Pints With Aquinas - Answering 7 Arguments For Atheism | Joe Schmid | Last Call Ep. 30
Episode Date: September 3, 2026It’s Last Call! Joe Schmid returns to the show as a CATHOLIC arguing for the winning team this time. Enjoy these episodes and exclusive content ad free, one week early with DailyWire+ : https://g...et.dailywire.com Pints: Last Call Ep. 30 - - - 📚Resources: Joe's Conversion Vid Part 1: https://youtu.be/erpKBoPQxN0?is=Gf47NrHPrKsKP-aY Joe's Conversion Vid Part 2: https://youtu.be/Lk2W9mKTzIQ?is=ce1zw0VVSHapKiK- Majesty of Reason: https://www.youtube.com/@MajestyofReason Ethan Muse on Pints With Aquinas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp1ivUSSz2s&t=3783s The Marian Apparitions: An Evidential Inquiry: https://a.co/d/0cDR6xTP The Catholic Guide to Miracles: https://a.co/d/0d10PWcW Demonic Foes: https://a.co/d/00h6AW73 Theotokos Rosaries: https://dwplus.shop/TheotokosRosaries Truthly 30 Day Free Trial: https://get.truthly.ai/TlbX/MATT30 - - - Sponsors: Exodus 90: Holy Speech with Fr. Gregory Pine begins October 1st on the Exodus 90 app.Download the Exodus 90 app to start your 14-Day free trial, and visit https://exodus90.com/matt to learn more. Hallow: Visit https://hallow.com/mattfradd. and get three months free 7 Weeks: Go to https://SevenWeeksCoffee.com/PINTS and subscribe to save 15% forever, plus you’ll receive a free gift. Use promo code PINTS for an extra 10% off your first order, bringing your first order savings to 25%, plus that free gift. St. Paul Center: Start your 30-day free trial today at https://StPaulCenter.com/pints. Or become an Annual Member and receive a free copy of the complete Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. - - - Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe 📲 Download the free Daily Wire app today on iPhone, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, and more. - - - 📕 Get my newest book, Jesus Our Refuge, here: https://a.co/d/bDU0xLb 🍺 Want to Support Pints With Aquinas? 🍺 Get episodes a week early and join exclusive live streams with me! Become an annual supporter at 👉 https://mattfradd.locals.com/support - - - 💻 Follow Me on Social Media: 📌 Facebook: https://facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/mattfradd 𝕏 Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/Pints_W_Aquinas 🎵 TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas 📚 PWA Merch – https://dwplus.shop/MattFraddMerch 👕 Grab your favorite PWA gear here: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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I've decided to come out with seven arguments against God's existence, and this is going to be a lightning round.
The problem of evil.
The problem of divine hiddenness.
The success of naturalism.
The argument from religious diversity.
The incoherence of divine attributes.
The argument from parsimony or Occam's Razor.
The argument from the scale and indifference of the universe.
Here's a bonus.
All right, Joe Schmidt.
Great to have you on the channel on the last cool episode.
You were an atheist.
agnostic YouTuber. You had a very successful YouTube channel for about six years, but you decided to
blow that all up and become a Catholic. God decided to blow it up. And whatever God blows up,
you know, I'm just like, yeah, I'll submit my intellect and will to that. Well, you're a smart guy,
dude. And so I've decided to come up with seven arguments against God's existence. And this is
going to be a lightning round. I'm going to throw the argument at you. I really hope I don't
deconvert you in the process of this show. I got a feeling that won't happen. And you can
answer as sufficiently and quickly as possible. You ready for this? Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's
start with the primary argument against God's existence, namely the problem of evil. If God is all good,
all powerful, and all knowing, why is there so much seemingly pointless suffering, like childhood
cancer, natural disasters, genocide, animal suffering and so on. Yeah. So this is one of the biggest
objections to Christianity, to God's existence, very difficult objection, but I think there are a number of ways
the theists can respond. First, we can say that, listen, God is an infinite mind. He knows
way more than we do, and it wouldn't be surprising at all if there are reasons that God has
for doing what he does that we're not aware of. And so just because we're not aware of some
goods that are enabled by certain instances of evil, just because there are, like, just because
we don't know which reasons that God has, just because we can't see a point for some suffering,
doesn't mean that there is no such point, right? So I just think it wouldn't be terribly surprising
under theism, that maybe there are reasons that God has, of which we're unaware, and I think that
can at least dent the force of the problem of evil. But yeah, go on.
