John Vervaeke, Jordan Hall, and Jonathan Pageau on Christianity

does zen let's say formulate the infinite as relational to the finite yes and so can enter into Emptiness is form form is emptiness exactly explicitly so I mean I I know this is going to sound weird but then why isn't why don't people pray in Zen um they do um so I I happen to know is Zen roshi and he he he prays and he chants and so forth what is what is um what's the infinite like does it have a sense of humor I'm I'm sorry Jordan you're gonna have to be more precise in what you mean by that question well you know one of the things of something that has a character relationship is that it has a character relationship and so the question is something like um well okay let me answer that let me answer that first uh okay so you know this is shellenberg who's an atheist but says what we're talking about we're talking about sacred is uh you know it's ultimately real and again not in the neutral sense in the antinormative I want to participate in it so that's a relationship term I want to participate in it I want to conform to it I want to reciprocally open I want to be realized by it as I realize it all of that secondly it's ultimately orienting like people reorient towards it right and it's ultimately transformative it causes you know this deep deep the deepest possible transformation from being entric to being profoundly reality Centric but does it care about you that's the question does it care about you why does that matter to you that's a [Music] question this is Jonathan Pedro welcome to the symbolic world [Applause] [Music] so hello everyone I am here with Jordan Hall and John REI all of you know them very well I am really excited and a little uh befuddled and we're wondering what's going to happen because John BVI wrote both of us said I watch our your conversation together and I really would like to have a a discussion of the three of us and so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what it is that he's scheming and what's going on in his mind but but before we start we're making an announcement today in a few weeks we'll put the links in the description that you can go see on our website but in a few weeks uh John will be teaching a class on cognitive science and ritual for the symbolic world and so he's going to go into his own ideas and his own research and all all the way that he connects his study into in in cognitive science with ritual uh and then in the last episode he's gonna he's going to go through the theory and then the last episode we'll have a discussion together and so that will be of course live like the other classes you can join live you can also buy the class and watch it later if you if you don't have time to join live but we'll have q&as and everything the same way we're doing our our uh our other classes so uh so uh before we start maybe John you can tell us give us a little something about about the Cog side class yeah so I uh first of all uh deeply appreciative of being here um and also very appreciative of you inviting me to uh teach on the symbolic world I'm very excited about this especially the fact that it'll at least have a diolog culmination I think that's just wonderful goes with a lot of things that I believe in and stand for so um there's lots of theories of ritual out there um but um there's very little theory of ritual that actually covers what you might call the cognitive dimension of ritual uh so I'm not going to be offering that would be pretentious and hubristic to say I'm going to give you a comprehensive account to Ritual I mean there are socioeconomic there are historical there are cultural there are philosophical there are theological aspects of ritual and I'm not here to comment on them and I'm not here to deny that they exist or that they're important all I'm saying is there has been a missing Dimension a lot in a lot of the discussion of ritual which is the cognition of ritual is ritual a way of knowing for example is is that a reasonable question to ask and there are and there's a lot of work on that and I want to bring all the work I've done on the imaginal the relationship between the imaginal and the rational and the reasonable and the relationship you know what it is what what kind of knowing are we talking about and is there is there a rationality to Ritual those are all the things uh we're going to be talking about and um the the quick answer is yes there is cognition in ritual and it's a very powerful and important form of ritual and it's bound up very deeply with I think a a more proper understanding of what we mean mean by rational if what we mean by rational isn't merely logical but being reasonable in a much more comprehensive sense all right well we are definitely looking forward to that so Jordan uh it's good to see you and uh we want to know I mean I want to know what it is in our conversation John that that SP sparked this discussion so you have to start us off well first of all be you know I'm going to do a few things that'll be provocative but you know um as as is my want uh but uh obviously I'm not doing anything ridiculous like attempting a uh reputation I loved the conversation I love both of you I consider you friends that I respect and have a lot of affection for um and so it was like yeah but what about this what about this kind of issue it wasn't like I think you're it's not that okay so um and and and I think it's fair to say there was a lot of John Veri running through the conversation so I'm I I'm not I don't want to be um ungracious or anything like that so I I just want to frame very quickly where I'm coming from and what I'm trying to do here I'm trying to be Socratic I I'm not trying to be a skep dart okay so so I'll if I could I'll lay what I heard what I'm and of course you you'll be free to correct me when I'm done what I thought I heard around a central thing I want to talk about we don't have to stick on that topic this is just where but this is what brought me in do I want to talk to you to about it right so there was a discussion of uh pistus as Faith um and then there was there was very much um moves I agree with like moving it off belief at least in the sense of asserting propositions without evidence or argument you you both said something along those lines and then there was there was a movement of to trust and then um I I would want to I would have wanted to slow down