Franciscan University Presents: Finding True Happiness

everyone wants to be happy but not everyone knows how to be happy or even what happiness is join us today as we discuss the nature and the pursuit of real happiness with our special guests father Robert Spitzer SJ founder of the majus Institute and the author of the book finding true happiness satisfying our restless hearts I'm Michael Hernon vice president of advancement at Franciscan University in Steubenville Ohio and you're watching Franciscan University presents stay with us [Music] welcome to Franciscan University presents I'm Michael Hernon a vice president of advancement here at Franciscan University and your host for the Franciscan University presents I'm joined here in our studios by our regular panelists dr. regis martin professor of systematic theology and dr. Scott Hahn who holds the father Michael Scanlon chair in biblical theology and the New Evangelization again here at Franciscan University and we're so pleased to welcome to Steubenville and to Franciscan University presents father Robert Spitzer a Jesuit priest formerly the president of Gonzaga for Gonzaga University for about eleven years you are the founder of the majus Institute which I am a big fan of which educates the public on the relationship relationship between physics philosophy reason and faith you are also the chief educating officer of the ethics and performance Institute the president of the Spitzer Center for ethical leadership the list could go on you've got probably about ten different books that you've authored but your latest is finding true happiness satisfying our restless hearts so father welcome to the program thanks very much great to be here yeah it's so good to have you here in Suva land and our program today the title of your book is is really great but how do you define happiness what does that mean is it is it the same way that the secular world defines it well you know I might start off by giving a little bit of a prescient phrase from Aristotle at the beginning of the Nicomachean ethics and he says there I'm paraphrasing now happiness is the one thing you can will in and for itself choose in and for itself everything else is chosen for the sake of happiness well that just tells you where the stakes are there's one word for Aristotle is controlling what we think about success what we think about the family we will have in the future or the the colleagues will will meet the career we will pursue but more than that it's going to form the way we look at ideals or principles or values it's also going to look at the way that we look at religion it's going to look at the way we look at ourselves whether we're going to consider ourselves a clump of atoms or molecules whether we're going to consider ourselves a transcendent being that's pursuing something of high-minded purpose and eternal dignity with God so you know this one word Aristotle said if you can get a hold of this early on in the lives of young people you're very likely to change their life and you're likely to give them freedom and this is the idea is to give them a freedom to pursue a destiny where they have a clear idea of what's called the T loss their in their objective of their lives and of course you might know that Aristotle was one of these teleological philosophy he's always pointing toward an end or a a final cause and and he saw happiness that was the end of all ends that was the T loss not only of the ethical life but of the life itself so getting back to your question you know what about the definition of happiness and there of course are four major definitions of happiness which are quite different from one another has sort of been elucidated throughout the centuries I mean one definition is you know you've probably discovered and Jeremy Bentham and some of those wonderful utilitarians happiness is like increasing my number of pleasure impulses per second so he's basically almost a hedonist right he's he's a person who's very very pleasure based and he identifies happiness with some kind of extrinsic physical stimulus that comes to me Bob Spitzer sees the bowl of linguine smells the extra garlic lenses toward it you think they're making us hungry so we call it level one happiness because it's the least pervasive enduring and deep although it's very intense immediately grass to like linguine and there's nothing wrong with linguine they the question ultimately gets down to what's going to be your dominant view of happiness so people can still like linguine you just don't want to define your life in terms that are you dumb and view of happiness in terms there's a second view of happiness which is the one of course everyone gonna recognize in the American culture right I mean this is what we call ego comparative happiness so this kind of happiness that comes when I get an ego boost and the ego boost will come when I get a comparative advantage so this kind of a person is constantly looking around who's you know more intelligent who's less intelligent who's more successful less successful got more status less status who's winning who's losing you know who is achieving more who's achieving less who's got more power less power more control less control but it's all about more or less in a series of comparative aspects so when you get to 80 years old you can say you know I was smarter than all these other poor saps and I I was more athletic that wouldn't be me and all these other poor saps you know but for all intents and purposes right the end of the day all you can say is I was better than people but there's nothing else there I mean it is absolutely vacuous yeah so you know flattened by the way has a for Latin names for each of these kinds of happiness and you can sort of see them as you're going through Agustin's confessions right you know that when he's really talking about that pleasure happiness the linguini right the pears as it were you know he's talking about lightest you know la et us and then when you get up to the ego compared and by the way Agustin was an expert at ego comparative happiness you know nothing he liked better than mopping the floor with a debate competition and and winning and because he was such a winner and and that's called you know Felix f.e Li X you know so Felix the Cat dates myself and then the third level of happiness is called Bayati to do--and or Beatus you know and you'll recognize that beatitude oh they're Beatitudes right