I want to step in and just say, well, what if you take Mackie's argument and say that God
and evil are logically incompatible? Oh, I mean, that seems, yeah, so, I mean, there are
different versions of the problem of evil. So one is like the logical version of the problem
of evil, which says, oh, yeah, there's literally like a strict contradiction between
God's attributes and the existence of evil. Another one just says there's an evidential tension.
I was kind of responding to the evidential tension one, because the logical one is not taken
as seriously. Because the reason, just because, I don't know, it seems like maybe God has some
reason for allowing evil. Like parents can be perfectly good parents and still allow their children
to undergo evil if it enables greater goods down the line. So for instance, you know, a parent might
inoculate their child and know that that's going to cause some suffering, but the parent is
justified in allowing that sort of suffering because they have good enough for sufficient reason
to allow it. So I don't think that there's any logical inconsistency because maybe God has, and
that's not like a logically contradictory proposition that maybe God has some reason for allowing
evils. So I think that suffices to put the logical problem of evil to bed. But what about the
evidential problem? Well, the first thing that we could say is that, well, you know, God's an
infinite intellect. We have puny intellects. And so it wouldn't be too surprising if there are some
reasons that God has of which we're unaware. The second thing that I would say is that, listen,
there just are lots of goods that suffering enables. Goods of character development and character
growth, right? What is forgiveness, if not a response to a wrongdoing? So manifesting forgiveness
requires there to be wrongdoing. What is courage, if not a response to some kind of
receive danger or threat and that requires there to be danger or threat.
And so in order to develop virtue, in order to manifest virtue, which seems incredibly
valuable, there need to be some kind of suffering or wrongdoing and whatnot.
So there are lots of goods like that.
And you know, just like in general, it's really good for us to be able to make a difference
to each other's lives.
And that can reap infinite benefits, in fact, for all of eternity, if it improves our
relationships for all eternity.
So. Yeah.
That's really good.
Obviously, we could talk about the problem of animal suffering, but that's a big issue.
because I mean no soul development is being, is taking place there, presumably.
Maybe not. God's a resourceful guy.
So maybe, you know, the line will lay down with the lamb and the eschaton.
Maybe animals do indeed have some kind of afterlife, whereby their cognitive capacities are enhanced a little bit,
and they're able to recognize their role in God's providential plan and maybe develop their character as a result of their suffering.
Or maybe certain other creatures, non-human creatures and non-animal creatures,
were given the task of providentially ordering and governing and the evolutionary process to direct,
it in ways that were kind of more kumbaya and less suffused with suffering.
And that could be justified by the potential for them to make a significant difference in the lives of creatures,
which again could reap infinite benefits in the afterlife.
If people are interested in that, they can check out a paper on the omission to the Odyssey by Brian Cutter and Philip Swenson.
You're right. I'm wrong. I told you this was a lightning round. We should only expect the
lightning round answer. That was a really good lightning round answer. Well done. Second lightning round
question. The problem of divine hiddenness. If God wants a relationship with everyone, why are so many,
sincere, open-minded people unable to believe in him, unable to even believe in his existence
to therefore give their life to him. Also a very tricky challenge. But I do think there are a number
of goods that divine hiddenness enables. So for instance, if there are really people who aren't
believers in God or believers in Christianity, what does that enable? It enables you and me and other
people who are believers in Christianity and are believers in God's existence to evangelize and to try to save
them and to try to spread the truth about God, his existence, his nature, and his love for them.
