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Michael’s Patreon

Epiousion

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Michael’s Patreon

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Michael’s Patreon

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Michael’s Patreon

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Michael’s Patreon

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Michael’s Patreon

Michael’s YouTube Livestream Link for October 8, 2025

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

The Peanut Butter Falcon

The Faithful Preacher, ed. by Thabiti Anyabwile

LINKS:

Michael’s Patreon

Human Nature in Its Fourfold State

Impeccability

NH Ep. 17: The Origin of the Soul (where you’ll find a discussion of the human nature and flesh identity of Jesus beginning at ~50:18)

NH Ep. 18: Physical and Spiritual, Heaven and Earth (for a discussion of visible/invisible)

Monergism

Atlanta Storytellers (The Event at Eddie’s Attic was “The Songs that Shape Us”)

TRANSCRIPT (the content, for the most part):

This is Episode 23 of the Nothing Human Podcast: Why Doesn’t God Just Make Us Perfect Already?

Welcome to the Nothing Human Podcast. I’m Michael Minkoff, and I want to explore the big human questions in a way that makes complex ideas more accessible and practical for any and everyone. All I need from you is curiosity and attention. Join me on this journey of discovery, and I promise you’ll see that’s there’s really nothing about the big-T Truth we can’t understand better together.

All of the episodes for Nothing Human and my bonus podcast Being Something Extra are available on my website, Nothing Human Podcast .com. If you have any questions or comments, please comment on the relevant episode on my website, and I will make sure to respond either there or in a podcast. If you want to support me in my work, please rate and review this podcast wherever you are listening to it. If you want to support me further, you can become my patron for as little as five dollars a month on Patreon. There’s a link in the show notes on my website. Thank you all for your support.

It’s been a bit. If you support me on Patreon, you already know I took a break from the podcast to go on a road trip out west with my family. I needed the break and the vacation, and I hardly knew how much until I was nearly finished with it. All said, I feel refreshed and ready to get back into a productive rhythm.

But … I’m not ready to release the next video of my conversation with Christa. That one still needs a good bit of work in post. At the same time, I don’t want to leave you hanging much longer for the content I know you all crave. So I’m going to take a stab at answering a listener question today. The question is from my friend Joe, and in this case, I actually have his recording of the question, and I’ve gotten permission to share that recording. So here goes:

JOE: Hey, Michael. I wanted to say thank you so much for the podcast. I’ve been listening to many of the episodes multiple times, and digesting them and then circling back around to them with a fresh perspective after a couple of weeks. I still have more I want to comment on from the various parts of the series, and I’m still re-listening to various parts.

I do have a question though that doesn’t really fit into any one episode as of yet. So I want to leave you a message about my question and you can do with it whatever you will. So the question is why is it that God thinks it necessary or chooses to have a world—you know, the real world we live in—where after salvation and being filled with the Holy Spirit, He leaves us in the state of being where we have the Holy Spirit, salvation, but we still bear a sinful nature that wants to take control, lead us to sin, and ultimately just be at odds with our new creation state of being? I’m thinking like God can do whatever he wants with the universe. He can decide however he wants things to unfold. We know from Scripture that, in eternity in the future, we’re going to have a state of being where we are sinless, we do not sin, we have no desire to sin, we do not choose to sin, and you could argue it’s not even possible for us to sin. But why do we have this state of being where He didn’t choose to just rewire us spiritually and bodily in such a way that we just do not desire to sin after salvation? I would prefer it that way.

I think there are many layers down we can go into the ramifications of what it would look like. And I’ve been very unsatisfied with the answers from other Christians. So, let me give you some of the examples of what they’ve said. Some responses I have had from others included things like, “You know you have the old man and the new man. You still have a sin nature. And, you know, you're supposed to experience sanctification during the church age. So you’re supposed to be less and less sinful and more and more bodily and spiritually reflecting Jesus Christ.” And the reason I’m not satisfied with that being the answer is that tells me what God is doing in this present age and how things are unfolding, but it’s not answering the why. Why is it that God wants it this way? He could have had it any way He wanted. And wouldn’t the all-powerful creator who ultimately hates sin want to eliminate the ability of his own kind, his own people, his own sons and daughters, to practice sinfulness when the Holy Spirit resides in us? We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Why on earth would we have the capacity to sin if God who is all powerful has taken residence and can mold us and shape us however he sees fit?

And before I sign off, I’ll just say that I would also not be satisfied with an answer like, ”Well, God is not going to treat us like robots. He’s not going to force us to change.” Because that's ridiculous. Because something is going to happen in the future in our new state of being where we will simply have no cause or desire to sin. And that is all brought about by force of changes that God brings about. So ultimately God will be responsible for changing our state of being so that we do not have the desire to sin anymore. And it will be God getting the credit. It will not be something like, “Well, you know, we can't do it this way now because we would take pride in our sinlessness and then that's a sin. So if we were sinless now as Christians in the church age we would ultimately commit the sin of pride.” No no no. We’re not going to be proud either when we ultimately don’t sin anymore. So I just don’t see why in the church age in the present conditions, God just didn’t skip to the part where we’re no longer sinning. And the reason I bring it up is because I think it would just be a whole lot better for all of us and the unfolding of history on so many levels if it was just a done deal at the time of salvation forward.

So I think the question Joe is asking, put in shorthand theological terms, is why is sanctification necessary in God’s plan? Why would God put Christians through this process of struggling with the sin nature inside of us for our whole Christian lives? And, why would God put even unbelievers through the temptation of unbelief which occurs because of so many inconsistent and struggling sometimes even hypocritical Christians? Wouldn’t it be better all around if He just skipped the struggle and made us sinless at the moment of our regeneration? Why would He have us struggle with sin, and even fall to its temptation, if He could just make us righteous instantaneously? Since God hates sin, why would He allow it to coexist in us His children with His Spirit after conversion, even for a minute?

And in case you think this question lacks practical value, I think wrestling with this and similar questions is almost impossible to avoid while you’re exploring the Christian life. Maybe you have witnessed the enormous destructive consequences of a well-known Christian pulling a King David …. or the fatigue or discouragement you can feel from having to be vigilant about fighting temptation …. or the uncertainty concerning your salvation that can occur when you go through periods of faltering. It’s natural to ask, occasionally, why won’t God just make us perfect already? So, like the problem of evil or questions of why or whether God planned the fall of humankind, these are questions we ask for real practical reasons. They matter to us. We love God and have a relationship with Him, and sometimes we get confused or even hurt by the choices He makes concerning us and the world. So I appreciate the question, Joe, and I’ll do my best to think through it with you productively.

Let’s start with the question itself. We need to know more about what we’re actually asking. There are a few ways to frame the crux of this question, and I think it’s helpful to walk around in it a bit. I have mentioned before how Augustine talks about the four possible states of humankind—sometimes called the state of innocence, the state of nature, the state of grace, and the state of eternity. In the state of innocence before the fall, humans had the ability to sin.

In the state of nature after sin, after the fall but pre-conversion, humans don’t have the ability not to sin. we do it by corrupted nature and always operate according to that nature.

In the state of grace, after conversion but before death, we have the ability to sin still because of indwelling sin, but we also have the ability again through regeneration of not sinning.

In the state of eternity, believers can’t sin. According to Augustine, the unconverted are born into and never progress beyond the state of nature.

Really quickly as an aside, I will mention that the inability to sin is not usually called sinlessness. The term sinlessness refers to having never sinned or being cleared from all sin, but does not necessarily say whether you could have sinned or can sin. Theologians use the term impeccability to refer to the inability to sin. And they use sinlessness to refer to having never sinned. In this sense, as we mentioned in our discussion of the human nature of Jesus, we would say that, before the resurrection, Jesus was sinless but not impeccable. He could have sinned. As the Scriptures say, He was tempted in every way, like we are, yet without sin. But after resurrection, Jesus became impeccable in his resurrected human nature. I’ll be using some of these terms later, so I just wanted to introduce them here. But let’s get back to Augustine and the fourfold state.

Augustine’s four states of humankind were discussed at great length by Puritan Thomas Boston in his book The Fourfold State of Man, a wildly popular book among Scottish Christians in the 18th century. But as far as I can tell, neither Augustine nor Boston, for all their words, discuss exactly or directly why the state of grace is necessary in God’s plan. Neither of them, at least as far as I have found (and I would be thrilled to be proven wrong on this) even discuss any potential benefits to the believer, the world, the gospel, or the plan of salvation, by having believers struggle against sin.

But I like the framing of the fourfold state, because it allows us to see what massive changes to our whole concept of the Christian life would be necessary if God removed the state of grace. We can see that none of this framework of human nature and history holds, as is, without sanctification in this life.

To explore this further, consider that, at least as far as we have constructed it from Augustine and Boston, the state of grace is between the state of nature and the state of eternity. Since, for now, it seems obvious that death or at least, a translation into heaven from earth, is necessary to enter into the state of eternity, the vast majority of converted people will die, and only after that will they enter into a state of impeccable perfection. I say vast majority, by the way, because Enoch and Elijah apparently didn’t die, per se, though it seems their fallen bodies must like ours await the resurrection. And they were no longer here on earth either. Perhaps they could not in their state of translation even exist on earth, we don’t know. And, we also have the witness of Paul who says that believers still alive when Jesus returns will not die but be “transformed” or “changed”—whatever that means. Honestly, I’m not sure anyone is entirely sure what that means, maybe not even Paul.

All that said, it seems that under ordinary historical conditions, it’s not possible to become impeccable without either death or a direct translation into heaven. This is not addressing the issue of why like Joe asked yet, I understand. But it’s an important what. If in fact, it is not possible to exist in a fallen body and on a fallen earth with an impeccable spirit, then Joe’s question must shift. Instead of asking why God doesn’t remove the state of grace, you are now asking why God doesn’t just take the life of every Christian as soon as he or she is converted and take them home to heaven without the struggle of sanctification.

But you might ask, “Why couldn’t God make impeccability possible without death?” Consider the possibility that that might be like asking,“Why not make it so a seed can become a tree and still be a seed?” or “Why not make it so steel can be shaped cold, without being heated first?” or something like that. In other words, it might be an interesting hypothetical, but maybe it’s also not how this reality works or could work, logically. Maybe it’s not even logically possible to be impeccable, as in unchangingly incapable of sin, and still exist as you had existed in the passing plane of existence known as this earth subjected to futility or in a decaying and inconstant body. The fact that Elijah and Enoch were changed and translated into a heavenly state of incorruption without a death as we know it, and that this may be similar to what believers experience at the end of history, means that God can do that. But basically not without removing someone from the earth as it is or transforming earth from what it is in the fires of renovation and consummation to come.

And you could give me yet another why. Why is that? Why couldn’t God translate us to heavenly incorruptibility or make us impeccable, meaning unable to sin, and also leave us on a sinful, fallen earth in a corrupt and futile body on its way to death? You can see already perhaps, that the whole fabric of nature would need to be rewoven to make this a reality. Can the psyche of sin be separated from the decaying flesh it has poisoned without the destruction of that flesh? Can the poison of the sinful soul that has interwoven and infused itself inextricably in the flesh of our psychical bodies be removed entirely by any other process than total destruction? And would you have God put the fresh new wine of the new creation spirit in the old wineskin of the corrupted and decaying body? Would the body eventually still die in that case? Is it even possible for them to be compatible, even for a moment? I don’t know.

Perhaps we should consider then whether an impeccable person could have the same relationship to a fallen earth or fallen flesh? We discussed the nature of heaven and earth and the visible and the invisible in a previous episode. It seems that an incorruptible being would not be present or visible in the passing away earth the way a corrupted or corruptible being is present. All that to say, I would venture to say that such a process would not be possible because of the nature of life and death, light and dark, holiness and corruption. They, by nature and definition, cannot intermix without changing their nature. So let’s ask the modified question:

If the only possible path to removing the sin nature in us is for it to actually die, then perhaps we could ask “Why doesn’t God take believers to heaven as soon as we’re converted?” That’s a good question. And actually, the answer to it might end up helping us in our original question. I won’t spend too much time on it though, since it wasn’t Joe’s original question. The Apostle Paul answers it pretty straightforwardly in Philippians 1:18f:

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith,

So enough of that for now. I do love the weeds, but let’s get back on track. I think Joe’s question implies that removing the state of grace, or that period of sanctification, is something God could do, and that it would not violate anything in His nature or the nature of His created reality if He decided to do it. The assumption is that He could do it as well without automatically and by nature translating us to heaven and out of this world. I’m not sure I can concede any of that, for the reasons I’ve already discussed. But let’s say we grant all that for the sake of the question, can we make any headway into God’s motivations and reasoning here?

I’ll discuss this under three headings: the benefits to God in this plan, the benefits to believers, and the benefits to unbelievers and the world.

First, I think God allows us to struggle with sin because He desires our wrestling and collaboration and true partnership. Joe says he doesn’t want an answer that says changing us immediately would make us automotons, but I think there is some truth to this objection actually. The process of salvation is initiated and energized by God, but it invites and in some ways demands our collaboration. Especially in more Calvinistic and Reformed circles, this tends to be emphasized less or even rejected, but God wants partnership in the Gospel and even in our own salvation. There are myriad Scriptures that support this. Including texts like “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” Or the fact that Jesus tells healed believers, “Your faith has made you well.” No one would deny that God’s power makes them well. Yet God credits their faith as a cause of their wellness. Both can be true. And both must be upheld.

God wants us wrestling, not complacent. Even to today, we are the true Israel, the ones who wrestle with God and with humankind and overcome. To shortcut that and make it impossible for us to sin immediately on conversion would disallow us from being full partners in the reconciliation of all things to God. We begin by reconciling ourselves, while yet sinners. And reconciling involves choices. And if we don’t have a choice to make, by definition we couldn’t make that choice. Would not Satan and even we perhaps rightly say, we might choose differently if only we could. The state of grace cuts off that objection and that uncertainty. We don’t choose God because we have no other choice. We choose God because, even returned by regeneration to the state of having a choice, we love Him. Love must be voluntary, and I disagree that the work God does in us at any point robs us of that possibility of real love, real choice. God desires real love from us and a real choice of Him. And the state of grace ensures that possibility for us is secured. At the end of time, God will not say to us, “Look what I did.” We will be praising Him and saying Look what You did. But God follows the advice He gave us: Let another praise you and not your own lips. His word to us on the last day will be “Well done good and faithful servant.” If He credits our righteousness to us, it will be on a real and not a fake basis. We really did choose righteousness, or He would not be right to credit us with making that choice. This is one way we will participate in the divine nature. Because God exercises humility and deference within Himself, even without us. The Father glorifies the Son and the Spirit, the Son glorifies the Father and the Spirit, the Spirit glorifies the Father and the Son. While the Father tells the Son, You accomplished this! The Son is telling the Father, You accomplished this. And in the Spirit we are all praising and loving each other, not reserving praise or love to ourselves. God wants to preserve that, and our real part in that, both for us but also for Himself.

There are also benefits to God in both providence and the full unfolding of His forgiveness through sin. God shows Himself infinitely wise in that He utilizes the consequences of sin to accomplish His beautiful purposes. This includes the sins of believers which always precedes renewed repentance, and the fruit of repentance is great and precious. Consider that David’s sin with Bathsheba, and David’s subsequent repentance, produced Solomon. Solomon’s sin, for which God did not remove His favor if we take God’s promise to David seriously, produced Solomon’s repentance, as inscribed in Ecclesiastes. I for one am glad Ecclesiastes exists. God desires to display the full range of His mysterious wisdom in accomplishing the highest ends with the lowest tools. Even sin, even the sins of those who should be on His team, He can turn to the purposes of glory. I will praise Him all the more for drawing straight lines with such crooked sticks.

I also think His love is magnified in this. He shows Himself unconditionally loving in the way He responds not only to the aggression of enemies but also the betrayal of friends. Note how the state of grace makes it possible for God to be betrayed, even over and over again, and yet to keep loving and forgiving. That is so much greater a love than merely forgiving the sins of ignorant unbelievers. We know God’s love much more clearly and magnificently because of the state of grace.

There are also benefits to us. We can say, in the end, that we really chose God. That it wasn’t just for the gifts He gave or the fact that we had no other choice. We can say, No, I had a choice. I chose God and His righteousness. That is a blessed gift in the state of grace I would never choose to lose. Even if I could be made impeccable in conversion, I would choose to have that chance to prove before God and myself and others that I freely love Him and that I fought for that love and kept hungering and thirsting for it, though often unsatisfied.

And this struggle against sin also allows me to unify with Christ in all things. He joined with me in all human temptations. He was free from sin but able to sin. And He needed to be like that for my salvation—to accomplish a truly human righteousness. Having become like us, He invites us now to become like Him. Having purchased my justification, the wiping clear of my guilt in sin, He now invites me to walk in righteousness like He did, suffering against sin even to the point of shedding blood. If He made me impeccable upon conversion, I would not know in my person what Jesus experienced for His whole life. Again, this is a gift and a blessing to me to be able to suffer righteously with Jesus against sin and temptation. Again, I would not forego this particular communion with Jesus, and I am thankful to God for the opportunity. I would be made like Him in all things.

Further, I can understand sin and temptation differently when I am able to choose against it even while it remains a live possibility. This gives me access to understanding I wouldn’t have otherwise. In a sense, the ability to sin in myself and that sin nature in me that I am able to experience and even be overcome by, grants me a clearer closer look at sin, specifically because I have a choice about it. Before I was converted, I operated only in my sin nature. I had no ability not to sin. I couldn’t see it for what it was. In paradise, I will not be able to sin. I won’t be able to experience sin like I do now. So now, in the state of grace, I have a unique relationship to my sin that allows me through the lens of righteousness to see all of myself very intimately and clearly. Now, I have a close-up view of sin and my sin nature, because it is still in me, but I can be and am distinct from it. This clear knowledge of sin and its devastating consequences will be with me for eternity. Even in impeccability, I will have this particular experience of sin to aid me in glorifying God and loving other people.

One of the aspects of that knowledge comes from mourning over sin and truly hating it as a bitter enemy. I never mourned over my own sin before conversion like I do now. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. I would not mourn over sin in myself in nearly the same way if it were gone from me even as a possibility. I would not feel in my spirit the same bitterness of sin and death if it were pulled from me as soon as I might start to be able to feel and know it clearly. Again, I would not forego that precious knowledge. I will have eternity to be impeccable. In that state I will remember this life and even look upon human history. This memory of my state of grace is essential to the clarity of my vision for eternity.

Further, the state of grace benefits unbelievers and the world. At no point in my Christian life, and perhaps less and less as time goes on, am I ignorant of the deception and power of sin and temptation. While I am witnessing to others of the hope of God, I can understand their pull to sin in my person and even empathize with the struggles they are experiencing. Just as Christ became a great High priest because He was familiar with the struggles of temptation and the frailty of human being, there is no sin an unbeliever might be struggling with that I could not also fall into. This gives me access to a humility and compassion toward unbelievers that is vital to witnessing to them of the hope I have in Jesus. I need to continue, even as I can see things from the righteousness of God, to empathize with and understand where unbelievers and the world are coming from. If I did not even have the ability to sin, I would be cut off from that connection to a world I am called to love with merciful and compassionate understanding.

Further, the work I do in addressing sin in the world and working toward the reconciliation of all things begins in me. Fighting sin in myself, while accepting the love of Jesus and seeing myself as both beloved and broken is precisely how I should see the world. The world, like me is beloved and broken. Unbelievers, like me, are beloved and broken. If I would help the world to see itself like this, and accept the love and healing of God, I must do it in myself first. God has made me like Jesus in this, so I can be an ambassador of Him to the world. It is for their sake too, that I fight against sin in myself. And the ongoing presence of that sin gives me urgency and fervency. It is good to want righteousness now! To feel like you need it right now, and to think, When will God give it to me? That’s good. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They will be satisfied.

Perhaps there are many more reasons for God’s plan in this, frustrating as it sometimes is, but these are some of the few I uncovered while thinking through the implications of Joe’s question. Perhaps you are someone who feels discouraged about your lack of progress in holiness or the slowness of that process. Maybe you keep slipping into an old familiar sin or you just get sick of seeing how hypocrites and secret sin ruin so much good in the world. I want you to know you’re not alone. It’s good to mourn over the betrayals of sin, in ourselves and in the world. But Jesus has loved us so much that He invites us to understand and love the world as it is like He does. While we were and are sinners, Jesus loves us. And he wants us, like Him, to long for the consummation of righteousness that will make it all right. Even in heaven, souls made perfect are saying, “How long?” They haven’t forgotten what it feels like in the state of grace, and we never will either. So remember, my friends in the struggle, you like the world are beloved and broken. And God in His love and grace invites you to choose freely to pursue the reconciliation and healing in Jesus that will make this kosmos whole.

Thanks for listening. I’ll be releasing pt. 3 of my conversation with Christa next. And I plan a few more of those, to finish the recap on the Three Powers. I talked with her yesterday as well, and she has some other non-three-powers-related questions. So we might do that too. Then I’ll be doing the podcast version of my as yet unpublished book Truth is Not an Empty Word. If you have any comments or questions, remember to navigate over to my website Nothing Human Podcast.com and leave me a note on the relevant episode. Thank you all so much for listening. Until next time…

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

Ep. 20: Good and Evil, Righteousness and Wickedness

Norbert Wiener

Second-Order Cybernetic Philosophy (Super Observer concept)

Black Swan, by Nassim Taleb

Nobel Speech (1970), by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

TRANSCRIPT

00:00:01:01 - 00:00:10:02 Michael This is episode 22 of the Nothing Human podcast. Nothing Human Conversations: Three Powers Recap with Christa: Part Two.

00:00:10:05 - 00:00:31:18 Michael And he says to his disciples, hey, do you see this righteousness of the Pharisees? This this like meticulous box-checking that they do? If your righteousness doesn’t exceed, exceed, that righteousness, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. So, I mean, he just calls it out. It’s like, this is fake. This isn’t real. This is superficial,

00:00:31:20 - 00:00:31:29 Christa Right.

