[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER: Well, welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We're excited to
host Bishop Robert Barron for this talk at Google
as part of a series of talks, the Catholic community here
arranged not only for itself, but also for other religious
or non-religious groups that we also warmly welcome. Bishop Barron just flew in
this morning, all the way from LA, to share a
message that we believe to be very aligned
with our core values here at Google, especially in
regards to respectful dialogue and respecting each other
and each other's dignity. Who is Bishop Robert
Barron, though? MELISSA: I'm glad you
asked, [? Davo. ?] Bishop Robert Barron
is the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese
of Los Angeles. And he's the founder of Word
on Fire Catholic Ministries. His website,
wordonfire.org, reaches millions of people each year. And he's one of the world's
most followed Catholics on social media, along
with Pope Francis. And his regular YouTube
videos have been viewed over 25 million times. And he recently received the
YouTube Silver Creator Award. Woo! So Bishop Barron is a number one
bestselling author on Amazon. And he's published numerous
books, essays, and articles on theology and
the spiritual life. We have a few copies
of his latest book, "To Light a Fire on the Earth,"
in the back to give away today. Please don't all rush
over there right now. There will be time after
the talk for a book signing and also Q&A again. SPEAKER: Yeah. So without further ado,
let's welcome Bishop Barron. [APPLAUSE] ROBERT BARRON: Thank
you guys very much. Thanks. Well, thank you very much. Thanks for that
nice introduction. And it really is a
delight to be here at-- I mean, you all know this--
one of the most significant cultural centers,
really, in the world. I've been very warmly received. So thanks for the invitation. Thanks for the
great hospitality. I want to talk about religion
and the opening up of the mind. Because very often,
religion gets a bad rap. It's superstitious. It's subrational. It's opposed to the mind. I'm going to argue,
au contraire-- just the contrary--
that religion, authentically construed,
is meant to open up the mind and the will. OK? That's my goal today. A term that now
is common parlance but didn't exist when I was
a young man is search engine. And here we are at
the headquarters of the most popular and powerful
search engine on the planet. At our fingertips
now, quite literally, is almost all the knowledge,
all the wisdom, information, that the human race
has accumulated. And we can just press a
button, and up it comes. Just recently, I was with
an older friend of mine, and he was mentioning
the 1937 World Series. And he was convinced
that game three ended with a certain score,
but wasn't sure what it was. And I said, well,
let's check Mr. Google. So of course, we did. And up came the information
about game three of the 1937 World Series. Not that long ago, I
was with someone else, and we were wondering about
a passage in "The Divine Comedy" of Dante. And of course we were able
to find it very quickly. Here's one. Now, there's maybe a few
in the room old enough to remember the show "F Troop." Remember that from the '60s? [LAUGHS] Well, I see
I've got a few of you. I was with some
friends from my era, and we were arguing about
the characters in "F Troop." I said, well, let's
ask Mr. Google. So up came the
characters on "F Troop." So you know that. That we have, really, at this
extraordinary civilizational moment, the capacity to
access the wisdom of the race. Now, see, search
engine, search engine, triggers for me an awful lot
of resonances with religion. How come? The mind, by an inner
instinct, is restless, even relentlessly so. Right? The mind searches for truth. And it finds it. Finds the particular truth,
like the ones I just mentioned. But does the mind ever
rest at that point? No, no, no. The minute we find
some truth, usually 12 more questions emerge. Think of the way we
all surf the web. We go looking for something,
but it leads us somewhere else, then somewhere else,
somewhere else again. And then we find all
this so fascinating, we forget what we were
originally looking for. The mind is restless,
even relentlessly so. It never rests. Or if it does, it's
the way a climber might rest on the side
of a mountain just to catch his breath
before heading back up. It searches. It searches. The more it knows, the
more it wants to know. My great intellectual hero
is St. Thomas Aquinas. And he spoke in the 13th
century of the [LATIN].. That's his Latin. And usually it's
transliterated into English as the agent intellect,
which sounds rather cold. See, [LATIN],, in
Latin, is a participle. Doing, making, moving. [LATIN] is the restless,
searching mind. Now, where is it
going, the [LATIN]?? What's it looking for? Here I love the one-liner from
the great Jesuit philosopher, Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan says, it's very simple. The mind wants to know
everything about everything. Now, Google, this should
be familiar to you, right? But that's the natural
dynamism of the mind. Not to know just this particular
truth or that, not just the conglomeration of
all particular truths. The mind wants to know
everything about everything. It wants not just
particular truths, it wants the truth itself. It wants the source
of reality itself. That's how hungry the mind is. Another Lonergan line
is there's an emptiness like the emptiness of a box. It's kind of a dumb emptiness,
just waiting to be filled. But there's also the
emptiness of the stomach. It's empty, but it
knows what it wants. The mind is empty at
