Within Reason - #5 — Justin Brierley | Why I'm Still a Christian

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

Justin Brierley is the host of the popular radio show 'Unbelievable?' which platforms debates between Christians and non-Christians. He is the author of 'Unbelievable: Why, After Ten Years of Talking With Atheists, I’m Still a Christian'. He speaks to Alex about his reasons for retaining his faith, and the nature of reason. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of the Cosmic Skeptic podcast is brought to you by you. To support the podcast, please visit patreon.com forward slash cosmic skeptic. So welcome back to the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast, everybody. Again, for one point, the number two UK philosophy podcast in the UK because of your kind ratings on iTunes. So if you wouldn't mind continuing to do so, that would be very helpful. I'm joined in the studio today by Justin Briarley, who you may have seen on my channel before. He's the host of the unbelievable radio show and podcast.

And I have to thank you, actually, Justin, because it was sort of at the beginning of my, of my channel. It was near the beginning when you first invited me onto your show as just this kind of practically unknown YouTube kid. Well, you say that. I think you were starting to grow quite a bit in popularity, even at the point I, I've had you on, getting on for two years ago now, probably. But since then, obviously, your channel has grown almost exponentially, I'd say. Yeah, well, it must have been enough for you to see the video, although I was directly addressing. you in a video. You were, yes. I remember when someone first sent me the video, which was your response video to my Howard Ice can show that God exists in me. And I looked at it and

well, as you probably aware, I wasn't convinced, but I thought, hey, this guy's, you know, obviously intelligent and has a, you know, quite an interesting approach on his channel. So it was intriguing enough for me to say, why don't we bring him on and see what happens. Yeah, and I appreciate it. And I remember it was one of the first times I realized that I need to remember I'm talking to real people because we listened to the video in the studio, right? And there was a point at which I said something like, it just doesn't make sense. And then the video stops and it cuts back to us

and we're just looking at each other. Awkward. Yeah, but it was a fun discussion. But it wasn't really, you weren't really defending yourself there. You just had me on to debate it with someone else. I had you on, obviously, with another young Oxford undergraduate at the time, at least, Josh Parique. And in a sense, I was very happy to let that video be debated.

Yeah, I put these videos out there. for the purpose of, like you do, people digging into them, disagreeing and everything. And so I was very happy in a sense to see that you had responded. I like putting videos out there that people think are worth responding to. And I may disagree with the way it's responded to. But for me, it's all part of the dialogue that we all exist for. Yeah. So anybody listening or if you're watching on YouTube, then the link will be in the description.

It's like you say, a video responding to the idea that DICE can prove that God exists. Well, that's the analogy I'm using. I mean, I'm not literally saying a dice can show that God exists, but it's really an analogy, the video, for the fine-tuning argument. So the idea that the universe in its fundamental constants and forces has been, appears to be fine-tuned for the emergence of life in the universe. And I liken that to the idea of rolling a dice 70 times and getting the number six every time.

And the odds of that are akin to the chances of, just the right level of fine-tuning occurring in, well, the example I was using was the expansion rate of the universe, but there are any number of, you know, you know the argument. Yeah, so just like the universe, it seems to be totally fine-tuned for the existence of life and to exist as a universe. And I made the analogy with it to rather like someone rolling, you know, dice 70 times in a row and getting six every time, you'd say, hmm, something funny is going on, Why is that happening? And I would say the fact that we live in this fine tune universe,

there's something funny going on. It can't simply be waved away as chance. And that video you made is on your YouTube channel, I imagine, which is now also you were telling me that you've got, you're kind of focusing a lot more content there now. Yeah, the big debate series. The video originally, that DICE video was originally on our main premiere channel, which is the Christian media organization I work for.

And it's had about one and a half million views now, I think. We have also uploaded it to the, The Unbelievable channel, which is more bespoke for the content I produced from the show. It's got far less views there as a kind of mirror video, but it gets a lot of comments. I mean, lots and lots of comments, yeah, on that video. And I think, in a sense, your response video and he served to, in a sense, bring it to even more people's attention. So I was grateful.

Well, I hope that it did because, like you say, it's a common argument, and it was a good way of putting it. Yeah. So I think it would be, it would be, so tell us about the show. Unbelievable is an attempt to kind of bring people together of faith and no faith and just have debates kind of every week. Yeah, I mean, specifically Christians are the people of faith represented most commonly on the show. So unbelievable exists as a radio show on Premier Christian radio here in the UK. It's been going there for over 13 years now. and it began very much kind of at the time that Richard Dawkins had, you know,

was, well, it began actually before he'd even released the God delusion, but it kind of had its birth in that kind of the zenith, if you like, of the new atheism and that sort of thing. So what's that meant is that the show, in aiming to bring Christians and non-Christians together for dialogue and debate, has often had a focus on atheism and some of the common arguments against Christianity from people like Dawkins and Dennett and Hitchens and others. So the show has been kind of a little point in that schedule each week where we say, we're not just going to talk to Christians about Christian things on our Christian radio station, we're going to invite non-Christians in

to see whether this stuff stands up to scrutiny. Sure. That existed, first of all, just as a radio show on a Saturday afternoon, now exists as a podcast and has done for over 10 years. And it's grown, really the growth has been on the podcast front primarily. I mean, those who tune in on a Saturday get the show, but you can listen to it obviously anywhere, any time as a podcast.

And that means that the audience has become very diverse, both Christians and non-Christians, who listen to it, which is very exciting for me that I get to talk to so many people. Yeah, well, we do love a good podcast, of course. And the show, I don't know if this show kind of led you to writing the book. It did, really. I think, so I'm the moderator.

I tend to try and, by and large, be a fairly impartial observer and just steer the conversation and so on. I am a Christian, of course, and it's on a Christian radio station, so I've got my perspective. But by and large, when I invite a Christian and a non-Christian, like I have done with you a few times to come on the show, I'm letting them make the arguments, and I'm just trying to make sure the listener understands and can follow and that we kind of keep to the time schedule we need for, especially for the radio side of things. And so the book, though, was me sort of taking off my neutral moderator's hat to some extent and saying, okay, I've been hosting these shows between Christians and atheists for over a decade now.

You may ask, why am I still a Christian having heard from some of the, you know, the most cogent, intelligent atheists out there? The tagline of the book is why after 10 years of talking with atheists, I'm still a Christian. The book is called Unbelievable, which follows the name of the show. And yeah, so why after 10 years are talking with atheists, I'm still a Christian? And when you say talking with atheists, you're talking about there, the hosting of debates. So you haven't just been, that doesn't just mean you've kind of hung out with atheists or something like that, but you've really been engaging with them for 10, 10 years and still your faith holds strong, right? Yeah, well, I'll see what I can do. I've even had you on three times, Alex. I'm somehow still a Christian. I'm amazed. Exactly. But no, yeah, the point is that I've been in the privileged position of hosting some of the brilliant minds across the skeptical spectrum, if you like, and I still find Christianity.

a compelling world view. Right. And I suppose it's my attempt to distill what I think is some of the key arguments for Christianity in the book, having heard a lot of them out there and heard them debated, and also addressing some of the key objections to faith from atheists. Which will also be very familiar with, of course, because I don't come up a lot. And none of it is done, you know, it's not a philosophically, in a sense, I hope it's got decent philosophy in it, but it's not an academic book.

It's very much aimed at kind of at the same level that the show is at people who are interested in these ideas would claim to be philosophically trained. But you hope you're going to get across some ideas at a lay level that are worth thinking. Yeah, and I really do think it's a great show and I'm not just saying that because you're here. I remember, because I hadn't heard of it before I'd been on it.

You know, I'm not the type of person to listen to a Christian radio station, but the debates that you have, I think you do a great job of having as neutral as you can be a position. And so it does lead some really good conversations. Obviously, people listening, it's worth checking out the show and checking out the books. Links will be in the description of the YouTube channel, but also simple Google searches will take you there. Like you say, I've been on the show three times, including debating Frank Turek, which is one of my most viewed videos on YouTube. I think it's over half a million debating the moral argument, which I'd imagine, especially having read what you've had to say about the moral argument in this book, you were probably itching to kind of to jump in a bit more there.

That's always the dilemma for me. Sometimes, especially with things I'm particularly interested in, like the moral argument, there's always that temptation to jump in and sort of try and, if you don't feel the Christian guest is actually doing a good enough job, you like want to come in and debate it. But you kind of have to try and suppress that and say, look, I'm here to allow the Christian and the non-Christian to have their say. And I don't get it right all the time. And there are, I'm sure, many times you could listen back to where I've tended to jump in too much on one side or the other.

Yeah, I mean, it happens. Like, I can imagine, like, I couldn't do what you do for precisely that reason. I mean, I could, and I think we could have a successful show where I could, I could host debates and point things in the right direction. But I would be biased, and it would be difficult to, because, and, and like you say, you don't, you don't get rid of your bias. You rather, like, recognize your bias. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I thought, when I first went on the show, and it was myself sat here, and then Josh Parix annexed me and you across the bench, it kind of felt like, and people said, like, you're going into the line. Den. It's 2-1-1 and I came out thinking that's just not that's not what we're doing here.

Well, I'm glad you had the experience because I do want to make sure, ideally, I want any skeptic atheist who comes on the show to feel like it's a fair, fair match. We all come to these things with a worldview of some sort or another. We can't just, you know, we try and leave our biases at the door to some extent when we assess things rationally. But I hope the fact that I'm a Christian when people come on and they experience the show that they don't feel like I was somehow unfair to them. And I'm not saying I get it right all the time. But by and large, that has been the response I've had from most of the skeptics and atheists

who come on. Michael Sherman very kindly. I hosted a live debate out in the States recently. And he very kindly tweeted afterwards, thank you for being such an objective and impartial moderator, Justin. And then he tweeted. And thank you for also telling me secretly that you were one over by. my argument and that you are now a signed-up atheist.

I did see that. Which was not quite true. I know some people actually talk him literally. But anyway, yeah. But I was glad that people like, Sherman, do feel like they come on, they get a kind of fair crack of the whip. I'm not kind of, you know, swinging things in one direction.

