What is the Supreme Good? | Jonathan Pageau

thanks Philippa um I want to start with something there there's really an elephant in this room for the past few days I've kind of noticed it and everyone is kind of tiptoeing around it and and nobody is really addressing it and to be honest it's it's a little unnerving to me there are a lot of religious people in this room I saw a few guys that had like a giant Cross like not the little cross that you put under your shirt but like the big big cross and I and I even saw a guy with a with the yamaka he's he's here I think but really it's been a strange ghost that's floating through some of the talks with with funny code words like transcended this and faith that and then you have Bishop Baron that comes out like a wrecking ball and he's he's like God and Jesus and Thomas a quietness that's like whoa what's going on so uh so just out of curiosity how many people in the room here explicitly identify as belonging to a religious Faith or religious tradition how many people all right and how how how many people here see themselves as secular or atheist or or the like wow okay what we we're we're we're taking names but you know don't worry about it it'll be it'll be okay uh so for many for for many years I've been trying to find ways to actually Bridge these two worlds of people and help secular people reasonable people understand why these strange stories these strange rituals are are part of our life and I think that I can do that today a bit and so hopefully we can chase that elephant out of the room so I was asked to talk about the good the capital G good and I'm really grateful that they gave you the easiest subject to talk about yeah so but we've also heard little code words related to that that were floating around in the last few days like the common good or that things are getting better or that things are getting worse or we have talked about our values contrasted to Dark and Dangerous forces and so this reminds me of a time a very long time ago when our good friend Plato was faced with a meaning crisis a meaning crisis that's not completely unlike the one we face now in fact the meaning meaning crisis which he faced was in large part responsible for the ultimate fall of Athens and the thinkers just before him they were looking to find the arade they were looking to find the head the principal right the trying to figure out what is behind everything and trying to use reason to do so and they were having something of a a fight or something of a row over what it is that all of this is pointing to and of course many answers were proposed as to what the principle behind reality is some people said fire chains or water the Limitless uh and other ideas like that interesting ideas but there was one guy this one pesky fellow democratus who proposed that the world was simply void and matter Adams right little unbreakable bits of stuff that bounced around each other stuck to each other in order to to constitute the things of the world and I remember my high school teacher telling me that it was funny how thousands of years later it was democratus that had won the debate right the world is made of Adams now our good friend Plato recording the words of Socrates and facing this meaning crisis came to a different conclusion that behind the world are Eternal ideas Eternal forms and we often mistakenly think that these forms are just something like Concepts or identities but Plato's highest form was the form of the good now that's different that's not just an identity it's not just a concept it's something like the precondition for identity let me explain that it's not just how things exist but why they exist they exist to participate in the good and of course for later Christians uh that would convert out of this Pagan World they would look back and find in the Book of Genesis something similar and they would see that God creates the world and he says that it is good and it's not just that God has goodness like a quality but as much for the new platonists as for the rabbis the Christian Saints and the Muslim philosophers the Transcendent one God the ineffable source of all things is indistinguishable from the good and all things are created to participate and be in communion with that goodness so what a strange idea to us today who know better right like we know that the world is made of stuff right the Democratic was right it's made of atoms and forces and SpaceTime and a big bang and billions of years of stuff coming together and and this that way that's what we believe at least that's is the belief that permeates our our secular culture and when we act on that fundamental principle then all we have to do as humans is understand how stuff works and we have been amazing at that I mean we've been unparalleled in the known history of the world at figuring out how stuff works how to get stuff how to make stuff how to accumulate stuff and how to constantly increase our capacity to get and make stuff and in many ways several of us have convinced ourselves that human flourishing happens when people have enough stuff now of course there's a corollary to that which is that to understand get make and control stuff you need three things you need understanding you need will and you need power and you will be able to recognize any atheistic System worth its salt because it will always emphasize those three things understanding how stuff works will directed energy and action and power the energy we need to do your will and this was as true of n as it was of Marx and it's also true of an Rand and in these three you have the three strains of modern Politics the Communist tendency the fascist tendency and the libertarian tendency all three are posited on understanding will and power now the problem is that this this this idea that the world is just made of stuff and all we need to do is understand make and get stuff is it's it's a lie and it's not just a lie but it's a lie that has become manifest in one of the very reasons why we are having this conference today when we hear pronouncements like we have lost our values and because of that the social fabric is fragmented our societies are breaking apart this is happening precisely at the moment when we have the most stuff the refusal of people to have children the Mental