the beginning of life, but not like a box,
more like a stomach. [LATIN],, searching,
searching, until it comes to its fulfillment,
only in knowing everything about everything. The very source of reality. OK? True of the mind,
equally true of the will. The second great dynamic of
the human spirit, the will. Now, the will seeks not
the true, but the good. So right now,
everyone in this room, we're all seeking
the good in some way. So I'm seeking the good
of speaking to you. You're seeking-- I hope you
find it-- some good in my talk. We talk about final causality. Aristotle made that
distinction, right? Between efficient causality,
it's like a pushing cause. Think of all the
physical sciences. The modern sciences are based
upon efficient causality, where did things come from,
what brings them into being. But final causality, Aristotle
thought was more important. That's the pulling cause, what
attracts or lures things Now, that's a talk for another day. We could debate final
causality in nature, but I think no one would
disagree that final causality obtains, in our world,
that we human beings are drawn by the good. It lures our wills. OK. But remember the [LATIN],,
the restless, seeking, never satisfied mind. The same is true of the will. Notice how any act
of the will can be analyzed in a kind
of Russian doll manner. Do you know what I mean? The one doll inside the other? That every particular act of
the will, if we think about it, is situated in a broader and
wider act of the will, which in turn is in a broader and
wider, broader and wider, et cetera. And what am I talking about? Think about getting out
of bed in the morning. So it's an act of the will
unless you fell out of bed. But if you get out of
bed the normal way, it's an act of the will. You're seeking a good
to start your day. But see, that good
nests in a higher good. Why do you get out of bed? Well, I want to get to work. OK. Why do you want to get to work? Well, I need to make money. Well, why do you
need to make money? Well, I want to support
myself and my family. Why do you want to support
yourself and your family? Well, supporting my family
leads to their flourishing. Well, why do you want that? Because my family
flourishing makes me happy. And I want to be
happy all the time and in an unconditioned way. Just as the mind won't rest
until it knows everything about everything,
so the will doesn't rest until it finds an
unconditioned happiness. Now, analyze any act
of the will that way. I sent my car to the mechanic. How come? So the car will run better. Well, why do you want that? So I can get to work,
and now do that analysis. Or so I can get to my
friends more easily. But why do you want that? Well, being with my friends is a
great good that makes me happy. And I want to be
happy all the time and in an unconditioned way. I go to a basketball game. This is kind of
easier to analyze. Well, why do you want that? Well, because basketball is
interesting and beautiful, and contemplating
it makes me happy. And I want to be
happy all the time and in an unconditioned way. See, the will, if we
analyze it sufficiently, is conditioned by a
desire for [LATIN].. I'm using this Latin
term on purpose, because it was
Thomas Aquinas' term. Happiness. [LATIN] means happy in Latin. [LATIN] is the happiness
I'm talking about, which is not the happiness that
comes from a particular act of the will. Like, hey, I went to hear
Bishop Barron's talk. Yeah, it was OK. I liked it. It made me happy in
a very limited way. OK. I'll be happy if that's true. But then analyze any
act, including this one, and you'll eventually
get to the desire at the ground of the
will for [LATIN],, unconditioned happiness. Now, here's an interesting
thing, everybody. Prior to modernity, prior
to the rise of the sciences, the principal question
that preoccupied the minds of the best and
brightest people in the West was the nature of [LATIN]. What is it? So we all want it. And that's true, by the way,
of the religious believer, of the agnostic, the atheist. Everybody wants [LATIN]. It's the first
mover of the will. So what is it? And can I submit to you, there
is no question more important than that. And see, one of the tragedies,
I think, of our time is so often we
bracket that question. Because we're so preoccupied
with the achievements of our sciences,
and God bless them. I'm all in favor of them. Don't get me wrong. But we tend to
bracket the question that prior to modernity,
the best and brightest people thought was
the most important. What is this [LATIN] that all
of us, at least implicitly, are seeking? OK? And I want to give you a little
bit now of Thomas Aquinas' analysis of this. You can find it, by the
way, in the very beginning of the second part of his
great "Summa Theologica," his summary of theology. You know, it's interesting. Many years ago, there was a
prominent Catholic cardinal who had a little quip
that he often used. He said, good morality
is like good art. It begins with the
drawing of a line. Now, it's a clever line, but
I think, actually, it's wrong. Because that's not the
way Aquinas starts. The drawing of a
line, like a law. I am in favor of it. Don't get me wrong. We have to get to
some drawing of lines. But Aquinas begins
not with the law, that happens in question 90. Nine-zero. Question one, question
one, and here he's just like all his
premodern colleagues. Question one, what is [LATIN]? What is the happiness
that is luring our wills? So he does a kind of
process of elimination. He looks at four
classical candidates, what great people have said
and thought about the nature of [LATIN]. So first he says, some people
claim that wealth is [LATIN].. To be rich, sufficiently. To be sufficiently
