Pints With Aquinas
Nietzsche, Nihilism, and the Return of God (Dr. J. Budziszewski ) | Ep. 577
04 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: How did you go from being a nihilist professor to embracing the Catholic faith?
How did you go from being a nihilist professor to embracing or re-embracing the Catholic faith?
I actually prayed to God. I said, I don't think you're there. And I think I'm talking to the wall. But if you are there, you can have me. But you're going to have to show me because I can't tell anymore. And that was true because I'd torn up my own mind. I want to get your opinions on AI, transhumanism, where this is all leading. They thought that it was inevitable.
What general would not welcome the prospect of soldiers who never had to sleep and who couldn't disobey their orders?
Could you tell me a bit about Nietzsche? I think a lot of people hear about him. They're afraid to read him. I run into people who really want to believe in God, but they just don't know how to. And I'm not going to trade in my intellectual credibility to believe some bloody fairy tale, but I want to. If it were real, I would do it.
What do we mean by nihilism? It's a way of experiencing the sin of despair, whereupon it takes on the garments of philosophy. The root of the word NIHIL is nothing means nothing. Deep down, you know, just as well as I do, that the longing for meaning and coherency is deep set in every created mind. I love it.
So why don't you tell me, what is it that you want so badly that you're willing to do without meaning and coherency to have it?
I actually want to know about this. So you have been on interviews. Yeah. And the people have said, what?
They said, don't make noises like tapping on keyboards. I said, we're kind of tapping on keyboards. Well, apparently some people... They might be looking up their notes. They might be trying to take notes on the conversation. But they said that they might even be doing email and other things, being distracted while the interview was going on. And they want you to pay attention to them.
I can't imagine that anybody would do that. You're talking about a podcast interview. This was before podcasts. It was video, you know, and it was... And also telephone.
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Chapter 2: What does nihilism mean and how does it manifest?
No, that's why it's been interesting to see media change, hasn't it, over the last 20, 30 years?
Oh yeah. When I began teaching and doing all this jazz, there wasn't any of this video stuff.
That's a great sentence. All this frigging video stuff. All this video stuff. Well, look, I'm a geezer. What do you expect?
That's how I'm going to talk. Because it still seems like that to me. Although, I like it. I don't like all of it. Some of it just seems crazy to me and seems to be an excuse for people watch videos so they don't have to read. And I think you should be able to do both things. You should be able to watch videos and you should be able to read. Now, I'm...
And I confess, I must have some sort of a video attention deficit. I don't take in information very well that way. If somebody says, you've got to watch this video, I'll usually say, well, is there a transcript?
See, that's how old school I am. Yeah. My wife can consume audio books incredibly well, even at double speed, you know? My goodness. And she can listen to the entire book in like... Like we've gone on road trips and she'll listen to like a five hour audio book, but like 20 minutes in my mind is wandering. I need the page to help me stay, you know? Yeah. Yeah.
Well, and you can look back and forth and you can, you can say something like this on page 45. Wait a minute. This is different. Um, I've only listened to one audio book in my life. I enjoyed it very much, but it was CS Lewis reading his own book, the four loves.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
It was terrific. It was before they did audiobooks. Somebody just taped him, and it was magnificent. That's right. You can get that on Audible right now. Can you? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I did it accidentally.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of Nietzsche in modern thought?
You don't know what the Holy Spirit might be using them to churn up. Right.
and so i'm sure that that in god's providence this this there was some reason for him making this comment to me at that time but um but uh no that wasn't what brought me back what what brought me back was that um look on the one hand this ate me up i was miserable believing as i believed or at least telling myself that i believed those things long long afterward i came to realize that i had always known that there was a god and only told myself i didn't know that
that I'd always known that there was a real difference between good and evil and only told myself that I didn't. But I believed that I believed that, okay? My wife used to laugh at me. I would talk about this nonsensical, nihilistic stuff, and she would just laugh. And she would say, you don't believe that. And I would say, yes, I do. Yes, I do.
But it was it was it was very we laugh about it together now. But she's very modest and she doesn't remember that. That was actually instrumental for me to to have somebody who could laugh at me, who didn't engage in serious conversation. Yes. Do you really do you really think that there might be no real difference between good and evil? She would just laugh.
Right. And that was willing to get into.
She was not willing. And that that, you know, this kind of thing teaches me some people you can't get into it. Some people you can. Somebody asks you an honest question or makes an honest, an honest objection. And you have to make an honest response. Somebody says some complete nonsense. Yeah. Right. And or blow puts up a smoke screen. And what you have to do is blow away the smoke.
And apologetics, most people in apologetics, I don't think, get that. Although it was from, I learned that originally from a guy who did apologetics, so I can't take credit for it. But anyway, I love my wife. I love my children. I had my children already then. We were married young at what passes for young now at 19.
So we were married all through grad school and working and all this sort of thing. And, you know, when you don't have faith, it's much harder to maintain a marriage when you don't have grace. This is the, especially under the circumstances of today's world. And we'd had a quarrel and... Because I loved my wife, it was just devastating to have a big quarrel.
