Mount Doom: Decoding Tolkien's Greatest Secret with Paul List and Joseph Pearce (Jun 3, 2026)

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You're listening to WCAT radio, your home for authentic Catholic programming.
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Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this presentation on Tolkien's
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work and on a book written by Paul list In
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Ali Gafari entitled Mount Doom. My name is Sebastian Mathud,
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and we will begin with an introduction to our two panelists,
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followed by a prayer, and then the presentations, and then
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a Q and a session. Today we have with us
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Paul list He's the author of Mount Doom, The Prophecy
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of Tolkien Revealed. Drawing on years of study in philosophy, theology,
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mythology in Tolkien's Legendarium, Paul has developed a bulk in
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deeply original interpretation of Tolkien's work, one that connects the
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Lord of the Rings to questions of metaphysics, technology, artificial intelligence,
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and the spiritual crisis of modern civilization. His work challenges
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readers to reconsider Tolkien not only as a master storyteller,
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but also as a prophetic thinker speaking directly to our
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own age. His respondent today is Joseph Pierce, one of
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the world's leading Catholic literary scholars and biographers, a prolific author, editor,
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and speaker. Joseph has written extensively on J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S.
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Lewis, G. K.
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Chesterton, Alexander Schultzenitsen in many of the great literary voices
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of the Christian tradition. His work has helped countless readers
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rediscover the spiritual, philosophical, and theological death embedded within great literature. Today,
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he's joining us to discuss with Paul Paul's interpretation of
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Mount Doom and the enduring significance of Tolkien's mythic vision
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for our own age. Before we begin, I'd like to
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introduce Father Alfredo Hernandez, the rector of Saint Vincent to
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Palm Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida, who will lead
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us in our opening prayer.
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Father Alfrida, Now I follow us on the Holy Spirit,
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and it seems so appropriate given the Poplio quoted Tolkien
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last week and magnifiga humanitas, to begin with that quote
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of Tolkien. It is not our part to master all
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the tides of the world, but to do what is
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in us for the sucker of those years wherein we
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are set a brooding the evil in the fields that
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we know, so that those who live after may have
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clean earth to till. We ask you, Lord, as we
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listened today to these reflections on the work of Tolkien,
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that we might be able to uproot the evil in
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the fields that we know, if we might work at
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what you call us to do here now, and that
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we might be able to help prepare the earth for
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those who follow us. Hey, we not be have our
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eyes focused on spectacular or even singular gestures, but really
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allowed work with trust that all that we do will
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be for the glory of your name, for the good
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of your people. And we ask you all this through
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Christ our Lord. Amen, men, whisper Amen.
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Thank you Favo Hernandez for that wonderful prayer. And with that,
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I'd like to hand the presentation over to Paul List.
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Paul take it away.
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Okay, Well, first off, I'd like to say what a
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great honor and a privilege it is to be here,
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particularly with Joseph Pierce. I've read several of your books
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and many articles and whatnot, and I respect your work
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very greatly, and that's why I was really really happy
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that you accept our invitation here. I would like to
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just start out by saying that was an excellent prayer
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by Father too. And also I'd like to start out
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by saying making it very clear that this work art work,
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this book was definitely inspired and moved along by God's
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providential hand and his grace, and it has very little
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to do with me. I had no desire to discover anything.
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I had no desire to put myself in any position
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to contradict any conventional wisdom or the traditional interpretation of
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Tolkien's work or anything. It just happened to be that
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God made it very clear to me that this is
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something I knew I was going to have to do something.
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He made it very clear. And then he gave me
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a great friendship with my co author, Ali Gufari, who
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we became very close friends. He was about twenty years
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younger than me. He was going to be a brain surgeon.
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He was a mensa, an absolute doer, but he was
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an atheist, and he got caught up with me. And
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I was self educated, and I had been reading Aquinas
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and Aristotle and whatnot, and also you know, working UH
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and UH. Over a course of probably four or five years,
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three or four years, he converted and became Catholic, and
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I sponsored him UH when he came into the church
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and it totally changed Ali's life. And when Ali told
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me that he was going to become Catholic, I remember
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I was right in the other room here and I
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almost fell over and I was so overjoyed, and I
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told him, I said, Ali said, this is really big medicine.
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I said, I don't know what God has in mind
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for us, but God's going to do something with us,
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and this is it. Uh So to to stay on
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the on the track with Ali, Ali helped me. Ali
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is the is the doer. Sebastian knows him very well.
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Ali is a real monster doer. He I didn't want
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to be. When he converted. He became a Navy aviation.
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He flew at fifteen's with the Navy, and then he
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went on toward the end of his career because he's
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a young man. He retired when he was forty or
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so to teach at the Naval Academy for the last
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five years. A lee can do anything, and I and
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God gave me this young friend who he became so
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close with, and he really is the material cause of
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our work, because without a Lee, it would still just
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be up in my head and I would have just
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never done anything with it, and I would have just
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moved on and like I've done with so many things.
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But Lee, God gave me this ultimate doer. And God
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put a serious fire in me of fear, a very
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very deep fear that caused me to read. And he
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caused me to read voraciously, even though I tried to
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do everything I could to avoid it, kind of like job.
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I guess, you know, I didn't want I just wanted
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to just, you know, just go about my business and
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do my thing and get along, but or not get along,
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but just you know, I don't have no desire for
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the spotlight or anything. But Ali, God gave me a league,
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and then he gave me this fear to read, and
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I read voraciously and then Ali converted. And then as
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I went in my reading, I happened to be reading
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one day. I'd read a lot of in cyclicals and
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I was reading Leo the Thirteenth Attorney Patris, which as
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I read it, it just blew my mind and I thought,
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this is so tolkien esque. This is just reads like
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an epic Tolkien battle at the gates of you know,
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of gondor you know, holding back, you know, the gates
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of Hell.
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And Maria.
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It just sounded it was. It was just hit me
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like a ton of bricks. And that's when I started.
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I opened up the Tolkien Mythology again and I started
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reading it again, and I studied medieval scholastic philosophy. And
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along with that, I also studied, and by God's hand
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in providence provided me everything I needed, studied medieval psychology,
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which is a psychology that was replaced by the psychology
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of the Enlightenment, where it became very material oriented and
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the brain was just part of the rest of the machinery,
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and the soul, you know, was separated in Descartes dualism.
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And it was a disaster. The Reformation caused a disaster
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and caused the age of the machine, which now are
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in the end of the age of the machine, confluence
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with the information agent. It's about to send man into
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and it is sending man, one soul at a time, uh,
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straight into Hell. And uh so I with when I
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opened up the Tolken Mythology again, it just hit me
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like a ton of bricks. This is scholastic sculp, this
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is scholasticism, This is all Thomas Aquinas, This is Thomas
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Aquinas indirect conflict with the UH, the terrible UH philosophies
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of the Enlightenment, particularly Descartes, but also Descart's predecessor and
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the father of the new scientific method, which is Francis Bacon.
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So I read all of Francis Bacon's work, and I
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and I read. I believe I've read pretty much all
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of Descartes's work, which is considerable. And of course I
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loved Aristotle, and I just delighted in Aquinas and Augustine
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and whatnot. So when I came in to the Tolkien Mythology,
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all of a sudden, everything just hit me. Everything just
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opened up. The picture just absolutely appeared. And the mythology
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is not about directly about this world at any fictitious
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time in history or anything. It's a psychological saga. It's
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a psychological mythology. And the I knew Linda lay or
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the Beginning, which I think is perhaps the most beautiful
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prose in literature. You probably know it well. It's the beginning,
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the story of creation with a Louvatar e Eru, a
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Louvatar and the flame imperishable, which is a reference to
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the Holy Trinity, cleverly disguised, but it was creation story.
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But it wasn't about the creation story of this world.
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It was a creation story of a single human soul.
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And that single human soul was named Arta. And Amen
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is this is all scholasticism. Amen is the immaterial intellect
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of the of the of the mind, and then Middle
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Earth is the material brain laid out in the old pseudoscience,
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Victorian pseudo science called phrenology, where they thought that they
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knew where everything in the brain was responsible for. And
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that's the map Tolkien referred to. And he said, I
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very wisely started with the map. He didn't start with
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the map of Europe or England or anything. He started
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with that Victorian map of the of the brain. And
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then Tolkien goes about making the character. All the characteristics
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and attributes essential and some accidental and properties makes them.
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He gives them character so they can actually play a
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part in a role in this ongoing saga. So Arta
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becomes a representative human being that represents all of Western
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christiendom uh and and it plays out in in a
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single soul. The single soul represents our whole history and
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the prophecy of this where we are now, where we're
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coming to the very well I hate to say end times,
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but it looks pretty much like we are in a
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time when we are about to and we are being
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devoured by a machine that man has made in his
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own image that we're worshiping, and it will ultimately make
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us worship it. And it is the ultimate rebellion against God.
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It's to deny us from God's creation, to actually suck
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us into the virtual realm of the metaverse, you might say,
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and devour us there as well will turn. And people
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are turning their hopes and their desires and their eternity
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away from God's the beatific vision with our creator and
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our Savior, and turning us toward a machine that invites
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us or as God. It tries to convince us that
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we don't need God, we don't need heaven. We can
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have heaven on earth in the machine, and have eternal
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life in the machine. And I want to make clear
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that Tolkien made it very clear in one of his
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very famous letters that everybody likes to quote, where he
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says like cordially dislike allegory, which he never said he
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hated allegory. He just said he cordially dislikes allegory in
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all of its manifestations, and that means wherever it shows up.
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So if allegory is recognizable as such, Bolton didn't like it,
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that's bad writing. If the algegory comes through so plainly
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that you recognize it, that's bad writing. And so what
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he gives us is he gives us all these characters
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that play the part in the psychology. So the I
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knew her in the very cleverly named derivatively, I knew
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these are the angelic beings, as a Quitas calls the angels,
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the intelligences. They become the fourteen facets of the soul,
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the ones, the val aur that come down after the
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song of Creation. Everything is absolutely steeped in music, and
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the whole harmonic overtone series plays a huge role in
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the whole thing, particularly in the rings. So he gives
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us all the characters. The val are the fourteenthoul facets
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of the soul, including the vegetative powers, the sensitive powers,
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the appetitive powers, and above those are fourteen in all.
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And then above and above those is the rational will
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and the intellect and how we're made in the image
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of God. And those are the trees of light, Telpurion
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and Laurelin and everything is in and Melcor is original sin.
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He's not the devil, he's original sin. That's why he
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stains and mars everything. And there's a glorious state of
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being in in Arta, the person of Arta, when he's
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in a state of grace, and the trees wax and
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wane in the what's called typically called the circle of fifths,
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although I call it the spiral of the forts, because that's
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what modulation actually does in music. And it also waxes
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and wanes in accordance with Augustine's idea of the intelligent,
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the angelic intellect out of his I believe it's it's
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his work on Genesis. It's in my book anyway. So
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in a state of grace, but then more Melchor brings
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in mortal sin, and it's all Catechism. It's original sin
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makes the occasion for sin brings in mortal sin, which
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is on gulling out the big spider creature. She bites
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the trees. He malcor spears them. She bites the trees,
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injects them with venom, and and they die. And as
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they die, they their spirits leave their body. That's the
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nature of death. Their spirits are contained in the last
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silver flower from Telperion and last golden fruit from Laurelan.
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Ala the spirit of growth, power of growth in the soul.
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He's married by the way to to to Ivanna, and
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she is generation. That's why they're married. They're part of
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the vegetative hours. Al had already made the dwarves by
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the way, so he took the last silver flower and
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in the radiance and made caskets like for them, like
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Somrel's set them and man way set them. Actually, Varda
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sat them in the heavens as the fallen light of
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tell Purion and Laurelan. But the fallen light, So what
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happened to the spirits? Tolkien doesn't say, because he leaves
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this very very well concealed. That's why nobody's ever known
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who Tom, Bombadi and Goldberry are. They've thought, in fact,
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that they didn't make much difference to the story, that's
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how well he hit it. But actually they're the whole
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point of the story. They are the main characters. Tom
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is the fallen transmigrated spirit of tell Purion the Silver Tree,
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and Goldberry is the transmigrated fallen spirit of the Golden Tree.
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And remember her, her spirit was transferred through the last
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gold than fruit of Lawlands, so she gets her name
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from that goldberry. The fruit was a berry. So there,
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But now they're in a state of mortal sin. They've
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fallen out of grace, the state of grace, so they
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can't be in the undying Land anymore. They have to
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be in Middle Earth, in the material realm. So we
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have and Tom and Goldberry are the rational will and
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the rational intellect, and the intellect includes the conscience, so
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they become the main characters. And as Tolkien said very
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clearly when he described the making of the Trees of Light,
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he told the reader that it's about their destiny. Of
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the concerns all of the Elder Days. Well, they died
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very early in the First Age, and the Elder Days
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is aerragorm makes very clear it goes even into the
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Fourth Age. So clearly, if they died that early, and
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they were no longer there anymore than Tolkien was inconsistent,
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Tolkien was anything but inconsistent. He was very very consistent
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and very very precise in his descriptions. He tied it
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everything together with a magnificent thoroughness philosophically and metaphysically and theologically,
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and historically, So they become Goldberry and Tom become the
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whole focal point of the mythology. And I'm going to
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skip ahead into the third age that most people are
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familiar with, if nothing else because of the movie. We
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could talk about that later, some of it good, some
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of it not so good. But they become the whole
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focus of the story. But it's so cleverly concealed it
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nobody's ever known who Tom and Goldberry were. In fact,
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the big question that the enigma has always been who's
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Tom Bombadilla. And we have people always making all kinds
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of perfectly legitimate guesses at who he is, even to
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the point where people say, well, Tolkien just put him
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in there to be an enigma, and there's no answer
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for it, and he doesn't make any difference, and he's
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just there to kind of just kind of jolt the
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story and whatever. Well he's not. He's the whole point.
