"To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement." St. Augustine of Hippo
@@isaacromero3475 I didn’t misunderstand anything my friend, and used the “Catholic” (re Latin) phrase intentionally. Mary is not omnipresent, she cannot hear you, therefore she cannot pray on your behalf
Alex O Connor, one of the best torch bearers from the enlightenment rationalism, and Fr. Gregory Pine, one of the greatest intellectual minds of the Catholic Church. This should be good.
You know Alex is a professional UA-camr, right? It could be God sending people his way, but I suspect it has more to do with Alex's desire (and that of most of his respondents) for a steady stream of viewers.
I’m a Christian, but I have massive love and respect for Alex. And I’m a “Protestant”, but I love Orthodoxy and Catholicism. I love seeing worlds collide so beautifully 😁
Put Fr. Gregory Pine, Jordan Peterson, Richard Dawkins and Alex O'Connor in a room together.. And it slowly becomes evident who and to what degree is more oriented to the fulness of truth in all it's possible depths. This was healing to watch. Hopeful and healing. Almost felt like evesdropping into a confessional of sorts. Lord's mercy overflow.
It is of paramount importance these objections are given thorough treatment and response from the top tier of Catholic intellectuals across the social media landscape.
Absolutely. The war we are fighting in the culture is ideological and rooted in philosophy. All of our societal ills for the past 300 years are rooted in the so called "enlightenment", which was absolutely inspired by the "light bearer" himself.
Was pleasantly surprised to find this crossover; I really enjoyed the conversation. Cracked me up when Fr. Pine had the realization that he was a preacher 😂, i.e., in the Order of Preachers. Reminds me of when I sometimes, randomly, look at my wife and realize I’m married 😅
Let's all pray an Ave for both of these fine gentlemen. Fr. Pine for his continued spiritual stewardship and for Alex and his seeking soul. Deo Gratias.
@@mutebard1252 yes and no. I think he just points out potential flaws and I think there’s lots of things that need to be addressed. He just brings them to light and if Christianity is true, there must be an answer.
@@okj9060these are not “potential flaws” - these are actual flaws within the Abrahamic religions. Story’s that are counter to each other, divine hiddenness, slavery and more.
Hmmm, Something is really happening. I must commend Alex for not just being a Tribal loyalist, but fostering good faith conversations across the board. I think we need that!
So glad to see this happen. Fr Pine is a saintly priest and Dominican. I’m glad to see Alex branching out to speak to people who are really living out the Christian faith in its fullness.
Alex finishes asking a question at 23:37, after mentioning that sometimes he is just not convinced by arguments, and if that's the case, "What is it that I might be doing wrong?" To this AMAZING, vulnerable, and courageous question, I think we need to just STOP, and sit in the Reality who is beyond all words and arguments. I know this is hard because its a podcast, and the point is to literally talk to each other, but the one Word which is the peace that surpasses all understanding, that peace for which Alex's heart (and all our hearts) are longing, will not force Himself upon us. Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them," so the Father must speak His one Word of Love to each of us in a unique way. Yes, most of the time it happens through words, but sometimes, especially for someone like Alex, it seems like the silence might be the place to meet Him. This is not to be anti-reason, it is just to point to the heart, and say that when the mind and will are united in knowledge and love (aka wisdom), no more words are necessary. Anyway, this is awesome that you guys are talking. Continued prayers for you both... Fr. Brian
@@ThisDonutI've been told to shut up, be silent, don't question certain things in certain ways or perspectives, so, so many times in various denominations all my life for asking questions so doesn't sound too far out of line. Enough of that and one can come at times to realize maybe seeking answers from religion is not even the right way to go about seeking truths, vs asking more critical questions about humans, our own perspectives pre anything installed into us top down conceptually that hides its roots vs exposing them, that tries to use apologetics, explanations centuries later to patch up flawed initial frameworks, simply because they claim absolution. (We don't do that with other things we hold about reality as much - do we think miasma still the cause of illness, geocentrism to be true just because old books claim it from their perspectives of data at the time?) Silence only lets more unanswered questions brew. Thought terminating cliches only work from within the held perspective of a religion, to ratify questions is not the same as being quiet and to the dissonance posed by those questions settle to below conciousness awareness again, going top down concepts vs bottom up thinking, but in those who don't hold those frameworks, this method only seeds more questions about the frameworks. Questions are essential to build up truth claims from the ground up to validate them - just jumping in accepting a top down claim from scriptures (not all is top down, but critical elements demand that shift, to hide the flawed roots from bottom up perspective). Synaptic pruning ties into this though, in that God makes some people simply unable to question as much, and not as predisposed to them, in that sense then, because synaptic pruning shifts the default mode network to top down vs bottom up thinking, which the latter is what is needed to evaluate from nilho what the structure is, vs what it claims to be top down wise of religions. (Not impossible, but not easy either). Just because silence works for some people to supress or "answer" and massage the questions away into new elements of the old framework in the mind, doesn't mean that will help at all for someone trying to build them from ground up as an absolute view as they demand to be. Examine the roots that lead to one wanting peace - that's potentially a biological indicator your mind wants to suppress dissonances it can feel in those structures and push them away again vs uprooting the whole structure to find out the foundations that are rooted in the mind in gordian knots of shifting structures. Don't get me wrong, silence, mediation, mindfulness and quiet *are* good. They just don't always help for what you might think they are helping with. If reason, logic are how we come to almost all other knowledge of the world, our selves, that we can prove to be true to others, then why does religion demand different treatment to be held as true, absolute?
@brianhumphrey7735 Your perspective is coming from being stuck in your own belief echo chambers. You acknowledge the question yet also fail to answer it. What if he asked a Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or Mormon this same question, and then he was told he just needed to pause and he would feel or meet God? Should he join all those religions or just the one that speaks to his soul? Or do you really think only Catholics know God and have the truth that can be known without using reason?
Wow, thanks for your comments everyone. Maybe it would help to know I am not proposing an over-arching, one-size-fits-all answer to every seeker’s question. If you even knew how many questions I ask, haha! May we never stop asking questions! I am only talking about the one moment in the video where Alex asked perhaps the most beautiful question that a person can ask. It is the cry of the heart, like the rich man in the scriptures who asked the wonderful question, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And then the Gospel author relates, “Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. ‘There is still one thing you haven’t done,’ he told him. ‘Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me’” (Mk 10: 17, 21). Even here, Jesus, in a sense, is advocating for silence. I think anyone with a listening heart, Catholic or not, could hear such a deep question and be moved to silent adoration. When I hear Alex ask that question, I hear him asking it for me, too! What am I doing wrong, Lord!? What must I do!? He is giving voice to the cry of my heart, too. He is helping me come to the end of my strength, where I might somehow surrender to the Answer Who is my refuge and strength. So yes, I do fail to answer Alex’s question, and this for two reasons: 1. Alex is such a good questioner, as he asked perhaps the greatest question one could ask. 2. I am not God who is the only one who can answer such an awesome question. Now, to the overall question of this podcast, that which regards God’s hiddenness and our seeking - and I think this is the other important, yet less divine question Alex and Fr. Pine are getting at - how do you account for God seemingly not responding to what seems to be an authentic cry of the heart such as this? And this, they talked about wonderfully, it seems to me. Of course neither hypothetical extreme is sufficient: on the one hand, there is the dismissal which says, "It seems we have no answer within our natural, human reason alone, and until I am convinced on my own terms, I will not trust that God has his mysterious ways," and on the other, there is the dismissal which says, "Don’t ask questions, we just need to believe without any reasons." I think the narrow way lies somewhere in the middle, but I do think the light comes when we choose to believe and reverence God's infinite freedom and power. And how that “moment” of being convinced happens - how that little shift occurs - I do not know. There is a mystery there. But it seems to me that Alex is on the right track. Maybe I’ll end this little homilita with another scripture passage: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Mt 7:7).
