# Bishop Barron on Not Dumbing Down the Faith_ Answers to Young People's Pressing Religious Questions

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 6 Aug 2026, 1 h 02 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/73269756/bishop_barron_on_not_dumbing_down_the_faith_answers_to_young_people_s_pressing_religious_questions.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Well, good, good morning everybody. And you know, my first
[0:03] Speaker 1: happy responsibility is to thank all of you, and I
[0:07] Speaker 1: mean that from the bottom of my heart. I mean,
[0:10] Speaker 1: I know two things. One how important it is to
[0:15] Speaker 1: be communicating the faith in the next generation. Secondly, how
[0:18] Speaker 1: hard it is today, especially with the rising tide of
[0:22] Speaker 1: you know, secularism and kind of indifferentism. It's always hard
[0:27] Speaker 1: to teach young kids. I mean, it's always difficult to challenge,
[0:30] Speaker 1: but I think, especially today, it's a challenge. So thank you.
[0:34] Speaker 1: And I say that on my own behalf, but also
[0:37] Speaker 1: on behalf of the church. What you do is supremely important,
[0:43] Speaker 1: and God bless you for your willingness, you know, to
[0:45] Speaker 1: share the faith with young people. So good. What I
[0:50] Speaker 1: want to talk about today, you know, you know this.
[0:54] Speaker 1: I've been being this drum for a long time, to
[0:57] Speaker 1: stop dumbing down the faith, to present the faith in
[1:00] Speaker 1: intellectually compelling way. And I say it, everybody, not just
[1:04] Speaker 1: because you know my background is in teaching and theology
[1:08] Speaker 1: and philosophy. I say it because of my study of
[1:13] Speaker 1: the unaffiliated. The last several years, I've been really paying
[1:17] Speaker 1: a lot of attention to the surveys of the so
[1:20] Speaker 1: called nuns right, the nones, those who have disaffiliated from religion.
[1:26] Speaker 1: The numbers I've shared them many times are startling. Twenty
[1:29] Speaker 1: six percent of our country right now would say they
[1:32] Speaker 1: have no religion. It was three percent when I was
[1:35] Speaker 1: a kid. So it's a tremendous increase. And it's worse
[1:39] Speaker 1: among younger people thirty and younger, the numbers go up
[1:42] Speaker 1: to as high as forty percent. And furthermore, the kids
[1:47] Speaker 1: that you're dealing with, most of you, that's where the
[1:50] Speaker 1: battle is being fought, that a lot of people are disaffiliating,
[1:54] Speaker 1: younger and younger. Now, as part of those surveys, something
[1:58] Speaker 1: I've discovered is when they ask how come you left, Well,
[2:04] Speaker 1: they give a variety of reasons. That's true, and I've
[2:06] Speaker 1: given presentations on all the different reasons. But time and again,
[2:12] Speaker 1: number one reason that the young people give for leaving
[2:15] Speaker 1: is I don't believe the teachings. I don't believe the doctrines.
[2:22] Speaker 1: Another way they put it is this I never got
[2:27] Speaker 1: my questions really answered. Now again, there are other reasons
[2:32] Speaker 1: they give for disaffiliating. It's not just this, But I'm
[2:35] Speaker 1: continually impressed by the fact that number one reason is
[2:39] Speaker 1: for want of a better term and intellectual reason, they
[2:42] Speaker 1: were not intellectually satisfied by what they were hearing in
[2:47] Speaker 1: our classes and courses. Now again, everyone, please don't misunderstand me.
[2:52] Speaker 1: I'm not saying for a second that the whole thing
[2:55] Speaker 1: should be reduced to academics and to theological correctness. No, no, no.
[3:02] Speaker 1: All the things that we do, and I'm talking here
[3:04] Speaker 1: about forming young people in prayer, forming them in liturgy,
[3:08] Speaker 1: forming them in a good community sensibility, forming them in
[3:13] Speaker 1: retreat experiences, forming them through outreach to the poor and
[3:17] Speaker 1: the sick and the marginalized. Those are all super important.
[3:21] Speaker 1: So please don't misunderstand me as though I'm saying all
[3:24] Speaker 1: that secondary. It's not. It's not. In fact, when you
[3:28] Speaker 1: look at the surveys, many of the disaffiliated will say,
[3:32] Speaker 1: you know, I do fondly remember prayer experiences, I do
[3:38] Speaker 1: fondly remember retreat experiences. And maybe above all, they'll say,
[3:42] Speaker 1: I fondly remember when we were encouraged to do works
[3:46] Speaker 1: of social justice. So those things remain of tremendous importance.
[3:51] Speaker 1: Keep doing them, please, But can I suggest we should
[3:56] Speaker 1: put a renewed stress on answering the questions that they
[4:00] Speaker 1: have is addressing some of the concerns that they say
[4:04] Speaker 1: were not answered in their religious ed classes, and I
[4:08] Speaker 1: want to make it now even a little more precise.
[4:11] Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys know about the website
[4:14] Speaker 1: Reddit ridd well. Reddit is one of the most popular
[4:18] Speaker 1: websites in the whole world, and it's a forum for
[4:22] Speaker 1: the exchange of ideas and opinions. The people that use
[4:26] Speaker 1: it are disproportionately younger people, and probably disproportionately males over females.
[4:32] Speaker 1: They'll say young men from eighteen to thirty, but generally
[4:35] Speaker 1: it's younger people use Reddit well. Reddit has a feature
[4:39] Speaker 1: and my word on fire. Folks told me about this
[4:41] Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, called Ama and AMA means
[4:45] Speaker 1: ask me anything. So people come on Reddit from different
[4:49] Speaker 1: walks of life and they'll say I'm so and so,
[4:52] Speaker 1: and they could be famous people or they represent some
[4:54] Speaker 1: walk of life and they say, AMA, ask me anything,
[4:58] Speaker 1: and then the debate is es right. So I was
[5:02] Speaker 1: encouraged to get on there simply to announce myself as
[5:06] Speaker 1: I'm a Catholic bishop who loves to engage atheists and
[5:09] Speaker 1: seekers and non believers. Right, So I would be willing
[5:13] Speaker 1: to bet most people ninety eight percent of people on
[5:16] Speaker 1: Reddit didn't know who I am. But I announced myself
[5:19] Speaker 1: that way. I'm a Catholic bishop that loves to engage
[5:22] Speaker 1: seekers and non believers. Well, I've done it twice now.
[5:26] Speaker 1: First time I was the number three most popular Reddit
[5:29] Speaker 1: in the whole year. I was right after like Bernie
[5:31] Speaker 1: Sanders and Jordan Peterson, no kidding. The second time I
[5:35] Speaker 1: did it, I was number two in the country, after
[5:38] Speaker 1: I think Bernie Sanders. Now again I'm saying it not
[5:40] Speaker 1: because they know who I am. I'm sure they didn't
[5:43] Speaker 1: know who I am, but that a religious person came
[5:46] Speaker 1: on this website frequented by young people and said, hey,
[5:50] Speaker 1: ask me anything, and it proved to be massively popular,
[5:57] Speaker 1: now massively obscene, you know, obnoxious and all that too.
[6:03] Speaker 1: You believe me, You're gonna hear everything on Reddit. But
[6:06] Speaker 1: I got in both cases, like tens of thousands of questions, observations,
[6:12] Speaker 1: et cetera. Now, once you you wade through all the
[6:17] Speaker 1: kind of obnoxious, obscene things and all that, and there's
[6:20] Speaker 1: plenty of it, but you can discover a lot of
[6:24] Speaker 1: really good, honest questions and they fell very recognizably into
[6:30] Speaker 1: certain patterns. And what I want to do is share
[6:34] Speaker 1: with you the top three questions I got on my
[6:36] Speaker 1: two times on redditt Ama, and then try to say
[6:39] Speaker 1: something about each one. So that's the way I'm going
[6:42] Speaker 1: to structure the talk today. Here are the three questions.
[6:46] Speaker 1: No doubt, no doubt at all that these were the
[6:49] Speaker 1: number one number top three. First one, is there a God? Bishop?
