Why You Can’t Get What You Actually Want

Hello everybody. Welcome to the seventh of my release tour lectures from we who wrestle with God. Little update for the week. Well, the biggest news is that I have a new grandson. Francis Fuller, 8 lb 1 oz, born at 11:14 p.m. on July 29th. So that's number seven. Uh it's so good to have kids around. My son released an album this week called Overcome. It's available on Spotify. It details the various things that him and his family have gone through in the last few years. He uh opened for my tour. That was exciting. I enjoyed that a lot, so give that a listen. We released the climate piece. We released a piece detailing out I would say the big climate lie, the failure of the modelers to take into account the effect of carbon dioxide on plant growth, which has been phenomenal. So you can check that out on X or at the Telegraph because the Telegraph published it in its entirety. Anyways, on with the show. I hope you find it useful, challenging, provocative, compelling, all those things a lecture should be. >> [applause] >> The question of belief currently plagues the world. And uh that's true culturally and politically. Say with regards to so-called identity politics. Identity isn't politics, by the way. Identity is something much more fundamental than politics and so when we have identity politics we have the collapse of the sacred into the political and that's a reflection of the death of God and that is not a good thing. That is failure to keep those things that should be rendered unto Caesar separate from those things that should be rendered unto God. Tonight we're going to investigate what it means to believe I would say and we're going to do that in relationship to the biblical stories which is what this book that the tour is based on is about. Is the Bible true? Well, the first issue you have to wrestle with if you're going to pose that question is well, what's the Bible about? And you have to understand the argument that it's dramatizing in order to address that issue squarely and you might ask why bother and I suppose the simplest answer to that is whether you're an atheist or a believer Christian let's say or a Jew you can't escape the fact that the civilization that dominates the world for better or worse, Western civilization is a product of the biblical text. And so wrestling with it is inescapable. What are we wrestling with? What's the Bible about? The Bible presents a characterization of God. It presents multiple specific characterizations of God in a manner that integrate into a unity. The unity is the monotheistic God of the biblical corpus. The Bible is a characterization of God. It's also a characterization of man and woman and society and a portrayal of the relationship or the covenant between man, woman, society, and God. And so is that characterization valid? That's the same question as whether or not the Bible is true. Well, what's the characterization? So that's the question we'll investigate tonight. Now, this is the last lecture for me of a 60-city tour. I'll be hitting the road again with Tammy and my crew in November when my book comes out, but this is the end of the first run of the public events that are associated with We Who Wrestle with God. And it's a very good time for me to take stock because I've had 60 lectures to practice and all the time that I was touring, I was also writing and so tonight I'm going to try to integrate. Richard Dawkins said something about the Bible. You know Dawkins, he's perhaps the most famous of the four horsemen of the atheist movement, the new atheist movement. A movement which is looking a little shaky at the moment. By the way, not least because of Dawkins' recent announcement that he was a cultural Christian. Which of course begs the question, if Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous atheist, is a cultural Christian, just exactly what did the Christians get right? Because it's obviously something. And it's obviously something significant enough so that even the world's most famous atheist, when push comes to shove, which is what's happening, is forced, despite himself, perhaps, although I believe he is a man who in many ways is pursuing the truth, to publicly proclaim that we better not throw the baby out with the bathwater, especially if it happens to be the divine child that we're disposing of, so to speak. Dawkins said once, I believe it was Dawkins, that if the biblical stories were true, then why was there no scientific discovery, so to speak, of note in the entire text. One answer to that is that the truth that's contained in the biblical library is literary truth or moral truth, rather than scientific truth. And that's a reasonable objection because there's a difference between the moral truth that lays out a structure of perception and a pathway of action and the scientific truth that describes the world. Those are not the same thing. We don't know how to bridge the gap between what is and what ought to be as Hume, the philosopher David Hume, so famously pointed out. But I would also take objection to Dawkins' claim that there's nothing of scientific merit in the biblical text because I don't believe that's true. I think that the deepest findings of evolutionary psychology, biology, and the morality that is portrayed in the biblical text actually dovetail. And I also think that has to be the case in so far as both are true. That's the conclusion you would draw if you assumed or observed that the truth is in the final analysis a unity. What's one of the fundamental truths of the biblical library that might be regarded as acceptable and novel, brilliant even, on the scientific front? The truth that psychological stability and maturity and social integrity and community itself are predicated on sacrifice. So what does that mean? The Bible characterizes God. It characterizes man, woman, and society, and it characterizes the relationship between man, woman, society, and God, and it portrays that relationship as sacrificial. And understanding that is there's nothing more important than understanding what that means. And I don't mean the understanding that's the belief in a creed. I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, for example. That begs the question, what do you mean believe? I mean understanding what the biblical description of sacrifice means so deeply that it becomes comprehensible and I would say unchallengeable philosophically and simultaneously something of immense, continuous, and immediate practical significance. So, to understand it, you have to understand it in the highest possible manner, at the highest level of abstraction, but you have to be able to have in incorporated it that understanding thoroughly enough so that it guides every decision you make to speak or move your eyes. >> Imagine your favorite lecture, dial that up on max, put that on steroids, and then add some cinematic elements to it. That's the best way I could describe [music] a Peterson Academy lecture. >> I went to college because [music] I had to. I go to Peterson Academy because I want to. I'm still paying off college from 10 years ago, and I'm also still questioning the value that I got out of college. >> In traditionally universities, a lot of times it's just pretty dry. They don't bring the same energy as the professors at Peterson Academy. >> It is a completely different