April 9, 2025 • 51 mins
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What makes Christianity fundamentally different from every other religion in human history? Matthew McKenna, Ph.D candidate in theology at Ave Maria University, joins Jack for a fascinating journey through G.K. Chesterton's masterpiece "The Everlasting Man" to answer this crucial question.
Read Matthews Article "How to Compare Religions"
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I'm excited to be with Matthew McKenna.
Matthew wrote an article how toCompare Religions with the
Catholic Exchange.
Those of you who follow theshow I know that I like to write
for the Catholic Exchangemyself, so I like to stay up
with those authors, especiallythese young guys that are
reaching young hearts.
Before I bring Matthew on, Iwant to just touch on a sponsor
(00:34):
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Aim operates without a quota,so you can request a no-pressure
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See the show notes for myfriend TJ Lawley's direct phone
number.
I'll have a link in there fortheir website and be sure to
(01:37):
tell them that Jack said hello.
Just spoke to him not too longago, matthew.
It's so good to be with you,brother.
Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It's good to be not too long ago, matthew.
It's so good to be with you,brother, thank you for having me
on.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
It's good to be here too.
Yeah, so we were just talkingbefore we came on.
Why don't you tell everybodywhere you're at right now and
what you're studying?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So I'm a PhD student in theology at Ave Maria
University in Florida.
I'm about to defend mydissertation in the next couple
of months, and that isexplaining why only men can be
priests, based on, well, whatmasculinity is.
So, basically, I'm writingabout the priesthood and
masculinity.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, and I just I got you know.
Everybody knows that welaunched Claymore for young
people.
I was just telling Matthewabout it before we came on, so I
have to have him back to talkabout what he calls the
masculine genius and thepriesthood.
A very, very exciting time.
And you know, matthew, the samething with today's topic,
though.
(02:30):
When we're speaking to youngpeople, old people, everybody.
It's a confusing time.
And you wrote this article howto Compare Religions.
It's really showing thatChristianity is different.
And you did so by visiting oneof my favorite friends of all
time, who is GK Chesterton.
For people that aren't familiarwith GK Chesterton, he's kind
(02:54):
of a one-of-a-kind guy too.
I mean an incredible way thathe expresses himself, the
thoughts that he has.
He only had a high schooleducation at GK Chesterton, but
a mind was just all over theplace Amazing.
So, matthew, how did you end upwriting the article?
And, of course, tell us alittle bit more about your
(03:14):
background, because they'll knowwhy you're also enamored with
GK Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
My love for Chesterton began quite
unexpectedly.
I was told by my boss, the headof my theology department that
I work for and teach in.
You're going to teach a classon Chesterton in the spring, and
I was like well, I readOrthodoxy once in my life I read
.
Everlasting man once in my life.
Do I remember what they'reabout?
Not really.
Let me go back and read.
And so I just prepared to teacha class.
(03:41):
I dived in and started reading.
I think I read Orthodoxy abouta dozen times in the three
months leading up to the springsemester so I could teach it
well and a ton of other booksabout him and I just absolutely
fell in love.
That fundamentally changed myoutlook on life and
fundamentally changed mytheology, my philosophy.
Just totally fell in love withChesterton, his way of thinking.
(04:01):
I think it's extremely practical, extremely useful, extremely
timely.
He was writing 100 years ago,an absolute prophet.
He foresaw the Nazis coming topower and almost everything they
were going to do, hitler'shatred for the Jews.
He foresaw it all.
And then, of course, he diedbefore World War II ever started
, in like 36 or 37.
He died something like that,but he foresaw everything.
He was a great prophet, a totalmaster of the Catholic tradition
(04:23):
.
Like you said, he only had ahigh school diploma but he read
everything.
He was just a vicious readerread everything.
It seems to have kind of had adeep understanding of everything
he read too, if you read someof his books in the time he was
writing.
The mode wasn't to constantlymention your sources and mention
oh, by the way, I'm respondingto this person.
(04:43):
Oh, by the way, I learned fromthis person.
Mode wasn't to give citations,but you can see he's involved,
like referencing everybody everAristotle, plato, thomas
Descartes, kant, nietzsche.
He mentions Nietzsche by namesometimes, but he's thinking and
engaging with everybody.
So when you read something likeorthodoxy, you're engaging with
the entire intellectualtradition of the West in 200
(05:03):
pages.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Wow, that's a great way to sum that up.
I never really thought of itthat way, but you're exactly
right.
That is huh how did he get allthat Matthew into that brain
right Just by reading.
High school education.
But yeah, he must have been aferocious reader, huh, yeah, so
I love Chesterton got intoferocious reader, huh, yeah,
(05:24):
yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
So I love Chesterton, got into Chesterton
tremendously and ever since thenI've taught the class multiple
times now and Chesterton comesup in everything I do.
My students are always hearingme talk about Chesterton and
everything I write Chestertonshows up somewhere, probably.
And so what?
He has the kind of point of thebigger book, his main, his
magnum opus, his great work,everlasting man, which is also
(05:48):
like the only book he reallythoroughly edited Orthodoxy.
He didn't really edit, he justwrote it and sent it off and
published it.
But the one book he reallyworked on for a longer period of
time and thought through areally, really deep layer and
edited is Everlasting man.
That's like his main work, so tospeak, and the point of
Everlasting man is to show, well, christianity is one true faith
, the Catholicism was one truefaith, and so in the process of
(06:11):
that, he gives a method for howwe can compare religions,
compare belief systems, and Ithink that's just incredibly
useful for us today, when thereare so many ideologies and
things being put out to us aslive options, options, and
there's so much discussion ofwhat's the truth, faith, where,
where's the truth be found,isn't an orthodoxy, isn't
catholicism, proselytism, islam.
(06:31):
I had a friend who was grew upa prostitute, went to iraq as a
soldier, converted to muslim, toislam, then came back to
america as an islam muslim, theneventually became orthodox like
a greek orthodox christian andthen eventually went back to
pros as a Muslim, theneventually became Orthodox like
a Greek Orthodox Christian andthen eventually went back to
Protestantism.
So just all over the placepeople are just so many options
out there.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I'm surprised you could go back to and look it, we
have evangelicals andProtestants listening to this
show, yeah.
So I'm always careful.
They're good friends of mine.
I gave a presentation lastnight with a good, a great,
actually evangelical friend, butI'm surprised, after all that
richness and tradition, that hewould go back to being a
(07:14):
Protestant.
But I don't want to get you offtangent too far you know,
because usually it goes theother way once you're immersed
in that.
But hey, to each his own.
But you make some reallyinteresting points here and you
said his main argument comes intwo steps.
First, he compares mankind toall other animals and finds that
(07:35):
mankind is radically different.
So that's number one we want toexplore just at least briefly
here.
And the second, chestertoncompares Christ to all other men
and he finds that Christ isradically unique among all
religious founders.
So you know, this is aconfusing time.
in the church we get some crazyideas all the way at the Vatican
(07:56):
, you know, all the way through.
So this is a great time to betalking about it.
So why don't?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
you go— I have no idea what we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, I don't want to put you on the line, I don't
even want you to comment, Idon't think, until you're done
with your dissertation andnobody's going to pick on you
there.
But how about the first one?
Should we hit that at leastbriefly?
How's mankind?
If you want to sum it up forpeople, a couple of things we
(08:22):
have that the animals don't have, and sometimes the reason I say
this, matthew, and I want totake a couple of minutes is
because a lot of the times theyoung people don't really think
about this right.
They've been told hey, we're alljust a bunch of biology and you
know blah, blah, blah, and itdoesn't take you much to sit in
a forest preserve and find outthat, hey, we're a little
(08:43):
different than the rest of thecreatures, right?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, so so the Chesterton divides the work of
the Everlasting man into twoparts, part one and part two.
And part one is about theuniqueness of man among the
animals and part two about theuniqueness of Christ among men.
Part one is bigger.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Part one is bigger, it is oh you know what I forgot?
About that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I forgot about that, and there's eight chapters in
part one and six in part two.
Uh, because a big air of ourtime is first of all like, yeah,
materialism are all.
Are we just animals?
Are we just fancy monkeys?
A lot of people, that seems tobe like the implicit, assumed
position of most people we'rejust a bunch of animals, matters
all there is.
There's no such thing as aspiritual soul.
God, you know, we all just madethat up.
So chesterton begins liketackling that on.
It's like no.
And so the mode in which heengages this question is he says
(09:27):
let's assume man is just ananimal.
Well, for sake of assumption,for argument, let's just assume
man is just an animal like allthe others.
Well, then you start lookingaround and comparing us actually
to other animals.
You realize there's not much tocompare.
Instead you can almost onlycontrast.
Like we have this thing calledlike speech and animals really
don't do it like there's all.
Every year you see some articlein some science journal oh, the
(09:50):
language of dolphins, it's justthey make a couple sounds and
like not, it's just not veryimpressive at all.
Like animals just don't havespeech and language like we do.
One proof of that chestertondoesn't say say if we can like,
add to it is that we have tolearn language.
Humans learn language if.
If you don't learn language, ifyou don't learn to speak by the
age of like eight or nine or 10, you actually never learned to
(10:10):
speak, so like if you're likeTarzan, born in a jungle, raised
by animals, you don't learn howto speak.
It's actually impossible for youto then learn how to speak If
you don't learn yeah, if youdon't learn, by the time you're
like eight like eight, nine orten, you never learn.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And like the examples , we're in trouble with these
government schools.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Matthew, yeah thankfully, like reading and
writing aren't the same, but, uh, speech is that way and the the
examples we have are horriblesituations where a child has
been like abused and locked upin the basement their whole life
.
Uh, so if those kids aren'trescued from their parents and
brought to ordinary society bythe time they're eight, nine or
ten, they just never learn tospeak.
But animal, and also like ourlanguages, are different.
We have hundreds of differentlanguages in the world.
Right and like, as history hasprogressed, our language has
(10:49):
progressed.
Like shakespeare's english isdifferent from our english,
which is different from earlyenglish.
So even the same language likechanges actually into different
languages.
Really, animals aren't like that.
Even among like one species ofanimals, the basic sounds they
make are all the same.
So you can take a monkey, raiseit in isolation with other
monkeys, and it's the language,so to speak, that he speaks is
(11:11):
exactly the same as the monkeys.
The sound, the sounds, thesounds for fear, for pleasure,
for pain, are exactly the sameas the air monkeys.
So what this proves is animalssounds is pure instance, but for
us it's not instinct, we haveto learn it and there's
different languages, so it'smore than instant.
So that's like one thing youlook at, but also just like
(11:32):
obviously you reason capacity toreason.
Animals don't have this everylike.
You might see a monkey use astick as a tool.
I'm not impressed Like youmight occasionally see, like one
in the middle of one in athousand monkeys.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
You're not easily impressed, are you, Matthew?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
That's just not reason.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
You know, when you think about reason.
I think this is what we seethese young guys, these young
Gen Z guys, because reason isalways seeking the truth.
What is the truth of things?
Yeah, and this is.
Don't you think, matthew, thatthis is dawning on these young
guys?
Something's wrong andsomebody's lying to me.
You know something's wrong.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, we want the truth.
This is uniquely human.
Yeah, because we want the truthnot just for usefulness sake,
not just so I can use it to makebetter tools, but just to know
the truth.
Yes, the truth.
We desire truth for its ownsake, not just for application.
So that's a huge differencebetween the monkey.
