This is a RadicalxChange production. Hello, and welcome to Radical Exchanges. In this episode, Matt Pruitt speaks with Joseph h h Weiler, a leading scholar of European constitutionalism and law. Their conversation opens with what might seem an unexpected starting point from our usual topics, the trial of Jesus. Yet through Wyler's incisive analysis, this historical theological inquiry reveals itself as a compelling framework for understanding fundamental questions about justice, religious pluralism, democracy, and technological change. As their conversation unfolds, this seemingly distant historical event becomes a sophisticated lens through which to examine contemporary challenges, from the limits of state neutrality to the governance of digital platforms. And now here is Matt Pruitt and Joseph Wyler.

My pleasure.

So maybe I'll start in a place you might not expect. But, over the last two years, I conducted an unscientific survey. I interviewed 17 law professors in The United States, in Europe, and in Asia. And, I asked them two very simple questions. How do you define your professional identity? And what is the most important thing in your professional identity? And 70 out of 70, and that follows a little bit your question, said, I define myself as a scholar, and the most important dimension of that professional identity is my scholarship, my articles, my books. Not a single one said I am a teacher. But if you were to ask me, that's my vocation. I'm a teacher, and I'm an educator. Now I think I'm a decent scholar, and I don't want to dismiss that. And I think you have to be a decent scholar in order to be a good teacher, but you can be a very good scholar and be a lousy teacher. But the most important thing is how you think of yourself. And I most of primarily think of myself as a teacher and educator. So that's the first reply to to your question. On the scholarly side, I from early on, I concentrated on public law. So that's constitutional law, international law, and a lot of the time European the law of the European Union or the process of European integration. But, I don't even wanna say as a sideline, but a very important part of, both my persona and my scholarly persona, I've had an interest in religion. And, normally, when you speak to public lawyers and they say they have an interest in religion, it immediately takes them to the question of relationship between church and state, separation, and all those doctrines, which is very important. But that's not my primary interest. I'm not only or primarily interested in the constitutional question of relationship between church and state. But in religion and theology as such and being Jewish, law is an important dimension of one's religious persona, although contrary to to myth. People like to say Judaism is all about legalism. And, you know, the Jews circumcise their penises. We circumcise our hearts, which is we we can talk about that, in a minute. So I'm interested in religion as, both a spiritual dimension and as a social dimension. And that has been a very important part also of my scholarship. Probably my best selling book, if we count the number of books and translations, is called The Christian Europe. And it has a legal dimension, but it's not the only dimension of that book, maybe not even the principal dimension of that book. And, I've been teaching, and I'm finishing a book on the trial of Jesus, which is a theological inquiry. The legal issues are, was he guilty? Was he not guilty? What was he guilty? Was the due process ideal with that, but that's not the most important question that the trial of Jesus raises. So that sort of gives, a broad view of the kind of things that I've been dealing with in the many years that I've been, a law professor. It's about forty years now. I'm 73 years old.

I'm happy to do that. So there's a huge, huge, huge literature on the trial of Jesus. And it's interesting because even if you just go on Amazon, in the last ten years, every year there's been, at least somewhere around the world, a book with the title of the trial of Jesus. So it continues to be be relevant and to occupy it, etcetera. And the literature is divided in two main streams. One is the Christ of faith, and the other is the historical Jesus. Now the Christ of faith, most of the writing on the trial of Jesus is the lynching in Jerusalem, the biggest miscarriage of justice in human history, etcetera. A natural outrage of Jesus being put on trial, found convicted for blasphemy. I mean, that's how could Jesus be the son of God be convicted of blasphemy? And, the so one can understand where where it's coming from. The historical Jesus says, we want to know what really happened, what Jesus really said, what Jesus really taught. Because in the Christ of faith, usually, the approach is gospel truth. Now what we read is what really happened. There's a problem there because the both in the the four gospels and in the book of Acts, there are contradictory narratives. For example, in the synoptic, in the synoptics, Mark, Michael, Luke, did I say? Jesus was tried before the Sanhedrin. In John, there was no trial before the Sanhedrin. There was only an interrogation by the chief priest, so which is the gospel truth. Yeah? And there's a very sophisticated, technique of harmonization. So this is an easy example. So they say both are true. First, there was an interrogation before the chief priest, and then there was a trial before the Sanhedrin. The historical Jesus tries to use historical tools. They've developed a methodology, and they want to know what Jesus really said, what really happened, what he did, what he did not do, etcetera. What is curious about that literature is that all the historians claim to be using the same techniques, but they reach very different results in answering the question, what did he really say, what did he really do. So if we go to the trial, there are some historical, historical Jesus scholars which say there was no trial at all. It was just a fiction. Blame the Jews in order not to blame the Romans because we don't want more people thrown to the lions. And others say that there was a trial before the Sanhedrin. That's the trial that interests me most, the trial before the Sanhedrin in which he was condemned to death for blasphemy. And the the gospel account is more or less historically accurate. Now I have, strangely enough, both in my teaching and in my book, people would expect being a scholar, being a law professor, I would, go along with the historical Jesus literature, which I do not dismiss. It's very important. But I ask two questions, which strangely enough you know, in my bibliography, there are more than 300 books with the title, the trial of Jesus. If you count all the books and articles that don't have it in the title but deal with it, we run-in two thousands. But there are two questions which strangely enough and really strangely enough don't seem to have been asked and answered. The first one is the trial of Jesus is probably the most important and, in fact, trial in the history of the West, what we used to call Christendom. And the question I ask in is what is the significance of the trial of Jesus to our concept of justice? So believe it or not, I couldn't find anybody that wrote, when you write about the Bible, usually, any originality is just a sign of bad research. It has been said. You just didn't find it. So I immediately plead guilty to that. But I haven't found a study which specifically says what is the importance of the trial of Jesus to the Western concept of justice. So that's one thing I deal with. The second thing, there's some writing on it, but not focused in my view. If the plan of God in the passion is to sacrifice his son, offering redemption and salvation, both for original sin and to the rest of humanity, the prospect of redemption and salvation, Why I apologize. I don't want to sound myself vulgar blasphemous. Why would he choose to do it through a trial? Because it's kind of interesting. The usual biblical way of dealing with this issue, King David, his last words were not I commit my soul to the almighty, etcetera. It was, don't forget to go and assassinate you out of my enemy. And indeed, somebody goes and sticks a sword into. So why instead of arresting Jesus in Gethsemane, he wasn't assassinated? Then there would be no question that an innocent person has been assassinated. Instead, you put him on trial, and you wrote raise the question, the highest authority, judicial authority of the time, which was the Sanhedrin, finds him guilty of blasphemy. Why this complication? So the question is, what is the theological significance of the trial of Jesus? Moving away from the legal issue, was he guilty? Was he not guilty? Was it a fair trial? Was it not a fair trial? So those are the two issues that I deal within my book. Now if we have time, I can explain a little bit my findings.

