Just before their debate on the existence of God, Ben sat down with Trent and asked him to explain faith, philosophy of religion, and Trent’s “favorite arguments for atheism.”
Welcome to The Council of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Council of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers apologist and speaker, Trent Horn.
Trent Horn:
If you haven’t done so already, be sure to check out the Capturing Christianity YouTube page, where you can go and watch my recent debate with Ben Watkins from Real Atheology. This is easily the best debate that I’ve ever had on atheism, if not the best debate that I participated in, in general. The reason for that is because my opponent was smart, he was prepared, he was cordial, and he was friendly. And so we had an excellent substantive exchange on these ideas. I mean, previously the best debate that I had had on atheism was with Alex O’Connor, the Cosmic Skeptic. But I think this debate with Ben, it went really well. I think it’ll be very educational for people. They’ll learn a lot from this, and it was just really fun to take part in, because I really enjoy Watkins and the other individuals who are at Real Atheology. Check them out on Twitter.
Trent Horn:
In fact, I did a previous episode here on the podcast. I think it was called, Unusually Enjoyable Atheists on Twitter. I find myself agreeing with them a lot on various issues, obviously not on atheism, but when it comes to the search for truth, the Real Atheology crew, I often agree with them. We both see how new atheism and some forms of online atheism can be very unreasonable, and how some Christians can act in really unreasonable ways. So Ben and I, we have a lot of common ground. I really enjoy chatting with him. We have a friendly and affable demeanor with each other, and so that’s why I think this debate went so well, because Ben and I already get along really well. And I hope that we can do future events with one another. I think you’ll see that in today’s episode because before the debate, this was in Houston what was it, last Friday I think. It kicked off Capturing Christianity conference.
Trent Horn:
So at the hotel where Ben and I were staying at, we did an interview just really an hour before we had to drive down to the venue to do the debate with one another. I let Ben interview me about philosophy of religion, the arguments for and against the existence of God, and so it was nice to answer the really interesting questions that he had for me, so I think you’ll learn a lot from this interview where Ben sits down and he throws the questions at me. But as I said, don’t forget to check out the debate that’s already up. Next week, I will post the debate on my YouTube channel, and I’ll offer a debrief of the debate with some of my thoughts about the issues that were raised with John DeRosa, from the Classical Theism podcast.
Trent Horn:
So next week I’ll have the debate and the debrief here on this channel. Go check it out if you haven’t already seen it, but for now here’s my pre-debate interview with Ben Watkins.
Ben Watkins:
Hello, everyone. My name is Ben Watkins, and I am the host of Real Atheology, a philosophy of religion podcast, and I’m here with my good friend, Trent Horn of Catholic Answers. Trent.
Trent Horn:
Howdy, Ben. Good to be here.
Ben Watkins:
So we are about a couple of hours away from our debate with Capturing Christianity. We’re both really, really excited. We’re both excited to show everyone the finished product of the fruits of our labors. But before we did that, we wanted to have an impromptu interview and ask some questions about the philosophy of religion. So one of my favorite questions to ask people is why philosophy of religion, Trent?
Trent Horn:
Because we do philosophy of everything. That is what philosophy is. Today at lunch, it was a delightful lunch, actually. First, because we had fajitas. And second, because we were sitting with Josh Rasmussen who is an excellent Christian philosopher. He teaches that Azusa Pacific University, and we were talking about philosophy. He teaches intro to philosophy classes, and I told him like, “It’d be hard to… ” Because I’ve been to intro philosophy classes where the students think they know more than the teacher, and that would just be… It would be irritating.
Trent Horn:
But he helps them to see that philosophy is not really… I think that’s something we all came to agree on when we were talking, is that philosophy is not just like one subject among others. It’s really just a way of thinking about the world. And because it’s a way of thinking about the world rather than a body of knowledge to understand, you can apply it to anything. So we have philosophy of law, philosophy of science, philosophy of art. And of course then if religion, is you apply philosophy to anything that’s important. So if something is important, anything that affects someone’s life, you would apply philosophy, which is just thinking carefully and critically about it, and religion is an important thing to people. Even the new atheists would have to admit, even if they think religion is bunk, they’d have to admit to many people religion is important. So therefore, we ought to do philosophy of it and critically examine it.