That's a great point.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I remember distinctly as a young man and that was
some years ago, but I rememberdistinctly I went out on my own,
I left home and I was seekingthe truth.
I remember perfectly well andit is exactly what you said,
matthew, not so I canpontificate on it, but so that I
would know how best to live.
(12:51):
Right?
What is the truth of things?
Yeah, so powerful.
And then let's hit on one lastthing here at least, which is
this thing called free will.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Huh, yeah, we just are free.
Free will, huh, yeah, we justare free, no matter how many
arguments some materialistscientist puts up against free
will to say no, no.
The atoms in your brain, thechemicals, we all find them
extremely unsatisfying.
Because our own experience offreedom I experience the
capacity to choose, to choosegood and to choose bad.
(13:23):
I experience, late that,regrets of my choices and
judgments and condemnation ofmyself for past failures I have.
I experienced free will.
Animals don't seem to have sucha thing like that and part of
my free will then uh, thatchester points to is the choice
to worship religion, the, thejudgment that I should worship
(13:44):
something.
The idea of religion isradically unpractical, actually,
like it doesn't really help usin this life.
Chiefly, the point of religionis not to live a good life.
Now, the point of religion isto honor the deity, to honor the
supernatural.
You kill your cow to honor God.
That doesn't necessarily helpyou.
(14:05):
Some forms of bad religion,like the classic air of natural
religion, is always going to beI kill cow and this convinces
God to bring the rain, and even,like Plato and Aristotle are
likeato and aerosol.
Like this is stupid.
We shouldn't be trying tocontrol god with our cows, with
our sacrifices and our prayers.
God is god.
We are not.
We serve him.
We don't control him, that's,that's a common error in all
(14:27):
religion yeah, and I don't knowif a religious instinct of man
is radically unique among theanimals we're the only ones ones
.
All men, chesterton points out,feel this religious instinct.
We want to worship, we want tobow down and kneel before God.
Animals don't have anythingresembling that at all.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, and I think we should just dwell on that for a
second before we go too fastwith that that there is
something that's touching us, tomove us right, to transcend, of
course, what we would call sinand death.
Right, we want to transcendthat somehow.
We know something's not quiteright, something's reaching our
heart.
This is a big problem, I think,obviously with the technology
(15:07):
today.
Right, because it spends allthe time with this noise and
distracting us.
The natural man, let's call it,you know, without all the
distractions has a naturalinclination, when he's sitting
in silence, to say there's gotto be something more.
You feel this movement, right?
I mean the ancients youmentioned.
(15:27):
They would call this often eros, which is, we think of, just
erotic or sensual, and it hassome components to that.
But it's really what is true,what is good, what is beautiful,
right?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, some great thing beyond me, like the idea
of wonder at the universe that,like the beach or a great
mountain view, gives to a man.
It seems like birds should haveawesome views all the time
whenever they fly, but theynever just stop and look at the
sunset.
But they, the bird, definitelyhas a better view of the sunset
than we do, because it's likeflying up there in the sky
(16:01):
watching the sunset, but itdoesn't seem to stop and then
also paint pictures of thesunset.
But all humans ever the.
What chesterton does here ispoints.
What's the early?
What are the earliest recordsof the oldest humans we have as
it?
It's paintings, it's art on awall in the cave, art somewhere.
These are the oldest records ofhuman civilization we have.
The oldest cave art, I think issomething like 50,000 years old
(16:24):
.
And so he points out art is thesignature of man that nobody
else, no other animal, does.
Birds build nests, beaversbuild dams, but they all make
them exactly the same style,with no variation.
Different species of bird makedifferent types of nests, but
within the species they're allthe same, and this again proves
it's instinct, not choice, andso not art.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, you know, it's amazing.
I remember Chesterton sayingand you know, don't quote me
exactly, but he said every timethat you discover a prehistoric
man, he's already civilized.
Yeah, he's already doing artand drawing pictures of things,
clay, pottery, you know allthose things that we're finding
already, right.
So we know, we know mankind isdifferent than the animals and
(17:05):
you know that we're unique andit's it's unique right that
somehow we're created differentand it's not changing.
You know, we, I, when I was akid, matthew, it was that
missing link.
Right, it was evolution.
It was a missing link and themore we find out about it, the
more that link is getting biggerand bigger and and and bigger,
right yeah it's been refutedreally at this point, so let's
(17:29):
in every way.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
We're just so different.
We're the only ones that arenaked.
We're so weak.
We're actually, as animals.
We're quite bad animals, rightthe only ones that are naked.
We're so weak.
We're actually as animals.
We're quite bad animals, right.
The only thing, the reason wecan survive, is because of our
reason, which is, again, uniqueand different from all the
others.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Really, without your reason, without being able to
make weapons, we're pretty yeah,pretty defenseless against
almost all the big predators.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, yeah, even taking down a deer would be
killing a simple deer,white-tailed deer it.
Yeah, yeah, even taking down adeer would be killing a simple
deer, white-tailed deer.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
It would be hard without a weapon.
Yeah, yeah, it would.
Well, we put that out there andI think it's important for
young people all of us againjust to sit out, go out and sit
in the forest, just yourneighborhood forest, because you
don't have to go on vacationsomeplace and just sit in
silence and you'll experience, Ithink, everything that we're
talking about here.
It's so very real.
(18:18):
And then, once we do that, hestarts to compare.
Now, okay, we have thismovement right of the heart,
we're looking for something more.
And then, matthew, he gets intoyour second part of this thing
and Chesterton's second part,when he compares Christ to all
other men.
Let's get into that, becauseit's really fascinating.
(18:38):
And the way that you caught upon breaking that down too, with
him into those four categories,it was really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, so the second part of the everlasting man is,
of course, well, christianity.
It's going to be Christianity,and so therefore we have to look
at Christ.
So, chesham, before he directlylooks at Christ, he gives us a
fourfold distinction orclassification of different
types of religions.
So, instead of naming everyreligion and all their doctrines
or whatever things he said,there's four types, there's four
species of religion or genusesof religion, so to speak.
(19:06):
First we have monotheism.
This classification, thisdivision, he says, is a
psychological division, whichmeans it's a division how this
type of religion affects theperson, what it reveals about
their outlook on life, what itreveals what type of person,
what their temperament is.
It's not exactly the fourtemperaments, but that type of
(19:26):
thing.
So first we have monotheism,where God, the idea is God is
holy, as in other, god istranscendent, he's really far
out there, he's really reallydifferent from us, god's not
like us, he's really far away,he's really really powerful and
really, really awesome.
Now, in the state of originalsin, in a fallen world, it's
hard to know much about the onetrue God, because we're fallen,
(19:50):
because we have darkness ofintellect and weakness of will,
and so it's hard for us to knowanything about God, except that
he exists.
And so what do we do?
Well, the pious thing to do,instead of saying wrong things
about the one holy, true God whois so far beyond us, is we
don't really say anything at all.
And so Justin points out thatmonotheism was probably the
earliest belief, because, well,the earliest humans actually,
(20:16):
like adam and eve, were like newgod and their kids were told
about god.
Uh, so monotheism was like thefirst belief, he points out.
In a fallen world, the piousthing to do is kind of to forget
god, because if you try and sayanything about him you're going
to say something wrong.
And so monotheism kind ofdeteriorates.
In a fallen world, like whereoriginal sin abounds, monotheism
kind of deteriorates intopolytheism.
He calls this just basicallypaganism.
(20:38):
Paganism, he says, is the secondtype of religion, and in
paganism we know we don't knowabout God, we're aware of our
ignorance about God, but we knowthere must be a creator of all
this thing.
Everything we see around us,there's creators.
We observe providence.
We know there's a natural lawRight is right and wrong is
wrong.
Certain things are right,certain things are wrong.
If you read the agents carefully, you always find some kind of
(21:00):
reference to the moral orderfrom the heavens, the moral
order from gods like cicero isespecially big on.
This is very, very clear aboutthis.
We're also seeing some of thegreek plays, and plato sometimes
too.
And so but we know, we don'tknow anything, we, we're aware
of our ignorance.
So what do we do?
Well, in order to satisfy ourreligious instincts, we kind of
(21:23):
make stuff up, we tell stories.
We have myths.
We tell stories about what Godmight be like.
So Chesterton says paganism ismythic and it's not a
description of what is, but adescription of what could be or
what might be.
We almost fantasize about whatcould be, how great God could be
, and we tell stories about that.
And over time the stories kindof deteriorate themselves and
get less noble and less true.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
But you know, it's really interesting, though,
again, just, you know, there hasto be a moral code, right?
I mean, somehow we realize thatit can't just be chaos.
But you know, you look aroundthe universe and you say, wow,
there's an order to the world,right, yeah, there's an order to
this.
And now I have to live with anorder too in my own heart and in
(22:08):
a culture.
You have to live with it.
And this, matthew, I just wantto stop here for a second
because, again, when we'respeaking to young people, we
live in this age of moralrelativism, right, I mean, 90%
of the young people surveyedtoday, whether they really
understand what they're sayingor not, but 90% would say
they're moral relativists.
But you can't live like that.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
They don't really analyze this?
They don't really, they're notreally.
They say they're moralrelativists, but that seems to
be a defense against moral normswhich they find oppressive, so
like when somebody says, hey,you shouldn't sleep with your
boyfriend or girlfriend, whichthey're told are oppressive I
(22:50):
don't know if they actuallyunderstand it or not yeah,
actually that's bad, that'swrong, you shouldn't do that
they say well, I'm a moralrelativist, that's your opinion,
that's not mine.
But of course that young manknows that if somebody else
touched his girlfriend he'd beangry and he would say what they
did was wrong.
Somebody else forced themselfupon his girl.
They'd say that was wrong, youshould pay because that was
wrong, no matter what you thinkabout it.
(23:10):
So we actually all, everybodybelieves in some moral, like
absolute moral norm.
So like, yeah, moral relativismisn't really possible.
And this is CS Lewis's point inAbolition of man.
You can't actually live as amoral relativist.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yes, it's true.
So in the pagan mythologies,you know they're look, they're
all over the board, right?
But a lot of them taught these,you know, know these values of
life and virtues and heroism andcourage and and all these
things, these manly things thatyou were talking about.
You know what does it mean tobe a man?
You know these things.
You know you, we might havemade them up, but a lot of them
(23:46):
were good stories, weren't they?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
yeah, yeah, they were not like terrible stories.
We're like we're imagining goodstories at first, at least at
first like good stories, iliadtheodosicy, like stories of
heroism.
Well, there's some good thinghere.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
This goodness must come from god in some way yeah,
but of course there's someproblems, and I think you you
mentioned it here right, themystic religions are not
complete, neither do theyattempt to satisfy the whole
person.
This is really important when Iwas when I was studying, even
things like you know, evenoutside of, say, pagan, you know
like, like buddhism, hinduism,you know, that's what I found at
(24:23):
the end.
Nothing against that I.
I thought there were some greatqualities there, but at the end
they just left me like man,it's just like not enough.
Not, there's got to be, anotherstep, you know.
So, so, so that that degree ofnot this completeness right,
there's just I, man, there'sgotta be something more right.
(24:43):
So we go on, don't we?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, we do.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And then you mentioned witchcraft and and I
love the way it starts out inyour article just a sentence
witchcraft is essentially a bidfor power.
It's true, isn't it, when you?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
really think about that, yeah, so yeah, this is
chesterton's third like type ofreligion.
You have a witchcraft religionwhich recognizes there are
divine realities out there,there are supernatural powers,
forces, beings out there.
