Pints With Aquinas - 196: Protestantism, Contingency, and D&D W/ Cameron Bertuzzi

Episode Date: March 10, 2020

I sit down with Protestant apologist, Cameron Bertuzzi to discuss the contingency argument, properly basic beliefs (and how Aquinas and Calvin hint at that), doubt, Catholicism, and much else besides. Check out Cameron's amazing Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCux-... SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

G'day, Matt Fradd here. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. Today I am joined around the bar table, which is this, by my friend Cameron Bertuzzi of Capturing Christianity. You're really going to love today's show. Cameron is a Protestant apologist. We get into a lot of things. The best argument, I think, for Catholicism. We talk about the contingency argument. We talk about properly basic beliefs, Alvin Plantinga, Thomas Aquinas. We also talk about our experience of Dungeons and Dragons. Crickets. If you're into that. So that'll be really fun. So I hope you'll have a great time. And I want to ask you before we get into the show that you do one thing for me, maybe two. First is please subscribe. It would really help the

channel out. If you like what you're seeing, if you want to see more of it click subscribe then click that bell button right next to it that way youtube will be forced to let you know whenever we release a new show also you know please feel free to share leave a comment that that would be really helpful as well that's all i gotta say here's the show Cameron Datoosie How are you? Good, how are you? This is it Oh great I'm doing really well

We should mention why we're drinking out of these coffee cups We should also make sure that we're drinking the proper way Yes, do it, it's lovely Yes, this is espresso and I didn't have any manly espresso Or hipster espresso Which would would be like just super minimalist. So I just had the floral stuff and that's why we're doing it. Yeah, no, the floral stuff is, well, mine has, I guess there are some flowers on it. Yeah.

It's beautiful. We all good, Neil? Everything's good. So it's so lovely to have you on the show. Thank you so much for flying in a couple of days earlier and hanging out with my family. Yeah, it's been awesome. This has been great because if you had just flown in last night, stayed at a hotel and come here this morning, we still wouldn't really know each other.

Yeah, right. But we played D&D together last night. We did. We did. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I turned into a were-rat and attacked my best friend. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I was a little skeptical.

I'm also a big introvert. So going there and like hanging out with a bunch of people I don't know. We should show people your cool, your shirt there. Oh. We introverted, but willing to discuss the Kalam cosmological argument. It's awesome. Yep. I actually got that inspired.

Yeah. So I also have a shirt. Yeah. Introverted, but willing to discuss. And I stole it from somewhere else. So let's just go on around. It's good. That's how creative work.

That's how it works. Yeah. Creative stuff. And then i'm introverted too there's i get nervous if someone wants to take me somewhere or if i if there's no way to get out like sounds like if i go is it like more like social anxiety uh it might be but maybe i don't think of it that way. I just think I don't feel comfortable here. I want to be doing my own thing. Yeah. So I remember like introvert, just introverted. I remember being somewhere in British Columbia. I won't say exactly where in case people are watching and know it's them that I'm talking about. And I was driven to a party that was

going on. Right. And the guy dropped me off and had to go somewhere. And I was just stuck with these people I didn't know. And it was like four or five hours. And it wasn't fun. And it was terrifying. And Uber didn't exist back then. So I couldn't just be like, I'm going to go. Yeah. Well, it wasn't like that last night.

We got there and I sort of met everyone. And then we had a good time. As the game started to get rolling, it's not that difficult to sort of understand how it all works. But it was fun. I had a really had a good time as the game started to get rolling it's it's not that difficult to sort of understand how it all works but it was fun it was i had a really good time even neil the guy neil the camera guy who's not on who is a druid who also turned into a bear yeah and destroyed that werewolf could like jump on his back and ride him too there's a there's a i mean have you because you're an evangelical protestant for my listeners who may not be familiar with you, and you do fantastic work. Your channel is called Capturing Christianity.

We'll have links below. But in your sphere, do you find kind of, by the way, what are you like, evangelical or Protestant? I don't want to call you what you don't call yourself. I don't care, to be honest. Should we just say evangelical? That feels nicer. Sure. I know that people have like issues with that word.

Do they? They equate evangelical with fundamentalist see this is the problem right yeah just call me cameron no i'm like fran yeah non-catholic non-catholic i don't define you but what you're not protestant protestant is defining yourself by what you're not protestant's fine well sort of protest you're a protestant protestant right sure against rome okay so my friend cameron so in your sphere do you have people who would be very would look at dnd like demonic or something uh not in my sphere not the people that i hang out with so i yeah i actually posted about it last night on my private facebook page and a lot of people were were happy about it i guess yeah. Yeah. There was what, maybe there was like a, maybe there was like a couple people that were, I don't know.

I think they were just joking around, but I didn't get anyone that was like, Oh, this is, yeah. Not that I saw. I mean, maybe people, when they saw the post, they were like, Oh my God, unsubscribe. Yeah, exactly. Unfriend. Well, while we were all there, we were sitting around a table smoking cigars. Uh, you, well, I don't want to rat all there, we were sitting around a table smoking cigars. Well, I don't want to rat you out, but you were smoking a cigar and you look fantastic. While we were doing that, I thought to myself, this is a beautiful thing for this day and age where people are so connected to their screens all the time. It's a way to make friends sit around something and be engaged in something. And it's way more exciting than a text you may just got. So you just kind of put your phone to one side.

It was. I was actually nervous like with it you may not have been able to tell that because my role like the guy the dungeon master is his name right yeah he's like in control of everything which i was like okay so he's basically god of this universe and he decides sort of what happens within the parameter there's a lot of like overlap it is the parameters of free will yeah exactly it's like they have free will to do their little quest or whatever but his will is being accomplished he's giving the situations to the people and then they use their free will to so it's almost like molinism in a lot of ways anyways uh i forgot where i was going with that um being able to sit around you said you felt a

bit anxious yeah i felt anxious because the role that i was given I was actually supposed to like I was there was this vampire okay he's in control of everything evil demon he's a vampire and I had been seduced by or slay like I was his slave okay and so I had to basically try to get all of you guys killed but y'all didn't know this you thought you thought I was a good guy so that's what I was nervous about I was like how am I going to convince these guys or how is this character going to convince these guys it's an awkward position like hey the first thing that you ever outsider who doesn't know this friend group yeah you're going to be evil and try and kill all of them welcome well yeah no i was happy that that's why well when i came in a few days earlier i think the rapport that we built yeah sort of helped make

it a little bit more put me at ease absolutely me too we did a live stream on your channel um yeah on saturday night saturday night it was completely well we planned it like maybe 10 minutes before but it was it was great yeah we did it in the same room i think a lot of people were really happy to see an evangelical and a catholic get along and like disagree without being disagreeable kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think we need more of that. Absolutely.

My ministry is sort of geared toward that because there's a lot of, there's enough of that. There's not enough of the kind of combativeness and, you know, angry disagreement. So. And combative is what sells. That's what gets the clicks too.

And so how do you fight against that? Because you're trying to build up an apostolate or a ministry, whatever you call it. And, but you, and so you want to be able to appeal so that it's appealing. So people consume it. But you also don't want to kind of just, yeah, be controversial just for the clicks. Yeah. Well, the, the way that I look at it is on YouTube and the way that the algorithm works is that if you don't specify like who you're trying to target, then you're not going to end up reaching anybody. And so on my channel, I target the person who does care about being

non-combative, being someone who's open to dialogue, very cordial. So I, the way that my show works is the people that see it, they love it. And when I get too combative or if I post a video where I'm a little bit too snarky, they'll tell me. They'll be like, hey, that's not why I watch your channel. I watch your channel because you just look at the issues. It's all about the analyzing stuff and philosophy. It's not about us versus them, tribalistic kind of warfare. So I think I've sort of carved out a space for people who appreciate that. And so, you know, obviously I want way more people to be that way. And maybe later on down the road,

it'll start to have a bigger impact. But right now I think that just, just doing it, there's enough people, there's enough, there's a big enough target market for that right now. Yeah, that's really great. And I've found too, that as my modest YouTube following has grown, like in the beginning, you post a video, you get all sorts of people, but eventually you're kind of like curating a particular audience and you can learn to trust them after a while because they're coming to your show for a particular reason. Whereas in the beginning, it's any random person who might have all sorts of, yeah. Right. Yeah. As you start to develop what you want on your channel, like you said, it's like those types of people

will start to come and want to watch. So, yeah. Now, one of the things you do so well, of course, is theistic apologetics. I'd say that's probably the bulk of your show, right? Yeah, we do have- And Christian apologetics, resurrection stuff. Yeah, so we do have some resurrection stuff

and I want to get into doing more of that. In fact, I just released the three and a half hour sort of what what you do a really really long interview that i did with these two guys out of uh in oxford three and a half hours it was three and a half hours of just evidence for the resurrection see i saw that on your channel but i figured it was just a compilation of different talks on the road. It's one interview. It's one interview that we did. We filmed it. I split it into five parts of my podcast. And it had lived on my podcast for, I think, about maybe six months or so. And I decided, you know, why don't I just post them all together

in one long string on my YouTube channel? And so I did that. And actually, it's sort of blown up. I think right now it's at 20,000 views. and it's already getting a bunch of responses from atheists because, you know, we're talking about the evidence. Whereas if I had just left it on my podcast, it probably wouldn't have had this type of engagement or response, especially from the atheistic community. That's what I found weird. Cause I started Pints with Aquinas as a podcast and that was going solidly for three years until I started releasing things on YouTube.

With a podcast, you don't have people reacting to it in real time. Yeah, right. Which is both positive and negative. I mean, you want to hear people's opinions, but I found that in the beginning I was a little more guarded on videos because people were just very critical. And you're like, ah, man, don't, I'm just trying to do my best. Whereas on a podcast, people either listen to it or if they don't like it, they'll stop. But there's no way for them to go and tell you why you're a horrible person. Yeah.

Yeah. No, on YouTube, it is a lot. You got to be sort of, you're putting yourself out there. Yeah. And there are some Christian YouTubers who disable comments so they just don't have to deal with that. Yeah. And not to throw them under the bus or anything, but it's pretty well known, reasonable faith.

They don't allow comments. Okay. On their YouTube channel, any of their videos. I wonder why. Now, that is not to say, well the bus or anything, but it's pretty well known, reasonable faith. They don't allow comments on their YouTube channel, any of their videos. I wonder why. Now that is not to say, well, this is why, because they have a forum on their website where they push people. They say, Hey, if you want to engage these issues, then go sign up to become a member. They're trying to drive you over there. They're trying to drive you over there because that way it can be a little bit more moderated.

You have a lot more. Yeah. It's, it's, I, so I get that. can be a little bit more moderated. You have a lot more. Yeah. It's it's I, so I get that. But at the same time, if you really care about building a YouTube presence and your channel and views and everything, I think that you've got to leave that kind of stuff open. But on the topic of like, how do we respond or deal with these types of comments that we get from people that disagree with us? I think this is something that I talk about a lot is that when we get upset, when someone says something or like criticizes us, and if we get upset at that, I think we, well, first of all, we, we shouldn't like, if it's a

good criticism, then we can grow from that. And that's great. If it's a bad criticism that doesn't apply to you, then it shouldn't bother you at all. But a lot of times we like, we just get upset when someone criticizes us. Yeah. But, and that actually psychologists point this out too. It's like criticism. If it's good criticism, you can grow. If it's bad criticism, you can ignore it. But I think that the reason why we respond the way that we do is because of sort of these deep rooted insecurities that we all have. And so when they touch on something that we're insecure about, we want to like get, you know, it's sort of a defense mechanism because we feel threatened.

And so we want to like, you know, get up and get back in your face. And how have you dealt with that? Because this is a relatively new endeavor for you. How many years have you been doing this YouTube channel? So the YouTube channel, I would say probably just a couple of years. So not too long. No, not too long at no not so how have you grown in being able to take criticism know when to block somebody perhaps or right if if i can

tell that they're just a troll and they're just trying to to you know sort of make waves and just i don't know just make fun of somebody i'll just like hide them from the channel i don't i don't what happens when you hide someone from a channel i actually don't know yeah no no when you hide someone from a channel i think what happens is you just hide their comments so they think they're commenting but no one's seeing them right so you just mute them i think that might be how it is actually i think other people can see that they were hidden but they may not be able to see that they were hidden and so basically all of their comments will just be there for them like they're the only people that can see it. Yeah. Basically. I'm the same as you.

If someone's trolling or being obnoxious or making fun of something and they're clearly not there for that's when I'll hide them from the channel. Yeah. And part of the reason I want to do that is for what we just talked about. I want to I want a particular audience to be with me along for the journey. And if there's someone just like making fun of everybody, it's like, OK, this is not the spirit that I want the YouTube channel to grow in. Right.

But if it's a comment that's like a good comment, substantive, and it's like a good criticism of something that I want the YouTube channel to grow in. Right. But if it's a comment, that's like a good comment, substantive. And it's like a good criticism of something that I said, I'll leave it there. Sometimes I'll respond to it if I have time to, but otherwise I like, I appreciate those comments. And it took a while to,

to get to that place where I could just accept that. Here's this criticism of something that at some point that I made in this video and I can just like, let it sit on my YouTube channel and not let it bother me. And I think it goes, I think it goes back to that. What I had to sort of learn and go through was if, if it's bothering me, there's probably something deeper going on in me and it's, it's not on them, it's on me. And so that's something that I need to work through instead of like, you know, putting the blame on them for them causing me to, to, to react this way. So if I,

if I see something and I'm like, yeah, I mean, that, that's a good point. There's a really good response to it. Or maybe I just don't have time to respond to it. I'll just let it sit there and it doesn't bother me. But if it's a bad criticism or something that's unrelated or irrelevant, then I'm just like, well, you know, people make comments like that all the time. That's basically 90% of YouTube, 99% of YouTube. Sometimes I'll see like a comment that I think that's particularly crazy and I'm happy that it's there and I just let it go and I'll let everybody respond to that person. Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah. That's, that's, uh, that's one of the strategies is to just let other people respond to the bad arguments. If this was a debate, I would yield my time. Please keep talking.

Yeah. But if it's something that's completely disrespectful and they're just being obnoxious, then I'll just hide those people. But if they give a bad argument, I'm not necessarily going to hide them. I'll just let them get a bad argument. Just be there. All right. I want to take a pause here and say thanks to our first sponsor. Hello. This app is going to help you to pray and it'll lead you in prayer.

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All right, back to my conversation with Cameron. So why did you start Capturing Christianity? Tell us about this journey. Good question. So let's go back a ways. So back in, I think, 2012, my brother came out as an atheist to my family. And that really kind of took me by surprise because I went through my own little period of doubt while I was in Bible school right after high school. And basically what I was doubting was Jesus's existence. I was like, well, how do we know that any of this stuff is real?

How do we know the Bible is real? And what was interesting is I went through about a week of really serious doubts. And it was like really gripping me about a week of really serious doubts and it was like really gripping me a lot of anxiety and stuff. And then one of the teachers in my class and this school is not really known for this type of thing. But one of the teachers mentioned that there was a guy named Josephus who was a Roman Jewish historian living during the time of Jesus around that time. And he wrote about Jesus. He wrote a lot of stuff about Jesus. And you can go and read his works. And so I was like, you know, that's really cool if that's, if that's true. And so I

checked into it and yeah, it is, it's a fact. Josephus was writing about Jesus and the crucifixion and stuff that happened to him and his people. And that was, that was it. That was all that I needed in order to sort of get back in line and do my Christian thing. And so I didn't really think about those doubts or the evidential side of my belief up until the point that my brother came out as an atheist. What was that like? Because do you come from a Christian family? Yeah, our whole family's Christian. It was actually my brother-in-law who told me first. And he was, he just called me up and he's like, hey, you know, I have something serious to talk to you about. And he and I, like, we're big jok big jokesters. Like we, we joke about everything. He's,

he's basically like my big brother. Like I've known him almost longer now than I, than I haven't known him because he was introduced to our family when I was really young. So he, he told me, he was like, Hey, look, you know, Trevor, something's going on with him and we need to, we need to talk about it. So he told me, and right after that, I set up a meeting with my brother. I was like, Hey, let's talk about this. And so we had a meeting and it was awful. Well, when we first started, there was like, there was an elephant in the room and neither of us wanted to talk about it. It was, there was the two of us and his wife. She was there. I don't know if she was in the room or if she was in the other room, but she was, she was in the house. So we, we got there and I think, I think we set a meeting out for like a week after

I text him or initially called him. And so during that time I was like doing everything I could to try to like find something to defend what I already believed in Christianity. So I found William Lane Craig during that time. And I found on guard, which is a book that he, he wrote basically defending or giving sort of an introduction to apologetics. I watched some of his, his video clips. And so completely unprepared. I mean, I like literally just found out about him, watched like a couple of his YouTube videos, debates. And so I went into this, uh, to this discussion with him, just prepared to just beat him over the head with this stuff. I literally learned like two days ago.

just prepared to just beat him over the head with this stuff. I literally learned like two days ago. And so the discussion was, was very bad. It did not go, it did not go well. And one of the things that I taught, I give a, I give a talk on this sort of subject, how to share your faith with skeptics. And this is one of the things that I talk about is that if you go into a situation like this, where you're underprepared and all you want to do is defend what you already believe, instead of really searching for the truth, you're going to have a bad time. So that's something that I learned and I've sort of thought about a lot more as the years have gone on. And I know that we may be getting off track here, but- No, this is great. This is exactly what I want to hear. Oh, great.

This is so helpful to people because I've had those conversations as well. Yeah. So it's got to be about truth. If it's not about truth, then you're just going to end up defending something that you grew up believing. Right. And you're almost just sort of presuming what their response to your argument will be. And you're not even listening to the person. You're not listening to them. You're not taking seriously what they're doing. And another thing is that when my brother was going through this period of doubt and that eventually led him to atheism, I didn't see any value in that. I didn't see any value in the courage that it takes, for example, to really question something that you've grown up believing. It takes a lot of courage, you know, and I think a decision that, you know, will be

unpopular with your family and those you love. Right. Yeah. It's a difficult thing to do. So I didn't take any of that kind of stuff into account when we originally met. And it, I mean, it's really only something that I've recently started to reflect on a lot, is that a lot of this stuff is not easy to do. A lot of them is an atheist. A lot of them will have conversations with each other on how difficult it was at first. I mean, imagine what that would be like for you right now

if you became an atheist. It would be awful in a lot of ways. You started questioning, and at some point it just tips and you're like i don't think i believe anymore which would be i think we talked about this last night in the car it's doubly difficult since you're beginning to sort of make somewhat of an income through doing this right yeah so labor deserves his wages it's a good thing that you're making money hope you'll make a lot more but we have to be honest about the fact that like, we're invested in this in a way that we're not just partial sort of observers. And right. I think, I think for me, cause I, it was only a very recent transition. So I was doing

this. I had no intention of doing this full time. Like I was a photographer is that was my profession. And so I was completely fine with just doing that basically the rest of my life. So I didn't, as I got into apologetics and to philosophy, that wasn't like one of my goals was to be this apologist and do all of these things. Like that was not the goal. So the way that I went about the sort of methodology that I used in order to discover truth hasn't changed at all.