Ben Watkins:
I think that’s a really great answer. So you’re a Christian theist yourself.
Trent Horn:
Yes.
Ben Watkins:
So in the philosophy of religion, you approach these questions from a Catholic perspective, so that raises another question. Why Catholicism instead of Protestantism?
Trent Horn:
Yes, and actually Cameron and I, Cameron Bertuzzi from Capturing Christianity, we had a good little chat about this and hopefully that’ll be released in a few months or so. But for me, once you come to believe that God exists and that God has revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ through his resurrection from the dead, then the next question for me is what is my authority? Where Jesus is the revelation of God, where I want to follow his authority, where did that go? And when I look at the biblical and historical evidence, I cannot accept the Protestant view that it is encapsulated solely within a written set of writing 66 books, sola scriptura.
Trent Horn:
One reason I actually didn’t get to this in the interview with Cameron, it was always in the back of my mind, and it didn’t make it out to say to him, was that it would be odd to me if that is what God intended for solo scripture to be a norm, and yet the written word was not common for people for another 1500 years. It seems to me that God chose to reveal himself in a kind of organized religion at the point when humanity had evolved the ability to sustain cultural traditions for a long period. So if God had revealed himself in an organized way to human beings 30,000 years ago, that might not have existed to the present day because civilization had not developed yet.
Trent Horn:
So it seems to me if God waited just to give organized religion once civilization had developed, if sola scriptura was going to be the foundational element for his newest revelation, the final revelation, he would have done it when the written word was accessible and literacy was widespread. So that didn’t make sense to me, but rather an apostolic succession, a single church, Jesus-established hierarchical, enduring, and all that making sense within the Catholic framework, among the many other things, doctrine and also aesthetic reasons lower on the bar there, but still important. But yeah, and all of that’s in my book Case for Catholicism, for listeners who are interested in more.
Ben Watkins:
That’s awesome. So very central to the Christian theist tradition is the concept of faith and how this fits into your philosophical model. And you mentioned the philosophy of science earlier.
Trent Horn:
Yes.
Ben Watkins:
So how do you understand the concept of faith? And one of the standing questions in the philosophy of religion is how does it relate to science? Do you think that they’re in tension, or do you think that they’re compatible?
Trent Horn:
Right, I don’t think that they’re in tension, because I don’t believe that science and faith are opposing means of investigating the world. I do not believe faith is a means of investigating the world at all. I take faith to be confidence in a particular proposition. That’s all I take faith to be. Now, that’s in a broad sense. Now, the catechism of the Catholic church teaches in paragraph 1814 that faith is also a theological virtue of believing what God has revealed, and God moves people to accept certain beliefs about him, though you ultimately cooperate with it.
Trent Horn:
But I don’t like this idea that, well, one group of people, atheists or freethinkers, non-religious, use science to figure out the world, and religious people use faith to figure out the world. To me, once again yes, faith is essentially confidence in a proposition. So for example, you have that George Michael song, “I’ve got to have faith, faith, faith. I’ve got to have faith, faith, faith.” That is not him. He’s talking about having trust in a particular person in a relationship.
Trent Horn:
And because some atheists will say, “Well no, science and faith are different because if you had enough scientific evidence for a proposition, you would not need faith.” And I would say that’s not true, actually. When you have scientific evidence that a vaccine works or scientific evidence that a parachute will properly deploy, you could have all that evidence, but you still have to trust it and make a decision to allow that needle to be injected into your arm or to pull the rip cord and jump out of the plane. So I think that even when people say, “Oh, well, there’s people. They don’t believe in science. They believe in God by faith.” I don’t think they really do that. What I think they believe in is that they have put confidence in things like, “God revealed himself to me in prayer or through the natural world.”
