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The Michael Knowles Show
"The War On Christmas" | Bishop Robert Barron
00:26:11
Michael Knowles sits down with Bishop Robert Barron to discuss "The War on Christmas." Together, they explore the cultural, spiritual, and societal attacks on one of the most cherished Christian holidays. From secularization to corporate appropriation, they dive deep into how Christmas has become a battleground in the broader war against faith and tradition. Don’t miss this insightful conversation that defends the true meaning of Christmas and offers hope for keeping the holiday sacred. - - - Today’s Sponsor: Hallow - Get 3 months free at https://hallow.com/Knowles
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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
The holidays are a time to slow down and savor moments shared with those who matter most. This year. Make those moments extraordinary with Mayflower cigars. From the milder Mayflower dawn to the bolder Mayflower dusk, each blend of Mayflower Premium handmade cigars is crafted for conversation and contemplation. Give the gift of unrushed excellence this holiday season. Create your moment@mayflowercigars.com you must be 21 years old or older to order. Some exclusions apply. For those of you who don't know, Bishop Barron is not only The Bishop of YouTube, Bishop Barron is also the Bishop of Winona Rochester in Minnesota. Your Excellency, I feel like I just saw you.
- [00:41]
Bishop Robert Barron
Well, you just did.
- [00:43]
Michael Knowles
That's why. That's right. I was just up in Minnesota and we had.
- [00:47]
Bishop Robert Barron
You were indeed.
- [00:48]
Michael Knowles
We had a marvelous conversation, as I always find our conversations to be marvelous. But a topic came up that we didn't have a chance to discuss too much, so I said, all right, we have to talk about it on the show for Theology Thursday. Your Excellency, people are going to expect us to talk about Advent or about Christmas, which everyone is trying to rush along or about Santa Claus or something. But I want to talk about something much more important, and that is voluntourism. Does that work for you?
- [01:19]
Bishop Robert Barron
It works for me for sure. It's a great issue. It's a great question.
- [01:22]
Michael Knowles
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- [02:04]
Bishop Robert Barron
What do you want to know about volunteerism?
- [02:07]
Michael Knowles
Well, what I want to know is while conservatives typically we play this game, we say, when did things go off the rails? Was it in the 1960s? No, it was in the 1830s. No, it was in the Enlightenment. No, it was in the French Revolution.
- [02:23]
Bishop Robert Barron
1360S.
- [02:24]
Michael Knowles
It was the 1360s there is this issue that has cropped up and even as people discuss faith, sometimes they will say, well look, faith means you can't reason about something. Faith is the absence of reason. You just have to take a leap of faith and forget about logic and reason. And some will attack that, the atheists will attack that, and some, even Christians will say, no, it's fine, I've got my logic and my reason and my science over here, and I've just got my faith from God's will over here. That's called voluntarism.
- [03:00]
Bishop Robert Barron
Well, I mean, you're raising there the faith reason problem. That's a very serious problem. And the roots of that go back at least to the Reformation. Luther didn't hesitate to say that whore reason because he wanted so to emphasize the Bible and so emphasize faith. He didn't like the Scholastic method that used, you know, reason. Well, of course that's not the Catholic tradition at all. That's always said fides et ratio faith and reason and construes faith never as infra rational or below reason, but supra rational. It's beyond reason. Anything infra rational, that's called silliness or superstition or stupidity or naivete, we're against that. The Church is against anything below reason. But what's above reason? When reason becomes aware of its own limits. And that's a very interesting question philosophically, like when the sciences become aware of their own limit. That's when things get really interesting. When you begin searching out in a kind of meta questioning way, what are the conditions for the possibility of science. Now you're getting into something much more like mysticism, much closer to faith if you want. So that's the right way to construe faith and reason. Voluntarism, in a way, you're right, is kind of a modality of that. The voluntarist position, which is very ancient, but boy, it crops up throughout the centuries and it's present today. And it's always a source of mischief, says I'm going to privilege the divine will voluntas hence voluntarism, the divine will over the divine reason over the divine mind. God is so sovereignly absolute that his will determines everything. Now look at the upshot of that. How come two plus two equals four? Well, God willed it. How come adultery is a sin? Well, God decided. Could God decide 2 equals 5? Sure, he's God after all. Could adultery be a virtue? Sure, if God determined well, you can find that position all throughout the tradition in certain extremist folks, the Catholic tradition has always militated powerfully against it because it turns God into an arbitrary tyrant and it causes us to lose complete confidence in anything like reason. If 2 plus 2 could be 5, well then how do I know anything in mathematics or geometry or whatever? I think we talked about this the other day. Look, in certain extreme forms of wokeism, where you have even mathematics is being questioned as a kind of expression of patriarchy that's in its own way an expression of voluntarism. The Church stands athwart voluntarism. The solution, if you want, is in our hero Thomas Aquinas, who sees the divine mind and divine will basically coinciding. See, will is a modality of mind. What I mean there, what Thomas means is the good, once known as good, is ipso facto willed. That's what the will. The will is a modality of the intellect. When the intellect knows the good as good, it wants it, it desires it. So what's God's will? It's the same as the divine mind. God knows himself as supremely good, and so he wills his is good. That's why the divine mind and will coincide. When they split apart as they do in volunteerism, all kinds of mischief ensues.