So thinking more about the consequences like you were saying, yeah, there is that fact of like if I were to change my mind, that would have a big impact on the ministry and sort of other things and family and everything. But I guess what sort of grounds me is the fact that the methodology that I used is completely the same. I like that. You mean when you engage people online and when you host those debates on your shows? Yeah, I mean, again, it goes back to this search for truth. And I know a lot of people on both sides of this, if you're a

Christian, you're like, oh yeah, he was just searching for truth. And if you're an atheist, you're probably thinking he wasn't really searching for the truth. But I think that's, as I look back, we attribute poor motives to each other, don't we? Yeah, we do. Just like what you said, like with your brother, you attributed poor motives to him. You didn't take... I couldn't see the, yeah, the positive. Yeah, you didn't see the

kind of virtue. I mean, obviously we don't want anyone to be an atheist and we pray that he would come back to the Lord, but that does take a certain amount of courage to stand up and choose to go against something. Well, and also the Bible tells us to sort of test the spirits, right? And so we want to test whether or not our beliefs are true. We don't just want to believe everything. So I think that there's virtue in doing that. And one way I find is it makes it easier to be a little more kind of balanced in a debate is I sometimes like to ask myself the question, if someone's presenting an argument, okay, what's the most that proves, right? So if they're taking aim at the contingency argument or the Klamm argument or something like that, I could go, okay, what's like, let's say they're right. What's the most

this proves? Okay. The most this proves is this is a bad argument for God's existence. That's okay. Like that doesn't prove that God doesn't exist. So I should be able to talk about this and search for the truth with the other person. Yeah, no, I like that. I like that. I think I've taken the same strategy. So it's important to think about where the argument goes and what are the actual implications. A lot of people will argue against something that happened in the Old Testament. Yeah. And really what that boils down to is an argument over inerrancy. It doesn't boil down to...

Argument over inerrancy or just the way it's being interpreted or... Oh, yeah, exactly. All sorts of options. Yeah, it doesn't even have to be that. Yeah. Because there's multiple ways to interpret a passage. So obviously your brother, Trevor, you said his name. He doesn't mind you speaking about him. No. Yeah. No conversations that we've had. He's he's totally open to it.

Yeah. So in that initial conversation, who was who was better? Who did that? Or were both of you just blowing up at each other? Yeah, it was it was kind of that just blowing up at each other. And a lot of things that I did during that conversation that I've thought about a lot more now is another, another one of the things that I did instead of searching for truth is that I was giving, like, I was shooting from the hip a lot. So some, he would raise some objection and just be like, oh yeah, well, let me just respond to that this way. And that's, and that's something that I hate to see in other people when they do it.

But for some reason, I wasn't thinking about it in this context of like. We just wing it. Sometimes I'll do that. I don't know what I'm talking about. I'll just wing it and hope that it lands well. Yeah, exactly. It rarely does. Yeah, just throw anything and hope it sticks.

And that's what I was doing. And I mean, I'm not saying that he was, you know, perfectly giving all of these super logically deductive arguments and everything it didn't happen that way at all on either side but that from from my point of view i think as i look back that's what i was doing have you had conversations since where it's a lot more productive yeah i think that we've had some productive conversations but but it's not something that sort of rules all of our conversations. That was something I had to realize later on as well, is that what my goal was after that

conversation was to just, every time I talked to him, got to talk to you about apologetics, got to talk to you about this new argument that I just learned for God's existence. And eventually I learned that that's not the right way to do this because you're not really caring about him. You're just trying to problem to be fixed or not even, not even him. It wasn't about him at all. It was about trying to make myself look better, more reasonable and to just sort of win. I see. And so it wasn't about him. It wasn't about loving him and really caring about what he's going through at that moment and everything. So I, I, this is such a great point. Yep. So I switched my focus from that, from trying to win to just loving him. And that's, that's what I focus on now is if we,

when we do have a conversation about it, we have it and it sort of happens organically, but that's not the focus of everything that I try to do with him all the time is to just try to like win this apologetic battle. Yeah. I think this would be great advice to people listening because we all have people in our family who might believe things differently to us, either politically or religiously. I think it's important that we take a holistic interest in the person.

I mean, we've all had people in our lives who we get the sense that we're doing something they disagree with, whether that be a Mormon missionary or a friend who thinks we shouldn't be engaging some sort of behavior. If all they did was talk to us about how we needed to change, we wouldn't want to be their friend. But if we believe that they loved us, you know, and we got to talk to them about what show we're watching

and what games we're into and what we're looking forward to about this coming summer, then you can have a conversation that I think will be a lot more helpful. Yeah, I agree. But I think it's important. This is hard to see in yourself. The point in taking a holistic interest in the person is not necessarily to make them convert. And that's what's hard. Because you're like, oh, that's just another strategy.

I'll pretend to be interested. It's like, no, just love the person. So when I came back from Rome, when I was 17 years old, came to Christ, my sister Emma, she wouldn't mind me saying this, was an atheist. She had read Dawkins and she was, I think, pro-choice and all that sort of stuff. And yeah, it was the same as you.

Like every time we got into an argument, I would lay it down, you know. And I think because I was older perhaps and maybe had read a little more, I was pretty good at like showing where she was wrong. Yeah. But she wasn't willing to listen to it. And I'm not sure I blame her. And she's actually a Christian today, thank God. She's doing beautiful work in Brisbane, Queensland.

Australia, yeah. But I think to myself, okay, so why, if let's say I'm right in thinking I had good arguments and they were overwhelming her bad arguments and yet she wasn't changing her mind, darn it. Why is it that we do that, do you think? What do you mean? We sometimes tend to treat people like computers. You put in the right syllogism, click enter, and they should just change their minds.

So you're asking why don't people just respond to logic and reason and arguments? I guess that's what I'm asking. Because let me put myself in the hot seat. If an atheist were here and he were debating me and I, and I had nothing to say to him and he gave me a great argument, I wouldn't convert. I wouldn't be like, oh, you're right.

I would speak to everybody I know smarter than me. I would do a lot of research. Like these are things that we didn't have access to in the early nineties. You know, when people, what you were just in your little town and there's a village atheist or the village Christian, they came at you with an argument and made sense to you.

Unless you were going to go to the library and look up what they said and what people have said about that, you were pretty happy to be like, okay, maybe you were happy. It may have taken some time, but then you eventually converted and then you weren't encountering objections. Yeah, right. Whereas today, no matter what view you take, be it Christianity or Judaism or Islam or atheism, there's someone on the internet smarter than you that can probably, right, that can respond to one of your objections in a way that you're not sure how to answer. I think that's true for 99% of us. How do we deal with it? How do we live in that climate?

Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this and I'm trying to organize them in my mind. It's a long show, so it's okay if they're not good. All right. So, one of the thoughts that I have is if we're worried about this person who might exist that's smarter that could give all of these arguments against us, we could do the same thing on the other side. There could be some smarter person than that person who is on my side who could then respond to them. And so we're not actually going to get to a skeptical conclusion with that thinking, in my view, because we can always imagine some smarter person. I mean, God, ultimately, we'd be the smartest person who could just demolish this atheist arguments. And so if we're just going to go to like these different levels of these imaginary people who are going to be responding to our arguments, I think we're going to run into like a sort of self-defeat problem. Yeah, like agnosticism, really.

No, not even that like it wouldn't it wouldn't give you any reason to be skeptical at all because because the argument would be self-defeating like your reason for thinking that that's a reason for skepticism there could be someone smarter who could come along and say oh well no that's not a good reason but the infinite regress of opponents would cause you just to stand still that that's one part of it but the other part of it is that the argument itself would have to lead to a skeptical conclusion. So that's one part of it is to build this like infinite chain of people who are constantly responding back and forth.

That's one part of it. But the other part would be that chain. The argument would be this chain, therefore, gives you reason to be skeptical. That would be an additional side argument. And so what I'm saying is that of that side argument, you could have people on both sides. And so basically that's going to sort of cancel out because the argument is, but what does that look like? What's the result? If in this imagined experiment, it cancels out, doesn't that lead to sort of like, well, I just can't know.

No, no. This is difficult to put into words. I'm doing this all on the top of my head here. And I'm trying to figure out if I should start using some terminology. I don't want to. But if we're thinking about, so you have an objection. An atheist is giving you all of these objections

to your Christian belief, okay? And this is an imaginary person. You're saying this, we can imagine this person. it may not be imaginary. It may be someone that you know of that, you know, of, you know, I wouldn't know how to respond to that. I hope somebody does. Um, and then you find somebody who does and you think, yeah, but he would probably respond some way to that. And right. And I think that you could do that indefinitely. You can, yeah, you could do that indefinitely. So that, that. You could do that indefinitely. So that might be reason enough to be sort of skeptical that this is doing anything,

that this imaginary situation should lead to some skeptical conclusion about your own beliefs. I think the fact that you can go back and forth is enough. But there's another side of this, which is to say that even when we think about this, you know, infinite chain of going back and forth with these two different people, there's a separate argument where that that says that infinite chain is a reason to doubt your beliefs because these people couldn't go back and forth and defend and argue and go back and forth. Yeah. go back and forth and defend and argue and go back and forth. Yeah. So the argument would be if there's people who can rationally disagree with what you have to say, then you should be skeptical that you have the truth basically would be that argument.

But there's people that disagree about that argument. And so it would run into like a sort of self-defeat type of worry. That's very interesting. So that's, that's one worry with that type of argument. Another worry with that type of argument is that usually in the literature of disagreement, epistemic disagreement, disagreement about how we come to know things, there's something that's called an epistemic peer. So in order for this sort of situation to work, they've either got to be an epistemic superior.

They've got to be more knowledgeable, more intelligent than you, or they've at least got to be on your level of rationale. If they're dumber than you, that's not going to be a reason to be skeptical. We don't we don't typically think. I think all of this, what I'm talking about right now, like building out these these sort of assumptions that are going into this argument. We don't really think about this. It all just sort of happens naturally. We think, oh, if someone can respond to us, then someone that disagrees with us, that's automatically a reason to doubt my beliefs. So what I'm doing is I'm drawing out some of the assumptions that are going on with

this. And so back to the point of epistemic peers, you have someone who is equally as intelligent, equally as knowledgeable as you, and they have access to the same of epistemic peers you have someone who is equally as intelligent equally as knowledgeable as you and they have access to the same exact evidence and they come to a different conclusion or a different belief what should we do with that situation and so some people will say and these are equal weight theorists I can't avoid using this terminology it's good it's these are equal weight theorists who say that there's equal weight on both sides and so basically with this situation you've got to be skeptical because this person is

your peer. They know as much as you. They're just as intelligent and they're coming to a different conclusion. And so basically both of you ought to become agnostics that you got to be an agnostic now. And so one of the things I pointed out earlier is that people disagree about this theory, about saying, well, we've got to be agnostic because we have this stalemate. So some people will say, well, you know, at that level,

this argument, there's people that disagree on both sides. And who appears. And so there's a kind of self-defeat type of worry there. That's very interesting. Another thing that you could do, and I'm just taking all of this time to explain this next step of the argument, is you could deny that this other person is your epistemic peer who you're actually disagreeing with. And so that's one thing that you'd have to figure out is,

well, how intelligent is this person? How do I know that they weren't biased in the way that they came to their beliefs? Right, because someone could be equally as intelligent and biased in a way that would lead them to draw a different conclusion with the same evidence. And so you would just be skeptical that this person is your peer, that you're disagreeing with. And how do you really prove that? What type of evidence would you be able to give somebody to prove to them? I don't know if you could. Yeah, you're on a par with this person.

And so that's another worry with this type of thinking is that we'd have to really question, like, who are our peers? Who are our superiors? And is there really nothing biased that's happening in this situation? There's a lot of moving parts. Well, this gets back to the point.

Like, we're not computers. We're not mere intellects who aren't influenced by other things. Yeah, this is really fascinating thanks for thanks for spelling that out because i didn't quite get it when you first explained it but now i see what you mean with that kind of self-refuting not because you were doing a poor job because i'm your intellectual inferior um no i wasn't to be honest i haven't really i've i have an article on this on my website i think it's called equal weight theory so if people want to learn more about it, I'm really glad that I remembered that I did this.

So you can go out and check it on my website, capturingchristianity.com. Search for Equal Weight Theory and you can get some more info about it. But it is a very interesting phenomenon, just the fact that we have the world of information at our fingertips in a way that we didn't when I was a teenager.

So like I'm 36 and I lived in Australia. So the internet really wasn't a thing until about 1999 or 2000 so in my high school if someone disagreed with me i would either have a comeback which may not have been good but maybe it would have convinced them and nobody else could come back at me in my high school so i went cool done that's the truth you know there was nothing really else to maybe i wasn't intellectually curious enough to go read books like i should have been but yeah there was just maybe people felt a sort of stability, whether they should or shouldn't have, that they may not feel now because there's always somebody out there

who disagrees with you. Yeah. So I think the right course of action is to ignore those types of concerns and just to continue looking at the evidence and trying to judge the best that you can. Yeah, because we all deal with bias and we're all trying to fight against bias. And so I think that's all that you've got to do. And all you really can do is just continue to fight against your own bias and look at the evidence as honestly as you can. And if one were to keep God up on the chalkboard, so to speak, until one feels that they had, you know know examined and exhausted the evidences for and

against they're not they haven't actually made a decision right they just they still haven't they're not living like a christian like maybe they're living like a christian externally like they'll still go to church but they doubt but in their heart they really have they're not praying they're not obeying christ they're just as willing to kind of get rid of it than to not this is itself a decision. Like if you don't choose theism or atheism, you're going to start living like a mishmash of the two or like one or the other. So to not choose is a choice, I guess is what I'm saying. If I have a choice between marrying my wife and marrying some other woman and I just can't decide and I'm endlessly weighing the pros and cons, I'll get nothing in the end.

I won't get either of them. Yeah, it's equal to- We have to either of them. Yeah, it's equal to... We have to make a choice. Yeah, it's equal to making a choice. It's not an option for us not to make a choice. We're going to, practically speaking, make a choice one way or the other, I think. Yeah, I think so too. And if you're 50-50 on whether or not God exists or Christianity is true,

you don't have to force yourself to believe that God exists. You can still, like you said, commit to a Christian way of living. So you do still have a decision. You have a decision whether to not do anything at all. It doesn't matter what your belief state or your mental states are. That doesn't matter in terms of making a decision either way. So if you're completely agnostic, if you're a perfect agnostic, which I don't think there's actually anybody who's like that.

No one is perfectly reasonable and agnostic when it comes to God's existence. Interesting. But that's irrelevant because you still are going to make a decision your way. You're going to, yes. Yeah, you can make a decision to just live the same way that you've been living, a secular life, not really paying any attention to God or Christianity or any other religion. And so you basically are making a choice by not doing anything. You're choosing to live a secular life.

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means is you as the parent, let's say, will get a report of your children's online activity. If they go to any websites that they shouldn't, you'll be right there to see that. And that way you can come in and love on them and teach them how to use the internet appropriately. Maybe you're a single guy and girl and you're struggling with pornography. Find an accountability partner and that way the notifications will go to them and you'll find it's a lot easier to beat temptation when you know someone's going to get your reports. CovenantEyes.com CovenantEyes.com and here's what's great for my listeners only. If you go to CovenantEyes.com and sign up and use the promo code Matt Fradd that's my name one word Matt Fradd you can try the entire app for a full month for free so you've got absolutely nothing to use

lose rather and at the end of the month you decide you don't want it just delete it you don't get charged a cent I don't think that's going to happen though I think you're going to install it and think this is the best thing you've done so covenanteyes.com use the promo code Matt Fradd at checkout to get a month for free sometimes I I'll hear atheists say, well, if God existed, there would be a sort of consensus on this issue, but there's not. But of course, we disagree about all sorts of things, like whether we have a soul or what free will is and whether we have it, whether this is all just an illusion that we live in and so on. But that doesn't mean we can't have a rational belief about the external world or my free will or things like that. Yeah, I think that there's a really easy explanation to explain disagreement.

And it's just that we're humans. Yeah. And so then the question would be, would it be more likely for God to create this type of person or a different type of person that would be less susceptible to bias or whatever. So that might be, that's probably, I think, where the argument would go. There was a time in my life where I'm ashamed to say that I hoped atheism was true. I mentioned this to you in passing last night. That seems so crazy to me. Yeah, it is crazy. And it's because I had a perverted view of God the Father. And I had been listening to so many debates and so many talks by atheists. And I was reading them and just what they would say about the reality of God.

And I was just like, oh, my gosh. It wasn't a conscious thing. I wasn't saying, oh, my goodness, God is like that. It was just this sort of doubt that crept in into the goodness of the Father. That's what it was like. It's kind of like if you knew your father existed, but you started to hear lies about him and then began to believe those lies, he might rather him be dead than in your house. It was kind of like that. Or you hoped for that. Yeah. You hoped that he would just sort of go away. Yeah. Because there's really bad stuff about it. Yeah. So really, I mean, my solution was to,

I had good people in my life. I got to read good spiritual books that, and obviously the scriptures teach me about the goodness of the Father, his tenderness towards us and things like this. And it really helped. Yeah, man. So when it comes to sort of, you said you read On Guard, which is an excellent book, I think. Is there, was any of these arguments, did that help solidify your faith in God? Cause it doesn't sound like you ever really had a crisis when it came to believing God. You said it was regarding the historicity of Christ maybe, but.