00:00:32:00 - 00:00:44:03 Michael You think it’s always right to fast? You’re wrong. Why do your disciples feast when we’re all fasting? Well, because my disciples don’t love evil.

00:00:55:24 - 00:01:30:12 Michael Welcome to the Nothing Human podcast, a biblically informed thinkspace for exploring and articulating all the ways we make or break sense of human experience. I’m your host, Michael Minkoff. From my youngest days, I’ve been fascinated with categories of thought those often unconscious filing mechanisms that invisibly populate our premises, direct our inquiries, and ordain our conclusions. Join me as we investigate and interrogate our assumptions in an effort to articulate a more cohesive understanding of human information within the superstructure of God’s truth.

00:01:30:15 - 00:03:16:04 Michael Well, this is the second of a few more of these that are going to be coming up, which are conversations that I’m having with Christa about the three power series. If you haven’t listened to the first part of this conversation, you can go ahead and listen to that. It’s episode 21, and if you haven’t listened to the 15 episodes on the Three Powers with the attending five extra episodes, etc., you can check those out as well. All of the episodes of the Nothing Human podcast and my bonus podcast Being Something Extra are available on my website, NothingHumanPodcast.com. You can also leave a comment or ask a question on my website on the relevant episode. Just navigate over to Nothing Human podcast.com and leave your question or comment on the relevant episode. And I would really appreciate if you all would support me on Patreon. It’s $5 a month or $60 a year. That’s really helpful for us, for my family, so that I can make this sustainable and justify all the time I’m spending on this. And it’s also the case that if you want to support me in other ways, and you don’t necessarily want to give every month, if you could rate or review this podcast on whatever podcast platform you’re using right now, that would be really helpful. If you’re listening to this right now and you want to watch me and Christa talk, I’m currently recording video right now, and we have video for all of these conversation episodes, so you can either see that on YouTube, on my YouTube channel, and like and subscribe and all that stuff on that. And you can also go and watch this on Spotify. Spotify has a video capacity. So I think that’s pretty much it for the preliminaries on this. Let’s go ahead and get into my second part of conversation with Christa on the Three Powers recap.

00:03:16:06 - 00:03:24:02 Christa All right. So I’m gonna get my thing. This is episode six.

00:03:24:04 - 00:03:25:24 Michael On the will.

00:03:25:26 - 00:04:09:24 Christa Yes. You talk about that the body on its own terms is tuned to survival. So its inherent morality cannot transcend good and evil. I well, I had, I put this in there. This is really … I mean it could be relevant, but I did a five day cleansing fast. You know, I don’t know if told you about that. And I would wake up, and I would be like ravenously hungry because our bodies are tuned for survival. And so we … that’s the hunter, you know, mode. Go out or whatever. And, anyway, that’s what I thought of when when you said that the body was tuned to survival. Yeah. Are we good?

00:04:09:27 - 00:04:11:12 Michael Yeah. Okay.

00:04:11:14 - 00:04:12:15 Christa So.

00:04:12:17 - 00:04:14:12 Michael She’s over here knocking her mic and stuff.

00:04:14:15 - 00:04:16:19 Christa Sorry, sorry. I’m trying not to.

00:04:16:20 - 00:04:19:02 Michael It’s almost like you, like, don’t podcast all the time or something.

00:04:19:02 - 00:04:28:07 Christa I don’t podcast at all, this will be my first time. So if you hear a knock on the mic, I’m sorry. I’m bad.

00:04:28:15 - 00:04:29:18 Michael You’re good.

00:04:29:21 - 00:04:34:27 Christa Maybe you can edit it out or something. Maybe with magic. I’ll try not to knock it anymore.

00:04:35:00 - 00:04:38:06 Michael I am a sorcerer. I will. We’ll see.

00:04:38:09 - 00:04:52:17 Christa Wizardry. All right. So, so explain that a little bit. Do you have anything else that you’d like to add to that? The body, on its own terms is tuned to survival. So its inherent morality cannot transcend good and evil.

00:04:52:19 - 00:05:32:09 Michael Right. So the … I talked about it a little bit in a later episode when I was talking about the body versus the flesh and how the Scriptures talks about those things, especially in the New Testament. Because in the New Testament you have this word soma in the Greek that means body. And then you have the word sarx, which generally speaking, refers to flesh. Sometimes that’s used really simply in terms of, you know, “parents according to the flesh,” like your bodily parents. Right? But other times you … especially in Paul, he’s talking about the flesh set against the Spirit. And there’s obviously a moral charge there. This is not just a bodily reality. There’s some sort of like a principle.

00:05:32:11 - 00:05:33:11 Christa So is that the different word “sarka.”

00:05:33:12 - 00:05:35:18 Michael A spiritual princ— No, it’s still sarx.

00:05:35:22 - 00:05:36:05 Christa Oh, okay.

00:05:36:08 - 00:07:14:28 Michael Yeah. Which is what is really confusing to a lot of people. And it lent itself to a more Platonic view where the body bad, the spirit good. And, you know, so in some ways you have the ascetics and other, you know, monastic movements that say you have to discipline the body in order to really achieve moral virtue. That moral virtue is becoming more and more and more and more and more separated from the needs and desires of the body. Right? So even Aquinas is saying that the affections and the bodily appetites are not ultimately part of the intellectual life. You know, these kinds of things. Okay. So I disagree with that. But at the same time I … you’d have to be like, well, then why does Paul use that word to talk about the spiritual principle? If it’s not, you know, if the body is not bad, you know, there’s not a bad thing in the body, like, why would Paul use this word which refers to flesh and even just, like body, you know, meat? Why would he use that word if it doesn’t have some moral connotation? And it obviously does. Okay? So it’s like how do you how do you sort that? The way I sort it is with this—that the body’s only morality is survival. Its only intrinsic morality is survival. So if you think about how you’re functioning in the world, if all of your … if you’re only functioning biologically, then you’re oriented towards running from sticks and running towards carrots. You’re functioning basically animalistically.

00:07:15:00 - 00:07:15:10 Christa Okay.

00:07:15:18 - 00:07:21:28 Michael And that unfortunately is the source of most sin.

00:07:22:00 - 00:07:23:09 Christa Sure. I mean, definitely.

00:07:23:10 - 00:08:17:26 Michael So there is … because the … righteousness is choosing between goods and evils. Sometimes it is righteous to suffer harm. But the body will never say that. Do you see what I’m saying? Like the literal body will never say it is righteous to suffer harm. It will say, my principle is no harm. Avoid all harm. Seek all pleasure. That is my principle. And actually there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that. There isn’t. I mean it’s telling you what’s going on there. You know it’s like, “Hey we’re hungry. Will you please feed us?” But there are times when you have to say, “We are hungry, but we’re not going to eat.” There are times when you have to say, we’re not terribly hungry but we are going to eat, right?

00:08:17:29 - 00:08:18:14 Christa Yeah.

00:08:18:17 - 00:08:39:15 Michael There are times when that’s the case, like you went over to your grandma’s and she made, you know, more food than you, and you just ate a meal because you’re … you should have known before you went over your grandma’s that she was going to have food for you, but you’re not going to be rude toward her. And so you’re going to stuff your belly, right? In a way that would be totally and completely gluttonous and irresponsible in most circumstances. But in that circumstance is true righteousness.

00:08:39:17 - 00:08:45:00 Christa You know, that was dad’s grandmother. She really did do that. She would she would continue to tell them to eat and eat and eat.

00:08:45:01 - 00:08:59:21 Michael Yes. And you’re sick there. And if you were to do that to yourself in some like Roman vomitorium, anybody would call you a glutton. Right? But doing that at your, you know, Jewish grandmother’s house because she wants you to eat and that makes her feel loved.

00:08:59:22 - 00:09:00:27 Christa Yes.

00:09:00:29 - 00:09:04:13 Michael Well then that’s a righteous act, maybe, in that moment. Do you see what I’m saying?

00:09:04:14 - 00:09:04:23 Christa I do.

00:09:04:27 - 00:09:38:17 Michael That ultimately the problem with the bodily morality or the fleshly morality is that it can only say avoid harm, pursue pleasure. And there are many times when pursuing pleasure isn’t the right choice, and other times when pursuing harm isn’t the right choice, either for yourself or for others. But there are also circumstances where pursuing harm is the right choice, or risk is the right choice. Whereas you know, pursuing pleasure is also sometimes the right choice. If God says feast, you should feast. And it would be wrong if you didn’t. Right?

00:09:38:17 - 00:09:39:15 Christa Right.

00:09:39:15 - 00:09:46:27 Michael And so in those terms I would say like morality, the morality of righteousness is beyond the flesh.

00:09:47:00 - 00:09:47:09 Christa Okay.

00:09:47:11 - 00:09:55:15 Michael So, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t pertain to the flesh because it is still in the flesh that we perform righteousness.

00:09:55:19 - 00:09:56:21 Christa Okay.

00:09:56:23 - 00:10:52:00 Michael So, you know, whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we do it to the glory of God. And, you know, and even in the final judgment, it’s really interesting. Jesus, is going to judge the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil. Now we tend to look at that and say, well, the good and evil are moral terms. I don’t think they are. I think that whether or not you choose good or whether or not you choose evil, God, Jesus is going to judge the deed you did in your body. So whether you eat or whether you drink, or whether you don’t eat, or whether you don’t drink, whether you kill, whether you refrain from killing, whether you, you know, build or break down whatever you choose to do, he is going to judge whether it is a good act or an evil act. He will judge it. Meaning whether it is a harmful act or an act toward the stick or a pleasurable act and act toward the carrot, he is going to judge. And …

00:10:52:00 - 00:10:53:11 Christa I can see how that can be true.

00:10:54:29 - 00:11:35:10 Michael Yeah. And I think that’s a really important aspect of morality because otherwise morality becomes superficial. So you have lots of people who have come to this conclusion that just like you know, it is always good to fast. It is not. Or it is always good to feast. It is not. It is always, you know, if it feels good, it must be wrong. You have a lot of people in the church who have come to that conclusion. In fact, I would say in that sense, the church is more filled with perverse people than outside the church because at least outside the church, they’re operating according to a fleshly, natural principle that makes sense.

00:11:35:13 - 00:11:35:29 Christa Right.

00:11:36:01 - 00:11:46:11 Michael But to love evil is perversity, which is why there’s more satanic behavior and satanic spirit within the church than outside of it.

00:11:46:14 - 00:11:47:06 Christa That’s a statement.

00:11:47:12 - 00:12:20:28 Michael Right. But if you’re saying fasting is in itself virtuous, you are closer to Satan. You are. You are closer to Satan because Satan hates the flesh. Satan hates life. Satan hates the body. He himself being a spirit. And he loves evil. So I mean Satan is 100% a fan of all evil all the time. So like if you’re saying that an evil, a harm—and a diet is an evil. In these terms, okay. If you, if you don’t understand what I’m saying you’re gonna have to listen to episode 20 and episode 6.

00:12:20:28 - 00:12:23:09 Christa Do you hear that, folks? Diet is evil.

00:12:23:14 - 00:12:25:00 Michael Diets actually are evil.

00:12:25:00 - 00:12:26:08 Christa Don’t go on a diet. Yay! We have freedom.

00:12:26:11 - 00:12:35:18 Michael But. But they can be a righteous evil. But they also could be an unrighteous evil. Right? Like they can …

00:12:35:18 - 00:12:35:27 Christa I mean, anything.

00:12:36:04 - 00:12:57:24 Michael Yeah. So, it’s any harm that you can do. Could be right. Could be wrong. You can’t judge it on the basis of the thing you’re doing itself. It’s about choices you’re making in reality. And that is … It’s like, oh man. Well then how do I determine what’s right and wrong? Well, you listen to God. That’s the whole point

00:12:57:25 - 00:12:58:06 Christa Right.

00:12:58:06 - 00:13:33:20 Michael is that you can’t actually achieve righteousness just by checking boxes. That’s the whole point. That’s Jesus’s whole point. Is that, oh, look at you guys who are checking all these boxes. You’re whitewashed tombs. You look great on the outside performing all these things you call righteous. But on the inside, you’re filled with dead man’s bones. And he says to his disciples, hey, do you see this righteousness of the Pharisees? Well, this, like, meticulous box-checking that they do. If your righteousness doesn’t exceed, exceed, that righteousness you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

00:13:33:22 - 00:13:38:29 Michael So, I mean, he just calls it out. It’s like, this is fake. This isn’t real. This is superficial.

00:13:39:01 - 00:13:39:10 Christa Right.

00:13:39:11 - 00:13:50:13 Michael You think it’s always right to fast. You’re wrong. Why do your disciples feast when we’re all fasting? Well, because my disciples don’t love evil.

00:13:50:15 - 00:14:08:09 Christa Right. I mean, it’s as simple as that. It’s as simple as that. All right. So, in the same episode, which should be episode, I don’t know, whatever. Episode seven. Now we’re on seven.

00:14:08:10 - 00:14:10:12 Michael Okay. Okay. We’re we’re really making progress.

00:14:10:13 - 00:14:46:03 Christa We’re making progress. The … this is on the intellect, and you make the statement that truth is beyond sensory perception. Please explain what you mean when you make this statement. Because later in the podcast, you say God is truth. So I would like to understand how these two ideas might connect. Okay. I have a little bit better understanding because of some things that we’ve talked about and even some of the earlier what we’ve talked about earlier, but I think it’s a good clarification. Just the phrase truth is beyond sensory perception. Yeah. I would like a little bit more elaboration on that.

00:14:46:10 - 00:15:28:27 Michael Right. So to say that truth is beyond sensory perception is not to say that it doesn’t involve sensory perception. Okay? The senses can attain to the truth. It is possible. Meaning, you know, but I’ll just explain a little bit further. It’s the same thing like life as being the goal of the affections. Life is not merely a biological reality. In the same way, truth is not merely a biological reality. It is a biological sensory reality. In that I go around and I can collect data, and I’ve got senses to collect that data, and that data is limited. But maybe valid.

00:15:29:04 - 00:15:30:10 Christa Sure.

00:15:30:12 - 00:17:01:14 Michael But, the problem is, the truth must be much, much, much larger than anything I could ever experience in sensory terms. Even if I were to understand the entire reality, factually speaking, of the entire cosmos, which I think most of us can agree is beyond any of us. But even if I could understand even all of that, I still wouldn’t attain in that to God. So in those … in that sense, I think it’s important to understand that truth must be beyond sensory perception, because the truth has to come to you. And the truth is personal. It’s not an impersonal reality. It’s a personal reality. And it has to come to you. Because if you were to try to attain to the whole truth like you’re finite, I mean, I don’t know if you’re familiar with, like the … cybernetics, like philosophy. Cybernetic philosophy. So cybernetics is just theories of control. But they, they the … Norbert Wiener, who was one of the guys who who was the father, like, one of the pioneers of cybernetics philosophy. He has a really fascinating understanding of systems of observation. And so, like, science is all about, you know, objective sensory, you want to get distance from what you’re understanding in order to be able to kind of look at it neutrally. You know, we’re talking about like objective …

00:17:01:14 - 00:17:01:29 Christa Right.

00:17:02:02 - 00:17:22:21 Michael Well, Norbert Wiener comes in and he’s like, well, there’s a problem that, you know, if your system of observation is small, then you’re not getting enough information to know whether any of the things that you’ve collected are true. So, for instance, like there was a time when everybody thought swans were white because every swan they’d ever seen was white.

00:17:22:24 - 00:17:23:16 Christa That was the data they collected.

00:17:23:18 - 00:17:52:01 Michael That was the data they had collected. So that’s their pool of observation. Their system of observation is this big. Well, they stretched out that system of observation a little bit bigger. And I think in Australia they found some black swans. Okay. All right. All the sudden boom all your hundreds of years of data—garbage. Swans are not only white. They also can be black. And all it took in order to make that false was one piece of information that you just hadn’t gotten to, because your system of observation wasn’t large enough.

00:17:52:02 - 00:17:53:13 Christa Right.

00:17:53:13 - 00:17:58:15 Michael And how do we know that that’s not the case with every bit of our factualizations?

00:17:58:15 - 00:17:59:10 Christa Exactly.

00:17:59:10 - 00:18:14:21 Michael Where it’s like, well, the facts that we have determined up to this point have only confirmed this thought, this hypothesis, you know, that duh duh duh duh. All it would take, though to unconfirm this is one piece of information that we just haven’t found yet.

00:18:14:24 - 00:18:15:15 Christa Right.

00:18:15:17 - 00:18:24:03 Michael So that means that I can’t really rely on the limited system of observation as being like for certain.

00:18:24:06 - 00:18:24:16 Christa Right.

00:18:24:17 - 00:18:33:16 Michael Because if I just expand that a little bit. You know, I might include a piece of information that throws everything else I thought into question. Okay.

00:18:33:19 - 00:18:52:13 Christa Can I pause right there? Because I kind of struggle that that’s what I’ve struggled with. In the past as far as truth goes. Because truth has been in our past years so coerced that that it wasn’t actual and not all of it was not truth. But there was there was some that was not truth.

00:18:52:15 - 00:18:52:23 Michael Yeah.

00:18:52:24 - 00:19:16:26 Christa And so that data point collection of what is truth. And then, you know, then all of a sudden you go to Australia and or New Zealand or whatever, and you find the black swan and then that brings in stuff. It’s almost created a sense of, such a sense of uncertainty that I’m like, forget it. I don’t even want to like the truth. What is truth? Like how? It’s just, I don’t know. I throw up my hands.

00:19:17:00 - 00:19:23:06 Michael What that happened personally for you also happened philosophically for … I mean, that’s what post-modernism is.

00:19:23:13 - 00:19:23:23 Christa Yeah.

00:19:23:24 - 00:19:46:26 Michael It’s like because when you look at modernism and the enlightenment project and all that, there’s like there’s just, so much optimism. Oh, we’re just going to collect information and the truth just grows. It’s like, well, actually, that’s not how it works. How it works is that your preconceptions and your interpretations, they can be falsified by new information.

00:19:46:26 - 00:19:47:07 Christa Right.

00:19:47:08 - 00:19:49:02 Michael So everything is unstable.

00:19:49:05 - 00:19:57:02 Christa So you’re not orienting yourself around your data points. You’re orienting yourself around the actual truth, like, you …

00:19:57:07 - 00:19:58:06 Michael If there is one.

00:19:58:07 - 00:20:00:00 Christa If there is one. But God is truth, like …

00:20:00:04 - 00:20:19:03 Michael Exactly. And you have to believe that. And then you receive that. And because the problem that Norbert Wiener talked about is that even if your system of observation was as big as the universe, which no one’s is. Meaning, if you knew everything in the whole entire universe and you knew it for sure, and there wasn’t another piece of information to come in. This was Hegel’s idea of like the end of history.

00:20:19:04 - 00:20:19:12 Christa Sure.

00:20:19:14 - 00:20:51:16 Michael You know, like every piece of history has already come in. Every data point is collected. There’s nothing new to collect, right? He said, even if that were the case, there’d be one problem. You’re inside your system. So you are never outside the system to give it its full meaning because you’re always inside of it, meaning your interpretation of it is part of the uncertainty, and you can’t ever gain any neutrality from the whole system.

00:20:51:18 - 00:20:53:29 Christa And this just makes me want to melt right into the floor.

00:20:54:00 - 00:21:24:05 Michael Yeah yeah yeah. So … But what he said was … and he came up with this concept and I think he was probably a theist, but he came up with this concept that he calls the super observer, which is a theoretical concept of a person who has the capacity to interact with and understand our entire system of reality, but isn’t part of it. And he says that’s what’s necessary in order for knowledge to be possible.

00:21:24:08 - 00:21:25:05 Christa Wow.

00:21:25:07 - 00:21:39:24 Michael And since we know knowledge is possible, that was a belief he wasn’t willing to give up, because that’s that’s the problem with post-modernism and everything like that is they write like whole books about nothing means anything. And you’re like, why are you writing books then? I mean, you know what I mean?

00:21:39:24 - 00:21:41:23 Christa The logical conclusion is don’t write books.

00:21:41:26 - 00:22:01:24 Michael Don’t write books. Like, don’t worry about it. Like, forget it like, eat, drink and be merry, tomorrow you die kind of a thing. like, don’t … academics is dead. Who cares? Oh. It’s fun. You know, this is all just fun. It’s a game. It’s not a game. And this is a 400 page book that’s very hard to read. You know, if you’re … if all we’re looking for is fun, that’s not the books I want.

00:22:01:24 - 00:22:02:13 Christa No.

00:22:02:15 - 00:23:25:10 Michael Bring me more Doctor Seuss. Anyway, so. Yeah. So the issue being, if there isn’t any truth at all. Right? Then you can just be like, all right, well, who cares? But if you want to believe in truth and most people do. Most people can’t help it. Most people cannot help but say, hey, there are certain things that are true. There are certain things that I know. There are certain things that I want to be able to be certain of. Then you have to believe in this idea of a super observer, meaning there is a being who is both able to be contacting and knowing our system, our big system of the cosmos, but also isn’t part of it. And so he’s the creator, but he’s not created. That’s what’s necessary for there to be any possibility for knowledge. And since I believe in knowledge, right? So Norbert Wiener … this is how Albert Einstein, this is how Kurt Gödel, this is how Norbert Wiener—all geniuses, absolute geniuses—this is how they supported their belief in God. Is they said, before I know there’s a God, I know that the world is understandable. And in order for the world to be understandable, there has to be a God, because there has to be an observer outside of the creation, outside of the system, that is able to give it meaning. Or it has none.

00:23:25:13 - 00:23:26:15 Christa Right.

