A Show of Faith
Millennial, Priest, Minister, and Rabbi walk into a radio station...
A Show of Faith
February 9, 2025 Exploring Jordan Peterson's Influence on Faith and Consciousness
Can a psychologist's exploration of religious themes captivate a global audience?
Join us on "A Show of Faith" as we uncover how Jordan Peterson's work resonates across diverse cultures. Our eclectic panel—a professor, a priest, a millennial, and a rabbi—bring their distinct insights to dissect Peterson's latest book, "We Who Wrestle with God," and his intriguing relationship with faith.
We ponder the question of whether Peterson can truly be considered a Christian, and how his ideas about striving for the "highest good" might clash with personal interpretations.
Our discussion ventures into the profound as we question the interplay between human consciousness and the existence of a divine being, guided by the philosophies of Carl Jung and Peterson.
Is God an objective reality or merely a construct of our minds? We weigh the scientific theories of the universe's origins against religious narratives, scrutinizing how these perspectives shape our understanding of faith. Despite potential gaps in his theological approach, we appreciate Peterson's impact on cultural and religious dialogues, recognizing his ability to illuminate the role of faith in a modern context.
In a lighter vein, we tackle the whimsical notion of God's existence without human acknowledgment, embracing the theological concept of God's self-sufficiency or aseity. Our conversation playfully touches on social media's validation-seeking and Martin Buber's philosophical insights, while also sharing amusing anecdotes from our own lives.
As the episode wraps up, we underscore the importance of humor amidst life's challenges and invite our listeners to engage with us through emails and our streaming platforms.
Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, and remember, you can always tune in to more spirited conversations on "A Show of Faith.
I do, but I gotta think twice Before I give my heart away. And I know all the games you play Because I play them too. Oh, I need some time off from that emotion Time to pick my part up off the floor. Oh well, that love comes down, down with Abnimo son. Well, it takes a storm there, baby, but I'm sure to keep the door Cause I gotta have faith. I gotta have faith Cause I gotta have faith, faith, faith.
Speaker 2:I gotta have faith, faith, faith. Welcome to A Show of Faith where a professor, priest, millennial and rabbi discuss theology and philosophy and anything else of interest in religion. If you have any response to our topics or any comments regarding what we say, hey, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at ashowoffaith at hotmailcom. You can hear our shows again and again by listening pretty much anywhere. Podcasts are heard. Our priest is Fr Mario Arroyo, retired pastor of St Cyril of Alexandria, in the 10,000 block of Westheimer.
Speaker 2:That's the sound of one hand clapping and that's the voice of our professor David Capes, baptist minister and director of academic programming for the Lanier Theological Library. Good to see you guys tonight. Good to see you too. Rudy Koga is our millennial. He's a systems engineer, has his master's degree in theology from the University of St Thomas. Howdy, howdy, hey, hey, rudy. I am Rabbi Stuart Federo, retired rabbi of Congregation Jarhashalom in the Clear Lake area of Houston, texas. Miranda is our board operator tonight and Miranda helps us sound. Great. Nobody else is here, right? Crystal?
Speaker 4:Crystal's here. Yeah, you just hadn't seen her. You haven't looked up from your phone yet.
Speaker 2:No, there's nobody here, just kidding. I can't see that side, that's my excuse.
Speaker 4:Welcome to a show of faith on AM 1070 Answer. It's good to see you, good to be with you guys tonight.
Speaker 5:You know, David, I don't think mine is on.
Speaker 4:Are you on?
Speaker 5:I cannot hear myself in my own oh maybe Are you plugged in.
Speaker 4:Are you plugged in? This is not on. We have noises coming on.
Speaker 5:I mean I can hear myself in the ambient, but I can't hear myself in the.
Speaker 4:You can't hear yourself. Can you hear us? No, no, can't hear us either. Okay, well, we'll get that sorted out.
Speaker 5:Oh wait, it almost went on Almost. Now my right can't chat.
Speaker 2:I'll bet it's the plug. What's going on?
Speaker 4:Rudy's on with us. All right, we've got to get this going. I am, are you better? Here we go. We'll try all the different parts here, plugging things in. All right, anyway, we're getting this thing started here.
Speaker 2:Thank you, does that work, does that work? All right? Very good, it's the plug.