And like, think about how valuable that kind of thing is. Basically, God cooperating with creatures
in bringing people into salvation, right? So basically, in order for there to be the good
of difference-making responsibility over other people's like knowledge of God and salvation,
there needs to be some kind of distribution of obscurity and there needs to be some distribution
where people don't believe and other people do believe. So that's one kind of response that we can make.
Like there are just goods enabled by a little bit more obscure modus operandi.
A second thing you could say is that for these people who aren't, who don't currently believe in God's existence,
God might be permitting them to be in a state of non-belief for the sake of greater relationship goods down the line.
Look at my own case.
I was an atheist.
I was an agnostic.
But now look where I've come, right?
And now my relationship with God has deepened because I've sort of, I've sought after him.
I've sought him in like the depths of despair and in good times and in bad.
I've sought him, I've sought after him, and I finally reached him, right? And that kind of made
my relationship with God better in a very unique kind of way. And so maybe God is just holding off
on a relationship with some people for the sake of greater relationship goods down the line.
And then the third thing that I would say is that actually these people who really are
sincere seekers, maybe, unbeknownst to them, they're in a kind of primitive or implicit
relationship with God, which is itself deeply valuable. So I think the argument relies on a kind
of premise that people who don't yet believe in God's existence or Christianity can't be
in a relationship with God. But I think that may very well be.
mistaken. I'm not saying that it's necessarily a salvific relationship, but it could be the
kind of necessary precondition for a salvific relationship down the line, and that could be even
more valuable because of the implicit relationship that they were in with God, where they were
swimming in the depths of God's love without even knowing it, and then later come to recognize
that it was God that they loved all along. Okay, very good. So here's the third one. Now, you
remember in the Summa Theologia, Thomas Aquinas, sometimes comes up with as many as 12 arguments
against the position he wants to refute when it comes to atheism. He can
only think of two arguments, one being the problem of evil, the second being that God is a
superfluous hypothesis, and that seems to be similar to this argument, namely the success
of naturalism. Science has increasingly explained phenomena once attributed to God, lightning, disease,
evolution, cosmology, reducing the need to posit a divine explanation. What say you?
What say I? I say, firstly, there are lots of extraordinary.
phenomena, miraculous phenomena that naturalism just can't explain. So Fatima, lords, Guadalupe,
Zaytun, canonization miracles, Padre Pio, St. Charbel. I mean, you could just go through, like,
euguristic miracles, all these healing miracles. Barbara Schneider, like, just go through the list.
And naturalism offers no explanation. In fact, it's been empirically refuted. So that's the first
thing that I would say is naturalism certainly has been successful in, like, certain domains where
we can find a naturalistic explanation for ordinary natural goings-on in the world.
but that doesn't touch lots of these other things
that naturalism can't possibly account for.
So that's one thing that I would say.
A second thing that I would say is that actually,
God's existence is the best explanation
of lots of the very striking features
of the universe itself that we look around.
There are certain things where we don't have
a very plausible naturalistic explanation of.
Why do, for instance, the constants and laws of nature
fall within an exceedingly narrow life-permitting range,
which allows for interesting and interesting development
of the universe and conscious creatures?
like us, there currently isn't a good naturalistic explanation for that.
And there are lots of other things that naturalism, at least, even if they can offer naturalists, that is, they can offer an explanation of.
It just seems like theism offers a better, more unifying explanation where we can explain all these crazy, striking, fortuitous coincidences that occur and that are built into the very fabric of natural reality.
So like it just turns out that lots of the fundamental features of the physical universe themselves kind of cry out for explanation.
And that you have to appeal to something outside of the universe to explain them.
In other words, we don't believe in God because of what we don't yet understand, but we believe in God because of what we do.
Oh, precisely because we do understand things and we see that theism is the best explanation of the data.
Excellent! Fourth argument, the argument from religious diversity.
Thousands of religions contradict one another. This widespread disagreement suggests that religious belief may be more a product of culture than divine revelation.
Yeah, so I think one of the main problems with this argument is just one of the main problems for the problem of divine.
hiddenness, right? Which is that it seems like there may very well be plausible goods that
religious diversity enables, such that God is justified in permitting there to be religious
diversity. So what are such goods? Well, again, the good of making a difference to the lives
of other people, by evangelizing, by helping them come to discover truths about God and the fundamental
nature of reality with cautioning care and love and philosophical rigor and scientific rigor
in fact as well. So I think basically being able to spread knowledge of the truth is itself a
deeply profound good that is enabled by some people not yet knowing the truth and in fact having
various false beliefs. So that's one response that I'd give to this. And of course, another thing to say
is that just because various people have beliefs that are resulting from culture or influenced by culture,
it doesn't mean that those beliefs are in fact false. And in fact, maybe there's significant
evidence for them. And in fact, that's what I would say about Catholicism, where we just have
significant evidence for the truth of Catholicism from various vindicatory miracles, where God is going
out of his way to put his divine stamp of approval on distinctively Catholic doctrines. So that's another
thing that I'd say. Do you ever think about the fact that every purchase that you're making that I'm
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your free gift. A lot of us have a misconception about freedom. What is freedom? Well, when we talk
about freedom, we can talk about being free from something, such as constraints, and this is usually
what people mean today when they talk about freedom. But we also need to be talking about freedom
for something. Right. So the truest freedom, we can be able to be free from something. Right. So the truest freedom,
is to be free to be who we are and not enslaved to our passions and our sins. This is why I really
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slash Matt. Become the man you were created to be. All right. Fifth argument and I haven't got you yet,
but buckle up because here we go the incoherence of divine attributes. Some philosophers argue the
traditional attributes like omnipotence, omniscience, timelessness, and human freedom cannot be true
simultaneously. It reminds me of the old question, can God create a rock so heavy that he can't lift?
So what do you have to say about that? This argument from the incoherence of the concept of God.
Yes, there are lots of different arguments along these lines. One of them is, as you said,
like the stone bear a ox, can God create a stone that's so heavy that he can't lift it. But,
I mean, philosophers have long understood that the way that we should understand omnipotence
is not the ability to do like literally anything. Like, for,
instance, make one plus one equals 17, or like make square circles. No, omnipotence is something
like the ability to do anything possible. And it's just not possible for there to be a rock
that's too heavy for an unlimitedly powerful being to lift. So it's no challenge to God's
omnipotence. Now there are other potential problems here that you mentioned. One of them is
divine timelessness and how does that exactly relate to human freedom? And is divine timelessness even
coherent? After all, if God knows things about the changing world, wouldn't he have to change?
But no, not necessarily.
For starters, maybe we can adopt a view of time on which time is like a static four-dimensional block.
This is popular among various philosophers and physicists.
It's not the consensus or anything, but Catholic philosophers also take this seriously and adopt it, like Alexander Proust, one of the best Catholic philosophers alive.
So maybe if the universe is like a static block and God just exists outside of time, he doesn't need to change because it's not like there really is the kind of objective temporal dynamism going on.
But even if you think there is objective temporal dynamism or change going on in the world, then maybe,
all times are just present to God, but not present to us.
So maybe actually which times exist, this is kind of kooky, but interesting, but, you know,
fundamental reality is kind of weird.
Maybe which times exist is relative to your reference frame.
Maybe relative to God, he kind of sees all of time laid bare, but relative to us, the present
and future don't exist.
So that's interesting.
That's a second response.
A third response to this, and maybe this is my favorite response, which is just that, like,
God doesn't have to undergo any intrinsic changes as a result of changing knowledge, because
God is cognitively perfect.
He doesn't need to rely on intermediary beliefs that are like in his brain or something to represent the world and which kind of like change inside of him.
No, instead God has direct, unmediated access and awareness of the facts themselves.
So intrinsically, he can remain unchanged.
And it's just the objects of his awareness, which themselves change, which are entirely outside of God.
So that doesn't compromise his immutability or his timelessness if the changes are wholly outside of him.
So that I think is, those are three ways to respond to that.
And then in terms of human freedom and divine foreknowledge, yeah.
So like the way that this argument typically goes is that like a thousand years ago,
God believed that we would be having this conversation right now.
And it seems like we don't have any control over the past, right?
There's nothing you can do over spilled milk.
There's no use crying over spilled milk, right?
Because it's out of our control.
And so if the past is fixed in that way, if we can't change the past,
if we have no control over the past, if it's not up to us,
well then it seems like it's not up to me what God believed a thousand years ago.
But God believed a thousand years ago everything that I do right now, because he's comprehensive for knowledge.
Right?
And so if I don't have control over what God believed a thousand years ago and that entails what I do,
well, then it seems like I also just don't have control over what I do because it's just entailed by things that I don't have control over.
And there are a few ways that some, there are a few ways that we could respond to this.
I think my favorite response is what's called the dependence response in the philosophical literature.
And the dependence response combined with divine timelessness.
So firstly, God is not inside time.
He doesn't like, kind of stare into like a time orb or crystal and see what happens in a thousand years.
No, he's sort of outside of time.
And if we model God's kind of cognition on the model that I just mentioned, where he just has a kind of direct access to the facts themselves,
well, then actually it's our making the decisions that we do, which explain why God knows what he does.
And so if what God knows is sort of explanatorily dependent on the facts themselves,
then we shouldn't be holding it fixed in evaluating our abilities, because it's explanatorily downstream of our abilities.
And so, no, the fact that God knew from all of eternity timelessly, what exactly we're going to do does not remove our freedom or anything like that.
I mean, it's almost like God is kind of out there just watching us do what we're doing.
And me, like watching you doing what you're doing is not removing your freedom or anything like that.
It's certainly not making you do what you do.
So I just think none of these objections that you raised are successful.
How dare you. I have two more.
The argument from parsimony, or Occam's razor.
If the universe can be explained without appealing to God, then adding God may be an unnecessary
explanatory entity.
The thing is, God is not an unnecessary explanatory entity because he provides the best
explanation of the very striking and fortuitous coincidences that we see built into the very
fabric of physical reality and the connection between conscious reality and physical reality.
So we talked earlier about the fine-tuning of the constants and the laws of nature.
There are various constants in the laws of nature that govern various features of the universe
which need to be strikingly fine-tuned.
They need to take on very narrow, they need to take on values in a very narrow range.
range in order to allow for life to exist or anything interesting to occur.
And then even once that happens, there's no guarantee that the creatures which develop
will have these strikingly harmonious and fortuitous and orderly mental lives that actually
makes sense in which enable lots of profound goods.
It's no guarantee that you'd even get conscious creatures at all.
And then, like, these creatures are finding themselves with very significant moral knowledge
about the world, even though, like, the moral facts don't play any role in the evolutionary
process.
So, like, I really do think that, like, there are so many facts that Theism offers the best
explanation of the fact that there is any physical universe at all.
The fact that the general form of the laws of nature allow for anything interesting to occur,
including life and valuable relationships and conversations like this.
The fact that the constants in the laws of nature take on those very narrow life-breeding values.
The fact that the fundamental laws of nature actually match or apply to the conditions of the universe
when conceivably they might not have to allow for the universe to evolve over time.
And then the fact that the creatures which develop actually do, in fact, have consciousness.
And not just consciousness, but consciousness which is strikingly and fortuitously connected up
with the physical world that results in intelligible, coherent, orderly mental lives that enable
those profound goods. And not just that, but beings which have significant moral knowledge about the
world, significant a priori knowledge, so knowledge from the armchair about metaphysics and whatnot.
And this is just like, it's just coincidence, upon coincidence, upon coincidence, upon coincidence,
upon coincidence, on coincidence, cosmically, if you don't believe in God.
So I think that God is the best explanation for, by far the best explanation for the data that we have,
and then sprinkled on top of that are just like all these overwhelmingly evidenced miracles.
If people interested, check out Padre Pio and go to Ethan Muses' substack article on Padre Pio.
All right, Guala L'A. Guadalupe.
And, our Lady Guadalupe, other blessed, beautiful mother, our glorious Theotocos.
All right, final argument.
Maybe we'll throw in a bonus one, but this is the seventh argument, namely, and this was Lewis's argument, really, something like this, this sort of intuition from the problem of pain.
It's the argument from the scale and indifference of the universe.
The universe is unimaginably vast, mostly empty, and apparently indifferent to human life.
Some argue this fits better with atheism, it seems to,
than with the idea of a universe intentionally created for humanity.
Ah, well, one thing that we should say in there is there's an implicit assumption here
that theism is committed to the entire universe being created just for humanity.
Why should we accept that?
Maybe humanity was one of God's goals, you know, bringing about rational creatures with whom he can engage in a relationship.
But that doesn't mean that the entire cosmos was created just for us.
That's not a commitment of theism.
So that's one thing that we should say.
The argument just rests on a demonstrably false assumption.
So that's the first thing to say.
The second thing to say is that, again, maybe there are just like lots of goods
that having just this vast and maybe mostly lifeless universe enables.
So for instance, I don't know about you, but if you look at pictures in the Hubble telescope,
it's just staggering.
It's beautiful.
And these are just like lifeless gas clouds and whatnot.
Like, it's just awe-inspiring.
It creates what Rudolph Otto calls, like, numinous experiences where there's, like, you just
have this kind of awe and, like, fear and kind of mystery and kind of trembling, but also
a kind of like reverence and like creaturely dependence kind of feeling that all this stuff
enables.
And that's like enabled by like this vast and diverse cosmos with all these beautiful cosmic
structures.
So I don't know.
That's another thing.
It can like increase our humility when we just look at how tiny we are in comparison to this
gigantic universe which displays the magnificence and glory of God and just our finitude in relation
to it. Like who, I've watched those videos where it's like Carl Sagan and he's like the pale blue
dots and it sort of zooms out from like just our local vantage point and then it zooms out and
out and out and you just get this overwhelming sense of like awe, at least for me, this awe
and this mystery and this like almost creature feeling like dependence. Like we are radically
dependent on things around us and this dependence chain ultimately traces back to God.
And maybe part of the reason why God created things like this is just to give us that kind of sense of humility and to allow for those sorts of experiences
To allow our kind of natural cognizance of God to kind of kick in, you know
And there are lots of other reasons, you know, maybe like a vast and mostly lifeless universe is actually like sort of needed
To given the law structures that we have. Yeah, and maybe it's not very surprising that the law structures that we have would obtain given theism
And then given those law structures, maybe a vast and mostly lifeless universe is needed for the universe itself to cooperate in bringing about creatures
biological organisms and us, right?
Because like the standard scientific story,
which we have a lot of evidence for,
is that, you know, there were like supernova,
and then basically kind of imploded
and then exploded and then exploded
and spewed their guts everywhere,
where what the stars do is they forge the heavy elements
that are needed for you to get like planets
and for you eventually get life on those planets, right?
So like basically the universe itself
is like forging the very elements that go to on to make us up.
And then, you know, there's like an accretion disk
around a mainstrand.
star and then certain localized pockets start develop into planets, and then the planets like
themselves bring forth life through God guiding it, right? So notice that this involves various
goods of creaturely co-creatorship with God. God's involving creatures in the creative process.
And I think there's significant value in that as well.
This reminds me again, speaking of C.S. Lewis, he said something like, God can't win.
If he creates a vast universe, then that will be evidence used against him. But if he creates
a small universe, then we'd be likely to say, well, wouldn't a
God as grand as the one you say exists, create something far bigger than this?
Exactly. It's like you can't win with these objections. If you are raising Catholic children,
as I am, eventually they're going to ask hard questions. I did this to my parents growing up.
And if I'm honest, maybe it was just my arrogance. That's fully likely, actually. But a lot of the time,
I felt like the answers weren't really there. But we as parents, we want to answer these questions for our
children so we can raise them in the faith. We want to respond.
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life that are taking you away from the Lord, that are causing you unnecessary stress,
that are causing in you the sin of curiosity.
But you could actually download an app that will help you pray, and that's Hallow.
So again, if you've been wanting to build a more consistent prayer life,
go check out hallow.com slash Matt Frad right now and get three months for free.
That's hallo.com slash Matt Frad.
All right.
Here's a, thank you.
That was really good.
Here's a bonus argument for atheism.
It's not really an argument from atheism, but it's one.
people have talked about, maybe during the height of the new atheism, maybe people say it today,
I don't know. Well, if Christianity is true, how come atheists are the smart people and Christians
are the sweet and well-meaning but ultimately not terribly sophisticated people, maybe like my grandma
and so on? Not my grandma. My grandma's brilliant, but your grandma. Yeah, few things to say.
So in our gospel reading, just this past Sunday, Christ, our Lord, was talking about how he has hidden some things from the wise.
And he's basically saying, like, blessed are you because you have eyes to see and ears to hear, and you've become childlike, and you've become humble, and you've trusted me.
And he's saying, you know, he's hid some these things from the wise for various reasons.
But I think that what this indicates is that, like, I don't know, there is a kind of simplicity that we're called to, a kind of childish dependence on God, which is, I think, in fact, very, very beautiful.
And so maybe there's something, I don't know, there's something to being intellectually humble and recognizing intellectual humility and just God revealing himself to the simple and those who, I don't know, are a little bit more trusting.
So that's one thing, I don't know, one thing that I would say is it.
Yeah, I definitely think that's true.
I also think that, and I'm sure you agree, that like,
uber intelligent and trusting with childlike faith isn't contrary.
Oh, no, no, not exactly.
No, sorry, exactly.
That's exactly the case.
So, which brings me to my second point,
which is just that there are a lot of people
who do indeed have that kind of childlike trust
and who have systematically combed through the evidence,
who have PhDs, who are on faculty,
these high and prestigious universities and whatnot.
And so, I mean, I don't know about, like,
the data here, I don't have any data to cite, but it's just like manifestly false, of course,
that, you know, the atheists systematically are the brites and the intellectuals, and then
the Christians are just like the poor, benighted folk who haven't, you know, gotten the gist
of the enlightenment ideals or something like that. I just think that's just like empirically
manifestly mistaken. But also, you know, like, maybe it's precisely that attitude, which is, you know,
oh, we're the brights, we're the intellectually autonomous people. We are the ones. We are the
who are intellectually superior to others, maybe that's precisely what's operating as a stumbling
block to receiving God's grace and cooperating with it so that you can discover God.
Well, that was eight arguments. I give up. Well done, Joe. Where can people find you
and the good work that you are now doing since coming into the church and announcing it
forththroatedly? Yes. Well, people can check out my YouTube channel, Majesty of Reason,
objectively the best YouTube channel that has ever existed, of course.
Ever existed.
Ever existed? It's quite frankly the best, believe me, folks.
So yeah, the Majesty of Reason.
And then I should probably upload those in podcast format.
But I'm a little bit behind on that.
But yeah, mainly Majesty of Reason.
And yeah, thank you for having me.
Thanks, Joe.