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He's the rational will. And that's why he's called Master,
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because according the will is the master over the soul.
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What we deliberate and what we choose with the will
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freely choose, that is the master. So at the time
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of the destruction of the Ring and by the way,
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the ring is binary code. It's ones and zeros, and
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it's digital, okay, And it is the language of the machine.
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And it's the most brutal, ugly language of all, just
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ones and zeros. That's all the machine confunction with. It's
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all the machine makes the machine actually operate is ones
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and zeros. So it's binary code. And what it does
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at the end of the age, and with the intent
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and the realization that Tom and Goldberry make a conscious
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realization at this point they've been they're partly transhuman. They
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have the microchip and mortar which is the cerebellum through
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the process called morphogenesis, and Sarah has become artificial intelligen
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According to Alan Turing's original paper where he virtually invents
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the paper called on Computable Numbers with an application think
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Skydunk's problem. I think Skydunk's problem is the decision problem.
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Tolkien uses that in the mood. So Tolkien uses all
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kinds of even the third, second, and third meanings of words,
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which is just a fantastically masterful jigsaw puzzle that he makes.
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But to make along because I want to bring it down,
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so because I want to make this as short as
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possible and make my point, Tolkien gives us a message,
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and he gives us the solution. He tells the reader
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that the solution against the machine is sanctity, his sainthood
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and the restoration of the church, the true faith, and
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we have to become saints. And our fight against the
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machine is virtue. That's the machine's achilles heel. The as
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we point out in the book, the Big Oxford Machine
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was question I think twenty eighteen, and it set of itself.
325
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AI can never be ethical. It's just a machine. Human
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beings can be ethical and moral, and we can, and
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we have to rise up and become saints. And the
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whole story is about Arta losing the faith, becoming dualistic.
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When that's in the drowning of neumanor that's the dualism,
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separation of the material with the material and becomes dualistics
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in a state of mortal sin. And now it's become
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partly transhuman and at that point, and it's being eaten
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alive by Gallam, and Gallam is in temperance, and he's
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being eaten alive and he wants that ring because he
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can slake his lusts with anything. As we know, on
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the computer through the use of the of the ring.
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And at that point Tom and Goldberry make a critical decision.
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They're going to clean up their act. They're going to
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return to the faith, and they're going to get rid
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of the microchip. And they do that by the destruction
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of the language of the machine and go figure. Tolkien
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would use the language of the machine because he was
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the world's leading philologist and languages were so important to him,
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and it's important to us too. So there are many
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things going on. There's the there's descartes bacon versus aquinas
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and scholastics. There's the language of the machine versus the
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language of the digital language that the you know, with
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the one ring binary code against the harmonic overtone system,
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which are the rest of the rings of power are
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the the notes of the dominant ninth COURD minus the
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fifth because the fifth chord has the dominant power over
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the one ring, and the one ring is a digital
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limitation of what should have been the original generator tone.
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It's all about music, h and harmony because harmony really
355
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the harmonic physics really rule creation. So at this point
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Tom and Goldberry, the will in the intellect, make a
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decision that they're going to return to the faith and
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they're going to clean up their act and they're going
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to become saints. So they call out of the shire
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the habits Thebbits, because hobbits are habits, and habits are virtues,
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and the best of all the virtues, according to Aquinas
362
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and the Scholastics, are the cardinal virtues. So the four
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Hobbits that we know and love so well are the
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cardinal virtues, and they play them very well. They are
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Frodo represents temperance, Sam's fortitude. They're the interior virtues according
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to the s Classics. The exterior virtues, according to the
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Scholastics are prudence and justice, which is Pippin and Marry.
368
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But they're very green, they're very young, and they have
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to serve the interior. We have to be good on
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the interior first, otherwise we become social justice warriors and
371
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virtue signalers. So Tolkien was well aware of that tendency
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to try to look good and not really be good
373
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on the inside. So against the Tom and Goldberry pull
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call the habits out of the shire, and they were
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all ready for them. They had a separate penthouse built
376
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on the side of their house. They had all the
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meals ready, they had the steaming baths, and the shoes
378
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and the beds, and they were all ready for them.
379
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So they knew they were coming because they'd called them out,
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and they sent it and instructed them, and then sent
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them on their way to destroy the ring and the
382
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other facets of the soul that are so necessary, and
383
00:23:13.640 --> 00:23:16.319
the intellect are of course high reason, which is airborne.
384
00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:23.119
He contemplates the eternal according to Aquinas and Aristotle. And
385
00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:29.480
then Borimir, who represents the that is the representative from Gondor,
386
00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:34.160
who in Gondor represents the Catholic Church throughout the ages,
387
00:23:34.599 --> 00:23:37.720
the bulwark against the evils of hell. But it's in
388
00:23:37.759 --> 00:23:41.039
tough shape and doesn't have a real king. He doesn't
389
00:23:41.039 --> 00:23:44.680
have any real kings for two times, and so Borimir's.
390
00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:48.160
They're representing the Catholic Church and the aspirations of the
391
00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:52.400
leaders at the time. And then you've got elves, our
392
00:23:52.440 --> 00:23:56.319
faith in all their manifestations or all their degrees. Men
393
00:23:56.400 --> 00:23:58.480
are reason and all their degrees, with the airborne at
394
00:23:58.480 --> 00:24:01.640
the top. And then you have dwarves who who aw
395
00:24:01.759 --> 00:24:05.000
they made you remember, and they are scientific knowledge. That's
396
00:24:05.039 --> 00:24:08.400
why they're adopted children. They're not the true children of
397
00:24:09.319 --> 00:24:12.440
Alluvatar's true children, because we can be truly human, made
398
00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:14.480
an image of God with faith and reason, and we
399
00:24:14.519 --> 00:24:17.319
don't need scientific knowledge, but it comes in real handy.
400
00:24:17.920 --> 00:24:21.880
Thus the aggravation between the elves and the dwarves because
401
00:24:21.880 --> 00:24:26.400
of the antagonistic nature that the Enlightenment gave us, of
402
00:24:26.440 --> 00:24:30.559
the fight between science and faith, and also faith and reason.
403
00:24:31.200 --> 00:24:33.839
So and then you've got also you've got the Hobbits,
404
00:24:33.880 --> 00:24:38.039
and you've got Gandolf, And Gandolf is philosophical wisdom according
405
00:24:38.079 --> 00:24:41.680
to Aristotle's Nekamachi and ethics, and they are the five
406
00:24:41.880 --> 00:24:46.279
intellectual virtues. And of course Tolkien is very very thorough,
407
00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:49.640
so he all five are represented, but only three play
408
00:24:49.640 --> 00:24:51.480
a part in the mythology. And those are the three
409
00:24:51.519 --> 00:24:54.799
that are the interior, and those are philosophical wisdom first,
410
00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:57.680
pagan philosophical wisdom, Gandalf the Gray. And then when he
411
00:24:57.720 --> 00:25:01.160
falls in Maria, which is very interesting, very fascinating and
412
00:25:01.160 --> 00:25:05.079
inspiring battle there he comes out of full blown to
413
00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:07.519
mystic theologian. And now he's ganned off the white and
414
00:25:07.559 --> 00:25:11.759
he replaces sorrowmon and sorrow on is practical wisdom, and
415
00:25:11.799 --> 00:25:13.799
that's just how we provide for our day to day
416
00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:16.359
lives and how we just get along in the world.
417
00:25:16.440 --> 00:25:19.799
Now he's taken over Academia, Sarron has and he is
418
00:25:19.839 --> 00:25:21.960
in the image of John Dewey, and Toldien was very
419
00:25:22.039 --> 00:25:25.240
aware of John Dewey in the destruction of Western Civili
420
00:25:25.400 --> 00:25:30.400
destruction of our education system. And then Radagast is rational intuition.
421
00:25:30.559 --> 00:25:33.160
And then the two blue wizards their exterior. That's why
422
00:25:33.160 --> 00:25:35.079
they keep going to the east. They go right out
423
00:25:35.400 --> 00:25:37.640
the back of the head and they go out into
424
00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:41.559
the cosmogonical realm, and they are art and science, and
425
00:25:41.559 --> 00:25:43.160
those are the other two ways. Those are the two
426
00:25:43.160 --> 00:25:47.079
ways that we receive wisdom from the exterior world. So
427
00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:51.359
we've got all these things going on, and those become
428
00:25:51.400 --> 00:25:54.599
the Fellowship, and they are sent to Mortar to destroy
429
00:25:54.640 --> 00:25:57.599
the ring where the one ring was made. And without
430
00:25:57.640 --> 00:26:03.880
the destruction of the ring, the constant ongoing process of
431
00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:11.480
both morphogenesis and our artificial intelligence, all the computer morphogenesis
432
00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:17.200
and artificial intelligences are all products of allenturing. And very
433
00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:21.200
few people understand or realize that Toltien actually interacted with
434
00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:25.279
Alan Turing for three days because Toltien was recruited by
435
00:26:25.319 --> 00:26:27.920
the British government just on the eve of World War
436
00:26:27.960 --> 00:26:30.480
Two to be part of the top secret code cracking
437
00:26:30.519 --> 00:26:34.480
team called the British Government Code Cipher School, where he
438
00:26:34.559 --> 00:26:36.480
trained there for three days and they offered him a job.
439
00:26:36.559 --> 00:26:39.960
Their task was to crack the German Enigma machine, their
440
00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.079
communications ciphering machine, and Toltien was offered a job there,
441
00:26:44.079 --> 00:26:46.000
but he turned it down, And I believe he turned
442
00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:48.680
it down because he realized that a philologist really had
443
00:26:48.759 --> 00:26:51.960
no place there, because it wasn't about languages, about statistics
444
00:26:51.960 --> 00:26:55.839
and probabilities, the realm of the statistician, the mathematician, the
445
00:26:55.880 --> 00:26:58.440
people like Alan Turing, and but he also realized that
446
00:26:58.519 --> 00:27:00.440
all they were going to do is create another machine
447
00:27:00.440 --> 00:27:04.720
that would be more powerful, an Enigma machine, And ultimately
448
00:27:04.839 --> 00:27:07.400
he didn't want anything to do with promoting machines that
449
00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:10.599
would ultimately replace the human mind and encroach in the
450
00:27:10.680 --> 00:27:14.559
human thought process and ultimately lead us to hell. So
451
00:27:15.039 --> 00:27:19.880
that's kind of a fifty thousand foot picture without getting
452
00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:23.160
too deep into too much, but I'll just end with
453
00:27:23.319 --> 00:27:26.799
this that we're out of time right now. Where Tolkien's
454
00:27:26.839 --> 00:27:29.319
mythology needs to be understood for what it is. It's
455
00:27:29.359 --> 00:27:32.799
been left in a realm of ambiguity, partly because of
456
00:27:32.839 --> 00:27:36.160
Tolkien's own desire to keep it under the lowdown, keep
457
00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:39.559
it undercover, knowing very well that if it was out
458
00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:42.160
in the open, his true message was out in the open,
459
00:27:42.200 --> 00:27:45.839
it was recognizable, he would be attacked. So he knew
460
00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:48.680
that he just really just needed to write a good story,
461
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:52.920
and he wrote a darn good story, knowing that ultimately,
462
00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:56.359
in God's time, God would choose somebody as unworthy as
463
00:27:56.400 --> 00:27:58.680
I am, would choose somebody to figure it out and
464
00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:00.359
give him everything he needed to do. And that's what
465
00:28:00.440 --> 00:28:03.319
he did. And it's time now that it's revealed for
466
00:28:03.359 --> 00:28:06.319
what it is, because Tolkien's mythology has been left in
467
00:28:06.359 --> 00:28:10.160
a realm of ambiguity for so long that it's been abused,
468
00:28:10.160 --> 00:28:14.119
and ambiguity really really lends itself to perversion and all
469
00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:18.000
kinds of misrepresentation. And we can look at like Amazon's
470
00:28:18.039 --> 00:28:20.039
Rings of Power and all kinds of other things that's
471
00:28:20.079 --> 00:28:23.279
going on with Tolkien's work, and it's because people think
472
00:28:23.279 --> 00:28:26.000
they've got license to turn it into whatever they want.