wealthy, that's the [LATIN] that finally I'm seeking. Now, is it a
legitimate position? Well, in a way,
I mean, I get it. Lots of very smart
people have said that. And may I submit,
in our culture, especially, you can find
an awful lot of people, I think, that hold to that. If I just have enough
money in the bank, I have a big enough
house, nice enough cars, I have a commodious
life, I'll be happy. And that's, in fact, what I'm
always implicitly desiring in all my acts of the will. True? Aquinas says, no. Wealth is good, but it can't
be the unconditioned good. How come? Well, he says, look,
what does wealth mean? He says, wealth, in
the natural sense, means-- and let me give--
there's a quote here that makes it sound kind of contemporary. He says, "Wealth serves as
a remedy for our natural wants, such as food, drink,
clothing, cars, dwellings, and such like." That's from the 13th century,
but it sounds like today, doesn't it? I mean, what is wealth? It's a remedy for natural wants. So these natural wants, like
I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm uncomfortable. And so wealth gives me
food, drink, clothing, cars, dwellings, and such like. Goods? Yeah. But it can't be
the ultimate good. Why? Why? Because Thomas
says, those things are the condition
for the possibility of much higher goods. And think about it for a second. Once you've discovered-- you've
found enough food and drink, you've got a shelter, you're
living in a comfortable, commodious way, then you
can aspire to philosophy and science and friendship
and conversation-- these higher goods. Wealth is a proximate good. It can't be, therefore,
the ultimate good. So that can't be [LATIN],, what
we're all implicitly seeking. OK? Others have said [LATIN],,
happiness, consists in honors. Now, think about
it for a second. How many societies, both East
and West, around the world, trans-historically,
how many societies are predicated upon
honor and shame. And the worst thing you can
experience is to be shamed. And therefore,
concomitantly, the best thing is to be honored. And I know lots of people whose
lives are pretty much centered around the quest for honor-- to be thought highly of, to be
given titles and prerogatives, to be held up. OK. Is honor, though, [LATIN]? And Aquinas says,
no it can't be. Why? Because honor, he
says, is like a flag that we put on something
good, noble, and virtuous. So you notice someone
who's got great ability, or they're leading
a virtuous life, and you want to put a
flag on that to say, hey everybody, look at that. That's worth emulating. That's honor. So think of titles and positions
and prerogatives and so on. Signs of respect. They are flags of
virtue or nobility, therefore they are derivative. They're secondary. What matters much
more than honor are the things that
are being honored, namely your virtue and
nobility and so on. Therefore, honor,
good things, sure. But it can't be [LATIN]. It can't be the happiness that
deep down we're all seeking. Here's another
indication that honor can't be the ultimate good. Notice Aquinas says,
who in your society is being honored the most? Are they the very best people? The question answers
itself, doesn't it? Age to age, think of the
people who get the most attention, the most adulation. Are they, in fact, the best? Again, answers itself. Others have said, you
know what [LATIN] is? It's power. Power. And again, this has a lot
of weight across the ages. Lots of impressive, important
people have argued for this. And deep down, there are a
lot of people, age after age, who do indeed seek power
as their ultimate good. You know, go back to the Tolkien
movies and the great Tolkien novels. What's the Ring but a
ring of power, right? What are they seeking? What's everybody drawn to? Talk about final
causality, right? The minute the Ring
gets near anybody. Well, it's the Ring of Power. It is, indeed, something
that we all seek. I think in our culture,
too, I would correlate power and freedom very strongly. You know, for Americans
or many Westerners, what's the supreme
value but freedom? Well, what's freedom
but power, right? Don't tread on me. Don't get in my way. Let me do what I want to
do, go where I want to go, accomplish what I
want to accomplish. And isn't it true
that we hate it when people take away our freedom? I do. I hate it. Whether that's in a physical
sense, or psychological sense, a spiritual sense. And so, OK, power does seem
to be something very alluring. Notice too, please, so
keep Tolkien in mind, but also keep in
mind, in the gospels, the great story of the
temptation of Jesus. What's the highest temptation? The third temptation? The devil takes
him to a high place and shows him what all
the kingdoms of the world in one glance. And all these I
will give you if you but bow down and worship me. It's a temptation
to power, isn't it? So it is alluring. But is it [LATIN]? Aquinas says, no. It can't be. Why? Very simple reason. Power, he says, is
a source of activity that allows us to attain an end. But [LATIN] is an end. You see what he means. Whatever this [LATIN] is, it's
something that I'm going for, that I want. It's a good that's out there. Power is terrific as a
means of attaining ends. Right? You give me the power
to do this, the power to do that, the power to attain. But power in itself
is not what you want. It's the good that power
gives you access to. Therefore, power can't
in itself be [LATIN].. OK, so it's not wealth,
not honor, not power. Here's the fourth
great candidate. And I think everybody, from
a spiritual standpoint, this is a really
helpful analysis. Because all of us, we're all
sinners in this room, I trust. [LAUGHTER] We're all beguiled by