- [06:24]
Michael Knowles
Right now go to hallow.com knowles Ladies and gentlemen, Christmas is upon us. What a blessed journey it has been through this season of Advent. As we celebrate the birth of our Lord in this joyous season, I want to share something that's made this time truly extraordinary. Something that has been helping many prepare their hearts through prayer and reflection. Rather than getting lost in the commercial chaos of Happy Holidays. Unless talking about Hallow, the number one prayer and meditation app that has been guiding us through its incredible Advent prayer challenge for God so loved the world. The challenge features survivalist Bear Grylls and Jonathan Roumie. From the Chosen who guide you through his severe mercy, a remarkable story of a couple's divine encounter. You will be moved by Francis Chan and Jeff Cavan's powerful scripture reflections. You'll be inspired by Kevin James discussions of the spiritual classic Divine Intimacy. What would Christmas be without music? The challenge includes beautiful Advent performances from award winning artists like Gwen Stefani, Lauren Daigle, Matt Maher and more. This Christmas, as we celebrate God's greatest gift to humanity, why not give yourself the gift of deeper spiritual connection? Experience God's transformative love through Hallow. Hallow.comKnowles get three months free Hallow.comKnowles the first time I ever even encountered the notion of voluntourism was Actually not from within the Christian tradition or even the liberal political tradition or wokeism or whatever. It was in Pope Benedict's Regensburg address when he was discussing Islam and he was quoting a medieval Islamic writer, Ibn Hazm, who said that Allah is totally transcendent, such that if Allah willed for you to worship idols, you ought to do that. And that this is different than the Christian version which understands our Lord as the divine logic of the universe, as the Logos. So I always considered it to be some foreign thing. But you do see it crop up within even the broad Christian tradition.
- [08:19]
Bishop Robert Barron
You do indeed. And that's a very interesting test case of it. And that's exactly what happens when you give pride of place to Voluntas, to will. Well then the thing is open ended. That's why Descartes, you know, who was certainly a Christian, certainly a believer, said yes, two plus two could be equal to five if God so desired. But that means something's broken apart in our fundamental metaphysics. The metaphysics again it's that of Aquinas, which, which is the divine simplicity. God is not a being, but ipsum esse, the sheer act of to be itself in and through which all things come to be. So we're creatures through the power of God sustaining us. Well, that means furthermore that the divine truth Logos can be discerned in creation. As I look mathematics, science, psychology, sociology, any of the logo are reflections of the supreme Logos of God. That's the ground for that whole approach to faith and reason and that gives us confidence in knowing the world. Voluntarism undermines that because now Logos is subordinated to will and so things are up for grabs. Why did the sciences emerge when and where they did precisely out of the Christian universities? Because of this supreme confidence that the world is marked by Logos in every nook and cranny. That's the mysticism underneath any science. You have to assume I'm going to meet a world that's marked by objective intelligibility. Well, that's grounded in the Logos of the Creator God. If you separate Logos and Voluntas, that all falls apart. Now welcome in some ways to a lot of the ecstasies of the modern world came from a breakdown in what we call a participation metaphysics. That's what Aquinas was defending.
- [10:06]
Michael Knowles
So how is that the case? Because there are going to be a lot of people listening who say, all right, well this is interesting enough, but does it really matter? In my everyday, I don't think about metaphysics. I say my prayers, I Do my job. How does it matter?