Speaker 4:It's the plug, all right. Anyway, good to see you, hey, rudy. Are you down there, rudy? Yes, I am All right. Anyway, good to see you, hey, rudy. Are you down there, Rudy? Yes, sir, all right, keep getting phone calls. I'm not sure exactly why, but at any rate do you know, down there in Guatemala, jordan Peterson, jordan Peterson.
Speaker 1:Have you heard Jordan Peterson In Brazil right now, and he's actually made it down here too. He's pretty world famous, I would think. I mean it's pretty hard. I would be surprised of a person who's not heard of. So let me ask you You've got to live, you've got to really be outside of the Internet, I think.
Speaker 2:All right, so let me ask you a question, then. How would you portray jordan peter religiously? Peterson, that's what I said. How would you?
Speaker 1:um, I would you know, I thought, I thought about this and it was a good article. Um, from public discourse. I'm sure you guys will talk about it later, but, uh, I would describe him as, um, his wife just recently converted to catholicism, maybe like a year ago, I think his wife did okay I think he yeah um, I think he's like.
Speaker 1:Carl Jung but that doesn't hate religion. I don't know if that makes any sense. I think he's a psychologist right. So I think he's, if you grab Carl Jung and actually gave him a sense of how this sort of Judeo-Christian tradition has been so important for the world and tries to understand it from a sort of kind of.
Speaker 1:Jungian perspective. That's the sense that I get from reading. I've read Maps of Meaning. I've read 12 Rules for Life. So I haven't read his new book. It recently came out. I'm not sure I'm too interested in reading it. If I'm going to be completely honest.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and this particular article did not. Now it works yeah.
Speaker 1:Didn't actually win me over on it. No, no To answer the rabbi. Would you describe him as a Christian? No, I do not. Maybe he's trying. I wouldn't go so far. I don't think he knows a Christian. I know, I know.
Speaker 4:A lot of stuff going on here. Jordan Peterson's calling in, I think, is what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he wants to defend himself against the Anschluss.
Speaker 4:You know, here's the thing I mean, he's one of these folks that is, he's everywhere. It seems like. Do you see him everywhere, I guess, father.
Speaker 5:Yes, I do.
Speaker 4:I mean you turn on YouTube. He's on YouTube. You look at the Internet, he's in a variety of places.
Speaker 4:He's got his own podcast, kind of things would you and would you please just answer that thing and just hang it up there there we go bish, pish, tosh, yeah, all right, um, but but in your he's, he's sort of everywhere it seems like right and a lot of people don't quite understand what he's doing or what he's up to. But he came on the scene a number of years ago. I can't remember exactly where he was, but he was up in one of the In Canada. In Canada, yeah, he's from Canada, right, but he's a psychologist. He goes all over now, but he is kind of a world-class guy. So here's the article that we're referencing in public discourse. It's called Jordan Peterson and the Problem of God, and he's written a new book called we who Wrestle with God. I think is the title.
Speaker 2:And Stuart does not like that title at all. It's called Cultural Appropriation.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, we'll let you talk about that in just a little bit, because we'll come to that. But essentially in that book the writer says that what we don't have is somebody with Peterson trying to really get into the stories of the Bible and talk about the Bible so much. But the Bible becomes a sort of a means to an end, that is, to talk about other sort of mythological, symbolic stories that come from the better part of human culture, in other words, not from God.
Speaker 4:But all of these support his main thesis, and here's what he says. The main thesis of Jordan Peterson is in his book, the new book, but also in a lot of his other books, that is, that every individual and this is really interesting should aim at that which is highest and organize life and, by extension, society accordingly. That's kind of the big idea.
Speaker 5:And that is correct.
Speaker 4:That every individual think about that. Every individual should aim at the highest, assuming that we'll all agree on what the highest is.
Speaker 5:And that's the point. You don't.
Speaker 4:And that's the thing we don't right. And sometimes his highest and my highest might come into conflict. So what happens then in society? Is that enough for us to think about the good life, the good society, the good world that we're all sort of looking forward to?
Speaker 2:and we're thinking about. As long as you have human beings, determine what that high, high point, high thing is, the highest good, the highest good is going to be, then it will stray from the moral and ethical it has to by it will, because the problem becomes that what if you have which you will have human beings who say well, the highest good is my good. Or the highest good is murder. That's right.