let's do it. So let's take the easier one, which is the significance of the trial of Jesus for our concept of justice. So whether it was a fair trial or not a fair trial, I think the jury is out. Even Ratzinger in his book, I think it's either the first or second volume of his book on Jesus, says if we read the text carefully, it seems as if the Sanhedrin was trying to hold a fair trial. It took courage to say that. I don't take a position on that. I explain all the arguments to say that this was a miscarriage of justice procedurally, and the arguments would say it was not. I just don't find that particularly relevant except in one sense, which I will come to in a minute. But if I go to John, after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, the the leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, whatever, they come to to to Caiaphas, the chief priest, and they say, if we let this man live, the Romans will come, destroy our temple, and destroy our nation. So and the implication is we have to put him to death. And then but how can you just put him to death? I mean, what's he done that justifies that? And that's the famous, you know, the expression of utilitarian morality, better than one man should die, then the whole nation should perish. But it's important, that statement, because Jesus is perceived by them as threatening the existence of the nation. If he's followed, then there's no claim to be able to say to the Romans. Remember, Paul says, there's no more Jew or Gentile. There's no more man or women. There's no more slave or freedman. All are saved in the Lord Jesus Christ. If there's no more Jew and Gentile, on what basis would we as a nation claim to have sovereignty, claim to have autonomy, claim to have our temple, etcetera? So they perceive Jesus rightly or wrongly. That's not important. They perceive him as a real existential threat. The kind of person that easily the president of The United States would say, send in a drone and kill him. What's important is that they hold a trial. In other words, that even though he's perceived, as an existential threat to the nation, they don't just say, okay. Go and assassinate him in Gethsemane. No. We have to hold a trial. And that is the most important contribution of the trial of Jesus to our concept of justice, that we do justice through trial. Through trial where an accusation is made, the defendant has the right to defend himself or herself, etcetera. Now, of course, it has to be a fair trial, but we don't we have to do, justice through a trial. And Jesus is a very interesting defendant because at the same time, he's the most exalted defendant one can imagine. He's the son of God. He's divine. On the other hand, he's the most abject defendant one can imagine. He's somebody who's threatening the existence of the nation, and that is part of our western civilization. No matter how important you are, you have to stand trial. You might have to wait till you end the presidency, but, eventually, you have to stand trial. And French prime ministers have been put in trial. The Israeli president was put in trial and convicted and sent to prison, etcetera. And no matter how abject you are, how unimportant you are, you are entitled to a trial. Now this is one of these things that are consecrated in the breach. We still have people in Guantanamo who haven't stood trial, and we still have important people who managed to escape trial. But we know in our minds that that is not right. That our standard is there has to be a trial, and it has to be a fair trial. And when it's not a fair trial, and there's that little La Rochefoucauld voice in our ear standing on our shoulder, that's what they did to Jesus. We should not do that. So it's hugely important to the concept of justice in the West. Now one could say, wasn't that also the one of the important messages of the trial of Socrates, which took place about five hundred years before? It was. But if I'm in a very generous mood, I would say that in the last two thousand five hundred years since the trial of Socrates, maybe 5% of the population living in the West have heard of the trial of Socrates. If I'm in a very ungenerous mood, I will say in the we're coming up to the two thousands quote anniversary, unquote, of the trial of Jesus. In all the people who lived in the last two thousand years in the West, maybe 10% have not heard of the trial of Jesus. So the impact of the trial of Jesus is so much more because it's just part of our culture. Who hasn't heard of Jesus, Christian or not? Who hasn't heard of the trial of Jesus? And that explains why I prefer as my source material for reflection the Christ of faith, the gospel, the Bible, because it's not important for my inquiry what happened. It's important what people believe to have happened. And since for most of our civilization, people believe that what is recounted in the gospel is that's what happened, that explains the huge importance of the trial of Jesus to our concept of justice. I'll add a little footnote. We see the seeds of that notion already in the the story of God, Abraham, and Sodom and Gomorrah. Because God comes to Abraham and says, will I hide from Abraham what I plan to do, to destroy the whole of Sodom and Gomorrah? After all, he is the father of all nation, which will teach his descendants to go in, the ways of the Lord to do righteousness and justice. And then something tremendous happens. Abraham turns to God, speaking truth to power. There's no power greater than the almighty. And says, but what if there are 50 innocent people in Sodom and Gomorrah? And then the unforgettable words, will the justice of the whole earth himself not do justice? That is the same message that we see playing out when they say, no matter what what a threat Jesus is, he has to stand trial. That's how we do justice. And, there's a little philological, footnote to this which is if we read the Hebrews, expression, it's will the judge of the whole earth and now the last word can be interpreted, will the judge of the whole word not do justice? Or perfect Hebrew, will the judge of the whole earth not hold a trial? Will you condemn Sodom and Gomorrah without holding a trial and finding them guilty? But who remembers that? We all remember the trial of Jesus, and that's why it has a central place in the development of our western notion of the concept of justice. The theological issue is more complicated. So how do I introduce this? I start from the following. The first thing, when I look at that huge