They're powerful, like bydefinition supernatural.
They have more power than us ifand the point is, if you make a
deal with the devil, the devilkeeps his promises, kind of like
(25:18):
, you can sell your soul and youwill get rich from it.
If you sack, if you make a deal, the devil will sacrifice
babies to you if you give usvictory in battle, devil's very
happy to make you victoryvictorious in battle.
if you do all sorts of horriblethings to it like, the end
result of this course is hetakes your soul.
You do horrible things.
He takes your soul, but he'svery happy to make you rich and
powerful and famous in this lifeand of course he can like.
(25:41):
Christianity, especially newTestament, is very clear the
earth belongs to Satan.
When Satan offers everything,christ says like I will give you
these things, christ says, andthey're not yours to give, he's
well.
No, you should only worship God.
So I'm only going to worshipGod.
But he doesn't deny that Satandoes have the power over the
earth.
He does.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Well, it's interesting.
It reminds me, of course, ofthat famous, you know, ephesians
6 from St Paul.
Right, you know you're notdealing with just flesh and
blood, you're dealing with thepowers and the principalities.
You know, matthew, I'm going tojust dwell on this again
because you're saying so manygood things and I don't want
people to go over this quick.
These powers are real in thisworld too, you know, so we can
(26:23):
talk about.
You know there are real witchesout there and they're actually
growing.
There actually are a lot, youknow, just like Genesis 3,.
You know you can be like Godand you can decide what's good,
what's evil.
We want that power, don't we?
You see that with the worldelites, you know the world
elites, look, I'm not going toput you on the spot here,
(26:45):
matthew, but I watch them speaksometimes and I'm thinking, man,
they have been possessed.
You know whether I'm nottalking about a total possession
or not, but something's up withthat.
I mean you talk about, you know, selling your soul to the devil
.
You know this stuff can reallyhappen.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Oh, it's real.
Chester makes a great pointabout witchcraft.
He said it's a religion forpractical people where you kind
of abandon the worship of thesupernatural and use the
supernatural for benefits hereand now.
So it's a practical religion,oriented toward practical
results.
But of course you do that bytrying to control the
supernatural powers, by making adeal with them.
He says this requiressophistication or civilization,
(27:28):
intelligence.
He kind of said so, justin kindof flips.
We have this idea from I don'tknow where, but some kind of
false idea from modernuniversities, but that
witchcraft is a thing of savages.
The savages were, or theuneducated, the dumb idiots of
the past.
(27:48):
The unsophisticated, uneducatedsavages, uncivilized people did
witchcraft and human sacrificeand cannibalism.
And Cheston flips that and saysno, no, no, in order to make a
deal with the devil you have tokind of be smart, you have to
have a level of intelligence.
So witchcraft type religion,trying to make deals with the
devil, you need education.
In some sense you need to belike a rather advanced
(28:09):
civilization.
This isn't the earliestcivilizations, like the man in
the state of nature, as we're somight put it.
But actually this is onlypossible for some kind of high
level civilization, he pointsout historically well like the
mayans, tons of human sacrifice.
That's witchcraft.
The babylonians similar things.
Carthage he has a whole chapteron carthage and the the war,
(28:30):
the punic wars of carthage androme as the witchcraft religions
versus the pagan religions.
That didn't practice witchcraft.
Rome did not practice humansacrifice and such things.
They told their stories andoffered sacrifices, but not
human sacrifices.
But Carthage did a ton of humansacrifice actually and we
always forget that.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, unbelievable, right.
And so now, and I could staythere for another half an hour,
easy, but let's.
Unfortunately, time's going totick and I want you to talk
about philosophies and otherkind of religion.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah.
So Cheston's fourth type ofreligion is the philosophical
religion, which he says isn'treally a religion at all.
It's just you seek wisdom for agood life.
So he names things likeConfucianism, buddhism.
That's like not really religion.
It's not really concerned withworshiping or even interacting
with the supernatural.
You're just trying to have agood life here and now.
You recognize some basic moralvalues, you try to do what's
(29:28):
right, have a good life, havehappiness here and now, but
that's all it is.
It's philosophy, not religion.
And he says usually in theancient world these four
different types of religions gotseparated.
They would not be united toeach other, they were separate.
They were never unified, theywere always separate.
Things Like Aristotle, whoprobably had the best idea of
(29:48):
God, naturally knowable byreason, so you might say one of
the best philosophers, stillpracticed the pagan mythic cults
and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So they were they were they were separated, even
in his mind, even in his lifeyeah, you know, you're trying to
say what's a practical way tolive right and you know,
philosophy is usually.
It's really an awe and wonder.
Also right I'm, and I'm seekingthe truth, but then it's not
enough.
And you know, you had thatdivine within you.
And just to make this point,because you study right now,
(30:20):
you're studying St ThomasAquinas too For people that
don't know, I don't realize, orI don't know how many people
actually realize, the beauty ofour Catholic faith.
And this is kind of segue intowhat we're going to be talking
about next with Christianity is,you know, is also eminently
practical.
You're right here, but but?
(30:40):
but the Thomists right, theybuilt on Aristotle, you know so
they took those ancient Greeks,Plato first, and then, and then
St Thomas comes and says youknow, let's, let's, let's try to
fit Aristotle in here, Right,For for some obvious reasons we
won't have time to get into.
But then the divine is built,Christianity is built there, and
this is a stable foundation,right?
(31:03):
Yeah, it makes this awe andwonder that we search for this
practical idea of philosophy andthe divine all together, and it
all comes together in thisperson, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, yeah.
So Chetan's point then, abouthow Christianity is and Christ
is only in Christianity.
In Christ do we see the unityof all four of these elements.
Christianity unites what'snever before even been attempted
, even been tried to unite it.
So, of course, Christianity is.
Christianity is, of course,monotheism, one God, but it's
also kind of mythic, like wecare about the stories.
(31:38):
But Christianity, the storybecomes real.
God actually comes to earth.
The Greeks told stories aboutGod coming and walking among
them as like a cow to seduce agirl or whatever, like weird
things.
But Christ actually came andwalked among us, like the myth
became real, so to speak.
But also, it's not witchcraft,but it is eminently practical.
(31:59):
If you think about the biggestissues, what are the biggest
issues we actually faced?
Well, sin, our own evil, evilin the world, moral evil in the
world, and death.
And that's what Christianitycame to solve.
Christ comes to conquer deathand give us grace to enable us
to live a good, moral life.
So Christianity isn't superpractical.
If you want to get rich,powerful and famous in this life
(32:20):
, it is the most practical thing.
If you want salvation andeternal life, if you want
perfect, utter bliss andhappiness and fulfillment with
God, it's the only thing that'llget you that, and anybody that
actually tries to conquer sin intheir own life realizes that
(32:41):
you can't do it on your own.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, and talk about a practical thing, matthew, and
this is important too.
Pope Benedict XVI said ourfaith is never going to be an
ethical decision or some loftyphilosophical idea.
It's always going to be anencounter with an event, an
encounter with a person, andthat encounter will give you a
new horizon and a decisivedirection for your life, and so
(33:06):
this is important.
You think about all theseancients.
They sensed something, even inthose stories that they told.
Right, it's almost like it wasin us.
Matthew, we're fallen again, sowe don't grasp it, but even
those ancients right in tellingthese myths about this God
coming into Earth.
(33:26):
It's almost like man.
We need this to happen, andthen it happens, and it changes
everything, doesn't it?
But my point being, you canencounter this person, and so
that's the power of the storyhere, that's the power.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, yeah, you can encounter him and then your life
can be changed.
Like these things can be unitedfor you.
Your desire, he says, like allthese things are united in the
person monotheism, like thedesire for the, the knowledge of
the one true god, the one, onesource of everything is there.
But also like all your, yourimaginations, uh, the, what you
(34:03):
wish could be true in the myths.
When we talk about the myths,what, everything, all your
imaginations, what you wishcould be true in the myths, what
we talk about in the myths, allyour dreams can be met and also
you can encounter God.
You can be part of the myth.
It's no longer just a storythat other people do.
It's not just talking about akid.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Wow, what a beautiful way to put it.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, we get wrapped into the myth.
It's not.
God doesn't become just.
He's not just the God ofAbraham.
Like part of this is the OldTestament idea that God is the
God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob.
He is the God of us.
Our names are now important.
How we name God is he's God ofAbraham, isaac and Jacob.
But then in baptism God becomesthe God of Jack and the God of
Matthew.
He becomes like our God and weget united into that story.
(34:42):
And the story, like Chesterton,ends the everlasting man by
talking about the church.
But now the church is us.
We are members of the church.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
We're caught up in the mythic story, in the real
myth.
You know I just got goosebumpswhen you said that, and usually
to me that's like a little HolySpirit moment when I feel this
that means I got to stop therejust for a second again, you
know.
I mean Again, say that again.
Just you know how we get caughtup and we become part of this.
We know we want to be part ofthis bigger story.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
It took something else called revelation right to
actually unpack this, but ittook revelation of the person
who actually came in, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, because Christ, like revelation, started the
story, like Christ came into thestory.
Christ came into historyOriginally like God, not just
Christ.
With Abraham, right, he chose apeople.
He chose a person and a nationand made a people out of them.
And then their history becomesour history, the salvation
history, the history of Israel.
We're incorporated into it,we're grafted on branches,
(35:49):
grafted onto the vine that isIsrael.
We are participators in thestory of David.
That's our story now.
And then, of course, christcomes.
God enters the story himself.
The author of the book has comeinto the book as a character.
The creator of the video gameis now a character you can play
with and go on missions with, soto speak.
But now God's here and we getbaptized into his life, shares
(36:13):
in his life, baptized into hisdeath.
Christ's death on the crossisn't just a story, it's
something we re-present.
We make presence at the massand then we unite ourselves to
that.
Our, our lives are united toChrist's life.
And also just the whole church,like Acts of the Apostles, part
of the Bible is just the storyof what the members of the
church did.
But then, of course, acts ofthe Apostles ends, but the
(36:35):
church doesn't end there.
The church keeps going.
We are the church.
We are continuing what theapostles did in Acts of the
Apostles evangelizing the worldand worshiping God.
The life of Christ continues inus.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
You know, what you just did so wonderfully I mean
really beautifully is and thisis probably Chester to his point
, but I think you did it evenclearer in my mind you know, we
had this desire for everythingthat you said, everything that
you said.
We have this desire.
This is really important whenthose young men, again, this Gen
Z men, are waking up and sayingsomething's wrong.
(37:11):
That's what everybody wassaying, that's what we're saying
here.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah, and they all.
We all want to be part ofsomething bigger.
We all want to be part of abigger story.
Whoever your hero is, probablymost of us can't be on tom
brady's team.
Only a hand, only 10 of us canplay with tom brady at a time.
If, like, I'm not a footballathlete, but if I was, like, my
greatest dream might have beenI'll play with tom brady.
Yeah, very few of us actuallyget to do that.
Yeah, very few of us get tostorm the beaches of normandy
(37:37):
with patton or patton wasn't atnormandy but very few of us get
to serve under these heroicgenerals.
Very few of us get to serveunder these heroic generals.
Very few of us get to fightalongside Achilles or America's
great, most decorated warrior ohgosh, what's his name?
The guy from World War II.
He was America's most decoratedwarrior.
I forget his name now.
It's embarrassing, but, like,very few of us get to fight Now.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
My dad is still alive from World War II, so I was
going to say my dad, but itwasn't him.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Audie Murphy, eddie Murphy.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
You know, I'm ashamed .
