Can Christianity and Reason Coexist? | Bishop Robert Barron

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In Part Two of a four-episode series, “The Clerics: Christianity in America,” Hillsdale College President Larry P. Arnn interviews Bishop Robert Barron, bishop of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester and founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. The two discuss Aristotelian metaphysics, the relationship between faith and politics, the American founding, and the future of Word on Fire. This interview was conducted on March 20, 2025. Discover more at podcast.hillsdale.edu.

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Hillsdale College is an independent institution of higher learning founded in 1844 by men and women “grateful to God for the inestimable blessings” resulting from civil and religious liberty and “believing that the diffusion of learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.” It pursues the stated object of the founders: “to furnish all persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, or sex, a literary, scientific, [and] theological education” outstanding among American colleges “and to combine with this such moral and social instruction as will best develop the minds and improve the hearts of its pupils.” As a nonsectarian Christian institution, Hillsdale College maintains “by precept and example” the immemorial teachings and practices of the Christian faith.

The College also considers itself a trustee of our Western philosophical and theological inheritance tracing to Athens and Jerusalem, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law.

By training the young in the liberal arts, Hillsdale College prepares students to become leaders worthy of that legacy. By encouraging the scholarship of its faculty, it contributes to the preservation of that legacy for future generations. By publicly defending that legacy, it enlists the aid of other friends of free civilization and thus secures the conditions of its own survival and independence.

00:00 Essence and Existence 01:07 Introduction to Bishop Barron 02:19 What Are We? Human Nature and Speech 03:37 Thinking as Conversational and Theological 06:01 Abstractions, Speech, and the Mind’s Restlessness 10:42 Essence vs. Existence in Children’s Imagination 13:09 Justice, Goodness, and Political Community 17:38 Speech, Politics, and Classical Philosophy 23:31 From Founding Principles to God and the State 31:09 From Contingent Being to Necessary Being 44:41 Knowing God Through Negation and Desire 48:26 The Christian Revelation and the Logic of Love 54:23 Reconciling Aristotle and Aquinas 59:34 Christianity, Freedom, and Misconceptions 01:05:21 Word on Fire and Future Vision