these things in some way. We all tend to mistake
these for [LATIN].. So the fourth one,
Thomas says, is pleasure. Now, this is a very old
philosophical position. It's called hedonism. And don't make fun of
hedonism as just eat, drink, and be merry. Hedonism is a very
noble classical position that says what we all seek
deep down is pleasure. Now, it could be pleasure
in food and drink and so on, but also pleasure in
the arts, pleasure in sports, pleasure in
knowledge, et cetera. So it can be a more
refined form of hedonism. But then pleasure, it seems,
is this ultimate good. It seems to be [LATIN]. Yeah, it might seem that way,
says Aquinas, but it can't be. How come? Because pleasure, he
says, is a side effect of something much
more fundamental. So when I achieve some
physical well-being, I experience pleasure
as a happy side effect, but it's the health of the
body that's really substantive. Or when I make some great
spiritual, intellectual, cultural attainment, I might
feel a rush of pleasure accompanying that,
but the pleasure is just derivative,
isn't it, from the substantive accomplishment. So pleasure can't be it. OK. So where we now? We all want [LATIN]. Everyone in this room. Again, this is religious,
non-religious, believer, atheist. Everybody wants [LATIN]. Otherwise, you would not get
out of bed in the morning. So what is it? What is it? It's not wealth. It's not power. It's not pleasure. It's not honor. Thomas says, the desire
for happiness, for [LATIN],, is an infinite desire. Remember I said, we want
to be happy all the time and in an unconditioned
way, don't we? I don't want to [INAUDIBLE]
over some proximate good, some limited, mitigated good. I want goodness itself. And therefore, he concludes,
[LATIN] cannot be any good in this world, of wealth,
pleasure, power, honor, or anything else. None of that can satisfy
this longing of the soul and of the heart, this questing,
this searching for [LATIN].. It is only in God. Listen to his quote. "Hence, it is evident that
nothing can lull a person's will, save the universal good. And this is to be found not
in any creature, but in God alone." Now, can I submit
to you, everybody, this is the moral wisdom of
the great biblical tradition. And the roots of
this go way back into the scriptures themselves. But this is the way Aquinas
analyzes it philosophically. What we want cannot be met
by anything in this world. Just as what the
mind wants does not correspond to any particular bit
of knowledge within the world. The mind wants to know
unconditioned truth. The will wants the
unconditioned good. That hunger is at the source
of religion, it seems to me. That opening up of the
questing mind and heart is what it's all about. OK. Now, can I turn from that
little philosophical analysis to the Bible? And I want to share with you a
story that I've always loved. And I think it speaks
precisely to this point. It's a story from the First Book
of Kings in the Old Testament. It's a story dealing with
Elijah and the priests of Baal. Now, as I tell the story,
you might remember it. During this period, Israel had
gone over to false worship. So King Ahab-- remember,
so Melville calls his, you know, Captain Ahab. And poor Captain Ahab. Because we hear in
the Bible that Ahab is worse than all the
kings of Israel combined. And knowing the rogues'
gallery of the kings of Israel, that's saying a mouthful, right? So Ahab is a really bad guy. More to it, his wife,
Jezebel, has now drawn him into the worship of false gods. So Elijah, the
prophet, rises up. We know nothing
about him except he's from the little town of Tishbe. Now, talk to
specialist historians of the ancient world, they
don't know where Tishbe was. So we know nothing about Elijah. He suddenly appears
on the scene. And he challenges Ahab. He says, you know
the drought we're having here in this country? It's because of
the false worship. Pretty interesting
thing now in the Bible. Never read the punishments
of God as somehow arbitrary. God's just having a bad
day, and so he's imposing this arbitrary-- no, no. It's spiritual physics. The garden. Go back to the beginning. What's the garden symbolic
of but flourishing? The flourishing that God
wants for his people. Adam and Eve expelled from
the garden, not capriciously, arbitrarily, but as
spiritual physics. When we fall away from God, we
tend to fall into lifelessness. That's the point. And so the drought, now,
that Elijah points out, is a function of false worship. Now, let me just-- I'm going to dwell
on that for a second. Keep Aquinas in mind and [LATIN]
and the seeking of the good, right? And keep in mind
those substitutes for [LATIN],, wealth,
pleasure, honor, power. The very beginning of
the book of Genesis, we hear about God making the
heavens and the earth, right? And everything is coming
forth in this orderly manner. Mind you, please, not
science, high poetry this is. Right? So as things come forth
in this orderly way, let there be light,
and there was light. Let the earth come
forth, it came forth. Let the earth teem with
animals, and so on and so forth. Stars and the planets
all come forth in this orderly
procession from God. Two basic moves are being
made here, symbolically. First of all, the
author is dethroning all these false
claimants to divinity. Think for a second of the
planets, the moon, the stars, mountains, animals, the
river, et cetera-- what do they all have in common? They were all, at
one point or another, worshiped in the ancient world. These are all gods
worthy of worship. The author of Genesis is
saying, no, no, no, no, no. These are all creatures
of God, not God. Don't worship them. Are they good? Yes. And the conglomeration,