[6:58] Speaker 1: Prove to me there's a God. I heard that thousands
[7:02] Speaker 1: and thousands of times. Second one, what about the problem
[7:07] Speaker 1: of evil and suffering? So Bishop, you say, there's an
[7:10] Speaker 1: all loving God, but yet the world is full of
[7:12] Speaker 1: all this suffering and negativity. Hotty explain that. Third one,
[7:17] Speaker 1: and I found this one maybe most intriguing because I
[7:19] Speaker 1: wasn't quite expecting it. Third one, though real popular. How
[7:24] Speaker 1: do you know of all the religions of the world
[7:27] Speaker 1: and all the religious philosophies, that somehow your religion is
[7:31] Speaker 1: the right religion? You can check it, by the way,
[7:35] Speaker 1: go I think you can still find I don't know
[7:36] Speaker 1: how long they're up there, but just look it up
[7:38] Speaker 1: on Reddit, look up my name and you can find
[7:41] Speaker 1: these streams of questions, and you'll find these are the
[7:45] Speaker 1: top three. So what I want to do now, just
[7:48] Speaker 1: this brief time, and I hope I have a chance
[7:50] Speaker 1: to engage you too, is just say something about each
[7:53] Speaker 1: one of these three leading questions, because trust me when
[7:58] Speaker 1: I tell you, the young people you're dealing with, they
[8:01] Speaker 1: got these questions. They got these questions. Okay, So, first
[8:05] Speaker 1: of all, God's existence. Is there a God? I can't
[8:10] Speaker 1: tell you how many times I heard it, show me
[8:13] Speaker 1: there's a God, prove to me that God exists? And boy,
[8:17] Speaker 1: how many times did they say something like, you know,
[8:20] Speaker 1: and people just told me when I was growing up,
[8:22] Speaker 1: just believe it, just have faith in it, and they
[8:26] Speaker 1: told me that is not enough. That did not satisfy me.
[8:30] Speaker 1: But know one thing that really struck me, I don't
[8:32] Speaker 1: think I one time on Reddit saw anybody engaging any
[8:38] Speaker 1: of the famous arguments for God's existence, even though Gosh,
[8:42] Speaker 1: in our tradition, as you well know, there are a
[8:45] Speaker 1: lot of them. There's a book I just read recently
[8:47] Speaker 1: and it was dealing with about twenty four of the
[8:50] Speaker 1: classical arguments for God's existence that people have developed over
[8:54] Speaker 1: the centuries. But on Reddit, Ama, not one kid ever
[8:58] Speaker 1: said to me, Oh, and by the way, I listened
[9:01] Speaker 1: to this argument, and here's why I don't agree with it. No,
[9:04] Speaker 1: it's as though they'd never never heard of them. It
[9:06] Speaker 1: was just a matter of this kind of kooky belief
[9:09] Speaker 1: that my teachers proposed to me, and there's no good
[9:11] Speaker 1: reason for it, and I don't get it. So that
[9:14] Speaker 1: struck me as interesting that somehow we by we here
[9:18] Speaker 1: I mean all of us involved in religious education Catholic, Protestant, Jewish,
[9:22] Speaker 1: everything else, that somehow we have not communicated well to
[9:26] Speaker 1: our young people. That there is a very richly intellectual
[9:30] Speaker 1: tradition around this question. So I said, there are twenty four.
[9:35] Speaker 1: There are many more than that too. Can I just
[9:37] Speaker 1: explore with you two approaches to God? And at my
[9:44] Speaker 1: starting point for each one is going to be something
[9:46] Speaker 1: that I think young people find especially compelling. So let
[9:51] Speaker 1: me just talk about two of them. The first one
[9:54] Speaker 1: begins with the sciences. And I'm being purposely a little
[9:59] Speaker 1: bit provocative here, because, boy, one thing you hear from
[10:03] Speaker 1: the young people is well, science disproves religion. You know,
[10:07] Speaker 1: religion makes all these kooky claims. And then science came along,
[10:10] Speaker 1: and boy, it's got you know, empirical analysis, and it
[10:14] Speaker 1: forms hypotheses in a responsible way. It does experiments, it
[10:17] Speaker 1: draws conclusions, we have testable results, and the sciences have
[10:22] Speaker 1: produced the technology. It's working right now for all of us.
[10:26] Speaker 1: But from the iPhone that every kid has in his pocket.
[10:29] Speaker 1: It's produced a technology which has made life so much
[10:31] Speaker 1: richer and better and more comfortable. And so heck, the
[10:35] Speaker 1: science has seem great, and haven't they disproven religion? And
[10:41] Speaker 1: they look at religion and again I heard this like
[10:43] Speaker 1: crazy on the Reddit forum. You know, these old texts
[10:47] Speaker 1: from the ancient world that seems so crazy and contradictory,
[10:53] Speaker 1: and you know so much has been debated and unresolved
[10:58] Speaker 1: and mrked. So you get that religion seems kind of
[11:03] Speaker 1: shaky and ancient and questionable, and then the sciences seem
[11:07] Speaker 1: so smart and testable and beneficial. So if it's a
[11:13] Speaker 1: war between religion and science on those terms, guess who's
[11:16] Speaker 1: going to win. And the kids say it all the time.
[11:19] Speaker 1: Science is better than religion. Science disproves religion. Okay, and
[11:25] Speaker 1: I've talked about this another. I can't go to all
[11:27] Speaker 1: the details about religion and science. But what I want
[11:29] Speaker 1: to do here is to start actually with the sciences,
[11:36] Speaker 1: start at the very heart of all the sciences. What
[11:42] Speaker 1: is the basic assumption? And I would call it everybody, frankly,
[11:47] Speaker 1: a mystical assumption that stands behind all the sciences. Whether
[11:54] Speaker 1: it's psychology's biologies, chemistry, its physics, whatever, it is. The
[11:59] Speaker 1: assumption that stands behind all the sciences is that reality
[12:06] Speaker 1: is intelligible. Fancy way of saying it can be known.
[12:13] Speaker 1: It has a pattern that corresponds to the questing mind.
[12:19] Speaker 1: I think about for a second, if the world was
[12:21] Speaker 1: just a chaotic jumble, well, how would the scientists go
[12:25] Speaker 1: out to meet it with what kind of confidence? If
[12:29] Speaker 1: the world was just chaotic jumble of nonsense, no scientific
[12:34] Speaker 1: mind would go out to meet it with confidence. Rather,
[12:39] Speaker 1: there is something like pattern form intelligibility on the grandest
[12:48] Speaker 1: possible scheme and in every nook and cranny of the universe.
[12:53] Speaker 1: In fact, isn't it interesting? I remember talking to my nephew.
[12:57] Speaker 1: My nephew, Drew is a really smart kid. He's now
[13:00] Speaker 1: at MIT SO doing the highest level right math and
[13:04] Speaker 1: physics and all that stuff. And I said, Drew, what
[13:08] Speaker 1: I find really interesting is that reality, as you're analyzing
[13:12] Speaker 1: it as an engineer, now you know, corresponds to the
[13:18] Speaker 1: most complex mathematics. You know, as you're analyzing the world,
[13:23] Speaker 1: so you can build bridges and build buildings and construct
[13:27] Speaker 1: things and so on. Well, you're using the most sophisticated
[13:32] Speaker 1: complex mathematics to do that work. Well, why does it
[13:37] Speaker 1: work that way? Why would that complex mathematics correspond to
[13:41] Speaker 1: the real world that you're dealing with. Where does the order,
[13:50] Speaker 1: pattern and intelligibility of the world come from? You know,
[13:57] Speaker 1: Einstein said this. He has a lot of interesting quotes
[14:00] Speaker 1: about kind of science and religion, but my favorite is
[14:03] Speaker 1: this one. The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is
[14:10] Speaker 1: that it's comprehensible because the more you stare at that,
[14:14] Speaker 1: the stranger it becomes. Right, Why should the world have
[14:18] Speaker 1: these incredibly complex mathematical patterns of intelligibility? But it does,
[14:24] Speaker 1: because otherwise the sciences wouldn't even get off the ground.
[14:30] Speaker 1: Joseph Rotzinger in his Wonderful Introduction to Christianity Chris Rotzinger
[14:35] Speaker 1: becomes pulpenit at the sixteenth Rozenger says, the only finally
[14:40] Speaker 1: satisfying explanation for the intelligibility of the world is some
[14:48] Speaker 1: intelligence which has placed that patternness, that order, that intelligibility
[14:56] Speaker 1: into things Rotzeinger observes on me always loves this. He said,
[15:01] Speaker 1: our language gives this away because when we come to
[15:05] Speaker 1: know something, we say that we recognize it. Right, I
[15:09] Speaker 1: recognize the truth of that, recognize recognize right, I think again,
[15:19] Speaker 1: what's already been thought? No. No, In the beginning was
[15:26] Speaker 1: the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
[15:29] Speaker 1: Word was God, and through that word all things came
[15:32] Speaker 1: to be. The great claim of the Bible is the
[15:36] Speaker 1: world is not dumbly there. The world is intelligibly there
[15:41] Speaker 1: because it has been spoken into being. Don't literalize that language.
[15:46] Speaker 1: That's beautiful high poetry to express what I've just been describing.
[15:52] Speaker 1: The World's not dumbly there. It's not chaotically there, but
[15:55] Speaker 1: rather it's intelligibly there because it's been known into being
[16:03] Speaker 1: by a great primordial intelligence. Another thing is interesting, everybody,
[16:09] Speaker 1: many have pointed out. Ratzinger included, it's no accident that
[16:14] Speaker 1: the modern physical sciences that we all honor and reverence
[16:18] Speaker 1: as we should emerge when and where they did, which
[16:23] Speaker 1: is to say, out of the great Christian universities of Europe.