literature on the trial of Jesus, lynching in Jerusalem, the biggest miscarriage of justice in human history, what is important and significant and striking about that literature, that almost invariably, there are a few exceptions, but they really are exception, the complaint is that there was not due process. In other words, it was an unfair trial. And I said on that, the jury is out. It's not so important in my view. But what is striking that you have very few protests about the trial of Jesus that say, how could he be found guilty of blasphemy? It's always about the due process. And I think I know why. Because let's say I am, a faithful Christian, and somebody would come to me and say, you know, I had a revelation, I am the son of Jesus, or God had another son, etcetera. We would look at that person and say, maybe I call, nine nine one, you know, people with white coats, or I just smile and say, oh, isn't that interesting? But I will also think to myself, this is blasphemy. What are you talking about? How could Jesus have a son? Now if I go to so that's why people are cautious because they say, how would we react if the people in authority who pray twice a day, hear o Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one, and suddenly be told, actually, it's a different type of one. It's one the father, one the son. This is not the faith of our fathers. And people say, well, if we faced a similar situation, what would we hold? Let's set the death penalty apart. That's a different issue. So they're uncomfortable with that. And that's why the huge critical literature, the pietistic literature on the trial focused on it was an unfair trial. Now if I go to the last chapter of, of Matthew before I said Micah and Micah, I meant Matthew. If I go to the last chapter of Matthew, the very last words are Jesus says, I am forever. I am eternal. Now, I go to the first chapter of Galatians. And Paul is chastising the Galatians. And he says, you accepted Jesus. And now I come to you, and it appears that you accept a different God, a different Jesus. And then he says something striking. He says, even if an angel of God will come down to Earth and tell you that Jesus is no longer Lord, you have to curse that angel. Angel from God. Paul knew his Bible well because we find in Deuteronomy the key chapters are chapter 12 and chapter 13. In chapter 12, you know Deuteronomy deuteronomos, the second restatement of the law. God says, these are the laws and edicts and teachings which I have given to you through Moses on in Sinai, and you will observe them all the days you live on this earth. So it's equivalent to Jesus saying, I am forever. God says, I have revealed myself to you through the laws and teachings and edicts, and you have to observe them forever, all the days you live on the earth. And then he adds, this is not only eternal law. You cannot add to it and you cannot detract from it. You can interpret it, but you do not add to it and you do not detract from it. So far so good. Then comes one of the most fascinating, passages in the Old Testament which are reminiscent of what Paul says in chapter one of Galatians. He says, one day a prophet or a dreamer of dreams a dreamer of dreams because we know that God reveals himself through dreams. Think of Jacob's dream, etcetera. And he will tell you not to follow the God of your fathers and to stop observing the law and edicts and teachings which I have given you. Now comes an amazing statement. I am testing you, says God. This is a test for you in order to see that despite any temptation, because he said, this god this prophet or dream of dreams will give signs and wonders. Signs and wonders is the technical way of the the bible saying, this is from the almighty. When when, Aaron throws his staff on the ground, it's a sign and a wonder. When the Egyptians do the same thing and it turns into a snake, the bible says that's wizardry. So when we see the expression signs and wonders, this is authenticated messenger of God. I am sending him to test you whether you will forever follow the laws and teachings and instructions that I've given you. Do not follow him. Put him to death. So now, first of all, we see the theological problem of the trial of Jesus. God reveals himself. God is transcendental. So we only know him through his moments of imminence, revelation. And the revelations to the Israelites, which later are called the Jews, although that comes in much later, we don't find that expression until very late in the Old Testament, he reveals himself through the law that he gives Moses in Sinai. That's the God of their fathers. That's the God unknown. And they are told this is eternal. And no matter what temptation comes your way, even a messenger like Paul, an angel from God, a prophet from God who will give signs and wonders, you do not follow it. I am putting you to the test. And at the same time, Jesus says, I am forever. He adds, only through me, there will be salvation. How do we reconcile these two, in some ways, contradictory statements? To the Israelites, to the Jews, he says, the God you know is the God of the law. You have to observe it forever. No matter what, you don't abandon it. And Jesus says, I am the Lord. You have to follow my teachings and observe them forever. And Paul says the same thing, no matter, even an angel of God, you curse the angel. I suppose there's no death penalty for angels, but it amounts to the same thing. So that's the first theological problem that we have, two contradictory statements by the almighty because I'm taking Jesus in faith. He is who he says he is. So I'm not saying, as some people say, he's a false prophet, he's a false messiah, etcetera. Being true to my method, the Christ of faith, I take him for his word. He is who he says. When in the trial, Caiaphas asks him, are you the messiah, the son of the blessed? Jesus truthfully answers, yes. I am. And then Keifer says, you've all heard the blasphemy. So we have a real serious theological problem. The Jews are told you do this forever, and if somebody comes and tells you something else, you put him to death. And those who follow Christ are told, I am forever. And if somebody comes and tells you elsewhere, otherwise, you curse the angel. You do not follow them. So we see that at the heart of the trial, there's this big theological dilemma. There are some other smaller theological problems. If we go back to the passage in Deuteronomy, the prophet and the dreamer of dreams who gives signs and wonders is a messenger of God. Why