good for others that you would like done to you presuming you would like good done to you because of course as I just said there might be a little strand of masochism in there if you don't want good done to you I rarely have I known a person who really says I don't care if people do me good or evil go ahead tournament me you know so you just have to assume a little unless they were lying to themselves and really the goal was to get themselves off the hook as he's suggesting by saying well I don't care yeah so that means I don't have to care about anybody else yeah but I think it's it's a good presumption for most honest people that we really do have self-interest in mind even Adam Smith and Thomas Hobbes recognized at the very least self-interest can always be relied upon as a solid foundation of ethics and that's why the silver rule were we really don't want harm to be done to us right right now moving on to our next question here we have one from Facebook father that says someone wrote to us here says Justin says I saw a quote from st. john paul ii on ewtn s facebook that says freedom consists not in doing what we like but in having the right to do what we ought I struggle with this because if we don't want to do what we ought does that mean that our obligation to do something outweighs our free will or desire to do it and this is from Justin Justin that's a really good question and it brings up a really important distinction between freedom from and freedom for what what st. John Paul is talking about is freedom for that's the higher nature of freedom nevertheless there is such a thing as freedom from so there is such a thing as a person saying I feel most free when I'm not committed to you I feel most free when I'm not committed to anything I feel most free when I can do whatever I want and I can satisfy my strongest emotional impulse right now now no doubt there are people who define freedom in terms of freedom from just getting their strongest emotional impulse satisfied making sure they're not obligated to anyone or anything or any value right that that is what makes them quote unquote feel free and they define freedom accordingly but notice Justin that the minute you define freedom that way you're headed toward self-destruction right because of course you're not gonna live for any higher purpose in life you're not gonna live for making a contribution to anybody or anything beyond yourself you're not even going to be able to discipline yourself to get an education to do something for yourself to move beyond where you are at the present time you're never going to be motivated to make any kind of a difference to anybody anything in the world that would have any significance whatsoever so what are you gonna do your whole notion of freedom and your whole feeling of freedom is literally locked on to have another glass of that chateau margaux a wine please and you know I'll do anything I can to get that Marsh Mercedes 500 e-class you know so at least for a few days I can be really happy and satisfied my strongest emotional impulses as you can probably imagine Justin with a notion of freedom like that without any commitments to anybody anything any value without any sense or purpose of going anywhere your life's gonna blow up I mean you can't live the life of a pure hedonist for very long without of course the whole thing just blowing up not to mention there's no higher purpose or identity in your life that your whole life is about me your whole life is about literally existing and taking from everybody else and not ever giving back not ever having a meaning or purpose beyond yourself you'll blow up your life will blow up and you'll never live for anything of any higher meaning so that's why everybody starting with alright a good pagan but ethical philosopher like Socrates and Plato right would say from the very beginning hey if you're gonna be free right you're gonna have to have some sense of what your highest purpose and dignity are so you got to get out there right the truth will set you free Jesus says and of course Socrates says the unexamined life is not worth living it's a complete waste oh so you have to find number one find out what's the highest purpose I can live for what's the most I can do with this short life that I have in the world what's the greatest purpose and and and and what's the greatest thing I could do for others for the world or even for myself what's how do i cultivate the gifts that I've been given you know through education or through some form of discipline how can i cultivate this into the finely honed life that I might be able to live not you know certainly not just it to get to the highest purpose in dignity life but to serve God and the service kingdom because that's gonna be an eternal reward right it's not just a reward it's an eternal dignity I mean if you help out another human being they get to heaven I mean that literally you are making an effect for an eternity on the entire kingdom of God I mean these are like huge dignities that the Lord enables us to participate in in this life now imagine for a second if your notion of freedom it has no commitment built into it right that you're a freedom from guy you know just imagine that for just a minute if you were freedom from guy you're not gonna have any commitment the best you can do with your life is to go I don't want to commit myself to anything because if I commit myself to anything I gotta foreclose options remember if you go in a direction a and B you're gonna probably have to foreclose or at least minimize directions d EF and G right and if you're not going to do that then of course if you're too scared to commit to a and B then you're going to be able to sit there and admire all the open options you have but you're never gonna be able to go anywhere or do anything you will have wasted your life so the what the the idea of freedom for that st. John Paul is talking about there is really simple you gotta find first of all what is it that you want to live for secondly