[Music] well welcome everyone thanks for joining us today we're excited to host Bishop Robert Barron for this talk at Google as part of a series of talks that the Catholic community here in a range not only for itself but also for other religious or non-religious groups that we all so warmly welcomed Bishop Baron just flew in this morning all the way from LA to share a message that we believe to be very aligned with our core values here at Google especially in regards to respectful dialogue and respect respecting each other and each other's dignity who is Bishop Robert Barron though I'm glad you asked novice Bishop Robert Barron is the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and he's the founder of Borland Fire Catholic ministries his website word on fire org reaches millions of people each year and he's one of the world's most followed Catholics on social media along with Pope Francis and his regular YouTube videos have been viewed over 25 million times and he recently received the YouTube silver creator Awards so Bishop Baron is a number one best-selling author on Amazon and he's published numerous books essays and articles on theology and the spiritual life we have a few copies of his latest book to light a fire on the earth in the back to give away today please don't all rush over there right now but there will be time after the talk for a book signing and also Q&A again yeah so without further ado let's welcome a pizza bar thank you guys very much thanks well thank you very much thanks for that nice introduction and it really is a delight to be here at I mean you all know this one of the most significant cultural centers really in the world I've been very warmly received so thanks for the invitation thanks for the great hospitality I want to talk about religion and the opening up of the mind because very often religion sort of gets a bad rap as superstitious it's sub rational it's opposed to the mind I'm gonna argue Oh contraire just the contrary that religion authentically construed is meant to open up the mind and the will okay that's my my goal today you know a term that now is common parlance but didn't exist when I was a young man is a search engine and here we are at the headquarters of the most popular and powerful search engine on the planet and our fingertips now quite literally is almost all the knowledge all the wisdom information that the human race has accumulated and we can just press a button and up it comes just recently I was with a older friend of mine and he was mentioning the 1937 World Series and he was convinced that game three ended with a certain score but wasn't sure what it was I said well let's check mr. Google so of course we did and up came the information about Game three of the 1937 World Series not that long ago as with someone else and we were wondering about a passage in the Divine Comedy of Dante and of course we're able to find it very quickly here's one that was maybe a few in the room old enough to remember the show f-troop remember that from the 60s well this is that good a few of you with some friends from my you know era and we're arguing about the character than f-troop I said well let's ask mr. Google so up came the carrot here's not an F Troop so you know that that we have really at this extraordinary civilizational moment the capacity to access the wisdom of the race now see search engine search engine triggers for me an awful lot of resonances with religion the mind by an inner instinct is restless even relentlessly so right the mind searches for truth and it finds it finds a particular truth like the ones I just mentioned but does the mind ever rest at that point no no the minute we find some truth usually twelve more questions emerge think of the way we all surf the web right we go looking for something but it leads us somewhere else than somewhere else somewhere else again and then we find all this so fascinating we forget what we were originally looking for the mind is restless even relentlessly so it never rests or if it does it's the way a climber might rest on the side of the mountain just to catch his breath before heading back up right it searches it searches the more it knows the more it wants to know my great intellectual hero is Saint Thomas Aquinas and he spoke in the thirteenth century of the intellectus odd gems that's his Latin and usually it's transliterated and English as the agent intellect which sounds rather you know cold seem odd gems in Latin is a participle doing making moving intellect Asad Jones is the restless searching mind now where's it going the intellectus odd gems what's it looking for here I love the the one-liner from the great Jesuit philosopher Bernhard lonergan lonergan says it's very simple the mind wants to know everything about everything now Google this should be familiar to you right but that's the natural dynamism of the mind not to know just this particular truth or that not just the conglomeration of all particular truths the mind wants to know everything about everything it wants not just particular truths it wants the truth itself it wants the source of reality itself that's how hungry the mind is another lonergan line is is there's an emptiness like the emptiness of a box it's kind of a dumb emptiness just waiting to be filled but there's also the emptiness of the stomach it's empty but it knows what it wants the mind is empty at the beginning of life but not like a box more like a stomach intellectus odd Jen searching searching until it comes to its fulfillment only in knowing everything about everything the very source of reality okay true of the mind equally