← The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture
WOF 524: The Dangers of Life Becoming Too Easy
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Matthew Petrusik, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute and the host of the Word on Fire Show. Thank you for joining us. In a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, evolutionary biologist and public intellectual Brett Weinstein observed that two emerging features of contemporary societies, especially, though not exclusively in the west, are challenging the very meaning and purpose of human life. One, the decoupling of human sexuality from human reproduction, defining sex primarily as recreational, and two, with the rise of AI and robotics, the real possibility that having a job will become entirely optional in the future. Now, by secular standards, pursuing both of these goals seems entirely rational, if not laudable. Raising children and going to work are indeed challenging. So why shouldn't we live in a world in which both become increasingly rare? Weinstein, however, who doesn't profess adherence to any religious tradition, suggests that humanity may lose something important, if not essential, if we continue down this path. Is he right to be concerned? Is it in fact wise to relegate having children and going to work, which defined how most people spent most of their adult lives throughout history, entirely to the realm of subjective preference? Or in seeking ever greater freedom from these responsibilities, are we undermining what it means to live a fully human life? Here to offer a Catholic perspective on these questions is Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop, welcome back to the studio.
- [01:41]
B
Thanks, Matt.
- [01:42]
A
So today we're going to be examining the relationship between raising a family, having a job, earning a living, and having meaning in human life, based on a viral video from Brett Weinstein. But before we all of that, what have you been up to lately?
- [01:56]
B
Well, just got through the Christmas season, which is always busy in a diocese for a bishop. So I had the Simbanga Bee Mass early on. That was for the Filipino community. And then we had Masses in both my cathedrals for Christmas, lots of attendant events and liturgies and parties. So it's always kind of a good festive time. But most priests and bishops want to take a week nap after the Christmas season's over.
- [02:21]
A
Do you ever get a little time period within that for you just to kind of celebrate Christmas yourself, or is it liturgical work for the whole time?
- [02:27]
B
Well, not really. It's kind of liturgical, very public stuff. That's why I tend to go back to Chicago to visit family at Thanksgiving because it's really hard at Christmas time because I've got to be there for Christmas Day and I'd miss the Christmas party anyway. So I tend to go back at Thanksgiving. But then what I like doing like A lot of priests is some days right after Christmas. That's just downtime, you know.
- [02:49]
A
Well, let's now get into today's topic. So, as I mentioned in the introduction, there's this clip that's going around on social media. Brett Weinstein. He also oftentimes produces viral crips and.
- [02:59]
B
Was on our show a couple years ago.
- [03:01]
A
Yeah, yeah, I know. He's very interested in Word on Fire's work. So this one comes from a Joe Rogan episode, and in it, Weinstein expresses a very deep concern for two what he sees as emerging developments across the world, primarily in the west, but not only in the West. And one of them is men and women decoupling sex from having children. Of course, we see in the demographic collapse and the possibility that AI and robotics will, as Elon Musk has just overtly predicted, that within our lifetimes it will take over most of the economy. And he thinks this is going to change human life. So let me give you the full quote and then we'll break it down piece by piece. So Weinstein says, I'm quoting him here. He says, with the sexual revolution, sex became relatively easy to access as a result of reliable birth control, plus abortion. And now wealth and purchasing power, he says, is going to become trivial as a result of AI. He goes on, well, okay, then, what exactly is supposed to structure your orientation to the universe? What is supposed to give you purpose if it's not producing kids and protecting them from the horrors of the world, making them strong so they can go out into it and accomplish important things on their own, and if it isn't creating, well, so that you will be rewarded and your spouse will smile on you, then what is human purpose? And he ends with this. I think this is a terrifying prospect that everything might be taken care of for us. Now, he doesn't have any adherence to any religious tradition. So what's sort of your basic disposition to the kind of future he's describing there? Before we get into the details?