Trent Horn:
Or just knowing God exists by faith is the same as saying, “Well, I know God exists by trust.” Well, by trust in what? And so even people that have a underdeveloped foundation for what they believe, it’s not just, “I believe because I believe.” It’s usually because, “I trust prayer, personal experience, the Bible, familial testimony.” They do trust something, and other people misinterpret that. They’ll trust a religious system like the Bible and say, “Oh, well, they just take it on faith.” Because faith to them just means religious system. No, they have confidence in certain kinds of things that have a religious context to them, so I don’t think they’re in tension because they’re two different things.
Ben Watkins:
So now that we’ve put a concept of science and faith on the table, and we’re going to concede that they’re compatible, there’s a tradition in Christian theism called natural theology.
Trent Horn:
Yes.
Ben Watkins:
So how do you think natural theology helps plays in. If we’re not going to believe that God exists through faith alone, is this where natural theology steps in?
Trent Horn:
Yes. So as I said before, even people who believe by faith alone, I would say that they are just putting their trust in something. Even if it’s just the presupposition that God exists, they put their trust in that presupposition. So the question is where would natural theology fit into this? I would also say, by the way, that with science, science has to proceed by having faith in certain things like axioms, the uniformity of the laws of nature, so faith is not just a religious concept. We all have to put trust or confidence, even in our own veritical sense perception that it is accurate.
Trent Horn:
Now in natural theology, natural theology is a subset of theology, which is the study of God and of revelation. Natural theology is a subset that puts forward a rational defense of the Christian faith. Natural theology seeks to show what one can establish by reason about God, and that would be objective. So for example, someone could have faith in a private experience of God and come to learn that God is the creator of the universe and maybe is all good even, from that personal experience. That would not be natural theology because we, you and I, don’t have access to personal experience.
Trent Horn:
But natural theology would say, “Well, there are objective things we can look at and say, what do they tell us about God and his relationship to the world?” So for example, while the content of a private experience may not be a part of natural theology, the fact that religious experiences happen is a part of natural theology. Say, well, we do know [crosstalk 00:12:39].
Ben Watkins:
Observation.
Trent Horn:
Yes, we observe that people have religious experiences. What can we gather from that? And then from there, people will engage in natural theology in different ways. So some people will make deductive arguments based on self-evident principles in the world to the existence of God and discern attributes. Other people might make inductive arguments and say, “We observe these different things in the world and putting all them together makes God’s existence more likely than not.” So natural theology is practiced in different ways, but it’s premised on the idea one can, even you or I, an atheist or a Christian, could look at objective things in the world and infer whether they lead to the existence of God, a God with the traditional attributes of theism.
Ben Watkins:
So now time to field you a fun question.
Trent Horn:
Of course.
Ben Watkins:
What’s your favorite argument in natural theology?
Trent Horn:
My favorite argument.
Ben Watkins:
For theism, I should say.
Trent Horn:
Sure, yeah. It’s hard to pick a favorite argument. It’s like asking what’s your favorite child? You don’t want to make the other ones feel bad. I don’t know because I like them in different ways, and each one has strengths and limitations. So there are some that are stock arguments, I think are very strong. Those will be arguments I’ll be sharing in our debate tonight. There are others I find to be fascinating. They would be like, they’d be like my… It’s like asking, “What’s your favorite relative?” Well, I have an uncle that’s a total weirdo. I love him, but he’s kind of a weirdo, I don’t bring him out a lot. That’s the ontological argument.
Ben Watkins:
I was about to say. I was like, “I think you’re talking about the ontological argument.”
Trent Horn:
The ontological argument. Well, but even there, the ontological argument, sometimes my weirdo uncle makes a few good points.
Ben Watkins:
Yeah.
