Truth Unites - Dissecting Arguments for God (with Lukas Ruegger)

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

In this video Lukas Ruegger and I dissect various arguments for the existence of God. Check out Lukas' Channel Deflate: https://www.youtube.com/@Deflate2020 Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Hey everyone, welcome or welcome back to Truth Unites. Truth Unites is a place for apologetics and theology done in an ironic way. And today I'm going to be talking with Lucas Ruger, who runs a super cool YouTube channel called Deflate. If you've never seen it, you've got to check it out. He does the most creative videos. It's addictive. This is the only thing I will warn you about. You start watching them and you get hooked on him. So a link to his video, to his channel is in the video description. Go check it out. Go subscribe. Go watch his stuff. going to have kind of a fun, casual conversation about arguments for the existence of God, pros and cons to each argument, what makes them practically effective, any pitfalls to avoid when we're

using arguments, and just anything like this that might be helpful for people who are interested in arguing for the existence of God. So this would be a great time. Lucas, when did Deflate start? And what was the motive for you for starting it? Yeah, so Gavin, I start. around two and a half years ago and the history behind the channel is that we used to have discussion events we called them discussion nights at our house in Beirut in our living room and these were done in collaboration with an atheist club so I basically we started a Bible study for skeptics and seekers in a Starbucks in Beirut which is where I currently live or where I have lived

with my family for the last 10 years. And, well, a bunch of people from our crowd, they started an atheist club, like an atheist gathering. And then at some point we said, well, let's bring our two groups together and do joint events where we discuss the things that divide or unite us. And like out of that grew the idea to kind of turn things. We would talk about or the discussions I would facilitate into a YouTube channel. And so that happened, yeah, around two and a half years ago, actually.

Awesome. Well, yeah, it's a great channel, and I'm curious. I got into YouTube about two years, maybe similar time, maybe a little bit after you. And I kind of went into it worried about what are the negative effects of social media. Do I really want to be devoting so much time to social media? But what's honestly surprised me is it's also so much fun. And I've made a lot of friends by being on YouTube. It's kind of amazing.

I'm curious about your experience. I mean, would you say, what are some of the positives that you've enjoyed about being on YouTube? Yeah, great question. I was very, very positively surprised by how you can really, well, create a sense of community and bring people together. I mean, what I cherish most or what are kind of the nuggets in running the YouTube channel is to, you know, take up conversations again and again with the same people. You know, I have around, I don't know, 19,000 followers. And I mean, out of those 19,000, there is probably a cool group.

Well, I mean, I could probably come up with like 20 or maybe 30 names of people that regularly come back and interact in the comment section or write emails. And this is, I think this is very rewarding. And then what is what is nice is to see people, well, not even necessarily change their minds. I mean, I mean, that's obviously, obviously beautiful to see. But I think what is even more beautiful is people admitting that they know that they were maybe wrong or that they had a wrong attitude and this kind of. And I did I had to do this myself. I mean, I had to apologize in the comment section for the ways in which I can know, didn't compose myself properly in responding to comments. And I think this is this is really what. people together even on an online platform. And that's beautiful. And what's also beautiful is to see, I mean, I have a couple of followers who come from where I actually live.

So in Beirut, I have a big atheist influencer from Lebanon who follows me. And we've met in person. And we're actually going to meet again just about next week probably. And that's beautiful. I love that. And it's things like, you know, converse with people like yourself, where you again have the real experience of, connecting with people who, you know, as real as people can be. So that's that that's

cool thing about you too. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, whenever we can have these conversations with civility and respect is a beautiful thing. And we all fall short. I mean, I have to. I mean, I regularly, I have to check myself. I don't know what it is. It's like you get into this mind where you say, I want to, I want to prove my side and then you have to be careful at times that you're not getting pulled into ways of arguing that aren't productive and it's so easy to do and we all make mistakes like that. But I love the work you do. And I want to ask about your favorite video. And by the way, for people watching this too to know if there's ever a gap between when we're talking, it's not that the

other person is just likes to stare for three seconds at the screen. It's that the Lebanon to the U.S. connection to such. There's just a little time gap sometimes. So that's no problem at all. But what's your, is there a favorite video you've done or something you'd first recommend? they're just checking out your channel? I guess I'm like a series of videos I'm passionate about is my responses to Cosmic Skeptic, Alex O'Connor. For anyone who is interested in his work, I think they would probably enjoy the various responses

I've done to his videos. And probably a good one to start with is the response I did to his what is called, what he called, his biggest case against Christianity based on animal suffering. And I responded to that one, which was around one and a half years ago, and it picked up pretty well. And it's, yeah, I enjoy that video. And I think, yeah, it's a good place to start. Yeah, I've done quite a couple of response videos to atheist YouTubers.

And, yeah, but I've also done just topic videos. Yeah. Yeah, and you've got short ones, you've got long ones. Some of the stuff you've done on Divine Hiddenness. is that's an interesting area for me. So I don't know, maybe that will come up or not. We'll see. But let's dive into arguments for the existence of God here a little bit.