what you have to figure out is what's the highest purpose in dignity including the dignity of working for God and the kingdom of God and thirdly you've got a discipline yourself commit yourself you know to that and and that highest dignity and if you do you have reached freedom freedom for the highest dignity and that is so much better than freedom from just kidding you know like a little child Mike Mike my highest emotional impulse satisfied right away because I want it of course we want to be real adults in this world and we want to make the optimal possible purpose optimal possible life that we can have you gotta have commitment you gotta have a sense of where to go and you gotta be able to be disciplined to get there that's true freedom okay speaking of freedom follow-up question as if somebody was yeah listening to your answer and asking this question father an email how does our freedom interact with grace why can't we just wait for grace to accomplish what we need for our salvation instead of using our free choices that's so often get things wrong this is from Nora Nora that's a really good question too I mean but God has really given you true freedom see if God just said okay Nora I'll do everything for you if you just ask me then you become a robot and God didn't want to create a robot he really didn't he didn't even want you to want to create a violent Airy robot okay Lord I'll be your robot you now take the controls I'll kick back he didn't want that he really wanted you to choose you to choose prayer you to choose virtue you to choose belief in him you to want to serve Him he wants you to choose these things at every step of the way and he gives you that power to do it now I agree with you Nora that's a lot harder than okay God you take the controls III think you're gonna do a better job than me God says no I want you to do it it's it's you I want to be freely coming to me to be freely entering into the life that I invite you to and to freely when you have the choice to do otherwise right and that's what it god gives us the choice to do otherwise when you have the choice to do otherwise you say I want to choose you I don't want to choose this other thing this empty promise of evil I don't want to choose this other thing which like the seven deadly sins right and the seven deadly sins they're always before us but God just doesn't want to take them away from us and just say I'm gonna turn you into a robot he really wants Nora for us to choose it and by the way it gets easier and easier to choose it but we're developing the habit a habit is a discipline of nature and so when we choose and choose again and choose again it actually does get easier to do that you know we create what's called a discipline of perfect that just means a habit of prayer right and sometimes a discipline seems like it's hard but a habit is just the opposite right a habit just means it's it's getting easier and you know I instead of you know waking up in the morning and you know going boy I got to get to prayer I got to get myself to the chapel or I got to do this right you just kind of go there you know I mean it's like me you know I I get out of my bed I plunked down in this chair and I say my decades of the Rosary and then you know I can you know I'm gonna go to the shower but I know I'm not going anywhere until that prayer is done you know and and after a while you don't even think about it it's so natural it's so second nature that's the definition of a habit that you just do it and you're doing it though out of your freedom you've chosen it so I know what you mean Nora cuz when I was younger I used to think the very same thing Lord you give me the grace just take over the controls you do the whole thing for me then it would be much easier and you know if I'm starting to stray starting to get a little tempted by one of those seven deadly sins just click in the old grace thing and just zoom me right out of it and that'll be good enough for me and of course God says actually what I really want is your choice what I really want is your commitment what I really want is your love and if you do that in eternity you'll never regret it because of course any turn 'ti it will be your love your freely chosen love and this time it will be ensconced by habit and reinforced by grace for ever don't worry Nora by the time we're done with this life or in my case a little bit of purgatory to top it off I think I really will be in that point of where grace can take over but it will be my choice and my choice says that it will be built upon and that of course just okay God come on in and you know no matter what I think or want to do you just direct me mm-hmm okay very good let's get a little bit off topic from that because we have a question that kind of ties us back to to the show around Holy Week an email that came in and said at the crucifixion father did the repentant thief on the cross go immediately to heaven with Jesus where does Christ's descent into hell come into all of this well you know that's a a you know question that you know might be a little bit difficult to say because Christ says this day you will be with me in paradise what does this day mean does that mean you know the immediately upon Christ you know you know descent and ascent well I would say not I'd say you know Christ is going to take some moment but it's not going to be very long you know when he can release the entirety of everyone you know that the the descent into hell by the way it means the descent into the into the domain of all the world of the dead when Christ releases people from you know that domain of the death not the domain of the condemned so he'll has that that double meaning because of the translation of Hades in the Bible but the main thing to remember is that yes Christ could release the souls from the domain of the dead shall all Amy idiot Lee and of course that thief could be with Christ immediately thereafter so I'd say this day you've got a lot of latitude there but I think there was you