[16:28] Speaker 1: They came out of a thought world that took for
[16:30] Speaker 1: granted creation, the idea that all of reality has been
[16:35] Speaker 1: stamped by a primordial intelligence. And look at the first
[16:40] Speaker 1: great scientists, almost without exception, they were all devoutly religious people,
[16:45] Speaker 1: because the sciences came up out of that matrix. I'll
[16:49] Speaker 1: leave you just with this quote from Paul Davies. Paul
[16:52] Speaker 1: Davies is a very interesting Australian physicist, high high level physicist,
[16:57] Speaker 1: but writes a lot about science and religion. He wrote
[17:00] Speaker 1: an article where he was kind of tweaking the noses
[17:03] Speaker 1: of his scientific colleagues, and his simple question was this,
[17:08] Speaker 1: where do you think the laws of nature come from?
[17:13] Speaker 1: That's a good question. So he's making the point that
[17:17] Speaker 1: I'm trying to make here that all of the sciences
[17:20] Speaker 1: rest upon the assumption that there's a law like quality
[17:24] Speaker 1: to reality. Huh, where's that come from? How do you
[17:29] Speaker 1: explain that? I might suggest it's a good way for
[17:32] Speaker 1: our young people who are properly enamored of the sciences
[17:36] Speaker 1: to see the link between science and religion. They're not enemies. No.
[17:43] Speaker 1: In fact, religion is right there at the very heart
[17:46] Speaker 1: of science if we look at it the right way. Okay,
[17:50] Speaker 1: here's my second approach. So that's the first one. Through
[17:53] Speaker 1: science The second one also starts with something I think
[17:57] Speaker 1: almost all young people take for granted and reverence. I'm
[18:02] Speaker 1: talking about the objectivity of moral value. The objectivity of
[18:10] Speaker 1: moral value. Now, I don't mean here that we should
[18:15] Speaker 1: start with the church's sexual teaching. They don't like the
[18:18] Speaker 1: church's sexual teaching, so that comes through in every single survey.
[18:23] Speaker 1: I'm not saying the church is sexual teaching is wrong.
[18:25] Speaker 1: I don't think it's wrong, but the young people don't
[18:27] Speaker 1: like it, so I wouldn't recommend starting with that. However, However,
[18:32] Speaker 1: almost without exception, they do like the great values of
[18:37] Speaker 1: social justice, don't they. You talk to young people, what
[18:41] Speaker 1: really motivates them? That there are these great social justice values.
[18:48] Speaker 1: That you shouldn't abuse the poor and the marginalized, That
[18:52] Speaker 1: you should not be sexist, that you should not be oppressive,
[18:57] Speaker 1: That something like slavery is clear the wrong, the human
[19:01] Speaker 1: trafficking it's a terrible thing. Racism that's wrong. I mean,
[19:05] Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know one young person that
[19:07] Speaker 1: would would disagree with any of that. Do you well?
[19:11] Speaker 1: What they're acknowledging is there's an objective moral value involved there.
[19:17] Speaker 1: If you were to say no, no, I think morality
[19:20] Speaker 1: is just a question of you know, your subjective opinion. So, yeah,
[19:24] Speaker 1: I know you think slavery is a bad thing. But
[19:26] Speaker 1: if someone else think slavery's okay, well that's all right.
[19:29] Speaker 1: We should be tolerant and inclusive. I don't know one
[19:33] Speaker 1: young person that would say that, do you or you know, yeah,
[19:36] Speaker 1: I mean sexism. Sure, I think that's wrong. It's my
[19:39] Speaker 1: subjective opinion. But someone else they might think no sexism
[19:42] Speaker 1: is fine. Would they buy that? Or you know all
[19:47] Speaker 1: the Nazis? Yeah, I mean sure, I think that's a
[19:50] Speaker 1: terrible thing what Hitler did. But you know, if that
[19:52] Speaker 1: was the consensus of the people of that time, and
[19:54] Speaker 1: who am I to tell them when they're wrong. I
[19:57] Speaker 1: don't know any young person that would ever say such
[19:59] Speaker 1: a thing. You see what they're resisting, and they're dead
[20:02] Speaker 1: right about it. They're resisting the tendency to turn objective
[20:07] Speaker 1: moral value into simply a matter of subjective preference. Now.
[20:12] Speaker 1: I know, I know we so highly value inclusivity and
[20:16] Speaker 1: diversity and all those good things, but when it comes
[20:19] Speaker 1: to these primal moral truths, I don't find young people
[20:24] Speaker 1: subjectivists at all. I think they hold to objective moral
[20:29] Speaker 1: value Okay. Just as in the scientific order, where do
[20:36] Speaker 1: the laws of nature come from? Where do these objective
[20:40] Speaker 1: intelligibilities come from? So here? Now in the moral order,
[20:45] Speaker 1: where do these objective moral values come from? Oh, they
[20:50] Speaker 1: just come from the societal consensus. No, no, no, no,
[20:53] Speaker 1: because nineteen thirty five in Germany there was a societal
[20:57] Speaker 1: consensus that it was perfectly fine to imprison Jews and
[21:00] Speaker 1: put them to death. Oh you know, no, No, that's
[21:04] Speaker 1: just a matter of subjective opinion. No, you don't hold that.
[21:07] Speaker 1: You hold to the objectivity of these values. Where do
[21:12] Speaker 1: they come from? How do you explain them? What is
[21:17] Speaker 1: the Bible witness to everybody over and over again that
[21:20] Speaker 1: God is the great lawgiver that stands behind the objective
[21:28] Speaker 1: moral laws that we into it. How has God described
[21:33] Speaker 1: as the giver of commandments? How can I know right
[21:36] Speaker 1: away they think sexual morality and tell me what to do.
[21:38] Speaker 1: So bracket sexual morality for a moment. Go back to
[21:42] Speaker 1: these things I've been talking about. Do you think slavery,
[21:46] Speaker 1: human trafficking, racism are objectively wrong? Yeah? Where does that
[21:52] Speaker 1: come from? Where did those objective states of affairs come from?
[21:57] Speaker 1: They can't come from my private opinion? They can't come
[22:00] Speaker 1: from the consensus of my community. They come, in fact,
[22:03] Speaker 1: the Bible says from this great moral law giver whom
[22:09] Speaker 1: we call God. Just a last connection. Isn't it interesting?
[22:14] Speaker 1: John Henry Numan saw this that we refer to the
[22:19] Speaker 1: conscience as a voice. Think about that. It's curious because
[22:25] Speaker 1: you know, I've got, let's say, an esthetic sensibility where
[22:28] Speaker 1: I make judgments about works of art and oh that's beautiful,
[22:32] Speaker 1: and that's not or that's more beautiful than this. Okay. Now,
[22:36] Speaker 1: if I make a mistake in that order, I don't
[22:39] Speaker 1: feel ashamed. I might feel stupid, or I might feel
[22:42] Speaker 1: you know, uninformed or something, but I don't feel ashamed
[22:46] Speaker 1: that I made a bad esthetic judgment. Or if I
[22:49] Speaker 1: make a mistake in my mathematical calculation, I don't feel
[22:53] Speaker 1: I might feel stupid, but not ashamed. But when I
[22:57] Speaker 1: go against objective moral value, how do I feel? Not
[23:04] Speaker 1: just stupid or uninformed, I feel ashamed? Why? Because I
[23:11] Speaker 1: know I've offended someone. You say, with the voice, the
[23:17] Speaker 1: voice of conscience not just an attitude or a sensibility.
[23:21] Speaker 1: It's a voice. It's someone who has given these objective
[23:26] Speaker 1: moral values to the world and when I run counter
[23:29] Speaker 1: to them, I feel under judgment. Now turn it around,
[23:35] Speaker 1: make it positive. When I do something right, you know,
[23:38] Speaker 1: when I liberate someone who's oppressed, when I fight against racism,
[23:42] Speaker 1: when I fight against all forms of slavery, what do
[23:45] Speaker 1: I feel? Well? Not just hey, that was a that
[23:47] Speaker 1: was a right judgment. No, I feel joyful in the
[23:52] Speaker 1: presence of someone who approves of this. Where do physical
[23:59] Speaker 1: laws come from the great intelligence that place them there?
[24:04] Speaker 1: Where do moral laws come from from the great moral
[24:08] Speaker 1: law giver in whose presence I feel lifted up or
[24:13] Speaker 1: ashamed depending on how I behave morally. Now can I
[24:18] Speaker 1: suggest you, know, fellow teachers, start with these two approaches.
