July 14, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode, we interview Dr. Tyler McNabb, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Saint Francis University. He is an author, speaker, and academic who specializes in philosophy of religion and religious epistemology. Tyler explains why he thinks belief in God is justified and goes over some problems with atheism. Regardless of your worldview, you will find this episode helpful and enlightening.
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0:00 Exploring Theism
1:38 Dr. Tyler McNabb's Academic Journey Across Continents
3:45 Exploring Proper Basicality and Arguments for God's Existence
6:26 Reformed Epistemology and Trusting Common Sense Beliefs
9:51 Reformed Epistemology and Instinctive Belief in God's Existence
10:59 Exploring Reformed Epistemology and Arguments for God's Existence
15:20 Exploring Contingency and the Universe's Existence
18:36 Exploring Circularity and Justification in Religious Epistemology
21:07 Exploring Theistic Explanations and Apophatic Theology
25:13 Historical Evidence and Theories on Jesus' Resurrection
28:37 Exploring Faith, Atheism, and Philosophical Convergences Across Traditions
33:04 Questioning Intuition and Science in Theism and Atheism Debates
34:32 Debating Theism, Agnosticism, and the Problem of Evil
38:20 A Father's Heartbreak During His Son's Emergency Surgery
40:58 Understanding God's Mind and The Nature of Evil
41:39 From Evangelical Protestantism to Roman Catholicism: A Philosophical Journey
44:48 Exploring Catholicism, Protestantism, and Biblical Interpretation
47:11 Philosophical Debates: Theism, Atheism, and Rational Discourse
50:22 Driving Alvin Plantinga and Discussing Epistemology and Rock Climbing
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Hello and welcome to another edition of Ideological.
I'm your host, Zach Lee, and today we have a special guest.
I am joined with Doctor Tyler McNabb, who's the associate
professor of philosophy at SaintFrancis University up in
Pennsylvania. Doctor McNabb, thanks for being
on the show. Thanks so much for inviting me.
It's a good deal. It's.
Going to be a ton of fun. We've got drinks, we've got
(00:28):
laughs, there's books in the background.
Yes, we are learned men, OK? Live laugh.
Yeah, I have those around the house to let me know that I'm
always discouraged. Anytime I see those in
somebody's house, I'm like, it'll be things like don't kill
yourself tomorrow. And I'm like, that is too
aggressive for a house poster. Before we get into this, I need
to give a disclaimer, as I always do, that by being on the
(00:49):
show, neither Doctor McNabb nor any intellectual group that he
works with is necessarily endorsing other episodes of the
show. Not that they're not great,
they're fantastic. But if I say something that is
off color, do not get mad at himor all of Catholic Education.
OK? Today we're going to be talking
a little bit about giving a casefor theism.
(01:10):
So a few weeks ago I interviewedBen Watkins of Real Atheology,
Super nice guy who gave a case for atheism.
This is not meant to like be in response to that, But this is
just kind of the other side. This is a, this is a talk on
theism because that's your background.
So I want to ask you first of all, just for people that might
not know who you are, can you tell us a little bit about your
academic background, your interest and philosophy of
(01:31):
religion in particular, 'cause you're, you're, you're kind of
the guy in this space. Planica called me and he's like,
hey, I have AI, have a descendant.
I was like, OK, all right, so. Yeah, so I did a masters in
philosophy of religion for my mygraduate degree.
I did a undergrad in biblical studies.
And really when I fell in love with philosophy, I started to
(01:52):
fall in love with philosophy like last year of undergrad and
even thought about like transferring schools at the last
year and like doing an extra year of school.
Then I had to, to, to do a philosophy degree, but I started
against that thought. You know what, I'm just going to
do an Old Testament degree. So go to Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary and do an MA there and and philosophy,
(02:15):
religion. End up doing that because I I
found out it was much better at philosophy than Hebrew.
And it's more fun, like if you do in the Old or New Testament,
you're are you are a grammarian.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then, so then, yeah. Then I I did a PhD at the
University of Glasgow under Victoria Harrison and so lived
there for 2 from 2013 to 2016, and since then I've been kind of
(02:39):
a little all over the world. Left Glasgow for Houston
Baptist, now Houston Christian University, has spent a few
years there, then went to the University of Macau in China.
Just down the road. Just down the road and then
University of Saint Joseph in inMacau, China and was there for
total in Macau for three years, which during the COVID time too,
(02:59):
which was quite fun. It's a.
Tough time to be in China, yeah?Yeah, it was.
It was. Yeah.
Boys of fun. And then, Yeah.
And then now I've been three years going on my 4th year at
Saint Francis University in Pennsylvania.
Awesome. Also a speaker, author of
several books with a big name publishers, so Bloomsbury and
Cambridge University Press and and Rutledge and these kind of
(03:22):
things. So he's kind of a big deal to
quote Ron Burgundy. OK, let's talk theism.
What is the strongest case you can make for God's existence in
your opinion? And is belief in God a properly
basic belief or do you think that there are evidences for
him? So one of the reasons I've asked
you to to talk about this is theissue is not just give me proofs
for God's existence that that starts with some presuppositions
(03:44):
that might not be correct. What if belief in God is, you
know, something that you should start with or whatever it might
be? So that I know that you do a lot
within religious epistemology aswell.
So chat with us a little bit about your thoughts on that
question. Yeah.
So I guess I can break it down if it's OK with you please,
where I'll talk about proper basic ality at 1st and then I'll
kind of move on to if we're talking about arguments, what's
what sort of arguments I find more persuasive.
(04:07):
Yeah. So in epistemology, there is
this idea if if you're what you call a foundationalist, that you
might have certain beliefs that are at the very foundation of
your noetic belief forming structure where they're not
supported by other arguments, but are kind of the the
foundation for your other beliefs, which are supported by
(04:29):
other beliefs and arguments, right.
And so I'm a foundationalist. So this sort of reformed
epistemology that I like to talkabout is a reformed epistemology
that says that religious belief can be properly basic, which by
the way, is a good gamertag justin.
Case, yeah, and just in case youwant to play a little Call of
Duty. That's right, That's right.
(04:50):
And yeah, so you know, the idea is that there are are actually
some things and and and epistemology, contemporary
epistemology that really don't have great arguments for but are
kind of like part of our common sense structure.
So for example, there really aren't great arguments for other
minds. And even if you think there's a
(05:11):
good argument for another for other minds existence, probably
the arguments not going to be sogreat as to capture the full
degree of justification or warrant we think we have for
that belief, right? It'll be like, Oh yes, this
establishes with like .6 certainty that with other minds
(05:32):
exist. And it's like, come on, do we,
do we actually, is that really capturing kind of our our our
confidence level that other people exist similar?
If you know, I know you love David Hume, can we know the
future will be like the past, right?
The problem of induction. Let me summarize this is your
first episode ideological. This will be a little bit heady,
but it'll make you better, so hang in there.
(05:52):
Epistemology is the study of knowledge and how we know
things, what counts as justifiedknowledge, et cetera.
And then foundationalism is thisidea that eventually, if you ask
why, why, why, you're going to get to this axiom, this thing
that you just see seems to be true.
It's where you start kind of like Descartes cookie toe.
And so the idea is we don't typically like, if you ask me
exact. Did you have breakfast this
morning? I don't typically have to create
(06:12):
a world where an evil demons tricking me and then do all
these kind of to know. I can just say, yeah, I I'm
being a normal human and I have normal knowledge that I had
breakfast this morning. It's kind of it.
It's kind of Moore's thing of this is a hand and some of the
common sense philosophy stuff. So sorry, back to you.
Yeah, I know. So it's just this is part of
this, this idea that so Thomas Reed, part of this common sense
tradition, right? He's like, are you, you, you
(06:35):
trust part of your cognitive faculties, maybe the parts that
you use to question whether or not your cognitive faculties are
reliable. It's like, why you just go the
whole way, right? It's made in the same shop, so
to speak, right? So, you know, it's this idea
that we should, we should kind of trust our common sense, at
least until we have really good reason to, to think otherwise.
So, you know, I have a really strong belief here that there
(06:56):
are other people in this room right now.
All of a sudden, if someone just, like, popped out ex nihilo
and like, pushed a button and then all of y'all's heads just
kind of like, went forward, opened up and I saw like,
robotic stuff. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this
is like Westworld, right? Maybe that would defeat my
belief. But until something like that
happens, right? Yeah.
The burden. Of proof is on the other side.
That's right. Yeah.
I once heard planning A say thathe's only known one true
(07:18):
solipsist in his life and he wanted to make sure that he
didn't die because if he did, everyone would go.
That's right. Exactly.
Exactly. And then this was, of course,
before he tried to become the first Protestant Pope.
Yeah, he's not. A bad candidate?
Yeah, so the the idea of Reformed epistemology, Reformed
epistemology for those of you familiar with John Calvin.
(07:41):
So the word reform there is inspired in part by in the
Institute's book 1, where Calvintalks about a census
divinitatus, a sense of divinity.
And so Reformed epistemology is a minimal thesis, actually, it
all it says is just that religious belief can be
justified or warranted apart from argument.
And in the way that I've kind ofencapsulated here that Reformed
(08:03):
epistemology is a thesis that religious belief can be properly
basic, held rationally, properlyso, but in a basic way, in an
immediate way apart from argumentation.
And so Planaga goes, all right, well, you know, if we have this
census divinitatus, this sense of divinity and it's functioning
properly, right, then maybe we can know things simply based off
(08:27):
of the proper function of our cognitive faculties.
So in a similar way, like I justfind myself believing there are
other minds in this room right now.
I don't have good arguments for it, right?
You can always up up me one, youknow, skeptically or in a
simulation or something like that Cartesian evil demon
monster, right? Maybe, maybe, maybe I can't
really up you one. But at the same time, it's like,
(08:47):
come on, I know that other people are in this room right
now, and that's just kind of based off cognitive proper
function. Similarly, like I think animals
and infants, they have some knowledge, even though their
concepts and so forth might not be as sophisticated as ours as
we're rational animals, so to speak.
But I do think that you know, when, when there's food in the
(09:07):
room, my dog knows, yeah, there's food over there, right.
And so how do they know? Do they know by way of
argumentation? Do they know, are they like
doing Bayesian calculus? No, no, no.
They know basically from from instincts, from intuitions, from
proper basicality of a proper function of their faculties.
And so Plenigo says if God exists and he's designed, if he
(09:30):
has designed our faculty. So notice I'm, I'm using a
conditional if, right, if God exists, if he's designed our
faculties to produce belief in him, then if all of a sudden we
find ourselves believing in God and that's part of our proper
function, then it seems like that we would have justified or
warranted belief that, you know,that God exists.
And so this is the example I usefor my oldest daughter.
(09:50):
Her name's Eden. And so imagine Eden in a garden,
right? And Eden picks up a flower and
she looks at all of its intricacies and just finds
herself believing like in an immediate way, not based off
arguments or anything. We're just like, yeah, God
created this. Like isn't God wonderful?
His is, isn't, isn't creation beautiful?
(10:11):
Like, you know, just find myselfbelieving God made this if that
again, if that belief is hard wired into her, right.
And that's all, all's going wellaccording to proper function,
then she can know that God created this flower apart from
argumentation. So that's really what Reformed
epistemology is about. It's not just like Reformed.