a little bit there uh because the problem with the word trust is it's very equivocal there's two different meanings of trust uh there's one meaning of trust is based on empirical like observation and inference I come to a conclusion about the probability of somebody's competence so I trust that if I give this to Peter he'll do a good job that's not particularly relevant to your conversation in any important fashion because that's just how we sort of get about the world uh where we can't operate with certainty which is like everywhere then you mean a so a I just want to make clear that that's not what we're talking about to my mind and then you moved to something which was deeper I'm going to use a little bit of my own language and we can play with it if you don't like it uh but it was something like because you were trying to draw to my mind you were trying to draw together Notions of participatory knowing because that was invoked a lot um and it's something like you know participation in sort of primordial presuppositions there are these are presuppositions that you can't get outside of you they they are presupposed was in the very Act of trying to make sense uh make judgments about what's intelligible Etc and so like the they're primordial in that sense to doubt them would be to invoke them to try and doubt them kind of thing um and so although you can't give an argument for them there is no place you can stand to call them seriously into question and this is this is a good model by the way it's not unique to me or to both of you Alvin plantinga has who's an important Christian philosopher has a very similar kind of you know a presupposition model of what's going on and I'm a little bit different than him on this but so it that that's cool so so far so good um I think everybody's nodding and smiling so but then so a couple issues came up to me well one is okay that's fair uh but and for me that's great because that sort of grounds the philosophical Silk Road really wonderfully because we it means you know you know that we're not all automatically we can't dismiss faith we we're we're bound at this level I think Jordan you even said you know even the atheist has to have this kind of faith in some sense you said something to to that degree and and that's a great strength but it also opens up this question uh that means at that level of the argument that both the Buddhist and the Christian have equal Faith because if they equally have right a set of primordial presuppositions that makes the world fundamentally intelligible to them in a way in which they can profoundly participate they both have faith um this is why I think it's a philosophical soak Road move now what I when I what I then Wonder so again that's how I'm posing it to you it seems to me you need an additional argument for to for talking about faith in the specific Christian content because that Faith doesn't follow from the argument you gave because the argument you gave is a is a properly pluralistic argument okay now there's potential moves available to you and I'll I'll lay them out how I see them and what I find problematic about them and then I'll stop talking okay uh so one you move you can make is to to say something well like mean you know uh well Christianity makes the most sense or something like that that's problematic um I'm not going to repeat my thousand arguments and Publications and videos about intelligibility grounds and relevance realization and relevance realization is properly pluralistic right you you you can't in an we just P published a paper on this you can't give an there's no way to give an AI formalization of relevance realization that allows you to say this is the optimal final version of relevance realization relevance realization is non-computational to put it in in a phrase and that's really important because that GR grounds meaning in life that grounds a lot of the stuff we're talking about but that also commits you to certain consequences of that now what you could do um and you could make use of James filler I'm talking to him tomorrow by the way uh and he's got a second book out coming where he's got the critique of substance ontology so I'm looking forward to that and then you could say oh well what we could do is we could make a move where say you could say intelligibility or information are properly relational uh and therefore we should go to a a a worldview I'll I'm trying to use a neutral term here um that gives the most proper place to U relationality and doesn't commit to like a substance ontology or something like that and then James as you know maps that into the Trinity the Trinity is the most powerful symbol according to James of pure relationality and therefore it's a great symbol for Ultimate Reality and that's why it makes the most sense and it seemed to me that arguments Al along those lines were were were being made um and you know push back when I'm done and we're here as friends um but then the the concern that I had with that is well the the problem with that is um and we'll see what James says about this I have a critique of James um which is his main argument to cut it short and I won't make the argument I'll just give you the conclusion is you can't get relations out of Rada you can't there's not given if you start with things and sub substances in the real statian terms you can't get relations out of that and if you can't get relations you can't get intelligibility etc etc that's the core argument that he makes the problem is there's an exactly symmetrical argument and Jonathan will probably recognize this this is a neoplatonic argument you also can't get uh Rel out of pure relations you can't get the arguments are exactly symmetrical so pure relationality doesn't mean at the bottom there's relations pure relationality is is means at the bottom there is that that is below both relations and relata and makes them both possible and of course this is the neoplatonic one right it's not a relation it's not a relata it's what makes relations and relata possible or it's something like Zen shata which is okay now what does that mean for the mapping onto the Trinity because I could say well Zen does a really good job because Zen prioritizes nonduality and that's the central message not the trinitarian na nature of relationality and this goes into the deeper argument this is a mapping function and the problem with mapping functions