It was the historicity of, yeah, Christianity. Was there any really good historical basis for Christianity? That was a, that was just a period of doubt that I went to, that I went through, but I have experienced doubts along the way. Like there was a time when I didn't really think that any of the arguments for God were any good. And I eventually got over that. And I think that was driven ultimately by emotional factors. And it was driven by this very irrational belief that if you can find a possible way out of an argument,

then therefore you've got, the argument isn't good or or you shouldn't believe it you know and i think that's a lot of times what happens is we think oh well you know i don't have to believe that christianity is true or i already i don't have to believe that this is a good argument because there's this possible way out maybe the universe is eternal for the kalam cosmological argument and that's enough for some people to really get them to really doubt that an argument goes through but on a rat from like a rational standpoint possibility is not the same thing as probability just because you have a possible way out doesn't mean that it's probable

that the universe didn't exist and so you've still sort of got to follow the evidence and decide what's most probable not what's just possible. So I have gone through periods of doubt myself and they don't last very long through this journey. They don't last very long. And I try to, I try to do my best to analyze from the rational point of view, like what is it that I'm really doubting and how, what are all these connections that I'm making? I've won. Another thing that I've noticed about my own psychology is that I put a lot of emphasis on authorities figures. It's like this person I judge is really smart, really knowledgeable. And so if they have a good objection to my belief, I just sort of find myself putting a lot of weight on that, but that's not necessarily like a real good, solid argument that Christianity is false or that God doesn't exist it's really just sort

sort of an emotional thing that i'm leaning to just because i find them to be a reasonable person yeah but that but there's a lot of missing steps between this person is like really reasonable and that that could even be you know we could be skeptical about that because people can appear reasonable but can be driven by all sorts of emotion and bias and and everything but what what i try to do is i try to analyze like why am i actually doubting like what is going on and so when i start to actually look at the reasons why they usually are just not very good it's i agree i do the same thing when i experience doubt it's more like a sea of feelings yeah that make me feel a certain way and that feeling is towards doubt and skepticism and i'll stop and i almost like shake myself out i'm like okay what is the argument yeah exactly

thing that i've heard recently i've accounted and i'll kind of think it out like that's terrible that's a terrible reason yeah or i'll just start to like doubt one premise of one argument. And the doubt is not based on any reasonable anything. It's just like, oh, well now I'm starting to experience doubt about this. Like, okay, why? What reason led to that? And it's usually from when I've tried to do an analysis on it, it's usually not, it's not based on anything, but like a feeling.

an analysis on it. It's usually not, it's not based on anything, but like a feeling. C.S. Lewis in the Screwtape Letters says, you know, one way to tempt this Christian who's at church is to keep everything sort of vague, this vague sense that the people around me should be in togas and sandals, but never to have it be explicit that he thinks that, because then he would recognize it as ridiculous, but just this vague sense that things are a bit ridiculous and it's sort of like that yeah i think so i think too we often we very often don't take into account the fact that if christianity is true we live in a world at war and that the demons exist and satan exists and wants our damnation and so well i mean that's another good great c.s CS Lewis quote. Is that one of the things I think it's in the screw tape letters. It's like one of the things, well, I don't have

the quote on top of my head, but it's basically one of the things that Satan was so brilliant about was convincing everyone that he didn't exist. So that's my point. As we assess these things, if we've got Christianity and atheism, well, if Christianity is true, then there is a whole kind of invisible demonic realm that doesn't want us to come to belief in Christianity. And it's something to wrestle with. It's not just like a neutral weighing of the premises. But then, of course, if you're an atheist, you say, well, that's just ridiculous. You're just, this is just kind of fear tactics to make you side with there.

Yeah. Well, I think what you're pointing out is that there's these sorts of leaps in reasoning that happens. We start to have these feelings of doubt and then we leap to a conclusion that doesn't follow at all. And we need to be aware of that and we need to sort of put it into it. But on the flip side, to be charitable, I think that on the Christian side of things, when we're trying to build arguments for our own faith or whatever, I think sometimes we can just have a feeling that this is a good argument instead of having a real good solid reason for thinking that it goes through and that it's, you know, it leads to

God's existence and everything else. So I think that there's, it happens on both sides. It's not just on the skeptical side of things. I think that sometimes, again, I noticed this in my own initial walk, or if you want to call it a walk, into apologetics. My initial journey into apologetics is I found myself really wanting to believe these certain arguments. Like the Kalam Cosmological Argument was one of the arguments that I was just like, yeah, this is a really great argument. And then after a while, I was like, you know what? After I started to look into some of the objections and everything, I was like, you know what? I'm not super convinced.

after I started to look in some of the objections and everything, I was like, you know what? I'm not, I'm not super convinced, but as I look back on to initial part, it was just this desire to really think that there's a, an argument to make myself appear more reasonable. And so I think that again,

it can happen on both sides. Now to, to sort of preface that or make a disclaimer on the Kalam, I'm now completely convinced that the Kalam is a good argument. So, and I like to think that that's kalam is a good argument so and i like to think that that's because of arguments and evidence and reason and stuff but obviously i acknowledge that there could be i would like to hear two atheists talk about their belief system in the way we're talking about ours i don't see a lot of that i'm not saying there aren't humble

atheists uh atheists who recognize are you saying that we're just like the most humble i think we've been pretty humble. Yeah. I think we're being very transparent about our doubts and, and the fact that belief is difficult. Now, psychology is like, you can't get away from it.

Yeah. I mean, an easy objection right now to throw out on YouTube is, yeah, the reason you're finding it easy to doubt is, is what you believe is crap. That's why. Yeah.

That's clearly not it though. I mean, there are brilliant people who believe these things. I would just like to see some atheists who like wrestle with the kind of psychological aspect behind their own. I know they wouldn't call it a belief. They'd call it a lack of belief, but I think it looks pretty close to a belief. Well, this is, this is something related and interesting is that's, that's one of the atheist tactics is to point out, well, hey, look, the Christian just believes for this psychological reason.

They want to believe in an afterlife. And so therefore, that's why they're really trying so hard to be a Christian or to be an atheist. And when enough people tell you something, you might start to become open to it and start to really entertain it. And so I did that. Like I was really entertaining the thought, maybe I don't really, it's not all about reason and evidence and arguments. And so I started to really question that aspect of my psychology. And it actually took like talking with my friends about it for them to point out, no, it does actually seem like you're looking for the truth here. And it took someone else to look at it

from, from the outside to convince me that no, what these people are, are saying is not true. And so that's something that I had to eventually come to, but it's interesting how the psychology of it all works. And so, I mean, and I think that's one of the reasons why atheists are so some, some atheists, not all atheists are like this, but a lot of them will just speculate forever about why theists believe what they believe. They ignore their own psychology in the process and their own psychological reasons and project oh yeah unless if you're not human like if you're maybe you're the one robot who doesn't have psychological factors that plays a part plays a significant role in why you believe what you believe maybe you mr atheist you're the

person who who doesn't have to deal with bias. But if you are a human, there's going to be some explanation, some very good scientific, psychological explanation for why you believe what you believe. And so it's not, I guess, I'm kind of rambling at this point. I'm enjoying it. Yeah, no, but this is something that I think about a lot yeah and then you asked me a great question last night in the car do you mind if i bring it up yeah go ahead yeah he was very kind of you you said do you mind if i psychoanalyze you for a second is that okay i know it's kind of weird and i don't mean to be a jerk or whatever i'm like yeah it's

fine and uh you said i've been like debating this for for a couple nights i was like do i even want to talk to him about this why don't you bring it up so you can state it the way you wanted to rather than me okay okay so because we disagree but you're catholic i'm protestant we talked about that at the beginning what what label do i need anyways so i got the impression but be it reasonable be it unreasonable be it you know because i'm a jerk or whatever i got the impression that you are a catholic because you sort of fell into Catholicism. And that's sort of just where you've been since that point. And that's what you've defended.

And that's why you believe what you believe because you just happened to fall into Catholicism. And my answer is that's partly true. Yeah, that's partly true. That really surprised me that you were just so willing to admit that. But I think that's how most of us come to our beliefs. Right. Like my answer to you is if I was converted at like a Bible, Baptist Bible camp, then I would probably adopt the interpretation of those around me.

And then I would say, hey, I'm encountering this Catholic who's challenging my belief in sola scriptura or something. And they would give me answers and i would respond to them and and who knows now i think catholicism is true like i do think that i'm not just saying well i fell into it and therefore i don't have to be critical of my beliefs and um basically the arguments are the same but i'm just going to stick over here because it's easier like i do actually think catholicism is true um but i think I think that this is just a reality we have to face. We are all kind of bias and all of us are. And so we obviously have to see if our biases line up with the truth, but. Yeah. Yeah. And we have, we have. What made you think that? Cause I thought it was really, you asked it in such a gentle way

and I thought it was cool that you did it, but I mean, was there something that I did that you were like, oh, that's not cool. Why is he acting like that? No, I think what, what sort of spawned it was when I was hearing you tell your journey, cause you started out as an atheist and then well, agnostic, I would have an atheist. Yep. Okay. So you fell into Catholicism. You said you had some experience. Yeah. And so that's, and it just seemed to be like that. That's what just happened is that you went to this, this meeting where there was like, what? 3 million people, two, two and a half million, two and a half million people in rome and you became a catholic like on the spot like that's well and i was baptized right as a catholic and so it was the

easiest thing to be brought into right but another thing we talked about was like if i had been in that situation that would have been true of me right so here's not something that's just so here's the difficult question how do i know i'm? How do you know you're right? You know, like that's a difficult question that I... Well, to me, it's not that difficult. It's just... Maybe it's not difficult to assess the arguments and decide which is superior, but it's a difficult emotional choice

to see your own bias, if that's even possible, and then to really have to... To try to work against it. Because I was saying to you earlier, and I chatted with Trent Horn about this, atheists will say, well, you just have this preconceived belief, and then you become an apologist for what you already believe. But we do that about so many things. When I was a child, I believed the external world was real. When I was about 16, I started to doubt it, and I had never heard of the word solipsism. And then I started to find reasons to believe what I

had believed in the beginning. Or someone might write a dissertation on why a certain action is intrinsically evil. And they may have always believed that, but now they have evidence for it. Right. And you wouldn't say, well, therefore they're wrong because they were just trying to justify something they held previously. Right. Right. So ultimately, it is just going're wrong because they were just trying to justify something they held previously. Right. So ultimately it is just going to come down to the arguments and to the evidence. So, I mean, that's sort of what I was getting at before is that it's ultimately just going to come down to that.

So we can talk about bias and try to prevent that as much as we can, you know, prevent us from being swayed by all of the things that make us want to believe what we want to believe. But in order to combat it, we just try our best to look at the arguments and the evidence as carefully as we can. Has Catholicism ever been a live option for you? I would say right now it's a live option. Yeah. To just be completely transparent. I think right now it's a live option because I haven't done the study yet that I would

like to before I get into it. And so right now you've probably got friends on both sides, right? Like friends who think Catholicism is an absolute perversion of the gospel. And other friends who are like, this guy's also really intelligent. So I have, it depends on what you mean by perversion. I think that I have friends who would say that Catholicism does not teach what the sort of biblical gospel message. I guess that's what I mean by perversion. I understand that almost all evangelicals would agree that Catholics believe good things.

Yeah. But then they would also say Catholicism teaches things that are- They sort of add unnecessary stuff. Add unnecessary things or just believe erroneous things about God and salvation. Yeah. So then what do you do with that? Honest question, what would happen if you go home from pints with Aquinas? I think he's right.

I'm going to be a Catholic. And suppose you were now, I tell you, you'd get a big following. Wouldn't he follow us? No, you'd pick up some followers, but you would lose a lot. Same thing with me. You and I have a chat and I'm like,

you know what? This whole papacy thing is bunk. I don't know what to do. I've got to become Orthodox or, you know, like that's a terrifying thing. Yeah, to me, I guess it's not that terrifying because again, I guess this goes back to the fact that I really do care about truth. I really care about it.

And so if Catholicism is true, I want to know that I'd like the consequences, the consequences, that's good. That's important. Yeah. But ultimately, like I, I prefer, I'm more interested in that. Man, that's beautiful. Cause I, I think two years ago I would have said that, but I'm not sure I would have meant it. Because it's easy, right?

Atheist, Christian, we all say, all I want is the truth. And you engage with enough people who say that, and you're like, no, you really don't. And so, that's maybe why I'm a little reluctant to say that. Say what? I would hope that I could say what you just said and do say what you said, right? Yeah, like ultimately, if this isn't true and i can know something that is true i want that regardless of the consequences i do think that intellectually but because i encounter people who seem so biased and are totally unaware of their

own bias it it makes me question my own bias and whether i'm capable of just deluding myself i guess yeah what is the number one obstacle to cathism for you? Like what's something you're like, okay, this is the thing that I'm, I can't yet take it seriously because of this, this, and this. And we don't have to debate it or anything unless you want to chat about it. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not debate it because again, I haven't done like a study on it or anything, but initially one of the things that's on the top of my list is the papacy and how all of that works. And I know that a lot of my Catholic friends are sort of upset and there's just a lot of like gray area and like,

how do we really navigate this? And the, I mean the scandals don't really bother me that much because it's just this, these group of, I mean it, it bothers me in the sense of like it's a terrible evil and this is really bad and no one should have to endure this and no one should have to go through this.

But from a logical standpoint, from the truth of whether or not this is true, that it's completely unrelated to me. So I guess one of the things that sort of sticks out of my mind and I see Catholics among themselves talk about a lot is Pope Francis, he does some really weird stuff. He does.

In the history of the papacy, there's just a lot of weird stuff going on. Yeah. And so that seems to me to be something that I would have to really work out and understand. of the the papacy there's just a lot of weird stuff going on yeah and so it's it that that seems to me to be something that i would have to really work out and understand yeah that'd be the biggest the biggest thing it'd be one of the bigger things yeah like i talked with a catholic friend of mine about the eucharist and he basically convinced me that it's not that big of a problem really i'm thinking that you know it still might taste like wine, it might still taste like bread,

but that's a completely different thing than what it could be. I think the infighting within the Catholic Church is a big deterrent to people considering, honestly. Because I don't think, I wouldn't call Pope Francis a good pope. I wouldn't say he's a good pope. I don't think I'd say he's a bad Pope. See when I, when he first came into power office, what is it?

What do you call it? When he, when he assumed the papal throne, the throne, the infallible. And when I first saw him become Pope, become Darth Vader, um,

the Sith Lord, the, I actually thought that, you know, this guy's cool yeah right because he he didn't wear all that like extra jewelry yeah yeah so he was on the poor he was yeah he was the people's pope yeah and so i was really drawn into him because of that but now like some of the stuff that he's saying it's like really confusing that's what i that's why i wouldn't say yeah but for instance a good pope because he's incredibly confusing in a day and age where we would need we'd like some clarity and some guidance and we're not really seeing it so what initially i think people were excited about now it's starting

to well he could do both right i mean you could be you could be concerned about the poor live simply and teach clear doctrine yeah and not completely not completely, you know, yeah. And I also think like there was a day and age and for the majority of church history, we didn't live with Twitter and news feeds. And so the Pope could be like having mistresses or charging off into battle. All of these things have happened.

Stealing the papal cutlery. Like all crazy crap has happened, right? There was one Pope who denied our Lord three times, Peter. So like this has all gone on, but you weren't necessarily seeing it constantly yeah um so i can see how that would be a deterrent and i know like even like sometimes my response to catholics though is i'm like okay but what what's what's what are you gonna do because if you were looking at the jews in the old testament and your litmus test for true religion

is morally perfect or almost morally perfect religion, you would have missed the true religion. When you see what King David sleeping with Bathsheba, killing her husband, you see some of the shenanigans that are going on amongst the Jewish hierarchy. You'd be like, okay, this is, no, this is not God's people. That's not one of the things that bothers me. That's cool. About Catholicism. And you know what?

I imagine, I wonder if it's true of Christianity. Exactly. Because you hear atheists who say, say well why are there so many hypocritical christians and you recognize something can be true and people can still be sucky yeah right right yeah yeah they would just not be living up to the standards that the bible sort of sets out right how do you deal with the the variation within protestantism i know it feels like all the old labels are sort of fading away now and people are just sort of wanting to refer to themselves as evangelical or they'll say, I'm more this or I'm more that. How do you navigate that? Does that make sense?

Well, what do you mean by navigate? What's like, how do you choose? Like, am I going to be more of a Calvinist or am I going to think this way about free will? And what am I going to think about what baptism does? Can I lose my salvation? Does hell exist? Like, I feel like as a Catholic, what's great is basically, I'd say like the basic answer to the papacy is just like, we think that Christ established a church and that church can help us know what God has revealed. God has revealed himself and we can know what that revelation is. So, I don't need to wander around Christian blog sites deciding who has the best argument for, you know, hell or not hell or this or not this. That God wants me to know and accept the truth and I don't have to be terribly worried about it. And whereas I think if I were,

now we have our own stuff as well. Like there would be like fractions amidst smaller things, like different liturgies and people put different emphases on different prayers and things like that but i think if i were a protestant i'd be like okay now i've got to figure out like what i believe because there's a lot that protestants believe right there's a protestantism isn't a thing it's protestantisms i mean is there do you find that like a freeing sort of thing that you can there's this freedom you might be able to accept hell as a protestant maybe you don't have to, that kind of thing. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, I mean, it doesn't bother me that there's a bunch of different views that you could take as a Bible-believing Christian. So, ultimately,

I think it's really just about what the Bible teaches, and that can be difficult, but it doesn't really strike me as like a real serious problem. So, isn't it weird that you've got all these Christians who say they go by the Bible alone and they come up with contradictory views on many, many things? It depends. It depends on what kind of problem you mean. Like what would be the problem? How do you become a Christian? How do you be saved?

Can you lose your salvation? These sorts of things. That would bother me. Okay. Yeah. back to and maybe this is going to fit more in line with catholicism is the sort of bedrock of christian belief in my opinion is to look at the early church creeds like the apostolic creed or the nicene creed and start there and so i would sort of start there if something contradicts that and if something contradicts that then yeah there'd have to be cool some kind of split or something

but these are questions where we're we're like kind of on the periphery of my expertise. Yeah, totally, and we won't keep going down there. I want to ask you, what is your favorite argument for God's existence right now? If Neil is an atheist and I've secretly hired him so that you can proselytize him, but you can pretend you're talking to me, he's not really an atheist, but what would you say? What's a good argument? The contingency argument.

Okay, and this is Aquinas' third way. Of course, you might be referring to something slightly different. Yeah. It's going to be similar. But since it's pints with Aquinas, I feel like we should at least mention him. Tell us what... There's going to be a lot of overlap for sure. Yeah. What does contingency mean and what is the contingency argument? So I have a version of the argument that I like the best. And this is the argument, one version of the argument that kind of pulled me out of one of my sort of dark periods of doubt. I don't know why I even use that language right now. But I went through a period of doubt. And this is the argument that pulled me out of it.

One of the arguments. And it was because, again, what I was focusing on was, oh, well, there's this possible way out of this argument. So, therefore, I should be skeptical. And so what I found with this argument is well, there's this possible way out of this argument, so therefore I should be skeptical. And so what I found with this argument is that there's really not a way out of it. There's not. And so even basically God worked with my irrational doubts and brought me sort of back into the fold almost, so to speak. I wouldn't consider myself a non-Christian or agnostic or anything. It was just a short period of doubt. And this is what pulled me out of it, this argument in

particular. And there's a, there's a couple of different versions of the argument. The one that is really easy to understand. And again, shows that it's impossible to get out of is you paint this paradox or these two different options between dependent things and independent things. And I'll use some examples. So contingency, let's start there actually with that word real quick. And then, cause there's, there's two different senses in the way that that word is used in these discussions, the argument from contingency, there's two different usages. So one use would be, this is, this cup is contingent because it can go out of existence. It doesn't always have to exist.