So I've got a article in Philosophy Compass arguing that
(10:34):
basically if, if you're going tobe a good Catholic about the
epistemology of faith, basicallyyou need to be a reformed
epistemologist, right? I, I think it is an Aquinas and
this quadritos the, the questions that he has, he has 1
chapter where he basically says,you know, hey, would we be
responsible for believing even if there were no more like
(10:57):
miracles that were occurring? And his answer is yes, because
we'd have the internal witness of the Holy Spirit and we'd have
the, the a preacher or the church to teach us these things.
We would be obligated to believe.
You know, so in some sense it's kind of like without arguments,
you're still obligated to believe because the Spirit is a
witness within us. And so, yeah, that's, that's
kind of the idea of Reformed epistemology as a belief in God
(11:19):
can be rational in the same sortof way that belief in other
minds can be rational. Do you?
Think that's the strongest argument for God's existence
opposed to kind of the evidentialism, ontological
cosmological, because that then plays into a presupposition that
disagrees with Reformed epistemology, right?
Because it's what you're saying is and, and just to kind of
summarize kind of the Reformed epistemological view.
(11:41):
If God is true and God has revealed himself and has made us
to know him, then to act like we're going to step away from
that source of truth and to get to this like third ground that's
more than neutral and then try to argue from God's existence is
kind of wrong headed. You're stepping away from truth
to then try to argue about truth.
So would you say that that is the strongest case is to not
build a case to say you, you start here.
(12:03):
The burden of proof is on the other side and it's not one of
these famous arguments. What are your?
Thoughts. Yes, I wouldn't say that.
I think it's, it's it's nice because the and and and
epistemology, as you mentioned earlier, you know, study of
knowledge, so more specifically,probably the study of various
concepts like our beliefs, rational warranted, justified,
(12:23):
right? There's this these kind of
different views that play you have.
I'm I'm going to kind of really simplify these views.
So they're not going to be supertechnical or, or, or accurate,
but you'll it'll give you the gist.
You have a, an internalist view,which basically says you need to
have access to the reasons for why your belief is, is rational
or justified. Now, there are different
(12:43):
versions of internalism and evensome are formed epistemology,
internalist friendly views. Without getting into that,
there's then there's externalism, which says that no,
you don't always have to have access to the reasons why your
beliefs are justified. It could be, you know, external
to to your access. And so, you know, it could be
safe, properly functioning cognitive faculty, which you
(13:03):
don't have access to whether or not it's properly functioning,
right. So you have this kind of
externalism, internalism, these,these especially in the early
2000s and even up until 2010 and12, a lot of epistemologists
were interested in this sort of debate and especially was like
interested in the 90s. And so, you know, in reference
to just kind of as an externalist, I can kind of just
(13:27):
like rest my my head at night thinking if the conditions are
in place, I find myself believing in God.
If they are in place, I'd have arational faith even if I had no
arguments. And so in some sense, it allows
me to look at the arguments in amore neutral way because now I'm
like, I'm not worried. Like, is my faith going to be
(13:48):
irrational if all of a sudden these arguments don't work?
Yeah, it's Fides. Quorn's intellectum, right?
So Anne's Holmes, it's faith seeking, understanding.
You're already have dealt with that, so now you can just look
at the stuff not to be saved, tostress yourself out, whatever,
but just because you're already fine.
Exactly. Exactly.
And so just some more like I don't have to stress myself out
at night about like if I'm in a simulation right now, she's
(14:10):
like, well, I don't believe it. I know if the conditions are in
place, I'd have knowledge and I'm in a simulation.
So it is it's kind of existentially freeing.
It's helpful in that sense. It also you have like kind of
Kantian do your objections right, where it's just kind of
like, even if God does exist, wecouldn't know it.
And plenty of his challenge like, no, no, no, actually we
could if it was true. But you know, some people
(14:32):
complain about Reformed epistemology where it says, OK,
shows us if, if God exists, we'dhave rational belief, but does
God exist, You know, show us the, the, the, the answer to
this question. And so, you know, Reformed
epistemology is not going to be too helpful with that.
And so no, when it comes to arguments for God's existence,
I'll you know, do you have different arguments like the
(14:55):
fine tuning arguments, right? That says basically, if you know
the initial conditions of The Big Bang were slightly
different, right? If the speed of light, if the
distribution of, you know, mass energy, if the expansion rate of
the universe, we're all just slightly different, and I mean
(15:17):
just literally on a razor's edgeslightly like we're talking like
one part, you know, 10 to the 120th for one of these, right?
Then there would be no life in this universe, not just like on
our planet or in our Galaxy, butlike capital L And so, yeah, I
mean, stuff like that, you know,does move me.
(15:39):
And then, you know, obviously you have like people who'll be
like, maybe we're just one universe out of like an infinite
number of universes in this multiverse.
And it's just like, seems like areally complex hypothesis, man.
And even if so, it's like, well,what's generating the universes?
Usually some sort of generating mechanism is involved.
And it's like, what are the conditions that that that needs
to be in place in order for thatto occur?
And I mean stuff like that movesme.
(16:01):
Which one do you think is the? Most so of the traditional 4.
So teleological from design, cosmological from causation or
time, moral from this census to venetatu, this kind of internal
sense or the ontological kind ofGod.
By definition. Which one do you think is
strong? Which one do you not think is
strong? Which one of those is what?
I would bet all my money on so if if you were like, you put a
(16:22):
gun in my head and you're like, you have to, you have to bet
your life. We're going to do that now.
Go ahead and bring up the guns, right?
Yeah, I mean back in Texas now. So to be fair, there's.
There is more than one gun in this room, not going to lie to.
You exactly not going to lie to you.
Yeah. So the, the contingent, some
version of the contingency argument.
And so so, you know, not to be confused with the kind of the
(16:42):
Kalam argument, which talks about the universe has to have
an absolute beginning. This one is totally fine with
the universe being eternally old.
And it's just kind of like, all right, well, the universe
doesn't have to exist. In fact, that seems to be what
science tells us today. And a lot of us have these kind
of modal intuitions which are like, hey, yeah, the universe
(17:03):
could have been different. You know, the universe could
have not been at all. Take that.
Leibniz, with your best of all possible, yeah.
Exactly, Leibniz maybe not be too happy, but yeah.
And so, I mean, it seems like wehave really good reason to think
that the universe is contingent.But even if it's eternally old
and you're thinking, well, well,you know, kind of human style
where it's like, well, this cause is this part of the
universe is explained by this part of the universe and this
(17:25):
part of the universe is explained, you know, ad
infinitum. There's still the question that
I don't think you dealt with thoroughly enough, which is OK,
but why this set of infinite causes, right?
Why this set of of of infinite? Why this particular infinite
chain? Why not a different infinite
chain, right? So if you say like oh we explain
1 turtle with 1 turtle with one.Turtle hurdles all the way.
(17:47):
Down there's still the question like why isn't an infant set of
dogs, which would be way cooler than an infant set of turtles.
So things will go a lot quicker.Yeah so if you if if you're with
me that you're just like, yeah, the universe is contingent
doesn't have to exist, but it does even if it's eternal.
You need some, some explanation for for why this particular
(18:08):
universe. And you know, what are we?
We, we can't appeal to the universe in order to explain the
universe unless we get some circularity or bootstrappings
kind of. And they would say that.
You're doing the same thing whenyou appeal to God.
Every appeal is going to ultimately become somewhat
circular. Would you agree with that?
Meaning what they're going to say is, if I'm appealing to the
universe to get to the universe,I'm starting with this
presupposition. If I'm appealing to God to
(18:31):
justify my senses to Minuteatus,I'm also making a type of
circular argument. Does that not put everybody on
the same ground 'cause I can seesomebody turning it and saying,
for example, you know, cause a lot of planning his work should
be translated into Arabic to make a case for Allah.
And so I, I could see a Muslim saying, hey, of course you don't
see the Quran is accurate. You need to believe in Allah
first. That's part of something that is
(18:52):
properly basic or the Hindu saying that or whatever.
So without getting to the issue of is that the same referent
referent, but it is, but OK. So, yeah, I, I want to figure
out though, with with that question, like I could see
somebody taking religious and reformed epistemology and
applying it to any system. And then it would seem to almost
be some type of phaedaism that we kind of just have to take a
leap into some system and then the system justifies itself.
(19:13):
What are your thoughts? Yeah.
So, so I don't think that's so. So in reference to the Reformed
epistemology claim that I made earlier.
So notice I said if God exists, then we can have more to pay.
So I, I didn't make the claim, you know, God does exist and
he's given me faculties that aremaking me aware where there's
this kind of circularity, though.
I mean, as a lot of epistemologists are now OK with,
there's kind of distinctions between benign circularity and
(19:36):
you can get this for sure, Michael Bergman and then kind of
vicious circularity. And so there is a kind of a
distinction. Well, maybe a certain
circularities are, are more acceptable than others.
For example, if I said, prove that your faculties are
reliable, well, now guess what you have to use.
I got to appeal. Back to them again.
So I mean, there is stuff like that for sure, but so so you're
(19:59):
saying that if it's a. Conditional.
If it's a conditional, you're not begging a condition, that's
right. But if it's a conditional, then
would that not then lead to the faddaism?
Well, so no, I'm just saying if if this is the case then it then
it would then I'd have warrantedbelief.
I am not saying that my belief is not justified or ungrounded.
(20:21):
Yeah, no, because if it's true, it's it's very much is grounded.
It's grounded by the proper function of my faculties.
Now, if you're asking like, well, you have to know that, you
know, in order to know KK thesisor JJ thesis.
I just think those are false because again, I think animals
and infants have knowledge, but they don't know that they know
or know that they have no concept of justification.
Right. I've.
(20:42):
Never stuck my tongue in a lightsocket and I don't have to give
a case for why not. Now I have a case for why not
because I'm older but even as a kid I was like looks looks
shady, looks suspicious. Yeah, so.
And when it comes to God, so youknow, if you buy some sort of
principle, even if it's not Leibniz's very hard principle,
(21:02):
if you just buy something like if things don't have to exist,
but do they have explanations, then I can say, well, hey, if
God exist necessarily, well thenthat's that.
The PSR doesn't say he has to have an explanation too.
It just says if things don't have to exist, but do they have
explanations? So unnecessary being necessary.
Being yeah, exactly right. And you might also.
(21:22):
Think that if you're I'm I'm a big fan of like Pseudo Dionysius
and the kind of apophatic theology that I've heard that.
Is it not the air guitar of theology where it's with all the
negative? I'm just kidding.
I like apophatic theology because it because God's holy
other to define him by what He'snot radical.
Simplicity for me, the Greek. Orthodox, although they are kind
of proud about how little we canknow about God, they, they, they
(21:44):
do have some smart things to say.
That's right, That's right. And.
So like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm with kind of the, you
know, Neoplatonic tradition and David Bentley heart when they're
like, God is no thing. Rather, he's the grounding of
all things is what makes things possible.
And so maybe you can say, well, the PSR applies to things, God's
not even a thing or an object, so it doesn't even need to apply
(22:04):
to God. So in that sense, it doesn't
ultimately need to, you know, violate its own standards or
anything like that. So I mean, if you're looking at
these as just kind of like hypothesis and you're just like,
which one is it can further explain the data explains more,
the data is more elegant is simpler.
Then it's like this kind of theistic view where God is
metaphysically simple, not made-up of parts, right?
(22:27):
Radically 1 monistic. And that's in some sense as of
ultimate reality. That's that's that's going to be
some pretty simple elegant hypothesis right there.