[24:23] Speaker 1: There are many more you could use, but start with
[24:24] Speaker 1: these two. Start with two things that they reverence, the
[24:29] Speaker 1: sciences and objective moral values, and then keep pushing where
[24:34] Speaker 1: do they come from? What explains them, what grounds them?
[24:38] Speaker 1: I think at the very least you're going to have
[24:40] Speaker 1: a cool discussion, you have an interesting, engaged discussion. Okay,
[24:45] Speaker 1: that's question one, the question of God, of God's existence.
[24:50] Speaker 1: Here's question two in the redditt ama all over the place,
[24:55] Speaker 1: the problem of suffering. Okay, if you believe in a God,
[25:01] Speaker 1: who's all good, all loving, all knowing, all powerful, How
[25:07] Speaker 1: could there be such evil in the world. You know,
[25:11] Speaker 1: you can evoke the Holocaust and the Black Death, but
[25:14] Speaker 1: hack one child dying of leukemia, it's enough to start
[25:18] Speaker 1: this argument. How do you explain that? Thomas acquaintas by
[25:25] Speaker 1: the way, you know, the way Thomas wrote is when
[25:27] Speaker 1: he was laying out his position, he would precede it
[25:29] Speaker 1: with objections. It's really it's clever, and it's important for
[25:34] Speaker 1: us today because we tend to dismiss our opponents. But
[25:36] Speaker 1: Thomas laid out their arguments really clearly and persuasively. Here's
[25:41] Speaker 1: the way he argued against God's existence. Thomas said, if
[25:47] Speaker 1: one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be
[25:51] Speaker 1: altogether destroyed. Like if there were an infinite heat, there'd
[25:55] Speaker 1: be no cold. Right. But God is described as the
[25:59] Speaker 1: end infinite good. Okay, therefore wouldn't that eliminate all evil?
[26:05] Speaker 1: There's an infinite good, but there is evil. Therefore God
[26:11] Speaker 1: does not exist. That's in Thomas quietas. That's his objection.
[26:15] Speaker 1: And may I say, that's a darn good argument. That's
[26:17] Speaker 1: a really good argument. And the young people they might
[26:20] Speaker 1: not you know, express it that pitholi, but they feel it.
[26:24] Speaker 1: That's exactly what they're feeling. Hey, if there's an infinitely
[26:27] Speaker 1: good God, how could there be any evil? Good argument? Okay,
[26:33] Speaker 1: how do we begin to respond to this sort of concern? Well,
[26:38] Speaker 1: going back to Thomas Aquinas then before him to Saint Augustine,
[26:44] Speaker 1: the classical answer is God doesn't create evil because evil's
[26:50] Speaker 1: like a like a parasite. Right, Evil isn't something positive.
[26:53] Speaker 1: Evil's a lack of being. Think of like a cavity
[26:57] Speaker 1: in a tooth a right, what's evil is the of something?
[27:01] Speaker 1: Remember in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, those uh what
[27:03] Speaker 1: they call the nosseles that fly around on their you know,
[27:06] Speaker 1: these wicked figures and they're cloaked with the hood. But
[27:10] Speaker 1: then it's it's uncovered that actually, when the hood comes off,
[27:14] Speaker 1: there's there's nothing there, you know. And Tolkien's making the
[27:18] Speaker 1: same point that evil is not substantive. It's always a
[27:22] Speaker 1: shadow or it's a parasite, you say, I'm saying it's
[27:26] Speaker 1: a lack of good that ought to be there. So
[27:28] Speaker 1: God doesn't create evil, or evil isn't standing against God
[27:32] Speaker 1: as a rival. But still the question remains, Okay, God
[27:36] Speaker 1: didn't create it, but God permits it then, and here's
[27:42] Speaker 1: the answer, so that from it there might come some
[27:48] Speaker 1: greater good. That's the principle. God permits evil and suffering
[27:54] Speaker 1: so as to bring out of them a greater good. No, no,
[27:59] Speaker 1: can we see this sometimes in life? Yeah, sometimes we
[28:03] Speaker 1: can pretty easily. So think of someone boy. They wanted
[28:08] Speaker 1: that job. They were really trying to get that job,
[28:10] Speaker 1: and they interviewed for it, and they prayed for it,
[28:12] Speaker 1: and it didn't get it, and they were bitterly disappointed.
[28:16] Speaker 1: But then because of that, they took another job that
[28:20] Speaker 1: proved to be, in fact, so much better than the
[28:24] Speaker 1: job that they were initially going for. Right, So that evil,
[28:28] Speaker 1: that suffering actually led to something much better. Or I know,
[28:33] Speaker 1: this is my pastoral experience. Someone boy, they wanted to
[28:36] Speaker 1: get into that university. That's the what I want. And
[28:38] Speaker 1: I applied for it and I wrote the essay and
[28:41] Speaker 1: I hoped and I prayed, and then I didn't get
[28:43] Speaker 1: into that university, which is what I wanted with all
[28:46] Speaker 1: my heart, and I was bitterly disappointed and angry. But
[28:49] Speaker 1: then I went to another school, and at that school
[28:54] Speaker 1: I met the woman who became my wife. Who's been
[28:56] Speaker 1: now the center of my whole life, the mother of
[28:58] Speaker 1: my children. And if I had gotten into that first university,
[29:02] Speaker 1: I never would have had that experience. Okay, and we
[29:07] Speaker 1: can all multip my stories like that. We do see
[29:09] Speaker 1: the principle that sometimes evil brings about a greater good
[29:14] Speaker 1: that wouldn't happen otherwise. Or people we know this pastorally
[29:17] Speaker 1: that go through tremendous suffering, physical suffering, but out of
[29:21] Speaker 1: that suffering comes a deeper sense of God or of
[29:25] Speaker 1: compassion or so. Yeah, my point is we all get
[29:29] Speaker 1: that principle at the same time. Let's be honest. Often
[29:34] Speaker 1: we don't get it. Often suffering just seems dumb that
[29:40] Speaker 1: it doesn't lead to something better. It just seems like
[29:43] Speaker 1: dumb suffering. We can't see. Oh yeah, because of it,
[29:47] Speaker 1: something great happened. Does that undermine the argument? No, And
[29:54] Speaker 1: here's why we got to remember that. God it's not
[30:02] Speaker 1: like one agent among many. So you know, you and
[30:04] Speaker 1: I are all doing our various things and trying to
[30:06] Speaker 1: get the best situation. But God isn't like that. God
[30:11] Speaker 1: is the creator of all.
[30:12] Speaker 2: Things, provident, over all reality, over all of space, and
[30:19] Speaker 2: all of time. Why does God permit a given evil
[30:25] Speaker 2: or suffering. Maybe I can't see.
[30:29] Speaker 1: It in this life, in this world with my very
[30:34] Speaker 1: narrow limited vision, But does that mean it has no purpose? No? Now,
[30:42] Speaker 1: everybody revisit the Book of Job, and I think if
[30:45] Speaker 1: this is like the number two question that young people have.
[30:48] Speaker 1: I think in our classes, if we spend some good
[30:50] Speaker 1: time with the Book of Job, which is the greatest
[30:53] Speaker 1: Old Testament, wrestling with this question. Remember Job, righteous Job,
[30:59] Speaker 1: you know, the good man, the best man on earth.
[31:02] Speaker 1: And then every possible suffering befalls him, and Job cries
[31:09] Speaker 1: out to God like we all do, like these young
[31:11] Speaker 1: people do. How do you explain this? Explain this to me?
[31:14] Speaker 1: Why am I going through the suffering? His friends try
[31:18] Speaker 1: to explain it with their different theological perspectives, and Job
[31:22] Speaker 1: finds none of it convincing and finally calls God into
[31:25] Speaker 1: the dock. Right, explain yourself to me why, and then
[31:30] Speaker 1: have the kids read this. It's Job chapter forty. I
[31:33] Speaker 1: think God speaks out of the whirlwind, you know, whirlwind,
[31:39] Speaker 1: the dust and the eyes. You can't see this overwhelming
[31:43] Speaker 1: reality of God. And it's the longest speech by God
[31:47] Speaker 1: in the Old Testament. It's cool. The longest speech by
[31:50] Speaker 1: God in the Old Testament is on this question, and
[31:53] Speaker 1: it begins famously, Job, where were you when I laid
[31:57] Speaker 1: the foundations of the world? Where were you? In other words,
[32:01] Speaker 1: God takes Job on a tour of the whole cosmos
[32:04] Speaker 1: that He's made the point being, Job, you're suffering is
[32:10] Speaker 1: not just about you, but is ingredient in my providential
[32:16] Speaker 1: concern for the whole of reality. Now that high falutin
[32:21] Speaker 1: stuff from philosophy in the Book of Job, can I
[32:24] Speaker 1: make it a bit more concrete with two examples. First
[32:27] Speaker 1: one is a little bit silly, second one was more serious.