indeed, is very good. But they're not God. Don't worship them. Now, here's the second
point he's making. And here the Catholics
will understand what I'm talking about. As these things come forth
in an orderly manner, one after the other, in
a stately procession, what does that remind you of? It should remind you a bit
of the mass and of the way the ministers of
the mass process in. The mass, of
course, the roots go way back into the Jewish
temple rituals and so on. There's the idea. Nothing in the world is God. Don't worship them. But everything in
the world is meant to turn to God in right praise. That's the purpose
of creation is to turn to God in right praise. And who comes at the
end of this procession? Well, there's the
human beings, right? Adam and Eve. Who comes at the end of
a liturgical procession but the priest or the
bishop, the one who is going to lead the praise? That's the idea. Dethrone all false
claimants to divinity. Nothing in the world is God. Don't worship those things. But rather let all
those things be part of a great
chorus of praise led by human beings
who can give voice to the praise of creation. Does that make sense? That's the biblical vision. That's the biblical vision. Right praise. I love this connection. The word adoration, from
two Latin words, [LATIN].. [LATIN] means mouth, right? [LATIN] is mouth to mouth. To adore god is to be
mouth to mouth with God. It means lined up. A line, see, under
the power of God. In that stance, we
find who we are. Another little etymology thing. Worship, our word worship. Go back now to Chaucerian
times and older English form, is worth ship. What's of highest worth? That's what you worship. Now, again, this
means everybody. This is believer,
nonbeliever, everybody. This is religious
person, atheist. Everybody in this room
worships something. There is something of
highest worth to you. Remember [LATIN]. Everyone's seeking happiness. Everyone. There's no way around that. What is it? What is it? And see, the author
of Genesis is saying, don't let anything
in the world be the object of your
worth-ship but God alone. Wealth, pleasure, honor,
power, any creaturely thing, that will not lead you to
the [LATIN] that you want, but only the right
praise of God. And can I submit to you, I think
that's lesson one of the Bible. It's what the Bible is about
from Genesis to Revelation. It's about right praise. And don't interpret
that in a fussy way, but rather in this deep,
sort of metaphysical way. Right praise means the right
ordering of one's life. Worth-shipping God alone. When you do that,
where do you live? In a garden. That means you live
in a place of life. When you stop worth-shipping God
alone, welcome to the desert. That's the biblical symbolism. OK. So with all that in
mind, go back now to Elijah and King Ahab. He says, the trouble
here, Ahab, is you're worshipping false gods. That's always the problem. Fellow sinners. Right? That's always the problem. I'm worth-shipping
something other than God. Well, is Ahab happy about this? No, no, no. He says, get lost, you
troubler of Israel. And Elijah, again, all we
know about him is his name. But you know what
his name means? It tells you everything. Eliyahu in Hebrew, Elijah,
Eliyahu means Yahweh is my god. His whole being is
summed up in that. I don't worship anything
anybody but Yahweh. Yahweh is my god. Eliyahu. And so he prophetically
challenges Ahab. And here's what he says. He says, look, you get all the
priests and prophets of Baal, so the gods that they
were worshipping, and let's all go
to Mount Carmel, and I'm going to go up there,
and let's have a challenge. And so the 450 priests of Baal
go up Mount Carmel, and then the one Elijah. Now, in that there's an
important lesson too. The avatars of the false gods
are always thick on the ground. True then? Uh-huh. True today? Yes. Wealth, pleasure, honor,
power, by the way, the avatars of those
things, are they everywhere? Uh-huh. They're always
thick on the ground. The representatives of God tend
to be a much smaller number. So the one Elijah against
the 450 priests of Baal. And then, of course,
that wonderful story unfolds, which actually
is quite funny. And the friends of mine who
know Hebrew really well-- I don't know it that well-- will tell me that the humor
really comes out in the Hebrew. Let me read you
some of the lines. So the priest of Baal
set up the altars, and then they begin to
supplicate and to beg and to pray that their gods
will come and send fire to consume the sacrifice. Because that was the challenge. You call on your gods
and see what happens. And I'll call on mine, and
we'll see which one responds. So they begin to beg and so on. And Elijah, around midday,
begins to mock them. Because no fire is coming to
answer their-- he mocks them. Cry louder. Baal is a god, but he
may be detained in talk. Or maybe he's lodging abroad,
or maybe he's on a journey, or maybe he's fallen
asleep and needs awakening. So he's mocking the
priests of Baal. And now they're kind
of stung by this. And so then they take
out swords, we hear, and they slash themselves
till they bleed. That was a sign of
greater supplication. And still they beg,
and still they cajole, and still no fire falls. Then Elijah comes
forward to his altar. He says, hear me,
O Lord, hear me. Prove to all the people
that thou art the Lord God and are calling their
hearts back to thee. And with that, we hear
the fire comes down, consumes the sacrifice. Elijah wins. OK. But here's what I want
you all to see, please. That this is not just a my
god is bigger than your god. It's not just kind of
a chauvinistic story. This is making the same point
that Thomas Aquinas was making, it seems to me. Look, everybody's got