I should know those things, youknow.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
I think it's Audie, something like that, something
like that.
Anyway, like America's mostdecorated, he's America's most
decorated soldier.
Very few of us get to do theseepic things, but actually.
William Wallace.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, william Wallace , exactly, braveheart right.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Yeah, very few of us get to attack Mordor with
Aragorn, very few of us get todefend Helm's Deep with Gimli.
But we actually do get to livewith Christ.
We actually do get to die withChrist.
We actually do get toevangelize with the church.
We do get to be characters inthe story of Christ.
(38:38):
We get to be involved with thisgreat captain and savior and
king, jesus Christ christ.
We get to be his servants andhis brothers.
We get to call his fatherfather.
He came and made his father tobe our father and his mother to
be our mother.
So we get to be brothers withthe humanity of christ and so
sons in the son of the father.
(38:59):
We get incorporated into thisstory.
And you know, matthew, I wrotean article, boy, it was probably
a couple years ago it mighthave been in the catholic
exchange.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
We get incorporated into this story and you know,
matthew, I wrote an articleabout it.
It was probably a couple ofyears ago.
It might've been in theCatholic Exchange and I quoted
Chesterton in there.
Because we're looking forheroes, you know, and it reminds
me, you know, the power thatyou're describing is rising us
up to the point where I am thehero, you know, in my own story,
(39:24):
as a father, as a husband, asthose people and I don't create,
I don't say I'm the hero, but Isee the way my kids or my
grandkids now look at me.
And if you rise up with Christ,you give them a model, even in
our fallen nature and I'm very,very fallen, right and far from
(39:44):
perfect, and they don't expectme to be perfect, but they still
say, hey, if we need somethingor somebody's on our case, we
know we can go to grandpa or dador whatever.
And we all become that hero.
If we take on Christ, if welive as great friends, good
husbands, whatever that is,whatever that role, a good
(40:07):
priest, a great priest, a bishopyou become the hero of your own
story, whether people know itor not, they don't see it or not
right.
Sometimes you climb prettyquietly on the cross yourself,
but you become a hero in thestory and I think we all want
that, don't we?
As men, I mean who wants to lookback at your life, matthew,
(40:27):
when you're 85 years old,sitting on a rocking chair
sipping lemonade, thinking aboutall the things you could have,
should have, would have doneright, yeah, yeah, it sounds
horrible.
It does sound horrible.
Yeah, but that's where we'regoing if we're not careful.
Yeah, right, yeah, fearful,yeah, yeah, look at, look at how
(40:48):
many.
How look?
I'm from chicago 80 of thoseyoung boys in the minority homes
are grown up without fathers.
You think about the effect thatthat has on the, on the, on the
absent fathers and also on thosesons, right, they say most of
the, the men in prison it's likea holding pen for children
without fathers.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah, yeah, like 80% of people of men in prison
didn't have a father at home,something like that.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Right, so we need those.
My point being and your pointright we need to be the heroes
in our own stories.
Yeah, so I never finished myChesterton thing.
So Chesterton was asked thefamous question you know what's
wrong with Christianity?
And he said I am.
Yeah.
I think in the article I saidsomething like I think if GK was
around today he would say thesame thing.
(41:31):
He would reply what's wrongwith this culture, what's wrong
with what we see?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
I am.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Do we have to all step up?
What you're saying is if we canget everybody, or at least a
lot more young people, to standup right and say I am.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I don't know what that means, but I'm, I'm willing
to walk into the story, right,yeah, to walk in and then live,
live as part of it and partakein it and do it.
And this includes, like, thedifficulties of it, of living it
, but it also includes, likebelieving and embracing the
philosophy of the church, the,the truths of the creed of the
of the church, which, of course,protects the truth of the
church, the truths of the creedof the church, which, of course,
protects the truth of the story.
No, jesus literally came andliterally died and literally
rose from the dead.
(42:08):
It wasn't just not, it's notsomething we made up later on.
It's not something Christians,200 years later, made up and
wrote in a book.
No, christ literally came andwalked in Nazareth, in Jerusalem
.
He literally died under thisguy punches Pilate, and then he
literally rose from the deadbody and soul three days later
anthony, as we start to get runout of time here, I I want you
(42:29):
to stay with that.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
What you just said there, because you know.
You say here christ claimed tobe god to come among men, but he
did it in a different way.
He he didn't come to to leave awritten text, you said.
You know he didn't come towrite a book.
He didn't actually even comejust to teach us things, even
though of course that was partof it.
(42:51):
He came for what, matthew?
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Back to the concluding episodeof today's show.
And this is one of the thingsyou say.
This is unique.
Nobody else does this.
(43:59):
First of all.
You say in here, I'll just sayit real quick, so I don't goof
you up, but he's the only one toclaim to be God first of all.
Yeah, you say in here, I'lljust say it real quick, so, so,
so, I don't goof you up, but butyou know, he's the only one to
claim to be god first of all.
And people don't realize that.
The buddha, you say in here,abraham mo, muhammad confucius,
they didn't say they were god,did they?
So he says I'm god, and then hecomes into the story, but he
comes in for a purpose.
(44:21):
That kind of blows your mind,doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (44:23):
yeah, this is.
This is just his point that thefounder of the religions,
christ, is radically unique andunlike all their founders of
religion, he exactly said heclaims to be God and also he
doesn't come to teach Abraham.
What was Abraham's mission ortask?
Have children, have descendantsas numerous as the stars.
So what he did?
He had Isaac Confuciustaughtdha, taught different
(44:47):
things with a philosophy orenlightenment muhammad and
conquered and fought christ.
Yes, yeah, he taught a lot.
Christ the teacher veryimportant, certain amounts as
crucial, but christ didn't comemainly as a teacher.
They they called him teacher,but he came mainly as the Savior
.
This, of course, when Gabrielappears to Mary, who used to
(45:08):
celebrate his feast dayyesterday, march 25th, you will
conceive in your womb a very sonand he will save his people
from their sins.
Christ came to save us from sinand death by the cross.
So of course, fulton Sheen saysFulton Sheen was also a huge
fan of Chesterton says Christ isthe only man ever born to die.
Christ came to die.
His mission three years longnot very impressive.
(45:30):
The lives and careers of allyour religious founders were a
lot longer than that.
Christ was his mission, hispublic ministry three years and
aimed at the cross.
He comes to the cross.
He predicts his own death andresurrection and then does it
and says on the cross it isfinished.
This is what he came to do.
He didn't come just to teach usmoral truth.
He wasn't just a moral teacher.
He came to die and save us fromour sins and then overcome
(45:54):
death in his resurrection, so wecould also overcome death in
his resurrection as well.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
And this is the power .
You know, Jesus didn't come tomanage our sins.
He came with power and this iswhat we can encounter that power
and the only way you're goingto encounter that power, Matthew
and this is so important foryoung guys, right, why should I
believe in this guy, this JesusChrist?
(46:20):
Because he came with power.
You know, if you get down onyour knees and you really ask,
right, Matthew, 7, 7, huh, Ask,seek and knock, huh.
If you do that, he's not goingto look, he's not a vending
machine, he's not going to justspit out the candy for you.
It may take a while.
It may take, because Jesus sayshey, Matthew, I want your heart
(46:43):
, but I want your effort too.
Right, In order to get yourheart, you got to put some skin
in the game too, but I will giveyou the grace right to complete
that game.
And this is something we canencounter.
So it's not just like boom,it's over here on the shelf.
That power of the cross thatyou're talking about, Matthew,
we can experience it, we can.
The cross is the power of thecross that you're talking about,
(47:04):
Matthew.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
We can experience it.
We can.
The cross is the way Christovercomes death.
He could have done it otherways, but the way he did it was
to die.
And the resurrection is likethe proof.
He says the Jews ask him for asign.
He says, well, destroy thistemple in three days, I will
raise it up.
And then he does.
And it actually happened.
And the historical proof of theresurrection is that the
(47:26):
apostles preached theresurrection at pentecost, 50
days like after the ascension,so something like less than a
couple months after theresurrection happened.
They preached the resurrection.
They said, hey, christ rosefrom the dead in jerusalem.
Jerusalem was not it's not likea modern city.
It was really small, a couplehundred yards across.
Everybody there could walk overto the tomb and see the empty
(47:47):
tomb so is that right?
Speaker 1 (47:50):
I?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
I didn't even realize that yeah, because ancient
Jerusalem is something.
Diameter is something like 500yards.
It's not very like, not verylong.
It takes a couple minutes towalk that far and of course it's
a crisscrossy streets busystreets so it take longer to go
through the city.
But, like the ancient cities,especially drusum, because the
whole city was walled in andbecause you want to have a
walled in city and it's reallyhard to build walls and build
(48:11):
rocks and stuff, so you have asmaller city right and so that's
why, like, you sit at the gatesof the city to do things,
because you don't have these big.
Ancient cities were smaller.
Especially drusum was a smallcity.
Everybody could just walk overin a couple minutes or like in
an afternoon to go look at thetomb.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Is that right?
You know, I never reallythought about that, I don't know
why.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Yeah, you could possibly preach the resurrection
of Christ like a couple monthsafter it happened, if he wasn't
actually risen, if the tombwasn't actually empty and the
Roman soldiers who were theguards of the tomb were also
there.
They were still in jerusalem atthis time.
You could also go over talk tothe talk to the roman soldiers,
be them in the tavern orsomething, and talk to them over
(48:51):
a beer, so like and those, andsaint paul when he was talking
about those 500 witnesses, thatsome of them were gone then at
that time.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
But they were still walking around there too, right?
They could tell you too.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Isn't that crazy.
The resurrection was like aprovable fact back then because
you could go look at the tombvery easily.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
So this is so great, Matthew, but we're going to sum
it up, brother.
I got you over time alreadyhere.
Hey, give us a short summary.
I've got your article here infront of me.
It's summed up really well, butwhy don't you give us your last
thoughts on this?
Put a bow on this for us.
I know there's a few things youcould probably say, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
So we're at a time where there's so many ideas
available.
Any one of us could study anyreligion we wanted to over the
internet.
There's so much information sowe need to understand how we can
compare and figure out whichone's true, which.
What's the true faith?
Where do I actually findsalvation?
When you try to compareChristianity to other faiths,
you end up not being able tocompare much because they're so
different.
(49:54):
You end up almost only beingable to contrast.
Christianity alone claims that'sthe founders of God.
Christianity alone has the wayto overcome, even claims to have
the way to overcome sin anddeath.
Christianity alone combinesmonotheism with a rich
philosophy in Trinitariantheology, with the robust
(50:15):
ethical system, with also a realhistorical story.
The vigor that comes with mythand story, because it's a myth
come true.
Christianity alone does allthese things.
It's so unique among otherfaiths the, the.
The vigor that comes with mythand story, because it's a myth
come true.
Christianity alone does allthese things.
It's so unique among otherfaiths, that unique because the
self is a big argument insupport of its reality whoa.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
Honest to goodness, matthew, that was awesome,
brother, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,I'm gonna.
Definitely can this.
You know, the beauty of apodcast is they can.
They can go up on your shelfand keep pulling them down, just
like Everlasting man orOrthodoxy.
We can keep pulling it down andlooking at it.
I'm going to link your articlein the show notes.
Anything else you want me toput in the show notes no, no,
(50:57):
that's good.
All right then.
Thanks for joining us everyone.