[32:31] Speaker 1: When I was a little kid, we had a dog
[32:34] Speaker 1: named Tiger because I lived outside Detroit, so we love
[32:36] Speaker 1: the Detroit Tigers, and so we had a beautiful colleague
[32:38] Speaker 1: named Tiger. Well, Tiger was a great dog, but like
[32:41] Speaker 1: all dogs, hated the vet right and he kind of knew.
[32:45] Speaker 1: We didn't take him in the car that often. He
[32:47] Speaker 1: kind of knew when we were taking him to the
[32:49] Speaker 1: vet and he would get completely beside himself. We'd arrive
[32:52] Speaker 1: at the place he start to tremble, we take him
[32:55] Speaker 1: in and this this one time we took him in
[32:56] Speaker 1: for shots. It was something simple, but the poort talk
[32:59] Speaker 1: was just trembling, you know. So I remember the vet.
[33:03] Speaker 1: I'm a little guy, I'm like seven or eight years old,
[33:05] Speaker 1: and he says, why don't you hold him? So I
[33:08] Speaker 1: kind of held him around his neck like this, and
[33:10] Speaker 1: then the Vet gave him shots, you know. But here's
[33:13] Speaker 1: what I remember, and it's vividly in my mind, even
[33:15] Speaker 1: though it was decades ago. Is Tiger. You know how
[33:18] Speaker 1: dogs they're not as expressive as we are, but dogs
[33:21] Speaker 1: can be pretty expressive. A dog can express what he
[33:25] Speaker 1: or she is feeling. Right, So Tiger looked at me
[33:29] Speaker 1: and the look said why are you doing this to me?
[33:34] Speaker 1: I mean, Tiger knew I was like his buddy, I'm
[33:37] Speaker 1: his best friend, you know, And yet I was there
[33:42] Speaker 1: in this awful place the Vet while he's going through
[33:44] Speaker 1: this terrible thing that he didn't understand and was just
[33:47] Speaker 1: causing him pain, and he was looking at me as
[33:51] Speaker 1: if to say, why are you doing this to me?
[33:54] Speaker 1: So anyway, Tiger is giving me this look, and what
[33:56] Speaker 1: occurred to me even then, I'm like seven or eight
[33:58] Speaker 1: years old. Even then, I remember thinking, I wish I
[34:03] Speaker 1: could explain this to you, you know. But the difference
[34:07] Speaker 1: between even my little seven year old human mind and
[34:10] Speaker 1: his mind was so great that I couldn't even in
[34:15] Speaker 1: principle explain it to him. You know, well, Tiger, listen,
[34:18] Speaker 1: these are shots and they're going to awaken your immune
[34:21] Speaker 1: system in a new way, and it's going to prevent
[34:23] Speaker 1: you from getting sicker later. So I know it's a
[34:25] Speaker 1: little tough, but just endure it. You'll be better. This
[34:27] Speaker 1: actually is good for you. What you're going through. Well,
[34:30] Speaker 1: I couldn't even begin to explain it to him, and
[34:35] Speaker 1: the frustration I felt at that that I knew what
[34:39] Speaker 1: the point of this suffering was, but I couldn't communicate
[34:42] Speaker 1: it to him. Now here's the second story. It's along
[34:45] Speaker 1: the same lines, but it's more serious because it was
[34:48] Speaker 1: in my pastoral work. I was newly ordained. So this
[34:52] Speaker 1: is a long time ago. And this young father came
[34:55] Speaker 1: to me, young guy in probably early thirties, and he said, Father,
[34:59] Speaker 1: I'm going through this terrible time. I said, what's up. Well,
[35:02] Speaker 1: his son, who was about three, I think, had some
[35:07] Speaker 1: physical issue. I forget what it was, but it required surgery,
[35:12] Speaker 1: and so the father was there with him at the
[35:14] Speaker 1: hospital that the kid went through The surgery, and then
[35:17] Speaker 1: afterwards there was this young kid in great pain, right
[35:22] Speaker 1: physical pain, but also in great psychological pain because he's
[35:27] Speaker 1: in this terrible place, this hospital he didn't know, surrounded
[35:30] Speaker 1: by strangers, in great pain, and his dad was right
[35:35] Speaker 1: there with him. And the father said to me, it
[35:39] Speaker 1: brought Tiger back to my mind, because the father said
[35:41] Speaker 1: to me, I couldn't explain it to him. Is I
[35:46] Speaker 1: wanted to tell him why he had to go through
[35:49] Speaker 1: this surgery and they removed something which means you'll be
[35:52] Speaker 1: better in the long run, and you've got to go
[35:54] Speaker 1: through a difficult time, but you actually be much better.
[35:57] Speaker 1: And if we hadn't done this, you might have died.
[36:00] Speaker 1: I mean, the three year old kids not able to
[36:01] Speaker 1: take all that in. And the father looked at me
[36:04] Speaker 1: with a sense of deep frustration, and I thought, you know,
[36:09] Speaker 1: so it goes with our God, who has concern for
[36:16] Speaker 1: all of space and all of time, who's the lord
[36:21] Speaker 1: of all things. What we take in is a little
[36:24] Speaker 1: tiny swatch of space and time, right, a little tiny
[36:28] Speaker 1: bit from our perspective. Yes, indeed, some suffering just seems
[36:36] Speaker 1: like dumb suffering, and there's not much we can really
[36:39] Speaker 1: do about that. And is it possible that God, even
[36:44] Speaker 1: in principle, couldn't explain it to us. Here's one more
[36:49] Speaker 1: little story also for my pastor. All the time I
[36:53] Speaker 1: was helping out at a parish near Chicago, and every week,
[36:57] Speaker 1: practically I would see this family parents, about five kids,
[37:01] Speaker 1: and they sat right up in front because one of
[37:03] Speaker 1: their daughters, she was about eight maybe the time, was
[37:07] Speaker 1: profoundly handicapped, both physically and mentally, and she was kind
[37:13] Speaker 1: of strapped into a into a chair, you know, and
[37:17] Speaker 1: profoundly affected. And then often during mass, she would she
[37:22] Speaker 1: get agitated, or she'd get fussy, and she'd start vocalizing
[37:25] Speaker 1: and you know, kind of squirming in the chair. And
[37:28] Speaker 1: I was just always struped by the tremendous suffering she's
[37:32] Speaker 1: going through, and that the whole family, for all these years,
[37:35] Speaker 1: you know, has gone through. But the person I noticed
[37:39] Speaker 1: alongside the young girl was her brother, who is I
[37:43] Speaker 1: think a bit younger than she, maybe like seven. And
[37:47] Speaker 1: week after week, this young kid, when his sister got agitated,
[37:52] Speaker 1: would with such care and compassion and simplicity and not
[37:59] Speaker 1: drawing attention to himself, would attend to her, would comfort
[38:04] Speaker 1: her and talk to her, you know, Now I never
[38:06] Speaker 1: came to know this family all that well, but they've
[38:09] Speaker 1: never left my mind. And I'll tell you why, Because
[38:13] Speaker 1: why would God allow this? Why would God allow this
[38:16] Speaker 1: poor girl to suffer? Why would he put her family
[38:18] Speaker 1: through this? Well, I mean, I don't know. I don't know,
[38:22] Speaker 1: but I used to a muse. Maybe that brother is
[38:28] Speaker 1: developing a heart of such compassion that when he comes
[38:33] Speaker 1: of age, he passes that on to his son, who
[38:39] Speaker 1: then passes on to his daughter, who becomes a saint
[38:46] Speaker 1: at the moment the church most needs that saint. I'm
[38:51] Speaker 1: speculating here, everybody, I'm just kind of musing. My point is,
[38:56] Speaker 1: God has command of all of space and all of time.
[39:00] Speaker 1: Why are certain evils going on? Well, maybe it's not
[39:04] Speaker 1: even the answer is not even to come in our lifetime.
[39:08] Speaker 1: Maybe it's not for us so much, it's for something
[39:11] Speaker 1: far in the future. I don't know where were you
[39:15] Speaker 1: when I lay the foundations of the world, says God
[39:18] Speaker 1: to job, and says God to us too. But you know,
[39:24] Speaker 1: look my holding tiger around around his neck while he
[39:28] Speaker 1: was going through this. The father sitting with his son,
[39:32] Speaker 1: even though we couldn't explain it to him that that
[39:35] Speaker 1: brother caring for his sister even though he couldn't explain
[39:39] Speaker 1: it to her. Our God is like that too, maybe
[39:43] Speaker 1: not able to give the answer that we want and need,
[39:47] Speaker 1: but present to us in compassion as we suffer. It
[39:53] Speaker 1: seems to me that's the answer in quotes the answer
[39:59] Speaker 1: by our great tradition. Again, I'm not trying to solve
[40:03] Speaker 1: this thing, but it might be a good way to
[40:07] Speaker 1: engage the minds and hearts of young people is to
[40:09] Speaker 1: address this question head on about suffering. Okay, I've been
[40:13] Speaker 1: going on a little bit too long. Let me draw
[40:15] Speaker 1: your clothes little more quickly. With number three, the third question,
[40:19] Speaker 1: they asked, over and over again, well, why be a Christian?