Speaker 5:Getting rid of the riffraff yeah, yeah, so you know it's too broad. It's too broad, but I don't disagree from this perspective that, given the absence of true faith in God, you should aim for the highest common good, the highest common good for all humanity.
Speaker 2:And that's true, but again you're going to go back to who determines.
Speaker 5:I'm in agreement, but notice what I said. It is not the highest good.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 5:Because the highest good. You could interpret the highest good as my individual good good.
Speaker 2:You could do that with the common good too well you can, but.
Speaker 5:but at the moment you say common, you have a basis of argument that you are excluding someone, some. So, for example, if, if, if we don't take care of the earth, that we're not taking care of the common good, if you're saying, no, my nation, no, no, no, no, the common good is the good of all humanity. So I think you could agree philosophically on what is good and you could agree on common, meaning the entire humanity, Right for everybody.
Speaker 5:Yes, so I think at least you would have a basis for arguing what is the common good, based on what it included and what it excluded?
Speaker 2:It would provide a standard by which it's judged. Some yeah Right.
Speaker 5:But you know, what's interesting to me is the moment that you said. That is when I the the etymology of the word worship, because the word worship is exactly what that is everybody worships something. Why? Because the word worship is first of all the suffix of that word, is ship. Ship is meaning the art or practice of anything Penmanship, craftsmanship, sportsmanship, anything. Ship is the art or practice of anything, and the WOR is a shortened version of the word worth, and so you have worth, ship, so worth. Ship is, by definition, seeking to put the things that are worthwhile in their hierarchical order. And the moment you say that you're seeking for the highest worth, and that's what Peterson is saying.
Speaker 2:It's a naval destroyer, a warship.
Speaker 5:No, that's a W-A-R. Yeah warship. Sorry, it's just. Like you know, I asked you earlier if you had ever heard of the superb owl. Yes, and have you have, you guys. Rudy, have you heard of the superb owl?
Speaker 1:I have not, it's right.
Speaker 5:Rudy, how can you not have heard of the superb owl?
Speaker 2:You used to be in the United States. Yes, rudy, especially tonight, the Super Bowl, yeah.
Speaker 1:The Super Bowl. The Super Bowl.
Speaker 4:You just change the letters around just a little bit.
Speaker 5:But anyway, to me it just fits the definition of worship.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And I tell people, when you come to church and you come to worship God, what are you doing? You're saying I am here to make sure that my relationship with you is the highest thing in my life. Yeah, Period.
Speaker 4:Yep, yep and, in a sense, we all. As you said, we all do that you all worship.
Speaker 5:Everybody worships something.
Speaker 4:What you talk about the most, what you think about the most, is usually the thing that you worship. If you talk about money the most, if you talk about sports the most, if you talk about it's if you talk about sports the most, whatever it is, it's funny, it's what you really think is ultimately worth I had an experience just yesterday.
Speaker 5:my I couldn't. My lock on my condominium wouldn't work, I couldn't lock it, and so I had to leave my condominium open until the locksmith got there. It was 24 hours so I had to leave, so I had to go to the office and I had to leave my condominium open. So I took the two things that were worthwhile to me. What did you take, charlie? My dog and my computer.
Speaker 4:You had to decide what was worth. Yeah, what was worth?
Speaker 5:I didn't care about anything else but Charlie, and Charlie's my dog, charlie's your dog. What a cool dog.
Speaker 4:Yeah, charlie, yeah, well, we all have to decide that right.
Speaker 5:That's right Everybody has.
Speaker 4:If you're in, California and your house is burning down. You've got to decide. What am I going to get out before? That house goes up.
Speaker 5:And right now, the most worthwhile, important thing right now we have to do is Commercial, commercial break.
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Speaker 2:Okay, let's come back to Welcome back to A Show of Faith.
Speaker 4:You know they actually sang this song tonight at the game at the Suburb Owl. Really, yes, why? That's the Super Bowl? It was part of an ad campaign they were doing. They had the whole stadium singing that song.
Speaker 5:Is it still going on?
Speaker 4:The Super, the Super Owl, the Super Owl.
