Jonathan Pageau is a French Canadian icon carver, public speaker and RU-vidr exploring the symbolic patterns that underlie our experience of the world, how these patterns emerge and come together, manifesting in religion, art and in popular culture. He's also the editor of the Orthodox Arts Journal and host of the Symbolic World blog and podcast.
For more information and articles on symbolism check out The Symbolic World website linked above.
JV: You keep moving (authentically, and with love, but I do still say tryingly) to what seems to you to be the ground, closer and closer, of the Christian commitment (i.e. “So Jesus and Socrates can properly dwell together within me.”) that will reach a pivot of security so that Christians can genuinely feel the safety to come aboard unto what is calling you (and yes, more people than just you) as deeper ultimacy. But Pageau’s point about the practical/pragmatic “Go to church on Sundays and holy days, commune and sing and pray with our neighbors, go to charity events” side of true Christian commitment is, I take it, the Bulwark of Troth you’d actually need to attend to to find this common ground; the body. And this seems far from available by argument. The relevant ontological depths are more massive than the intellectual. It is economic, sociocultural, communal, material (and the material commits us in so many ways; from books to cathedrals to the decor that fuels decorum, to its great multiplicity and presence), comprised of friendships and family and sacred fellowship - a colossus of wetwork of identity that reeks, to Christians, of the potential for resurrection. If I am being honest, what is guiding you was likely able to win me over in large part because, initially, I had none of that to turn to. But people do have that to return to. There is secularization, but those who have remained this long remain because of this, and while secularization wore away at much of the secure ground that now motivates mass apologetics, what became very precious and worth preserving, for the sake of a future way, was the rest. (I hope those in the community here forgive me if I’ve overstepped.)
Vervaeke honestly already has an impersonal God - Darwinism. I think this is the problem with him and Jordan Petersen. They are so invested in Darwinism they can't posit the God of the Bible. Unless Darwinism is uprooted then there is no depth beyond mere concepts.
I thought it was wise how jonathan refrained a lot from speaking. Vervaeke at times was kind of asserting himself in ways that were sometimes inappropriate and maybe even rude but Jonathan didnt respond in any way at that level.
1:03:10 Does the infinite care about me? Emotionally, what a beautiful thing, if that were to be the case. Intellectually, I don't know what that means. I think for a Buddhist it's like a koan to realize, not something to take on faith.
1:02:08 "Does the infinite have a sense of humor?" might be one of the best challenges to Buddhism I've heard. I think the issue is that emptiness is both profoundly impersonal, as the essence of all being and non-being, but as the essence of humans (as opposed to, say, rocks), it is also personal, able to display qualities that might never appear otherwise. Is emptiness innately funny? Is God? I would say no, but given the occasion, it is there. The humor is there, the love is there. It's relational, it doesn't exist by itself.
am i a jerk that i don’t get why this conversation is that interesting? why do we care about the “philosophical silk road?” so much that it is this gigantic priority that MUST be addressed NOW? This idea that there are all of these people out there who are spiritually homeless and might be equally like to discover zen as christianity is suspect to me. mostly those people are going to find their way back to the primary tradition of their culture. seems like the greater evil is people swimming in a sea of spiritual limbo
Suffering is necessary for finite beings and the moral spectrum is enacted by finite beings. Reconciling to all that is the good for these beings is the ultimate map, where the worship of the progenitor of the good is what produces in such beings the logos in to the good. But we are incapable of bridge in to the good by worship is not enough ultimately for the finite to relate to the progenitor, but the logos being personified is the approachable bridge at the highest resolution for us.
I have learn the lot from John Vervaeke over the years and his insights are quite powerful... His questions are always deep and probing and provocative bringing out the best in Jonathan and in this case Jordan as well... Having said all that there's still remains what appears to be a deep deep wound at the heart of Vervaeke from his negative experiences with Christianity as a child and an almost desperate quality in many of his arguments. Jonathan does not proselytize and neither does Jordan from what I can tell... I get the impression that John is fighting demons he doesn't even know he has... Perhaps it's the source of his entire project. Regardless, I'm grateful for these conversations
@johnvervaeke, I think you touched the fundamental difference when you said that the infinite cannot be a person. You mentioned that person is not a good translation for hypostasis. This is the case in the early Christian era, but begins to change around the time of the 4th eccumenical council. It slowly begins to mean the persons of the Trinity, instead of "an instantiation." Personhood in humans is taken as the highest governing principle of what you are. It is beyond self identity, will, nature, ect. It is all of these things in relation to other persons and the source of personhood itself, which is God. The source of personhood has to be a person. Otherwise, personhood is not metaphysically grounded. Individuality as contrasted to personhood can be thought as the negative form of who you are. An individual is something in opposition to something else. It is this and not that. God is NOT an individual, but a communion of persons that consists of purely positive relational content. Our relationship to God grounds our personhood as real. The Christian life consists of shedding individuality for the sake of personhood, which is the image of God.