473
00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:29.160
And now that it's seek into the whole world, it's
474
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:33.759
saturated thoroughly by osmosis without any resistance because it was unthreatening,
475
00:28:34.119 --> 00:28:37.519
exactly what Tolkien knew would happen. It's seeped into all
476
00:28:37.559 --> 00:28:40.079
the fabric of Western civilization, and now it's time to
477
00:28:40.079 --> 00:28:42.440
be understood for what it is. And it's a warning
478
00:28:42.559 --> 00:28:46.720
and it gives us the solution. Our only weapon against
479
00:28:46.720 --> 00:28:50.680
the master of this material dead world is the material
480
00:28:51.079 --> 00:28:54.640
dead machine, and our only weapon against that is the
481
00:28:54.640 --> 00:28:59.599
sacraments of the Catholic Church and our sanctity and becoming saints.
482
00:28:59.640 --> 00:29:02.079
And we have to cultivate virtue. We have to cultivate
483
00:29:02.119 --> 00:29:06.880
our habits, we have to cultivate our minds. We have
484
00:29:06.920 --> 00:29:10.039
to be competent again, and we have to turn our
485
00:29:10.119 --> 00:29:14.440
back on the machine, regain our humanity, regain our church,
486
00:29:14.599 --> 00:29:18.480
regain our faith, and become fully human made in the
487
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:21.160
image of God. And we only have Christ and the
488
00:29:21.160 --> 00:29:23.799
Blessed Virgin and the saints to hang on to, and
489
00:29:23.839 --> 00:29:26.400
we need to join them as closely as we can
490
00:29:26.480 --> 00:29:28.960
while we're here on the material round, and Tolkien gives
491
00:29:29.039 --> 00:29:31.440
us everything we need to do that I'll end of that.
492
00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:36.079
Thank you very much, Paul for your fine presentation, and
493
00:29:36.119 --> 00:29:39.039
with that we will turn it over to Joseph Pierce.
494
00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:40.680
Joseph take it away.
495
00:29:41.720 --> 00:29:47.440
Okay, So I want to begin before you know, I've said,
496
00:29:47.519 --> 00:29:52.200
you know, candidly in conversation with Pool before this, that
497
00:29:52.920 --> 00:29:56.960
to quote, but to allude to C. S. Lewis that
498
00:29:57.000 --> 00:30:01.240
I'm not a tame lion, and that that's that's part
499
00:30:01.240 --> 00:30:05.079
of the fun. But but I also want to begin
500
00:30:05.240 --> 00:30:08.759
by by quoting actually Joah Manny Hopkins, and there's a
501
00:30:08.759 --> 00:30:11.559
wonderful line in one of his poems where he talks
502
00:30:11.599 --> 00:30:16.240
about the achieve of the thing. And there's no doubt
503
00:30:16.240 --> 00:30:21.039
at all that what Paul and Ali have have uh
504
00:30:22.039 --> 00:30:26.680
uh created here produced here, this this book is is
505
00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:31.599
a marvelous achievement. Uh And I think it's an achievement
506
00:30:31.759 --> 00:30:37.279
which is in harmony with the essential vision of Tolkien
507
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:45.319
and with the Tolkien's legendarian So so that's why I'm
508
00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:49.440
happy to be associated with this, but with but also
509
00:30:49.799 --> 00:30:53.359
in some sense some sense as a dissident voice. So
510
00:30:55.039 --> 00:30:59.599
Tolkien is a Tomist. Therefore that there's no dat at
511
00:30:59.640 --> 00:31:04.880
all that underlying I mean, the underlying philosophy of of
512
00:31:04.920 --> 00:31:07.680
his work, The Lord of the Rings and the Wider Legendarium,
513
00:31:07.720 --> 00:31:13.680
indeed everything else he did istimistic because he was a good, solid,
514
00:31:14.160 --> 00:31:21.119
no nonsense, traditional oriented Catholic who was steeped in the history,
515
00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:25.559
the tradition, the theology, and the philosophy of the church.
516
00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:31.279
So he uh, that's that's that seems very in his
517
00:31:31.440 --> 00:31:37.240
very being almost said blood. But that's materialistic, right, it
518
00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:39.880
seems very being that that that that the essence of
519
00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:45.200
who talkien is as as a faithful, rational follower of
520
00:31:45.279 --> 00:31:50.440
Christ is also a father of the angelic Doctor. So
521
00:31:50.640 --> 00:31:58.480
insofar as as Paul has An Andari have expressed Tolkien's
522
00:31:58.480 --> 00:32:03.160
philosophy toimistically, which they do marvelously in the work, I
523
00:32:03.319 --> 00:32:05.680
have no problem. So my biggest problem with it and
524
00:32:05.720 --> 00:32:10.599
I think we need to go back to Tolkien's own words.
525
00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:14.799
He said, The Lord of the Rings is of course
526
00:32:14.799 --> 00:32:21.200
a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously at first consciously
527
00:32:21.279 --> 00:32:26.799
in the revision, and when Tolkien says that he disliked allegory,
528
00:32:26.839 --> 00:32:29.720
and I agree with Paul that so another word, but well,
529
00:32:29.799 --> 00:32:32.640
guess one pause and half a moment. So in other words,
530
00:32:32.680 --> 00:32:37.039
the story was originally told as a story, right, in
531
00:32:37.079 --> 00:32:40.240
other words, that the Catholic dimension was unconscious. It's going
532
00:32:40.279 --> 00:32:42.839
to be there because of who he is as a
533
00:32:42.880 --> 00:32:45.960
believe in Catholic. It's not gonna it's not going to
534
00:32:46.039 --> 00:32:51.039
express a worldview on an understanding of morality and ethics,
535
00:32:51.559 --> 00:32:54.519
metaphysics that's contrary to a Catholic understanding of things. It's
536
00:32:54.559 --> 00:32:56.480
going to be there because that's the way that he
537
00:32:56.880 --> 00:33:03.039
the air that he breathes, the reason he lives, I mean,
538
00:33:03.079 --> 00:33:05.559
as in Ratzio. So it's going to be there. But
539
00:33:05.599 --> 00:33:07.880
then he goes back and he in the revision, he
540
00:33:08.440 --> 00:33:14.599
consciously ensures that certain aspects are there that ensure it
541
00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:19.519
is fundamentally religious and Catholic. Of course, Okay, so that
542
00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:21.920
that's that's the important thing. But let's look at Tolkien's
543
00:33:22.680 --> 00:33:25.599
perspective on allegory, and he talks about in various places.
544
00:33:27.319 --> 00:33:30.440
Now he said, but he says, and it's the preface
545
00:33:30.519 --> 00:33:32.839
to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings
546
00:33:33.960 --> 00:33:38.160
that that he despises allegory in all its forms ever
547
00:33:38.200 --> 00:33:40.680
since I first learned to see it. I'm paraphraser, that's
548
00:33:40.720 --> 00:33:44.680
essentially what it is. And I think the main main
549
00:33:44.759 --> 00:33:47.279
reason for this was the response to the first edition,
550
00:33:47.480 --> 00:33:55.200
which try to reduce Tolkien's essentially theological vision to one
551
00:33:55.240 --> 00:33:59.799
of mere politics and topicality. So bearing in mind that
552
00:33:59.839 --> 00:34:01.720
The Lord of the Rings was was published just in
553
00:34:01.759 --> 00:34:04.880
the years immediately after World War Two, the idea that
554
00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.599
somehow sour On with his red eye was was was communism,
555
00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:16.320
the Soviet Union stalin uh and uh, some of mine
556
00:34:16.400 --> 00:34:21.039
with his white hand was Nazi Germany. That the Hobbit
557
00:34:21.039 --> 00:34:22.679
and the shy the shy has, of course, were good
558
00:34:22.679 --> 00:34:27.519
old England, Little England standing up against these these tyrants,
559
00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:32.519
and even reduction at absurdom, that the Eagles were the
560
00:34:32.599 --> 00:34:34.519
US Air Force coming into the rescue at the end
561
00:34:34.519 --> 00:34:38.519
of it. Now you know clearly Tolkien is not going
562
00:34:38.559 --> 00:34:42.880
to be happy with something as huge in terms of
563
00:34:42.920 --> 00:34:46.599
wisdom and scope as The Lord of the Rings being
564
00:34:46.639 --> 00:34:50.280
reduced to a commentary upon World War Two. So he
565
00:34:50.320 --> 00:34:53.960
did not want this reductionism. And that's but then of
566
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:58.039
course he's being absurd. I think Paul used the word
567
00:34:58.039 --> 00:35:01.440
that's bad writing, and I agree when he says I
568
00:35:01.559 --> 00:35:04.559
despise allegory in all its forms, because of course Tolkien's
569
00:35:04.599 --> 00:35:08.559
a philologist, he's a linguist. He knows that every single
570
00:35:08.719 --> 00:35:12.519
word is an allegory. All right, If I, if I,
571
00:35:12.519 --> 00:35:16.760
if I say dog, and you don't speak English, it's
572
00:35:16.760 --> 00:35:20.519
a what islabic grunt? Right, you have to know the signs,
573
00:35:20.679 --> 00:35:23.760
you have to know the language. And if you speak English, dog,
574
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:29.119
now your imagination taking that sound, are now bringing to
575
00:35:29.119 --> 00:35:32.480
your imagination of four legger canine, right, because that's what
576
00:35:32.519 --> 00:35:36.039
the word signifies, right, It's a signal. So of course
577
00:35:36.079 --> 00:35:38.639
Tolkien understands that on the most basic level, we can't
578
00:35:38.679 --> 00:35:46.920
even think, uh, I'll express ourselves without ascribing allegorical labels
579
00:35:46.960 --> 00:35:48.679
to the things that we've perceived so that we can
580
00:35:48.760 --> 00:35:51.239
talk about and to others. Right. So clearly Tolkien is
581
00:35:51.239 --> 00:35:54.039
not opposed to allegory in all its forms. That would
582
00:35:54.079 --> 00:35:57.119
be an absurdity. I think what he's what he's What
583
00:35:57.280 --> 00:36:03.199
he doesn't like is that reduction that we douctionism, particularly
584
00:36:02.800 --> 00:36:07.519
the reduction to personified abstraction. What is formal or crude allegory.
585
00:36:07.960 --> 00:36:14.159
So in The Pilgrim's Progress, Christian is the Christian, all right.
586
00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:17.400
He goes to a place called the Slough of despond,
587
00:36:17.760 --> 00:36:22.440
which represents despondency. He meets a giant called Despair that
588
00:36:22.519 --> 00:36:25.880
represents despair, all right. And what he didn't like about
589
00:36:25.880 --> 00:36:31.960
this is it enslaves the imagination of the reader, right,
590
00:36:32.280 --> 00:36:36.000
that the writer becomes the teacher and the preacher, and
591
00:36:36.360 --> 00:36:39.360
there's no other way of understanding what he's saying except
592
00:36:39.480 --> 00:36:44.679
by this prescribed fashion of personad abstraction. All right, So
593
00:36:45.239 --> 00:36:48.000
that is the reductionism that Tolkien did not like. He
594
00:36:48.079 --> 00:36:53.679
preferred to use the term applicability, in other words, that
595
00:36:53.119 --> 00:36:55.840
the things that are happening in the story can be
596
00:36:55.920 --> 00:37:00.119
applied beyond the story. And that, of course applicability. If
597
00:37:00.119 --> 00:37:02.639
you're going to say that that what's happening in this
598
00:37:02.719 --> 00:37:06.679
story can be applicable to us, like the prodigal son
599
00:37:07.239 --> 00:37:09.960
can be applicable to us, we are not literally the
600
00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.400
prodigal son, but in literarily allegorically were all prodigal sons. Right,
601
00:37:14.639 --> 00:37:19.039
So that's applicability. So that's the power of the sort
602
00:37:19.039 --> 00:37:23.079
of allegory that the Tolkien wants to evoke. So my
603
00:37:23.280 --> 00:37:29.159
concern with Paul's approach is this reductionism where you know
604
00:37:29.280 --> 00:37:37.280
that that Tom Bombardill becomes this representation, the Hobbits become virtues.
605
00:37:37.920 --> 00:37:40.679
This is this is reducing it to the level of
606
00:37:40.960 --> 00:37:44.639
formal or crude allegory. Now I think this is a
607
00:37:44.679 --> 00:37:48.920
shame because I actually think that the thesis that that
608
00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:51.679
Paul and Addie have there is an extremely good one.
609
00:37:51.880 --> 00:37:53.880
I think if they were to say, look, you can
610
00:37:54.039 --> 00:37:59.239
apply there's an applicability of Tolkien's Legendarium on a tomistic
611
00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:02.280
level of metaphysics, then we can see it and it
612
00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:07.360
plays itself out this way, then then it's brilliant, which
613
00:38:07.400 --> 00:38:08.960
is why I love this book and I want people
614
00:38:09.000 --> 00:38:11.159
to read it, although I don't want people to perhaps
615
00:38:11.199 --> 00:38:14.400
take it quite as literally as as Paul is suggesting
616
00:38:14.480 --> 00:38:19.800
that we should. So, so that is the key. Now,
617
00:38:19.840 --> 00:38:21.960
one other thing I can't remember I start. I want
618
00:38:21.960 --> 00:38:23.599
to try to keep myself to fifteen minutes. I think,
619
00:38:23.679 --> 00:38:26.039
what time did I start with anything? As any timing me?