know you know more than enough as it were latitude for Christ to release the souls from all bring them into the kingdom of heaven and for that thief to be with him right then and there and so really not a contradiction okay let me ask you a question I'm just thinking about the sponson maybe I just haven't focused on it before now our Lord goes to Sheol and lets these people out now is he only dealing with those who are the righteous who hadn't the opportunity to go to heaven yet because obviously our Lord hadn't resurrected yet and sacrificed and resurrected and what about the people or was it everybody and then some went to hell and someone to heaven or was Hell already open that question I do not know and it's not defined in our church doctrine so really there are various theological opinions about that question but really it's not there's nothing day feed a definite them but at some point yes some of those souls are definitely in what's called the domain of the of those who have chosen to go against God now remember we have to interpret that in light of the Second Vatican Council lumen gentium and gaudium and spazzes documents that say that people prior to the time of Christ and even not even just prior to the time of Christ people today who do not know Christ right haven't had the opportunity to know Christ they too can be saved but and and they just say if they're trying to follow God in the way that that they know how and they're trying to do that according to their conscience is right the way their consciences have been formed that's this good will sufficient to to go up to heaven right and then Christ will inform them of himself at that time and and they will know who he is and and their commitment to to God according to their conscience and trying to follow God according to their conscience that will be rewarded by the same heavenly domain right and so whether they actually you know the hell was open a prior to Jesus's release of the souls from shale oil you know they're both opinions they're people who say yes and there are people who say no it opened up at the very time that Jesus releases people from the domain of the dad and I I frankly I don't have an opinion my suspicion is that if somebody is going you know they're not going to get a reward you know prior or they're just remember everybody who goes to hell choose as hell right right they think they've chosen the right thing so you know the reward that they have chosen for themselves which of course is a reward of pain although you know that seems like narcissism domination self worship and all kinds of other things might be a reward for some people you know uh at that point I suspect that everything opens up at the time that Christ is released from the domain of the of the when Christ releases that don't all okay the souls from the domain of the dead let me ask you answer my sis let me ask you another question that kind of related in my mind think you we think about a third of the Angels fell right so at least our understanding and so obviously the world human to being we read about demonic spirits etc and the Scriptures obviously today obviously exorcisms things like that so where do they abide when that third fell where did they go well obviously there is in Scripture and in the book of Revelation there is already the intimation that some come to earth and some go to hell quite literally and our own doctrine suggests that they might be in hell that a different question from whether or not souls and that have been going to the domain of the Dead go to the domain of the demons which is hell and of course that question like I said we don't have an answer but yes in Scripture there is clear intimation that that hell begins at the fall of the angels and the follow the angels it's it's there in the book of Daniel it's there in the Book of Revelations and of course Jesus even talks about it you know go to the place reserved for you know Satan and his angels and so etcetera so we do suspect that the hell comes into being immediately upon the fall of the angels and and that's a good conclusion okay let me ask you another question along those lines before we get to break so if we talk about the idea that people in their intentionality so our good intentions enough as to whether something is right or wrong or do good intentions count well in in you know surprisingly they do because in our own definition of mortal sin you have to have those three dimensions those three criteria listed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church fulfilled now in other words it has to be grave matter it has to be done with sufficient reflection in other words it you've got to know that it's wrong and at the time you're doing it you should be in some sense convinced this is a wrong activity this is this is Grievous matter and I know I'm doing it and then the third criterion which is very difficult to me which is full consent of the will and and now you know the idea of good intentions is really loosey-goosey words right I mean this is party it's not very defined where's the Catholic doctrine of sufficient reflection and full consent of the will is much better vocabulary to use and what full consent of the will means is there's no impediment to the free use of the we'll so you could say well could a person do something that's grievous matter but sort of do it ignorant Lee and the answer is yes that can happen on a variety of different levels can somebody also be doing something that you know committing an act that's grievous matter but in this case doing it knowingly but saying the whole time I you know I don't want to do this you know please you know I'm you know I just can't help myself and it's the kleptomaniacs sitting there in the store you know just saying I don't want to steal this thing as it's being literally he's slipping it into his pocket the alcoholic who's not yet gotten into you know the program and even though he might have gotten himself into his alcoholism or had a gene that gives him proclivity