I love this conversation so far. It seems like Alex has a mild misunderstanding of what a person generally experiences in conversion. He often seems to point to people have "one moment" that changes their life, thus he looks back and says, "well, doesn't is seem kinda comedic that it took that one moment to convert a person to the Church? What if they didn't (to use his example) go into that particular library?" Where I this falls short is that the converted person can look back and see all the moments in which God was trying to reach him, through prayer, through another person, etc., in which they rejected God's grace. It is never just one moment, and God does not make it dependent on one moment. For example, if Alex converts immediately after this interview, it would be ridiculous to suggest "if he didn't converse with Fr. Pine, he wouldn't have converted". He's spent almost his entire rational life studying the philosophy, interviewing theists and nontheists. They were all moments in the story of a man finding Christ, and all the moments previously were building blocks to what happended in the end.
@vanatheeveryoung2562 Is that a real teaching from Catholics? As Alex asked, what's the point of any of us going through this life if God already knew what we would choose and we didn't actually have to choose before dying?
At around 1:12 Alex talks to inheritance of sin that ‘locks’ us out. Catholicism teaches that baptism and reconciliation are sacraments that fully restore grace, placing us back metaphorically speaking ‘inside Eden’. All the locks disappear (to use his analogy) until we, not God, install our own home made new locks - which are removed again at next reconciliation. (I have omitted what is the case for non-Catholics for brevity).
Alex articulates my own questions about original sin and the arbitrariness of divine revelation so well! These are precisely two of the main reasons why I have slowly drifted away from thinking Christianity is true, atleast in its conventional form.. and I didnt hear anything from Father Pine which was a reasonable answer to those questions.
I would love to take a swing if you want to outline them? Could you elaborate on what you mean by the "arbitrary" nature of divine revelation? If arbitrary means "without meaning". Then any choice made by God is by definition not arbitrary... As God is meaning itself
The algorithm has blessed me! I don't know if I've seen your videos, but Fr. Pine and Alex O'Connor? That's what the kind of ecumenism I'm here for! lol
I feel like I just watched two people throw a loaded pistol back and forth for 2 hours, wow. Great job recognizing that they are some of the best in this realm of discussion and getting them to have a conversation! That was awesome
We need to have more of these types of dialogs in regard to understanding and belief that show compassion and respect the way this conversation was executed.
You can tell how much he wants to believe. He understands the faith and he wants to believe it. I pray he is convicted with faith and is able to truly believe in the faith, as you can tell he wants to. Praise Jesus
I have about 20 minutes left of it. And so far it’s a beautiful conversation. I highly recommend putting Alex’s and Fr Gregory Pine’s name in the title as it is barely getting any views compared to if you did. My Catholic friend sent me this video and I could not find it on UA-cam on my own. I searched up Alex O’Connor and never found it anywhere on the UA-cam search. I had to search up the direct title my friend sent me in order to see it
C.S. Lewis "Great Divorce" is the best illustration of how easy it is to choose hell, even if they know for sure and are currently experiencing hell itself, I've ever read. Its easy to pursue an intermediate good to a bad end, as an overbearing mother, or a vindictive employee, or a prideful intellect, over an absolute good that will annihilate that position of a distorted good, whether its the nuturing instinct, personal justice, or studiousness and curiosity. In fact, we do it constantly. God help us.
So, just to lighten things up a tiny bit. I was actually told a joke on Monday night by a... Jesuit Cardinal. The Holy Spirit is sitting around with the rest of the Trinity, and Jesus says to him, "So what's going on, man?" Holy Spirit: "Meh, I think I'm gonna take a couple of weeks' vacation." God the Father Almighty: "You need it. Where you off to?" Holy Spirit: "I'm goin to Rome." Jesus: "Rome?! For vacation? But you're not gonna get any peace there, bro." Holy Spirit: "Sure I will, I've been before. They have all these councils, and synods, and committees, and they ALL invoke my name at the very beginning of their meetings, but then never mention me again and don't give me another thought! It's really peaceful!" I'll be here all week.
I think Alex is generally doing a great service both to believers and un(non?)believers, but this is one of the-somewhat rare-occasions that I've seen Alex uncomfortable due to what seems to be the sheer thoughtful and profound responses given to all of his enquiries by Fr. Gregory Pine... what a great man the Fr here seems to be.
Fr. Pine has such a great formation in medieval thought that it is difficult for modern minds to contend with him. Alex is probably one of the most refined atheistic modern minds of our particular day, having moved far beyond the very silly ideas of Dawkins and the like. Someone like Fr. Pine is needed to answer someone like Alex, I think.
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Keep looking Alex. Unless this is, like you said, a theatre, to you; you shall find it.
How long should someone knock before realizing they have been miming this whole time and there's no door upon which to knock, no one for which to answer? How much a life wasted in pursuit, when statistically you know that millions, hundreds of millions just like you will die and be damned simply from place of birth? Maybe the other religions have an actual door, someone on the other side to answer.
@@__cooper__ Noone is saying that you shouldn't look at other religions. I was attracted to buddhism initially, then I encountered the demonic and was interested in abrahamic religions which talk about that. At first I was attracted to Islam, as it seemed very logical. But then I read the Gospels and I had a physical change in me, as well as other signs. I couldn't choose not to believe it, it was crystal clear.
I also think you have to be desperate at some level to want to seek. If your life is very easy going and you think you are in control of your life, you will not be desperate to go look for God and more inclined to deny him out of your own wanting for comfort and control.
Given Fr. Pine's attire, I was pleasantly surprised by how modern, open-minded, and non-dogmatic his personal theology seems to be. I guess it's just another example of books vs. covers.
What exactly was insufferable about him here? I found him to be quite charitable and kind. In fact his body language is somewhat guarded, not arrogant.
I like both, but I find humility to be oozing off of Pine. And not so much of Alex. For example, Alex's argument hinges on him doing no wrong as a seeker, while he would never make the claim that psychology as a field supports the idea that we can accurately access ourselves. Pine is hard to understand at times, but that is also because he is very measured and accurate.
To be fair to Alex though, he did asked on a humble way to Fr. Pine what he could have done different . I do not think he argued he did everything perfect in his search for God
Alex questions are quite good and haven't been answered but Fr Pine also did great in this conversation. I believe I am Catholic because God has given me a efficient grace to believe, he has made it so I was baptized and for whatever reason, I came back to my faith 6-7 years ago. As Fr Pine said, prima pars q23 is good on this.
@@justinhartnell6779 We are all born outside the castle; some further than others and some more attached to life outside the castle than others. But the invitation is always there to return.
@@ijiikieruthat doesn’t answer the ‘why’, though. And to be honest I don’t feel that Fr. Pine gave an adequate answer either, especially considering that he believes in eternal punishment for getting this question wrong. That just doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing a loving god would do.
This is like Richard Dawkins trying to explain evolution to Jordan Peterson. It seems that divine hiddeness is brought up and then the other guy just starts talking about life and ignoring the topic at hand. Not saying he’s disingenuous, just that it felt like he really didn’t respond to Alex’s argument or that if he thinks he did, it didn’t come through while watching.
Yeah, it seems like none of Alex's questions were actually answered. I wonder if any Catholics even notice this or are just so biased they can't see it.
The Lord tells us not to judge what is in other people's hearts, what they felt in their hearts we have no access to outside of what the text suggests, which is that they knew it was not what they were told to do, and they did it anyways, and that Adam and Eve both sloughed the blame onto other things and did not take responsibility for their actions. That they were not "at fault" for disobediance seems to be a projection. If I look at my own heart, it is obvious to me that I carry the same traits. I know someone told me not to do something, yet I knowingly abrogate it, or keep to it. Looking closely at the punishments alotted out to the 3 characters, they are the seeds of their redemption. Man and women learn to be selfless and patient in suffering through them, and the serpant loses his potency to harm us. Conner says he knows what he would choose now given the choice of a palace and a hovel, and he knows he chooses the hovel.