00:23:26:17 - 00:24:33:07 Michael And so they … it has no inherent meaning, which means it doesn’t have meaning. Because all that is just, you know, existentialism would say you just ascribe meaning, however it is. But it’s not any kind of a real meaning. But they believed in real meaning. Meaning they believed that you could understand even through sensory perception, what actually was happening or what was not happening. That was stable. In order for it to be stable, there had to be someone who ascribed meaning to it that wasn’t part of the system. And so that’s why they all believed in God. Now, they weren’t Christians, but they were all theists, right? That’s why they were theists. That’s why they believed in the idea of a divine creator. Anyway, so the the truth being, God is the truth, means that beyond just the truth being an impersonal set of objective data, I believe that the truth is personal and that’s a necessary idea in order for me to know it, because I’m finite. That’s the real problem. I’m limited. You’re limited. We’re all limited. So if we’re going to be able to have access to the truth, and I think I mentioned this in one of the podcast episodes, I can’t drink the ocean.

00:24:33:14 - 00:24:33:25 Christa Right.

00:24:33:29 - 00:25:18:05 Michael I can’t know everything that is to be known. So instead I have to have a personal relationship with the ocean. I’m touching it, I’m in it, I’m swimming in it. I’m contacting it that way. I can’t ever drink the whole thing. I’m just part. I’m inside of it. And so that’s why in the Scriptures, the proper human direction of knowledge was intimacy. So you … even in Genesis, where it says, like Adam knew his wife and she conceived the word yada, knowledge it like … it is there meaning intimacy, obviously. I mean, like he’s not … I guarantee you he’s not conceiving a child, you know, distant, objective, neutral, neutral observer.

00:25:18:06 - 00:25:19:24 Christa Shaking their hands. Yeah, yeah. Oh, nice to know you.

00:25:19:27 - 00:25:27:00 Michael You know, “Oh, sorry. We can’t touch. I’m trying to get some experimental data here.” You know, that’s not what’s happening

00:25:27:03 - 00:25:27:26 Christa No.

00:25:27:26 - 00:25:43:27 Michael And so in that sense that the very word “know” is so much … it implies intimacy. Because to the scriptural mindset, how could a limited, finite person know something without contacting it, you know, without coming into contact with it?

00:25:44:00 - 00:25:58:24 Christa Right. Even the verse that says, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Right? That was Yada. I learned that from a book that I read, and I think that word yada is used over 900 times in the Old Testament is what this person who … was speaking about that.

00:25:58:24 - 00:26:02:28 Michael That checks out. It’s used a lot.

00:26:03:01 - 00:26:06:10 Christa Yeah, but it’s an intimate. It’s an intimate knowledge, and I

00:26:06:10 - 00:26:07:09 Michael Yeah.

00:26:07:12 - 00:26:10:20 Christa That’s an important fact.

00:26:10:23 - 00:26:31:18 Michael So that’s some of what I mean by that. It’s much larger than that. But my main idea is that the truth is bigger than fact. The truth is beyond fact. In the same way that righteousness is beyond good and evil. And the same way that life is beyond biological subsistence. Right.

00:26:31:20 - 00:26:48:01 Christa Yeah. I was watching a movie last night that was a Netflix movie. And the guy made the statement, there, there are facts and then there’s what’s true. And it was in relation I won’t go into the whole thing but I’ve been thinking about that. That kind of applies to what you’re saying.

00:26:48:01 - 00:26:48:17 Michael Absolutely.

00:26:48:17 - 00:26:50:06 Christa There are facts and then there’s what’s true.

00:26:50:09 - 00:26:56:21 Michael Right. Well yeah. And I mean you got Mark Twain’s old thing, you know, like there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

00:26:56:22 - 00:26:57:11 Christa Yes.

00:26:57:13 - 00:27:30:23 Michael That, you know, even factual information because it has to be selected because it can’t be infinite. The selection is where the truth happens, or doesn’t. If you select it properly, and it is appropriate and fitting and applicable, then great. True. When you select it improperly and it’s not appropriate, it’s not fitting, and it’s not applicable, that’s a lie. I don’t care how factual it is. And we didn’t really even talk about this before. But you had mentioned racism and misogyny.

00:27:30:23 - 00:27:31:09 Christa Right. Right.

00:27:31:10 - 00:28:15:18 Michael Here’s an example where facts can be used to say something false, because there are all sorts of facts that you can bring to bear on … racists do all the time. They say, you know, that there are like, you know, the majority of prison populations are minorities. This is a fact, right? They all say that, you know, there’s a lot of fatherlessness in African-American communities, poverty, you know, poverty line, the IQ measurements, you know, they’ll look at all these statistics and, and they’ll say, oh, so clearly this means inferiority right? Now that’s a false statement.

00:28:15:24 - 00:28:17:01 Christa You’re like, okay. How do you come to that?

00:28:17:03 - 00:29:03:00 Michael But they’ll be like, well, I mean, facts don’t care about feelings. Okay. So like you can’t tell me that this isn’t the case. You know, if they’re … if they’ve got lower IQs and lower success rates and higher poverty and, you know, higher fatherlessness and more incarceration and more criminality, in what sense are they superior? Right? And I will be like in lots of senses. None of which you’re mentioning right now. Right? But if I were to say … if I were to go in and I’d be like, okay, I want you to live in this community and figure out how valuable you would be in this community, operating according to their standards and their priorities.

00:29:03:00 - 00:29:03:10 Christa Right.

00:29:03:17 - 00:29:04:15 Michael You wouldn’t last a week.

00:29:04:15 - 00:29:05:25 Christa Nope.

00:29:05:28 - 00:29:23:07 Michael So their priorities are different than yours. And so obviously their strength sets and weakness sets are going to be different than yours. But that doesn’t mean that there’s any intrinsic superiority. The only way you could say that that’s superior is it’s superior to you, because you’re judging according to you,

00:29:23:10 - 00:29:24:02 Christa Correct.

00:29:24:04 - 00:29:33:07 Michael But I would say you’re taking facts and you’re selecting the ones that fit with your agenda and with your particular already preconceived prejudices.

00:29:33:13 - 00:29:33:26 Christa Right.

00:29:33:26 - 00:30:00:16 Michael And then you’re going ahead and saying this is what these mean. Right? And you’re making general statements of what you would say is the truth, when in fact you’re speaking falsehood. And so that’s sort of that. And the same thing goes with misogyny. You know, it’s like, you know, WNBA, why do they even need a WNBA? You know, they could never compete against male basketball players. You know, it’s like, well, yeah, judged on male standards.

00:30:00:16 - 00:30:00:25 Christa Sure.

00:30:00:25 - 00:30:20:19 Michael That’s true. You know, but judged on female standards. You guys all you’re all terrible. So like you see what I’m saying. Like it’s just a matter of what you’re prioritizing and what strengths and what weaknesses you think are most important. But of course you would think your strengths are most important. That’s why you invest in them. That’s why you’re so strong in them, you know?

00:30:20:19 - 00:30:22:22 Christa And it goes back to the uncomfortability

00:30:22:23 - 00:30:23:12 Michael Yeah.

00:30:23:14 - 00:30:30:03 Christa of approaching that area where you’re not strong in. You don’t even want to go there, I’m like. Oh, ooh, let’s close that door.

00:30:30:05 - 00:30:37:15 Michael Right. And instead you’ll be like, oh, well, you think that, well, why don’t you come over here and try to gibberish Okay. gibberish And it just creates division.

00:30:37:15 - 00:30:38:05 Christa It’s terrible.

00:30:38:05 - 00:31:12:00 Michael It’s just dumb. At the end of the day, it’s like, well, I don’t … I don’t care. I don’t care. … For my whole life, people have thought that I am, you know, proud and whatnot. And I know that there are like lots of periods in my life when I, when I was proud, but I, I’m proud to say I’m not proud anymore. No. But, but a lot of the process of that, of gaining greater humility was understanding the value of other people on their own terms.

00:31:12:01 - 00:31:12:23 Christa Yes.

00:31:12:26 - 00:31:20:27 Michael That when I started to recognize that other people had different priorities, and that those priorities weren’t invalid simply because they weren’t mine,

00:31:21:01 - 00:31:21:20 Christa Right.

00:31:21:22 - 00:31:32:04 Michael then that really helped me to start saying, well, you’re … they’re really awesome. Like the people around me are. They have their own really awesome things that are really great that I could learn a lot from.

00:31:32:07 - 00:31:32:17 Christa Right.

00:31:32:17 - 00:32:17:24 Michael And that are benefiting me too. And invisibly benefiting me, because I’m not noticing them, because those are not the things that are most high on my priority list. But it doesn’t mean, you know … But I notice them when they’re gone, you know, and that’s really sad. It’s really sad. I’d much rather notice something while it’s here than notice it when … because it’s not there anymore. And so all those things that people do to benefit us, I think learning to recognize, oh look what you … look what you’re doing like and to see, you know, like to see all the things that other people are doing that are benefiting and that are valuable in the world, even if they’re not what you’re contributing to the world. I think I just think that’s an important part of growing in humility, but also having just a better life.

00:32:17:27 - 00:32:18:09 Christa Yes.

00:32:18:09 - 00:32:27:04 Michael I don’t know why people are so dedicated to being miserable. That’s what bothers me. It’s like people seem to be dedicated to being unhappy.

00:32:27:07 - 00:32:39:24 Christa But it’s like a functional thing that it’s just like a process of this is what we’ve always done. There doesn’t need to be a change, and it’s working for me. I don’t care if you’re not benefiting from it, but it’s working for me.

00:32:39:27 - 00:32:41:10 Michael But it’s not even working for them.

00:32:41:10 - 00:33:13:06 Christa But but they don’t see it like you talked about the Super Observer. You can’t step outside of it. It’s very difficult for them to step outside. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t. I’m hoping that maybe even some of this podcast will help people to step outside of it. But, it’s I think it’s unfortunate because what it boils down to is actually even in the treatment of people and how we value or devalue people in society based on whatever function that they don’t have that you do have. Or whatever.

00:33:13:06 - 00:33:15:01 Michael Or that they do have that you don’t have.

00:33:15:08 - 00:33:16:00 Christa What, did I say it wrong? Sorry.

00:33:16:04 - 00:33:19:07 Michael No, no, no, no. Either. I’m saying either way. It works either way.

00:33:19:09 - 00:33:58:20 Christa So it’s just my hope is, is that we will start valuing people regardless if they don’t have the same, you know, powers have the same functions. That we will, like in John 17, when Jesus talks about the unity. That’s my my goal is for us to come together as churches, as people, groups, as even polar opposite, whatever our beliefs can we sit down and have conversations with people and walk away and still be friends like and still agree to disagree or whatever, you know, and coming to that platform. That’s so important to me.

00:33:58:23 - 00:34:46:21 Michael Yeah, to me too. And I don’t think it’s all that outside of the realm possibilities. I just … it’s not probably a thing that’s going to, it can’t actually, happen in mass terms. Like it really is a work that individuals have to do in their particular communities and families and with their friends and stuff like that. Just to be like you make you make a difference. It is an interesting thing. I talked about it on the podcast that the the commands of God are always put in a single-person. He doesn’t give collective commands. It’s the same way, I mean, as a parent, we all know this. That if you have more than one child and you say, hey, would somebody take out the trash? It’s not happening because nobody is somebody.

00:34:46:21 - 00:34:47:07 Christa No.

00:34:47:10 - 00:34:47:20 Michael Right?

00:34:47:28 - 00:34:49:16 Christa Everybody’s like, scatters like real quick.

00:34:49:16 - 00:35:04:12 Michael Exactly. So you have to be like, you need to do this. You need to do this. You, you know, you know, like, hey, you personally, right? You hear me? You that I’m looking at? We’re locking eyes. You right. You are the one. I’m asking you to do this.

00:35:04:14 - 00:35:06:02 Christa That’s like mom, when mom would call all of our names …

00:35:06:02 - 00:35:07:07 Michael All of our names.

00:35:07:07 - 00:35:09:03 Christa Christa, Candace, Charis, Char— all the way down.

00:35:09:06 - 00:35:10:12 Michael Yeah. All the way down the stairs.

00:35:10:12 - 00:35:11:07 Christa Make sure one of us gets the ….

00:35:11:11 - 00:35:13:24 Michael Yeah. Because she was like, Michael, is that you? But it wasn’t.

00:35:13:24 - 00:35:15:03 Christa Yeah. Nobody would answer.

00:35:15:03 - 00:35:32:21 Michael You’re like, not me. Anyway. So. Yeah. So the law is always organized in single-person. And for that reason. It’s like that individually you have the responsibility to make this happen. I think that if you’re looking at the world and you’re like, man, the world is so messed up, I wish somebody would do something about that.

00:35:32:23 - 00:35:33:18 Christa Go look in the mirror.

00:35:33:18 - 00:35:33:27 Michael Yeah.

00:35:33:27 - 00:35:34:18 Christa It’s you.

00:35:34:21 - 00:35:37:14 Michael Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re the person.

00:35:37:19 - 00:37:04:06 Christa You are the one. All right, moving into episode eight, this is three powers and anthropology. I thought you had some excellent points and illustrations on how God does not have a unique or specific gender. You said we use gender in order to understand qualities about God. The reality is that what it means to be female and what it means to be male, is defined by those qualities proceeding from God. I thought this was a great clarification of the book of Augustine’s book “On the Trinity,” where he speaks about God being called the father automatically assumes that he has a son, and how the co-existence of both of these entities is a reality. And personally, I never thought about the Holy Spirit as the feminine characterization. And, I’m getting to the question, what is the question? It oh, when when you said the feminine characterization of God, which orients itself toward life and toward good, almost always, and I don’t know, I think that my leaning into the affections, what you mentioned earlier and be like, well, we all need to be affections primary or whatever is more about this, because I do feel the absence of Holy Spirit in the church. And so I’m like, okay, well, we need the affections. We need, you know, and we should all be that, not that should be our strongest power. I understand what you mean, that that’s not that.

00:37:04:06 - 00:37:07:11 Michael That’s not necessarily going to be the primary power, yeah.

00:37:07:14 - 00:37:43:14 Christa But I do like my hope is that we do lean into people that are affectionally oriented, that we do, but we all we also not only lean into that, but on the other side of things, or maybe hand in hand with it. We need the Holy Spirit like, and I don’t think that we lean into the Holy Spirit as much as we should as a church community, as a body of believers, in general, I’m not going to say in specific.

00:37:43:16 - 00:39:12:12 Michael No, I agree with you. It is very interesting too, that … Well, I mean, there’s a lot of different things I could say, but one is that the organization of history seems like a movement toward the age of the Spirit. The Scriptures themselves are somewhat organized in this way. I mean, I’ve talked about, three powers in these terms, but, Micah Hood, one of my friends and listeners, sent me this message where he was talking about the way that the Old Testament was organized and how you have Torah, which is the law, and then you have Nevi’im, which is the prophets, and then you have the Ketuvim, which is the writings. So that’s the way the Old Testament was organized in the Hebrew order. We’ve reorganized it for reasons that I think are dumb. But Jesus would have read it in this order, which is why he says things like, every martyr from Abel to Zechariah, that you have persecuted and your fathers have persecuted … The reason why he says Abel to Zechariah is Abel is the first martyr in Genesis. But Zechariah is not the last chronological martyr. He’s the last martyr in the Hebrew ordering of the Old Testament, because that’s in Second Chronicles. And Second Chronicles is the last book of the Hebrew Old Testament, because the chronicles are in the Ketuvim—the writings. Anyway…

00:39:12:13 - 00:39:13:05 Christa Interesting.

00:39:13:07 - 00:39:55:00 Michael So that … that’s one way Jesus is showing that he’s organizing his thinking, even in terms of the Old Testament as it was organized in Hebrew. Okay, so the law, the prophets, the writings, the writings are sometimes called the Psalms because they begin with the Psalms, and that’s the largest book that’s in the writings. But you also have the wisdom literature, Job, Proverbs, song of Solomon, even some of the stories and histories and chronicles, like First and Second Chronicles are also in the book of the writings, the Ketuvim, the last book. So it’s like poetry and wisdom literature, and some chronicles.

00:39:55:02 - 00:39:56:10 Christa Okay.

00:39:56:10 - 00:40:00:01 Michael But the Torah is obviously the law.

00:40:00:03 - 00:40:00:15 Christa Right.

00:40:00:15 - 00:40:04:01 Michael That’s organized to speak to what part of you?

00:40:04:04 - 00:40:04:23 Christa The will.

00:40:04:24 - 00:40:06:27 Michael The will. Right. What to do, what is right.

00:40:06:27 - 00:40:07:06 Christa Right.

00:40:07:10 - 00:40:11:05 Michael And the Nevi’im, the prophets, are organized according to …

00:40:11:06 - 00:40:11:21 Christa Intellect.

00:40:11:22 - 00:40:39:20 Michael The intellect. What is true, what actually is. The writings and the wisdom literature and the Psalms are actually organized towards your life, how to live life and how to live it well and what has happened. And, you know, what that tells you about how you should, in the future, move and operate. So it’s about life. The writings are about your life. And, it’s interesting that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are also organized in those ways.

00:40:39:20 - 00:40:40:19 Christa That is interesting.

00:40:40:19 - 00:41:42:29 Michael That you have the Father of the will and the Son of the prophets and, the, you know, the intellect and who is the Word of God. You have the Holy Spirit who is obviously the affectional, you know, kind of force. It’s interesting then, that that’s the way the Scriptures are organized. And I think also the way that ultimately the history itself is organized, that we are coming into the fullness of the age of the Holy Spirit. And that means that in many ways, I’ve talked about, there’s … I think there’s a reformation of the affections that is still to come. That hasn’t happened yet, but it maybe is beginning. It certainly is somewhat, suppressed when people start talking about empathy as a sin, for instance, like, and when you start villainizing, affect- … the affections as being this really dangerous, very unstable thing. But the thing is, I understand why people feel that way. The Holy Spirit is the scariest of all.

00:41:43:01 - 00:41:44:17 Christa It is. I mean, for sure.

00:41:44:21 - 00:41:51:19 Michael Not because the Holy Spirit is anything other than gentle and humble and all the rest of that stuff, but it’s so weird. Right?

00:41:51:21 - 00:41:54:27 Christa Especially growing up in a church that was not really oriented around that.

00:41:54:27 - 00:42:16:24 Michael Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I, I remember in the church that, you know, pushed me out and told me I should take my blog down. They, they told … One of the members there was really upset because they said, you know, I talked about the Word of God personally, like the Word of God was a person. I was like, well, puzzled noises

00:42:16:26 - 00:42:17:15 Christa Living and breathing …

00:42:17:15 - 00:42:55:01 Michael The Word of God is a person. Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus is the person. Remember that? And she’s like, no, the Bible is the Word of God. So this is the kind of environment where we grew up. You know? But she also said she had a real problem with my understanding of the Holy Spirit, because she said, if the Word of God is able to be received and not just in the Scriptures, which the Scriptures themselves would confirm this. Right? Because the Word of God is obviously a larger category than the Scriptures. I mean, you have people like Noah who heard the Word of God. There wasn’t any Scriptures.

00:42:55:03 - 00:42:55:13 Christa Right.

00:42:55:13 - 00:43:03:25 Michael So he didn’t have the Scriptures, but he heard the Word of God. Right? Okay. That means the Word of God is larger than the Scriptures right then and there, that like necessitates that reality.

00:43:03:26 - 00:43:05:02 Christa Right.

00:43:05:02 - 00:43:14:08 Michael It’s also the case that when you hear about Jesus and it says the things he said and he did were so numerous that if you were to try to write them all down, it would fill all the books of the world. Whatever.

00:43:14:11 - 00:43:14:18 Christa Right.

00:43:14:19 - 00:43:18:18 Michael Okay. So obviously if Jesus said something, is that the Word of God?

00:43:18:18 - 00:43:18:26 Christa Yes.

00:43:18:26 - 00:43:25:06 Michael He’s God. So he’s spoken. Is that the Word of God? Yeah. So that means that there are lots of things he said that are the Word of God that are not in the Scriptures.

00:43:25:08 - 00:43:25:16 Christa Right.

00:43:25:16 - 00:43:26:22 Michael It says that explicitly.

00:43:26:24 - 00:43:27:11 Christa Right.

00:43:27:13 - 00:44:38:19 Michael So even if you’re saying the Bible is the Word of God, well, just trust your Bible then, because it actually says the Word of God is bigger than the Bible. And so that’s why I believe that. Right? And so she’s like, well, yeah, but that means how do you know whether you’re hearing from God or whether you’re hearing from some other or some other interpretation or some other thing? I’m like, that’s great to ask that. Because you should be reading the Bible this way too. Am I actually hearing my own thoughts when I’m reading the Bible or am I hearing from God? You should be discerning like the Bible tells you to when it says test the spirits to see whether or not they are from God, because not every spirit is from God. Meaning there are spirits within you that are speaking, that are interpreting this text, and some of them are not telling you the truth. Some of them are actually pretty dedicated to deceiving you and to keeping you in a state of deception, including your own flesh, including your own fallen sinful spirit. And so, you know, it’s very important in that context to actually learn how to hear the Holy Spirit. But that’s scary.

00:44:38:20 - 00:44:39:09 Christa It is.

00:44:39:09 - 00:45:08:03 Michael Because it’s so much more … it seems so much more stable and so much more secure to just be like this book here. This is the Word of God. You know, it’s like well yeah. But even then you know you’re up there in the pulpit saying stuff that’s just like your opinion, man. You know what I mean? Like it’s not … You’re not necessarily speaking the Word of God. You’re not even necessarily speaking the Word of God when you’re quoting Scripture. That is a really hard thing for people to get their heads around.

00:45:08:03 - 00:45:09:07 Christa You just got exed right there.

00:45:09:09 - 00:45:09:18 Michael I know.

00:45:09:18 - 00:45:10:06 Christa That was it.

00:45:10:08 - 00:45:11:24 Michael But Satan quoted Scripture.