Trent Horn:
I’m like, “Oh, well, haven’t thought of it that way before.” But I think for me, I prefer… I have a favorite kind of arguments. I prefer deductive, metaphysical arguments that try to arrive at God from philosophical premises, premises that can be known through observation, and through reflection we come to the knowledge of God. It’s funny, as my career as an apologist and Christian thinker has developed over the past 10 years, I have, I’ll even… 10 years ago, I was not as wedded to them even more. I moved away from arguments that rely on more contestable, empirical data, such as the cosmological arguments for the finitude of the past, like relying on theoretical physics or the fine tuning-
Ben Watkins:
Is that because it’s in so much flux, or-
Trent Horn:
Yeah, it just becomes tentative, and one must be careful not to stroll out of one’s wheelhouse and into an area they don’t quite understand. Like I try to-
Ben Watkins:
It’s not the place to put our faith is it?
Trent Horn:
Yes, that’s right. Well, it’s easy. You got to be careful. I’ve seen people who will make a cosmological argument for the finitude of the past and cite physicists on the matter. They’ll cite the Borde–Vilenkin-Guth theorem theorem, or other elements from physics, and I might ask them, “Have you read the original [arXiv 00:15:50] paper on Borde-Vilenkin-Guth, or the other papers and responses?” Now if someone… and similar with fine tuning. Now, if someone legitimately has an understanding of the field, like, let’s say they have a PhD in physics. I might say, “Hey, go ahead,” because I think you’re in the field more and you can make-
Ben Watkins:
Someone like Luke Barnes.
Trent Horn:
Yes, exactly, and he’s going to be speaking at the conference tonight. Stephen Barr would be another example. He’s a physicist who wrote a great book called Modern Physics, Ancient Faith. I don’t know if Robin Collins has a PhD in physics. I think he does, actually.
Ben Watkins:
I’m pretty sure he does.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I think he does.
Ben Watkins:
If not, someone in the comments will correct us.
Trent Horn:
Right, and Robin Collins has an actual excellent inductive, fine tuning argument that’s in the Blackwell Companion in Natural Theology. And so I find all that fascinating. I personally, I would be concerned weighing in on it because it’s not an area of expertise for me. Now I have graduate degree in philosophy. I’ve tried to study philosophy in that area there, and also I think it’s helpful to do arguments where we all have the ability to kind of reflect on the data and just not take for granted this constant is fine tuned, or here’s what this article in physics says. It’s just I also personally think that if God were to give ways for us to know about him, we all should be able to get there even without access to a physics journal, or it doesn’t have to be hidden behind a paywall.
Trent Horn:
Now that’s not to say though, some of these arguments one reflects upon quickly get into very deep areas. For me, I wish that I was a mathematician with the philosophical Kalam argument, because that gets very complex in the notions [crosstalk 00:17:30].
Ben Watkins:
Very complex, very quickly.
Trent Horn:
That’s why I love going to people, an example, somebody like Alexander Pruss. He, I believe, has a PhD in philosophy and mathematics.
Ben Watkins:
He does. He’s a genius, really. I mean, he’s kind of on that next level of smart.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. That’s right. So there, and then of course when I try to… But even there, I’m more can gravitate around understanding that than some of these more theoretical things in physics. So I think the arguments… I’m not saying the arguments don’t work. I just haven’t been as invested in them, but I do promote them and learn about them, and I still believe that they work, and they’re interesting to debate about and be robust. But I would say the ones that I’m more interested in now are arguments based on a motion and change, contingency, causal finitude, and I am trying to tailor a moral argument to a specific, robust feature that I think can stand up well, so we’ll talk about that more tonight.
Ben Watkins:
Awesome. So I’ll field you another fun question. So what’s your favorite argument for atheism?
Trent Horn:
Ah, my favorite argument. The one that I think is the most successful?
Ben Watkins:
Your favorite? It doesn’t have to be a good one.
Trent Horn:
Oh my goodness. I have favorites that drive me up the wall, just like you. I think you and I would agree, the one I can’t stand the most is essentially lacktheism or that, “Well, atheism is the default, and if you cannot prove God exists, then atheism wins.” It’s my favorite one to just-
Ben Watkins:
It’s like trying to define the position into being or something.