[40:24] Speaker 1: So come on, bishop, aren't there you know, hundreds of
[40:26] Speaker 1: religions and they're all good, and you know we're all
[40:29] Speaker 1: climbing the Holy Mountain by different routes and so you
[40:32] Speaker 1: got your path, but other people have their paths, and
[40:35] Speaker 1: you know, who are you to be saying your religion
[40:37] Speaker 1: is right? Why don't we just say we tolerate all
[40:40] Speaker 1: religions and you know we got one among many. Well,
[40:43] Speaker 1: as I say, this is a huge value today as
[40:46] Speaker 1: we all know, you know, inclusivity and tolerance and diversity
[40:49] Speaker 1: is a huge value. What's the danger, of course, is
[40:55] Speaker 1: if we hyper stress these things, it can undermine our
[41:00] Speaker 1: sense of evangelical enthusiasm. You know, go forth and preach
[41:05] Speaker 1: to all nations. It is a go forth and just
[41:08] Speaker 1: you know, be tolerant toward all religions. He said, go
[41:11] Speaker 1: forth and preach this gospel to all nations. Now, mind you,
[41:16] Speaker 1: never in a violent way, never in a way that's disrespectful.
[41:20] Speaker 1: Thatican two clearly teaches there are elements of truth and
[41:24] Speaker 1: goodness and beauty and all the great religions. That's certainly true.
[41:27] Speaker 1: I don't deny that for one second. However, we do
[41:32] Speaker 1: hold that God has revealed his heart most fully in
[41:37] Speaker 1: the great tradition of Israel, culminating in Jesus Christ crucified
[41:42] Speaker 1: and risen from the dead. And this is the great
[41:45] Speaker 1: message that God wants the Church to communicate to the world.
[41:49] Speaker 1: And so it does matter that we're Christians. And let
[41:54] Speaker 1: me just try to articulate that in terms of a
[41:56] Speaker 1: few simple points. Christianity claims first a personal God. Now
[42:02] Speaker 1: I know that can seem kind of obvious, but it's not.
[42:05] Speaker 1: You look at the great religions and spiritualities and religious
[42:08] Speaker 1: philosophies of the world. By no means do they all
[42:11] Speaker 1: hold to a personal God. Very often God is portrayed
[42:14] Speaker 1: as a force or an energy. Think of Star Wars.
[42:17] Speaker 1: Star Wars expresses an old philosophical perspective. Go east of
[42:23] Speaker 1: the Suez, as Joseph Campbell said, and you'll find a
[42:27] Speaker 1: very impersonal sense of God. Christianity holds. No, God's not
[42:31] Speaker 1: a force or an energy, but a person with mind
[42:36] Speaker 1: will purpose freedom. Secondly, relatedly, Christianity is not the story
[42:46] Speaker 1: of our quest for God. Go to any bookstore, go online,
[42:50] Speaker 1: you'll find a million titles all about the human quest
[42:54] Speaker 1: for God. Fine, I mean good, there's something to that, obviously,
[43:00] Speaker 1: But Christianity, biblical religion is not primarily about our quest
[43:04] Speaker 1: for God. Ho hum. Finally, as though God is kind
[43:08] Speaker 1: of dumbly out there and then we just have to
[43:10] Speaker 1: go climbing up toward him. No, no, no. The Bible
[43:13] Speaker 1: is the story of God's quest for us, and that
[43:16] Speaker 1: makes all the difference. That's a qualitatively different approach to religion.
[43:20] Speaker 1: It's about God coming after us. It's about the hound
[43:24] Speaker 1: of Heaven right running after us as we run away
[43:27] Speaker 1: from God. God is not like just the holy mountain
[43:30] Speaker 1: waiting for us to climb. It's like the mountains coming
[43:33] Speaker 1: after us, you know. But it's the personal God who
[43:38] Speaker 1: is actively seeking a relationship with us. That's a different texture.
[43:44] Speaker 1: That's a unique texture in religion. Thirdly, and relatedly, Christianity
[43:51] Speaker 1: is not a religion of karma. It's a religion of grace.
[43:54] Speaker 1: And I'm making kind of a broad distinction here, but
[43:57] Speaker 1: you know what I mean, religions of karma. Karma is
[44:00] Speaker 1: a great principle. Think of John Lennon's instant Karma. You know,
[44:04] Speaker 1: Karma is a principle of justice and retribution. So you know,
[44:09] Speaker 1: if some harm is done, it needs to be repaired,
[44:12] Speaker 1: there's an injustice, it needs to be answered and set right.
[44:16] Speaker 1: It's like a re establishment of a cosmic harmony. And
[44:20] Speaker 1: you'll find that in a lot of different religions, especially
[44:22] Speaker 1: religions of the East. And again, I like karma, and
[44:25] Speaker 1: you'll find some of it in the Bible. That's true,
[44:27] Speaker 1: there's some sense of karma or redressing a wrong or
[44:31] Speaker 1: setting things right. But but the Bible is not primarily
[44:36] Speaker 1: a karmic religion. It's a religion of grace. What do
[44:41] Speaker 1: I mean, I mean the personal God who's after us
[44:47] Speaker 1: loves us even when we don't deserve it. Is not
[44:52] Speaker 1: just a God of justice, but as a god of
[44:55] Speaker 1: super abundant love. Grazia is a free gift beyond what
[45:00] Speaker 1: we deserve, beyond what we merit. And fourthly, and relatedly,
[45:08] Speaker 1: Christianity is a religion of incarnation. So wat's the trajectory here.
[45:13] Speaker 1: The personal God who's looking for us, who loves us
[45:20] Speaker 1: when we don't deserve it, loves us. What does John
[45:24] Speaker 1: three sixteen say? God so loved the world that he
[45:28] Speaker 1: gave us his only son. God's gracious love is so
[45:33] Speaker 1: intense that God becomes one of us. The Word became
[45:41] Speaker 1: flesh and dwelt among us. Now why so that we
[45:47] Speaker 1: might be divinized? The Church father said in their in
[45:52] Speaker 1: their Latin, deus fit homo fear at deos. That means
[45:56] Speaker 1: God became human, that humans might become God. Now, say
[46:02] Speaker 1: what you want about that, we get debate it true
[46:04] Speaker 1: or false. But that's a unique claim. Everybody. There's no
[46:07] Speaker 1: philosophy of religion. There's no other religion that makes a
[46:10] Speaker 1: comparable claim that the personal God who's after us and
[46:16] Speaker 1: loved us so graciously that he became one of us
[46:19] Speaker 1: that we might share in his life. Now, again, we
[46:23] Speaker 1: can debate that, and you can say, oh, I think
[46:25] Speaker 1: that's crazy, but I don't know. That's a distinctive religion.
[46:30] Speaker 1: That's a distinctive view. And I'll be honest with you,
[46:33] Speaker 1: I speak now as an evangelist. If there's a more
[46:36] Speaker 1: compelling religion than that, I'll join it. As far as
[46:40] Speaker 1: I'm concerned. The personal God of gracious love that runs
[46:44] Speaker 1: after me and becomes human so that he might draw
[46:47] Speaker 1: me into his life, that's a pretty exciting message. In fact,
[46:51] Speaker 1: that's the greatest humanism ever proposed by any religion or
[46:54] Speaker 1: any philosophy in human history. God became one of us
[46:58] Speaker 1: that we might become divine. I think that's a message
[47:03] Speaker 1: still really worth propagating. And that's the answer to that question, Well,
[47:08] Speaker 1: why be a Christian among all the religions? I don't know?
[47:11] Speaker 1: To me, it's a pretty cool religion, Christianity, and it's
[47:14] Speaker 1: worth proclaiming. Okay, I'll drop your clothes there answers, you know,
[47:22] Speaker 1: responses anyway, or let's say the beginning of a good
[47:24] Speaker 1: conversation about the three questions that seem to preoccupy young
[47:29] Speaker 1: people the most. God bless you all. Thanks for listening.
[47:35] Speaker 3: Hey man, thank you Bishop incredible. We do have time
[47:40] Speaker 3: for a few questions, so I would invite everyone if
[47:43] Speaker 3: you have a question for Bishop on the topic that
[47:47] Speaker 3: he shared or about teaching. I know we want to
[47:50] Speaker 3: ask him questions more about six or seven year old
[47:53] Speaker 3: Bishop Baron, but.
[47:55] Speaker 1: Let's not do that.
