Jonathan Pageau: What atheists get wrong about the Bible, religion and Jordan Peterson

Jonathan Pageau is a French Canadian icon carver, public speaker and YouTuber exploring the symbolic patterns that underlie our experience of the world. He's also the editor of the Orthodox Arts Journal and host of the Symbolic World blog and podcast.

Jonathan is also known for his friendship with Jordan Peterson, another thinker invested in symbolism, psychology and pointing people back to Christianity as the modern West navigates a ‘meaning crisis’.

Jonathan talk to Justin and Belle about meaning, symbolism, atheism and the meaning crisis as we ask whether we can re-enchant… just about everything!

There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen recorded at Lambeth Palace Library, the home of the Centre for Cultural Witness. Justin Brierley and Belle Tindall engage faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?

[michaeldunn]

Congratulations, this interview contains the clearest expression of Jonathan Pageau's understanding of the world I have heard, and I have been listening to him for a long time.

[MattiasLidborn]

After watching a video with Jonathan, I always think, 'I've got to re-watch this, ' even though I have listened to him a lot and for a long time. What he says is always so pregnant, and the more I understand and connect the dots, the richer and more reasonable it becomes. I am really looking forward to hearing his take on Aion. Thanks for hosting him 🙏

[janethorsman]

Been listening to Jonathan for years, but this is probably one of his best interviews. Can’t put my finger on why. Did they just ask the perfect questions?

[LyLiLe]

I love listening to Pageau because it is not about anything except trying to articulate ideas that he knows and deeply believes. Foundational, ancient, and applicable.

[acr]

Very interesting discussion. I am a Roman Catholic who has been in all sorts of protestant churches before, recently, returning to RC church. This iconic meaning of liturgy is something which draws us out of our selves. I am drawn into the reality of Christ in Heaven. It is much more profound than the intellectual satisfaction of scriptural teaching and a few hymns - none of which is bad but not quite enough. In the Mass, we are not told what the scriptures mean in that clever way which the preachers do so well; we are rather left to hear Christ in His Words as they speak to us. And we join the angels in worshiping Him, even to accepting Him in his flesh and blood. These are not hings which require great intellect; it is more a thing of the heart. But it does make me aware of who I am; loved since before the creation of the world - by this God who is so much more than we could imagine yet very concerned about each of us, no matter how little or poor.

[AmyMaris]

Jonathon. You may be the theologian of the hour. I’m praying for you to fulfill all that Christ has for you here on earth.

[jennytr]

I just want to plug Jonathan's book, Snow White and the Widow Queen. It's absolutely enchanting. I've read it to my 6-year-old daughter repeatedly, and read it for myself too :) My expectations for this book were so high that I knew that when I finally got it I would be disappointed. But when it was in my hands at last, my expectations were exceeded. The illustrations are lovely, and the story hits hard. If you can get a copy, I highly highly recommend it.

[justinluther]

Seen & Unseen up in here interviewing all of the people I love

[thattimestampguy]

*Introduction*
0:01 Meaning comes in Patterns. Meaning is inevitable.
0:29 We Live In A World of Experience.

*Who Is Johnathan Pageau?*
1:08 _Re-Enchanting_ A talk show hosted by Belle Tindell and Justin Brierley
2:00 Johnathan Pageau: Icon Carver, Public Speaker & YouTuber.
3:03 _Re-Enchanting_ is usually Recorded on The Rooftop of Lambeth Palace Library, so Belle and Justin ask the guest: "What have you been reading lately?"
4:27 Johnathan Pageau's Studying of Symbolic Meaning.

*Johnathan Pageau's friend Jordan Peterson*
5:10 Johnathan Pageau met Jordan Peterson in 2015. Johnathan Pageau thinks that Jordan Peterson offered "the last part of the bridge" that was missing in the way Johnathan Pageau talked about things, this helped Pageau.

*Meaning In Reality*
6:28 A Brief Primer of What Johnathan Pageau means by "The Symbolic World."
6:48 Helping people understand symbolism. Meaning is inevitable.
7:30 Accurate Description of Reality.
8:00 We Live In A World of Experience.

*The World is Full of Stuff*
8:56 Patterns of Symbolism.
9:32 The Problem with Perception. The World is Full of Stuff! There is no limit to the amount of description we can do with the world. The Human Person perceives The Unity that constitutes a multiplicity.
10:32 Parts with Parts, Patterns, Fractals.
11:53 Darwinian Evolution, "Fitness to survive." The Persistence of Being. Beings want to continue to persist and perpetuate itself.

*Logos, Identity & Purpose, Experience*
13:13 Saint Maximos The Confessor. Logos. Everything has a Logos. Selection is purposeful to the perpetuation of being.
14:05 Identity & Purpose go together.
14:21 Reasons for things to exist. Hierarchy of Importance.
15:14 The Reality of How We Experience, How We Remember.
15:47 Trying to speak how a secular person can understand while coming from Christianity.

*Richard Dawkins*
16:40 "It's BS"
17:35 "Give me a proof of God that is equivalent to this formula."
18:15 "You can't prove that these giant beings exist except for that kind of multiplicity moving into unity."
19:10 Microcosm, a being has to be a microcosm necessarily, a being has to be a microcosm of the situation they are in.
19:45 Race and IQ, a minefield.
20:07 Hierarchy of Values implies The Feel of The Sacred pressing down on you.