- [04:34]
B
No, that's a very insightful remark. I think I get why it's gone viral. And I hearken back to Paul vi. Humanae Vitae was saying much the same thing a long time ago in that much vilified statement, but I think has proven to be prophetic. I read this somewhere now I forget who said it, but it was. The trouble today is we've divorced the connection. We severed the connection between sex and diapers. Right. And the idea was that sex is multivalent, has all kinds of purposes. I get it. All that but that its ultimate ordering is toward the procreation of children. Well, to say procreation of children is to say infants and is to say a commitment for years and years of caring for children, of getting into the nitty gritty and difficult side of life symbolized by changing diapers. When you sever those two things and you say no, sex is just a recreational activity for my pleasure, something's gone wrong. Something's become short circuited, right? And he's right, and Paul VI saw it too, is birth control. Is the ready availability and reliability of birth control allowed that divorce to take place. But what he's seeing, and to me it's very interesting that not a Catholic, not a Christian, not really a believer, but he's noticing something disrupted at a very basic level of our human heart and psychology, and it's that orientation toward the next generation, toward caring for children, that a purpose, not the only purpose, but a very important purpose, comes from generativity and the severing of that tie. You know, we can overstate on the other side, but the severing of that tie has produced a lot of havoc and is remarkably insightful, I think. Set of observations.
- [06:36]
A
So in addition to the problems that we can now see sociologically, we can see them empirically, especially in the demographic decline to the extent that some countries, it's just now the case they won't exist in several hundred years. South Korea, for example, and others, setting those very serious issues aside, speak a little bit more positively about the way that the biblical view of reality sees the creation of new life, the raising of new life, not only as sort of a slog you have to get through, but something that genuinely contributes to human flourishing as a whole.
- [07:07]
B
Right. It's the sign of the covenant. Right. So all the covenants are accompanied by be fruitful and multiply. And our God is a living God who out of love generated the world. He didn't need the world. It was done as a sheer act of love and generosity. The sign that you're linked to that God is that you become generative in the same way, not out of need, although there's always need, because we're creatures, but out of this generous spirit. It's the sign of the covenant. It's why circumcision, we can say. What a peculiar sign. No, no. The fact that the covenant is marked on the sex organ of a man, and I'm stating it kind of bluntly there, but is to make that point, that the link to God is importantly linked to procreation and to children and to the giving of life, the lack of fecundity. Right. When we are not generative, that's a sign we've lost contact with God. And to your point, I think it's dead right. You can measure that empir as in the west, we've more and more fallen away from God. Birth rates have gone down. Now there are a lot of reasons for birth rates going down. I get it. But I think a primary reason is it's a loss of contact with the deepest source of meaning, therefore the deepest source of generativity. When I lose that, I stop going to church. I stop having children. That's not an accidental correlation at all. And look at societies or sub sectors of societies where religion is vibrant. The mark of it is procreation. The mark of it is people are very open to life. You know one of Charlie Kirk's lines, I really liked when he was urging people, he was urging like kids, get off of the pornography and get off and get married. Have more kids than you can afford to. I like that because my parents generation, they would have believed that, right? Oh boy, you can't have that many kids, you can't afford it. Yeah, I know, I know. Have more kids than you can afford. Because your life is about generativity. It's about self emptying, not satisfying your personal desires, but being generative. That's the mark of the covenant. It still is. It's still the mark that I'm in a covenantal relationship with God.
- [09:35]
A
So one of the secular ways of framing children, and you've already certainly laid the foundation for the response to this, but just to put a fine point on it, is to see children as a kind of lifestyle choice. So I choose my career, I choose where I want to live, I even choose my clothing. I also choose children as a kind of add on if I choose to have them at all. What is the fundamental problem with children? Understanding children through that primary prism of choice as an individual's or parents life plans?