a hungry heart, right? Bruce Springsteen taught us
that, saying the same thing. Everyone's got a hungry heart. Everybody wants [LATIN]. So what do we do? We worth-ship something. Everybody does it. Paul Tillich, the
Protestant theologian, said that all you need to
know about a person you can learn by asking one
question, what do you worship? It's dead right, it seems to me. Because your life will
be organized around what you take to be
the highest value. So think of the
priests of Baal now. Think, if you want,
of four altars, erected to wealth,
pleasure, power, honor. What do most of us sinners
do most of the time is we hop around one or
more of those altars. We worth-ship one or
more of these things. I think everyone can
tell the story, right? I know lots of young
people that got very early on the train toward wealth. And they worshipped it. They devoted themselves to it. They hopped around the altar. Did it satisfy them? No, it can't. And we just saw why. Because the hunger is infinite,
and no amount of wealth is going to satisfy that. So what happens then? You get addicted. You see why. I'm searching for wealth. And I got it. I got my first million
by 30 or whatever it is. And I got a little buzz
from that, as you do. But then the buzz wears off. It has to. Because you're not
built for that. And when the buzz wears off, I
better go back to that altar. I better keep
worth-shipping there. I better keep hopping
around that altar. I've got to get my first $10
million by 40 or whatever goals you have. And the buzz comes back, but
what will any addict tell you? We're all addicts in
this room, by the way. Because we're all sinners. What will any addict tell you? The buzz will wear off faster. And so now I panic. Remember them slashing
themselves with the knives until they're bleeding. That we'll harm
ourselves in the process of hopping around this altar. Power? Same thing. Same dynamic. Talk to people who very
early on got hooked on power. That's what will make
me happy, so I'm going to be worth-ship at that altar. [LATIN], man, it's power. That's what I want. And I get power, whatever
it was I'm going for, by the age of 30. And I get a buzz from
it, but it wears off. It has to. So I get more and more,
and I hop, and I cajole. And then before I know it,
I'm addicted to such a degree that I'm harming
myself in the process. Same with honors. Talk to anybody
who's on that train. I never get enough attention. They don't appreciate me. Why did he get that job? Why do I not have
the honors I deserve? I've been worth-shipping
at that altar all my life, people will say. It's not designed to satisfy
you because [LATIN] is not found there. What does Elijah represent? Again, don't think of it so
much kind of chauvinistically and nationalistically. What does Elijah represent
but the worth-shipping of the true God,
the infinite truth, the infinite goodness of God? When you order your life
that way, listen now, the fire will fall. That's the point. Then the fire will fall. Because now you hooked
your infinite desire onto the properly
infinite object, and the fire will
fall and consume the sacrifice of your
life and make it radiant and bring it to a
heightened fulfillment. There's the Bible. That's the lesson
the Bible has for us, which is as relevant
in 2018 as it ever was. Because I could introduce you-- you all know this, you
do the same thing-- introduce you to dozens
and dozens of people that I know who are hopping
around these four altars. It's only true worth-ship that
will give me satisfaction. OK. I'm going to make
one more little step, and then we'll
bring it to a close. Here's where it gets, I
think, really interesting. So God alone will satisfy the
deepest hunger of my heart. OK. Got that. I've got to get God in me to
satisfy my desire for [LATIN].. But who is God? In the biblical
reading, God is love. St. John tells us that. And that's a distinctively
Christian idea. Because it's not
that God simply loves or that God has the
attribute of love. It's what God is. Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
by the way, lover, beloved, and shared love. That's who God is, is love. So here's the paradox. Only in God is my soul at rest. Only when I have God in
me do I have [LATIN].. But God is love. Therefore, only when I
give away what God gives me do I have the
[LATIN] that I seek. Love is willing the
good of the other. Love is giving away. And so as the divine life comes
into me, what do I do with it? Don't hang on to it. Now reread the prodigal son,
if you want the physics there. Father, give me my
share coming to me. Give me, me, me, me. Give it to me, so I can have it. What happens to him? Fritters it away. Not arbitrary punishment. That's spiritual physics. You try to hang onto
it, you'll lose it. But when you give away
the divine life that's flowing into you, now
it increases in you 30, 60, and a hundredfold, right? You get the love that God
is in you by giving it away. You see why this Christian
thing is so hard to get, because it's so
counterintuitive. Fellow sinners in this
room, what's our hangup? Look, I'm unhappy. We all are, by the way. I don't mean
psychologically depressed. I mean we're all unhappy. We're all unsatisfied
in this room. So I know, I know. I'm missing something. That's it. I'm missing requisite wealth,
pleasure, power, or honor. That's our instinct. I've got to get more of that. I've got to fill myself up. That's never the answer. That's never the answer. In fact, that's
counter indicated. That will lead to
addiction and unhappiness. Rather, contrive a way to give
your life away, and you'll find the [LATIN] that
you're actually seeking. See, I'm saying
about the questing mind and the searching heart. When they open up to