620
00:38:26.920 --> 00:38:32.119
You're good, you're talking, Yeah, what's time in me? Well,
621
00:38:32.320 --> 00:38:34.320
I think I'm gonna I said, I've been going for
622
00:38:34.320 --> 00:38:36.480
about ten minutes. I'm going to give myself another five minutes,
623
00:38:37.880 --> 00:38:45.159
and then I'm jealous. If you need it and I
624
00:38:45.199 --> 00:38:46.880
don't need it, I don't need it. I want I
625
00:38:46.920 --> 00:38:48.079
want to. I want to, I mean I want to
626
00:38:48.159 --> 00:38:52.679
throughout open the conversation and questions. My approach to literature,
627
00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:58.559
generally speaking, is that we cannot have, and Paul's not
628
00:38:58.599 --> 00:39:01.199
doing this. By the way, I'm in not suggesting him
629
00:39:01.280 --> 00:39:03.760
the suggesting he is, or accusing him woman. But what
630
00:39:03.880 --> 00:39:08.920
we must not do is to take a solar scripturer
631
00:39:09.079 --> 00:39:12.239
approach to reading literature. And otherwise it's just me and
632
00:39:12.360 --> 00:39:19.719
the text. And I take my own subjective, essentially relativistic approach,
633
00:39:20.159 --> 00:39:22.920
informed by my own pride and prejudice. I take that
634
00:39:23.079 --> 00:39:26.440
to the text and do things with the text that
635
00:39:26.480 --> 00:39:28.719
it reflects back to me what I want to see.
636
00:39:28.880 --> 00:39:33.440
All right, it becomes a mirror that doesn't show me myself.
637
00:39:33.639 --> 00:39:35.920
It shows me what I want to see about myself,
638
00:39:35.960 --> 00:39:40.400
which is not the same thing. So the way that
639
00:39:40.440 --> 00:39:45.760
we can avoid this solar scripturer approach to reading literature
640
00:39:46.679 --> 00:39:50.840
is to try to read objectively. Now, the perfect objective
641
00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:55.079
view is the divine view. We don't have that right,
642
00:39:55.119 --> 00:39:56.880
so we have to accept him like a shadow is
643
00:39:56.880 --> 00:39:59.840
going to fall. We can't see things perfectly because we're
644
00:39:59.880 --> 00:40:03.239
not perfect with creatures, not the creator. But what we
645
00:40:03.280 --> 00:40:06.800
can do is to discipline ourselves to subject ourselves to
646
00:40:06.920 --> 00:40:11.880
a higher objective reality, which is the authorial authority. In
647
00:40:11.920 --> 00:40:13.639
other words, you have to see the work as far
648
00:40:13.639 --> 00:40:18.039
as possible through the eyes of the author. Okay, and
649
00:40:18.360 --> 00:40:20.880
so Tolkien tells us the Lord of the Things is
650
00:40:20.880 --> 00:40:25.199
a fundamentally religious and Catholic work. That is an authoritative statement.
651
00:40:25.400 --> 00:40:25.599
Right.
652
00:40:25.840 --> 00:40:28.800
If I were to say it, it would mean nothing.
653
00:40:29.079 --> 00:40:33.519
So the Lord of the Things is a fundamentally religious
654
00:40:33.519 --> 00:40:37.920
and Catholic work. So much at most of the analysis
655
00:40:37.960 --> 00:40:43.079
in Mount Doom is correct. My problem is this suggestion
656
00:40:43.239 --> 00:40:48.000
this was conscious on the part of Tolkien, as the
657
00:40:48.039 --> 00:40:49.960
author the work. I think that in some way in
658
00:40:52.599 --> 00:40:58.599
I Pause opening words, he used the word indirect conflict.
659
00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:01.280
I'm going to play with words here to say you
660
00:41:01.280 --> 00:41:05.679
can have indirect as two words of indirect as one word,
661
00:41:05.920 --> 00:41:13.639
which is conscious and unconscious consciously unconsciously at first consciously
662
00:41:13.679 --> 00:41:18.920
in the revision. So I could quibble with For instance,
663
00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:22.440
I've got one point of difference between Paul and I
664
00:41:22.639 --> 00:41:26.679
is that there's a chapter in my book Frodo's Journey
665
00:41:27.159 --> 00:41:31.360
called the Enigma of Tom Bombadil, where I say that
666
00:41:31.400 --> 00:41:34.679
the Tom Bombardin and Gold we represent an image of
667
00:41:34.880 --> 00:41:39.639
unfolden creating the unfallen Adam and Eve and the the
668
00:41:39.960 --> 00:41:41.760
this is this would be something the first teeth into
669
00:41:41.760 --> 00:41:45.480
pause regards to conversation, which would be fun. But that
670
00:41:45.800 --> 00:41:49.960
you know, if if, if Tom and Goldbria are fall
671
00:41:50.039 --> 00:41:53.039
and why is it the Ring, which quite clearly because
672
00:41:53.079 --> 00:41:56.079
it's destroyed and Marster twenty fifth Tolkien, by the way,
673
00:41:56.079 --> 00:42:00.920
it is following all sorts of medieval uh methods of
674
00:42:01.239 --> 00:42:05.920
allegree here with the use of Datte's divine comedy begins
675
00:42:05.920 --> 00:42:10.079
on Morety Thursday, descends on Good Friday, as sends from
676
00:42:10.079 --> 00:42:13.039
Mount Purgatory from Hell into the foot of Mount Perg
677
00:42:13.079 --> 00:42:16.679
on Easter Sunday morning, et cetera. Right Sigwine, the Green
678
00:42:16.719 --> 00:42:20.280
Knights Christ ends a Christmas All Souls Day or saying day.
679
00:42:20.079 --> 00:42:23.519
That Tolkien's following this medieval pattern. So Master twenty fifth
680
00:42:23.559 --> 00:42:28.920
beat denunciation crucifixion. They leave Rimadel on Christmas Day. Clearly
681
00:42:28.960 --> 00:42:33.599
that that allegree means that what's destroyed by the life,
682
00:42:33.719 --> 00:42:36.039
death and resurrection of Christ of the power of sin,
683
00:42:36.599 --> 00:42:41.639
Master twenty fifth annunciation crucifixion. If the Ring in some
684
00:42:41.719 --> 00:42:46.840
sense signifies as a synonym for sin, then why is
685
00:42:46.880 --> 00:42:51.159
it that that Tom is the Tom and Goldberry Goldry
686
00:42:51.199 --> 00:42:54.920
presumably Tom explicity? Why are they the only characters and in
687
00:42:55.599 --> 00:42:57.400
the Lord of the Rings that the ring has no
688
00:42:57.480 --> 00:43:00.880
power over They don't become invisible they wear it. The
689
00:43:00.960 --> 00:43:04.920
road doesn't become visibile if he if he wears it,
690
00:43:05.239 --> 00:43:08.360
then the animals aren't asked to what ever name he
691
00:43:08.440 --> 00:43:11.280
gives them, as with Adam. So anyway, these are just
692
00:43:11.320 --> 00:43:13.559
points of difference. But that's a queer ball, like a footnote.
693
00:43:13.559 --> 00:43:16.079
The key thing I think, and this is just I
694
00:43:16.159 --> 00:43:19.880
want to conclude here, is that I think that this
695
00:43:20.280 --> 00:43:24.960
is the most this book Mountdoom is the most compendious
696
00:43:26.519 --> 00:43:31.679
and even I would say comprehensive stimistic reading of The
697
00:43:31.719 --> 00:43:33.360
Lord of the Rings that I've come across. I mean,
698
00:43:33.960 --> 00:43:37.440
Peter Krast the philosophy of Tolkien is is marvelous, but
699
00:43:37.480 --> 00:43:41.119
it's a slim volume compared with this, right, so this
700
00:43:41.280 --> 00:43:45.559
is its strength. There's all sorts of tomistic insights into
701
00:43:45.639 --> 00:43:48.599
Tolkien's work that we can get from reading this book.
702
00:43:49.320 --> 00:43:58.840
My problem, ultimately is the reductionism, which suggests that Tolkien's
703
00:43:58.840 --> 00:44:02.119
writing according to a we can see code. In other words,
704
00:44:02.400 --> 00:44:05.960
he begins not unconsciously to tell the story, but consciously
705
00:44:06.320 --> 00:44:09.880
to prophesy. I don't believe that's what Tolkien does, and
706
00:44:09.920 --> 00:44:14.039
that's my fundamental difference with the methodology and the ultimate
707
00:44:14.320 --> 00:44:18.280
conclusion of Paul and Ali, But as a as a
708
00:44:18.360 --> 00:44:23.760
work of exposition of the tomistic dimensions and elements of
709
00:44:23.960 --> 00:44:27.440
Tolkien's legend legendary, it might be the best to be seen.
710
00:44:27.239 --> 00:44:32.880
Yet fundamentally catholic. Uh Tolkien, referring to your quote after
711
00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:36.239
he said it was intentionally after the revision, he also said, anyway,
712
00:44:36.400 --> 00:44:39.199
this whole thing, this whole, this whole his whole work
713
00:44:39.320 --> 00:44:45.199
is about the fall, which is original sin, mortality specifically
714
00:44:45.480 --> 00:44:49.039
the fear of death, and the machine. And what I
715
00:44:49.039 --> 00:44:51.679
do is show where all these things are. And although
716
00:44:51.880 --> 00:44:54.440
and I and I just want to also say to Joseph,
717
00:44:54.440 --> 00:44:57.239
you're a huge disadvantage. He just got here. I mean,
718
00:44:57.280 --> 00:44:59.840
this is I wouldn't expect you to, you know, to
719
00:45:00.159 --> 00:45:03.039
you know, bite onto the whole thing. Just to give
720
00:45:03.079 --> 00:45:07.000
you a quick story, Ali, my my wonderful co author,
721
00:45:07.039 --> 00:45:08.639
had been working with me to try to put all
722
00:45:08.639 --> 00:45:10.920
my essays together in a form that would serve as
723
00:45:10.960 --> 00:45:14.519
a book, which was quite some doing. We were been
724
00:45:14.519 --> 00:45:16.800
working for four years or so, and I was telling
725
00:45:16.880 --> 00:45:21.079
him about how Vanna and Nianna were trying to rehabilitate
726
00:45:21.119 --> 00:45:24.239
the trees after the fall, and Nianna was washing the
727
00:45:24.639 --> 00:45:27.679
two with her tears the dead stems of the trees,
728
00:45:27.760 --> 00:45:31.199
and while Evanna was chanting. And of course, now Alee
729
00:45:31.239 --> 00:45:34.960
knows that Yvanna's generation and Nianna is cognitive sense of
730
00:45:36.800 --> 00:45:39.920
the powers of the soul, so she understood everything. And
731
00:45:40.119 --> 00:45:42.519
Alie stopped me and said, I just believe you. Now,
732
00:45:42.639 --> 00:45:46.599
I just I understand. I believe the Arta is having contrition.
733
00:45:47.039 --> 00:45:49.719
This is contrition. They fell in mortal sin. And now
734
00:45:49.880 --> 00:45:52.039
Contrician I said, yeah, of course, what do you mean
735
00:45:52.039 --> 00:45:54.320
you just believe? Says I just now believe you and
736
00:45:54.400 --> 00:45:57.920
understand your interpretation. I said what I said. We've been
737
00:45:57.920 --> 00:46:00.800
working on this for four years, and he goes, yeah,
738
00:46:00.800 --> 00:46:04.079
but you're so far out ahead or up beyond Wanny.
739
00:46:04.119 --> 00:46:06.920
But I thought you're nuts. And he says, now, I
740
00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:10.679
realize that there's just too many connections. This cannot possibly
741
00:46:11.199 --> 00:46:14.000
not be intentional by Tolkien. I mean, the alternative is
742
00:46:14.039 --> 00:46:16.119
that I made all this stuff up. And frankly, Joseph,
743
00:46:16.159 --> 00:46:18.960
I'm not that smart, you know. I just I just
744
00:46:19.079 --> 00:46:21.599
recognized it, you know, by the grace of God. And
745
00:46:22.199 --> 00:46:24.440
so I think that I'll just leave it at that.
746
00:46:24.719 --> 00:46:26.639
What I do is I fill in the other areas
747
00:46:26.719 --> 00:46:30.559
after that comment about being fundamentally religious and Catholic is
748
00:46:30.679 --> 00:46:32.840
he said very clearly, and we're taking his word. It
749
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:36.440
was about the fall, which is mortal sin or original sin,
750
00:46:37.039 --> 00:46:39.159
the fear of death, and what that does to us
751
00:46:39.199 --> 00:46:42.079
and the machine and the machine will ultimately, of course,
752
00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:44.599
if you look at it properly in a Catholic, good
753
00:46:44.639 --> 00:46:47.639
Catholic traditional context, you realize the fall is the origin
754
00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:52.400
of death, and ultimately death is the eternal, the eternal
755
00:46:52.440 --> 00:46:55.760
separation from God. And ultimately what the machine is doing
756
00:46:55.800 --> 00:46:59.880
is inviting us away from God's eternity, inviting in as
757
00:47:00.119 --> 00:47:05.639
into an alternative heaven, an alternative everlasting life, which it
758
00:47:05.679 --> 00:47:07.800
won't be at all. It'll be it won't even be
759
00:47:07.840 --> 00:47:09.920
serial existence in a machine. It'll be death.