should he be put to death? That's unfair. He followed the Lord. Why should he be put to death? That should disturb us, should it not? I could say more. So now I want to offer the theological take that I have on the trial. The theological take is as follows. God reveals himself to the world in stages. He first reveals himself in one particular way to Abraham who will be the father of all nations. He's the father of Isaac. He's also the father of Ishmael. He then reveals himself in a very particular way to one particular people at Sinai. And as I said, the only way we know God is in those moments of imminence. So the way they know him is through the revelation of Sinai. And then in the third stage, he reveals himself to the rest of the world through Jesus Christ in a different way. Jesus, you know, the the word incarnate is a different way of revealing himself to the world than he revealed himself, for example, of Sinai. So now we have to reconcile the contradiction to eternal promises or eternal commitments which seem to be contradictory. So here is one way I try and explain it. I am a father of five children. My children, I hope, love me, but they love me in different ways. And in a way, I think they love me equally intensely, but in very different ways. And I wouldn't want them to love me all in the same way because they are different. And I love them intensely, but I love my children in different ways. They are different, and I love them in different ways. So if we go back to the trial and look at the aftermath of the trial. So in my view, both the reaction of Judaism and reaction of Christianity comes with a huge cost. Because the reaction of Christianity for close to 2,000 worlds well, years, the doctrine of supersessionism, the Jews should have followed Jesus. They didn't follow Jesus. And, therefore, we surely should not kill them, but they will suffer and be an abject person as a lesson to the world of what happens when you don't follow the Lord. It comes with a that attitude comes with a huge theological price because it's basically saying Judaism is not no longer valid. They will not be offered salvation, and they will suffer as a lesson to the world for not having followed Jesus Christ. The theological price is double. One, it makes God a capricious God, like a Greek God. He promises one thing. He says this is forever. And twenty seven generations later, he said, oops. I've changed my mind. You have to believe something else. That's not the dignity of the almighty. And it also makes him a vengeful god. What happened to the god of love, etcetera? The Jews should suffer forever as a result of rejecting Christ. The Judaic response is equally problematic. They just negate any truth in Christianity. Christ is a false messiah. It's not polite to say this today, but deep down, that is the belief. And that comes also with a huge theological price because it turns God instead of the God of the whole universe, of all of humanity, it makes God interested in an intimate relationship, I'm thinking of Hosea, with one little people, and what he's not interested in the rest of the world, he's not interested in having a rich relationship with every other human being, that's also not consistent with the dignity of the almighty, the king of kings, etcetera. So the alternative is to go back and say, no. This is not a relativist position. There is one god. It's the god of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus, But he reveals himself differently in this kind of cosmological way, first to one person, then to one nation, then to the whole of humanity in different ways. So that is an absolute truth for believing people of no matter what religion. But he expects different things, different testimony from different people. And the trial of Jesus is not just the trial of Jesus. It's also the trial of the Jews. Here, they have the most tempting invitation to abandon the faith of their fathers. If you don't, you will have no salvation. If you do, you will enter with me into the kingdom of the Lord. It's the test of the Jews, like Paul the angel, despite the temptation. And Jesus is charismatic, wonderful. He's supreme it's a supreme invitation, and yet they have to remain faithful to the faith of their fathers and do what they were told to do. I am testing you. You put this person to death. And at the same time, it's the trial of Jesus, the culmination of the passion narrative. And this gives a solution to that other little question. We said, why should Jesus be put to death? This is one instance when the Lord says he should be put to death, but the Lord knows that he will be resurrected in three days. So you accomplish both plans, both the plan of the passion, sacrificing my son to offer salvation to the rest of humanity, and the Jews have to do what I told them they have to do in the case of that temptation. So now there's been a shift in the Vatican. If we look at the most recent statement of the Vatican on the relationship between Jews and Christian from 2015, it was fifty years to Nostra Aetate. There's a remarkable statement there, a truly remarkable statement, which changes the history of supersessionism. They say there's absolutely no question that Jews enjoy the salvation from the almighty. Then they say, how do we reconcile that with the statement of Jesus that only through me there can be salvation? And the answer they give is, that is one of the mysteries of God. We just have to live with that contradiction. I try and give an answer which takes out the mystery. I say, I think it's a richer way of God to relate to humanity in the way I suggested. With one people, there's one kind of testimony, and they should be faithful forever. And with others, there's a different type. It's through my son, the figure of Jesus Christ, etcetera. So this is not relativist. This is not you have your truth, and I have my truth. It's no. There is one truth, and this is how god revealed himself to the world. And it solves the problem because this has to be forever. I sometimes ingest with a twinkle in my eyes. I say, you should hope if ever somebody came and tempted you to abandon the lord Jesus Christ that you will be as steadfast as the Jews were in the trial of Jesus before the sun had dawned because it's meant to be forever. So that's in a very, very simplified form, the thesis that I teach, the trial of Jesus, and the main two thesis, the importance for justice and how to solve the theology of the trial of Jesus, I've given it to you in a teaspoon.

Mhmm.