is that reality is combinatorially explosive and there --- lity into that participation right so all the kings bring their Crown into the into the into the uh into the the city um and so I think that that is a one way of answering the question of the of the absolute map or like the perfect map is that the the perfect map is given as something which is coming but never comes or at least doesn't come in the way that we think I mean I'm not saying there isn't an eschatological moment but that eschatological moment cannot be measured by the measurements of time that we give to to time now like it's the end of time in the sense it's the purpose of time it's the end of history in the sense that it's the thing toward which all things are moving um and I and I think that in terms of let's say a a map like a if we talk about the idea of of mapping reality I think that that's important to always remember is that Christ is the one who came and the one who's coming and when he's coming in the end that which he will offer is a new Heaven and a new earth that is not the one that we have now everything that we have now is although we don't want to say that it's it's it's it's arbitrary it's not arbitrary at all but it's a glimmer it's always a glimmer and a kind of small participation in something which which which is coming uh you know and you know there are there are sometimes you can you can read There are mysterious ways in which you know for example like the Saints will talk about when you take communion you are already in the escaton you're right you know but it's something which when you're in the escaton you're also not in regular time you're not in the normal time you're not in in in in the way that the world is laid out and coming back from that and some ways will always relativize and make things imperfect and you know and and somewhat somewhat off from the the and so I think that that in terms of the idea of of that that Christianity offers a map for reality I think we always have to remember that that that eschatology is a central part of how we understand that how the logos manifest themselves in the world because the logos is the fullness of the Loos has not yet been seen the fullness of the yogos is coming it's over the hill it's come Lord Jesus right this the sense that we're calling it into being but it never uh not it doesn't it doesn't arrive in the way that we expect it right even in the book of even Christ says if if you say here he is here he is you know don't listen to those who say there he is like that's not how it's going to it's going to it's going to happen um so in terms of mapping that's one of the things I want to offer and the other the other part though I want to offer in terms of relationality terms of the Trinity is we always have to remember that the that the Trinity is not just relationality it is one yes of course right it's it it it you always have to keep that aoria present for it to for it to to be the the so it's both the one in some ways of the neoplatonist but it also is the the the fullness of of of relationality in the multiple right so it's it's those two things at the same time it it avoids it avoids the problem of gnosticism and right the problem of the of the degenerate of the degenerate uh manifestations you could say right that manifestations or or or or things that proceed from the one are immediately you know uh degenerate for that for that for that reason anyway so those those are a few things I wanted to offer but it's mostly Jordan you have to I think you're the you're the a lot of it was was about the things that you said so go ahead yeah well um when you said about the logos so what I was noticing was perhaps the Crux precisely nice yeah um is known as the hypostatic union um because the logos incarnate affords a different quality of relationality than the logos in general yeah so if I'm Lau endeavoring deeply to come into relationship with the way there's so far I can go and if I'm a neoplatonist contemplating the one there's so far I can go but John now you the Apostle John actually meets Jesus and that's a completely different kind of thing it's very different you know it's it's as similar as saying my ability to know my wife by by virtue of reading her biography and by virtue of actually loving her directly and so the ability to actually enter into a human scale relationship with the logos incarnate is a qualitatively different kind of thing and I think there's a lot going on there and it's the inverse and a very powerfully bound inverse of than the crucifixion and these these things are are are yoked together powerful as also Jonathan mindful of of the the talk you gave at the symbolic World Conference in the son of man seeing whatever images were coming to me when you were talking then I was seeing those images coming up when John was speaking earlier so I mean ultimate we're really talking about is Christ ultim we're really talking about obviously in some sense the thing that differentiates Christianity as a way of of doing this sort of thing is Christ and Christ is the Incarnation the actual not just the logos as an abstraction that we can contemplate which the Greeks do at the High level and lau does at the highest level you the way the logos but the fact that there's something about the particularity of the eruption of the Eternal into the chronological in a particular moment in space and time and what that does in in terms of affording our ability as in fact quite distinctly finite beings right with very limited capacity to enter into relationship with the ultimate in terms of affording that what would be called the hyposthenic Union right this this paradoxical aoria that happens at the at that level of how the finite and the infinite can actually grow in that relationality I I I want to properly pause here in case either one of you want to say some more because that was a lot and it was good and it was rich um I I um so um the eschatological that the the map is incomplete um that is of course also not unique to Christianity uh Buddhism has mraa the coming Buddha and and there is no map so the the eschatological sense is um again found elsewhere that's just one example I can give others um and so I um although I think I I hear an argument building yeah all these things are found elsewhere but you can only find all of them in sort of your One-Stop uh Enlightenment shop or something that's