760
00:47:13.159 --> 00:47:15.639
I mean, yes, I I will. I will keep myself
761
00:47:15.880 --> 00:47:19.519
as brief as that. The the the the the key
762
00:47:19.559 --> 00:47:22.159
thing here. I mean that you said that Milkcore is
763
00:47:22.199 --> 00:47:25.280
not the devil, he's original sin. That the the original
764
00:47:25.320 --> 00:47:28.320
sin is is an abstract concept.
765
00:47:28.800 --> 00:47:29.000
Uh.
766
00:47:29.440 --> 00:47:33.719
An abstract concept cannot sin. Uh. In other words, that
767
00:47:33.320 --> 00:47:37.239
the devil can sin, Adam and Eve can sin. Original
768
00:47:37.239 --> 00:47:40.480
sin is a consequence of choice right. So, so to
769
00:47:40.480 --> 00:47:44.280
to reduce things to to concepts is to actually take
770
00:47:44.320 --> 00:47:47.480
away the agency uh and and and and that I
771
00:47:47.519 --> 00:47:50.199
think is a problem. That way will be that milkcow
772
00:47:51.440 --> 00:47:57.360
is as Satan, as the angelic being who rebels against
773
00:47:57.360 --> 00:47:58.079
the great music.
774
00:47:59.320 --> 00:47:59.639
Uh.
775
00:48:00.119 --> 00:48:06.119
His fall does bring about original cinem the Marvin, but
776
00:48:06.480 --> 00:48:08.559
that's not the same thing as saying that he is
777
00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:11.440
original sin. And this is I think and an example
778
00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:17.639
of that reductionism that makes me uneasy. And by the way,
779
00:48:17.719 --> 00:48:19.599
pushing it make it all up. What you've done is
780
00:48:19.639 --> 00:48:25.519
you've you've you've taken uh Tolkien's very rich source. You
781
00:48:25.639 --> 00:48:31.679
have taken your very very profound knowledge of Thomistic philosophy
782
00:48:31.679 --> 00:48:36.440
and theology, particularly Thomistic metaphysics. You've taken that, You've taken
783
00:48:36.519 --> 00:48:40.119
it to the text. And that's why there's so much
784
00:48:40.239 --> 00:48:46.039
in your book which is very enlightening to to anybody
785
00:48:46.079 --> 00:48:49.239
that wants to understand. Talking on in terms of tonism,
786
00:48:49.280 --> 00:48:55.239
which is essential. But I think your modus operandi of effect,
787
00:48:55.400 --> 00:49:01.039
the what I would call it a reductionism uh, is flawed.
788
00:49:01.280 --> 00:49:03.960
That's that's that's that's where that's where where I differ.
789
00:49:06.039 --> 00:49:09.880
We can hash that out on another time over a
790
00:49:09.920 --> 00:49:11.639
pint or two, of course.
791
00:49:12.360 --> 00:49:19.960
More than pipes, exactly.
792
00:49:20.079 --> 00:49:21.039
You don't ask you.
793
00:49:25.840 --> 00:49:28.400
Well, all right, we've got a question in the chat room,
794
00:49:28.519 --> 00:49:35.320
so I will spotlight our w C a T Radio's
795
00:49:35.360 --> 00:49:40.760
Special Projects coordinator at Jennifer Thomas. Okay, Jennifer, it's all yours.
796
00:49:41.400 --> 00:49:41.880
All right.
797
00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:47.239
So this question comes from Jim Rosen, and he asks,
798
00:49:47.400 --> 00:49:50.079
if you are familiar with it, do either of you,
799
00:49:50.679 --> 00:49:55.920
Paul or you Joseph, see any comparisons between Mount Doom
800
00:49:56.480 --> 00:50:02.079
and Michael Ward's Planet Narnia, where Michael asserts a newly
801
00:50:02.199 --> 00:50:08.480
discovered interpretive framework of C. S. Lewis's Narnia series. Very
802
00:50:08.480 --> 00:50:09.679
interesting question.
803
00:50:10.760 --> 00:50:13.360
I'll just say right off, Yeah, I'm not familiar with that.
804
00:50:13.440 --> 00:50:15.199
I'm a I'm a big C. S. Lewis fan, but
805
00:50:15.239 --> 00:50:19.280
I tend to I wasn't that thrilled with Narnia. I
806
00:50:19.320 --> 00:50:25.000
love the the the Space Trilogy. I like that particularly
807
00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:27.360
in some of his other works. But I read the
808
00:50:27.440 --> 00:50:29.119
Narnia series to my son and it was a lot
809
00:50:29.159 --> 00:50:31.320
of fun. But I never got into it on any
810
00:50:31.320 --> 00:50:34.840
philosophical or theological level too much.
811
00:50:35.679 --> 00:50:39.519
All right, Joseph, Well, yeah, first of all, Jim, good
812
00:50:39.519 --> 00:50:43.280
to see you, albeit through the medium of the machine.
813
00:50:43.320 --> 00:50:47.760
God help us all but good to see good to
814
00:50:47.760 --> 00:50:50.239
see you again. Look forward to seeing you in flesh
815
00:50:50.280 --> 00:50:53.440
and in person, as as Hobbits should meet at some point.
816
00:50:53.920 --> 00:50:56.480
So yeah, my position with Michael would not to talk
817
00:50:56.480 --> 00:50:59.760
about maybe the connection with with with Mount doing. But which,
818
00:50:59.760 --> 00:51:02.199
of course you mean the book, not not the the
819
00:51:02.360 --> 00:51:09.559
the place in the story. I was skeptical about his
820
00:51:09.639 --> 00:51:13.920
book Planet Narna, Michael Wad's book, because I thought again
821
00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:18.920
it was it was reductionism, trying to make everything fit
822
00:51:19.039 --> 00:51:21.920
neatly into this each of the books represented one of
823
00:51:21.920 --> 00:51:25.880
the planets. I invited him, however, when I was a
824
00:51:25.920 --> 00:51:28.199
director of Center of Faith and Culture at Aquanus College
825
00:51:28.239 --> 00:51:31.559
in Nashville several years back to come, we had an
826
00:51:31.599 --> 00:51:38.079
annual Talking and Lewis conference every year, and I'm ranted
827
00:51:38.079 --> 00:51:39.920
to come to give a presentation on it. And I
828
00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:44.719
must confess that it was. It was well presented and
829
00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:48.320
well reasoned and well argued. I have his book, which
830
00:51:48.320 --> 00:51:52.679
have only dipped into haven't read. So I think that
831
00:51:53.320 --> 00:51:57.639
I'm happy with a Planet Narnia if we see it
832
00:51:57.840 --> 00:52:03.320
as one Bassett of what C. S. Lewis is doing
833
00:52:03.320 --> 00:52:05.639
in the Chronicles of Narnia and not the res on
834
00:52:05.760 --> 00:52:09.519
detra or the purpose or the reduction. Right, So that's
835
00:52:09.559 --> 00:52:12.199
that's that's why where I stand. I suppose in that
836
00:52:12.360 --> 00:52:15.440
sense I would say I can see a parallel between
837
00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:19.760
Planet Narnia and Mount Doom is that I'm very grateful
838
00:52:19.920 --> 00:52:23.960
that someone who is as learned as Paul is intmism
839
00:52:24.519 --> 00:52:28.920
has brought that knowledge that scholarship to bear upon talkis
840
00:52:29.000 --> 00:52:32.760
legendarium and has brought out so much which is very valuable.
841
00:52:34.880 --> 00:52:39.039
But I'm I think that what it's he's trying to
842
00:52:39.079 --> 00:52:42.719
make something universal, in other words, that he's reading as
843
00:52:42.719 --> 00:52:47.719
something which encapsulates and encompasses Tolkien's imaginative vision. And I
844
00:52:47.719 --> 00:52:50.000
think it's bigger than that, as I think that Chronicles
845
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:54.480
Narnia is bigger than than what Planet Narnia would suggest
846
00:52:54.760 --> 00:52:55.320
that it is.
847
00:52:56.159 --> 00:52:58.559
I just have to say that I have loved listening
848
00:52:58.679 --> 00:53:02.400
to both of you throughout this conversation. I've learned so much,
849
00:53:02.440 --> 00:53:05.159
as I know that everyone who is here with us
850
00:53:05.280 --> 00:53:09.599
has as well. Just learning more about your book, Paul
851
00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:12.360
and just everything that you bring to it, and then
852
00:53:12.440 --> 00:53:16.599
also the juxtaposition of you know, how how you described
853
00:53:16.719 --> 00:53:19.679
your impressions of it, Joseph. So I just personally want
854
00:53:19.719 --> 00:53:22.360
to say thank you to both of you. And I
855
00:53:22.480 --> 00:53:27.639
have a question if either of you had an opportunity
856
00:53:27.840 --> 00:53:32.239
to meet jar Tolkien, what would be one question you
857
00:53:32.280 --> 00:53:32.880
would ask?
858
00:53:34.239 --> 00:53:35.840
Just one?
859
00:53:35.960 --> 00:53:38.960
Well, I'm going to defer to Paul on every occasion
860
00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:42.719
to go first unless he asks me otherwise another longer.
861
00:53:42.719 --> 00:53:44.760
I only deferred to him period.
862
00:53:47.159 --> 00:53:47.400
You know.
863
00:53:48.519 --> 00:53:56.880
Now if I met him, now, yeah, I would you
864
00:53:56.920 --> 00:53:59.239
be starstars. It would be it would be something that
865
00:53:59.280 --> 00:54:03.119
would be on the metaphysical plane with I'm pretty sure
866
00:54:03.159 --> 00:54:07.119
he's experiencing the beatific vision at this point. I'm sure
867
00:54:07.119 --> 00:54:11.840
his mother is. And I would ask him about try
868
00:54:11.920 --> 00:54:15.039
to get some low down and inside information on on
869
00:54:15.119 --> 00:54:18.880
heaven because I know he's in heaven, and I would
870
00:54:18.880 --> 00:54:20.320
ask him if I could ask him a question, I
871
00:54:20.360 --> 00:54:21.920
would ask him, would it be okay for you if
872
00:54:21.920 --> 00:54:23.719
you would intercede for me and pray?
873
00:54:25.679 --> 00:54:28.079
I think that's beautiful, Joseph.
874
00:54:28.119 --> 00:54:32.119
You got anything that's very that's very profound. Obviously, if
875
00:54:32.159 --> 00:54:34.000
I were poor, i'd be kept at asking whether he
876
00:54:34.039 --> 00:54:38.880
agreed with my analysis. I didn't make it up.
877
00:54:39.360 --> 00:54:44.880
That would be the definitive answer, right, you would believe
878
00:54:44.920 --> 00:54:53.280
me anyway they think that was delusional. Yeah, gotcha, buddy.
879
00:54:54.920 --> 00:54:56.920
Maybe if he said yes, he said, would you write
880
00:54:56.960 --> 00:54:59.760
fifty words to endorse the back of my book, then
881
00:55:00.079 --> 00:55:00.559
have a winner.
882
00:55:04.599 --> 00:55:04.760
Well.
883
00:55:05.000 --> 00:55:07.840
I think that Paul's showed a very metaphysical approach to
884
00:55:07.880 --> 00:55:10.400
the question, because what he's done, of course, is is
885
00:55:10.519 --> 00:55:16.320
he's taken Tolkien to be who we now believe him
886
00:55:16.320 --> 00:55:18.039
to be. I agree with Paul on this, that he's
887
00:55:18.079 --> 00:55:19.840
in heaven. If you have a visit, by the way,
888
00:55:19.920 --> 00:55:22.599
Tolkien's grave in Oxford, it's a bit like a shrine.
889
00:55:23.039 --> 00:55:27.320
There are no they're clear it away regularly. If it's
890
00:55:27.360 --> 00:55:30.440
just been cleaned, you won't see it. But but there rosaries
891
00:55:30.559 --> 00:55:34.199
draped over the over the tomb. There were prairie requests
892
00:55:34.239 --> 00:55:37.440
left there. Uh, there's actually there. There is a very
893
00:55:37.519 --> 00:55:41.639
healthy call tous for Tolkien. I believe it's in heaven.