Hope you enjoyed today's show.
Talk to you again soon.
Bye-bye.
I'm excited to be with Matthew McKenna.
Matthew wrote an article how toCompare Religions with the
Catholic Exchange.
Those of you who follow theshow I know that I like to write
for the Catholic Exchangemyself, so I like to stay up
with those authors, especiallythese young guys that are
reaching young hearts.
Before I bring Matthew on, Iwant to just touch on a sponsor
(00:34):
of ours for today's show.
I want to introduce AIM UtilityAdvisors, owned and operated by
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See the show notes for myfriend TJ Lawley's direct phone
number.
I'll have a link in there fortheir website and be sure to
(01:37):
tell them that Jack said hello.
Just spoke to him not too longago, matthew.
It's so good to be with you,brother.
Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
It's good to be not too long ago, matthew.
It's so good to be with you,brother, thank you for having me
on.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
It's good to be here too.
Yeah, so we were just talkingbefore we came on.
Why don't you tell everybodywhere you're at right now and
what you're studying?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So I'm a PhD student in theology at Ave Maria
University in Florida.
I'm about to defend mydissertation in the next couple
of months, and that isexplaining why only men can be
priests, based on, well, whatmasculinity is.
So, basically, I'm writingabout the priesthood and
masculinity.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, and I just I got you know.
Everybody knows that welaunched Claymore for young
people.
I was just telling Matthewabout it before we came on, so I
have to have him back to talkabout what he calls the
masculine genius and thepriesthood.
A very, very exciting time.
And you know, matthew, the samething with today's topic,
though.
(02:30):
When we're speaking to youngpeople, old people, everybody.
It's a confusing time.
And you wrote this article howto Compare Religions.
It's really showing thatChristianity is different.
And you did so by visiting oneof my favorite friends of all
time, who is GK Chesterton.
For people that aren't familiarwith GK Chesterton, he's kind
(02:54):
of a one-of-a-kind guy too.
I mean an incredible way thathe expresses himself, the
thoughts that he has.
He only had a high schooleducation at GK Chesterton, but
a mind was just all over theplace Amazing.
So, matthew, how did you end upwriting the article?
And, of course, tell us alittle bit more about your
(03:14):
background, because they'll knowwhy you're also enamored with
GK Chesterton.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
My love for Chesterton began quite
unexpectedly.
I was told by my boss, the headof my theology department that
I work for and teach in.
You're going to teach a classon Chesterton in the spring, and
I was like well, I readOrthodoxy once in my life I read
.
Everlasting man once in my life.
Do I remember what they'reabout?
Not really.
Let me go back and read.
And so I just prepared to teacha class.
(03:41):
I dived in and started reading.
I think I read Orthodoxy abouta dozen times in the three
months leading up to the springsemester so I could teach it
well and a ton of other booksabout him and I just absolutely
fell in love.
That fundamentally changed myoutlook on life and
fundamentally changed mytheology, my philosophy.
Just totally fell in love withChesterton, his way of thinking.
(04:01):
I think it's extremely practical, extremely useful, extremely
timely.
He was writing 100 years ago,an absolute prophet.
He foresaw the Nazis coming topower and almost everything they
were going to do, hitler'shatred for the Jews.
He foresaw it all.
And then, of course, he diedbefore World War II ever started
, in like 36 or 37.
He died something like that,but he foresaw everything.
He was a great prophet, a totalmaster of the Catholic tradition
(04:23):
.
Like you said, he only had ahigh school diploma but he read
everything.
He was just a vicious readerread everything.
It seems to have kind of had adeep understanding of everything
he read too, if you read someof his books in the time he was
writing.
The mode wasn't to constantlymention your sources and mention
oh, by the way, I'm respondingto this person.
(04:43):
Oh, by the way, I learned fromthis person.
Mode wasn't to give citations,but you can see he's involved,
like referencing everybody everAristotle, plato, thomas
Descartes, kant, nietzsche.
He mentions Nietzsche by namesometimes, but he's thinking and
engaging with everybody.
So when you read something likeorthodoxy, you're engaging with
the entire intellectualtradition of the West in 200
(05:03):
pages.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Wow, that's a great way to sum that up.
I never really thought of itthat way, but you're exactly
right.
That is huh how did he get allthat Matthew into that brain
right Just by reading.
High school education.
But yeah, he must have been aferocious reader, huh, yeah, so
I love Chesterton got intoferocious reader, huh, yeah,
(05:24):
yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
So I love Chesterton, got into Chesterton
tremendously and ever since thenI've taught the class multiple
times now and Chesterton comesup in everything I do.
My students are always hearingme talk about Chesterton and
everything I write Chestertonshows up somewhere, probably.
And so what?
He has the kind of point of thebigger book, his main, his
magnum opus, his great work,everlasting man, which is also
(05:48):
like the only book he reallythoroughly edited Orthodoxy.
He didn't really edit, he justwrote it and sent it off and
published it.
But the one book he reallyworked on for a longer period of
time and thought through areally, really deep layer and
edited is Everlasting man.
That's like his main work, so tospeak, and the point of
Everlasting man is to show, well, christianity is one true faith
, the Catholicism was one truefaith, and so in the process of
(06:11):
that, he gives a method for howwe can compare religions,
compare belief systems, and Ithink that's just incredibly
useful for us today, when thereare so many ideologies and
things being put out to us aslive options, options, and
there's so much discussion ofwhat's the truth, faith, where,
where's the truth be found,isn't an orthodoxy, isn't
catholicism, proselytism, islam.
(06:31):
I had a friend who was grew upa prostitute, went to iraq as a
soldier, converted to muslim, toislam, then came back to
america as an islam muslim, theneventually became orthodox like
a greek orthodox christian andthen eventually went back to
pros as a Muslim, theneventually became Orthodox like
a Greek Orthodox Christian andthen eventually went back to
Protestantism.
So just all over the placepeople are just so many options
out there.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I'm surprised you could go back to and look it, we
have evangelicals andProtestants listening to this
show, yeah.
So I'm always careful.
They're good friends of mine.
I gave a presentation lastnight with a good, a great,
actually evangelical friend, butI'm surprised, after all that
richness and tradition, that hewould go back to being a
(07:14):
Protestant.
But I don't want to get you offtangent too far you know,
because usually it goes theother way once you're immersed
in that.
But hey, to each his own.
But you make some reallyinteresting points here and you
said his main argument comes intwo steps.
First, he compares mankind toall other animals and finds that
(07:35):
mankind is radically different.
So that's number one we want toexplore just at least briefly
here.
And the second, chestertoncompares Christ to all other men
and he finds that Christ isradically unique among all
religious founders.
So you know, this is aconfusing time.
in the church we get some crazyideas all the way at the Vatican
(07:56):
, you know, all the way through.
So this is a great time to betalking about it.
So why don't?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
you go— I have no idea what we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah, I don't want to put you on the line, I don't
even want you to comment, Idon't think, until you're done
with your dissertation andnobody's going to pick on you
there.
But how about the first one?
Should we hit that at leastbriefly?
How's mankind?
If you want to sum it up forpeople, a couple of things we
(08:22):
have that the animals don't have, and sometimes the reason I say
this, matthew, and I want totake a couple of minutes is
because a lot of the times theyoung people don't really think
about this right.
They've been told hey, we're alljust a bunch of biology and you
know blah, blah, blah, and itdoesn't take you much to sit in
a forest preserve and find outthat, hey, we're a little
(08:43):
different than the rest of thecreatures, right?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, so so the Chesterton divides the work of
the Everlasting man into twoparts, part one and part two.
And part one is about theuniqueness of man among the
animals and part two about theuniqueness of Christ among men.
Part one is bigger.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Part one is bigger, it is oh you know what I forgot?
About that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
I forgot about that, and there's eight chapters in
part one and six in part two.
Uh, because a big air of ourtime is first of all like, yeah,
materialism are all.
Are we just animals?
Are we just fancy monkeys?
A lot of people, that seems tobe like the implicit, assumed
position of most people we'rejust a bunch of animals, matters
all there is.
There's no such thing as aspiritual soul.
God, you know, we all just madethat up.
So chesterton begins liketackling that on.
It's like no.
And so the mode in which heengages this question is he says
(09:27):
let's assume man is just ananimal.
Well, for sake of assumption,for argument, let's just assume
man is just an animal like allthe others.
Well, then you start lookingaround and comparing us actually
to other animals.
You realize there's not much tocompare.
Instead you can almost onlycontrast.
Like we have this thing calledlike speech and animals really
don't do it like there's all.
Every year you see some articlein some science journal oh, the
(09:50):
language of dolphins, it's justthey make a couple sounds and
like not, it's just not veryimpressive at all.
Like animals just don't havespeech and language like we do.
One proof of that chestertondoesn't say say if we can like,
add to it is that we have tolearn language.
Humans learn language if.
If you don't learn language, ifyou don't learn to speak by the
age of like eight or nine or 10, you actually never learned to
(10:10):
speak, so like if you're likeTarzan, born in a jungle, raised
by animals, you don't learn howto speak.
It's actually impossible for youto then learn how to speak If
you don't learn yeah, if youdon't learn, by the time you're
like eight like eight, nine orten, you never learn.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And like the examples , we're in trouble with these
government schools.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Matthew, yeah thankfully, like reading and
writing aren't the same, but, uh, speech is that way and the the
examples we have are horriblesituations where a child has
been like abused and locked upin the basement their whole life
.
Uh, so if those kids aren'trescued from their parents and
brought to ordinary society bythe time they're eight, nine or
ten, they just never learn tospeak.
But animal, and also like ourlanguages, are different.
We have hundreds of differentlanguages in the world.
Right and like, as history hasprogressed, our language has
(10:49):
progressed.
Like shakespeare's english isdifferent from our english,
which is different from earlyenglish.
So even the same language likechanges actually into different
languages.
Really, animals aren't like that.
Even among like one species ofanimals, the basic sounds they
make are all the same.
So you can take a monkey, raiseit in isolation with other
monkeys, and it's the language,so to speak, that he speaks is
(11:11):
exactly the same as the monkeys.
The sound, the sounds, thesounds for fear, for pleasure,
for pain, are exactly the sameas the air monkeys.
So what this proves is animalssounds is pure instance, but for
us it's not instinct, we haveto learn it and there's
different languages, so it'smore than instant.
So that's like one thing youlook at, but also just like
(11:32):
obviously you reason capacity toreason.
Animals don't have this everylike.
You might see a monkey use astick as a tool.
I'm not impressed Like youmight occasionally see, like one
in the middle of one in athousand monkeys.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
You're not easily impressed, are you, Matthew?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
That's just not reason.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
You know, when you think about reason.
I think this is what we seethese young guys, these young
Gen Z guys, because reason isalways seeking the truth.
What is the truth of things?
Yeah, and this is.
Don't you think, matthew, thatthis is dawning on these young
guys?
Something's wrong andsomebody's lying to me.
You know something's wrong.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, we want the truth.
This is uniquely human.
Yeah, because we want the truthnot just for usefulness sake,
not just so I can use it to makebetter tools, but just to know
the truth.
Yes, the truth.
We desire truth for its ownsake, not just for application.
So that's a huge differencebetween the monkey.
That's a great point.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I remember distinctly as a young man and that was
some years ago, but I rememberdistinctly I went out on my own,
I left home and I was seekingthe truth.
I remember perfectly well andit is exactly what you said,
matthew, not so I canpontificate on it, but so that I
would know how best to live.