00:45:12:01 - 00:45:17:09 Christa I’m just kidding. You know, I’m kidding about that. And you’re like.

00:45:17:13 - 00:45:27:04 Michael We’re not brother and sister anymore. You’re an outcast. No, it doesn’t matter. I’ll still speak the truth. Satan quoted the Scriptures

00:45:27:07 - 00:45:27:18 Christa He did.

00:45:27:24 - 00:45:50:05 Michael and Sa- … and Jesus said that everything Satan says is a lie, because the truth isn’t in him. And so whatever comes out of him is a lie. It’s just from his nature, because the truth is not in him. So if if he’s quoted Scripture and Satan’s like … and Jesus is like, that’s a lie. What you just said is a lie.

00:45:50:07 - 00:45:53:18 Christa That kind of goes back to there are facts and there is what’s true.

00:45:53:24 - 00:46:53:07 Michael Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m saying. So that means that the Holy Spirit who it says is … leads you to all the truth. There has to be a personal relationship. You can’t just have a dead faith in some words on a page as if, if I profess this and I try to check all these boxes, then I’ve achieved righteousness or I’ve achieved, you know, salvation or whatever. The problem with people is they’re like, oh, it’d be really scary to do that. Yeah, it is scary. You can’t escape the scariness of it because you can resist the Holy Spirit. You think that’s less scary? You think that’s a less scary situation to be in? Like you’re in a scary situation. That’s the truth. The truth is you are in a scary situation. You know, I’ll have people come up to me. I love saying things like this because it’s just the truth, right? They’ll come to me and be like, I’m afraid to have kids because I’m afraid that I’ll mess them up. And I’m like, oh, don’t be afraid of that.

00:46:53:12 - 00:46:55:07 Christa You will.

00:46:55:09 - 00:47:03:25 Michael You will. Don’t … Have no fear, okay? Like, let your fears go because you will definitely mess your kids up.

00:47:03:25 - 00:47:04:03 Christa Yes.

00:47:04:06 - 00:47:10:00 Michael No no no no question. Right? I’m afraid of dying, you know. Don’t be afraid of dying.

00:47:10:03 - 00:47:10:13 Christa You will.

00:47:10:15 - 00:47:53:16 Michael You will. You’ll die. It’s fine. You’re going to do it. You don’t have to be afraid of it. Don’t fear it. You know, don’t worry about it. You’re going to, you know? And it’s the same with this. It’s like, well, I’m afraid of having to trust in the Holy Spirit. It’s kind of like, well, well, don’t be because you are trusting in the Holy Spirit one way or the other. You’re relying on it one way or the other. You’re either … you are either in the danger of not having dealings with the Holy Spirit, or you’re in the danger of dealing with the Holy Spirit. But one way or the other, you have to deal with the Holy Spirit, right? You’re … you have to deal with the fact that, it is not … you don’t have any kind of stable, secure, in-yourself, anchor, for reality or for truth or for your own being.

00:47:53:19 - 00:47:58:01 Christa I’m thinking of that verse in whom we live and move and have our being

00:47:58:01 - 00:47:59:21 Michael Exactly. Yeah.

00:47:59:21 - 00:48:06:16 Christa There’s fluidity. There’s movement. There’s it’s not a eee You’re not stuck.

00:48:06:18 - 00:48:12:10 Michael Right. And I think people are they want … they want things to be fixed.

00:48:12:12 - 00:48:14:06 Christa Oh, sure. I want things to be fixed.

00:48:14:06 - 00:48:14:21 Michael I know.

00:48:14:27 - 00:48:29:16 Christa I’m saying that that’s an idol for me. Like, I want to be the fixer. I want to fix it. I want to control it so that I can have it all in my little … you know, the … my ducks are in a row. Like, I don’t want my ducks to be scattered, like …

00:48:29:19 - 00:48:31:20 Michael Well, what is fixed though?

00:48:31:23 - 00:48:32:09 Christa Nothing.

00:48:32:16 - 00:48:33:12 Michael That’s not true.

00:48:33:15 - 00:48:37:00 Christa Well, I mean, things are … Well, God is fixed, but … Well, maybe He’s not …

00:48:37:03 - 00:48:54:22 Michael I wouldn’t say God’s fixed. Not in that sense. Well, I mean, is there anything that’s fixed? That doesn’t … that truly doesn’t change in a … or experience or do with anything. That’s like … I’m talking inert.

00:48:54:25 - 00:49:03:19 Christa I’m sure there is, but I’m … You’re looking at me. Just go ahead and tell me, brother. Oftentimes your questions, I’m just like, well, let me see.

00:49:03:24 - 00:49:07:09 Michael Like, if you want to fix something, just kill it.

00:49:07:11 - 00:49:10:22 Christa Oh, but why would I do that? Oh, kill the idol.

00:49:10:24 - 00:49:23:15 Michael Just … No, just kill it. I mean, if you want something fixed, you just kill it. Then it’ll be dead. And then it won’t move anymore. And you can actually reshape it in whatever shape you want to. It won’t resist you.

00:49:23:17 - 00:49:25:03 Christa But I don’t want to do that.

00:49:25:03 - 00:49:31:26 Michael I know, but that is an idol. Do you understand? That’s the nature of an idol. That’s why we have idols. Because they’re dead.

00:49:31:28 - 00:49:32:01 Christa Yeah.

00:49:32:03 - 00:49:37:27 Michael We don’t want a living God. Because living God … Living God doesn’t do what we want.

00:49:37:29 - 00:49:38:20 Christa No, he doesn’t.

00:49:38:25 - 00:49:43:00 Michael Living God. When I move his arm this way, he resists.

00:49:43:03 - 00:49:43:09 Christa Yes.

00:49:43:10 - 00:50:06:02 Michael When I ask him questions about stuff, he gives me answers I don’t like. You know? He sees things I’d rather he not see. Says things I’d rather him not say. You know what I’m saying? Like a living God is a God that has to be reckoned with. But if you want something fixed, then you’re going to worship an idol because idols are dead. Like, the only fixed thing there is is death. Life is moving.

00:50:06:04 - 00:50:06:20 Christa It is.

00:50:06:20 - 00:50:36:09 Michael So the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life—not predictable. Not under your control. And that’s really scary. But, that’s … that is why I love the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit is alive, and the Holy Spirit grants life, and the Holy Spirit is wonderful. I mean, He’s good. God is good, right? God is good all the time.

00:50:36:11 - 00:50:36:28 Christa All the time.

00:50:37:01 - 00:50:39:01 Michael Right. And so.

00:50:39:03 - 00:50:40:02 Christa That is his nature.

00:50:40:06 - 00:50:51:08 Michael It is his nature. So it shouldn’t be … We shouldn’t be afraid. And maybe the fear is I might make a mistake. And again, it’s like, don’t be afraid of that. You will.

00:50:51:10 - 00:50:51:20 Christa Yeah.

00:50:51:26 - 00:50:54:27 Michael You will make mistakes. You’re going to make so many mistakes.

00:50:54:29 - 00:51:17:23 Christa I think there’s also the fear of suffering because no one really wants to suffer. But I’m wondering if we’re coming into the age of Holy Spirit. I think that suffering is going to be a very prominent thing that is going to be necessary in order to bring us back to where we need to be.

00:51:17:25 - 00:51:31:09 Michael Possibly. Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see. There’s a quotation from, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or whatever his name is.

00:51:31:12 - 00:51:34:12 Christa Sol-zi-neesh-kin or something like that. I don’t know.

00:51:34:15 - 00:53:21:20 Michael But from his Nobel speech that he gave in 1970 and he said he has an issue with Dostoevsky’s quote, Beauty will save the world. Are you familiar with Dostoevsky? Yeah. So I think it’s in Brothers Karamazov that he says beauty will save the world. And Solzhenitsyn’s like, beauty will save the world like, that … when I was younger especially, I thought that was such a stupid thing to say. Like, how could beauty save the world? Beauty is weak. Beauty is not capable of doing anything, right? And he says, you know, the ancients had this thing of the true, the good, and the beautiful. You know, and he’s like, and truth and right seems to be what makes things happen in the world. He’s like, but what’s interesting is that truth and right is able to be crushed and cut off and forced not to exist. And he’s like, and perhaps, you know, in the end, that beauty, unexpected beauty—which beauty is always unexpected; beauty is always surprising. And it’s always so unassuming. And he’s like, but it’s so convincing. When you see something that’s beautiful, you cannot deny it. But and it can’t be, it can’t actually be falsified. Like you can tell me something that seems true but isn’t. You can tell me something that seems right, but isn’t. But can you tell me something that seems beautiful, but isn’t? No. Beauty in itself is like its own verification. And so he’s like, well, maybe in the end beauty … when beauty will save the world, it’s because in a time when all the others are destroyed, beauty is the only thing that’s going to be able to rise above.

00:53:21:22 - 00:54:43:26 Christa So the first thing that comes to mind when you say the word beauty, I think of like, a person that’s beautiful, or a sunset or a landscape that’s beautiful. But I was reflecting on some discussions that I’ve had recently and just the word delight. And, when I went to speak to the school this past week, I asked them to close their eyes and to imagine something that brings a smile to their face that they, like, delighted in. And because if you think about things that you delight in, that to me is beauty. That. So I’m not sure if I’m not connecting those appropriately. But when you say beauty, I feel that sense of delight. What do you delight in? And that can’t be crushed or I what it could be, I guess. But in my imagination, what I delight in, what brings me joy, what brings God joy. But in that reverse—and I spoke to the kids about this, too—God, in the same way that you delight in those things, that those bring a smile to your face, that they light up your face or whatever, God delights in you. And I, I love to have that picture that to me. When you say beauty is what I feel is delight. I don’t know if that’s correct.

00:54:44:00 - 00:55:11:26 Michael No, I think it’s true. I mean, I think it’s a little bigger than that, but it at least includes that. Because I think the idea of beauty is an exploration of good and evil, then that … that is … It’s weird. But in order to understand what is good, you do have to have an understanding of what is evil. So beauty is just an intentional exploration of what is good and evil.

00:55:11:29 - 00:55:15:25 Christa And so like, it’s the rainy days that give us love for the sun.

00:55:15:25 - 00:55:39:03 Michael Sure. Yeah. Well, at least at the very least, knowing that there are rainy days and having experienced rainy days, it helps you to understand the spectrum of what sunlight and sunny days mean. Righ?. And I don’t think ultimately God would have allowed Adam and Eve, for instance, to have existed in an only … with only the experience of good.

00:55:39:05 - 00:55:47:20 Christa Well, he didn’t I mean, well, when they didn’t experience evil, they knew. I mean, they had the tree. I don’t know, I’m just thinking off …

00:55:47:22 - 00:55:55:14 Michael Well, I’m saying, is it possible to experience evil in a state of righteousness?

00:55:55:16 - 00:55:57:18 Christa I think so, I don’t know. I don’t think so..

00:55:57:18 - 00:56:01:00 Michael But of course there is. What are you talking about? Like Jesus did.

00:56:01:03 - 00:56:07:00 Christa What? Oh, oh I’m talking, I’m thinking like in human terms or not in a …

00:56:07:03 - 00:56:08:03 Michael Well, those are human terms.

00:56:08:03 - 00:56:09:12 Christa Yep. Okay.

00:56:09:14 - 00:56:11:26 Michael Jesus as a human being …

00:56:11:29 - 00:56:15:02 Christa You will … you’re seeing me take a nosedive, crashing noise

00:56:15:05 - 00:56:45:07 Michael It’s all right. That’s all right. All right. Yeah. So what I mean is that I believe Adam and Eve were being invited into an experience of righteous suffering. That’s how they would have learned evil. I don’t think God would have. … I think God wanted them to have a knowledge of good and evil. So, like the tree, the tree that is the knowledge of good and evil.

00:56:45:09 - 00:56:46:04 Christa Right.

00:56:46:06 - 00:56:58:09 Michael There’s two reasons why it becomes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It actually is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil even if they never eat from it.

00:56:58:11 - 00:56:58:28 Christa True.

00:56:59:01 - 00:57:11:19 Michael Because that one fruit withheld from them is the first evil they ever experienced.

00:57:11:22 - 00:57:16:26 Christa But so what you’re saying is they experienced evil without participating in it.

00:57:16:27 - 00:57:22:00 Michael Exactly. They experienced evil without sinning because evil is a …

00:57:22:02 - 00:57:23:21 Christa And Jesus would have done that too. He would’ve …

00:57:23:21 - 00:57:24:08 Michael Exactly.

00:57:24:08 - 00:57:26:02 Christa Okay, I get it. I get your line of thinking.

00:57:26:11 - 00:57:26:17 Michael So …

00:57:26:17 - 00:57:27:11 Christa It takes me a while sometimes, you know?

00:57:27:14 - 00:59:49:01 Michael It’s okay. It’s all right. So. Because if God hadn’t put the tree in the middle of the garden and said, don’t eat this, then Adam and Eve, their entire existence would have been nothing but good. Meaning it would have just been happy, pleasing, life giving good. But as soon as God said all of these other trees you can eat. But this one tree right here you may not eat, that was the first evil they ever experienced. Meaning that in that moment they experienced the withholding of a good, the deprivation of a good, the deprivation of that one single tree’s fruit. And so that is how that knowledge, in a sense, is provided to them. So that tree, even if they had never eaten of it, would have been the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the sense that they would have understood for the first time something a little bit about evil without participating in sin. But when they ate of the tree, it also becomes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in a totally different sense. And that because of the fact that they have sinned, they have disconnected themselves from the life of God and now are experiencing evil more deeply all the way to 11. Do you understand? So like if you’re talking about a spectrum of good and evil, like good on one side, right, is life. Eternal life. Okay. And like, you know, you can you can just like with light and darkness, you know, there’s a gradient, you know, and so all the way on this side, eternal death. Okay. So eternal death all the way dark all the way black, you know, not even just like perma-black. Okay. And then over here like infinite light, is the eternal life. And the light was the life of men. I mean, God talks about it in those same terms as well. Okay. So you know what’s like just a little tiny bit of evil. Not a lot, but just a little bit. Just the deprivation of a single good. The deprivation of a single good is like the smallest evil you could experience. So it seems to me that God has Adam and Eve on a on like a training wheel plan, like he wants them to eventually be able to suffer as he suffers. As he has always suffered.

00:59:49:04 - 00:59:53:22 Christa That statement makes so much application to us.

00:59:53:26 - 00:59:58:18 Michael Exactly. Right. So he wants us to be like him fully.

00:59:58:20 - 01:00:00:14 Christa And so that includes suffering.

01:00:00:17 - 01:00:02:19 Michael It includes … because he suffers.

01:00:02:19 - 01:00:03:00 Christa Right.

01:00:03:00 - 01:00:06:22 Michael Because he restrains himself. Because he withholds good from himself.

01:00:06:23 - 01:00:07:12 Christa Right.

01:00:07:15 - 01:00:09:28 Michael Before we even existed, he was doing that.

01:00:10:00 - 01:00:10:11 Christa Right.

01:00:10:13 - 01:00:33:04 Michael The fact that he made Earth in six days and rested the seventh, none of which things he needed for himself are all suffering. He’s withholding things from himself constantly. Like that is what it means to have self-control, which is a fruit of the spirit, which means God has that, which means it’s part of his nature to control, meaning, to withhold things, from himself.

01:00:33:06 - 01:00:33:29 Christa Right.

01:00:34:01 - 01:01:17:17 Michael He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to withhold anything from himself. He does, and he always did. And so, like, he does suffer. He understands suffering. He wanted Adam and Eve to also understand suffering without sin. And instead they took, like, the fast track to all the way to 11. To eat the fruit was to bring death. So he’s like, oh man, I was starting you on the single deprivation of good. And, you know, eventually maybe we would have worked our way up to death. But, that would have been a long time in the future, but okay, you know, you guys drank the bleach, so it looks like we’re on the death track now.

01:01:17:20 - 01:01:20:01 Christa But how often do we do that, too?

01:01:20:03 - 01:01:26:13 Michael I’m sure we do all the time. Well, I mean, anytime you do sin, that’s pretty much what’s occurring?

01:01:26:13 - 01:01:26:21 Christa It’s such a death track. Yes.

01:01:26:22 - 01:02:35:12 Michael You’re on the death track. But, yeah. So I think that that makes sense to me. I think eventually, like, if Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned when it came to the fruit, I think eventually they would have had opportunities to suffer more. I think there would have been more and more and more and more and more and more testing, more and more and more and more suffering. And you go like, well, that sounds awful. And I think a lot of people don’t see it. You know, they look at God like that. And there’s just like, what a monstrous person to put these people through tests and loyalty tests, you know, and trials and suffering and all this other kind of stuff. But you’re like, well, what he’s attempting to do is to grow you to the point where you are more like him. And he proves this when he takes on flesh, lives a life of total rejection and humiliation, and then dies, you know, as God, as the God-Man on the cross. That’s him …That’s not him … That’s not a new reality for him. Do you see what I’m saying?

01:02:35:12 - 01:02:36:01 Christa No. Yeah.

01:02:36:04 - 01:02:42:18 Michael Like, that is an … That is an eternal reality for him. He is always dying to himself.

01:02:42:20 - 01:02:43:15 Christa Right.

01:02:43:17 - 01:03:53:12 Michael And so that was just him displaying that in ways that we could fully understand. Because that is the nature of God in his humility, in his self-control to suffer in that way. And that couldn’t be just a one-time thing. That’s why the Lamb of God, who comes before God even now, looks as if slain. Why the scars are still in his hands, right? And in his feet and in his side, even in his resurrected body. Because the sign of his suffering was part of his representation of God, his manifesting witness of God’s reality. Because God is a suffering God. God knows how to suffer. And so when God is coming to us and saying, hey, I’ve made you in my image and I’m good, but I suffer because good always suffers. Do you understand? Good always suffers. It’s what we’re afraid of, right?

01:03:53:20 - 01:04:06:26 Christa We don’t like … And I don’t like it. I don’t like that you’re saying this. I don’t like it. But that’s the nature of the flesh. Not wanting to be … not wanting to go through the suffering. I understand the necessity of it.

01:04:06:26 - 01:04:07:07 Michael Yeah.

01:04:07:08 - 01:04:08:26 Christa It’s just I don’t like it.

01:04:08:29 - 01:04:13:03 Michael Yeah. I mean, it wouldn’t be suffering if you did.

01:04:13:06 - 01:04:16:06 Christa It’s true. It’s very true.

01:04:16:06 - 01:04:17:27 Michael And I don’t think we’re ever supposed to like it.

01:04:17:29 - 01:04:19:08 Christa I know. I know.

01:04:19:08 - 01:04:19:27 Michael Yeah. So …

01:04:19:27 - 01:04:33:15 Christa But you’re saying all of this, and I’m taking it all in, and I’m like, man, like, can we just not? Like, but I understand the necessity of it too. Like, it’s just a both/and type of thing.

01:04:33:15 - 01:05:01:00 Michael We could have just not if we were willing to function basically as just higher-order animals. You know what I mean? Like if God had just been like, I just … you’re just going to function as like higher-order animals. But we weren’t designed to do that. We were designed to rule the cosmos.

01:05:01:03 - 01:05:01:23 Christa Right.

01:05:01:25 - 01:05:27:00 Michael And again, a person who is not fully experienced and free to suffer can’t rule the cosmos. Because part of it is, do you know, like, on one side, you’re like, I don’t want to suffer. I don’t want to suffer. I don’t want to suffer. But … that means you’re making choices about suffering that cause other people to suffer.

01:05:27:02 - 01:05:28:13 Christa That’s interesting.

01:05:28:29 - 01:05:40:25 Michael So like, for instance, you know, you’re waiting in line. I don’t want to suffer. I don’t want to suffer. I don’t want to suffer. What do you do? Well, just cut in line. Well, yeah, but then other people would suffer. I don’t care. I don’t want to suffer.

01:05:40:26 - 01:05:41:26 Christa Right.

01:05:41:29 - 01:05:57:27 Michael But if instead you’re like no I’m willingly suffering, I’m willing to suffer and wait in line. By doing that, you are freeing other people from suffering. So do you understand? Like, …

01:05:58:00 - 01:06:13:15 Christa I get what you’re saying. I think that there’s kind of like a distinction for me in my mind about sacrifice and suffering. Like, I don’t know, sacrifice. That seems like a sacrifice to me is to wait in line and, you know, and not to …

01:06:13:17 - 01:06:18:05 Michael Yeah. Sure, that it is a sacrifice, but sacrifice is a willing suffering.

01:06:18:08 - 01:06:49:14 Christa But like, suffering … I guess it’s also a sacrifice of my own idolatry, too. But I’m just … I’m trying to bring this into, like, a perspective, a lens of my … what goes on in life, you know, and on what we … what happens. Because we can talk in all these platitudes. But when you bring it down to reality, like suffering is something that, that I’ve tried to avoid, but I can’t avoid it.

01:06:49:14 - 01:06:50:04 Michael You can’t. Yeah.

01:06:50:04 - 01:07:14:09 Christa I it’s come to me regardless, and a lot of it has to do with—and you and I have talked about this before—but just my desire to control, let’s say, in a parenting situation, trying to control my kids and, and trying to create the best environment for them to become the people that I want them to be. I realize that the words “I” in all of this, instead of thinking about God and everything like that.

01:07:14:09 - 01:07:14:17 Michael That’s okay.

01:07:14:21 - 01:07:52:28 Christa I want. I want that. And now that that’s different than what my expectations are, and it’s outside of my control, and there is a certain level of suffering. It no longer … I mean it is a portion of sacrifice because I’m sacrificing my idolatry, I suppose, but suffering to me is, like, is a felt thing, like, I can’t explain it, like, I, I when you feel suffering, there’s a loss. It’s a loss of good.

01:07:53:01 - 01:07:53:18 Michael Yeah for sure.

