In this episode Matt Fradd asks Trent how to engage atheists and also how Trent’s own arguments have changed over the time he’s studied atheism.
Welcome to The Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey everyone. Welcome to The Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers apologist and speaker Trent Horn. Today I want to share with you an interview that I did with Matt Fradd for 2021 apologetics conference. This was hosted last month in November. It was part of a live bonus feature of the conference for people who attended, which is put on by the people at Virtual Catholic Conference. So if you’re interested in accessing previous conferences or joining a future virtual Catholic conference, check them out virtualcatholicconference.com.
Trent Horn:
But Matt hosted one with a bunch of other speakers, Joe Heschmeyer, Erick Ybarra, Jimmy Akin, I think Carlo was there. So we had a lot of great apologists involved, so a lot of good content. And we also did kind of a live conversation Q&A on the subject of atheism. And we covered lot of great ground in the discussion that I want to share with you. So that was the 2021 Apologetics Conference hosted by Matt Fradd, Virtual Catholic Conference. If you want more of that, be sure to go and check them out. But without further ado here is my interview with Matt Fradd on how to engage in a thoughtful, gracious, and persuasive way with the subject of atheism.
Matt Fradd:
I just wanted to ask you about this whole atheist apologetics or Catholic apologetics towards atheist, because you’ve been doing it for quite a while now. How has it been? How has it developed? Are there certain things that you do now that you probably wouldn’t have done when you had written the book?
Trent Horn:
Well, it’s funny that you mentioned that. I am in the process now of writing a higher level treatment of Christian theism. So back in 2017, I wrote my book, the case for Catholicism, which is probably the most intensive book I’ve written so far. It’s not like an academic work, but it’s what Mark Brumley, who’s the editor of Ignatius Press, he calls it middle brow. So it’s not like popular level, but it’s something for like a committed undergrad would read. And I think, and other non-Catholics have called the case for Catholicism, the most comprehensive, single volume, defensive Catholicism to date. There are books on individual dogmas or doctrines, but that one’s all of them together.
Trent Horn:
So I thought about doing something similar for Christian theism and I would expand a bit from answering atheism. Honestly, I still agree with the nearly everything that I wrote in Answering Atheism. But since then, I mean, I wrote that nearly 10 years ago, I’ve done a lot more reading and research on what would be called philosophical atheism, kind of the higher level atheistic philosophers. I was still familiar with them somewhat before that. People like Graham Oppy, Mackie, Jordan Howard Sobel, Paul Draper, these individuals. And there are lay individuals who are very good at popularizing their objections. People like the Real Atheology Team. I debated Ben Watkins in Houston. Actually. That’s probably the best debate I’ve ever done, frankly.
Matt Fradd:
Really? Why is that?
Trent Horn:
Because Ben bothered to take the time to prepare. He had a whole team preparing for him. They researched me, watched all my debates, read my books, had vigorous rebuttals ready for me. I’ve gone to a lot of debates where the other guy didn’t even know I wrote a book on the subject we were debating, to his peril. But Ben, it was a very concise, well argued defense of atheism using these higher level thinkers, but popularizing it. And so that’s what I would like to do more when it comes to… That’s the role that I see myself in. I’m not a professor like Ed Feser or Rob Koons or Alex Pruss. I love their writings. I can’t get enough of them.
Trent Horn:
But what I want to try to do is take the really high level, great stuff that’s out there and really make it accessible to people. And then every now and then I come across an objection. I’m like, “Well, here’s my own little take on it, that no one’s heard of before,” and just tell people. So I think what’s out there right now when we deal with atheism is there’s kind of a shallow, atheism. The new atheism, the stuff that comes just from Dawkins, The God Delusion, random internet YouTubers. That’s the majority of it. And it’s often met by a very shallow Christian apologetic that could be very more like slogans, not very philosophically rigorous.
Trent Horn:
And the minority camps you’ve got sophisticated defenses of God. And I think a lot of those are coming more from Catholic philosophers. Now there are Protestant philosophers I think are really good at this. Josh Rasmussen would be one example of that, but the people I cited to you Koons, Pruss, and Feser, Oderberg would be another example. Those are Catholic thinkers. And so it’s, I want to popularize it. But yeah, so I think also what’s helpful in doing this work in the last 10 years, of being a Catholic apologist who debates the existence of God, debates the resurrection, I think I made a lot of inroads with our Protestant brothers and sisters that they like that I defend these things too. And then they’re more interested in what I say about Catholicism.
Matt Fradd:
Yeah. I can see that, someone seeing you in debate saying on my channel with Matt Dillahunty and being like, “I got to check this guy out in other places.” Hey, how has your opinion of Dr. William Lane Craig’s work evolved? Because I think he just like, with me, he was one of your heroes. He was one of the main guys on the internet responding to atheists. But of course you have people like Feser who would disagree with him as far as the philosophical Kalam and things like that.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Right. I think that a lot of Catholics when they… And I went through this cycle too… I think there’s a cycle that Catholic people, especially people who are interested in philosophy go through with William Lane Craig. For those who don’t know William Lane Craig is a Protestant philosopher and theologian. I think he’s a research professor at the Talbot School of Theology and he’s affiliated with BIOLA, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles. So he was really single handedly resurrected the Kalam cosmological argument in the 1970s. He’s known for that. He also does work on the resurrection of Jesus, defense of middle knowledge of God, and rights on philosophical theology and the resurrection, things like that. And in more recent years, other secondary doctrines like the atonement, historical Adam, things like that. This would be the cycle I’ve gone through, I think other people go through.