and that's the kind of happiness that comes from contributing to somebody else making a positive difference to somebody or something beyond myself so ego can herd of happiness is always pointing to me you know I'm the winner I'm the smartest I'm the whatever but the when you talk about contributed happiness right or level-3 happiness BAE attitude oh you're really talking about investing yourself in somebody or something beyond yourself something you want to make a positive difference to family to friends to country to God to your church to the kingdom of God right to your community right to your organization your institution you're looking for ways that you can make an optimal positive difference to the world before you leave so nobody wants to get to 80 years old and go you know hey what was the difference between the value of my life and that of a rock and have to say well the rock probably did more I was a negative right so essentially we begin to realize you know the ego comparative happiness is empty and we feel emptiness by the way when we have no contributor if we feel like we do nothing for anyone that our life makes no meaningful difference to the world around me you feel a terrible sense of alienation emptiness within but then there's a fourth kind of happiness and in that fourth kind of happiness as you would suspect it's transcendent happiness because we're built for it I mean God you know if you know and you know really has built us if you take a look at chapter 2 of this book or I talk about transcendent happiness you know there's it's an inward communication as this theologian a long time ago rule of Otto wrote a book called the numinous experience kind of a universal you know kind of phenomenon then he went out and sort of measured in various cultures and religions throughout history and said you know why you know up to about a hundred years ago or about 95 percent of people around the world religious and of course he you know he finally gets down to this interior experience of what he calls a mysterium tremendum or you know this idea of you know a sense of God within which is both fascinating and inviting yet mysterious and overpower you know but it's--it's leads to what you know Mircea Eliade Oh would called the sacred but anyway the idea is we're built for it and not only that but scene Agustin following Plato he said you know we've got these five transcendental desires we desire perfect truth perfect love perfect goodness or fairness perfect beauty and perfect home and where did we get that from right and of course you have to get it from God but that's a proof could I just maybe step your entire way and suggest that you've left out a form of happiness a kind of fifth wheel and it's what I'm having an experience of right now when the guest corners the market on the conversation and I don't have to say anything but Aristotle what I mean it's not open-ended it's not amorphous there are some predications but what is the Greek word eudaimonia happiness governed by reason so where does reason fit in yeah for of course Aristotle didn't want to say you know if you take a look at the first levels of happiness all right you've got this idea of a tripartite soul right and level one is you know the most basic part of the soul right the the senses level two might be called the irascible appetite but basically it's got some of the higher emotions and the passions in there and then finally of course you've got the rational appetite and this this idea of the rational appetite it is going to seek its ultimate in if reason is set free from obstacles right if it's not obsessed by the passions if it's not obsessed by sensory you know happiness etc if it's free to pursue it it's going to look for not just some happiness not just some good in life and an aerosol would call happiness you know this kind of ultimate good that we're pursuing this this good in life but it's going to seek its ultimate good in life and that is where reason will say you know I meant for the perfect truth I meant for perfect love goodness true and this is the highest faculty noose we do snakes actually most like like the gods exactly as a parent of six kids I hear that and I realize of course that the kids when they were children were very self-centered and as adolescents they became comparative and competitive and when we watched them getting married then they become you know searching for the goods of other people and as I approached my 60s I'm also kind of looking for that transcendent happiness too you know I think our culture though represents the decline it's almost moving in the opposite direction if you go back four or five centuries that's where they started with the transcendent and now it's a kind of hedonism that represents a downward trend well the whole culture is organized I think around the insistent need to gratify immediately the basest possible appetite yeah and in fact the immediate gratification czar so quick and so incisive right not just through computers but I hate to say it through horrible things like drugs okay you know it's which can be procured just about anywhere kids are really experiencing a kind of a dwarfing of their natural reason even when Aristotle would call that that you know the flight of the reason you know the heiress of the mind you know that would allow you in a way to to move to the highest levels to transcendent levels you know and and and there is a dwarfing I mean it's like an immaturity of reason right and it's you know people say watch you know it's a lack of generativity and intimacy you know it's much more than that but it's not just that we've grown indifferent to God but maybe even indifferent to linguine it takes too long to make it I don't have time for the pasta microwave but to actually insist upon deferring gratification has practically become the definition of oppression oh absolutely in the American and they and for many people they would find that as as as unhappiness that's right but how would you define unhappy cuz you now defined clearly happiness on both the transcendent and some of the goods all along the way there within greenie yeah yeah well I unhappiness can occur for two reasons I mean now Aristotle looks at unhappiness as you're not fulfilling one of those major desires and and see he links all those things he goes I'm you know desire you know and Happiness are linked together so of first level desire well most people can fulfill that