So, yeah. So no, I don't, I don't think it
necessarily gets to circularity in the way that maybe certain
people within the Reformed tradition have traditionally
kind of been worried about that.You know, That's great, dude.
(22:49):
Super, super fun. OK, so if the thing of the.
Universe exists and doesn't haveto, and you can't be the
universe. It explains the universe.
Yeah, it's the wise there's. Something rather than nothing,
which is a Leibnitzian principletoo.
And then you got to get. Outside the universe, and we're
talking about something that's spaceless, timeless, not
physical. Yeah.
And just. To be clear, regardless of your
worldview, because I've got, I mean followers of a bunch of
different worldviews, you can't do the OK, well, the universe
(23:11):
has to have a cause. What's the cause?
God. Well, then God has to have a
yeah, No, no, no, no, no. God is a different kind of being
than Spacio. Temporal 1 action follows
another composite. It's a different.
It's a category mistake. And and I think.
Similarly, it's a category mistake to think that the
justification is like built up acomposition fallacy where where
the the worry is like, well, you're looking around and you
(23:31):
see that things that they don't exist have explanation.
So therefore the whole must whenNo, I think it's the the most
possible way to understand this is that we have a metaphysical
intuition about the way that reality has to be.
And so in in epistemology, there's this idea of seemings
where if something seems to you to be the case and you have no
(23:52):
defeater for thinking it, then you have some justification for
it. And it just seems to me that
reality has to be this way. So that's my justification for
it. It's not some composition very
good. OK, give me your thoughts on so
so typically in philosophy of religion, people are kind of
making a case generally for the existence of a supreme being.
Talk to me about how that relates in particular with your
(24:14):
faith tradition with a ChristianGod.
So trying to defend, you know, perfect being theology or a
necessary being or something. The deists were fine with that.
That is different than a Trinitarian God who sends Christ
to do what it like. So, so give me your thoughts on
how far can proofs for God's existence go in a particular
faith tradition versus just somegeneric deistic God exists?
(24:36):
Yeah. How particular can it be?
Yeah, so. Here I am and and, you know,
indebted to people like Bill Craig and to some degree Richard
Swinburne and Michael Kona and to your right, those sorts of
guys who, you know, look at contemporary New Testament
scholarship and say, all right, listen, most New Testament
(24:56):
scholars believe that Jesus was crucified, that he was buried,
that the tomb became empty, and that disciples, his disciples at
least sincerely believed that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Now, I'm not saying most New Testament scholars believed that
he did raised from the dead, butthat they had believed that they
believed. That's right.
That's right. And.
And so and there are various different reasons why I'm doing
this. And this also gets into some
(25:17):
kind of meta hermeneutical issues regarding the historical
Jesus, you know, kind of a more historical criteria approach,
traditional criteria approach versus like someone more like
Dale Allison and his approach. And I think the 2 views can be
fused together. But you know, and, and so if
these are kind of the minimal facts, right?
And they'll have explanations like the criterion of
(25:38):
embarrassment, right? Where if something is
embarrassing that is stated froma person or about their group or
about their, you know, what they're trying to put forward
and they have nothing to gain byit, then that adds at least some
justification, some possibility that indeed the event that
they're referring to, this embarring event, actually
(25:58):
happened. Not guarantee it by any means,
but it has to but more likely. Not psychologically like, yeah,
like the the whole idea that some people got together and
then created this thing for power that you hear with, you
know, guys that are not really in this field is the the Bart
Ehrman's of the world who knows New Testament textual criticism,
but not some of the other stuff that doesn't make sense when
they all get martyred and they lose things and Christianity is
(26:20):
embarrassing and it becomes a religion of slaves and women and
the poor and these kind of things.
Like it makes more sense to create the story when you're not
going to be martyred and when itgives you a benefit then.
Not if I just have to guess right?
Right, Yeah. And so I mean, the best
historical evidence that we havedoes seem to support that at
least some of the disciples diedin horrific ways for, you know,
and part at least being a Christian follower of Jesus,
(26:41):
this new messianic sect. And obviously there are if if
you take Allison's view, where the more times do you have a
theme repeated, the more likely it is that there's some kernel
of truth that's behind that. So even if you think the
resurrection accounts aren't historical, the idea is it's
nonetheless it's just repeated instance in the Gospels of Jesus
resurrecting. Then obviously you have Paul in
(27:02):
the early Krigma statement in First Corinthians 15 that likely
goes back to the first couple years after the crucifixion.
And the fact that they. Weren't so NT right makes the
strong case in the resurrection of the Son of God that the
resurrection is not what they'reexpecting at that point.
Like it goes against all of their preconceived notions of
theology that that's an eschatological event, and it's
happening in the middle of time with one dude.
That's right. So yeah, Yeah.
(27:23):
And. Then, you know, thinking that
tomb is empty using the criteriaembarrassment.
That's where I was going with that was, you know, if you look
at Josephus and it's like Josephus like thinks that
women's testimony like doesn't count for anything, right.
And so if you're trying to starta religious cult and you're
like, yo, let's, let's, let's try to convince people that this
is the way probably not the bestidea for that time, sadly, of
(27:44):
course, you know, condemning that, that, that, that, that
this was embarrassing for, for people they shouldn't have been.
But that's probably not the bestPR strategy to take in order to
convince people. And so, I mean, you have these
sorts of things and it, and so, you know, you get these kind of
facts. If you already believe in God,
if you believe in necessary existence, if you believe on,
you know, beyond being, if you already believe that, then when
(28:05):
you look at these facts, it's like, OK, you know, God raised
Jesus from the dead. It's similar.
I think there's certain cases you can tell with Fatima and
you're here specifically Catholic sort of stuff certain
Saints have like there's actually really good evidence.
In fact, Dale Allison thinks this is like he's not a Catholic
that it's like one of the most kind of best attested to
(28:27):
miracles that are are when in reference to when a couple of
Saints seem to have flown multiple times with lots and
lots of eyewitnesses on on the on the page.
So unless you think that they'relike a, you know, David Blaine
of like the before his time or something like.
That. He's been here the whole time.
Yeah. So I mean, you get something
like that, I think. I think that can, can, can
(28:48):
ultimately, you know, point US and, and those sorts of
directions. Ultimately though, the certitude
of faith is a gift from God, andfaith ultimately is something
that God gives you that works within the proper function of
your faculties. And that sort of certainty which
I have isn't so much based on the argument.
(29:09):
So it helps it, it helps, it is.It's not primarily based on
that, OK. Very good, dude.
I can talk about this for hours and hours, but we've got a fancy
dinner reservation. All right, Give me your thoughts
on this. So give me some problems with
atheism. So one of the things I asked.
So we had Ben Watkins on. Super great guy, by the way.
Well read. Smart runs Relay Theology, a
(29:30):
buddy of yours, he speaks highlyof you as well.
And one of the things I asked him, I was like, all right, give
me a positive case for atheism. Give me a negative case against
theism. We've been talking some about a
positive case for Christianity or a positive case for theism
really being a, you know, a properly basic belief and a
place you might start. Give me some some problems with
atheism. So as far as like just things
(29:50):
that you think are internally incoherent or that they can't
solve. It didn't have to be, you know,
1000 different there, whatever, But just a few things where you
think, man, I feel like this is really the Achilles heel of an
atheistic system. Yeah, well.
I mean, making sense of of ultimate reality, especially if
you buy that it's contingent that I think that's that's going
to be really big if fine tuning.Usually my friends who are
(30:12):
atheist philosophers, when I asked them what what's this one
sort of argument that really kind of keeps you up at night.
Usually it's fine tuning a lot of the times.
So I think it's kind of similar issues what we've talked about.
There's another argument that I haven't mentioned that in fact I
just recently delivered a talk on this at Oklahoma University.
I'm now turning my attention to it to develop it into a book.
(30:34):
We're glad you're back in. Texas.
Hey this up Whataburger. Hey Map.
Map's greater than sign of Thunder.
That's all I'm saying. I know you're a Texas sports
guy. That's right.
That's. Right.
Rest in peace, Luca. Oh gosh.
All right, I don't. We'll talk about that at dinner.
I've got a story. Go ahead.
So, yeah. And that's in reference to like
(30:54):
perennial truths. And so I think that there are a
lot of philosophical traditions from various parts of the world
and in very early time periods, even much earlier than our own
that aren't connected, where it seems like they're talking about
this kind of ineffable reality, this simple reality.
(31:17):
Several of the traditions that I'm thinking of here Taoism, the
Buddha nature within certain strands of Mahayana Buddhism to.
Clarify Also, one of the things that Doctor McNabb is an expert
in is the comparative religion, existence of God within other
traditions, and how that relatesto traditional, classical and
analytic theology. So that's right.
That's right. You know, even certain strands,
(31:40):
like I've been saying, you know,with certain strands of Islamic
tradition and Judaism and Christianity where it's
describing, you know, this, thisultimate reality as grounding
the impermanent and interdependent as grounding the
things. And yet itself is not a thing
and is permanent and not empty abone being, while everything
else may be empty a bone being, right.
(32:02):
And you know, you're kind of tracing it and you're just like,
wow, they're, they're all reallysaying this.
They're kind of converging abouton this idea.
Now there's some issues with this argument, some issues that
are planned to to get into detail with.
But I will say kind of that kindof just like learning that like
the famous medieval Buddhist philosopher Del Popo and
Shankara Viveda Vedante and you know, the Daodejiang all seem
(32:24):
and Christianity and Islam and Judaism seem to be having like
the this the same talk, the samediscussion, the same
conversation about that, which is that does move me to kind of
just think like, OK, maybe there's something here.
So anyway, that that those things like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very good.
Play let's play devil's advocatefor a a second.
(32:46):
What's the the strongest case that you think that you could
make for atheism? So, you know, later today you're
driving home and you're like, Ohno, if A equals B&B equals CA
equals CI, missed it and then all of a sudden you're like, all
right, I'm an atheist now. What's the strongest case you
could make against theism and for atheism?
Yeah, so. This has to do with our
(33:09):
intuitions and trusting our intuitions.
And so I think, you know, there are different theories out there
like, well, maybe the universe just is necessary.
Maybe the laws of nature are necessary, even though it seems
like science points in the otherway and our intuitions point in
the other way. Maybe it is the case.
And if, if, if that's kind of like what you're thinking about,
(33:30):
if you're kind of just not very confident in your intuitions, or
maybe you're just like, we shouldn't trust our intuitions,
right? Then it's like, well, how do we
know that the universe is contingent?
And instead of being necessary, maybe we shouldn't trust our
intuitions about this. Maybe the science is too
primitive still to, to discuss this.
So maybe we just need to go ahead and think that we just
(33:50):
need to be agnostic about this. And if, if we're agnostic about
whether or not the universe is, is necessary, whether or not
the, the laws of nature are necessary, well, then maybe
that's going to take out the fine tuning contingency
argument. Maybe that's going to take out
the Klom argument. And, you know, maybe there's
just brute moral facts, right, that just exist necessarily.
And, and, and that's it's part of the necessity within, you
know, our, our spectrum of existence.
(34:12):
Now take out the moral argument.And so I think kind of coming
with this sort of view where where you're just kind of more
skeptical about what our intuitions can tell us, what our
intuitions point us to and, and maybe kind of the limits of
science and even questioning kind of the limits of science
when it when it kind of tells uspoints us in the other
direction. I think that's kind of the, the,
(34:33):
the best case you can make for rejecting these sorts of
arguments, which of course wouldonly establish agnosticism, not
necessarily atheist. It's easier to prove.