- [10:07]
B
Right. Because you're still living within this very narrow framework of your self regard. You're still living as a child spiritually. See Matt, the spiritual life is sort of governed by this trajectory away from self preoccupation. You know, Augustine saw this. Augustine wasn't romantic about kids. You want to see original sin Augustine? Look at any baby. Look at a baby and any parent knows that they love their but the baby's is a bundle of self regard and need and give me and I need it right now and I'll cry Like a banshee till I get it. And I'm not making fun of children. I'm just like, that's the way children are. They're bundles of self interest. Well, the whole point of life is to grow up, is to move out of that toward self gift. Because then you're becoming more like God. And by steady progress and stages you're drawn out of your curvato sensei, you know, caved in around myself toward generosity. The trouble is, a lot of people in our society got stuck and you could say at the infantile stage or the teenager stage or whatever. But that's the problem. I always say, I'm a Simpsons fan, you know. Why is Homer so funny? Well, Homer's funny partially because he's like 38, but he has all of the instincts and interests of like a 12 year old, maybe. And what's funny is, well, no, you shouldn't be stuck there. You should be grown up now and you should be in a whole different orientation toward life. But there are a lot of people that are like Homer Simpson that are stuck. And if you say, okay, I'll have the amount of children that will suit my interests and lifestyle, you're still in an attitude of self regard. Now, just to be clear, it's not to say, you know, that every Catholic has to have 16 children. I'm just saying the church will say, of course you can space your children using proper moral means, et cetera. So I don't want to go to the other extreme. But I think the trouble today is not that sometimes the trouble today is more what he's putting his finger on. It's a kind of infantile self preoccupation.
- [12:21]
A
And the instrument is instrumentalizing of children as well, right?
- [12:25]
B
Yeah. Because again, your ego's in charge. Then. See, when you, this is, you know, that thing I've taught for years, your life is not about you. That's the sign of a kind of initiated person or a person of spiritual maturity. My life is not for me. My life is for God's purpose. It's for the other. I think of, you know, my dear father who died so many years ago, but I had zero doubt in my mind about that, that he believed that. My father, of course, believed his life was not about him, it was about his family. No question. Would my father have given his life for us? I say without a half second hesitation, yes, I knew he would because he was a person of spiritual maturity, you know, and that's why he was the inspiration that he was. But the culture has kind of moved differently. And that's worrisome in some ways.
- [13:25]
A
Move dramatically. You bring up the example. You're a father, and now you can find people in the pro choice movement who will be asked the question, well, do you think your mother should have had the right to abort you?
- [13:37]
B
And they say, absolutely, yes, I know, I've seen that. And it's like just psychologically certainty. Right, but see, it's happened certainly in my lifetime, this valorization of personal choice to the point of complete absurdity. And it doesn't matter what you're choosing, it's just that you did it. How often? Watch, go to most movies and listen to most songs, read most books. It comes down to, well, you know, he found. It's his choice. She found her own voice. I'm like, who cares? How about what you're choosing? I'm glad you got freedom to choose. I'm all in favor of freedom, but freedom needs to be ordered towards some good. And if you just bracket that, all that matters is you chose it. Yeah, I chose my way to hell. Well, good for you. Cardinal George used to say, I Did It My Way is the theme song of hell. Everyone in hell will sing I Did it My way. I mean, who cares? It's your way. Okay, I get it. But was it a good way or was it a stupid way that other guy imposes way on me? Well, did it get you to a good place? Then take it.
- [14:45]
A
Yeah, right.
- [14:46]
B
But see, it's the loss of teleology, to give it its technical term. You know, it's funny, the modern move in science away from teleology toward efficient causality, in a way, there's something that mimics it in the moral order. Right? Absolutely, that. The efficient causality of my freedom. I'm motivating this. Well, why does that matter so much, the loss of teleology? Well, what are you motivated to do? What's good about that? We've lost that. Oh, no, no, that's imposing, that's aggressive, that's imperialistic. No, that's what makes you alive.
- [15:23]
A
And you've oftentimes spoken about the collateral damage of this ideology of choice as well, that it's just a total myth that I do me, you do you, and we're all fine as long as we respect each other's sort of consensual boundaries. But we can, as you've pointed out, we see the wreckage because you've lost.
- [15:39]
B
All sense of transcendent purpose and therefore connection. Because in the classical order, together we fall in Love with something that transcends both of us. Now we're more deeply connected. If it's, you got your thing, I got my thing. I will vaguely tolerate you. You'll vaguely tolerate me. You and I have lost any connection. We live in our own little islands of self regard and talk about that being exacerbated by social media where people are indeed more and more drawn into their little world of self regard. No, the Church has got to be there to keep articulating objective value and then drawing people into real community. You can't have community without objective value. That's a paradox, perhaps, but it's true. You can't have community without objective value.
- [16:31]
A
So before we turn into the other dimension of Weinstein's observation about the loss of meaningful work, how would you respond to a secularist who says, well, look, Father, you have been able to have a meaningful life without having children, so why would you tell anyone of my persuasion, a secularist, that we need children in order to have some sort of core purpose?