Health crisis the loneliness the Despair and the hopelessness is happening all precisely when and to a large extent because we have more stuff than any visible time in history that we can identify so what's happening the truth is that democratus was wrong now let me translate this for you what does it mean to lose your values to lose what you value it means to lose what is good what does it mean to despair but to be capable of perceiving that which is good and what does it mean to fragment if not to forget why and how it is good to be together to forget the reason why we're together in the first place so I think we have to be careful and as I see everybody talking about progress and I hear what people talking about here in flourishing we have to be careful and wonder what it is that we actually mean by that if what we mean is we just need to let to get the governments out of our way so that we can have more stuff that we need to tackle the environmental concern so that we can all have more stuff and more powerful stuff and bigger and faster and stronger stuff that I think there's a very important warning to be had I mean of course as a Christian I I believe strongly that we are called to help the poor but if all of us if all we do in the world is get everybody to have more stuff we will not solve the problem of despair of sterility of fragmentation divorce in fact we will increase it and so it seems like the ideas that Plato brought to light have to be explored and taken seriously once again that is the world can no longer be described only in terms of forces and stuff but it has to be described in terms of categories of human consciousness like attention like relevance like care and maybe for some of you that is too much of a jump to say that the world is made of care for that the world is made of love but at least an acknowledgement that the human world is made of care right that without care there is death that without care there's paralysis and if we care for the wrong things then there is chaos and tyranny in our lives and in our societies and this is where I think that maybe I can help bridge some of the more religious and secular people what it is that we place as the highest good that which is placed above us as our guiding Star as the thing that pulls us forward into its good is indistinguishable from a God just like a god that Supreme value will drive us towards it will subjugate all things to it and the type of attention it will receive will be indistinguishable from worship and if we what we put at the top there is not in fact the Supreme good then it will twist reality it will twist the facts and it will twist the data into its service and if we can't see that if we can't understand that we will never understand what happened to us during Co we will never understand we will never understand that it was the worship of safety and control that made it impossible to weigh it against other [Applause] Goods to even posit other Goods goods made you not only wrong but a heretic that had to be banished and run out of the common space and so we sacrificed we subjugated all other Goods the education and mental health of our children the communion with our families our religious participations and so many aspects of Life which provide meaning and purpose for nearly two years in some countries and then the Practical reasons became completely opaque right two weeks to flatten the curve and then that no one should die or maybe to keep the hospital safe then what that no one should ever get the disease that everybody had to be vaccinated with a vaccine that doesn't stop the spread of the disease so what what's the goal what's the goal it didn't matter it no longer mattered what the little goals were anymore once the God has taken possession all the facts all the purposes all the all the goods will simply serve that God now safety is a good of course it is of course safety is a good it is simply not the Supreme good and it just needs to not pretend to be and that's all we need and so so what is it right Jonathan what is the Supreme good and so I'm afraid that this is where the words fail us of course for the good itself is not a good it is goodness just like truth itself is not a truth but the mysterious standard by which we measure true statements and it's the same reason why we notice that beauty is not beautiful and so the philosophers and the theologians say that the capital G God is ineffable so when Dante in his comedy reached the highest point of his ascent and entered into that mystery he said power here failed the Deep imagining but already my desire and will were rolled like a wheel that is turned equally by the love that moves the sun and the stars the love the care that moves the sun and the Stars that's that's not bad that's that's not a bad way to talk about it but for the secular people listening out there who might win at the idea of the ineffable that's fine I understand it the only thing we actually need to know about that is whatever it is you're chasing right now it ain't it whatever it is you think is the most important it's not it's not the most important the Supreme good is not money it's not energy energy it's not Freedom it's not family it's not knowledge it's not safety it's not diversity and it's not inclusion though all those things are good they should never be treated as the Supreme good lest they become idols and gods that will tyrannize us and so the goods must dance together they play against each other they have to be put in proper hierarchies where the more encompassing Goods like the virtues guide the lower Goods like the stuff with none of the goods completely ruling the others or else they might become once again vices that will overwhelm you and so at least for now I think that even for those who are here or those who are watching this who do not believe and do not worship ship the Supreme ineffable good at least keep your high your eyes high and at least always look higher and don't let your sight and your perception stop at the goods that you care about today so thank [Applause] you

Channel: Alliance for Responsible Citizenship

Views: 218,089

Keywords: ARK Conference, ARK, Pagaeu, Paguea, Pagao, Pajou

Id: Fsmqhu8-L1E

Length: 17min 30sec (1050 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 01 2023