the infinite source of love, that's when they
find the [LATIN] they seek. So how about I'll just give
Saint Augustine the last word. If you go back to the
great "Confessions of Saint Augustine,"
one of the masterworks of the Western world,
page one, you'll find this little pithy statement
of Christian anthropology. Lord, you've made
us for yourself. Therefore, our heart is
restless until it rests in thee. There's no better
statement of what I've been trying to say all this talk. Lord, you've made
us for yourself. That's the infinite hunger. We're not like a dog,
satisfies its basic needs and goes blissfully to
sleep, utterly happy. It's terrific. That's what dogs
are designed for. But we're not designed that way. Lord, you made us for yourself. We've got an infinite longing. Therefore-- and this is
beautiful in Augustine-- therefore, our heart, he says. He doesn't say
chordae, our hearts. He says [LATIN]. See, what he means is we've
all got this in common. This links everybody together. [LATIN],, our heart is restless
until it rests in thee. And that means
conformed unto love. That's [LATIN]. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for listening. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. MELISSA: Thank
you, Bishop Barron. ROBERT BARRON: Thank you all. Go ahead, please. MELISSA: So we are going
to have Q&A right now. So [? Davo ?] is over there. He's going to run
around with a mic if there's any live questions. And I will read out some
questions from the Dory. So let's start with
one from the Dory. We have John Nolan in
Mountain View asking, when scientists and atheists
talk about religion, they seem to be stuck rehashing
debates of previous centuries, evolution, age of the
Earth, heliocentrism. What can be done to convince
science-minded skeptics that religious
belief systems have something valuable to
offer in the 21st century? ROBERT BARRON: Yeah, good. It's a question I wrestle
with all the time. First of all, all
the things they've raised there, from my
perspective as a Catholic, are non-issues. So how old is the earth? Don't ask me. Ask a scientist. How did biological
things develop? Don't ask me. Ask an evolutionary biologist. Those are scientific
questions, properly so. The Bible is not science. The last book of the Bible is
written around the year 100 AD. The first scientific texts
are in the, let's say, 16th century. The Bible is not science. It simply isn't. It's spirituality
and theology, making very profound
observations that are truthful about the
nature of reality. But not in a scientific mode. So first of all, to give
science its total due, that we're not in a
conflictual relationship. But then the second
move is this. To overcome our
terrible tendency in our culture toward scientism. And scientism is the
reduction of all knowledge to the scientific
form of knowledge. So what the scientific
method can give us-- I love the scientific method. And look around us, I
mean, what it's produced. God bless it. But we shouldn't reduce
all forms of knowledge to what can be delivered
by the scientific method. Get out of Plato's cave,
if you want to go back to the Republic of Plato. Get out of the realm of simply
looking at shadows on the wall and come to much higher
levels of reality, accessed, I would argue,
through metaphysics and through philosophy. And so there I would give
science its total due. We're not in a conflictual
game with the sciences. But also not to allow the
sciences to draw everything into themselves. So that's a quick answer to a
subtle set of questions, there. Please. MELISSA: If anyone has a
question, just raise your hand. AUDIENCE: So [LATIN] and
the way you describe it, with its necessary
longing and desire and journeying towards it,
Eastern ideas like the Four Noble Truths say that this
is, in fact, something that we can move past. That it's not
completely universal. And that moving past this
desire and this longing is in fact a viable path
towards enlightenment. Is there a way to resolve
those Eastern ideas with what you said today, or is
that a fundamental difference? ROBERT BARRON: Yeah,
it's a good question. Of course, it would
take us a year to search it out completely. But I think that that's right. There's a key difference. Because it's the
quieting of desire. You know, Nirvana. It's the blowing out of
the candle of desire. That is the goal of
the Buddhist tradition. And desire, in a way, is
the problem, you know, born of ego and so on. And so [? dependent ?]
[? co-origination ?] and through intense meditation,
one finds that point of putting out desire. Where the Christian thing,
and Augustine is typical here, is not putting out desire
but awakening and directing desire appropriately. Now, I think we can play,
as Thomas Merton did, the true self, false self game. And that's a good way, I think,
to dialogue with Buddhism. Is there a false
self that's full of all kinds of weird
and errant desires? Yeah. And that should be put to death. Blow that out if you want. Blow out the candle of
that kind of desire. But I would say as a Christian,
there's not just that. There's also a properly
directed desire, an awakened and heightened desire. But you're onto, I think,
a very fundamental point of demarcation. But I think true
self, false self might give us a Christian
analogy to the blowing out of errant desire. But we wouldn't go so far as
to say that desire, qua desire, is the problem. De Lubac talks about this,
[FRENCH],, this weird kind of crippling of desire. That's the problem. But that's a great question. It's the point of
demarcation, I think. Please, go ahead. MELISSA: We have another
question on the Dory. From Mike [? Rile ?]