And here's a fun way to start. What's your favorite? Do you have a personal favorite argument? Yeah, it's probably, it's a good question. And when you sent me that, I was thinking, well, how would I answer that question? I think, and this may be a boring way to answer it. But it depends on the context. You know, it depends on the level of knowledge and familiarity.

with philosophical arguments that a person already has. But I think in general to kick off a conversation, I'm pretty happy and I feel pretty comfortable with cosmological arguments, arguments from or argument the argument from contingency to Kalam cosmological argument. I think these are great to poke a person's mind. And, you know, they bring you, you know, they bring you to theism or they, you know, I mean, I guess the Kolumcosanological argument even brings you to a personal creator if you dig deeper.

But in general, I think these are very, I think what I would call innocent arguments, very easy to grasp, very, I think, non-threatening in the sense that they don't bring, you know, baggage, if you want, of Christian tradition or. or history that a person would have to handle with and often has or would have to handle and often would often have maybe negative ideas about i mean there are purely philosophical arguments that i think can stir quite some interest i've made very good experiences with again the color cosmological argument or argument from contingency yeah yeah in just a second i want to ask more about those experiences and we can work through the kalam and well just the cosmological argument generally, I want to say for me, and this is why I distinguish my favorite argument versus the one I think is most effective. Because my favorite argument is the ontological argument for God's existence.

Because it makes my mind expand, it opens up my mind to thinking about the nature of God. However, I think of a single time that I've ever used the ontological argument to try to convince someone of existence of God. And that is interesting to think about is that sometimes the value of arguments for the existence of God might be more than just a matter of convincing someone. It might also be a matter of nourishing, strengthening, or even just intriguing someone who's already open or already convinced. But what I would say for the one that I think is most effective is, I think, is for me, in my experiences, is the moral argument because it can tap into the spirit of the times, which is outrage about injustice. If there's anything that is characteristic of the world these days,

it seems as though people are outraged, and the moral argument can tap into that and then build from it. And we'll come back to that one as well. But is there an argument that you find most effective, or would you say still the cosmological for that? Yeah. Again, I would say that the moral argument is, as you yourself said, it is an effective argument. But at the same time, in my experience, it takes quite some time for a person to realize, you know, the weight or the significance of the argument. And what I mean by that is, like, first of all, I think many people have a hard time realizing what moral subjectivism or relativism would imply, which is, you know, most people you would be discussing this argument with. I mean, that these people from a non-Christian background would assume the position of moral relativism. But they don't realize that this position entails that you can't really call any moral act evil or wrong.

You know, if you bring up, in my experience, it's hard for people to understand that if they were true moral relativists, they had no ground to stand on to call, again, genocide or the Holocaust, wrong. And yet that's what they do. And so I think in my experience, it takes quite some time to make a person understand that moral relativism isn't really livable or that no one, even they themselves, live as if moral relativism is true. And so that's in this sense. But once this clicks, once a person understands that and once they, then in a second step, understand that, you know, moral objectivism, the position that makes most sense in the light of how we live, and talk and think and react to, again, all sorts of injustices out there in the world. Once a person realizes that and realizes that this position requires the existence of a moral law giver who is above and beyond humanity, I think the argument then hits home with quite some force.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let me ask one last preliminary question. Then we can drill into these specific arguments even more. some people say you don't need an argument to believe in God. You can rely on personal experience. Therefore, arguments for the existence of God don't have that much value. And I feel about this that I want to say, it's true that you don't have to have arguments to believe in God. But that doesn't, it doesn't follow from that that they don't have value. They can really have value both for nourishing a believer and also for providing an appeal. to a non-believer. I'm curious, in your own work and in your ministry,

I mean, could you share anything about how you've seen arguments for the existence of God really have a positive impact upon people? Yeah. I think, I mean, on a very, very basic level in my work and experience, and I mean, we, again, we do regular discussion events. We just had like 10 days ago. We had a discussion night in our, like we just opened a ministry cafe in Beirut two months ago. and for one of like again we do biweekly discussion events which are very apologetic in in in nature and we had some 80 people show up the other day in and in for again just discussing where the god exists in my experience a very and this may be like very modest but it is still like a very basic and and useful value of arguments and apologetics it's to give in to

intellectual or intelligent people, like a basic experience that Christians actually think about what they believe. You know, again, this may be very, again, super modest. But I do think that at least in my experience, for many people I meet, what they need as a very first step is just the experience that there are, there are sharp in how they think about. is just the experience that, and there are Christians out there who are actually, you know, they're sharp in how they think about reality and their faith and God and science and philosophy. So that for me is often, that's kind of the first kind of groundbreaking work an argument can do. And from there, you then take it on. Now, I do, I mean, in my experience, I do think that every person, I mean, the way God created us is that we're both emotional and, you know, intellectual beings.