Speaker 5:The Super Owl I can't say which the?
Speaker 4:Super Owl, the Super Bowl is still going on. Well it was.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 4:I'm sure it'll be the 9-9-30. Probably 9-9-30, yeah. Hey, we're talking tonight about Jordan Peterson and the question, or the problem, of God. And the problem of God that is raised by this article we're talking about and by his book is does in fact God exist or is God just, in a sense, the result of human consciousness? Because, going back to your word, was that a burp?
Speaker 5:No, it was a growl growl, grim Growl.
Speaker 4:It sounded like this Grimace. Okay, well, so you're not happy with that question?
Speaker 5:No, because it's a silly question. You know why? Because it only considers human consciousness. What did the existence of the world, the existence of the universe, the Big Bang in the beginning, what went bang? I mean, you have issues of, of, of existence that are beyond the human. That, to me, that argument is extremely anthropocentric.
Speaker 2:Mario, didn't you know that God didn't exist until the sixth day? Fifth day didn't exist because humans didn't exist. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, but that's what.
Speaker 5:I'm saying when do you get that? You know the whole issue of even if you believe in the Big Bang, even if you believe in multiple universes, for God's sake, you have to have somewhere that begins. The universe is not eternal. Nobody believes that it had. Universe is not eternal. Nobody believes that it had to come from somewhere.
Speaker 5:It had to come from somewhere, something. That's why I love that little bitty, that little thing. In the beginning there was nothing and nothing, happened to nothing and nothing for no reason. One day went bang and made little bits of everything. Then became dinosaurs. Makes perfect sense, you know. Just stupid.
Speaker 4:He says mockingly. He says mockingly he says mocking me I'm mocking, but when?
Speaker 1:we say the word god oh go ahead, yeah well, I was just going to say it's important you, you got to understand. And I've look, I've listened to a lot of uh, dr peterson's. I listen to a lot of Dr Peterson's lectures and I just want to say, you know, he really is in my sense, in the sense that I get a really smart guy okay, but he comes from the sort of Jungian school right of Carl Jung.
Speaker 1:And so he studied a lot of his psychology and I think it reflected in a lot of the things that he talks about, I agree. Oh, no doubt, necessarily. I think it's incomplete, but I still think he's having a positive impact.
Speaker 5:Rudy will you're, you put your finger on culture. You put your finger on it. He is wonderful. I love jordan peterson. He is incomplete for something. That's the whole point I like him for something. Yeah, but he is incomplete. He's not bad, he's incomplete. It's kind of like Protestants, you know you're not bad.
Speaker 4:Just incomplete and many of us have no name.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4:We're non-denominational.
Speaker 5:Non-denominational no name.
Speaker 1:Father Mario, I'm surprised you make it out of that room alive every Sunday.
Speaker 4:Every week.
Speaker 2:You have to say that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, he says that, says all the time. Well, again, this is not a critique of Jordan Peterson, no, it isn't. It's an appreciation for Jordan Peterson, but just sort of understanding where he's coming from, because I think he is those things. He has helped a lot of people understand faith in many ways, but he's not doing so as an evangelist, he's not doing so as a Christian or a Catholic or a Protestant or anything like that. But one of the things that this article raises and his book raises and Carl Jung basically talked about in one of his final books, 1954, something like that was is God an objective reality or is God just something that we in our consciousness have described, we have needed, invented as necessary? It brings us to our fullness of our humanity in some ways. I think he would agree with all of those things. But the question is is there an objective reality? And if there's not, so what's the big deal?
Speaker 5:No, but see, that's where I find the argument just silly because of the objective nature of reality. You know, where did the independent of my consciousness, where did the objective nature of reality come from? All matter has to have an origin, and so, even if you don't have human consciousness, matter still exists. And so where did it come from it's contingent? It's not, it does, it's not of its own origin. Matter cannot exist in and of itself forever.
Speaker 4:So does it come from itself?
Speaker 5:so the question is so. I don't disagree that there is a high amount of your own perception of God which comes from your own psychological needs. There's no question about that. But to question the objectivity of God based solely on human consciousness, I think is woefully short-sighted.