Trent Horn:
I mean, here’s the cycle. I didn’t necessarily go through all these stages, but stage one is this guy is the greatest thing since sliced bread. He’s amazing. This man is the archetypal apologist and I want to do everything just like he does. So I think some Catholics start with like, “This guy’s amazing.” And put him on this pedestal and he can do no wrong. And then you read things like Philosophical Foundations for Christian Worldview, and you learn more about Dr. Craig’s views and you realize that he… I mean, he subscribes of course to Protestantism, but also he embraces things that have been condemned in the past like monothelitism, the idea that Christ has only one will, he has idiosyncratic views about God’s relationship to time. So sometimes you start with he’s amazing. Then you’re like, he’s a heretic, only an idiot would read William Lane Craig.
Trent Horn:
And then I think once you’ve mellowed out a bit, you get to a fair position, which is like my position would be, while I don’t agree with everything that Dr. Craig says, there’s really no scholar I agree with everything they say. While I have significant disagreements with William Lane Craig, especially on Catholicism, things like that, he has provided valuable contributions to the philosophy of religion and his work needs to be taken seriously. And he’s also a good role model of charity and also good role model in how to do debates. I’ve learned a lot in debate prep and doing debates from him. I don’t think people should carbon copy him or act like I will present five arguments for the existence of God. It’s, almost a little wooden sometimes, so that’s what he does. But his, the preparation he does should certainly be emulated.
Matt Fradd:
Yeah. No, he is a really good debater. I remember back in the day watching the debate he had with Christopher Hitchens, but with great trepidation because I didn’t… I just could not see another Christian be trounced by one of the new atheists. And so I was really nervous going into it. And as you, well-
Trent Horn:
Well, I think-
Matt Fradd:
… [crosstalk 00:08:40], I was pleasantly surprised.
Trent Horn:
… Well, what was interesting with that, you know what to actually make a parallel with Craig versus Hitchens, it was kind of like when I debated Alex O’Connor on your channel, I feel like. Because people, Alex O’Connor, cosmic skeptic, he’s a really great guy. Studying at Oxford, kind of like Hitchens, he’s just people really enjoy listening to him because he’s an intelligent British man. It just it rolls off the tongue. And I’ve seen Alex in debates with people and he ties them into pretzels because he is a smart guy. But I worked very hard to be prepared and focused in my encounter with him, I think just as Craig was very focused and prepared to engage with Hitchens and it really showed who had the command of the arguments in that engagement.
Matt Fradd:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever been stumped in a debate and I’m sure some degree or not, maybe you have and what was that like?
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I think that sometimes I’ve been in debates and people have brought up arguments and either I wasn’t sure how I ought to answer them or in some cases I just wasn’t sure exactly what kind of an argument they were making. That I just found it to be such a bizarre statement that I wasn’t prepared for them to make such a bizarre claim. I think in some cases Matt Dillahunty would concede things that were so bizarre, I thought, “Well, why would anyone say that?” And it kind of left me at loss for words, for where to go next where you wouldn’t think a person would endorse such an odd view.
Trent Horn:
And the other thing I think about when it comes to debates is that debates are not the end of an issue. They are the beginning. I see their purpose. I don’t think that somebody should decide their worldview based on watching some debates. That’s not a good thing to do because a debate it shows really the strengths and weaknesses of each debater for example. However, I do think debates can serve a helpful purpose in encouraging people to go deeper into an issue. Like you want to watch it. This is fascinating. Gets you thinking. And then you want to go out and read the books and do your own research and come to your own conclusions.
Matt Fradd:
Yeah. I think for a lot of us though, we just enjoy the conflict and it’s just-
Trent Horn:
It’s entertaining. Like I said, it starts, it. It starts it. People want to be entertained first and then that might motivate them to do more of the educational part.
Matt Fradd:
… Are there any arguments for God’s existence or many parts of arguments for God’s existence that you’ve abandoned over the years as you’ve interacted with atheist and their work?
Trent Horn:
No, I don’t use them. I don’t know if I would say abandoned because I think they’re still valid arguments or sound arguments. I just don’t consider them as persuasive or as comfortable using. So as we’ve gone forward, arguments I’m very interested in now that we’ve moved forward is I really like the argument for motion that Ed Feser puts forward in his book Five Proofs. I’m really interested in a variant of the Kalam argument offered by Andrew Loke and Alex Pruss. Which, I think can get around on many objections given to William Lane Craig’s argument. I’ve looked at trying to refine the moral argument so that it has a very specific feature of morality that it explains, maybe like human equality and intrinsic value.