unless of course you're living in terribly destitute environment where you know and some people obviously do you know but if you're not you can get linguine if you need it you know I mean again ego comparative happiness if you have some gifts you know you can get it and the problem is if you have some gifts you'll keep wanting it and wanting because this culture is going to encourage you in that direction and encourage you into what's called an ego comparative dominance which I'll talk about in a moment because that's a big source of unhappiness but Aristotle says look if you've got one and two but you don't have three and four that's where the emptiness sets in oh and by the way you can have one two and three you can be a super contributed guy you can be super contributed to your family super contributed to your friends and then you're shaving in the morning and you're looking at yourself in the mirror and nothing is coming back severe feeling of emptiness is hitting you the contributed loving generative good person and you're looking at yourself and nothing you feel this emptiness in the pit of your stomach you're walking down the street right and and all of a sudden you feel a sense of alienation like you don't fit in here you're not at home in the totality I mean let's just call it not at home this on a most profound and cosmic level it's you could be in the middle of your family and with all surrounded by all your friends and feel that same emptiness that same alienation that not at home this you could feel a profound sense of loneliness because it's not loneliness for a person it is you want to be at home you want to be unified with the the personal God you know the sense of cosmic loneliness you're absent this you can't escape those feelings of emptiness and alienation lolis and that is unhappiness yes I move on to the right I'm gonna hold that thought you know stay with us for the next segment of Francis can you surface that's [Music] there are two basic conceptions of happiness one goes in the direction of taking the other goes in the direction of giving the taking direction would be a pleasure based happiness nothing wrong with pleasure I love pleasure as much as anybody it's great the problem with pleasure is if it becomes a dominant or even exclusive orientation of life that spiritually kills the other approach the the approach of giving the approach the value responding approach there to find out what is good authentically good and beautiful and true that's what's life-giving and when it's done to God there think of what God gives you he gives you a home he gives you a long life he gives you friends he gives you the inner divine family as well as your earthly family that is authentic happiness [Music] welcome back to Franciscan University presents we've been talking with father Robert Spitzer about his new book finding true happiness satisfying our restless hearts father something that is very apparent in our world is that people are searching for the wrong things and you're talking about finding true happiness but comparisons probably are plaguing us can you unpack that a little bit as we look at people search for happiness and how the comparison or status envy or whatever you want to call it interferes with that you know I think father Regis Martin already pointed out that you know we are very obsessed with level one happiness which is immediate gratification and it's not just linguine and lots of it but you know give me as much immediate gratification as I can get but really the the second problem is a much more important one in our culture is ego comparative happiness has become a dominant we figure you know in the magis is do we do a lot of measurement and we figure you know it's it's around 70 percent of our young people are already ego comparative dominant at the age of 16 that is to say they're they're asking you know who's achieving more who is achieving less who's got more power less power more status less status yes more intelligent less intelligent etc and they're they're obsessed with it even they're not only obsessed with it but they're you know they're really finding a great deal of difficulty dealing with the consequences of it because if you let that go to the max this is the only thing that's gonna make you happy this is the only thing you know that that will make you successful or think make you think you had a good life then you can expect the following things day emotional results to occur number one you're gonna feel jealousy you're gonna fear it feel definitely fear of failure yeah fear of loss of esteem I mean sweat and bullets at night some of these kids can't even take you know an exam you know a standardized exam they're so nervous that a kid with a 160 IQ is winding up with lousy score because they think you know the SAT is is like definitional self definitely and I mean it's not just that I mean it's it's a variety of other things I mean you see in them you know ego rage and ego blame you know they you know it's just like out of control self pity over the top and even the winners the winners can't find happiness because of course you cannot make a mistake in public yeah you cannot essentially you know I remember once I pronounced the word in the in the 12th grade I was giving a talk in my physics class I pronounced the word spectroscopy as spectroscopy and this kid comes up to me afterwards and goes at Spencer that word spectroscopy you pronounced it spectroscopies three times and now everybody believes you're a consummate idiot listeners don't know either yeah well this is it's just a word for basically a test to find out what elements are present but the the main thing though is it you know I went home played that tape in my mind a hundred times I couldn't go to sleep I even had to have suicidal feelings I don't buy good you know and and because I just thought my life is over you know that's how much ego comparative happiness yes can can get to kids and and it's not just kids it can get to adults I mean you could be the top surgeon in your place the top professor you know don't make a mistake you know I mean whatever you do and whatever you do don't plateau because your your meaning in life will be over so you've got this excuse-me range of emotions you know excuse me ego comparative emotions jealousy fear of failure definitely fear of loss of esteem ego sensitivities ego rage ego blame self-pity and inferiority superiority and a