01:07:53:27 - 01:07:56:27 Christa And so anyway, I don’t know. It’s probably semantics.

01:07:57:03 - 01:08:09:28 Michael No, for sure. You’re right. No, no, no you’re right. That is. It is a loss. I mean it is a loss. What I’m saying is that God is willing to lose for the sake of another.

01:08:10:00 - 01:08:10:26 Christa Yes.

01:08:10:28 - 01:08:21:12 Michael Now, so what I’m saying then is that in order to love, you have to have the capacity to suffer.

01:08:21:15 - 01:08:22:01 Christa Yes.

01:08:22:01 - 01:08:43:09 Michael Because what you’re saying is, I love you. I’m willing to … I’m willing to pursue your good even at my own expense. But the thing is, if like … if the only thing you’re sitting here going is like, well, I just don’t want to suffer. That’s, that’s it. That’s the whole thing. I just don’t want to suffer. Well then you can’t love. You can’t.

01:08:43:12 - 01:08:43:21 Christa It’s true.

01:08:43:23 - 01:08:53:03 Michael It’s like not possible to love in those circumstances. And that’s why, you know, but a lot of people … a lot of people don’t love in that way ever.

01:08:53:05 - 01:09:04:25 Christa No. And there’s a big wave of people that are trying to avoid suffering at all costs. They don’t want to talk about anything that includes suffering. They don’t want to. If their marriage doesn’t make them happy, they’re out.

01:09:04:25 - 01:09:12:09 Michael And by happy, what they really mean is when the husband or the wife cease to be good for them.

01:09:12:16 - 01:09:13:17 Christa Yes.

01:09:13:19 - 01:09:25:26 Michael Meaning when, in other words, like not only, not only are you not willing to suffer, you’re willing to make other people suffer as long as it is pleasing to you.

01:09:25:29 - 01:09:27:16 Christa Yeah. Which is so arrogant! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t …

01:09:27:17 - 01:09:30:24 Michael

01:09:30:27 - 01:09:31:21 Michael That’s okay.

01:09:31:24 - 01:09:38:26 Christa No. I’m saying I need to be careful about saying … point … being judgmental about people and things like that, because you know …

01:09:38:29 - 01:09:45:29 Michael Yeah, but I mean, it is there is a selfishness to it and there is a certain kind of arrogance to it. We all do it to one extent or another.

01:09:45:29 - 01:09:46:20 Christa Oh for sure.

01:09:46:20 - 01:10:30:03 Michael But part of the reason we do it, and part of the reason we do it without even thinking about it, is because we’re trying to avoid pain. And that is why I’m saying that what God is inviting us into, like think about, when Jesus says the way is narrow and strait, that leads to life. The way is broad, easy, that leads to death. And he says, and there are few who find the way to life. Now he just said, you know, seek me and you will find me. So he says that there are few who find it mean that probably what he means by that is there are few who

01:10:30:05 - 01:10:30:11 Christa Seek him.

01:10:30:11 - 01:10:31:16 Michael Seek it.

01:10:31:20 - 01:10:32:11 Christa Yeah.

01:10:32:13 - 01:11:46:06 Michael And of course there are few that seek it. I mean, think about what he just said. He said the way is narrow. Right? Like tight. And strait as in painful actually. The Greek there is very clearly talking about something that is constrictive and painful, as opposed to free and easy, pleasant. Right? Well, that way is very easy. Everybody’s walking it, but it leads to death is the only problem is it leads to death, I mean, that’s unfortunate. The way that leads to life is constrictive and painful. And so there are few who seek that way. That doesn’t mean that there are few, ultimately, who are alive, ultimately who are living. It’s just that if they’re going to be alive, God’s going to be seeking them. God’s going to have to seek them out because they’re going to be on the broad way with everybody else, and he’s going to have to go into the highways and hedges and find those people and be like, hey, come on to my feast. And that’s usually how it works, right? There are very few people who seek that out. Why? Why would you seek a way that you know is going to bring you into suffering?

01:11:46:06 - 01:11:47:04 Christa Are you crazy? I mean, come on.

01:11:47:05 - 01:12:54:24 Michael Yeah. You’re out of your mind. That’s what I’m saying. But we have stories of those few. We have stories of those few who—looking, knowing this is what this is going to cost. And they said, and I’m going to do that because it’s the right thing to do, because it is the good thing to do, because it’s the true thing to do. Whatever it may be. They said, knowing what it’s going to cost. I’m not just naively going into this suffering. I know that I will suffer if I make this choice, and I’m going to make the choice. That is the few who seek the strait and narrow. They seek it. They have actually sought out a way they know to be difficult. And, I think that’s what God was inviting Adam to. You understand? Like, come with me on the strait and narrow. It’s difficult. It’s painful, requires discipline. But disciplines for reproof are the way of life. So you’re, you’re going to find life in this in the end if you’re willing to give it up.

01:12:54:26 - 01:13:01:25 Christa So it’s interesting that you say if it’s the right thing to do, if it’s the good thing to do, if it’s the true thing to do. You did that purposefully, did you?

01:13:01:29 - 01:13:02:16 Michael Yeah, sure. Yeah.

01:13:02:17 - 01:13:03:20 Christa For the three …

01:13:03:21 - 01:13:04:18 Michael For the three powers.

01:13:04:22 - 01:13:05:17 Christa For the three powers.

01:13:05:17 - 01:13:06:22 Michael Yeah.

01:13:06:22 - 01:13:26:11 Christa So in relationship to suffering, just thinking out loud. Are we called to suffer in our area of strength or in our weak … our strong power or our weak power or all three of them?

01:13:26:11 - 01:15:07:17 Michael Sure. I mean, you’re called to lay yourself down, to deny yourself. So whatever that means. It could be that that means investing in your subject power is laying down, you know. Or it could be sometimes it’s, you know, God is calling you to use your great strength for the sake of another person. And you might even get credit. You might … They might even say, hey, wow, you’re so good at that. Like, thank you so much for coming and helping me out. Or it may be, you know, I remember hearing … I’ve heard a lot of stories like this, but there was one guy who was talking about how he was an expert, in some particular topic, and he met somebody at a bar or something like that. The other person was talking really enthusiastically about, how they had learned, and they were like in college or something. And so they’re like learning. And he was like a nuclear physicist. And so this person is, talking about like, some of the rudiments of nuclear physics and really enthusiastic about it. And so the guy was like, he was so enthusiastic and he enjoyed talking about it so much that I just let him talk. And even though he could have said things, you know what I mean? He was the expert. But in that moment, for the sake of this other guy, he laid that down. And so sometimes that’s what’s called for, like, your great strength. Sometimes you’re called to deny it for the sake of another person. And sometimes you’re called to use it for the sake of another person or whatever. But one way or the other, you know, like God, the Holy Spirit can direct you to the right choice. And I don’t think … I think oftentimes we’re just not really thinking about it. We’re not looking for it. Yeah.

01:15:07:19 - 01:15:11:19 Christa Well, I’m laying down my my strength of intellect now to let you talk.

01:15:11:21 - 01:16:01:15 Michael Yeah, I know. I noticed. I noticed that. Yeah. And, well, it is interesting you say that, though, because I … one of my weaknesses is that I like to talk, and I usually have things that I think would be appropriate or fitting or, you know, interesting to talk about. But a lot of people I feel like, probably need more space to talk. I know my wife does. I know Vanessa does. There. And I make her feel like I don’t care what she has to say sometimes. You see what I’m saying? And so even if I did have really great things to say and really true things to say, there’s tons and tons of times where I really do need to be quiet. And I struggle with that.

01:16:01:17 - 01:16:18:26 Christa Yeah. And I mean, I can understand that. And it is a struggle sometimes. I like to talk too a lot of times. But when I’m sitting next to somebody that is largely intellectual and has a lot … and you’re actually, I think. Oh, don’t mean to hit that thing again.

01:16:19:00 - 01:16:20:06 Michael How dare you …

01:16:20:08 - 01:16:40:07 Christa You are really good at being able to discern and pick out what I’m trying to say, even though sometimes it’s very muddled. And I appreciate that you’re able to do that, and kind of streamline whatever it is I’m trying to say, because I’m really all over the place a lot of times.

01:16:40:12 - 01:16:40:22 Michael Yeah.

01:16:40:22 - 01:17:30:03 Christa So, it’s hard to … it’s hard to kind of bring me down into, you know, an understanding of what I’m really trying to say. But I think you’re really good at that. Even though I do know you like to talk, and I like to hear what you have to say. Sometimes I think, like, there’s so much, like, even what we’ve talked about so far. There’s so much to pack in … that’s packed into this that I need to, like, selah, pause and reflect, you know, because I’m like, I want to see how this applies, like based on my experience and kind of using the same data points, you know, that you’ve talked about. But I also want to expand my experience and expand my data points, my understanding. And so that’s why it’s helpful to me to have a lot of examples, to take it into a personal connection with my life.

01:17:30:06 - 01:17:30:28 Michael Yeah.

01:17:30:28 - 01:17:34:00 Christa So that I can utilize it, and not …

01:17:34:00 - 01:17:34:29 Michael Well, yeah.

01:17:35:02 - 01:17:42:13 Christa And not just lay it there and, you know, the intellectual side of things or whatever, but, Anyway,

01:17:42:15 - 01:18:01:00 Michael That’s when it becomes … Well, I think … I talk to my kids about prophecy. Usually when you think about prophecy, you’re thinking about, you know, predictions that come true, but all truth is prophetic in that way. That, you know, I say something maybe and it it will prove true more and more.

01:18:01:02 - 01:18:01:15 Christa Right.

01:18:01:15 - 01:18:42:04 Michael Where you … You know, if I say something about the Scriptures and I say, here’s a distinction in the Scriptures and, you know, and I give you a few proof texts, but then you go to the Scriptures and you find a bunch of texts that were like that, shh. This does not work. Right? Well then what the prophet said did not come to pass. You see what I’m saying? Like that’s the … but if you … if there are things that I wasn’t even having in mind—and this happens to me all the time—where I’ll be trying to think through a problem or whatever, and then I’ll go to the Scriptures, and I’ll find verses that just happen to support what I’m saying. Way better than I could have even imagined. I’m like, oh, well, maybe there’s something to this, you know what I mean? When it starts to become predictive.

01:18:42:07 - 01:18:43:14 Christa Like confirmation.

01:18:43:14 - 01:18:43:23 Michael Yeah.

01:18:43:24 - 01:18:44:23 Christa You’re getting confirmation.

01:18:44:26 - 01:19:10:06 Michael And you got to be careful. You know, a lot of people … you’ve got like confirmation bias. So of course I, you know, having the idea I would want to find it wherever I’m looking. But that’s not exactly what I’m talking about. It’s something else than that. It’s like this shock of surprise and discovery that occurs in those things where it’s not something you’re searching for, and it’s something that God is granting to say, like here, that it’s even more so than you thought.

01:19:10:07 - 01:19:10:16 Christa Yeah.

01:19:10:17 - 01:19:13:04 Michael Because usually in that there’s also a correction.

01:19:13:06 - 01:19:13:20 Christa Right.

01:19:13:21 - 01:19:22:07 Michael Right? Where it’s like, oh, you thought that, oh, well, this is way deeper. It’s way deeper than you thought. It goes way further than you thought. And so …

01:19:22:07 - 01:19:23:19 Christa And that’s his gentle mercy.

01:19:23:19 - 01:19:25:16 Michael He is. He’s very merciful. Yeah.

01:19:25:20 - 01:19:30:07 Christa To get, bring, bring us along, you know, a little bit along the way and then be like, explode, like.

01:19:30:08 - 01:19:30:15 Michael Yeah.

01:19:30:21 - 01:19:31:05 Christa See?

01:19:31:12 - 01:19:52:25 Michael Right. Exactly. He’s not going to start us with death. He’s going to start us with you know, how about don’t eat that fruit. That’s your first lesson, you know. And but … and again I think it’s good that he’s like that with us. We get really frustrated with him for being like that with us. We’re like I can handle it.

01:19:52:27 - 01:19:54:00 Christa Yeah. No, you can’t.

01:19:54:00 - 01:19:56:08 Michael No, you can’t. Can you just trust me, you can’t.

01:19:56:12 - 01:19:58:10 Christa You cannot carry this suitcase. It’s too heavy.

01:19:58:10 - 01:20:02:07 Michael Just leave your training wheels on for a second. You know what I mean? Come on.

01:20:02:10 - 01:20:02:17 Christa Yes.

01:20:02:18 - 01:20:14:26 Michael You haven’t even ridden your bike yet. With the training wheels on. You’ve just looked at it. Like, I can do it. Anyway, so, yeah, we can take a little break, too. A little selah.

01:20:15:02 - 01:20:16:28 Christa Yeah.

01:20:17:01 - 01:21:19:29 Michael Thank you for listening and or watching today. I hope that you enjoyed that yet again. A lot of people have already mentioned that the first conversation part that I released, a couple of weeks ago has been really helpful for them for clarifying some of the things, and they like the conversational style and the conversational approach. So if you’re enjoying that, just let me know. That always helps to direct the future podcast episodes. If you’re liking it or not liking it, just let me know. I’d like to know either way, and you can find all these episodes on NothingHumanPodcast.com, and please leave a comment or a question or whatever else you want to say. I don’t know what would fall under another category, but if there’s another category there and you find it, go ahead and leave whatever that is on my website, On NothingHumanPodcast.com on the relevant episode. I really appreciate you all listening and watching today. And I hope that you have a great day and a great rest of your week. All right. See you later.

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

Terence, “Nothing human is alien to me”

Maya Angelou “Nothing Human” Interview

Aquinas on Affections as Bodily Appetite

Sack of Rome (AD 410)—Augustine lived from AD 354–430

William Lane Craig on Light/Dark Good/Evil

Plotinus

Great Chain of Being

The Diet of Worms (Martin Luther)

Archimedes’ Last Words

TRANSCRIPT (Time Stamps Approximate)

00:00:00:04 - 00:01:01:23 Michael This is episode 21 of the Nothing Human Podcast. Nothing Human Conversations: Three Powers Recap with Christa, Part 1. Welcome to the Nothing Human podcast, a biblically-informed thinkspace for exploring and articulating all the ways we make or break sense of human experience. I’m your host, Michael Minkoff. From my youngest days, I’ve been fascinated with categories of thought—those often unconscious filing mechanisms that invisibly populate our premises, direct our inquiries, and ordain our conclusions. Join me as we investigate and interrogate our assumptions in an effort to articulate a more cohesive understanding of human information within the superstructure of God’s truth.

00:01:01:25 - 00:02:19:23 Michael Well, you asked for it, and you got it, though you might regret it. The next few episodes of the podcast will be an extended conversation with my sister, Christa. It will function as a conversational recap on the three powers series. I also did video for these episodes. As you can see, if you’re watching on YouTube or Spotify. I’m hoping that it’s on Spotify. But if it’s not because I couldn’t work it out, just head over to my YouTube channel. And there’s a link in my show notes on my website. Speaking of my website, all the episodes for Nothing Human and my bonus podcast, Being Something Extra are available on my website, NothingHumanPodcast.com. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please comment on the relevant episode on my website. And I will make sure to respond either there or in a podcast. So if you want to support me and my work, you can do that. That’s really helpful to me actually. I really love speaking and having response and not just speaking out into a vacuum. Also, please rate and review this podcast wherever you are listening to it. That really helps me a lot. And if you want to support me even further, you can become my Patron for as little as $5 a month on Patreon. There’s a link also to that in the show notes on my website. And I really do appreciate all of you for your support. Now let’s get into this first part of my conversation with Christa.

00:02:26:15 - 00:02:31:24 Michael Well, I am here as promised, after many extra episodes, with my sister, Christa.

00:02:31:26 - 00:02:32:24 Christa Hi.

00:02:32:26 - 00:02:38:12 Michael She is sort of the originator of at least some of the reason why I’m doing this podcast.

00:02:38:12 - 00:02:39:17 Christa You give me too much credit.

00:02:39:18 - 00:02:43:13 Michael I’m not. I’m not giving you too much credit. I’m just saying what is.

00:02:43:14 - 00:02:44:10 Christa Okay.

00:02:44:12 - 00:02:58:18 Michael I probably wouldn’t have done this podcast for my own sake. And you’re one of the few people who was like, hey, you really need to do that because I want to know what you’re talking about, but I’m not going to read your articles, and … or I will, but they’re just hard for me, okay?

00:02:58:24 - 00:02:59:00 Christa Yeah.

00:02:59:05 - 00:03:00:06 Michael I don’t want to insult you.

00:03:00:08 - 00:03:01:13 Christa No. I’m not insulted.

00:03:01:14 - 00:03:02:06 Michael All right. Good.

00:03:03:05 - 00:03:57:19 Michael So after she said, hey, you should probably go ahead and do something like this. Because I like the more conversational thing, and I was like, of course, you know, I’m going to come and I’m going to do this podcast just by myself, and it’s going to be all very prepared and everything. And I don’t know that that’s exactly meeting the need. I’ve heard from a number of people that they want to hear more conversation, more dialog, more feedback. So, this is the purpose of that. And I’m hoping that it is functional and effective for that purpose. We have … she came up with a number of questions and comments that from the first few episodes, the … of the three powers series. So this will be a little bit of a recap on the three powers series. And I don’t know how many podcast episodes this will generate, but I hope that it is useful for you all. So let’s get into it. This is Christa, my sister.

00:03:57:19 - 00:03:58:20 Christa Hello.

00:03:58:25 - 00:04:05:17 Michael And we’re actually recording video of this, and it’s the first time I’m going to record any of these podcasts as video, so…

00:04:05:21 - 00:04:06:06 Christa Oh really?

00:04:06:06 - 00:04:17:02 Michael Yeah. Oh yeah. I’ve done little videos and stuff for you know, Instagram Reels and such. But I have not done any long-form podcast type videos, so…

00:04:17:03 - 00:04:18:12 Christa I feel very honored.

00:04:18:15 - 00:04:30:23 Michael Yeah. So I just … I wasn’t confident that I would look good enough to make that work. So I was like, oh, Christa is coming on, so at least they’ll have something nice to look at for the …

00:04:30:26 - 00:04:33:00 Christa Or if not, there’s the background of the trees.

00:04:33:00 - 00:04:45:03 Michael Yeah, the trees back there and the pond. We’re actually recording this at my parents’ house, and they’re upstairs. And we told them we were recording. But of course, there’s about 7,000 people here always.

00:04:45:04 - 00:04:45:18 Christa Always.

00:04:45:18 - 00:04:57:12 Michael So there’s something going on. Who knows. We might be interrupted, but we’re just going to keep it going and just be natural and free-flowing. Because that’s the point of these, So. So go ahead. So let’s, let’s talk a little bit.

00:04:57:14 - 00:05:17:02 Christa All right. So before we even get into any of the episodes, I’m interested to know why did you choose “Nothing Human”? And or choose the phrase, “Nothing human could be alien to me”? Who is that quote from and who is the speaker?

00:05:17:04 - 00:07:01:13 Michael So the quote is originally from Terence, who was a Roman playwright. And he is considered by some to be the father of humanism. So a lot of people hear humanism and they think secular humanism or anti-Christian humanism. But humanism is just that branch of study that kind of developed with the Greeks. But it was in the Renaissance. It was the idea that we want to know anything that can be known, humanly speaking, and in terms of human culture and human realities. And Terence, the quote from Terence, kind of basically means anything that could be generated by a human or understood by a human could be generated or understood by me, because I am a human. So I’m not going to allow anything that is human to be alien to me. And that is having to do with all sorts of things, not just knowledge and constructed knowledge and categories of thought, but also has to do with human experience and the ways that people operate in the world. And I thought it was a good name for this podcast, because I want to be able to be free to talk about whatever I want to talk about. And so that was part of the reason for that. I also thought it was just kind of a fun title in the sense of like, “Nothing human. What are you talking about?” It’s almost like everything human. So I like the a little bit of the irony of that. But also since it’s within the “superstructure of biblical truth,” there’s the idea of like the truth that I’m talking about isn’t ultimately human, even though it’s addressing all the things that humans can know. I’m hoping that the truth that we’re receiving and that I’m talking about is divine, at least in origin, if not in application. And I found this really wonderful interview with Maya Angelou, the poet…

00:07:01:13 - 00:07:02:26 Christa I thought that might be who it was.

00:07:02:28 - 00:07:34:05 Michael Yeah. And so I, I stole the audio because she’s actually talking about this quote. And the way that she uses the quote is really wonderful. Like, maybe I’ll link in the show notes to the particular interview that I scraped this audio from, but, I used it as a sample for this particular podcast because I thought it was … I thought she said it really well. She also quotes it in Latin because, of course, she’s like super erudite and really smart. She has a wonderful voice.

00:07:34:07 - 00:07:34:20 Christa She does.

00:07:34:20 - 00:07:49:05 Michael And she talks about the experience of understanding that all the people who have ever hated her … So she was, you know, she was very heavily abused. I don’t know if you’ve heard. But if you’ve read, like, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,”

00:07:49:07 - 00:07:56:06 Christa I, I’m bad about reading books to the very end, but I get little parts of it. I’m not totally familiar with it, though.

00:07:56:08 - 00:08:44:12 Speaker 2 She is very familiar with trauma and treated really badly by other people. And so you can imagine that she would other-ize these victimizers and abusers. But in this quote, she talks about how that too is not alien to me. That I also understand the humanness of my abusers and … and the people who’ve done all these terrible things in the world. I also have to enter into that experience, and I can’t … And part of the healing and part of the wholeness of the human experience is recognizing that also as part of the human experience. So she in that interview, she talks about that a good bit, a little bit of a kind of universalist mystic in her approach to God and things. But I still really like the interview, and I really like her a lot. So I thought I could honor her and still use this quote and everything like that through this. So that’s why …

00:08:44:12 - 00:08:44:21 Christa I like. I like that.