And she's gone to bed, and I'm sitting on a chair in the living room, and I'm weeping. And I sort of bring myself under control, and I actually prayed to God. I said, I don't think you're there. And I think I'm talking to the wall. But if you are there, you can have me. But you're going to have to show me because I can't tell anymore. And that was true because I'd torn up my own mind.
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Chapter 4: How does transhumanism relate to contemporary philosophical debates?
Oh, if what you mean is that there can be certain outlooks that grow from resentment, yes, I think that that's true.
You despise what you believe yourself incapable of attaining.
Oh, yes, I think that's true. That's the insight that I think is brilliant.
Okay, all right.
But then again, he wasn't the first one who came up with that idea. Who came up with that idea? No, I mean, I think that's been realized by many people all along. But he just took it in a particular direction that needed an apologetic against Christianity.
Right, yes, that's right. So you make meekness a virtue because you're not powerful.
Because you're not powerful because you're only a slave.
But my point is, were you of the opinion that you had the kind of magnanimous soul like Dostoevsky?
No, no, no.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of transhumanism on freedom?
Yeah, yeah. With the underground.
I can't even remember what they were called anymore. I forget what they're called too, but you've got that underground cast of people who have become, what, strong? And then those who have been pampered have become like weak and fragile.
Right, right. Although in this case, it would be more like C.S. Lewis's imagination of this in The Abolition of Man, which was a great and prescient book.
there were only two people in two people in his era that were really writing about transhumanist huxley who was a transhumanist and invented the term transhumanist and said this is going to be great and lewis who i don't think he used the term transhumanism but he says no this if it could happen would be awful but he uh but he described the the innovators he said people people think that this is going to make us more free somehow well
If I'm the... Somebody has to be plugging in the chips.
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Chapter 6: How does C.S. Lewis relate to modern genetic manipulation?
Somebody has to be designing the chips. Who are they? The people who are receiving them aren't free. You know, they're getting them. They're being operated upon. They are the patients, not the agents. And suppose we monkey with our genes. The next generation is less free than this one because... their range of choice has been constricted by this operation on their genes.
And the controllers in that generation then continue to monkey with the genes, and the generation after that is even less free.
Chapter 7: What is the church's stance on natural family planning?
Until far enough in the future, nobody has any freedom left at all. This isn't an increase in freedom. It also means an increase in irrationality. Because Lewis pointed out, On what possible basis can you say this is better than this? We're going to improve our nature. This is better than this. Well, in some cases, that's a no-brainer. If we could do away with cancer, sure.
But cancer, there's a natural basis.
Chapter 8: How can we navigate the complexities of sexual ethics today?
There's a basis in our nature. There's a natural law basis for saying that cancer is bad because it's an interruption of or a perversion of or an undermining of natural function. A cavity in the tooth is bad. It's okay to fill it. It's not transhumanist to fill a cavity because the function of the tooth is to chew. The cavity keeps it from chewing properly or causes pain. So you fill the cavity.
It restores the function. Fine. Contrast that. Correcting infertility is like that. Yes. By contrast with something that is really more transhumanist, and that's conceiving the children in a test tube and then re-injecting them.
So one is an aid to human nature and one subverts some aspect of it. And one subverts it in some way. It changes the meaning of the program. So there's a difference between taking a Tylenol or taking the oral contraceptive pill and then sterilizing the act. Right, right. The reason the church condemns the latter is precisely because it subverts you.
Right, and that's also why... And that's also why the church doesn't condemn an NFP, because in NFP, natural family planning, you're cooperating with the structure and the cycles and the patterns of the natural reproductive powers. Well, anyway, so he says, on what possible basis can you decide that human beings like this would be better than human beings like this?
Human beings, for instance, who obeyed all their orders. Well, it would only be because you have some desire for Um, for what? For power? Or, you know, you're an industrialist, you have a power, you have a desire for... Are you saying what would my reason be for receiving the chip?
No, what would the motive of the controllers, the motive of the ones who designed the chips, and the motive of the ones who introduced these forms of conditioning... Well, capital. Capital. All right, let's say it's that. Now, but capital, although the desire for wealth upon wealth upon wealth... is a perversion. It is nevertheless a perversion of something that is in itself good and natural.
We are bodies. We are embodied souls. We do need some material things. It is not wrong to want to have a roof over our heads that doesn't leak, to have clothes that keep our children warm, and to have enough food to eat, and enough Wealth, let us call it that, to be able to practice the normal everyday activities of our culture with our friends and our neighbors.
Now, the problem is that then we pervert that into wanting more and more and more. So your motive for having, let's say factory workers who were programmed so that they would never go on strike is so that I'll make more money, which is a reversion of something natural. But now you're devising the next generation. Maybe you think it would be, it would also be good.
Maybe you're socialist programmers and you think we're going to breed the profit motive out of them. Okay? There has to be... Well, there's a sort of a... That's a perversion, too. Compassion is something that is natural to us. But there's right compassion and wrong compassion.
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