- [16:56]
B
Yeah. Well, because the life of a priest is a life of generativity. So celibacy is not turning away from generativity toward self regard. It's you become. In fact, I'm called Father. I was till I became a bishop, a priest's father, which means he's giving life in the spiritual order again. Cardinal George used to say to the seminarians, you're not bachelors. You're not training to be bachelors. So a term we don't use that much anymore. But like a bachelor, you know, I'm a swinging single bachelor. That's what a preacher priest is not right. And if you start living your life that way, you've lost it. You're a father. As I said in the last, this is my wedding ring that I'm wearing here as a bishop, and I'm married to the diocese. I'm committed to Christ for the purpose of spiritual generativity. So we can talk about celibacy now. That's a whole other discussion. But it's not a question of one is generative and the other is right.
- [17:50]
A
It's a higher order of fatherhood.
- [17:51]
B
Right, Right.
- [17:52]
A
Well, let's then move to the question of the relationship between human purpose and human later. So, as Weinstein notes in the podcast the Tech Genius and Billionaire many times over, Elon Musk has predicted that the combination of artificial intelligence and robotics will again within our lifetimes. Then he gives it about 10 years. Make working in order to earn a living optional for many, if not most people. In fact, he's in the process of opening a factory producing hundreds of thousands of robots a year that will come online soon. So, Bishop, assuming this is an accurate prediction, what's your general disposition towards that kind of future? Even before we get into any details?
- [18:27]
B
Yeah, it's very disquieting. Here's the first observation, though I have is he's predicting. And predictions are always a little dicey. We've had all these technological changes over the centuries, and with each one, people have said, oh, wait a minute, all these people are going to lose their jobs. Think of the 19th century, the importance of a horse centered economy. Horses were needed for transportation, for farm work, for everything. And then when the train came along, and then a car came along, what's going to happen? Indeed, cars, we still say they have horsepower, engines have horsepower. My point there is that the economy shifted dramatically and part of it did indeed fall away. And people that were ordered to the kind of horse economy, they had to find a new footing. And will AI simply eliminate work, or will it just divert things in a different way? That's my suspicion, that certain things will fall away that are now economically really important, but others will take their place. That's my suspicion. But to your broader point, John Paul II is the guy to read here. Labor McZeroChens, his great early encyclical, that work. We shouldn't construe it simply as punishment for sin, like by the sweat of your brow. There is that dimension. But that work, he said, you know, Adam and Eve before the fall would have something like work. And indeed, tilling the garden, the soil of the garden, is evocative of that. Work is not just a drudgery or a punishment. Work is a way of engaging the mind and the heart and the body and the passions. I think if my life, if I didn't have work to do, I didn't have a book I'm working on, or I didn't have my job as bishop, I didn't have obligations to. I'd be pretty unhappy. That work calls forth our creativity and intelligence in a way that makes us feel more alive. So, I mean, my suspicion is that people will find even as the economy is shifting, with all the AI stuff, they'll still find work. Now there's kind of drudgery work, but then there's work there, artistic work, and there's, I don't know, kind of work that engages maybe higher levels of the. I think we'll find a way, is my suspicion, because without it, we're gonna Be pretty unhappy. I don't want people that are just living in a I'm gonna lie around watching television and pornography culture. And that would be the danger, you know, that I'm not called up out of myself at all.
- [21:05]
A
I think one way of framing Weinstein's concern is that when we think of work, we think of some form of compulsion attached to it because we work in order to. Not only to develop our talents and all those very good things, but also to make money. And so if we end up in a situation in which work and necessity are now separated so work becomes completely optional, then we're going to lose the motivation to work. Do you see that sort of at the human psychological level, do you see that as a potential?
- [21:38]
B
I kind of see it as a danger, as a possibility. And we just don't know the AI future. So at the robotic thing, he's envisioning robots that would take care of much of the practical need. Yeah.
- [21:48]
A
Well, Musk has claimed is that unlike previous industrial. The Industrial Revolution, the Internet revolution, all these other technological moments in history with AI and robotics, whatever new jobs are generated, the robots and AI will be able to do them. And that's different. That's his argument.