Well, certainly so. I remember when I uploaded the video of all of the videos that we've had, you very kindly let me put those on my channel. And sometimes I'll get people saying, like, they didn't let Alex talk. Like, you definitely did. I want to clear that up for anybody listening. as well like you definitely did when it comes to these kinds of things when you do like a

debate a formal debate it's very much like here's here's your 10 minutes here's your 10 minutes and don't step on each other's toes with a discussion like it's for me I don't care if I have the same amount of time it's about getting the ideas across so if there's a situation in which say I'm on your show and I speak for half the amount of time as a guest like that will be my doing like I can pop up and say something if I want to like people people I think are used to the the formal debate format and maybe don't understand that the utility of having a conversational format where you don't need to regulate who's talking that's right and I think that's right I think in a way you can marshal I think that the challenge with a more informal discussion is

simply marshalling your time right yeah and I generally try to make sure people kind of get equalish amounts of time but I'm not there with a stopwatch or anything yeah and so to some extent it's it's up to the person and if I toss the ball to the eighth and they kind of bat it back quite quickly. Well, there's not much you can do about that. You just have to let the conversation take the form it does. It must be hard as a moderator knowing when to jump in and stop and say,

well, let's not do that. Let's move on and when to just let the conversation flourish. And especially because I generally because of the radio side of what I do, I try and time my debates to about an hour, which in radio terms is a massive amount of time. But actually, most people who are listening on podcasts say,

oh, I wish you could have just let it run on. my job is sort of to if we're going to try and cover X amount of ground not to get bogged down for 50 minutes in one very technical thing but to say okay guys we're not going to agree on that let's move on to the next point

and part of that is I think that's actually more valuable experience for the listener in the end because you want people to get the rounded view of an argument rather than just sort of get bogged down in the long grass of something for a long time So I mean with the show is your intention thinking that somebody might listen to that conversation,

an episode that you've done, and think, wow, that's, I mean, that resonates with me. I think I agree with them. Or is it more an attempt to just have people aware of the discussion to then go in deeper at their own pace? It's probably both. I think inevitably, even with, you know, an hour-long discussion,

you're only going to graze the surface of many issues. And so it's a kind of taster often for people to go deeper into something. And I've had people get in touch with the show who've said, I started out listening to Unbelievable, now I'm doing a PhD in some area of theology or philosophy. And I'm like, wow, just starting to listen to my show has led them into this very kind of deep engagement with something. For others, that might be the only thing they ever really listened to on the subject.

And that's fine. I mean, you know, let me be clear. I do have a rather specific objective, which is that I hope in the course of doing unbelievable, people will come to consider the claims of Christianity and find them reasonable. I am a Christian. That's kind of my underlying hope is that in doing the show,

Christianity will be showing that it can sort of stand on its own two feet in a kind of rational way. Having said that, I think the best way I can do that is to create a level playing field. And in that sense, my hope is also that people, whether they're Christian or not, will come to this, listen to it and feel like I heard a reasonable,

debate between two reasonable people and I'm not and from that point of view I can't control what people's response will be so some people listen to the show and they might be a Christian and say yeah Christianity definitely won that debate they might be an atheist and say oh the atheist walked away with it is you know and others who are somewhere in between who might go either way sometimes I've run into Christians who have said your show has own who are kind of maybe on the journey out of faith saying your show and you serve to confirm my belief that that actually atheism make sense. Yeah. And I've met people who were atheists who said, your show was part of my journey towards theism or Christianity. So the traffic goes in both directions. Yeah, it's the power

of conversation, I suppose. It can go, it can take you anywhere. And I'm not kind of, I can't control that. All I can do is put the debates out there and see what people make of them. Well, I'm glad that you're here and I'm glad to have you kind of on the other side of the desk, as it were, because like you say, you're usually the moderator, you don't really get to express your own views. But I wanted to take an opportunity to do so because as you sort of suggest in the book title here, you must be in a pretty good position to sum up a lot of the arguments for atheism, to sum up a lot of the arguments of Christianity that you hear and the debates between them. So I think it'd be fun to just kind of go through some of these reasons why after 10 years of speaking with atheists,

you are still a Christian. There seems to be implicit in that title, the idea that somebody might expect that if you've spoken with atheists for 10 years, that you'd become one. That seems to be implicit in the title, perhaps. I guess the reason I chose the title is actually because I quite often got asked, especially when I did a sort of 10 year of the show, Ask Me Anything type episode. A lot of, both Christians and non-Christians

got in touch saying, how come you're still a Christian after all these years of hearing some of the best arguments against Christianity? So that was kind of where the thought for the title came from. And I suppose there is, from the fact that question, gets asked an assumption that I can't believe you are still a Christian after right right and so

for a lot of people I think there is an assumption that if you just are going to hear the best arguments for atheism or against Christianity you will eventually abandon Christianity that wasn't my experience and it hasn't been the experience of a lot of people yeah well as far as the book goes I think it would be fun to we were talking about perhaps giving away some of the books yes to listeners so if you're listening or watching the show right now I'll do my Yeah, we've got some copies of the book, and it'll be fun to send them out. I'm sure you'll sign them that kind of thing. Yes, absolutely happy to.

And I think it would be fun to, I think what a good plan would be is if you're listening to the conversation, we're about to probably have something of a debate. We're going to be discussing these ideas about religion. And if you have some kind of comment or something to add, try to condense it into a tweet, put that tweet out, make a comment, and it could be an interesting observation, it could be a joke, whatever you want, something that you think we would like. Give it a hashtag that we'll be able to follow. Shall we go for, how about Cosmic Justin? So hashtag, hashtag Cosmic Justin, and make sure you're following both of us on Twitter so we can get in touch with you.

And if we like your comment, we will send you a signed copy of the book for you to read and enjoy. So go over and do that on Twitter. We'll probably, after this episode airs, we'll probably give it a week for you to do that. And then we'll pick someone and send them. them a book. So if you want to read the book, which I think you probably do if you're listening to this podcast, if you're that kind of person, then it's just easier sending a tweet. And I hope that I hope that we can send some books out. And if you don't get one, obviously just, just buy one. Yeah, just buy. They are also available to purchase on online and in in, in, in, in, before we dive into the actual book, the other thing I did want to make you aware of, Alex,

which I think you've already come across is that we did a special video series last year as well called The Big Conversation. And we were lucky enough to get some amazing atheist speakers on there like Daniel Dennett, Stephen Pinker, and a number of others. And in conversation with some really interesting Christian voices. Including Jordan Peterson as well. Jordan Peterson, yeah. So Jordan Peterson was our big win. That was the one that we managed to snare. This was shortly actually, I recorded that episode where he was debating, do we need God to make sense of life with Susan Blackmore, who's a well-known atheist psychologist, and that was great because I managed to get him

just before he really blew up in the UK, at least, and around the world with that Cathy Newman interview. So we recorded that in early January last year and saved it until we put out this big conversation series. But that's definitely been the biggest video in that series. Yeah, right. So people can go and watch that. And again, that's kind of like more debates, but with...

It's the unbelievable show, but in a kind of video format. In a video format with some really big names, like you say, with some great people. Yeah, so Peter Singer is another person who's on the series debating ethics and stuff. So, yeah, if you want some high quality dialogue debates, that's a really good place to start. And we're just starting to film our new season, actually, where we've got some really interesting names for season two of the big conversation. Yeah, that's great. And again, as people will surely be aware, everything is in the description.

So any kind of, anytime you hear anything mentioned, a book or a video series or anything, all the links are in the description and definitely worth checking out those conversations because like you say they're like the show which I already like and enjoy in video format with some really really great names so worth going and checking out but with that said let's jump into it so the book you you kind of you take a few different angles so you discuss sort of existential arguments for God you also discuss the moral argument and then you talk later about objections things like the problem of evil so am I writing thinking that for you

because I think you say this in the book that the moral argument is to you one of the most compelling cases? I find the moral argument a really powerful argument for God. Is that where you would begin with somebody like if you wanted to have a conversation with somebody who was an atheist

and they weren't, let's say they weren't familiar, let's say they're like a passive atheist who just doesn't have the belief and it's your job to come and say here's a good reason to believe where do you begin with someone like that? Well that's a really good question. I think it would very much depend

on the conversation I was having with And if it appeared that they had specific objections to God, then I might start with those first of all. So if it's the problem of suffering or evil, and that's why I can't believe in God, I might begin there rather than somewhere else. But yeah, if I was just kind of laying out my case, if you like, to someone who's just not convinced, I might, the moral argument would certainly be part of it. I think by its nature, it can be sort of, it's not the easiest thing to explain in a kind of 30 seconds. So you've got to kind of be willing to kind of put the legwork in to to kind of make sure that we all understand what we're talking about. I mean, in the book, I essentially lay out my general case for God, for Theism, if you like. In three chapters, I say, God is the best explanation of human existence.

God is the best explanation of human value. That's really where the moral argument comes. And God is the best explanation of human purpose. And that's more an argument around meaning and that kind of thing. and and so I think so this might be the way I would approach it with somebody skeptical is to say I think

what we're doing if you are an atheist I'd ask well does that mean you're a naturalist does that mean you believe that all that exists are physical forces and so on and if we can take that as our starting point then we've got something to talk about because there's a certain set of beliefs

that entails I mean you write on page 57 to 58 here of atheists you say logically their atheism commits them to the view that there is nothing in the universe there's nothing more in the universe than the matter and energy that everything consists of so is your view of atheism there a positive disbelief in god well i've proceeded that by saying the majority of atheists that i do speak to about this subscribe to some kind of naturalism. So I accept that there are many atheists who simply haven't thought about it.

And what their atheism really boils down to is a sort of agnosticism of they don't have a belief in God, but they haven't really thought about a positive case for that. And so I do meet a lot of atheists who say, well, the burden of proof isn't on me because I simply lack belief in God. Do you agree with that? Do you think that the atheist has a burden of proof? The problem is for me that there are many things that lack belief. in God, you know, stones, box, cats, do we call them atheists?

Well, if we, let's say we define an atheist as a person who lacks belief in God. Just as we, I think on your show actually I gave the example of something like veganism. If we define it as, you know, abstaining from eating animal products, then a rock is a vegan as well. But usefully, I think what we really mean is... We're talking about humans. Yeah, a vegan is a person who abstains and an atheist is a person who doesn't believe. It strikes me that someone who lacks belief in God, that all you're doing there is kind of describing a psychological state of someone. And in that sense, I think the most you can say is they're sort of agnostic.

