The Speak Life Podcast
Connecting the Christian faith and modern life.
The Speak Life Podcast
Ousting Epicurus || SLP320
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Last month we looked at the ancient philosopher Epicurus. When we put on his ancient spectacles we understand much of the modern world. We live in an Epicurean world. But what could ever topple this pleasure-seeking world view? Stoicism has been, traditionally, the competitor to Epicureanism. It's all about accepting the moment and living for virtue (rather than pure pleasure). But the gospel of Jesus is different to both of these philosophies. In this episode Glen Scrivener walks us through the three world views and how Jesus offers something incomparable and unimprovable.
Hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Glenn Scriven. I'm so glad that you've tuned in to us for today. Now, Paul Feasy and myself are on holiday for these next two weeks. We are on a break, uh, but not in the Ross and Racial sense, just in the summer holiday sense. Uh, we've got some great content lined up for you, but before I tell you about that, let me get you excited about what's coming up at Speak Life in the autumn. In the autumn, we've got a new series called Reset. It's all about going back to the beginning. We are the first culture really not to know where it's come from or why it's here. We have walked away from our origin story and nothing else has really come in its place. Instead, we are really lost. And wondering what is the meaning of it all. So, what can we do here at Speak Life in the midst of this meaning crisis? Well, we've come across this idea called reset. And what we want to do is go back to the beginning, go back to the founding stories of our civilization, Genesis chapters 1 to 4. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna take those stories in reverse order, starting from Cain and Abel in Genesis chapter 4. We're going to move our way back through the Bible, through those uh early chapters of Genesis and ask questions about meaning, about suffering, about death, about sex, about beauty, about truth, about science, about equality. And all the time we're getting back to the beginning, back to that very first sentence in the Bible. In the beginning, God. Might He be the answer to our meaning crisis. We've got some tremendous guests lined up as we interview people, some of the Christians, some of them not. We've got Douglas Murray lined up, we've got Tom Holland lined up, many other uh great interviewees as we discuss the meaning crisis and what the book of Genesis might say into this crisis. So if you're not already subscribed on our podcast, if you're not already subscribed to our YouTube channel where we are Speak Life Media, then make sure that you like and subscribe to us there, and you'll be kept abreast of all the great content that's coming your way. Now, on today's uh episode, uh, what we're doing on the podcast is completing a series that we started uh a few weeks ago when I looked at Alex O'Connor, otherwise known as Cosmic Skeptic, and his arguments for Epicureanism. Now you might think that's uh incredibly archaic. What possible use could it be to look at this ancient philosophy from two and a half thousand years ago? Well, actually, you'll see that when we put these spectacles on, you'll be able to make sense of our cultural moment today. Everybody is Epicurean today. And that explains so much of our world. We're gonna look at Epicureanism in this episode, we're also gonna look at its ancient competitor, that is Stoicism, that kind of stiff upper lip, keep calm and carry on kind of uh uh mentality. And we're gonna look at the gospel of Jesus Christ and how Jesus Christ offers something that's different from Epicureanism, different from Stoicism, but really it makes sense of our world. So, without further ado, let's listen to Ousting Epicurus. Hello everybody, Glenn Scrivener here from Speak Life. Uh we saw in a previous video how Epicurus must fall. Check out the description box for a link to that video. In it, I dissect 10 minutes from Alex O'Connor, otherwise known as Cosmic Skeptic, in which he defends the Epicurean way of the world. He was debating uh inspiring philosophy, otherwise known as Michael Jones, and they were debating the topic would God allow evil and suffering? It's very much the question that Epicurus raised two and a half thousand years ago. Epicurus basically believes this happiness is man's greatest aim in life, and happiness is an absence of pain and suffering. This is the Epicurean view of life, that life is about the maximization of pleasure, the minimization of pain. The fatal error that Epicurus kind of made is to imagine that God is Epicurean. He had the classical definition, you know, Plato's definition of God in mind. God is all powerful, all good, and all-knowing. But if he knows about the evil in the world, and if he's powerful enough to stop it, and if he's a good God, surely he would minimize pain and and maximize uh well-being. But the world, it seems, is not at all like that. So God cannot be, as has been classically thought of by people like Plato. And so Epicurus thought, yeah, the gods kind of probably do exist somewhere out there, but they make no impact on our day-to-day lives, and we should live an Epicurean life, a life of maximizing happiness and minimizing pain. We saw in the last video though, as I was dissecting Alex O'Connor's arguments, um, that really I I don't think we should be Epicurean, and I certainly don't think we can expect God to be Epicurean. Because in order to be Epicurean, um, Alex O'Connor had to trade off all kinds of concepts like virtue, like courage, like the hero's journey, like the inviolability of life, and like the wonder of love for love's sake. Um, Alex O'Connor, in that