true of the will the second great dynamic of the human spirit the will now the will seeks not the true but the good so right now everyone in this room we're all seeking the good in some way so I'm seeking the good of speaking view you're seeking I hope you find it some good in in my talk you know we talked about final causality Aristotle made that distinction right between efficient causality like a pushing cause think of all the physical sciences the modern Sciences are based upon an efficient causality where do things come from what brings them into being but final causality Aristotle thought was more important that's the pulling cause right what what attracts or lures things now that's a talk for another day we had we could debate final causality in nature but I think no one would would disagree that final causality obtains in our world that we human beings are drawn by the good it lures our wills okay but remember the intellect asaji ins the restless seeking never satisfied mind same is true of the will notice how any act of the will can be analyzed in a kind of Russian doll manner do I mean the one downside the other that every particular act of the will if we think about it is situated in a broader and wider act of the will which in turn is in a broader and wider broader and wider etc I want to talk about think about getting out of bed in the morning right so it's an act of the will unless you fell out of bet but if you get out of bed in the normal way it's an act of the will you're seeking a good to start your day but see that good Ness in a higher good why do you get out of bed well I want to get to work okay why do you want to get to work well I need to make money well why need to make money well I want to support myself and my family why do you want support yourself and your family well supporting my family leads to their flourishing well why do you want that because my family flourishing makes me happy and I want to be happy all the time and in an unconditioned way just as the mind won't rest until it knows everything about everything so the will doesn't rest until it finds an unconditioned happiness now let me analyze any act of the will that way I set my car to the mechanic well how come so the car will run better well why do you want that so I can get to work and I'll do that analysis or so I can get to my friends more easily but why do you want that well being with my friends is a great good that makes me happy and I want to be happy all the time and an unconditioned way I go to a basketball game this is kind of easier to analyze well why do you want that well because basketball is interesting and beautiful and contemplating it makes me happy and I want to be happy all the time and in an unconditioned way see the the will if we analyze it sufficiently is conditioned by a desire for beatitude oh I'm using this latin term on purpose because it was thomas aquinas his term happiness beatrice means happy and laughs beatitude oh is the happiness i'm talking about which is not the happiness that comes from a particular act of the will like hey I went to you know Bishop barrows talk I was okay I liked it you know it made me happy in a very limited way okay I'll be I'll be happy if that's true but then Zi analyze any act including this one and you'll eventually get to the design higher at the ground of the will for beatitude Oh unconditioned happiness now here's the interesting thing everybody prior to modernity prior to the rise of the sciences the principal question that preoccupied the minds of the best and brightest people in the West was the nature of beatitude Oh see what what is it so we all want it and that's true by the way of the of the religious believer of the agnostic the atheist everybody wants beatitude oh it's the first mover of the will so what is it and can I submit to you there is no question more important than that and and see one of the tragedies I think of our time is so often we bracket that question because we're so preoccupied with the achievements of our of Sciences and God bless them I'm all in favor of them don't get me wrong but we tend to bracket the question that prior to modernity the best and brightest people thought was the most important what is this beatitude oh that all of us at least implicitly are seeking okay and I want to give you a little bit now of Thomas Aquinas his analysis of this you can find it by the way in the very beginning of the second part of his great Summa theologia his summary of theology he was interesting many years ago there was a prominent Catholic Cardinal who had a little quip that he often used he said good morality is like good art it begins with a drawing of a line now it's it's a clever line but I think actually it's wrong because that's not the way Aquinas stars the drawing of a line like a law and I'm in favor of it don't get me wrong we have to get to drawing some drawing of lines but Aquinas begins not with the law that happens in question 99 0 question 1 question 1 and here is just like all his pre-modern of colleagues question 1 what is beatitude Oh what is the happiness that is luring our wills ok so he does a kind of process of elimination he looks at for classical candidates what great people have said and thought about the nature of beatitude Oh so first he says some people claim that wealth is beatitude oh to be rich sufficiently to be sufficiently wealthy that's the B attitude oh that finally I'm seeking now is that a legitimate position well in a way I mean I get it lots of very smart people have said that and may I submit in our culture especially you can find an awful lot of people I think