It's contingent. Would another word for contingent be dependent? Are you using those words? That's the second usage. So the first usage is it can fail to exist. So it exists in, if we want to use some philosophical language, it can exist in some possible worlds and it doesn't exist in other possible worlds, or it just doesn't have to exist the whole time in a possible world.

So this cup hasn't always been here. There was a time when it wasn't arranged in the shape. Even if, even if you don't think that like macro objects exist, the arrangement of it itself didn't exist. So this cup is a contingent thing. I could smash it and it would go out of existence. So something that is non-contingent or necessary just has to exist all the time everywhere and so that's what a contingent thing is is something that can fail to exist in in some sense so a

dependent thing is something that depends on another thing for its existence right now or in the past right uh either i guess either way and this is that's actually a good distinction because i think you're talking about the the causal series the different types of causes i don't mean to get into that sorry no no worries um it we it doesn't necessarily have to do with time so we could we could take more of like a hierarchical like a split moment of time and talk about dependency that way but i think it works on either either way that we look at it i hope we're not going too too quickly no if my face looks bad it's just that's how my face looks no well i'm i'm following no i feel like you're you're good at following but it's no the audience and everything okay okay okay cool sorry just this

is what they came for okay good um all right so we're talking about these two different kinds of contingency. And so dependence, and we talked about this a little bit earlier. Well, maybe I don't want to go into that. Yeah, because let me just give the distinction. One would be helpful. It's just contingent or dependent. Yeah, well, okay, so I am dependent on my parents. If my parents hadn't existed, then I wouldn't exist.

So that's one way they look at it. Good. One way they look at it is if something else didn't exist, then this thing wouldn't exist so that's one way they look at it good is if something else didn't exist then this thing wouldn't exist okay so like the moon if something else if if this asteroid hadn't crashed into the earth then the moon wouldn't exist so the moon is dependent on an asteroid or whatever whatever it was that happened with the moon that's what dependence sort of means and i think that's actually like what people think about when they hear contingency. Yeah, I think so.

You think about that type of contingency, dependence. Yeah. But contingent in the philosophical literature, at least in the contemporary scene, is more thinking about the first kind, that something can fail to exist. But the argument that I'm about to give is on the second time, the more, the second type, the more down to earth usage of the word. And so I'll just use the word, the language of dependence. So this cup, going back to an example, this is a dependent thing and it depends on something else for its existence. And everything that we experience in our everyday lives is a dependent thing your car out there the

blinds this table the microphone everything that we interact with on a daily basis is a dependent thing i think most people would agree okay man-made things dependent got it but why don't it's probably a little more difficult the atheist might say if you start talking about natural things so like a you mean like an animal or a rock or something sure so a rock would still be dependent a rock would be that formulation of a rock even if you don't think that rocks are rocks exist you would still think that that arrangement is that is dependent on something else like maybe there was these tectonic plates that hit in the core of the earth and that's what created these mountains and these rocks fell down off of the mountains.

And so it would be dependent on something else for its existence. These rocks would still be dependent in some sense. There's something that it depends on. If that mountain didn't exist, then this rock wouldn't exist. So it'd be dependent in that sense. So what I'm doing now

is I'm building this first initial plank of the argument that everything that we experience is a dependent thing, depends on something else for its existence. You could also say something like a rock depends on the earth for its existence. If we want to go more broad. I don't want to cut you off because I know you're, but I also would love to be able to interject throughout. But I don't want to step too far ahead and you're like, I was about to explain that. Yeah, no worries. But I think very often, I suppose if I were an atheist,

I would say there is just so much we do not know about reality and the more we understand about it, the weirder it looks. And so, yeah, we can look at things like plants and dogs and rocks and cups and realize that they're dependent, but you don't necessarily interact with reality as reality. You're not necessarily in touch with reality. You're in touch with what you perceive, like space and stars. But to just flat out say, everything we interact with is contingent, feels like a step too far because you don't yeah

you don't know what's at the heart of the bedrock of reality that's helpful let me make a clarification so i'm not saying that everything is dependent i'm saying that everything that i've interacted with fair enough you and me interact with on a daily basis is dependent yep and so here's here's maybe an example to see how we could sort of generalize from a from a principle like this so take gravity so in our experience gravity works uniformly everywhere that we go, right? And so what scientists do is they can make what's called an inductive generalization. So based on your experience, your inductive experience of the world, you can use that and sort of generalize to the universe as a whole

or just something outside of your immediate awareness so with gravity there's very little reason for example to think that gravity doesn't work the same on the andromeda galaxy as it does in the milky way galaxy and part of the reason why we think that is because based on our own experience of the world and what we interact with it's very uniform yeah it's gravity works the same everywhere. And so the simplest explanation of why gravity works in our area of the universe, our little pocket of the universe, is that it just works like that everywhere in the universe. So we could use a kind of inductive generalization when it comes to dependence.

So most of everything that we experience is dependent. But, and here's the interesting thing about this argument, is actually I'm going to get to the conclusion that not everything is dependent, that there is something that is independent. And so even if you raise that objection or that skeptical worry, you'd actually be pointing in the direction where I want to go. Yeah. Okay. But there's a problem with induction, right? In that it's not certain. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. I mean, we thought if you lived in Europe that all swans were white and then we visited Australia and realized some swans were black. So that could just- That just shows that induction is fallible. Right. So we can be wrong. This isn't a proof of anything.

It's something that is just based on our evidence. This is the best thing. Just on a basic level, like if I encountered something that was necessary, that would freak me out. And I think that goes to your point. Like everything we interact with on a daily basis is contingent, is dependent.

Yeah. If we found something, bumped into something, or encountered something in some way that we realized wasn't, we would freak out. Right. So that just goes to your point that you're right. Everything we encounter is dependent. Okay.

Right. And so what we go from the second step of the argument is to think about all of reality. Let's suppose that, and for the audience, let's suppose that we could put all of reality. I'm getting a little bit too away from the mic here. Suppose that we could put all of reality i'm getting away a little bit too away from the mic here suppose that we could fit all reality into this cell phone you're trying to look for something i was trying to think yeah like maybe a cup and this look at this how about this one okay sure what is this that's a saint joseph catholic manual yeah um yeah all right yeah well anyways let's let's suppose that this book is all of reality okay

okay everything that exists everything that exists well everything god exists if everything Yeah. All right. Yeah. Well, anyways, let's suppose that this book is all of reality. Okay. Okay. Everything that exists. Everything that exists. Well, everything that's contingent. If God exists, everything. Everything. Everything. All of reality.

If God exists, they're included in this. This is all of reality. Now, there can't be, and this is impossible. This is one of the reasons why I don't see an option out of this argument. There's nothing that can exist outside of everything. Right. It's impossible. Right.

So all of reality has to exist independently. The totality. Everything has to live independently. Right. Because it's everything. The totality of reality has to exist independently. Right. That makes sense.

Yeah. So here's the problem. Because if there was something else out of it, it wouldn't be independent. And yeah. Yep. It'd have to be in there. If something can explain all of reality, it'd have to be in the group, but then we're not talking about something that's outside of the group of everything that exists. Okay. So there can't be an outside explanation of everything that exists. That is literally impossible. It's impossible. But the

puzzle, here's the problem. I want you to interject. So be thinking. Here's the problem. Well, you can't get out. I'm not putting the camera i'm putting it neil everybody you can't get out of it so keep that in mind it's impossible to object to this wow i love how on one level you come across and are super humble and then you're like this is impossible if you think this is wrong you're wrong good no i mean i am kind of joking when I say that. Okay. So if you have a good objection, then maybe, you know, I would love to entertain it. So the puzzle is this. We've already looked at everything in our experience is dependent. Okay.

So we have this dependent reality that's sort of built. And that's what we're most familiar with. But as we look at reality in total, it exists independently. The problem. You can't build an independent reality out of purely dependent things. Right. So if I, I'm a photographer or at least I was a photographer. I'm a full-time, I'm in full-time ministry at the moment, but I know a lot about cameras. I know a lot about photography and I still am photographer anyways. So one camera is dependent. Okay. It's dependent on something else for its existence.

And just imagine in your mind, a camera, but let's now think of a group of 10 cameras. Okay. So just adding on more dependent things, we don't suddenly have an independent group. So you can't build, you got to have the right building blocks basically so that what josh rastamusen called he calls this a construction problem so you've in order to build the right kind of structure you've got to have the right building materials and so to get an independent reality you can't only use dependent stuff it'd be like trying to build a fire out of water you You've got to have the right building materials. At least one of those things has to be independent.

And so the theory, what he's, this is, we're still just on the side of the puzzle. Like we're just trying to understand that there's a, there's a puzzle here. So how do we have an, say it one more time because I'm,

I'm struggling because it's early and then people must be struggling too. So let's just do that again. Okay. Yep. So everything in our experience is dependent. Yep. And you can't build, and I guess this is another step that we can add to it.

You can't build an independent reality out of purely dependent things. That's impossible because of this type of construction problem. And you can generalize, I mean, you can just by the light of reason, you can see this very clearly. If I take one camera

and I just add on more stuff to it, a whole bag, mean you can just by the light of reason you can see this very clearly if i take one camera and i just add on more stuff to it a whole bag i don't suddenly have an independent existing thing just because i'm adding on more stuff things yeah sure yeah so size is irrelevant that makes sense number of atoms is irrelevant to the distinction between something that is dependent and independent all right but and this is because it's like again this this argument you can't get out of it you can't get out of it when we're thinking about this is a necessary truth all of reality think about this book again all of all of reality everything that exists everything there can't be an outside explanation of all of reality and so all of reality has to exist independently

but how is that possible so i love the it helps right to have something visual when you're not as brilliant as some people so for me i'm like right okay all um yeah this is all of reality all of reality exists you want to say independently there can't be an outside explanation of all reality yeah so how do you explain all of reality how do you explain the independence that we see in the the combination of of everything that exists all right and so that's well we're still just at the level of the puzzle okay how do we get there what's the explanation how do we square this and so what josh does in his work is he gives a proposal.

And the proposal is that we just sort of posit a necessary foundation. The foundation of reality that has its nature. It just has existence. It's independent as part of its nature. It's foundational. Sort of just like a house has a foundation. All of reality has a foundation that everything else, all the dependent things are built on. There is an explanation outside of which there is no other it's bedrock. Exactly. And at this point, like I mentioned,

the atheist does not have to jump off at this point. The atheist can accept. And you should point out that some very intelligent atheists are willing to bite the bullet. Like Graham Oppie. Yeah. Graham Oppie's been on my show and he's had a discussion with Josh. And they agreed with this stage of the argument. They agreed that there's got to be some foundational layer of reality, of the universe. That's necessary, that has to exist, that has its nature, its existence independently, doesn't rely on anything else. Its existence independently doesn't rely on anything else. But what atheists will say, like Ram Appi, is just, well, this is the universe, or what he calls simples.

It's not God. The necessary foundation is not God. And that would take us into a discussion of stage two. Or would he say there's no good reason to think that it's God? Or would he say that the necessary foundation is fundamentally at odds with what theists mean by god i don't know that he would say it's at odds okay so he would just say there's no good reason to think that yeah that is i think he'd just say it hasn't yeah there's there hasn't been good reason proposed to to get to that level wow but in more of my discussions with josh i'm now convinced that that i don't know if i would say that it's impossible but i think there's really good reasons on this side of the argument so on stage one i think everybody has

to accept that any rational person has to accept it but on the stage two when we're arguing about the divine features okay so what is that thing yeah yeah what's the nature of this thing i think that there's a little bit more gray area on that side. And maybe I won't be convinced of that. Maybe I'll be convinced just as strongly of the second part of that as I am the first part. Excellent. So when you say you can't get out of this, you're not necessarily saying this absolutely in your mind proves the existence of God. You're saying you're convinced that there is something necessary. Right.

And that we have good—and then that leads, I would think, stronger support for theism. Well, I mean, there are some arguments, and I'm still working through them myself, that the foundation of reality has to be God, basically. There are deductive arguments that say you can't. You've got to posit a divine being in order to sort of explain why there's a foundation at all. Why do you have to do that? So that would take us into stage two. Do you want to go ahead and do that? Or do you want to get any more clarity on the first part?

No, that makes a lot of sense to me. And I think a lot of people are willing to accept that there has to be something necessary that underlies all unnecessary things. There has to be an explanation outside of which there is no other explanation. That just is the bedrock of explaining or explanation. There's something necessary upon which contingent things are able to exist. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So one of the things. At this point, the atheist gets really nervous because he sees where you're going. He's like, oh, my gosh. You're going to see. You're going to tell me. You're going to tell me this necessary thing cares about my sex life. And I'm really not into that.

You know? Yeah. And it's difficult when you argue with people, right? Because that's the thing, like they're jumping ahead and you're like, no, just wait, wait. Because at this point you say, maybe theism isn't true, but there's a necessary being. Yeah, right. And even if you get to theism, you still haven't shown Christianity is true. So everyone can just relax. Yeah. Yeah. And I think going back to talk a little more about psychology, when people

feel threatened, they're going to immediately shut down. And so it's important to really feel out how the conversation is going when you're talking with someone about this. And that's why I like to give caveats. Like this is just stage one. We're not getting all the way to God's existence right now. I think you have to accept stage one, but this doesn't mean you have to be a theist at this point. So I give caveats like that because I realize that people automatically will put up barriers. That's what I was doing the other day to you. Remember? I'm like, you can say Mary's the mother of God and not believe all the other stuff you believe.

Like, that would be okay. At least bite that much off. Yeah. Yeah. So I like to make those types of caveats. I think it's important to do that. like to make those those types of caveats i think it's important to do that so the stage one of the argument is if you can really get that and understand it i think that it's very difficult to get out of because the initially i think what people want to do is just say well there can just

be dependent things all the way down like everything can depend on something else can depend on something else just all the way down. But what's so fascinating about it is when you think about totality, the totality of reality, imagine the book again, that's impossible. You can't have an outside explanation of all of reality. There's not turtles beneath this. Right, exactly. Turtles all the way down would still exist in that. Exactly. And it can't be all the way down, yeah.

Exactly. So that's not an option. Like, it's not an option at all. But that creates the puzzle. How do we have this independent reality when everything in our experience is dependent? And so ultimately we have to posit a sort of something necessary at the foundation.

That's sort of holding all the dependent things up. There's the ground of it all. And then the second stage of the argument is to really look into that foundation and ask questions like, what is the nature of this thing? What can it do? What are its properties? Is it just the universe?

Is it God? Does it have knowledge? Does it have any value? And once we start to ask those types of questions, we can start to probe deeper and start to really pull out some really interesting things that come out of this. So in my research into this argument, there's really two broad strategies in building like a stage two case for the contingency argument from a necessary thing to God's existence. And actually in literature, this is called the gap problem. Like atheist philosophers have noted,

you've got a gap here. You, even if I accept that there's a necessary thing, there's a big gap between that and God's existence. And this is called the gap problem. Alexander Proust in his work, he calls it the same thing. It's a well-known problem. Even the Kalam Cosmological Argument has this gap problem where we're going from a beginning of the universe or a cause of the universe to God. That's a big gap, big leap. So it's important that we recognize that is like, yeah, that is that there's, there's, we've got to do some extra stuff in order to get there. So there's two broad categories or categories of argument that close the gap. One of them is to

just put this argument aside for a second. And let's look at some additional evidence, some additional arguments. Let's look at something like the fine-tuning of the universe for life. Are you familiar with that argument? Yep. So the fine-tuning argument, we could look at that a little bit. So you're saying you need to bring in other arguments to get to God, to close the gap. The contingency argument alone won't do it. I'm not saying you need to. I'm saying this is one broad strategy. So one strategy is to look at more arguments, look at more evidence. And even Josh Rasmussen does this. There's no reason not to do this.

It's just one strategy. So, and I think ultimately you'd have to do that if you're looking at what is all of the evidence that we have suggest about reality. Does God exist? Does God not exist? We don't just want to look at one thing. We want to look at one thing. We want to look at all of the evidence. We want to also include evidence that points the other way, that might point against God's existence. We want to look at all of it, not just the part that we

think confirms our own belief. But the point is that we want to look at everything eventually. So this is not some trick or some, it also doesn't mean that the argument isn't good. It's just one of the strategies. And i think we have to do it ultimately anyways so we can look at additional evidence different arguments and get to a divine being that way i think that's totally plausible we could we could do that i think the fine-tuning argument is a great argument that's one strategy the next strategy is to just look at the foundation itself and just say well what what are, what are the properties? What are the arts? Give me some arguments for thinking that the foundation of reality has to be a person or has to be a perfect being or God. And so we can do that now,

if you want, we can go for it. Look at the second stage. Yep. All right. So with this part of the argument, stage two, or we're looking at the foundation foundation analyzing it i want to do this a little bit differently than what i normally do so i want to think through with it with you let's let's analyze it together what could the foundation be like okay well let's ask let's ask actually another question what can be a distinguishing factor between something that is dependent and something that is independent what would be a good demarcation between the two it doesn't have parts there's no change it cannot change presumably if something changes it's dependent on something else possibly or if it has parts it has to subsist in a whole which would be a type of cause

that's interesting is that is that more on aqu Well, I guess it's just me trying to think it through. Oh, okay. What would you say? All right, so one second. Water. Yeah. So, and this is something I'm still thinking through, and I'm analyzing myself.

That's kind of why I want to do it with you here. One of the things that Josh points out in his book, he wrote a book recently called How Reason Can Lead to God. And he lays out this whole argument and does a couple, a state, a couple of the same moves that I'm making here and, and getting you to think about stage one and stage two and analyzing the foundation. And what he points out is that when it comes to the dependent things, think about like a mountain range, Say that this mountain range has three peaks. Okay. What he says is the reason why something is dependent is at least in part, because there's some kind of limit that it has. So a mountain range, say a mountain range with

three peaks has a limit of three. And that limit is what needs an explanation of why it's dependent on something else for those three things that are features of that thing. So limits is what he's saying. Limits are the thing that basically demarcate between something that is dependent and independent. So something that is unlimited can be independent, whereas something that is limited in some way is dependent on something else to explain those limits. So here, give another example. So my phone is a dependent thing. We've already established that, but it also has certain limits. My phone is only a certain size. It can only do so much. It can only hold so much information. It's limited in certain ways. And it's those limits that really cry out for an explanation. And so the basic argument is that when it comes to the, this foundation, this

foundation theory, there's got to be some necessary independent foundation. There can't be an outside explanation of this foundation, right? We've already talked about it. All of reality, there can't be an outside explanation. So there can't be an outside explanation of the foundation. Imagine, suppose that my phone is the foundation. There can't be an outside explanation of this that we've already hit. That's bedrock. Yeah, that's bedrock. So there can't be an outside explanation of this that we've already hit that's bedrock yeah that's bedrock so there can't be an outside explanation of it but if the foundation suppose it did have

limits suppose it was limited in how much it can know or there was limits and how much power it has suppose it has the power to create 20 universes for example that's a limit that is a feature of dependent things and that would need an explanation but we can't have an explanation of the foundation and so basically it's impossible this is another one of those impossibility arguments where it's almost impossible to get out of have you familiar with aquinas's distinction between essence and existence i've heard of because it sounds like you're getting very close to this, right? You and I are something. We also have something, existence.