Christianity um but maybe that's the argument that's building here we'll see if that's what we're we're working towards now the idea that the the logos um is Incarnate in a in a specific historical person well um Buddha nature was present in sarta gatama um and people met him historically and that's how Buddhism was founded um and and and and so um that's not the Christian doctrine of incarnation but we that's not plain fair you can't say the Buddhists don't have the they have that the the Dharma was embodied in a way right that ignited a religion right and and and so again uh that would be the the uh the case um um Jonathan I agree with you about the rejection of gnosticism and many versions of neoplatonism but as filler himself argues if you properly understand neoplatonism it it it doesn't have the one and relationality are always held together in the notion of Ultimate Reality it's not the one and relationality and because it's not a numerical one and it's not a substantial one it it's the Oneness of intelligibility um in that that sense so you um um so um now um You you you may say um but what I have oh I want to I want to do this very carefully you may you might be saying that but in some sense you both feel that's the wrong word sorry you both sense that you have had um this personal relationship with Jesus um and I'm not saying that in a dismissive fashion you understand that please okay is is is that what this is coming down to ultimately because yeah it really depends what you what you mean by that yeah yeah fair enough fair enough fair enough because I I've heard versions of that that are that I wouldn't identify with let's just say uh well let me say Let me let let me help you there CU you know here's here's where here's ways in which it doesn't work for me because people will say I feel the presence of Jesus and he's telling me to do X and then this person over here says I feel the presence of Jesus and he's telling me to do not X and it's like oh really oh this makes no sense to me whatsoever like that kind of stuff does isn't going to track as an argument because it just doesn't line up with the with the facts okay so go ahead go ahead J yeah so I don't know this about you jonan but I imagine um for example when you have an actual experience of of profound grief utterly shattering well again well beyond Maps well beyond any notion deeper than your faith a grief deeper than your faith and you you notice that there's something there right you're not alone in that grief there's nothing else that you can imagine right you're beyond mind you're definitely you're beyond meditation and you as you enter into that you notice that that something has qualities and a way of naming those qualities is love so that's that would be an example of what that means like when you when you really really really go to the experience of a profound relationship with how loss works and the shattering of your ability to enter into uh identity at all um um you notice that non-duality is not the actual thing that's at the bottom that there's something more fundamental than that and the only way we can talk about it would be the thing that is called love the same thing happens by the way from my point of view if you go all the way to the highest level but that's a little bit trickier for my in my experience so can you say that last thing because I uh uh so first of all thank you for that that's uh a powerful um and Rich thing to say so I'm not um you're aware that it's deeper than nonduality you're invoking you're invoking spatial metaphors which of course are transcended by non-duality so I'm trying to get out what that so I might have a sense of what you're talking about uh people talk about a a sensed presence which is neither objective nor sub objective neither emanating nor emergent but deeper and that you don't know it by you don't know it by other than participating it and being it but with I don't mean in a logical identity sense like when when you're very when you're deeply in love with somebody and in a goic way is that what you mean and and I again I'm not trying to do a judo move on you I'm trying to understand no I get it I mean think what we're talking about here talking about doing neurosurgery um which which is perfect right this is where this is where we are by the way I mean we meaning the species right where the species is actually here we got to get this figured out um there's no more you knocking beating around the bush we have to take the level of care and precision and um actual embodied love and Clarity it's necessary so let's see wow man and what I noticed is that that oh okay nice so what I'm going to do is I'm going to say something and it's actually going to be Tri okay but it's it's the best thinging I can get out of my mouth right now and an Endeavor to collaboratively get there I'll take it charitably Jordan I promise I'll take it charitably and and by the way I'm going to reinforce it has to this has to be three you're you're you're participating um so if we go towards the direction of Joy so joy and grief being gates to this relationship um what we notice when we get to profound levels of joy is a feeling of the presence of the infinite like a proximity towards something which is of the nature of the Transcendent yet in the realm of the imminent right something that is something that we are able to experience but is increasingly accelerating Beyond anything that could actually be present or contained within um experience within the finite right so we accelerate in that direction and as we move in that direction what we begin to notice is that we we do not actually dissolve into that but rather are embraced by it right that's that's that's the key the key difference is that the relationship between the infinite and the finite is not a mistake there's nothing about the the the way the creation is that is not good and that there's the ability for us to be in a relationship that is governed by that as a fundamental is how do I say H he I can't it's not my words somebody else has to say it well I I think that the thing that comes to me when when when when you're saying what you're saying is that the let's say Christianity I I believe Christianity really does uh in its highest instantiations really does have a sense that the source of reality is is non-u right that the way that we describe God as a trinity is a way is a way to