that hold to that if I just have enough you know money in the bank I have a big enough house nice enough cars I have a commodious life I'll be happy and that's in fact what I'm always implicitly desiring and all my acts of the will true acquaintance says no wealth is it good but it can't be the unconditioned good how come let's just look what does wealth mean he says wealth and the natural sense means and I give there's a quote here that makes it sound kind of contemporary he says wealth serves as a remedy for our natural wants such as food drink clothing cars dwellings and such like that's from the thirteenth century but it sounds like today doesn't it I mean that what's what is wealth give me it's a remedy for natural wants so these natural wants like I'm hungry I'm thirsty I I'm uncomfortable and so wealth gives me food drink clothing cars dwellings and such like goods yeah but it can't be the ultimate good why why because Thomas says those things are the condition for the possibility of much higher goods and think about of a second you know once you've discovered you've found enough food and drink you've got a shelter you're living in a sort of comfortable commodious way then you can aspire to philosophy and science and friendship and conversation these higher Goods wealth is a proximate good it can't be there for the ultimate good so that can't be beatitude Oh what we're all implicitly seeking okay others have said beatitude Oh happiness consists in honors now think about for a second how many societies both of east and west around the world trans historically how many societies are predicated upon honor and shame right that the worst thing you can experience is to be shamed and therefore concomitant ly the best thing is to be honored and I know lots of people whose lives are pretty much centered around the quest for honor to be thought highly of to be given titles and prerogatives right to be held up okay is honor though beatitude oh and Aquinas says no it can't be why because honoree says is like a flag that we put on something good noble and virtuous so you notice someone who's got great ability or their or their leading a virtuous life and you want to put a flag on that to say hey everybody look at that that's worth emulating that's honor so think of titles and positions and prerogatives and so on signs of respect they are flags of virtue or nobility therefore they're derivative they're secondary what matter is much more than honor are the things that are being honored namely your virtue nobility and so on therefore honor good things sure but it can't be beatitude oh it can't be the happiness that deep down we're all seeking okay oh but here's another indication that honor can't be the ultimate good notice Aquinas says who in society is being honored the most are they the very best people the question answers itself doesn't age to age think of the people who get the most attention the most adulation are they in fact the best again it answers itself others have said you know what be attitude oh is its power power and again this has a lot of weight across the ages lots of impressive important people have argued for this and deep down there are a lot of people age after age who do indeed seek power as their ultimate good you know go back to the Tolkien movies and the great Tolkien novels what's the ring but a ring of power right what are they seeking what's everybody drawn to talk about final causality right the minute the ring gets near anybody what's the ring of power it is indeed something that we all seek I think in our culture too I would correlate power and freedom very strongly you know for Americans or many Westerners what's the supreme value but freedom well you want freedom but but power right it don't try it on me don't get in my way let me do what I want to do go where I want to go accomplish what I want to accomplish and isn't it true that we hate it when people take away our freedom I do I hate it whether that's in a physical sense of psychological sense of spiritual sense and so ok power does seem to be something very alluring known as to please so keep talking in mind but also keep in mind in the Gospels the great story of the temptation of Jesus what's the highest temptation the 3rd temptation the devil takes him to a high place and shows him what all the kingdoms of the world in one glance and all these I will give you if you but bow down and worship me it's a temptation to power isn't it so it is alluring but is it beatitude Oh Aquinas says no it can't be why very simple reason power ii says is a source of activity that allows us to attain an end but beatitude o is an end the city means beyond whatever this beatitude o is it's something that I'm going for that I want it's a good that's out there power is terrific as a means of attaining ends right you give me the power to do this the power to do that the power to attain but power in itself is not what you want it's the good that power gives you access to right therefore power can't in itself be beatitude oh okay so it's not wealth not honor not power here's the fourth great candidate and I think everybody from a spiritual standpoint it's really helpful analysis because all of us were all sinners in this room I trust we're all beguiled by these things in some way we all tend to mistake these for beatitude oh so the fourth one Thomas says is pleasure now this is a very old philosophical position it's called hedonism and don't make fun of hedonism is just like you know eat drink and be merry hedonism is a very noble of classical position that says what we all seek deep down is pleasure now it could