Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Start your education here: http://hillsdale.edu
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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Support Hillsdale College: https://secured.hillsdale.edu/hillsdale/support-hillsdale-college
Visit our website: http://hillsdale.edu
Learn from our online courses: http://online.hillsdale.edu
Read Imprimis: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/
Undergraduate programs: https://www.hillsdale.edu/information-for/undergraduate-admissions/
Graduate School of Statesmanship: https://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/graduate-school/
Graduate School of Government: https://dc.hillsdale.edu/School-of-Government/Program-Overview/
Graduate School of Education: https://classicalgrad.hillsdale.edu/
Listen to the Hillsdale College Podcast Network: https://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
Start your education here: http://hillsdale.edu
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.
------------------------------
Support Hillsdale College: https://secured.hillsdale.edu/hillsdale/support-hillsdale-college
Visit our website: http://hillsdale.edu
Learn from our online courses: http://online.hillsdale.edu
Read Imprimis: https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/
Undergraduate programs: https://www.hillsdale.edu/information-for/undergraduate-admissions/
Graduate School of Statesmanship: https://www.hillsdale.edu/academics/graduate-school/
Graduate School of Government: https://dc.hillsdale.edu/School-of-Government/Program-Overview/
Graduate School of Education: https://classicalgrad.hillsdale.edu/
Listen to the Hillsdale College Podcast Network: https://podcast.hillsdale.edu/
------------------------------
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