Now, but if I meet someone who's giving me reasons why they don't believe God exists, I'm kind of going to assume they actually hold a positive belief. Really? That God does not exist or that it's very likely that God does not exist. Well, I'm interested in your diagnosis of agnosticism there. because do you know that God exists? Well, I have a belief that God exists. I mean, I think it's much more likely than not. Sure, but I mean, that's a separate question if you believe.

Like, do you know with certainty that God exists? No, I don't know with certainty in the sense of, I don't know in the way that you might ascribe one knowing that one plus one equals two. Right. So I could probably say to you then in that case, well you don't know that God exists so technically you're an agnostic yeah but I think the problem is that you're that that that puts the category of agnostic very wide I think I think it's a very broad

definition of agnostic if you're saying simply having some measure of willingness to be skeptical about your your belief in God or whatever makes you an agnostic well in that sense you know we're all agnostic's about most things in life because we could be wrong well are you one of so are you the kind of who, because I've met a lot of people who are of this view, they'll accept that an atheism like mine is a passive atheism. It is just a lack of belief in God. It's not, I don't actively believe there is no God. And yet still feel as though I have some burden of proof because it's like I'm kind of denying some self-evident reality. I mean, you make a case that

in order for value and purpose and morality and all these things to make any sense, you kind of have to believe in God. So if I just say I'm not convinced, do I still have a burden of proof there? Well, I think you have a burden of proof if you're making claims about the way the university is. So if you're a naturalist, Alex, I think you have a burden of proof to show why naturalism is true. So my question to you would be, so you would claim to be sort of agnostic about God, but are you agnostic about naturalism? Are you a naturalist? Right. And I think I would probably say that, again, it would be similar to your Christianity. It's like, yeah, I'm an agnostic because I don't know either way and I'm not a scientist at that. But,

I think it's more likely true than not true that the universe is naturalistic. Now, does that commit me to naturalism to the extent that I need a burden of truth? I think it means, I think it would, I think it doesn't make sense to simply label yourself as agnostic in that sense. I think if you believe something is more likely true than not, you're kind of, you're in the region of being more committed to a particular position. And so I don't think it's helpful to simply label everyone agnostic if there's any measure of, you know, sort of doubt within there. Just leaning one way or the other might not do bit like if I if we're discussing because it was kind of overcast when we came in today and I could say do you think it's raining and you say you know I I don't know but it's probably more likely

that it is raining than not based on based on the weather that I saw earlier like I'd still say that that's an agnostic position like we don't we don't know if it's raining but even if you kind of lean one way more than the other it's kind of a separate question whether you know it's raining to whether you believe it's raining and it's the same thing with God I think so I think like as far as I'm concerned in my definition of the word agnostic which is just being in a position of admitting that you don't know

we're both agnostics and both have to be agnostics and the difference lies in our belief rather than our knowledge well I think it lies in sort of how our commitment if you like to a world view

so I'm committed to the Christian worldview I don't say that I'm commit I want to hold that in a way that's humble that says, I could be shown to be wrong. I'm not saying this is somehow, I know this in a way that can never be proved to be wrong.

I mean, if someone could show me the body of Jesus Christ, dead somewhere in Palestine, then I would be wrong. But would that do it for you? Or would you think there's some other explanation? Like, would something like that, just a singular case that Jesus's body is found, are you really willing to kind of throw in a towel there? And I would have to say Christianity is false.

do that kind of immediately off the bat provided that. Some Paul said he'd do that. You know, it's pretty fundamental to Christian belief. If Christ is not risen, then our faith is in vain. That's what Christianity is founded on a historical event, a claim about Jesus Christ, rising from the dead. So, yeah, I'm not going to sort of fudge it and say, oh, it was just some spiritual experience in the minds of the disciples.

That's really, so it doesn't matter whether Jesus' body is there or not. I believe it is actually foundational to Christianity. Right, yeah. So, yeah, so it's, in that sense, it's, it is testable, I mean, whether you could or not, obviously, identify anybody as anybody in, you know, now. But in principle, at least. But in principle, it's falsifiable. Yes, right, sure.

I think that shows a level of intellectual honesty because there are many people who say that they'd never allow their faith. And if I'm perfectly honest, I've met some atheists who get very close to their beliefs being unfalsifiable. I mean, I don't know if you've listened to any of the debates I've done with Peter Atkins, who well known here in Oxford as a campus, but when I've asked him, the question, is there anything? any kind of evidence that could make you doubt your atheism or believe in God. He has basically said, no, there's nothing you could present me that could make me doubt that atheism is true. And at that point, you've got to say, well, that's not a falsifiable belief any longer.

Sure. And but then someone like Atkins, I don't want to mischaracterizing you all know better than I, has that kind of positive atheism, that God does not exist, which is an argument that can be made. And that's perhaps why he's in a position of certainty about that, because it's an active belief. But like I say, I think it's good to see people who are willing to change their minds. I have a question about whether your ability to say, I might change my mind, I might be wrong. Is it unfair to characterize that as doubt? Depends what you mean by doubt, doesn't it?

Only because, like, I don't think of it as doubt. I think of it as a willingness, as a form of humility, I think, to say I could be wrong. I think doubt is a bit different. I think that's more when you are sincerely questioning or significantly. Well, I would say I'm always open to questioning things. And I've certainly gone through periods of doubt and there are things I am not certain about or I have not made sense of yet. within my Christian faith. So in that sense, yeah, if you want to call that doubt,

that would be doubt. But I don't, in a sense, I don't have significant doubt in the core claims of Christianity, if that meant it, in as much as I'm not wondering, are they true or are they not true? Sure. I'm convinced that they are true

to the best of my knowledge. As certain as that I'm sat across in the room from you, is that the kind of level of certainty we're talking about? I think that it's inevitable, it's a different kind of trust so christend often talk about faith and faith in a sense is something that isn't about looking at something and it being right there in front of you it's about trusting in something on the basis of evidence that you've been given for it so it it might be more akin to trusting that the the chair i'm going to sit in is going to hold me up right even though i don't

have absolute proof of that you know it could be loosened the screen throughs before I came in here and it was all going to collapse or something. But I trust you as a person. I trust, you know, that you haven't done this as a prank. So there's a kind of that, that kind of level of trust is the way I would probably characterize my Christian faith is that I obviously have never seen Jesus standing in front of me as you stand in front of me, Alex, but I have a number of other aspects of my experience that make me trust that Jesus Christ is true.

So you spoke about the core aspects of Christianity. that you believe are true. People have different ideas about what they are. So obviously there's the resurrection, like you point out, 1 Corinthians, 15, if Christ has not been risen, you're still in your sins, your faith is futile. Very clearly, that has to be a component of the Christian belief. What else do you lies in the real core of Christianity?

Well, for me, you know, you could probably sum it up in something like the Apostles' Creed. I mean, that's what the creeds were developed for, was to give a sort of an easy-to-view way of looking at what are the core beliefs. of a Christian. So that would include the deity of Christ, that Christ is divine, that he lived, he died for our sins, and that he rose again, the Holy Spirit, it's a Trinitarian conviction that I hold. So those would be some of, I suppose, the key elements. Yeah, and are you non-denominational? Well, I do belong to a denomination, but I'm non-denominational. You could say I'm non-denominational as far as the show goes. I hear from a wide variety of perspectives, different denominations when it comes to Christianity. And in the book, I'm very much advocating for what C.S. Lewis called a mere Christianity, which is to say, we're not going to get into the long grass of all the various things you could debate over various doctrinal positions on various things. We're just going to say, was Jesus Christ who he said he was? did he rise from the dead?

If so, we've got pretty good grounds for believing that Christianity is true. Yeah, but before you even get to Jesus, you need to start with his dad. And that's where you kind of begin trying to put forth these arguments for the existence of God. So, well, look, why don't you try to convince me?

Why don't you talk me through some of these arguments? Let's see what they're made of, why they're convincing and areas in which I might disagree with you. I mean, well, any one of these we could take the whole show for. So maybe we should start with one or two of the ones that I know you've been most keenly engaged with. And one of them is the moral argument. Yeah, I think it would be good to focus on that because I do want to get into the problem

of evil as well, which is something I haven't really talked about on my channel before and certainly not on the podcast. And I think the two are somewhat linked. They're different questions, but they lead well into each other. And that was kind of where the whole Frank Turek thing came from as well, wasn't it? But, yeah, but I mean, the way I put it in the chapter is that I believe God makes sense of human value in a way that a naturalistic worldview cannot. And so it's as simple as really pointing out that a lot of people believe that there is an intrinsic value and dignity to human life, that somehow we should treat humans in a way that we're not obliged to treat the rest of the world, the living world. and even, you know, some humanist manifestos.

I don't know if you think of yourself as a humanist, Alex, but they're obviously the ethical framework that I meet many atheists that they hold is some form of humanism. And if you look at some of the declarations that have been made around that, they seem to very intrinsically hold humans as having a special status. And, you know, we have whole documents of human rights, the UN Declaration of Human Rights. We had the 70th anniversary of that recently.

And the question is, well, if these human rights, this human value, this intrinsic human dignity does exist, if people are agreed on that, how do we ground that? And my view is that theism, Christianity specifically, is a good grounding for it because a Christian believes that God has created humans in his image. That gives humans sort of intrinsic dignity and value and worth. and in fact has shown that as well in his death on the cross in reconciling humanity to himself in that way but I don't find any justification for that belief in a naturalist atheist view of reality where we are in a sense a somewhat random byproduct

of an evolutionary, a purposeless process of evolution I don't see in a world that is essentially you can boil down to matter in motion molecules and so on where this intrinsic dignity and value lies. And I suspect you might say the same because I know you're a subjectivist when it comes to morality that there isn't any objective standard out there

to which we're... I mean, it's complicated because it sounds as though and like I think you're right, but perhaps for the wrong reasons to call me a subjectivist. It sounds like you are just trying as hard as you can to avoid subjectivism, moral subjectivism. It sounds like your argument is based on the idea that we must have some

conception that people are valuable as a matter of fact and that it is wrong to throw acid in the face of a girl. FGM is wrong and we need to be able to... I believe that is wrong. I believe it's subjectively wrong. But all I'm saying is that if you hold the belief that it's wrong, that it's objectively wrong and that humans do have some intrinsic value, then you can't believe that on a naturalism won't support that.