Trent Horn:
Yes. And so for me, if it’s just lacktheism, my lack of belief in God, what do you do? It doesn’t tell me much about the world. I don’t care. Now some people will say, “Well look, no. My claim is there is no good evidence for God.” And my response is, “Why should I believe that?” And the reply is, “Then show me the good evidence.” And I think, no, that’s lazy. Because what if I were an agnostic who had lived on a desert island, my whole life. I’d have never heard of the monotheistic God, or let’s say any gods for that matter. And then I come here to this conference, and I hear about this debate, and I’m like, “Oh, so there’s this idea of God, you say. Oh, that’s very interesting.”
Trent Horn:
I asked an atheist who believed that, “Well, what do you think about this whole God thing?”
Trent Horn:
“Oh, there’s no good evidence for God.”
Trent Horn:
“Okay, that guy says there’s good evidence. Why should I believe you instead of him?”
Trent Horn:
Now it won’t do to tell me, “Well, give me the evidence,” because I’m an agnostic in this example. I just barely… I just got to the debate. I’m just, “Oh, so there’s God,” and people disagree. You say there’s no good evidence. You say there is good evidence, so I’m trying to talk to you. Why should I believe you there’s no good evidence? I don’t have the burden of proof as the agnostic newcomer to say, “Oh, well here’s the good-
Ben Watkins:
You can sit on the fence the whole time.
Trent Horn:
I absolutely can. And I can say, “Oh, well, why should I believe that?” Now someone who were… And some people, it’s interesting, the parallels they make. They’ll try to say, “Well, do you do this for Bigfoot? Do you do this for the Lochness monster? Do you do it for aliens?”
Trent Horn:
To which my response is, “Yes, I do. Yes, I do actually, because I am an open-minded free thinker.” That’s, what’s weird to me with some atheists. Like not just the take for granted that God doesn’t exist, but obviously Bigfoot, aliens, these other things. Well, how are you so obvious about that? I mean, think about all of the new things we have discovered about the natural world in 300 years that blew people’s minds. Like when the Europeans discovered black swans in Australia. I mean, prior to that, when you used to say, “That is a black swan event,” like prior to that in medieval Europe, that meant something that never happened, and now it means something that happens once in a while.
Trent Horn:
So for me, I would say, “Well, no. I look at these views and yeah, I’ve looked at what I think is called the Patterson–Gimlin footage of Bigfoot. I’ve looked at accounts of alien abductions. I’m willing to assess evidence of lots of different views. And some people say, “Well, what are you? Are you going to look at the arguments for unicorns?” I’m like, “Why, I’m not aware of anyone who makes them, but if somebody did and it was published by Oxford University Press, yes. I would read that.”
Trent Horn:
I’ve looked at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s book. I think it’s called The Inquest of the Fairies, Search of the Fairies, because people like to compare theism. Well, it’s like afaeism. I lack a belief in fairies. Why do I have to look at what people who believe in fairies? Well, not many people now, but the guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes believed in them. He wrote a 200 page book on it. But for fun I looked through it, and it’s basically just theorizing what fairies would be like. The only evidence is the Cottingley photographs of the fairies that were taken in the early 20th century. And even at that time, you could tell that they’re fakes. They’re flat images, and the wings do not show any blurring. Whereas if the wings are flapping, you would see them blurring in the photograph.
Trent Horn:
So I would say that there’s… Just because Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can write the world’s smartest detective doesn’t mean he’s a genius himself. So, yeah. When atheists say this, they’ll say, “Well, no. The world is a weird and odd place.” Well, let’s take extra terrestrials. I wouldn’t be surprised if they visited the earth. I’m not convinced of it, but I’m like 50/50 they’re out there in the universe somewhere.
Ben Watkins:
I don’t think they’d want to come here. I think if they saw us from a distance, they’d be like, “Man, no thanks.”