Speaker 2:Stuart, I would agree. I I don't, you know, I forgot who originally said this and I used to think it was cutesy and clever. Now I'm not. So now I'm not. I think they're doing that to harass us. But God made humans. God made man in God's own image and man, being a gentleman, returned the favor. Yeah, I used to think that was clever and cute.
Speaker 5:Now I'm not so sure, and now I am sure that we need to go to a break. This is 1070. Give me a break. I will 1070 KNDH and we'll be right back AM 1070, the answer.
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Speaker 2:Welcome back to A Show of Faith on AM1070 Answer. This is an email from Presbyterian Mark. I'll be in a week late. The Big Bang was not an explosion. This is a common misconception. The quote-unquote Big Bang, which was originally proposed by a Catholic priest who was an astronomer, was a derisive term applied to the theory by some people who believed in a static universe. The quote Big Bang was actually a rapid expansion, not explosion, of space, roughly from the size of a proton to a basketball in about a billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second and at large scales the observable universe is uniform to about one part in 10,000. Grace and peace, presbyterian Mark.
Speaker 5:But Presbyterian Mark. What is the difference between a rapid expansion?
Speaker 2:and an explosion.
Speaker 5:It's just whenever you're talking about stuff like this, the only thing we have are human terms. You can of course I don't believe it was an explosion.
Speaker 4:And you know what? I don't think it went bang.
Speaker 5:No.
Speaker 4:Or even a big bang.
Speaker 5:It was no, but the whole point, it's an analogy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's an analogy, that's a good description, and you still have to ask the question where did the material that exploded or that expanded, where did it come?
Speaker 5:from what did he call it? A proton? From the size of a proton to a basketball, yeah, but when you have the moment you say size, you're already saying material. And where did that material come from and what made that material expanded?
Speaker 2:What caused it? What caused it and all of a sudden, nothing happened?
Speaker 5:Yeah, nothing happened nothing. To me. That argument never ceases to amaze me, because there's only two choices Either matter is eternal, which it is not, which you couldn't tell by the expanding universe, or it had to have a start somewhere.
Speaker 4:It doesn't make any sense to me.
Speaker 2:In the beginning.
Speaker 4:God.
Speaker 2:The end.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that's where Judaism begins, that's where the Christian Bible begins too. I mean, that's just part of our tradition as well.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 5:But we stole it from him.
Speaker 2:Yes, you did. You got with it and started giving weird interpretations.
Speaker 4:Here's the book that is entitled we who Wrestle With God, and he has entitled that book in large part because of his conversations over the years with Dennis Prager that have been about the Bible and he's gotten a lot of his Bible training not from the New Testament side of things, because this particular book is about Deuteronomy and it's about Genesis and the Torah. This particular book is about Deuteronomy and it's about Genesis and the Torah the first five books of Moses, and then it's also about the book of Job, so it's not a lot of New Testament stuff in there. There's more and more and more.
Speaker 2:Well, that's because all the interesting stuff comes from the Bible.
Speaker 4:Well, that's right, it's enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4:But you are concerned that he stole that, not stole it, not stole it he borrowed it Because everything is stolen in Christianity.
Speaker 2:He is taking something that is explicitly Jewish and referring explicitly to the people of Israel, and he's taking the definition of the term Israel and applying it to those who are not Israel. Okay, which means those who wrestle with God. That's where the story, that's where the name comes from.
Speaker 4:In a sense, what I take it he's saying is that everybody who thinks about God and wrestles with the idea of God is wrestling with God.
Speaker 2:And I understand what he's saying but I wish he'd use a different term. I wish he would use something else. Yeah, you know, and you're right, he probably got it from Dennis Prager and that doesn't make it okay.
Speaker 4:Well, it doesn't make it okay. It just from your point of view, but I think he's trying to appeal to a broader audience than just Christians or just Protestants or people who come from a monotheistic heritage, in a sense the book is about.
Speaker 4:In a sense it is about God to some degree, but what it means to wrestle with God, and this is what he says. To wrestle with God, he says, seems to signify a process of continual self-discovery, of continual striving to find the highest principle. It says we are seeking for the highest principle and then we organize our lives around that revelation, whatever that revelation is, which seems more like to me enlightenment than it is revelation. Right, because he's not using the word revelation the way that Jews use it. Or Christians, because in Christianity we think revelation means the idea that God acts, that there is a God and that God acts and speaks in order to disclose himself to humanity. Right, revelation reveals, to reveal. Right, so it's not just okay, as I find, as I find, as I find, as I find this highest good and I discover it. That's not revelation, because it started inside of me and such. So there's a distinction there that I think is very, very, very significant.