Agnosticism or deism than hard atheism.
It's hard to prove a universal negative like that, but yeah,
yeah. Yeah.
And and so the, the, the issue too is I'm my, my sort of theism
is so anthropomorphic where I don't view God as a moral agent.
(34:57):
I don't view God as a person, atleast in the same way when when
we talk about persons. And because of that, things like
the problem of evil or divine hitness aren't going to really
affect me as much because I'm just like, what do you mean?
We would expect to know what Godwould likely do in some given
scenario, like as if he's a person with moral agency.
No, he's, he's beyond all that. And so those, those, that's the
(35:19):
kind of reason why I've, I've never been too, I guess, tempted
by atheism. To me, it seems like the, the
more the the best atheist could do for me would be it would be
agnosticism. Yeah, yeah.
Fascinating and I want to talk man I yes, we need to I need to
have you on again and we'll talkmore about God as holy, other
and ineffable and not the we we have a tendency.
(35:39):
I mean it's Spinoza mocks peoplefor this that really what we're
thinking of. We're thinking of Zeus, the old
man on the clouds instead of thesource of being Deonte at
Ascencia. That is essence is his existence
that kind of stuff. The traditional classical view
has a God that is holy other, very unlike you.
And so, yeah, I think it's the Voltaire quote that God made man
in his image, and man's been returning ever since, right?
So yeah. And just real quick to mention
(36:02):
on that. Yeah.
And it's it's it's really funny because it's it's when you have
a more anthropomorphic view of God that it seems like we're
much further separated from the ancient Greeks.
But all of a sudden you have this kind of beyond being ground
of all forms. All of a sudden it connects us
to our Greek past. And then you really start to see
the spermis, spermonauticus, logos spermonauticus, whatever
(36:25):
Justin Martyr called it. It's.
And that's also when you start seeing other religious
traditions that seem really foreign to us actually converge
and be like, wait a minute, they're actually consistent with
what we're saying. At least they're not saying
anything opposed to what we're saying.
So fascinating. All right, I have an episode
coming up in which I'm going to be chatting about the problem of
evil, which is the most common objection to theism for sure.
(36:47):
What what would be your thoughts?
Anything you'd like to share 'cause there's, I mean, there's
a bunch of whether it's a free will defense or it's the
greatest glory defense or there is no answer to that.
It's just mystery, whatever it might be.
Any thoughts you have on becausebecause I think that's the hang
up for most people when it comesto certain forms of theism.
At least give me your thoughts on the problem of evil.
Is that a defeater for theism? Does that even make sense?
(37:09):
If we're talking about a properly basic belief?
Do you get to stand in the dock and judge God and say this is
evil? And he's like, I'm sorry, I'm
the standard of good, right. So what what are your thoughts?
Yeah, so I. Guess kind of building on a
little bit of what I I mentionedearlier where evil on my view.
So I have good scholastic ontology here.
Is it just privation? Privation of the good.
(37:29):
Yes, privation. Of the goodness, it's privation,
it's a hole in the. Shirt where shirts should be
exactly. It's not a thing.
And if. God is again, not a moral agent.
It's not like he has obligationsto fill in all holes to make
more existence than what art he is.
Sandy, you're more. Cartesian than I thought.
That's the thing, you know, God is the the ground of that.
All right, go ahead. And yeah, so anyway, that's
(37:52):
that's kind of the approach, even if you want to believe God
is more anthropomorphic, though if that's kind of more, more
your your cup of tea. I usually give the my students
an analogy here for when I'm teaching this.
And that's when I was a guess first year of when I was finally
(38:12):
a full time professor at HBUI came home and I was expecting
like I had just moved into my new house, just came back from
my new job. I'm like finally living the life
right that I was was been wanting to live for so long.
And I'm expecting to open the door and be greeted by my
children where they're all like daddy, you know, they're hugging
me. And instead I open the door and
(38:33):
I hear screaming. And I'm like, what in the world?
Not like screaming, like, no, I want that toy, but like, bloody
murder screaming. And I'm like, what is going on?
So I rush in and I go and look at my son.
And my son is just like, I didn't see, like, the meat of
his arm coming out. And yeah, yeah, OK.
(38:54):
And so. He apparently he was, he was
surfing on like a a kind of rocking chair outside as kids
do. And my wife said you're going to
get hurt, get down. And being a good boy, he was
going to get down, but of coursehe wasn't going to get down by
like sitting down and getting off.
He was going to jump in the wave, dude.
And so he. Went as he jumps off, there was
(39:16):
a a nail that was out and his arm caught on the nail where
according to my wife, he was literally hanging on by a nail,
right. So we take him to the hospital,
we rush him to the hospital and you know, he's, he's about 3,
just about 3:00. And they start, you know, doing
surgery on them. They're based, they, they're
(39:38):
just like no time. Like we're just going to start
sticking this guy and, and helping this guy out.
So they asked me. They say, hey, will you pin your
son down for us? So you have to hold your son
down. Ice creaming.
Yeah, wiggling. That's right.
Hold. Your son down about 3 years old
and without. Anesthesia.
We're just going to start doing the stuff.
Exactly. And, and basically I'm just
(39:59):
looking at my son and my son is like.
The look of betrayal. Why?
Yeah, 100% look of betrayal, yeah.
Shatters my heart. And he's just like, daddy, why
basically the whole time saying that.
And I just. I couldn't say anything besides
like, I love you, buddy, I love you, I love you.
And you know, he's looking at melike, what the hell, right.
And and so, you know, my son, he's, he doesn't understand like
(40:23):
bacteria. He doesn't understand like where
you get certain diseases could, could form or bacteria could
form where he'd lose his arm or maybe even go to his heart.
I mean, he, he, he doesn't understand any of this.
He's just like one more. Daddy would never do this to me,
but Daddy is doing this to me. And so you know, it, it if God's
mind, even if you, you, you think of God as a thing and it
(40:43):
kind of a person, the way we think of persons, you can still
at least think. Well, maybe his thoughts aren't
like our thoughts. His ways are not like our ways
according to, you know, Isaiah, the prophet.
And you might just think God is like still his mind is so
farther away. Maybe we're not going to be good
judges of what God would likely do still in some given instance
(41:04):
where like my son, right. And if I'm more like my
three-year old son than I am like God, what makes me think
that I'm going to be able to do that, You know, when it comes
to, to evil and everything else,when it comes to various actions
and so forth. So anyway, that's kind of the
perspective that that, you know,I try to encourage my kids to
have. But again, if, if, if you think
that that evil is just simply a privation and God's not a moral
(41:27):
agent, it doesn't. The problem doesn't seem to be
so vast. Yes.
Fantastic. I by the way, I just decided to
chomp ice in the middle of that and then realize I shouldn't and
spit it in my glass. So that's what I did.
Chewing tobacco. Really is what you're doing.
Yes, that's exactly right. The tobacco of the liver, if you
will. That's all super helpful.
I mean that, that, but that goesback to the religious
epistemology. If God exists, your ability to
(41:48):
critique him, your ability to understand him, you're like,
it's not like you trying to describe yourself to an Ant or a
cockroach. It is infinitely bigger.
And so you don't have a, a, a, aground to stand on.
So OK, I've got two more questions that was really
helpful. And I, I think a lot of people
resonate with that story as well.
I, I had that same conversation with my son recently where he's
like, the world could be better and was like, tell me, if you
(42:11):
were God, what would you do differently?
OK, what do you know of all the,the knowledge in the universe?
How much of it do you know? How many languages do you speak?
How many planets have you seen? And so I think, I think you got
the point. That's how I parent.
I think that's good parenting. It is.
It is. And to, you know, quote Kendrick
Lamar, the famous philosopher, the.
The great theologian and philosopher Kendrick Lamar.
Yes, be humble. Sit down.
(42:36):
I got two more questions for you.
This has been fantastic, by the way.
And I, I, I appreciate you. He's read his articles.
He's written over 20. He's got several books.
Buy his stuff, make him rich, ideological.
When I first met you, you were an evangelical Protestant and
have since converted Roman Catholicism.
Can you chat with us a little about why you made that change?
Because I, I think that I, I, I think there's very few people.
(42:56):
I mean, there are a few that just make a case for pure
theism. It's usually within a faith
tradition, a God that exists that you can't know, don't know
anything about. What I did practically is not
super helpful and goes against intuition for sure.
So give me your thoughts on on that change.
Yeah. So whenever we met a long time
(43:18):
ago in a Galaxy far, far away, yes, I was what we would call a
particular Reformed Baptist right and and fiery.
If I remember, very fiery. Very, very like a.
James White kind of sling and apologetics.
That's right, yeah. I thought, you know, Catholics
are going to hell. I thought Catholics believe that
you're saved by your works. Haven't they ever read Ephesians
(43:39):
289 through 10? Haven't they?
Don't they ever, ever, ever readFirst Timothy?
Like there's only one mediated between God and man, the man
Christ Jesus. What's going on here?
Right. And then when I got into
Graduate School and I started reading Catholic philosophers
like Eleanor Stump and Ed Phaserand of course, Thomas Aquinas
and St. Anselm and Thomas Flint and
these sorts of guys, I was like,what?
They're, they're pretty smart. They're really smart.
(44:02):
And they even seem to be taking their faith seriously.
Haven't they read? Piper.
Yeah, that's right. That's.
Right. That's right, the quarry of God.
That's actually pretty. Good, you got to make the little
flower hands and hide behind it.That's right.
That's. Right now we're getting super.
Nerdy. If you know what this is, who
cares? Wrestle with a Does God exist?
Who knows? Keep going.
And yeah, so then it was like, OK, do Catholics actually
(44:24):
believe this stuff? Have I been, like, believing in
straw men this whole time? And so then I started, like,
reading what the Catholic catechism says.
I started reading, started a journey on the church fathers,
reading the fathers and I was just like oh it seems like what
they are saying is consistent with Catholic theology and
orthodoxyology, less consistent with evangelical theology.
(44:44):
Though broadly I consider myselfan evangelical, depending on how
you define that evangelical. Catholic.
That's the thing. Yeah, that's right.
Just like with the Reformed epistemology, you can that's
right. Take I mean, all all true.
Scott's truth plunder the Egyptians.
Exactly. Exactly.
So, yeah. So you know, that that that
started in kind of a dispositionto kind of see the church and
its beauty and its witness. And, you know, just kind of
(45:06):
found myself thinking, yeah, this, this, this, this is right.
Matthew 16 and light of Isaiah 22 with there being
intertextuality there where, youknow, in Isaiah 22, Peter gives
a key or sorry, God gives a key to like him says, hey, whatever
door you open will be open. Whatever your door you shut will
be shut. And he's become this kind of
Prime Minister of the Davidic Kingdom type role.
(45:30):
Yeah, that that that when I readMatthew 16 in lie to that.
And Peter gets a key and he's told his keys, whatever he opens
in heaven will, you know, or whatever he binds on earth will
be bound in heaven. And whatever he loosens on earth
will be loose in heaven. Seems like, well, maybe Peter's
just kind of new alike and he's a new Prime Minister of the
Davidic Kingdom. And just as the Davidic king,
his mom would be the queen. So Mary is, is, you know, is the
(45:52):
queen and and Jesus obviously isKing Jesus.