So I do think that a person will have, will want to have some sort of, you know, personal or emotional experience of the divine or of God in order to kind of come to personal faith in him. And but at the same time, again, I think people want answers to tricky questions. And yeah, I mean, these come in different proportions. you know, depending on how a person is wired. I mean, I've seen people they would, you know, happily come closer, move closer to Christ without having heard all the arguments there are. But they, you know, they're much more interest in having, you know, a relational way of experiencing divine love or Christian love.

Other people know, they, you know, their heads are, you know, working all the time. They think their way through life. And so in order for them to come to knowledge of Christ, they would want to make it work up here. And then obviously, I think about this in terms of the calling of the church. I mean, you know, the body of Christ has its members. And I do think as the church, we are called to give our best in, you know, thinking through the faith and communicating the faith properly. And because there are people out there who will need to hear good arguments in order to, move closer towards Christ.

Yes. Well, let's drill into the cosmological argument a bit and share our feeling. You've already broached this one a bit. I like to compare the cosmological argument to a sledgehammer. In that, what I mean by that is I think it has enormous force,

but it's not quite as precise, perhaps, as some other arguments. And I could be wrong about that. I keep revisiting this and thinking about this for people watching this is the argument for God is the first cause and sometimes there are different variations of this argument I'll preface my comments by saying I'll never forget when I read Paul Davies who is a agnostic physicist and he's basically saying when you think about the big bang and this is in interaction with the kalam cosmological argument particularly he's saying

people often misconstrue the big bang as though it were the explosion of matter within space and time so you've got this empty space of blackness and then poof here comes light and matter and so forth no no no the big bang is the explosion of space time itself now i i know that we will also need to acknowledge alternative cosmologies that construe the big bang differently those exist they need to be considered that's real that's out there but in sort of the standard model uh this is how we are to think and it really every time i think about it it washes over me afresh to think of space time itself coming into existence and that to me there's this powerful intuition that there needs to be some explanation for that and i think most people can relate to that at the same time i can understand

someone if someone were to say well okay sure there's something up there that there's something up there There's something out there beyond space time, something immaterial that caused the material. But it's harder to say precisely what that cause is. I can understand that. And that's what I think we probably need to provide additional arguments at that point. But I know others who try to get the whole everything out of the Kalam argument. So that's sort of how I think about this. I'm curious your thoughts on the cosmological argument.

how far do you think it can get us and how do you like to use this argument and how have you seen it used well? Yeah. Again, I've seen it in my experience. I've seen it work well just as a kind of as a as a good starter to get the conversation going or to actually again push, push quite hard, you know, make make a good push for the existence of some immaterial being that is outside space, time and matter. So in this sense, I think it does a good job at challenging naturalism itself. You know, you need to, as Paul Davies says, well, you need a first cause behind, you know, the effect of the universe coming into existence. And again, it just, it challenges naturalism at its core. And obviously, it leaves the question about the cause.

cause unanswered. However, I mean, the cause by itself, and I guess your reviewers are probably familiar with, again, the Colom Cosmological argument and that it implies an immaterial and spaceless and timeless cause, because if the cause were in any way kind of related to time, space, or matter, it would become part of the space, time, matter, reality that it needs explaining or that needs a cause. So I think that that's pretty easy to grasp. I think for most people in my experience, they have no problem realizing, oh yeah. I mean, if we want to kind of look for a cause for space time matter, well, we need to have a cause that doesn't have these properties. But actually, I mean, and William Lane Craig and Cosmic Skeptic, they had the conversation about

this. And I will make a commentary video on their conversation. If you dig deeper, the, the column cosmological argument will will actually even bring you to a personal cause. It will not just, if you dig deeper, and I mean, I guess we don't have time to discuss this here now, but if you dig deeper into the nature of the cause that caused space, time, and matter to come into being, you will actually find that you have no other way than to suggest a cause that is personal. And I mean, and to make this very, very quick, there are two ways to argue for personal cause behind the order to

cause that the column suggests. And one of them is, again, it's quite simple. I mean, if you think about all causal explanations you could possibly give for anything out there, for any, again, cause effect phenomenon, you always have two possibilities available. One of them is natural law. or personal agency. Any causal explanation we give about anything

is either going to be an explanation in terms of natural law or personal agency or both sometimes. Okay? But for the explanation of, again, the beginning of space, time and matter, the beginning of the universe, you cannot. It's impossible to invoke natural law

because the laws of nature, they didn't yet, so to speak, exist before nature itself came to exist. So you are forced to, by abductive reasoning, basically, to suggest that the cause behind the universe must be personal. So, I mean, that's in a nutshell. There's much more that could be said about this. Again, William Lane Craig has talked about this.