- [22:07]
B
That's categorically different. I get it. I mean, I find that creepy. When I was in Phoenix a couple months ago, for the first time, I saw in great numbers these waymos, which are the driverless cars. I found them deeply weird. And with this friend of mine, Father Muir, and it became like this running joke. I said, oh, there's one of them. And as we were going. I was going home. We're coming to the airport. And there were like 50 of them lined up to get to the airport. It did creep me out, you know. And that, to me, is symbolic of that idea. Like, we just hand everything over to these faceless machines. And, like, you know, I'm an old guy now, but I hate dealing with the Internet world. I want to talk to a person, you know, and going through all these mechanistic moves and everything. I mean, I hate all that stuff. I know younger people are more geared to it. It doesn't bother them. I'd hate to have my life completely governed by robots.
- [23:07]
A
You're here. Although we do love our Roomba, which is. Do you have, like, a very common.
- [23:13]
B
I find those creepy too. Was somewhere recently and the thing is moving. Where's it going? And how do you know? I saw. I was at a restaurant and it was delivering food. That was it.
- [23:22]
A
Yeah, those are there now, too.
- [23:23]
B
Yeah, that was creepy. That was Phoenix too. That was Phoenix's bad mouthing Phoenix.
- [23:28]
A
Yeah, well, we, we will see. It's just sort of a matter of, of, of fact. We will start seeing these Elon Musk humanoid robots everywhere. They'll, they'll, they'll be out and about.
- [23:37]
B
Yeah, and that's 1984 kind of stuff. And yeah, I, I know that's spooky.
- [23:43]
A
Let's start abstracting a bit from the empirical situation, what's unfolding in front of our eyes right now. Start from a theological, anthropological perspective. Bishop, is it possible in principle for AI robotics to replace the sort of human genius?
- [24:00]
B
Well, no, and I feel strongly about that and I'll speak with some confidence there because that comes up in these conversations. These really do have consciousness. I spoke at the USCCB about this. We had a guy come in, his good presentation on AI and this question, and I shared how when I was at the Vatican for this conference, there was kind of a whiz kid from the UK who was doing all this stuff, and he was arguing we're just on the verge of these machines becoming, in every relevant sense of the term, conscious. And I contested it. I said, no, it's a simulacrum of consciousness. And I went through some of the classical marks of true consciousness, of, you know, self reflection and true abstract intellection and this sort of thing and, and true intentionality. I think of my mentor, Robert Sokolowski and the, you know, phenomenology of mind people. And I. So I, I don't think that's right. And here's the problem. AI, whatever you say about it, is managing or ordering, often at a very high level, information and data that's already there. But they're not creative. There's a simulacrum of creativity, but they're not truly creative. And that's the danger. If we say, all right, let's just put X, Y and Z into this machine and out will come a story, out will come a novel, but they'll be lousy novels. They won't be the real, they won't be Dostoevsky, and we'll just be rearranging and managing what we already know rather than creating something new. So I do worry about that. And that spark of originality, creativity, real intellection, real intentionality, that belongs to proper human consciousness, that doesn't belong to AI.
- [25:49]
A
I think your insight there provides the basis, I think, to the answer to this next question. But just to get it also on the table, the work awareness fires evangelize the culture. One of those is to help move the culture in a way that leads to human flourishing. So what kind of arguments can we offer? The kind of temptation that most people are going to feel to move towards a total reliance on artificial intelligence, not only in the physical spaces, but in their entertainment, in their reading, in their consumption of news. What's a robust Catholic response to say, it's a tool, but. But it's not the totality.
- [26:26]
B
No, I'd use that language as a tool. Fine. And it can be helpful. We all use it in different ways. I mean, increasingly online, we're using forms of AI. Okay, fine, if it's a tool. But don't surrender your own intentionality, creativity, your own authority as someone made in the image and likeness of God. So we would say that means intelligence, will, freedom, and I would say intentionality that makes us like unto God. And don't surrender that to this simulacrum of consciousness that can function as a tool to help us. Fine. But don't surrender to it. You know, it has occurred to me, even as I would never let go of our GPS and my Waze app, and I rely on it all the time, but I know it's made me less intelligent spatially. When I was a young man, and you get in the car and, okay, how did I get here? And how do I retrace that? And I was much better at that.