- [10:21]
Bishop Robert Barron
Well, here's how. We are meant to imitate God. That's what it means to live an upright life, is that you live in imitation of God. What does that look like on a Thomas reading? It looks like I'm gonna discern the objective values that are out there in the world. The good, the true, and the beautiful. And I'm gonna try to bring my interiority into line with those objectivities. So I'm gonna become the person God wants me to be. And those intelligibilities are on display within nature. Okay, that's a classically Catholic view. Now take the opposite. If the voluntarist God is supreme, Will is the supreme thing. Well, then I should imitate that. My will becomes the determiner of being and truth and meaning and value. Hey, what's good? Well, I mean, don't you tell me there's good for you. Good for me? I've decided my value system. You decide your value system. Now, welcome to Wokeism. Welcome to the world that we largely inhabit. See, I would argue, Michael, that voluntarism is the default epistemology of most teenagers in the west today. Right. I'm like a little God or goddess. I determine the meaning of my life. But see, the whole point of classical spirituality is not that awful game. But now to bring my life into alignment with objective moral, intellectual, and aesthetic value. So it has a huge effect. I think in many ways, the patron saint of modern volunteerism would be Nietzsche. Right?
- [11:49]
Michael Knowles
Yes.
- [11:50]
Bishop Robert Barron
God is dead. Okay, once God is dead, well, now I'm beyond good and evil. Right. Another book of Nietzsche's. If I'm beyond good and evil, what's left? Ubermensch. The Uber. The supreme will. Right. So I'm gonna impose my will as much as I can. You'll do the same thing. What do we have? A conflictual society. Again, welcome to. Much of Wokeism is a sort of popularization of Nietzsche mediated through Foucault, who was one of Nietzsche's great disciples. So my point is. I'm glad you pressed it is these seemingly, you know, arcane logic, chopping medieval debates have huge implications for our situation today.
- [12:31]
Michael Knowles
And even you mentioned Nietzsche. This means that this is not merely a problem for the political left. I mean, I'm all for taking shots at the left, and I do it frequently. But this also becomes a problem for the right because there are people who are enthralled of Nietzsche, or there are people who come out of even certain aspects of Protestantism that seem to fail favor A more voluntarist view of things who I think will just even unthinkingly embrace that understanding of God if they believe in God.
- [13:02]
Bishop Robert Barron
Well, if I could make a perhaps provocative statement. What we call left and right in our political situation can often be just debates within a fundamentally modernist point of view. And what I'm advocating. And here I'd stand with people like Russell Kirk. You know, it's that kind of conservatism that I would embrace because in a way, he tended to say, a plague on both your houses. Because he didn't want just to have a debate between elements of modernism. He wanted this classical view that's really different from the modern view. And even as that splits between more liberal and more conservative, what's needed is a really different point of view. And I would say now, speaking as a Catholic bishop and theologian, one that comes up out of this very integrated participation metaphysics, I find that's beautiful.
- [13:55]
Michael Knowles
When I argue with some of my friends, even on the right, I find myself viewing left and right sometimes as two sides of the same coin. The same coin of a fundamentally liberal modernity and modernity which looks back and mocks the scholastics, metaphysicians like St. Thomas Aquinas and say, you know, they're all just quibbling over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But it actually seems to me, I think it matters how many angels can. It matters at least what an angel is, doesn't it?
- [14:27]
Bishop Robert Barron
Yes. And of course, what you're putting your finger on, there is a tendency within largely Protestant historiography, intellectual historiography, to mock the Middle Ages, to mock all this medieval superstition. Well, come on. Anyone that reads the serious scholastics with an open mind realizes these are some of those brilliant people that the west produced, and they were wrestling with questions that, as we've been saying, have huge implications for now. Here's another one, if I could just be brief about it. The question of freedom. Right? We're Americans. We're the land of the free, and we believe in freedom. You know, well, so did the great. So does the great Catholic tradition. But it tends to construe freedom in a different way. On a more modern reading. That's why I said 1360, because people like Duns Scotus and William of Ockham come into play here. What's freedom? Well, it's hovering above the yes and the no. And on the basis of no constraint, external or internal, I decide. I decide. I go A or B. But see, that's not Aquinas understanding of freedom at all, it's not arbitrary self determination, it's rather a kind of disciplining or focusing of desire so as to make the achievement of the good possible and then effortless. So for example, you're a very free speaker of English. It's not because you speak any way you want, but rather you allowed the syntax and grammar and vocabulary and people like Shakespeare and so many others to guide your freedom so that now you can say whatever you want, you can express anything you want. The same with the moral life. It's not I decide to live any way I want to. No, I've discerned objective moral values and now I've so disciplined my will to conform to them that now being good is relatively easy to me. That's freedom, right? I'm free from attachment so as to be free for the achievement of the good. That view of freedom, that's classical, that's Aristotle, that's Aquinas, that's the Bible. The other one, I'm afraid, came roaring up into modernity, out of the late Middle ages into the moderns. And then you find this view of freedom as spontaneity. Well again, welcome to the mindset of every teenager in the West. Is that my freedom means I decide what my life is? No, your freedom is in the beautiful adventure. When guided by a mentor, you discern objective values and then you learn how to bring your life into line with them. Now we're talking. Now we're on the road to real happiness and not just an adolescent self expression.