He talked about this to Cosmic Skeptic, who's actually conceded and admitted that this makes sense, that you can move from the column to a personal cause behind the universe, which is impressive. Yeah, yeah, fascinating. Well, people who would like to learn more about this argument would do well, in addition to the videos you've done on this, to look at William Lane Craig's work

because he's done a pioneering job just resurrecting this argument, especially the Kalam version, which has origins among medieval Muslim philosophers, interestingly. And it really is a powerful appeal. And as you say, it's one that sometimes we, think, oh, these arguments are only for people who have a PhD in cosmology or something like that, but it really is something that can be understood and grasped in its basic idea by the average person, I think. So let me ask about the teleological argument or the argument from design. This is one that I

myself did not put a lot of work into historically. It just wasn't my area of interest. And so as I was looking back at it, to kind of get up to speed on it as I was doing some research for my book on this, I, one of the things that really struck me is that the best rival explanation for the exquisite fine tuning of the physical constants of our universe, other than intelligent design is the multiverse hypothesis. There are many, many, many universes and we just happen to live in the one that is, characterized as it is such that it's life permitting. And that was amazing for me to realize and to realize it just kind of puts things on a little more of an even playing field because

that is the major alternative. But that tells you is nobody has a non-mysterious worldview. Nobody has a worldview that is entirely explicable just by what we can observe and study scientifically. And that was really helpful for me to see that. What would you like to comment upon about teleological arguments? Yeah, let me just jump right into, again, this version of the theological argument about like basically fine-tuning of the universe. I think with what you expressed to put it in the, I think what you express can be put in different words, which is that I think it forces a person or it forces the naturalist or

the skeptic to realize, again, you call it, you call it. Like everyone has a mysterious, like a mysterious aspect in the world. What this argument does so well, again, it brings us on level ground with the skeptic by, like him having to concede that he has to refer to an entity or he is proposing something, i.e. the multiverse, which is inaccessible to the empirical sciences. okay. I mean, again, the multiverse by definition cannot be accessed by science. It's outside the grasp of science which can only go as far as our observable universe. And so I think what this argument does so, I mean, I think it does much more than that. But again, the groundbreaking or the basic work the argument does, it basically tells the skeptic, well, you know what? Yes, I know, me as a Christian, I'm proposing. this entity God who is, you know, immaterial and he's a, he's, again, he's spaceless and he doesn't, like, there is no matter to it and whatnot. So he's not a scientific, uh, scientifically accessible thing. But you're doing the same thing. You're telling me that we live in this universe because there is this scientifically or empirically inaccessible thing out there, the multiverse of which we're

part of. So basically, well, are we, are we not kind of standing, on the same ground here. And I think that's a powerful way, again, just to push back against the supposed rationality of the naturalist position or the perceived irrationality of the theistic position. And then I think from there, you can go in further and, you know, apply Occam's Razor and say, well, how much sense does it make for you to tell me that there are millions and millions or trillions of universes out there, of which we will never be able to kind of grasp anything, as opposed to saying, well, there is one intelligent, immaterial, divine mind who created the one universe we're observing.

So I think that it's a very powerful argument. And I think part of what it shows that it is so powerful is that people like, I mean, Richard Dawkins of all people, he said that if there was one argument that was to convince him of of theism, it would be this. It would be the argument from fine-tuning. Yeah, that's interesting. I remember reading through Richard Dawkins, the God delusion, and being just amazed that he uses Occam's razor in the other way. He's saying, oh, it's much simpler to have a zillion universes than it is to have God. And I remember thinking, okay, whatever you're doing right now in that judgment, it is.

is not science. Because that's how he's casting his whole outlook is, well, I'm having the more scientific outlook. I'm like, that's an intuition and that's a judgment that's of a philosophical nature concerning the nature of simplicity. And whether you're right or wrong, that is not a scientific observation.

And again, like you say, it kind of evens the playing field a little bit. But how do you respond when people say, because the two most common responses to these first two arguments, I like to clump them together somewhat, you know, Emmanuel Kant spoke of the story, starry host above and the moral law within. In my own thinking, I like to think of like, sometimes I'm talking about the universe,

sometimes I'm talking about the human heart. These two arguments are both about the universe, the cosmological that it is, the teleological how it is. And the most common response I hear to both is, oh, well, if everything needs a cause, what caused God? Oh, and oh, well, if the universe needs a designer, who designed the designer? and these appeals, I am thoroughly unimpressed by these responses. But maybe it would be helpful to talk about them because we hear them all the time.

How do you interact with concerns like that? Yeah, it's great. I expected that it would pick this up again because it comes up just regularly in conversations. I think part of what you do when you present, you know, in an argument, you know, a philosophical argument or when you do apologetics, in interaction with skeptics, is you are actually, and I don't mean for just to come across as pretentious or anything, but you're actually educating people. I think, you know, on what world do you, they actually have. And Francis Schaeffer was big on that. He said, well, part of what you do when you do evangelism and you do apologetics is you actually need to tell people what the implications of their own world, of their own world views are. And so here's one thing. Yes, I, You know, when you talk about the column or when you talk about the fine-tuning argument, yes, it's like in nine out of ten cases, the person will ask the question, well, okay, who designed the designer or who created God.