So when I published the first germ of the thesis, which was the article in First Thing in 2010, I had mixed reactions. Some reactions, The the thing I worried most that somebody would say this is not new. This is not original. I didn't get that critique. And both Jewish and Christian theologians, some liked it. Some liked it even very much, and some pushed back in the way that you are pushing back. So let me try and answer that. So one reaction from Jewish quarters was for two thousand years, we have been fighting against the calamine, the libel, the defamation that we are responsible for the death of Jesus. And now you're coming and saying, yes. We are responsible for the death of Jesus. And that's exactly what I'm saying. But I'm saying because that's what the Lord commanded us. That's what the Lord wanted. And in a wonderful way, it accomplished both projects of the Lord, testing the Jews and their loyalty and accomplishing the narrative of her passion, the sacrifice of the sun, in order to offer salvation. But where I disagree with some of my Jewish critics, There is no theological reason for a Jew to deny the truth of Jesus to the rest of humanity. Who are we to say? Who are we to say, if God can stop the sun in the middle of the of the sky, that he cannot have Mary give birth, the virgin birth, and send his son as the word incarnate to humanity. Who are we to say that? Are we putting limits on the omnipotence of the almighty, on the almighty's plan for the rest of the world? The only thing that a Jew has to insist, he is not my savior. This is not the God of my fathers. But a Jew, an observant Jew like myself, can say, I have no reason to doubt the Christian narrative vis a vis the rest of the world. Christians have to accept that I cannot accept Jesus as my savior. I cannot accept that notion of the relationship between God and us because that is not how God revealed himself to us and what he expected for us for eternity. So the second thing is it's, and I'm glad that in 2015, the Vatican came around to sing it that way and say, no. The Jews do enjoy the salvation of God, but they see the contradiction. And there's a certain integrity in admitting there is a contradiction and saying it's not the only contradiction we cannot solve. How do we solve the contradiction between an omniscient god who knows everything and freedom of choice, which is essential to covenantal monotheism, that a person has the ability to say yes or no to God. So that's another thing that it's very difficult to reconcile, and philosophers have grappled with this for millennia. So I just think that the image of the relationship that I offer of the way God relates through scripture to the world is more attractive because there is an absolute truth. It's like democracy. We all believe in democracy, but we don't always say that everybody should have the American version of democracy or the Canadian version of democracy. So we all believe in God the almighty, creator of the I'm talking of religious people. Creator of the world, a God of love. But we also believe, because in my view, this is absolutely truthful to scripture, that god wanted different actors to relate to him in a different way. And if you adopt the universalist thing, which historically Judaism and Christianity did, you are wrong and I am right, what you call this kind of universal truth. It's not universal. It's one truth. You pay the price that I said. The Jewish price is that you reduce God to a tribal God. The Christian price is you reduce God to a capricious God that said one thing one day and then changes his mind and to a vengeful God. So I think the sort of, if you want, cosmological pluralist is totally consistent with both these grand religions, does not do violence to either of them. And I'm happy with the Vatican solution, well, how can you reconcile it's a mystery of God? And I just give a solution, which I think could be welcome without compromising your basic truths. As a Jew, I have to say Jesus is not my savior. Jesus is not my God. Christianity is not the religion of my fathers. I don't think and at the same time, I say, but who am I to say that he is not who he says he is, that it was not part of God's plan to offer himself to the rest of humanity. So it's true that it contradicts the historical position of, Judaism and Christianity. But, you know, in religion, we think in long term, centuries is a short period of time. So I think for millennia, both were in error.

So let's shift to those kind of issues. And I think that there's a common acceptance, a common legal and ethical tradition shared by all western liberal democracies, whether it's in Europe or The United States or elsewhere, which say we firmly believe in freedom of religion. And when we speak about freedom of religion, we also speak about freedom from religion. So without compelling reason, nobody's should be their religious faith should be compromised. And at the same time, nobody should be forced to be religious. You cannot have if you're not Jewish, you cannot be a minister. If you're not Christian, you cannot be a minister. We believe in freedom of religion and freedom from religion. And sometimes, the two come into tension, and that's where lawyers make their money, when freedom of religion conflicts with freedom from religion. We might get to that in a minute. But when it comes to freedom from religion, which we all accept, there's a dilemma in my view for liberal theory. What's the dilemma? We believe in democracy. So if a neoliberal government is elected or if a socialist government is elected, we expect that there will be neoliberal policies. I might disagree with them. I might think they're awful. But I live in a democracy if that's the result of the democratic process. If a majority of my co citizens have voted for a neoliberal society, even though I might think it's terrible, I have to accept it and vice versa. If they elected a socialist government, I have to accept that there will be socialist policies and that they will put into place in taxation, in, foreign policy, in a whole range of issues. And I just have to say, as long as they don't violate fundamental human rights, so in America we call it civil rights, That's what democracy means. But democracy comes up against a problem here when it comes to freedom from religion. So if it's okay for a socialist government to put in place socialist policies derived from socialist ideology or to put in place neoliberal derived from neoliberal, but if a Christian party wins the election, we say, oh, no. You cannot put into law Christian precepts because that violates freedom from religion. So it's okay for socialism and neoliberalism, but not okay for Christianity, for religion. How do we explain that? I don't find a very convincing explanation in liberal theory to explain that paradox. Everything is okay except a Christian party cannot put into place Christian policies because that violates freedom from religion. So in my view, the most convincing explanation to explain freedom from religion is religion itself. And here, I don't think that Islam has reached that point. I don't think that Judaism has reached that point. I think Christianity has reached that point. In the second Vatican when I speak about Christianity, I confess, I've been, many, many years a student of Catholicism. It's just easier. There's a magisterium. If I look at Protestantism, for which I have, of course, huge respect, but am I dealing with Anglicans, with Episcopalians, with Evangelicals, with Catholicism? There's a better handle. So when I say Christianity, in this case, I mean the Catholic Church and Catholicism. In the second Vatican council and then in