variety of other things and you wonder why the suicide rate and so high among our young people this is Manorama it you know just to be flippant for a moment I think the the suicide rate if it weren't so high would probably edge up the murder rate because people like that are impossible to live with I mean it awakens a kind of murderous rage against that kind of massive ego mania how did we get like this yeah well we got there from I think a lot of cultural encouragement from the regular media who has been presenting ego comparative happiness as if it could really be the full satisfaction of humanity you know I used to take my college classes and and have them do an assessment you know level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 please watch the following TV programs or you know watch whatever your favorite programs are and then watch the ads between the programs and just tell me you know what do you come up with is this a dominant level one and a level two at a level three at a level four at these kids would go home of course shockingly right the vast majority of ads are level two and you know appeal right there and the programs are almost fit you know like to to correspond to the ads not vice versa and then do make these Appeals excuse me yeah I think there are other contributing factors to in our culture many reminded of the fact that you know there's a paradox that the more egalitarian we get the more we foster individualism the more people become rivalries and comparative it's not just jealousy where you want what somebody else has I think it's what the Greeks called fathanah Invidia it's that deadly sin one of the seven but in some ways the deadliest of them all from what we read in wisdom 2:24 it was the envy of the devil that became the source of sin and death for the human race and I honestly believe that Envy where you look at something that somebody else has like Cain who sees his younger brother's sacrifice accepted and instead of asking if we could exchange so that I could offer an acceptable sacrifice he sacrifices his own brother and I think you know there was a famous book written years ago helmet shook a professor at Johns Hopkins wrote Envy a theory of social behavior he said the only social force that is equal to NV is the fear of being envied you know so envy is that resentment of the advantages of others but once you get the gold medal then you begin to realize that you are the object of envy or once you get fame and fortune or wealth and so shock as in this book shows how the successful try to either hide their successes or kind of where their failures and weaknesses and I just think that this describes politics this describes mass media and even what happens to sports stars when they when they flourish when they succeed you know they don't know how to handle it because they realize they are being resented by a lot of others you know that the solution I think is pretty easy up self-forgetfulness and and to the degree that we rivet our minds on God the other the transcendent we become blessedly of less self-aware less self consumed self-absorbed because what you're describing is really crippling paralyzing why would people want to be like this they don't they don't know any better as you know as the kids you know point out to me call it these are undergrads I'll point out to me they they basically say look you know nobody's heard of level 3 or level 4 I said well you're you're Catholics or it didn't it you grow up yeah well we did but you know you know it just kind of receded to the back of our mind it's something we do on Sundays I said well you better start putting it out front on weekdays because you know it is blessedly not only absorbing yourself and God and absorbing yourself and the good of the other is blessedly non-silver power like kids don't know they're like you know it is born the cultural elevator and there are only two buttons floor one and two button together but this is really disconnected coming together their religious training with happiness and ethics it's amazing well father this is really disheartening because I I would have thought that the longing for God was really the deepest most natural even spontaneous drive of the human heart this eros surge of the spirit in search of the divine the other God well it is in a way but what Aristotle noticed was that on the lower levels of happiness you have what's more intense immediately gratifying and surface apparent now that you know if you've got computer games with super graphics or you've got you know designer drugs or you've got you know clothes that are just you know dazzling you know or programs that are just enticing right and you've got all these things and it appeals right there to immediate gratification surface apparent Ness and intensity unfortunately there's a reverse a reciprocal relationship to what is more pervasive that is to say it does more good outside myself what's enduring what lasts longer and what is deepest what involves our highest intellectual powers moral power spiritual power yeah what what attitudes or habits do you think in our culture today in our society really lead lead us to this this unhappiness well I think first of all I shouldn't say this but commercialism in its raw form controls a lot of the media and what sells products unfortunately is one and two it's you know self-image is level two you know par excellence right I mean look at the number of ads that you know are enhancing self-image be you know just a little more godlike you know a little more you know heroic you know then the average guy and look at the number of products that are level one oriented you know and then the ones right in between the new Mercedes 500 e-class with the leather uphold so I mean essentially you know what you've got there is is such a trajectory and now it's in the social media all over the place look at Facebook and what matters is not who you are or what you believe in or the ideals you aspire to or the transcendent religion you adhere to that gives you your dignity that's all off the table yeah it's pic selfies of me you know and and the image I can craft but it's only images that can be captured in pictures pithy little you know the sayings that go along with the picture it's aimed at level one and to it yes you know Scott was just saying there's only two buttons on the elevator and the kid is literally exposed day and night to this until they are taken up