Now, here, and actually, I mean, to be honest, it's a fair question. There's nothing wrong about these questions. But what it shows or the opportunity it gives is for you to say, well, I mean, God is not created. He is the piece of my narrative. He's the starting point of my worldview, which I cannot explain. You know, he is, he is the ultimate. He is the entity that explains, but that remains unexplained. And then you move on to say, well, to be honest, if you think about it,

you have that piece in your narrative too. Every worldview, if you think about it in terms of a story, I mean, a world view is a story that has a beginning and it moves towards some end. And every story, every Worldview story has a beginning that remains unexplained. And for the Christian, it is the triune God. And for the materialist or for the naturalist, it is, you know, the universe. It is space-time reality. Again, just going back infinitely.

And I think we shouldn't be too concerned or frustrated or intimidated by the question. Anyway, not intimidated, but not frustrated. about the question who created God, but take it as an opportunity to tell the skeptic, well, yes, he is the ultimate starting point of my worldview. What is your ultimate starting point that you won't give me an explanation about? Because whether you like it or not, you have such a starting point that eludes an explanation in your own worldview. Yeah, it's a great point. I'll give my thought on this, and then I'll ask you another question about the moral argument. We can pivot to that one.

I what I found helpful with these objections of who caused what caused God and who designed the designer is to use analogies. And this relates to what you were sharing as well. And this is what I've seen William Lane Craig do so well. He talks about in his book, Reasonable Faith, how he learned to do this with analogies. The idea is that God is the definition of the word God in the Abrahamic traditions is an uncaused entity. The ontelized distinct uncaused first cause. It's not like the first domino that's just like all the other dominoes. It's an ontologically distinct uncaused first cause.

Now, somebody can perfectly, with perfect rationality, deny the existence of that. You know, that's fine. But if you say, well, what caused, the uncaused, it's like asking what number is bigger than eternity or what who is older than eternity or excuse me, who is older than eternity or what number is bigger than infinity. It simply misunderstands the proposal. The proposal can be rejected, but if the proposal is interrogated with the what caused God question, it shows it's not yet been envisaged. The person has not yet grasped or what we're trying to put on. As you put it, what we're trying to put on the table is you have to have an uncaused beginning point. And with the designer as well, you know, Craig uses the analogy of if you landed on the moon and you discovered the ruins of,

or another planet, the ruins of a civilization where there's buildings and there's pipes and there's all this stuff. You know, you wouldn't actually need to know who built them to infer. You can infer design without yet knowing all the details about the designer and so forth. So that's anyway, those are some, those analogies can sometimes help, I think, a little bit. But now, now on the moral argument, you made a great point a moment ago and we were talking about this. maybe we can circle back to this and how do we help people feel existentially the problem of when we are when we're stuck without any transcendent supernatural basis for morality as an objective fixed reality then we're stuck in the evolutionary paradigm that all

our moral instincts are purely the product of evolution and we don't and it's really hard to see how objectivity comes into the picture in that paradigm. I've always been struck that C.S. Lewis starts off the whole book, Mirr Christianity. He doesn't make a cumulative argument. He makes just a moral argument and you know, it's kind of put his eggs in that one basket. But let's come back to this and maybe you want to comment more on this argument. How can we help people feel the weight of it. I think you mentioned earlier, sometimes it takes a little bit of work to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I, again, in my experience, again, especially with the moral argument, you just have to talk it over and over and over again. And I, again, I mean specifically the point that a person,

again, a lot of most people I realize, most people I know or most skeptics I know, again, they will be very quick to profess moral relativism. You know, there is no absolute morality. There is no objective morality. You know, there are all these different cultures, all these different times. I do what I like. You do what you like. You know, we may disagree.

Well, who is to say there is, you know, there's nothing right and nothing wrong. There's just taste. That's what people profess. But again, you know, then they go out and they do their shopping. And if someone cuts in front of them in the line, well, they will think and they will intuitively react and saying, man, this is like what, this is wrong, you know, not just while you have bad faith, this is wrong. You're supposed to stand, you know, to wait your turn. Even more so when they opened the newspapers and they, you know, see whatever, you know, racism or any war and war crimes.