(12:51):
Right?
What is the truth of things?
Yeah, so powerful.
And then let's hit on one lastthing here at least, which is
this thing called free will.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Huh, yeah, we just are free.
Free will, huh, yeah, we justare free, no matter how many
arguments some materialistscientist puts up against free
will to say no, no.
The atoms in your brain, thechemicals, we all find them
extremely unsatisfying.
Because our own experience offreedom I experience the
capacity to choose, to choosegood and to choose bad.
(13:23):
I experience, late that,regrets of my choices and
judgments and condemnation ofmyself for past failures I have.
I experienced free will.
Animals don't seem to have sucha thing like that and part of
my free will then uh, thatchester points to is the choice
to worship religion, the, thejudgment that I should worship
(13:44):
something.
The idea of religion isradically unpractical, actually,
like it doesn't really help usin this life.
Chiefly, the point of religionis not to live a good life.
Now, the point of religion isto honor the deity, to honor the
supernatural.
You kill your cow to honor God.
That doesn't necessarily helpyou.
(14:05):
Some forms of bad religion,like the classic air of natural
religion, is always going to beI kill cow and this convinces
God to bring the rain, and even,like Plato and Aristotle are
likeato and aerosol.
Like this is stupid.
We shouldn't be trying tocontrol god with our cows, with
our sacrifices and our prayers.
God is god.
We are not.
We serve him.
We don't control him, that's,that's a common error in all
(14:27):
religion yeah, and I don't knowif a religious instinct of man
is radically unique among theanimals we're the only ones ones
.
All men, chesterton points out,feel this religious instinct.
We want to worship, we want tobow down and kneel before God.
Animals don't have anythingresembling that at all.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, and I think we should just dwell on that for a
second before we go too fastwith that that there is
something that's touching us, tomove us right, to transcend, of
course, what we would call sinand death.
Right, we want to transcendthat somehow.
We know something's not quiteright, something's reaching our
heart.
This is a big problem, I think,obviously with the technology
(15:07):
today.
Right, because it spends allthe time with this noise and
distracting us.
The natural man, let's call it,you know, without all the
distractions has a naturalinclination, when he's sitting
in silence, to say there's gotto be something more.
You feel this movement, right?
I mean the ancients youmentioned.
(15:27):
They would call this often eros, which is, we think of, just
erotic or sensual, and it hassome components to that.
But it's really what is true,what is good, what is beautiful,
right?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, some great thing beyond me, like the idea
of wonder at the universe that,like the beach or a great
mountain view, gives to a man.
It seems like birds should haveawesome views all the time
whenever they fly, but theynever just stop and look at the
sunset.
But they, the bird, definitelyhas a better view of the sunset
than we do, because it's likeflying up there in the sky
(16:01):
watching the sunset, but itdoesn't seem to stop and then
also paint pictures of thesunset.
But all humans ever the.
What chesterton does here ispoints.
What's the early?
What are the earliest recordsof the oldest humans we have as
it?
It's paintings, it's art on awall in the cave, art somewhere.
These are the oldest records ofhuman civilization we have.
The oldest cave art, I think issomething like 50,000 years old
(16:24):
.
And so he points out art is thesignature of man that nobody
else, no other animal, does.
Birds build nests, beaversbuild dams, but they all make
them exactly the same style,with no variation.
Different species of bird makedifferent types of nests, but
within the species they're allthe same, and this again proves
it's instinct, not choice, andso not art.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, you know, it's amazing.
I remember Chesterton sayingand you know, don't quote me
exactly, but he said every timethat you discover a prehistoric
man, he's already civilized.
Yeah, he's already doing artand drawing pictures of things,
clay, pottery, you know allthose things that we're finding
already, right.
So we know, we know mankind isdifferent than the animals and
(17:05):
you know that we're unique andit's it's unique right that
somehow we're created differentand it's not changing.
You know, we, I, when I was akid, matthew, it was that
missing link.
Right, it was evolution.
It was a missing link and themore we find out about it, the
more that link is getting biggerand bigger and and and bigger,
right yeah it's been refutedreally at this point, so let's
(17:29):
in every way.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
We're just so different.
We're the only ones that arenaked.
We're so weak.
We're actually, as animals.
We're quite bad animals, rightthe only ones that are naked.
We're so weak.
We're actually as animals.
We're quite bad animals, right.
The only thing, the reason wecan survive, is because of our
reason, which is, again, uniqueand different from all the
others.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Really, without your reason, without being able to
make weapons, we're pretty yeah,pretty defenseless against
almost all the big predators.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, yeah, even taking down a deer would be
killing a simple deer,white-tailed deer it.
Yeah, yeah, even taking down adeer would be killing a simple
deer, white-tailed deer.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
It would be hard without a weapon.
Yeah, yeah, it would.
Well, we put that out there andI think it's important for
young people all of us againjust to sit out, go out and sit
in the forest, just yourneighborhood forest, because you
don't have to go on vacationsomeplace and just sit in
silence and you'll experience, Ithink, everything that we're
talking about here.
It's so very real.
(18:18):
And then, once we do that, hestarts to compare.
Now, okay, we have thismovement right of the heart,
we're looking for something more.
And then, matthew, he gets intoyour second part of this thing
and Chesterton's second part,when he compares Christ to all
other men.
Let's get into that, becauseit's really fascinating.
(18:38):
And the way that you caught upon breaking that down too, with
him into those four categories,it was really beautiful.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, so the second part of the everlasting man is,
of course, well, christianity.
It's going to be Christianity,and so therefore we have to look
at Christ.
So, chesham, before he directlylooks at Christ, he gives us a
fourfold distinction orclassification of different
types of religions.
So, instead of naming everyreligion and all their doctrines
or whatever things he said,there's four types, there's four
species of religion or genusesof religion, so to speak.
(19:06):
First we have monotheism.
This classification, thisdivision, he says, is a
psychological division, whichmeans it's a division how this
type of religion affects theperson, what it reveals about
their outlook on life, what itreveals what type of person,
what their temperament is.
It's not exactly the fourtemperaments, but that type of
(19:26):
thing.
So first we have monotheism,where God, the idea is God is
holy, as in other, god istranscendent, he's really far
out there, he's really reallydifferent from us, god's not
like us, he's really far away,he's really really powerful and
really, really awesome.
Now, in the state of originalsin, in a fallen world, it's
hard to know much about the onetrue God, because we're fallen,
(19:50):
because we have darkness ofintellect and weakness of will,
and so it's hard for us to knowanything about God, except that
he exists.
And so what do we do?
Well, the pious thing to do,instead of saying wrong things
about the one holy, true God whois so far beyond us, is we
don't really say anything at all.
And so Justin points out thatmonotheism was probably the
earliest belief, because, well,the earliest humans actually,
(20:16):
like adam and eve, were like newgod and their kids were told
about god.
Uh, so monotheism was like thefirst belief, he points out.
In a fallen world, the piousthing to do is kind of to forget
god, because if you try and sayanything about him you're going
to say something wrong.
And so monotheism kind ofdeteriorates.
In a fallen world, like whereoriginal sin abounds, monotheism
kind of deteriorates intopolytheism.
He calls this just basicallypaganism.
(20:38):
Paganism, he says, is the secondtype of religion, and in
paganism we know we don't knowabout God, we're aware of our
ignorance about God, but we knowthere must be a creator of all
this thing.
Everything we see around us,there's creators.
We observe providence.
We know there's a natural lawRight is right and wrong is
wrong.
Certain things are right,certain things are wrong.
If you read the agents carefully, you always find some kind of
(21:00):
reference to the moral orderfrom the heavens, the moral
order from gods like cicero isespecially big on.
This is very, very clear aboutthis.
We're also seeing some of thegreek plays, and plato sometimes
too.
And so but we know, we don'tknow anything, we, we're aware
of our ignorance.
So what do we do?
Well, in order to satisfy ourreligious instincts, we kind of
(21:23):
make stuff up, we tell stories.
We have myths.
We tell stories about what Godmight be like.
So Chesterton says paganism ismythic and it's not a
description of what is, but adescription of what could be or
what might be.
We almost fantasize about whatcould be, how great God could be
, and we tell stories about that.
And over time the stories kindof deteriorate themselves and
get less noble and less true.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
But you know, it's really interesting, though,
again, just, you know, there hasto be a moral code, right?
I mean, somehow we realize thatit can't just be chaos.
But you know, you look aroundthe universe and you say, wow,
there's an order to the world,right, yeah, there's an order to
this.
And now I have to live with anorder too in my own heart and in
(22:08):
a culture.
You have to live with it.
And this, matthew, I just wantto stop here for a second
because, again, when we'respeaking to young people, we
live in this age of moralrelativism, right, I mean, 90%
of the young people surveyedtoday, whether they really
understand what they're sayingor not, but 90% would say
they're moral relativists.
But you can't live like that.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
They don't really analyze this?
They don't really, they're notreally.
They say they're moralrelativists, but that seems to
be a defense against moral normswhich they find oppressive, so
like when somebody says, hey,you shouldn't sleep with your
boyfriend or girlfriend, whichthey're told are oppressive I
(22:50):
don't know if they actuallyunderstand it or not yeah,
actually that's bad, that'swrong, you shouldn't do that
they say well, I'm a moralrelativist, that's your opinion,
that's not mine.
But of course that young manknows that if somebody else
touched his girlfriend he'd beangry and he would say what they
did was wrong.
Somebody else forced themselfupon his girl.
They'd say that was wrong, youshould pay because that was
wrong, no matter what you thinkabout it.
(23:10):
So we actually all, everybodybelieves in some moral, like
absolute moral norm.
So like, yeah, moral relativismisn't really possible.
And this is CS Lewis's point inAbolition of man.
You can't actually live as amoral relativist.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yes, it's true.
So in the pagan mythologies,you know they're look, they're
all over the board, right?
But a lot of them taught these,you know, know these values of
life and virtues and heroism andcourage and and all these
things, these manly things thatyou were talking about.
You know what does it mean tobe a man?
You know these things.
You know you, we might havemade them up, but a lot of them
(23:46):
were good stories, weren't they?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
yeah, yeah, they were not like terrible stories.
We're like we're imagining goodstories at first, at least at
first like good stories, iliadtheodosicy, like stories of
heroism.
Well, there's some good thinghere.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
This goodness must come from god in some way yeah,
but of course there's someproblems, and I think you you
mentioned it here right, themystic religions are not
complete, neither do theyattempt to satisfy the whole
person.
This is really important when Iwas when I was studying, even
things like you know, evenoutside of, say, pagan, you know
like, like buddhism, hinduism,you know, that's what I found at
(24:23):
the end.
Nothing against that I.
I thought there were some greatqualities there, but at the end
they just left me like man,it's just like not enough.
Not, there's got to be, anotherstep, you know.
So, so, so that that degree ofnot this completeness right,
there's just I, man, there'sgotta be something more right.
(24:43):
So we go on, don't we?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, we do.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And then you mentioned witchcraft and and I
love the way it starts out inyour article just a sentence
witchcraft is essentially a bidfor power.
It's true, isn't it, when you?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
really think about that, yeah, so yeah, this is
chesterton's third like type ofreligion.
You have a witchcraft religionwhich recognizes there are
divine realities out there,there are supernatural powers,
forces, beings out there.
They're powerful, like bydefinition supernatural.
They have more power than us ifand the point is, if you make a
deal with the devil, the devilkeeps his promises, kind of like
(25:18):
, you can sell your soul and youwill get rich from it.