- [17:00]
Michael Knowles
Yes, I remember I encountered this when I was reading Dinozo Cortez, the counter revolutionary writer who made this point. And it's a point that Dante makes earlier. This is a point that the ancients make quite clearly, that freedom is not neutrality of choice, but that freedom is willing, predicated on knowing meaning that it is grounded in the truth. That's Aquinas and the way it clicked for me sometimes I'm a little bit slow, having had my very modern liberal education. Liberal in the unfortunate sense, not the classical sense. I said how do I make sense of this? And Cortez points out if freedom were merely just neutral choosing, then we would be freer than God, because God does not sin. God does not. So but I'm pretty sure I'm not freer than God, therefore I must prove the old version's right.
- [17:53]
Bishop Robert Barron
Right. That's a very interesting observation. Aquinas in the Summa entertains the question whether God can sin. And you're tempted to say well, sure, of course, if God's free and he's God and I can sin, little old me, I can sin. Of course God can sin. And Thomas says, no, God can't sin. Now, on a modern reading, well, that doesn't really make a lot of sense. Classical reading makes perfect sense. Why? Cause God's will is utterly congruent with his mind, and God can't deviate from his own manner of being. And so of course, God can't sin. But that's where his freedom lies, see, that's why he's free. Now, look at the saints. A saint is someone who's achieved such a heroic virtue. That's kind of an Aristotelian sense of virtue, heroic virtue, that it's easy to be good. It's easy for the saint to be good. The trouble with us sinners is that we're always struggling against the person we're meant to be. Right? But again, the idea is to imitate the way God is free, not the way the voluntarist God is free. That's the teenager today. I'm gonna invent my own life. But that's a fantasy both in regard to God and in regard to our own wills.
- [19:04]
Michael Knowles
So then how do we shake off of it? Because I totally agree with everything you've said, and I see that the rot runs very deep. And I see that most people entertain this conception of God and of freedom, this false conception, without even really knowing it. So, all right, it's been a few hundred years now. It's been about 700 years now. Do we just throw up our hands? How does one. How does one remedy the situation?
- [19:30]
Bishop Robert Barron
Here's something I've tried. It's a kind of mockery in a way, but what I say to people is, look at your life in regard to anything you take really seriously. You will have a classical view of freedom, not a modern sense of freedom. And what I mean, let's say you're a kid. I remember when I was a kid, I was playing baseball and I just. I wanted to get better at it. I wanted to be a better player, man. I studied baseball. I looked at my day pictures of, you know, how the batters lined up. I listened to coaches, I practiced. I tried. I was trying to bring my life into conformity with the objective intelligibility of being a baseball player. Right, or you're a golfer. I'm a golfer now, as an older person. I can't play baseball anymore, but I golf. Golfers are obsessed with the law. We love the law, right? It's not an imposition. We're all, hey, hey, tell me what's. How do you put your shoulders? And where's your elbow? Go and wait. My shoulder turn isn't right. Give me the law that I might bring my bad golf into conformity with the norm of golf so I can be free to golf, right? So. Or playing a musical instrument or speaking a language, anything you take seriously. You don't think, play any way you want. Just grab that club, swing any way you want to. You'll be the worst golfer in the country. Or, you know, hey, you want to learn French? Don't worry about it. Just, you know, do whatever you want. Well, of course not. If you take it seriously, you will adopt a classical view of freedom. You will spontaneously move away from a modern sense of freedom. I remember years ago when I was in parish work, there was this young mother came, and she was bringing her son to be an altar server. And she said, you know, my husband and I have decided that we're gonna let him make up his own mind about what religion, and we want to give him now a little experience of Catholicism. And I said, the same argument. I said, yeah, but, ma'am, you would never operate that way in regard to anything you take seriously. If you wanted this young guy to play the trombone, you wouldn't say, hey, just horse around, you'd give him trombone lessons.