00:08:44:28 - 00:08:46:04 Michael That’s why I did that.

00:08:46:06 - 00:09:07:13 Christa I like that a lot. I’m sure we’ll dive back into suffering later, but it just reminded me of our discussions before about suffering. And I think that human experience of suffering like, and that the fact that she experienced it, … it’s really important to … as a topic of discussion.

00:09:07:15 - 00:09:08:00 Michael Yeah.

00:09:08:03 - 00:09:09:00 Christa And we can get to that.

00:09:09:00 - 00:09:10:13 Michael We’ll talk talk about it.

00:09:10:15 - 00:09:18:28 Christa All right. So, I was going to review the affections, intellect, will, but I think everybody’s pretty clear, I hope, on that. Should I, should you?

00:09:19:00 - 00:09:46:20 Michael I hope so, but if you aren’t familiar with The Three Powers Framework, because that’s what we’re going to be talking about. This is kind of a recap of the 15 episodes that I already did on The Three Powers. So if you aren’t familiar with this, you know, lucky for you, like, I have 15 episodes and you can get way more about it than you could possibly ever want. So you can go and listen to those. I would recommend listening to those 15 Episodes at least before you do the recap here with us.

00:09:46:23 - 00:10:02:08 Christa But the recap … I do want to kind of emphasize what is the goal and the function of each. So that gives a short I like little short words, you know, of things. So the goal of the affections, the function … So would you like to explain?

00:10:02:11 - 00:10:03:00 Michael No, you can do it.

00:10:03:03 - 00:10:47:07 Christa Oh okay. Well I’m not going to quote it from memory, but I have it written here. Affections goal. The goal is life. Ultimate life or ultimate good, goodness. And God. The meaning of the standard is taste—what is good and evil. The function would be love. So goal life, function love. The intellect. The goal is truth, standard—knowledge. The function would be knowing or naming—faith. Got it right so far? And then will. The goal is righteousness. The standard is the law of God. Function is choice or doing. The function is patience and or hope. That’s kind of like a summary of a lot of different things that you said in a lot of podcasts.

00:10:47:10 - 00:10:47:19 Michael Yeah.

00:10:47:19 - 00:10:52:11 Christa So, would you like to say any more or do you think that that’s clear?

00:10:52:14 - 00:12:03:24 Michael Well, yeah, there’s a little bit of a difference there in like, I would say that the that the ordered function… So even though it’s, you know, Choice is the function of the will. To make the choice. And an ordered function would be patience. So that would be sort of the virtue of the will is patience. The virtue of the intellect is faith. The virtue of the affections is love. I also think it’s important to understand, because generally speaking, when you think about life, you’re thinking about it in biological terms. But the life that is in mind when I’m talking about the ultimate goal of the affections is not just a bodily life or a biological life, it is it is the life in the Spirit of the Holy Spirit who does not have a body like men. So in those terms, I would say life has to be above or beyond merely biological existence. And in the Greek New Testament it actually does make a distinction between bios, which is more that subsistent and existent life—biological life. I mean we even call it biological life. And then the zoetic life, which is Zoe, which is … we get the word “zoo” from it. Zoological.

00:12:03:27 - 00:12:04:12 Christa Really?

00:12:04:12 - 00:12:05:11 Christa Yeah.

00:12:05:13 - 00:12:07:00 Christa We get the word “zoo” from Zoe?

00:12:07:00 - 00:12:07:11 Michael Yeah.

00:12:07:12 - 00:12:07:26 Christa Oh, wow.

00:12:07:26 - 00:12:30:07 Michael Yeah. So, So, anyway, so because zoology is sort of like life in general. Like life on the on the planet. But, yeah, Zoe is usually is the only word that’s used when it talks about “eternal life.” So so the … In the New Testament, it talks about eternal life. That is a life that’s beyond just biological subsistence.

00:12:30:09 - 00:12:37:12 Christa So the affections could be considered not just the good of your biological body, but also your eternal good.

00:12:37:12 - 00:13:26:05 Michael The ultimate good. Yeah, an eternal good. Right? Exactly. Eternal life. That’s a reality that the affections are able to appeal to, which is why the affections are not ultimately a bodily appetite. That’s why I would disagree with Aquinas on calling the affections a bodily appetite. Because ultimately the affections are able to access love beyond the body. It’s not just bodily appetites. Now, I would say that with all of the powers they are rooted in biological functions. So I would never say they’re separated from biological functions. Because the body as I talked about in the last five episodes, the body and the spirit are unified in such a way that they are un-disentanglable. They cannot be disentangled.

00:13:26:10 - 00:13:27:06 Christa Oh, right.

00:13:27:09 - 00:14:19:11 Michael And so the death of a person that results in our spiritual existence with God separate from a body is not considered a final state. It’s an intermediate state that they would call and it’s not good. When you look at the souls in heaven who are under the altar praying to God and crying out to God, they’re not saying, “Oh, this is wonderful.” They’re saying “How long?” Like, “How long is this going to continue to go on like this? How long until you fulfill what you’ve promised in the resurrection, in the reconciliation of all things?” So that doesn’t sound to me like they’re fully satisfied, even though they’re in the throne room of God and in His presence, they’re still saying, “Hey, there’s …There’s still some of the promise left to be fulfilled because there’s still a life that we haven’t fully grasped yet.

00:14:19:14 - 00:14:52:16 Christa Yeah, that’s a great point. I didn’t think about that. Okay. So in episode one, you talk about the story of Augustine and pears, and you said evil in and of itself is not something to be pursued. The story itself, to me, is kind of confusing, and I don’t necessarily want to spend a lot of time … But I was thinking like, does August … Augustine? I want to say Augustine. Augustine.

00:14:52:21 - 00:14:53:03 Michael That’s fine.

00:14:53:10 - 00:14:53:24 Christa However you say it.

00:14:53:27 - 00:14:56:23 Michael We know who you’re talking about. I think. Well, most of us do.

00:14:56:28 - 00:15:10:06 Christa Okay. However you’d like to say it, does Augustine think that stealing a pear is not a moral evil? And, like, can you just help me understand that story a little bit better? Because I’ve heard a lot of people bring up that story, and it always confuses me.

00:15:10:13 - 00:15:25:09 Michael Okay. It’s a weird story. Part of the weirdness of it is that our framework for morality is very different than Augustine’s. However, if you listen, you know who, like William Lane Craig is, the apologist?

00:15:25:12 - 00:15:26:19 Christa No, I don’t know who he is.

00:15:26:23 - 00:16:13:23 Michael Well, he takes more of like, a rational, approach to the apologetic method. But he talks about the problem of evil or the moral problem, and he says, well, morality is like light and dark. So he talks about good and evil. He says that it’s like light and dark. So dark isn’t a thing in itself. Dark is just the absence of light. And so he says that good and evil are similar, and he’s conflating good and evil with righteousness and wickedness in this, as most people do. And as Aquinas also did. And as Augustine also did. Because they’re basically borrowing from this Platonic… Well, it’s funny. It’s actually Plotinic. Plotinus, the NeoPlatonist, was the guy who came up with the Great Chain of Being.

00:16:13:23 - 00:16:15:24 Christa I would not have caught that little difference, but

00:16:15:24 - 00:16:21:22 Michael Anyway. But yeah, so his … his name is spelled like P-L-O-T-I-N-U-S. Plotinus.

00:16:21:22 - 00:16:21:26 Christa Not confusing at all.

00:16:21:26 - 00:16:25:14 Michael So you can say like Plotinic and it’s like, “Platonic? What are you even talking about?”

00:16:25:14 - 00:16:26:02 Christa Not confusing at all.

00:16:26:03 - 00:16:30:21 Michael Right? It’s like, are you are … “Do you mean Platonic?” “No, I mean Plotinic.”

00:16:30:24 - 00:19:23:02 Michael Anyway, so. But that’s the that’s the guy who basically popularized the Great Chain of Being. The Great Chain of Being is the idea of light and dark, good and evil. Where God is the ultimate good, and as you make distance from God to the angels and the Demiurges and all that, like, the goodness decreases. And so the substance of reality decreases. And the greatest of the evils is really just nothing. So you go from God to angels to human beings to animal life to inanimate objects to nothing, and nothing is like the darkness. And God is like the light. But he’s putting it not in just material terms or affectional terms. He’s actually putting it in moral terms, meaning that even morality is organized in that same way. That there is a moral good, and as you turn towards vice or away from virtue, it’s really just that you’re taking away from that moral good. That evil is not a substance in itself. It’s not a thing in itself. Like darkness is not a thing in itself. I find that that argument is really unhelpful, because wickedness … even if evil, even if you were to say evil is the taking of life. Right? So the ultimate evil is death. And that’s the taking of life, meaning it’s the absence of life that creates great evil. But it is also the case that if you say, I love to do evil, I love to do evil, you’re indicating that there is a certain palpable reality to that kind of darkness. Spiritual darkness is a thing, meaning it has a reality. It has a spirit. There is such a thing as an evil spirit. That’s not just, Oh, well, when the spirit becomes evil, it just ceases to exist, because evil is just the absence of good, right? No, an evil spirit does exist. Meaning that there are things that are evil that truly are palpable. Like there’s a palpable darkness. Not just the absence of light. But a force, a will, a being in itself. Right? Augustine is not thinking in these terms. He’s thinking in Plotinic terms. So he’s saying, you know, when I stole the pear to get something that was good. That made sense to him. Because it’s just a good that hasn’t been permitted to him. But when he steals the pears when he’s not hungry. Just for the stealing, just to take, because he threw it to pigs, he threw the pears … they all threw the pears to pigs. They didn’t … they weren’t hungry. They had their fill, but they still kept taking pears. And they took pleasure in this theft. He’s like, “So I wasn’t taking pleasure in a good. What was I taking pleasure in?”

00:19:23:04 - 00:19:24:19 Christa And if evil was nothing…

00:19:24:19 - 00:19:26:17 Michael Then how could I have pleasure in nothing?

00:19:26:20 - 00:19:26:29 Christa Right.

00:19:27:00 - 00:19:43:20 Michael Right. And so in that sense, he’s actually butting up against the problem of his categories, that … because he doesn’t have a separate category for an evil that exists. Right? Which again, it’s like, well, that’s because wickedness is a thing.

00:19:43:23 - 00:19:44:03 Christa Right.

00:19:44:03 - 00:19:55:18 Michael It is a spirit. It is a reality. And so when I say “evil spirit,” it’s not a spirit of evil. It’s not made of evil. It’s a spirit that desires evil, and that exists.

00:19:55:24 - 00:19:56:02 Christa Yeah, for sure. Sure.

00:19:56:03 - 00:20:27:24 Michael That is the spirit of sin. And so, but if you’ve merely framed that in Plotinic terms, you have no category to place that in. You don’t know what … how to frame that. But, if you distinguish between the affections and the will in this, then you would say that, affectionately speaking, evil is the absence of good. Light, you know. Darkness is the absence of light. But volitionally speaking, in terms of the will, you can choose darkness.

00:20:27:27 - 00:20:28:09 Christa Right.

00:20:28:09 - 00:20:34:11 Michael And that choice is a thing in itself. And the love of evil is a thing in itself.

00:20:34:15 - 00:20:35:02 Christa Right.

00:20:35:04 - 00:20:43:15 Michael And so, that is the spiritual darkness, which is moral in nature, not material in nature.

00:20:43:17 - 00:20:58:24 Christa Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. I understand it now. I wonder what was going on at that time. Like, do you know what time, what was the, the year that, Augustine … because I don’t remember facts like that, but what year was it?

00:20:58:26 - 00:21:02:23 Michael I think it’s like fourth century, four hundreds. I didn’t do a bunch of research before this, but …

00:21:02:29 - 00:21:12:09 Christa Yeah, I wonder if it would be interesting to think about what was going on in the world around it. As far as religion and culture and that sort of thing. But anyway, that …

00:21:12:10 - 00:22:17:14 Michael I can tell you. So, like, Augustine was alive when Rome was sacked, so he was so he actually did … He wrote The City of God about the … basically … having this vision for the city of God beyond just the city of humankind. Because he was seeing the city of humankind fall apart. Like, it’s hard to for us to put ourselves in those shoes of, like, what does it feel like to be part of the Roman Empire, and then for Rome to be sacked by barbarians, like, what … what does that feel like? I would imagine that it was something similar to the experience we had in 9/11. Where, like, these people that we kind of feel like are on the fringes and they’re our enemies, but like, we’ve been handily defeating them for all this period of time, but then they score this great victory against us. You know that’s the feeling you have of like, oh, are we not as great as we thought? Is this the end? You know, that kind of thing. I imagine that Augustine felt like he had to come up against that. And ultimately just said, “Well, forsake human empire.”

00:22:17:16 - 00:22:17:21 Christa Right.

00:22:17:24 - 00:22:29:05 Michael Which, good for him, because that’s actually how we all should have responded in that, you know. We didn’t. We didn’t. We were like, we’re going to Empire even harder, you know? But anyway, I don’t want to get too political.

00:22:29:05 - 00:22:36:15 Christa But then in nine … after 9/11, we had the highest attendance in church. After that incident at least.

00:22:36:18 - 00:22:40:17 Michael Well, we needed to petition our God for victory in battle.

00:22:40:19 - 00:22:54:03 Christa Yes. More on that later. All right. In episode two. So you talk about one, it’s … the title is one power to rule them all.

00:22:54:06 - 00:23:06:02 Michael The only of my titles, by the way, that’s kind of like jokey or even like where I even put a whole lot of effort into it. Most of the time I’m just like, this is what I’m talking about. Dap dap dap dap. But this one, I was like mmmm.

00:23:06:04 - 00:23:08:11 Christa One power to rule them all? And it was a question mark?

00:23:08:11 - 00:23:10:14 Michael Yeah. Wow.

00:23:10:16 - 00:23:11:01 Christa One power to rule them all…

00:23:11:03 - 00:23:12:15 Michael Such cleverness.

00:23:12:18 - 00:23:15:28 Christa You are clever, brother. Give yourself more credit.

00:23:15:28 - 00:23:17:06 Michael So bad.

00:23:17:09 - 00:23:31:05 Christa So if the authorities in many communities are actually exercising the faculty of the will, what benefit is it for them to falsely claim that they are accessing the faculty of the intellect?

00:23:31:07 - 00:24:52:11 Michael It’s … it’s very beneficial. So you have this story of Martin Luther who goes before the Diet of Worms and they say ridiculous, absurd things like, “Do you recant?” And they’re pointing at all of his books, like his whole … everything he’s ever published, the vast majority of which was just Catholic orthodoxy. Like, there’s no … So he’s looking at his books and he’s like, “Well, which parts of these books?” And they’re like, “Do you recant?” And he’s like, “I, I’m not going to deny everything that I have written.” Right? Which is what they’re basically asking him to do because he’s like, “I don’t even think you all would disagree with the vast majority of what I’ve written here.” But it was more just a matter of, like, having him submit. Just you need to submit to the authority of the church to basically just tell you, you know, burn your blog down. Take every article you’ve ever written down and never write again. If we say so, that’s what you should do. And you shouldn’t even have to question that. Or think about it. This is what you need to do because you’re in submission to us in this. And so, of course, you know, he has that famous, famous line like, “Unless I am convinced by Scriptures and plain reason, I cannot recant. Here I stand. So help me God,” you know. “I can do no other.”

00:24:52:14 - 00:24:52:17 Christa Right.

00:24:52:19 - 00:25:15:00 Michael That whole thing. You know? Okay. So they… Everybody in the Reformation after this, like, points to that moment as being this, you know, glorious moment. It’s just like, Oh. So amazing. And they all have this idea that they are Martin Luther. That they’ve come to the conclusions they’ve come to based on Scripture and plain reason.

00:25:15:02 - 00:25:16:06 Christa Right.

00:25:16:08 - 00:25:17:04 Michael Which is not true.

00:25:17:05 - 00:25:17:23 Christa Correct.

00:25:17:23 - 00:25:37:20 Michael The vast majority of them could not come to any conclusions if you just gave them reason and the Scriptures. They would be, like, “Yeah, I know, but how am I supposed to interpret this? What are the acceptable interpretations?” You know, and at that point you’re like, “Well, that’s not reason. Reason doesn’t care about acceptable interpretations, obviously.”

00:25:37:23 - 00:25:39:28 Christa And true intellectuals are seeking truth.

00:25:39:29 - 00:25:40:08 Michael Exactly.

00:25:40:10 - 00:25:41:25 Christa Regardless of the cost of the truth.

00:25:41:25 - 00:25:44:03 Michael Exactly. Regardless of how it lines up

00:25:44:03 - 00:25:44:13 Christa Right.

00:25:44:19 - 00:25:48:26 Michael with other people’s opinions. Or whether or not they’re going to lose a lot for doing it.

00:25:48:29 - 00:25:49:08 Christa Right.

00:25:49:15 - 00:26:09:21 Michael You know, I mean, you’ve got people like Archimedes. Which clearly, a true intellect. The last words he said apparently were to a Roman soldier who was about … about to … about to kill him. Like, he was killed right after this. And the last thing he says is, “Would you please not step on my figures? Because he was working in the dust on some calculations.

00:26:09:23 - 00:26:10:07 Christa Oh, wow.

00:26:10:07 - 00:26:39:11 Michael And when the soldier came up, he wasn’t thinking, “Oh. This soldier is here to kill me.” He was just worried about, “Hey. Could you not? Can you not mess up my my calculations here, please?” Okay, so that is an intellect. All right? A will-oriented person would not be worried about their calculations when the soldier was, you know, standing over them. They’d be like, “I’m about to die. I should probably figure out some way of doing whatever is necessary to please this authority figure, so that I can spare my life.”

00:26:39:11 - 00:26:40:01 Christa Right.

00:26:40:04 - 00:26:54:02 Michael Okay. So, anyway, so Luther is the same way, though. I mean, he’s excommunicated. He was pushed out of the church. He was hounded. I mean, he was on the run for his life, you know, the Counter-Reformation that happened happened after that. And his life was actually really difficult. And,

00:26:54:04 - 00:26:58:09 Christa And I think you say you said in a later episode that he’s still excommunicated from the church.

00:26:58:09 - 00:27:05:12 Michael Yeah, yeah. I don’t think he’s ever been pardoned, even though the Church has obviously changed their tack on the significance of the Reformation.

00:27:05:13 - 00:27:06:08 Christa Right.

00:27:06:10 - 00:27:48:07 Michael So. Anyway, so the value then, especially for Protestants, but really for anybody, to be able to say, “I’ve come to this conclusion on the basis of reason.” Meaning, this is an intellectual conclusion, is that you can A. Pretend to be an inheritor of this great tradition of people who stood for the truth no matter what. Even though you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t have. You would have been like, “Oh, recant. Yeah, sure. All of it. Burn them, I don’t care. Tell me what you want me to write. Right? And everybody who says that they wouldn’t, and that they have the kind of integrity necessary to bow up against that kind of authoritative imposition and manipulation. You probably don’t. I mean, if you’ve never.

00:27:48:07 - 00:27:48:29 Christa Do you think you would?

00:27:49:01 - 00:27:55:26 Michael Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Of course I would. What are you talking about? I’ve done it. I’ve already done it. I’ve already been told,

00:27:55:26 - 00:27:56:08 Christa I know.

00:27:56:09 - 00:28:09:06 Michael Burn your… burn your blog down. That’s what this young man should do, is take his entire blog down and not bother people anymore with his heresies. And, yeah. Anyway, my blog is still up, so …

00:28:09:06 - 00:28:09:24 Christa That’s good. I’m glad …

00:28:09:27 - 00:28:32:04 Michael But I’m also no longer in that church. I was, you know, pushed out of it. And, and I have difficulty, generally speaking, actually operating within the church as it currently is. Because I’m not viewed as a person that’s like, trustworthy and dependable and stuff because I’m not. I’m not trustworthy and dependable in that way. I’m not.

00:28:32:04 - 00:28:33:13 Christa Oh, you mean to hold the line?

00:28:33:13 - 00:28:41:14 Michael Yeah. I’m not going to toe the line. I’m not just going to be loyal to your party, whatever else. Like, if the truth leads me somewhere else, I’m going to follow the truth. And, I mean, you know …

00:28:41:16 - 00:28:43:16 Christa As a true prophet should …

00:28:43:18 - 00:28:56:27 Michael Yeah, exactly. I’m not going to be beholden to your structures. I couldn’t sleep at night if I did. You see what I’m saying? It’s not … It’s not like a particular virtue. It’s just, like, I couldn’t live that way at all. Like, I would not be able to live with myself.

00:28:57:00 - 00:28:58:14 Christa And that is why you’re here.

00:28:58:16 - 00:29:02:23 Michael That’s why I’m here. Right. But, you know, again, going back to your original question …

00:29:02:23 - 00:29:06:27 Christa No, no. Here on this earth. I’m bringing this down a little bit deeper. So that’s why you’re here.

00:29:06:27 - 00:29:14:13 Michael That’s why I’m here on this earth. Okay. And I will be here until they kill me. All right. So, Yeah.

00:29:14:13 - 00:29:14:23 Christa Sorry.

00:29:14:23 - 00:29:15:02 Christa We got off on a rabbit trail.

00:29:15:05 - 00:29:44:21 Michael It’s okay. No, it’s okay. Rabbit trails. This is what’s included in the special dialog package of the Nothing Human podcast. There’s plenty of rabbit trails and red herrings and other things like that. That’s what you guys like, right? Okay. So. Yeah. Okay. So they … When we were growing up, because we went to the same church growing up, I don’t know if you remember this. But our pastor would say things like, “If you disagree with me, you do not disagree with a man. You’re disagreeing with the word of God.”

00:29:44:21 - 00:29:44:29 Christa Yes.

00:29:44:29 - 00:29:47:03 Michael You’re disagreeing with God. Like that’s what he would say.

00:29:47:03 - 00:29:47:23 Christa Yes.