describe the infinite right not a way b --- ting sort of a reading of Genesis God looks at MH the world is good he does he's not making a moral judgment he's not making an aesthetic judgment he's not making an epistemic judgment because he's God right so he's he's saying something else he's saying that being is intrinsically good qua being just by being it is good am I so that's why Escape is fundamentally wrong because if being is intrinsically good seeking to escape from it is intrinsically wrong am I getting your argument correctly yeah yeah and and that's I it's interesting too about for example Christian Christian theosis like the notion of Christian theosis is you know I remember when I was first interested in Orthodox Theology and I had read a lot of esoteric texts from other Traditions there was something about Christian theosis which annoyed me because it was like it wasn't the real it wasn't the full thing it wasn't like the complete absolute ecstatic you know elimination of me and then after that I thought I realized actually no wait a minute I like that I think that all things are good and so right St Maximus says that we participate that we become God to the extent that that's possible that's that's just the the that's the phrases he uses is what he means is in something like we become God to the extent that the world can that you continue to exist that you continue because your being is good as is good it has a goodness you don't want to completely snuff out the the the the pred particularity that God has put in the world and so and and it's when I kind of understood that that I realized that the image of theosis that Christianity presents is something like the fullness of all things right so all things are mirrored are these reflections of God and that that is the fullness that is the fullness like that that is more full in a very mysterious way I don't know how to say it metaphysically but that is more full than just the non dual God right just the the the the the god that transcends all things that God that transcends all things creating the world in love so that it becomes an a transparent uh reflection of himself in a way that doesn't destroy any of that particular but rather you know gathers it in love in multiplicity and unity that that's a bigger Vision actually than being a drop that goes back to Brahma yeah I'm not here I'm not going to I'm not trying to defend no no no I don't want you to defend V I'm just using examples to say why I think you know even my own process of kind of seeing what what was precious about about the I think this is good by the way I think you're making so like I mean it again I think this is a I think we're getting into Theos I feel like these are good answers that are like are provoking me in a Socratic way I feel that and I just want to share that that's it's happening for me okay so I I that's good so now can can I add in that Spirit there's two things here so I mean this this issue has been broached in some very deep um interpersonal interreligious I should say but also interpersonal uh dialogue which goes on to Theos uh there's Cobb's book you know uh uh a dialogue a Buddhist and Christian dialogue that is mutually transformative and then even more importantly the the Anthology around the work of maso Abbe which Christians and um Jews and others reply to in which he said it's called emptying God in which he said well what we're ultimately talking about here is kinosis right and he he basically says well doesn't kosis ultimately require right the emptying of emptiness itself this Zen notion and he says I don't see Christianity getting uh to that uh in some way and a way of making this perhaps a little bit more cre concrete as Jonathan uh Sor as Jordan was keeps calling us back to is I get what you're saying uh how how do you make sure this isn't um just a crypto egoism which is I don't want to I don't want to cease to exist and that's why this is so good but think about how what it looks like in practice but it looks like in practice is I am constantly trying to cease to exist that's in the sense that that Christian the idea of kenosis and of self-emptying yeah yeah yeah keep going way that Christianity functions it's like humility self-sacrifice you know of of giving yourself giving yourself in love and the surprise or or or the the surprise to realize that that's the actual anchor of being that that that's the actual anchor of how you how you exist uh you know and and and the and the resurrection in the end you know what is resurrected is all my gestures of self-sacrifice are resurrected into me but me in I mean obviously in a mysterious way in in a mysterious so the there is something everything about Christianity is this kinosis without understanding that you can't understand any of it like why is why do we Martyrs why do we have all these things like you know it's like everything about it is this emptying that that brings fullness okay so you're saying something really good and I I want to push on it because I believe you're not making a performative contradiction a performative contradiction is when you're making a claim that undermines your ability to make the claim right uh like if as if I was to say right now I am completely unconscious no no I have to be right a performative and I agree with Whitehead that performative contradictions are much more important than right uh propositional cont okay okay so good so one way it sounds like you're doing is you you're sound like saying well I'm pursuing this because right I I I think dissolving or disappearing is really good and then what I'm trying to do is I follow this is to try to dissolve and disappear and that sounds like well no like who are you to make that like do you see what why there's a bind there right and and you were pushing up against that I want to give you space because we're I I agree with what you just said I think we're really again good de logos we're really moving into the heart of this this really hangs on kosis and obviously Agape uh but right it hangs on it in a really really crucial manner okay so uh I'm I'm presenting this as a bit of a paper tiger I hope for you it's like you're not saying that but say why you're not saying that more okay well so St Paul you know St Paul has this image where he says it's not it's not it's not I that live a Christ that lives in me and yeah you know it's a beautiful sentence because