to become alcoholic you know something that maybe he might have been partially or even minimally responsible for at the beginning by the time he's there he's saying I don't want to have this drink as he's literally his addiction and all the pleasure centers in his brain is pushing the end right up to his mouth the church does clearly acknowledge that there are people like this that that do not have hold consent of the will and we know for a fact that you know when a bipolar person is is very in the depressive stage or when a person schizophrenic especially paranoid schizophrenic having delusions are they free no I mean you know there's a really a clue at this juncture I'm being held to tell you that we got to take a break but that there's much more ahead so we got to tell everybody just stay there we'll be back momentarily of course with father Spitzer at the heart of father Spitzer's universe we'll be talking about the book stay with us much more ahead [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're still here and so are you here at the heart of father Spitzer's universe and we'll move quickly to the west coast to talk to father about the fundamental principle identity and culture from his book and there's father Spitzer he's ahead of me on this one but he's ahead of me on most things so I think we have a question here we wanted to get to our crackerjack producer Alan wanted us to get to because you thought it really tied into what we were just talking about your father at a very young age my grandmother explained to me sins and possible unforgivable sins ever since I've been plagued with terrible blasphemous unwanted thoughts that I've fought for around 30 years do you have any advice on how to handle these unwanted thoughts and this is Shane sounds like there's a couple of levels of things may be going on here yeah well Shane you know without having talked to you I'm I'm not sure what you mean by the blasphemous thoughts and so forth but you have to be really careful about talking about unforgivable sins because if if you if you have a loose definition of that you could play games in your head forever and if you start playing games in your head with unforgivable sins and you're sitting there like you know Jonathan Edwards sermon thinking that God's got you like an insect over a candle flame and he doesn't much care about whether you are going to live or die but any moment now you could commit that unforgivable sin and there's no recourse there's a gods you know unconditional love then you know it's it's curtains for you right well if you're living underneath that kind of you know suspicion you're never going to be able to trust God you're never going to be able to have hope and what you're going to wind up doing is doing the opposite of what Christ wants and that's despair so the first thing you got to do is back up and tighten up that definition of an unforgivable sin and they're the unforgivable sin is to accuse Jesus of being the devil now I know you know some personalities will say well gee I'm capable of you know making that statement what Jesus is talking about here is not I'm capable of making a statement you know like a flippant remark or even worse I'm capable of thinking that statement right that you would never say to anybody right say you might think to yourself well gosh you know III just thought for a second there maybe Jesus is the devil or something okay that's it for me Curtin's know what Jesus really means is he's he's talking about that the the the conduct of where the Pharisees activities and and statements are leading when they actually say that he is casting out demons by the power of the eligible the Prince of demons the first thing to recognize is they're not just saying this it's not just thinking it it's not just flippantly saying this what the Pharisees are doing is they're acting on this they have formed their whole beings around this falsity this is what's allowing them to persecute Jesus because they're saying he's exercising demons by the power of demons and of course first of all that's bad faith as Jesus points out because if the devil is exercising himself his kingdom is going to fall number two it's bad faith because the miracles that are being done are not leading to evil they are leading to good and so and they're leading to love a healing of a person so a compassionate act so what Jesus is saying is if you have so formed your conscience and so formed your acts of the will around this horrible bad faith Proclamation that have declared for the convenience of persecuting me you're in trouble because if you really do believe that the devil is going to exorcise himself if you really do believe that acts of compassion are really evil which is what you have to believe to accuse Jesus of casting out demons by Beelzebul instead of the Holy Spirit then if you're acting on that you're endangering your soul and by the time you're finished acting on that enough you're never going to be able to turn back you're going to be going as Jesus says in the Gospel of John to your father right and of course the father he's talking about your father it is of course Satan himself and so he's saying beware beware beware because this little statement that you guys are making is no longer just a statement you're acting on it and once you act on it enough it becomes habitual and once it becomes habitual enough when do you think you're ever going to turn back it's going to be your own choice to follow your father which is Satan so this is a very very technical thing right you you is this is not just I thought in my mind what if Jesus were the devil that's not what Jesus is saying and so we should never ever do any loose definitions of of the unforgivable sin because if you do the endless number of games you're gonna play with yourself and the endless number of temptations you're gonna have to fight off about your own condemnation or you are going to be Legion and and if you're dealing with that all the time I'm really you know I hate