00:29:47:25 - 00:30:22:12 Michael Now, what that means is that by saying, I’ve come to these conclusions on the basis of pure reason, I have no agenda. I have no … I have no authority that’s constraining my interpretations or whatever. So I’ve just … This is the straight word of God. Like, interpreted through pure intellect straight to you. And so that gives me great legitimacy. I can say basically, I’m just delivering, “Thus says the Lord.” And actually a true intellect can say that. The problem is that a true intellect is not coercive.

00:30:22:15 - 00:30:22:29 Christa Right.

00:30:22:29 - 00:30:28:10 Michael As much as a prophet might come and say, “Here’s what you should do.” The prophet doesn’t have any power to make you do it.

00:30:28:13 - 00:30:28:24 Christa Right.

00:30:28:27 - 00:31:08:23 Michael They don’t have any power to punish you if you don’t do it. They don’t have any power to do anything. All they can say is, “Hey, this is what God has said. You know. You take it, you do with it what you’re going to do with it. But if you do this, this is what God’s going to do. And if you do that, that’s this is what. God’s gonna do. And this is what’s going to happen. But they’re just telling you what is. They don’t have power. A prophet did not have a formal position of power. So the problem with a. King, for instance, claiming to be a prophet when he isn’t and then functioning like a king even though he’s claiming the legitimacy, the divine legitimacy of. A prophet is that. Oftentimes they’re just enforcing their own opinions. As if they are the Word of God. And that is really destructive.

00:31:08:25 - 00:31:08:29 Christa It is.

00:31:08:29 - 00:31:20:26 Michael It was destructive in our church. It was destru …. But you can understand why a person would want that. To actually give divine credence to your own will. Right?

00:31:20:29 - 00:31:23:12 Christa Yeah. It’s a lust for power and control.

00:31:23:12 - 00:31:42:00 Michael It … very much so. And, you know, where you don’t really give people a choice. And I would say if you’re wondering, like, are these people doing the … that? Are these people in my life doing that? It’s really just a matter of well, are they coercive? Are they being coercive?

00:31:42:01 - 00:31:42:13 Christa Right.

00:31:42:19 - 00:31:49:02 Michael If they’re being coercive, then they’re not speaking the truth. The truth is not coercive.

00:31:49:05 - 00:31:52:14 Christa That’s a, that’s a bold statement. The truth is not coercive.

00:31:52:19 - 00:32:05:05 Michael It’s not. Meaning, you receive it. And, and you have to submit to it. But the truth is not going to come to you and force you. The truth is, is, is you should welcome the truth.

00:32:05:06 - 00:32:05:15 Christa Right.

00:32:05:15 - 00:32:18:12 Michael But you can also deny the truth. You can reject the truth. That is your choice. And the truth can’t force you to believe it. And it doesn’t. It won’t.

00:32:18:15 - 00:32:40:06 Christa It’s interesting and I’m flashing in like when Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” and we talk about God is truth. And just to connect that, that the truth is not coercive, to even those statements that God is truth. But it’s not coercive. He’s not coercive with what He … the truth that He offers.

00:32:40:09 - 00:32:41:27 Michael Right. And he isn’t.

00:32:42:00 - 00:32:42:27 Christa No, he’s not,

00:32:42:27 - 00:32:43:25 Michael He isn’t.

00:32:43:25 - 00:32:47:22 Christa I’m confirming that. I’m just like, it was making … I was making some connections in my own mind.

00:32:47:23 - 00:32:48:05 Michael Yeah.

00:32:48:10 - 00:32:49:02 Christa But, anyway.

00:32:49:03 - 00:33:01:27 Michael So if someone’s trying to get you to do something, and they seem to be trying to force you to do it, that is a law. That’s a command. And if you have … if they have authority over you, and what they’re telling you to do is not wrong, you should probably do what they’re saying.

00:33:01:27 - 00:33:03:01 Christa Right.

00:33:03:03 - 00:33:09:10 Michael But obviously you have all sorts of evidences in the New Testament of, you know, “We’re going to obey God rather than men.”

00:33:09:16 - 00:33:09:27 Christa Right?

00:33:10:03 - 00:33:17:21 Michael We’re … So, so like If you’re telling me to do something, and I don’t believe that I could do it with integrity before God, I’m just gonna say I’m not going to do that.

00:33:17:26 - 00:33:18:08 Christa Right.

00:33:18:09 - 00:33:19:04 Speaker 2

00:33:19:06 - 00:33:38:24 Michael But but God. But the truth itself. Meaning truth in terms of what actually is, I mean, it just is, right? It’s not trying to force you to do something. You’re not going to look out and be like, “Oh well this is the truth. So I must do such and such.” Like, well no. I mean you still have a choice what you’re going to do about the truth.

00:33:38:26 - 00:33:40:04 Christa Right.

00:33:40:06 - 00:33:47:15 Michael And how you’re going to operate in the world and … Yeah. So coercion is always will. Coercion is something that always happens within the will.

00:33:47:20 - 00:33:47:28 Christa Yes.

00:33:48:02 - 00:33:58:09 Michael The intellect, here’s the thing, cannot be coerced. The affections cannot be coerced. It’s like, can I force a person to love me?

00:33:58:11 - 00:33:58:21 Christa No.

00:33:58:21 - 00:34:02:13 Michael No. Can I force someone to believe something?

00:34:02:15 - 00:34:02:26 Christa No.

00:34:02:26 - 00:34:04:23 Michael I can force them to say they believe something.

00:34:04:23 - 00:34:05:04 Christa Sure.

00:34:05:05 - 00:34:09:22 Michael I can force them to profess belief. But I can’t actually change what they think is true.

00:34:09:27 - 00:34:10:15 Christa That is right.

00:34:10:16 - 00:34:16:18 Michael I can’t force them, and I mean, you heard of like gaslighting, I guess is the closest thing you can get to.

00:34:16:19 - 00:34:16:29 Christa Right.

00:34:16:29 - 00:34:54:14 Michael But even then, gaslighting is not a reshaping of the intellect. It’s a suppression of it. Meaning even then, what I’m doing is I’m coercing the will. And then the will of that person … I’ve actually so entrapped and enslaved them that they’re actually suppressing their own understanding of things. That’s not a reshaping of their intellect. That’s actually a suppression and abuse of the intellect. Again, even still, you can’t force them to believe something that isn’t that they don’t believe. You can only … you can maybe force them to suppress it. Right?

00:34:54:17 - 00:34:59:25 Christa Yeah. So it depends on how strong your power is over them to be able to do that.

00:34:59:25 - 00:35:00:07 Michael Right.

00:35:00:08 - 00:35:19:09 Christa So thank you for that clarification. All right. So in episode … I’m moving past some of the episodes. So y’all go back and listen to, the different episodes, but this one is … comes out of episode five and this is “On the Affections.”

00:35:19:12 - 00:35:20:12 Christa

00:35:20:14 - 00:35:21:26 Michael Which you’re really interested in.

00:35:21:28 - 00:35:22:25 Christa I’m very interested.

00:35:22:25 - 00:35:29:20 Michael So when you sent me these questions like, well, a lot of these, a lot of these are very affectional … You even… well, I mean, I’ll let you get to it.

00:35:29:20 - 00:35:30:15 Christa No, no. Tell me.

00:35:30:18 - 00:35:46:11 Michael Well, you had a … you misinterpreted something I said, because I think you wanted it to be true, which was like, you were like, “So since the affections are the most important.” I was like, well, I didn’t say that. I don’t think that.

00:35:46:14 - 00:35:48:19 Christa Yes, I know. But I’m like, but they are.

00:35:48:21 - 00:35:53:10 Michael But they are though, aren’t they? I was like, well for you probably. But

00:35:53:12 - 00:35:56:20 Christa Yeah, I know. I’m trying to coerce you into that.

00:35:56:24 - 00:36:00:28 Michael I, I cannot be coerced.

00:36:01:00 - 00:36:23:04 Christa Okay. So let me make sure this question is … is the question that I want. Okay. You say that your weakest subject power needs to be cared for the most. Individually and in community. If my weakest power subject power is, let’s say, intellect, how would I go about caring for that subject power?

00:36:23:06 - 00:37:23:00 Michael Yeah. So first off, the subject power is the most likely to be abused. So the partner power is the most likely to be exploited. So that’s how I kind of function that. So it’s like your primary power is almost certainly directing your your goal. It’s saying like, “What’s our goal? Our goal is truth.” If your intellect is your primary power. But if your goal is truth, and you have a partner power that let’s say is affections, well, then the affections is going to be possibly exploited. Meaning, it’s … You’re going to want to use its power, but you’re going to even exploit it against its own desires. Sometimes for the purpose of the truth. So, for instance, if you’re exploiting your affections as an intellectual, you might cause yourself to experience things for the sake of experience that are not pleasant to the affections, but you’re deriving affectional information from that.

00:37:23:03 - 00:37:25:06 Christa Can you give me an example?

00:37:25:08 - 00:39:44:25 Michael Yeah. So you might be … you might have lots of sexual partners, for instance, in order to experience what it would be like to have all these various different sexual partners. Because there’s the curiosity there. Okay. The intellect wants to know, and it’s not going to withhold that knowledge from itself, but it’s putting the affections through all sorts of suffering. In in all of those, you know, casual or deeper relationships in order to gain all of that knowledge and experience. And, so in that sense, the affections are being exploited because it’s not like the intellect doesn’t want to know what it feels like. That’s part of what the intellect wants to know. But that means that you have to feel all those things. And there are some senses in which an intellect-first person might also enjoy some degree of suffering. Meaning I want to experience everything. So I want to listen to sad music. I want to listen to, you know, I want to read books about atrocities, you know. These kinds of things, because I want to know everything. I’m not withholding any knowledge from myself, even if that means that my affections have to suffer through it. Because I also want to know what it feels like. I’m not willing to just know what it is about. I want to know what the affections feel in that. So that I can understand more and more and more. Sometimes the affections get kind of hurt and bruised in that process. And sometimes, you know, for the, for the intellectual, self-control looks like saying, “I’m not allowed to know those things. Like, I don’t need to know those things.” And I may want to, but I need to actually withhold myself from knowing certain things. Especially, I mean, you look at Solomon, like. What was Solomon’s big sin? At the end of the day. It was all these various different sexual partners that then led to all this various different worship practices. For Solomon, that probably wasn’t a situation where he was pursuing pleasure. And it probably wasn’t a situation where he was pursuing power. It was actually probably the case that he wasn’t willing to not know. So, like, I can see how that would be. I want to know everything I can possibly know in the deep, intimate mysteries of reality. Right? So you can understand how that could become.

00:39:44:28 - 00:39:45:08 Christa Yeah.

00:39:45:09 - 00:39:47:10 Michael a real perversion of the affections.

00:39:47:11 - 00:39:47:23 Christa Sure.

00:39:47:23 - 00:41:05:07 Michael Right. Okay. So that’s one thing. But the subject power, the subject power itself is almost always abused. Meaning, rather than being exploited, the subject power is usually suppressed. And said, basically, “You’re worthless. You’re not welcome here.” And there are all sorts of reasons. Good reasons. When you have a primary and a partner power that are functioning really well, it’s almost always the case that the subject power would really mess them up, would really make things, you know, worse. So, for instance, let’s say you have affections first and you have will second or … What is the will going to be exploited to do if your main goal is more life? Well, you’re likely going to say, “Hey, will. Get me the good things that I want in life. So the will ends up being exploited to produce. Find. Choose right. And yet, all the while, the affections are accumulating what the will can produce, and saying, “Good. Love this. Good. Thanks for the life. Will, you get some more.” But the intellect comes in and says, “Here’s some truth. Here’s some realities of what’s happening. You’re not happy.

00:41:05:14 - 00:41:07:06 Christa Let me throw a wrench into your plans.

00:41:07:06 - 00:41:16:07 Michael Yeah. “This isn’t good. Oh you want good? Yeah. But problem is this isn’t. This isn’t good. You are a glutton.

00:41:16:09 - 00:41:16:19 Christa Right.

00:41:16:22 - 00:41:34:16 Michael Ew. I don’t like that. Shhh! Right? So the tendency then would be to, to shut it down. To be like, “I don’t want to hear what you have to say. You’re always bringing me bad news.” It’s like Ahab, you know, with Micaiah. It’s like, “This guy never says anything good about me!” Like, well, do good, and he’ll say better things, you know?

00:41:34:16 - 00:41:34:24 Christa Right.

00:41:34:24 - 00:43:35:02 Michael Well, I’m not going to do that. Now, hold on. It’s better just to put him in prison, I think. Right? And that’s sort of the situation that happens in the throne room of the spirit. Is that when the intellect is coming in, it’s oftentimes bringing painful truths to light. And so you’re saying, “Well, how about I just shh shh shh shut you up. Put you in the prison. Don’t hear what you have to say. Hey, I’m happy again. Feels so happy not knowing, you know. Ignorance is bliss. That kind of thing. That’s the … That’s that concept. So let’s say you’re in that position and you’re saying, “Oh, I really need to be more considerate of my intellect. I need to care for it.” Part of the reason is you wouldn’t have to. So, you know, people can oftentimes indefinitely suppress that third power. And still function, like, in the short term, maybe even the long term. I know people that died having suppressed their subject powers. You know, never got around even though they paid all the consequences in their lives. I, you know, I know a man who is will-oriented, intellect second, affections last, destroyed all the relationships in his life because of his unwillingness to really empathize with and recognize the importance of those relationships. Instead, it was all about, like, doing and performance and these kinds of things, things that would make sense, you know. He had everything, and he had everything in a spreadsheet. You know, all this kind of stuff. And very organized. Very capable. Very smart. Very successful. All the things you would expect a person like that to be. But, you know, wife doesn’t feel like he loves them. Loves her. Kids don’t feel like he loves them. And, he died without having ever reconciled those things. And now his, you know, wife and his kids are just having to suffer that unresolved feeling of, like, we never really had that sense that we were pleasing to this person that we loved.

00:43:35:04 - 00:43:35:13 Christa Right.

00:43:35:13 - 00:44:21:13 Michael He never really loved us. We don’t … we didn’t feel that love from him. And, I don’t know all that he lost. I mean, I believe he was a believer. And I don’t know all that he lost. But I will say that it’s … it is very difficult when you look at a guy like that, after all that success. That’s part of the reason why he never felt like he needed to address that. It’s like, “I’m doing okay.” Right. And, and nobody could have forced him. He was also at the same time, I mean he’s will-oriented. So he’s about right, you know. So if you come to him and you’re like, “Hey, I don’t really feel like you love me.” “What do you mean, I don’t love you? I’ve done all the right things.” Right? “I’ve checked all the boxes. Like how could you possibly say I don’t love you? Of course I love you. This is what love looks like.”

00:44:21:16 - 00:44:21:28 Christa Right.

00:44:21:29 - 00:44:32:05 Michael Right. And then they’re saying well I don’t feel that. I don’t feel that at all. That doesn’t, you know, my affections are resistant, that … Here, we got some cool sounds going on.

00:44:32:06 - 00:44:35:00 Christa Yeah. I hear it.

00:44:35:00 - 00:45:04:10 Michael And so the … for him, it would have taken a whole lot of … a lot of work to lift the affections up, all right.? And awkward work. That’s the thing that you’ve got to keep in mind is that this would be awkward and difficult, and you’d be really bad at it. You’ve been successful in every other area of your life, but I guarantee you, you start trying to work on this, you’re going to look like an idiot. You’re going to fail so many times. You’re going to fail so hard, and people are just going to look at you with this look, you know, like, dude, you are pathetic.

00:45:04:10 - 00:45:05:06 Christa Right.

00:45:05:08 - 00:45:25:24 Speaker 2 You don’t know how to communicate on that level. Oh my goodness. You’re like a child. Right? Worse than a ch– … I know children that are more emotionally intelligent than you, you know, this kind of stuff. And so that’s embarrassing. And for a person who, you know, is in a position of honor, like, opening up that can of worms seems like not worth it.

00:45:26:00 - 00:45:26:15 Christa No.

00:45:26:17 - 00:45:38:21 Michael Thing is, it would have been worth it. It would have been worth it to his kids. It would have been worth it to his wife. And at the end of the day, it would have been worth it to him if he had given it a chance. But he didn’t. And he knows better now, so.

00:45:38:21 - 00:45:39:02 Christa Sure.

00:45:39:02 - 00:46:08:28 Michael Yeah. As far as, like, what does it look like to help out the intellect? Some of it is just being open to that. Open to the pain and again, it’s going to feel very uncomfortable. It’s going to be like, “Why am I doing this? This seems stupid, like this is not helping me, it’s not fulfilling my goal of good right now, I’m telling you that.” But, you know, you can set aside some time where you sit down, you say, I’m going to be open to the truths that hurt me.

00:46:09:00 - 00:46:37:06 Christa Which is so, so difficult because often the hurt are the the idols that we’re carrying. And and we I mean, in my own personal experience, I haven’t wanted to hear those truths. I haven’t wanted to because that would cause suffering, pain, like all of the things it’s rough, it’s rough to be in that position. And … but God lovingly has kind of pushed me into that.

00:46:37:06 - 00:46:45:16 Christa And so I’ve had to open my hands and say, okay, God, this is what you’re giving me, okay. And that’s really … it’s really hard.

00:46:45:17 - 00:47:02:13 Michael It is hard. And you’re … especially when you’re first starting off trying to do it, you’re not going to be good at it. You’re going to feel like … you’re going to feel really awkward and really, like, incompetent and just I feel terrible. This is so bad. Like, why can’t I handle these little tiny things.

00:47:02:18 - 00:47:05:21 Christa I know. And all of my life, I’ve been a Christian. I’ve been

00:47:05:28 - 00:47:06:08 Michael Yeah.

00:47:06:08 - 00:47:19:05 Christa with God all my life. Everything is fine. And then these things happen. Suffering is brought in, and it’s like, I don’t know. There’s been a lot of revelation, a lot of revelation for me, so I totally get it.

00:47:19:07 - 00:47:19:16 Michael Yeah.

00:47:19:22 - 00:47:25:03 Christa But I think that part of what you’re saying is, is that there has to be a certain level of humility.

00:47:25:03 - 00:47:25:14 Michael Absolutely.

00:47:25:16 - 00:47:46:07 Christa To open that that door to your weakest power to. Yeah. To say, okay, I invite you in and I want to see you. And sometimes it’s difficult to see your own face, and it’s helpful to have people in your life that are going to speak to you, because I often can’t see what it is that I’m really, you know,

00:47:46:09 - 00:47:46:23 Michael Yeah.

00:47:46:26 - 00:47:49:02 Christa idolizing even, you know.

00:47:49:05 - 00:48:20:24 Speaker 2 Definitely, for sure. Definitely. This has to be done in community. Partly because, this is what’s great, your subject power might be intellect or affections or whatever, but there’s. … you find a person in your life whose primary power is that. And they’re not going to be okay with you just letting things go. Right. So that becomes really helpful, especially if there is love between you and trust between you. Like, you know, you you know, you know what’s really happening. Okay.

00:48:20:24 - 00:48:22:10 Christa You just have to give me the side eye.

00:48:22:13 - 00:48:24:08 Michael I’m not going to let go of it.

00:48:24:08 - 00:48:24:20 Christa Yeah.

00:48:24:21 - 00:48:27:03 Michael Right? Like we’re going to address this.

00:48:27:04 - 00:48:27:25 Christa Right.

00:48:27:27 - 00:48:28:20 Michael And …

00:48:28:23 - 00:48:39:04 Christa But that takes humility too, because you’ve got to invite people to be that close in community with you, that you’re willing to let somebody even give you that side eye. Yeah, they know that you know that they know.

00:48:39:09 - 00:48:39:14 Michael Yeah.

00:48:39:16 - 00:48:43:09 Christa It’s like, I know, I know, you know that I know.

00:48:43:12 - 00:48:45:06 Michael You know

00:48:45:09 - 00:49:12:11 Christa So, but that’s difficult. However, it is so important and necessary to growth and even healing like whatever the the person that you’re talking about that had affections last or whatever, what, what a difference it would have made for him and for his kids and probably for healing from his past, because there’s probably some story in his background that caused him to kind of gravitate towards those primary powers.

00:49:12:11 - 00:49:13:08 Michael Right.

00:49:13:10 - 00:49:17:11 Christa That that wasn’t ever spoken to. Yeah. It was.

00:49:17:11 - 00:49:18:07 Michael Never addressed.

00:49:18:09 - 00:49:33:22 Christa Yeah. So, it’s important to be in communities where you feel comfortable enough to be able to do that, and that takes people that are not going to be judgmental and that are going to see themselves and their weak, weak powers, whatever their weakest power is, too.

00:49:33:25 - 00:49:34:09 Michael Right.

00:49:34:10 - 00:49:41:21 Christa which is hard to find because everybody’s critical, it seems, and not everybody. But a lot of people are critical and judgmental, and it’s difficult.

00:49:41:24 - 00:49:49:03 Michael Well, and you’re typically critical and judgmental concerning areas where another person is not like you in your strengths.

00:49:49:03 - 00:49:50:09 Christa Right.

00:49:50:12 - 00:49:51:10 Speaker 2

00:49:51:12 - 00:50:04:03 Christa Yeah. And you talked about that in that, like how people gravitate towards certain churches. Because that’s their their strong power is, you know, they’re speaking their language kind of thing, you know, preach to the choir kind of thing.

00:50:04:06 - 00:50:38:25 Michael Yeah. And that’s fine. What’s important, I think, to recognize though, is that that’s what’s happening. So even going back to talking about will-oriented academics. It’s actually okay to be a will-oriented academic. There have been a lot of really great will-oriented academics. It’s important to recognize that that’s what you’re doing. So that when you say, “Oh well, the reason I don’t agree with that is because my trusted authorities disagree with that.” Right. Okay, fine. Do you see what I’m saying? Like, at that point, we’re not pretending that we’re having a purely rational discussion.