Speaker 4:Here's just a few of the things he says in the book. When he's talking about God, he's looking at the image of God, the figure of God in Genesis 1. God is presented as a process or a spirit guided by the aim of Having all things exist and flourish, a spirit guided by love. In other words, in the story of Cain and Abel, god is shown to be the spirit with whom we can enter into a covenant whenever we make the necessary sacrifices to place what is highest uppermost in our lives.
Speaker 4:Genesis 12, when God calls Abraham a story, god is represented as the spirit calling Abraham to an adventure, and the adventure is one of self-discovery to develop oneself personally, to develop yourself and to become that person that you could potentially be. So there is a bit of a different way. I don't think he got all of that from Prager. I think some of that just came out of his young psychology and everything. But you notice that he's trying to take seriously, from his point of view, these images of God God as a creator, god as one who establishes rules and regulations and laws, and God as the one who calls people into a covenant.
Speaker 2:The way you just now describe God in the book of Genesis in those passages is not how I hear Peterson describe God in those passages. He does not describe God in Genesis 1-1 as creator, and I can't remember how you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, God is the process or spirit guidance. No, no, but not creator.
Speaker 2:He's the process of creation, but he is not the creator. Right? I forgot the other one you said can't enable, can't enable the story.
Speaker 4:God is the process guided by the aim of sorry. God is the process or the spirit by whom we can enter into a covenant whenever we make the necessary sacrifices that's not how you just now described it later in what you just said.
Speaker 2:Now, okay, because the way in which he describes it, I think, is foreign. Or let me rephrase that it's a nice interpretation of those stories in the book of Genesis, but it's not what the book of Genesis was saying. It's merely his interpretation of it. A spiritual process? No, he's creator In the beginning, god created. He's not a process, he's a creator who calls the world into being.
Speaker 5:Well, that's why the whole thing is to me a little weird, because you're reducing God to an uh, to a process internal to consciousness, and god is not in a process of internal to consciousness. God is the creator, he's not. He can't be reduced to an internal event inside a human skull yes, right, right, right now now where we, where we actually apprehend God and think of God.
Speaker 5:We think of God with inside our heads our brains right, it's like we think of anything and everything else, but we cannot reduce him to that. We can't reduce him to that. Yeah, rudy, what do you got on this?
Speaker 1:I think like, fundamentally, we're missing this sort of entire concept of grace. Right, that it's not just this thing, like this kind of myth, that exists out there. That's just for us to kind of self-improve over these experiences that I've had, I mean as a Christian, and of course, to Jews too. This is the Word of God, right, as he intended it right. It is a supernatural truth that exists irrelevant of us, without us. You know, whether we exist or not, whether the world exists or not, god isn't a thing. God isn't necessarily a spirit or this process. He is I am. I mean, when he speaks to Moses and he says I am, that is right, it's not.
Speaker 5:That's right.
Speaker 1:He is the very essence of all. And I think when you don't attack well, not say attack, but when you don't look at the Bible in that perspective, right, and you're kind of just left with, and I keep kind of reminding myself this and I know we have to go to a break. But I mean, to me Peterson is just he really refrains from calling himself a Christian or to sort of acknowledging that supernatural truth he's. If you were to kind of strip all that out and just look at these stories let's say just the stories what sort of moral basis can be extracted from it? Like, what sort of exegesis can you do out of this thing? And that's what he's doing, right, I mean, he pulls positive things, but he's missing the basis, that's why I call him incomplete.
Speaker 5:It's not. It's a very good thing. It's a beginning stage. It can be an open door. It's a step in the right direction, but it's not complete.
Speaker 4:One of the things this book does is he looks at things like the Lion King. He looks at the Lord of the Rings trilogy, other things like that as well. He looks at Harry Potter. He looks at a lot of other things. It's great literature, important literature that contains many of the same features of good and evil and struggle and wrestling against these kind of things. He looks at all of those and he comes through and at the very end it seems like all fiction is created equal. At that point.