uh debate, traded off all those things in order to go for the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain. And if you don't believe me, go back to that video and and have a look. He's trading off the concept of virtue, he's trading off the inviolability of life, he's trading off love for love's sake. He even says at one point in the video that um the good that you derive from your relationships is in the feelings and the consolations that you get out of those relationships, not in the relationships themselves, which is a pretty bold way of saying you use your friends to get the feelings of security and confidence and love that you want. You don't love them for their sake. He says this boldly in uh in the debate. Alex O'Connor is a thoroughgoing Epicurean, and and he made his case well, he made his case persuasively from within his worldview. But that is the view of the world, if you are Alex O'Connor. You are you are um willing, as an Epicurean, to trade off virtue, courage, the hero's journey, the inviolability of life, the goodness of life in and of itself, the goodness of love for love's sake. He traded it all off for the maximization of pleasure, the minimization of pain. And look, um you can check out that whole video or or let me summarize in one analogy why it is that Epicureus uh Epicureanism must fall. Okay, we have run the experiment millions of times. Millions of times, we have created worlds. And the worlds that we have created as creative people, the stories that we've told, the narrative arcs that we have put out into the world, have never been Epicurean. There are millions of creators in this world, creators of worlds. Anyone who has ever told a story, whether it's a novel or a play or a film or whatever it is, if you have ever told a story, you've been a creator of a world. And you have never created an Epicurean world. Okay? Sometimes I go into schools and I do um school assemblies and that sort of thing. And I tell them, look, we're gonna crowdsource a fairy tale. Should we crowdsource a fairy tale? And the kids look, yeah, let's do it. I said, I'll start you off, and then you tell me which direction we go in. It'll be a choose your own adventure. So here's how it begins. In the beginning there was a kingdom of light and life and love, there was a good king who was wise, and there was a beautiful princess who was as brave as she was fair, and everyone was very happy the end. Is that a good story? And the kids know that's not a good story. Five year olds know that's that's not how a story goes. And so I, you know, pretend to be shocked. Oh really, that's not a good story? I mean, everyone's happy. Why why why why aren't you happy with a world in which I've just maximized happiness? But no one is. No one ever is. And so I say to them, okay, so which way should the story go? Should something nice happen or something nasty? And some of them are young and so young that they don't really understand about stories. Sometimes they say, something nice, let's have something nice. And I go, Oh, okay, well, let's imagine that there's a jousting competition, and the king gets um all the knights to compete, and uh, you know, whoever whoever wins the jousting competition will be the the guest of honor at a great feast for a month. And so they have the jousting competition, and all the great knights come on their white charges. But a poor shepherd boy from the hills shows up and he smells and everybody laughs at him because his horse looks really bedraggled. But somehow, you know, through cunning and wit and while he he wins the you know the the jousting competition and he's crowned um as the winner, and he's made into a knight, and there's a feast that lasts for a month and everyone's very happy. Okay. That's something nice, isn't it? And then I say, okay, are we are we done with the nice yet? Okay, at least at least even in that portion of the story, there's actually a courage and heroism in the hero's journey. Um but then I say, you know, what should happen now? Something nice or something nasty, and then uh I mean, usually, almost straight away, people say something nasty should happen. The last time I did this, a kid from the back said, Something evil! Something evil should happen. I was like, alright, easy, okay. Um So I say, okay, the dragon flies in from across the sea, kidnaps the princess, and takes her back to his lair. Uh what should happen next? Should the king think, ah well, easy come, easy go, plenty more princesses where that came from, or should there be a rescue? And they say, There should be a rescue, and I say, Well who should go? And some bright spark says, Ah, how about the shepherd boy who became a knight? Okay, let's let's let's choose him. Okay. And uh he has to get into a boat and the and the king kind of pushes him off and wishes him godspeed. Should the crossing across the sea to the dragon's island, should that be an easy crossing or a difficult crossing? A difficult crossing. They all know it should be a difficult crossing. And then so I g I get them to, you know, tell me what kind of monsters there should be in the deep. And they tell you there should be a triple-headed octopus, and there should be electric eels, and there should be radioactive sharks, or whatever. You know, they come up with all these monsters, and somehow he defeats the monsters and he gets across to the other side. And you you spin the story because they they want it to be difficult, they want it to be a hero's journey. So you talk about the fire swamp he goes through and he has to climb the cliffs of insanity and he and he finds his way to the dragon's lair, and he confronts the dragon, and you say, Should it be an easy fight or a difficult fight? A difficult fight, of course it should be a difficult fight. And so it goes back