Unicorns have neither essence nor existence. Tyrannosaurus Rex has neither but did once have existence. And it has an essence. I beg your pardon. Unicorns do have essence but don't have existence, right? They're a thing that we can think about. It has an essence. I beg your pardon. Unicorns do have essence, but don't have existence. Right. They're a thing that we can think about. It has a it has an essence, but not existence. And so whenever we define something, it comes from the word like D finite. Right. We're limited by what we are. We don't share in all of existence. We are something. And so when Aquinas says that God's essence is existence, his sound, he's saying something that sounds like you're getting to. When you say he's not limited, he's not limited to an essence. He is existence and is undivided.

You can't in any way divide him. Are you open to that kind of way of thinking? I guess I'd have to get a whole lot more clarity. Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm the guy to help you with that. I'm just spitballing. Maybe I'll a whole lot more clarity. Yeah. I'm not sure if I'm the guy to help you with that. I'm just spitballing. Maybe I'll just read some Aquinas. Yeah. But it's interesting to me that it sounds like it's going in that direction, which is awesome.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that there's overlap. There's ways that these arguments can sort of work together. So it doesn't necessarily have to conflict. You can still be a proponent of the five ways, proponent of this argument. Totally. They don't have to necessarily conflict with each other. But what we're thinking about, and I want the audience to really think about this too,

what is the best theory of the foundation of reality? So some people will say, well, hey, it's just the universe. It's some part of the universe is the foundation. That's what a lot of atheists will want to say. And what we run into when we start to really, okay, so it's one thing to say, oh, it's just part of the universe. That's what it is. That's one thing. But now actually do the hard work of explaining what you mean by that.

What can it do? What are its properties? And when you start to do that, what you're going to run into inevitably, unless you want to call this thing God, into inevitably unless you want to call this thing god inevitably you're going to start to put on what what rasmussen calls arbitrary limits in what it can do and its power again suppose it can only create 10 to the 500 universes or it can only create you know 20 universes that's a limit in what it can do and that's interesting i need to i need to hear more from josh about why a limit is a sign of dependence okay yeah it's a difficult thing for me to grasp right now okay i think he would say that it's a feature of every dependent thing is that it has some kind of limit yeah in it and

so this is a way of helping us see the difference between a dependent and an independent thing was that everything that we know of in a dependent thing has some kind of limit in its size, its geometry, its shape. And so to add to that,

any limit is going to need some explanation of why it has that limit. Why does it have that shape? Why does this mirror over here only have four corners? It's a rectangular mirror. Why does it have that shape? Why does this mirror over here only have four corners? It's a rectangular mirror. Why does it have that shape?

Why doesn't it have some other shape? And it's dependent on that. And presumably, Josh and you don't want to say that this thing's, of course, physical. So you're not going to be talking about shape or size because that wouldn't apply to this thing, presumably. Oh, to this thing. Yeah. Right, yeah. So what you would do.

Because that itself would be a limit. That would be a limit, yeah. A number of vertices, the shape of it, yeah, how many points it has. So like a triangle has three corners. And so that would be a kind of limit and would need an explanation. And I mean, it's a really interesting thing about it. This is why I'm saying, like, I want the listeners to really think about this. If you're an atheist or if you're a theist, if you think that this isn't a good argument,

feel free to jump off. But don't just reject it just because you know you don't like it really think about it think about what is the best account of the foundation of reality and if you're a naturalist it seems from my point of view that you are going to have to build in certain arbitrary limits what do you say Then it looks like a dependent thing. Like it needs some outside explanation, but it can't have an outside explanation because it's the foundation of all reality. And so you're going to run into this contradiction.

If you start to limit what this thing knows or what it can do. And so ultimately I think we do sort of have to just go back to the, the classical conception of, of God unlimited, unlimited in value, unlimited in power, unlimited in knowledge, unlimited in goodness.

And we're going to run into the divine conception of God. Another thing to tag onto this is that an arbitrary cutoff or a limit is going to needlessly add to the thing's complexity. So when you add in this idea that, oh, well, the foundational theory of everything can only create 20 universes,

that's making the theory more complex. Yeah, because you ask why. You're stipulating something that it can do. It requires more concepts in essence. So what Josh does is he builds a theory that is the simplest theory that you can even imagine it says this is the simplest theory it explains everything it doesn't run into this problem where dependent things part of the reason why we know they're dependent things because they have these

limits this theory avoids all of these problems and the theory is just that the foundation is perfect and it avoids everything and it's the simplest because you don't have any arbitrary cutoffs in value or in power or in knowledge it's perfect it has unlimited of all of these things yeah it'd be like going back to a scientific example it would be more complex to say, oh, well, gravity works everywhere in the universe, but in the Andromeda galaxy. Like that's a needlessly complex hypothesis. Why would you do that?

You would just say gravity works everywhere. That's simpler. It's easier to understand the concept is gravity works everywhere. There's not some random cutoff in where gravity works, but I want, I want the audience to really think about this. It's not just me giving this argument. I want them to think about it for themselves. Here's a question. Someone will say, okay, well, if this thing is unlimited, uh, it would have the power to be you presumably to, uh, I wouldn't say that that's

a power to be, to be, yeah, to be someone else. It also depends on what you mean. Because it's, some people will say that this sounds a power. To be you? Yeah, to be someone else. It also depends on what you mean. Because some people will say that this sounds like it's getting dangerously close to pantheism, right? That there's this thing that runs throughout all of existence that may very well be existence, that is sustaining everything. And that maybe this is just a good argument for pantheism. That there is this necessary being. Is the universe. Do you mean? Yeah, maybe that is what I being which is the universe do you mean yeah maybe maybe that is what i mean that is the universe is god sorry okay so by that's where terminology

can sometimes be unhelpful because you can call it natural you can call it supernatural you can call this thing the universe if you want to you can call it a perfect being whatever you want to call it i think we're still going to run into these issues. So you're still going to run into the fact that we need an independent foundation of all reality. That was stage one. And then you're going to run into the fact of if you start to give this thing limits in what it can do, what it can know, these are going to be arbitrary. First of all, they seem to require some deeper explanation, but there can't be a deeper explanation so you're going to run into these issues no matter what you want to call it or so that i guess that's that's ultimately

where it's going to come back to okay whatever you want to call this thing that's an interesting way i mean if that works and i look forward to getting this book it sounds well yeah and even josh says that like some people will say oh well a supernatural thing is over and above it's unnecessary it's needlessly complex and so what he, well, let's just call it natural. Yeah. Let's just call God a natural thing. Yeah. It's really just about terminology.

It's like we're talking about the same thing. You want to call it supernatural or natural, or you can call it whatever you want, but we're still ultimately going to have to talk about the same thing. I like that, because supernatural for many is a pejorative term anyway. Yeah. And so you don't even need to bring that baggage in. I hate that distinction.

I think it's so unhelpful. Basically what people do is they take things that we no longer believe and call those supernatural. So it is pejorative. It's like purely pejorative. Interesting. But no, we don't believe in ghosts and fairies. And so those are supernatural. And so we don't believe in those.

And so what you're doing is you're doing the same thing. With God. Yeah. But I want to read this book because as you say, that could be a way to close the gap. I just need to read it a bit more about why limits point to something being. Yeah, it is very abstract and I'm not,

don't try to, if you're, if your goal is trying to convince me of it now, it'll be a very long episode where I'm like, yeah, thank, but don't do it. No,

because I think you've done a good job explaining it. Okay. I just need to think about it more. I need time alone to think about that. Yeah. So here here's here's another thing that we could do at this point so i talked earlier about a construction problem where you can't get an independent reality out of purely dependent things because you don't have the right building blocks in the same way you can't build a fire out of water okay and what he what he argues is that there are certain features of reality like consciousness where you can't do the same you basically run into a construction error and so what he wants

to do is build consciousness into the foundation of reality so you can basically do the same kind of strategy see that well actually you can't get a conscious being out of purely non-conscious materials just because we know that that's like that's a construction error it'd be like trying to build a fire out of water you don't have the right building building blocks suppose that you were looking around here and the dust in the air had took the same shape as all of your neurons that were firing in your brain like Like the dust wouldn't suddenly become conscious because even if you have the right shape or the right structure,

you don't have the right building blocks. You need something that is sort of already conscious. And so he takes those types of arguments and introduces them in the book. That's really good. The other thing I like about this argument is that it avoids a lot of the sort of Aristotelian jargon that aquinas uses um so that's one and i'm not saying that's a detriment to aquinas's arguments except that when you're trying to present them to a

modern person you have to explain accidents and substance and essence and all that and it also doesn't have the stigma that the kalam argument has when people like yeah i've already heard it's ridiculous been refuted a thousand times. You're like, well, has it? But okay. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Yeah.

And just for the audience sake, we are very barely scratching the surface. Fantastic. Of this argument. So tell us more about this Josh bloke. What's his name? Once you say it. Josh Rasmussen.

I'm never going to forget it again. It's locked in the vault. Rasmussen. Really? Josh Rasmussen. I didn't know your brain worked like that. I don't know if it does either. We'll see in five you can ask me again but no i mean i keep saying josh ratty matacha josh rasmutin cool that's awesome you send you already forgot it don't you said rasmussen yeah you said rasmutin did i gosh you did so my

brain does not work like that evidently um i am not perfect in knowledge um or memory you have limits i have limits. I have limits. I must be dependent. You are dependent. That's cool. Because in my interview with Dr. William Lane Craig, he mentioned him, didn't he? He did. Were you surprised that he did that?

No, I wasn't surprised. Does Josh, is Josh aware of that? Josh is very flattering. He is. He's aware of it. But he also has met Craig a bunch. And this is an interesting story from Josh, is that the first time that he met Dr. Craig, I think he may have been an agnostic or a deist at the time. Josh?

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, he was agnostic for a while. Atheist. He may have even been an atheist. And this argument is the thing that brought him back to the fold, so to speak. Golly. Yeah.

And it's worked on me, too. If you want to call, I mean, I didn't go away. I've always been here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's really brought me to call, I mean, I didn't go away. I've always been here, but it's really brought me to the level of confidence that I have now. This is great. I mean, not all Christians need to be apologists. Not all Christians need to be wrestling with these deep philosophical questions. It's important that some do so that they can help us explain it to others, I think. But I think if nothing else, it kind of, because people will often point to it and say, what's the point of it? There's no reason, but yeah, it kind of, it, it buoys you up when you have those sort of

irrational doubts. Right. It shores you up. Exactly. Yeah. It can work. It can work to, to sort of put your irrational doubts to. Yeah.

So this is, I was going to tell a story about Josh and Dr. Craig. He was, as, as he was an agnostic or an atheist, he went up to Dr. Craig and he had all of these objections to the Kalam. And Josh is very intelligent. And Craig said that on his podcast. He's like, or on your podcast. Did he call him Scary Smart? Or was that just what he called him?

I forget. I think he called Alex Proust Scary Smart. That's right, yeah. Yeah, but I think Josh falls into the same category. He's just, Josh is a little bit more docile. He just very super friendly so he doesn't come across that way yeah anyways josh if you're watching this i love you so he says uh he went up to dr craig and he was going to give him all of these like knockdown arguments against the kalam yeah and i wanted to point out that he josh is super smart so he has like his objections were not going to be terrible right and he had a discussion with craig and he came away and craig responded to all of his arguments against the

kalam and that really built like rapport with with josh he was like there's a lot more going on with dr craig than meets the eye because all you see with dr craig is like his debates and his public three two premises conclusions yeah and you don't realize how much is going on beneath the surface. He's very unassuming. You might say like an iceberg. Like an iceberg. Exactly. Well, that's amazing. Yeah. But no, Josh is, Josh is great. He and I have become friends over the past couple of years. And I would love to get him on this show. He also has a, a YouTube channel called worldview design. Okay. So if people want to check him out, he's on YouTube. I think he's at about a little over 1,000 subscribers, so he needs a lot of help.

Okay, yeah. Remind me if we don't, but it would be good to put a link in the show notes to Josh since we're talking about so much. I'm sure he'd love to come on and chat with you too. I'd be honored. Let's talk a little bit about proper basicality, reformed epistemology, which is interesting because in Plantinga's work on Christian warrant, what's that called? Warranted Christian belief. Warranted Christian belief.

He calls it, do you know this, Thomistic Calvin model? And that really surprised me because Aquinas states emphatically that one can come to know God exists apart from divine revelation. This is something you can know. So you don't need faith to know God exists. Though you can have faith if you're not smart enough like me and you don't have the time perhaps to investigate these things to your liking. But I was surprised that he mentioned Aquinas. And so I actually went in and tried to find where Aquinas talked about this. I found a few places.

So I'd like to kind of bring some of that up in a minute. Go for it. Yeah. Because should I kind of introduce why this is all relevant? Tell us what it is. Yeah. So Reformed epistemology is a view that sort of came out of this time when everyone was thinking, you've got to have arguments for your belief in God, otherwise you're not rational.

And so what Plantinga did, and this was revolutionary back when it happened, back in the 70s, is he said, actually, we can be skeptical about that premise. And so the argument basically runs like this. If you have a rational belief in God, then you need arguments. Premise two, there are no good arguments for theism. And then the conclusion, so you're not rational, basically. And so most people, most theists, most Christians have been responding to that second premise. The second premise says there are no good arguments for God's existence or for Christianity. So most theists have been looking at that second premise saying,

oh no, there are good arguments, there is good evidence for Christianity. And so what Plantinga did is he looked at that first premise. He said, well hey, it's not actually true that if you have a rational belief in God, then you need arguments. What he says is that's not true. If you have a rational belief in God, then you need arguments. What he says is that's not true. And the reason why is because on his view, depends on what you, we would have to probably get a little bit more clear on what we're looking at here.

Because in epistemology, there's different kinds of properties that we could be talking about. And one of them is called justification. So someone is justified in their belief. Actually, in philosophy, there's a bunch of different views on justification, too. And tell me if I'm giving too many caveats as we're just starting this. Maybe a little too many. Okay, we're giving too many caveats as we're starting this.

Yep. But the point is, the basic overall picture is that we don't need arguments in order to have a rationally justified belief in God. And so the way that he does it, we can get into in a little bit. How about that? Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good.

But that's the basic overall picture. Why don't we talk about some other things that are sort of properly basic? What does properly basic mean? And what are some examples of properly basic beliefs? Okay. So proper basic, properly basic belief, we probably need to split that term into two. So, so let's put aside the proper part of it for a second and just think about what a basic belief is. Basic belief is a belief that is not based on other beliefs that

you have. So here's a, here's one example. So suppose that I go to the casino and I just find myself believing my next role or my next play, I'm going to become a millionaire. Suppose I just have that belief. Okay. That belief wouldn't be based on anything deeper. So it'd be a basic belief. It wouldn't be based on some deeper belief. But that wouldn't be a rational belief. So it wouldn't be properly basic.

So a properly basic belief is a basic belief that is just rational to hold. Thank you for that distinction. Yeah. I wasn't aware of that before. So the proper part of it, I can give another example of that. Suppose that you're experiencing pain. Someone punched you in the arm. You just start hurting your leg.

What was it? I was chasing a friend at the botanical gardens. Super manly. Cool. So you hurt your leg and you find yourself believing, I'm in a lot of pain. Yep. That is not based on some deeper belief or some deeper argument. But in that context, since you're experiencing pain, completely rational, completely, yeah, perfectly, you're justified in

that belief. And so that would be a properly basic belief. But then you hear of these people who are amputees and have these sort of phantom scratches. Oh, right, right. That would be a basic belief that isn't proper. So on that one, you would say that it's not proper because you'd have a defeater for that belief. So this would introduce like you can have a properly basic belief as something that is justified in case you don't have some kind of defeater that could potentially come and defeat it. So a defeater is just some other reason that you have to think that belief is false. So looking down and seeing that you're an amputee

and you don't have the rest of your arm would count as a defeater of your belief. And so it would no longer be properly basic. It would still be a your belief and so it would no longer be properly basic it'd still be a basic belief but it would no longer be properly basic because you have a and this is different i guess it's not that you're not rational to have this experience there's there's sort of neurological reasons people have this experience but if you were to conclude i must have fingers because that's where i feel the itch and it wouldn't be properly basic it would be you could still have that as a basic belief, not based on any deeper belief. Okay.

But it wouldn't be rational for you to continue believing that. Or you wouldn't be justified. Now, I already mentioned this earlier, and we haven't talked about this, and I assume you're the kind of guy who would find this interesting. When I was about 15 years old, I went through this terrifying period where I was skeptical that other people existed i've never met anyone but like that yeah and it's not to say i came to hold that belief so i wasn't a solipsist i certainly didn't claim i didn't even know what that word was i remember i was like 15 years old and i would

shut this isn't exactly the same but i would shut the door to my bedroom and then wonder if everything outside of my bedroom disappeared like maybe it all fell into the void and was nothing i quickly opened it to see if i could catch it how old were you 15 and i remember once like how do i know my friend gareth and rowan who i would hang out with at school how do i know they exist right now like i i guess you could tell me they were doing something. Maybe I could call them, but maybe they came into existence when I called them. Or maybe they don't exist, but this experience is leading me to think that. And I thought, well, maybe they don't exist. Like, maybe it's some sort of an illusion.

And I hadn't thought it through. I didn't try to make it rational or give a good explanation for why it was the case. Because, again, it's not that I why it was the case because again it's not that i thought it was the case i was just afraid that it was yeah i remember sitting with my friend gareth in the library and actually saying to him like sometimes like i'm afraid other people don't exist like i'm afraid you don't exist and he said to me he must have been afraid for me because he's like okay but i like i promise i do and i'm like but that's what you would say so there you go you've now met somebody who actually struggled with with that belief it's fair dinkum true yeah

but this gets to the point because we look around and we see other human beings but we don't see their minds if we were to not that we would crack their head open we might see their brain we're still not seeing their minds they might be very sophisticated robots that look like humans. And I can't know that directly, but I assume it to be true. Is this an example of a properly basic belief, the existence of other minds? I would say yes, it would be an example of a properly basic belief. You can, I think that very few of our beliefs are actually the result of some like argument or some process that you went through.