experience to learn from somebody who actually wants to teach you. >> If you've been on the fence about this, [music] this is the time. >> That thing that's calling to you, you won't have an answer for it unless you enroll and see for yourself. [music] You have the opportunity to investigate that calling. >> All right. We'll start the examination of the characterization and the sacrificial motif with the story of Cain and Abel. It's a very short story. It's a miraculously short story. It's only about two paragraphs long. It's unbelievably condensed and dense. And yet really lays out the battleground between two different sacrificial approaches to life. Not only two different sacrificial approaches to life, but the two different sacrificial approaches to life that characterize the conflict in the human soul, the eternal political battle, and the struggle between good and evil at the level of the cosmos itself. What does sacrifice mean? This is the rub. When modern people read the story of Cain and Abel, the archaic dramatization constitutes an impediment to understanding. Abel makes an altar. And on that altar, he immolates, burns, the choicest cuts of the finest animals of his flock. And he offers that to God. Now, that's a hard thing for modern people to wrap their heads around. We don't really understand the purpose of the altar. We don't understand why these archaic people would immolate an offering. We don't understand what the offering means, and we don't understand why what's offered is what's offered. And that's a major problem. Especially given that the story of Cain and Abel sets the framework for understanding the entire pattern of narrative that characterizes the Bible after that story as it unfolds. The first question, therefore, is what does it mean to sacrifice? It means to give something up. Why do you have to give something up? Well, let's imagine that you want to establish a relationship with a woman or a man in your marriage. Is it all about you? Well, try that out and see how it works. My suspicion is your wife will object. Whatever it's all about, it's not all about you. And there's a further question there. Even if it was all about you, exactly, what do you mean that it's all about you? Do you mean that it's all about what the most immature part of you wants right now and to hell with everything else? Because generally even if you're a small child and it's all about you. What it actually means is that it's all about whatever whim whatever narrow and immature whim happens to possess you at the moment. So, even if it's all about you, the you that it's all about is not an integrated and unitary you. It's some instinctual drive that's possessing you at the moment that demands immediate gratification regardless of the cost. Sacrifice is necessary because things have a cost. So, even if it's all about you in a marriage, which won't work, the you that it's all about isn't even you. It's some fragment of you that has got you in its control that you're essentially worshipping in a staggeringly immature and counterproductive manner. When you say, "I want," what you're really saying, if the pronouncement is immature, is that something in you that you've allowed to possess you wants. The child who only wants to play the game his way has no friends. Why? Well, because to have friends, everybody else gets a turn. Not only to play in the confines of a given game, but to pick which game is going to be played. And so, if you want to have friends, then you sacrifice your own omnipotence so that you can have a community. And that's what you do in a marriage. You sacrifice the necessity for the immediate gratification of your immature drives to to what? Exactly. To the maintenance of the relationship. Your wife, your husband needs to be aligned with you now. And that means that there are strictures on how you interact with your partner. Not only do they have to be aligned with you now, they have to be aligned with you tomorrow. And they have to be aligned with you next week, and next month, and next year, and in a decade from now, and 20 years from now, and 50 years from now. And so, what that means is that as you interact with every gesture and word, if you're interacting properly, you're interacting in a manner that ensures the integration of your relationship now, so that you're pleased to be in each other's company and playing properly together in a manner that makes you want to continue the game, in a manner that makes the game playable tomorrow, and next week, and next month, and next year, and 10 years from now, and 50 years from now. And so, your mode of operation in the present requires that you sacrifice whatever it is that something in you wants right now to the necessity of the approval and love of your partner, but not only that approval and love now, but that love and approval as it unfolds reciprocally along the longest possible temporal axis. And that's not all because it isn't just you, and it's also not just you and your wife. It's going to be, let's say, you and your wife and your children, and you and your wife and her parents and your parents and your siblings and your friends and your community. And so, what that means is that you have to regulate and integrate your desires for the moment with the future in terms of the unfolding of your multiple relationships and the community. And you can imagine that there's a manner in which that might be conducted optimally so that everyone wants to play along. So, that there's no requirement to use compulsion or force when you could use invitation to the game. And you could imagine that the ultimate game that everyone wants to play that works for the largest number of people across the longest possible span of time is the game that all proximal desire has to be subjugated to. And there's no difference between that and offering up your idiot whims to the spirit of God. It's the same thing. The spirit of God being the ultimate unity that beckons at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of values that brings everything together in the most harmonious possible way. What does Abel do? Well, he immolates his sacrifice on the altar. Okay, so let's let's take that apart a little bit. You burn something on an altar and you convert it into smoke. You convert it into spirit, let's say, an aerial spirit that rises. And you do that so that the spirit that's in heaven, the ultimate up, the spirit that's transcendent and subordinate, the spirit that lives in heaven or the sky, can detect the essence of your offering. What's the hypothesis? The unity that exists at the pinnacle of being evaluates the quality of your sacrifice. Now, if you believe that you're more likely to be rewarded when you do well and less likely to be rewarded when you make a second-rate offering or offer something in in spirit of malevolence, then you believe that there's a transcendent spirit that sees all, that evaluates the quality of your offerings. Do you believe that? Does your conscience call you to task when you offer less than your best? That's the same question. Abel is a shepherd and he offers the best he has. Why is he a shepherd? Because a shepherd protects the flock, takes care of the vulnerable, keeps the predators, the wolves and the lions at bay, and occupies his lowly and ordinary position with dignity in service. Abel's a shepherd, like David, like