be pleasure in food and drink and so on but also pleasure in the arts pleasure in sports pleasure in in knowledge etc so it can be a more refined form of hedonism but that pleasure it seems is this ultimate good it seems to be beatitude oh yeah might seem that way so the kindness but it can't be how come because pleasure he says is a side effect of something much more fundamental so when I achieve some physical well-being I experience pleasure as a as a happy side effect but it's the health of the body that's really substantive or when I make some great spiritual intellectual cultural attainment I might feel a rush of pleasure accompanying that but the pleasure is just derivative isn't it from the the substantive accomplishment so pleasure can't be it okay so we know we all want beatitude Oh everyone in this room again this is religious non-religious believer atheist everybody wants beatitude o otherwise you would not get out of bed in the morning so what is it what is it that's not well if it's not power it's not pleasure it's not honor Thomas says the desire for happiness for beatitude o is an infinite desire remember I said we want to be happy all the time and in an unconditioned way don't we I don't want to start over some proximate good some limited mitigated good I want goodness itself and therefore he concludes beatitude o cannot be any good in this world of wealth pleasure power on or anything else none of that can satisfy this longing of the soul and of the heart this questing this searching for beatitude oh it is only in God listen to his quote hence it's evident that nothing can lull a person's will save the universal good and this is to be found not in any creature but in God alone now can I submit to you everybody this is is the the moral wisdom of the great biblical tradition and the roots of this go way back into the Scriptures themselves but this is the way Aquinas analyzes it philosophically what we want cannot be met by anything in this world just as what the mind wants see it does not correspond to any particular bit of knowledge within the world the mind wants to know unconditioned truth the will wants the unconditioned good that hunger is that the source of religion it seems to me that opening up of the questing mind and heart is what it's all about okay now can I turn from that little philosophical analysis to the Bible and I want to share with you a story that I've always loved and I think it speaks precisely to this point it's a story from the first book of kings in the Old Testament destroyed dealing with Elijah and the priests of Baal now as I tell the story you might remember during this period Israel had gone over to false worship so King Ahab remember so Melville calls his you know Captain Ahab and pork abhinaya because we hear in the Bible that a hab is worse than all the kings of Israel combined and and knowing the rogues gallery of the kings of Israel that's saying a mouthful right so Ahab is a really bad guy more to it his wife Jezebel has now drawn him into the worship of false gods so Elijah the prophet rises up we know nothing about him except he's from the little town of tisha now talked to specialists historians of the ancient world they don't know where Tish PO was so we know nothing about Elijah he suddenly appears on the scene and he challenges a.m. he says you know the drought were having here in this country it's because of the false worship tree interesting thing now in the Bible never read the punishments of God is somehow arbitrary God's is having a bad day and so he's imposing this arbitrary no no it's spiritual physics the garden go back to the beginning what's the garden symbolic of but flourishing the flourishing that God wants for his people Adam and Eve expelled from the garden not capriciously arbitrarily but as spiritual physics when we fall away from God we tend to fall into lifelessness that's the point and so the drought now of it Elijah points out is a function of false worship now let me just I'm gonna dwell on that for a second keep Aquinas in mind and beatitude oh and the seeking of the good right and keep in mind those substitutes for beatitude oh wealth pleasure honor power the very beginning of the book of Genesis we hear about God making the heavens and the earth right and everything's coming forth in this orderly manner mind you please not science hi poetry and this is right so as things come forth in this orderly way let there be light and there was light let the earth come forth that came forth let the earth know teem with animals and so on and so forth Stars and the planets all come forth in this orderly procession from God two basic moves are being made here symbolically first of all the author is dethroning all these false claimants to divinity think for a second of you know the planets and the moon and the stars mountains animals the river etc what do they all have in common they were all at one point or another worshiped in the ancient world these are all God's worthy of worship the author of Genesis is saying no no no no no these are all creatures of God not God don't worship them are they good yes and the conglomeration indeed is very good but they're not God don't worship them now here's the second point he's making and here that the Catholics will understand what I'm talking about as these things come forth in an orderly manner one after the other in a stately procession was that remind you of it should remind you a bit of the mass and of the way the ministers of the mass process in well the mass of course the roots go way back into the into the Jewish temple rituals and so on right there's the idea