Trent Horn:
In answering atheism. I gave basically four arguments. I gave a contingency, the classic Kalam, the fine tuning and the moral argument. And I would still be comfortable using contingency, Kalam and the moral argument. The fine tuning argument, which is the argument that the constants of the universe, like the strength of gravity in a vacuum of space is the odds of it being right for life to exist is fantastically improbable. So it’s either those constants are either necessary. They have to be got that way by chance or they were designed. That’s the fine tuning argument in a nutshell. I haven’t used that argument as much since I published Answering Atheism, because I believe to successfully do so… To successfully make that argument, a person should have a significant amount of background knowledge in physics and astrophysics. Otherwise, you could quickly get in over your head. I still understand it well. And I think I’m competent in defending it in many cases and it’s a philosophical objections, but it’s just not his favorite of mine because I don’t have a physics background.
Trent Horn:
There are people who I think are very good at defending it. Two I would say is Robin Collins. He has an entry in the Blackwell Companion and Natural Theology that focuses on fine tuning. And then there is Luke Barnes who is an astrophysicist who wrote a book, I believe it’s called A Fortunate Universe. Probably one of the best recent defenses of fine tuning I’ve come across. And both of them, Collins has a physics background and Barnes is an astronomer. So they’re well equipped to defend the finer points about the empirical data behind the argument.
Matt Fradd:
Explain what the ontological argument is and your thoughts on it.
Trent Horn:
Oh yeah. The ontological argument is like your crazy uncle that shows up at the family reunion and is spouting all kinds of nonsense. But every now and then he says something and you’re like maybe he’s right. But most of all, it’s still, he’s fun to have a round. I mean, he’s a hoot. Even if he’s nuts, he’s a hoot. So he’s just fun to have around. The ontological argument, basically, when you think of an argument for God, you basically think, okay, let’s look at the world. There’s something about the world that doesn’t explain itself that only God explains. Something in the world points back to God. The ontological argument says that God, by definition exists, and there’s been a variety of formulations of the onto. Like the cosmological argument, some people say, “Oh, the cosmological argument.” Well there isn’t one cosmological argument, there’s a whole family of them.
Trent Horn:
In the same way, there is a family of ontological arguments. The first one would probably be, it was proposed by St. Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th century. Or was it the 12th century? 11th, 12th. Yeah, it was, I think it was the 11th century. And so he said, basically, God is the greatest. You can’t conceive of anything greater than God. I can conceive of God in my mind. There is something greater than God being in my mind, God existing in reality. Therefore, God has to exist because I can’t think of anything greater than God. If he’s in my mind, there is something greater, him in reality. Therefore, he exists.
Trent Horn:
And most people are not convinced by at least that version of the argument. Though, they don’t really… they have a hard time actually showing what’s wrong with it. That’s what’s interesting about it. So there’s a wide variety of arguments though. It’s been really reformulated by Alvin. Alvin Plantinga is a reformed Protestant philosopher who’s retooled the argument. But basically the modern version of the argument, it’s very… You could even make it even simpler than Anslem. It would go something like this. God is either impossible or necessary. God is not impossible, therefore God is necessary. Now that’s a valid argument. It is a totally valid argument.
Trent Horn:
But the premises are going to be question whether they’re sound. So Plantinga does a modal ontological argument, which says if God’s necessary, he exists in every possible world. Every way the world could be. And if God, if it’s possible that God exists… Yeah, sure it’s possible. You might think. If it is possible, he exists in every possible world. And this is a possible world, the actual world. So he exists in this world too. The problem though, is that philosophers disagree about what the word possible means in the first premise.
Matt Fradd:
Body philosophers.
Trent Horn:
Yes, exactly. They put a damper. Even Plantinga thinks that it’s not a full proof. He thinks the ontological argument is great if you already believe in God, to reinforce your belief. He doesn’t think that it’s a knock down argument. But what they’ll say in the first premise, because here’s the problem, if I run the argument this way, I can also, if possibility means mere epistemic, I could run a… The problem with the argument is I could run a reverse ontological argument. Like I might ask you, is it possible God doesn’t exist? So if it’s possible, God does not, then God is a necessary being. If it’s possible, he doesn’t exist, there is a possible world he is not in. But if there’s a possible world he’s not in, then he’s not necessary. He can’t exist. So the idea here is you need to break the symmetry between the two to show there’s a difference. What’s funny is on my podcast a few weeks ago, I had Joe Schmidt on. He plays Spiderman part-time in the MCU. I’m just kidding. He bears-
Matt Fradd:
[crosstalk 00:17:20].
Trent Horn:
… He bears a resemblance of Tom Holland. He’s an undergrad philosopher, I think at Purdue. And we were discussing his… He’s an agnostic… We were discussing his arguments against atheism saying, “Hey, maybe God exists. You can’t say there is no God.” And he talked about arguments that intrigued him. And he thought there was a way you could possibly retrofit the modal ontological argument to work. Possibly. And he’s a smart guy. And he found that interesting. But there’s the ontological argument for you.
Matt Fradd:
Yeah. Thank you. What do you say to somebody who listens to one of your talks, reads one of your books, comes to a rather a confident belief that God exists and that it can be proved through reason. But then they look around at all these people who are much smarter than them and go, “Ghee maybe, I don’t know.” In other words, maybe one way of formulating this question is if the arguments for God’s existence, at least some of them, are convincing why don’t all smart people agree with them?