Speaker 5:Right, including the Bible.
Speaker 4:Well, the Bible? Yeah, it could be at that particular point. But I think he would demur from calling it a fiction because I don't think he would want to say he's using the religious studies terminology of myth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the embodiment of truth in a story, in a story.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we've got to go to break.
Speaker 5:This is 1070 KNTH the Answer and we will answer your questions when we come back.
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Speaker 7:Hey, it's Andy Hoosier with the Voice of Reason. You know your favorite conservative talk radio show where we cover the latest current events, recap your week, have some deeper discussions and have some fun, sarcastic witty and original perspectives to the issues that matter to you. Yeah, you know the show. Be sure to join me every Saturday right here and enjoy the most energetic, fast-paced intense couple hours of conservatism on the radio.
Speaker 2:It's the Voice of Reason and it's all right here. Did it really, when it came out, bothered me.
Speaker 4:Did it really.
Speaker 2:Yes, it did. Welcome back to A Show of Faith on AM 1070, the Answer.
Speaker 4:All right, here's the question of the hour. Here's the question If there were no humans, would there be a God? Would God exist? Oh jeez.
Speaker 2:I mean I In your opinion. That's what it's about.
Speaker 1:I just think that's such a stupid question.
Speaker 4:Well, it's. No, okay, if you're saying but you understand that there are a lot of people that think that the idea of God is sort of a so then the question is what if you had no humans?
Speaker 5:would reality exist?
Speaker 2:Say that last part again.
Speaker 5:If there were no humans to be conscious of it, would reality exist? And the answer is yes.
Speaker 2:Does a tree? When a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound?
Speaker 5:So if reality exists and matter is contingent, matter cannot self-create. Therefore there is a God. This whole argument is based on the existence of the human being being the sole evidence for the creation of God.
Speaker 4:Right. So our writer of this article says all of this depends on whether God exists in say or whether his existence is only in anima hominis. Which means, which means basically in the soul of man.
Speaker 5:But that's why, even with that writer, god cannot exist solely in the soul of man, because reality exists in the soul of man, because reality exists in the dependency of man.
Speaker 4:Well, I mean, he's obviously critiquing the whole project that he's on there. So there's this idea in theology called the aseity of God. Aseity of God. The aseity of God means that God needs nothing outside of himself to be himself. That's right. He needs nothing. He doesn't need the universe. The universe has not made any. The existence of the universe and all human beings and all the worship that is given doesn't make him any more God than he was before. He was God already and he needs nothing. Human beings, on the other hand, we need everything outside of us to make us who we are. We need air, we need water, we need food, we need gravity, we need strong and weak forces. You know, we need all that stuff in order for us to be human beings and to even be alive.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you something. Yes, the term God is a God, a doctor has to have patience. That's a bad example. I can't think of an example off the top of my head. But in order for God to be God, doesn't God have to have those who acknowledge that God is God?
Speaker 5:if God is a title, he would still be who he is independently if he didn't have that title.
Speaker 2:Exactly that I would agree with. But in the way the question is stated it seems unclear.
Speaker 5:That's why you know, god is not a thing. He is being itself, he is to be. God's being is to be, to be or not to be, no, just to be. To be that's God's being is to be.
Speaker 4:Is being, yeah, being, the ground of being, yeah, yeah, the basic, I mean before existence, prior to existence, any of those kind of things. So the whole project that he's on about here is a very interesting project and I commend him for it, but I don't think he goes far enough. I don't think he's able to. From where he stands today, as a psychologist, as a podcaster, as an influencer, as a writer and as a YouTube host. He doesn't really want, nor does he have the opportunity to be able to dwell down, get down on some of these more significant aspects of theological study and training, but he is going to interpret all these biblical ideas and theological ideas through the lens of his Jungian psychology. Is that a good thing, rudy, or is that a bad thing, you think?
Speaker 1:I think what he's doing, and maybe his role, is a good thing, because I think he makes the Bible let's say the entirety of it, I'm going to use the word digestible to a lot of people who maybe before had no inkling or appetite for it. So I think he's piquing the curiosity of a lot of people, yeah, and? And when people start going into that, then you're going to start reading other authors, authors that that dig deeper into the actual theology, into the philosophy. That isn't just into the actual theology, into the philosophy. That isn't just sort of a psychology right. What I'm saying is he's going to leave you wanting more.