and forth, and just when you think that the dragon is gonna gobble him up, somehow he snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, and he traps the dragon in the lair that had held the princess, and he releases the princess. And they sail back across the sea. He returns her into the arms of the king, and then I say, and and what should happen? How should the story end? And usually somebody says, The knight and the princess they should get married. And I I always say, only if she wants to. I mean, you know, she's been through a long ordeal, uh, she'll have to, you know, process all sorts of very complicated feelings she has about her captor, you know, there is such a thing as Stockholm Syndrome. Um but if after, you know, twelve weeks of therapy and and if she still wants to marry the knight, then they get married and they all live happily ever after. Is that a good story? Right? That is the story. That that is the story we always tell. We have run the experiment millions of times. There are millions of creators out there in the world, and they always tell that shape of story. Even we know we shouldn't be Epicurean. Even we know that there is virtue, courage, the hero's journey, the inviolability of life, the goodness of love in and of itself. We know these things. We know that actually the great story is about the sacrifices you make for the sake of life and love. And therefore you journey through the valley of the shadow of death and you come out into feasting joy. That is the shape of the story. Even humans know that. Now, you know, it's not as though God should operate um by our intuitions, but even our intuitions are not Epicurean. Our intuitions resist this maximization of pleasure. Okay, so uh it seems obvious to me that Epicureanism is false. Okay? But nevertheless, we live in an Epicurean age. Our prosperity in life has dulled us to the goodness of pain and struggle because we have sat we have had so much prosperity on tap, we think the good life is just maximizing pleasure. Because pleasure has been so available to us, um, we have retreated from the gritty, heroic, courageous interactions with this world that actually make life worth living. And so we have been duped by Epicureanism in our age. Here are ten ways in which um you you know that we're living in an Epicurean age. Firstly, uh the urgency with which we ask the suffering question. The kind of why questions that we ask in the face of suffering are a recent phenomenon among modern, prosperous Westerners, usually. Um you go around the world to discover um places where they really suffer, they don't ask the suffering question in the way that we do. Isn't that interesting? Those who really suffer don't really ask the suffering question. Those who suffer least ask the suffering question most. I find that absolutely fascinating. I mean, you might know that uh in uh London there was an atheist bus campaign. I mentioned it in the previous video about uh Epicurus. Um uh what was what was the London bus campaign? Uh God probably doesn't exist, so stop worrying and enjoy your life. Pure Epicureanism. Okay. The London bus campaign, I guess we're going back nearly ten years now, uh, was really Epicurean. Um God probably does not exist, so stop worrying and enjoy your life. The gods are far away, get on and maximize pleasure. Pure Epicureanism. Um a year or two later in Melbourne, they had uh an atheist bus campaign which um was quite similar, and they had as their slogan, if God exists, I hope he has a good excuse. That was the slogan. It was taken from Woody Allen. It's a quote from Woody Allen. Now consider the source. Woody Allen said this. Um Woody Allen, uh prosperous, famous, artistically fulfilled, Woody Allen has lived one of the most charmed lives a human being has ever had the privilege of living on planet Earth, and he thinks God better have a very good excuse for ordering the world in such a way. Isn't that interesting that one of the one of the most privileged people there has ever been rails at the existence of God the most, and he thinks God needs to explain himself to him. Um I think we all ought to know that Woody Allen needs to explain himself to God because he hasn't just lived a prosperous life, Woody Allen. Um he and all of us will have to explain ourselves to God, not the other way around. But isn't it interesting that in modern prosperous Western societies, we ask things like, if God exists, I hope he has a good excuse. And this this bus, driving around Melbourne, that kind of makes sense. I can imagine a lot of us a lot of Australians look into that bus and going, yeah, too right, too right. What what kind of what kind of God allows this kind of world, they say, sipping their latte in in one of the nicest cities on planet earth? Melbourne is a great city. It's not as nice as Sydney, but it's it's a it's a decent city. I can imagine this driving around Melbourne or Sydney. I can imagine it driving around lots of prosperous cities. I can't imagine this bus driving around Kaduna in northern Nigeria or a slum in Nairobi or Rio de Janeiro or Baghdad. Can you imagine this bus driving around? Can you imagine people looking at that slogan? And even if it was translated into their language, they would not understand a syllable of it. Like, what do you mean? If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse. Um The people who suffer the most find meaning in their suffering. And they don't conclude that the existence of suffering must mean the absence of God. The most religious people in the world live in some of the most suffering parts of the world. Right? And they don't ask the suffering question like that. Why why do I say that we we live in Epicurean times?
SPEAKER_03Well, we live in Epicurean times because we are urgently asking the suffering question.