If you sack, if you make a deal, the devil will sacrifice
babies to you if you give usvictory in battle, devil's very
happy to make you victoryvictorious in battle.
if you do all sorts of horriblethings to it like, the end
result of this course is hetakes your soul.
You do horrible things.
He takes your soul, but he'svery happy to make you rich and
powerful and famous in this lifeand of course he can like.
(25:41):
Christianity, especially newTestament, is very clear the
earth belongs to Satan.
When Satan offers everything,christ says like I will give you
these things, christ says, andthey're not yours to give, he's
well.
No, you should only worship God.
So I'm only going to worshipGod.
But he doesn't deny that Satandoes have the power over the
earth.
He does.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Well, it's interesting.
It reminds me, of course, ofthat famous, you know, ephesians
6 from St Paul.
Right, you know you're notdealing with just flesh and
blood, you're dealing with thepowers and the principalities.
You know, matthew, I'm going tojust dwell on this again
because you're saying so manygood things and I don't want
people to go over this quick.
These powers are real in thisworld too, you know, so we can
(26:23):
talk about.
You know there are real witchesout there and they're actually
growing.
There actually are a lot, youknow, just like Genesis 3,.
You know you can be like Godand you can decide what's good,
what's evil.
We want that power, don't we?
You see that with the worldelites, you know the world
elites, look, I'm not going toput you on the spot here,
(26:45):
matthew, but I watch them speaksometimes and I'm thinking, man,
they have been possessed.
You know whether I'm nottalking about a total possession
or not, but something's up withthat.
I mean you talk about, you know, selling your soul to the devil
.
You know this stuff can reallyhappen.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Oh, it's real.
Chester makes a great pointabout witchcraft.
He said it's a religion forpractical people where you kind
of abandon the worship of thesupernatural and use the
supernatural for benefits hereand now.
So it's a practical religion,oriented toward practical
results.
But of course you do that bytrying to control the
supernatural powers, by making adeal with them.
He says this requiressophistication or civilization,
(27:28):
intelligence.
He kind of said so, justin kindof flips.
We have this idea from I don'tknow where, but some kind of
false idea from modernuniversities, but that
witchcraft is a thing of savages.
The savages were, or theuneducated, the dumb idiots of
the past.
(27:48):
The unsophisticated, uneducatedsavages, uncivilized people did
witchcraft and human sacrificeand cannibalism.
And Cheston flips that and saysno, no, no, in order to make a
deal with the devil you have tokind of be smart, you have to
have a level of intelligence.
So witchcraft type religion,trying to make deals with the
devil, you need education.
In some sense you need to belike a rather advanced
(28:09):
civilization.
This isn't the earliestcivilizations, like the man in
the state of nature, as we're somight put it.
But actually this is onlypossible for some kind of high
level civilization, he pointsout historically well like the
mayans, tons of human sacrifice.
That's witchcraft.
The babylonians similar things.
Carthage he has a whole chapteron carthage and the the war,
(28:30):
the punic wars of carthage androme as the witchcraft religions
versus the pagan religions.
That didn't practice witchcraft.
Rome did not practice humansacrifice and such things.
They told their stories andoffered sacrifices, but not
human sacrifices.
But Carthage did a ton of humansacrifice actually and we
always forget that.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, unbelievable, right.
And so now, and I could staythere for another half an hour,
easy, but let's.
Unfortunately, time's going totick and I want you to talk
about philosophies and otherkind of religion.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah.
So Cheston's fourth type ofreligion is the philosophical
religion, which he says isn'treally a religion at all.
It's just you seek wisdom for agood life.
So he names things likeConfucianism, buddhism.
That's like not really religion.
It's not really concerned withworshiping or even interacting
with the supernatural.
You're just trying to have agood life here and now.
You recognize some basic moralvalues, you try to do what's
(29:28):
right, have a good life, havehappiness here and now, but
that's all it is.
It's philosophy, not religion.
And he says usually in theancient world these four
different types of religions gotseparated.
They would not be united toeach other, they were separate.
They were never unified, theywere always separate.
Things Like Aristotle, whoprobably had the best idea of
(29:48):
God, naturally knowable byreason, so you might say one of
the best philosophers, stillpracticed the pagan mythic cults
and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So they were they were they were separated, even
in his mind, even in his lifeyeah, you know, you're trying to
say what's a practical way tolive right and you know,
philosophy is usually.
It's really an awe and wonder.
Also right I'm, and I'm seekingthe truth, but then it's not
enough.
And you know, you had thatdivine within you.
And just to make this point,because you study right now,
(30:20):
you're studying St ThomasAquinas too For people that
don't know, I don't realize, orI don't know how many people
actually realize, the beauty ofour Catholic faith.
And this is kind of segue intowhat we're going to be talking
about next with Christianity is,you know, is also eminently
practical.
You're right here, but but?
(30:40):
but the Thomists right, theybuilt on Aristotle, you know so
they took those ancient Greeks,Plato first, and then, and then
St Thomas comes and says youknow, let's, let's, let's try to
fit Aristotle in here, Right,For for some obvious reasons we
won't have time to get into.
But then the divine is built,Christianity is built there, and
this is a stable foundation,right?
(31:03):
Yeah, it makes this awe andwonder that we search for this
practical idea of philosophy andthe divine all together, and it
all comes together in thisperson, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, yeah.
So Chetan's point then, abouthow Christianity is and Christ
is only in Christianity.
In Christ do we see the unityof all four of these elements.
Christianity unites what'snever before even been attempted
, even been tried to unite it.
So, of course, Christianity is.
Christianity is, of course,monotheism, one God, but it's
also kind of mythic, like wecare about the stories.
(31:38):
But Christianity, the storybecomes real.
God actually comes to earth.
The Greeks told stories aboutGod coming and walking among
them as like a cow to seduce agirl or whatever, like weird
things.
But Christ actually came andwalked among us, like the myth
became real, so to speak.
But also, it's not witchcraft,but it is eminently practical.
(31:59):
If you think about the biggestissues, what are the biggest
issues we actually faced?
Well, sin, our own evil, evilin the world, moral evil in the
world, and death.
And that's what Christianitycame to solve.
Christ comes to conquer deathand give us grace to enable us
to live a good, moral life.
So Christianity isn't superpractical.
If you want to get rich,powerful and famous in this life
(32:20):
, it is the most practical thing.
If you want salvation andeternal life, if you want
perfect, utter bliss andhappiness and fulfillment with
God, it's the only thing that'llget you that, and anybody that
actually tries to conquer sin intheir own life realizes that
(32:41):
you can't do it on your own.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Yeah, and talk about a practical thing, matthew, and
this is important too.
Pope Benedict XVI said ourfaith is never going to be an
ethical decision or some loftyphilosophical idea.
It's always going to be anencounter with an event, an
encounter with a person, andthat encounter will give you a
new horizon and a decisivedirection for your life, and so
(33:06):
this is important.
You think about all theseancients.
They sensed something, even inthose stories that they told.
Right, it's almost like it wasin us.
Matthew, we're fallen again, sowe don't grasp it, but even
those ancients right in tellingthese myths about this God
coming into Earth.
(33:26):
It's almost like man.
We need this to happen, andthen it happens, and it changes
everything, doesn't it?
But my point being, you canencounter this person, and so
that's the power of the storyhere, that's the power.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, yeah, you can encounter him and then your life
can be changed.
Like these things can be unitedfor you.
Your desire, he says, like allthese things are united in the
person monotheism, like thedesire for the, the knowledge of
the one true god, the one, onesource of everything is there.
But also like all your, yourimaginations, uh, the, what you
(34:03):
wish could be true in the myths.
When we talk about the myths,what, everything, all your
imaginations, what you wishcould be true in the myths, what
we talk about in the myths, allyour dreams can be met and also
you can encounter God.
You can be part of the myth.
It's no longer just a storythat other people do.
It's not just talking about akid.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Wow, what a beautiful way to put it.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, we get wrapped into the myth.
It's not.
God doesn't become just.
He's not just the God ofAbraham.
Like part of this is the OldTestament idea that God is the
God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob.
He is the God of us.
Our names are now important.
How we name God is he's God ofAbraham, isaac and Jacob.
But then in baptism God becomesthe God of Jack and the God of
Matthew.
He becomes like our God and weget united into that story.
(34:42):
And the story, like Chesterton,ends the everlasting man by
talking about the church.
But now the church is us.
We are members of the church.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
We're caught up in the mythic story, in the real
myth.
You know I just got goosebumpswhen you said that, and usually
to me that's like a little HolySpirit moment when I feel this
that means I got to stop therejust for a second again, you
know.
I mean Again, say that again.
Just you know how we get caughtup and we become part of this.
We know we want to be part ofthis bigger story.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
It took something else called revelation right to
actually unpack this, but ittook revelation of the person
who actually came in, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, because Christ, like revelation, started the
story, like Christ came into thestory.
Christ came into historyOriginally like God, not just
Christ.
With Abraham, right, he chose apeople.
He chose a person and a nationand made a people out of them.
And then their history becomesour history, the salvation
history, the history of Israel.
We're incorporated into it,we're grafted on branches,
(35:49):
grafted onto the vine that isIsrael.
We are participators in thestory of David.
That's our story now.
And then, of course, christcomes.
God enters the story himself.
The author of the book has comeinto the book as a character.
The creator of the video gameis now a character you can play
with and go on missions with, soto speak.
But now God's here and we getbaptized into his life, shares
(36:13):
in his life, baptized into hisdeath.
Christ's death on the crossisn't just a story, it's
something we re-present.
We make presence at the massand then we unite ourselves to
that.
Our, our lives are united toChrist's life.
And also just the whole church,like Acts of the Apostles, part
of the Bible is just the storyof what the members of the
church did.
But then, of course, acts ofthe Apostles ends, but the
(36:35):
church doesn't end there.
The church keeps going.
We are the church.
We are continuing what theapostles did in Acts of the
Apostles evangelizing the worldand worshiping God.
The life of Christ continues inus.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
You know, what you just did so wonderfully I mean
really beautifully is and thisis probably Chester to his point
, but I think you did it evenclearer in my mind you know, we
had this desire for everythingthat you said, everything that
you said.
We have this desire.
This is really important whenthose young men, again, this Gen
Z men, are waking up and sayingsomething's wrong.
(37:11):
That's what everybody wassaying, that's what we're saying
here.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Yeah, and they all.
We all want to be part ofsomething bigger.
We all want to be part of abigger story.
Whoever your hero is, probablymost of us can't be on tom
brady's team.
Only a hand, only 10 of us canplay with tom brady at a time.
If, like, I'm not a footballathlete, but if I was, like, my
greatest dream might have beenI'll play with tom brady.
Yeah, very few of us actuallyget to do that.
Yeah, very few of us get tostorm the beaches of normandy
(37:37):
with patton or patton wasn't atnormandy but very few of us get
to serve under these heroicgenerals.
Very few of us get to serveunder these heroic generals.
Very few of us get to fightalongside Achilles or America's
great, most decorated warrior ohgosh, what's his name?
The guy from World War II.
He was America's most decoratedwarrior.
I forget his name now.
It's embarrassing, but, like,very few of us get to fight Now.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
My dad is still alive from World War II, so I was
going to say my dad, but itwasn't him.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Audie Murphy, eddie Murphy.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
You know, I'm ashamed .
I should know those things, youknow.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
I think it's Audie, something like that, something
like that.