to say this you're gonna be in despair and if you're Aaron despair you know that's when you know the devil can control your imagination that's why you have blasphemous thoughts you know I mean that's that's it comes up you're just you've given up and don't give up because you should never give up on this wonderful gift of the unconditional love of God that Jesus has given us so hang in there and you're gonna be okay now okay very good and now let's get to the book here fundamental principle of identity and culture beneficence is what we're talking about inside the book section four principle number ten is what we're getting into knees said a principle of beneficence or the golden rule stands as the foundation of higher levels of human persons person identity and culture then you go on to say the placement of this principle at the end of this book is not meant to indicate diminished importance among the ten principles so what is it's important you think it's a culmination or what it's the culmination and remember as I you know I have really tried to do a very thorough historical study of the silver rule and the golden rule and honestly I know there are lots of people who define the golden rule in terms of some dimension of the silver rule but remember the silver rule is ethical minimalism right do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you don't do a harm to others that you don't want done to you avoid unnecessary harms to others but if a harm is unavoidable minimize it that's the minimum ethical requirement every culture has this principle every culture is st. Paul says has the natural law every human being has this silver rule emblazoned in their conscience unnecessary harms to others are wrong that's why Paul says there is a natural law there is a conscience that that is in every Gentile spirit right and so even Paul says you know we're all responsible for the silver rule that's no question about it it's ethical minimalism but what Jesus does is he takes and I think he's the first person to have done it he takes the nots completely out of the silver rule and he changes it from ethical minimalism to ethical maximalism so listen to this now do unto others as you would have them do unto you this is the golden rule so he's taking the knots out and when you that it's now it's not avoid unnecessary harms do not do a harm to others you don't want done to you it's now do the good for others that you would like done to you so when Jesus does that he's literally turning it into what we call level 3 contributive and compassionate and empathy epithet ik ethics which is ethical maximalism so do as much good to others as you want done to you and of course Jesus presumes that we do want a lot of good done unto us and frankly unless you're masochistic you're probably gonna believe that right you know unless you're you just think nothing of yourself you're gonna want the good to be done to you and as much good as possible Minh you know and I have to tell you I'm I'm one of those people I I'd like a lot of good done to me I'd like a lot of compassion shown to me especially by God I I would like you know you know that the door to come open my way because some person even though I don't necessarily deserve it I will open the door of opportunity to me just to be a good person and I would like to do that for others and and that's all Jesus is saying there but it is a complete change so when you get up to ethical maximalism the reason I present the other nine principles first is because the other nine principles are really based on ethical minimalism right so when we're protecting the rights of others or we're operating within the constraints of our freedom or when we're you know trying to observe personhood so that we don't do a mass harm to a whole class or category of people etc etc these are all principles you know that I would call minimalistic ethics whereas when you get to the Golden Rule now we're moving out a level to now what we're moving out of what I would call an ethical requirement now we're moving into altruism now we're moving into optimizing love optimizing goodness in a particular situation which is not so much an ethical demand but it's the demand of compassion and love that Jesus sets out before us as the higher standard and that's not in you know any other religion in the world there is no other religion in the world no other culture in the world that defines love as the highest commandment nobody stepped into the breach you know you know when the question was posed okay teacher so what is the highest commandment I mean there were 200 and you know some odd you know high school commandments you know some heavier some lighter but you know the idea of a greatest commandment in Judaism or the greatest commandment in other religions just simply not there and so of course Jesus steps right in the breech oh yeah I'll tell you what it is love the Lord your God with all your mind holds the soul heart and strength and love your neighbor as yourself and that's that's that's the highest commandment the second is like it and it's equally high you can of course a minute you say that whoa the whole of the history of religions is in transition right now we're moving to a higher standard we're moving to a maximalist ik and altruistic standard and Jesus backs it up because remember I mean he moves the silver rule to the golden rule it's completely consistent with what he's already said about love being the highest commandment and then he defines God in terms of that highest commandment to love right that God Himself you know is the father of the prodigal son he is the unconditionally loving father and of course he backs it up again you know whatsoever you do to these least ones of mine you do unto me I mean I identify myself with the slaves and that's you know in his Jesus culture there's a lot of slaves out there in fact the majority of the culture its slaves and so he's identifying himself with you know what people would call well you know maybe they did