894
00:55:42.719 --> 00:55:45.039
So I think Paul's answer there is, of course, if
895
00:55:45.079 --> 00:55:47.519
you're actually speaking to a saint who ask first of
896
00:55:47.519 --> 00:55:49.719
all for his prayers, and if he's willing to give
897
00:55:49.719 --> 00:55:52.119
you a scoop on what it's like up there, he's
898
00:55:52.159 --> 00:55:54.199
so far as we're allowed to see these things, then
899
00:55:54.280 --> 00:55:57.440
let's have it. Let him be our Virgil and and
900
00:55:57.440 --> 00:56:01.920
and take us, take us up into paradise. So that
901
00:56:02.360 --> 00:56:05.480
with the question being raised to that level of sanctity
902
00:56:06.400 --> 00:56:11.639
and paradise, you know, some prosodic question seems why they're
903
00:56:11.840 --> 00:56:14.280
inane and banal black in Paris, And so I'm not
904
00:56:14.320 --> 00:56:23.400
even going to try to think of anything below that level. Yeah,
905
00:56:23.440 --> 00:56:26.039
I mean I would like to. I mean I I
906
00:56:26.079 --> 00:56:28.119
A large part of my work has been looking at
907
00:56:28.119 --> 00:56:30.840
the network of grace and network of minds, which constitutes
908
00:56:30.840 --> 00:56:34.440
the Catholic cultural and literary reviible. So I always want
909
00:56:34.480 --> 00:56:36.960
to know what I would love to know what these
910
00:56:37.000 --> 00:56:39.480
writers thought about each other. So I like to sit
911
00:56:39.559 --> 00:56:41.320
down and now instead of instead of been coming down
912
00:56:41.360 --> 00:56:43.320
from Heaven's a saint, We're sitting together in a pub
913
00:56:43.480 --> 00:56:45.719
right in the burden baby, and he's he's not a
914
00:56:45.760 --> 00:56:50.119
saint at the moment. He's just talking. But I would
915
00:56:50.119 --> 00:56:52.360
I would love to ask him otherwise rather than seeing
916
00:56:52.360 --> 00:56:54.199
talking to just now, if I go back in time
917
00:56:54.639 --> 00:56:57.800
right and talk to the man in person, I would
918
00:56:57.840 --> 00:56:59.960
love to know, you know more about what he thought about.
919
00:57:00.159 --> 00:57:03.639
We know he loved Chesterton. I would love to know
920
00:57:03.679 --> 00:57:06.679
what he thought about why should like Bellott and Jeremanie
921
00:57:06.679 --> 00:57:11.360
Popkins and Newman and maybe contemporary whitters like Evening War
922
00:57:11.679 --> 00:57:15.880
and Graham Green, And you know, I would just like
923
00:57:15.920 --> 00:57:18.599
to have a conversation with him about these great athletic
924
00:57:18.760 --> 00:57:21.800
and Christian literary figures, to find out what he thought
925
00:57:21.800 --> 00:57:24.719
about them. That would find out a couple of plants
926
00:57:24.760 --> 00:57:26.559
of Air and the Burden Baby. That would make me
927
00:57:26.679 --> 00:57:28.239
very happy.
928
00:57:29.119 --> 00:57:32.320
I think that sounds like an awesome time.
929
00:57:32.400 --> 00:57:34.400
I mean, just to get to spend some time with
930
00:57:34.599 --> 00:57:37.800
an author who you admire and who you followed, and
931
00:57:38.679 --> 00:57:42.719
just you know, to have that opportunity would be so wonderful.
932
00:57:42.920 --> 00:57:45.360
And I love the idea, Paul, that you said to
933
00:57:45.480 --> 00:57:48.519
just even asking him to intercede for us, that's something
934
00:57:48.559 --> 00:57:52.519
that we can absolutely do because even if they're in purgatory,
935
00:57:53.440 --> 00:57:56.880
which we hope that he's out of purgatory, but us
936
00:57:57.000 --> 00:57:59.599
asking for him to intercede for us, that can just
937
00:57:59.679 --> 00:58:02.039
be an way to help him get to heaven. So
938
00:58:02.599 --> 00:58:05.440
I love the idea of asking someone like this for
939
00:58:05.679 --> 00:58:10.800
their intercession. Another question for you both is if Tolkien
940
00:58:10.960 --> 00:58:14.159
were alive today. So Joseph, you sort of said you
941
00:58:14.199 --> 00:58:16.880
were going to go back in time, but if he
942
00:58:16.960 --> 00:58:22.039
were alive today, what contemporary development do you think would
943
00:58:22.119 --> 00:58:23.599
concern him most deeply?
944
00:58:23.719 --> 00:58:24.159
Right now?
945
00:58:25.480 --> 00:58:28.519
Pretty obvious from my book, it would be artificial intelligence.
946
00:58:28.559 --> 00:58:33.679
It's the ultimate machine that he had no use for machinery,
947
00:58:33.719 --> 00:58:36.800
particularly the giant bombers that kill people, like he said
948
00:58:36.840 --> 00:58:40.559
in several letters, and the dominant the use of machinery
949
00:58:40.599 --> 00:58:44.320
to dominate other souls and lead us astray, lead us
950
00:58:44.480 --> 00:58:46.760
to hell. I think this would greatly and I think
951
00:58:46.760 --> 00:58:49.239
that's why he gave us the prophecy and gave us
952
00:58:49.239 --> 00:58:51.559
the solution, and the solution as we have to return
953
00:58:51.679 --> 00:58:54.280
to the faith. And the whole book is about art.
954
00:58:54.440 --> 00:58:57.559
Is read about art of being in the faith, falling
955
00:58:57.559 --> 00:59:00.480
away from the faith and mortal sin, ultimately suffering ruism,
956
00:59:00.719 --> 00:59:04.519
and then his reversion artist reversion coming back to the faith,
957
00:59:04.559 --> 00:59:07.159
which is ultimately Tom bobbed and Goldberry because they are
958
00:59:07.159 --> 00:59:08.119
the will in the intellect.
959
00:59:09.519 --> 00:59:12.639
Okay, any thoughts from you, Joseph.
960
00:59:12.880 --> 00:59:15.360
Yeah, so now it's my turn to elevate things. I
961
00:59:15.639 --> 00:59:17.840
agree with Paul. I think that he would see artificial
962
00:59:17.880 --> 00:59:21.880
intelligence as that as a further and a more demonic
963
00:59:22.039 --> 00:59:24.920
manifestation of the power of the machine he called World
964
00:59:24.920 --> 00:59:27.760
War two, the First Grade War the machine, which I
965
00:59:27.800 --> 00:59:30.280
think actually historically incorrect because he fought in the First
966
00:59:30.280 --> 00:59:34.519
Great War of the machine, barbed wires, tanks, poison gas
967
00:59:34.960 --> 00:59:37.519
in World War One. But either way he of course
968
00:59:37.519 --> 00:59:40.119
he would treat he would see AII with the horror
969
00:59:40.119 --> 00:59:44.199
that anybody should see it. So I agree with all that.
970
00:59:44.199 --> 00:59:48.039
The palenteer, of course, the palettist, don't palteer means teddy vision,
971
00:59:48.360 --> 00:59:51.199
which was the AI of his time. It was very
972
00:59:51.239 --> 00:59:53.079
new technology when he was one of all of the rings,
973
00:59:53.400 --> 00:59:58.360
and he saw the power of the demonic power of propaganda,
974
00:59:58.400 --> 01:00:02.639
that the machine as a channel propaganda. So I agree
975
01:00:02.639 --> 01:00:04.480
with that. But I if I, if I, if I
976
01:00:04.480 --> 01:00:07.079
could speak to him today or fight a few years
977
01:00:07.079 --> 01:00:08.599
around today, what do I think he would be He
978
01:00:08.599 --> 01:00:12.480
would be concerned with that. But that's ultimately this is
979
01:00:12.519 --> 01:00:16.519
you know, this is the realm of time, and ultimately
980
01:00:16.599 --> 01:00:18.239
is as as has por been really good at saying,
981
01:00:18.239 --> 01:00:20.599
it's really all about getting to Heaven. And I think
982
01:00:20.679 --> 01:00:22.519
so one thing I think he'd be concerned about is
983
01:00:22.800 --> 01:00:30.679
is is ensuring that the magisterium, the magistill teaching of
984
01:00:30.719 --> 01:00:35.800
the church is intact, that the tradition is remains pure.
985
01:00:36.079 --> 01:00:40.679
And there's a wonderful metaphor that Tolkien used about the
986
01:00:40.840 --> 01:00:43.840
mania in the nineteen sixties. Did long did live long
987
01:00:43.960 --> 01:00:46.360
enough to see some of the modernist madness that that
988
01:00:46.480 --> 01:00:50.280
arose in the church in the sixties and early seventies,
989
01:00:51.079 --> 01:00:53.440
And he said, I can't understand the mania for trying
990
01:00:53.440 --> 01:00:55.719
to get back to the so called purity of the
991
01:00:55.760 --> 01:00:58.800
early church. He said, because I don't see why a
992
01:00:59.000 --> 01:01:04.360
sapling is considered superior to the full grown tree. And
993
01:01:04.400 --> 01:01:06.400
so this want if I understand the church as a
994
01:01:06.480 --> 01:01:10.599
tree of faith, a tree of life that grows through
995
01:01:11.119 --> 01:01:14.599
to millennia, and counting this full grown tree that's responded
996
01:01:14.679 --> 01:01:18.159
that all sorts of nonsense and heresies, how is this
997
01:01:18.400 --> 01:01:21.039
inferior to the sapling to the early church? But then
998
01:01:21.079 --> 01:01:25.480
he says, even if the foregrown tree is inferior to
999
01:01:25.519 --> 01:01:30.159
the sapling, if you chop down the tree in order
1000
01:01:30.199 --> 01:01:33.639
to find the sapling, you don't find the sapling, you
1001
01:01:33.840 --> 01:01:37.800
kill the tree. So I would love for Tolkien to
1002
01:01:37.840 --> 01:01:41.079
bring his wisdom to bear on the situation in the
1003
01:01:41.159 --> 01:01:45.360
church today. And how we have to ensure that this
1004
01:01:45.440 --> 01:01:50.960
tradition oriented perspective remains. Of course, it will be because
1005
01:01:50.960 --> 01:01:53.559
the gatefel will not prevail. But what do we do
1006
01:01:53.960 --> 01:01:57.639
to counter the efforts? Because we have the enemy without
1007
01:01:57.960 --> 01:02:01.599
right Caesar and his allies had the enemy within Judas
1008
01:02:01.800 --> 01:02:04.199
and his allies. And what do we do to counter
1009
01:02:04.679 --> 01:02:08.079
not just Caesar the power of Ai et cetera, but
1010
01:02:08.280 --> 01:02:09.840
the power of Judas.
1011
01:02:10.920 --> 01:02:14.119
The Marian Oak is the white tree of Gondor. It's
1012
01:02:14.239 --> 01:02:15.239
it is the t L. M.
1013
01:02:15.719 --> 01:02:16.320
Joseph.
1014
01:02:16.480 --> 01:02:20.159
He takes Cicero's great poem uh the Marian Oak, and
1015
01:02:20.159 --> 01:02:22.599
he takes and he takes the whole thing right out
1016
01:02:22.639 --> 01:02:26.039
of pious, the tents for Shandy Dominici, gregious, with the
1017
01:02:26.159 --> 01:02:31.159
with the the modernists stab and poison, poison the tree
1018
01:02:31.480 --> 01:02:36.239
to its very core. We where anyway, you just got
1019
01:02:36.280 --> 01:02:39.559
here about half vocals. I had to cut out about half,
1020
01:02:39.679 --> 01:02:42.320
including all the references in all the stuff that he
1021
01:02:42.400 --> 01:02:45.760
used from Blessed and Catherine Emeric we had to take
1022
01:02:45.800 --> 01:02:47.760
out because we couldn't. We had to keep it under
1023
01:02:47.800 --> 01:02:52.840
six hundred words. Our first our first publisher was we
1024
01:02:52.880 --> 01:02:55.440
had a contract with our Sunday Visitor, but they, the
1025
01:02:55.719 --> 01:02:58.880
editor there, said this is way too scholarly, way too academic,
1026
01:02:59.320 --> 01:03:00.280
and too long for us.
1027
01:03:00.360 --> 01:03:01.119
So we didn't know.
1028
01:03:01.159 --> 01:03:04.440
We had no idea, so we went with another, you know,
1029
01:03:04.880 --> 01:03:07.519
a person that Alee had met, and he said, yeah,
1030
01:03:07.559 --> 01:03:10.159
we'll publish whatever, but it's got to be less than
1031
01:03:10.199 --> 01:03:12.880
six hundred words. So we had to hack so much
1032
01:03:12.920 --> 01:03:14.920
out and we were trying to get it published before
1033
01:03:15.199 --> 01:03:17.559
Rings of Power first came out because we thought, hey,
1034
01:03:17.599 --> 01:03:19.519
maybe it was going to be good, so you know,
1035
01:03:19.599 --> 01:03:21.320
let's get the book out there. So boy were we
1036
01:03:21.360 --> 01:03:25.320
wrong about that. But we're just we're talking absolutely the
1037
01:03:25.400 --> 01:03:32.360
same language. Absolutely it is concerns with the church, because
1038
01:03:32.400 --> 01:03:34.639
that is the whole point of the of that chapter.
1039
01:03:34.920 --> 01:03:37.719
The Marian Oak is the White Tree of Gondor.
1040
01:03:37.920 --> 01:03:42.119
Yeah, it's definitely interesting hearing how you both have these
1041
01:03:42.119 --> 01:03:45.400
different perspectives but at the same time they're coming together.