- [21:34]
Michael Knowles
Or even if it didn't matter, bishop of. The boy had an illness or something, and the mother wanted to help him and to get better, she wouldn't say, well, look, you go to this witch doctor, we can go to this shaman, we can go to this medical doctor, and you just pick whichever one you. She would never do that.
- [21:54]
Bishop Robert Barron
See, it's freedom run amok. It's a false sense of freedom now run amok. And that's a lot of, sadly, to my mind, a lot of the contemporary scene. And what do you see now among young people? Spiking numbers, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation? I'm not the least bit puzzled by that. If you adopt a fundamentally voluntarist, modern view of freedom, that's what you're gonna get. If you move into the classical view now, it's the intuition of value, the alignment of your life toward those values which now make you come alive, right? The great image of freedom in the Christian tradition is Jesus on the cross. And you say, well, what are you talking about? I mean, he seems to be the most unfree person possible. He's free from wealth, pleasure, honor, power, any of the attachments of the world, and he's aligned utterly to the will of his Father. So it's ironic, but the great image of freedom is the cross. Now, what does St. Paul say? It's for freedom. That Christ has set you free. Right, on nominalist grounds. It doesn't make a lick of sense. On classical grounds, perfect sense. So my message, I'm a Christian Catholic apologist and teacher, is to say, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll find the freedom you want. Don't follow these priests of baal. I mean, these false prophets. They're not leading you to freedom. They're leading you down a path of despair. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. If I can use Paul's language again. Become the slave of Christ Jesus. Paul calls himself that. I'm the Dou las Cristo Jesu. I'm the slave of Christ Jesus, and therefore I'm free. So that's the paradox. But that's the gospel.
- [23:46]
Michael Knowles
This reminds me of, you know, our Lord tells us that man who sins is a slave to sin. You think you're free when you shoot the heroin, but you're actually a slave. And then he says, you know, follow me. Take my yoke upon you. He's saying, take my yoke upon you. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. But it is a certain kind of yoke. It is a certain kind of slavery to Christ, but it's a yoke of truth. So you are a slave to the truth, a good place to be.
- [24:17]
Bishop Robert Barron
And look how that coincides perfectly with the theology we were talking about. See, in God, mind and will are coincide because of God's simplicity. God's mind and will are coincident. Well, that's what we want. See, in a way, the fall you could describe as a falling apart of mind and will, it's my will has gone this way, away from where it should go, and the drama of salvation. See, look at that image from the Lord of the yoke. You yoke two animals together. Put my yoke on yourself. So you and I are yoked together. Cause I am the way he says. So let's get yoked together, you and I, and we're gonna walk together toward the Father. And now you'll find freedom. The trouble is, you're just. You're running off, trying to plow your field in some crazy way that you've decided it's like golf. You'll be the worst. Golf forever. No, put my yoke on you. And it's actually, it's light. It's not burdensome. And then together we're gonna walk toward the Father.
- [25:14]
Michael Knowles
That's a brilliant point, too. BISHOP ON it had not occurred to me that those who would divorce will from reason are reenacting the Fall. This is the essential cracking of the Fall, right?
- [25:29]
Bishop Robert Barron
The story of the fall. It's every sinner's story. That's why you're meant to move into that space. That's the spiritual dynamic of any sinner. Oh, that won't be true. You'll be like God, see? Yes, that's exactly the problem. You think you'll be like God, but you'll be like a false God, see? You'll be aligning yourself to a phony false God. Jesus says, be ye perfect as your heavenly father's perfect. Yes, we're meant to be like God, but the right one, right? The right God, not these false gods. Put Jesus yoke on you and you'll make your way there.
- [26:06]
Michael Knowles
That is a beautiful Advent message. And, your excellency, there's so much more we could have talked about with Advent and Christmas and, I don't know, St. Nicholas or something like that, but I think actually this topic is much more urgent, especially as we consider the final things in these days of Advent. Your Excellency, thank you so much for coming on the show.
- [26:28]
Bishop Robert Barron
God bless you. Thanks, Michael.
- [26:29]
Michael Knowles
I'll look forward now. I think I see you every two days now, so I'll look forward. I don't know, I guess I'll go see you on Saturday or something. Thank you to all of you for watching. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.
- [26:41]
Bishop Robert Barron
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