SPEAKER_02We say, Whence cometh evil, we say, along with Epicurus two and a half thousand years ago. Um but it only goes to show that we've bought into Epicurean assumptions that life is about the maximization of pleasure. We don't see, therefore, the goodness, the utility of suffering. We can't imagine that suffering could be redeemed or has any purpose to it. We don't see meaning in the struggle. We just see something to be avoided, and so when struggle hits, we uh we uh we shake our fist at reality itself and say, this this is not right. Suffering cannot be right. It's only because we're Epicureans. Let me rattle through the other uh ten reasons why I think we are in an Epicurean age. Uh there are low birth rates, right? Very low birth rates. I mean, I was reading the other day that um in the United States um atheists have a uh a birth rate of 1.6, um, and uh agnostics have a birth rate of 1.3. And we I mean you need you need 2.1 to replace the population. Um, but there are chronically low birth rates in the West, in Europe and in uh America and Australia. Um there are chronically low birth rates. Why? Well it's interesting in the Bible um birth is the number one analogy that the Bible gives for this suffering world. Okay? Labor pains are a very good analogy for the kind of struggle and pain that we feel in this life. But labor pains lead somewhere. The woman who is cradling her child in her arms after two days of intense labor, you ask her, was it painful? She says, You have no idea how painful it was. You ask her, was it worth it? She says, Of course it was worth it. Look, look at the new life. Labor pains is an analogy for a biblical view of life. Incredibly painful, totally worth it, right? But uh, if you are into the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain, then um you're not going to yourself invest in something that that involves not only you know pregnancy pains and labor pains, but also the pains of you know, kids are a pain. Kids are a pain, they're expensive, they cramp your style, okay? And overwhelmingly in the West, we are saying, yeah, it's not worth it though, is it? It's not worth it. Life is not worth it, right? Because we are just into the maximization of pleasure. And there's even a movement called antinatalism, which is a philosophical movement that doesn't j just say, I would rather not have children. It says you ought not to have children. Because having kids in a suffering world increases the net suffering in this world. You can't do that. Right? The minimization of suffering is the virtue in life. That's that's the good thing that you're aiming for. And if if you're adding to the net uh suffering of this world, then you are immoral. You ought not to have children. Antinatalism is a thing. And you know, there are different different reasons for it. With kind of creation care movements, environmental um concerns, um, it it surfaces by the claim when people say, uh, you know, you could um stop taking um long haul flights, you you could uh reduce your carbon footprint in this way or that way, you could give up your car, you could, you know, you could cycle around on a bicycle woven from hemp and s you know, one bag for life, and you know, never go near a plastic straw. Um and you wouldn't come close to the reduction of carbon footprints that you would have if you did not have children. Right? Have you heard this? People people are saying it, you know, don't have kids. Kids add to the carbon footprint, right? Do not have Children. And we're just not replacing ourselves in the West, in the affluent modern West. We just don't have kids. And we we don't just say, ah, it's not for me. We actually are starting to say it is an evil thing to have children. We are so thoroughly Epicurean. It's unbelievable. Number three, abortion. Here's another reason why we are living in an Epicurean age. 125,000 unborn members of the human family are being violently murdered today. 125,000. Did you know that on the outside of the womb, only 150,000 people die every day? Every day in this world, if you've made it, you know, past the birth canal and into this world, um a hundred and fifty thousand people outside the womb die, usually of natural causes. But we intentionally kill 125,000 unborn members of the human family. Um and, you know, uh in this country, it's it's replicated all over the world in in this country. Um the the overwhelming reason for having an abortion in 95% of cases is uh the well-being of the mother. And that is um taken to mean any any kind of measure of well-being, the mental health well-being, the financial impact that a child will have. Um if you can prove that the child will have a negative financial impact on you, you can have an abortion. You're like, well, what child doesn't have a negative financial impact on you? That's kind of a point. It's the kind of suffering that you embrace cheerfully because that is where meaning is found in life. But no, we don't think that anymore. Um if kids will cost you, don't have them. And even if you're pregnant, end them. End them in the womb. And we are ending them in the womb. 125,000 of them every single day. And then at the other end of things, number four, the reason why we know we're in an Epicurean age is suicide. And suicide is the is the tragic choice that someone makes that it's just not worth it anymore. Life in itself is not inviolable. I don't have the courage to to to go through this valley of deep shadow anymore. I don't see my life as inviolable, and the pain is outweighing the pleasure. And if the maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain is my moral compass, then to end my pain, I will end myself. And that's the that's the tragic decision that so many make. And again, in the West, in more prosperous places, suicide is much more of a problem than it is in places that suffer more. Have you ever considered that? And why is it that even in the prosperous West, it's among demographics that we tend to think of as the most privileged and powerful. They are killing themselves at the greatest rates. Young white men are killing themselves at uh at such a rate. Young white men are killing themselves so much that it is the great killer of young men, overtaking even road traffic accidents. And road traffic accidents take out a lot of young men, but young men kill themselves at an even greater rate. And again, it's it's in it's embracing this view of life that is about getting rid of the inviolability of life, getting rid of the hero's journey, and and the embrace of that journey through the valley. And it's the calculus of of minimizing pain, and if you want to end pain, then the decision to end yourself makes sense. So suicide um is a sign, I think, that we are in an Epicurean age, and and euthanasia, number five, is um is really that that same philosophy worked out because uh again, if you want to end suffering, then you will end the sufferer. And if the highest good in your worldview is ending suffering, then of course you're going to end the sufferer. And we're going to have euthanasia. And you know, euthanasia is is uh an overwhelmingly Epicurean philosophy. So there's another sign that we're in an Epicurean age. Number six, um, commitment phobia. Okay, um marriages are through the floor. We are not committing to one another in that lifelong sense of for better and for worse. Instead, there's such a thing these days as marrying yourself. Have you ever seen this? People are marrying themselves. Can you imagine? I mean, I'd divorce myself if I could, but people marrying themselves because they we are not wanting to commit to something outside ourselves that might cramp our style. We want to nurture ourselves and our own desires and put ourselves first in all things. That's a thing. Commitment phobia. There's the extension of adolescence. You know, it's it's a stereotype, but it's a stereotype for a reason. You know, the guy who's still in his 30s and he lives in Mum's basement and he's playing Call of Duty 24-7. Um, and he's not engaging the world forthrightly. He's not cleaning his room as Jordan Peterson would tell him to do. Um, there's this extension of adolescence, and there's an immaturity, because maturity comes when you forthrightly contend with this world, when you take responsibility in this world. We don't we don't want to do that because we just want to maximize pleasure. Number eight, there's recreation as detachment. Um I mean, a lot of people will look to the decline in church attendance in the West, usually among white people, I mean, uh among people of color, um, the the church is thriving and around the world, in places dominated by people of color, um, the church has has never been bigger. In the West, church attendance is declining alongside, this is interesting, um, all sorts of other associations like sport sports clubs, like rotary and lions clubs, like political associations. Membership is just down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Because this is not the way we spend our time anymore. We don't spend our time with one another, contending with the world and and campaigning for this, that, or the other. Um, no, it's I'm gonna be part man, part sofa, watching Netflix till I die. And that's what I think of as recreation. That's what I think will reflect refresh my soul, as opposed to crunchy community in which we rub up against each other and and move towards a greater goal. We're doing that less and less, and we are just soothing our own desire for dopamine more and more. Uh, the number nine reason why I think we are in an Epicurean age, offense is Trumps. What I mean by that is um if somebody offends you, that's it. That's that's the end of the conversation. How dare you?