Trent Horn:
What’s interesting is I could run a reverse argument. I could say if the arguments for atheism are so convincing, why don’t at least all the smart people believe in that. Because even very intelligent atheists, people like Graham Oppy, The Real Atheology Team, they will… These are the philosophical atheists. Not like the village atheists. Because you can find village atheists. They’ll say everybody who believes in God is just irrational. So they’ll say, “Well, there are good reasons to be an atheist. All the smart people are atheists and the dumb people are religious.” And that’s just bigotry. That’s stupidity. And the intelligent atheist out there will say, “Well, no, you can be rational. You can believe in God. There are very intelligent people who believe in God.”
Trent Horn:
So what’s interesting with that argument is I’m not really persuaded by it because it’s I can run a reverse argument. Like if there are these good reasons to be an atheist, why don’t all smart people believe that. Or I could take it further. I think the reason Matt, why is because these are philosophical questions and in philosophy it’s impossible, it’s almost impossible to get a consensus in philosophy. There is a survey that was done back in 2009 and repeated in 2020 called the PhilPapers Survey. David Chalmers is one philosopher and another philosopher put together. Look up, PhilPapers Survey. And so actually I’ll bring it up in case you have questions about that. And they asked thousands of philosophers around the world, what do you believe about different issues, like the existence of God or morality or abstract objects or ethical questions, all these kinds of stuff?
Trent Horn:
And when you look at it, you see there’s a lot of division. So I’ll give you two examples here. They asked them, okay… Well first they asked about God. Let’s see, I think it’s on here. Whoops God, they said, I think 66% are atheists and about 20% or 19% are theists, 15% or other. So they could be like pantheists maybe or agnostics or something like that. But there’re others that’s pretty evenly divided. It’s pretty even 40 to about to 40% on whether abstract objects like numbers really exist. When it comes to ethical theories like utilitarian, Kantian or other ethical theories. It’s like 33, 33, 33%. When it comes to free will, let’s bring… Okay. About 60% are compatiblists who think free will, you can be free, even if you’re determined. And then there’re others who say, no we’re determined or we have free will.
Trent Horn:
But, you notice when you scroll through here, I mean a lot of these position have strong arguments. There’re strong arguments to be utilitarian, there’re strong arguments for Kantian ethical theory. But these smart philosophers, they disagree because there’s no single… There’s no experiment we can do just to show who’s right and who’s wrong. At the end of the day, it’s going to come down to what premise you think is plausible or the other person thinks is plausible. What inference you’re willing to go to. And each of us has different cognitive decisions we’re going to make. So I think that the fact that there are smart atheistic philosophers, doesn’t disprove theism, just like smart theistic philosophers don’t disprove atheism. Only the arguments can do that. And we would not expect dramatic consensus on this issue just like any other issue in the world of philosophy. That’s just how it goes.
Matt Fradd:
Yeah. All right. That’s fair. I want to talk about how we can keep God up on the blackboard as it were. Going through debates, reading different books, never really fully committing our life. And I want to get at in this way. When I was about 16 years old, I had a bout of solipsism. I didn’t know what the term meant at the time, but I actually went through, I don’t know how serious it was, but there were definitely days. I was worried that I was the only person who existed. Maybe the external world existed so long as I was looking at it. But when I shut the door, or shut my eyes it disappeared. The point is this, I don’t know if there is, and it would be funny if there were, but suppose there were debates online about solipsism. Whether it’s true or not.
Matt Fradd:
Or you could think of another properly basic belief. You could see that if you were to go down that rabbit trail of watching just endless debates on this issue and just getting deep into it that whatever side you might ultimately come out on, it would actually interfere with your life, with your relationships. And I think sometimes even though the question of God’s existence and the philosophical arguments for it are very important and it’s good that people are doing it and all that, what do you have to say to those who might be letting these are arguments or these debates get in the way of their relationship with God?
Trent Horn:
Are you talking about people who believe in God and are really hopped up on debates?
Matt Fradd:
Yeah. But as they’re watching these debates, they’re questioning it and [crosstalk 00:23:23]-
Trent Horn:
Oh, I see.
Matt Fradd:
… back and forth and they’re never really sort of committing to that personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Reading the scriptures, dedicating their life to him, doing his will and things like that. Because they’re sort of hung up on the philosophical stimulation as it were of these different questions.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. And I think it would depend on who it is that I’m talking to. Whether it’s a person who believes in God, but is growing away from God-
Matt Fradd:
I see.
Trent Horn:
… Or a person who is an atheist, super into these debates, the philosophy, but can’t quite jump the gap to believing in God. So it’s almost like we’re kind of meeting in the middle here with these people. For the person who believes in God, who starts turning it into an academic affair. Yeah. I would tell him you need turn off the computer and you need to spend time with God. It would be like, how could I say that I love my wife if all I ever did was I looked at her pictures on Facebook. And she’s hilarious and gorgeous so I would be quite justified in doing that.