And to be clear, you're not saying that people who don't have a belief in God or some higher being can't have those moral convictions. Oh, no, no. And that's the big stake that often gets made. People confuse this idea that what I'm saying is atheists can't be moral people.

Yeah, nothing could be further from the truth. Many of the atheists I know are incredibly moral. They just can't justify the morality. I just don't believe they can justify it on the basis of their world view. And that's because... And it's a kind of a leap of faith almost. It takes place when they say, but I just believe humans have this intrinsic value and dignity.

And I'm like, well, great, so do I. But I don't believe you have a grounds for believing that. So why does God provide that basis in a way that atheistic worldviews can't? Well, simply because I think if we are created in the image of God, and God is the creator of everything, and God is the ultimate source of good and value and love, then there seems to be a natural, you know, a relationship there between us having been endowed

with this specific value that we recognize. Right. I can't give you a mechanistic account of that, obviously. But I think that it makes more sense of our fundamental belief if we have one. Sure. And so when it comes to, because it does come down to the idea of being made in the image of God, I presume that you're somebody who generally accepts the scientific literature on evolution.

Yeah, I mean, with some caveats, but I'm very happy to say if that's the best explanation going, then that's the best explanation going. Uh-huh. Then that's the best explanation. Right, and that's a good way of looking at it. So, but my question would be something like, if human value is predicated on the idea that human beings are made in the image of God and that they are special, they have some kind of special worth, then if you trace the evolutionary heritage, of human beings, you get back to a kind of apish ancestor, which doesn't resemble humans and clearly it wasn't made in the image of God.

So I struggle to get my head around the idea that we can have a kind of a fish and then billions of years of evolution, and at some point along that chain, okay, round about here, this is where we're now in the image of God. It seems like if you're made in the image of God, there needs to be this immediate creation of humanity as it exists, because otherwise you run into a problem, of degree.

Yeah. Yeah, and this is an area where I wouldn't claim to have massive expertise, but I'd say... I mean, like the question would be something like where like a chimpanzee

is our closest ancestor. Are they sort of close enough to the image of God to have some semblance of that moral dignity? Well, I would say for anything that is non-human, that is a different species

or whatever, the way we treat that species, that animal, we need to do that as a reflection of our God-given image, if you like. And so it's incumbent upon us to treat things in ways that reflect the compassion and everything else that God has built in us. So I wouldn't say that the belief in the intrinsic uniqueness, if you like, if humanity

means we can just do what we like with the rest of creation. No. But coming to your point about when did this, you know, this image gets sort of put into the humanity. I don't know, is the honest truth. It could be, you know, I'm speculating here, that there was a moment at which God endowed a primitive pair with conscience and a kind of an awareness of him and morality and everything else. That could be one way. It could have been some kind of slow process in which that accumulated into a group or whatever. I don't know. All I all I do know in a sense is that

we do believe we're special. We do believe there's something special about humanity and that we and I believe that is best grounded in the idea that we are made in the image of God. How exactly that came to be is open to speculation. And we have a story in the Bible,

obviously, in Genesis, which I think is a great analogy, a great piece of poetic literature that tells us we're created for a purpose and to reflect God's image. But it's not giving us a scientific account. Yeah.

And that would be, that's, and I've done debates on when that happens, what it, I'm kind of somewhat agnostic, if I'm honest, on that. I don't know.

And I don't think I may ever claim to know. Yeah, because I mean, Christianity seems to quite clearly draw a distinction between human beings and other animals and very much press their, their specialty. And that's what we do with something like human rights as well. We say that humans are of their own kind.

And yet, I mean, Peter Singer makes an interesting. point on this, which is that whereas we would lump oysters and chimpanzees in this category of animals, we have a complete divide between chimpanzees and us, even though we are far closest with chimpanzee than an oyster is. And I mean, can you see the problem with saying that the morality that we have is grounded in the fact that we're made in the image of God? And yet, if you go back not that long ago in terms of evolutionary history, maybe 200,000

years or so, there are different species of humans. I mean, do Neanderthals have the same kind of image of God? I'm kind of agnostic on that. I mean, it could be that God has purposes and, you know, ways in which he was in some sense, those Neanderthals or whatever, had some kind of moral sense or whatever. I'm not in a position to know. All I do know is what I can tell from my experience now about humans and the way that we are distinct. from the rest of the animal world. But I mean, do you see it as a serious challenge, this evolutionary history?

I don't really know, because for me, it's, all it is, it gets us to the same position. We're humans and we, the majority of us seem to have a belief in this intrinsic value of humans, whether we, whatever evolutionary pathway that took, or whether it was a special creation at some point of a first human couple,

or whatever it was, you know, or if it was a young earth creationist belief, you know, that it was all started 6,000 years ago. The point is, We're all presented with the same point of view now. And all I ask atheists to do is to consider why, if the naturalist account is true, and that all of this is actually from a purposeless process,

why we have this special regard. And I tell a story in the book. I don't know if you got to it in the chapter that I talk about it, But I managed to have a kind of mini conversation with Richard Dawkins along these lines. He was doing a debate in Oxford with John Lennox, who's a well-known Christian Thinker. At the Natural History Museum. And the Natural History Museum. I mean, this would have been well before you ever were engaged in these things.

This was back in 2008. I think I was about eight or nine years old. Yeah, exactly. This makes me feel so old, Alex. That's the problem. Makes me feel so young. But anyway, I managed to do a sort of little interview with Richard Dawkins in the kind of after-show party, as it were. And in fact, do you mind if I literally just read out the book?

Because that'll do a better job of it than me trying to recall it off the top of my head. But I essentially sort of ended up asking Dawkins about whether he believes ultimately that our morality is derived from a sort of godless, purposeless kind of evolutionary sort of standpoint. And this was how the interaction went. And tell me what you think of it. I said, but if we had evolved into a society where rape was considered fine, would that mean that rape is fine? And he said, well, I don't want to answer that question. It's enough for me to say that we live in a society where it's not considered fine. We live in a society where selfishness, failure to pay your debts, failure to reciprocate favors is regarded

a scantz. That is the society in which we live. I'm very glad. That's a value judgment, glad that I live in such a society. And I said, but when you make a value judgment, don't you yourself immediately step outside this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it's good and you don't have any way to stand on that statement and he said well my value judgment itself could come from my evolutionary past and I said so therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution and he said you could say that in any case nothing about it makes it more probable that there's anything supernatural and I said okay but ultimately your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact we've evolved five fingers rather than six And he said, you could say that, yes.

And I think that's a consistent position to take. Yeah, it's consistent, but it's troubling, right? But it's troubling because none of us live like that. And I think Dawkins recognises that it's troubling when he says something like, you could say that, yeah. Instead of just going, yes, absolutely. It's like a kind of, yeah. Now, this conversation took place before the moral landscape came out by Sam Harris.

And after that, he then said, I used to say, oh, it's all subjective. But actually, I think now there is an objective case. But I think you've done a very good job, Alex, in showing why this is not objective, the moral landscape by Sam Harris. Yeah. So, like, I'm interested to see to see what you make of this, because to me, moral subjectivism is not as simple as. So I've got in your book, which I can also quote from, you've said, for this reason, and it's kind of discussing the things you've just been discussing, many people claim that morality is entirely subjective. You say, this means that there are no universal standards of good and evil, but that individuals decide for themselves what is right or wrong, depending on their cultural circumstances and personal point of view.

Now, to me, that kind of confuses moral subjectivism with moral relativism, and they're often thrown in the same bag, but I believe that to be a moral subjectivist isn't to say that morality varies by culture, you still run into the problem of the grounding for it, And is it just as arbitrary as five fingers instead of four? But I could ask the same question to you. I'm sure you're familiar with you, Thifro dilemma. But for those who aren't who are listening, the question is asked, is that which is good, good because God commands it?

Or does God command it because it's good? And you can't say that God commands it because it's good because then there's some standard of good that exists outside of God. And he's not omnipotent. But that implies that the reason things are good is because God says they are. And then it seems arbitrary. Surely that makes it just as arbitrary. Because again, you also believe that the reason you have five fingers instead of six

is because God made it so. And so is it not still just as arbitrary that you're made with six instead of five and set of six fingers? I think people, many philosophers have dealt perfectly satisfactorily with the Uthryphro dilemma. Uthrofo, I can't remember how to pronounce it properly. But, and William Lane Craig has obviously said, you know, you simply split the horns of this dilemma. and the third option is that good is God. Yeah. The good is by God's very nature is good

and therefore you don't have this idea that God's either subject to the good or is arbitrarily defining the good. Goodness is God, essentially. And I'm satisfied with that. I think that at the core of this, God is intrinsically moral. Right, but in an ethical framework,

someone could just turn around and say that, you know, hedonism is intrinsically moral, as John Stuart Mill essentially does. And I don't see why it's more compelling to point to God and say, well, we just, because if you kind of accept the Eutherford dilemma and you say, well, let's have a conversation about this,

like let's see how God is, is the author of good. And when we run into problems like this, how we can solve them. But if your answer to it is to just say, well, good is God, then I don't see why that's any more compelling than me just finding any other kind of naturalistic quality

and saying this is what we identify as good. That's essentially what Sam Harris does as well when he identifies touching a whole, what stove is bad and he just says like there's no denying that's bad like almost definition in fact definitionally so it's about kind of words of pain then i would have to say but what you're saying there is therefore everything is subjective regardless of whether it's got a religious basis or or a kind of naturalist basis in an ethical sense perhaps and and i just think that actually know i i am aware i'm simply i apprehend that moral facts exist and moral values and

and duties exist, and all I'm trying to do is say, what grounds this? And although I can't give you a sort of complete definition of how God grounds the good, I'm far more convinced that God gives a satisfactory grounding for that than naturalism, which I don't believe gives a grounding for it at all. And I think you're in agreement with that. But that's, I mean, why, what is it about having a God? What is it about having a supernatural being that allows you to say that we now have a basis for morality. Because that being is not just another being in the universe or in reality, that being is the ground of reality, that everything that exists within the purposes and mind of that being. That being is reality, almost, you could say.