[47:56] Speaker 3: Let's stay on topic and just put those in the
[48:00] Speaker 3: chat box and we'll get to those. And then Bishop,
[48:04] Speaker 3: I wanted to start. I was thinking while you were
[48:06] Speaker 3: talking across the board, the question that comes up the
[48:09] Speaker 3: most is how to engage parents, because a lot of
[48:13] Speaker 3: times the children, no matter what age, get on board,
[48:16] Speaker 3: but parents who are uncatechized or who have been away
[48:20] Speaker 3: from the church for a while. So what would be
[48:22] Speaker 3: your advice for all of us parents.
[48:24] Speaker 1: Yeah, first of all, I totally agree with that. I
[48:27] Speaker 1: mean that getting parents on board is essential. I would
[48:29] Speaker 1: suggest they got the same questions. I bet these top
[48:32] Speaker 1: three questions. I bet every parent's got them too. And
[48:36] Speaker 1: you say, correctly, Teresa, that a lot of the parents
[48:38] Speaker 1: who become either disaffiliated or just kind of maybe you know,
[48:42] Speaker 1: bored with religion. I think stir them up with these
[48:45] Speaker 1: three questions. I bet they've got them and maybe started
[48:49] Speaker 1: a good discussion with them around them. Here's something else.
[48:52] Speaker 1: Do you guys know the work of Christian Smith. He's
[48:56] Speaker 1: a professor at Notre Dame in the sociology religion, and
[49:00] Speaker 1: he's been studying this question of the nuns for a
[49:02] Speaker 1: long time. He said once to us, I invited him
[49:07] Speaker 1: when I was chair of the Bishop's committee, invited him
[49:09] Speaker 1: to come and talk to us, and he said, one
[49:11] Speaker 1: of the biggest changes is young people don't talk to
[49:16] Speaker 1: their parents about religion. Now. I remember my mother and
[49:20] Speaker 1: I talked to my mother this morning by FaceTime. She's
[49:22] Speaker 1: now in her upper nineties, still going strong. But I
[49:26] Speaker 1: remember vividly when I was a little kid. I'm like ten,
[49:29] Speaker 1: twelve years old, my mother and I talking about religion. Now,
[49:34] Speaker 1: my mother was a faithful Catholic, went to Mass on Sunday,
[49:37] Speaker 1: but she loved talking about God, Heaven, sin, grace. And
[49:43] Speaker 1: I remember as a little kid talking to my mother
[49:46] Speaker 1: about that. And my mother wasn't super pious and religion
[49:50] Speaker 1: on her sleeve, but it was like just a natural
[49:52] Speaker 1: part of her life. Christian Smith says, young people and
[49:56] Speaker 1: their parents and their friends don't talk about religion, and
[50:00] Speaker 1: that's a real problem. So how about engage these same
[50:03] Speaker 1: questions with both parents and children and get them talking
[50:06] Speaker 1: to each other about them.
[50:09] Speaker 3: Absolutely, Who would you say besides your mom was like
[50:12] Speaker 3: a great teacher of the faith. To you who sticks out.
[50:15] Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure you have a whole list. Father Tom Paulson,
[50:17] Speaker 1: who's still alive. He's also I think in his upper
[50:21] Speaker 1: eighties or early nineties. He was a professor at Fenwick
[50:24] Speaker 1: High School when I was a kid. I was fourteen,
[50:26] Speaker 1: and he presented one of Thomas Aquinas's arguments for God's existence,
[50:30] Speaker 1: which changed my whole life. So he had a big
[50:33] Speaker 1: impact on me. My mom, though, I would stress that
[50:36] Speaker 1: again my mother was not well educated, she went to
[50:39] Speaker 1: high school, but she was and is smart and just
[50:44] Speaker 1: liked religious questions. She's kind of a natural theologian without
[50:48] Speaker 1: being trained in theology, but she had a natural feel
[50:51] Speaker 1: for it. And yeah, and my dad, I mean my father.
[50:57] Speaker 1: You know, when I was a little kid, I thought
[50:59] Speaker 1: he's the strongest I know and he was kneeling one
[51:02] Speaker 1: day at Mass and it just struck me the strongest
[51:06] Speaker 1: guy I know. And he's kneeling to somebody stronger and
[51:10] Speaker 1: my father, again not in a showy way. Neither my
[51:12] Speaker 1: parents was showy about religion, but every Sunday it wouldn't
[51:16] Speaker 1: occur to them to miss Mass. By the way, another
[51:19] Speaker 1: Christian Smith thing, and you know, at the risk of
[51:21] Speaker 1: sounding sexist in any way, but especially the father's predurance
[51:28] Speaker 1: in the faith makes a difference to kids. If dad
[51:33] Speaker 1: remains a faithful masskow er, the kids tend to remain
[51:36] Speaker 1: connected to the church. And he's not making It's just
[51:40] Speaker 1: a statistical fact, you know. So parents, absolutely go to
[51:46] Speaker 1: Mass and talk to your kids about religion.
[51:47] Speaker 3: I would say, Stephen wants to know, how do you
[51:51] Speaker 3: respond to the comment that we as Catholics are not tolerant?
[51:55] Speaker 1: Well, some of us aren't. I mean, that's true and
[51:59] Speaker 1: we always should be again, but tolerant it's one of
[52:01] Speaker 1: those kind of tricky words, isn't it, Always responding in love,
[52:10] Speaker 1: never in violence, never imposing, only proposing. So by tolerance,
[52:16] Speaker 1: I would mean all of that, but it doesn't mean indifferentism.
[52:21] Speaker 1: I think it can shade into a sort of subjectivism
[52:24] Speaker 1: or indifferentism, like, well, who really cares what you believe?
[52:27] Speaker 1: You know, we're all trying to be good people, but
[52:29] Speaker 1: that's too strong. You know, you can be evangelical without
[52:34] Speaker 1: being intolerant. You know, you can be boldly a proclaimer
[52:39] Speaker 1: of the faith without being obnoxious about it and imposing it.
[52:44] Speaker 1: So there's a middle ground there. I've often said, you know, Teresa,
[52:47] Speaker 1: that in our culture, the two extremes seem to be
[52:51] Speaker 1: violence on the one hand and bland toleration on the
[52:55] Speaker 1: other hand, as if those are the only two options.
[52:58] Speaker 1: And I think that a very happy third option is
[53:03] Speaker 1: religious argument and religious engagement. That doesn't mean I'm I'm
[53:07] Speaker 1: attacking you or I'm trying to impose myself on you,
[53:10] Speaker 1: but it also doesn't mean I'm just kind of all
[53:12] Speaker 1: who cares? No, let's talk about how will we talk
[53:16] Speaker 1: about these three things? And I'm convinced that Christianity has
[53:19] Speaker 1: really good answers to all three. Okay, I'm not being violent,
[53:23] Speaker 1: I'm not imposing it, but I am proposing it with energy.
[53:28] Speaker 1: I think that's still a valid path.
[53:31] Speaker 3: Absolutely. Anna wants to know are there any books you
[53:35] Speaker 3: might suggest that explain the three questions you went over?
[53:38] Speaker 3: And I would like to add to that, any books
[53:40] Speaker 3: in general for us just to go deeper into our
[53:42] Speaker 3: faith and help us.
[53:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to think these three questions in particular
[53:48] Speaker 1: on God's existence. The one i'm now, the one I
[53:51] Speaker 1: refer to, is kind of a hyper technical book on
[53:54] Speaker 1: the twenty four arguments for God. You know, I think
[53:57] Speaker 1: the works of Peter Craft. Do you know Peter Craft
[54:00] Speaker 1: k R. E. E. F. T. He writes a lot
[54:02] Speaker 1: of really good substantive books, but are also pretty accessible,
[54:07] Speaker 1: pretty easy to read. I'd recommend any of his things
[54:09] Speaker 1: on God, you know, I mean word on fire. We've
[54:13] Speaker 1: tried to do a lot of things talking about these issues.
[54:15] Speaker 1: I have a whole DVD series on the mystery of God.
[54:19] Speaker 1: Maybe take a look at that. I just finished this
[54:21] Speaker 1: book on the Creed, should be coming out sometime next year.
[54:25] Speaker 1: Might recommend that, but I think Peter Kraft might be
[54:29] Speaker 1: a good place to start.
[54:32] Speaker 3: Richard wants to know how do you prepare teachers to
[54:34] Speaker 3: answer and embrace the questions?
[54:37] Speaker 1: Well, how about we start with this? In other words, Okay,
[54:41] Speaker 1: here are the three questions, and I think that's pretty plain.
[54:44] Speaker 1: Now I've just given you a couple of suggestions. Start
[54:48] Speaker 1: with those and then have a good conversation. See what ensues.
[54:52] Speaker 1: So someone says, yeah, I don't find it very convincing. Well,
[54:55] Speaker 1: how come, and let's have a good argument about it.