Again, they will immediately feel this is wrong. It's not supposed to happen. They will not think or feel, I don't like this. You know, these guys have bad taste or, or, you know, these guys have bad taste or whatnot. And so for me, I think that the crux here is to make a person realize that their reaction makes complete sense if the realm of morality exists objectively, if moral values and moral obligations are a matter of objectivity. Once they realize that, once they realize the connection between their intuitive moral reactions and the implications of those reactions, again, which is that, you know, these reactions only make sense if moral morality is a matter of objectivity. Once you get there, you know, the step from explaining that you need a moral

law giver or some transcendent, you know, cause behind those moral, moral laws is, I think it's a small, actually the smaller one. The bigger step, the harder work is to make a person realize that they, that we all live and they themselves live as moral objectivists rather than moral relativists, even if they profess otherwise. Yeah, yeah. I like the way you're saying that. It is that struggle of helping the dots get connected so we're not living in inconsistency. Because as you say, once you make that turn, one of the ways I found helpful with that is what people call, and let me recommend the book. I have a couple book recommendations as we go for folks here. This is called Good God, the theistic Foundations of Morality by David Baggett and Jerry Walls. It's an academic treatment of

the moral argument. It really is thorough. It's really excellent. I think people, if they're interested in drilling down into this argument, might find it useful. And one of the things, I think they talk about it in there, and I've thought about this, is Darwinian counterfactuals. So this is a way to say, if the evolutionary process had gone differently, our moral instincts might be different and then give examples. And this will help, like, you know, in the insect realm, there's plenty of things that are so disgusting that happen that I won't say them because someone watching this video out there might be about to eat lunch or something like this. But they species has evolved in a certain way where eating one's family. members or sexual cannibalism or all kinds of things we could mention they've evolved such that that is their instinct that is their norm that is what happens in that species of insect and then some in some cases in the higher level animals so we can say what if the evolutionary process had gone differently what if there's if there's nothing outside of of our biology that is grounding our moral instincts the evolutionary process could have gone differently we might have evolved such that malice was seen as good and I think and then giving specific examples

from the animal kingdom of things that are you know I think that's one way to help people not just get it up here intellectually but at a visceral level feel all that's at stake with this argument so that that's something I found you but what about what about arguments from beauty I'm curious. I've heard skeptics say, well, I'm a skeptic. I don't think there's any good reason to believe in God, but sometimes when I'm listening to Beethoven, I have my doubts about my skepticism. And it's interesting. Another book to recommend is this fascinating book, two dozen or so arguments for God. This was inspired by some of the work of Alvin Plantinga. Well, several of these arguments are aesthetic arguments or are. arguments from beauty. There's even arguments in the table of contents here. There's an argument from colors and flavors, arguments from play and enjoyment. And that might people might just immediately dismiss that. But it is interesting. This is high level philosophy that people are making these arguments from. What are your thoughts about aesthetic arguments or arguments from beauty? I've used again the

experience of beauty of people have made or again that like the glimpse of the beautiful of the transcendent that that art or you know beautiful sceneries can offer a person as as a platform to talk about um well to to approach the truth or to to approach the question of god more from a from a personal experiential vantage point rather than you know what I mean rather than to kind of try and make an argument out of it I've yeah I've tried it sometimes but I've been too too frustrated with how this went I feel like well you know I'm I'm, you know, I'm slaughtering or I'm misusing, you know, the beautiful for what it's as if not supposed to be used. You know, let's just let us just rather listen to a great piece of Beethoven

and see what happens, see how we react beyond just mere, you know, brain cells doing their work up here or us thinking through it. But let's let's just see what happens, you know. Right. Oh, totally. Yeah, maybe maybe the aesthetic arguments. I've never thought of it quite like this, before, but you kind of made me think of it like this. Maybe the aesthetic arguments are more person-specific. And it's less the kind of thing where you, it's less like the sledgehammer of the Kalam argument, where you're starting off with something and then leveraging it out to people. And it's more in the context of relationship with someone in dialogue. You're referencing what they're already articulating and saying, well, what's the best I for that? And that's how I use. In my book, I give an argument from,

math and an argument from music. And it does leverage out of people's experiences. And then it says, what's the best explanation for that experience? But those arguments, people can see how I try to do it. But here's what I'll say is I'm amazed at how many smart philosophers out there who will acknowledge the mysteriousness of the human experience of transcendence. And that it does call for some kind of explanation. and frankly, the naturalistic explanations are pretty underwhelming.

They're kind of dismal. They have a way of cutting down our basic intuitions as human beings. So, yeah, so I guess if we're going from the Kant on the starry host above to the moral law within, we can extend that from not just the moral law within, but also other things within the human heart that we can appeal to. Another one is our ability to reason. Do you, what are your thoughts about this? So C.S. Lewis uses this argument in various places. He had a famous debate with Elizabeth Anscombe about this argument.

In another great book people might be interested in for learning about arguments for the existence of God is the Blackwell companion to natural theology. There's a great version of the argument from reason by Victor. I think his name is Repert or Repair, R-E-P-E-R-T-R-T. He's one of the leading exponents of that argument today. And Josh Rasmussen has done great work on this argument as well. So this is not using reason to prove God. This is arguing for God from the nature of reason. I'm curious if you have thoughts about this argument.