Moses, like Christ, he's an archetypal representation of what's best about masculinity, that capacity to keep the true predators at bay and to protect the most vulnerable. Abel is furthermore the masculine spirit that sacrifices diligently, that's his care of the flocks, and that then takes the best of what he has to offer and offers it upward to the highest conceivable aim, which means that Abel is he who does his best. Cain, by consequence, holds something in reserve. His sacrifices are bloodless. They have no cost. They are second-rate. And in consequence, Cain fails. Abel's sacrifices are met with acceptance and admiration by the community and by God. Abel is popular with his compatriots. He's attractive to women. And God himself smiles on Abel's offerings because they're of the highest quality. Cain plays a deceptive game that's lazy and arrogant. Lazy because he doesn't offer his best. Deceptive because he believes that in his failure to offer his best, he can deceive himself, his fellow men, the community as such, and God. And so, Cain is the spirit of arrogance that presumes that God himself will be satisfied with whatever you offer that's not the best. And that's a foolish and presumptuous presupposition. Foolish because anyone with eyes open knows that life is so difficult and so challenging that the probability that you will get away with anything other than your absolute best is zero. Presumptuous because Cain believes that his own soul, his fellow man, and God are so foolish that they'll be fooled into accepting his false offering as if it's valid. And so, Cain places himself higher in the heavenly hierarchy in terms of authority than God himself. And that's an unwise move. What's the consequence? Well, what's the consequence in your own life of your failure to offer what's best? Failure. The failure that makes your countenance fall. That's what happens to Cain. His countenance falls. Why? He's unhappy, bitter, miserable, resentful, and angry. Why? Because his second-rate sacrifices aren't accepted. Why else? Because he's forced to live with Abel, who's doing his best, and upon whom the sun constantly shines. Cain, whose countenance falls, becomes bitter and resentful, and determines that he's in a position to call God to judgment. That's what we do when we observe our failures and make the presumption that there's something wrong with the cosmic order such that we're failing, rather than presuming if what we're offering is not being accepted that that's a consequence of our own inadequacy. And so, Cain has a chat with God and makes his displeasure known. "How is it," he says to God, "that you've created a world so corrupt that everything my brother Abel does turns to gold and everything I do fails?" And God says, "If you did well, would you not be accepted?" And that's the fundamental question of conscience. If you are not allowed back into the paradisal garden, perhaps you're carrying something with you that doesn't deserve admission. The alternative to conceptualizing your miserable failure as a consequence of your own inadequacy in sacrifice is the presumption that there's something wrong not only with the cosmic order, but with the nature of the spirit that established that order. There is no difference between resentment in relationship to God and Luciferian usurpation. They're the same thing. And God tells Cain two things. Number one, if you did well, you would be accepted. And second, don't be thinking that your resentment and bitterness and misery is a consequence of your failure. Modern materialist left-wing social theorists assume that bitter criminality is a consequence of poverty, for example. But most people who are poor aren't criminal. So, the causal relationship between low socioeconomic status or even failure and outright bitter resentful criminality is not deterministic, and that's what God tells Cain. He says, "Your countenance has fallen, and you believe that your angry painful bitterness is a consequence of your failure, and you believe that that failure is a reflection of the inadequacy of creation itself, but in truth, this is what you've done." The spirit of sin itself crouched at your door, and in your bitterness and resentment and failure to take responsibility, you invited it in to have its way with you. If you make a mistake, you could admit to the error, which is to confess. You could reconstitute your aim, and you could atone. Or, you could observe the bitter consequences of your failure, double down like the pharaonic tyrant, accuse God, and stay miserable. That's what Cain chooses to do. God says to him, "Sin crouched at your door like a sexually aroused predatory animal, and you invited it in to have its way with you." What does that mean? It doesn't merely mean that the spirit of sin tempted and possessed Cain. It means that the spirit of sin could not have possessed or tempted Cain had he not voluntarily invited it in and entered into a creative relationship with it. Brooding upon his failure and the pain that has been generated in consequence. Imagining how the world would be if only he had the success and the control that he wants. Dreaming of the revenge that he could take on those that opposed him. Imagining what it would be like if Abel failed despite his appropriate sacrifices and Cain prevailed. Luxuriating in his fantasies of revenge. You ask yourself, perhaps, how the people who commit the cruelest and vilest of acts can come to that end. And the answer is a thousand hours of bitter fantasizing. A thousand hours of creative consort with the spirit of darkness itself, which they invited in two have its way with them as a means of obtaining revenge against themselves for their failure, society for rejecting them, and God for having the temerity to create the world in the first place. And so that's what God tells Cain. And he is seriously unhappy with that response. As we all are when we discuss our situation with our conscience and are informed in consequence that the failures that made us bitter and resentful are a property to be laid at our own feet. And so Cain leaves the discussion with God and his countenance falls further. He's angrier, he's bitterer. He's more bitter. He's more resentful. He's actively vengeful. He's plotting. He goes to Abel who he admires and wants to be and says "Perhaps we could work together in the field." An invitation to play. And Abel who's always hoping for the reclamation of his wayward brother agrees. And Cain takes him to the field and beats him to death with a rock. And God shows up again in the form of Cain's conscience. And Cain says, "Am I my brother's keeper?" And the answer to that is yes. And God says the earth itself cries out to me in consequence of the blood that's been spilled. And Cain says, "My punishment is more than I can bear." And what does that mean? There's no one so doomed as the person who's destroyed his own ideal. And that's what Cain does. No ideal, no aim. No ideal, no upward progress, no aim and upward progress, no hope. And so now Cain is destined to wander forever in the land of no hope alone. And that's the land of Nod. The land of Nod is the place the children go when they sleep. It's the land of unconsciousness and alienation from self, man, and God. That is the inevitable wandering place of the individual who makes poor sacrifices, wreaks vengeance on his fellow, shakes his fist at