Like who my parents are. Right, exactly. Where you were born. The fact that I am in Georgia right now. Totally. That is not based on an argument. I just, I believe that. Or if you were to formulate an argument,

it would be based on premises you can't prove. Well, this is one thing to point out is that a basic belief can turn into a non-basic belief if you just sort of focus your attention on it and be like, well, wait a second. I probably need to have some argument for why this belief is true. Oh, I see. And so you can turn a basic belief into a non-basic belief. Gotcha. but in our everyday lives and our everyday experience most of our beliefs are the basic kind where they're not like what about this like i it's possible you tell me what this belief is this is just fun it's possible that neil is a russian spy that has been sent here from russia to assure the next election or something that's possible i have no good reason to think that it's true

but if i was to say that to you and you were trying to convince me that he was a russian spy you would say well wouldn't you think that would be the case like of course you wouldn't think that if he's the legit russian spy or maybe my wife is a russian spy and she's just pretending to love me yeah i would just say that that's not a properly basic belief so it'd be it'd be basic but there would be but i'd be my point is I'm justified at taking him at his word. I'm justified... If he told you that? No, I'm justified at thinking he's not a Russian spy.

Oh, okay. I'm justified in thinking you're Cameron Bertuzzi and that you have a brother called Trevor, even though I have no other way of knowing that. Right, even though all you have is my testimony. That's right. You're just telling you. So would testimony be an example of basic belief if you say something

and I accept it? So the way that I think about it, the way that it works in my mind is you can have something like testimony, but you're not building an argument in your mind of like,

oh, well, the best explanation of why this person told me this is that it's true. Yeah. All that's happening is they're telling you something and you immediately find yourself believing. This is really really helpful to me thank you for showing me that a

properly basic or basic belief can become an unbasic belief by reflecting upon it i never made that connection before and that really helps yeah well planning a point set out to okay a basic belief that you have can turn into a non-basic give us the example of the reality of the past i find this fascinating too okay so the reality of the past. I find this fascinating too. Okay. So the reality of the past, imagine that, and this is actually kind of difficult for some people to think about, but it's possible that the past is illusory,

that it's all an illusion that sort of came up in your brain. Or even began to exist five minutes ago. It began to exist with the appearance of age five minutes ago. Food in our stomachs we haven't yet digested rusting cars crumbling mountains the whole thing's baked it started like that and it just appears real yes all of your memories everything it just appears

that it's older than it is that's interesting some young earth creationists actually believe i know yeah but anyways uh so let's take that theory. What's your best argument against that theory? That's great. What was my best argument? I haven't even thought about that. I guess if you were just to kind of pull me off the street and say that, my best argument would be, it doesn't seem that way and you don't have a positive reason for it. Yeah. So you'd say you would basically fall back on how things seem to you yeah yeah and so you're gonna have to sort of with this and i would this belief in particular you'd have to fall back on something like this is this is just a basic belief that i have it just seems obvious it seems

obvious to me to me that the past is real suppose i trusted you and you're like no dude really listen to me i'd be like okay well then you're have to give me more, like give me a reason to think you're right. And if you couldn't, I would say, well, you're, you're not this. I can't go with you there. There's no good reason to think that the past is illusory. Therefore I'm going to go on believing what seems apparent to me. Yeah. Right. Right. And so there's a whole lot of things that are at play in this when we actually look at some of the details, but there's an example that I really like to think about a lot. And this is another one from Alvin planning a is he, he says,

well, suppose that you the night before were up late reading some book on Aquinas say, and the next day you're accused of murder. And they say that you murdered somebody the night before. Yeah. But you know that you didn't commit the murder. You know that you were sitting at home reading Thomas Aquinas.

But then suppose that they start to give you some good evidence. Like maybe they say that your fingerprint was found at the crime scene and maybe there's some like blood on your pants or something that they found in your home. on your pants or something that they found in your home. And what he says is that you would still completely be within your rights to believe that you were not the murderer because you remember what you did last night and you were reading your book. And so even in the face of potential counter evidence, the rational proper thing to do not in every circumstance but in some circumstances is to go on believing what seems to you to be the case and we also know that like you know evidence can be fabricated you can fabricate dna no that's good because my first thought was i guess if enough

evidence was compiled and shown to me i would begin to question my own sanity right yeah no it's yeah so his but then i would have to say well do i. Right, yeah, no, it's, yeah, so his... But then I would have to say, well, do I have any good reason to think I'm mentally unsound? Because if I don't have any good reason to think that, then that would be another point in my favor. So this is where defeaters can come in. So he's really open to the fact that you can have a defeater

come in and sort of defeat your basic belief as being no longer properly basic. But it depends on the situation, how much evidence that would require, how sure you are that you were really there the night before reading Thomas Aquinas. So we'd have to look at the particulars of the case. So you can't just say in every circumstance, it would be rational for you to continue believing what seems to you to be the case. But in certain circumstances, I think it is, you can have a lot of counter evidence and it just, bro, that's not enough.

Like I can have a lot of evidence that we're in the matrix or someone could, could give me a lot of evidence that we were in the matrix. And I'd be like, bro, you're crazy. Like, I don't care if you think you have evidence that the external world is fake, but I'm not going to believe that. Like, it really seems to me to be the case that the external world is real. It really seems to me to be a case that the past is not an illusion, that it was, that it was real, you know, that I was born in 1987 and I've been around for that length of time. Like, it really seems like that's, so in some cases that that's, what's really interesting about this view. And to sort of bring out some of some of the thoughts that you don't necessarily have to have an argument for all of your beliefs.

And sometimes you're seeming your basic belief can defeat arguments or potential counter evidence to your belief. And to be rational, there's a whole process that needs to happen. You got to weigh both sides and so it's not just like this thing that's you're not always going to be rational in saying well you know that counter evidence is not enough but in some circumstances it will be okay so then bring this to theism what what about god and our experience of god what's planning his argument here so planning is planning his view is that just like we do with other minds, typically like when I'm thinking or looking at my wife or interacting with her, I believe that my wife, she has her own mind, she has her own thoughts and intentions and desires.

And I've never, never based my belief that my wife has a mind on some argument. Like I've never done that. All right. And so it's supposed like, let's think about the objection that we had earlier, the argument. If belief in Brittany's mind is rational, then you need arguments. There are no good arguments that Brittany has a mind and the conclusion. Therefore you shouldn't believe that, that Brittany has a mind. So I actually agree with number two, there are no good arguments that other people have minds.

And this is one thing that Alvin planet, he's got a whole book on it where he basically shows that the arguments that people have offered over the centuries for belief and for, yeah, for the conclusion that people have minds really and it's not just like philosophical zombies running around everywhere yeah those arguments are actually not very good arguments and so you can agree with that second premise but then you would just reject the first one that if i'm rational and believing that britney has a

mind then i have to have arguments you don't have to have arguments who says you have to have arguments and so using that analogy he says well we can basically do the same thing with God. So we don't necessarily have to have arguments for this belief. Just like I don't need arguments to believe that my wife has a mind. It's obvious to me. And that seems perfectly rational in the absence of a defeater. Like I don't have a defeater. I'm not in possession of a reason to think that my wife doesn't have a mind. And so I should believe that my't have a defeater i'm not in possession of a reason to think that my wife doesn't have a mind and so i should believe that my my wife has a mind i'm not in possession of a defeater of my belief in christianity or in god's existence and so therefore

i have no reason to to reject it i'm perfectly justified and rational and warranted in maintaining this belief i could see why the atheist would think this might be something of a cheeky move because it seems to kind of allow you to believe what you want to believe without an argument. And then you are in the position of saying to the atheist, well, give me a reason to think God does not exist. Now, we should make some things clear. If somebody says, to think God does not exist. Now, we should make some things clear. If somebody says, I think I have a properly basic belief in God's existence, this isn't an argument for God's existence.

Right. And so if it were, then you would have to offer evidences or something, or an argument. So if I want to convince you of God's existence, then I do need an argument. I can't just appeal to my properly basic belief, right? Right. But this is actually a really important thing to raise here. So this goes back to planning his whole project.

His whole idea was not to give an argument for Christianity or even an argument that Christians are justified or are rational or are warranted. That was never the goal. rational or are warranted, that was never the goal. The goal is to show that de facto, and I'll explain what these terms mean, de facto objections against Christianity. Well, let me back up. There are no de jure objections against Christianity that don't sort of reduce to de facto objections. So a de facto objection against Christianity would be an argument that Christianity is false. De facto, I guess that's Latin. The argument there would be an argument that Christianity is false. De facto, I guess that's Latin. The argument there would be that Christianity is false. What he says is that there's no, well, let me back up and explain what de jure means.

De jure is an argument that this person is not rational in their belief. And so what he says is that if you want to argue that the Christian is irrational or unjustified or unwarranted in their belief in God's existence, is irrational or unjustified or unwarranted in their belief in God's existence, you can't stay on the level of rationality or justification. You've got to move to the level of fact. You've got to argue that Christianity is false. And the way that he does this is he gives basically two conditional statements. The first conditional is, if God exists, then Christian belief can be warranted. If God exists, then Christianity can be warranted. And the second conditional is if God does not exist, then probably belief in God is not warranted. So the whole strategy is to sort of...

I think I'd quibble with both of those to understand them a little more okay yeah so it's it's sort of based on his his outworking uh and this is i was giving these i was trying to give some of these um clarifying words and use a lot more epistemology jargon at the beginning because it does it is eventually going to come into play yeah and maybe maybe we'll get into it maybe we won't don't be afraid to use it yeah but uh so so the idea i would say if christ if the christian god exists yeah then we have then we can have belief in god can be properly basic yeah right right right but the christian god might not exist but god might still exist in which, you might be able to say the belief in some sort of mind outside of us that created the world and sustains it. You might be able to say that is probably basic, but not that Christ rose from the dead and that he lives in my heart and all that stuff.

So the Christian in this circumstance is not saying that Christian belief is warranted or is justified or is rational. They're saying it can be, it can be. And that's where this sort of conditional statement comes in. And it's really just about showing that the atheist has a lot more work to do. If they want to say that the Christian is in fact irrational or unjustified in her belief, then they've got to argue that Christianity is false. or unjustified in her belief, then they've got to argue that Christianity is false.

Because if Christianity is true, then Christians can have warrant. They can have justification if you accept that conditional statement. I like it. Yeah, it makes sense. Which Plantinga defends in his book. You know, another thing to point out is many of us have gotten into this where we've begun binging Dr. William and Craig debates. And maybe after this, they're going to go listen to Josh Rasmussen. And they're going to start reading his books and seeing his exchanges.

It is possible, right, to become so hung up on debates and weighing the evidences for and against that it gets in the way of your relationship with God. for and against, that it gets in the way of your relationship with God in the same way that if I were to start doing a deep dive into solipsism, this would get in the way of my relationship with my wife and kids. Yep. And I think there's- Like, what is the best argument that your wife has a mind and loves you? If I started doing that, I wouldn't be- like, I wouldn't take her on a- I might take her on a date night, but it would just be to see if she was actually real and had a mind and

stuff. Do you see? Like, it could potentially ruin my relationships with those I hold most dear. Likewise, I think someone can become so obsessed with arguments and evidences for God's existence in Christianity that it could, you know, maybe ruin or at least hamper one's relationship with Christ. I agree. Yeah. I totally agree. I've noticed that in my own life, my own walk too.

Have you? Can I read a bit about what Thomas Aquinas says? So this, he says something in the Summa Theologiae about it. That's his main work. We're resting our mics on two of the versions there. And then he has another work called the Summa Contra Gentiles or a summary of the faith against the Gentiles, which is more apologetic in nature.

So it's really fun. But his, why don't I start reading it and then we can kind of pause and see what we think. He says, there is a certain and general and vague knowledge of God in the minds of practically all men, whether it be by the fact of God's existence being a self-evident truth as some think, he doesn't, or as seems more likely because natural reasoning leads a man promptly to some sort of knowledge of God. For men, seeing that natural things follow a certain course and order and further considering that order cannot be without an ordainer they perceive generally that there is some ordainer of the things which we see but who or what manner of being the ordainer of nature is and whether he be one or many cannot be gathered offhand from this slight study he says more but

i don't want to bore everybody by reading directly from aquinas yeah so that seems perfectly in line with what planning argues that i think what he's he's targeting is it's general theistic belief yeah that's right not specific that's right that's what i wanted to dive into so planning uh planning it has a whole chapter where he basically looks at the aquinas calvin model is what he calls it where you have this sort of generic belief about God, and that can be perfectly rational, warranted, justified without arguments. It can be properly basic. It can be. And again, the emphasis is on can be. It's possible that they can have this kind of warrant.

And yeah. But then he has another chapter where he extends the model to include beliefs about the the the great truths of the christian faith and the way that he does that is he introduces the witness of the holy spirit and this is i think more calvin at this point that's my understanding calvin i'm actually not sure on the history of what what calvin argued in terms of the in terms of whether or not christian belief in particular can be justified apart from arguments. But either way, Plantinga extends the model to include the witness of the Holy Spirit, which would work the same way that testimony works more generally.

We used an example earlier. What was the example that we used of testimony? If you told me something... Yeah, you would accept it. I would just accept it. If I told you, I grew up in Australia, but I was born in Russia, you'd be like, oh, cool. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

If I had good reason to think that you weren't lying and you're a trustworthy person, I didn't think you were joking, then that's what I would find myself believing. And it would be perfectly within, you know, it'd be perfectly rational for me to believe that. So the same thing could be true of Christianity. So the witness of the Holy Spirit could confirm in our hearts and seal it on our hearts, so to speak, that the great truths of the gospel are in fact true as we're reading through the word or as it's being preached to us. And so that's the way to sort of extend his version of the model to the great Christian truths. And you don't necessarily have to go

with him on this extended model. You could just stick with the generic theistic. Yeah, Aquinas seems more modest. I mean, there might be a lot that I'm not reading in Aquinas, but what I'm seeing seems to be more of a general and vague sense of God that we have. And it's interesting because he actually uses the existence of other people as an eye. He kind of connects it to, listen to this, Thus seeing a man move and do other acts, we perceive that there is in him a cause of these activities,

which is not in other things make up and this cause we call the soul and still we do not yet know what the soul is whether it is anything corporeal or not or how it performs the aforesaid acts now such knowledge as this cannot possibly suffice for happiness and he goes on for happiness must be an activity without defect and maybe i'll stop there but that's that's a really interesting thing like i see you kind of makes that i kind of infer a mind even if i don't really know what a mind is i infer it if you ask me to explain it whether it's physical or not i might not know how to do that likewise i look around the world and i see you know that things seem to act for an end that's good. They seem ordered, orderly. And I just sort of come to

this belief in some sort of ordainer. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think that, I think Plantinga acknowledges that in the book. He realizes that Aquinas is not trying to go all the way to all of these specific Christian beliefs and saying that those can be properly basic. Because I could see another thing Christians would run into, a problem they would run into if they wanted to push that too far. You would say, well, if that were the case, then Christians ought to be a whole lot more unified in what they believe than they are. If they want to say that the reason they believe Christ rose from the dead and that hell exists, whatever doctrine you want to slip in there, you can be as modest or as liberal as you want. But if you wanted to push it the whole way, you'd run into a problem, I would think.

You would just have to look around and say, well, all these Christians who disagree with me aren't being influenced by the Holy Spirit properly. Yeah, I would just... The thing that initially comes to my mind would be that sin actually plays a part in the whole planning of strategy. And so sin could explain some disagreement on some level. And maybe you could explain

disagreement some other way maybe you wouldn't have to appeal to sin some just like some innate thing that we all have that yeah bias and whatever else now what what in your experience what has been the atheist objection to this one one popular i mean you raised it earlier was just that this seems like you're just trying to defend something that you grew up believing and you can basically use the same strategy. Well, actually, the best. Let me start over. Let me start over. Sure.

Yeah. from atheists about this is it was, why can't the Mormon or someone else use the same strategy in order to justify their beliefs about Mormonism or Buddhism or Hinduism or whatever? And so one of the things that I like to point out with this is, again, we're not arguing that Christians are actually justified or actually warranted in their beliefs. We're just saying that this is a possibility. And so if you want to argue that the Christian is actually irrational, is actually unjustified, then you've got to argue that Christianity is false. That's literally the whole goal of this argument. Gotcha. So if you're trying to make it do something that it was never intended to do, then you're trying to go further than the argument ever intended to go. So that's one point. The second point is that I think that people can

have justified false beliefs. And I think that's perfectly fine. Yeah. So the Russia example, would that be an example? Like if I told you I was born in Russia and grew up in Australia, that would be a justified false belief, wouldn't it? Yeah, it'd be a justified false belief. One example that I like to give a lot is belief that the earth was flat before we had evidence that the earth is round. Pretty much everybody thought the earth was flat and based on their experience of the world, it was a completely justified belief for them to have, even though it was false. But people are very averse to that.

They don't want to accept that people can have justified false beliefs. But I think that's wrong. to accept that people can have justified false beliefs. But I think that's wrong. I think that we've got to acknowledge that even though it's false to us, they could have some level of justification. And so at that point, all that we would do is just talk to them about the truth. Well, it's the same thing with my kids. I mean, we talk about the sun setting and the sun rising, and you ask a child what's happening, they would say, I guess the sun goes up and down. And they would probably come to the conclusion that the sun goes around the earth, which would be a justified false belief. Right. And so at that point, what we would do is present them with a defeater for their belief.

And so that if we wanted to progress the conversation, we'd acknowledge, yes, they can't have a justified, they can't have a justified belief in this. That's fine. But then we offer them a defeater and we talk to them and say, well, this is why your belief is false. So it's not that difficult of an objection to get around in my view. Very good. What else do you want to talk about? I don't know.

What do you want to talk about? I don't know. I feel like we've done pretty good. D&D, contingency, proper basicality. We haven't talked about anxiety. Oh, let's do that. You wanted to talk about that. Yeah, we haven't talked about anxiety a whole lot. Yeah. How do we get into that? I mean, you said you wanted to talk about anxiety,

and I'm glad that you want to, because you said we don't talk about it enough in kind of Christian circles. So, yeah, take the lead. Why do you want to talk about it? Well, like you said, I don't think it's talked about enough and I don't have anything prepared on this. I just want to talk about it. Sure. And this could be therapeutic for me. I don't know.

It might be helpful for me too. Yeah, maybe. Because everyone's talking about anxiety today and it makes me wonder if it's kind of the same way everyone talked about being allergic to peanuts five minutes ago and whether I want to believe them or not. You know what I mean? Like we're all allergic to gluten all of a sudden,

that kind of thing. Like are you though? Or is it just something that- Yeah, you know what I mean? Like we're all allergic to gluten all of a sudden, that kind of thing. Like, are you though? Or is it just something that- Yeah. And what do we mean by anxiety? So you struggle with anxiety, is that- Apparently I do. Yeah.

And what was your experience like that? How do you know that you do? And what does anxiety really mean? I actually don't really- I'm not terribly sure what people mean by that. That is a good question. And I'm like- I don't mean to be- I'm not trying to turn people mean by that. That is a good question. And I'm like, I don't mean to be, I'm not trying to turn this into a philosophical discussion.