in it and you you know when you get to college it's still not too late because you can start telling kids about the comparison game they know jealousy fear of failure fear of loss of esteem ego sensitivities they know it all and all you have to do is appeal to that and say hey do you want a ticket out of your own self-created help I'm gonna give it to you it's it's gonna be contributed and transcend a penis and in the end contribute of happiness will never be enough because you have these ultimate ease desires for ultimate perfect truth love goodness beating home and even God is within you calling you to himself for the thou hast made us for thyself said Agustin and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee well the point of course is you've got to give them the full menu and the culture is out there to make sure we do not do that they do not want these kids to hear about three and four yeah it'll distract them no end from one and two which sells products and moreover you know is there said a long time ago keep somebody on level one and two you can lead them around by the nose and make a lot of money right and you think about even even good good people who go on whether it be Facebook or other social media you know end up having these these Wars if you will there is my kids better than your kids or my pictures or my quotes or whatever you know there's this this comparison that's an ego comparison I think the culture has to rise up and say we're not playing the game anymore right we're going to go for something a little bit more profound pervasive enduring and deep but but to make that critique you have to step outside the culture yes you do that has so carefully coached and programmed everyone there inside this this penal colony and how do they step outside to experience what they don't have yeah it's the perfect image like that fellow who's caught inside the television set and finally discovers it you know at the end of forget what the name of the movie was but any outside this yeah yeah yeah The Truman Show The Truman Show like stay with us for the next segment of Franciscan presents [Music] in today's society we can get the impression that to be a person of value you have to own things or there's a societal message that if you have nothing you are nothing so underlying this consumeristic value is the idea that true happiness is related to possessions or to material goods so we have this idea perhaps that if we have a larger house or if we have a more luxurious car or if we have a larger shoe closet we're going to be happier people but interestingly research actually suggests that people who are wealthy aren't any happier than those who have the means to take care of the basic needs but who aren't excessively wealthy so true happiness isn't really about what we have or what we own but instead it's about fostering healthy relationships it's about developing our potentials it's about giving back to the community and it's about finding meaning in our lives [Music] welcome back to Franciscan University presents we've been talking about the pursuit of true happiness with father Robert Spitzer father so we've kind of defined happiness we've gone into some of the challenges of our day and our age but let's talk about Christians and happiness you know what do we as as people of faith people who believe in God what do we bring uniquely to this this question of happiness I think I kind of sense where you might go well of course I think Christianity has the greatest articulation of level for and in the reason that it does is because Jesus himself had the greatest articulation of level-4 and for all intents and purposes you know when you really look at you know the faith life that he was calling us to yes and redirecting us to and the salvation that he was redirecting us to and the resurrection that he was directing us to but it wasn't just the future resurrection just talking about bringing the kingdom right down here and of course when you're doing that you're talking about making God alive and well in your hearts and how does that happen through the Holy Spirit I mean and of course I mean here we are four of us who are majorly influenced by the Holy Spirit but our life I mean if I were to go around and ask this group you know well do you not only believe in the Holy Spirit but do you sense the Holy Spirit leading you every day inspiring you guiding you everybody here is going to say yeah because of course we feel that you know almost internal sense that drive that openness that new possibility that urgency that fascination that's drawing us into one opportunity after the next and of course the Holy Spirit is not just working in me he's working in all of us and he's working in a grand conspiracy of divine providence which is far beyond us so I mean if we open ourselves to the opportunity and we got this sense of where he's leading us to and we feel that sense of just go right on in to this new door that's being opened and inviting us of Franz has purposes we're gonna say the holy spear was evident thing around and it's the spirit of Jesus Christ because he operates through everything that Jesus said and did and of course the the apostles and even to this day you know healing occurs through the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus I mean all of these things were done in in Jesus's name because it is you know the spirit of Jesus and it so you know the Christians come on the scene and we've got the Holy Spirit and the church we have the teachings of Jesus that just tell us what level four is how to pursue it but I have found because of the setup that the kids are in in the culture and they are set up to the elevator with two floors I mean as we have to introduce it slowly you can't just get out and talk about the Holy Spirit you can't you know just you know give Jesus quotes you can to a certain group who have been well formed by their parents but if they haven't been well formed by their parents and they're very lukewarm you have to sort of lead them up to it so I've been finding then okay in order to get them to the truth I'll take them through the contributive happiness but I I do know that when I talk about what I call cosmic emptiness alienation and loneliness that is to say on that totalistic level when they're with their families and they still feel lonely when they're walking down the street and they feel out of kilter with the totality not at home