Trent Horn:
But you couldn’t say that I had a real relationship or that I loved my wife if I’m always up here on the computer, arguing with people who are just like, “Laura Horn’s not awesome.” Like, “No, here’s my ontological argument for why Laura’s awesome.” And then I put forward these arguments. Which is fine, which is good. Laura would like me to do that. But I should also turn the computer off and go sit on the couch and be with her. Much the same way, get off the computer, go to adoration chapel, go to mass, spend time in prayer. Otherwise, so what if you know God exists. James two, I think what was it, 2:19? James chapter two says, “Even the demons believe God is one.” Not just that God exists, but there’s one God, and they tremble. So it’s not just an intellectual fact.
Trent Horn:
If you are an atheist and you’re closer and closer, like I really wish that God existed. Well, I don’t know. C.S. Lewis in mere Christianity said, just pretend he does. Pretend Christianity’s true if you want to be true. Live like it’s true and just see what you think. And sometimes it can just grow on you in that respect. But I would say that it’s okay to explore reality apart from philosophy. It’s not our only tool. There’re other ways we can interact with the world. They’re not irrational. They’re non-rational ways that we just perceive goodness, truth and beauty. Go explore.
Matt Fradd:
Got one final question and then we’ll get to the questions here in the chat. So if you’re watching right now, send a question in the Q&A only section and we’ll try to get to them.
Trent Horn:
Sure.
Matt Fradd:
Here’s the question. Who would you most dread debating on this issue of God’s existence? And I don’t want you to say Oppy, because I wouldn’t believe you. Because I think that-
Trent Horn:
Oh, no, I have an answer to you. I know who.
Matt Fradd:
… Oh, who?
Trent Horn:
Ricky Gervais.
Matt Fradd:
Really? Okay, good. See, this is good. Okay, now why?
Trent Horn:
Because in a lot of debates, what people judge is not the content of your arguments, it is the confidence of the speaker. And they might watch a whole debate and all they remember is that one killer line that, that comedian used to cut me apart. And that’s what they’ll remember. So they’ll-
Matt Fradd:
It’s like when Trump looked at Hillary and said, “Because you’d be in jail.”
Trent Horn:
… Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s the one thing they remember and they think this is awesome. And they like that.
Matt Fradd:
Yes.
Trent Horn:
Or when Ronald Reagan was in a debate with an opponent back in the 80s, and at that time, people were joking about how Reagan was too old to be president.
Matt Fradd:
That’s right.
Trent Horn:
And so in the debate, he said, “Well, age has been an issue, but let me tell you this. I will not let my opponents youth and inexperience be held against him.” And the other guy smiled, because he knew that he got torched. And so, I mean that… So honestly, and although I would, if I was to debate Graham Oppy I would be exceedingly prepared,-
Matt Fradd:
Yeah, sure.
Trent Horn:
… iron clad. And it would be difficult and rigorous.
Matt Fradd:
For sure.
Trent Horn:
But what’s hard is if I debate philosophical atheists, I think a lot of regular people who watch be like, “Wow, those two guys are smart. I’m not sure what they said, but all right.” But it’s more people that honestly, yeah, a comedian. Someone-
Matt Fradd:
No, that’s [crosstalk 00:27:32].
Trent Horn:
… who’s very confident and has charisma. They can just dominate the table if you’re not careful.
Matt Fradd:
I was really shocked at your interview with cosmic skeptic, Alex O’Connor. Though, we already brought this up, but for those who are watching, go check out that debate on my channel, Pints With Aquinas. Trent debated Alex O’Connor. Because I was nervous for you, because I know you are really smart and really good at this, but I’d seen Alex and I thought, “Bloody hell, this guy’s really good.” So I was a little apprehensive, but he didn’t embarrass himself. He did a fine job I thought. But I was surprised that I just thought you came off a lot better and [crosstalk 00:28:04].
Trent Horn:
Well, I think a lot of people said that this wasn’t like… This was a very evenly matched or this was not like a typical debate where he runs circles around a philosophically uninformed individual. And it’s interesting, when I look at the comments with my debate with Ben, I think there’s a lot of people who basically said, “I think Trent won, but by a nose.” Like I was ahead in the horse race by a nose. Because Ben was very prepared. And I think that he did… he also took his time-
Matt Fradd:
He did, though, amazing. Because I don’t actually think Ben did that well against Father Pine on my channel.
Trent Horn:
Well, but that’s the thing. Here’s what’s interesting there. I felt like Ben offered extremely substantive critiques of Father Pine’s position. But Father Pine is a Dominican.-
Trent Horn:
… Yeah. Remember what I said, I mean he just oozes confidence in eloquence in speaking. And Ben was still getting used to the ropes and stuff. But when he met me in Houston, he had commanded of material, command of the stage. And so that made it a very evenly matched encounter. And what was good about it… And we were both happy because Ben and I didn’t want to dominate the person, utterly destroyed, all caps. Our goal, in fact, Ben said to me afterwards, “We did it.”
Matt Fradd:
That’s beautiful.
Trent Horn:
“We did it.” We did it. Our goal was for people to see this is the best atheism can do. This is the best theism can do. Watch it come together. Make up your mind, basically.