Is it just a sort of like a fear? Is that what it is? Yeah, it could be a fear, but I think what it does is it activates your fight or flight mechanism. And so, yeah, if you get super anxious or super nervous about something, your body basically,

and that's what panic attacks are, is your body's like automatically wanting to like run away from the situation and your heart rate starts to increase because like you think that there's some kind of threat nearby or whatever. Like there's a lot of evolutionary stuff going on. Yeah. Biology wise, whether or not you believe in evolution doesn't, doesn't matter.

I'm just saying that there's, there's biological stuff happening that can contribute to everything and that's that's actually some something that's really important is that a lot of times we think that doubts are just based on reason and rationality but what i've learned through this process is that sometimes our doubts can be driven by something else by some by anxiety and so we think that we're having this rational doubt about Christianity, but really what's going on is some, it could even be like a chemical imbalance in your brain that's causing you to doubt and causing you not to think rationally about something. There's a thing in the anxiety literature called catastrophizing. And that's, that's what I do.

That's Cameron. He's talking about anxiety. I'm pretty sure you're gonna sit around he's probably describing me sure catastrophizing what's that catastrophizing is when all you can think about is one remote possibility and that's all you can you're just assessing about it yeah i don't know if that's me it's like what if the tree and you can't see the forest my problem is yeah you know how people say you can't see the trees from the forest or something? My problem is I can't see the forest from the trees. So I'll find, like, if I'm in a good mood, things are going well, this tree, if this tree is wellness, then I am really happy. But if my wife and I get into an argument, everything is going up in flames and I cannot see. So I kind of micro...

Yeah, that doesn't sound like catastrophizing okay so necessarily yeah yeah so that's some other issue what's this one so catastrophizing would be that you're just thinking like you're thinking about all these bad consequences of what could happen like if something else could be true if christianity is false then oh my god that's like the worst thing in the world and it's just super super bad that, that would cause all of this anxiety for you. And it causes like this loop of anxiety. Yeah. But what I've come to realize is that sometimes your doubts or you're like, what ifs are driven, they can be driven by your own chemistry, your body chemistry. They can be driven by your, your own bad behaviors that you sort of built up over the years

and the reason why i've come to that conclusion is because when people are treated with medication they somehow they like their doubts start start to stop controlling them anymore there was a philosopher friend of mine who dealt really bad with ocd and it like any what if it didn't matter like it didn't have anything to do with god's existence or anything. It was just like, what if I leave my house and like a meteor comes and strikes me down and like that enough, that enough can like cripple him to like not go outside and just like lock himself in his room and not do anything. And so he started taking medication and found that helpful. Exactly. So he wasn't crippled by these doubts, these what ifs anymore. How is this part of your story then? Is it, it did something it's part of my story because i went down the the

medication route and i it helped a little bit but now i'm doing something else that's now helping and it's it's called cognitive behavioral therapy and it's not i'm not doing like cherry cherry did jerry talk to you about that last night no he didn't okay i think that's his thing but i'm not doing it officially i'm just i'm sort of doing my own things that i've discovered that are helping so non this is non-medicinal stuff it's non no it's non-medicinal right now right but the point is is that i've found that if you've built up and it sometimes it's just chemistry sometimes just brain chemistry that's causing all of these things and that sometimes need to be needs to be treated by medication. But other times it's just bad behaviors. Like you're just focused, you're letting your brain focus on this, this one, what if this one catastrophe that could happen and you get in the cycle of like,

oh, all of this anxiety just continues to build and build and build. And so what cognitive behavioral therapy does is it stops that cycle because it says, where do you start to go off the track? You're not allowed to continue thinking about that. You got to change your behavior. Like one of the things that I deal with is health anxiety. And this, this all happened very recently for me, health, health stuff. I was, I was never conscious of my health when I was growing up, but it all happened fairly recently back in September when I had my first panic attack on my way to work. Tell me what that was like, if you don't mind, because I've never had it. And people explain them to me.

I'm like, gosh, that sounds. Oh, I never had one. So I didn't know what it was. So what was what was happening? What does it feel like? I was on my way to work and one of my co-workers text me and it just said, hey, are you on your way or something about the day? And that was enough to like trigger it.

Because at the time I was dealing with a lot of stress at work. Didn't want to be there. They didn't want me there. and they eventually let me go like a month later after it happened so it was it was a really bad situation it was causing me a ton of stress tons of anxiety so on my way to work i get this text and i just feel like anxiety like normal anxiety but like a tightening in the body that sort of thing just like my hands start to get clammy and my heart my heart rate kind of picks up a little bit. Everybody experiences something different. Yeah. But as I was going on my way to work, I felt like this rush of blood through my feet and through my hands.

And then my heart started like pounding in my chest. And I thought I was having a heart attack. I was like, I have no idea what's happening. And it was like a cycle. Like I would have that. I would have the rushing feeling that my heart would start pounding and it would go away. And then maybe a minute later it started again. And the whole cycle started to repeat. And that was a panic attack. I learned later, I like immediately turned around and went to the hospital and they

checked me out and put EKGs all over me and everything. And they said, no, you're fine. Your heart looks good. Everything looks fine. So it was just a panic attack, but that was the first time I ever experienced anything like that. Wow. Wow. So, and since then I've had more panic attacks. Apparently once you've had one, it's a lot easier to have more. Man, that's unfortunate. Yeah. It's unfair. And I never, I, like I said, before that, that happened, I happened i never had um what am i trying to say i didn't deal with health anxiety before it happened but after it happened i really started to think oh my gosh you know i have kids now what would have happened if i did just die on my way to work and so that started this catastrophizing health anxiety, all this stuff. What I realized is eventually over time after reading some books and starting to go through some of the literature on anxiety was that some of the behaviors that I was doing was completely just like making everything worse.

And so what I was doing was I would get on Google and anytime I had a new symptom of something, I would get on Google and be like, okay, what is this new symptom? And that I learned later on. That's my, that's one of my triggers is so I got, so I eventually stopped doing that. Even though like, I don't know what this new thing is. Like I have this new pain in my back or my new, this new pain in my chest or my arm or whatever. I'm like, this has got to be something like I have cancer now in this area of my body. And that's what the anxiety driven brain does, which again, can apply to belief about God. That's why I think it's so important that we talk about this, that maybe your doubt, maybe your anxiety or doubts about God's existence are not rational. They're just based on these bad behaviors that you've built up or this chemistry that

it's going on in your mind that if you got that sorted out, you would no longer be driven by these doubts. I don't doubt that what you're bringing up is a good point. I just want to play the devil's advocate here because we as Christians know how insulting it is when an atheist looks at us and says, like, you're just deluded. Like, you're actually like, you're sick in the brain and like belief is a disease and you just need to be treated. It should be legitimately in the DSsm so that you can be treated and it kind of sounds like you're saying maybe the opposite is true like well if you don't believe then maybe there's just something mentally wrong with you and that could be insulting to yeah people who are genuinely seeking god and can't find him that's a good uh point that we could clarify here so i'm not saying that everybody is experiencing this and all doubt is irrational.

I'm saying that some doubt can be irrational and can be driven by these factors. And I think it actually happens in more cases than we'd like to admit. That's one of the things that's super interesting to me is that a lot of people have said, you know, it's really weird that you are so open about your anxiety. And to me, like, I don't understand why people are so, like they don't want to talk about it. I've just never understood that. I think it's really cool that you are like that. I'm totally open to talking about it because if it's an irrational part of me

that's causing all of these things, again, I think it goes back to the insecurities. If it's a legit criticism, then it shouldn't bother me. But if it's not a legit criticism, still shouldn't bother me. So then it, yeah. So anyways, I'm not saying that all doubt is irrational. I think that some doubt can be completely rational and is not driven by anxiety.

But I think that the fact of the matter is that so many people deal with anxiety. And so for some people this is going to be very relevant and I know people like in my my own experience who have been deal like they've struggled with some of these doubts that are caused by brain chemistry that the only way that they got it sorted out was to get on medication and it's not just about God's existence it was it was this kind of catastrophizing about other areas, about just anything going to work. You can't get in your car to go to work because what if I get in a crash and I die, you know, what if this happens

as bad consequence? So it's not just about God's existence. I think anxiety afflicts a lot of people and it's, it's a potential pitfall that could be cured in a sense. If you either get on the right medication or you take the right steps and you stop these bad behaviors from leading to all of these potential bad things. Like I mentioned about this philosopher friend of mine who struggled with OCD. He, uh, he told me that after he got on the right medication, he was no longer like experiencing these crippling doubts and like for him it was obviously just like a brain chemistry thing and once you can get rid of those those crippling doubts that are just like overriding your mental capacities then you can

really start to think rationally about something instead of just being driven to all of these skeptical conclusions because of these underlying biological or things that are going on beneath the surface that you're just not recognizing. You think, and that's, that's because we'd like to think that we're just rational creatures. Like we're, I'm just a rational person just really looking at the evidence from an unbiased perspective when in reality, you know, there's stuff going on beneath the surface, and this could be a big cause of that. Could you maybe give me an example of how you use this sort of, what did you call it, cognitive behavioral therapy in a non-religious sense? So what is it something when your thoughts start to go off the track?

Maybe it has to do with family or friendships or career, and you realize it. Would you mind leading us down there? What do you do? How does that work? Yeah, so this is unorthodox. And I don't recommend this for anybody. Yeah, you're not a therapist. We're not giving therapy advice.

Right. But this is what I started doing. And it's helped me. And again, what I deal with is health anxiety. That's like the number one source of my anxiety right now. It's not talking with atheists online. Like I still get nervous and I get anxiety when I'm about to go on and speak with somebody. And even sometimes when I interact with people that I disagree with online, but it's not,

it's never been at the level where it's caused a panic attack or anything like that. It's really just health anxiety is my, that's my, my main source of anxiety, like the serious anxiety. So what I've started to do when I start to i notice that like i get a pain somewhere in my body and i'm like oh my gosh what is this what's happening what you know what's the cause of this is this something really serious that's going to lead to this thing so just all the typical signs of catastrophizing what i what i do is all like wake myself out of that by like punching myself in the leg or like causing causing pain somewhere on my body yeah and that

immediately pulls me out and like brings me back to the to the real world and this is a strategy i actually learned from uh it kind of takes you out of your head doesn't it physical pain brings you out of yourself yeah nothing brings you back to reality like pain like just just like intense pain somewhere else on your body and i've like like, I've had experiences where like, I'll have a pain that's like right here in my chest and anxiety can cause that anxiety can cause pain in your chest. And it feels like, man, this is just like a real pain that I'm experiencing.

Like, what is this? And I'll like, I'll do something like I'll, I'll punch myself in the arm or like cause pain somewhere. And again, this sounds really weird. No,

I do the same thing. Can I be honest with you? Yeah. Yeah. This is a bit embarrassing but i had a bad night's sleep last night and there's times that you're talking to me i'm following you but i start glazing over you know how when you glaze over you have to kind of do that yeah that doesn't look good on camera so what i've been doing occasionally this is not

because you're uninteresting everything it's fascinating i'm pinching myself i've probably done like two times two or three times in this interview we're chatting and i'll start to glaze over and i'll pinch myself you may just have acd whoa acd add what is that oh i definitely have add but that's not the problem the problem is i'm exhausted and so but that's interesting because it's like it's something similar what you're saying just sort of like it brings you out of yourself did you hear what he's saying about like pain and stuff well and i've noticed that like when i when i have this pain in my chest i'll like punch myself in the leg really hard.

Yeah. Not, not, I'm not hurting myself. You're not bruising yourself. I'm not bruising myself. I'm just like causing enough pain to bring my mind, like snap my mind out of it to stop that bad behavior. Basically. I wonder if people have, I think I've heard people talk about having a rubber band around

their arm. Oh, and just slapping it. And snapping it. I've heard that. I can't vouch for it, of course. But yeah, it's weird how effective it is. It's really weird. Yeah. So you'll have a thought like, what is that? And you're like, nope, nope, not going there. In the past, I would just, I would get on Google immediately and start searching like, you know, sharp pain in chest. Cancer. Momentary. Yeah. And what's interesting is that on Google,

And what's interesting is that on Google, like all of the links that are on the front page are meant like they're all designed to give you the worst case scenario because that's what everyone's worried about. And so you immediately are going to go click on that link. So it's a completely terrible, like the whole setup is basically against you when you deal with health anxiety or different types different different types of interesting things for that yeah how much of this anxiety is caused by the modern world in which we live because in some ways we've never had it cushier yeah i work for myself this is happening at home you know like uh you know um i think that's good to think about we're not running into battle you know we're not we're not dealing with these significant stresses i'm not defending my family from a potential attacker yeah i'm not on the street for anyone for my family so part of me feels guilty for feeling anxiety because i think well gosh quite a cushy life and yet if you walk around with this stupid thing which i hate um then people are i mean the two examples you just gave me began with technology like the

one was the guy texting you about work and you saw it on your way to work the second was you typing things into google yeah so you've given that much thought about i haven't given that a lot of thought but i'm totally open to that i mean anxiety is definitely increasing gosh nowadays and i think it's because we're perpetually in this state of response. This, um, people text each other today as if they're in the same room as each other talking to them. Now, if you and I were in the same room and I was like, hey, Cameron,

and you didn't respond, I'd think either you didn't hear me or you were ignoring me for some reason, in which case I might be offended. People text like that. Hey, Cameron, if you don't text back like soon. They make all these assumptions about what's going on. I don't want to have to reply to people like texting me throughout the day.

I have a wife and kids and a family. I want to lay out the back and smoke a cigar. I want to write and read. I don't have to be on beck and call. But this is what's happened. When I was 16 years old old if you wanted to contact me he had three options and only three options you could write a letter to my house and post it you could call the phone that was bolted to my kitchen wall or you could come to my house and if i weren't

there go to the shops and find me there's i don't think of it there's no real other way so well how much how much is technology increasing our anxiety that's my point i think of it there's no real other way so well how much tech how much is technology increasing our anxiety that's my point i think i'm not saying people weren't anxious back then today you can get in touch with me now thank god i don't run my own social media but people are writing to me over there on instagram and twitter and facebook i let my voicemail fill up so i don't have to reply to people people text me dude just so you know your voicemail is full i'm like i know i don't want to hear from you i don't want to respond to you i don't have to reply to people. People text me, dude, just so you know your voicemail is full. I'm like, I know. I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to respond to you.

I don't want to be bothered by these million voices demanding my attention. I want to live a more purposeful life. And if that means offending you, I'm really okay with that. Go. No, I think that technology can definitely be contributing. And there's probably studies that have been done to prove this. It seems like that's a pretty logical thing that it's happened. Yeah.

So I would, I would, I would be on board with that. And it's going to make me start to think more about ways to disconnect from technology. My, my wife and I have already been talking about that. Like we want to be disconnected from technology when we're with our kids and

this is why good quality time with them. Instead of always, like you said, always being on like back in call. Forget about it. For everyone who wants to talk to us and text us. You know what I did recently? I jumped emails.

So somehow mattfratt at gmail.com, which is pretty, you know, secretive. I'm not sure how you'd guess that that was my email. But that's a sarcasm. That got out online. And people started like writing me a lot. Like bombarding. People I've never heard of started like writing me a lot, like bombarding. People I've never heard of are writing to me. I'm like, I don't have time for this.

So, I created a new email and then I set a vacation responder indefinitely that says, don't use it anymore. Go to my website. I don't even give my assistants email. I just don't want to deal with you. And I jump over here. And I am so proud of myself and I think I'm making the right decision i think people should be more like that and it's surprising to me that people find that almost a little like whoa that's a bit much i think you should probably do something like that why do i

have any right to respond to some random person who writes me even if you mean obligation obligation thank you even if they're in a crisis if i I mean, I received so many emails from people who are struggling with pornography that if I were to reply to each of them substantively, I would have no time to do anything else. Yeah. Which is why I wrote a book on the topic. And so actually, as I say that, I'm thinking to myself, okay, then I should incorporate that into my reply. If you're trying to looking for help for this. So I will do that, right? To be more responsible.

Because I do want to help people. I don't want people to be in pain. And I want to help however i can i really do um but at the same time you have to be very vigilant about guarding that i think speaking of people who are like reaching out for help and want stuff as i've become more vocal about anxiety i've had people reach out to me and ask me like you know i'm dealing with anxiety in this moment what can i do and what i know like one one guy actually was telling me that his main source of doubt or his main source of anxiety is thinking about God's existence and objections to God's existence and he had basically the same

exact experience that I did hmm where was like this panic attack and they would continue and what I told him was for, get away from apologetics right now. Leave it alone. Get on top of your anxiety. And then revisit the arguments when your brain is right and you're in the right mindset. And you're not going to start catastrophizing. Get a hold of your anxiety before you start to really assess the arguments and the evidence. Because I think that you're really susceptible right now to irrationality. So that's, I think, going back to what you said earlier is like,

I'm not trying to say that everyone is irrational, but for people who are struggling with anxiety, I think you need to get on top of that first, because it can be the source. It can be, it can be one major source of what's driving you to doubt God's existence. And again, it doesn't just have to do with God. It can do with, I mean, my main source of anxiety is about health. Health issues, yeah. So I think you've got to get that on top of that first before you want to start tackling things from a rational... There's probably a word for that, something like combat fatigue or argument fatigue.

It's like you can get to it, but you just kind of get burnt out. But I also wonder if you can kind of get addicted to it. Now, I might be using that word in a loose sense of the word, but people seem- It can become a kind of idol. Well, people seem to get addicted. I'm trying to think of an analogy to things like political commentary, CNN, Fox News. They love it. They're always watching it and they're feeling outraged and they're catastrophizing what will happen if trump is re-elected or what will happen if he isn't um and that seems like if you want to like help with your anxiety just don't don't don't watch

it because it's not like you watching it is leading you to do something that's going to help fix the country you're just getting angry but it's almost like people are getting addicted to out people obviously are not addicted my i might mean that in the loose sense but it. But it's almost like people are getting addicted to out. People obviously are. Addicted might mean that in the loose sense, but it's like we become accustomed to it. Like an afternoon coffee that you need to have to get you through. We turn on Ben Shapiro or CNN to get that fix. And that isn't to say they don't have valuable things to say. CNN less so.