- [27:25]
A
You map it out.
- [27:25]
B
Yeah. There are times in my own diocese here when I'm going way out west somewhere and I found my way through GPS to some little parish, and then I'm gonna go home and it's not working. I have this sinking feeling like I don't know how to get back to these press. But, you know, for years and years and years, of course, I had to do it that way. If I made it to some place, well, I gotta get home. And somehow my brain was better, I think, at doing that than it is now.
- [27:50]
A
Well, again, there's empirical evidence showing that average human IQ is dropping in real time.
- [27:55]
B
No, I believe it. And that's disturbing, though, isn't it? So, look, the Church is the bearer of the intelligence of the west for a long time. Maybe we should reclaim that.
- [28:06]
A
There's another interesting dimension to Weinstein's observation where he connects earning a living, emphasis on earnings, to giving, impressing your spouse. And he means it not just in a superficial way, but I'm giving you. I made this for you. What do you think about that insight? That in order to truly give a gift to someone, There has to be work involved.
- [28:26]
B
Well, I'll go back to my early, early days as a philosophy student when I did some work on Marx. The young Marx talked a lot about this, and it's very interesting. John Paul II's Laborum exercance does have elements of Marx's analysis of work, that work, because Marx famously called the human being the productive animal. So he was departing from Aristotle and the classical tradition of the rational animal, the productive animal. But I think, in a way articulates that well, that in our very productivity, we realize our capacities and our powers. And he says, we see ourselves reflected in the beauty of our craftsmanship. Let's say we've made something, and we say, oh, I made that, and it reflects back to me my own powers. But also to your point, now, as I give that to someone else, I'm giving you something that's really precious in me.
- [29:20]
A
That's right.
- [29:22]
B
See? And what bothered Marx was if I'm in the 19th century context, I'm working on a factory line and I'm making pins and I'm repetitious, and there's nothing of my own creativity. And I see, in fact, in that pin my own suffering and alienation. Well, he's right about that. I mean, we should see in our work something of our own beautiful creativity, and then that enables us to make of that a gift to someone else. Yeah, I buy all that. And if we surrender all that to AI. My AI. Machine made this for you.
- [29:53]
A
Yeah.
- [29:54]
B
We're going to lose something.
- [29:55]
A
Gifts will be meaningless, in a sense.
- [29:58]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [29:59]
A
Because they'll be free.
- [30:00]
B
Yeah. Too easy. Too easy. Right.
- [30:03]
A
So before we move to our listener question, just addressing a kind of devil's advocate position, perhaps literally where a secularist had come along and say, well, look, you Christians say that you want to go to heaven, a place where there's no procreation, there's not even any marriage there, and where everybody has everything that they need. That's your goal, Christians. So what is your objection to us trying to do that now with these new technologies?
- [30:32]
B
The objection would be, see heaven. We should never construe it as like lying in a hammock, like, all right, I'm done, and I'm going to eat bad food and get fat and line my hammock. That's not heaven. Heaven would be the full engagement of our powers. That's why I see the beatific vision as an image is good and obviously beautiful, that I'm going to see what I've always longed to see. I'll understand. But I always like the image of heaven as a city, and that's biblical. The new Jerusalem, a city. There's sports and entertainment and there's business and there's finance and there's people hustling and bustling and there's a lot of things going on and interactivity. And that gives you a sense of what heaven will be like. Our powers fully engaged. Here's something I used to think about when I was in California. I had this lovely house in Santa Barbara. Had a back porch, you know, and looking up at the mountains. Lovely. I loved it. And I had this nice chair, and I would sit there. Now, compare that experience of let's. First thing in the morning, sitting there, looking up at the mountains.
- [31:33]
A
Beautiful.