1042
01:03:46.079 --> 01:03:48.840
So we do have a couple more questions that I'll
1043
01:03:48.840 --> 01:03:52.159
try to get through. This next one comes from Robert
1044
01:03:52.199 --> 01:03:55.440
Kraftchek and I hope I pronounced your name correctly, Robert,
1045
01:03:56.079 --> 01:03:59.320
and he says, I have been grappling with Tolkien's extraordinary
1046
01:03:59.400 --> 01:04:04.599
pre prescience for one writing decades ago to have perceived
1047
01:04:04.800 --> 01:04:08.880
the general drift of technology towards machines that would develop
1048
01:04:09.000 --> 01:04:13.639
ability to dominate their human creators. Be speaks an intellect
1049
01:04:13.760 --> 01:04:18.920
capable of projecting forces that span decades into the future,
1050
01:04:19.400 --> 01:04:22.800
and extraordinary intellect. Any comments on that.
1051
01:04:24.360 --> 01:04:25.920
Well, I'd say that's why I wrote the book. He
1052
01:04:26.000 --> 01:04:29.880
did with his with his experience with Alan Turing, and
1053
01:04:29.880 --> 01:04:31.599
then he kept track of Valenturing, and that's why he
1054
01:04:31.599 --> 01:04:34.000
published the book in nineteen fifty four. It was a
1055
01:04:34.039 --> 01:04:37.800
couple of years after Alan Turing's nineteen fifty two paper
1056
01:04:39.320 --> 01:04:45.760
Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis. So he took on Computable Numbers
1057
01:04:45.840 --> 01:04:49.639
nineteen thirty six where he invents touring, invents the computer
1058
01:04:49.719 --> 01:04:52.159
on paper. And by the way, that the eye of
1059
01:04:52.239 --> 01:04:55.280
Saron is the scanner eye of that he describes in
1060
01:04:55.320 --> 01:04:58.719
that paper, the scanner eye looking for ones and zeros
1061
01:04:58.840 --> 01:05:01.760
on the tape. So that's what the scanner I is doing,
1062
01:05:01.840 --> 01:05:04.199
always looking for the ring. Okay, and the ring is
1063
01:05:04.239 --> 01:05:07.760
ones and zero's binary code. So and he also and
1064
01:05:07.760 --> 01:05:13.920
then in his nineteen fifty paper where he invents artificial intelligence,
1065
01:05:14.079 --> 01:05:17.239
redefines intelligence, it's just imitation. That's the whole nature of
1066
01:05:17.239 --> 01:05:21.039
the imitation game that was computing machinery and intelligence. He
1067
01:05:21.119 --> 01:05:24.039
invents the idea of artificial indoubts, and he brings in
1068
01:05:24.079 --> 01:05:26.960
the child computer, and we'd have to train the child
1069
01:05:27.000 --> 01:05:28.800
like a child, and that is sara On in the
1070
01:05:28.800 --> 01:05:30.519
first stage, that's what he didn't have an eye because
1071
01:05:30.559 --> 01:05:32.360
he couldn't read, he was illiterate, he was a child,
1072
01:05:32.639 --> 01:05:36.239
and that's what the last alliance defeated. But then in
1073
01:05:36.280 --> 01:05:38.719
the third age he comes back with he's now he's
1074
01:05:39.159 --> 01:05:42.559
the adult computer, fully capable of imitating a human being
1075
01:05:42.760 --> 01:05:45.320
or an interrogator as Turing talks about. And now he's
1076
01:05:45.320 --> 01:05:47.519
got the eye. He's got the palenteer that the nasumul
1077
01:05:47.800 --> 01:05:50.039
took from him, and now he's turned that in. That
1078
01:05:50.199 --> 01:05:54.840
is the eye anyway. And then chemical basis of morphogenesis,
1079
01:05:54.880 --> 01:05:59.000
where he actually describes the nature of a substance, a
1080
01:05:59.039 --> 01:06:03.760
homogeneous stuff, substance in a state of unstable equilibrium with
1081
01:06:03.800 --> 01:06:08.280
a certain disturbance would create would create forms. And he
1082
01:06:09.079 --> 01:06:11.280
states in that paper, right in the preamble and later
1083
01:06:11.320 --> 01:06:14.039
in the paper, he could predict where the tentacles of
1084
01:06:14.079 --> 01:06:17.639
a hydra would come out. And that's exactly what happens
1085
01:06:17.639 --> 01:06:20.079
in the in the Watcher, outside the Walls of Maria.
1086
01:06:20.440 --> 01:06:23.559
That's why that homogeneous substance doesn't even reflect the light
1087
01:06:23.599 --> 01:06:26.719
of day. It's there's like plots coming up. It was
1088
01:06:26.719 --> 01:06:31.880
in a state of unstable homogeneous, in an unstable state,
1089
01:06:31.960 --> 01:06:35.280
waiting for the disturbance. Bormeir picks up the rock and
1090
01:06:35.320 --> 01:06:38.199
throws the rock, and that's the disturbance. And the rings,
1091
01:06:38.239 --> 01:06:41.960
these are morphogenic rings because Siron who now owns Moria,
1092
01:06:42.079 --> 01:06:45.280
the halls of Academia. The rings come to the edge
1093
01:06:45.440 --> 01:06:49.039
of the lake and out comes the hydra. They weren't
1094
01:06:49.039 --> 01:06:51.679
there wasn't a watcher, an octopus or something in there.
1095
01:06:52.320 --> 01:06:56.119
Those tentacles were newborn. They came out at that instant,
1096
01:06:56.440 --> 01:07:00.320
just according Dallan Turning nineteen fifty two papers. So Dulcan
1097
01:07:00.639 --> 01:07:05.320
totally reworked and was constantly reworking his masterful jigsaw puzzle
1098
01:07:05.599 --> 01:07:08.239
to include all these incredible elements that were going to
1099
01:07:08.320 --> 01:07:12.639
influence the future drastically because he knew, because he knew
1100
01:07:12.679 --> 01:07:16.119
who Alan Turing was, and he knew how potent was okay,
1101
01:07:16.360 --> 01:07:18.800
and he incorporated all these things in lo and behold,
1102
01:07:18.880 --> 01:07:23.559
all these things are incredibly important, including morphogenesis. Turing's mathematics
1103
01:07:23.719 --> 01:07:27.360
are being used in computer science for the artificial intelligence
1104
01:07:27.400 --> 01:07:30.159
to design its owner, own network, its own brain. So
1105
01:07:30.519 --> 01:07:32.480
Tolkien knew all these things were coming, and they were
1106
01:07:32.519 --> 01:07:35.679
going to bite us in the rear in something something terrible,
1107
01:07:36.039 --> 01:07:38.840
and they are. But he gives us a solution, and
1108
01:07:38.880 --> 01:07:41.519
that's returned to the Church, to the true faith and
1109
01:07:41.880 --> 01:07:42.559
becomes saints.
1110
01:07:44.679 --> 01:07:46.280
Well there you have it, Joseph.
1111
01:07:46.320 --> 01:07:49.800
Anything from you, well, I mean, first of all, I'm
1112
01:07:49.800 --> 01:07:52.480
going to completely agree with the last couple of sentences there.
1113
01:07:54.119 --> 01:08:02.639
And the Tolkien basically says, as as as a Christian
1114
01:08:02.679 --> 01:08:04.840
and in fact of Roman Catholic, I see history as
1115
01:08:04.840 --> 01:08:08.239
the long defeat. The only occasional glimpse is of final victory.
1116
01:08:08.639 --> 01:08:11.119
So the key thing is that the Tolkien would would
1117
01:08:11.119 --> 01:08:15.159
would would see that in every generation from Adam and
1118
01:08:15.199 --> 01:08:20.840
Eve onwards, that that we have these forces at work
1119
01:08:20.840 --> 01:08:23.239
in the Church, and the whole template of human history
1120
01:08:23.760 --> 01:08:31.000
is present in the Gospel. You have Christ literally as
1121
01:08:31.039 --> 01:08:33.960
the center of the story, the purpose of the story,
1122
01:08:34.199 --> 01:08:36.960
the meaning of the story. You have the followers of Christ,
1123
01:08:38.319 --> 01:08:40.800
and then you have Caesar, who is more powerful than
1124
01:08:40.800 --> 01:08:46.560
the follows of Christ. Politically. You have him saying quids veritask,
1125
01:08:46.640 --> 01:08:51.239
presumably cynically, although we don't necessarily know that he could
1126
01:08:51.239 --> 01:08:54.680
even want to know but then we have judas so
1127
01:08:55.479 --> 01:08:57.560
every single generation. So I've read a book called The Good,
1128
01:08:57.600 --> 01:09:00.439
the Bad, and the Beautiful History and three Dimensions, and
1129
01:09:00.520 --> 01:09:04.319
so in other words, even the machine is not omnipotent.
1130
01:09:04.359 --> 01:09:08.119
And of course I'm not saying that the machine is
1131
01:09:08.159 --> 01:09:12.279
not omnipotent. It is a device. It's a machine right
1132
01:09:13.159 --> 01:09:16.520
of the devil, of those who are who are who
1133
01:09:16.640 --> 01:09:22.399
are basically on the side of Caesar as understood, being
1134
01:09:22.640 --> 01:09:26.600
the world the city of Man versus the city of
1135
01:09:26.640 --> 01:09:32.880
God Christ. And it may well be that artificial intelligence
1136
01:09:32.920 --> 01:09:41.079
will wire and govern and bring about a thousand year tyranny,
1137
01:09:41.760 --> 01:09:44.520
or it can bring about the apocalypse, or which I
1138
01:09:44.520 --> 01:09:47.399
think is actually more likely, because if you give the
1139
01:09:47.439 --> 01:09:51.399
devil enough rope, he hangs himself. The tragedy is he
1140
01:09:51.479 --> 01:09:54.600
hangs you first. This there's plenty of innocent victims to
1141
01:09:54.680 --> 01:09:58.399
the devil's hanging himself. But I can see that if anything,
1142
01:09:58.439 --> 01:10:01.520
you look at things now and and the way that
1143
01:10:01.560 --> 01:10:06.439
some of the big players in artifician tellness are working
1144
01:10:06.479 --> 01:10:09.279
on the world stage, is at least as likely that
1145
01:10:09.319 --> 01:10:12.159
it's going to bring about the destruction of the World
1146
01:10:12.239 --> 01:10:15.760
Wide Web through nuclear conflict. And because that's to be
1147
01:10:15.760 --> 01:10:19.039
a mess. But but in other words, that the machine
1148
01:10:19.079 --> 01:10:23.680
hasn't won in every generation. You know that the Caesar
1149
01:10:23.960 --> 01:10:28.960
and his vehicles, including machines of various guises, are in
1150
01:10:29.000 --> 01:10:33.960
the ascendant in terms of political power. If you're machiavellian,
1151
01:10:34.159 --> 01:10:38.439
Caesars always winning. But the paradoxes, he never wins, the
1152
01:10:38.520 --> 01:10:41.840
long defeat, with only occasional glimpses of final victory. But
1153
01:10:41.840 --> 01:10:44.920
where's the find of victory. It's not here, as Paul
1154
01:10:44.960 --> 01:10:48.760
keeps it, insisting it's not here, it's there. Where's the
1155
01:10:48.800 --> 01:10:50.279
end of the world. By the way, the end of
1156
01:10:50.279 --> 01:10:53.199
the world is when we die. The apocalypse of each
1157
01:10:53.199 --> 01:10:55.840
of ours is our own personal finishing line, which could
1158
01:10:55.840 --> 01:10:57.800
be tomorrow, which is why we have to keep our
1159
01:10:57.800 --> 01:11:02.039
eyes on heaven. And don't yes, find the machine up
1160
01:11:02.079 --> 01:11:06.039
to a point, even fear the machine, but don't worship
1161
01:11:06.119 --> 01:11:10.199
machine all, which is as bad like denethor the denithor option.
1162
01:11:11.000 --> 01:11:15.119
Believe the machine right and allow the machine to cause
1163
01:11:15.279 --> 01:11:22.199
despair and suicidal defeatism.
1164
01:11:22.319 --> 01:11:27.159
Okay, you both have just wait, we get a couple
1165
01:11:27.199 --> 01:11:27.920
of points in us.
1166
01:11:28.479 --> 01:11:32.960
I mean, you're getting all kinds of points here, so
1167
01:11:33.920 --> 01:11:37.600
and I'm just I'm loving it again. There's so much
1168
01:11:37.760 --> 01:11:40.760
knowledge and depth that you both are sharing, so we
1169
01:11:40.840 --> 01:11:46.439
definitely appreciate it. We've got one more question here from
1170
01:11:46.560 --> 01:11:50.439
Keelan Kelly, and Keilan asks. One thing I'm taking away
1171
01:11:50.439 --> 01:11:53.520
from this is that great literature like The Lord of
1172
01:11:53.560 --> 01:11:57.159
the Rings has so many levels on which to approach it.
1173
01:11:58.199 --> 01:12:05.279
Could uh, let's see here, a that's my place? Could
1174
01:12:06.520 --> 01:12:08.680
up there we go? Could there be room for Paul's
1175
01:12:08.720 --> 01:12:13.560
to mystic interpretation, and also Professor Pierce's point that it's
1176
01:12:13.760 --> 01:12:17.960
very important to read this story as a story first
1177
01:12:18.600 --> 01:12:21.520
and experience what the author wanted us to see and
1178
01:12:21.760 --> 01:12:23.560
feel reading the work.