here when they're looking in the mirror and shaving and feeling the profound emptiness within I say what do you can I think about this I mean it's just ever happened oh yeah yeah happen to us so what do you think is going on there do you think you're missing something what's what do you think's going on there and they go is it like God I think you might be on to something there and of course then once you've got them kind of interested that level three is not enough I give them some real easy evidence I give them you know near-death experiences a peer-reviewed medical studies that bring them in because anecdotal ones are you know bad but the peer-reviewed medical studies are you know these kids look at it and go oh my gosh maybe there is a soul maybe I'm not a clump of atoms in molecules remember they've just been thoroughly indoctrinated by the culture right here atoms or molecules and for the first time when they begin to say what do you mean 80% of blind people see for the first time when they're clinically dead with flat EEG no gag reflex fixed and dilated pupils no electrical activity even in the lower brain let alone the you know the cerebral cortex you know what what do you mean by that well what I mean that by that is that's what they're doing they're seeing in the report vertical data first time in their life they can see colors and shapes and actually report and prove to you that they did I said what do you think D you can't explain this with the typical physicalist Muse right because of course how could you have a hallucination about something you never had a visual image of before that you could memorize and then hallucinate about there's nothing in the brain to hallucinate and the oxy I can't explain that morpheme can't explain it there is no visual image there and so of course you begin begin to see these kids start waking up right and then of course I give them the latest evidence for the Shroud of Turin because you know one of my little you know expertise is you know and in another book God so loved the world I have a full you know explanation of in the website Monte center.com I have a full explanation of the science science and the Shroud of Turin it's incredible the relic of the Resurrection on there I mean that image has to be produced it's only on this very outermost surface of the fibrils never penetrates to the module gives rise to a perfect three-dimensional photographic image right negative image and the only way it can be produced is in a laboratory with what's called an exome or a RF laser producing several billion watts of light energy for 140 billions of a second you tell me how a dead body can produce from every three-dimensional point interior lee an exterior can produce several billion watts of electrical you know light vacuum ultraviolet radiation for 140 billions of a second I'm telling you these kids they okay so okay so maybe there's some evidence there's some God well these two are there's some reasonableness so what do you want to say with this and then you can start zooming in on it now some kids will want some proofs of God some kids who want some proofs from science and you can there's plenty of that but the main thing is once you can see once you have taken back the credibility and believe me these kids have been set up so that they believe there is no evidence for the transcendent no evidence for God no evidence for a soul and no evidence for Jesus they don't even think there's evidence that Jesus walked and talked on the earth of course no Scott you can blow that out of the water in two seconds but the main thing though is we got to get it to them yeah and then we win back the credibility and and we can we can speak to them yeah happiness and then we can draw them into that because they exactly lies that they are transcendent yeah you know what what I find is a particularly resonant argument another one that that is drawn out of pain and suffering I mean I think the man who suffers is really the the the dialogue partner for Christianity today and and if you can somehow demonstrate that here is a God who entered into your brokenness and who feels it more keenly more deeply than you and and what's more can redeem it your misery has a kind of meaning now but that lifts the heart that gives them I think a reason to go on that might my suffering can be ass waged by his presence oh yeah in the very examples that you cite I think lead people to that because you know avoidance of pain is sort of like the necessary prescription for levels 1 & 2 so no and yet if you can show them that there is a soul that there is a God that there was a resurrection that there's no scientific explanation except to accept that you know I think then suddenly you can realize that the transcendent always involves the dark night it always involves the Krauss not just for Jesus but for each and every one of us and so you know get off the treadmill of running from suffering because you're not going anywhere but as soon as you get off you're gonna suffer you know and to be able to explicate the deeper logic of that you know in terms of what you called the grand conspiracy of divine providence suddenly you realize i'm not the source of my happiness he is and I can trust him more than I can trust myself you know I was also struck by how those four levels in some ways roughly correspond to the four causes of the material efficient the formal and the final and how science is mission at least scientism is to eradicate all finality and formality that formal causes and final causes are a kind of vestige of the Aristotelian middle ages you know and all of that but in quantum theory are coming back exactly they always come back to bite you in push them down but to me you know all of this sets us up to recognize that the the crown of glory that we all strive for can only come through the cross and it isn't as though we have to invent the cross it's you know on the one hand Jesus bore it but then he also bestows one and suddenly you find out this is a deeper happiness than anything that the world or even reason alone could reveal you know right yeah on our website you know my just Senator come we we we actually have a whole page we have four landing pages one of them is the faith in science and the faith and reason you know proofs of God you know Shroud of Turin set etc but one of them is simply unhappiness and suffering and the suffering is that the other side of the component and