Right. And in that sense, it's not some being arbitrarily deciding what is good and bad. It's the very notion of good and bad exist within that being, that it's the ground of being able to talk about morality. But like you point out there, that makes God the grounding of both good and evil. Well, makes God the grounding of being able to distinguish between them. Yeah. Do you think that God is the author of evil? No. No evil whatsoever. Well, I don't believe that God wills evil, if that's what you're asking. That's not what I'm asking, although I was going to ask you a similar question, which is that this view of God as the foundation of reality, is that to you inconsistent with the view that God is malicious? Could there be, could it be the case that

God is the grounding of reality and is the beginning and the alpha and the omega and yet is malicious? No, I don't feel that that makes sense. I know there is the evil God argument from Stephen Lawrence, but I've never, I've always felt that I suppose it's an intuition ultimately, that goodness, love, the things we'd label good, they are, if you like, the things that I would naturally ascribe with a being, that a being that you would give the qualities of God, essentially. And it seems to me an unnecessary sort of skeptical view to say, but it could be that God is actually an evil God who is in terms. on producing evil in the world.

I suppose it's my experience, my personal experience to some extent is the basis on which I would say that I don't believe it's an evil god behind this universe. And the experience of love itself makes me believe that if a god was really an evil god,

trying to extract the maximum amount of suffering and evil from the universe, it doesn't seem like a good way of doing it. Well, that's an interesting, Yeah, it's an interesting point. I just want to make sure that I... Because I want to pick up on this when we discuss the problem of evil very shortly.

That's an interesting point to consider. It's like, is it conceivable that with the evil in the universe right now, we still live in the best of all possible world and that the evil is a necessary compartment of having the most good overall? Well, it's at least conceivable that that's the case. But it seems that it's inconceivable

that we're living in the most evil imaginable world because that would just be complete suffering all the time in every way. You'd think so, yes. And so from that point of view, I think that's probably a good way of putting it. You're probably about to. Before we get there, I want to ask you a question, which is this, if we were roommates, right? And that would be great fun. One of the first disagreements we might have would be which color to paint the walls of our new room. And we're having a debate about it. Now, it transpires that you love the colour, blue. It is your favorite color. And to the extent that you think everything should be blue,

like you just, it's your favorite color for the walls. Yeah. And I agree with you. As it happens, I also think that blue is the best color, right? The logical next step is, well, okay, let's paint the paint the room blue. At that point, if we were having that conversation, would you turn around to me and say, well, hold on Alex, can we just make sure that our love of blue is actually grounded in something more than just our opinion? Or is it enough to say, well, look, we both agree that the colour's blue. So it's as though it's objectively true that we should paint the room blue. It kind of follows from that. And we don't need to worry about the fact that we might be mistaken in our love for blue because we both agree in it. And so it doesn't actually matter.

And no one's going to be upset if we paint the, paint the room. Everyone's going to be happy. It's going to be fine. Would you have a problem with the fact that that's not grounded in something more? In that case, no. Because It's a somewhat trivial point, you know, blue doesn't have a moral dimension, our preference of the color blue. If you are asking, hey, we both agree that child abuse is fine, and hey, it turns out everyone else in the world agrees with that. So I guess it's fine.

That obviously would be a problem because then we've got to say, hang on, just because we all agree on this doesn't mean it's necessarily true. But would it be a problem in the sense that, Like if everybody around you agrees that God exists and from that they derive propositions like let's not torture babies I don't think they do that I think that's the wrong direction though I don't think people you think it goes the other way I don't think people derive the belief we shouldn't torture babies from believing in God I believe people know we shouldn't torture babies and they apprehend that as an objective fact about reality and then you point that out to them and say is there a grounding for that

the best grounding I can see is God because naturalism doesn't do it so I don't see that you argue for God and then say oh and then we get objective values you say I see that there are objective values I may not have a belief in God at this point but I know plenty of atheists who believe in objective values and then I would simply say

but you're inconsistent if you believe in objective values and you don't believe in it. So like epistemologically it works in that direction is the moral belief takes you to the knowledge of God I don't think you can ground the moral belief without there being an underlying. Yeah, but you still think, so the belief, the belief itself does come from God. Well, I believe that, in a sense that everything comes from God, ultimately, yes. Except for evil.

Well, I'd say that evil is the result of God allowing freedom in his creation. So, so there's a kind of, it's a kind of, it's a necessary result, if you like, but it's got justifiable reasons for allowing it. So I'll tell you the reason. But that's, yeah, again, because I'm itching to get into that, but I do just want to hear your views. There's another thing I'm itching to get into, which if we got time for, I would love to discuss free will, because we started talking about this once before you left my studio. And I always thought, I'd love to talk about that again. We absolutely can. Too many things to discuss and too little time.

Try and find the time. And if we don't, then we can do it in the taxi back to the city center. But, okay, so the reason why I wanted to bring it, the blue example was because, like, you're right, it's trivial. But it's not, it's the same principle, which is that if we painted the room orange, we'd both be in pain. It would be a trivial pain because it would just be the pain of discomfort or distaste. And if we paint the room blue, then we're going to be in pleasure. And it's a trivial pleasure. But the same principle is true of when you talk about morality, we are essentially talking about pleasures and pains.

And again, you can't, you can't grab, the problem with someone like Harris is that he tries to objectify that. But we are essentially talking about pleasures and pains. even in a religious sense I don't know if you'd agree with that Well I Yes and no I mean I think that the principle That torturing babies for fun

For instance to give the classic example Rather horrible one But is objectively wrong Is true As a fact regardless of whether babies exist I just think it's Really? Yeah I think it's something that is true

I don't think it's dependent upon a particular state of affairs existing. I just think there are, there are, and it boils down to, again, you know, it's about a certain, the way you should treat certain types of things. Yeah, but I mean, to me, that sounds like saying it's a fact that gravity on Earth accelerates objects at a speed of 9.81 meters per second squared. And that's true whether or not Earth exists. Yeah. Like, if Earth doesn't exist, then that can't be a, that can't be a proposition.

That has to be a kind of non-cognitive statement. Well, I think it's simply the point of you that if Earth existed, it is true. It's true in principle. Yeah, so I'm happy to say if babies exist, then we shouldn't murder them. Like, obviously that's not a logical argument, but the point is like the, the moral belief is predicated there on the existence of the babies. Like, if you're going to have a, if you have a conditional like that, if babies exist, then that's not. But I thought you were a subjectivist. So I'll tell you what I mean by that, right?

And it has evolved, so I don't blame you. Like, in fact, my views probably, when I last spoke to you, were closer to what you think they are than what they actually are now. The subjectivism for me doesn't, and this is why I brought up the blue example, the subjectivism for me doesn't lie at the level of the action. It lies at the level of the underlying belief. So with the blue room, there is, it's completely subjective that we prefer blue. and yet it is objectively true

that the best way to achieve the goal of the blue room is to paint the room blue. Yeah, because that's subjectively both our favour. Exactly, and it's an objective derivative that, you know, to reach that subjective goal, there is objectively a right and wrong way of doing that. This is something that my friend, Stephen Woodford, rationality rules as you've had him on your show,

has helped me to understand. So the level of, so the subjectivity lies at the level of belief that blue is the best color, not at the level of of, well, if we want blue, then let's paint the room blue. That's not a subjective part. That's subjectively true. So in the same sense,

I think the morality breaks down to pleasures and pains, and I think the pleasure by definition, as Derek Parfit essentially had it, is what is wanted when experienced. Like pleasure is good to you, that there's no way around the subjective preference for pleasure. So whoever you are

and whatever your conception of pleasure is and whatever brings you pleasure, you must subjectively feel as though pleasure is a good thing. Right. Now, from that, there are objective derivatives, and this is where Sam Harris gets it right, which is that if we have this goal of well-being in mind, this goal of pleasure and pain,

then there are objective ways to achieve that. So when it comes to moral subjectivism, it's not a case, like you characterized it earlier, of like, let's see if we all agree that torturing babies is wrong. Like, we could completely disagree, but we can be right or wrong. about that in relation to the pleasure. So if I'm talking to somebody

who is an atheist and they say that that rape is sometimes permissible and I say that it's not. Obviously, avoiding reductio cases like if you have to rate one birth and saves the whole world, you know what I mean. All the things being equal. Yes, sure,

right. And the way I'd go about that is to say, well, look, do you think your pleasure is a good thing to you? I say, of course. Now, that's subjective preference. That is Just almost the definition of subjectivity. It's just what you prefer, right? Now, I would say, like, so do why.

I think my pleasure is a good thing. Like, we agree on this. Now, let's not get bogged down into the meta-ethics, unless we're having a metarethical discussion. Let's not get bogged down in the meta-ethics of whether or not we're justified in thinking our pleasure is good. But since we do, I can objectively try to demonstrate to you,

or at least I can try to demonstrate to you that there is an objective component to the idea that by not raping people, you are maximizing your pleasure. Right. And if that's the case, then I can make a case to make them change their mind

that rape is sometimes admissible to believing that rape is wrong in an objective fashion in line with their subjective belief. Right. If you see what I'm saying. So moral subjectiveism to me isn't culturally relative

as you have it in the book. It's not like if I go to Iran, it's just, it is morally true that women should come. cover their heads. I mean, I know we don't want to take this to Reduxia ad absurdums, but I suppose the point for me is it still sounds like a pragmatic argument you're making there. If we want to maximize well-being in the world, we should all obey this principle that we shouldn't rape each other and that sort of thing. That might be the way in which you'd

make the objective case that you're subjective. But, you know, say there are just two people left in the world and one person believes they're going to get pleasure by raping the other person and it's really not going to make any difference to anyone else in the world at that point does that then make it more you know well no it possible it doesn't it doesn't make him right because like you say that person believes he's going to get pleasure from from raping someone he's either right or wrong about that yeah and i'd wager that he's wrong but what but he believes he does and let's say he does and he does derive pleasure as much we may find that an objectionable thing um if we're just doing it on the basis of

pleasure in that instance then it seems to me that he should do that well because that's that's the thing that will bring him pleasure yeah that's an interesting thing and there's not going to be anyone else that when i had steve sat in your chair yeah i asked him the same exactly the same question i said but what if somebody's like axiomatic predispositions are that they want to rape someone that's their goal like surely they shouldn't and they go and he goes no they should right and he said what and he said yeah because i have to stay consistent with with the view that morality is about the achievement of goals. Right.