- [31:34]
B
But compare it to, let's say later in the day I've gone for a vigorous hike in the mountains and I worked up a sweat. And I've come back after, like, an hour. And then with a cool drink, I sit down in that chair, which is a better experience. The second one is a better experience because it's preceded by work. If you want. There was some achievement or some awakening of my powers. Heaven is like that. It's not like, all right, everything's taken care of, and I'm just gonna sit here in my hammock. That phrase we say, rest in peace, requiesca and pace. To rest doesn't mean a hammock. To rest there means to rest in the good. So that someone who's playing a vigorous game of tennis is at rest in that sense. Someone who's in a vigorous debate and conversation and loving every minute of it. That's a form of rest. Right. That's what we mean when we say, may he rest in peace. Not. Not a hammock. But may all your powers be fully engaged. Like, is there productivity in heaven? Sure. If by that you mean this engagement of our powers. I've wondered, Mozart. Is Mozart still composing in heaven? Well, why not? Why not? So that's why we say procreation. Not in this sort of animal sense. But is there generativity and creativity and all that? Yeah, sure. I think to the nth degree.
- [33:02]
A
You know, Augustine, as you know, makes a distinction between desire and enjoyment, and he associates enjoyment with heaven. So would your claim be that enjoyment is something that's active? It's something that you do.
- [33:11]
B
That's right. That's right. It's not like, just. And even, like, say, you're watching a movie. If you're really watching a movie, that's Not a passive experience at all.
- [33:18]
A
Exactly.
- [33:19]
B
You're very engaged. If you're a baseball fan, watching a baseball game is a very active process. Right. So, yeah, it's the UTI frui distinction, Augustine. So to enjoy, and that's a good word, enjoy. It's like I'm being drawn into the joy of this thing. It's a very active awakening of your powers.
- [33:43]
A
Let's now move to our listener question. Today we have Jessica from California asking how to address fallen away Catholics, especially if they're related to in your family, when they tell you, I don't need to go back to church because God loves me just the way I am Him. Hi, Bishop Baron, this is Jessica from California. And my question is in regards to fallen away Catholics in particular in our families that are living lives that are not conducive of a relationship with Christ living in mortal sin. Often they will say, if God is love, then he loves me as I am. How can we respond to this in a way that's constructive and helpful in encouraging them back to the faith?
- [34:29]
B
Yeah, no, thank you. It's a good pastoral question. Anyone involved in pastoral ministry faces some version of that question. You know, I think a lot of it goes back to the proper definition of love. As I've said following Aquinas, to love is to will the good of the other. So to say that God loves me, of course, I wouldn't exist unless God loved me. Me. God wills me good. So in the measure that I exist, I've been loved. I've been loved into existence. Whatever powers I have, whatever good is in me is the result of God's love. Of course God loves me. What doesn't God love? God doesn't love resistance to him. He doesn't love what's opposed to him. So to say he loves me just as I am, that's not right. Because there might be an element of who I am that's opposed to God's will. And he doesn't love that. He loves you and therefore wants to draw you out of that into something better. So now that's the theoretical way to state it. You're raising the practical question, which is a much more difficult one. How do you do that? You know, you hang in there with people. You don't sever ties with them. You stay connected. Did you prove your own love for them by willing they're good and you find the way? It's hard. There's never an easy way to do it, to communicate that there's a way you're living that is not for your good. And urge people to see that, help them see it. You can't drop that truth on them and then walk away. That's the other important thing. You drop the truth on them and then walk with them. Now, I know that's all easy for me to say sitting at this table. And every priest faces it, family members face it all the time. But those are kind of the parameters. The phrase God loves me just as I am, I wouldn't use that phrase. That's a secular kind of thing. God loves me, right? He wills my good. I wouldn't exist otherwise. But that means he wants me out of patterns of life that are hurting me, you know, so he loves me for his own sake. He loves me and he wants me fully alive. Something like that.
- [36:44]
A
Well, thank you so much, Jessica, for reaching out to us. If you would like to ask Bishop Barron a question on a future Word on Fire show, please visit askbishopbarron.com Again, that's askbishopbarron.com we always love to hear from you. Well, thank you very much. A very stimulating conversation as always, Bishop.
- [37:01]
B
Well, thank you, Matt, for the good.
- [37:02]
A
Question that does it for us today. Thanks for joining us on the Word on Fire show. If you're interested in learning more about how Word on Fire can help you grow closer to Christ, become a better evangelist with and for others, and work for the common good, consider joining the Word on Fire Institute. Check us out at institute.WordPress.org that's institute.WordPress.org we'll see you next time.