Trent Horn:
Well, it’s possible. There’s the zoo hypothesis. It’s possible aliens do exist in the universe, and they have not visited us because we’re so backwards and primitive they’ve quarantined us so we don’t infect the rest of the universe and people. Well, they keep us like a preserve in the oddities of the universe. But yeah, so my point being is that, no, if someone makes a claim, I want to look at the best arguments for that claim. And let’s say if it’s atheism, I would say it’s some kind of an argument for simplicity of ontology or an evidential argument from evil, because I would want people to do the same with what I believe.
Ben Watkins:
Awesome. One of the themes in our debate tonight is the goal of trying to raise the level of discourse, but actually, it’s much easier said than done.
Trent Horn:
Right.
Ben Watkins:
What advice would you give other people who are also trying to raise the level of discourse among atheists and theists that they converse with? Because it doesn’t necessarily have to be an atheist and theist discussion. Theists can disagree.
Trent Horn:
It could be Catholics and Protestants.
Ben Watkins:
Yeah. It could be. I certainly have a lot of infighting in the atheist camp as well.
Trent Horn:
Yes.
Ben Watkins:
So, what are ways-
Trent Horn:
Well, yeah. Talk about how about atheists that believe veganism is an ethical obligation and atheist who don’t.
Ben Watkins:
Exactly. How can all of us raise the level of these discourses? What do you think is the best advice to leave people with? And now, that’ll be the final question. I’ll leave you with it.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, sure, sure. I think what we need to do is to improve the means of communication and grow in our knowledge of subject areas. So for example, if the means of communication is restricted to 280 characters, the level of discourse can’t get very high. That’s not how normal people talk. People don’t talk impersonally face-to-face in two sentences, two sentence rejoinders. It creates… It’s just toxic.
Trent Horn:
But the more people can talk face-to-face and have real conversations too, that raises it. Finding common ground when you’re speaking together raises the level of discourse. Acknowledging that you’re not opposing armies, but you’re two people. You’re trying to figure out the world, so the other person, while you might disagree with them fundamentally on something, they may have an insight that changes your view on maybe a secondary issue and gives you some more thought. Maybe the person you disagree with, they’ll show you that one of your arguments for your view is really bad, so you just don’t use that anymore and use the other arguments. You’re open to change and the dialogue being a two-way street.
Trent Horn:
And then I think the more you learn about what you believe and what others believe, it makes the discourse less hostile. And I think here’s what happens. People are committed to a belief, and they have a shallow defense of the belief. They have kind of an understanding of what the other guy believes, but they’re also nervous. They don’t want to give up their belief. So this is going to be religious people.
Ben Watkins:
They don’t want to be embarrassed.
Trent Horn:
They don’t want to be embarrassed, but this could be an atheist who just wants to eat meat and doesn’t want to give that up for ethical veganism and doesn’t have a great defense for their carnivorous ways and only has a shallow understanding of ethical veganism. And so they get hostile because they’re threatened about a belief they care about, and they don’t have a good firm grasp of it.
Trent Horn:
But I think, like you and I and others, we can debate about these important issues because we know our own beliefs very well, and we know what the other person’s critiques are, and so we become less defensive because it is more familiar. And then instead of worrying about being in the fight, we can learn from each other and better analyze the argument. So I would just say knowing what you believe well, knowing what the other person believes well, the principle of charity, treating the other person’s position like you would like yours to be treated, and then creating a venue that’s not Twitter. That’s real conversations, ideally in-person, which I’d like to see more of.
Ben Watkins:
I think that was a fantastic answer. Trent, thank you so much for joining me today for this interview. Again, my name is Ben Watkins with Real Atheology, a philosophy of religion podcast. We’re about to go have a debate. So let’s go do it.
Trent Horn:
Let’s do it. Let’s raise the level of discourse.
Ben Watkins:
Trent Horn of Catholic Answers. Be sure to check him out. This is Ben signing off.
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