And so if the goal really was like achievable by raping someone, then that's what you should do. And I was taking it back. But then we immediately sort of brought it back down to earth by saying, but that is metaphysically impossible. It's not possible to be in a position where your pleasure is not at the basis of your preference. And you can make a case that it's not,

it's objectively not possible that by raping someone, you will actually maximise your pleasure because there are different kinds of pleasures. Right. Well, then I suppose, yes, you're getting into the deeper water of this person has placed a measure of preference on this particular type of pleasure

when they should actually be valuing this much deeper pleasure of valuing someone for their, you know, for who they are and all of that. But the problem is that at every stage, I think we're assuming some kind of objectivity to things that this type of, of valuing someone and giving them their due dignity and everything is a more valuable thing than simply achieving the carnal pleasure of the rape or whatever it is.

And so for me, it's like we're still debating an objective fact about reality. And I've never been able to escape that. And so very often, you know, the other thing that skeptics have put to me when I've talked about this is, oh, well, you know, look, we're just, we get our morality of our evolutionary history and that kind of ingrains in us the idea that we should treat people a certain way and that kind of maximizes the, our ability to pass on our DNA and have, you know, a flourishing society and everything else. And I say, fine, but you've described what is and the problem is it doesn't generate an ought, you know, that that may be the way that a flourishing society develops through

the evolution of these particular moral principles. Yeah. But at what point does that mean that people ought to have that as their goal? Yes. And I think we're in agreement on that one. That you can't cross that line. And for me, the problem is when you have the rapist or the, you know, the person who just doesn't agree, you know, when, and frankly, you know,

if you just go to another society today where they want to force women to do, to, you know, to wear burkas or to, where female genital mutilation takes place, the problem is if there isn't an objective aspect of moral reality then I don't think we have the moral right to tell people what they should and shouldn't be doing because it ultimately is about opinion right

I mean this the evolutionary argument does come in here for me too but it's in a different sense like I would never I'd never make a claim to nature and say that you know because we've evolutionarily developed a care for certain things that they are morally correct because like you say that that takes you from an is to an aught but I do think that we can go to another culture and say,

I know that you value pleasure. I know that you value your well-being. And I know that it is not culturally relative what will actually bring you pleasure. Like there are objective facts about people's brains that we can know. So we can go to another culture and use the evolutionary argument to say, this is why you think that pleasure is a good thing.

I can show you that we have evolved to, think that our pleasure is a good thing. I can also show you that we have evolved as a social species and I can show you the evidence that the objective evidence to suggest that the best way to maximize our well-being is to work as a team and to have social characteristics. Now, it doesn't follow from that that we ought to act in accordance with that. But what we've got now is a situation where I know that you have the goal of your well-being. And I have the evolutionary argument that says that the best way to maximize your well-being is to act as a social species and develop general moral rules,

like don't rape each other, don't kill each other, do with that what you will. Right. And you hand that to any culture. I agree. If you can establish that there's a kind of a goal that people want

and to fulfill that goal, they ought to be doing things, then obviously that's an ought in the way that, you know, to win a chess, you ought to play a king in that position. That's precisely what Madelanti says. That's not a moral thing in the chess case.

And to some extent, And it's simply a way of getting to a goal in the case that you're talking about. The problem for me is it still doesn't create a moral ought. It just says if you want X, then you should do Y. I was responding to the argument you were making about kind of not having the right to go to another culture. It sounds like what you're saying there is that we're all playing chess. Everybody's playing chess. Now, the question that we should be interested in is why the hell are we playing chess?

Like, why are these rules the rules we're using? Why does that matter? But on the level of action, if you say, like, we don't have a right to go to another culture and say that FGM is wrong, well, that's like saying, I can't go to another culture and say, you know, moving your, like protecting your queen is a good idea, generally speaking. Like, you know, actually I can go and say that. Yeah. And we can turn around and say, well, why are we playing chess? Yeah. But it is the case that if they are playing chess, then I can go to any culture in the world and say, yeah, you should probably protect your queen.

in most instances. Yeah, but I think I'd obviously have to hear the developed version of how you're going to convince them that their actual preferences are best served by adopting your particular moral viewpoint. But I mean, that's a separate question. It's not about how to convince them. It's about the idea that there is some kind of objective, not an objective standard, but an objective method by which we can achieve a shared subjective standard.

Maybe so, but the problem is, would, you know, when you go to another kind of, culture, they may have a very different idea of what human flourishing and well-being is. And you'd first of all, obviously, I have to convince them that their idea of that is wrong and that they actually ought to be adopting your particular view of what that looks like, which then your particular morality is the best way of achieving that. And I think that's, that doesn't strike me as something that is, that automatically falls out. I mean, I actually think that as it happens, the Judeo-Christian ethic has been. been the best way of creating that kind of a culture right because i was just going to ask like do you

not see it as the same like in the same way that i'd have to go and convince them that that my version of of pleasures and pains and goal achievement is right you have to go and convince them that the christianity is true all i have to do is say like all i have to make them aware of is the fact that subjectively they think their pleasure is a good thing seems fairly easy to me what you have to do is going convince them that a man rose from the dead and that he's the foundation of all being and that he's fully divine but also fully human and it like well i i i don't think in order to achieve a just society i have to convince people of all those things i think that um a good flourishing society comes out of certain judo christian principles um like the intrinsic dignity

of human beings and that sort of thing and i mean we're going around the houses here but but all i'm saying is i think that the the christian story provides a better framework for justifying that than a naturalistic story. I accept that you believe that you could find these sort of shared subjective goals, if you like, of pleasure and pain. I have to yet hear how you would persuade someone who simply doesn't exist in your worldview, Alex, which has, let's be fair, been very highly conditioned in the West by a Judeo-Christian ethic up till now. Well, we could debate that. We could debate that. But the point is there exists many cultures still in the world, and certainly historically where they have a very different view of human the worth of human beings and some

human beings simply are worth less than others and and for me how you distinguish between who's got the right view of humanity is is going to be more than simply showing that we ultimately have the same subjective preferences for pleasure because I think people are a lot way away off that in certain cultures and places well to me that just sounds exactly like the same problem that you'll have religiously speaking like yeah okay i have to convince people of my view of pleasure you have to convince people of your your view of religion so i mean your argument seems to be that in order to have this objective basis you need uh you need that to be some some gods some transcendent being that can be the grounding of of morality yeah and i'm suggesting

an alternative and so it can't be enough for you to turn around and say well look i can see how you could go about doing that. I just think it's easier to do it through religion because the whole argument rests on the idea that there is no other way to explain it. Well, that's right. And I suppose the point I'm making is that even you're, I think, prepared to admit

that you're not giving a subjective foundation for morality. There are no actual moral facts and values that exist out there. I suppose what I'm saying, though, is that you don't have to. Yeah, I get that. But the point being that, again,

I'd have to hear argument spelled out in detail but I can't see how in a going to a culture where they simply have a different view on the value of women or children or whatever it might be and they treat them in certain ways how without some objective reality about the way we should treat people you're going to convince them you might end up convincing them you might you might say hey actually you guys need to rethink the way you know you think about the way you're going to achieve the things you want. But, you know, if you're going to go to Genghis Khan, okay, who was in a position to do exactly what he wanted, whatever way he wanted, I don't think he's necessarily

going to say, you're absolutely right, Alex, for the well-being of the whole of the species, if I want to do, I shouldn't go around raping and murdering and pillaging, because he's in a position where he says, don't care, I'm, I'll do what I want, I'll fulfill my desires exactly the way I'm in the position to do so. I mean, I see, I see your argument, but, but, but, and I'd hate to kind of keep pressing this, but do you not see how it's precisely the same in the reverse? You say, you know, I see what you're saying, Alex, but I just don't see how you can go to another culture that simply has another conception of pleasure to the one that you do and convince them. Like, I don't see how you could go to that same culture who simply have a different conception of God than you do. It's the same problem, and I don't know why your answer is better than mine.

Oh, but I think we're talking cross purposes then because I'm not saying I have to convince them of my concept. of God in order for them to be able to accept my moral framework. I'm saying if we have an agreement, if someone believes that there is an objective way, objective type of morality exists, then that can only be justified on God. So like I say, I'm not going to a culture and saying, here's why God exists, therefore you have to act this way. I'm going to the people who already believe that there's an objective moral facts about the world, like babies shouldn't be raped.

and saying, if you believe that, I can't see how it can be grounded in naturalism, but I think there is a good explanation in theism. And I suppose what I'm doing is I'm saying, if you believe that, then here's why I think it's grounded in pleasure. And I would actually say that, and you say, well, if you go to another culture who has a different conception of pleasure, like, I don't think that that's metaphysically possible.

I think that the way I'm defining pleasure is essentially what is wanted when experienced. It has to be a good thing. But that's, that's, that's, I can, I know time is running a bitch, so I really, this is what I've been, because I've been watching a few of your videos, and last time you came in, or it might have been the time before, we ended up at the doorway as you were leaving my studio, talking about free will. And I think this does link into the morality thing. Because I think, um, I know that you believe free will doesn't exist. Okay. And I think that creates a double problem for the moral question. question because obviously you believe that morality is subjective ultimately there's no objective standard by which we can yeah even if we can kind of come to some subjective agreement about what it would take objectively to together but on top of that if there is if and I think you're absolutely consistent with with a naturalistic world view that if if matter and molecules

is all that ultimately exists then we do live in a deterministic universe and all of us are essentially could not have done otherwise than we do. I think that also presents a significant problem because not only can you not come, does it mean that when people do bad things, we're not in a position to say that they've done anything objectively wrong. We're also saying they couldn't have done anything other than what they did. So they're not morally blameworthy.

Yeah, there's no praise or blame. And that for me is obviously a huge issue. for the, for the whole moral thing. And I know you've done a few debates. I mean, you're not alone. Like, that's one of the biggest problems. For me, the question is, what is true? If it leads us to a, to a disturbing conclusion,

like the idea that we can't actually say someone is responsible for their actions, like if it's true, then tough luck. To, I mean, the shock factor comes in saying something like, if somebody murdered my family tomorrow, the worst I could feel rationally, I mean, emotionally is another story, but the worst I could feel rationally for the person who murdered my family is sorry for them

because they're just a victim of their circumstance they didn't choose to have the genetics that they have they didn't choose to have the upbringing and the predispositions to violence and the desires to commit murders it's not their fault like it just sucks for everyone involved it sucks for me, it sucks for my family

and it sucks for them because they're going to have to rot in prison now for something that they didn't really choose. And even the emotions your feeling are handed down to you by the universe exactly. It's all kind of been set in stone from from time immemorial but here's here's the problem i think the problem for you is much

deeper than that and i haven't seen many videos where you've responded to this issue which is that if there's no free will then i don't see how reason functions full stop so when you say you're an atheist or agnostic or whatever and even just saying making the statement that free will does not exist the only way you can come to believe that or to believe you know or to say i'm an atheist is through presumably a reason of a process of reason and evidence. But if everything we think and say and do is predetermined, that is, that's all been predetermined by a non-rational process. And therefore, I can't see how we ground the idea of coming to evidential reasonable conclusions in a universe which doesn't allow for free will. Yeah, it's an interesting point.