Matt Fradd:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for that. Let’s take some questions here. This first question comes from Charlie. He says, “Why does there have to be one actualized actualizer? Couldn’t there be multiple, because they could all lack potentiality without being existence itself?”
Trent Horn:
Yeah. And, this is one of the objections to there’re different ways you can formulate the argument from motion. And so, one way of formulating it is to understand that change or motion occurs when potential is reduced to an actual, and that can’t happen on its own. Something else has to do it. And so then the claim would continue to say, “Well maybe there’s just the spider web of causes. And so there are many different kinds of actualizers and not just one cause that is pure actuality.” I think the key premise in the argument in motion that I gave in my debate with Watkins, the argument I gave, there was a slightly abbreviated version of Ed Feser’s argument in the argument… Sorry, in his book, Five Proofs.
Trent Horn:
And a key premise there is that one of the things that continues to be actualized for anything, any cause would be its own existence. Anything that exists, its potential for existence at that given moment must be actualized. So even if you had a lot of different kinds of actualizers, something would still need to explain what is actualizing the existence of all these different actualizers at once. And that key premise then would lead to the existence of only one purely actual actualizer. Something that is pure existence itself. So I think that’s a key premise. That is why you have individuals.
Trent Horn:
Watkins brought this up a little bit in my debate. Joe Schmidt has been doing a lot of research on this. Oppy, I mean, Oppy talked about out it a while ago, but Schmidt’s done a lot of work on this, about existential inertia, saying, “Well maybe you don’t need that. Maybe objects just tend to exist and they don’t need their existence actualized,” is their way to try to get around the argument there. But I don’t think it succeeds. So I’m aware of the objection, but I think having that key premise naturally, if that premise is true, it leads to there being only one purely actual actualizer.
Matt Fradd:
Thanks. Tina asks, “Why get into debates with others? Wouldn’t that distract you from what your mission is here on earth and in heaven?”
Trent Horn:
Well, I think that sometimes it depends what kind of a debate it is. If I am just debating with someone in private and they are rude and obnoxious and refuse to listen, then I might be wasting my time. But I would ask Tina and others who have similar question, what is my mission on this life? My mission is to come to know, love and serve God. One way to serve God is to share the good news about God to evangelize. My mission, you and I are called to be evangelists, to share the good news about Jesus Christ and what God has done through Christ.
Trent Horn:
But there’s people who don’t believe that’s true or they have arguments against it. So how do I reach those people? I have found one of the most effective ways to reach those people is to publicly debate people who disagree with the gospel, because those people who disagree, they’re more likely to come and listen to a debate where their guy is a part of it versus just some talk where I’m sharing something they think is false. Those individuals, I find debates are very helpful for people who are in the middle, who are open-minded, to reach them. That’s not the only way, but I think it’s a very effective way. And there are people who have changed their viewpoints in both directions when it comes to atheism, by watching debates. So I think it can be very helpful in carrying out evangelism when you are prepared, when you’re charitable, when it’s done in the proper way.
Matt Fradd:
Heaton asks, “Trent, this may be a Jimmy question, but how come we don’t record any instances of demonic possession or see any pictures or videos like this? Wouldn’t a video of something like this help convince someone that there is more than just the physical world?”
Trent Horn:
[crosstalk 00:33:39]-
Matt Fradd:
And to that point, and I don’t want to heap a bunch more on this, but why don’t you bring this up in your debates? Why don’t you point to demonic possessions or other sort of supernatural occurrences like Marian apparitions or something?
Trent Horn:
… This is interesting. I wish I had a hat on and my beard. And I would look up in my eyes to the right as I access my vast library of knowledge. Whenever you watch Jimmy thoughtfully give an answer, he usually tends to look up in a certain direction. And I think that is him literally accessing the Hilbert’s hotel of knowledge in his mind when he does that. So I guess I have a few thoughts on those questions. Number one, I think that we do have evidence for demonic activity. Oftentimes that takes the form of testimonial evidence. I mean the recording devices are fairly recent, but even if we had recording devices, I think in many cases what you would be recording skeptics would write off as epileptic seizures or fits or personality disorder though.
Trent Horn:
I think there may be, and I’m not as familiar with the paranormal literature in this regard, but there are people who have claimed to have recorded electronic voice phenomena, sightings of ghosts and spirits, of demonic act activity. It’s something I haven’t investigated well, but I’m quite open to. So I don’t think there is that dearth of evidence. I think there’s the evidence we would expect. Though we’ve had continuing accounts of people who claim to have had demonic activity. And oftentimes if there is demonic activity, it’s kind of impromptu and you don’t have your camera ready for it.
Matt Fradd:
The other thing I suppose, in my interview with an exorcist, he was telling me that of course these things are incredibly private. These things aren’t broadcasted or-
Trent Horn:
Right. It’s not going to be like the Exorcist, necessarily.
Matt Fradd:
… No.
Trent Horn:
Number two, would I include these in my particular case for God? I tend to not. I’m more of a classical apologist. So there’re different methods of apologetics. Classical apologetics says you should use philosophical arguments to show God exists. And the existence of God makes miracles or the supernatural more likely. It makes it easier to believe in them. Evidential apologists will sometimes say, “No, you can go, if you have good evidence for a miracle, then you have enough to show, to show that God exists.” God bless you. Let’s get your soul back in you before you’re possessed.
