Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Welcome to the Truth Exchange Podcast. This is a weekly program with Dr. Jeffrey J. Ventrella, where he answers questions from subscribers around the globe, answering questions about worldview, cultural apologetics and other miscellaneous items. I'm your host, Joshua Gilo, and this is another edition of the Director's Bag.
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This week we had a number of questions come in not pertaining to the dicta, which was a good one, by the way. Again, if you've not subscribed, please do so. We'll have a link also in the show notes at the bottom of the podcast, Dr. Ventrell wrote about bucking cultural trends.
But the questions that came in this week was pertaining to an interview that went on Fox News. I actually hadn't seen it. I was aware of some of the bu.
As these questions came In, Vice President J.D. vance made reference to ordo amoris. Am I pronouncing that right, Jeff?
[00:01:41] Speaker A: It's about right. Yeah. It depends on if you're using ecclesiastical Latin or classical Latin, and I don't know enough about either to know the difference.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Okay. And ordo, when I hear ordo, I always think of the Ordo salutis or the order of salvation. So I knew that ordo was the order of. And amoris being love and relationships.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah. It comes the root, there is amore, you know, in Italian, that sort of thing. So it's the Latin for that. And it can apply across the board. It's a broader term, so it's not necessarily limited to rhotic. It can imply affection, those sorts of things.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. Okay. And I was familiar just from seminary, that Augustine referred to it or made use of the term as well as the bull. Saint Aquinas or Thomas Aquinas hadn't made use of it. And so it's typically thrown about in a natural theology or natural law range. But Christians were engaging on this. And what does this mean for worldview and Christian worldview? So some of our writers or our listeners wrote in asking really a broad range of questions pertaining to this. What is like, for instance, the Christian view of ordo amoris for home, church and work, political, national engagement and policy.
So let's start there with just really broadly understanding Ordo amoras.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well, thank you for that. And it's really clear that a number of our listeners have their ear to the ground and are seeing kind of these discussions. And despite all some of. Of the nonsense that's in public discussions, this one does touch upon, at least potentially, some theological understanding. Now, of course, Truth Exchange, we remind ourselves, as a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, but we certainly can comment upon public theological matters. And so the fact that Vice President Vance articulated this really is beside the point. The question is, is this a doctrine that is pertinent? And if so, how do we make it applicable? I think the first thing to recognize is that this isn't necessarily a Christian category. Rather, it has been recognized just by observation that there seems to be some order of how humans engage with their affections. Okay, So I think that we need to understand that this does not dictate. Some people are using this as a hierarchical ordering. In other words, this is more important than this is more important than this is more important. And a lot of folks and I saw the buzz, sadly, some of the Christian nationalists, the kinists and the racists are now latching on to this Latin phrase as a fig leaf to cover up their ideas that, oh, well, you know, we should only have affection as a priority, as a partiality for those that look like us and talk like.
Now, any discussion of this has to also take into consideration the radicalness of what Christ says. And what Christ says, I came to bring a sword. I came to drive a wedge between mother and son and father and son and brother and sister. So it simply cannot be the case that with the Incarnation and the coming of the kingdom of Christ, that it is simply a matter of who I prefer to be with. In addition, you'll not find in the literature that those who do recognize this doctrine, they don't attach it to economic principles nor to statist principles. In other words, the proximity that people are talking about, it's not about boundaries or borders. So, for example, if someone is from a different ethnicity or from a different nation, and they are Christians, that means they are of the household of the faith. Even though they are, quote, foreigners to the United States, perhaps they maintain their citizenship in, say, India or Afghanistan. But if they're Christians, you would actually have a greater duty to them in terms of tending to them than you would to the pagan who lives down the street and works in the why? Because the faith makes that Different. So I think there's a lot of confusion out there and I'm sorry to say that a lot of these, I will just call them what they are. Grifters latch onto this to justify some of their concocted notions that are rooted essentially in romanticism, in blood and soil.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. You mentioned hierarchy, and I saw that thrown quite a bit about. And, and the argument goes something alike.
Hierarchy is a biblical thing. Hierarchy is a natural thing. Natural, or things that are natural like that are created by the Lord. He sets them in place in nature to reflect a spiritual reality. Should Christians be afraid of terms like hierarchy or a hierarchical.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. The fact that there is order, what we should be talking about is authority and we should be talking about metaphysics. So is there a Hierarchy? Yes.
Psalm 8. Mankind is higher than everything else.
Hebrews. Man is made a little lower than angels and he has dominion over the created order. But it's an undifferentiated humanity. It's not a hierarchy within the imago dei. So I think we have to be very careful. Now, is there authority assigned with respect to offices and roles that we play as humans? Well, of course there are, but it's a question of authority, not so much as a hierarchy that these guys are making it as some sort of metaphysical distinctive. And I don't think that's how that term was used historically or in practice.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Right, that's helpful. That's a helpful point, Jeff. The other thing that I'm noticing is, and the natural law, the two kingdom kind of culture has said, look, things that are baked in, if I could put it that way, baked into the. Into nature is the instruction for how public policy and politics can be practiced. We don't need the words of Jesus, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this. Love your neighbor as yourself itself. There is no commandment greater than these. And can that verse, should that verse be applied to public policy?
[00:08:58] Speaker A: Well, that's a great question. So this is certainly an ethic. It comes from the Shema, right? This is an Old Testament issue. So I'm going to say two things about that. Number one, these folks that say that whatever is baked in is the pattern for public policy. There's an epistemological problem here.
Because if it's baked into the created order and the fall affects all of reality that's created and it affects our mind and our faculties, what sure standard do we have to Understand the baked in ness.
That's prelapsarian. How do we get there? How do we cross that bridge? Well, we get there through special revelation and redemption, but these folks have ruled that out. And so that's a very dangerous idea. You can say, well, it's natural. You can say, I like to eat. I love children. They're delicious. Who are you to judge?
[00:09:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:59] Speaker A: So the point is, there's nothing in the natural law that forbids that. And I think one thing we could do, maybe we should do this as well, is I have thought about for a while, though I'm a skeptical supporter of certain aspects of natural law.
I think there's a lot of obstacles to it, and I don't think those obstacles are articulated that they need to be. Maybe we can have a podcast on that. I can just kind of go through some of the challenges that I think exist. But I think there's something else here. The mere fact that creation does have an order and that the work of the law is written on our hearts doesn't mean it translates into public policy.
How do you cross that bridge? What are we to discern about these moral truths that are in creation? For example, is it the case that you shall not take innocent life? Well, we know that's the moral law of God.
The question then becomes, what about war?
Well, they're not innocent. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Who decides that? How do we get. How do we get there? And so we need to do something other than simply use Shiva lists and bumper stickers and tweets to try to make moral arguments. So I think what we're seeing here is this kind of constellation.
So we need to be very careful about that. So how do we take the loving our neighbor? Well, Jesus is not talking about the role of state there. He's directing it to persons, particular persons. We have the parable of the Good Samaritan, who is your neighbor. And certainly it is articulating a ethic, a personal ethic of proximity. That person is in need, even though they don't look like you and are not your ethnicity. Remember, Samaritans were despised in the Middle east. And yet Jesus says, that's the guy who's your neighbor. You know, take care of them and that sort of thing. He wasn't talking about state policy, though. He was talking about personal ethics.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: This concludes a recording of the director's bag. For more resources from Truth Exchange, please visit us online at www.truthexchange.com. you can follow us on X as well as Facebook for more updates and content related to Truth Exchange. Be sure to join us next week for more questions from the Director's bag. I'm your host, Joshua Gilo, and this is the Truth Exchange podcast.