nothing in the world is God don't worship them but everything in the world is meant to turn to God in right praise as the purpose of creation is to turn to God and right praise and who comes at the end of this procession well there's the human beings right Adam and Eve who comes at the end of a liturgical procession but the priest or the bishop the one who's going to lead the ah that's the idea dethrone all false claimants to divinity nothing in the world is God don't worship those things but rather let all those things be part of a great chorus of praise led by human beings who can give voice to the praise of creation that makes sense that's the biblical vision that's the biblical vision right praise I love this connection that you know the word adoration from two Latin words that were odd or rotc Oh odd hora or amis mouth right ah Dora is mouth to mouth to adore God is to be mouth to mouth with God it means lined up aligned see under the power of God in that stance we find who we are another little bit emoji thing worship right our word worship go back now like Chaucerian times an older English form is worth ship what's the highest worth that's what you worship now again let's me everybody there's believer or non-believer everybody this is above this is religious person atheist everybody in this room worship something there's something of highest worth to you remember beatitude Oh everyone's seeking happiness everyone there's no way around that what is it what is it and see that the author of Genesis is saying don't let anything in the world be the object of your worth-ship but God alone wealth pleasure honor power any creaturely thing that will not lead you to the beatitude oh that you want but only the right praise of God and can I submit you I think that's lesson one of the Bible it's what the Bible is about from Genesis to Revelation it's about right praise and don't interpret that in a fussy way but rather in this deep sort of metaphysical way right praise means the right ordering of one's life worth shipping God alone when you do that where do you live in a garden that means you live in a place of life when you stop worth shipping God alone welcome to the desert that's the biblical symbolism okay so with all that in mind go back now to Elijah and and King Ahab he says the trouble here Ahab is you're worshipping false gods it's always the problem right fellow sinners right that's always the problem I'm worth shipping something other than God well as they have happy about this no no he says get lost you troubler of Israel and Elijah again all we know about him is his name but you know his name means it tells you everything Eliyahu in Hebrew Elijah Eliyahu means Yahweh is my God - his whole being is summed up in him I don't worship Benny for anybody but Yahweh Yahweh's my god Eliyahu and so he prophetically challenges a.m. he's what he says he's it look you get all the priests and prophets of Baal so the the gods that they were worshipping and let's all go to Mount Carmel and I'm gonna go up there and let's have a let's have a challenge and so the 450 priests of Baal go up Mount Carmel and then the one Elijah right now in that there's an important lesson to the avatars of the false gods are always thick on the ground true then uh-huh true today yes wealth pleasure honor power by the way the avatars of those things are they everywhere uh-huh they're always thick on the ground the representative of God tend to be much smaller number so the one Elijah against the four and fifty priests of Baal and then of course that wonderful story unfolds which actually is quite funny and the friends of mine who know Hebrew really well I don't know what that well will tell me that the humor really comes out in the in the Hebrew let me read you some of those some of the lines so the the priests of Baal set up the altars right and then they begin to supplicate and to beg and to pray that their gods will come and send fire to consume the sacrifice because that was the challenge right you call on your gods and see what happens and I'll call in mine and we'll see which one responds right so they begin to to beg and so on and Elijah around midday begins to mock them because they know fire is coming to answer there he mocks them cry louder but all is a god but you know he may be detained and talked or maybe he's lodging abroad or maybe he's on a journey or maybe he's fallen asleep and needs awakening so he's mocking them the priests of Baal and now they're kind of stunned by this and so then they take out swords we hear and they they slashed themselves till they bleed that was a sign of greater supplication right and still they beg and still they cajole and still no fire falls then Elijah comes forward to his altar he says hear me O Lord hear me prove to all the people that thou art the Lord God and are calling their hearts back to thee and with that we hear the fire comes down consumes the sacrifice Elijah wins ok but here's what I want you all to see please that this is not just a you know my God is bigger than your God it's not just kind of a chauvinistic story this is making the same point that Thomas Aquinas was making it seems to me look everybody's got a hungry heart right Bruce Springsteen taught us that saying the same thing everyone's got a hungry heart everybody wants beatitude oh so what do we do we worship something everybody does it paul tillich the protestant theologian said that all you need to know about a person you can learn by asking one question what do you worship it's dead right it seems to me it's all because your life will be organized around what you take to be the