SPEAKER_03I was offended.
SPEAKER_02Um what's that stand-up comedian? Um, Steve, somebody in uh he's in Australian.
SPEAKER_03But I was a f I was offended. I was offended.
SPEAKER_02And the stand-up comedian says, Well, so what? You're offended. Um what what does that mean? But that um that is the trump card that people play in uh in an academic interchange, even. You know, there's there's cognitive dissonance, I'm I'm feeling triggered. You're making a microaggression to me. I'm I'm offended. I need a safe space. You know, Jonathan Haidt has talked about the coddling of the American mind. Um, Jonathan Haidt um is probably would best be classed as a stoic, and we'll see who the Stoics are in a second. And so he's reacting against the Epicurean philosophy that I should be shielded from all kinds of cognitive dissonance and robust interchange and views that disagree with mine. I should be given a safe space, given trigger warnings. And, you know, he makes the case that in instead what we are doing is we are becoming more and more fragile because the way to challenge your fragility is actually to get out there forthrightly in the world and and engage with other people and with different views. But we can't handle different views. We just we howl. We howl. I was offended, and we you know label people bigots and phobes because they have ideas that we we don't like. Um offense is Trumps, and that's another sign we're living in an Epicurean age. And then number 10, lockdown. Lockdown. Uh the the way that we in the West have handled um the coronavirus crisis, and it is a crisis, um, has great parallels with the ancient Epicureans. And um I I think uh Tom Holland put this really well in an episode of Unbelievable uh recently. Let's let's listen to what Tom Holland says.
SPEAKER_00Lucretius ends his uh his his poem de Rum Natura on the nature of things um by riffing on Fucydide's account of the Great Plague in Athens during the Peloponnesian War. Um it's interesting that it appears in in um in Lucretius, who is an Epicurean, and essentially the whole Epicurean doctrine is basically go into lockdown, get find yourself a nice garden, you know, self-isolate with a few amenable people, get some decent books, get the food in, and you know, just hang out because the gods are there, but they don't care. The the universe is as it is. So just self-isolate, do as you will, make your salad, bread, whatever, all the things that people are doing now. Um and that obviously was brilliant if you had the resources to do that again as now. Yes. Um but most people in the Roman world obviously that was not the case.
SPEAKER_02So in the Roman world, um, yeah, if you had the resources, you could just self-isolate with you and some friends like yours, and and and you could do the equivalent of Netflix back in the day. And um, and it's just as the rest of the world is having to handle coronavirus, um, they don't have the resources, they don't have the privileges, they don't have the luxury of the kind of Epicurean ways uh that we have tried to handle uh coronavirus. Um, which is not to say that isolation and and all those sorts of things um has not been the correct thing to do, but it is to say the embrace of it by so many people, um, the the willing embrace of it by so many people, I think, um speaks to an Epicurean spirit in so many of us. So there are ten reasons why I think um you know we live in an Epicurean age, ten signs that this age is Epicurean. Um now I want to just talk about the ancient competitor to Epicureanism, um, because it doesn't just take a Christian to look at that and say, that doesn't work. It doesn't just take a Christian to look at that. And back in uh the the days of Epicurus, there were many people who were reacting against that. And the chief school uh that was opposed to Epicureanism was Stoicism. And uh there we've got Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Um, even a Roman emperor can be counted uh among some of uh Stoicism's great heroes. And uh what were the Stoics all about? Um well they said actually accept the moment. You're walking through a dark valley, there are all sorts of opponents, there is suffering around you, there is a pestilence, there's plague striking the land. Accept the moment, right? Don't um don't just flee and maximize pleasure, because there there might be something meaningful to be found in the moment in which you find yourself. Accept the moment. Virtue is the only good. Right? Epicurus wanted to trade off virtue in preference for pleasure. Um but uh but but the Stoics were were saying, no, no, no, there is such a thing as virtue. Stiff up a lip, right? Um and virtue is sufficient for happiness. So the Stoics were not saying don't don't worry about happiness, don't bother about happiness. It's impossible, as I said in the last video, it's impossible to actually jettison happiness. It's impossible not to choose that which you think is best. Um you don't choose misery. Um you might be mistaken about the choice that you you make, you might be mistaken about the options that are out there, and the choice that you make is by comparison with a range of other options, but you don't go for the most miserable option. You go you go for the option that will comparatively, you think, make you happiest. But the Stoics are saying virtue is what will make you happiest. Goodness is what will make you there's a moral category out there, and you and you ignore it to your peril. Um and so, you know, the the Stoic outlook is very much the blitz spirit outlook of, you know, you know during World War II, there they are, the Londoners, and the bombs are raining down from the Nazis, and you keep calm and you carry on, right? Very stoical, very stoical. What are these virtues that the Stoics um trumpet? Well, they had four main categories: there's wisdom, and there's um other virtues that fit under the category of wisdom. There's justice, there's the category of courage, and there's the category of