If you've seen this one used well, do you think it's a forceful argument? Do you think it's a good argument? Yeah, I mean, I do think it is a good argument. I wonder sometimes whether it's a bit too, technical or abstract for some people's taste and therefore doesn't do quite isn't quite as efficient or effective maybe. I think and I mean this is a very, very simplified version and it's not even, you might not even want to call it a version of the arguments from reason, but what I usually kind of bring it back to is asking a person, you know, basically and I think I'm not sure if Tom

Snegel was the person who said that the well-known atheistic philosopher from New York University. I think he passed away five years ago or so. He said, if I'm not mistaken, it was him who said that, well, the difference between theism and atheism is that atheism posits that matter preceded mind, whereas theism suggests that mind preceded matter. And so then I, you know, just breaking it down, and I love that way of breaking down the two world views. It's, and in the sense, what I would usually ask a person as well, what makes more sense to, again, because again, every world view has to start with something that is ultimate. We're both on even on level ground here, you know. So either you like take your pick, either it's mind first or it's matter first, because again, philosophy.

you know, like down the centuries have wrestled with the mind, you know, the mind body problem, how mind or consciousness relates to matter. And so you're either going to start with this or you're going to start with that. So the way I usually kind of, again, like convey in a very, very simplified version of the argument for reason is to ask, well, what makes more sense if to suggest that mind gave rise to matter ultimately or matter gave rise to mind you know if it's matter giving rise to mind again what reasons would we have to trust our reasoning processes whereas if mind is ultimate well you know what what we're doing in with the life of the mind can at least in principle be trusted well one thing that people should know is that sometimes C.S. Lewis has been unfairly represented by some of

his really negative biographers in acting as though he just completely abandoned this argument and was super embarrassed after his debate with Elizabeth Anscolm. But the basic idea that if there's nothing supernatural, we can't ultimately trust that our reasoning faculties are geared toward truth. But they're rather geared towards survival. Yeah. Because the evolutionary process doesn't care about truth. It cares about survival. That basic idea, he did not abandon. He revised the argument to Anscombe's satisfaction. But he did not abandon it, and it wasn't some humiliating big thing like it's been blown out of proportion for. And I love the way you put it with the which comes first, mind or matter, that simple way to break things down. That also touches on the,

argument for God from consciousness. Now, I want to see your thoughts on this. This one is above my pay grade. I haven't really done much in it. I will say that it's interesting that a lot, I'm holding a book here by Thomas Nagel called Mind and Cosmos. Now, he's an atheist. Oh, it's a good. Yeah, it's a perfect. It's an awesome book. Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah. He's an atheist, but he's a great example of a philosopher who's fair minded and he's acknowledging the mysteriousness of consciousness. And he's really opposing those who poor scorn and contempt upon intelligent design. And he's saying, look, as an atheist, it's not warranted. Consciousness is a fundamentally mysterious reality. I think it gives help when we see those who they're not apologists for either side. They're not apologists for theism or against theism. They're just philosophers working in the material. And for that regular acknowledgement you do see of the mysteriousness of something. like consciousness and we could mention other examples too that that's helpful to be aware of that yeah i mean his book is it's a beautiful book because he it's just like page after page he's wrestling i mean you

can sense him wrestling with just this follow with the dilemma he's well he acknowledges again as a philosopher the phenomenon of consciousness is a mystery you know it's just you know how do we explain it? And he knows that are basically two competitors here. One is the naturalist story, which suggests that it's just all reducible to matter. And he says, this is nonsense. You know, it just doesn't make any sense. The evolutionary story to explain consciousness just doesn't work. And he says, well, okay, on the other hand, we have the the the theists who claim that there is, well, consciousness exists because there is, you know, the ultimate divine mind and he says man and he just doesn't want it to be true so he's claiming that we can somehow

find a third way and then he tries to figure it out and i i guess it just doesn't i mean it doesn't work either but it's it's it's powerful because it's him as an atheist himself saying man guys you just need to stop you know pounding can the materialism as a story as or as a supposed explanation for consciousness because it just ain't going to work never it's it's it's powerful the way he kind of, yeah, makes that case against that. Yeah, let's let's talk about one final final wing of the interview here historical apologetics. So we've talked about, you know, the story host above the universe, talked about the human heart. Another arena is history and there's so many things we could get into here. We could talk about fulfilled prophecy, you know, things like this.

Yeah, but the big areas where I see are from Christ and the argument for the resurrection and then yeah the old trilemma lord liar lunatic this kind of argument now people want to get the kind of cutting edge this this book by mike lycona on the resurrection is really really good it's a thick yep great book what amaze me is how good a case can be made from history i mean i guess i went into thinking oh it's two thousand years ago how strong can it really be But the argument for the resurrection, to start with this one, I was just blown away by how how forceful an appeal can be made. What would you like to say?