highest value so think of the priests above all no think if you want of for altars erected to wealth pleasure power honor what do most of us sinners do most of the time is we hop around one or more of those altars we worship one or more of these things I mean everyone can tell the story right I know lots of young people that got very early on the train toward wealth and they worshiped it they devoted themselves to it they hopped around the altar did it satisfy them no it can't and we just saw why see because the hunger is infinite and no amount of wealth is gonna satisfy that so what happens then you get addicted you see why I'm searching for wealth and I got it I got my first million by thirty or whatever it is you know and I got a little buzz from that as you do but then the buzz wears off it has to cuz you're not you're not built for that and when the buzz wears off I better go back to that altar I better keep worth shipping there I better keep hopping around that altar and I get my first 10 million by 40 or whatever a goal you have and and the buzz comes back but what will any addict tell you we're all addicts in this room by the way cuz we're all sinners well will any addict tell you the buzz well we're all faster right and so now I panic remember the slashing themselves with the names till they're bleeding that will harm ourselves in the process of hopping around this altar power same thing same dynamic talk to people who very early on got hooked on power that's what will make me happy so I'm gonna worth-ship at that alter the attitude oh man that's its power that's what I want and I get power whatever it was I'm going for by the age of 30 you know and I get a buzz from it but it wears off it has to so I get more and more and I hop and I cajoled and then before I know what I'm addicted to such a degree that I'm harming myself in the process same with honors talk to anybody who's that mad train I never get enough attention they don't appreciate me why did he get that job why do I not have the honors I deserve I've been worth shipping at that altar all my life people will say it's not designed to satisfy you because beatitude o is not found there what is the lied you representing again don't think of it so much you know how chauvinistic Li and nationalistic Li what is it Elisha represent but the worth shipping the worshipping of the true God the infinite truth the infinite goodness of God when you order your life that way listen out the fire will fall that's the point then the fire will fall because now you hooked your infinite desire under the properly infinite object and the fire will fall and consume the sacrifice of your life and make it radiant and and bring it to it to a heightened fulfillment there's the Bible that's the lesson the Bible has for us which is relevant in 2018 as it ever was because I can introduce you you all know this you do the same thing introduce you to dozens and dozens of people that I know who are hopping around these four altars right it's only true worship that will give me satisfaction okay I'd make one more little step and then we'll bring it to a close here's what gets I think really interesting so so God alone will satisfy the deepest hunger my heart okay got that I've got to get God in me right to satisfy my desire for beatitude oh but who is God in the biblical reading God is love all right st. John tells us that and that's a distinctively Christian idea because it's not that God simply loves or that God has the attribute of love it's what God is Father Son Holy Spirit by the way lover beloved and shared love that's who God is is love so here's the paradox only and God is my soul at rest only when I have God in me do I have B attitude oh but God is love therefore only when I give away what God gives me do I have the B attitude oh that I seek love is willing the good of the other love is giving away and so as the divine life comes into me what do I do with it don't hang on to it now we read the prodigal son if you want the physics there right father give me my share coming to me give me me me me give it to me so I can have it what happens to them fritters away not arbitrary punishment that's spiritual physics you try to hang on to it you'll lose it but when you give away the divine life that's flowing into you now it increases in you thirty sixty and a hundredfold right you get the love that God is in you by giving it away is any way this Christian thing is so hard to get because it's so counterintuitive fellow sinners in this room what's our hang-up look I'm unhappy we all are by the way I don't mean psychologically depressed I mean we're all unhappy we're all we're all unsatisfied in this room so I know I know I'm missing something that's it I'm missing requisite wealth pleasure power or honor right that's our instinct I got to get more of that I got to fill myself up that's never the answer that's never the answer in fact that's counter it indicated that will lead to addiction and unhappiness rather contrived a way to give your life away and you'll find the B attitude oh that you're actually seeking Sam something about the questing mind and the searching heart when they open up to the infinite source of love that's when they find that B attitude oh they seek so how about just give st. Augusta in the last word if you go back to the great confessions of st. Augusta one of the you know master works of the of the Western world page one you'll find this little pithy statement of Christian anthropology Lord you've made us for yourself therefore our heart is restless until it rests in thee there's no better statement of what I've been