*Patterns*
22:22 Things play themselves out.
23:23 New Atheist Woke Culture.
24:07 The Magic Is Visible Again. The Magic Is Possible Again.
24:54 Return of Sacred Behavior during C-vid.
26:30 Secular Thinkers pointing back to Christianity.
26:58 The Significance of The Bible.
27:46 Is it useful fiction?"
29:26 Patterns of Attention.
30:11 "Why does it bother you that it happened?"

*Truth of The Christian World*
30:47 Luis Perry, Tom Holland.
31:34 What can help a Dis-Enchanted Person to step into Christianity?
32:53 The Resurrection Happened.
33:59 We Live In The Christian World. Denying Christ undermines Everything We Care About.
34:37 What you end up with is perversion.
36:20 "At The Origin of Something, there is always a Mystery."
37:24 The Resurrection Explains Everything. The World Is Held By Self-Emptying. You Sacrifice Something, You Sacrifice Yourself.

*Hierarchy*
38:31 "I am a Hierarchy person. I believe in Hierarchy."
39:07 A Description in Meaning. Hierarchy of Beings that is joined together into this Central Focus.
39:48 People abstract themselves.
40:18 Including the measurer in the system.
40:43 Name, Goodness, Identity. A Name and It's Goodness are Identical. I don't want to die. The Name shows immediately that they are good.
41:35 Joining Heaven and Earth.
42:09 Scientific Method.

*Orthodox Christianity*
43:16 Eastern Orthodox. 43:57
44:50 Meaning. Repetition.
45:30 Wholistic Vision of Reality.
47:59 Opened Up Faith for intelligent 21st Century people.
48:39 The Desert of Secularism.
50:50 The Majesty of Cathedrals. 51:46
53:39 Me Me Me. Pride. Self-Referential.
54:10 Ideological Political Causes are insufficient.
55:08 Rest.
55:49 It's not about you anymore. Worship has to do with Christ, above.
56:38 God's Yolk Is Light.
57:24 Martin Shaw.

*Icon-Carving*
58:28 Johnathan Pageau's Love of Christian Art and Scripture.
59:27 Pattern of Reality at every level. Fairy Tales.

1:00:39 Thank you Johnathan Pageau. 1:01:00

[WorldofElsuon]

There are two "Houses" in reality: the Upper House and the Lower House. Science is the primary tool for studying the Lower House. Put simply, science is the tool used to identify, test, measure, and catalog things that cannot change their minds because they have no minds to change. Therefore, science is the study of enslaved things: fields, forces, and phenomena that cannot defy their purpose. Science is merely the study of mechanisms. The Upper House is where all the fun is.

[hrossaman]

Wow, your graciousness is so alluring. I'm used to Jay Dyer's caustic hardcore philosophy on Orthodoxy. Different personalities. Different gifts.

[ewakrawczyk]

Dear Mr. Pageau, I like listening to philosophers, psychiatrists, psychologists, but noone can shed lights on things as well as you do. Thanks a lot!

[MrRickkramer]

Glory to God! I was just talking to my woman about Matthew 11 where Jesus talks about His yoke being easy, and now I resume this video about 15 minutes later and Jonathan refers to this passage. ☦️🙏🏻 there are no coincidences, God plans all things with such a splendor, is amazing!

[rtm]

Pretty sure I’ve listened to every Pageau interview he has ever done, and this is in my opinion the very best.

Long overdue, congrats. Do it again soon.

[patrickselden]

What a wonderfully thought-provoking conversation!
Thank you very much, y'all...
☝️😎

[kipling]

Belle didn’t quite get it, saying we see patterns as things (objects) to which we later ascribe meaning. No, meaning comes first from patterns, which we then label as objects.

[Gamling]

I am a Swedish Christian who grew up in a Baptist church and in the western world's most secular society. I read the bible early and for me there has never been an Issue that things in the bible is written in a poetic way and with meaning, and still the stories are literally and historically true. God is outside our time and God used the people and histories in the bible to create the story he wanted. But often you can read how for instance the Israelites did not follow God's plan and God had to adjust it.

[francestaylor]

6:55 - ironically, physics is very much a symbolic world too. Very rarely are you solving for actual values. You’re solving for extremely theoretical abstractions all laid out in mathematic symbolism. I often felt like I was staring at the mathematical code of reality created by God. It was so fascinating and so awe inspiring.

And what’s even more interesting is the further you go into physics, the more you see God but also the limitations of not only man but of observation itself. In quantum mechanics, the act of observing what electrons are doing causes it to change what’s happening to the electron. Thus, we can sometimes ONLY reflect physics symbolically or through observation we will change the outcome of what is happening.

Everything is potential in physics. Things are not what they are until the wave function has collapsed, until you give something an actual number value. Everything is symbolic.

Even the formula for the volume of a sphere 4/3(pi)r^3. It’s just an abstraction until you give r an actual number. And as humans when we look at a sphere in reality, we’re understanding the surface area, density, and volume all at once just through holding it. Physics is just much more methodical and abstract about it. We feel gravity. Physics calculates how gravity acts upon the object.

Physics is just a tool to put into mathematics what we instinctively intuit about reality. I don’t know why there’s so much focus on basing reality on physics. It’s really the other way around. We use physics to understand reality in a mathematically abstract way. That helps us to calculate things in minutiae which helps us develop better tools. We don’t base reality on woodworking or blacksmithing so I don’t know why we base reality on tool making like physics.

[twelfthhour]

What the heck? Best Pageau interview by ❤ Much respect 🙏

[ArtGoCanada]

Thanks for the clarity Jonathan, your explanations have rocketed me into the 4th dimension of existence. 📘🙏❤️✨