Speaker 5:He's made religion intellectually respectable.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 5:Not that he wasn't before in terms of religious people, but to the scientism of today. He has made religion in a scientism environment. Scientism is basically materialism, but people in the past were laughing at people of faith and now he has muted that laughter because he has given psychological respectability to the whole notion of the possible existence of God and the benefits of biblical religion.
Speaker 2:And I think that also reflects something that Dennis Prager did with his Rational Bible series of commentaries on the Bible the Rational Bible.
Speaker 4:One of the things that Buber commented on. Martin Buber, who is a Jewish philosopher, in the book says that human beings in the 20th century have become incapable of apprehending a reality that is independent of themselves. In other words, if there is a reality beyond ourselves, we're not able to understand it without interjecting ourselves into it. And so, to be able to think about these greatest goods, to be able to think about God, we inject ourselves into those realities and we make them all about us in a way.
Speaker 2:I believe it was Descartes who said I think, therefore I am. I think the modern version is I'm on social media, therefore I am.
Speaker 5:Okay.
Speaker 2:I think they have to have social media to prove that they exist I don't disagree, don't disagree with that at all.
Speaker 4:I don't disagree, don't disagree with that at all, I don't disagree. So, rudy, what takes you to Brazil?
Speaker 1:I have two weddings here and we came to see my wife's family. Ah, we spent a little bit of time down here. How's your Portuguese? My Portuguese is a little bit better. I'm glad you said that. Whatever you said.
Speaker 4:I'm sure Father Mario got that.
Speaker 5:Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I don't know any Portuguese.
Speaker 1:I'm actually. You guys should look at this town. I really do enjoy visiting historic sites and I'm in this town called Oro Preto, which means black gold, which is one of the first areas where the Portuguese discovered the gold mines that were so prominent during the 18th century. Wow, it was at such a peak that almost a third of all the gold being mined during the 18th century was coming out of Brazilian mines. So the church I'll send you guys some pictures, but some of these churches that they built here have anywhere between 1,000 kilos or 500 kilograms of gold painted just everywhere.
Speaker 4:It's just, it's impressive really so much beauty, so much beauty.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Baroque, I mean, and they still. We went to mass today at one of these churches and the fact that you can sit here in this 350-year-old church just decked out in gold, and you're sitting here and it's like man where. What did we do different? Right, going back to we've been talking about Jung and these images, right, the statement you just read about Martin.
Speaker 4:Buber, I'm not sure Buber. Yeah, Martin Buber.
Speaker 1:Buber. But yeah, when we start focusing only on ourselves, it's like we almost lose our imagination to think of grander and more beautiful things, and I think it's pretty true in a lot of our architecture too in the world. But anyways, that's maybe for another show.
Speaker 2:Rudy a question. The service at the church you went to, was it all Latin? Was it Portuguese? How did that play out?
Speaker 1:Well, it was Portuguese. I've been to another mass also. That's a Maronite, which is another rite within the Catholic Church. There's 24 rites within the Catholic Church and that one is in Aramaic and Portuguese, but this one is Portuguese in the vernacular that I went to today Interesting.
Speaker 4:Hmm, interesting yeah.
Speaker 5:Well.
Speaker 4:Father Mario, are you the show director next week? I think I am.
Speaker 5:I think I'm going to cover next week. A friend of mine sent me a message that he didn't have any water anymore no more water, so I sent him a get well soon card get well soon, oh why whenever he speaks, you do not respond Get well soon.
Speaker 4:Oh, why do I Whenever?
Speaker 2:he speaks, you do not respond I should just look.
Speaker 5:Yes, he did, he walked right into it. I really did.
Speaker 2:That's what you do, I really did.
Speaker 4:Get well.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, Get well soon.
Speaker 5:Yes, Anyway, you have been listening to the Show of Faith here on 1070 KNTH and I'll be your director next week. So keep us in your prayers, folks, because you are always going to be in ours.
Speaker 10:Find us at am1070theanswercom. Download our apps. Stream us 24-7. Knth and K277DE-FM Houston.