the teachings of John Paul the second and Ratzinger, they make a very important statement. They say, we are against any form of coerced religion. In other words, we believe in freedom from religion because it does not please the Lord that he he or the Lord will be worshipped through coercion. It has to come from the free choice of an individual. So both externally, the state should guarantee freedom of religion and freedom from religion. But also internally, one has to understand I have the choice, and the only reason I choose Imitatio Dei, to walk in the ways of the Lord, is because that is the free expression of my free will. And if you violate freedom from religion, if religion becomes coercive, it's against religion itself. I think that is a much more powerful explanation to explain freedom of religion. Now there's a precision here. So if you look at the teachings of John Paul or Ratzinger or Pope Francis, they add something important. They say, when a Christian, and for that matter, other religions, I suppose, also, it should apply to them, if they go into the public square, if they go into parliament, etcetera, they should absolutely not impose laws the validity of which depends exclusively on revelation. They can only impose laws that respond to natural law, that you would not need revelation in order to justify that kind of coercive power. So the easiest example is murder. Murder is prohibited in the 10 Commandments. But for a Christian to come into the public space and say we should have a law against murder, he or she don't need the 10 commandments. They say that is part of natural law. Everybody will understand that murder is wrong. So from a religious point of view, the Christian community or the religious community should be very careful and self limiting to understand we should not use the power of the state to impose norms, to impose practices, to prohibit norms, to prohibit practices, the justification of which depends on revelation. They have to be rooted in natural law. Now where to draw the line is quite complicated, but that's the statement. So now, for example, you know that I defended the Laozi case, where in Italy, in public schools in public primary schools, there was a requirement to display the crucifix, a clear religious symbol. Of course, in The United States, in its current constitutional arrangement, that would be an anathema. It would be violating freedom from religion. But and they always say, rightly, the state should be neutral. The state should not take sides. But my argument is that to prohibit the crucifix, which will make all secular people very happy and make religious people unhappy, is no more neutral than to allow the crucifix or even to to require the crucifix. It's not a neutral position. You can justify it. You can say, like in France, we are formally, in our constitution, a secular state. So there cannot be religious symbols because the state is secular. But if we say the state is not secular, but the state is neutral, there's no compelling reason. There's no difference in my view between requiring the crucifix or prohibiting the crucifix. And if you allow me, I have time, I will give you the parable. Please. It was kind of funny. I think it's the first time in the history of the European Court on Human Rights that a parable was read out. So this is the parable of Marco and Leonardo. Marco comes from a very pious Catholic, family and Leonardo from a secular family. And next week, they're going for the first time to primary school. And Marco, Leonardo visits Marco's house, and he enters the house, and there's a crucifix on the wall. And he says, what's that? And Marco said, what's that? You don't know what's that? How can you have a house without a crucifix? So poor little Leonardo runs home, and he says to his father, why don't we have a crucifix? You have to have a crucifix in every house. And his mother says, I respect them. They are our neighbors. They are our friends. They believe in the lord Jesus Christ. They have a crucifix. We have a different tradition. We don't have a crucifix. The next day, Marco visits Leonardo's house. He comes and he says, where's your crucifix? And little Leonardo says, crucifix? That's old wives' tale. Who believes in crucifix? Poor little Marco runs home and he says the same thing to his mother. She consoles him. Now they go to school, their first day of school. Hypothesis number one, there is a crucifix on the wall. Leonardo runs home and says, you see also the school has a crucifix. Hypothesis number two, there's no crucifix on the wall. Marco runs home and you say, you see the school doesn't have a crucifix. Neither are neutral. Neither are neutral. And, therefore, the American doctrine, which says in the name of neutrality, you cannot you cannot have a school prayer, you cannot have a religious symbol, fair enough, but don't call it neutrality. So in the Italian school, if they require a crucifix, they cannot require any kind of action, you know, genuflect or anything like that. But the teachers have to tell the the students, we have a crucifix, but we respect other religions. We respect religious, non religious people. In France, where the crucifix is prohibited, toxic, the teachers say, we are a Laie country, but we respect our fellow citizens who are religious and have a different faith, but neither is neutral. So then the notion of separation in the name of neutrality, I'm afraid to say, is just false. It's false neutrality.

So here, this is where I give grief to both sides. Because if, for example, one state in The United States says, we will require the 10 commandments to be in every classroom. So when my fellow secular people or American constitutionalist, I got a lot of how could you, when I defended, Laozi. I didn't say whether I would want a crucifix or not in the classroom. I just said it doesn't violate the European Convention on Human Rights because it's a false notion of neutrality. Whether I had to choose whether to have a crucifix in the classroom, I keep that opinion to myself. So when they shriek, this is violating separation, etcetera, I remind them, let's be honest about neutrality. To prohibit it is no more neutral than to require it. But to my fellow religious people, I am wondering about their motives. Because here of, probably my favorite statement of all the prophets is the statement of Micah. O man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? And I I tell you the word humbly. I am suspicious of the motives of the politician who said we should have the 10 commandments in all classes for two reasons. My deep suspicion that this is a political move that has nothing to do with religion. In polarized American society, we are the winners, so we can also enforce this kind of tradition, religious tradition, etcetera. I'm very suspicious because in my view, that is a a form of blasphemy to use religion for political instrumentalities. I really that is not walking humbly with your god. And I also wonder about the religious significance of having the 10 commandments hanging in the classroom. So I'm not saying categorically this should be allowed. I have no problem with it. But the problem I have with it is less constitutional and more social and political. That's not the way I go about the only way to give testimony to your religion is through example. And that's a kind of form of coercion. Even though I say constitutionally, it's complicated. But from a religious point of view, I have trouble with it. And very often, I suspect that this is a political move which has nothing to do with respect for the almighty and for the 10 commandments. So not a categorical answer, but a sensibility I'm producing.