something wrong in their lives maybe that's why there's life or maybe they got leprosy because their fathers did something wrong in their life and she's saying no identify myself with the lepers identify myself with the slaves I you know they have equal dignity to me so treat them like you would treat me and so everything you see and Jesus is teaching is moving us boosting us as it were up to this higher standard of altruism is it like an ethical demand is it like a-you know a demand of conscience in the same sense that avoiding unnecessary harm is it's not on the same level for a non-christian certainly but it's certainly for a Christian it has to be taken as seriously as the silver rule as a an ideal as a striving because I can tell you this right now you say that it be infinitely compassionate right well I think that's the question - I mean could somebody be a Christian and say well I follow the silver rule and I haven't hurt anybody I'm not planning on hurting anybody maybe I even feel internally about the golden rule but I don't really do anything to act on it yeah that probably wouldn't be good enough Jesus is asking Christians to strive for the narrow path Jesus is asking Christians to strive for the golden rule that is to say to strive for the compassion that exceeds merely doing on avoiding doing unnecessary harms and so the idea if og and Jesus is we have to strive for it but we don't have to be perfect in it and that's a misinterpretation of be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect okay and I'll explain that in just a minute what I do want to explain for just second is st. Ignatius is a little pragmatic rule that he tells two Jesuits these are guys who've chosen to try and devote their lives to the Lord and devote their lives to the priesthood and and so what does he tell me he says look okay if you know striving for the ideal and compassion humility if that's quite not there yet okay ask for the desire for the desire you know it's start dare you know that's a striving and that's good enough get on the road though just say to the Lord Lord I want to be a you know I say help or help me to want to want to be a say help me to desire the desire for sainthood you know if I can't do the the wanting right now how about wanting the wanting you know and and so Ignatius says okay that'll if that gets you on the road and get on the road and start with that and start praying for that and and he says okay the then you're going toward the ideal that Jesus is asking us to strive for because if we keep asking for the grace to want the desire for sainthood if we do that then of course eventually we're going to get to the place where we really want sainthood that doesn't mean we're going to be perfect in sainthood that means we we're wanting it we're striving there but you've got to go back to to you know wrote Romans seven again you know where Paul is saying this is after 24 years of Christian conversion why do I do what I don't want to do I do not do the good that I would do and I do the evil that I would not do what a wretched man I am who will save me from this body of death thanks be to God for our Lord Jesus Christ so Jay Paul is saying I'm struggling you know still and he's struggling about you know this ideal of compassion that Christ has said and this ideal of humility that he said and the ideal of you know whatever it is that that Paul is struggling with that he has set right and so we see that even amidst this struggle Paul still knows and if he is wanting that sainthood if he is trying to get there if he's staying on the road if he's calling upon the Lord's unconditional love in his failures Christ will rescue him from his body of death and so of course he has that exultation claim as song at the end thanks be to God for our Lord Jesus Christ right and so the idea is he can rescue us even amidst are many many failures Jesus was not a Pelagian st. Paul was not a pelagic right a Pelagian is a person who believes they can save themselves and and certainly I don't believe that I know by the end of my life even amidst my struggles and even amidst going to confession even them it's you know trying to you know ask for forgiveness when I'm a cataclysmic failure and even amidst all these things I know at the end of my life point there's going to be some imperfections lying there that are maybe gaping chasms you know and I probably will need some time in purgatory to get over them but I do know one thing thanks be to God for our Lord Jesus Christ who will save me from this body of death and usher me into the life to come through of course the struggle that I tried to maintain in getting oh you just brought up Pelagianism and recently there were there was a document that came out of the kind of reference Gnosticism and Pelagianism as being particular problems I guess of our age are there a lot of people in that sense trying to work their way to heaven do you think well I I i I'd have to say this I I don't think it's necessarily the problem of args I think the problem of our age is rationalization but you know maybe we disagree on the intensity of Pelagianism but yeah there's a lot of modern Pelagians out there I mean I think there are a lot of people who really do believe you know they can save themselves and you know and I you know it's it's a if you really think that boy you I don't know either you were born a saint and I don't think that's really true or you maybe you haven't struggled with the sins I've struggled with that I gotta tell you some of those seven deadlies are telling me you know I mean and and I just have to tell you I don't think I can save myself from my pride I I don't think I can purify myself from my impatience I you know I got some real struggles out there and I'm you know and I know that you know the devil is he's just like one of these you know you know lions he's looking around for the weakest place in you're gonna pounce you know and so and I know that that the struggles are profound so I I just have to say pelagianism is