And, you know, these sorts of ways of thinking about it, of
course, also got me. So yeah, I ended up becoming
Catholic. Yeah, I was.
I had a a guy who was a former mega church pastor that had me
on his podcast recently to talk about kind of the intellectual
history difference between Protestants and Catholics and
whoever I'm talking to. I always push.
So when I'm sitting with the Catholic, I'm like, what about
(46:13):
this? When I'm sitting with the
Protestant, I always push. And for him I was, I was pushing
to say the the only Christianityfor 1500 years that it is only
is Catholic. Maybe Greek Orthodoxy to the the
Great Schism and that's it. And also Sola scriptura as a
facade. There is no just Bible.
There's an interpreted Bible. So Catholics like the Bible,
Protestants like the Bible. Cool.
What hermeneutic do we take to the Bible kind?
(46:35):
Of a paradigm McIntyre sort of this that that.
Is the thing, So you have a Bible and have a Bible.
Cool. How are we going to interpret
it? Are we going to interpret it in
light of tradition, in light of the Father's in light?
Or are we going to interpret it in light of Renaissance thinking
and new forms of hermeneutics? And so it's it's, it's more
difficult than when people are like, just read the Bible and
I'm like, which Bible and where did you get that Canon?
(46:57):
And also, how should I interpretit?
It's all going to come back to philosophy.
Philosophy is the thing. And so that that the reason I
like it so much is it's the foundation for all the other
sciences. And so, yeah, fascinating.
Unlike God. It's the thing, yes.
Yes yes, unlike God, that is theground of being it is just a
being lower case right? It's OK again, nerd like our
(47:18):
wives love this they're just like wow, you guys are so, so
handsome. That's love a man with a big
brain or a big mind, which isn'tactually big because it's not
spatial. OK, so any final thoughts or
things that you want to say to our audience?
So the podcast is kind of just deals with anything in the realm
of philosophy, politics, culture.
I've got atheist viewers, agnostic viewers, Jewish
(47:39):
viewers, Christian viewers. I've got a few Islamic viewers.
Anything you would want to say on the issue of theism versus
atheism, religious epistemology,Any anything you want to talk
about that we can just back and forth.
Yeah, it's like. I guess I could say that the
kind of philosophy that goes on with atheists and theists at
(48:00):
the, at, at the, you know, academic level at the, the kind
of the highest level is much different than what you see like
on Twitter. The butt slinging and the like,
name calling and the fine spaghetti monster stuff.
That's right. That's right.
Or like the definition of atheism is just simply a lack of
belief where then all of a sudden, like rocks are atheists
and dogs are atheists and newborns are atheists.
(48:22):
And, and people take seriously cognitive science of religion,
which I didn't mention earlier, just kind of like helps kind of
that plant again, 'cause that I mentioned earlier, where
religious belief is an evolutionary spandrel.
So it's naturally human faculties.
Yeah. So I mean, you, you, you have,
you have theists going, OK, So atheists all kind of being on
the same page were there. And then theists being on the
(48:42):
same page where it's like, no, no, you can have really smart
atheist 100% philosophers and they're making really
interesting points. And I might not agree with him
at the end of the day, but I cansee where they're going.
Faculties are. Working rationally, that's the
point. Neither side, because I hear
this from a lot of you. Neither side is stupid.
There are smart people that are well educated making cases where
their presuppositions again willdetermine where they end.
(49:04):
And the problem is you can't prove the presupposition.
That's where you start. And so those initial axioms,
those properly basic beliefs, tome that seems to be the thing.
Yeah, so I mean, just just reading like I've got a, you
know, friend Kenneth Pierce, whohas a book with Graham Opie,
who's a a well known atheist philosopher and they debate no,
(49:25):
does God exist? Like reading something like that
instead of something from Richard Dawkins.
Richard Dawkins. Or from the other side, yeah,
certain, certain, you know, Christian apologists where it's
just like maybe if you want likea really sophisticated kind of
charitable reading that might surprise you, read something
like that. And then also the last thing I
was going to say is just, you know, good epistemology covers a
(49:48):
multitude of sense. That's what I always like to
say. And you know, having a good
base, a big structure, go read something like wart and proper
function or something like that.Knowledge, Christian belief,
just to kind of go out and kind of say, oh, wait a minute, we
don't always have to have arguments to be rational about
something. We could, we could know it
instinctually through intuitions, through seeming.
(50:10):
And I think those kind of to be be be charitable, know that what
goes on at the higher levels, not what goes on at the lower
level. And then you're having a good
kind of rooted epistemology. I think I could go a big way,
yeah. I might mention so because
you're a big planning good guy. I, my plan of the story is I got
to, I went to this conference where he was teaching and my
claim to fame is getting to drive him to the airport.
(50:31):
So I've not done anything big inmy life.
I just drive people to the airport.
And what I wanted to do is just try to poke him a little bit
while we were in the car. I was like, what can I, because
we're, we're laughing, we're chatting about he's a big rock
climber. He was doing that like in his
90s. I mean that guy like he's a
stud. And but I was like, all right,
what can I do to like kind of fire him up?
And so I said, Hey, where does revelation play into your
epistemology? Cause William Abraham at SMU
(50:52):
would critique you for that, that you are starting with a
philosophic system that is actually outside the tradition.
Is not the tradition of the church or of scripture or
whatever properly basic. And I mean, he mentioned like 2
sentences and then we just talked about rock climbing.
I'm not going anywhere with thatstory.
I just wanted you to know. Yes, No, it's.
Good. I love planning of stories.
Those are the best. That's awesome.
(51:13):
Cool, well, dude, thank you so much for for being on the show,
Doctor Tyler McNabb and talking about a case for for theism.
Almost had a case for atheism. Sorry, case for the I've had one
drink. I'm a I'm a lush 1 drink.
So thanks for joining us. We hope that you will TuneIn
next time, and we'll see you then.
Hello and welcome to another edition of Ideological.
I'm your host, Zach Lee, and today we have a special guest.
I am joined with Doctor Tyler McNabb, who's the associate
professor of philosophy at SaintFrancis University up in
Pennsylvania. Doctor McNabb, thanks for being
on the show. Thanks so much for inviting me.
It's a good deal. It's.
Going to be a ton of fun. We've got drinks, we've got
(00:28):
laughs, there's books in the background.
Yes, we are learned men, OK? Live laugh.
Yeah, I have those around the house to let me know that I'm
always discouraged. Anytime I see those in
somebody's house, I'm like, it'll be things like don't kill
yourself tomorrow. And I'm like, that is too
aggressive for a house poster. Before we get into this, I need
to give a disclaimer, as I always do, that by being on the
(00:49):
show, neither Doctor McNabb nor any intellectual group that he
works with is necessarily endorsing other episodes of the
show. Not that they're not great,
they're fantastic. But if I say something that is
off color, do not get mad at himor all of Catholic Education.
OK? Today we're going to be talking
a little bit about giving a casefor theism.
(01:10):
So a few weeks ago I interviewedBen Watkins of Real Atheology,
Super nice guy who gave a case for atheism.
This is not meant to like be in response to that, But this is
just kind of the other side. This is a, this is a talk on
theism because that's your background.
So I want to ask you first of all, just for people that might
not know who you are, can you tell us a little bit about your
academic background, your interest and philosophy of
(01:31):
religion in particular, 'cause you're, you're, you're kind of
the guy in this space. Planica called me and he's like,
hey, I have AI, have a descendant.
I was like, OK, all right, so. Yeah, so I did a masters in
philosophy of religion for my mygraduate degree.
I did a undergrad in biblical studies.
And really when I fell in love with philosophy, I started to
(01:52):
fall in love with philosophy like last year of undergrad and
even thought about like transferring schools at the last
year and like doing an extra year of school.
Then I had to, to, to do a philosophy degree, but I started
against that thought. You know what, I'm just going to
do an Old Testament degree. So go to Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary and do an MA there and and philosophy,
(02:15):
religion. End up doing that because I I
found out it was much better at philosophy than Hebrew.
And it's more fun, like if you do in the Old or New Testament,
you're are you are a grammarian.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then, so then, yeah. Then I I did a PhD at the
University of Glasgow under Victoria Harrison and so lived
there for 2 from 2013 to 2016, and since then I've been kind of
(02:39):
a little all over the world. Left Glasgow for Houston
Baptist, now Houston Christian University, has spent a few
years there, then went to the University of Macau in China.
Just down the road. Just down the road and then
University of Saint Joseph in inMacau, China and was there for
total in Macau for three years, which during the COVID time too,
(02:59):
which was quite fun. It's a.
Tough time to be in China, yeah?Yeah, it was.
It was. Yeah.
Boys of fun. And then, Yeah.
And then now I've been three years going on my 4th year at
Saint Francis University in Pennsylvania.
Awesome. Also a speaker, author of
several books with a big name publishers, so Bloomsbury and
Cambridge University Press and and Rutledge and these kind of
(03:22):
things. So he's kind of a big deal to
quote Ron Burgundy. OK, let's talk theism.
What is the strongest case you can make for God's existence in
your opinion? And is belief in God a properly
basic belief or do you think that there are evidences for
him? So one of the reasons I've asked
you to to talk about this is theissue is not just give me proofs
for God's existence that that starts with some presuppositions
(03:44):
that might not be correct. What if belief in God is, you
know, something that you should start with or whatever it might
be? So that I know that you do a lot
within religious epistemology aswell.
So chat with us a little bit about your thoughts on that
question. Yeah.
So I guess I can break it down if it's OK with you please,
where I'll talk about proper basic ality at 1st and then I'll
kind of move on to if we're talking about arguments, what's
what sort of arguments I find more persuasive.
(04:07):
Yeah. So in epistemology, there is
this idea if if you're what you call a foundationalist, that you
might have certain beliefs that are at the very foundation of
your noetic belief forming structure where they're not
supported by other arguments, but are kind of the the
foundation for your other beliefs, which are supported by
(04:29):
other beliefs and arguments, right.
And so I'm a foundationalist. So this sort of reformed
epistemology that I like to talkabout is a reformed epistemology
that says that religious belief can be properly basic, which by
the way, is a good gamertag justin.
Case, yeah, and just in case youwant to play a little Call of
Duty. That's right, That's right.
(04:50):
And yeah, so you know, the idea is that there are are actually
some things and and and epistemology, contemporary
epistemology that really don't have great arguments for but are
kind of like part of our common sense structure.
So for example, there really aren't great arguments for other
minds. And even if you think there's a
(05:11):
good argument for another for other minds existence, probably
the arguments not going to be sogreat as to capture the full
degree of justification or warrant we think we have for
that belief, right? It'll be like, Oh yes, this
establishes with like .6 certainty that with other minds
(05:32):
exist. And it's like, come on, do we,
do we actually, is that really capturing kind of our our our
confidence level that other people exist similar?
If you know, I know you love David Hume, can we know the
future will be like the past, right?
The problem of induction. Let me summarize this is your
first episode ideological. This will be a little bit heady,
but it'll make you better, so hang in there.
(05:52):
Epistemology is the study of knowledge and how we know
things, what counts as justifiedknowledge, et cetera.
And then foundationalism is thisidea that eventually, if you ask
why, why, why, you're going to get to this axiom, this thing
that you just see seems to be true.
It's where you start kind of like Descartes cookie toe.
And so the idea is we don't typically like, if you ask me
exact. Did you have breakfast this
morning? I don't typically have to create
(06:12):
a world where an evil demons tricking me and then do all
these kind of to know. I can just say, yeah, I I'm
being a normal human and I have normal knowledge that I had
breakfast this morning. It's kind of it.