Not exactly because I have a double argument. So if somebody says according to my religion, Koest religion is okay. That's the Islamic position. And to some extent, that is the Jewish position. In in Israel, for example, there's no civil marriage. If two people want to get married, they have to go before a rabbi, a priest, or an imam. Otherwise, they can't get married, which is a denial of a fundamental right. I say to this person two things. I say, first of all, I object to this from a religious point of view because the almighty does not appreciate somebody who follows religion because he or she occurs. And then I say, I'm a liberal. And, also, reverting to liberalism, I believe in freedom of religion, and I believe in freedom from religion. And then I would say a utilitarian argument. And what if you lived in a society which said, according to our religion or our faith, we can suppress your religion and put you in prison if you're in prison? You would immediately say, that's not possible. That should not be allowed. On what basis? So I will push them to accept either from a religious point of view or from a political theory point of view, that we have to respect freedom of religion and freedom from religion just in a utilitarian sense. What is source for the goose is source for the gander. When you are in power, you want to coerce your religion. If you lose power, will you accept that other people will coerce you to their religion even if it's a secular religion? So that's how I would confront that, that position. And I don't think even with a chain supreme court, I don't think that, the doctrine of separation is about to disappear. Although, they seem to be more hospitable to for example, you know, the famous controversial cases about I do not want to bake a cake for same sex marriage, etcetera. Hard cases. But, you know, hard cases make for bad law. There are different ways of thinking about these things.

I do because for all my sins, I teach for the last seven years a course called legal controls of digital platforms. But I don't privilege or I don't see at the moment, a very powerful religious angle to it. It might just be my blindness. It's a very different society. Public discourse is very different. Before we got our news, we got our information through the major television channels, through the major newspapers, etcetera. We tried to idealize it, but, why should we all think the way that the editors of the USA Today or The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times want us or The Washington Post want us to think or The LA Times? It was also problematic then. But I'm an endangered species, which is called an old fashioned liberal in the Voltairean sense. Except in very compelling circumstances, I'm against canceling. I hate what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it. So my initial reaction was that, the platform, which has totally changed in a radical sense, the way our society gets information and the way they relate to each other, etcetera. I said, we just have to follow the strictures of freedom of speech, and a lot of rubbish, a lot of hate speech, etcetera, is put on the Internet in a way that before was marginal and now is central. But I'm Voltarian. We have to live with that. It's become more complicated. It's become more complicated. And here, I already tell you in advance, I don't have a silver bullet, a clear answer. Because one of the reasons we believed and I believed in this very robust, dimension of American constitutional law, freedom of speech, was because I thought it was hugely important for democracy. You know, that slogan, the marketplace of ideas, people have to hear all points of views and then form their opinion, etcetera. And there really is a very big difference between The United States and Europe. I'll give you a classical example. In The United States, the Supreme Court, rightly in my view, or at least, will defend the right of a bunch of neo Nazis of cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, scan to march through, a neighborhood of Jewish survivors with their swastikas. In Europe, in France, in Germany, they would put in they would be put into prison before they took the first step. And probably, that is because in The United States, our kind of ur norm, our foundational norm is liberty, and in Europe, it's dignity. So our first amendment is about liberty. And in Europe, in every single constitution, the first provision of the Bill of Rights is human dignity is inviolable. So you can see how they can take a different position on this. What the information society has done is to pervert the idea of the marketplace of ideas. In other words, the discourse on the Internet actually, in some deep way, perverts democracy. Untruths are to taken to be true without any possibility of contradiction, of making people into account. So I don't bother if somebody says a cheesecake is the best cake in the world, but I do bother if they say politician x was accused of rape when it's an actual lie, and it might influence the election. So some countries have taken a view of that. For example, Singapore, which some people say is not a model of democracy, but it's an interesting example. So they have specific laws about the immediate responsibility of correcting untrue statements which are posted on the Internet. So it leads me to think that in the context of the information society, maybe our hard held belief in freedom of speech is sacrosanct except for defamation, except for pornography, might have to be revisited. But, a, where do I draw the line? And, b, even more complicated, who do I entrust to draw the line? I don't have an easy solution. And this might be one of these things where modernity fails us because in modernity, we always think every problem has a solution. And this one, any solution I discuss with my students, we it comes with huge costs. So if I say speech on the Internet, which perverts the democratic process, we have to do something about it, and it cannot enjoy automatic first amendment protection. But when we come and say, so where do we draw the line? And especially, who gets to draw the line? Who gets to prohibit it, etcetera? We don't have a solution that doesn't come with huge costs. So all I can say is, for now, we just have to grapple with the problem, experiment, try and hold accountability, etcetera, but no magic bullet, no silver bullet to this problem. But you see that I don't treat this problem as having a particular a particular religious thing. Gotcha. The religious thing comes in when it's like the discussion about cloning, for example. Mhmm. Where there could be a religious view that at a certain point says you don't interfere with nature. You don't interfere with the creation. But also secular people can have that view and say, there's something deeply disturbing about cloning. So we see the same fear is artificial intelligence going to replace human beings. And that takes something away from our humanity because for good or the bad, there are many evil people in the world, but they are human beings. And to so there's this fear that, empowering artificial intelligence and, quote, machines, unquote, might be robbing the world of its humanity. I don't know enough, and I don't think we all know enough to really predict what artificial intelligence will do. But I have a nice little story about that. It comes from that wonderful book by Olga Tokarczuk, The Polish writer won the Nobel Prize three years ago. And she has a wonderful book which everybody has and nobody reads, but I read it. It's called The Books of Jacob. It's a very long it's it's a wonderful it's a masterpiece. She does for that alone, she deserved the Nobel Prize. I I read it too, by the way, and loved it. So in that book, you might remember, somebody goes to one of the sages and says, why could God not have created the world without evil? Wouldn't it have been a better world? And the sage Ansan said, God had a choice. Either to create the world without evil or to create the world without human beings. And he preferred a world with human beings. That goes back to artificial intelligence. I'm there is and there could be both a secular and a religious sensibility. At what point does artificial intelligence really decimate our humanity. But my understanding is that behind AI, there are the people who design the algorithms, etcetera. And maybe it's in that direction that we have to be concerned and try and see how we regulate algorithm creation, etcetera, in the same way that some societies, for example, will not allow cloning. They will just say there's certain things that science can do, but in our society, we would rather they didn't do it. So maybe in that direction. But you see that I'm fuzzy. I don't have a categorical answer to these issues.