it it it captures the the it captures the Paradox which he's not he's not actually saying I don't exist anymore no saying it it's it's Christ that lives in me and so he's affirming himself to the extent that he is a manifestation of the of the logos and that is what is left now the the the the way to go to get there is to you know is to shed right to shed a lot of the things that I my passions the things that I care about but that ultimately once I do that once you do that and you you can experience it fractally it's not like I'm going to get to the end of it and all of a sudden I'm going to realize oh I've been I've been self-sacrificing this whole time and so now finally I it's like you see it happening non-stop which is that when you when you enter into a loving relationship with someone and you let go of your just proper desires and all the things that you want and you kind of seed way to that then you realize that it it it brings the person you and them together and what what comes out of it is more than what was there before and so you're like oh wait a minute it's like it's not like this one thing that I'm doing like you I'm I'm stacking all my good works so that when I die know what I mean it's like no I'm I'm noticing it happen every day every time that I that I enter into that mode of being where I'm where I'm where I'm not holding on and I'm not grasping then what happens is I see more come out of it and I see more of of myself like I see more I see more of who I truly am right to say yeah so you're saying you're this you first of all I hear a couple things here there's the realization that the self is inherently dialogical not a a monad a self-isolated thing but it exists diic cuz that's that your argument I think depends on that secondly you're invoking reciprocal opening again and you're saying if you put those two together the self is dialogical and reciprocal opening you can move from being egocentric to reality Centric but that doesn't feel like a loss that feels like a gain is that okay so far yeah yeah yeah I say that okay okay really good um this is very good so is it fair to say I'm not trying to be I'm not trying to be deductive I'm trying to be dialogical so I'm not trying to be reductive but is this is this is this the grounding of your faith do you know what I'm trying to say again I'm not talking about propositions being derived from more deeper propositions we've gone through this thing about how do you get the particularity of your Christian faith is this in that sense please be fair to me is in that sense is this the grounding of your Christian faith the way I just described it h okay so I'm going to say it back to you with with yeah slightly different way but I think I heard you um so so all three of us happen to be fathers yes their children and we have the first person experience therefore of the kosis that is intrinsic in parenting all the way down to the color of your the hair and your beard and yeah and the loss of your life you lose years for every child yes absolutely and to the unique qualities of possibility of joy that are exclusively possible in this creative act mhm gated or mediated simultaneously by both the kosis and the communion and the unparalleled degree of new qualities of grief that are available also in this experience MH and in the recognition in yourself that both in spite of and because of the a for mentioned It is incomprehensible that you could be even vaguely who you are absent that right right right right um that's probably the closest to the grounding of my faith that I can get I have a process where I go oh oh oh right if my grief at the suffering of my children is X how much greater is God's grief at the suffering of all of creation and I notice that there's something about the these connections where I can have a sense of real empathy down and and suddenly have a really weird sense of empathy up huh I get it I get it now now you know I get you God in a weird way because I kind of now I get my dad oh my actual dad which I didn't get before when my kids do something like oh I get it I get what was going on in the experience of a being who loves me from the outside like from before I existed and understands me in a certain context and there through that line there's a way of having a quality relationship with the ABA and so that like the rightness of that the way that that actually develops the way that grounds everything else and by the way in this not also philosophically and metaphysically um yeah I would say that's probably the ground of my so I heard you saying I want to put two grounds together if you'll prevent me from I hope I'm not grinding things um but um like so there was this one which is um the the onon normativity the goodness of being and therefore any attempt and I'm picking up on Jonathan here any attempt to Escape is ultimately misguided and then I'm I'm fulfilling that commitment to onto normativity get entering into reciprocal opening deeper relationship with the goodness of being and the best way I experienced that is in the kosis understood as Agape because of course parental love is the metaphor the the paradigmatic example of agapic love and Christianity um captures that sorry I don't have the right verb here but just let me use that word captures that very well for you is that is that did I say it back to you in a way that lands well the captures part is is is not quite right so yeah it's right with that yeah yeah I don't like it but something like that yeah it's more like um strengthens clarifies okay affords makes possible and supports so fors is pretty good right because they both pattern matches but more than pattern matching provides a model and more than modeling provides the embodied body of the church right an actual living incarnation of the thing that the model is conveying that is real in the sense that all the things that I know in my deepest wisdom are the right ways to be in relationship with other people are lived in the community of my church okay so um first of all thank you for this you both being very charitable to me and I appreciate that um um I do think there are versions of Buddhism that are committed deeply to Escape um Zen is a clear example of that um um you the the idea of Nirvana is escape is explicitly completely uh repeatedly rejected um and then and there is the self-tying aspect in relationship to that and then there is the