It's kind of Moore's thing of this is a hand and some of the
common sense philosophy stuff. So sorry, back to you.
Yeah, I know. So it's just this is part of
this, this idea that so Thomas Reed, part of this common sense
tradition, right? He's like, are you, you, you
(06:35):
trust part of your cognitive faculties, maybe the parts that
you use to question whether or not your cognitive faculties are
reliable. It's like, why you just go the
whole way, right? It's made in the same shop, so
to speak, right? So, you know, it's this idea
that we should, we should kind of trust our common sense, at
least until we have really good reason to, to think otherwise.
So, you know, I have a really strong belief here that there
(06:56):
are other people in this room right now.
All of a sudden, if someone just, like, popped out ex nihilo
and like, pushed a button and then all of y'all's heads just
kind of like, went forward, opened up and I saw like,
robotic stuff. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this
is like Westworld, right? Maybe that would defeat my
belief. But until something like that
happens, right? Yeah.
The burden. Of proof is on the other side.
That's right. Yeah.
I once heard planning A say thathe's only known one true
(07:18):
solipsist in his life and he wanted to make sure that he
didn't die because if he did, everyone would go.
That's right. Exactly.
Exactly. And then this was, of course,
before he tried to become the first Protestant Pope.
Yeah, he's not. A bad candidate?
Yeah, so the the idea of Reformed epistemology, Reformed
epistemology for those of you familiar with John Calvin.
(07:41):
So the word reform there is inspired in part by in the
Institute's book 1, where Calvintalks about a census
divinitatus, a sense of divinity.
And so Reformed epistemology is a minimal thesis, actually, it
all it says is just that religious belief can be
justified or warranted apart from argument.
And in the way that I've kind ofencapsulated here that Reformed
(08:03):
epistemology is a thesis that religious belief can be properly
basic, held rationally, properlyso, but in a basic way, in an
immediate way apart from argumentation.
And so Planaga goes, all right, well, you know, if we have this
census divinitatus, this sense of divinity and it's functioning
properly, right, then maybe we can know things simply based off
(08:27):
of the proper function of our cognitive faculties.
So in a similar way, like I justfind myself believing there are
other minds in this room right now.
I don't have good arguments for it, right?
You can always up up me one, youknow, skeptically or in a
simulation or something like that Cartesian evil demon
monster, right? Maybe, maybe, maybe I can't
really up you one. But at the same time, it's like,
(08:47):
come on, I know that other people are in this room right
now, and that's just kind of based off cognitive proper
function. Similarly, like I think animals
and infants, they have some knowledge, even though their
concepts and so forth might not be as sophisticated as ours as
we're rational animals, so to speak.
But I do think that you know, when, when there's food in the
(09:07):
room, my dog knows, yeah, there's food over there, right.
And so how do they know? Do they know by way of
argumentation? Do they know, are they like
doing Bayesian calculus? No, no, no.
They know basically from from instincts, from intuitions, from
proper basicality of a proper function of their faculties.
And so Plenigo says if God exists and he's designed, if he
(09:30):
has designed our faculty. So notice I'm, I'm using a
conditional if, right, if God exists, if he's designed our
faculties to produce belief in him, then if all of a sudden we
find ourselves believing in God and that's part of our proper
function, then it seems like that we would have justified or
warranted belief that, you know,that God exists.
And so this is the example I usefor my oldest daughter.
(09:50):
Her name's Eden. And so imagine Eden in a garden,
right? And Eden picks up a flower and
she looks at all of its intricacies and just finds
herself believing like in an immediate way, not based off
arguments or anything. We're just like, yeah, God
created this. Like isn't God wonderful?
His is, isn't, isn't creation beautiful?
(10:11):
Like, you know, just find myselfbelieving God made this if that
again, if that belief is hard wired into her, right.
And that's all, all's going wellaccording to proper function,
then she can know that God created this flower apart from
argumentation. So that's really what Reformed
epistemology is about. It's not just like Reformed.
So I've got a article in Philosophy Compass arguing that
(10:34):
basically if, if you're going tobe a good Catholic about the
epistemology of faith, basicallyyou need to be a reformed
epistemologist, right? I, I think it is an Aquinas and
this quadritos the, the questions that he has, he has 1
chapter where he basically says,you know, hey, would we be
responsible for believing even if there were no more like
(10:57):
miracles that were occurring? And his answer is yes, because
we'd have the internal witness of the Holy Spirit and we'd have
the, the a preacher or the church to teach us these things.
We would be obligated to believe.
You know, so in some sense it's kind of like without arguments,
you're still obligated to believe because the Spirit is a
witness within us. And so, yeah, that's, that's
kind of the idea of Reformed epistemology as a belief in God
(11:19):
can be rational in the same sortof way that belief in other
minds can be rational. Do you?
Think that's the strongest argument for God's existence
opposed to kind of the evidentialism, ontological
cosmological, because that then plays into a presupposition that
disagrees with Reformed epistemology, right?
Because it's what you're saying is and, and just to kind of
summarize kind of the Reformed epistemological view.
(11:41):
If God is true and God has revealed himself and has made us
to know him, then to act like we're going to step away from
that source of truth and to get to this like third ground that's
more than neutral and then try to argue from God's existence is
kind of wrong headed. You're stepping away from truth
to then try to argue about truth.
So would you say that that is the strongest case is to not
build a case to say you, you start here.
(12:03):
The burden of proof is on the other side and it's not one of
these famous arguments. What are your?
Thoughts. Yes, I wouldn't say that.
I think it's, it's it's nice because the and and and
epistemology, as you mentioned earlier, you know, study of
knowledge, so more specifically,probably the study of various
concepts like our beliefs, rational warranted, justified,
(12:23):
right? There's this these kind of
different views that play you have.
I'm I'm going to kind of really simplify these views.
So they're not going to be supertechnical or, or, or accurate,
but you'll it'll give you the gist.
You have a, an internalist view,which basically says you need to
have access to the reasons for why your belief is, is rational
or justified. Now, there are different
(12:43):
versions of internalism and evensome are formed epistemology,
internalist friendly views. Without getting into that,
there's then there's externalism, which says that no,
you don't always have to have access to the reasons why your
beliefs are justified. It could be, you know, external
to to your access. And so, you know, it could be
safe, properly functioning cognitive faculty, which you
(13:03):
don't have access to whether or not it's properly functioning,
right. So you have this kind of
externalism, internalism, these,these especially in the early
2000s and even up until 2010 and12, a lot of epistemologists
were interested in this sort of debate and especially was like
interested in the 90s. And so, you know, in reference
to just kind of as an externalist, I can kind of just
(13:27):
like rest my my head at night thinking if the conditions are
in place, I find myself believing in God.
If they are in place, I'd have arational faith even if I had no
arguments. And so in some sense, it allows
me to look at the arguments in amore neutral way because now I'm
like, I'm not worried. Like, is my faith going to be
(13:48):
irrational if all of a sudden these arguments don't work?
Yeah, it's Fides. Quorn's intellectum, right?
So Anne's Holmes, it's faith seeking, understanding.
You're already have dealt with that, so now you can just look
at the stuff not to be saved, tostress yourself out, whatever,
but just because you're already fine.
Exactly. Exactly.
And so just some more like I don't have to stress myself out
at night about like if I'm in a simulation right now, she's
(14:10):
like, well, I don't believe it. I know if the conditions are in
place, I'd have knowledge and I'm in a simulation.
So it is it's kind of existentially freeing.
It's helpful in that sense. It also you have like kind of
Kantian do your objections right, where it's just kind of
like, even if God does exist, wecouldn't know it.
And plenty of his challenge like, no, no, no, actually we
could if it was true. But you know, some people
(14:32):
complain about Reformed epistemology where it says, OK,
shows us if, if God exists, we'dhave rational belief, but does
God exist, You know, show us the, the, the, the answer to
this question. And so, you know, Reformed
epistemology is not going to be too helpful with that.
And so no, when it comes to arguments for God's existence,
I'll you know, do you have different arguments like the
(14:55):
fine tuning arguments, right? That says basically, if you know
the initial conditions of The Big Bang were slightly
different, right? If the speed of light, if the
distribution of, you know, mass energy, if the expansion rate of
the universe, we're all just slightly different, and I mean
(15:17):
just literally on a razor's edgeslightly like we're talking like
one part, you know, 10 to the 120th for one of these, right?
Then there would be no life in this universe, not just like on
our planet or in our Galaxy, butlike capital L And so, yeah, I
mean, stuff like that, you know,does move me.
(15:39):
And then, you know, obviously you have like people who'll be
like, maybe we're just one universe out of like an infinite
number of universes in this multiverse.
And it's just like, seems like areally complex hypothesis, man.
And even if so, it's like, well,what's generating the universes?
Usually some sort of generating mechanism is involved.
And it's like, what are the conditions that that that needs
to be in place in order for thatto occur?
And I mean stuff like that movesme.
(16:01):
Which one do you think is the? Most so of the traditional 4.
So teleological from design, cosmological from causation or
time, moral from this census to venetatu, this kind of internal
sense or the ontological kind ofGod.
By definition. Which one do you think is
strong? Which one do you not think is
strong? Which one of those is what?
I would bet all my money on so if if you were like, you put a
(16:22):
gun in my head and you're like, you have to, you have to bet
your life. We're going to do that now.
Go ahead and bring up the guns, right?
Yeah, I mean back in Texas now. So to be fair, there's.
There is more than one gun in this room, not going to lie to.
You exactly not going to lie to you.
Yeah. So the, the contingent, some
version of the contingency argument.
And so so, you know, not to be confused with the kind of the
(16:42):
Kalam argument, which talks about the universe has to have
an absolute beginning. This one is totally fine with
the universe being eternally old.
And it's just kind of like, all right, well, the universe
doesn't have to exist. In fact, that seems to be what
science tells us today. And a lot of us have these kind
of modal intuitions which are like, hey, yeah, the universe
(17:03):
could have been different. You know, the universe could
have not been at all. Take that.
Leibniz, with your best of all possible, yeah.
Exactly, Leibniz maybe not be too happy, but yeah.
And so, I mean, it seems like wehave really good reason to think
that the universe is contingent.But even if it's eternally old
and you're thinking, well, well,you know, kind of human style
where it's like, well, this cause is this part of the
universe is explained by this part of the universe and this
(17:25):
part of the universe is explained, you know, ad
infinitum. There's still the question that
I don't think you dealt with thoroughly enough, which is OK,
but why this set of infinite causes, right?
Why this set of of of infinite? Why this particular infinite
chain? Why not a different infinite
chain, right? So if you say like oh we explain
1 turtle with 1 turtle with one.Turtle hurdles all the way.
(17:47):
Down there's still the question like why isn't an infant set of
dogs, which would be way cooler than an infant set of turtles.
So things will go a lot quicker.Yeah so if you if if you're with
me that you're just like, yeah, the universe is contingent
doesn't have to exist, but it does even if it's eternal.
You need some, some explanation for for why this particular
(18:08):
universe. And you know, what are we?
We, we can't appeal to the universe in order to explain the
universe unless we get some circularity or bootstrappings
kind of. And they would say that.
You're doing the same thing whenyou appeal to God.
Every appeal is going to ultimately become somewhat
circular. Would you agree with that?