Matt Fradd:
Thank you.
Trent Horn:
So I however, think that people have an easier time believing Christ rose from the dead, if they already believe there is a God who is capable of doing that or doing miracles. Because it’s interesting, I watched the debate once with Mike Licona, who is an excellent apologist, wrote a 500 page defense of the resurrection against Matt Dillahunty. And when I debated Matt Dillahunty on your channel, I did actually offer an argument for the existence of God to show the resurrection is plausible. If you remember, I gave the argument for motion and I used the example of the train cars can’t move themselves. The only time Dillahunty addressed my argument was in his closing statement where I couldn’t respond, where he said maybe the cars were on a hill. And I was like, “You don’t understand the argument at all if that’s your reply.” But we never got into it. And so he never rebutted the argument in the debate actually.
Trent Horn:
But when, when Licona debated Dillahunty, he also gave an argument for God to make the resurrection more likely. And he essentially gave a supernatural, a testimonial. He said, “I know people who have used Ouija board and they saw garbage cans fly up and hit the wall. And other stuff like that. And the problem is a lot of people, that sounds like urban legend territory to them. A friend of a friend told me… It’s just, they’re a lot more skeptical of those things. And that’s what I saw in the comments for the debate, and people weren’t very impressed by that. So when I give arguments for God, I try to use premises that are very accessible. I might not be able to show someone, hey, I used a Ouija board and I saw ghost. But I could say things change or things exist, or there’s right and wrong. We’re familiar with that.
Trent Horn:
I prefer to use premises that are as… That’s why I haven’t used the fine tuning argument as much. I want to use an argument where the premise is as immediately available to the person considering it as possible. That’s why I prefer more philosophical arguments. The existence of God, than those that rely on scientific stuff. Whether it’s fine tuning the, the scientific theories for the beginning of the universe. I find them fascinating. I read about them a lot, but I just haven’t used them as much for a while.
Matt Fradd:
This question here is about hell, it comes from Yvani Padilla. She says, “Hey Trent, how come souls in hell never repent and go to heaven? Why is that impossible?”
Trent Horn:
That is a little bit of a mystery. We don’t know exactly why those who are in hell are not capable of changing their behavior. All I could say from that is there’s probably… It’s highly probable there is a similar mechanism at work that the same thing that prevents souls and hell from repenting is what prevents souls in heaven from sinning. So it may be the case there’s a similar mechanism at work here. One theory is the mechanism is that when the soul is apart from the body, our decision for God is fixed. Our desire to be with or against God, it becomes fixed. Whereas when we’re in the body, we’re in the flesh, it’s more mutable and it’s more changeable in that respect. That is one theory. And there are other theories that have been proposed as to why they’re incapable of doing that. But I lean a lot towards the view that something happens at death that fixes our wills either for or against God. And that’s why we are given this life to be able to make that important decision.
Matt Fradd:
Ruben says, “Hey Trent, if you could answer my question, it would be greatly appreciated. If God allows evils like hurricanes and floods to bring about a greater good, does this give us license to say the ends justify the means? Holiness justifies the evil of suffering.”
Trent Horn:
I would say no for several reasons. First, I would say that God does not commit evil. God does not do evil. But God does tolerate evil in order to allow greater goods and he is able to do that because he’s all knowing and all powerful. I would say that that reasoning allows human beings to tolerate evil, if they are confident, they’re able to achieve a greater good. So for example, if we, by choosing to not install surveillance cameras in every home, every building, on every person. If we had a camera going everywhere on everybody, crime would probably diminish a lot. Even if it wasn’t cameras, even if we just GPS tagged everybody. Imagine if you GPS tagged everyone and the government knew wherever you were, whenever you were.
Matt Fradd:
They’ve kind of done that really with the smartphones. Anyway, keep going.
Trent Horn:
Well, you know what, they have, but they can’t access that without a warrant and things like that. But you think about it. Imagine if there was a database that tracked all of our locations. I mean, that would really decrease crime. You wouldn’t want to necessarily murder somebody because the GPS would show, oh yeah. That you were with them when their signal went out and they died. And so you might say, “Well, are we doing evil, so good, make up?” No, we’re tolerating evil, like murders, crimes, to prevent greater evils like the loss of privacy, the degradation of human dignity if we were to do that.
Trent Horn:
However, we do not have the right to do evil, to commit an intrinsic. So sometimes a lot of people misunderstand this map. They think, “Oh, the ends don’t justify the means,” they’ll say. That’s not true. That’s not true. The ends do justify the means. For example, I mean, Matt, if you knew nobody, if you knew no single person was going to watch this conference, you wouldn’t put it on. You wouldn’t just sit around. “Well, the ends don’t justify the means. I’m going to still talk to Trent and all this kind of [crosstalk 00:42:12].”-
Matt Fradd:
Right. Right.