again the kids have been called culturally indoctrinated to believe that suffering and love are dichotomous right so they do believe that somehow if you're suffering no love can come out of that and no loving God could allow that so all you have to do is dispel that immediately and if you can dispel it very very quickly what you can and I'll just describe in a moment then they can begin to embrace the cross so we just talked about very pragmatic goods that come from suffering I mean people who know me know that I've been going blind for the last six seven years here a pretty rapid rate you know and they go home I gosh you must just be you know suffering terribly from this I said well it's a challenge that's for sure you know and the they give me the scenario that no Goods coming out of it so of course I always start with Paul's great thought you know in second Corinthians you know given a thorn in the flesh an angel of Satan to beat me to keep me from getting proud not just elated proud I mean in that sense of you know there's far worse things in the world than suffering you know and and in the and what is worse is pride because it's such a deep interior darkness such a deep emptiness and loneliness and alienation from God you know and of course Paul knows it I mean I'll take the sufferer I think that started in the foot I always thought it was an eye problem myself others do too you know a really a terrible thing that can overtake people it's not just I don't suffer anymore but I don't have any sympathy for those who do the capacity for compassion once that is gone then you might as well be in hell you don't give a damn you don't care about the other his pain doesn't touch you yeah yeah it's the hell of an of a sociopath literally you know the lack of empathy and but I do think we do have to take a little time out to explain to the kids it's not just humility but I mean what can suffering lead us to it can shock us out of superficiality certainly happened to me you know when I first you know wake to college wake-up call you know I mean power that sounds good no the prestige sounds really good you know I had to get shocked out of it and of course it suffering can have such a great value I mean in my own life right now I need lots of doses to kind of reawaken me to you know my real transcendent in and to you know neck ting with God more and more depending on every day but more than that you know the there's there's not just the practical things like humility or compassion or empathy that get developed through suffering and of course shocking yourself out of superficiality much more profound meanings in life but your faith deepens my expression is you know put a hole in my heart and the Holy Spirit can drive a Mack truck full of grace right through it you know and and it's really the truth because my need for God my dependence among God but above all my openness to God just you know is suddenly increased dramatically in ways it never was before and that's the good side you know but then there's the torres de blasio sight of suffering which jesus taught every one of us use this as an apostolate offer it up you know Paul's letter the Colossians right just offer it up you know to to the Lord and just say look Lord I'm gonna take this suffering I'm gonna make it a self-sacrifice just I'm gonna join it to Jesus's self-sacrifice and I'm gonna give it over to you as an act of love you take that love and bestow it on all the people who need it with us for the final segment presents people recognize Franciscan University as being academically excellent and passionately Catholic we have the unique opportunity through our faculty members through our students to proclaim that academic excellence by reaching out in many different ways we also remain passionately Catholic in the way in which we are able to worship the way in which we are able to bring that love of Christ to others on a daily basis it's important for us to be able to embrace both [Music] welcome to the final segment of today's program on Frances University presents Regis could you start us off no no idea I'd be delighted to a father what a joy it has been having you here and and not just because of self-serving reasons you you obviate my having to say anything at all everything that you say is so rich and profound and incisive that were no end of grateful for your wisdom what an irony that God should strike you blind and yet give you site like Tiresias that classical figure whom Eliot says saw the poem The Waste Land and what he sees is what we read and what you are saying is is so profound so life-giving maybe I could simplify things I'm wondering how could you be any more productive than you are already maybe if God had drawn you to the dominicans then but Daniel Lew another Jesuit in prayer as a political problem he identifies three levels which have always struck me as very persuasive the material level mastery of the world of the physical universe and we achieve this through work we subdue the environment and that's very satisfying but it doesn't exhaust the possibilities of being human there is that second level communion with others in friendship and love and yet even that doesn't fulfill us there's that final dimension which is prayer adoration and if that is left out of one's calculus then one is empty and hellishly incomplete and and that's the question I have why don't people feel that emptiness more keenly than they do I mean CS Lewis says if there are experiences you have of thirst and hunger and longing and there's nothing in this world that can satisfy them then maybe you were made for another world but that doesn't seem to have crossed people's minds despite all of your apologetics Thank You Regis mm-hmm another better known figure Saul of Tarsus you know losing his natural vision in order to be given the grace of a supernatural vision of the risen Lord you know it seems to me that you've coordinated now not only faith and reason not just philosophy and theology but science in history and literature in a way that is you've set the table for people in this culture to discover more than the hors d'oeuvres and to be invited to a banquet and at the same time to hear the truth hit them wherever they are level-1 level-2 nothing more but the fact is I think we all have this fear of suffering and in a sense that explains why people are not just motivated but driven to stay at level one or two because they just don't see