[54:59] Speaker 1: So I don't know, start with the questions and maybe
[55:01] Speaker 1: begin with the observations I've made here and then see
[55:05] Speaker 1: what follows. But don't op for either, you know, Okay,
[55:10] Speaker 1: let's impose it on people, or let's just blandly tolerate.
[55:14] Speaker 1: Let's engage. So maybe start with these suggestions. And of
[55:18] Speaker 1: course everything I've said here today something new to me.
[55:21] Speaker 1: It's all like this classical Catholic stuff, you know, start
[55:26] Speaker 1: the start the conversation.
[55:29] Speaker 3: Absolutely, a few more here, Antra, Can you give me
[55:32] Speaker 3: resources for parents who need answers to hot topic questions
[55:36] Speaker 3: for their teens and adult children?
[55:38] Speaker 1: Yeah? You know. A good book there, I'm just thinking
[55:40] Speaker 1: of it is Brandon Vaught, who works with us that
[55:43] Speaker 1: We're on Fire. But Brandon also writes in his own
[55:46] Speaker 1: name and is a book called Return, and it's all
[55:49] Speaker 1: about how to bring people, especially young people, back to
[55:52] Speaker 1: the faith who've wandered away. So go get that, Brandon's
[55:56] Speaker 1: vogt Brandon Vought Return. That's a that's a good place
[56:00] Speaker 1: to start.
[56:03] Speaker 3: Nanci says in my school community. One of the biggest
[56:06] Speaker 3: challenges is that our parents do not attend Mass, especially
[56:09] Speaker 3: now with the pandemic. Even in a normal setting. How
[56:12] Speaker 3: can we motivate them to seek the sacraments and especially
[56:15] Speaker 3: attend Mass.
[56:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me please, because I'm bringing that up all
[56:18] Speaker 1: the time. I worry about it. I worry this is
[56:20] Speaker 1: such a weird moment in the life of our church.
[56:22] Speaker 1: We've never had this before. And I worry that people
[56:25] Speaker 1: have been away for so long that they've been watching
[56:29] Speaker 1: on TV or maybe you know, a relative handful or
[56:32] Speaker 1: going to our masses outside now maybe one hundred or so.
[56:37] Speaker 1: I worry about it. I do because they're already staying away.
[56:39] Speaker 1: A lot of people are already staying away from Mass,
[56:42] Speaker 1: and then this thing happened. So I don't know. I'm
[56:44] Speaker 1: wrestling with that too. I'm trying to figure it out.
[56:46] Speaker 1: One suggestion I've made is everyone that comes, let's say
[56:50] Speaker 1: to one of our masses now, make a resolution that
[56:54] Speaker 1: when the time comes, please God, sometime soon, when we
[56:57] Speaker 1: can all come back to church, bring some body that's
[57:01] Speaker 1: been away for too long, bring a family member, someone
[57:04] Speaker 1: at work. But become a kind of a one person
[57:08] Speaker 1: evangelical crew and say I'm going to find one or
[57:12] Speaker 1: two and bring them back to mass. But I'm still
[57:15] Speaker 1: wrestling with that too. I'm not quite sure what the
[57:16] Speaker 1: best answer is.
[57:19] Speaker 3: Marta says, how do we get the male figure, the
[57:21] Speaker 3: father of the family to understand the importance that we're
[57:24] Speaker 3: taking in the walk of faith with their children?
[57:26] Speaker 1: Yeah, tell them first of all, tell them that statistically
[57:28] Speaker 1: it's true and that you know, it just has a
[57:31] Speaker 1: massive effect on the kids. So I don't know, tell it,
[57:36] Speaker 1: propagate it, explain it to people. But yeah, getting the
[57:42] Speaker 1: parents involved is absolutely essential. It won't happen without that.
[57:47] Speaker 1: I mean, I grew in my faith and it's just again,
[57:49] Speaker 1: it wasn't so much explicit. It was more implicit that
[57:52] Speaker 1: I just knew it was very important to my parents.
[57:55] Speaker 1: And when you're a little kid, I mean, your parents
[57:57] Speaker 1: set the tone for your life in many ways. And so, yeah,
[58:00] Speaker 1: of course you're religious. My mom and dad are. It
[58:03] Speaker 1: was just taken for granted. But that's I know, has
[58:06] Speaker 1: changed a lot from the time I was a kid
[58:08] Speaker 1: till today.
[58:11] Speaker 3: And what are some rules of engagement to have a
[58:14] Speaker 3: good They put argument, but I would say conversation.
[58:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, But you know, think And I don't mind the
[58:20] Speaker 1: word argument because I know it has this negative overtone,
[58:23] Speaker 1: like we're yelling at each other. But think of Thomas
[58:25] Speaker 1: Aquinas is trading in argumentation. It just means making a case.
[58:31] Speaker 1: It means, you know, bringing your premises to bear, assembling
[58:35] Speaker 1: your evidence, drawing conclusions. It's having a rational conversation. That's
[58:41] Speaker 1: what an argument is, you know. So teaching people how
[58:45] Speaker 1: to have a good argument without becoming rancorous or without
[58:49] Speaker 1: just giving up into like bland toleration, that's something we
[58:54] Speaker 1: can really teach our young people how to do that.
[58:58] Speaker 1: One thing is to begin with their questions. That's what
[59:00] Speaker 1: I did today, right as I listened for days to
[59:04] Speaker 1: these people on Reddit, And okay, I heard your questions.
[59:08] Speaker 1: You think of Jesus now going to amis? You know?
[59:11] Speaker 1: And hey, what are you guys talking about as you go?
[59:14] Speaker 1: That's a really good evangelical starting point. He didn't start
[59:17] Speaker 1: by preaching. He got their mind, you you know, but
[59:22] Speaker 1: he started like, hey, what's on your mind? What are
[59:24] Speaker 1: you guys talking about as you go? So? What are
[59:26] Speaker 1: you talking about? In religion? These three? Is there a God?
[59:31] Speaker 1: Why is there suffering? Why Christianity. All right, good, well,
[59:35] Speaker 1: let's keep talking, you know, but start with their questions.
[59:40] Speaker 3: Last question, what is your drink at Starbucks?
[59:43] Speaker 1: Bishop, I don't go to Starbucks. Head off. I like
[59:46] Speaker 1: coffee a lot, if I hate. I do have Starbucks
[59:48] Speaker 1: at my house. We have the little you know, curing machine,
[59:50] Speaker 1: and I got Starbucks coffee. I don't know what I
[59:53] Speaker 1: like strong coffee. I hate when coffee tastes like just
[59:56] Speaker 1: brown water. I like when it's like really got a
[59:58] Speaker 1: strong punch to it. I can't have too much coffee.
[1:00:02] Speaker 1: I get kind of too keyed up. My assistant, Sylvia
[1:00:05] Speaker 1: is also my wonderful Spanish teacher during all these ZOOM meetings.
[1:00:10] Speaker 1: You know, I've been all this time in my office
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: and she's learned to bring in She has this kind
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: of we call it coffee especiata that she makes me.
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: I don't know what she puts in it, but it
[1:00:18] Speaker 1: really packs a punch and it keeps me awake during
[1:00:21] Speaker 1: all the ZOOM meetings. I do like coffee.
[1:00:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, great, well, Bisha, thank you so much for your time.
[1:00:30] Speaker 3: I know every every time I meet with you, we're
[1:00:33] Speaker 3: always talking and you're always sharing ways to help others.
[1:00:37] Speaker 3: And to teach, and so we really appreciate that. Do
[1:00:40] Speaker 3: you want Do you have anything else to add before.
[1:00:42] Speaker 1: We close with few No, just to get a word
[1:00:44] Speaker 1: of gratitude to all of you. You know, really happy
[1:00:47] Speaker 1: with your dedication and the massive importance of the work
[1:00:52] Speaker 1: you do. I just want to impress that upon you.
[1:00:56] Speaker 1: You're in the front lines and this is one of
[1:00:58] Speaker 1: the key battles going on right now in the life
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: of the church, is the disaffiliation of our young people
[1:01:03] Speaker 1: happening at the age that you're dealing with, and so
[1:01:06] Speaker 1: to be mindful of that, and you know, if this
[1:01:08] Speaker 1: helps it all to say, okay, I do understand the
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: questions you have, keep going, keep going. Can I give
[1:01:15] Speaker 1: you all a blessing before I go?
[1:01:17] Speaker 3: Please?
[1:01:17] Speaker 1: Please the Lord be with you, and may the blessing
[1:01:21] Speaker 1: of Almighty God, the Father, and the Son and the
[1:01:24] Speaker 1: Holy Spirit come down upon you and remain with you
[1:01:27] Speaker 1: forever and ever.
[1:01:30] Speaker 3: Amens.
[1:01:34] Speaker 1: Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed that video, I encourage
[1:01:38] Speaker 1: you to share it and be sure to subscribe to
[1:01:40] Speaker 1: my YouTube channel.

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