moderation. Um, these are the stoical virtues. And um you you might remember um in the film Gladiator, Marcus Aurelius is played by Richard Harris, and and certainly um Russell Crowe's uh character is stoical. Um he looks up to Marcus Aurelius, he's he's in that mold. And what does he say to all the other soldiers? Strength and honor, strength and honor, strength and honor. Because you can imagine in an army, you don't want Epicurean soldiers. Okay, Epicurean soldiers will be no good to you in a battle. Because they'll always be thinking, uh, should we fight or should we just, you know, head head back and self-isolate in the in the villa? Um you don't want an Epicurean soldier, you you need stoic soldiers who believe in the struggle, believe in the fight, and um believe in virtue, even though it costs you everything. But what are those virtues? Strength and honor. Strength and honor, you know, wisdom, justice, courage, moderation. Um this is the milieu into which the Christian gospel erupts. On the one hand, the Epicureans, on the other hand, the Stoics, the pleasure people, and the virtue people fascinating the way in which the gospel interacts in that milieu. But but before we get into how the Christian message interacts with those two schools, I want to show you how actually we might live in an Epicurean age, but Stoicism is making a comeback. It's definitely making a comeback. Um do you remember Sam Harris versus Jordan Peterson? Um I love even the thumbnail here. Do you see the thumbnail there? Sam Harris smirking. Jordan Peterson frowning. Okay? What is Sam Harris? Sam Harris is absolutely uh an Epicurean. In fact, his uh moral philosophy, the moral landscape is just Epicureanism brought into the 21st century. It's it's just we want to maximize well-being, says Sam Harris. And um he just stands in that great stream of Epicureanism that includes the utilitarians of the 19th century, and Sam Harris is just a modern repackaging of Epicureanism. Um we want to maximize well-being, and actually, concepts like virtue, good and evil, can take the hindmost. Um, and they will be um massively deflated by you know considering things, you know, considering the fact that we have no free will, according to Sam Harris, considering the fact that we are really slaves to our neurons firing. Um and so good and evil really has very little place in the moral landscape. What you what you want to do is maximize happiness. He is the Epicurean. Jordan Peterson is very much the Stoic. What does the Stoic say? The Stoic has 12 rules for life for you. The Stoic says, be more lobster, right? It's just like Jordan Peterson says. The Stoic says, clean up your room. Stand up straight with your shoulders back, okay? Forthrightly contend with this world. Take responsibility, damn it! Right? That's that's Jordan Peterson. That's Stoicism. It's very popular. Um and it and it's won a real hearing among people. Um so let me let me point to five um ways in which I think Epicurus is being ousted and in which stoic stoicism is kind of rising up. Um there is, firstly, Jordan Peterson. Um do what is meaningful, not what is expedient. I I think of all the chapters of Jordan Peterson's Twelve Rules for Life, I think that is the most Petersonian. I think I think that is kind of the heart of it. Do what is meaningful, not what is expedient. Maximize virtue, not pleasure. And he's won a massive um a massive hearing, and and loads of people are talking about the meaning crisis that we are experiencing. And at Speak Life, we're gonna um really zero in on the meaning crisis in the autumn. We're gonna do a series called Reset, where we go back to the biblical stories of Genesis chapters one to four, and consider concepts like morality, consider concepts like beauty and truth and meaning, and try to speak into a culture that has lost its story and is starting to realize it has lost its story and doesn't know why it's here. And this culture is realizing that the maximization of pleasure is not sufficient for the for the living of a good life. It just isn't. We know we need, secondly, things like virtue. Now, so often all the only kind of virtue we have is virtue signaling, and that's the Epicurean kind of fight back. Um just just you don't need to save the planet, just have a bag for life. Right. You know, you you don't need to really stand against racism in your life, you just need to black out on Instagram for a day. Right. That's the Epicurean fight back. But this the the the urge within that the Stoics are recognizing that virtue is more important than happiness. Okay? It's more it's more goodness, moral goodness, the striving against evil is is more important. Where we have a sense of that, and we're we're trying to recla reclaim some of that, with things like number three, causes. Okay. There are great causes that are vying for our attention. There's the social justice cause, there's there's anti-racism uh within that, there's there's extinction rebellion and and looking after the environment, there's veganism, there's the there's all sorts of causes that are rising up. Fourthly, um, a sign that stoicism might be on the rise. Isn't it interesting that lockdown ended not with parties but with protests? I think I imagined in March that we would emerge from lockdown with a great street party and hooray, and we just, you know, um we'd we'd drink to our very good health, and that would be that. No, it ended, it ended ended with protests and protests and protests and protests. And actually this category of virtue just raises its head. Obviously, that um that desire for virtue gets hijacked by all sorts of nihilistic um virtue signaling and um uh other nefarious causes, but the desire for virtue is ineradicable in the human heart. We can't just live for pleasure. Um and then fifthly, a sign that maybe stoicism is is on the rise as well is there is an interest in church and prayer. Um and you know, maybe Christians start to get excited about that, and there's lots to get