1179
01:12:25.000 --> 01:12:26.399
I'm going to take that. I said that in my
1180
01:12:27.000 --> 01:12:31.520
rather scrambled preamble. I said Tolkien's first Tolkien's first mission
1181
01:12:31.600 --> 01:12:33.960
was to write a good story, because he knew that,
1182
01:12:34.119 --> 01:12:36.920
you know, if the message comes through, that's the type
1183
01:12:36.920 --> 01:12:39.279
of allegory that he didn't like. That's bad writing. That's
1184
01:12:39.319 --> 01:12:41.680
you're getting the message before you're even into the story,
1185
01:12:42.079 --> 01:12:45.640
and it becomes a barrier to your You're not open
1186
01:12:45.680 --> 01:12:48.399
hearted anymore, you're not. We see that Hollywood's doing that
1187
01:12:48.439 --> 01:12:50.159
a lot right now. The message is right up front.
1188
01:12:50.159 --> 01:12:52.880
It's woke and it's awful and it makes for terrible movies.
1189
01:12:52.920 --> 01:12:55.279
And they're right, and they're not even writing anything with
1190
01:12:55.479 --> 01:12:58.159
or without you know, their wokesm it's just all junk,
1191
01:12:58.640 --> 01:13:00.520
but including what they're doing to tell And so that's
1192
01:13:00.560 --> 01:13:02.359
the main reason I wanted to get this out, to
1193
01:13:02.399 --> 01:13:04.840
eliminate some of the ambiguity, so there'd be no more
1194
01:13:04.840 --> 01:13:06.399
of this. Oh, we can do whatever we want with
1195
01:13:06.479 --> 01:13:10.279
it and start desecrating Tolkien's legacy and misleading a lot
1196
01:13:10.279 --> 01:13:14.199
of people, because that's that's a crime, among other things.
1197
01:13:14.199 --> 01:13:17.720
But the really, the first and foremost his first mission
1198
01:13:17.800 --> 01:13:20.039
was to write a good story because it had to
1199
01:13:20.079 --> 01:13:25.039
saturate through all of culture freely and openly, like morphogenesis.
1200
01:13:25.239 --> 01:13:28.720
These these these these the whole process is about the
1201
01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:35.239
migration and permeability of cell structures, rings of cells, when
1202
01:13:35.399 --> 01:13:37.920
and and the morphogenes would travel through that according to
1203
01:13:37.920 --> 01:13:41.520
the harmonic overtone system and determined what something would would
1204
01:13:41.520 --> 01:13:43.880
come out to be. So he knew that the story
1205
01:13:43.880 --> 01:13:46.760
had to be good and and and and permeate through
1206
01:13:46.840 --> 01:13:49.680
all of culture with an open heart and an open mind,
1207
01:13:49.720 --> 01:13:52.399
and people would read it and it would saturate and
1208
01:13:52.439 --> 01:13:55.279
it's become it's the antidote. It's the we we were
1209
01:13:55.359 --> 01:13:59.479
bitten by a venomous snake back in the garden of Eden,
1210
01:13:59.520 --> 01:14:02.000
and the and the toxin of original sin has been
1211
01:14:02.079 --> 01:14:05.920
killing us and bringing us down and pulling us into
1212
01:14:05.960 --> 01:14:08.520
the grave, the eternal grave, ever since. And Toltien wrote
1213
01:14:08.560 --> 01:14:11.880
an antidote. But it had to be an antidote that
1214
01:14:11.880 --> 01:14:15.039
would permeate through all of Western culture. And then when
1215
01:14:15.079 --> 01:14:18.000
culture got in God's time, when culture got sick enough,
1216
01:14:18.039 --> 01:14:20.840
and we'll say like a temperature of like one hundred
1217
01:14:20.840 --> 01:14:23.159
and three degrees, as I've said before, all of a sudden,
1218
01:14:23.520 --> 01:14:26.520
the antidote is activated and it becomes its own, Its
1219
01:14:26.600 --> 01:14:29.640
agency comes in, and it starts fighting back at the venom.
1220
01:14:29.680 --> 01:14:32.279
And that's exactly what Toltien gave us. He gave the
1221
01:14:32.279 --> 01:14:36.880
Western world and every individual human being the antidote to
1222
01:14:36.920 --> 01:14:39.520
that venom, and that is return to the faith, take
1223
01:14:39.680 --> 01:14:42.119
part in the sacraments, become a saint.
1224
01:14:43.680 --> 01:14:47.600
And hopefully we will all become saints one day, Joseph
1225
01:14:48.039 --> 01:14:48.479
for us.
1226
01:14:50.000 --> 01:14:54.159
That's why obviously agree with Pool that Tolkien was primary
1227
01:14:54.199 --> 01:14:59.239
concubiteting a story that any truths that emerge plicaparly from
1228
01:14:59.239 --> 01:15:04.279
the story something that he thought would happen anyway, whether
1229
01:15:04.359 --> 01:15:07.760
there is in the story consciously or unconsciously. But I
1230
01:15:07.760 --> 01:15:11.119
do want to distinguish that there's no distinction between reading
1231
01:15:11.319 --> 01:15:14.439
the worktomistically or reading the work as a story. You
1232
01:15:14.520 --> 01:15:18.399
have to read the work as a storytimistically because that
1233
01:15:18.720 --> 01:15:24.199
Tolkien thought tumistically. Tolkien was someone who understood the cosmostumistically.
1234
01:15:24.439 --> 01:15:26.720
So if you read the story anything other than toimistically,
1235
01:15:26.760 --> 01:15:28.640
you're misreading it. If you read it as a relativist
1236
01:15:29.039 --> 01:15:31.880
or an atheist, you're misreading the story. You have to
1237
01:15:31.920 --> 01:15:34.039
read it through the eyes of the author. So this
1238
01:15:34.079 --> 01:15:36.600
is why agree completely with Paul. You do have to
1239
01:15:36.640 --> 01:15:39.760
see the Lord of the Rings from the perspective of
1240
01:15:40.279 --> 01:15:44.960
atimistic understanding of metaphysics, because Tolkien had to mystic understanding metaphysics.
1241
01:15:45.600 --> 01:15:51.039
The problem is, did Tolkien quite in some sense reduce
1242
01:15:51.119 --> 01:15:54.239
that to concepts right And I don't think he did,
1243
01:15:54.239 --> 01:16:01.560
And that that's where where we differ basically, because I
1244
01:16:01.600 --> 01:16:04.279
suppose it comes down to actually my one quibble with
1245
01:16:04.960 --> 01:16:07.600
some point, did say there the metaphor we were bitten
1246
01:16:07.720 --> 01:16:10.000
by a serpent. We weren't bitten by a serpent. The
1247
01:16:10.039 --> 01:16:14.439
serpent tempted us to buy no, no, no no. It
1248
01:16:14.520 --> 01:16:17.920
is important because the poison is in our choice and
1249
01:16:17.960 --> 01:16:20.840
the anything. One of the one of the key elements
1250
01:16:20.840 --> 01:16:23.840
in the Lord of the Rings is choice. So the
1251
01:16:23.880 --> 01:16:27.199
freedom of the will, the freedom of choice, what we
1252
01:16:27.279 --> 01:16:31.680
do in certain circumstances and the consequences there they're old, right,
1253
01:16:31.760 --> 01:16:34.760
So that is part of the dynamic of the story.
1254
01:16:35.039 --> 01:16:37.399
And again I think that when we try to reduce
1255
01:16:37.439 --> 01:16:41.680
things to concepts, that dynamic of human choice, which is
1256
01:16:41.680 --> 01:16:45.840
really evil. It ultimately can tempt us, it can persuade us,
1257
01:16:45.880 --> 01:16:50.680
it can propagandize us. But we have to choose, ultimately
1258
01:16:51.359 --> 01:16:55.039
two choose the good or refuse the good.
1259
01:16:58.479 --> 01:17:00.960
I couldn't agree more. That's so, that's that's why Tom
1260
01:17:00.960 --> 01:17:03.920
Bumbaill is the whole point of the whole mythology, because
1261
01:17:03.960 --> 01:17:06.239
he is the rational will, he is the free will.
1262
01:17:06.439 --> 01:17:08.479
That's why he can do anything he wants. That's why
1263
01:17:08.520 --> 01:17:11.760
he is master, you know. But he's also very much
1264
01:17:11.840 --> 01:17:15.319
still in tune with his wife Goldberry, who is the conscience,
1265
01:17:15.479 --> 01:17:19.720
the intellect. Fortunately, Arda hasn't become totally pathological, so he's
1266
01:17:19.760 --> 01:17:23.279
still within the realm of redemption, and he chooses and
1267
01:17:23.359 --> 01:17:26.800
willfully chooses the good and return to the faith and
1268
01:17:26.880 --> 01:17:30.119
get a rid of the machine and get the microchip gone.
1269
01:17:31.399 --> 01:17:33.760
It is. It's all about the will.
1270
01:17:34.000 --> 01:17:38.039
Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for just this wonderful
1271
01:17:38.079 --> 01:17:43.720
conversation that you've provided and your insight into this beautiful
1272
01:17:43.720 --> 01:17:47.159
book that hopefully people will go out there and get. Paul,
1273
01:17:47.279 --> 01:17:50.000
I just want to thank you for your time and
1274
01:17:50.119 --> 01:17:53.800
also for your willingness to answer these questions.
1275
01:17:54.199 --> 01:17:55.399
Same to you, Joseph.
1276
01:17:55.640 --> 01:17:57.840
Thank you so much for all of the wisdom that
1277
01:17:58.039 --> 01:18:01.640
both of you have shared throughout this entire time. And
1278
01:18:01.800 --> 01:18:04.079
with that, I'm going to turn it back over to
1279
01:18:04.720 --> 01:18:05.840
Sebastian Mafood.
1280
01:18:07.720 --> 01:18:12.680
Thank you very much. Jennifer and I reiterate her thanks
1281
01:18:12.760 --> 01:18:16.439
to both Paul and to Joseph for their presentations today,
1282
01:18:17.119 --> 01:18:20.680
Paul for his book in Joseph for his response. We
1283
01:18:20.680 --> 01:18:24.159
are at the end of our time today, Sister Carla May,
1284
01:18:24.199 --> 01:18:26.880
would you lead us in a short closing prayer.
1285
01:18:27.279 --> 01:18:38.479
A moment of disquiet? Almost Holy One, you are the
1286
01:18:38.560 --> 01:18:47.159
listener to every conversation. Does it delight you? Does it
1287
01:18:47.199 --> 01:18:55.239
make you laugh? Does it make you weep? In your kindness?
1288
01:18:55.279 --> 01:18:59.319
Breathe your spirit here among us that under the power
1289
01:18:59.359 --> 01:19:03.000
of that merci for self giving love, you might renew
1290
01:19:03.079 --> 01:19:08.680
us as a people, fill us with wisdom and insight
1291
01:19:10.239 --> 01:19:16.239
fed by your own Eucharist, so that we constantly grow
1292
01:19:16.319 --> 01:19:22.479
into the people of God you have dreamed of in
1293
01:19:22.520 --> 01:19:29.479
your kindness. Fulfill your own will in us, and help
1294
01:19:29.600 --> 01:19:33.600
us to keep within that will as we make our choices.
1295
01:19:35.920 --> 01:19:37.720
We ask this in the name of the one you've
1296
01:19:37.760 --> 01:19:40.079
given us, the one who shows us the way home.
1297
01:19:41.239 --> 01:19:42.920
We pray in Jesus' name.
1298
01:19:44.840 --> 01:19:50.079
Amen, Amen, Amen, thank you so very much. Just a
1299
01:19:50.159 --> 01:19:53.319
card may all right, everybody. This will be posted on
1300
01:19:53.479 --> 01:19:57.239
WCAT TV and radio later on today and I will
1301
01:19:58.159 --> 01:19:59.920
please check back for that link and I'll send it
1302
01:20:00.079 --> 01:20:04.039
out to the addresses that I know who arrived here today.
1303
01:20:04.680 --> 01:20:06.279
God bless and good night.
1304
01:20:08.279 --> 01:20:13.199
Hello, God's beloved. I'm Annabel Moseley, author, professor of theology,
1305
01:20:13.319 --> 01:20:17.359
and host of then Sings My Soul and Destination Sainthood
1306
01:20:17.560 --> 01:20:22.039
on WCAT Radio. I invite you to listen in and
1307
01:20:22.119 --> 01:20:26.159
find inspiration along this sacred journey. We're traveling together to
1308
01:20:26.279 --> 01:20:31.319
make our lives a masterpiece and with God's grace, become saints.
1309
01:20:32.239 --> 01:20:36.159
Join me Annabel Moseley for Then sings my soul and
1310
01:20:36.239 --> 01:20:42.159
destination sainthood on WCAT Radio. God bless you. Remember you
1311
01:20:42.239 --> 01:20:45.399
are never alone. God is always we feel.
1312
01:20:50.640 --> 01:20:54.399
Thank you for listening to a production of WCAT Radio.
1313
01:20:54.960 --> 01:20:58.720
Please join us in our mission of evangelization, and don't
1314
01:20:58.760 --> 01:21:02.560
forget Love lifts up where knowledge takes flight.