you know it's not --- gape uh horizontally uh with other people and upwardly and downwardly Into the Depths and up ontologically um all of that is is the case um I but like I say and and maybe this is me me uh but I find that I don't deny that I can what everything I I can resonate with that in Christianity Jonathan I was there in the gospel seminar and I I I I made that clear but right I also have that in the depths of buddh Zen especially the deps of neoplatonism um and and and again and maybe this is ultim maybe we're pushing on something that we is maybe something that we can't ultimately uh get out into a formal thing it right um and I maybe I you know I may I may be asking for something that I can't ultimately get what I hope I've offered is a way of explicating a lot more what you were saying Jordan and this is a I think this is a much better answer if you'll allow me uh to Jim than the one that you were trying to work out uh because I think uh uh I that's that's as a friend uh because I think this is this is the kind of thing that is the way you try to persuade people um why you're a Christian in a way that I think is profoundly has a potential to be what what I hope you think it is or want it to be which is profoundly calling to them uh rather than right do you know what I mean I it's like we we went down this and there was a like I thought this was really good I thought there was this was genuine and I I I'm not trying to escape now or anything like that but but do do you do you understand what I'm saying I I like there could be a point where we're looking for a difference that we can't that's ineffable that like because I keep saying yes I have that right and and and not trivially so because I'll say this and you'll go yes that makes sense right uh and and but I'm not trying to be reductive either sorry I'm now you can see that running out because I'm starting to go into aoria so I I'll stop and let you two respond to what I just said well it's interesting so what I noticed was that um I definitely don't want to persuade anybody um I don't necessar even want to call anybody which is weird because I know that that's I think what you're supposed to do but whatever um yeah it is kind of all I want to do is tell the truth and all I want to all I want to do is follow as best I can the the model that Christ laid down for us and to the degree to which you know the spirit puts something for me to do to do it with as much skill as I can which is not much um because I don't you it's critical I don't understand I definitely know that I I It's the weird thing it's like the invert that Socrates thing I am quite certain that I don't understand how any of this works and that anything that I might try to do is definitely a bad idea idea in a very particular kind of way and so um I'm really glad that you asked us to have this conversation I had a very distinct sense that this is uh it will rile a bunch of people up but you know as you said though what it called persecuted in his sake in his name um but I feel like what we did was useful in a big way um and good very good yeah well thank you I mean this is this is if you'll allow me this is I'm trying to and I'm showing up in good faith so this wasn't instrumental or anything I I have affection I showed up in good faith but this is this this is the philosophical Silk Road I'm trying to get to where we can get into these deeply mutually transformative right dialogos about relationships to sacredness such that it's reasonable to to believe in the belan sense that we affording the the Advent of the Sacred we we're help we're affording its presencing in people's lives in a way that could matter to them um and and so that's what I wanted to do I wasn't and I I I hope I showed up that way I wasn't trying to refute anything I was I wanted I wanted to get the juice out uh if I can put it that way sorry I think there's there's also something that this is and I want to be careful you know that people don't take this the wrong way because I really am a Christian in every way I really believe Christianity is the is the fullest uh Revelation but there's also a more practical aspect which is that there's a real practical aspect to the to the idea that that we can't be meta like there's no we're not meta practitioners yeah and I think that that's what that's that's that's important too is that know the reality of of of being a Christian is not a is not lived in asking you know how better is it from then let's say right it's it's lived in your morning prayers and going to communion and to confession and to you know and and living it with your family and your community uh so so that's also like a that's something that can be completely ignored right in the discussion that although there are probably better people than us to argue like the fine points of Theology and of of of a you know and the differences let's say in in the metaphysics of of the different systems at least I know that there are better people than me to do that uh um and but there is also that other part which is which I think is important which is like I said that the Christianity I live is that's it it's like I go to church on on Sundays and I and I and I live my life in relationship with God and it's something that's that's real and existential and and uh and I actually although it has happened in my life where I've had to ask myself that question you know about different systems in moments of Crisis let's say uh that is definitely not something that feeds my everyday life like I don't I don't ask those questions most of the time you know I don't want to trespass most people don't either because yeah they live they live in the world that they live in you I'm not trying to trespass on that at all but but but you don't want that to become a justification of insularity no obvious right because the the the we the I mean and this is part of I think we Jordan and I still agree the world needs to form a a come kind of common Unity um or else we're in a lot of trouble and it's not going to happen and now we're in the Practical domain now so we've all agreed we've left down the theology it's not going to happen by converting the world into Christianity um at least you've been trying for 2,000 years it hasn't happened and so I I have a good inductive argument and so I think uh again we're now agreed that we've moved into the Practical domain at this practical