excited about, but there's also an equal, you know, rise in interest in nation and race. Um and that also can can hijack um people's increasing interest in spiritual matters. And not every desire to return to traditional values is good. Um and we'll see we'll see why that is in a second. But so there is reason to think that Epicurus Epicurus is falling and must fall. What will take its place? Will just Stoicism take its place? Or what about this? I love this. Acts chapter 17. We'll finish with this. Paul goes to ground zero of Greek philosophy. He goes to Athens. He finds where all the philosophers are doing their thing. This is ground zero for Western civilization, actually. But whereas you might think that Western civilization is a kind of a just a dialogue between Stoicism and Epicureanism and Christianity and Judeo-Christian values. Actually, what I want to show you is that Christianity has so totally revolutionized even our views of Epicureanism and Stoicism that I think actually here, the Apostle Paul is birthing Western civilization as we read. Okay? That's what's happening. In Acts chapter 17. Here is the Apostle Paul going to ground zero of Western philosophy. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with Paul. I love that. Usually they just debate with one another. And then when they when they hear someone preaching about Jesus and the resurrection, they recognize that he is not Epicurean, he is not Stoic, he's something else. There's something else. I think it's a very good thing that there is something else. Some of these philosophers started to ask, what is this babbler trying to say? That gives me great hope as a preacher of the gospel, as someone who thinks of himself as a communicator, you know, one of the great communicators in world history who penned, you know, half of the New Testament, who basically, you know, is more responsible for the world's bestseller than almost anybody else. Um he was thought of as a babbler. So that gives me great great comfort that Paul was thought of as a babbler. Others remarked, he seems to be advocating foreign gods. Whatever Paul is bringing, it is out of this world. He seems to be advocating foreign gods. They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Interestingly, just in the Greek, there's Jesus and then resurrection is Anastasis. Sounds like Anastasia. And um a lot of people think, and and I think they're they're correct, that they heard Paul yabbering on about Jesus and yabbering on about Anastasis, that they thought, ah, so Paul believes in these two gods called Jesus and Anastasia. Um and whatever Paul was bringing, it did not fit into the Epicurean mold, and it did not fit into the Stoic mold. It was something else, foreign gods. It was the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. And I just want to finish thinking about that. What Paul brought was totally different. He brought good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Um, first of all, he brought good news. It's it's news, not advice. And that's that's just so amazing. Um Paul does not come and say, hey, you want to live a you know a happy life, let me tell you how to live happily. He doesn't say you want to live a virtuous life, let me tell you how to live virtuously. He comes saying, Let me tell you what happened. Jesus died and rose again and has fundamentally altered the character of life on planet Earth. He's altered the cosmos through his death and resurrection. Something has happened. I'm just a news reader, I'm just a reporter. I'm telling you something that has happened. There's such a difference between news and advice. You know, good advice is study hard, knuckle down, and you might get the grades. Good news is you graduated top of your class. You have the top first. Okay? That's that's news. And in the light of that news, life is different. You've got the top first from Harvard or Magda Cum Laude or whatever they call it. Now, life is different because you've received news. If you receive good, good advice, it's all on you. And that's the thing about Epicureanism and Stoicism, it's it's all on you. You know, the epic the Epicurean has to maximize pleasure, and if they're not doing it, they're not doing it right, and maybe they should just end it all. Because they're just they're creating more suffering for themselves, so they they should probably just end it all. Like it it's that it actually all goes on you. And and for you, you know, you just do you. You figure out your own meaning to life. Man, that's that's hard. That's the human the human person is so small, so frail, so weak, so finite. We can't invent a meaning for ourselves and pursue it. We need to plug into a much richer story and be told good news, not just to be told you're cast adrift on a meaningless ocean. Just try to maximize your your happiness while you while you do it. That leaves you by yourself. If you're a stoic, oh man, that's just advice. You know, Jordan Peterson gives you 12 rules for life. I mean, Moses gave the world ten commandments. Jordan Peterson goes 20% better. Okay. And it's very much, he just sees Jesus as um an example to follow. You know, Jesus spoke the truth into the world, he got crucified for it, but you've got to take up your cross and you know, take up responsibility and climb up the hill. And you ask Jordan Peterson what's at the top, he says, I don't know, but just do it, right? Put your life together. Stand up straight with your shoulders back. It's good advice. It is good advice. It is good advice, it's not good news. And I was for years kind of worried about the followers of Jordan Peterson that um they would crash. Because once you once you try to be all the lobster you can be and you still fail, man, that is disappointing. Man, that's going to lead to depression. You're gonna fall flat on your face. I was worried for a couple of years that, okay, Jordan Peterson's bringing a lot of interesting stuff about virtue and the and the and the need for recovering