Trent Horn:
No, you wouldn’t do that because the end of reaching people justifies the means of putting the conference on. Now, it would not justify the end of reaching people. Wouldn’t justify you stealing someone’s talk and showing it here without their permission-
Matt Fradd:
An evil means.
Trent Horn:
Right. Or an intrinsically evil means. That’s right. So God doesn’t do things that are intrinsically evil. God could create a world where there are physical systems like hurricanes and well, I mean, hurricanes, if there were no sentient creatures. Let’s say the world was just trees and rocks. Would there really be evil if a hurricane strikes the shore? I mean, the trees get knocked down and die. I don’t think people would care very much about that though. It’s more, okay, the problem with hurricanes and floods and volcanoes is that there are creatures that are sentient, that are finite, that melt in lava, things like that. Is it worth it for God to make creatures that are limited and decrease in perfection when they fall in the lava or in the lion’s mouth, things like that. And I would say, yeah. I think there’s a lot of good that actually comes from creating animals like that, including animals with immortal souls like us.
Matt Fradd:
Okay. We’ve got one more question here from Caleb. He says, “Hi, Trent, I’m a Protestant strongly considering conversion to the Catholic Church. One stumbling block I have is some of the Marian dogmas, because they are not all contained in scripture. Additionally, it seems that there, there’s not to be any Maryology in Paul’s letters. I understand that is technically an argument from silence. However, it troubles me that something very central to the Catholic faith appears almost absent in the apostles. How would you address these concerns?”
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I think what I would say is that first, the Marian dogmas are not the central truths of Catholicism. So the catechism says, for example, that the Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. The Marian dogmas are important, but they secondary truths of the faith. Even among the Marian dogmas, the dogma of Theotokos, Mary the mother of God. I would say that is the central Marian dogma. It is the one that makes the other three intelligible. If Mary were not the mother of God, I would wonder why should I believe all these other three? Why would I believe that? But if she’s the mother of God, hmm, that makes them… That doesn’t prove them, but it makes them, oh, I can see where you’re coming from here.
Trent Horn:
So I would say to him, just on that respect as their secondary issues, there are other secondary issues in scripture. I would say that as a Protestant, there are other issues that are similar that are important, that are not clearly put forward in scripture. For example, should we baptize children? Should we baptize infants? That’s an important question, especially if baptism regenerates us and takes away original sin. If it does well, we got to baptize everybody, especially little babies. But scripture is not clear about that either for or against. It is not clearly demarcated in scripture, yet it’s an important question. In fact, the church fathers, that was an example, the church fathers would bring up when they were debating people about, well, do we believe in things only that are in scripture? They said, “Well, no, the traditions handed on to us include things that are not in scripture, such as the sign of the cross.” That was Basil’s example. Or baptism of infants, things like that.
Trent Horn:
So I would encourage our Protestant friend who’s asking this question, there are other secondary issues that are important, that are not clearly defined in scripture. Another example would be, has public revelation ended did with the death in the first century? Mormons don’t think so. There are Protestants who think a pastor can say, “God spoke to me. The word of the Lord came to me and said to do this.” Well, the scripture is not clear about that. It doesn’t say there’s no more divine revelation after this date. Doesn’t say that. So there’re many things Protestants believe that are not explicitly found in scripture. And there’s the canon of scripture and all that. So I would just encourage him… His concern here about the Marian dogma is it’s probably more attached to his fundamental anchor of Sola Scriptura.
Trent Horn:
So I would encourage him, you really need to rethink Sola Scriptura before you can approach the Marian dogmas. That’s why I would encourage him to get my book, The Case for Catholicism. If that particular individual who asked you the question would like a copy, he can reach me at my website, trenthorn.com. Don’t flood my website if your Catholic trying to get a free book or something like that. I don’t know who this individual is. I would like to send him a free copy of my book.
Matt Fradd:
Nice.
Trent Horn:
So if that person who asked for the book, or that Protestant who asked the question, go to trenthorn.com, contact me say, “Hey, I asked you the question at Matt’s conference.” I’ll send you a copy of The Case For Catholicism. And what’s interesting, because I start Case For Catholicism by critiquing Sola Scriptura. Then I build my case. Then the last chapters are the Marian dogma, ironically enough.
Matt Fradd:
As we wrap up, Trent, tell people about your excellent podcast and where they can find it and anything else you’re working on.
Trent Horn:
Sure. I would recommend they can go to The Counsel of Trent, C-O-U-N-S-E-L, counsel. It’s available on iTunes, Google Play as well as on YouTube. They can go and subscribe there. I do about four episodes a week and yeah, have a lot of fun with that. Definitely check it out. Counsel of Trent. You can also become a premium subscriber and get access to bonus content at trenthornpodcast.com.
Matt Fradd:
Terrific. All right, Trent, thanks so much for being a part of this conference. God bless you.
Trent Horn:
You too, Matt.
Trent Horn:
Hey guys, thank you so much for watching. Be sure to check out Virtual Catholic Conference. You can go check out Fradd’s Conference, other things that they’re doing. And of course, check out what Matt is doing at Pints With Aquinas. The Pints With Aquinas with Matt Fradd. Definitely check all that out as well. Thank you guys so much and I hope you have a very pleasant day.
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