trying to say all this talk Lord you've made us for yourself that's see the infinite hunger we're not gonna get like a dog satisfied its basic needs and goes blissfully to sleep utterly happy terrific that's what dogs designed for we're not designed that way Lord you made us for yourself we've got an infinite longing therefore this is beautiful in agustin therefore our heart he says he didn't say Cordia our hearts he says cor Nostrum see what he means is we've all got this in common this links everybody together cor Nostrum our heart is restless until it rests in thee and that means conformed unto love that's beatitude oh thanks everybody thanks for listening Thank You bishop very good please so we're gonna have Q&A right now so Davao is over there he's gonna run around with a mic if there's any live questions and I will read out some questions from the dory so let's start with one from the dory we have John Nolan and Mountain View asking when scientists and atheist talk about religion they seem to be stuck rehashing debates of previous centuries evolution age of the earth heliocentrism what can be done to convince science minded skeptics that religious belief systems have something valuable to offer in the 21st century yeah good it's a question I wrestle with all the time first of all all the things they've raised there from my perspective as a Catholic are nine issues so helping people how old is the earth don't ask me ask a scientist how did how did biological things develop don't ask me ask an evolutionary biologist those are scientific questions properly so the Bible is not science right the last book of the Bible is written around the Year 100 AD the first scientific texts are in the let's say 16th century the Bible is not science it simply isn't its spirituality and theology making very profound observations that are truthful about the nature of reality but not in a scientific mode so first of all to give science its total do that we're not in a conflictual relationship but in the second move is this to overcome our terrible tendency in our culture towards scientism and scientism is the reduction of all knowledge to the scientific form of knowledge right so what the scientific method can give us I love the scientific method and look around us I mean what is produced god bless it but we shouldn't reduce all forms of knowledge to what can be delivered by the scientific method get out of Plato's cave if you want to go back to the to the Republic of Plato get out of the realm of simply looking at shadows on the wall and come to much higher levels of reality accessed I would argue through metaphysics and through philosophy and so there I would give science its total do right and then we're not in a conflictual game with the sciences but also not to allow the sciences to draw everything into themselves so that's it that's a quick answer to a subtle of set of questions there please if anyone has a question just raise your hand okay so beatitude oh and the way you describe it with it's necessary longing and desire and journeying towards it eastern ideas like the Four Noble Truths say that this is in fact something that we can move past that it's not completely Universal and that moving past this desire and this longing is in fact a viable path towards enlightenment is there a way to resolve those Eastern ideas with what you said today or is that a fundamental difference yeah it's a good question of course it would take us you know a year to search it out completely but I think that that's right there's a key difference because it's the it's the quieting of desire you know Nirvana it's the blowing out of the candle of desire that is the goal of the Buddhist tradition and desire in a way is the problem you know born of ego and so on and so you know dependent coronation and through intense meditation one finds that point of putting out desire where the Christian thing and Agustin is is typical here if not putting out desire but awakening and is and directing desire appropriately now I think we can play as Thomas Merton did the true self all self game and that's that's a good way I think to dialogue with with Buddhism is there a false self that's full of all kinds of weird and errant desires yeah and that should be put to death blow that out if you want blow out the candle of that kind of desire but I would say is a Christian there's not just that there's also a properly directed desire an awakened and heightened desire but yeah you're onto I think a very fundamental point of demarcation but I think true self false self might give us a Christian analogy to the blowing out of errant desire but we wouldn't go so far as to say that desire quod desire is the problem it's it's you know des lieux Bach talks about this the Claudia Castillo mistake he is this weird I'm crippling of desire that's the problem but that's a great question it's the point of demarcation I think please go ahead we have another question on the Dory from Mike rile in Mountain View with the growth of technology and the development of a globalized community what's the most important thing that we can do as a group of people dedicated to the advancement of technology to ensure that our ethical and moral growth as global population doesn't fall behind our technological growth that's a really good question terrific and I'm glad it's raised so you understand the dynamic there that we get so enthusiastic about our technological advances and again god bless them they're wonderful you know but they must always be properly haunted by the moral question and the moral question is the question of love finally I will speak as a