I think it's similar but not the same as something like the fallacy of composition. to say that because we come from irrational origins, the result can't be rational. I think that rationality is a product of naturalism, so I don't think it's a problem to say that rationality has arisen from the non-rational. In the same way that I don't think that any individual atom is conscious,

but if you put enough atoms together in the right formation in our brains, then it gives rise to consciousness, even though the components are not themselves conscious, just as no molecule of water is itself wet despite the composition being and it would be a similar argument to say like

well it's constituted of isn't it true though that if determinism is true which I think you believe is the case I don't necessarily believe that's the case and I can tell you why but but well I mean look so either determine the law of

a fundamental law of logic is that P is true or not true it's one or the other and it can't be anything else now Determinism is either true or not true. So the universe is either determined or it's indetermined. If it's determined, then we're following on a chain of causation and we have no control. If it's indetermined, then by definition, there has to be an element of randomness.

And randomness, by definition, you don't have any control over either. So it's like, it's logically true. But it makes it kind of logically true that free will can't exist. Right. But, but okay, but either way you get to it, determinism or kind of randomness, free will doesn't exist. And the problem for me is that the very basis on which you come to your decisions has to involve free will at some level because you have weighed up the evidence

and decided that it's unlikely that God exists. You're therefore an atheist. You've looked at the evidence from the universe and science and everything else and said, looking at all this, I don't think free will exist. But in the very process of making those decisions, you are using a process which has to be free to make any sense because you have to have the ability to choose one or the other.

But if determinism is true or free will simply doesn't exist, you never had a choice. You were always going to be an atheist. I was always going to be a Christian. It basically boils down to the way our brains work. It's nothing to do with us arriving at rational conclusions from evidence. And for me, that undercuts the whole. it undercuts naturalism full stop because if if you've arrived at the belief that

naturalism is true by a process which is itself non-rational and in which free will can't exist I then don't understand how you can have any confidence in your belief in naturalism because you haven't actually arrived at it by a by a rational process do you choose to become convinced of an argument's conclusion well I choose to look at the evidence and decide whether it makes sense. But do you get to choose what convinces you and what doesn't? Yeah, I think I do. Okay, so here's an argument that God doesn't exist.

There's evil and suffering in the world, therefore God does not exist. Just choose, for the purpose of argument here. Just choose to be convinced of that for a second. Choose to be convinced that. Yeah, that God doesn't exist. Just do that real quick. Well, obviously, I'm not, I can't choose in that sense to be convinced of of that. Right. So you're actually not, there's no level of choice when it comes to actually

becoming convinced of a proposition. So all of the propositions that you believe, you didn't choose to believe. Well, well, I did. I chose them in a process. I mean, just simply giving me two propositions, I'm not going to suddenly change the belief that I've arrived at over a period of time. But why not? Because there is a process of evaluation and looking and reasoning that needs to take place to get there. Because it's unconvincing, right?

It's not convincing enough for me to just say there's evil in the world therefore God doesn't exist. But you don't get to choose whether or not it's convincing. And if I make that argument more complicated, if I say, well, evil exists in the world and it's unnecessary and God doesn't exist,

okay, still not convinced. And let's add a premise like and if God is ultimately good then he will eliminate all unnecessary evil and you make it more and more complicated and eventually you might turn around and say you know what actually that that's a convincing argument I'm convinced that God doesn't exist

but you don't get to choose any part of whether or not that chain of reasoning convinces you you are just led to that conclusion like if I present an argument that you find convincing you have no choice but to just become convinced of that conclusion and that's what happens in all rational process the choice I see where you think the choice lies

which is the choice to kind of weigh up the sides and I would argue that you actually don't have a choice to do that because everything is ultimately out of your control and I'm talking like everything to the extent that you didn't choose to sit in that exact position is that the person who any any position at all whether you're Christian atheist or whatever you didn't have any choice in it

if free will doesn't exist it could never have been different And so the problem for me is that I often hear atheists saying show me the evidence, show me the reasoning and all the rest of it. And the problem is if an atheist also believes there's no such thing as free will, then they're asking for an impossibility because none of us arrive at it by, in fact, by a process of reasoning. They do. They arrive at the process of reasoning even though they don't get to choose whether or not the reasoning convinces them. So the reason why I would say to you, try and give me an argument that convinces me for Christianity, It's because I recognize that I don't get to choose what's convincing and that it might be within your capability to produce an argument that I have to accept.

And so I'm not asking you an impossibility. It's not the case that I always have to be an atheist because you could produce reasoning. You don't, that makes out, though, that that I have, that I am capable of changing your mind by an argument and that you could have. and that you could have thought otherwise, okay, that there's a sort of sense in which... No, not necessarily. It doesn't mean that I... Well, I could have thought otherwise

had you said something different, but you couldn't have said something different. So actually, maybe that's where the confusion lies. Like, I'm not saying that... That, yeah, that's... I think that might be the point. It's hard to phrase. you, if you present an argument that convinces me that Christianity exists,

it is perfectly possible that had you presented a different argument, I may have not become convinced, but the impossibility lies in the fact that you couldn't have presented the other argument. Now, you could say that logically speaking, if you had, then I'd have not become convinced or done differently. But that's just like saying, if things had gone differently, then they would have gone differently. Yeah, which, yeah, that's the case.

Like if you chose to get the bus instead of the train, then you'd have got the bus. Like, who cares? Like, that's not a relevant point to make. Well, it seems relevant to me in as much as, I think, you know, if you're, you have seemed to have arrived at the positions you take through a process of logic and reasoning.

Okay. And my simple point is only that I feel like I'm repeating, myself, so forgive me if I am, but is that that process requires you to have been able to choose. Why? Because that's what reasoning is. It's the ability to choose between alternatives on the basis of the best evidence. Well, I'm not sure. I think reason is, that is often what is like entailed by the process of reasoning. It's the experience of choosing an option. But it's conceivable that reason can exist in isolation. Like reason is an attempt to know truth.

So like I don't I don't understand why you need the option to have reasoned differently. If the whole if the whole point of reason is to get to what we believe to be truth and objective truth, then if our reason is functioning properly, then we must arrive at that conclusion. If it's functioning properly. If it achieves the goal we want it to achieve, which often. practically it doesn't, then it has to achieve the same point. If there is an objective standard of truth, and you and I are both using reason and the point of our using reason is to achieve that objective standard of truth, then our goal is to get to that point and nothing

else. Right. You don't need the option to get it wrong in order to get it right. I mean, all it strikes me, though, is that all of this seems to be, you know, completely arbitrary if we were always going to take the position we take, because of the physical nature of the universe, you were always going to be there making your argument. I was always going to be here making eye argument. And for me, I then don't understand how that equates to being a rational process because like, you know, as I've heard you say in videos, things could never have been different to the way they are. So in what sense did you have any control over your choice to be an atheist? Oh, I had no control over it. Right. But that's just that's just the point.

It's like. But then you haven't arrived at it by a rational process as far as I can see. Well, I have. Just because I'm not in control of it, doesn't. doesn't mean it's not, it doesn't mean it's irrational. Like it's rational. I'd say it's non-rational. It's not, may not be irrational because that might suggest something different, but it's certainly a non, I mean, the movement of atoms in the brain is non-rational in that set. I'd say in the same sense, it is a rational thing to do when

you put your hand on a hot stove to pull it away immediately, even though you don't really get a choice as to whether you do that or not. It's still the rational thing to do. Well, it's, it's the thing you do that's sort of ingrained. I suppose. in the physical reaction is almost there whether you want to or not but it's also i mean it is the rational thing to do in that it's the rational thing to do if you don't want your hand to experience pain yes um but i i think that's slightly different um to to the sort of how we arrive at true beliefs because i think the problem is that we both want to believe things that are true okay um but it strikes me that if if there is no free

will, if that fundamentally actually doesn't exist, it's kind of impossible for us to in any way get underneath things to know whether what we believe is true or not, because we never had a choice in believing the things. So what's undermining what here? Is it there being no free will undermines reason, or is it that there is reason undermines the argument that there's no free will? I think it kind of travels maybe in both directions because I think if you want reason

if you believe there's no free will but you're using arguments that depend on a process of reasoning then you can't have them both and equally if you believe that there is such a thing as reason then you've got to believe in a process of free will that allows for it

but I mean so do you accept the logical dichotomy between determinism and indeterminism the fact that one of those has to be true. Sure, yeah. But neither of those necessarily give you free will. I think they both completely eliminate free will. Yeah, exactly.

And I think necessarily so. But, okay, but you just said a second ago, you accept that dichotomy. And you just said then that they both need to their being free will. So surely that just means there's no free will. Well, but I'm working from a completely different world view than you, Alex, obviously, where I believe there is a god. We have a soul that I believe there is free will.

I don't believe we live in a deterministic universe, but it's not because it's indeterministic. It's because I believe we have free will. We have the ability to change the way things go. There is a free agent at the center of this reality, which is God. And in that sense, yeah, of course, we're starting from completely different world views. But it's a logical argument, right? It's a logical point that, and it can be the universe, but it could be the soul. soul. It could be whatever, whatever frame of reference you want to choose. Something is either determined

or it's indetermined. But you're using indetermined in the sense of being random. Well, I think it has to be. And I'm not using indeterminate in that way. I mean that we have the ability to do otherwise. That doesn't mean it's random. So if something is indetermined, this is an important, because I was with you on that. I didn't think that indeterminism necessarily led to randomness. But I think it was Peter Vanne Wagon, who changed my mind in one of one of his essays. he thought let's think about what indeterminism means it means not determined by anything right if it's not determined by anything then it's not determined by you well or i i suppose i wouldn't necessarily use the term that we use in an indetermined universe i i all i'm saying

is that we live in a universe in which we have free will in which things could go could we could make different decisions than the one we do. And what would, so, so are you, are you suggesting that if we rewound the clock, and I don't mean like we traveled back in time with the, with the knowledge we have now, I mean like everything just rewinds to the same physical state. Yeah, to like an hour ago, five hours ago, whenever you want. Yeah. And every atom in the universe, including the atoms that make up your brain and your neurons

and the part of your brain that governs your bodily movements and your desires and your thought, all of those atoms are in the same place moving in the same direction at the same, speed, doing exactly the same thing, like the chain of reasoning, the chain of causation in your brain, like the atom that is firing in your brain that's going to make you pick up your hand in a second is already firing. Mm-hmm. And somehow, with all of that in exactly the same position, something could have gone differently.