in Mountain View. With the growth of technology
and the development of a globalized
community, what's the most important
thing that we can do as a group of
people dedicated to the advancement of
technology to ensure that our ethical and moral
growth as a global population doesn't fall behind our
technological growth? ROBERT BARRON: That's
a really good question. That's terrific. And I'm glad it's raised. You understand
the dynamic there. That we get so
enthusiastic about our technological advances. And again, God bless them. They're wonderful. But they must always be properly
haunted by the moral question. And the moral question is the
question of love, finally. I will speak as a Christian. To love is to will
the good of the other. Not my good through
you, but your good. I want what's good for you. That's love. And love must always dominate. Love must always be the
primary consideration. And so as our
technology advances, is it in service of love? Saint Augustine said, love
God, and do what you want. His point there
was as long as love is thoroughly
dominant in your life, then the rest will
take care of itself. So then your technological life
will find its proper place. So that's terrific. I'm glad that ethical,
spiritual question is raised, or else our technology
will destroy us. Because that's the-- look at
wealth, pleasure, honor, power. They'll turn on us. If we don't know how to
manage them spiritually, they'll manage us. Again, sound familiar? Every sinner in this
room, including me, we know what that's about. They start managing us. But we need to have the
sovereignty of love, and then these things
find their proper place. That's good. Please. Go ahead. Please. AUDIENCE: Is this on? OK. Hi. I think you might have already
partially answered my question. But during the
course of your talk, it sounds as if, OK, there
is the created world and ways to basically worship
or love those things, and then there is God. And is there a way to love God? I mean, there are so many of us. We're all so different. Is there a one way, or how do
we find our way to love God? Are there seven castles
that we should be aware of, or are we so different that
we have to make our own way? ROBERT BARRON: No, it's good. I mean, you're talking there
about the spiritual tradition. And you're making reference,
actually, to Teresa of Avila and so on, the interior castle. And there are different
paths that spiritual masters have laid out. And so we can find some of
those general categories. Everyone is different. Everyone's got a
unique personality. Everyone falls in love
with God differently. I would like to say,
John of the Cross is one of the great masters. John said, don't use the image
of climbing the holy mountain, which a lot of us will use. Like God's up
there, and I've got to find my way to get to him. But rather, God wants
nothing more than to move into your
life in a saving way, in a life-giving way. So the idea, John
of the Cross, is to clear the ground so
the helicopter can land. So don't think of, I've got
to get up that mountain. And there's God
distantly out there and looking
judgmentally at me as I strive to get up the mountain. Rather, God's like
in a helicopter who wants to land in
my heart, but there are obstacles in the way. There's stuff in the way. And I would say there's forms
of false worship in the way. Clear those out so the
helicopter can land. So it's like have the confidence
that God wants in my heart. That's all he wants. And if I just get out of the
way enough, it will happen. Now, everyone's got their
own hangups and problems that they have to deal with. But I think that's
a basic strategy. Please, Melissa, go ahead. MELISSA: So I think we'll
just do one more question from the Dory and one
more live question, and then we'll call it. So [? Louisa ?] [? Wolf ?]
from Mexico is asking, how do you see our role as
Catholic employees at Google? BISHOP ROBERT
BARRON: Well, she'd know better than I.
She's an employee. [LAUGHTER] You know, first of all, this. Be a person of love. Whatever you find yourself. I go with a little
flower, [FRENCH],, you know, her
so-called little way. Don't read that as something
kind of twee and sentimental. The little way means
in any situation, find the opportunity for love. And love, again,
is not a sentiment. It means willing the
good of the other. So wherever you are, in
whatever condition, you're sick, you're in prison, you're
at work, wherever you are, what's the path of love? Find it, and walk it. So that's what I'd say
to Catholics at Google, is walk the path of love
as fully as you can. But then you want
to press the thing, always be open, as we
hear in First Peter, to give a reason for
the hope that's in you. So if someone is curious
about your faith, your Catholicism, be
ready to provide answers. We're going through a
kind of a golden age right now of apologetics. I think it's because
of the new atheism. I think it awakened a lot
of religious people to we've got to defend
ourselves here and make the case to a skeptical public. So there's a lot of
good material out there. Learn it, so that when
people approach you, maybe, curiously, you have
something to say to them. So those two things. Love first, and then be
ready to give a reason for the hope that's in you. Please. AUDIENCE: Hi. Would you mind sharing
with us one way in which you've personally
experienced God in your life? ROBERT BARRON: Yeah. Well, I mean,
first and foremost, every day, when I say
mass is the most powerful. But I'll tell you,
when I was 14, it was hearing one of
Thomas Aquinas' arguments for God's existence. So I was a Catholic
kid going to mass, but I wasn't all that
interested in religion. And I was a freshman
in high school. And I see a Dominican
in the back of the room. A Dominican Friar in
our religion class laid out for us one
of Thomas's arguments. And honestly, I never
thought you could think about religion seriously. To me it was just like,
yeah, I go to mass on Sunday, but I never thought about
it until that moment. I thought, wow, that's a
very intriguing presentation. And it led me on this
quest that I'm still on. That's quite true. That was [MUMBLES] years ago. [LAUGHTER] But I've never left that path. And that's where
I really say God, and I look at it now
in a decisive way, kind of entered my life
and set me on a path that I'm still on,
standing before you today. Good. God bless you all. Thank you very much for coming. MELISSA: Thank you. SPEAKER: Thanks, Bishop. [APPLAUSE]