God, and violates the social and divine contract. And that's the fate of Cain. But that's not all. Cain's descendants are the engineers who build cities and make tools and worship technology as an alternative to aligning their spirits properly with God. Cain's descendants are the Canaanites who are from thenceforth on the enemy of the chosen people of God and the evil inhabitants of the tyrannical and hedonistic states. And that's not all. The descendants of Cain are the first makers of weapons of war. That's Tubal-cain and the first practitioners of tit for of the tit-for-tat revenge that spirals into genocidal murder. Lamech who's Cain's descendants kills seven of you if you offend him and his sons kill 70 of you. And the message of that story is that Cain's failure to make the proper sacrifices his developing anger and unhappiness and bitterness and desire for vengeance is a spirit that can spread throughout the entire community and which results in the catastrophe of the genocidal impulse. And so if you're wondering what happened in Nazi Germany or if you're wondering what happened in the Stalinist Soviet Union or in Mao's China, all those places that were indistinguishable from hell the fundamental causal element was the failure of the individual inhabitants of those states to make the proper sacrifices that would put them in harmony with the eternal cosmic order, the consequent bitterness that emerged, the vengeance that that failure tempted them toward the rebellion against God, the emergence of the murderous spirit, and the descent of that into the genocidal catastrophe. And so, that's what you're involved in, whether you know it or not, when you fail to bring the best to the table. And that's true for absolutely everything you do, no matter how small. You're made in the image of God, or so the story goes. Thus, nothing you do is small. When Adam and Eve fall prey to the sin of pride, and history begins in its fallen state, God bars the road back to the Garden of Eden with monstrous cherubs, terrifying in their aspect, and a sword that is on fire that turns every which way. What are the monstrous cherubs? Everything that your prideful sin makes you terrified of. What is the sword that burns and turns every which way that guards the pathway to paradise? The divine judgment that refuses to allow every anything that isn't perfect into heaven. Why is that manifested as a sword that turns every which way that burns? A sword cuts. A sword that turns every which way cannot be escaped. A sword that turns every which way that's flaming burns. To move into the state of paradise, you have to allow everything that isn't perfect about you to be cut and burned away. That's a sacrifice. That's the sacrifice that's pleasing to God. That fact alone is part of the reason that the religious enterprise is not some self-serving sanctimonious immature defense against the terror of death or some hypothetical creation of the heavenly father behind whose skirts cowards hide. There isn't anything more terrible to contemplate than the necessity of having everything that isn't acceptable about you judged and destroyed. Particularly if there's plenty about you that's not acceptable. The story of Cain and Abel establishes the sacrificial pattern, the pattern of work, the pattern of mature work upward as the mode of human being and becoming. Human beings sacrifice. We work. We delay gratification. We save for the future. We regulate our own impulses in relationship to our friends and our loved ones. And we don't do foolish things that are enjoyable in the present because that would compromise the future. We sacrifice immediacy for the community and the future. Our mature mode of being is sacrificial. Once you understand that, the only question that remains is what's the sacrifice that best pleases God? We alluded to that in relationship to the sword that turns every which way and burns. And we alluded to that in the analysis of the sacrifice, the competing sacrifices of Cain and Abel. And we can further our analysis with the story of Abraham. Abraham is the man who's called upon even to sacrifice his son to God. When the spirit that is God characterized comes to Abraham, it comes as the spirit of adventure. Abraham is an old man and not an admirable man when the story begins. That's a relief because it means that the pathway to individual development is available even to those who are not admirable at the beginning. Abraham is an everyman. He's the beneficiary of undeserved privilege. His father and mother are rich. All of what he needs is at his fingertips and he lives in his father's tent in infantile satiated comfort for seven decades. Never having to lift a finger and you might conclude from that if you were a utopian materialist that heaven itself had arrived for Abraham as all his needs were met. If all your needs are met you go to sleep. You have your Christmas dinner you're around the people you love there's no challenge that confronts you. There's no purpose for your consciousness. You fall asleep like a satiated infant after the breast. Is that the purpose of your life? That's not what God tells Abraham. God says to Abraham sacrifice your comfort. Leave your security. Move away from your father's tent. Move away from the people that you know. Move away from what's familiar and go out voluntarily in good faith and with courage into the terrible world. What is the spirit that proclaims that destiny? Is that what you tell your son? Is that what you tell your daughter? Do you say, "Stay home, dear, for the rest of your life. We'll wrap you in Styrofoam. We'll put you in a corner in the basement. We'll feed you with a tube, and you won't have to worry about anything." Or do you say and hope instead that your child determines to take on the challenge of maturity, to face the difficulties of the world, to leave your welcoming home, and to take their chances with their destiny? Well, in so far as you are an incarnation of the spirit of the benevolent father, you encourage the acceptance of the voluntary challenge that catalyzes characterological development upward. And that's what the voice of God is for Abraham. The voice that says, "Leave what's comfortable, and take your place in the catastrophe of the world." And it is a catastrophe for Abraham. What does he face? Famine, first. Tyranny, second. Then he goes to war. The angels of God come to him and tell him that he's to be the prophet to the city threatened with destruction by God. Then he's called upon to sacrifice his only son. There's nothing about the adventure of Abraham that's a burden any less than the hoisting of the crucified burden. But Abraham has the adventure of his life. And he makes the appropriate sacrifices with each adventure. And his character develops so profoundly that it's as if he becomes a new person. And in fact, he starts as Abraham and ends as Abraham. And Abraham is the father of nations. When the spirit of adventure comes to Abraham, it offers him a covenant. The covenant is the relationship with the divine that characterizes the proper sacrificial mode of human existence. God tells Abraham, "If you have the courage and the faith to leave the zone of comfort and pursue the adventure of your life, this will be your reward. Your life will be a blessing to you." You imagine for a moment that you're considering the circumstances of your own life. It's 