Meaning what they're going to say is, if I'm appealing to the
universe to get to the universe,I'm starting with this
presupposition. If I'm appealing to God to
(18:31):
justify my senses to Minuteatus,I'm also making a type of
circular argument. Does that not put everybody on
the same ground 'cause I can seesomebody turning it and saying,
for example, you know, cause a lot of planning his work should
be translated into Arabic to make a case for Allah.
And so I, I could see a Muslim saying, hey, of course you don't
see the Quran is accurate. You need to believe in Allah
first. That's part of something that is
(18:52):
properly basic or the Hindu saying that or whatever.
So without getting to the issue of is that the same referent
referent, but it is, but OK. So, yeah, I, I want to figure
out though, with with that question, like I could see
somebody taking religious and reformed epistemology and
applying it to any system. And then it would seem to almost
be some type of phaedaism that we kind of just have to take a
leap into some system and then the system justifies itself.
(19:13):
What are your thoughts? Yeah.
So, so I don't think that's so. So in reference to the Reformed
epistemology claim that I made earlier.
So notice I said if God exists, then we can have more to pay.
So I, I didn't make the claim, you know, God does exist and
he's given me faculties that aremaking me aware where there's
this kind of circularity, though.
I mean, as a lot of epistemologists are now OK with,
there's kind of distinctions between benign circularity and
(19:36):
you can get this for sure, Michael Bergman and then kind of
vicious circularity. And so there is a kind of a
distinction. Well, maybe a certain
circularities are, are more acceptable than others.
For example, if I said, prove that your faculties are
reliable, well, now guess what you have to use.
I got to appeal. Back to them again.
So I mean, there is stuff like that for sure, but so so you're
(19:59):
saying that if it's a. Conditional.
If it's a conditional, you're not begging a condition, that's
right. But if it's a conditional, then
would that not then lead to the faddaism?
Well, so no, I'm just saying if if this is the case then it then
it would then I'd have warrantedbelief.
I am not saying that my belief is not justified or ungrounded.
(20:21):
Yeah, no, because if it's true, it's it's very much is grounded.
It's grounded by the proper function of my faculties.
Now, if you're asking like, well, you have to know that, you
know, in order to know KK thesisor JJ thesis.
I just think those are false because again, I think animals
and infants have knowledge, but they don't know that they know
or know that they have no concept of justification.
Right. I've.
(20:42):
Never stuck my tongue in a lightsocket and I don't have to give
a case for why not. Now I have a case for why not
because I'm older but even as a kid I was like looks looks
shady, looks suspicious. Yeah, so.
And when it comes to God, so youknow, if you buy some sort of
principle, even if it's not Leibniz's very hard principle,
(21:02):
if you just buy something like if things don't have to exist,
but do they have explanations, then I can say, well, hey, if
God exist necessarily, well thenthat's that.
The PSR doesn't say he has to have an explanation too.
It just says if things don't have to exist, but do they have
explanations? So unnecessary being necessary.
Being yeah, exactly right. And you might also.
(21:22):
Think that if you're I'm I'm a big fan of like Pseudo Dionysius
and the kind of apophatic theology that I've heard that.
Is it not the air guitar of theology where it's with all the
negative? I'm just kidding.
I like apophatic theology because it because God's holy
other to define him by what He'snot radical.
Simplicity for me, the Greek. Orthodox, although they are kind
of proud about how little we canknow about God, they, they, they
(21:44):
do have some smart things to say.
That's right, That's right. And.
So like, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm with kind of the, you
know, Neoplatonic tradition and David Bentley heart when they're
like, God is no thing. Rather, he's the grounding of
all things is what makes things possible.
And so maybe you can say, well, the PSR applies to things, God's
not even a thing or an object, so it doesn't even need to apply
(22:04):
to God. So in that sense, it doesn't
ultimately need to, you know, violate its own standards or
anything like that. So I mean, if you're looking at
these as just kind of like hypothesis and you're just like,
which one is it can further explain the data explains more,
the data is more elegant is simpler.
Then it's like this kind of theistic view where God is
metaphysically simple, not made-up of parts, right?
(22:27):
Radically 1 monistic. And that's in some sense as of
ultimate reality. That's that's that's going to be
some pretty simple elegant hypothesis right there.
So, yeah. So no, I don't, I don't think it
necessarily gets to circularity in the way that maybe certain
people within the Reformed tradition have traditionally
kind of been worried about that.You know, That's great, dude.
(22:49):
Super, super fun. OK, so if the thing of the.
Universe exists and doesn't haveto, and you can't be the
universe. It explains the universe.
Yeah, it's the wise there's. Something rather than nothing,
which is a Leibnitzian principletoo.
And then you got to get. Outside the universe, and we're
talking about something that's spaceless, timeless, not
physical. Yeah.
And just. To be clear, regardless of your
worldview, because I've got, I mean followers of a bunch of
different worldviews, you can't do the OK, well, the universe
(23:11):
has to have a cause. What's the cause?
God. Well, then God has to have a
yeah, No, no, no, no, no. God is a different kind of being
than Spacio. Temporal 1 action follows
another composite. It's a different.
It's a category mistake. And and I think.
Similarly, it's a category mistake to think that the
justification is like built up acomposition fallacy where where
the the worry is like, well, you're looking around and you
(23:31):
see that things that they don't exist have explanation.
So therefore the whole must whenNo, I think it's the the most
possible way to understand this is that we have a metaphysical
intuition about the way that reality has to be.
And so in in epistemology, there's this idea of seemings
where if something seems to you to be the case and you have no
(23:52):
defeater for thinking it, then you have some justification for
it. And it just seems to me that
reality has to be this way. So that's my justification for
it. It's not some composition very
good. OK, give me your thoughts on so
so typically in philosophy of religion, people are kind of
making a case generally for the existence of a supreme being.
Talk to me about how that relates in particular with your
(24:14):
faith tradition with a ChristianGod.
So trying to defend, you know, perfect being theology or a
necessary being or something. The deists were fine with that.
That is different than a Trinitarian God who sends Christ
to do what it like. So, so give me your thoughts on
how far can proofs for God's existence go in a particular
faith tradition versus just somegeneric deistic God exists?
(24:36):
Yeah. How particular can it be?
Yeah, so. Here I am and and, you know,
indebted to people like Bill Craig and to some degree Richard
Swinburne and Michael Kona and to your right, those sorts of
guys who, you know, look at contemporary New Testament
scholarship and say, all right, listen, most New Testament
(24:56):
scholars believe that Jesus was crucified, that he was buried,
that the tomb became empty, and that disciples, his disciples at
least sincerely believed that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Now, I'm not saying most New Testament scholars believed that
he did raised from the dead, butthat they had believed that they
believed. That's right.
That's right. And.
And so and there are various different reasons why I'm doing
this. And this also gets into some
(25:17):
kind of meta hermeneutical issues regarding the historical
Jesus, you know, kind of a more historical criteria approach,
traditional criteria approach versus like someone more like
Dale Allison and his approach. And I think the 2 views can be
fused together. But you know, and, and so if
these are kind of the minimal facts, right?
And they'll have explanations like the criterion of
(25:38):
embarrassment, right? Where if something is
embarrassing that is stated froma person or about their group or
about their, you know, what they're trying to put forward
and they have nothing to gain byit, then that adds at least some
justification, some possibility that indeed the event that
they're referring to, this embarring event, actually
(25:58):
happened. Not guarantee it by any means,
but it has to but more likely. Not psychologically like, yeah,
like the the whole idea that some people got together and
then created this thing for power that you hear with, you
know, guys that are not really in this field is the the Bart
Ehrman's of the world who knows New Testament textual criticism,
but not some of the other stuff that doesn't make sense when
they all get martyred and they lose things and Christianity is
(26:20):
embarrassing and it becomes a religion of slaves and women and
the poor and these kind of things.
Like it makes more sense to create the story when you're not
going to be martyred and when itgives you a benefit then.
Not if I just have to guess right?
Right, Yeah. And so I mean, the best
historical evidence that we havedoes seem to support that at
least some of the disciples diedin horrific ways for, you know,
and part at least being a Christian follower of Jesus,
(26:41):
this new messianic sect. And obviously there are if if
you take Allison's view, where the more times do you have a
theme repeated, the more likely it is that there's some kernel
of truth that's behind that. So even if you think the
resurrection accounts aren't historical, the idea is it's
nonetheless it's just repeated instance in the Gospels of Jesus
resurrecting. Then obviously you have Paul in
(27:02):
the early Krigma statement in First Corinthians 15 that likely
goes back to the first couple years after the crucifixion.
And the fact that they. Weren't so NT right makes the
strong case in the resurrection of the Son of God that the
resurrection is not what they'reexpecting at that point.
Like it goes against all of their preconceived notions of
theology that that's an eschatological event, and it's
happening in the middle of time with one dude.
That's right. So yeah, Yeah.
(27:23):
And. Then, you know, thinking that
tomb is empty using the criteriaembarrassment.
That's where I was going with that was, you know, if you look
at Josephus and it's like Josephus like thinks that
women's testimony like doesn't count for anything, right.
And so if you're trying to starta religious cult and you're
like, yo, let's, let's, let's try to convince people that this
is the way probably not the bestidea for that time, sadly, of
(27:44):
course, you know, condemning that, that, that, that, that
this was embarrassing for, for people they shouldn't have been.
But that's probably not the bestPR strategy to take in order to
convince people. And so, I mean, you have these
sorts of things and it, and so, you know, you get these kind of
facts. If you already believe in God,
if you believe in necessary existence, if you believe on,
you know, beyond being, if you already believe that, then when
(28:05):
you look at these facts, it's like, OK, you know, God raised
Jesus from the dead. It's similar.
I think there's certain cases you can tell with Fatima and
you're here specifically Catholic sort of stuff certain
Saints have like there's actually really good evidence.
In fact, Dale Allison thinks this is like he's not a Catholic
that it's like one of the most kind of best attested to
(28:27):
miracles that are are when in reference to when a couple of
Saints seem to have flown multiple times with lots and
lots of eyewitnesses on on the on the page.
So unless you think that they'relike a, you know, David Blaine
of like the before his time or something like.
That. He's been here the whole time.
Yeah. So I mean, you get something
like that, I think. I think that can, can, can
(28:48):
ultimately, you know, point US and, and those sorts of
directions. Ultimately though, the certitude
of faith is a gift from God, andfaith ultimately is something
that God gives you that works within the proper function of
your faculties. And that sort of certainty which
I have isn't so much based on the argument.
(29:09):
So it helps it, it helps, it is.It's not primarily based on
that, OK. Very good, dude.
I can talk about this for hours and hours, but we've got a fancy
dinner reservation. All right, Give me your thoughts
on this. So give me some problems with
atheism. So one of the things I asked.
So we had Ben Watkins on. Super great guy, by the way.
Well read. Smart runs Relay Theology, a
(29:30):
buddy of yours, he speaks highlyof you as well.
And one of the things I asked him, I was like, all right, give
me a positive case for atheism. Give me a negative case against
theism. We've been talking some about a
positive case for Christianity or a positive case for theism
really being a, you know, a properly basic belief and a
place you might start. Give me some some problems with
atheism. So as far as like just things
(29:50):
that you think are internally incoherent or that they can't
solve. It didn't have to be, you know,
1000 different there, whatever, But just a few things where you
think, man, I feel like this is really the Achilles heel of an
atheistic system. Yeah, well.