the biblical stories. And I I still listen to him with with great interest. Um, but I was always I was always worried for his followers that having followed this good advice, they would realize they're not up to it, and they would crash. And then what happened was that Jordan Peterson crashed. You know, Jordan Peterson's been the one who's who's crashed. Because we need more than good advice. We need good news. The good the good news is this you can't do it yourself. You can't make yourself happy, you can't make yourself virtuous. But Jesus entered into your world, into your life, and he took on himself all the ways in which you crash, he took on himself all the ways in which you fail. He took that sin down to the death that it deserves, and he rose up again to a new kind of life that you can be a part of, and it's nothing you have to strive for. In him you can find your true joy, in him you can find true goodness, and it's a gift. It's for free. So have it. Believe in the good news of Jesus and the resurrection. That's good news, and that's that's the good news that we need, not just good advice. But then the second thing Paul brings here is he he brings the good news of Jesus and the resurrection. The good news of Jesus and the resurrection. Did you notice something about um the Epicurean sorry, the uh about the stoic virtues? Wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation. Wisdom, justice, courage, moderation, you know? Strength and honor, strength and honor, strength and honor. It's not very personal, is it? Where is love? Where is mercy? Where is the kind of compassion that really gives itself for the other?
SPEAKER_01Where where where is where is that kindness? Wisdom, justice, courage, moderation.
SPEAKER_02The good news is not a philosophy. The good news is not a moral system. The good news is a person who came personally for you. This is what upended the world. This is what turned the world upside down. And then the good news is about Jesus and about the resurrection. You see, actually, Epicureans and and and Stoics Um both have a tragic view of life. A really tragic view of life. You know, you you grab after all that you can get in this in this world. You enjoy your brief moment in the sun, whether um through pleasure, whether through accepting the moment and being virtuous, but then you tumble down into the grave. And that is that is that view. Now the Epicurean tried to put death out of their mind. Um and I I I spoke about this in in a previous video. The Epicurean said to themselves, Well, I won't be worried in a hundred years' time because I'll be dead. So why worry about a state in which I won't be worrying? Okay? Um that's that's a silly, that's a silly. It doesn't even work philosophically. Um there's every reason why you should worry about death, even though you might think that you'll be worriedless after that fact. There's every reason to still be worried about death, but Epicureans um tried to use little tricks on themselves to put death out of sight, out of mind. The Stoic, on the other hand, tried to bring death into their um sphere of vision and to deal with it um uh by you know remembering their mortality on a daily basis. You know, so the the classic stoic person, you know, they they're about to go on a long journey and they would kiss their children goodbye, and as they kissed their children goodbye, they would tell themselves, she might be dead tomorrow. She might be dead when when I return. And you're constantly reminding yourself of your mortality and everybody else's mortality, um, in order that you would just accept the moment. But of course, um, how much will you really abandon yourself in love to your children if you're constantly telling yourself they might be dead in the morning, they might be dead in the morning, they might be dead in the morning, and that you have to accept that. Jesus comes to a graveside in John chapter 11, and his best friend is lying in the tomb, and he snorts with indignation at death, and he cries, he he out mourns all the other Middle Eastern mourners at that funeral, which is some going. Um because he doesn't he doesn't just accept death. Death is an enemy, but death is an enemy that has been conquered in Jesus. He has smashed a hole through death and come out the other side, and there is hope. There is hope so that right now I can pull myself out into this world in personal love for people. I can believe in the inviolability of life and love for love's sake. I can go on the hero's journey, and I can attempt this virtuous behavior, not because I'm the hero, but because Jesus, my hero, has pioneered a path through all that and guarantees me a hope on the other end of things. And therefore, I have hope for the future, therefore I can invest now. The Epicurean says, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. The Christian says, Tomorrow we die, and then we eat, drink, and be merry. So today I am going to invest in the coming feast. I'm going to pour myself out in personal love for my neighbor, for my family, even for my enemy. I'm gonna I can invest in the coming feast. Not because I've accepted death, no, I hate death, but I know a victor of death, and in him and through him and with him, I will now expend myself today, knowing that tomorrow we die, but after that we eat, drink, and be merry. There is hope. The Christian message is not Epicureanism, it's not Stoicism, it's something else, and it is what has built the modern world. I don't know where you come from, I don't know if you're a Christian or not as you watch this, but I just urge you to come home to Jesus. Pleasure seeking won't do it. Virtue seeking won't do it. But there is a courageous hero who has sought you. You live in his story. He is the great knight who came across the great abyss to fight for you, to die for you, to rise again for you, and to bring you home. In him, there is an answer to Epicureanism, in him, there's an answer to Stoicism. That answer is Jesus.