an ill-advised path but I do know some people who've kind of mastered two or three deadly sins and they think I have done it and boy you better study the sin of pride if you're really saying to yourself I'm there and I did it Lord you can count on me I'm entering right on in there I I did it by sheer dental well what an incredible guy I am because let me ask you a follow up on that because you started it you're talking about our where our Lord asks us to be perfect and sometimes I think yeah even in recent times we hear the idea of not trying to hold people up to the fact that you know no one's perfect and people make mistakes and encounter an incumbent which all makes sense but sometimes at the same time that it would seem to be well it's so unrealistic to expect anybody to really live what the Christian or Catholic faith is asking them to so we need to understand and sometimes that understand it seems to be a little bit of license how do we stay away from oh that that's true I mean you don't want to use this as the basis of rationalization as I was just saying I think that's the real problem of the age but that would be that as it may just to get a proper understanding of the commandment first of all the perfection that Jesus is talking about is the perfection in love remember the context in the Gospel of Matthew in the in the you know the Sermon on the Mount there the context there is the where Jesus says finally the final commandment love your enemies and do good for those who hate you and he goes on to say that yes the Father loves enemies and he not only loves enemies but he you know he causes his Sun to shine on people who are persecuting him he causes the rain to fall on people who love him you know but he says you know God God does love enemies so beeper as your heavenly Father is perfect so perfection in love now when you look at the word be in the imperative this is a Greek translation of Jesus's Aramaic and the Aramaic has a continued ative tense built into it it's like a striving it's better to have translated it even though it's a better translation in Greek to say be perfect but it's really become perfect try strive to become in the continued ative sense perfect in love as your heavenly Father is perfect in love and that's really what it it means and you've got a again you know there's a wonderful book there's this guy Joachim Jeremias and in New Testament theology volume one just to look at some of the Hebrew structure of Jesus I mean the Arabic structure of Jesus's language before you you kind of do the the lock-in of the Greek state of sense you know it's it's much better to have that continued ative sense of the verb in in Hebrew and that helps or an Aramaic - that that really helps us to understand what he means in that in that phrase okay that that's very very helpful now in the last moments as we're just about to wrap up when you think about Gnosticism the other one that we hear and give us a quick idea most people don't even know what that means when they hear it yeah Gnosticism well there's a traditional Gnosticism and also contemporary Gnosticism and and and gnosis G and os is right so gnosis in Greek means knowledge but in this case it means secret knowledge or the secret knowledge of a few inspired and spiritually sort of almost divinized self-proclaimed prophets so in the early church you had a lot of these sort of self-proclaimed prophets who said I got a special inspiration from God and of course when they got the special inspiration from God they got secret knowledge and so what they started doing is forming these Gnostic societies hey I'll let you guys in on my secret knowledge but you've got to be one of my followers and you got to do you know what I tell you to do and by the way you know give me a little back chase here give me a little cash for my you know secret knowledge and the privilege of being one of my followers and of course join the gang well if you start looking at the secret knowledge that these so-called people have from their secret inspirations given to them because of their so-called favor by God you find that there are these incredible contradictions between what they're saying and what Jesus is saying about knowledge what Jesus is saying about love what Jesus is saying about humility what Jesus is saying about how to follow obediently me and the father you see these wide divergent things and so of course these Gnostic Gospels started coming out you know the Gospel of Thomas and so next we were this special knowledge I just been informed means we're out of time and we're gonna have to talk more about Gnosticism all those things give us your blessing if you could follow sure and bow your heads and pray for God's blessing and may the Lord of all knowledge and all wisdom and all love the lord of the Resurrection the Lord of Hope the Lord of faith may the Lord Jesus Christ and his heavenly Father send their spirit down upon you to inspire you and guide you into the fullness of wisdom and love and knowledge unto your salvation through the church in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen thank you so much father we shall catch you next week and of course we hope you'll be with us as well don't forget that EWTN you can get our program on radio as well and we got a lot of great answers on this program there's also a wonderful radio program Catholic Answers which is available through the EWTN radio network make sure you go with all our programming you happen to be in the southwest where maybe they don't carry it anymore it's still out there and available check out our website and next time 10 universal principles and four levels of happiness much more ahead as you can see as we once again explore father Spitzer's universe we hope to see you at the intersection of faith and reason that's where we'll be waiting [Music]

Channel: EWTN

Views: 1,310

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Id: W2Hvnc1eFb4

Length: 56min 59sec (3419 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 24 2018