3:00 in the morning and you're wrestling with your conscience and maybe not victoriously. You're upbraiding yourself for your failures. You remember those times when you did offer your best and you faced the challenges that were in front of you and that you lived in service to the people you loved and to the higher good and you at least momentarily prevailed. And you satisfy yourself in relationship to the acceptability of your own being with the memories of your occasional proper sacrificial triumph. God tells Abraham, "If you did nothing but abide by the calling of the spirit of adventure, your life would be a blessing to you." If that wasn't true, why would you be pleased when you saw your son or your daughter face the challenges that mature them in a voluntary manner and take on the burden of their own maturity. You know in your heart of hearts, insofar as you love your children, that if they follow their deepest instinct upward, that they will turn into the person that you love now and the person you would most admire as an adult. And that's what God offers Abraham. And he establishes an identity, and the identity is the equivalence of the call of the spirit of adventure with the developmental pathway that makes the adventurous sojourner a blessing to himself. But that's not the only offer. God tells Abraham that if he has the adventure of his life instead of falling prey to the infantile temptations of satiation and wealth, that his name will become renowned among his peers and for valid reasons. And so not only will he be a blessing to himself, the pattern of his life will be such that other people will turn to him as a model for emulation and as a figure of genuine and valid admiration. And so that's a harmonious conjunction of what's best for the individual and best for the social world. To live in a manner that's a blessing to you, that is so starkly a blessing that other people recognize it, too, in the absence of any manipulation or deception. And that's not the only offer. God tells Abraham that if he does those two things, he'll establish something permanent and of lasting value. In Abraham's case, a dynasty that makes him that makes his descendants innumerable and that makes him the father of nations. That Abraham, if he follows the pattern of adventure without reservation and makes the appropriate sacrifices in consequence, that he'll establish a pattern of being that best ensures that his children will thrive and that their children will thrive and multiply and grow until the people who wrestle with God in the most adventurous manner inherit the earth. And that's not the only offer. God tells Abraham if he does all three of those things that he will also live his life in a manner that's maximally beneficial to everyone else. Indicating thereby that the world is a place of adventure that has an infinite potential. That whatever you might garner for yourself in the course of your truly adventurous and upward striving could be created and produced in a manner that did nothing but increase the probability that everyone else could have the same thing. That's the cornucopia of possibility that characterizes the potential that God broods upon at the beginning of time itself and out of which he extracts the natural and man and the social and natural order. And that's the possibility that's in front of you at every moment as a reflection of the image of God. And it's the contending with that possibility that's the dragon fight that reveals the most valuable hidden treasure in the manner that's most adventurous in the pursuit of what's most upward in the establishment of a sacrificial relationship with what's most high and that's the covenant with God. By definition. That's the story. What's the sacrifice that's represented by Christ? There's a story in Exodus. This is a miraculous story. It's the conjunction of these two stories that's miraculous. The Israelites are out in the desert. They've sojourned for decades. They're tired and exhausted. They're pining for the tyranny. They're still miserable slaves. They whine and complain bitterly about their fate. They're lost. They cease abiding by the dictates of Moses. They turn to the worship of false idols. And they break their covenant with God. Who's displeased as a consequence. And who sends his miserable and faithless people poisonous snakes to bite them. Why? Because no matter how bad things are for you, there's something stupid you could still do to make it worse. And so you could blame God for sending the snakes or you could say if you misbehave badly enough, the snakes are certain to come. And that's what happens to the Israelites. And so they're all being bitten by the poisonous snakes. And that makes them desperate enough to turn back to Moses and to ask him to intervene with God. They send a representative to Moses and say, "We know you have a pipeline to the divine. We're having a lot of trouble with these snakes that God appears to have sent. Maybe you could put in a good word for the chosen people and get God to call off the snakes." And so Moses, who's also not very happy with the Israelites, agrees yet again to intercede on their behalf and says to God, "Your people are groaning under their burden of their own sin and the punishment that you have so rightly sent for them. Is there something that could be done about the snakes?" And God says, "Yes." And then you might think that the simple solution would be to eliminate all the snakes. But then you might ask yourself, if you were doing the best for your son as he was developing, would you chase away all the snakes and make him safe, or would you teach him to handle whatever snake came his way? And so God says to Moses, "Have the Israelites gather up their bronze and make of the bronze a statue. And make the statue the staff of tradition and authority and put a serpent on the staff. And so the Israelites can gaze on that which would otherwise poison them and become immune." The symbol of healing, the staff of Asclepius, is the serpent and the staff. The pharmakon is a little of the poison that bit you as the cure. The serpent on the staff is the stark fact that if you're willing to voluntarily confront that which is most poisonous, you can become immune to its bite. That's what God tells the Israelites. "Look upon that which threatens and poisons you most deeply and prevail." Thousands of years later, Christ tells his followers that for the world to be redeemed, he has to be lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness, like the brazen serpent in the wilderness. Now, that's a very strange story. Why would Christ assimilate himself to the poisonous serpent in the desert? Why, indeed? Carl Jung described the Passion story as the archetypal tragedy. What did he mean? Well, you know that there's a difference between a story that's comedic that has a happy ending and a story that's tragic. A tragic story is something terrible happening to a villain? No. Something terrible that happens to a villain, that's a story of justice. A tragedy is a story of something terrible happening to someone who's innocent. So, what's the most intense possible tragedy? What tragedy would you present if you took all the tragedy of the world and distilled it into the ultimate tragedy? The ultimate tragedy would be the worst possible suffering [snorts] of the most innocent possible person. And