Christian to love is to will the good of the other right not my good through you but your good I want what's good for you that's love and love must always dominate love must always be the primary consideration and so as our technology advances is it in service of love you know Saint Agustin said love God and do what you want on this point there was as long as love is thoroughly dominant in your life then then the rest will take care of itself so then your technological life will find its proper place so that's terrific I'm glad that ethical spiritual question is raised or else our technology will destroy us because that's the thing look at wealth pleasure outer power they'll turn on us see if we don't know how to manage them spiritually they'll manage us again sound familiar every Center in this room including me we know what that's about they start managing us you know but we need to have the sovereignty of love and then these things find their proper place that's good please go ahead please okay hi I think you might have already partially answered my question but you know the during the course of your your talk it sounds as okay there's the created world and ways so you know basically worship or love those things and then there's God and is there only is there a way to love God I mean there's so many of us we're all so different is there a one way or is there is there you know how do we find our way to love God is there are there seven castles that we should be aware of or or are we so different that we have to make our own way that's good I mean you're talking there about the spiritual tradition and you're making reference actually to Teresa of Avila and so on the interior castle and there are different paths that spiritual masters have laid out and so we can find some of those general categories everyone is different everyone's got a unique personality everyone falls in love with God differently you know I would like to say John of the Cross who's one of the great masters where John said don't use the image of climbing the holy mountain which a lot of us will use like you know God's up there I got to find my way to get to him but rather God wants nothing more than to move into your life in a saving way right in a life-giving way so the idea John the Cross is to clear the ground so the helicopter can land so I don't think I got to get up that mountain and there's God distantly out there and looking judgmentally at me as I strive to get up the mountain rather no gods I get a helicopter who wants to land in my heart but there are obstacles in the way there's their stuff in the way and I would say you know there's forms of false worship in the way clear those out so the helicopter can land so it's like have the conference that no God wants in my heart that's all he wants you know and I might just get out of the way enough it'll happen you know now that's everyone's got their own hang-ups and problems that they have to deal with but I think that's a basic of strategy please dessert I think we'll just do one more question from the dory and one more live question and then we'll call it so Eloisa wolf from Mexico is asking how do you see our as Catholic employees at Google well she'd know better than I she's an employee you know I first of all this you'd be a person of love that whatever you find yourself I go with the little flower two residues ooh you know who's her so-called little way don't read that as something kind of twee and sentimental the little way means in any situation find the opportunity for love and love again it's not a sentiment it means willing the good of the other so wherever you are in whatever condition you're sick you're in prison you're at work or wherever you are what's the path of love find it and walk it so that's what I'd say to Catholics at Google is walk the path of love as fully as you can but then you know if you want to press the thing always be open as we here in first Peter to give a reason for the hope that's in you so if someone is curious about your faith your Catholicism be ready to provide answers we're going through a kind of a golden age right now of apologetics I think it's because the New Atheism I think it awakened a lot of religious people to you know we got to defend ourselves here and make the case to a skeptical public so a lot of good material out there learn it so that when people approach you maybe curiously have something to say to them so those two things love first and then be ready to give a reason for the hope it's in you please um would you mind sharing with us one way in which you've personally experienced God in your life yeah well I mean first and foremost every day when I say Mass I mean is the most powerful but I'll tell you when I was 14 it was hearing one of Thomas Aquinas his arguments for God's existence so I was a Catholic kid going to Mass but I wasn't all that interested in religion and it was I was a freshman in high school and I see as I see Dominican in the back of the room a Dominican friar in our religion class laid out for us one of Thomas's arguments and honestly I I never thought you could think about religion seriously to me was it's like yeah I go to Mass on Sunday but I never thought about it until that moment I thought wow that's a very intriguing presentation and it led me on this quest that I'm still on and that's quite true that was years ago but I've never left that path and that's where I really say God and I look at it now in a decisive way kind of entered my life and set me on a path that I'm still on standing before you today good god bless you all thank you very much for coming you you