That isn't to say that, right? But it is to say, I wonder if there's something like that with the obsessing with apologetics or things that lead us to anxiety. Like here's an example. I'm sorry. I feel like I'm talking all over the place here. So this is the cause of my anxiety or it is one cause of my anxiety, but it's also the solution to it. So it's a loop. So if I'm bored, I pick up my phone and then i see that i have emails and texts which cause me anxiety so it's this like it causes anxiety it soothes anxiety this and so this is why i'm all this i'm not because i'm better than most people but most people are constantly looking at their phone it's like this constant loop of anxiety and soothing what do you think about that what's the what what are you what's the question well what do you think oh my gosh um i don't know if there's a question except to say do you agree with that that we yeah because i threw out a bunch there we tend to it can be the source of anxiety but then also the solution so outrage political outrage is like that like you're like just oh and you get a hit of outrage there's a sense in which it's soothing but it aggravates you same thing with the phone and so to say what

i've been about is just like find the source of your anxiety and nip that in the butt as like best you can but what's so difficult about it is what i'm saying is it's also the source of soothe soothing like the man who's going to apologetics and burning out on it is probably going there to regulate a little because he feels God doesn't exist. Everything's terrible. So I need to get this sorted. So there's a sense in which he's soothing himself, but he's becoming agitated. So when you say to someone, we'll just nip that out.

He's like, you're telling me to take away the thing that's like pacifying me in a way. Yeah. I guess I would include that in everything that's leading like pacifying me in a way yeah i guess i would i would include that in the everything that's leading to anxiety so if the fact that you think that you have to have this in order to be happy in order to reach some state of well-being i would say that's a form of catastrophizing that's good yeah so so instead instead of feeding into that and making things worse which you think you're doing yourself a good favor or whatever yeah instead of feeding into that and making things worse, which you think you're doing yourself a good favor or whatever, instead of doing that, try something else. Like that's not obviously

not working for you. Try something else, put that away for a little while, get your mind right. And just, you know, see how you feel when you, when you are in your right mind, then pick it back up and just see how things are. But until you get to that point, I think that we ought to stop and really figure out what's, what's really going on. So sometimes, sometimes I think the right thing to do is to, to just put your, your stuff away.

That's causing you to go down this path. So put your phone down for a while, you know, or you can, there's a lot of stuff that you can do on your phone to limit what you can do on it. What's interesting. We don't take advantage of that. Like you can limit how much time you can spend on your apps. You can limit who can send you messages and notifications. You can limit, you can turn off all notifications if you want. So you never have to look at any. So there's stuff that you can do in order to still use technology and not be

bombarded with it. You just have to be super vigilant. You almost have to have the level of self-control that most of us don't have. But it just depends on how serious you are about getting better. Like, that was my thing. But my point is, I think for many people, if you're serious about being better, it's going to mean more than adjusting apps. It might mean just getting rid of your phone.

It could be. Like, yeah, maybe you need to give it to your spouse and say put this in a closet for those little lock boxes have you seen that you could do something like that and just be like get this away from me but what does that say about us that we need to lock things away from ourselves because we don't have the self-control to reach them honestly who cares what it says about you right exactly you're in pain you need to do it yeah yeah like what yeah that that strikes me as another insecurity it's like who cares yeah it's awesome dude well thanks very much tell people how they can learn more about capturing christianity about your fantastic debates i mean

hopefully we'll have a lot of our evangelical brothers and sisters watching but we'll also have a lot of catholics may not have heard about you before so tell them maybe if there was one debate you would tell them to go turn to on your YouTube channel to watch, to learn about you and your ministry, what would it be? Before I talk about my ministry, let me just mention that there's a really great book on anxiety by JP Moreland called Finding Peace. Really? JP Moreland wrote a book on that? JP Moreland is like the anxiety captain. He like, he's dealt with, that's a terrible name. I love it. He's dealt with anxiety his whole life. He was prone to it. He had some of the same experiences that I did. So he has a book on it and he does talks on it too. So yeah, finding peace. I'm

turning to my soother by JP Moreland. There you go. JP Moreland, great book. He gives a lot of strategies that he's used as well in the book. And a lot of them did help me when I was first going through anxiety and I'm a lot, I'm doing a lot better now and I'm used as well in the book. And a lot of them did help me when I was first going through anxiety and I'm, I'm a lot, I'm doing a lot better now and I'm off medication. So it's, it's doing great. But if you guys want a resource on that,

check out finding peace by JP Moreland, such a great book. But to talk a little about my ministry, capturing Christianity.com is my website, but the main source of my ministry, what I do is on YouTube. So I do a few different types of content. I'm, I'm actually like a variety channel, I think is the term for it. So I don't create just one

type of content, which on YouTube is actually kind of bad. Like you only want to do one type of content per channel, but some, some channels do variety and it's, it's okay. And it works for them. So sometimes it's good. Sometimes it's not anyways, I'm a variety channel. So what I do is I have videos that I posted just me talking about a subject for maybe five minutes, maybe 30 minutes. I'll respond to atheist objections or I'll respond to an atheist. I have a bunch of videos like that. The second type of content that I do are interviews. So I interview professional Christian philosophers. They don't have to be Protestant. They can be Catholic. I've interviewed some really brilliant Catholics. And that's the second type of content.

The third type of content is I host discussions between people. And so one of the ones that I did most recently was between Ed Fazer and Graham Oppie on whether there are any good arguments for God's existence. And so that's what I do. Did Oppie say no? So Oppie is... I don't know what good means. What was the outcome of that? Did Oppie say no? So Oppie is- I don't know what good means. Not necessarily successful, but- The first hour and 20 minutes of that discussion,

like if you're not interested in really analytic philosophy, really breaking stuff down, because what he does, Graham, is in the first part of the discussion, he breaks down what it means, what is the criteria of a good argument? And for a lot of people, it's going to be super boring yes yeah so if you want to get past that if you're not super interested one of your top comments on that video is this is what you

came for i pinned it yeah i pinned it because that's what yeah yeah and so it gives you the link to the direct time of when they start going back and forth on some of phaser's arguments because they've had back and forth in the literature like graham responded to ed's book i think maybe a couple different papers and so they had a back and forth about some of the points that graham raised in his papers and so it was a great discussion i mean i enjoyed the whole thing but if you want to get into the argument side of it like the actual arguments pin comment yeah then look at the pin comment and the first comment in the description below the description of the video. So that's what I do on my channel is I do those

two kinds of things. So I have some videos where I'm in person, but most, the majority of my interviews are like Skype interviews where I have somebody and they're live, they're live streamed. So I love doing it. Oh man, you do such a great job. It feels like the Lord has really prepared you for this in giving you your talents and studies to be a great photographer. I've said it before, and I'm not just saying it to flatter you. I can't think of another. This might just be because I don't use YouTube as much as other people, but when I look at your stuff, I'm like, this is better than anything I've ever seen,

whether it be secular or Christian. Well, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but I think that what sets my ministry apart is, is that that my background is in photography. And so I try to make things look really nice and really pretty and use 4k stuff to make it extra, you know, high resolution and everything. So that's just part of who I am and my story, but I don't recommend that for everybody. Like if you, people that are watching YouTube are usually really, what's the term? Forgiving? Forgiving. They don't really care about quality necessarily, as long as they can hear it, as long as they can sort of see what's happening. And it's not like a, you know, it's not tedious

to try to figure out what this person is saying because the microphone quality is so awful. As long as they can see it and hear it okay. Thomistic Institute. As long as they can see it okay. There's a podcast called the Thomistic Institute. It has fantastic content, which you should check out. I think I have it. It's really good.

It's a podcast, right? Yeah. These Dominicans, well, they facilitate it, but they basically record these lectures on campus. I'm going to look it up. I think I have it. It's fantastic content. I think they're right now in the process of boosting their audio content.

Really? Yeah. Faze has given a bunch of lectures there. The Thomistic Institute. There it is. There you go. Oh, have you subscribed? Good.

Yeah, I told you. Yeah. Well, there's another one called Godsplaining, where two Dominicans sit around and chat. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Father. Yeah. I told you. Yeah. Well, there's another one called God's planning where two Dominicans sit around and chat. Oh, interesting. Good. Yeah. Father Gregory Pines on my show.

He's part of it. Okay. Continue. What was I saying? Oh, for everybody. It's not for everybody. Yeah. And you would say, right? Like if someone feels like they've got to meet your quality, it's like, dude, you might

just spend all your time trying to do that and you're not actually using the gifts that you have and you'll not actually using the gifts that you have If it's not going nowhere if it's not going to assist you in getting you know more views if it doesn't make sense With your branding there's no need for it Like if you look at the top guys like even like PewDiePie, you know PewDiePie is like the biggest youtuber ever I think someone's actually gonna pass them up pretty soon here But he has like the biggest YouTube channel and the quality of his videos or it's like, it's not that great.

Yeah. And the content doesn't matter. Also not that great. The content, people love the content. Why? But I'm embarrassed to call myself human. Let's,

I'm just talking about the quality of videos right now. We're not going to trash on PewDiePie. Lighting and camera angles and stuff. Yeah. Like the setup that you have here is perfect. Like it's, it's exactly, like it's actually way more

than what people sort of need in order to consume content on YouTube. Thanks, man. So it's- That makes me feel good. No, it's great. And yeah, so that's what I would say is that that's one thing that I embrace,

the quality aspect of it. That's something that I embraced as part of who I am. You had all that background coming in. Right. And it's's not totally tedious you to set up this camera oh no yeah it's not that's just second nature yeah whereas yeah and i liked it i don't even i wouldn't even know how to turn one of those cameras on i don't think like i just i enjoy doing that kind of stuff thinking about lighting and different camera angles and cool stuff that i can do like eventually i want to have a studio like this, how you have your,

your in-person interviews. Like I want to do that. Good man. Good. Yeah. Cause it would be sad if the only YouTube channels are exploding. We're like atheistic propaganda channels. And there's a lot of those.

And we should say thank you to my patrons. And you would say thank you to yours because you know, it's funny. I mean, some of these atheist channels, you go to their patreon page they have a lot of patrons and you know it would be sad if we as christians weren't investing in things that we consider to be good content that could you know spread the word right and

they were and we're not yeah that would be sad yeah it would be but it's been beautiful it's been beautiful to see that there are a lot of people who are stepping up and making sure these independent forms of media are growing right yeah i mean. I mean, on, on your Patreon, it's, it's really, really healthy. And I think we need, we need a, we need more ministries like this that are doing this on YouTube and being very strategic about it. Don't just like pump out videos just because you want to have this thing. It's really about bringing people to a knowledge of a saving knowledge of, of God. That's really what it's about and, and representing it in the right way. And there's a lot that's,

that's, you've got to think about in order to do that. It's like, it should not be taken lightly. I think about the connection that, that Dr. Craig, well,

Dr. Craig, going back to him, who you interviewed just a couple of weeks ago, about a month ago at this point. Yeah. He talks about the fact that not everyone should be a debater. Like you shouldn't just go into start. most people shouldn't be debating atheists and the reason for that is because

that's not what everyone is called to do and that would be that would that would apply to me like i think i've done a debate on pornography on unbelievable did you know that with justin i debated like a sex worker and someone else and a libertarian who thought porn was good you should go listen to it oh my goodness it. It was fun. I did really well. Oh really? Yeah. I destroyed them, but I could not do a debate with an atheist.

I'm just not quick on my feet when it comes to these sorts of things. Like, and I don't want to pretend to be, it's like, that's just not my gift. Yeah. So if you're looking for advice on starting YouTube channel, don't do it.

No, no, really think about it. Really pray about it. It's not something that you should take lightly. Basically, is my whole point. Do you like that? I destroyed them.

Isn't that how you said it? That is very controversial. You got to do that. Matt destroys pornographers. You should. You should put that on your YouTube channel. No, I don't want to. I did really well.

It was hopeless. They were absolutely hopeless. So, it wasn't so much my genius. It was more understanding the science of what was coming out and them having no clue about it. Wow. Yeah, but that was fun. And it was actually Frank Turek who actually heard it. And I saw that he posted about it and said, this is a great episode.

And then it was Sean McDowell who heard it and got in touch with me to be interviewed on his podcast because of that unbelievable clip. There you go. Wow. Al who heard it and got in touch with me to be interviewed on his podcast because of that unbelievable clip. There you go. Wow. But for some reason, I feel competent to talk on that issue. Maybe because I wrote a book on it, whereas I haven't really written much on atheism,

a little bit here and there. But yeah, cool. But yeah, knowing your gifts and praying and asking the Lord to direct you, because we can fall into the trap of thinking, unless I'm on YouTube, I'm not doing anything good, unless I've got a significant following, I'm not doing anything good. No, if you're a stay-at-home mom or a stay-at-home dad like you're potentially doing far more for the kingdom in fact you are doing far more for the kingdom if that's what the lord's calling you than if you were to go get a hundred thousand subscribers yeah and that's not what

you're supposed to be doing and that's a tough thing like speaking of biases right is biases the plural of bias biases i'm not sure um but speaking of bias not being able to see that part in us like it's being aware of that like in ministry it's like my wife and my kids have to come first if i save the world or if i bring people to christ you know um through these these endeavors and i fail to love my wife like i think i risk going to hell like if i if i abandon the family something you pointed out was like the reason i think why we don't really take that part as seriously is because like no one stands up and applauds us after we like change a diaper yeah and it's an honest thing it's like i'm embarrassed to admit it because it's so honest but i admit it because

i know it's a lot of people's experience when i go out on the road and i give a talk, like I'm going to Missouri and I'm going to give a talk to these high school students, they're old boys school. It'll do terrific. I will crush them. It'll be awesome. And they'll probably love it. And I feel really good about that. I just spoke to like a thousand young men about breaking free from pornography. I feel good. But if I come home and the house is messy and my kid is being moody and then I snap at them and I didn't intend to, and then I feel like a failure and I feel like agitated, what am I going to want to go towards? Not the messy,

moody, agitated house. I want to be out there. And we don't realize that. We don't see that yeah we justify it like no no i'm doing the work work of the lord no you're not no you're gonna love your wife and love your kids and if they don't come first which is really great why i have a very strong wife because she'll tell me she'll oh yeah mine too put me in my place mine too she's really cool she's done it several

times already that's cool because your parents were in ministry oh no her parents were in ministry i beg your pardon so she's probably seen how that plays out, what's good, what might not be so good. And so she might be able to see that in you and be like, nope. Yeah, right, right. So she's noticed times when in the evenings I'll still be like posting stuff on social media or interacting with people. And it's like my kid is sitting here right next to me and I'm sitting here just on my phone, not paying attention to them. And she'll point that out regularly. It's something I've definitely not mastered and I often feel guilty about, but I'm really thankful to have a wife that's constantly trying to make me better.

That's one of the things that I love about her. She's always making me better. That's awesome. Yeah. And then once you get an office outside the home, if you do. If, yeah, I think, I think eventually it will happen. If you do that, because I do that, it's really great. Because I'll go to the office, and it's a cheap little office for me, but I'll just lock the door, leave my phone, I'll just text Cammie, driving home, don't have my phone, I'll leave my phone, leave my computer, and just drive home for the weekend, and it's great.

That's what I have to do. I understand that everyone's like that. People get better at regulating their behaviors on technology. For me, even if I put it up, it's still this like, I could get it. Oh, I shouldn't. And so I'm still doing that hard work of resisting when if it's not an option, I'm just a lot freer. Right. Can I ask you a question?

Yeah. What is your favorite argument for God's existence? I'm starting to think yours. I like that a lot. I thought that was really fascinating. Again, I have to think about it more. I like that a lot. I thought that was really fascinating. Again, I have to think about it more. I like Aquinas' fifth way.

The idea is that when we look at the world, we see that things act towards ends. And it's not by chance because it doesn't happen haphazardly. It happens with regularity. Things as in what? Like people or everything natural things you know like uh you could say like this seed turns into this flower um stuck here oh there we go you know electrons and protons join together to form atoms and things like that and this happens regularly and you could say well it's either by chance or by some sort of in baked baked in intention

and if it's not chance it sounds like a design argument yeah it is a design argument but it's it's not it doesn't it it's um it can't be thwarted by any appeal to evolution or something because like the design argument it's it's before that But it's not necessarily based on the first constants and quantities or whatever Craig talks about. It's just saying you look around, you see that things act towards an end that's good. And you're like, what explains that? Why does things happen with regularity?

If it's not chance, it has to be something else. And if there's some sort of baked-in intention, well, it would seem that that intention has to be given here's something that you might find super interesting in his book how reason can lead to god josh was i get this book he was a computer scientist analyst something to do with computers so he was building models and i think he got a grant one time and i could be getting the the details could be fuzzy here but he got he was working on this project where he was trying to, to create complex creatures through a process like evolution on a computer program. Wow.

What a, he must be a brilliant dude. He, he's pretty smart. Anyways, he started to, to put in the parameters and like, let's get, let's start out with these number of, uh, of complex creatures. And then let's just see what happens. Like, let's just say that, you know, they mutate, and then, like, let's throw in natural selection, and then just see what happens in, you know, however many generations, and just see what kind of things, creatures we wind up with. And every time he ran it, if it was just randomized,

like there was no end goal that he specified in the system, then it would always go to to more simple organisms or on the other hand if he specified like really long creatures like he wanted every creature to be really this just the longest possible then the creatures would would end up doing that like they would mutate natural selection would go toward that that direction but if he didn't specify anything then they would just go and basically evolve down to their simplest parts. And so the only way to get complexity in this program was to have that as the end goal. Interesting.

Was to put that in there. So this reminds me of this argument. Yeah, so that. So even on something like evolution, it seems like you might need an end goal. And that would be completely compatible with like these naturalistic mechanisms, but you have this end goal set from the beginning. Even the word evolution assumes

that we're evolving instead of devolving. Whereas these creatures Josh created, when they would go to their simplest paths or something, we would say they were devolving. They weren't actually becoming more, they weren't incorporating more being they were being reduced yeah yeah they were becoming less and less complex yeah and then i would say i don't know i would just say it seems like god exists my life works a lot better when i act like god exists um like fundamentally better not just it's not like a superficial better, but like everything

just seems to be like infused better. And so I go with that. I also had an experience of God's love when I was 17 and that was transformative in my own life. And it wasn't a sort of experience that just faded like every other experience I had as a teen. And so I'd say like, these, these are kind of reasons I believe in God. I would also say I'm with Craig and others who say, when I look at the arguments for God and against God, I find these more compelling, but I don't walk around thinking, holding arguments in my head and, and therefore inciting with that continually. I just. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I think apologetics has played a real central role in head and and therefore inciting with that continually i just yeah yeah for me i think apologetics has played a real central role in making it the case that i'm still a christian

so i started out as a christian yeah but the reason why i'm still a christian after i was introduced to philosophy and apologetics is because of apologetics and the arguments and the evidence so i think that's a lot of people say oh, oh, well, you're just a Christian because you grew up that way. Well, I'll say in part, but the reason why I'm still a Christian is because of the arguments and the evidence ultimately. Like there were plenty of opportunities for me to fall away if I thought that there were good reasons and good arguments on the other side of it. All right. So thank you very much, Cameron. We are going to take a pause here on youtube if you want to watch the post-show wrap-up clip become a patron at patreon.com slash matt frad in this

post-show wrap-up clip i'm going to share with cameron one good reason i think he should be a catholic now he'll likely disagree with it but if you're a patron you'll get to watch that by going to patreon.com slash matt frad