What are your thoughts about the argument for God from the resurrection of Christ? Yeah. I mean, once, you know, if you have the time and I mean, if a person is willing to listen, I do think it's, you know, if you're familiar with, again, the argument for the historicity of the resurrection, I do think it is an important. argument to plow through with a person. And it is, I think it's a powerful one. And, you know, in my experience, people will resist the conclusion that Christ rose from the dead once you present the evidence to them, you know, the empty tomb and Jesus was, you know, the disciples and other people claimed to have seen, you know, something they interpreted to be the risen Christ figure. Once you present those facts, to a person and to present them with the different possibilities that have been suggested as a way to explain those facts. And you tell them and you show them why the resurrection explains all of these facts most neatly and most comprehensively and with the least, you know, at-hawk kind of effort.

then in my experience most people will say yeah okay fair enough but I still can't believe it because it's still too crazy and I think again that's once you get there it's actually good because you

you then you can tell then push the skeptic and say well if you're just dismissing the resurrection because you you dismiss the supernatural well then you're again you're basically arguing yourself

of you're arguing for naturalism in a circle. And you can also say, well, you know, fair enough, if you don't want to go with this option. I mean, that's your choice. But I do think, and I think you have to agree that I'm in a rational position to say that, well, this event is the needless and the most efficient explanation for, you know, the facts that we have on the ground that historians agree on. So, yeah, I think in my experience, it is a good argument. And it's an important one to make because it builds on the very, you know, focal point of

our faith. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Well, it also just gets us upon Christianity specifically, as opposed to just being a theist of some other kind. And I want to say to encourage people, sometimes people assume that historical apologetics will be easy compared to philosophical apologetics, but actually, but actually, Actually, historical apologetics can be tricky.

And so just to encourage people to be careful, not to assume that just because it's not as abstract, that therefore it's going to be easy to do. We have to be very careful. But on the other hand, I do think these appeals can be very powerful. I remember so here's my last question on the Lord Liar Lunatic argument. This is what C.S. Lewis has popularized. He's saying, you know, look, we have to find some way to explain Jesus of Nazareth. what's the least difficult option. And of course, today, so it's called a trilemma and people switch it to a quadra lemma or I've heard people say we need to have a tetra lemma, five options.

But usually people recognize we have to add in the fourth category of legend, Lord liar, lunatic legend. We can't simply assume that Jesus did claim to be God. And Lewis didn't either. He has other places where he argues for the historicity of the Gospels and so forth. But, But if you, so we have to factor that in as well. But I remember having a dialogue with this, with an atheist. And I was encouraged that this argument actually, what it does is it puts the, the pressure on the other side to say, okay, what's your account of Jesus, Azareth? Yeah. Let let us both have to give an answer to the question of who is this most compelling figure. The largest and most diverse religion has sprung up after him.

He's had such an influence on the world. who was he? Who do you think he was? And what it shows is it's hard to just say, oh, he was just a generic religious figure. So anyway, so I think a good case can be made from this argument as well, the Lord liar lunatic legend appeal. What do you feel about that argument? Yeah, I think so too. I guess it forces or it challenges a person to, again, like to pick between between the options that are on the table. And again, it's not, like, I'm not surprised when a people, when a person says, well, he's not lowered, you know, when a person resists, you know, the, the position that Christ is lowered, you know, obviously if they, if they weren't resisting

that, they would become Christians. But it's again, I mean, it's, it's pushing a person, it's about pushing a person forward or helping a person making one step, after the other in coming closer to Christ. And a lot of these steps are simply about, you know, breaking down the, well, breaking down the strongholds that people have put up in their minds against the knowledge of Christ or just, again, the stronghold of naturalism. It's just, you know, step by step or like with like hit. constantly hitting or chipping away on the naturalist story. And I think things like the Trilemma, Lyre Lunatic Lord Trilemma that Lewis suggested,

does that work of chipping away or of putting the like a question mark behind the naturalist story. Fantastic. Well, this has been a lot of fun. I hope we can keep collaborating in the years ahead and in commending. belief in God and Christ and so forth. So what are you going to have working in the pipeline? What's your next video or anything you're working on now? You want to share with folks they can be on the lookout for? Yeah.

So, I mean, to be honest, I don't know when you will put out our interview, but I've been like my YouTube channel has been a bit on hold for the last two months or two and a half months actually because again, we've just opened this ministry cafe and it's taken up a lot of not just time, but also. also had space. I found myself not being able to really think through new material. Although I do have, I do have stuff in my pipeline. I'm planning a little comeback on the platform in the new year. I have something on the column. Again, why, something I hinted at in our conversation here about why the column actually does imply a personal creator. And a second one I have come out is about the

problem of animal suffering. It's kind of a follow-up video to my first initial response I did to Cosmic Skeptic, which I mentioned. So in this next video, I'm taking a more kind of comprehensive or like, no, a bird's eye perspective, that's a better word, a bird's eye perspective on what's actually, what the issues are in putting forward animal suffering as a case against God and what some very basic and very, well, easy and often overlooked responses are to that problem. Awesome. Very cool. Well, we'll be looking forward to those things. Keep up the great work. Thanks for the great conversation, Lucas. And for everybody watching, thanks for watching. Make sure to like, subscribe the video. Make sure to subscribe over it at Deflate as well. And we'll see you

next time.