Michael is joined by his sister, Christa, for an extended conversational recap on the Three Powers Series. In this first part, they discuss a wide range of things in unedited conversation. The origin of the podcast name Nothing Human. The meaning of Augustine’s pears. Will-oriented academics. Lifting up your subject power. And more.
LINKS
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
The Diet of Worms (Martin Luther)
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 …