Because here's something about the digital platforms. So in our typical antitrust analysis, we will say General Motors has reached a dominant position. It becomes a monopoly. It's abusing its dominant position in the automobile market. The big digital platforms, it's a different genus. It's not in the automobile market, in the television market, not even in the communication market. They are actually part of the infrastructure of our society, and yet they are private organizations. So in theory, they say, you don't like us, don't use us. Stop using Google search. That's no longer a possibility in the way we conduct our life. We can't exist without the Internet. You apply for a driving license, you need the Internet. You pay your taxes, you use the Internet, etcetera. So there's a tremendous anomaly in giving individual corporations so much power, not about providing a specific service, but actually controlling the infrastructure of our society in a million ways. And yet they are private and just accountable to themselves. They get to decide. They don't have the structure of accountability, the structure of governance that we would normally associate with an actor which exercised so much impact on our public life. So that's really the problem. It's not just AI. It's the inordinate power that digital platform have acquired, and it's just a misnomer to say, you don't like General Motors cars, buy a Ford car, etcetera. It's a different genus. They are controlling the essential infrastructure of our society, and yet they are private corporations. You don't like us, sue us. We are not violating any criminal law. That needs serious rethinking. That needs serious rethinking. From antitrust, you remember, we had some precedent when they broke up decades ago, AT and T. They said telephone services is not just if you like it, take it. If you don't, what options do I have? So they broke up AT and T. We now have we're in the last phase of the Google case before the courts, in The United States, but that's going to be the challenge. How do we make these private actors, which have so much impact on the entire infrastructure of our society, some structure of accountability that is public and not private? Not an easy one. Indeed.

I do. So let's take that hypothesis. And I think we have to take it seriously just with respect to the precautionary, principle. I'd rather be overcautious now than say, let's just see what happens. We did that with tobacco. Let's see what happens, and then it was too late to do anything serious about it. So, yeah, the precautionary principle should come into play. And there is a religious dimension if we humanize machines, for example. That, in some deep sense, would conflict, I think, with the religious well-to-do of Christian, Jews, Muslims, and others. Quite apart, there's also a non religious dimension to it. Because if machines have a will of their own, how are they accountable, who controls them, etcetera. But it has got a religious thing. But this is where natural law and what I said before, I would not want to impose on society any norm, including the control of artificial intelligence. And I think the key is to control the people who design the algorithms and to make them accountable for the kind of algorithm they are creating. But independently of that, I would not want to impose on society any norm that in some ways rooted in my belief that the world was created by the almighty, that it has a telos, it has a purpose, it was created in a certain way because that's what the Lord wanted the way the Lord wanted it to be created. It's all very good for me to say that offends my religion, but I would not want to impose a norm on somebody who quite rationally can say the natural world is arbitrary. It has no telos. You cannot derive moral norms from the natural world. So it does have a religious sensibility, but if the question is how do I move from that into public policy, because of my religious belief, I would be very careful to impose anything that would depend for its veracity on my belief in an almighty God, creator of the world with a certain per purpose. So that's it's just how do we move from that religious sensibility to public policy. And that's where I would be very careful because I've said this more than once or twice in this podcast. I find it blasphemous to try and coerce people into any norm, the veracity of which depends on revelation, on their believing in God. So it also touches on the way you phrase the question on artificial intelligence.

Thanks again to Joseph Wyler and Matt Pruitt. This episode of Radical Exchanges podcast is produced by g, Angela Corpuz and is co produced and audio engineered by myself, Aaron Benavides. Radical Exchanges is executive produced by g Angela Corpuz and Matt Pruitt. If you wanna learn more about Radical Exchange, please follow us on x at rad x change or check out our website at radicalxchange.org. And if you'd like to join in the conversation, we'd love to hear from you. So hop on our Discord where we have channels discussing topics like what you heard today and topics like plural voting, community currencies, soulbound tokens, and more. There will be links to all of these in the description. Have a great day, and stay radical.