any purpose to suffering I think in some ways the greatest healing that Jesus does is not just to give sight to the blind or raise the dead but to heal us of the crippling and paralyzing fear of suffering by showing us that suffering really is that means by which we reach an end that goes beyond what we thought was exhausted our desires and at the same time it opens up a level of fulfillment and happiness that taps into levels one two as well as three and four and then takes us to the Trinity and so your work I think is an indispensable cultural bridge it's it's almost like the Big Dig in Boston where you've got tunnels going in all kinds of directions you know and so thank you for that and that is costly not nearly that's father well you know just responding to both you know I I do think these fears are very legitimate and as we've been saying throughout I think kids have been culturally indoctrinated to have them and it's very hard to give up a fear just as it's very hard to give up a passion that we've kind of grown used to and I do think though that what's called for is not just education so that you know people are going to know the you know the the options level 3 and level 4 but there has to be a call to action knowing it is not enough and you know when kids say you know okay maybe there is a God maybe there is a soul maybe these near-death experience say something maybe the shroud saying something maybe there's a New Testament you know historical stuff is important but you have to do what I call Fiat there's a point at which you just that we've got enough knowledge now there's enough evidence we know what we have to head for are transcendent good I need to put together a strategy for getting to that transcendent good and that means putting together a prayer life putting together right start with spontaneous purrs don't have to you know be profound you don't have to write the prayers of you know st. Teresa of ávila what you need to do is just how about help how about right you know Lord make good come out of you know this terrible suffering or how about you know Lord snatch victory from the jaws of defeat or I give up you take care of it and in the book there there's all kinds of you know little spontaneous prayers you can rely on or just on the website my just center.com you can just go to and and just start there but you've got to start praying and the second thing I think we need to do desperately is get our kids to commit to start with 10 minutes of prayer per day you know just and there's some easy ways to do it that are suggested in there and and so forth you know to commit to that so that they're in communion with God you know I mean just a decade of meaningful decade of the Rosary just start there but just do it every day just commit yourself to it and again you know putting together your little strategy for prayer I would just say please look at those rules for following the holy spirit in your life because the Holy Spirit's dare the Holy Spirit is leading all of us you know not just the people in this room every single one of us if we just get used to hearing how he's working it's never going to you know alleviate a suffering that could cause us good or cause somebody else good for their salvation it's never gonna leave e8 suffering that's gonna underestimate and and you know freedom is nothing gonna uh you know undergird our human freedom or undermine our human freedom but on the other hand you know if we learn you know what he's up to he's always leading us to our salvation always leading us to help others to their salvation always leading us to an optimally meaningful and significant life in that salvation and optimally leading us to Jesus Christ so I would just say getting that strategy together to take action on prayer in our spiritual life and of course the Eucharist is deaky means if they if anybody here could get to mass an extra time per week just to do it right and I know here it's very commonplace Stephenville but just for the audience it's just essential to start yeah thank you Father if you've enjoyed today's program we have a handout just for asking finding true happiness escaping your personal hell from father Spitzer also talks from him at faith and reason com I want to invite you to be a part of our mission here at Franciscan University to educate evangelize and send forth joyful disciples consider coming to campus and getting a degree immersing yourself in the truth and love of Jesus Christ coming to our summer conferences traveling with us to holy sites through our pilgrimage office be equipped and inspired through faith and reason website faith and reason com father Spitzer could you close us with a blessing solutely and may the Lord bless and keep you all and send His Holy Spirit down upon you to inspire you and to guide you that you might know the true happiness to which the Lord is calling you and has called you from the day of your conception that you might know how to follow that spirit and diligently pursue him not only in your own lives but in the lives of the people you touch may the Lord and flame you with his love and teach you to preach it in the name of the Father and of the son and if the Holy Spirit amen to download the free handout on today's topic go to faith and reason com email your request for the handout - presents at Franciscan ddu at faith and reason com you can also purchase past episodes of Franciscan University presents or request today's free hand out and purchase past programs by calling 8 eight eight three three three zero three eight one that's eight eight eight three three three zero three eight one or call seven four zero two eight three six three five seven [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Franciscan University of Steubenville

Views: 9,962

Rating: 4.8561153 out of 5

Keywords: Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, Catholic, college, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Franciscan University of Steubenville (College / University), FaithAndReason.com, Faith And Reason, EWTN, Eternal Word Television Network, Franciscan University Presents, Presents, Michael Hernon, Dr. Regis Martin, Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Robert Spitzer SJ, Magis Institute, Magis Center, Magis Center for Reason and Faith, Finding True Happiness: Satisfying Our Restless Hearts, happiness

Id: YVsdHpUYc3E

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 01 2017