He seeks the palace narrative to justify itself first, before being able to make that choice. You've skipped ahead, by saying he chose the hovel. He can't choose something he isn't convinced exists, anymore than you could willingly choose to believe in another religion's claims simply because they claim it top down dogma style in their scriptures. You'd seek bottom up data, hopefully. That's what he is doing, and not finding. He's seeking, but not hearing a response. The thing the scripture says to do and will get a response on... So how's he to know it is true if it can't self validate itself via the methods it claims should work? How long do you keep trying something from a guidebook that you can't verify the claims within of, when you do try doing what it says to do, you get no results. When do we move to the view that continually trying and getting no results would be like using an old science book, thinking miasma was the cause of all diseases, to understand microbiology at that point?
That’s a good way to look at it but what Alex is doing is pinning all their faith on one moment instead of seeing that one moment is just a string of past and future events. Who the hell believes in Jesus cause they “met somebody once” or “seen a beautiful ceiling” it’s ridiculous every moment of my life is that string it’s up to us to realize it
Can you imagine if somebody spent all their time arguing against the existence of the laws of nature because some people have better lives than others? The interplay between good and bad fortune, and even arbitrariness, is not a reasonable starting point, nor conclusion, of any argument for the existence or non-existence of a logical axiom. Atheism is not and cannot attack the necessity of a necessarily existing substance. It can only attack the reality of finite experience, or criticize how that substance operates. The former is self-contradictory; the latter is narrow, bratty, and monistic (from Hinduism via Islam). The Christian understanding of God is that of a God of real secondary causation, willed by God to solve most of their own problems. The divine will cannot contradict itself. It's benevolence in the world is contingent on the actions of contingent beings. In other words, this world is not one that God willed himself to be the solution to every pseudo-problem to appear in view. If Alex really cared about the salvation of the Thai ethnicity, rather bizarrely, for example, he would interpret a 90%+ Buddhist population as a challenge by God, calling specifically Alex to go and convert them, so that Alex can fulfill his function. Virtually all of Alex's theology removes himself from the big picture, and then attempts to explain variation and change itself by some statistical analysis of God's supposed direct will (i.e. no secondary causation, which is tantamount to monism). There is your fourth option. The kind of world Alex thinks exist, just doesn't, and provably so, as to even think you are not independent of God generates an immediate experiential contradiction. If you can understand this argument, you'll be free of error. If you can't, you continue to espouse monism in various guises, and then pull your hair out that monism cannot be reconciled to the traditional Christian worldview.
I know that Fr. Pine it's a very smart guy (as many of the people that have spoken with Alex before) but I think that no one has been able to answer this questions with wisdom. It's like all of them try answer with their own knowledge but failed to give the right thing. Maybe Alex doesn't need a teacher who knows the technical answer, but a wise friend able to go through the process off seeking God with him, someone who speaks to the heart, not just the mind. Alex, if you read this maybe try to talk whith people that don't necessarily are "the smartest" but the wisest. (No offense Fr. Pine) (My apologies if it's complicated to understand what I try to say, this is not my first language)
As a final comment, his argument for "well you are just a believer because you had a chance encounter with someone is full of holes. Who said it was chance? He's still running with the axioms that God is a human being behind a curtain pulling levers. I have the feeling he'll make a great Christian once he finds the answers he is seeking.
Many who were born in to the church fell away, lived the empty live of the prodigious son, and many have returned, many awaiting to return. I am the first Catholic Christian in my secular family line from a line of taoist folk religion/buddist background. The emptiness of these social, material, even familial "advantages" is self evident without God, though it might take long suffering to finally accept. All of us sought to fill this hole in our existence, the dao or way of love as they best could handle vs their own unique nature. What appears as an advantage or disadvantage on its face is not clear in any simple cause and effect way. We have this deep sense of this need that God must appear to us on our terms, and we invent a million justifications for this, but it appears the whole point is that we are not God, we dont set the rules, we don't even fully understand the game, but we still insist on being the Game Master. Lastly, it appears in Christ announcing "the men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment and condemn the people living today, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah," he is saying the conversion of the heart for them was sufficient for their times without the risen Christ. Given the announcement of the destruction of Ninevah, they believed without being Jewish, and took it upon themselves to humble themselves and ask for mercy are worthy to judge us who have the benefit of the signs that we have been exposed to.
Context. We see great suffering that comes from free will, but we haven’t yet seen the misery from the co-opting of freewill. Think transhumanism, the “fixing” of freewill made in the image of central planners.
I have repeatedly requested, whenever Alex appears on a podcast, that he study the topic of kenosis or that a host outlines how we Catholics see how God reveals Himself to us.
This conversation was a real meeting of the mind 😂 In seriousness, Alex, you need to step up your logic and reasoning, there are far too many emotional arguments and metaphors that paint God as unjust, and I really didn't expect you to be constantly on the offensive, trying to prove religion wrong at every turn. It wasn't the most productive way to run a conversation. I cannot judge what is in your heart, I can only describe what I see. Father Pine, you get bogged down in the theological language far too much. Although I love many of the points you make, there could have been more direct answers to the logic of what Alex was talking about, but I love the emphasis that we have the choice all the time to reverse the judgement of Adam, by reconciling ourselves with God through Christ. I was a bit worried when these two admitted that they were not very familiar with each other at the beginning of the conversation, and it seems like that worry was warranted. Even so, I enjoyed the conversation, I thank both Alex and Father Pine for having it, and I hope in the future these two can get to the next level of conversation, and engage more directly with each other. God bless if you're reading this!
I couldn't help but feel at times that Alex was almost desperate for a reason to believe. A smoking gun that would flip the switch in his brain from non-believer to believer. I pray that he one day finds his way into Jesus's loving embrace.
@@carolynkimberly4021 You commented a lot of stupid things, we saw, you can calm down now. Try to get your mind straight and comment 1 comment pointing all your thoughts instead of multiple small, meaningless comments like bots do.
I Mean what kind of question is that ? If he is being honest yeah he knows it is not his fault unless he got Alzheimer or something wich doesn't seem the case.
Adam and Eve sinned because they took from the Tree and didn’t give thanks, seizing the raw material of the world without first “giving thanks” (Romans 1:21). One cannot give thanks while seizing that which God has forbidden. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was about gaining the wisdom to discern good and evil, which is integral to becoming a king. Adam sought to exalt himself without first giving thanks and acknowledging God as the source of his life. Jesus Christ, the New Adam, undoes this at the Table by taking Bread and Wine and “giving thanks,” so that whenever we bring our weekly labors to God at the Eucharist, we are being truly human in the full sense. As Paul says in Philippians 2, Christ endured even to the death of the cross, and now God has exalted Him. Notably, the view that the restriction of the Tree was temporary, not permanent, is one shared by the Church Fathers
We expect BOTH that religion would look man made and divine. Religion is man made and reflects their cultures, except Christianity. But even within Christianity, some parts are man made in our understanding of it, in a sense.
21:37 you’re limited by your cognitive pride. Pray, fast, learn humility. “Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Thine be done.”
Even as Christian I always appreciate Alex. I found myself getting frustrated that his questions weren’t answered without a thomist nerd ramble. Get to the meat of it!!!!
the more winds, the longer the thread, the more twists and turns in the gordian knot, the easier to distance from questions and hide away the roots in the mind that if exposed to the questions would reveal dissonances, flaws, gaps in the top down narrative, via the bottom up view taken by questioning. Like an animal shying away from exposure to its vulnerable bits using tactics to hide, shift away from them vs expose the wiggling shifting core in the mind of the structure of belief. It's only natural, and happens in more than just religions.
@@IbnTaymiyyah777 That's because, with all due respect to Fr Pine, he isn't a proper philosopher. He is a scholar of Aquinas and that's it. He can recite answers from the works of Aquinas, but he can't apply them to real world questions and philosophical challenges very well. It's almost like talking to a Thomistic AI.
1:15:07 Does Alex O'Connor know what he would do if he was in the Garden of Eden? He's offered a similar choice here, and he's making the same mistake they did.
@10:46 Option 4. You are not looking or noticing the things that show God. Or worse. You are interpreting those things in a way that allows to act as if Gid isn't real.
Thank you to all involved - what a little treasure. On the Schmoe scale of awkward encounters, this one smacks through the roof .. Poor Alex looks every inch the weary tourist more or less bushwacked into discussing 'The non-atomic nature of the atom' with a resident alien visitor who has sort of decided to dedicate his life to living that kind of life (on its own terms, without reading the clear-print small details but knowing they are in there). Oddly I am somewhat reminded of the Bishop Barron interview, no, not with Alex, rather the one with that Hollywood-type actor, I forget his name, the one where the Bishop was blindsided by the actor on the character of the Holy Sacrifice - specifically when presented as though by a car salesman .. only here in mirror vision. Alex is handed the gentlemanly role as inquisitor and counsel for the prosecution (with, however, Rumpole-esque brevity*) and Fr Gregory was lumped with the job of counsel for the defence (without Perry Mason brief) - 'The Case of the Hidden Offender or the Mystery of the Problem of Evil', and you, dear audience, are to be the judge and jury. Not so much Copplestone and Russell as salt and beef .. Keep the Faith; tell the truth, shame the devil, and let the demons shriek. God bless. ;o) * James Burge, QC (an anarchist at heart .. but .. this lot.) N.B. Understanding the limitations of any creature, in a good creation - existing is a 'good', set in comparison to the creator lies at the heart of so much in this discussion .. but then, what do I know ...... Eve's wrong done, and therefore Adam's sin .. his responsibility, in the state of limited perfection, was a simple lack of trust, not an egregious revolution in intellect. They were little less than the angels, who had also rebelled, timelessly, that is limited in choice - but free to will, for all were not < God > ... yet intelligent notwithstanding. And the time-bound break being viewed here (in an ancient wisdom text) is one of dignity, honour and good-faith, seemingly so little a thing, yet with timeless consequences = because it is an offence against the indwelling goodness of that concept < God > and repaired in time only by God Himself, giving Himself, as a creature for creatures, still basically 'good' but intrinsically harmed (as a wounded relationship, O felix culpa, etc).
A Jewish guy who survived the Holocaust dies and goes to heaven. He says to god “I have a funny story for you about the Holocaust.” He tells god the story and god says “That’s not funny.” The guy says “Well, I guess have to’ve been there…”
Same here I’m celebrating a $370k stock portfolio today started this journey with $39k. I have invested on time and also with the right terms now i have time for my family and the life ahead of me
I get a sense whenever I listen to Alex that he regards this whole subject as an intellectual exercise and that because he's a 'clever lad' his role is to try to find and posit difficult questions. It's as though he's not really interested in the answer, this is what he does. Fr Gregory gives a complex and thoughtful answer and Alex just moves on and tries to find another problem. There seems to be no line of reasoning which affects Alex or causes him to pause. So it feels like running round in intellectual circles or playing hide and seek with the truth. At some point Alex has to stop and just listen.
Literally the first thing they discussed is the "futility" of debates with respect to convincing oneself of the opposition. Also, Alex is a philosopher, he has had this conversation a million times. Also, as far as I understand this isn't a personal conversation, it's a public intellectual discourse. Their main goal is probably to elaborate their perspective to the audience rather than trying to be convinced. What did you expect when you saw the title? A discussion on difficult questions or a reassurance of your existing beliefs. p.s: I could reverse your statement to accuse Fr Gregory just as easily, I'm not going to for the same reasons I gave above.
I took it as him feeling very threatened. He was tense and covering soft areas. My conjecture is that he felt very outmatched by Fr Pine. He might also have been feeling this given that all he had were very childish arguments that kept hedging bets, such as saying "it seems more likely" rather than "this is what I believe".
"To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement."
St. Augustine of Hippo
I did not expect *this* collab.
haha right
I thought it was one of the clickbaity thumbnails which showed particular people but didn't feature them.
Two honest people doing their thing gives good and honest results.
I prayed for Alex to speak to an excellent theologian like Fr. Pine. Ave Maria ❤️
Even though Greg considers lying to a Nazi about where you have hidden the Jews, to be a mortal sin.
Maria is not omnipresent, she cannot hear your prayers. Ave Christus Rex
@@NathanRothschild-fy9gzironic you’re using a Catholic phrase in a statement where you misunderstand Catholicism
Mary is the Theotokos, the Mother of God.
@@isaacromero3475 I didn’t misunderstand anything my friend, and used the “Catholic” (re Latin) phrase intentionally. Mary is not omnipresent, she cannot hear you, therefore she cannot pray on your behalf
Alex O Connor, one of the best torch bearers from the enlightenment rationalism, and Fr. Gregory Pine, one of the greatest intellectual minds of the Catholic Church. This should be good.
do me a favour mate. The Catholic Church has untold number of fine minds around the world through out many orders.
@ Of course. Agreed.
Good and bad are RELATIVE. ;)
God bless Fr. Gregory Pine. God bless the Order of Preachers. God bless Holy Mother Church
Amen. St. Dominic Pray for Us. St. Thomas Aquinas Pray for Us.
Alex sees God as being far, while God keeps sending people his way to guide him
You know Alex is a professional UA-camr, right?
It could be God sending people his way, but I suspect it has more to do with Alex's desire (and that of most of his respondents) for a steady stream of viewers.
I’m a Christian, but I have massive love and respect for Alex. And I’m a “Protestant”, but I love Orthodoxy and Catholicism.
I love seeing worlds collide so beautifully 😁
Fr. Pine is one of my favorite main stream Dominican priests. God Bless you Fr. Pine.
Put Fr. Gregory Pine, Jordan Peterson, Richard Dawkins and Alex O'Connor in a room together.. And it slowly becomes evident who and to what degree is more oriented to the fulness of truth in all it's possible depths.
This was healing to watch. Hopeful and healing. Almost felt like evesdropping into a confessional of sorts.
Lord's mercy overflow.
I am a protestant, but I always enjoy hearing Fr. Pine speak, and I really hope that Alex comes around someday, so I am excited for this conversation.
I am excited for yours. You are in my prayers, Peter
@@Peter-qb8gf I'm a Catholic and I can't listen to Fr Pine for very long 😄
It is of paramount importance these objections are given thorough treatment and response from the top tier of Catholic intellectuals across the social media landscape.
@@greypilgrim1649 Fr. Pine has given his objections a thorough treatment.
@@greypilgrim1649 Fr. Pine is a "top tier" theologian.
Absolutely. The war we are fighting in the culture is ideological and rooted in philosophy. All of our societal ills for the past 300 years are rooted in the so called "enlightenment", which was absolutely inspired by the "light bearer" himself.
Was pleasantly surprised to find this crossover; I really enjoyed the conversation.
Cracked me up when Fr. Pine had the realization that he was a preacher 😂, i.e., in the Order of Preachers. Reminds me of when I sometimes, randomly, look at my wife and realize I’m married 😅
Let's all pray an Ave for both of these fine gentlemen. Fr. Pine for his continued spiritual stewardship and for Alex and his seeking soul. Deo Gratias.
There's 2 faces I didn't expect to see facing each other and God am I here for it!
Greatest collab of all time
Truly
How quickly we forget peanut butter and jelly.
@@brandonburns5249 I mean your not wrong
Praying for Alex, because I definitely believe he is on the path and that he is doing God's work in bringing people to Christ.
He literally does the opposite of that
@@mutebard1252 yes and no. I think he just points out potential flaws and I think there’s lots of things that need to be addressed. He just brings them to light and if Christianity is true, there must be an answer.
He is on his path and seems open and rational, that certainly doesn't discount faith but I hope he finds God 🙏
@@okj9060these are not “potential flaws” - these are actual flaws within the Abrahamic religions. Story’s that are counter to each other, divine hiddenness, slavery and more.
Hmmm, Something is really happening. I must commend Alex for not just being a Tribal loyalist, but fostering good faith conversations across the board. I think we need that!
So glad to see this happen. Fr Pine is a saintly priest and Dominican. I’m glad to see Alex branching out to speak to people who are really living out the Christian faith in its fullness.
Alex finishes asking a question at 23:37, after mentioning that sometimes he is just not convinced by arguments, and if that's the case, "What is it that I might be doing wrong?" To this AMAZING, vulnerable, and courageous question, I think we need to just STOP, and sit in the Reality who is beyond all words and arguments. I know this is hard because its a podcast, and the point is to literally talk to each other, but the one Word which is the peace that surpasses all understanding, that peace for which Alex's heart (and all our hearts) are longing, will not force Himself upon us. Jesus said, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them," so the Father must speak His one Word of Love to each of us in a unique way. Yes, most of the time it happens through words, but sometimes, especially for someone like Alex, it seems like the silence might be the place to meet Him. This is not to be anti-reason, it is just to point to the heart, and say that when the mind and will are united in knowledge and love (aka wisdom), no more words are necessary. Anyway, this is awesome that you guys are talking. Continued prayers for you both... Fr. Brian
Sorry, what is your reccomendation for Alex? Silence? You believe silence will help him come to see god?
@@ThisDonutI've been told to shut up, be silent, don't question certain things in certain ways or perspectives, so, so many times in various denominations all my life for asking questions so doesn't sound too far out of line.
Enough of that and one can come at times to realize maybe seeking answers from religion is not even the right way to go about seeking truths, vs asking more critical questions about humans, our own perspectives pre anything installed into us top down conceptually that hides its roots vs exposing them, that tries to use apologetics, explanations centuries later to patch up flawed initial frameworks, simply because they claim absolution. (We don't do that with other things we hold about reality as much - do we think miasma still the cause of illness, geocentrism to be true just because old books claim it from their perspectives of data at the time?)
Silence only lets more unanswered questions brew. Thought terminating cliches only work from within the held perspective of a religion, to ratify questions is not the same as being quiet and to the dissonance posed by those questions settle to below conciousness awareness again, going top down concepts vs bottom up thinking, but in those who don't hold those frameworks, this method only seeds more questions about the frameworks.
Questions are essential to build up truth claims from the ground up to validate them - just jumping in accepting a top down claim from scriptures (not all is top down, but critical elements demand that shift, to hide the flawed roots from bottom up perspective).
Synaptic pruning ties into this though, in that God makes some people simply unable to question as much, and not as predisposed to them, in that sense then, because synaptic pruning shifts the default mode network to top down vs bottom up thinking, which the latter is what is needed to evaluate from nilho what the structure is, vs what it claims to be top down wise of religions. (Not impossible, but not easy either).
Just because silence works for some people to supress or "answer" and massage the questions away into new elements of the old framework in the mind, doesn't mean that will help at all for someone trying to build them from ground up as an absolute view as they demand to be.
Examine the roots that lead to one wanting peace - that's potentially a biological indicator your mind wants to suppress dissonances it can feel in those structures and push them away again vs uprooting the whole structure to find out the foundations that are rooted in the mind in gordian knots of shifting structures.
Don't get me wrong, silence, mediation, mindfulness and quiet *are* good. They just don't always help for what you might think they are helping with.
If reason, logic are how we come to almost all other knowledge of the world, our selves, that we can prove to be true to others, then why does religion demand different treatment to be held as true, absolute?
@brianhumphrey7735 Your perspective is coming from being stuck in your own belief echo chambers. You acknowledge the question yet also fail to answer it.
What if he asked a Protestant, Muslim, Jew, or Mormon this same question, and then he was told he just needed to pause and he would feel or meet God? Should he join all those religions or just the one that speaks to his soul? Or do you really think only Catholics know God and have the truth that can be known without using reason?
Wow, thanks for your comments everyone. Maybe it would help to know I am not proposing an over-arching, one-size-fits-all answer to every seeker’s question. If you even knew how many questions I ask, haha! May we never stop asking questions! I am only talking about the one moment in the video where Alex asked perhaps the most beautiful question that a person can ask. It is the cry of the heart, like the rich man in the scriptures who asked the wonderful question, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And then the Gospel author relates, “Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. ‘There is still one thing you haven’t done,’ he told him. ‘Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me’” (Mk 10: 17, 21). Even here, Jesus, in a sense, is advocating for silence. I think anyone with a listening heart, Catholic or not, could hear such a deep question and be moved to silent adoration. When I hear Alex ask that question, I hear him asking it for me, too! What am I doing wrong, Lord!? What must I do!? He is giving voice to the cry of my heart, too. He is helping me come to the end of my strength, where I might somehow surrender to the Answer Who is my refuge and strength. So yes, I do fail to answer Alex’s question, and this for two reasons: 1. Alex is such a good questioner, as he asked perhaps the greatest question one could ask. 2. I am not God who is the only one who can answer such an awesome question.
Now, to the overall question of this podcast, that which regards God’s hiddenness and our seeking - and I think this is the other important, yet less divine question Alex and Fr. Pine are getting at - how do you account for God seemingly not responding to what seems to be an authentic cry of the heart such as this? And this, they talked about wonderfully, it seems to me. Of course neither hypothetical extreme is sufficient: on the one hand, there is the dismissal which says, "It seems we have no answer within our natural, human reason alone, and until I am convinced on my own terms, I will not trust that God has his mysterious ways," and on the other, there is the dismissal which says, "Don’t ask questions, we just need to believe without any reasons." I think the narrow way lies somewhere in the middle, but I do think the light comes when we choose to believe and reverence God's infinite freedom and power. And how that “moment” of being convinced happens - how that little shift occurs - I do not know. There is a mystery there. But it seems to me that Alex is on the right track. Maybe I’ll end this little homilita with another scripture passage: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened” (Mt 7:7).
They both speak with so much grace. I love this duo
I remember that debate about lying! Fr Gregory pine you were very brilliant
I love this conversation so far. It seems like Alex has a mild misunderstanding of what a person generally experiences in conversion. He often seems to point to people have "one moment" that changes their life, thus he looks back and says, "well, doesn't is seem kinda comedic that it took that one moment to convert a person to the Church? What if they didn't (to use his example) go into that particular library?" Where I this falls short is that the converted person can look back and see all the moments in which God was trying to reach him, through prayer, through another person, etc., in which they rejected God's grace. It is never just one moment, and God does not make it dependent on one moment.
For example, if Alex converts immediately after this interview, it would be ridiculous to suggest "if he didn't converse with Fr. Pine, he wouldn't have converted". He's spent almost his entire rational life studying the philosophy, interviewing theists and nontheists. They were all moments in the story of a man finding Christ, and all the moments previously were building blocks to what happended in the end.
Well, what if he died during the interview even though he was about to convert? He would just go to hell? Doesn't he ask this question?
@@jonny6manBaptism of Desire would be my guess.
@vanatheeveryoung2562 Is that a real teaching from Catholics? As Alex asked, what's the point of any of us going through this life if God already knew what we would choose and we didn't actually have to choose before dying?
@@jonny6man yes we believe Baptism of desire
@@jonny6man what's the point? we dont know what'll happen. we will experience it in a novel way.
At around 1:12 Alex talks to inheritance of sin that ‘locks’ us out. Catholicism teaches that baptism and reconciliation are sacraments that fully restore grace, placing us back metaphorically speaking ‘inside Eden’. All the locks disappear (to use his analogy) until we, not God, install our own home made new locks - which are removed again at next reconciliation. (I have omitted what is the case for non-Catholics for brevity).
Great respect to O'Connor for taking part in this conversation.
Let's go Fr. Gregory! ❤
Alex articulates my own questions about original sin and the arbitrariness of divine revelation so well! These are precisely two of the main reasons why I have slowly drifted away from thinking Christianity is true, atleast in its conventional form.. and I didnt hear anything from Father Pine which was a reasonable answer to those questions.
I would love to take a swing if you want to outline them?
Could you elaborate on what you mean by the "arbitrary" nature of divine revelation?
If arbitrary means "without meaning".
Then any choice made by God is by definition not arbitrary...
As God is meaning itself
The algorithm has blessed me! I don't know if I've seen your videos, but Fr. Pine and Alex O'Connor? That's what the kind of ecumenism I'm here for! lol
I feel like I just watched two people throw a loaded pistol back and forth for 2 hours, wow. Great job recognizing that they are some of the best in this realm of discussion and getting them to have a conversation! That was awesome
Love and adore Fr Gregory 🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻❤️🙏🏻❤️
We need to have more of these types of dialogs in regard to understanding and belief that show compassion and respect the way this conversation was executed.
You can tell how much he wants to believe. He understands the faith and he wants to believe it. I pray he is convicted with faith and is able to truly believe in the faith, as you can tell he wants to. Praise Jesus
I have about 20 minutes left of it. And so far it’s a beautiful conversation. I highly recommend putting Alex’s and Fr Gregory Pine’s name in the title as it is barely getting any views compared to if you did. My Catholic friend sent me this video and I could not find it on UA-cam on my own. I searched up Alex O’Connor and never found it anywhere on the UA-cam search. I had to search up the direct title my friend sent me in order to see it
Ima end up watching this another 10 times
C.S. Lewis "Great Divorce" is the best illustration of how easy it is to choose hell, even if they know for sure and are currently experiencing hell itself, I've ever read.
Its easy to pursue an intermediate good to a bad end, as an overbearing mother, or a vindictive employee, or a prideful intellect, over an absolute good that will annihilate that position of a distorted good, whether its the nuturing instinct, personal justice, or studiousness and curiosity.
In fact, we do it constantly. God help us.
Thank you Fr Pine
My only complaint is that this conversation was 3 hours too short!
Oh, Fr. Pine, you know Our Lord intimately. No need to debate.
Lovely conversation.
What beautiful and interesting conversation. Thank you for this.
This should be a weekly podcast
So, just to lighten things up a tiny bit. I was actually told a joke on Monday night by a... Jesuit Cardinal.
The Holy Spirit is sitting around with the rest of the Trinity, and Jesus says to him, "So what's going on, man?"
Holy Spirit: "Meh, I think I'm gonna take a couple of weeks' vacation."
God the Father Almighty: "You need it. Where you off to?"
Holy Spirit: "I'm goin to Rome."
Jesus: "Rome?! For vacation? But you're not gonna get any peace there, bro."
Holy Spirit: "Sure I will, I've been before. They have all these councils, and synods, and committees, and they ALL invoke my name at the very beginning of their meetings, but then never mention me again and don't give me another thought! It's really peaceful!"
I'll be here all week.
I think Alex is generally doing a great service both to believers and un(non?)believers, but this is one of the-somewhat rare-occasions that I've seen Alex uncomfortable due to what seems to be the sheer thoughtful and profound responses given to all of his enquiries by Fr. Gregory Pine... what a great man the Fr here seems to be.
It also helps that Pine is an absolute giant of a man lol
More like Pine is saying a bunch of nothing
@@aisthpaoitht Alex seems to be following him perfectly fine. As am I.
Fr. Pine has such a great formation in medieval thought that it is difficult for modern minds to contend with him. Alex is probably one of the most refined atheistic modern minds of our particular day, having moved far beyond the very silly ideas of Dawkins and the like. Someone like Fr. Pine is needed to answer someone like Alex, I think.
@jareddembrun783 Fr Pine uses arcane vocabulary detached from reality.
That is the most perfect beard I've ever seen.
Amazing conversation
Great conversation. Thank you
Thanks Alex ❤️❤️❤️
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Keep looking Alex. Unless this is, like you said, a theatre, to you; you shall find it.
How long should someone knock before realizing they have been miming this whole time and there's no door upon which to knock, no one for which to answer?
How much a life wasted in pursuit, when statistically you know that millions, hundreds of millions just like you will die and be damned simply from place of birth? Maybe the other religions have an actual door, someone on the other side to answer.
@@__cooper__ Noone is saying that you shouldn't look at other religions. I was attracted to buddhism initially, then I encountered the demonic and was interested in abrahamic religions which talk about that. At first I was attracted to Islam, as it seemed very logical. But then I read the Gospels and I had a physical change in me, as well as other signs. I couldn't choose not to believe it, it was crystal clear.
I also think you have to be desperate at some level to want to seek. If your life is very easy going and you think you are in control of your life, you will not be desperate to go look for God and more inclined to deny him out of your own wanting for comfort and control.
Thank you Father 🙏
Such a good dialog! so so so glad it wasnt a debate, this was great
Given Fr. Pine's attire, I was pleasantly surprised by how modern, open-minded, and non-dogmatic his personal theology seems to be. I guess it's just another example of books vs. covers.
A deep conversation between two great truth seekers..
I've always admired Alex for his humility and eloquence. Fr. Pine did a great job, but I wish he'd speak more simply.
I agree I'm a huge fan of Alex and how he converses.
Humility? He is insufferably arrogant
What exactly was insufferable about him here? I found him to be quite charitable and kind. In fact his body language is somewhat guarded, not arrogant.
I like both, but I find humility to be oozing off of Pine. And not so much of Alex. For example, Alex's argument hinges on him doing no wrong as a seeker, while he would never make the claim that psychology as a field supports the idea that we can accurately access ourselves. Pine is hard to understand at times, but that is also because he is very measured and accurate.
To be fair to Alex though, he did asked on a humble way to Fr. Pine what he could have done different . I do not think he argued he did everything perfect in his search for God
🔥🔥🔥🔥
“Choices are the hinges of destiny “!
Praying for you dear Alex!
🙏🏾♥️🙏🏾
So happy to see Father Gregory Pine. You are the best Father 🥳⭐️
Alex questions are quite good and haven't been answered but Fr Pine also did great in this conversation. I believe I am Catholic because God has given me a efficient grace to believe, he has made it so I was baptized and for whatever reason, I came back to my faith 6-7 years ago. As Fr Pine said, prima pars q23 is good on this.
Why not others?
@@justinhartnell6779 We are all born outside the castle; some further than others and some more attached to life outside the castle than others. But the invitation is always there to return.
@@ijiikieruthat doesn’t answer the ‘why’, though. And to be honest I don’t feel that Fr. Pine gave an adequate answer either, especially considering that he believes in eternal punishment for getting this question wrong. That just doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing a loving god would do.
This is like Richard Dawkins trying to explain evolution to Jordan Peterson. It seems that divine hiddeness is brought up and then the other guy just starts talking about life and ignoring the topic at hand. Not saying he’s disingenuous, just that it felt like he really didn’t respond to Alex’s argument or that if he thinks he did, it didn’t come through while watching.
Yeah, it seems like none of Alex's questions were actually answered. I wonder if any Catholics even notice this or are just so biased they can't see it.
I can see it
The Lord tells us not to judge what is in other people's hearts, what they felt in their hearts we have no access to outside of what the text suggests, which is that they knew it was not what they were told to do, and they did it anyways, and that Adam and Eve both sloughed the blame onto other things and did not take responsibility for their actions.
That they were not "at fault" for disobediance seems to be a projection.
If I look at my own heart, it is obvious to me that I carry the same traits. I know someone told me not to do something, yet I knowingly abrogate it, or keep to it.
Looking closely at the punishments alotted out to the 3 characters, they are the seeds of their redemption.
Man and women learn to be selfless and patient in suffering through them, and the serpant loses his potency to harm us.
Conner says he knows what he would choose now given the choice of a palace and a hovel, and he knows he chooses the hovel.
He seeks the palace narrative to justify itself first, before being able to make that choice. You've skipped ahead, by saying he chose the hovel. He can't choose something he isn't convinced exists, anymore than you could willingly choose to believe in another religion's claims simply because they claim it top down dogma style in their scriptures. You'd seek bottom up data, hopefully. That's what he is doing, and not finding. He's seeking, but not hearing a response. The thing the scripture says to do and will get a response on... So how's he to know it is true if it can't self validate itself via the methods it claims should work? How long do you keep trying something from a guidebook that you can't verify the claims within of, when you do try doing what it says to do, you get no results.
When do we move to the view that continually trying and getting no results would be like using an old science book, thinking miasma was the cause of all diseases, to understand microbiology at that point?
Great conversation 👍
I think when people convert because they met someone tells us that we each have a part to play in each other’s salvation or desolation 53:51
That’s a good way to look at it but what Alex is doing is pinning all their faith on one moment instead of seeing that one moment is just a string of past and future events. Who the hell believes in Jesus cause they “met somebody once” or “seen a beautiful ceiling” it’s ridiculous every moment of my life is that string it’s up to us to realize it
Alex should read CS Lewis' "The Great Divorce". People choose hell all the time, every single day.
He may have read. He has spoken about CS Lewis, and his works, in some of his videos
Can you imagine if somebody spent all their time arguing against the existence of the laws of nature because some people have better lives than others? The interplay between good and bad fortune, and even arbitrariness, is not a reasonable starting point, nor conclusion, of any argument for the existence or non-existence of a logical axiom. Atheism is not and cannot attack the necessity of a necessarily existing substance. It can only attack the reality of finite experience, or criticize how that substance operates. The former is self-contradictory; the latter is narrow, bratty, and monistic (from Hinduism via Islam). The Christian understanding of God is that of a God of real secondary causation, willed by God to solve most of their own problems. The divine will cannot contradict itself. It's benevolence in the world is contingent on the actions of contingent beings. In other words, this world is not one that God willed himself to be the solution to every pseudo-problem to appear in view. If Alex really cared about the salvation of the Thai ethnicity, rather bizarrely, for example, he would interpret a 90%+ Buddhist population as a challenge by God, calling specifically Alex to go and convert them, so that Alex can fulfill his function. Virtually all of Alex's theology removes himself from the big picture, and then attempts to explain variation and change itself by some statistical analysis of God's supposed direct will (i.e. no secondary causation, which is tantamount to monism). There is your fourth option. The kind of world Alex thinks exist, just doesn't, and provably so, as to even think you are not independent of God generates an immediate experiential contradiction. If you can understand this argument, you'll be free of error. If you can't, you continue to espouse monism in various guises, and then pull your hair out that monism cannot be reconciled to the traditional Christian worldview.
I think C.S. Lewis’ book ‘Till We Have Faces’ is a great companion when reading through the book of Job
I know that Fr. Pine it's a very smart guy (as many of the people that have spoken with Alex before) but I think that no one has been able to answer this questions with wisdom. It's like all of them try answer with their own knowledge but failed to give the right thing. Maybe Alex doesn't need a teacher who knows the technical answer, but a wise friend able to go through the process off seeking God with him, someone who speaks to the heart, not just the mind.
Alex, if you read this maybe try to talk whith people that don't necessarily are "the smartest" but the wisest. (No offense Fr. Pine)
(My apologies if it's complicated to understand what I try to say, this is not my first language)
As a final comment, his argument for "well you are just a believer because you had a chance encounter with someone is full of holes. Who said it was chance? He's still running with the axioms that God is a human being behind a curtain pulling levers. I have the feeling he'll make a great Christian once he finds the answers he is seeking.
Many who were born in to the church fell away, lived the empty live of the prodigious son, and many have returned, many awaiting to return.
I am the first Catholic Christian in my secular family line from a line of taoist folk religion/buddist background. The emptiness of these social, material, even familial "advantages" is self evident without God, though it might take long suffering to finally accept. All of us sought to fill this hole in our existence, the dao or way of love as they best could handle vs their own unique nature.
What appears as an advantage or disadvantage on its face is not clear in any simple cause and effect way.
We have this deep sense of this need that God must appear to us on our terms, and we invent a million justifications for this, but it appears the whole point is that we are not God, we dont set the rules, we don't even fully understand the game, but we still insist on being the Game Master.
Lastly, it appears in Christ announcing "the men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment and condemn the people living today, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah," he is saying the conversion of the heart for them was sufficient for their times without the risen Christ. Given the announcement of the destruction of Ninevah, they believed without being Jewish, and took it upon themselves to humble themselves and ask for mercy are worthy to judge us who have the benefit of the signs that we have been exposed to.
The Good, the True, and the Beautiful
Context. We see great suffering that comes from free will, but we haven’t yet seen the misery from the co-opting of freewill. Think transhumanism, the “fixing” of freewill made in the image of central planners.
I have repeatedly requested, whenever Alex appears on a podcast, that he study the topic of kenosis or that a host outlines how we Catholics see how God reveals Himself to us.
Thats really, really, great!
Alex may find God easier to understand once he has his own children.
This conversation was a real meeting of the mind 😂
In seriousness, Alex, you need to step up your logic and reasoning, there are far too many emotional arguments and metaphors that paint God as unjust, and I really didn't expect you to be constantly on the offensive, trying to prove religion wrong at every turn. It wasn't the most productive way to run a conversation. I cannot judge what is in your heart, I can only describe what I see.
Father Pine, you get bogged down in the theological language far too much. Although I love many of the points you make, there could have been more direct answers to the logic of what Alex was talking about, but I love the emphasis that we have the choice all the time to reverse the judgement of Adam, by reconciling ourselves with God through Christ.
I was a bit worried when these two admitted that they were not very familiar with each other at the beginning of the conversation, and it seems like that worry was warranted. Even so, I enjoyed the conversation, I thank both Alex and Father Pine for having it, and I hope in the future these two can get to the next level of conversation, and engage more directly with each other. God bless if you're reading this!
I see no mustache on Alex. Is this an older video?
I couldn't help but feel at times that Alex was almost desperate for a reason to believe. A smoking gun that would flip the switch in his brain from non-believer to believer.
I pray that he one day finds his way into Jesus's loving embrace.
I see this too and am rather disheartened at the comments perceiving him as disingenuous.
"Through no fault of my own" - Alex
How do you know it's not your fault?
@@Thony-b8k As I commented, Alex never takes personal responsibility
@@carolynkimberly4021 You commented a lot of stupid things, we saw, you can calm down now.
Try to get your mind straight and comment 1 comment pointing all your thoughts instead of multiple small, meaningless comments like bots do.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
I Mean what kind of question is that ?
If he is being honest yeah he knows it is not his fault unless he got Alzheimer or something wich doesn't seem the case.
What a ridiculous question. Obviously if he believed in God then he would... believe in God. How is it his fault that his intellect isn't convinced?
Latin mass yeah!
This was very good
Adam and Eve sinned because they took from the Tree and didn’t give thanks, seizing the raw material of the world without first “giving thanks” (Romans 1:21). One cannot give thanks while seizing that which God has forbidden. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was about gaining the wisdom to discern good and evil, which is integral to becoming a king. Adam sought to exalt himself without first giving thanks and acknowledging God as the source of his life. Jesus Christ, the New Adam, undoes this at the Table by taking Bread and Wine and “giving thanks,” so that whenever we bring our weekly labors to God at the Eucharist, we are being truly human in the full sense. As Paul says in Philippians 2, Christ endured even to the death of the cross, and now God has exalted Him. Notably, the view that the restriction of the Tree was temporary, not permanent, is one shared by the Church Fathers
The most unexpected crossover
Surprised that the principle of free will was not raised in the discussion on original sin & why God permits evil as a consequence of free will.
We expect BOTH that religion would look man made and divine. Religion is man made and reflects their cultures, except Christianity. But even within Christianity, some parts are man made in our understanding of it, in a sense.
LETS GOOOOOOOOOO
21:37 you’re limited by your cognitive pride. Pray, fast, learn humility. “Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Thine be done.”
"just shut your brain off"
@ turn on virtue.
Alex, you have sufficient proof to believe.
Alex is a Protestant atheist. He has very narrow view of salvation and damnation.
Even as Christian I always appreciate Alex. I found myself getting frustrated that his questions weren’t answered without a thomist nerd ramble. Get to the meat of it!!!!
Fr Pine is pretty pointless to talk to. "Thomist nerd ramble" nails it. A lot of words to say nothing.
I could not agree more. I am shocked by how out of touch most of these comments are. Fr. Pine was unfocused throughout the whole discussion.
the more winds, the longer the thread, the more twists and turns in the gordian knot, the easier to distance from questions and hide away the roots in the mind that if exposed to the questions would reveal dissonances, flaws, gaps in the top down narrative, via the bottom up view taken by questioning.
Like an animal shying away from exposure to its vulnerable bits using tactics to hide, shift away from them vs expose the wiggling shifting core in the mind of the structure of belief.
It's only natural, and happens in more than just religions.
@@IbnTaymiyyah777 That's because, with all due respect to Fr Pine, he isn't a proper philosopher. He is a scholar of Aquinas and that's it. He can recite answers from the works of Aquinas, but he can't apply them to real world questions and philosophical challenges very well. It's almost like talking to a Thomistic AI.
Nice video
1:15:07 Does Alex O'Connor know what he would do if he was in the Garden of Eden? He's offered a similar choice here, and he's making the same mistake they did.
@10:46 Option 4. You are not looking or noticing the things that show God. Or worse. You are interpreting those things in a way that allows to act as if Gid isn't real.
Thank you to all involved - what a little treasure. On the Schmoe scale of awkward encounters, this one smacks through the roof .. Poor Alex looks every inch the weary tourist more or less bushwacked into discussing 'The non-atomic nature of the atom' with a resident alien visitor who has sort of decided to dedicate his life to living that kind of life (on its own terms, without reading the clear-print small details but knowing they are in there).
Oddly I am somewhat reminded of the Bishop Barron interview, no, not with Alex, rather the one with that Hollywood-type actor, I forget his name, the one where the Bishop was blindsided by the actor on the character of the Holy Sacrifice - specifically when presented as though by a car salesman .. only here in mirror vision. Alex is handed the gentlemanly role as inquisitor and counsel for the prosecution (with, however, Rumpole-esque brevity*) and Fr Gregory was lumped with the job of counsel for the defence (without Perry Mason brief) - 'The Case of the Hidden Offender or the Mystery of the Problem of Evil', and you, dear audience, are to be the judge and jury.
Not so much Copplestone and Russell as salt and beef ..
Keep the Faith; tell the truth, shame the devil, and let the demons shriek.
God bless. ;o)
* James Burge, QC (an anarchist at heart .. but .. this lot.)
N.B. Understanding the limitations of any creature, in a good creation - existing is a 'good', set in comparison to the creator lies at the heart of so much in this discussion .. but then, what do I know ......
Eve's wrong done, and therefore Adam's sin .. his responsibility, in the state of limited perfection, was a simple lack of trust, not an egregious revolution in intellect. They were little less than the angels, who had also rebelled, timelessly, that is limited in choice - but free to will, for all were not < God > ... yet intelligent notwithstanding. And the time-bound break being viewed here (in an ancient wisdom text) is one of dignity, honour and good-faith, seemingly so little a thing, yet with timeless consequences = because it is an offence against the indwelling goodness of that concept < God > and repaired in time only by God Himself, giving Himself, as a creature for creatures, still basically 'good' but intrinsically harmed (as a wounded relationship, O felix culpa, etc).
A Jewish guy who survived the Holocaust dies and goes to heaven.
He says to god
“I have a funny story for you about the Holocaust.”
He tells god the story and god says
“That’s not funny.”
The guy says
“Well, I guess have to’ve been there…”
Deus vult, let’s gooooooo
Jesus loves you guys!
*❤️❤️I’m only God knows how much i praise him, $45k every 4weeks! I now have a good house and can now afford anything amd support my family*
Wow that’s huge do you make that much monthly?
I’m 42 and have been looking for ways to be successful, please how?
Mary Margaret Schimweg crypto knowledge is like a secret recipe for success!
Can i also do it??? My life is facing lots of challenges lately.
I have heard a lot of wonderful things about this woman.
Same here I’m celebrating a $370k stock portfolio today started this journey with $39k. I have invested on time and also with the right terms now i have time for my family and the life ahead of me
Grows a beard then takes on Cosmic Skeptic!
I get a sense whenever I listen to Alex that he regards this whole subject as an intellectual exercise and that because he's a 'clever lad' his role is to try to find and posit difficult questions. It's as though he's not really interested in the answer, this is what he does. Fr Gregory gives a complex and thoughtful answer and Alex just moves on and tries to find another problem. There seems to be no line of reasoning which affects Alex or causes him to pause. So it feels like running round in intellectual circles or playing hide and seek with the truth. At some point Alex has to stop and just listen.
Literally the first thing they discussed is the "futility" of debates with respect to convincing oneself of the opposition. Also, Alex is a philosopher, he has had this conversation a million times. Also, as far as I understand this isn't a personal conversation, it's a public intellectual discourse. Their main goal is probably to elaborate their perspective to the audience rather than trying to be convinced. What did you expect when you saw the title? A discussion on difficult questions or a reassurance of your existing beliefs. p.s: I could reverse your statement to accuse Fr Gregory just as easily, I'm not going to for the same reasons I gave above.
exactly 👍
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Agreed.
You expect them to be open to truth.
Not putting on a performance.
Otherwise what's the point?
Good and Evil are a concepts of a living God.
Not hidden if you're open & pay attention.
I posted on the Alex O'connor subreddit one time that I believe Alex will become Christian one day. They HATED me haha.
He won’t
@@Shaun36183 why?
Alex needs to talk with Peter Kreeft
I read from the way Fr. Gregory and Alex sit that they are very different.
Fr. Gregory was humble
Alex shows that he is smarter than everyone
I took it as him feeling very threatened. He was tense and covering soft areas. My conjecture is that he felt very outmatched by Fr Pine.
He might also have been feeling this given that all he had were very childish arguments that kept hedging bets, such as saying "it seems more likely" rather than "this is what I believe".
@@kelly4187Why isnt Fr. Pine looking at Alex?
@@kelly4187
Alex is inspired by the style of Jordan Peterson and Richard Dawkins 😂