that's the Passion story. What's the worst possible suffering? Death? Death when young? The worst imaginable painful death invented by the tyrant to torture you into submission culminating in your death with when young in front of the mother who loves you deeply in consequence of the betrayal by your best friend, while you're abandoned by the disciples that have seen you do miraculous things, while being pursued by the mob of your own people who choose your painful death over the punishment of a criminal who they know to be a criminal, even when they know you're innocent and not only innocent, but someone who's done nothing but good, while that mob is dominated by a foreign tyranny that worships power. The worst possible fate for the least possibly deserving person, and that's not all because death, no matter how painful and unjust, is not the worst thing that human beings have to face. After Christ's crucifixion, he descends into hell like Jonah and confronts malevolence itself and emerges victorious. What does it mean? The pathway to redemption is the voluntary confrontation with the worst possible death and the spirit of evil itself. Why? Well, how else could it possibly work? How are you going to get through life productively, happily, as a benefit to other people, as a man or woman who could establish something permanent, if you are too afraid to face the reality of your own suffering and death? If you run from that, how are you going to cope with that if you run from it? You can't cope from anything by running from it. And then that's bad enough, but there's the reality of evil, too, which is if anything worse than death. If you could choose your own death as an alternative to the suffering of the people you love at the hands of the most evil person you could imagine, which would you pick? In so far as you have people you love, you pick your own death in a heartbeat. That's what it means to be a parent. What that means is that there are worse evils than death. And what that means is that there are worse things about life than suffering and death. And what that means is that not only do we have to confront suffering and death, but we have to stand up against evil itself. And that's why Christ is the sacrificial model for Western civilization. And there's no way around that, as far as I can tell. If the integrity of the psyche is dependent on maturation and sacrifice, and the sanctity of the marriage is dependent on the mutual sacrifice of wife and husband, and the stability and productivity of the family is dependent on the sacrifice of the parents, and the community is dependent on the sacrifice of the families, and so on all the way up the hierarchy to the sacrifice that's most pleasing to God, then it's the willingness to shoulder the burden of the ultimate sacrifice that reconciles what's highest and man. And that's the story of the crucifixion and the call to the followers of Christ to pick up their cross and follow the redeeming hero. Thereby, what? Becoming a leader in the style of Moses, becoming a king in the style of David, becoming the Israelite in the desert who has the courage to gaze upon the form of the serpent that poisons him. What have we done in the West? I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The church that was founded by the Emperor Constantine's mother on the site of Christ's crucifixion. At the center of the cathedral, there's an altar. At the center of an altar, the altar, there's a cross. At the center of the cross is the individual who determines to face the worst that the world has to offer and who discovers in so doing that he's accompanied by God in consequence. The altar is the center of the church. The church is the center of the town. Civilization itself in its western form is predicated on our worship of the central sacrifice upon which the integrity of the psyche and the productive stability of the community is necessarily founded. There's no What's the alternative to that? The idea that your second-rate offerings are going to be accepted? The notion that you can pull the wool over your own eyes and the eyes of your fellow man and society and God himself? The notion that there's no up whatsoever? In case you're in Cain's situation with no ideal and wandering unconsciously in the land of isolated eternal suffering or you're possessed by the spirit of Cain that's resentful and bitter that shakes its fist at God that becomes murderous and then genocidal. Those don't Those what? Those are the pathways to hell that are the alternative to the pathway to heaven. And what's the pathway to heaven? The straight and narrow path, right? Well, why straight? Because a lot has to go before you walk that pathway. Because a lot has to be offered up before you're an imitator of Christ. That's for sure. Is the possibility that God's will could be done on earth as it is in heaven dependent on your willingness to participate in that process of sacrifice? That's the story. That's why there's an insistence in Western culture that you're made in the image of God, that you have the rights of someone who has an alliance with what's of highest value. That's why you have the responsibility to shoulder the burden of your own governance that's associated with the idea that sovereignty is inherent in each of us as individuals. Do we believe that each of us is a locale of divine worth? How do you want to be treated by your wife? How does she want to be treated by you? How do your children want to be treated by you? Do they want to be treated as if they're mortal loci of divine value? Will they be more than pleased to have to do with you if that's how you treat them? Will they turn away from you as if you're a tyrant or someone who's utterly useless in your hedonistic stupidity if you treat them in some alternate manner? How about with regard to how you treat yourself? Are you in concordance with your own conscience when you forthrightly bear the burden of your destiny and you do that voluntarily in good faith and with courage? Or do you admire yourself when you're whiny and bitter and resentful and murderous and genocidal? Is that true? Well, that's what the biblical stories indicate. Do we believe that? Well, the proof of that is in our action. What does Christ say at the end of time? The worst of all eternal punishments is reserved for the people who sit on the fence. Do we believe? Well, if we're nihilistic and resentful, then we believe in the spirit that shakes its fist at God and eternally rebels. If we believe in the eternal logos, then we confront the terrible combination of dragon and treasure that's the potential chaos around us and we take the burden for our life on our own shoulders. Those are the options or we waver in the middle stupidly trying to play both ends against the middle. Those are all positions of faith. They're all positions of belief. There's no escape from faith. There's no escape from belief. An ignorant person has to make his way forward with faith. Faith in what? The biblical stories call us to faith in the logos that established divine order at the beginning of time in consequence of the decision to take the full weight of the catastrophe of existence on itself. And that's the image in whose That's the image That's the God in whose image you're hypothetically made. And so what's the moral of the biblical story? Act like it. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you for your patience and your willingness to to listen to that. I'm going to invite my wife, Tammy, back on the stage and we're going to answer some questions. >> Thank you. Okay. Do you need Do you need a minute? >> No, I think we can continue. >> All right. Let's see. Okay, here's one. You've expressed the importance of myths that shape our society. Would you ever consider writing fiction to contribute to our damaged cultural narrative? >> I uh I wrote a fairy tale um modified version of a Grimm's brother fairy tale called Water of Life. I made a musical screenplay out of that and we're working at the moment on about a dozen songs that are associated with that. So, that's one answer of yes to that. And you may remember that I started working on a film on a noir detective novel at one point, too. I read it to your >> I read it to your family at Christmas. >> It didn't go over very well. >> Yeah, it's a little on the dark side, you might say. Um >> Yeah. >> I suppose if I wasn't doing this, I would engage myself in endeavors that were more creative and artistic and I have a facility for writing musical plays and foolish poetry for children and possibly very dark detective novels. And that would be very entertaining. And maybe the time for that will come, but who knows what the future will bring. At the moment, this seems to be You need the luxury to do that, you know? And to have that luxury, you have to be living in a time where it's reasonable to isolate yourself from the broader concerns of society and devote yourself to your private concerns, and that's not the situation that we're in at the moment. So, until I'm satisfied that all hell is not about to break loose, my plan and my wife's plan and my family's plan is to continue doing what we're doing and leave the more enjoyable, creative, purely creative endeavors aside until God willing, the time comes that that's the appropriate pursuit. >> Julian just recorded a an album. >> Yeah? >> Our son, Julian, just recorded an album. Uh it's it's a little dark, too, though, I'd say. But that should come out. >> Well, and we Tell me and I have We've recorded a fair bit of music. The piece of music that will close this show is one of the pieces we recorded, and I'm going to be working with the musician Victor Swift, who started this show, on some music in the summer and we have a bit of an opportunity now that this tour is coming to its current conclusion to play in the fictional and creative realm and so you know there's it's very fun to do that. It's extremely engaging. And we'll have some time to do it. So some time that's good. That's a lot better than no time. So and we'll make hay while the sun shines and so >> Yeah, that's right. If you were going to be a first-time father which you were you were a first-time father a right-wing father. I don't know if you were a right-wing father. >> Okay. By reputation. >> Yes, by reputation. How would you prepare your children to face the woke {slash} left-wing culture? >> Well stay married to your wife. Well, that's that's that's the first answer, you know. Um a huge element of the woke culture is the more pathological elements of the pride display. How about we put it that way? The notion that you can do whatever you want with whoever you want whenever the hell you want the consequences be damned. And that's an insanely immature attitude combined with So it's an infantile and it's a toddler-like attitude with the addition of sexual motivation. And it's not there's nothing about it that works. The people who have the most sex are married religious couples. So, you can tell your children that. Or you could act it out. You know, with some due caution. Stay married to your wife. See if you can figure out how to continue being in love with her. Play together. Model that out for your kids. They're going to want that a lot more than whatever idiot hedonistic malevolence is forced upon them by the dimwits of the radical left. So, example. There's nothing more important than example. What else? Regular meals with your kids? That's a good idea. Read to them at bed time so you establish that time to educate them, to attend to them, to teach them to read, to teach them to be literate. And then keep an eye on them. Teach them to deal with serpents. Play with them. Fathers are very good at that. Fathers are the adventurous spirit of play. Wrestle with them. Toughen them up. Challenge them. Set high standards. Don't let them get away with anything. But not because you're the cruel voice of conscience, but because Look, we used to take our kids to restaurants when they were little. And they didn't run around like mad hyenas making fools of themselves. And the reason for that was because we didn't want people to respond to them as if they were misbehaving fools. We wanted people to be pleased with them. And to be impressed by them in the manner that God promised Abraham he would be impressive if he conducted himself properly. It was typical when we took our kids to restaurants that at the end of our meals other couples, other people in the restaurant would come up and say nice things to the children because they sat there and acted like civilized human beings even when they were 18 months old. You couldn't ask them to do that for 2 hours. But you could ask them to do that for 45 minutes and they learned how to do that and there was nothing in in that that about that that wasn't good. I wrote a chapter in my first book. The title was do not allow your children to do anything that makes you dislike them. And that's a very straightforward rule. If your kids are acting up and you're displeased, well, maybe you're a patriarchal tyrant. So, you could go ask your wife. You could say dear that son of yours is annoying me. Is that because I'm a patriarchal son of a or because he's a little bastard? And then it's up to your up to your wife to say, well, you are a little cruel these days and you could shape up or that little rat is also annoying me. In which case you could conclude that if your child is annoying both of you, despite the fact that you hypothetically love him, he would probably be annoying other people, which isn't good for him. So, that should be brought to a halt. And so then you do you employ whatever minimal force is necessary to say no and to ensure that he doesn't make a spectacle of himself. My son, Julian, is a very civilized person and also a very tough person, was a ornery little 2-year-old. He was quite insistent that he get his way. And it took a fair bit of wrestling to help him learn to manage his will. But he did. And because of that, we could rely on his judgment from the time he was 3. And that's never changed. And so and it was a pleasure to be around him. And it didn't take that much. It wasn't that much trouble. It was nowhere near as much trouble as not doing it. We didn't say no that often. But when we said no, what we meant was if you continue doing that, something you do not like will happen to you with 100% probability. Right, and that's what no means. And if that's the rod of iron behind your no, then when you say no, you get listened to. And then you don't have to say it that often. And so that's what I would recommend to a new father. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. If you do not like your children, you will be cruel to them. And so you regulate your child's behavior so they don't have to encounter the monstrous part of you accidentally at the worst possible time. Right. >> This is not a question, just a big thank you for being the light in the darkness and for being the voice that my generation needs. A big hug from the benches. >> You Mexicans. >> [snorts] >> Okay, question. What advice would you give to someone whose little sister is saying she's trans? What is the best way to proceed as an older sister? >> Well, I think the part of what you do is you do two things. You let her know in no in no uncertain terms that she is not to do anything that harms herself. That that is not acceptable. No dressing like the opposite sex. No hormones. No puberty blockers and no butchering surgery. That means war. Right? No. That is not happening. No matter what. Any child that is poking around in that Satanic realm is testing to see if anyone cares enough to stop her. Hey. There's an actress in the US, Ellen Page. My understanding of Ellen Page is that she was quite badly brutalized as a child actress. That is not rare. What's the consequence? She came to hate her own sexuality. And no one ever loved her enough to protect her properly. That's a catastrophe. What's the consequence? She cut off her breasts. No one loved her enough to stop that. You have a sister? You need to let her know that she is loved and that she is not to hurt herself because she's valuable and that she has the trouble that young girls have and that she's to confront those and face them and accept them and welcome them in the same courageous spirit that Mary accepted the challenge from God when she found that she was pregnant to not only reconcile herself to the fact of her femininity but to welcome it and to be a moral as a sister for doing that. And but then again to ally that with absolute 100% unshakable resolve to burn everything to the ground to stop the butchery. Right? >> What's your advice for Mexicans that want to be and do good in a country where murder, violence, and corruption is the norm? >> Well, you know, I talked about that to tonight. I mean when Jacob Jacob becomes Israel, right? As his character transforms. He transforms so completely that he becomes a new person and he becomes the progenitor of those who wrestle with God. That's Jacob. Jacob is not a good guy when he starts out. He is a lying, manipulative self-satisfied intellectual, tent-dwelling mama's boy. That's what he is. He deceives his father and manipulates his brother out of his rightful inheritance. And because of that, he has to run from his home. Although you could imagine that that's a relief from for Jacob because he gets away from his mother. And on the way to his uncle, he has a dream. And the dream is of Jacob's ladder, this spiral upward that has God at its pinnacle with the angels from God moving up and down on the pathway to heaven. And he wakes up and he builds an altar and he makes a vow to to journey up the ladder to heaven. What does that mean? It means that he decides to turn away from his iniquity and to become good. What does that mean for you? It means that you could decide to do that. You could decide to do good. How? Well, in the biblical stories, the way you did you become good, you could say is the Old Testament way and then the New Testament way. The Old Testament way is thou shalt not. The commandments. Stop doing the things you know are stupid. And it's a game in a way you can play with yourself. It's like you can look at your life, you can talk to your conscience, you can decide what you're doing that's counterproductive and wrong by your own s- standards of evaluation and then you can see which of those things you would be able to change maybe and then you can change them. And then every time you make that sacrifice and you shed a little bit of deadwood or you allow it to be burned off then you're a little wiser and you can see a little more clearly and you can see what else might have to go. You can see that if your eye offends you that it should be plucked out. And then maybe you can get to the point where you can not only stop doing what's bad but you could start doing what's good which is really what Christ calls upon people to do. He talks to the rich young man who says to him Lord, I have been a devout follower of the commandments. I honor my parents. I keep the commandments. But my life is still insufficient. And Christ says to him you must sell everything you have and follow me. And Christ's disciples say if that's the price of salvation then no one is willing to pay it. And people read that as if it's an anti-capitalist screed. That's the liberation theology take let's say. That isn't what it means at all. It means that if you stop doing what's wrong and you're not doing enough of what's right to be engaged in your life then you have to radically change what you're doing and you have to give up everything that's an impediment to your progress forward and for the rich young man, Christ's diagnosis was that his wealth was bringing him misery and not buying for him entrance into the kingdom of heaven. So, what does that mean practically? You want to fight the tyrant? Like Moses? You want to stand up for the slave like Moses? Get your house in order. How do you do that? Start with yourself. Stop doing the stupid things that you're doing that you know are stupid. Start doing the things that you know are good. Pursue that religiously. And then you'll learn how to set things in order beyond the confines of your own soul, beyond the dynamics of your relationship with your wife, beyond the stabilization of your own family. Maybe you'll become enough of a person so that having put what's right in front of you in order, you have something more to offer to everyone else. So, one step at a time. You want to turn yourself into the person whose words ring true. And those are the people that no tyrant can stand against. That's the man who goes to the court of the Pharaoh and says, "God commanded me to say to you, let my people go so they may be so they may worship me in the desert." What does that mean? It doesn't mean let my people go so they can have a naked orgy while worshiping the golden calf. It means let my people go so they can adopt the mature sacrificial attitude that establishes the state that does not require a king or a slave. How do you participate in that? By standing up against your own tyranny, by standing up against the tyranny in your marriage and in your family, in your community, in the state, by sacrificing your slavish habits, by attending to what calls to you, by establishing a relationship with your conscience, and by becoming a leader. And if enough people do that, the tyrants will vanish and the slaves will be free. So, you all know that, I think, at some level, or you wouldn't be here tonight listening to this. You're here because something is calling to you. And so, I would say, get at it. There's tyrants that need to be confronted and slaves that need to be freed, and you might be one of the tyrants and one of the slaves. So, you could start with yourself. All right, everybody. Thank you very much. It was very nice to be here and pleasure to see you all. Thank you, Tim. >> My pleasure. Thanks for coming. >> Thank you very much for coming tonight. Thank you, my dear. Thank you for the poster. Good to see you all. Thank you. Thank you. Good night, everybody.