I feel like Christianity has to explain itself in so much detail and nuance that it can sometimes feel unnecessarily complicated. This creates difficulty for me when attempting to understand what I perceive as some of the more far-reaching claims. For example, what or who exactly is Jesus the product of? Is he a significant historical figure deified after his death, like Alexander the Great? Or is he simply God, in the sense of being the final product intended within the purpose of God's design? Or was he, in some sense, the fully actualized person-the perfect expression of virtue and wisdom? I could maybe accept that evolution leads to its final destination with the manifestation of the perfect sage or ideal man in the person of Christ, but it seems like there is a suggestion of something more supernatural occurring in the life of the historical Christ that I struggle to reach a final conclusion on.
🜂 Fire feeling 🜁 Air thinking thinking relates feelings. this is the key to a/rational integration. the same for 🜄 Water intuiting and 🜃 Earth sensing.
@55:22 Is this the grounding of your faith? Answer: No, because God is the active principle not the ego/self. The ego/self is the recipient of the active principle which operates outside /unconnected to and separate from the ego/self with a free will of its own.
1:24:39 Vervaeke: “The world needs some form of a common unity or else we’re in a lot of trouble.” I couldn’t stop thinking about this. It felt like Pageau and Hall let that big idea go nowhere. Hall mentions each person’s different calling. Do regions of the world have different callings? I think we need our diversity as a species. I’m proud to be a Christian American and yet it feels unhealthy for the whole world to turn into the West.
Faith for a Christian is obedience to that which they trust, whether by direct experience or trusting others who had, in the end trust requires reason of reality from experiences.
“To doubt them would be to invoke them to try and doubt them, kind of thing.” Vervaeke in a nutshell. Perfect example of when a person intellectualizes themselves into oblivion. Make sure to wear your helmet, John.
Why Christianity? Christ in the NT is the Redeemer, but Christianity is false teaching. I have a Ytube video 'Is Christianity the truth of the NT? No. Myths in so-called Christianity'.
When something becomes self referential it is already causing its own eventual demise; so what is the difference between an autocatalytic hurricane making landfall and an autopoetic mobster "making money" from an eschatological point of view? The larger picture of an egregore is that of a body of nations who continue to repeat the sacrifice of cain; eating their children in order to produce more children who eat their children. But the power of the egregore is its ability to piggyback an otherwise good pattern (principalities and powers and things like "fruitfulness"). They "ride a cloud" (a good pattern) in a way that brings disintegration and formlessness and void (a meaningless end). And lest we forget, these are monsters on a leash according to the book of Job.
So much affection for the 3 of you and the beautiful way it all rounded out at the end. The point that Jonathan and Jordan were making kept bringing me to tears. To know I am loved by God ; it just totally flaws me. The way that love rushes into the hidden parts , the shame filled parts of myself ..it’s so personal and lights me up. Thank you all so much ! Blessings.
Thank you for this thought, it's a direct answer from the most High to me today, on the rest day, the Holy Sabbath as well! As an artist l really struggled with the Why? As a person who has found a Friend in Jesus, (who is God, for if anyone questions that) l wondered in this modern art-days what l could do or make specifically. Staying true to myself and my knowledge and messages, and finding that bridge to the outside world. It still won't be a clear path ahead, but, symbols still talk to 'those that have an eye to see'. May God continually bless and guide you!
48:55 The droplet that dissolves back into Brahman does not lose its unique beingness, strangely enough. That's just a metaphor for one aspect of a greater truth.
Wow! I think I understand about 30% of the conversation but I still loved it. Gonna have this one on repeat because there were just so many golden nuggets dropped from everyone. Thanks for this talk.
Christianity guides one to bear life's burdens while immersing deeply in the world, all the while remaining aligned with God's will, cultivating a personal 'I-Thou' relationship with the divine. In contrast, Buddhism reveals our true nature as divine by transcending the illusion of duality. When these perspectives are combined, one can fully embrace the profound depth of existence, along with the boundless joy & play of life. This fusion allows a person to accept both their finite human limitations and their infinite cosmic identity, participating in the beauty and tragedy of life they wear both a tear and a smile.
47:20: It's commonly misunderstood that nirvana or enlightenment involves the ecstatic elimination of "me", but it famously doesn't. It involves the recognition that the "me" I take myself to be never truly existed in the first place, and that samsara and nirvana are actually united and interdependent. The subtlety is: never _truly_ existed.
John says he gets from Zen what the other two get in Christianity. I wish one them would have pointed out: Buddha said he wasn’t God, and Jesus did. Buddha said “don’t look to me look to my dharma (doctrine)”, but Jesus said “I AM the way, the truth and the light.” You can participate in love in either religion. But only Christ makes the credible claim of being the God who is Love itself. That’s the “why” of Christianity. With respect, you can’t get that from Zen Buddhism because it’s not there.