00:50:38:26 - 00:50:39:07 Christa Right.

00:50:39:09 - 00:51:20:28 Michael Because the most frustrating thing in the world is for me to go in thinking like, “This is your opinion that you have carefully reasoned from the Scriptures,” and then attempt to address that in carefully-reasoned arguments from the Scriptures, and then find that nothing I say, no matter how convincing, ever makes a difference. Right. And that’s so frustrating. Where I could. Just go in and say, “Oh well, you know, you’re a Calvinist. You like Calvin. You like what Calvin has to say. If I have an argument, I’ll argue with Calvin.” There you go. Honestly, like if I have an argument with what you’re saying, I’m just going to argue with Calvin. I’m not going to bother arguing with you because it’s not your argument. Right? Like you don’t even know it.

00:51:21:00 - 00:51:23:18 Christa And it … yeah. They probably don’t even fully understand.

00:51:23:19 - 00:51:35:26 Michael They don’t. They do not. They absolutely do not. Okay. I will tell you 100%, they do not. Because there are things that they’re not willing to question. And if you’re not willing to question something, you can’t understand it.

00:51:35:28 - 00:51:36:23 Christa Yeah.

00:51:36:26 - 00:51:38:04 Michael So …

00:51:38:06 - 00:51:40:00 Christa Yeah. That’s so true.

00:51:40:03 - 00:51:40:17 Michael Yeah.

00:51:40:19 - 00:52:12:13 Christa That that’s definitely a reality. Okay. I guess we should move to the next question. I’m going to move past that because we. Okay. So one of the things you talked about in one of your episodes, I think it’s still, we’re still in episode five, is the empathy could be sinful, the discourse on whether empathy might be sinful.

00:52:12:16 - 00:52:32:08 Christa So talk to talk a little bit about that, about whether empathy might be sinful. And then, you kind of connect this to the connection. Oh, no, it says in connection to tones or outright declarations of racism and misogyny. Maybe that’s two separate issues.

00:52:32:08 - 00:52:34:02 Michael It’s two. Yeah, I think those are two.

00:52:34:04 - 00:52:37:03 Christa Okay. Let’s do the empathy might be sinful.

00:52:37:03 - 00:52:40:22 Michael Okay. No, I don’t. Under any circumstances.

00:52:40:22 - 00:52:44:16 Christa I agree with you. I’m just like, I’m shocked that anybody would even say that.

00:52:44:21 - 00:52:51:27 Michael Yeah. It’s a thing. I mean, I think. I think there’s somebody who wrote a book called “The Sin of Empathy,” like, just like that. That’s the title of the book.

00:52:51:27 - 00:52:52:20 Christa And I’m like, “What?”

00:52:52:21 - 00:52:59:28 Michael Yeah. And people are like, “Well, can you just say that?” And he’s like, “Look. There’s a little bit of a hyperbole here. I’m trying to get people, you know

00:52:59:28 - 00:53:00:07 Christa To buy the book?

00:53:00:14 - 00:53:10:03 Michael To engage. Oh, yeah, big time. To engage. You know, “But if you read it, there’s more nuance in the book, obviously, than in the title.” Which I’m sure there is. I’m sure there is.

00:53:10:03 - 00:53:11:27 Christa Talk about coercion.

00:53:12:00 - 00:53:12:17 Michael Yeah, I know.

00:53:12:19 - 00:53:34:15 Michael Well, that’s funny. It is. I think you’re right. But, but it is, it is agenda-ed. Do you understand? The problem that people have with empathy is where it leads. Is where … not even where it leads. Where it might lead. They’re not even comfortable allowing the possibility of it leading someplace.

00:53:34:18 - 00:53:36:08 Christa Okay.

00:53:36:10 - 00:54:01:09 Michael You know, because if you’re like if you understand, for instance, like, just let’s say they think that, transgender people are really bad. That would be really bad if my child was transgender. That would be really, really bad. So I don’t want my child investigating that and understanding where a transgender person might be coming from. Because what if it’s convincing and they are compelled.

00:54:01:12 - 00:54:01:23 Christa Right.

00:54:01:23 - 00:54:10:23 Michael And they also have these similar issues and they end up moving down that line and actually making choices in that direction. You understand how this is really will-driven.

00:54:10:23 - 00:54:11:06 Christa Yes.

00:54:11:06 - 00:54:43:21 Michael And okay. So, but I would say that, the thing is, I’m not discounting that danger. Because any time you fully understand and feel what another person feels, then there is the possibility that you could be leaning more in their direction. That’s definitely possible. I’m not saying that it isn’t. But let’s say you take your child, and you’re just like very coercively protective of and sheltering of them in order to try to keep them from ever going down that direction.

00:54:43:23 - 00:54:44:02 Christa Right.

00:54:44:09 - 00:54:46:28 Michael Is that going to guarantee that they never go down that direction?

00:54:46:28 - 00:54:47:19 Christa No, it is not.

00:54:47:23 - 00:55:12:19 Michael It’s not. And not only that, in some ways it’s sort of like the, you know, “you find your destiny on your way to prevent it” kind of a thing. That oftentimes, it actually creates a scenario where they are more likely to listen to these voices when they learn to hate you. Okay. And think, “Well, it’s obviously not you. You’re lame. I hate you. So maybe I should listen to all the people you hate.”

00:55:12:22 - 00:55:13:19 Christa And that’s happening.

00:55:13:23 - 00:55:14:10 Christa It happens a lot.

00:55:14:11 - 00:55:50:17 Michael It happens all the time. It happens all the time. So I guess what I’m saying is, even if your goal was ultimately to secure your child or your congregation or your friends’ good behavior, if that was your ultimate goal, that’s not actually necessarily the best way to secure that goal, right? So even if you’re just looking at it from a position of wisdom, open conversation and deep and considerate empathy for other people’s positions oftentimes is way more effective to help people not to go down that way.

00:55:50:21 - 00:55:51:04 Christa Exactly.

00:55:51:04 - 00:55:57:25 Michael Like if I don’t want my children to be drug addicts, it’s not necessarily unhelpful for us to go and talk to some drug addicts.

00:55:57:25 - 00:55:59:03 Christa Right.

00:55:59:05 - 00:56:14:12 Michael Now I’m not thinking, oh my, my, my children are going to see the pleasures of the drug addiction. It’s like, well, I mean, maybe. Maybe. And maybe they’ll be curious about experimenting with those things and whatever. But what I’m saying is I couldn’t keep that from happening anyway.

00:56:14:13 - 00:56:15:11 Christa No.

00:56:15:13 - 00:56:16:09 Michael There’s nothing.

00:56:16:12 - 00:56:16:15 Christa You can try, but it’s not going to happen.

00:56:16:15 - 00:56:35:18 Michael I can try, but ultimately, I’m not going to be able to control that. In the future, especially, when they become adults. So I feel like, you know, being open and telling the truth, and saying, “Yeah, there’s a lot of pleasure in premarital sex. That’s why people do it.” You know, or “There’s a lot of pleasure in methamphetamines. That’s why people do them.”

00:56:35:22 - 00:56:36:02 Christa Right.

00:56:36:05 - 00:56:49:26 Michael You know? And there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of things that that are satisfying in transgenderism. Especially for people who feel discarded in their lives. And who feel like, “This is the first time I’m being seen.”

00:56:50:03 - 00:56:51:04 Christa Right.

00:56:51:07 - 00:57:25:10 Michael You know, I can understand. And that’s just one thread of reasons why people are involved in that movement. But I mean, understanding those reasons and saying, you know, but a lot of people think, again, here’s another thing: A lot of people think of explanations for why you’ve done things as justification for why you’ve done things, because again, you’re thinking about it in terms of will. For me, if you explain why you did something, I’ll say, “Well, that’s no justification. That’s an explanation.” Thank you for giving it. I understand why you did what you did. Why you did this stupid, horrible, terrible thing that you did, that you chose to do.

00:57:25:13 - 00:57:25:22 Christa Right.

00:57:25:23 - 00:57:28:04 Michael That doesn’t justify that you did it.

00:57:28:04 - 00:57:29:13 Christa Right.

00:57:29:15 - 00:57:45:08 Michael That to me is a separate issue. But for, especially will-oriented people, explanations are justifications. And so if you’re trying to explain, you’re trying to justify. And to me, I’m like, not really. I mean, not necessarily. I mean, obviously some people are doing that.

00:57:45:13 - 00:57:45:22 Christa Sure.

00:57:45:25 - 00:57:51:00 Michael But I can say, well, that’s an explanation, and I appreciate the explanation. I appreciate knowing where you’re coming from.

00:57:51:00 - 00:57:51:11 Christa Right.

00:57:51:17 - 00:57:54:07 Michael Doesn’t justify what you’ve chosen to do.

00:57:54:09 - 00:57:54:15 Christa Right.

00:57:54:15 - 00:58:04:04 Michael Right. I mean, you can. Say, well, I was victimized as a child, and that’s why I’m a pedophile. And I’ll say, that is an explanation of how your life came to the point where it came.

00:58:04:05 - 00:58:04:12 Christa Right.

00:58:04:14 - 00:58:06:09 Michael The choices that you’ve made are your choices.

00:58:06:14 - 00:58:06:22 Christa That’s right.

00:58:06:23 - 00:58:28:04 Michael That’s not a justification for the behavior that you’ve chosen to do. Although it helps me to understand maybe how to address some of those deep hurts and pains. And I do want to be in your shoes. And this kind of goes back to the nothing human thing. I think a lot of people are so insecure and so afraid concerning the positions that other people take,

00:58:28:04 - 00:58:28:27 Christa Yes.

00:58:28:27 - 00:58:34:20 Michael that they’re not willing to just say, well, like, you know, a pedophile is also a human being.

00:58:34:20 - 00:58:35:12 Christa Yes.

00:58:35:14 - 00:58:51:12 Michael Now, I don’t like, I mean I have five children, I don’t like pedophilia. I’m not like, “You know, I think there should be more pedophilia in the world.” But those people have stories and lives, and understanding their stories and lives is not a bad thing to do for them or for yourself.

00:58:51:14 - 00:58:52:07 Christa Right.

00:58:52:09 - 00:59:47:26 Michael And, so again, it’s like that’s an explanation of how they got to where they got. That’s their story. And it’s going to help you if you actually do care about them in addressing what needs to be addressed in their lives, because it may be that there are deep longings that became perverted. And deep longings that became suppressed, and all these other kinds of things. And the deep longings themselves may not be wrong. And if you can, if you can help this person, because of an understanding of where things went off the rails, to fulfill those, those longings and those purposes, and in order to have them actually lead a more fulfilling life, maybe they’ll always be a little broken, and maybe they’ll always be a little bit off. But I feel like that’s a way better approach to it in the end. I mean, other than that, your only options really are to outcast and kill, you know, like, because that’s what the will … that’s the only options the will has, you know?

00:59:47:26 - 01:00:00:07 Christa And then you don’t have to face the reality of the things that are going on with those people like that, that you don’t want to confront. Whatever issue that they have. You don’t have to confront it if you outcast them, if you cut them off

01:00:00:07 - 01:00:00:12 Michael Exactly.

01:00:00:15 - 01:00:00:28 Christa or whatever.

01:00:00:28 - 01:00:01:06 Michael Yeah.

01:00:01:06 - 01:00:03:08 Christa Which is terribly inhumane.

01:00:03:09 - 01:00:03:25 Michael Yeah, I agree.

01:00:03:25 - 01:00:22:22 Christa And I and it is why so much of certain people groups have separated themselves from the church at large. Because we don’t want to … we don’t want to talk to or hear or understand the good that they are actually trying to reach out for,

01:00:22:25 - 01:00:24:06 Michael Not our good.

01:00:24:09 - 01:00:28:25 Christa And so it’s become very convoluted and,

01:00:28:27 - 01:00:30:03 Michael Yeah.

01:00:30:05 - 01:00:48:13 Christa And unfortunately, there’s a big, a big chasm between, you know, the groups of people and even the church and being us even being looked at, well, I’ll say the Protestant, more like the conservative churches and stuff like that as a place of safety, security.

01:00:48:16 - 01:00:49:02 Michael Welcome.

01:00:49:02 - 01:00:52:18 Christa and welcome. Yeah. And, we need to change that.

01:00:52:18 - 01:01:16:22 Michael I agree, I agree, and it wouldn’t be that hard to change. I mean, we have every reason Scripturally speaking, and in the Spirit, in Jesus, to do that. I’m convinced that most of us are actually Pharisees. And that if we were to exist with Jesus in His time, we wouldn’t have sided with the people who are on Jesus’ team.

01:01:16:24 - 01:01:16:29 Christa Right.

01:01:17:01 - 01:01:18:07 Michael Most of us wouldn’t have.

01:01:18:09 - 01:01:18:28 Christa Right.

01:01:19:00 - 01:01:37:16 Speaker 2 Now. That’s not. I really … I have a strong distaste for people who say, “Oh yeah, speak it, brother,” who also would find themselves in opposition to Jesus’ message and don’t even necessarily realize it, right? It’s like

01:01:37:16 - 01:01:39:09 Christa Well, that’s where you come in to bring the truth.

01:01:39:13 - 01:01:39:21 Michael Yeah.

01:01:39:25 - 01:01:41:02 Christa To your trusted people,

01:01:41:03 - 01:01:41:17 Michael Right.

01:01:41:17 - 01:01:41:24 Christa Yeah.

01:01:41:28 - 01:01:46:26 Michael Because in the end, you know, at the end of the day, nobody was with Jesus.

01:01:46:26 - 01:01:47:27 Christa It’s true!

01:01:48:00 - 01:01:49:28 Michael Jesus died alone.

01:01:50:02 - 01:01:50:18 Christa Yeah.

01:01:50:21 - 01:01:54:14 Michael So you know, I also would have run.

01:01:54:17 - 01:01:55:19 Christa Yeah.

01:01:55:22 - 01:01:58:00 Michael Like a rat from a sinking ship.

01:01:58:02 - 01:01:58:18 Christa For sure.

01:01:58:20 - 01:01:59:24 Christa

01:01:59:27 - 01:02:15:00 Michael And I’m just thankful that he didn’t … that he was willing to pursue me. So anyway, all that to say, the church definitely is not the kind of place that I imagine Jesus would feel comfortable in.

01:02:15:02 - 01:02:17:04 Christa I agree.

01:02:17:06 - 01:02:25:20 Michael In general, I mean. There’s exceptions and et cetera. But it needs to be altered. And part of that is part of the reason for the three powers idea.

01:02:25:23 - 01:02:26:00 Christa Oh yeah,

01:02:26:03 - 01:03:12:27 Speaker 2 Is to say, you know, there isn’t anything intrinsically superior in the way that you’re pursuing your fulfillment in the world. You may very well be doing what you’re supposed to be doing, and another person might be doing and pursuing something very, very different and also doing what they’re supposed to be doing. And it’s possible that you and he or she or whatever could actually help each other a lot to grow. Because the way of reproof is the way of life. Disciplines for reproof is the way of life. That’s what, you know, Solomon says. And he would know. So we we need discipline. We need change. We need to grow. And growth is never pleasant.

01:03:12:29 - 01:03:13:22 Christa No, it is not.

01:03:13:22 - 01:03:15:27 Michael Because it comes in and it’s like, “You’re wrong.”

01:03:15:27 - 01:03:16:09 Christa Yep.

01:03:16:09 - 01:03:31:05 Michael You’re doing this bad thing. And not only are you wrong, you’re doing a bad thing. It’s going to cost you some effort, and it’s going to be painful to make the changes necessary to even make small progress in the right direction.

01:03:31:07 - 01:03:31:26 Christa Right.

01:03:31:28 - 01:03:37:14 Michael And so, you know, everything in us is like, “No!” Right? I would rather not.

01:03:37:14 - 01:03:38:21 Christa Thank you, I’ll take a rain check.

01:03:38:21 - 01:03:49:09 Michael I’m not going to bother. But that’s what God’s calling us to do. So, I mean, we should. We should do it.

01:03:49:12 - 01:04:30:03 Michael Well, I hope you enjoyed that, because there’s more of it to come. And if you didn’t like that one, you probably won’t like the next couple of episodes. But I hope you did. And I hope you got an opportunity to watch it on video. And that that was also helpful and maybe entertaining, kind of, a little bit to see our facial expressions. And I really love my sister. I hope that you love her too. And that this was really good for you guys … and gals. Okay. Right. If you have any comments or questions, please remember to navigate over to my website Nothing Human Podcast Dot Com, and leave a note for me on the relevant episode, and I really appreciate it. Thank you all very much. And until next time …

LINKS

Michael's Patreon

The Problem of Evil has an “Evil” Problem, by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

Ossuary for Ossilegium

Philo of Alexandria

“Secondary Burials in Palestine,” by Eric Meyers

Synecdoche

“Why Did God Choose Circumcision?” by Peter Leithart

“Under The Oak And Terebinth Trees,“ by Jonathan Lipnick

“The Bones of the Paschal Lamb,” by Julian Morgenstern

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

Review: What is the Mission of the Church?, by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

Goethe’s Theory of Colors

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

Ep. 16: Body and Soul, Flesh and Spirit

Traducianism

“Creationism,” from Systematic Theology, by Charles Hodge

“Against Two Letters of the Pelagians,” by Augustine

“Human Nature in its Fourfold State,” by Thomas Boston (drawing from Augustine)

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

“Did C.S. Lewis really say ‘You don’t have a soul’?”

“The Body in Calvin's Theology,” James C. Goodloe IV

The Great Chain of Being

“Incarnational Evangelism: Preaching the Word to a Words-Weary World,” by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

Redeeming Heartache: How Past Suffering Reveals Our True Calling, by Dr. Dan Allender and Cathy Loerzel

The Allender Center

Brian Regan, Standing Up, “Kids” (~7:25–8:14)

The Prayer of St. Francis

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

Nominalism vs. Realism

The Structure of Scientific Revolution, by Thomas Kuhn

“Aliens Cause Global Warming,” by Michael Crichton (where he condemns the idea of “consensus science”)

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry, by David Mason and John Frederick Nims

“The Sentimentality Trap," by Benjamin Myers

“We Sin Because We Have Bad Taste,” by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

Shame and Attachment Loss, by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi

AEDP Institute (founded by Dr. Diana Fosha)

“Preface to the Commentary on the Psalms,” by John Calvin

“We All Want to See God Suffer,” by Michael Minkoff, Jr. (see comments for mentioned discussion with pastor)

Renew the Arts

Post-Apostolic (Non-Miraculous) Gifts of the Spirit Mapping

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

“What is the Mission of the Church?" by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

Here’s a visual guide to make it a little easier to follow:

This episode functioned much more as an experiment in naming things, and there is so much more to explore here. Help me do that by leaving your comments and questions.

LINKS

Michael's Patreon

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

Voluntary Submission: The Art of Becoming Bigger than Yourself, by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

Perichoresis

Jesus is Dead, Long Live Jesus, by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

LINKS

Michael’s Patreon

Why Did New England Puritanism Fail? by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 155, “On Faith”

The Orthodox Faith, on “Faith” by Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko

Rebalancing Calvin’s Equation of Faith and Knowledge by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

LINKS

Michael's Patreon

StackExchange Discussion of Man and Woman Made in God's Image

Arianism

Augustine, On the Trinity

Man or Bear Question

Women Marrying Up, “Hypergamy”

Male vs. Female IQ

James Brown, “It's a Man's, Man’s, Man’s World,” Live at the L’Olympia, Paris, 1966

Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ode to the Mothers in their Sisyphean Joy, by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

Traducianism

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, by Ruth Benedict

Guilt–shame–fear spectrum of cultures

Paul G. Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1985). Quoted from p. 287–288.

LINKS

Subscribe to Michael’s Patreon

Facial Scar Experiment

“Believing Into Christ,” by Living to Him Ministries

How Christian Rationalism Turned Me Into a Psycopath, by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

Bartleby, the Scrivener

The Prophetic Imagination, by Walter Brueggeman (Helped me sort through some of these concepts)

LINKS

The Problem of Evil Has an “Evil” Problem

Civil Forfeiture

Kant’s Categorical Imperative

LINKS

On the Nicene Creed

The Holy Spirit in the WCF

"The Enticing Sin of Empathy,” by Joe Rigney

“The Sentimentality Trap,” by Benjamin Myers

Discussion of the Passions in Aquinas (a bit meandering, but generally good)

“We Sin Because We Have Bad Taste,” by Michael Minkoff, Jr.

Fruit of the Spirit Power-Mapping Visual Aid

The affectional grouping in the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, and peace. The central virtuous function of affection is love. When intellect serves affection and affection submits to it, it produces joy. When will serves affection and affection submits to it, it produces peace.

The volitional grouping in the fruit of the spirit is patience, kindness, and goodness. The central virtuous function of the will is patience or hope. When affection serves will and will submits to it, it produces kindness. When intellect serves will and will submits to it, it produces goodness.

The intellectual grouping in the fruit of the spirit is faith, meekness, and self-control. The central virtuous function of intellect is faith(fulness). When affection serves intellect and intellect submits to it, it produces meekness. When will serves intellect and intellect submits to it, it produces self-control.

LINKS

Dismissing Jesus, by Douglas M. Jones

Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, trans. Pevear and Volokhonsky

LINKS

Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score

Internal Family Systems Therapy

Kant’s Categorical Imperative

LINKS:

Aquinas on The Will (Summa, Q. 82, Articles 3 and 4)

Calvin on Faith and Knowledge

On Puritanism (and Packer), Especially Concerning the Failure of the Puritan Project

What is Mimetic Teaching? (Circe Institute)

Links

The Great Chain of Being

How Christian Rationalism Turned Me Into a Psychopath

Are You an “Ought To” or a “Want To” Christian?

Modes of Persuasion: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos