Pints With Aquinas - Apologetics Ninja w/ Trent Horn

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'd like to announce my new book, How to Be Happy, St. Thomas' Secret to a Good Life. Although just about every marketing firm, self-help guru, and man on the street has an answer, very few, if any, understand true happiness. It doesn't come from power, pleasure, popularity, or possessions. So what is happiness, and how do we find it? In How to Be Happy, I rely on the help of St. Thomas Aquinas to show what will and won't bring us happiness in this life. My hope is that by making the thought of Aquinas accessible for today, my new book will be a helpful guide to a good life.

Starting point is 00:00:41 Check the link in the description of this video to get your copy today. alien and i'm american good night good night everyone i'm great to have you here oh it's so bad why do we i love though when i hear um people from other countries attempting to do american accents yeah i knew german people once trying it you want some yogurt it invariably turns into like a southern accent or some kind of a distorted southern accent which is the best american accent actually i think i don't know i i love all the different ones well i don't know you got to go Turns into like a southern accent or some kind of a distorted southern accent. Which is the best American accent, actually, I think. I don't know. I love all the different ones. Well, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:01:28 You got to go with Boston. Pack your can, have it yet. Bang a Yui. Yeah. So I don't know. That's pretty high up there. Hey, before we get any further, I mean, this is A-grade content for sure. But before we go any further into it, I want to let everybody at home know that we are going to be giving away 10 copies of the Summa Contra Gentiles for free today, thanks to Emmaus Academic.

Starting point is 00:01:52 This is what the book looks like. There's going to be two of these. It makes one Summa Contra Gentiles with the four books. So, yeah. Gentiles with the four books. So yeah, I will announce the promo code at some point during today's interview. And when I do that, John Paul, what are you doing? Good stuff. And when I do that, the first 10 who go to the website and punch in the code, get it for free. So it's like first come, first serve. If you live in Slovakia or New Zealand or Australia actually no New Zealanders but anywhere else in the cut in the world you can get it we

Starting point is 00:02:31 just ask that you pay shipping because these things are kind of heavy and then for the month of August and you get I'll also give you a code if you don't get the 10 you'll get 40% off which is pretty bloody great of a maesser academic so stick around and we will let you know that's a handsome book by the way it is a handsome book for a handsome man i love when you've got nice academic-y looking books it's hard though most of the books that i have a lot of them i usually just get them on kindle which i don't like because i feel like amazon could just take them away from me if they ever felt like it. But I don't have like the Dr. Scott Hahn 30,000 book library. I've just got my little shelf you see on my own podcast behind me.

Starting point is 00:03:11 And I got a few others in that room, office, closet, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, dude, it's great to have you here. You and I are speaking at the Apologetics Conference this weekend. What are you speaking on? I am speaking today on Beginner's Guide to Defending the Faith, so how anybody can do apologetics, not just people like me. And I'll be speaking on persuasive pro-life tomorrow, I think.

Starting point is 00:03:36 Congrats on your YouTube channel too, by the way. It is blowing up, and for good reason. It's really high-octane content. Thank you. It's interesting. I have been doing the Council of Trent podcast now for about three years. And I had the YouTube channel, but I just posted on there sporadically the rebuttals that I was doing. And I would do a rebuttal maybe once every, like, three or four months. I would do a rebuttal and wait until enough people bugged me to do another rebuttal video, and then I would post it. But it wasn't really a regular thing. do another rebuttal video and then i would post it but it wasn't really a regular thing and then about what was it maybe like six months ago i thought no i could take what i do in making a podcast episode and just turn a camera on and just try to to figure it out and go uh and you've been

Starting point is 00:04:17 a good inspiration to show like hey what do i do just get out there and yeah and do it i'm always trying to catch up to you he's got got a silver plaque here. His 100,000 subscriber plaque. I want one. Well, it's funny. I don't know what the next plaque is. Is it 250? I have no idea. I have no idea.

Starting point is 00:04:34 But it reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons where Homer is trying to catch up to Thomas Edison. Like he wants to become like an inventor, invent as many things as Thomas Edison. So he has a little horse and Thomas Edison is ahead of him. He's like, I'm going to catch up to thomas edison like he wants to become like an inventor invent as many things as thomas edison so he has a little horse and thomas edison is ahead of him he's like i'm gonna catch up to thomas edison and i'm like i'm gonna catch up to pints of the quinnis but then he goes to edison's i think old workshop and sees that edison was trying to catch up to da vinci oh he's like he was just like me so but yeah no it's um it's been good and i really enjoy the channel the thing that i'm focusing on i did an episode recently called the one thing i'm not going to talk about yeah and talk about that yeah right i'm not going to talk about it no i am going to talk about the

Starting point is 00:05:15 thing i'm not going to talk about and that's basically just church conflict i mean not just church conflict it is like when we have things within the church that we can reasonably disagree about, even if they're important things, like the recent moda proprio, for example, or things that are happening, like a scandal that's going on, or a bishop or even the pope doing something where there's debate like, was that a good idea? Was that a bad idea? And I have weighed in on these things before, but it's not really something I want to weigh in on much in the future. I mean, I'll leave myself open.

Starting point is 00:05:48 If it's really important, I might factor in. But I just want to focus on this with my work as an apologist. The Catholic faith is true. There's people who say it's not true, and they're wrong. Here's why. That's all I want to do. And I suppose the crossover might be when people are beginning to leave Catholicism or question it because of how they view the Pope, this current Pope, I mean. Yeah, sure. It could be this Pope, it could be their bishop, it could be a lot of things. It

Starting point is 00:06:15 could be how their parish priest has treated them. And I think it's important that I would reaffirm why that's not a sufficient reason to abandon Catholicism, though I do think in a lot of cases it's understandable if someone has been put through various kinds of abuse or trials. But I don't – but it's not something I don't want to dwell on just for the sake of what's Trent's take on this. Like, I just want to focus – I'm just – it's hard to see people ensnared by errors and arguments when you can say, actually, there's other people over 2,000 years have been talking about this. We've got answers to this stuff. Do you think people who kind of specialize on church gossip and conflict and things like that, are you glad that they're there?

Starting point is 00:07:00 And is your opinion, I'm glad they're doing what they're doing. There's enough people doing it. I don't need to do it. Or are you thinking, no, I think there's something unhealthy in this in general. There is a place for people to talk about controversies or current events within the church. We do need people because I'm not really going to do that. In fact, I asked my YouTube subscribers, who do you like that does do that, that provides level-headed commentary? And you're one of the top people, by the way.

Starting point is 00:07:26 I like listening to Matt Fradd. So I do think, I think there is a place, certainly, for people who feel called, like, hey, I'm going to talk about what's, there's Catholic news, Catholic commentary. But I just think no matter what you do, it should be done in a fair, thoughtful way. Not in a way that's merely sensational, but as a way that you can look at all the angles of the issue, have all the facts right. And I think there's people that do it well and people that don't do it as well, that might lean more towards the sensational side.

Starting point is 00:07:59 And, you know, this would be good advice for upcoming YouTubers, because, I mean, we've been doing this for a while now, and it is so tempting to just grab the topic that's hot today to get the clicks I mean it's a constant temptation absolutely because you you know you you want the views you you know you think you have something important to say and so it can be real humbling to choose a topic you know isn't gonna blow up you know right whenever I talk about frankly about pro-life issues, when I talk about pro-life issues on my channel, they're the least popular videos. Why do you think that is? I think a lot of people say, oh yeah, I know all the

Starting point is 00:08:36 pro-life stuff. They say, oh yeah, I know all that stuff. It's not new or interesting to me. And I'll agree, if you care about the issue of abortion, it's something that has probably been around in your life for a while. But I'll say, when's the last time you had an extended conversation with someone who identifies as pro-choice? One where you could say, that went really well. For a lot of people, I don't think they have. And I'm blessed, prior to being an apologist,

Starting point is 00:09:02 I went to universities and got a lot of practice talking to regular real people on that issue. And I've tried to bring that into all of my conversations. So you can have a good conversation with someone, you can gently challenge the other person, and always walk the line between being, you know, mealy-mouthed and accommodating and not talk about anything versus just being a jerk about it. But I think, like, with the issue of abortion, it's like, some people think, oh, yeah, we've got that, we've got this. Look, the majority of the country wants abortion legal in some form, in some form. Most people want it restricted. They don't want it for birth control, things like that. Well, most people are confused on abortion, Matt. If you ask them, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:44 are you pro-choice, they'll say, yeah, I'm pro-choice. Say, do you want abortion for any reason through all nine months of pregnancy? They'll say, no, I don't want that. Well, that's what the law allows right now. But yeah, to back on the question of the topics, what I said in previous videos is that I want to give people broccoli covered in cheddar cheese. Like, I want to provide edified people so they can know about their faith and enjoy talking about it with people who are either not Catholic or haven't been to Mass in years or decades. There is this sense, though, that if I evangelize somebody about the Catholic faith and bring them in, I have to forewarn them. Like, everything's on fire right now, and how do I have that discussion with them?

Starting point is 00:10:28 It's not like we're bringing people into a church that feels united, at least here. I think it's fine to tell people, I think, who was it? This is the guy who wrote the book on what the saints never said. Maybe it was Monsignor Ronald Knox. If you love the bark of Peter, don't look in the engine room. So sometimes you don't want to know how the sausage is made. And I think that's fair to tell people, look, this is what the Holy Spirit does do for the church and what it doesn't do. So the Holy Spirit prevents the church, the faithful as a whole, the pope when he is speaking ex cathedra, from binding the faithful to moral and theological error. It's basically the Holy Spirit will always guarantee the church won't formally teach the wrong answer. But it doesn't mean it's a negative protection.

Starting point is 00:11:29 It doesn't mean that the church will always have the right answer or that it won't have the wrong prudential answer to say, here's a problem going on in the world. Here's how we think it should be addressed. That kind of backfired. That wasn't like, you know, how allegations of sexual abuse were handled in the 20th century. It was completely bungled in a horrifying way, you know. And I would say the Holy Spirit is not guiding the church in that. God leaves it up to us to use reason to try to achieve the good, and as fallen sinful creatures, sometimes we hit it, sometimes we don't. But I think you're right. It's good for people to see they should not have this idealized version of, you know, no mess, nothing to worry about.

Starting point is 00:12:07 version, you know, no mess, nothing to worry about. They have to understand the reality. But also, I don't think if you're just dwelling in the darkness and the muck all the time, I feel like you're going to get cynical and jaded really quickly. That's what I'm concerned about, though. It's like, look, if you're addicted to going online and going to story after story, social media after social media, what's going on in the church with drama, there's people in your neighborhood that don't know Jesus. Matt, there's people in my neighborhood that don't know Jesus. I like that that's like upping the ante. They're in your neighborhood, sure, people. But even in my neighborhood, there's people that don't know Jesus. Even in my nice neighborhood.

Starting point is 00:12:42 Do you have any idea how good my neighborhood is? But no, that's like I feel guilty about that sometimes. I see, I see, yeah. It's like, what am I doing? Like, I'll go, you know, I'll do apologetics, and I'll do all of this stuff. But there's also that principle of subsidiarity. Yeah. Like, should I be knocking on doors, Jehovah's Witness style?

Starting point is 00:12:59 Why not? And say, hey, come to my church. We're inviting people. Yeah. Do you know who Jesus Christ is? Do you believe in God? What church do you go to, if any? And I don't know.

Starting point is 00:13:13 It's kind of weird. I feel like when you get to the furthest extremes, both on the left and the right in the church, liberal, conservative, progressive, traditionalist, I don't know, whatever you want to call them, sometimes they kind of meet together like a horseshoe. They kind of come together. So like both the extreme left and right, for example, I think have a lack of emphasis sometimes on evangelization. Like the far left, well, they don't think really anybody's going to go to hell. And so they're really focused more on making the world a better place here. Whereas some people on the far right think they're going to hell in a handbasket. There's nothing we can do to save them. Let's just do everything we're doing well in our lives and let that be a witness to them.

Starting point is 00:13:53 Fortify the family, fortify the community. Yeah. Circle the wagon. Yeah, and I'm not saying that—obviously, I'm not going to paint entire swaths of the church with a broad stroke, but you can see those mentalities. So that, me is, yeah, if we're going to evangelize people, like evangelism and apologetics are two separate things, they're not the same thing. In fact, you can do evangelism without apologetics. Evangelism is just

Starting point is 00:14:17 telling people the good news, Jesus Christ. Although I think apologetics is what follows naturally when somebody asks you about why you believe this thing. A lot of times. Because I think there might have been a time where you could just evangelize people and just say... Yeah, it was taken for granted. Yeah, you could just say, look, your life's a mess. You've got to get back to church. You've got to see Jesus.

Starting point is 00:14:35 You're right about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that'd be evangelism. But if someone says, I don't need church to be a good person. I don't need the Catholic Church especially. Well, that's where apologetics comes in, especially now. It's not so much about just people all recognized, well, you go to church, everybody goes to a church, some people go to synagogue, and that's it. It's for—I think now the majority of the country does not go to church or does not identify

Starting point is 00:15:04 formally with that. One thing I've been noticing is after the new atheist phenomena, Jordan Peterson seems to have filled that void, and he's a lot more friendly to religion, obviously, than the Four Horsemen. I'm finding more and more people who might be left of where we are saying they believe in God. Dave Rubin on my show the other day said that it was after one of his tech detoxes that he came out and said he's not an atheist anymore.

Starting point is 00:15:27 Praise be to God. Two or three years ago. So I guess my specific question is, like, where do you think the state of religion and people's openness to God is right now as opposed to maybe 10, 20 years ago? I don't know. It depends where you look in the world, too. We always have to be careful when we're trying to look at trends. America is not the world. What?

Starting point is 00:15:49 Right? But didn't they call it the World Series? Right. I know, right? I like, yeah, they do, what is it, Miss Universe? Like, most beautiful women in the universe. Like, some alien species is going to come here. They're going to be not happy they weren't invited. Like some alien species is going to come here. They're going to be not happy they weren't invited. No, like if you look, there's parts of the world where I think the church and belief in God is growing and it's flourishing. You look at the church in Africa, you look at the church in Latin America. But you look in Europe or the United States, especially Europe is a portent of what we might become, where churches are basically museums.

Starting point is 00:16:29 Which is weird, because in some European countries, they have the church tax, where, unlike here in the US, if you belong to a church, you register your affiliation with the government, and your income is tied and given to the church. So you could have situations in Europe where the numbers of people that go to a church is declining, but church revenue is increasing. And that is a dangerous situation to be in. But I see here, I don't know, when you look at Pew, you look at Gallup, I think we're seeing a steady decline in all of the organized religious bodies. Mainline Protestantism is cratering.

Starting point is 00:17:03 religious bodies, mainline Protestantism is cratering. Even other ones, even things like evangelicalism. Yeah, when I just look at it, we're seeing that decline, but also we're seeing things that people are getting more miserable. Like back in 1990, only 3% of people had no friends. Today, it's 12% of people. And it's weird, back in 1990, I think 33% of people had more than 10 friends. Today, it's 12% of people. And it's weird, back in 1990, I think 33% of people had more than 10 friends. And now I think that number's dropped to like 10%. That's so sad. I just imagine the people from poll calling you up,

Starting point is 00:17:38 G'day, mate, how you going? Do you have any friends? Right. No? Right, cheers. Yeah. And so we're seeing what i believe that will you be my friend pollster well the move away from religion it's even just to move away from other interpersonal relationships in general that people look what happened with the pandemic there are some people i think they really enjoyed a life where they can just be by themselves at home now i'm an introvert I do enjoy that a lot.

Starting point is 00:18:05 But I know it's bad for me to be totally isolated from people. There's people who will just love the fact they could get up, do work on their computer, watch Netflix, order DoorDash. If they need something, order Amazon. And you can live your whole life without leaving your house. There was actually basically a horror movie about that called The Net many years ago with Sandra Bullock. I don't know if you ever saw it. Yes, I do remember. Matt Damon as well? I don't remember if he's in it. Was Matt Damon in that, The Net many years ago with Sandra Bullock. I don't know if you saw it. Yes, I do remember. Matt Damon as well? I don't remember if he's in it.

Starting point is 00:18:27 Was Matt Damon in that? The Net? I don't know. Maybe he can look that up. This is why we need a Catholic Jamie. Yeah. Patreon.com slash Matt Frack. Yeah, look it up for us. No, where she lives her whole life on the internet, and then this bad guy erases her and people don't even think she's real anymore. But that's what we're... And I think that when it comes with

Starting point is 00:18:45 religion, a lot of people, if the internet becomes their life, if the internet becomes your portal to the outside world, it's totally distorted. If Twitter is your view of the outside world, you have no idea what the world is really like.

Starting point is 00:19:02 Matt Damon wasn't in the net. Continue. Okay. I knew Sandra Bullock, not him uh because i think it's something like uh the people the voices on twitter only represent like two percent of the population interesting is that right yeah it's i but we do go to it and and make judgments about the world multinational companies matt will change policies yeah because dingus 47839 said with two followers this is so bad such a bad take oh my goodness we're gonna change that right away why do you care what dingus 489237 says why do you so and to bring this back to religion people will go on there and if if you looked at just Twitter, YouTube, you would think we were just a completely atheistic country, an extremely far left country in politics.

Starting point is 00:19:52 Well, that's just not how most people operate. But I am concerned that people, if they get a lot of time on the Internet, atheists and nonreligious people do have us out beat when it comes to spreading their message in the internet, which is a public forum. I wonder how this COVID thing is going to shape us. I mean, we all wonder this. But Amazon just went up, became a whole lot more successful. And most of us stopped kind of going to stores to get certain things. We'll even have paper towels and laundry detergent and everything else

Starting point is 00:20:25 delivered to the door. Here's a question for you. How do you think it'll change Catholic evangelization in America? Because I don't really travel anymore by choice to speak. I do occasionally, but nowhere near like I used to. All these different apostolates are going online, starting YouTube channels and things like that. It's going to be interesting to see.

Starting point is 00:20:46 I don't know. I'm always—if you had asked me what the future was like in 2019, I would have gotten it colossally wrong. So I don't try to predict the future as much. I mean, I'm seeing challenges now. I think if people got a habit of not going to Mass, it's going to be hard to break them from that. But I do think that gradual disconnection from people is difficult, and that's something that we have to overcome. I think I worry that a lot of people, they don't really have a solid argument, per se,

Starting point is 00:21:19 as to why they're not religious or why they're not Catholic. I think for a lot of them, they'll say, well, all my needs are getting met in other ways. And they look at church as just a way for needs to be met. So I know a lot of atheists will say, you know, honestly, Matt, I feel like they'll say, look, science gives us knowledge. It gives us technology. Look at all the great things technology does for us. And it does do that.

Starting point is 00:21:41 But at the end of the day, there are big, deep questions about life. And that even if you have all the technology in the world around you, you can still feel empty, lost. Why am I here? What is my purpose in life? What is the good? What ought I do? Like, what was I made for? What is all of this for? So I think that you have to get people away from their devices, away from the distractions in life to be open to the big questions, and then have those conversations with them. And then they'll say, yeah, but what about this? What about this problem with the Bible, this problem with Catholicism? Okay, well, let's talk about that. And let's talk about it

Starting point is 00:22:18 like real people. I think one thing when it comes to the apologetics, I'm happy that a lot of people are getting more answers than they had in the past. Like we're getting more people who know about the counter arguments, know about the evidences, know about all these things. But sometimes they're still not connecting with people on like a personal level. Like they talk at people instead of to people. That's especially common on the internet. I fall into that. It's very hard to have a genuine human connection. But even in real life, when they'll try to talk with other people, it's like they get kind of flustered, or they talk fast, or they want to stay focused on the one thing they know about. And like one of my talk today at Steubenville,

Starting point is 00:23:00 I'm going to show, look, you don't have to know all the answers. You can ask people, I want people to ask questions and use the Socratic method to find out, hey, there's a problem with your worldview. There's something problematic here. And I think the Catholic worldview has more to offer than that. That's what I want to teach people. I feel like since Trump's getting out of office, there's been another kind of disillusionment with government and maybe our political podcasters. And a lot of Catholics are questioning capitalism and things like that. I know you've written and debated on socialism. So I want to ask you about capitalism.

Starting point is 00:23:36 I'm good friends with Jacob Emum here, and I'm not going to ask you to respond to him personally. We'll get the two of you talking at some point. I've watched some of Jacob's videos, and then maybe he and I can have a chat about that. Well, what's interesting is, like I said before, I want to focus on the core things. Yeah. And so for me, socialism, that true socialism, is condemned by church teaching. And that's something I feel like is a core issue. I also want to carry out Jesus' commands to feed the know, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked,

Starting point is 00:24:06 to do corporal works of mercy. And I think it's good, if not laudable, to use things we've discovered in the modern age to do that. I don't restrict my healing of the sick to first century methods. I use 21st century methods to do that. Not I, but doctors and hospitals. And I think when it comes to feeding the hungry, the poor, caring for the poor, we have 21st century methods as long as they are moral in and of themselves. I think we should use them. And I think free markets are a proven thing that have done that. They're not perfect because people aren't perfect. Do us a favor, because sometimes it's defined.

Starting point is 00:24:43 I've heard Ben Shapiro say, give me what I want or starve. So I guess my question is, should Catholics reject capitalism? And in your answer, help us understand what capitalism is and the versions of capitalism Catholics should reject. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, to define capitalism is give me what I want or starve. Some people will paint that as, ah, that's clearly the anti-Christian view that we ought, because it sounds harsh, certainly. But St. Paul said the same things.

Starting point is 00:25:13 I think it was in his letter to the Thessalonians. He said, those who won't work won't eat. I mean, that's right in Scripture. He was trying to, Paul, when he was talking about the early church and how everyone should function, he was concerned about busybodies who would be nosy in everybody else's business, but they didn't put in the work for the community to be able to thrive. He says, if you don't work, you don't eat. That's what Paul said.

Starting point is 00:25:40 Now, obviously, you care for the widows and the orphans who can't provide for themselves, but if you can provide for yourself, you've got to get out there and you've got to get the work done. So I would define—now, capitalism is a word that was coined—it comes from Marxism. It's not a word I prefer since it's not a word that was coined by those who defend free markets. It is a—so Marx, it comes from Marx speaking about capital. You know, basically, what do the owners possess, the factories, the machines, the land, the money, basically. I prefer terms like free markets. I would define capitalism or free markets this way. Give me what I want, and I will give you what you want. That's it.

Starting point is 00:26:25 So is that our highest ethical goal that we should achieve? No. Our highest ethical goal should be love your neighbor as yourself. Care for the least among you. But it's a good workable system to impose upon everyone. Because if you think, what is the system we should impose on everybody? Are we going to impose Catholicism on everyone? Well, no, we believe in authentic religious liberty.

Starting point is 00:26:50 You know, so we would never force people to be baptized, to follow. We can impose basic norms, you know, don't kill, don't steal, don't lie under oath. But if we're going to impose things upon everyone, I think that that works. Give me what I want, and I will give you what you want. And that works in these free exchanges and these free trades. And then in doing that, people can own that which they receive from these different trades, whether it's work or investing. And then they're free to take what they have from that to reinvest it, to spend it. I think government, though, has a role

Starting point is 00:27:28 that it can reasonably tax people to provide public goods for others. So when you talk about, so you asked, like, okay, free markets, capitalism, what could we support? What can we not support? Is that what you're- Yeah, because I'm sure there are strands of, like, Anne Rand, for example,

Starting point is 00:27:46 and other strands of capitalism that you would either critique or reject. Yeah, I mean, Anne Rand is someone who herself understood the problems with socialism and collectivism and communism, and so was so vigorously opposed to them. I think she swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. So some people identify free markets and capitalism just with her works like the virtue of selfishness. And I would say there a lot of that is just semantics. Like, no, selfishness is not a virtue, but self-interest

Starting point is 00:28:19 is a prerequisite to the moral life. I mean, Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself. So if you don't love yourself, you can't love your neighbor. If you give away everything that you own so you are destitute, then you're incapable of helping anyone else in the future. So you should be prudent. But at the same time, it's like some people say, oh, there's Trent, you know, Trent Horn, he's such a, what do they call me the world's youngest boomer uh when i talk about capitalism and free markets uh i would like to think that i'm kind of like michael j fox from family ties uh you remember family ties he was the young reagan s conservative his first word was money if you remember in one of the episodes

Starting point is 00:29:01 they thought he was saying mummy and he was saying money mummy. Yeah, right. Or like, I'm like Gordon Gekko from Wall Street. Greed, manner of speaking, is good. No, my point is that this is a system. What I would say is, if you don't believe in free markets, what do you believe in? And what does free markets mean? Just that you're not being interfered with? Right, that people, in general, play by particular rules of a game.

Starting point is 00:29:27 And they're not allowed to defraud one another. They're not allowed to force one another into transactions. But they're free to invest, hire, fire, purchase, sell, and then keep a reasonable amount of the fruits from those transactions. Like I said, I think some people think, oh, Trent, if you're in free markets, what about you don't believe in welfare, for example. No, I think there can be government entitlement programs to help people. I'm not opposed to that. And most people who defend free markets are not opposed to these kinds of things. But it's all about reasonableness.

Starting point is 00:30:04 Certain taxes are reasonable, but government, and the church should be clear, government confiscating 100% of your income and giving you what they think you should have, that's wrong. So I would say that free markets capitalism is give me what I want and I'll give you what you want. Socialism will be give the government what you have and they will give you what they think you need. And that's a system rife for problems. What do you do with monopolies? Well, I think a lot of times monopolies really can only exist through government support.

Starting point is 00:30:39 Fair enough. So Google and Amazon wouldn't technically speaking be monopolies, but they do seem to control a great deal of our information. They're removing books from their stores that we no longer have access to and when most people buy their books on Amazon. Sure, just like railroads were once monopolies. People used to say like the railroads are going to control all of us. These big companies or large oil companies like Standard Oil. There's always been concern. Or AT&T was

Starting point is 00:31:08 Ma Bell, the phone company. There are companies that do, when they do something well, do sometimes acquire a large share of the market. But as long as people are free to be able to enter the market and offer different competing services, then you do see a gradual dissolution. What was a monopoly in one period, 20 or 30 years later, might suddenly be just one competitor, or it might be completely out of business. I think, though, usually the things that end up being monopolies are those that are supported by the government.

Starting point is 00:31:47 It's like, what do we mean by crony capitalism? Right. And that would be the idea of if government is an actor in a situation where you have a business that is owned and controlled by government and is funded. The problem is that that business does not have to worry as much about what comes in to support it. So to give you an example, it'd be like comparing private sector unions and public sector unions. So if I work at a garment store, and I think unions are a good thing, well, at least private sector unions. I'm very concerned about public sector, and I'll explain the difference. So let's say you have Acme Clothing Company, and the employees unionize for fair wages. That's great.

Starting point is 00:32:33 But there's a check. So if the employees all get together and say, we want $100 an hour, and that's what we're going to work for. Well, if Acme Clothing Company does $100 an hour, they're going to have to charge $200 for a shirt, and they're not a high-end store. So Acme Clothing Company will lose business, and then they will go under. And the union realizes there's a certain level they can ask for and a level that they can't. There's a check there because of private support of the business. But in a public sector union, police officer unions, teachers unions. You have a lot more problems because it's much harder for the general public to put a check on them because we're forced to patronize them.

Starting point is 00:33:12 Like my children don't attend public school, but I still pay for them through my taxes. A large share of my taxes go to the public school system in my area, which is good. It's a good system. It's a good public school for that area. But I still I have to support it. So it's easier in private businesses to say, well, I'm not going to spend money there. In public, for me to say I'm not going to spend money, I have to vote a certain way. I have to organize politically.

Starting point is 00:33:36 It's a lot harder. And so that's where I would say, look, that just as I think complete condemnations of capitalism are problematic because this is, I think, one of the best ways we've developed to – I mean, Matt, in 1820, 99% of people lived in poverty, extreme poverty, less than $2 a day. Today, that's less than 10% of people in the world. extreme poverty, less than $2 a day. Today, that's less than 10% of people in the world. And it has been through innovation and freedom to enter the market that has accomplished the lion's share of that. But I will say it's not perfect. It isn't. I'll give you an example. I have a friend who used to work at a school for children with autism. And it's hard because they didn't have a lot of funding for it. There weren't a lot of parents with the means to pay full tuition, to set up something to

Starting point is 00:34:34 support this community. So if you have a very particular community of disadvantaged individuals, sometimes a free market won't serve them as well. Maybe government or philanthropists have to step in to help. But yeah, I don't know. I find it to be a fascinating thing. That's why I wrote my book, Can a Catholic Be a Socialist, with my co-author. We talked a little bit about capitalism there. But I know there's gonna be a lot of critics like, oh, you know, what about this problem? What about that problem? Yeah, there are problems. But my problem is it's spilling. Your cup spills over.

Starting point is 00:35:09 It's like that used coffee cup spills over. What I would say is, and I've talked with distributists, I've talked with socialists, I get there are problems in capitalism. But what I want to hear is, what is your alternative? Because clearly, if the alternative is to free markets, they're going to be unfree in some way. So I remember the conversation that I had on the Reason and Theology channel with a distributist and a socialist, and we were talking about, and I think some distributists have said, well, they don't want stock markets. They don't want banks that lend at interest.

Starting point is 00:35:48 And so what I would say is, well, if you don't have that, where are you going to get money to start a business from if you don't have stock and you don't have lending at interest? And I think the traditionalists in that engagement said, well well we will decide the community will fund different ventures you mean the government will and so what i'd be concerned about is like we the community what will end up happening is you know it's like oh we should as a collective we'll we will all as a community together decide so that companies are run fairly we will all do that well we won't because matt you're not going to have the time to do that. I bet you're going to vote for somebody to do that for you, right? Yeah. So you're like, well, I don't have time to do that, but I trust this guy. I'll vote for him.

Starting point is 00:36:33 And so then it'll be bureaucrats doing it. And it's like Psalm 146, put not your trust in princes. What you said earlier about disenchantment with government. I think it's Psalm 146, verses three through 7. Put not your trust in princes, for their breath returns to the dust of the earth. So, yeah, at the end of the day, there are things in those systems, like in distributism and others,

Starting point is 00:36:56 I think are really good, like subsidiarity. I think people should work to become more economically self-sufficient so that they can bless others and be generous. Like, I think a big thing that we as Catholics, like, I just wish, I don't know, you think, like, take Mormonism. Like, when I say Mormons, what do you think of? Utah, very nice people, fighting porn really well, but I have a different perspective than most people. I think, though, if you ask most people, what do you think of Mormons? They'll say, oh, those really nice people. Yeah, who knock

Starting point is 00:37:27 on my door. Yeah, or at least they're those really nice people. Now, there is a dark side to that. I think Utah has some of the highest antidepressant uses in the country because there's this, like, Mormon image. That's why they're so nice. I know, right? This Mormon image you have to conform to. But, like, 50 years ago, people would have said, oh, the polygamists. mormon image you have to conform to but like 50 years 50 years ago people would have said oh the polygamists but the mormon uh church that they they don't like being called mormon anymore that's a whole different story the lds uh church of jesus christ latter-day saints the lds uh they did a lot to change their perspective like to a public image of who they are. Oh, for sure.

Starting point is 00:38:06 And so what I want for Catholics is, like, oh, Catholics, they're the people who, they're generous, they're kind, big families, they're smart, like, you know, and we've got all the elements there. I mean, it's interesting. Like, I think most of the Supreme Court justices are Catholics, for better or worse, depending on who you're talking about. But Catholics, we have an academic presence. We also have other images.

Starting point is 00:38:36 Yeah, I want people to see, when they think of a Catholic, they think of generous, smart, kind, faithful. At the end of the day, though, the only way you can make that happen is you've got to start it here locally with you. And then a wise man once said, if you want to make the world a better place, look at yourself and make a change. Jordan Peterson. Well, why don't we do this? Why don't we give away 10 free copies of the Summa Contra Gentiles? So for those at home, Summa Contra Gentiles is almost like an apologetic work

Starting point is 00:39:12 that Thomas wrote for missionaries to help evangelize Muslims, Jews. It actually reads more like a book of apologetics than the Summa Theologiae. I actually prefer reading the Summa Contra Gentiles in some respects. Do you like it? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it's interesting in how it is argued towards, okay, here's those who are opposed to the Catholic faith, and here's the problematic elements with what they're saying

Starting point is 00:39:35 rather than being just the overall theology manual. Yeah. Yeah, and again, I want to say thank you to Emmaus Academic. If you're out there today and you're like, I don't just want to buy, you to Emmaus Academic. If you're out there today and you're like, I don't just want to buy popular level Catholic apologetics books or Catholic books. You want to take things to the next level. I would really recommend checking out Emmaus Academic. I have them here. This is one of their books here. As you can see, this is by Dominican Michael Sherwin, just different essays.

Starting point is 00:40:01 Their books are beautiful. And so thank you to them for giving away these 10 free copies. So here's what I'm going to do. There is a link in the description below. The first 10 people who type the promo code I'm about to give you at checkout will get 10 free books. And then the rest of y'all until the end of August will get 40% off, which is still massive. So these books are in both English and Latin. This is what the book looks like here, really beautifully put together. So here's what we're gonna do. So there's a link right below. Go to stpaulcenter.com. That's stpaulcenter.com. If you're just kind of navigating, you'd go to Books, Aquinas Institute, and Other Works.

Starting point is 00:40:46 The link directly below will take you there. You want to add both volumes to your cart. And so those two volumes are Books 1 and 2 and Books 3 and 4. So go do that. And then here is the coupon code. You ready? PintsGiveaway. P-I-N-T-S-G-I-V-E-A-W-A-Y. One word, no capitals, Pints Giveaway at checkout. When you do that, it'll deduct over $100, which is what this costs, from your checkout. All you do is pay shipping. Pints Giveaway at checkout. And as I said earlier, due to weight and value, you guys have to pay the shipping.

Starting point is 00:41:26 earlier due to weight and value uh you guys have to pay the shipping but then everybody else gets 40 off and so in order to get 40 off and this is to the end of august type in pints four zero at checkout that's p-i-n-t-s four zero uh one word no capitals pints 40 at checkout and uh yeah that's it so last time i did this i actually bought a hundred copies of ralph martin's book a church in crisis because i just was so edified by it. Yeah, yeah. I told people to go there and, you know, and then it crashed their website. So let's see if we can crash stpoolcenter.com one more time. I love it.

Starting point is 00:41:55 No, this is good. And it's about getting back to the basics. Yeah, this is exactly what you're talking about, right? With apologetics. Yeah, I want to get out there. You're talking, right, with apologetics? Yeah, I want to get out there. I want Catholics to just have good conversations with either non-Catholics or Catholics that haven't been to church.

Starting point is 00:42:10 The website crashed. Did it crash already? Oh, that's hilarious. Everyone's like, the site's crashed. Well, they should have learned. They should have learned. I told them. They never learn.

Starting point is 00:42:21 They don't. But it'll be back up, so you just got to wait there. Keep refreshing. Oh, gosh. While you're listening to up. So you just gotta wait there. Keep refreshing. Oh gosh. While you're listening to us. This is even worse than when I try to get my Comic-Con tickets,

Starting point is 00:42:29 which I'm still holding on to. Oh man. But that's what I want to truly focus on. And I think we need to live out our faith in an authentic way. Practice generosity, like radical generosity

Starting point is 00:42:44 with others. Generosity not just with our money but also with our our time with our uh because it's funny i do apologetics but like for me the biggest sacrifice is like maybe it'll be a stranger i'm yeah in public i'm like oh and they see that i'm they see i'm writing something yes you see i'm writing something about jesus like what are you writing nothing yeah like no well i'm writing a. Yes. They see I'm writing something about Jesus. Like, what are you writing? Nothing. Like, no, well, I'm writing a book about Jesus. What do you think about him?

Starting point is 00:43:13 And just to be, and I struggle with this, you know, just to be fully present. But I think the key when you're sharing your faith with other people is just to get rid of your expectation of, like, I'm going to convert that person. Especially on the spot. Yeah. There's got to be any major shift in worldview. Expectation of like I'm gonna convert that person especially on the spot. Yeah the expectation if this is your goal in the conversation It's gonna go really well that you perfectly understand that person and they perfectly understood you and that that's basically you understood their argument their position and They understood where you're coming from if you at least do that That's great

Starting point is 00:43:41 The next rung up would be you perfectly understand each other and you gave them something to think about, to think about in their own worldview or yours, something new to think about. Like, oh, I hadn't thought about that before. So the baseline anybody can do, which is perfect understanding, ask questions. What do you think? Why do you think that? So you both are not talking past each other. You're talking to each other. uh so you both are not talking past each other you're talking to each other and then the next rung will be well help me understand why you believe that because i i don't see how that

Starting point is 00:44:11 how that makes sense and that's the attitude i i try to to have even when i do debates or dialogues do you want to do a little back and forth here like a little role play and i can be the uh if you want sure would that be something go ahead? Go ahead. Maybe people can suggest... People could always suggest who you could be. Yeah. Well, let's go with kind of an atheist. Sure, yeah. What are you writing there on your laptop? I am writing an article about the existence of God. It's something I like talking about with others. Cool. What do you think about God? I don't think a lot about God. It's something I like talking about with others. Cool. What do you think about God? I don't think a lot about God. I was a Christian when I grew up, went to Catholic school,

Starting point is 00:44:56 all that stuff. But yeah, I just got more interested in science and what can actually be proven. And so I don't believe in God, but I think that's fine that you do. Do you think that there's some people who are Catholic that get super into science and they still believe in God? I'm sure, but I think for most people, they just believe without evidence. So sure, maybe there's some people. Okay, so like, well, I guess what would be the difference between you and them? Like, they love science, and they still believe in God, and you like science. I like science too. Super, super into that. One of my favorite memories actually was when I was a kid. One of my early memories when I was 10 years old, I got to

Starting point is 00:45:30 go to jet propulsion laboratories and I saw them building the big Cassini spacecraft. Like I saw the thing that's now outside Saturn. So like it's, I love that. But I guess I wonder why would you be different? Why would science lead you away from God when it leads some people it doesn't affect them? Like what in particular? It probably has to do with their temperament. I think certain people might be very interested in the world and how it works, but are also emotionally vulnerable and afraid of certain things and would like the world to make a lot more sense than it does.

Starting point is 00:45:59 And you put God as your lens that you look through, and you can start to make sense of things to a certain degree. And so, yeah, that's what I think. Could I ask just more about you in particular? Like what makes you go from thinking there's a God, I believe in Catholicism, and now I learn about the periodic table of elements, and I don't believe that? Like I don't see how it connects. Can you help me see that?

Starting point is 00:46:24 Sure. Like what specifically moved you away from that? Yeah, help me see that. It seems absurd on the face of it, the idea that you have a man up in the clouds who makes humanity and then regrets making humanity, as it says in the book of Genesis, wipes them all out with a flood that we can't prove that probably didn't happen. And then he's got to send his son to be beaten and killed to save us from our sins. It just, it seems silly. Could we start a few steps back? Do you think it's silly to believe there is something that explains the universe that's not the universe itself? Like some reason why there's a universe? Like, even if you're not sure, it's not silly to think there's a cause of everything. Yeah, I guess I'd want to know what you're talking about.

Starting point is 00:47:09 I'm afraid by cause you mean God. If by cause you mean, I don't know, something physical that underlies the structure of the universe, I'm open to that. But I'm also okay refraining from judgment until we know more. Sure. The reason I'm asking about that is, I'm Trent, by the way. We went too far in. I'm Jimmy. Jimmy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice to meet you. Very good. I have a friend, Jimmy. He has a wonderful beard. You'll catch up to him soon. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:47:35 So, because like what you were saying about the Bible, I agree with you. There's ways of looking at the Bible. Like, I don't agree with some people how they interpret it, like what they think about God. Like, Christians disagree. Like, how do we understand the Bible? But I think that's kind of downstream from, like, is there, does God exist or not? Because there's people who believe in God who don't believe in the Bible, you know? Sure. So why don't we just stop right there? So, Zach Morris timeout. Yeah. But notice... No, that was really good but notice in this this engagement i'm trying really hard not to be like not to be the catholic answer guy or like i'm gonna i'm gonna bury you in arguments yeah yeah i'm trying to really connect with you as a person and figure out what you

Starting point is 00:48:18 believe it's like the tabletop what you believe and the table legs are why you believe that and i'm trying to zero in on that. So notice I'm not taking bait. I'm not being like, you know, Christians don't believe God is a man, you know. That's just ignorance. We don't really believe he's a man. We believe that God is infinite being. Like, I'm trying to find where we can agree, and we can agree science is good.

Starting point is 00:48:42 We can agree reason is good. I've got to say, you do a great job with that in your rebuttal videos, that often you'll play a clip of the person you now want to refute. And often the first thing you say is, OK, I agree that. And then you agree with as much as you can before responding. Yeah, some people think that common ground or agreement is like a sign of weakness. Like they treat it as like we just have to drive our enemy into the ground or something, or that it's too weak. But the more you can find agreement with someone, that closes the gap

Starting point is 00:49:12 for where you have to disagree. And so in our conversation, our mock conversation, you're doing, and you did a good job, by the way. You're not just like the silly new atheist type. I think what you portrayed here is what a lot of people will come across in their average conversations. And notice in my reply, I'm trying to zero in, like I'm trying to build an incremental reasonable case. So you're saying like, hey, here's this crazy thing in the Bible. Okay, let's take a few steps back. Could there be a cause of everything? Like, is that, that's not crazy, right? No, it's not crazy. Okay, we might disagree, and we talk. And it's all about making those reasonable, incremental steps with our apologetics and finding that common ground. That's what I want to,

Starting point is 00:49:54 but then people will put forward the arguments, and I'll say, okay, well, you know, I have heard that, but here's my thoughts on that. And notice also a tone I used with you. Not tone I used. I want to be paternal. I often will phrase things in this way. That doesn't quite make sense to me. Can you help me see how that is for you? In the sense of like, I'm not here to correct you. I'm not here to convert you. I'm trying to figure things out.

Starting point is 00:50:18 Help me. You know, how could you? I know people that do science and they love God. My father-in-law is a literal rocket scientist. But you're not. So how is it different for you? Help me understand. And there, it's not tense.

Starting point is 00:50:36 It may get tense, but it doesn't have to be. And you always, the goal is to leave the door open. That way we had a good chat. You want to talk to me more about it? We can. But then what I want to do then when I do these rebuttal videos is for people, if they're Catholic, I want to edify them. If they are not Catholic, I want to lovingly challenge them. And so what I'll try to do is I try to take people, and that's something we need to do as apologists also, is take other people's belief systems seriously. Take them seriously, and don't be just completely dismissive

Starting point is 00:51:09 and rude or arrogant about it, because you're not gonna, you would never listen to someone who talked about your belief system that way. Good point. But like for any belief system, I could say, well, there's something, and that's where you get like,

Starting point is 00:51:21 we'll go back to church conflict, right? Oh, we can't have ecumenism and, I hear some people say dialogue i'm sick of dialogue this what would you have them pontificate yeah well they would say like the gospel was just preached and proclaimed that's what we need to do actually no the bible says that paul uh reasoned with people in the synagogues is that he's argued with them so clearly there is a back and forth with people i agree with you dialogue for the sake of we only talk about what we agree so we feel good that's a joke if it's if dialogue common ground is not an end it is a means and when you treat it as an end it's a waste of time but when we we actually share, here's where we agree.

Starting point is 00:52:06 Here is where we disagree. Here is why I am not convinced by your arguments. Here's the problems I see. If they can see that, that's good for dialogue. I don't know any other way to really help bring people closer to the truth than that. Yeah, yeah. People are watching and like, yeah, but I don't have your kind of knowledge, Trent. And I've read some of your books and I've read some other things. I guess I've picked up a few handy responses, but I just feel completely ill-equipped.

Starting point is 00:52:30 So how much do I need to know as a Catholic if I'm going to be engaging people in apologetics? Just start with where you're at. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that Jimmy Akin or Tim Staples knows more than I do. But I know enough to have conversations with different people. But at the end of the day, or sorry, at the beginning of the day, you can just start with, well, some people, I guess they think it this way. They're always on defense.

Starting point is 00:52:57 It's always like, why do Catholics believe in purgatory? Well, look at all these Bible verses I have. Instead of saying, well, let me ask you, what do you believe about all of this, and why do you believe that? So you could actually know zero about Catholicism and still be a great Catholic apologist because you show the inconsistencies in other people's views. I see. You could say, wait, that doesn't really make sense.

Starting point is 00:53:20 Hold on. What is—help me understand how you believe this, that these two beliefs don't go together. So the first thing you should do is just before people can hear the good news of what we believe, they have to have bad news about what they believe, that it's wrong or it's inconsistent or there's an ugly truth in there that they've embraced. So you can just start there. And then the next step, I think, is just clearing up misconceptions. And sometimes we do this to ourselves, like saying, well, when it comes to talking to the Protestant friend,

Starting point is 00:53:51 you know, Protestants believe you're saved by faith alone. Catholics believe faith and works. I don't put it that way because that makes it seem like faith and works are jumbled in a bag, and like I'm hoping I'm doing enough works to get into heaven. We don't believe that. What I would say is, well, no. Catholics believe that we are saved by grace through faith. Faith means being obedient to what God asks of us. So what we believe to be saved as Catholics is to be baptized, and there's only one good work you have to do after baptism. Don't commit a mortal sin. That's it. Be baptized, don't commit a mortal sin.

Starting point is 00:54:27 And then I think as a Protestant, I might say to them, well, as a Christian, what are we supposed to do? That's an interesting one for me between Catholics and Protestants about, you know, Catholics believe they're saved by works. A lot of Protestant Christians will say that this does not save a Christian, but a saved Christian will not commit adultery. At least they won't commit serial adultery, apostasy, murder, abortion. I feel like with our Protestant friends, we really do agree there is a Christian life you must maintain to be a Christian. And if you're a Protestant, if you commit a serious sin, what do you do? You ask God for forgiveness, right? Well, why would you do that if all your sins were already forgiven? I feel like we act really similar ways. Like, 97% of the time, we're just theologically

Starting point is 00:55:14 describing it differently, but I think the Catholic way of describing it just makes more sense. And so that's why, instead of relying on just slogans or proof texting to throw out at people, you have these conversations to say, okay, you say I believe in works, you believe in faith. I don't believe that. I believe that what I do does matter. Do you believe that? What do you think Christians have to do?

Starting point is 00:55:36 And I love having these conversations. I'm going to be speaking at the Capturing Christianity conference at the end of August in Houston. at the Capturing Christianity Conference at the end of August in Houston. It's a conference defending Christianity, but I'm the only Catholic speaker. And I love that you're going to be, hopefully Alex O'Connor will be able to make it

Starting point is 00:55:53 here from England given the COVID thing. Yeah. Otherwise, I think he'll be online at least. But the two of you are going to debate. I think it's wonderful. I mean, here's a great example of like showing the richness of Catholicism when the guy going up, Alex O'ConConnor at a Protestant conference is the Catholic.

Starting point is 00:56:09 Yeah, well, I'm super excited, and I'm excited to be there to talk with other Protestants. I'll probably talk with Cameron, and we'll have a discussion about Catholicism. Though honestly, I think Catholics, we need to go more on offense without being offensive. So for example, I think Catholics, we need to go more on offense without being offensive. So, for example, I think there's a real burden of proof issue that comes up with Catholics. Like people will say, oh, you're Catholic? Prove to me the papacy, whether they're Protestant or Eastern Orthodox. Well, prove the papacy to me. Prove it right now.

Starting point is 00:56:41 And I'll say, well, no, I think we each have a burden of proof, and we're always kind of carrying the burden. I would say all of us, all Christians start at the same place, unless you're like a presuppositionalist. We believe, a lot of us would say, well, the New Testament's reliable. There's this guy Jesus. He said he was God. He rose from the dead. All righty.

Starting point is 00:56:57 Well, not even New Testament. There are ancient documents. There's a lot of documents. And you look at all of them, looks like Jesus rose from the dead and he's divine. Now what do we do? And I think sometimes there's like a gap. You'll say, oh, well, then I believe that. Then I accept a 66 book canon of scripture with sola scriptura.

Starting point is 00:57:16 Well, wait, that was kind of a jump. How'd you get there? Let's start with Jesus rose from the dead. And then you could go to, so we're all here. It's like I'm at the crossroads. Do I go to 66-book canon, Sola Scriptura, Protestantism? Do I go to larger canon, sacred tradition, Eastern Orthodoxy, where all the patriarchs essentially have equal authority?

Starting point is 00:57:42 Bishop of Rome is first among equals, but he's not a pastor over the entire Church, and that the Magisterium is more localized. Or do I go to Catholicism, where I have Scripture, tradition, and a universal Magisterium? So I feel like a lot of times we're stuck on defense when it should be like, okay everyone, we're starting here at the bus stop, which way do we go? Where does the evidence, where does the evidence point us to? And I would say the evidence points least to the sola scriptura route and more towards tradition and ultimately in the universal magisterium.

Starting point is 00:58:10 But I would say that each of the three groups, Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic, have a burden. And then you could go outside to quasi-Christians. They are not Christian, but I use the term quasi-Christian because they use Christian language. Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, anywhere. But at least with the traditional branches of Christianity, we should all start at the same place and not always feel like we're on defense. And that's something I want to do more of my apologetic work.

Starting point is 00:58:37 Yeah. Okay, awesome. Here's what I think we're going to do. We're going to take a quick intermission and then come back and take questions from our amazing patrons. I also want to let everybody know who's watching. The code I gave you for the 40% off, let me just unravel it here, which is pints40 at stpaulcenter.com is now working and it works for every one of Aquinas' works. I just got a text from a guy who works at Emmaus Academic.

Starting point is 00:59:06 He's like, the website's exploding right now. So he said, you may want to let them know that the coupon is good for any of the works of St. Thomas, not just the Summa Contra Gentiles. That's amazing. And that's true to the end of August. So get your Thomas Aquinas on, go to stpaulcenter.com,

Starting point is 00:59:23 and yeah, you'll be set to jet. All right, let's take a three-minute break and then we'll be back. Thank you. so Thank you. Thank you. I don't know what that means. All right, all right, all right. Mr. Horn, this has been fun. Mr. Frat, it has been fun. I can't believe an hour's already gone by. I flew by.

Starting point is 01:02:42 Jack Skian, patron, awesome guy, says, I'm curious to know his opinion on whether or not all lying is intrinsically evil. And then, of course, e.g., Nazis at the door dilemma. I had a great episode on this between Janet Smith and Father Pine. Man, it was fascinating. Well, I think that I would say lying is always wrong. That's about as furthest I've gotten on that issue. It's one that is an interesting ethical issue that I haven't reached a complete conclusion.

Starting point is 01:03:18 And it's interesting. There are a lot of issues where you can have a position, but then it can take a while to have a fully fleshed out position to resolve particular disputed questions. Like, what is a lie? Is lying, is it intrinsically evil, or is it just wrong, but it's less wrong than other things? It's, you know, it's mildly wrong. I would say say in general, we are a culture that has gotten too used to lying, frankly, where we treat it as almost like there's this social norm where you're expected to lie to people to not offend them. That the truth just doesn't matter anymore. Or at least there is no truth. You just speak your truth.

Starting point is 01:04:01 So, no, I haven't reached a full conclusion. there is no truth you just speak your truth so no i i haven't i haven't reached a full um conclusion i wish i could say with the the nazis at the at the door example um i would just kill the nazis it's interesting you you can definitely kill them it's not sure if you can you can lie to them but um but yeah i don't know you get um i think though sometimes you have to be careful with these thought experiments uh sometimes the philosopher Daniel Dennett calls them intuition pumps. So it's that sometimes we can craft them in a way that we might feel like, oh, that should definitely be the right answer. But actually our principles would guide us to something else. Let's say you were hiding children from the Nazis under your floorboards and there's a baby and the baby's going to cry.

Starting point is 01:04:44 Should you smother the baby to save everybody? A lot of people might think, yeah, to save everybody. But no, you shouldn't be smothering babies. Right, right. Or suppose it wasn't, would you lie to save the Jews? But since these are thought experiments, we can be as weird as we like. The Nazi comes in and says, I have a prostitute, and I would like you to fornicate with her to save the Jews.

Starting point is 01:05:03 If you do that, well, there's an intrinsically evil act. So you have to be – so sometimes we think lying is not that big a deal because it's just words, whatever. But it starts there. There's a reason that James, the letter of James, says that the tongue is like the rudder. The smallest little part, but the rudder moves the whole ship. So, yeah, I don't have a complete intuition. The reason I've come down on lying is intrinsically evil. By the way, this is another example, right,

Starting point is 01:05:31 where the church hasn't defined a particular. Yeah, the church says that lying is wrong, but it leaves up the question as to what is a lie, you know, these different finer points. The reason I go more with Father Pine and Thomas Aquinas is I know how easy it is for me to lie and to justify my lying. Because I'm embarrassed or I don't want to hurt someone's feelings or whatever. So I've just basically taken that on.

Starting point is 01:05:52 And I think I've done a pretty decent job at just being like, I can't tell a lie. I can change the subject. I can say, yeah, I'd rather not say it. Yeah. But yeah. Hey, here's a good question from patron Brett Beadle. He says, did Judas receive communion? But yeah. Hey, here's a good question from patron Brett Beadle. He says, did Judas receive communion?

Starting point is 01:06:10 And if so, why is it denied to some if he received it? I don't know the answer to that one, if Judas. I know that Judas left the Passover meal. I know at our parish in Keller, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, it says on the doors, Matt, on the side, it says, Judas left Mass early. How passive-aggressive is that? I kind of like it. So I don't know the answer to that particular question. But I would say that from the larger question well first even if it were the case that judas received communion it wouldn't follow ah that's an example we ought to follow i would say judas is always an example of what not to do uh those

Starting point is 01:06:57 but so i think that there you you would have the larger question of communion and it's interesting people are talking about that now oh weapon, weaponizing the Eucharist by refusing to give it to politicians who uphold legal abortion. There, I just believe in asking questions. So, and this is, we're straying a little bit into an intra-Catholic dispute.

Starting point is 01:07:18 I have talked about here and there, but I focused in previous episodes just on the bad arguments of pro-choice politicians, because as a Catholic, you have to be opposed to legal abortion. You have to. It's not infallibly defined, but it is taught, like in Evangelium Vitae and others, that everyone has a responsibility to protect the right to life under the law. It's not just being a faithful Catholic does not mean just not having an abortion for you.

Starting point is 01:07:42 It means making the world a place where it is not legally allowed to do that. So I think that when it comes to the communion question, I want to ask questions in general. So someone who says it's weaponized in the Eucharist, how dare they say they shouldn't receive communion? My question is, under what circumstance do you think communion should be withheld from someone? I would just, if, okay, there's this case of Catholic politicians, you don't like it, please tell me. What if this is a Catholic politician who supported racial segregation or slavery or other heinous evils? One person I spoke about this online was consistent and said,

Starting point is 01:08:23 I don't think it should ever be withheld. I said, okay, well, at least you're being consistent. Now, Canon 915 says that it should be withheld for heretics, schismatics, those who persist and manifest grave and manifest sin obstinately. So I think, though, when we get so that's the thing when we get into these disputes about like, oh, what about communion for politicians to that? Well, let's go back to the central questions. I would love for everybody to answer. And that for that one would be when should it be withheld? And some people might say never. And I would say,

Starting point is 01:08:55 well, what about all the parts in scripture? First Corinthians 11 about eating and drinking judgment upon yourself about not thethe Didache references what the first century catechism, the Didache, references Jesus' talking about not casting pearls before swine, saying that that's actually talking about the Eucharist, not giving it to unbaptized people, for example. It also seems to be saying that we should never excommunicate anybody. That's what that argument leads to. Yeah, it's just to say, well, it doesn't matter.

Starting point is 01:09:22 You don't want to push people away. People, through their actions, push themselves away from God. Excommunication or withholding the Eucharist is not—it is a medicinal punishment. It is to say, you've got a serious problem here, and you've got to have a real come-to-Jesus moment on this. Kevin Ivan Lugo Nunez. I screwed that up but thanks for being a patron actually a patron of you and me

Starting point is 01:09:48 so that's good Trent could you touch on the proto-evangelium of James and what the church teaches on blessed Mary being consecrated to the temple I am talking with a Protestant friend and I am trying to explain to him that this is where the church derives part of the teaching

Starting point is 01:10:04 of Mary's perpetual virginity but having a hard time driving it home. Yes. Oh, I did a video recently. I did a live rebuttal. So most of my rebuttals are pre-recorded, and I assemble all my arguments together to make as efficient a video as possible to engage people. But I did a live rebuttal recently with William Albrecht, who does work with Reason and Theology. They're an excellent channel. And because the Reformed apologist James White, for a while, White has been critiquing a talk I gave at the Catholic Answers Conference on the Church Fathers and Protestant distortions of them. And then he was talking about my view.

Starting point is 01:10:46 I was referencing early evidence for the Marian dogmas. And he was also critiquing William Albrecht. So Albrecht invited me to go on his show. And we just kind of went through what White was talking about. And he goes through this document. So this document, the Proto-Evangelium of James, also called the Infancy Gospel of James, is probably a

Starting point is 01:11:06 early 2nd century document from Syriac Christianity, the Eastern Church. It's one of our earliest witnesses outside of the canonical gospels to the birth of Jesus in the non-canonical works in the early 2nd century. It tells us a lot of early information about Mary. And so the church recognizes it is not Scripture, it's not inspired, but it forms a part of early Christian witness and helps us to understand early Christian beliefs about Mary, about Jesus. And so it recounts Joseph and Mary, and it provides details saying that Mary was a consecrated

Starting point is 01:11:45 virgin in the temple, and that Joseph was an older widower who was betrothed to her to provide her protection, and that he had his own children from a previous marriage. And so when the Gospels say that Jesus had brothers and sisters, it's referring to the stepbrothers and sisters. They're children of Joseph, not children of Mary. And then the Infancy Gospel of James or the Protoevangelium, I wouldn't say it's a source for this belief. Rather, it is a witness among other witnesses in this general time period of a very early belief in Eastern Christianity. But that said, there's some elements of it that are ahistorical, some elements of it that seem to be what are called midrash, a Christian retelling of the canonical Gospels from a different perspective. Now, some Catholics, Matt, are

Starting point is 01:12:32 very—they can get—because there's that big debate in the Church, who are the—are the brothers and sisters cousins, what St. Jerome said, or are they step-siblings? Like, some Catholics, they get really bent out of shape if I tell them I personally believe they're step-siblings? Like, some Catholics, they get really bent out of shape if I tell them I personally believe they're step-siblings, and that Joseph was not a... they believe Joseph was a virgin his whole life. And some people believe that, and that's fine. You're free to believe

Starting point is 01:12:56 that. But some people take it as, like, it's offensive to believe that about Joseph. They say, it's not offensive at all to believe that. If you don't want to believe that, that's fine. And so they... sometimes some Catholics say, how could you trust the Infancy Gospel of James? St. Thomas Aquinas rejected it. This is just myth. Then my response is always, what are the names of Mary's parents?

Starting point is 01:13:17 There's St. Anne and Joachim. How do we know that? The Infancy Gospel of James tells us that. So clearly you do trust it in some respects. And so I would say that when we look at that document and other ancient documents, we sift through it, looking at it through the lens of the magisterium, through sacred tradition, and that helps us to get a more complete picture of divine revelation. And I think it helps us to show that belief in Mary being ever virgin was very, very early

Starting point is 01:13:44 in church history. And it's something that people have to take seriously when they look at what the apostles taught their successors and what their successors handed on. I want to believe that. Yeah. So what was it? And these early documents, like the first liturgical document we have, the Subtuum Presidium is a prayer to Mary. Yeah. Our earliest liturgical source.

Starting point is 01:14:05 Wow. we have. The Subtuum Presidium is a prayer to Mary, our earliest liturgical source. It's something we have to, especially if you're Protestant, take very seriously about. Now, sometimes you'll say, well, I don't care what the church fathers say. I believe in Scripture. Okay, but look, especially with the early people, Ignatius of Antioch and others, if these people are the direct descendants of the apostles, how could they have just colossally screwed up the message in so short a time span you know yeah so uh speaking of william albrecht i'm gonna have a debate on this channel yes i saw between him and father patrick who's an orthodox priest on the immaculate conception speaking of the immaculate conception i have a friend um who is left his role as a Protestant pastor, youth pastor,

Starting point is 01:14:46 and he's now discerning between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. He's like, depending on the day, I want to go one way or the other. And one of the things he finds... He's Eastern Catholic, man. What's the difference? No, I haven't switched rights yet. But I don't know. We'll have to see what the future holds.

Starting point is 01:14:59 Well, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about you and Byzantine. But let's focus. So he's thinking Orthodox, Catholic, depends on the. But specifically, like the Immaculate Conception. How would you explain the Immaculate Conception in a way that you think would be palatable to a Protestant? And also, why does the Church have to mandate it? I think some Protestants are like, dude, if it was just like a theological opinion, I'd be down with it. But it kind of seems over the top that I have to believe this. Yeah. And I think what I would say here is,

Starting point is 01:15:26 so those are two separate questions. What is the evidence for it? And then is it reasonable for the Church to dogmatize this belief? So that would be two separate issues. So I would say, well, it's important to believe it because it's true. Either at the end of the day, it's either true or it's false. So that's one way to look at it. If it's false, definitely don't be Catholic. And then if it's true, well, then that also is helpful for what's wrong with dogmatizing, requiring belief in something that is true. I guess to make a comparison with a Protestant, they'll say, why is that such a big deal? Most Protestants believe in the virgin birth. A lot of liberal Protestants don't. And that was a big source of controversy in the early 20th

Starting point is 01:16:17 century. That's what gave rise to a group of Protestants got together, and they formed a series of books, meetings and books. It was called the Fundamentals. And so from that group came what we now call Fundamentalism, this idea of reading scripture, almost like a transcript in some cases, and because they were concerned in the early 20th century about rejection of the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. So I might say to a Protestant Christian, like someone who might be evangelical. It's kind of funny. It's like people, I had a friend once, Matt, who said,

Starting point is 01:16:50 when you say Catholic, what's hard for me, Trent, is I don't know what they believe. Like they might not even believe in God and say they're Catholic. And I would say, it's like, and he says, if I go to my church, I know what they believe. And I'll say, you know what, you're right. The term Catholic is pretty elastic,

Starting point is 01:17:02 just like the term Christian is. But that doesn't mean it's bad to be Christian, just because Christian has gotten so elastic for people. So that's not a good argument to be a Catholic. That's a good response, yeah. Yeah. Now, if someone says they're evangelical, oh, okay. Or if someone says, you know, I'm a traditionalist Catholic, oh, okay, it zeroes it in for me a little bit. But I say for an evangelical, they'll be firmly committed, no, Jesus was born, you know, they believe in the virgin birth. Well, why can't that be theological opinion? I mean, you know, does that really affect my salvation if I don't believe Jesus was born of a virgin? They'd say, well, no, that's really important. It's true. That's how God revealed

Starting point is 01:17:37 himself. Okay. They don't have the language to dogmatize it, but they might say, dude, why would you deny that? It's important, even if it's not directly, it's not the resurrection. But has the church dogmatized Christ's perpetual virginity? Christ's perpetual virginity? Right. Oh. And if not. You mean his, right, or his celibacy.

Starting point is 01:17:59 Right. Right. I would say that belongs to, I would say it belongs, they have not dogmatized it like with the Immaculate Conception. And that's just my point. Like, there are other truths that we would hold to be central that haven't been dogmatized. But the reason for that is even among the early heretics, like the fathers never talk about that, because even the heretics agreed that, you know, you might have one weird random fragment about Mary Magdalene in the Gospel of Philip. We're not sure what's being spoken about there. But otherwise, that's just something that's just generally believed among Christians.

Starting point is 01:18:32 So I think that when it comes to the Immaculate Conception, to explain it, I think we would ultimately just go back to, look, Christ is our Savior. He is everyone's Savior. ultimately just go back to, look, Christ is our Savior. He is everyone's Savior. When we are baptized, the grace of Christ rescues us from original sin and restores the grace that Adam lost. And I think if I was talking to someone who's thinking more about Eastern Orthodoxy, I think it's important when we talk about sin or original sin, in the Western Church, it's more common to speak about sin in terms of guilt and innocence, whereas in the Eastern church, the language used more is death to life, that sin is something that causes death within us, and so we are brought to supernatural life from the ancestral

Starting point is 01:19:18 curse, if you will. And so the same, the graces that I received at my baptism, God providentially gave to his own mother to receive. And so then we would look, and then ultimately it's going to go back, though. I think, like, well, the Immaculate Conception should be dog-tied, should be not. It is going to go back to what you believe about the authority of the magisterium itself. Yes. You know, so do you believe it has this authority? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:19:42 Or it doesn't. If it does, then we would assent. If it doesn't, then we're not going to listen one way or the other. See, I can see how certain Marian dogmas safeguard what we need to know to be true about Christ, such as perpetual virginity and her virgin birth. Sure. But I think for some people it's a little more difficult to see why it is she has to be immaculately conceived. How is that safeguarding anything?

Starting point is 01:20:09 She doesn't have to be. That's the thing. That's true. It is a less—in the hierarchy—it's important, and I also think it's important for Catholics when sharing our faith, there are a hierarchy of truths. there are a hierarchy of truths. So for example, like the the Catechism says like the central truth of Christianity is the doctrine of the Trinity. You know, the Eucharist is a source and summit of our faith. But then when we move beyond that, like you have the Trinity, you have the Incarnation, the fact that Christ has two wills, human and divine, diothelitism. That was not defined until five or six hundred years after Jesus was born.

Starting point is 01:20:49 It was defined in the medieval church, not the ancient church. And so when you have, even with the Marian dogmas, the most central one there is going to be Theotokos, and then Mary's mother of God. From there, the perpetual Virginia of Mary, but also her immaculate conception and assumption, they are not, of course, they're not necessary. And then also when you come to apologetics, Matt,

Starting point is 01:21:11 it's very important not to use bad arguments. Right. I'm thinking about writing a book soon about bad arguments. So one argument is, well, Mary had to be immaculately conceived because Jesus can't be conceived in sin. Dude, Jesus is God. He can do anything logically possible. He could have been born of a prostitute if he wanted to.

Starting point is 01:21:27 If he wanted to, absolutely. He could have been born the middle child. He could have been Malcolm in the middle. He could have materialized in human form, not being born at all. But he chose a particular way to do that. Now, that argument doesn't work because if Mary has to be immaculately conceived, then St. Anne has to be immaculately conceived, then Saint Anne has to be immaculately conceived, and her mother has to be, so it doesn't work. Rather, it's just fitting.

Starting point is 01:21:49 It's fitting, and we recognize that just like the fathers say that the moon always gets its light from the sun, when we look at what God did through Mary, the first disciple, the very first person to say yes to God. We see what God did through her. We see her as what's important, not so much it is important, it reflects upon Christ, but also reflects upon us, that if she is the model disciple, we should follow her to Christ. So I am so sorry. That's okay. No, no, no problem. That's my mistake. Laura Horn, how are you? I'm fine. I'm okay. No, no, no problem. That's my mistake. Laura Horn, how are you? I'm fine.

Starting point is 01:22:27 I'm sorry. I should have turned that off. I am great. We should seek that—we should say yes to God to receive the grace that rescues us from original sin, just like Mary did, and follow Christ. just like Mary did and follow Christ, and then we hope for our union with him, body and soul, in heaven, which is what Mary was given in the Assumption. She is given a foretaste of what you and I will eventually have in the resurrection of the dead.

Starting point is 01:22:55 And so I think that the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption is to say, well, look, let's sometimes, let's just look at this. Is this a beautiful witness and foretaste of what you and I will have, and Mary serves as that model? I mean, it's interesting. Matt, for all eternity, we're going to worship Jesus, and there's going to be somebody next to him who looks like him. She will not be the creator, but she will be the creature closest to him.

Starting point is 01:23:25 There's going to be one human being up there who looks like Jesus. Because I remember I asked a Protestant friend once, do you think if I did a DNA test on Mary and Jesus, there'd be a match? And she said, no, I don't think so. Then he's not really porn of a woman. If you see Mary as just being a vessel. I guess sometimes, I'll take a little bit more on this. Sometimes I get a little jealous, Matt,

Starting point is 01:23:52 like doing apologetics of some people who can just rejoice in the mystery. Of just like- Without having to analyze it. Having to analyze and buttress. And it's not just Marian dogmas. It's, I want to enjoy the Bible without always having to think, what am I going to say to my atheist friend that has problems with it?

Starting point is 01:24:10 Maybe I just want to enjoy Scripture, even when it's speaking in hyperbole, even when it's speaking in difficult sayings that are meant to challenge me. And so sometimes I get jealous that some people can just, ah, you know or you can write about mary and there are people who can write about mary with just lofty it's like when you're you're loved with your spouse and you just say things you know just because you you your heart moves you to then when you're a lawyer in court it's like well i didn't really mean this and that i don't want to qualify and like i don't want to i want to in that. I want to be in that grand way. But I feel called to show that these beliefs are reasonable,

Starting point is 01:24:49 and I believe that they are. But I think sometimes if a Protestant or an Eastern Orthodox or someone is having a problem with, let's say, a Marian dogma, you can look at the arguments, and I think you'll see that it is reasonable. But sometimes we have to just see, maybe I should enter into the mystery a little to see it from that side and see if it makes sense. No, I'm not telling people to be non-rational and just believe by faith.

Starting point is 01:25:15 But we're also, we're not Spock. We're not computers. Maybe enter into it a little bit to see these fitting mysteries of the faith with Mary, macular conception or bodily assumption. What do they tell us about Jesus' promises, both to his mother and promises ultimately to us? And I think it all fits together. And if Jesus did establish the church, then we have confidence.

Starting point is 01:25:39 It's leading us into truth in these areas. Okay. That's good. Thank you. Holly Abela says, I just want to really thank him, Trent, for what he does. I am an ex-Jehovah's Witness. I left two years ago. I thought I knew my Bible. Boy, was I wrong. It's very distressing finding out everything you've been taught was a lie. I listen to counsel of Trent every day now.

Starting point is 01:26:05 Trent's sound reasoning quiets my mind, which has been distressed about not knowing the truth about God and wondering where to go from here. Praise be to God that God moved in her heart and resources were given to her to come to know the true God because Jehovah's Witnesses deny the Trinity. They deny many other things. And now that she knows that God exists, and I hope that the podcast will continue to bless

Starting point is 01:26:31 her. And I'm very grateful God has given me an opportunity to reach many people. I mean, it's so funny, Matt. Online, sometimes I'll always see people like, I'm thinking of becoming Catholic. And I feel I'm happy knowing that it's like, have my book. And just I'll send it to them. Because I'm just so grateful. Like, thank goodness I have something I can give you. And I wrote like, I wrote Why We're Catholic. Why We're Catholic will probably always be my favorite book. It's really good. Because I mean, it's not my most

Starting point is 01:27:04 academic book or anything like that. But I think it's the one book. It's really good. Because, I mean, it's not my most academic book or anything like that, but I think it's the one that has done the most good. Because before I wrote Why We're Catholic, there wasn't- I remember you telling me that before you even put pen to paper. You were like, there's not one book.

Starting point is 01:27:16 Right. The closest was Rome Sweet Home. Right, because I would say to you, if you knew someone, I have a friend who's thinking of being Catholic, what book would you give them? Probably Rome Sweet Home. That's what I read when I was converting. I read it in one day. And it's a good book if you have particular challenges

Starting point is 01:27:30 the same as Scott Hahn had in his conversion. But what if you're an atheist? What if you're Muslim? What if you are not that particular kind of Protestant? Well, what if you have different Protestant objections? What if you have moral objections? And so that's why I wrote Why We're Catholic, and I remember when I wrote Why We're Catholic, when I would finish a chapter, I read it aloud to my wife to make sure I had that tone of talking to you, not at you. And that was why I tried very hard with Why We're Catholic that you could give that book to any—and it's not snarky, it's not triumphalist—you could give Why We're any, and it's not snarky, it's not triumphalist, you could give Why We're Catholic to anybody really eighth grade and up. It's really good. I just bought several

Starting point is 01:28:09 hundred copies for my friends in Uganda. Shipping it was, I had to sell one of my children to ship it there, but I'm so glad. Just do a courier. Send one of your kids to Uganda. You can take it in his check bags. Yeah, yeah. But that's... It's a great... How many have you sold now? Three, four hundred thousand wow, yeah I would really encourage people to get that book and what's great is you can buy it, I need to buy a new case you can buy, you can go to shop.catholic.com

Starting point is 01:28:35 you can order twenty of them for sixty dollars three dollars a book and it's easy when I hear somebody's and I feel like I've earned the right to do this. Because, I mean, it's hard to strike up conversations with people. But also, like, yeah, we go to a church down the street. Like, I wrote a book on being Catholic.

Starting point is 01:28:50 You want to sign a copy? Exactly. Everyone's always like, that'd be awesome. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah. And then if you have a question about it, I'd love to talk with you. But other people can do that. Like, somebody's like, how do I start the conversation?

Starting point is 01:28:59 Well, just, you can give them this book. And I wrote it, like, I picked the title very particular. Like, I didn't, there are other titles that are similar to that. Why you should be Catholic. Like why, like one thing you could have called the book Why Be Catholic. Yep. Someone's like, I don't want to be Catholic. You know, why I'm Catholic.

Starting point is 01:29:16 Well, I don't care why you're Catholic. Yeah. But why we're Catholic is like, well, why are they Catholic? Right. All of them. And that's, But I also feel it's a weight. You know, I talked about this. I have a show coming up soon on my podcast about being a workaholic. And sometimes I feel like, but if I'm not, if I'm not like rebutting things,

Starting point is 01:29:38 if I'm not like countering error, what if someone's led astray? And it's like, dude, Trent, calm down. Let's put you in perspective. The world is not riding on your shoulders take care of yourself and i'm i just want god to use me whatever whatever way he wants you know uh jc gonzalez says trent and matt you guys are brilliant thank you both for your work my question for trent and matt is what is your advice for parents that would like to raise their children Catholic but cannot feasibly homeschool? Given that in this particular instance, we are the fathers of said children, the response could be for fathers if either of you feel more comfortable responding that way. Oh, okay.

Starting point is 01:30:19 Thank you very much. Apologies for the long-winded question. Okay, how to raise good Catholic children. And if you can't homeschool them, I think is what she's saying too. Yeah. I would say it's very important to entrust your children to responsible people. I am skeptical of putting my children in the care of the government school system for, what is it, like, I don't know, 30, 40 hours a week?

Starting point is 01:30:47 I'm afraid to send them to Catholic schools. There's a lot of—there are a lot of Catholic schools I wouldn't send my children to. I'd say most. Yeah. Absolute majority. It's—I find—yeah, what I would say is, okay, tell me about your faculty. How many of them are Catholic? You know, what are they

Starting point is 01:31:06 tell me what is your school value? And then you can also look at the alumni from the school. Sometimes that can tell you. Because see how many if I had a nickel for every time somebody told me, oh yeah, I'm not Catholic. I went to Catholic school but I'm not Catholic anymore. If I had a nickel for

Starting point is 01:31:22 everybody who said that, I could afford to send my kid to Catholic school. Very good. Yeah, I don't. But there are good ones to sift out. Well, especially I would say like look into it, like Regina Chaley Hybrid or some other, like Chesterton Academy, which is a five-day-a-week school.

Starting point is 01:31:38 I'd be very interested. Do they use technology or not? And if they said absolutely not, like, okay, there's a chance this is going to be a great school. I would say at the end of the day, as a parent, the most important thing you can do is to be actively involved in your child's life

Starting point is 01:31:51 when you do have them. You might have circumstances beyond your control where they have to go to a government school or some other school. But the time you do have with them, put your phone away,

Starting point is 01:32:01 and I'm an offender. I'm an offender. I don't always do that, and I shouldn't. You know, put your phone away, put your computer away, turn the TV an offender. I'm an offender. I don't always do that, and I shouldn't. Put your phone away, put your computer away, turn the TV off, have that quality time with them. So one, you can raise good Catholic kids, even if they have to go to a government school, whatever.

Starting point is 01:32:13 I don't call them public schools. I call them government schools. But when you do have them, spend that time. Make sure it's quality with them, and also that the faith brings you joy. Like you just, you're just happy to spontaneously pray with them. And they see that in your,

Starting point is 01:32:31 like my wife, for example, says like one reason she's pro-life is because her dad, he worked at NASA. He worked long hours at NASA. They went to a public school, government school. But when he wasn't working, he would go and give pro-life talks, even if there were only like four people that showed up. He would put on his suit and give his pro-life talk

Starting point is 01:32:48 to those four people, and he was happy to do it. And that inspired her and her siblings. And she and her siblings are all Catholic. So the fact is, you may not always be able to control what happens when your child is not with you, but you can control what happens when your child is with you. Have that quality time with them and just be a model of a joyful, joyful, happy, happy faith. Celebrate. That's what's great about being Catholic. We have feasts along with penitential times. Hey, talk about Homeschool Connections because you teach for them, and I think sometimes

Starting point is 01:33:19 people are very afraid of homeschooling, but Homeschool Connections is an excellent program. Yes, so Homeschool Connections is a homeschool program. I would say it's a homeschool supplement, in that if you are homeschooling, you can enroll your children, I would say junior high and high school, in online classes with teachers that teach a wide variety of subjects, religious and non-religious, math, English, history. I currently teach two classes. Well, in the fall, I'm going to start a three-semester series. One is Catechism 1-2-3. I think that's full. There might be a wait list for that. It'll go through the whole catechism. I also have recorded courses on theology, apologetics, but I'll do live classes on catechism, and I think

Starting point is 01:34:04 I have spots open live class on the New Testament. So if you have a high schooler who wants to learn about the New Testament, you can enroll them this fall for three semesters, fall, then the spring, then the next fall, we'll go through the whole New Testament. People can check out, there's a link in the description below, homeschoolconnections.com slash Matt, homeschoolconnections.com slash Matt,

Starting point is 01:34:25 100% Catholic, excellent teachers like Trent, Tim Staples, Joseph Pierce teaching you English. So I just say that because people might be like, this person might be very intimidated by homeschooling, and it's nice to know that you can supplement. You can get help. You can get help, absolutely. Mayra Ramos says, hi all, two questions.

Starting point is 01:34:42 First, I understand that you attend a Byzantine Catholic church. What prompted you to attend an Eastern Rite church? Second, are there any theological differences between East and West? Yeah, I would say, first, we'll do the autobiography. When we were in San Diego, we were just looking for something. We just wanted a reverent liturgy. Is that so much to ask for? A reverent liturgy.

Starting point is 01:35:11 And we, we, we didn't find it. The, the, there was one reverent Novus Ordo we really enjoyed, but it was about an hour away. And that was,

Starting point is 01:35:19 we, we went when we, before we had children. Oh, the days before children. Let's drive, let's drive an hour to this liturgy and then we'll have a picnic later yeah i know i see people doing that now we're

Starting point is 01:35:30 like buckle buckle get in and buckle you've buckled where are your shoes why do you only have one shoe why are you pulling away why didn't you tell me yeah so so then we said, well, I want something reverent, and we love the traditional Latin Mass, but it's not what spoke to us spiritually as other liturgies. Right, because you're a liberal. Right, basically. I'm just joking. Right? For those who don't. No, well, I'll make a comparison there of the things that I think are beautiful in either.

Starting point is 01:36:02 So we looked at—and I've been to Eastern liturgies before, and I enjoyed them. There were some Eastern, and there are several Eastern Rite churches in San Diego. Yeah. And so we thought about attending them. I think there was a concern that some of them were a bit more culturally homogenous. Yes, yes.

Starting point is 01:36:16 So it's like you stick out like a sore thumb. Maybe a wife does. My blonde-haired, blue-eyed wife will stick out like a sore thumb in some of them. Not me as much. But then we found the Byzantine Church. We knew some people who had gone there. It's a Ruthannian Byzantine Church.

Starting point is 01:36:29 Its liturgy comes from Constantinople in the early Middle Ages. And I just fell in love with it. Yeah. And it's the same. If you look at the divine liturgy compared to the mass, it has the same basic setup. Gather, proclaim, break, send, it has the same basic setup. Gather, proclaim, break, send. It has that same basic setup. And so you would find that in the traditional Latin Mass as well, obviously.

Starting point is 01:36:53 But the difference, what I love about the divine liturgy is, like, I feel like I am just entering into one continuous prayer. And I know, like, the Second Vatican Council talks about full active conscious participation. Oh, man alive, yeah. And what I love about it is the hymns are the same every week, and they're very, very specific, either theologically, you know, we sing about one God, one Trinity, undivided in the same substance. We're always singing about God and who God is. I love that. Or we're singing, one hymn is, we repeat over and over again, set aside all earthly cares

Starting point is 01:37:33 before receiving the Eucharist. And so what I love, now some people I've taken to Divine Liturgy, and I'll say, hey, you want to come check out Divine Liturgy? And they'll say, oh, I liked it, but I miss, at the Novus Ordo, or even at the traditional Latin Mass, I miss the silence to enter into prayer. Because it feels like one continuous liturgy that's sung. There's hardly any silent moments, which makes it great to take kids to. Great for kids. Great for kids.

Starting point is 01:37:56 Our parish, you want to come visit Irving, Texas, St. Basil's, you'll probably catch us there. But I'll tell you this, it is a holy noise. There's probably like 50 kids there. And but the kids, and some people might say it doesn't feel reverent. The kids are all so noisy. But we're entering into the hymns. And like the kids might be distracted. But as soon as the priest walks by, they're like at attention.

Starting point is 01:38:18 And they go. And there's all these little traditions that I love. Like when the priest walks by, there's a tradition when he walks through the assembly that you touch his cloak. Like when Jesus is walking through the crowd and the woman who is hemorrhaging touches the cloak and power goes out of Jesus because she had faith. It's just that you lightly touch his vestment as he walks by you because he's in the person of Christ. And there's so much deep symbolism in all of it. And so, and I agree that the time for, that if you love silence in the liturgy may not be your cup of tea.

Starting point is 01:38:54 The reason I like it is that I can always create silence for myself if I need it, like at home, but I can't create communal liturgy, communal singing together in a very holy and reverent way. I have to go somewhere for that. So I like it. It may not be for everybody, but I think that's what I love about the church because it's universal. You have all of these different elements. Yeah, let me share how I went Byzantine and now go to a Roman church, because a lot of people have questions about this. I found myself to be something of a refugee in a sea of banal, poorly celebrated liturgies. I was looking for somewhere to reverence our Lord. And I started reading Way of a Pilgrim before I even knew I could go to a Byzantine Catholic church. I went

Starting point is 01:39:36 there. It was powerful, beautiful. Everything you just said, I completely agree with. My kids loved it. They were chrismated. Peter received Eucharist. It was neat to see him receiving Eucharist and breast milk, and that's it for his food. Kind of cool. So loved it, loved it very much. And we moved to Steubenville in January. And honestly, if there was a Byzantine church here that I thought was done very well, we may have continued to go. But last year in August, I went on an eight-day silent retreat at a Byzantine monastery, completely loved it. But while we were there, we went to a museum

Starting point is 01:40:10 and the origins of this town are very Catholic. And while I was there, I saw these beautiful wooden lampposts for the procession of the Eucharist, the vestments and things like this. And I remember actually feeling what I think was a righteous anger. I thought, why do I have to go and adopt Ruthenian traditions? Because people in my church decided to get rid of them, to nix them. All of these lovely traditions

Starting point is 01:40:36 in the West that I wasn't raised with. Wait, you mean Western traditions they nixed? Yes. Right. Oh, yeah, yeah, I see. You know, like playing Metallica at the end of Mass like I did once, or carrying up a field hockey stick in the offertory, because we give everything to God, and no longer kneeling to receive. I think the kids would call that cringe. Yeah, exactly. Cringe, bro. Exactly. Yeah. So that really bothered me. And I also thought, well, look, I am Western. It is kind of cool to have some continuity between the prayers my grandma used to pray, you know, with their little rosary beads and things like that. And also, it's like the little community here in Steubenville. And so

Starting point is 01:41:15 going to there was beautiful as well, but trying to reclaim those traditions. And I think that makes sense. And we should practice reverence in any liturgy that we're in. And we should expect that. Though what's interesting, Matt, is, yeah, when we were considering—well, when we decided to move out of California, because I was just fed up, couldn't do it anymore, with just the policies and just everything there, not really great homeschooling opportunities. And it was hard. We looked at the whole country, like, where do we go? What was interesting, though, I had fallen in love with the Byzantine liturgy so much that that was a non-negotiable for me.

Starting point is 01:41:54 Like, if I was to go to another city, it had to have at least some Eastern rite. Maybe it'd be Maronite, maybe it'd be Chaldean. But in particular, I wanted to see if it had a Ruthenian or a Byzantine Catholic church. And it'd be Maronite, maybe it'd be Chaldean, but in particular I wanted to see if it had a Ruthenian or a Byzantine Catholic church, and it's blessed us, and I think we're still discerning if we're going to. We have not switched rites, but we've been attending for over two years, and all our children have received their sacraments. St. Basil's is as good as it gets. Those guys are terrific. Oh, I really, really enjoy it. St. Basil's in Irving, Texas. So we'll see. But as for East and West, yeah, there's going to be differences in theology.

Starting point is 01:42:30 An analogy I've heard is like when you like Catholic Answers outside of Catholic, I want to get that guy so bad. I know. There's a fly flying around here. I'm sure they can see it on camera. I want to be like Daniel. Oh, that would have been so good. I could have put

Starting point is 01:42:45 the lid on top of the come on come on let's just do this for the next 10 right for 10 minutes people would be so upset right totally uh there's cowles mountain outside of catholic answers and you know when you people the staff goes hiking there it's like when you hike a mountain there's different trails and so you can get to the same point in different ways. And the mountain can look really different based on what side you look at it. So Eastern and Western Catholicism can look different, but it's all the same thing. And so I find, especially like for in the Byzantine Catholic Church, like I have Orthodox friends, you know, it's a nice kind of stepping stone. I might say, hey, come to the Divine Liturgy.

Starting point is 01:43:22 It'll feel just like your Orthodox Church. We just have a picture of the Pope in the vestibule. But obviously there are theological differences with the Orthodox. It's not... Some people accuse, and I talk about this in a rebuttal I recently did on my podcast to an Eastern Orthodox apologist

Starting point is 01:43:37 who accused Eastern Catholics of basically being Orthodox in theology, but claiming to be Catholic. No, there are differences. But the language that is used, I think you'll see in the East, for example, more of a reliance on kind of a mystical tradition of understanding different elements in theology

Starting point is 01:44:00 versus the systematic way that Aquinas might put it. But there are other elements that are friendly. For example, there's a great book I have by Father Christian Kappes, K-A-P-P-E-S. And it's a book on the Immaculate Conception talking about why some Eastern theologians, I think he was referencing Gregory Palamas and Mark of Ephesus, accepted the Immaculate Conception, whereas Aquinas did not. And so you could have the benefits there. So, yeah, there's different ways of articulating it, but it's still the same fundamental Catholic faith.

Starting point is 01:44:32 Yeah. Sean Mitchell, thanks for being a patron, Sean. He says, hey, Trent and Matt, what is the strongest argument I can offer to my Protestant friends against Calvinism? First of all, people have got to go check out that excellent debate you did with James White. I got to say, I was so impressed. That's when I knew that Trent was a ninja. Because I've seen James White tear people to shreds, really.

Starting point is 01:44:55 And so when you went up against him, I was like, all right. I had no doubt you'd do decent. But I think the general consensus from what I see online, and it might just be because I live in Catholic circles, is Trent won that debate. Well, I think even many non—I've seen non-Christians who don't have a dog in the theological fight saying they thought that I presented my case from Scripture very well. And I thought that—I thought the debate did well. There's things, obviously, I would go back and change. You know, it's funny.

Starting point is 01:45:23 That was my first debate with a Protestant. So, I mean, like— How cool to start with him. Talk about starting with someone who's been doing debating since probably before I was born. I think a lot of people who might be Catholic today may have never heard of James White. But I think you and I, because of our age, we grew up on that kind of apologetics. We had Pat Madrid and James White, Jimmy Akin, James White. He was, like, the main guy at the time. Yeah, and there's other people. There are groups of, it's interesting.

Starting point is 01:45:46 You have these Calvinist critics of Catholicism, White, the late R.C. Sproul, MacArthur, and other individuals who I would distinguish from more scholarly defenders of Calvinism. What's his name? Michael Horner or Hortner. He wrote a book, Calvinism. He's written a lot on Calvinism and others. And although now I'm seeing there are more people coming about even from other non-Calvinist traditions who are offering thoughtful thoughtful critiques you have you had on your podcast you had Jordan Cooper and Jimmy and he represents a Lutheran view so yeah there there are different

Starting point is 01:46:38 it's interesting when you look at different critiques of Catholicism you always have to ask what is the theological background of that person? Because that shows whether you have common ground with them or not. Like, I'm going to have more common ground with somebody like Jordan Cooper, who's a Lutheran, than I will with somebody like Gavin Ortland, who is a Baptist.

Starting point is 01:46:56 So that's why, so someone says, what's the strongest argument against Calvinism? What I might say is, well, all right, you have to tell me what you mean by Calvinism. That's a very broad term. There are some people who, it would depend, you believe, some people call themselves Calvinists, the only distinctly Calvinist thing they believe in is that you can't lose your salvation. But there's some people who are five-point Calvinists who would say, hey, look, God decides who,God gives you salvation and you can't resist it.

Starting point is 01:47:25 That's called irresistible grace. So salvation, they'll say, is 100% up to God. It's monog—sorry, not monogamism, monergism. It's all—salvation is all God's doing. You don't do anything. You do nothing. If that is—so what that means is God picks people to go to heaven. They can't say no to his grace. They can't say no to his grace.

Starting point is 01:47:45 They won't say no to it later. But what I would say is, look, if salvation is 100% up to God, then that would imply damnation is 100% up to God, and that God arbitrarily, that salvation is just he creates the world, he saves these people, he damns these people. And I would say that's very, very morally, if i was to be blunt monstrous if i was in a philosophical setting counterintuitive might be a word i would use it's easy once again like if i'm like debating people that's very morally that's morally counterintuitive like when a when a

Starting point is 01:48:18 philosopher says something is counterintuitive that's just their nice way of saying that's dumb so you have to, you know. But, and so I think it will depend on the person too, because if someone is really steeped in Calvinism, they might say, well, you're judging God by man's standards. And they almost take like this pride in like how off-putting their belief system is sometimes. So I think a strongest argument might just be, what do the Scriptures say? Do the Scriptures say that we do something? Like, we really accept belief, we reject belief, or is that just an illusion? It's, you know, a language of a hypothetical that will never happen.

Starting point is 01:49:00 I have a hard time buying that. But if you want more on that i i have a lot i counter a lot of calvinist critiques of catholicism in my book the case for catholicism so that might be a good start for someone who's very in tune to calvinism i think i have a lot of replies to that particular belief system there patron andy gradjack says i'm dating someone who is attending an SSPX chapel, not because she accepts their schismatic rhetoric, but because it's the closest TLM to where she lives. Is this okay? Does the modiproprio change our ability to attend SSPX without being disobedient? Well, I don't think the modiproprio is, the recent one on the latin mass is aimed specifically at the sspx uh because the sspx has already acknowledged they have the term the most common term i found is canonical irregularity uh to understand what to what authority do the sspx priests uh answer to

Starting point is 01:50:01 canonically irregular uh so i don't know if the moda proprio would specifically address that. I would say that it would not be problematic to attend the SSPX chapel as it would be, for example, like Eastern Orthodox or Protestant service or something like that. My understanding from others that I've spoken to about this is that it could be justified under certain circumstances. But my main advice would just be for someone who is doing that to just be very careful about, well, really any parish community you're in that is known for flirting with the edge of things that may not be appropriate. Frankly, I think there's a lot of people who identify as SSPX who would say, we're not

Starting point is 01:50:49 trying to be schismatic at all. We're not trying to—we're not—I think a lot of people who identify as SSPX, they just want to go to Mass, and that's just what they want to do. They don't want to raise a big hubbub about—we actually had, if you go to Catholic.com, Catholic Answers Focus, did, I think, a two-part interview with one of the public representatives of SSPX. I want to say his last name is Vogel, maybe, with Father Hugh Barber, and they had a great chat. So I would definitely recommend our listeners, if you want more on that, Catholic Answers Focus, look up. They had a two-part episode, I think,spx and to to have a balanced view but anywhere you

Starting point is 01:51:26 go if there are people there and it could be in a lot of different communities i mean there's some novasordo where you know they've got the hockey sticks bringing up that they're flirting with some pretty heterodox or frankly heretical things be careful the communities you're in if that community is kind of drifting towards bad stuff, maybe it's something you want to steer clear of. Yeah, I looked up SSPX on YouTube the other day and just clicked a video to watch it, and one of the first things that was said was, it would be better for you not to go to the Novus Ordo Church if that's your only option. Yeah, so if someone says, for example, that, yeah, that's encouraging someone to commit

Starting point is 01:52:01 a grave sin. That's encouraging someone to commit a grave sin. That is, so I mean, there are, when you get far enough away from what the church teaches, you fall into these traps. And some people might say, well, Trent, what's the big deal? Someone's very, very traditional. How bad could that be? Well, if somebody, and I've seen this, when people identify as like traditionalists, but I think most traditionalists would be aghast at this view to say, it would be better for you to not go to mass, to violate the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy,

Starting point is 01:52:31 than to go to a valid Novus Ordo, even one that is celebrated reverently. Yeah, it's like, dude, Jesus gave us a church, man. He gave us a living magisterium. I would be careful though, I'm getting into more controversy than I normally would on my own podcast. You do this to people. You let them unspool, and then here they go. If the magisterium only exists to confirm what you already believe, I think that's a recipe for disaster. Like, what is the role of the church's teaching office? If the church's magisterium, if the teaching office exists so you have a 2,000-year-old giant club to beat the other guy over the head with, well, obviously, I believe this, this, and this, and this, and guess what?

Starting point is 01:53:14 Christ's church says we have to leave this. So, like, if the magistrate only exists so you've got a great billy club for what you already believe, what are you going to do when the church says—when you disagree with the church? Yeah. For example, when Pope Francis said that the death penalty is no longer permissible. Is inadmissible or brings in this disciplinary ruling about the Latin Mass, or what are you going to do when you disagree? And you suddenly say, well, I don't believe that. You know, we have to avoid cafeteria Catholicism both on the right and the left. But at the same time, we also have to understand that the church, bishops, even the pope,

Starting point is 01:53:55 could make prudential judgments about things that are beyond the scope of what they're talking about. Maybe they're making a judgment about some kind of social policy, and it turns out to be not a great judgment, actually, in the long run. So there's a wider view of that. Another resource I'd recommend on that, then, if you're saying, well, how do I know what the Church teaches? My friend Jimmy Akin has an excellent book, Teaching with Authority, how to cut through—I forget the subtitle—how to cut through doctrinal confusion.

Starting point is 01:54:23 Teaching with Authority, Jimmy Akin, helps you to read magisterial documents so you can avoid both errors on the far right and the far left. This will be the final question. It comes from Matthew Antero. What argument does Trent Horn consider as the worst argument for God's existence? Oh.

Starting point is 01:54:44 I was once in a panel at a university sponsored by a Catholic group. And there was a moderator and a bunch of us, and someone asked, what's a good argument for God? I think I gave like a contingency argument, and I talked about metaphysics, so I tried to make it as understandable as I could,

Starting point is 01:55:01 but it's higher level stuff. And the host said, you know, Trent says this pretty high level stuff to show that God exists, but I'll tell you, when I look at a baby, when I look at a water, you know, when I look at a newborn baby, when I look at a field of watermelons. When you need a packet of Rolos. I know, I know there's a God. And I was like, oh, you know, but, and there is something to be said about the argument from beauty. It can be put forward in an elegant way.

Starting point is 01:55:29 It can be put forward in a robust way. I don't think it's still, even then, I don't think it's the strongest argument. But to just talk about, like, it should just be obvious God exists. Or like, well, come on, look at, here's a, every baby that's born is a miracle. Like, oh, the atheist is going to say, what are you going to do with birth complications and all the other, excuse me, all the other ugly things that you see. When it's the worst argument for God, yeah, it would just be essentially asserting God exists with just like this weird like, oh, can't you just see when you look at, look at everything around us.

Starting point is 01:56:06 A lot of people look at that and they don't see God. So I think the worst ones are probably just when they're put forward in that condescending, like, it should just be obvious to you, weak, evidential way. And to mirror it, okay, so the worst argument for God is to say, well, it's just the evidence is obvious and look at all of this stuff that's pretty natural. And then the worst atheistic argument, I was actually on social media a few days ago dealing with this, is to say it's just obvious God is the same as Santa Claus. It's just obvious. No, if you look at even atheistic philosophers of religion like Graham Oppie, Paul Draper, get a guy like Joe Schmidt at Majesty of Reason, the real atheology guys, real atheology at Twitter.

Starting point is 01:56:45 Yeah, they're great. I like them a lot. I enjoy exchanges with them. They will say that, for the love of goodness, atheists, don't compare God belief like that. There are robust arguments that we have to confront. So I guess that would be the mirror version of the bad on both for and against. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:57:02 Terrific. Trent, lovely to have you here. It's going to be great to hang out with you the next couple of days as well. You bet. Where do people go to learn more about Trent Horn? Well, I have a website, trenthorn.com. I would also recommend checking out my podcast,

Starting point is 01:57:15 The Council of Trent, iTunes, Google Play. Now on YouTube, definitely go check us out. Subscribe there. One day, that way I don't have to steal uh matt's uh plaque here and just sharpie it out yeah and put council of trend definitely subscribe to us on um youtube we do i try to do a rebuttal video or a dialogue um every monday and we do fun you know theological episodes during the week free for all fridays fun stuff i'm gonna have my wife on in a week love your free for all friday laura tell Laura unplugged, and she has her fun.

Starting point is 01:57:47 I remember when my wife first met you. I think one of the first things you and I did together, because we were living in San Diego. I don't know if you remember this, but we were sitting on the carpet eating chicken wings, watching a DC cartoon. Yes. I remember Cameron came by.

Starting point is 01:57:59 She's like, can I get you boys any milk? And I said, shut up. No, I didn't. But I remember she didn't understand Trent. She's like, I can't really figure him out like didn't understand trent she's like i can't really figure him out once she met laura she's like ah so i've often said that laura is to trent what the church is to christ she makes you intelligible she's terrific i remember you guys said i don't i don't know how my demeanor maybe sometimes when people just start to get to know me my demeanor is more reserved and you said like i was worried she'd be this really

Starting point is 01:58:23 quiet person with straight black hair that doesn't say anything nope and she is the opposite of that first thing she said to me should we say that do you remember i don't know but i will let you do prudent or imprudent things all right so she came to my door this is what i think after you guys got engaged and she went oh my god matt frat i'm pee my pants. She is an excitable, joyful individual who has complete control over her bowels. So we'll just put that. All right. Just leave it at that.

Starting point is 01:58:51 I'm sure Laura is going to love that. Now I'll be in trouble. Well, she is, I love that she is so funny sometimes. She's like, she says, Trent, you need to go out and see people. Don't just be writing books all the time. So she's like the mom from the sandlot. You've been inside all summer. You need to go out and see people. Don't just be writing books all the time. She's like the mom from the sandlot. You've been inside all summer. You need to get out.

Starting point is 01:59:08 I was excited to have her on my podcast in two weeks because it was funny. When I knew Laura was the one, we were driving together, and she was telling a story about some friends of hers. She told the story. She used a character voice to describe someone.

Starting point is 01:59:28 And she was animated telling the story. And she used this like hilarious character voice to describe someone. And I had this like belly laugh. And I never like have those kinds of, I like polite laughs, but like she got me to have a belly laugh especially with women i gotta say women aren't usually that funny your wife is hilarious

Starting point is 01:59:52 yeah like women don't often make me like laugh like that men can women don't i don't find women that funny she's hilarious i would say most people in general like i'm just like okay but like that's just like i i knew and so it's been beautiful it was married for eight years and uh next time next time we'll have to come out bring her and the the kiddos to visit it'd be great sweet so just so everybody knows here are the winners of the 10 summa contra gentiles brian j from florida chris m from north carolina rachel s from australia good luck paying that shipping Thomas H from New York, Emily J from Illinois Bradley J from Louisiana Sharon D from Steubenville

Starting point is 02:00:29 Chris K from Pennsylvania Alden B from South Carolina and Elliot from Delaware and just a reminder that you can get 40% off any Aquinas books from the St. Paul Center by typing in the coupon at check out pints40,

Starting point is 02:00:46 P-I-N-T-S-4-0. And that's going to last to the end of August. So if you wanted to increase your library, make it cooler, go to stpaulcenter.com, go to books, go to Aquinas Institute and yeah, choose whatever you want. You could buy all of Aquinas' works and get 40% off all of it if you wanted to. So thanks to Emmaus Academic for making that happen. Trent, God bless you. Thanks for being here. This has been super fun.

Starting point is 02:01:09 You too, Mr. Fred. Sweet. Nå er vi på Norske Norske. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបាូវាប់ពីបានប់ពីបានប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពី Thank you.

Pints With Aquinas - Apologetics Ninja w/ Trent Horn

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