domain trying to afford this kind of deep di dialogos is I think what is pertinent now in that practical domain yeah well I think there's there's always there's always room for learning from each other you know and I think that that's not I I I don't think that's that's not a problem at all I I don't see that as an issue you know and you can even learn from other people's you know you can you can meet a a a Muslim meet a Zen practitioner meet a Jew meet someone who's not in your religion and find deep admiration of their moral strength of their of their faith of their you know of of how they're transformed by by something that is beyond them and I think at least in my opinion I don't think that that's an issue at all uh for me um and so I think that there there there has to be ways that we can encounter others and learn from each other and see what's good about other other other world without it being trying to formulate constantly which world is better like no you see what I'm saying like I you you just articulated the philosophical Silk Road that's exactly the philosophical Silk Road Project as you just articulated it yeah it definitely isn't ideological right you can say for certain this definitely has nothing to do with competing ideologies or the desire to create a totalizing universal meta ideology right definitely not that um even eschatologically you know if you look at the way that's described in scripture the idea that all people are going to become Christian is just not there it's just not just not in the it's not in the story like it actually seems to go the other way it actually seems to go like you know a bunch of people are going to become Christian and then people are going to hate you and they're going to persecute you so it's not gonna it's not going to play out like in this uh I think that that Islam has a more might have a more more of a of a tendency to think that we're just going to get everybody's going to become this thing although Christians have you know definitely you're evangelized but I don't I don't see how how even in the Christianity's own Cosmo cosmology you can imagine that at some point everybody's just going to become Christian like in the escaton you know yeah I mean I again I mean there there are Eastern Orthodox David Bentley Hart who are universalists um though he's not he's not a Universalist in Kronos is he h yeah he's I if David David I I love David Bentley Hart I loved his writings for many years I thought he was amazing I I think that I think sadly I think he's he's slipping into syncretism uh his universalism is pushing him towards uh more of a syncretic approach and so I think that that's kind of that's kind of too bad a lot of his ideas are still really useful you you mean bad syncretism because all religions are syncretist in some fashion yes but they're not they're not so every everything that exist is syncretist to some fashion and then it finds unity in the multiplicity but if you when you you mean a fragmented syncretism what I mean is that when you formulate it as syncretism like when you formulate it as a kind of as a as a as a kind of Multiplicity that that isn't joined that has doesn't have to be joined in some kind of unitary practice think that's a dangerous like hodge podge I think that yeah yeah I get what you're saying that be Temptation right Temptation which is the inverse of communion that which brings a multiplicity into a false Unity that is actually just a uh con uh what's that called in Material Science like you take sand sand is actually not actually a whole thing if you melt it GL it is um so something that's interesting just to think about is the degree to which um we we each have particular callings we friends and I think becoming better friends which is really fun um yeah I love it too and those callings are distinct right John is called to this this philosophical self ro road and that's a thing that's a role it's it's a critical element of what's going on and uh Jonathan is you know clearly just getting better and better at looking really good on the internet and embodying Beauty in a way that is just you know to avoid any luck right my calling is to retire peacefully and quietly in the mountains of North Carolina and uh eat barbecue um so it's it's very liberating actually I think to recognize that if we live the way that we're living following our calling and entering into relationships that are truly grounded in this requirement of to love one another then whatever else is happening we're doing the right thing yeah I'm happy with that I I I and I I think it's fair to say that was my intent from the beginning uh right it was to try and do that I I I um I'm sort of done the problematic I wanted to to bring um and have you to respond and again uh I think you both responded very well I I I genuine the logos I got to places I couldn't get to on my own and and that matter to me and make me think uh uh deeper um on a more personal note I'm on a long journey of a kind of Repro mall with Christianity and this has been not I'm not saying I'm going to become a Christian or anything like that but this um um coming to a place where I think I can um as much as possible be healed from just a traumatic apprehension of Christianity so I wanted to thank you of that oh happy we can we can play a role role in in that that's wonderful and so I think I think this was the time we were where we we had allotted to our cell I think we we came to a good spot as you know these conversations they're always the beginning they can go on forever and so thank you both both of you for your time and your your forthright uh you know stance I really always appreciate it it's it's wonderful um and uh and yeah remind everybody by the way that I am going to be in Florida with Jordan Hall also uh and so I there might still be tickets to that event I don't know we'll put a link to it if there are tickets to it but we're going to spend a whole weekend together with a few people uh having feasting and drinking wine and having wonderful discussions it's going to be absolutely great and don't forget that John will be doing a a course on on the Cog siai ritual and that'll be part of that as well so so uh so let's let let's keep let's keep finding reasons to speak to each other and and work together so here here here here all right everyone thanks thanks for your time much love guys all right byebye take care