Yeah, I do. How would that occur? Because I'm a free agent, because I have, I am not simply the, the collection of physical reactions going on in my body in the universe. I believe there is a me within this. So I'm assuming you don't believe, obviously, in a soul or something like that.

You presumably have something more like a Daniel Bennett-style view of consciousness. So when I had him on the show, you know, this was exactly what we were debating. You know, he was with Keith Ward, who takes a view that there is such a thing as the soul and he subscribes to libertarian free will. And I essentially agree with Keith Ward.

that as far as I can see free will exist I just I apprehend that I don't see how you can have reason without it I think there are all kinds of reasons to think that it makes sense and I think I'm already committed to the view that I am not simply the collection of matter in motion that makes up me there is a spiritual dimension to who I am that is certainly connected with and part of the physical me but that I am this union of body and soul and that I could so if we round all the atoms back to exactly the same point

yeah things could go differently because I'm free to make different choices I am not governed by the physical cause and structure of cause and effect I actually do have just something more there libertarian freedom well almost ironically we have essentially no choice but to wrap up very soon I'm glad I've convinced you

I don't fill a Michael Shermer on me I think it's a lot of food for thought it requires a whole lot of unpacking that the free will argument the one thing that I would say

to you and anybody listening is don't allow things like the idea that well I don't see how reason can really function if there's no free will or I apprehend that there's free will

and I can't get rid of that feeling or intuition don't let that hold any bearing on whether or not the argument is true. If the argument is true that free will doesn't exist, if that argument is justified and is representative of a true belief, then if it undermines reason, then it undermines reason. I don't think it does.

Right. But then how would you know that it's true? You couldn't know that it's true if it does undermine reason. Well, it may still be true. I agree. Interesting. I suppose that depends. You wouldn't know that.

You wouldn't in principle be able to know that it's true. I guess that depends on whether you think that the laws of logic are sort of predicated on reason or whether the laws of logic can be thought to exist in their own right. It's not, I mean, it doesn't even go to that level. I just think you, you can't have any trust in the process that brought you to the view that. Well, that's why I think it does go to that level, because I'm making a logical case here, which is that either determinism or indeterminism is true and that both of those entail that being no free will. I suppose the entailment part might be more to do with reason than logic, but depending on how you, like, I'm sure you could logically formalize this argument. But I don't think you can even conceive of the laws of logic without free will.

Right, but that's the problem. It's like, I just, I just think you don't get anything without free will. Do the laws of logic exist before life existed? Well, in a sense, I think, yes, they exist as a kind of... Okay, well, so here's a question then. Does reason exist before... Because you said earlier in this discussion that it is wrong to torture babies even if there are no babies. There is reason accurate and does reason hold if there are no sentient beings?

Yes, in as much as in principle, if you are going to make arguments, then it's true regardless of whether... Precisely. Right. So, but that's all I'm saying, which is that, like, you seem to have just admitted there. that reason works without humans and if there's no humans there's no free agents it's it the problem is that um the process by which we acquire our beliefs if if that involves no free will then we we don't have access if you like to to but then those are two separate questions there's the question of what is true and it's the question of how we can know what's true yeah so like if if free will

undermines undermines then then maybe we can't trust reason and maybe we can't know that free will doesn't exist, but that wouldn't change the fact that free will doesn't exist. I don't deny that it could be the case that free will does not exist, but that we simply can't be in a position to know that because it radically undermines reason. Right, because that's a separate question. But I do hold that if you want to have any confidence in believing anything, including your atheism or Christianity, I don't see how you can hold that and deny free will because it feels to me like you're undercutting the, it's like soaring the branch off that you're sitting on. I've not heard many people make that argument.

It's something that perhaps I could do a thing about it more. Maybe, maybe. Maybe the person I would point you in possibly as a good proponent of it. And the name's going to have gone out my head now. Victor Rappert has done some interesting work on this. The argument from reason for God. So C.S. Lewis is a well-known proponent of it. And if you ever get a chance.

One of the things, when I was, just before I went to Oxford, actually, in my gap year, I read his book, Miracles, which sounds like a book on miracles, but actually the first half or second half is actually just an extended essay on the argument from reason for why it points to God. I'd say read that and then read some of the more contemporary sort of versions of that from people like Victor Repo

because I'd be fascinated to know how you'd be happy to do so and if people listening want to hear that then let me know I would just point out that I can understand that there's an argument that reason leads you to God but I don't think that free will leads you to reason in the same way Yeah, I guess all it is I don't think you can get a You can buy reason without free will

It strikes me that you've got to have free will To for the act of reasoning Otherwise I don't see how Anything we believe is actually Contingent upon us having Chosen It's just interesting because I see A course of reasoning to get there

Because it was determined I just I see reason as as the process of becoming convinced of true things. And the process of becoming of convinced of true things is out of your control anyway. So I don't think people, even outside of a determinate, even if we agree that libertarian free will exists, I still think that the process of reasoning,

even for the libertarian would, the libertarian would be able to say that the process of reasoning is not a free choice. It's not one of those things that falls into my libertarian framework because if reason is the process of becoming convinced of true things, and we've already agreed that you can't choose what to become convinced of, then reason lies outside of that choice. I think we do choose what we've become convinced of.

I don't think I agreed with you on that point. I think we choose to believe in the things that make sense to us that we have the best evidence for. But is that a choice? Is it or is it like you're just being led into the arms of conclusion? We assent, if you like, to the beliefs when we see that there is a rational basis for them. Yeah, but we can't help to do so. You can't dissent from them because you find them convincing that's the whole point.

I know, but you can't get to that point of allowing that natural process to take place where you see the final puzzle and then you see the picture. Of course, you can't choose not to see the picture that makes sense. But the process of putting the puzzle together requires you to make all kinds of. choices and free will decisions to connect dots and make things happen and and then you see ah and i've used reason and now i see the picture in front of me but if if all of that activity is predetermined by a non-rational process in advance i don't see how you can call it rational it's just it was just what you were bound it just what your brain was bound the states your brain was

bound to end up in. And for me, that radically undercuts all that the skeptical community talks about in terms of reason and evidence. I feel like, but if you don't believe in free will, none of it makes any sense. It's all just a predetermined non-rational process. And you would just handed down your beliefs by the universe

and you've got no access to whether they're true or not. They just are. Yeah. You know, I see what you're saying, not about free will, but about being the host of a show limited by time and wanting to jump in and discuss something for an hour

and not being able to. Yeah, I understand. I think it's something we'll just have to leave to the Jewish of the audience. And I'm sure that this is... We didn't get to the problem of suffering and I'm sorry, because I used up all the time. It's a shame, although I think this was probably

a more interesting discussion because I can have the problem of evil discussion with many a theist. Alistair McGrath, he'll be a good one. Yes, I'm dying to ask him a few questions on Evelyn. suffering and I'm sure we'll we'll get to them. But yeah, I think, look, it's, it's just about whether you, whether you think that the process of reasoning is a free one or not. I don't think

it is. And therefore, I don't think that there being no free will poses a problem to it. And it's interesting that you think that a necessary component of reason is free will. I'm interested to see what my audience think of that. So actually, this would be, this would be a great thing to comment on for the, of course, they didn't have any free will whether or not they're going to respond but it's it's true uh and i of course people people will not have deeply counterinsuities people people will not have a choice whether they subscribe to the podcast whether they rate it five stars on iTunes and get you money on patreon whether they do that whether we get back to to number two philosophy podcasts in the UK it's all being determined or indeterminately decided it's either it's either

random or determinant whichever it is i want to make it happen so i hope that people listening can go and help us out with it with a rating and a subscribe if you enjoyed this conversation then make sure to check out Justin's work. You can buy the book, Unbelievable, why after 10 years of talking with atheists, I'm still a Christian. Or you can send us a tweet with the hashtag Cosmic Justin. Cosmic Justin with a comment on today's show, and you can win a signed copy of the book,

which we will send to you. And I hope that you've been engaged enough to stay with us to the end and have some comments to make. So yeah, make sure that you check out that content, check out the big conversation series on, YouTube and the show. Subscribe over here on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, all the works. And I think that's a good place to end it. Thank you, Alex. Can I just say it's been an absolute pleasure. I've really been looking forward to this. And I love what you're doing with the channel.

Well, thank. I'm glad you're here. I've got a, I've got a big list of people that I want to sort of talk to on the podcast. And you were one of the first names that I thought of because of you having me on your show all that time ago. And it meant a lot to me that you were willing to take me seriously as just some kid on the internet. More than seriously. I think you're, you know, I know you're blushed, but I think you're a really intelligent guy. I like the integrity you bring to what you do. You're not a kind of typical, you know, just polemic YouTube atheists. You genuinely want to, I think, get to the bottom of these things. And I appreciate that. And I hope you'll come on my show.

Yeah, well, it means the world, of course. And absolutely, anytime you need a good argument and you think that I'm capable of providing it, I'm more than happy to come on the show. and that's a show that again I would really genuinely I press that I'm not just saying this because you're in the room like I do hope that people go and listen to it and even if you just listen to the episodes I'm on

if you're a listener to my show go and listen to the episodes that we did we did one with Frank Turek one with Josh Parique on the fine-tuning argument and we did one with Cameron Batutzi on the contingency argument too yeah and the Frank Turek one was on the moral argument so go and listen to them and let us know what you think

and with that said I think it's a good place to wrap up because we're running out of time anyway. So I have been, as always, Alex O'Connor with the Cosmic Skeptic Podcast, and today I've been in conversation with Justin Briarly. Thank you. Thank you.