Anyway, like America's mostdecorated, he's America's most
decorated soldier.
Very few of us get to do theseepic things, but actually.
William Wallace.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, william Wallace , exactly, braveheart right.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
Yeah, very few of us get to attack Mordor with
Aragorn, very few of us get todefend Helm's Deep with Gimli.
But we actually do get to livewith Christ.
We actually do get to die withChrist.
We actually do get toevangelize with the church.
We do get to be characters inthe story of Christ.
(38:38):
We get to be involved with thisgreat captain and savior and
king, jesus Christ christ.
We get to be his servants andhis brothers.
We get to call his fatherfather.
He came and made his father tobe our father and his mother to
be our mother.
So we get to be brothers withthe humanity of christ and so
sons in the son of the father.
(38:59):
We get incorporated into thisstory.
And you know, matthew, I wrotean article, boy, it was probably
a couple years ago it mighthave been in the catholic
exchange.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
We get incorporated into this story and you know,
matthew, I wrote an articleabout it.
It was probably a couple ofyears ago.
It might've been in theCatholic Exchange and I quoted
Chesterton in there.
Because we're looking forheroes, you know, and it reminds
me, you know, the power thatyou're describing is rising us
up to the point where I am thehero, you know, in my own story,
(39:24):
as a father, as a husband, asthose people and I don't create,
I don't say I'm the hero, but Isee the way my kids or my
grandkids now look at me.
And if you rise up with Christ,you give them a model, even in
our fallen nature and I'm very,very fallen, right and far from
(39:44):
perfect, and they don't expectme to be perfect, but they still
say, hey, if we need somethingor somebody's on our case, we
know we can go to grandpa or dador whatever.
And we all become that hero.
If we take on Christ, if welive as great friends, good
husbands, whatever that is,whatever that role, a good
(40:07):
priest, a great priest, a bishopyou become the hero of your own
story, whether people know itor not, they don't see it or not
right.
Sometimes you climb prettyquietly on the cross yourself,
but you become a hero in thestory and I think we all want
that, don't we?
As men, I mean who wants to lookback at your life, matthew,
(40:27):
when you're 85 years old,sitting on a rocking chair
sipping lemonade, thinking aboutall the things you could have,
should have, would have doneright, yeah, yeah, it sounds
horrible.
It does sound horrible.
Yeah, but that's where we'regoing if we're not careful.
Yeah, right, yeah, fearful,yeah, yeah, look at, look at how
(40:48):
many.
How look?
I'm from chicago 80 of thoseyoung boys in the minority homes
are grown up without fathers.
You think about the effect thatthat has on the, on the, on the
absent fathers and also on thosesons, right, they say most of
the, the men in prison it's likea holding pen for children
without fathers.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah, yeah, like 80% of people of men in prison
didn't have a father at home,something like that.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Right, so we need those.
My point being and your pointright we need to be the heroes
in our own stories.
Yeah, so I never finished myChesterton thing.
So Chesterton was asked thefamous question you know what's
wrong with Christianity?
And he said I am.
Yeah.
I think in the article I saidsomething like I think if GK was
around today he would say thesame thing.
(41:31):
He would reply what's wrongwith this culture, what's wrong
with what we see?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
I am.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Do we have to all step up?
What you're saying is if we canget everybody, or at least a
lot more young people, to standup right and say I am.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
I don't know what that means, but I'm, I'm willing
to walk into the story, right,yeah, to walk in and then live,
live as part of it and partakein it and do it.
And this includes, like, thedifficulties of it, of living it
, but it also includes, likebelieving and embracing the
philosophy of the church, the,the truths of the creed of the
of the church, which, of course,protects the truth of the
church, the truths of the creedof the church, which, of course,
protects the truth of the story.
No, jesus literally came andliterally died and literally
rose from the dead.
(42:08):
It wasn't just not, it's notsomething we made up later on.
It's not something Christians,200 years later, made up and
wrote in a book.
No, christ literally came andwalked in Nazareth, in Jerusalem
.
He literally died under thisguy punches Pilate, and then he
literally rose from the deadbody and soul three days later
anthony, as we start to get runout of time here, I I want you
(42:29):
to stay with that.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
What you just said there, because you know.
You say here christ claimed tobe god to come among men, but he
did it in a different way.
He he didn't come to to leave awritten text, you said.
You know he didn't come towrite a book.
He didn't actually even comejust to teach us things, even
though of course that was partof it.
(42:51):
He came for what, matthew?
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Back to the concluding episodeof today's show.
And this is one of the thingsyou say.
This is unique.
Nobody else does this.
(43:59):
First of all.
You say in here, I'll just sayit real quick, so I don't goof
you up, but he's the only one toclaim to be God first of all.
Yeah, you say in here, I'lljust say it real quick, so, so,
so, I don't goof you up, but butyou know, he's the only one to
claim to be god first of all.
And people don't realize that.
The buddha, you say in here,abraham mo, muhammad confucius,
they didn't say they were god,did they?
So he says I'm god, and then hecomes into the story, but he
comes in for a purpose.
(44:21):
That kind of blows your mind,doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (44:23):
yeah, this is.
This is just his point that thefounder of the religions,
christ, is radically unique andunlike all their founders of
religion, he exactly said heclaims to be God and also he
doesn't come to teach Abraham.
What was Abraham's mission ortask?
Have children, have descendantsas numerous as the stars.
So what he did?
He had Isaac Confuciustaughtdha, taught different
(44:47):
things with a philosophy orenlightenment muhammad and
conquered and fought christ.
Yes, yeah, he taught a lot.
Christ the teacher veryimportant, certain amounts as
crucial, but christ didn't comemainly as a teacher.
They they called him teacher,but he came mainly as the Savior
.
This, of course, when Gabrielappears to Mary, who used to
(45:08):
celebrate his feast dayyesterday, march 25th, you will
conceive in your womb a very sonand he will save his people
from their sins.
Christ came to save us from sinand death by the cross.
So of course, fulton Sheen saysFulton Sheen was also a huge
fan of Chesterton says Christ isthe only man ever born to die.
Christ came to die.
His mission three years longnot very impressive.
(45:30):
The lives and careers of allyour religious founders were a
lot longer than that.
Christ was his mission, hispublic ministry three years and
aimed at the cross.
He comes to the cross.
He predicts his own death andresurrection and then does it
and says on the cross it isfinished.
This is what he came to do.
He didn't come just to teach usmoral truth.
He wasn't just a moral teacher.
He came to die and save us fromour sins and then overcome
(45:54):
death in his resurrection, so wecould also overcome death in
his resurrection as well.
Speaker 1 (45:59):
And this is the power .
You know, Jesus didn't come tomanage our sins.
He came with power and this iswhat we can encounter that power
and the only way you're goingto encounter that power, Matthew
and this is so important foryoung guys, right, why should I
believe in this guy, this JesusChrist?
(46:20):
Because he came with power.
You know, if you get down onyour knees and you really ask,
right, Matthew, 7, 7, huh, Ask,seek and knock, huh.
If you do that, he's not goingto look, he's not a vending
machine, he's not going to justspit out the candy for you.
It may take a while.
It may take, because Jesus sayshey, Matthew, I want your heart
(46:43):
, but I want your effort too.
Right, In order to get yourheart, you got to put some skin
in the game too, but I will giveyou the grace right to complete
that game.
And this is something we canencounter.
So it's not just like boom,it's over here on the shelf.
That power of the cross thatyou're talking about, Matthew,
we can experience it, we can.
The cross is the power of thecross that you're talking about,
(47:04):
Matthew.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
We can experience it.
We can.
The cross is the way Christovercomes death.
He could have done it otherways, but the way he did it was
to die.
And the resurrection is likethe proof.
He says the Jews ask him for asign.
He says, well, destroy thistemple in three days, I will
raise it up.
And then he does.
And it actually happened.
And the historical proof of theresurrection is that the
(47:26):
apostles preached theresurrection at pentecost, 50
days like after the ascension,so something like less than a
couple months after theresurrection happened.
They preached the resurrection.
They said, hey, christ rosefrom the dead in jerusalem.
Jerusalem was not it's not likea modern city.
It was really small, a couplehundred yards across.
Everybody there could walk overto the tomb and see the empty
(47:47):
tomb so is that right?
Speaker 1 (47:50):
I?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
I didn't even realize that yeah, because ancient
Jerusalem is something.
Diameter is something like 500yards.
It's not very like, not verylong.
It takes a couple minutes towalk that far and of course it's
a crisscrossy streets busystreets so it take longer to go
through the city.
But, like the ancient cities,especially drusum, because the
whole city was walled in andbecause you want to have a
walled in city and it's reallyhard to build walls and build
(48:11):
rocks and stuff, so you have asmaller city right and so that's
why, like, you sit at the gatesof the city to do things,
because you don't have these big.
Ancient cities were smaller.
Especially drusum was a smallcity.
Everybody could just walk overin a couple minutes or like in
an afternoon to go look at thetomb.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Is that right?
You know, I never reallythought about that, I don't know
why.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
Yeah, you could possibly preach the resurrection
of Christ like a couple monthsafter it happened, if he wasn't
actually risen, if the tombwasn't actually empty and the
Roman soldiers who were theguards of the tomb were also
there.
They were still in jerusalem atthis time.
You could also go over talk tothe talk to the roman soldiers,
be them in the tavern orsomething, and talk to them over
(48:51):
a beer, so like and those, andsaint paul when he was talking
about those 500 witnesses, thatsome of them were gone then at
that time.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
But they were still walking around there too, right?
They could tell you too.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Isn't that crazy.
The resurrection was like aprovable fact back then because
you could go look at the tombvery easily.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
So this is so great, Matthew, but we're going to sum
it up, brother.
I got you over time alreadyhere.
Hey, give us a short summary.
I've got your article here infront of me.
It's summed up really well, butwhy don't you give us your last
thoughts on this?
Put a bow on this for us.
I know there's a few things youcould probably say, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
So we're at a time where there's so many ideas
available.
Any one of us could study anyreligion we wanted to over the
internet.
There's so much information sowe need to understand how we can
compare and figure out whichone's true, which.
What's the true faith?
Where do I actually findsalvation?
When you try to compareChristianity to other faiths,
you end up not being able tocompare much because they're so
different.
(49:54):
You end up almost only beingable to contrast.
Christianity alone claims that'sthe founders of God.
Christianity alone has the wayto overcome, even claims to have
the way to overcome sin anddeath.
Christianity alone combinesmonotheism with a rich
philosophy in Trinitariantheology, with the robust
(50:15):
ethical system, with also a realhistorical story.
The vigor that comes with mythand story, because it's a myth
come true.
Christianity alone does allthese things.
It's so unique among otherfaiths the, the.
The vigor that comes with mythand story, because it's a myth
come true.
Christianity alone does allthese things.
It's so unique among otherfaiths, that unique because the
self is a big argument insupport of its reality whoa.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
Honest to goodness, matthew, that was awesome,
brother, I'm gonna, I'm gonna,I'm gonna.
Definitely can this.
You know, the beauty of apodcast is they can.
They can go up on your shelfand keep pulling them down, just
like Everlasting man orOrthodoxy.
We can keep pulling it down andlooking at it.
I'm going to link your articlein the show notes.
Anything else you want me toput in the show notes no, no,
(50:57):
that's good.
All right then.
Thanks for joining us everyone.
Hope you enjoyed today's show.
Talk to you again soon.
Bye-bye.
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