I mean, making sense of of ultimate reality, especially if
you buy that it's contingent that I think that's that's going
to be really big if fine tuning.Usually my friends who are
(30:12):
atheist philosophers, when I asked them what what's this one
sort of argument that really kind of keeps you up at night.
Usually it's fine tuning a lot of the times.
So I think it's kind of similar issues what we've talked about.
There's another argument that I haven't mentioned that in fact I
just recently delivered a talk on this at Oklahoma University.
I'm now turning my attention to it to develop it into a book.
(30:34):
We're glad you're back in. Texas.
Hey this up Whataburger. Hey Map.
Map's greater than sign of Thunder.
That's all I'm saying. I know you're a Texas sports
guy. That's right.
That's. Right.
Rest in peace, Luca. Oh gosh.
All right, I don't. We'll talk about that at dinner.
I've got a story. Go ahead.
So, yeah. And that's in reference to like
(30:54):
perennial truths. And so I think that there are a
lot of philosophical traditions from various parts of the world
and in very early time periods, even much earlier than our own
that aren't connected, where it seems like they're talking about
this kind of ineffable reality, this simple reality.
(31:17):
Several of the traditions that I'm thinking of here Taoism, the
Buddha nature within certain strands of Mahayana Buddhism to.
Clarify Also, one of the things that Doctor McNabb is an expert
in is the comparative religion, existence of God within other
traditions, and how that relatesto traditional, classical and
analytic theology. So that's right.
That's right. You know, even certain strands,
(31:40):
like I've been saying, you know,with certain strands of Islamic
tradition and Judaism and Christianity where it's
describing, you know, this, thisultimate reality as grounding
the impermanent and interdependent as grounding the
things. And yet itself is not a thing
and is permanent and not empty abone being, while everything
else may be empty a bone being, right.
(32:02):
And you know, you're kind of tracing it and you're just like,
wow, they're, they're all reallysaying this.
They're kind of converging abouton this idea.
Now there's some issues with this argument, some issues that
are planned to to get into detail with.
But I will say kind of that kindof just like learning that like
the famous medieval Buddhist philosopher Del Popo and
Shankara Viveda Vedante and you know, the Daodejiang all seem
(32:24):
and Christianity and Islam and Judaism seem to be having like
the this the same talk, the samediscussion, the same
conversation about that, which is that does move me to kind of
just think like, OK, maybe there's something here.
So anyway, that that those things like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very good.
Play let's play devil's advocatefor a a second.
(32:46):
What's the the strongest case that you think that you could
make for atheism? So, you know, later today you're
driving home and you're like, Ohno, if A equals B&B equals CA
equals CI, missed it and then all of a sudden you're like, all
right, I'm an atheist now. What's the strongest case you
could make against theism and for atheism?
Yeah, so. This has to do with our
(33:09):
intuitions and trusting our intuitions.
And so I think, you know, there are different theories out there
like, well, maybe the universe just is necessary.
Maybe the laws of nature are necessary, even though it seems
like science points in the otherway and our intuitions point in
the other way. Maybe it is the case.
And if, if, if that's kind of like what you're thinking about,
(33:30):
if you're kind of just not very confident in your intuitions, or
maybe you're just like, we shouldn't trust our intuitions,
right? Then it's like, well, how do we
know that the universe is contingent?
And instead of being necessary, maybe we shouldn't trust our
intuitions about this. Maybe the science is too
primitive still to, to discuss this.
So maybe we just need to go ahead and think that we just
(33:50):
need to be agnostic about this. And if, if we're agnostic about
whether or not the universe is, is necessary, whether or not
the, the laws of nature are necessary, well, then maybe
that's going to take out the fine tuning contingency
argument. Maybe that's going to take out
the Klom argument. And, you know, maybe there's
just brute moral facts, right, that just exist necessarily.
And, and, and that's it's part of the necessity within, you
know, our, our spectrum of existence.
(34:12):
Now take out the moral argument.And so I think kind of coming
with this sort of view where where you're just kind of more
skeptical about what our intuitions can tell us, what our
intuitions point us to and, and maybe kind of the limits of
science and even questioning kind of the limits of science
when it when it kind of tells uspoints us in the other
direction. I think that's kind of the, the,
(34:33):
the best case you can make for rejecting these sorts of
arguments, which of course wouldonly establish agnosticism, not
necessarily atheist. It's easier to prove.
Agnosticism or deism than hard atheism.
It's hard to prove a universal negative like that, but yeah,
yeah. Yeah.
And and so the, the, the issue too is I'm my, my sort of theism
is so anthropomorphic where I don't view God as a moral agent.
(34:57):
I don't view God as a person, atleast in the same way when when
we talk about persons. And because of that, things like
the problem of evil or divine hitness aren't going to really
affect me as much because I'm just like, what do you mean?
We would expect to know what Godwould likely do in some given
scenario, like as if he's a person with moral agency.
No, he's, he's beyond all that. And so those, those, that's the
(35:19):
kind of reason why I've, I've never been too, I guess, tempted
by atheism. To me, it seems like the, the
more the the best atheist could do for me would be it would be
agnosticism. Yeah, yeah.
Fascinating and I want to talk man I yes, we need to I need to
have you on again and we'll talkmore about God as holy, other
and ineffable and not the we we have a tendency.
(35:39):
I mean it's Spinoza mocks peoplefor this that really what we're
thinking of. We're thinking of Zeus, the old
man on the clouds instead of thesource of being Deonte at
Ascencia. That is essence is his existence
that kind of stuff. The traditional classical view
has a God that is holy other, very unlike you.
And so, yeah, I think it's the Voltaire quote that God made man
in his image, and man's been returning ever since, right?
So yeah. And just real quick to mention
(36:02):
on that. Yeah.
And it's it's it's really funny because it's it's when you have
a more anthropomorphic view of God that it seems like we're
much further separated from the ancient Greeks.
But all of a sudden you have this kind of beyond being ground
of all forms. All of a sudden it connects us
to our Greek past. And then you really start to see
the spermis, spermonauticus, logos spermonauticus, whatever
(36:25):
Justin Martyr called it. It's.
And that's also when you start seeing other religious
traditions that seem really foreign to us actually converge
and be like, wait a minute, they're actually consistent with
what we're saying. At least they're not saying
anything opposed to what we're saying.
So fascinating. All right, I have an episode
coming up in which I'm going to be chatting about the problem of
evil, which is the most common objection to theism for sure.
(36:47):
What what would be your thoughts?
Anything you'd like to share 'cause there's, I mean, there's
a bunch of whether it's a free will defense or it's the
greatest glory defense or there is no answer to that.
It's just mystery, whatever it might be.
Any thoughts you have on becausebecause I think that's the hang
up for most people when it comesto certain forms of theism.
At least give me your thoughts on the problem of evil.
Is that a defeater for theism? Does that even make sense?
(37:09):
If we're talking about a properly basic belief?
Do you get to stand in the dock and judge God and say this is
evil? And he's like, I'm sorry, I'm
the standard of good, right. So what what are your thoughts?
Yeah, so I. Guess kind of building on a
little bit of what I I mentionedearlier where evil on my view.
So I have good scholastic ontology here.
Is it just privation? Privation of the good.
(37:29):
Yes, privation. Of the goodness, it's privation,
it's a hole in the. Shirt where shirts should be
exactly. It's not a thing.
And if. God is again, not a moral agent.
It's not like he has obligationsto fill in all holes to make
more existence than what art he is.
Sandy, you're more. Cartesian than I thought.
That's the thing, you know, God is the the ground of that.
All right, go ahead. And yeah, so anyway, that's
(37:52):
that's kind of the approach, even if you want to believe God
is more anthropomorphic, though if that's kind of more, more
your your cup of tea. I usually give the my students
an analogy here for when I'm teaching this.
And that's when I was a guess first year of when I was finally
(38:12):
a full time professor at HBUI came home and I was expecting
like I had just moved into my new house, just came back from
my new job. I'm like finally living the life
right that I was was been wanting to live for so long.
And I'm expecting to open the door and be greeted by my
children where they're all like daddy, you know, they're hugging
me. And instead I open the door and
(38:33):
I hear screaming. And I'm like, what in the world?
Not like screaming, like, no, I want that toy, but like, bloody
murder screaming. And I'm like, what is going on?
So I rush in and I go and look at my son.
And my son is just like, I didn't see, like, the meat of
his arm coming out. And yeah, yeah, OK.
(38:54):
And so. He apparently he was, he was
surfing on like a a kind of rocking chair outside as kids
do. And my wife said you're going to
get hurt, get down. And being a good boy, he was
going to get down, but of coursehe wasn't going to get down by
like sitting down and getting off.
He was going to jump in the wave, dude.
And so he. Went as he jumps off, there was
(39:16):
a a nail that was out and his arm caught on the nail where
according to my wife, he was literally hanging on by a nail,
right. So we take him to the hospital,
we rush him to the hospital and you know, he's, he's about 3,
just about 3:00. And they start, you know, doing
surgery on them. They're based, they, they're
(39:38):
just like no time. Like we're just going to start
sticking this guy and, and helping this guy out.
So they asked me. They say, hey, will you pin your
son down for us? So you have to hold your son
down. Ice creaming.
Yeah, wiggling. That's right.
Hold. Your son down about 3 years old
and without. Anesthesia.
We're just going to start doing the stuff.
Exactly. And, and basically I'm just
(39:59):
looking at my son and my son is like.
The look of betrayal. Why?
Yeah, 100% look of betrayal, yeah.
Shatters my heart. And he's just like, daddy, why
basically the whole time saying that.
And I just. I couldn't say anything besides
like, I love you, buddy, I love you, I love you.
And you know, he's looking at melike, what the hell, right.
And and so, you know, my son, he's, he doesn't understand like
(40:23):
bacteria. He doesn't understand like where
you get certain diseases could, could form or bacteria could
form where he'd lose his arm or maybe even go to his heart.
I mean, he, he, he doesn't understand any of this.
He's just like one more. Daddy would never do this to me,
but Daddy is doing this to me. And so you know, it, it if God's
mind, even if you, you, you think of God as a thing and it
(40:43):
kind of a person, the way we think of persons, you can still
at least think. Well, maybe his thoughts aren't
like our thoughts. His ways are not like our ways
according to, you know, Isaiah, the prophet.
And you might just think God is like still his mind is so
farther away. Maybe we're not going to be good
judges of what God would likely do still in some given instance
(41:04):
where like my son, right. And if I'm more like my
three-year old son than I am like God, what makes me think
that I'm going to be able to do that, You know, when it comes
to, to evil and everything else,when it comes to various actions
and so forth. So anyway, that's kind of the
perspective that that, you know,I try to encourage my kids to
have. But again, if, if, if you think
that that evil is just simply a privation and God's not a moral
(41:27):
agent, it doesn't. The problem doesn't seem to be
so vast. Yes.
Fantastic. I by the way, I just decided to
chomp ice in the middle of that and then realize I shouldn't and
spit it in my glass. So that's what I did.
Chewing tobacco. Really is what you're doing.
Yes, that's exactly right. The tobacco of the liver, if you
will. That's all super helpful.
I mean that, that, but that goesback to the religious
epistemology. If God exists, your ability to
(41:48):
critique him, your ability to understand him, you're like,
it's not like you trying to describe yourself to an Ant or a
cockroach. It is infinitely bigger.
And so you don't have a, a, a, aground to stand on.
So OK, I've got two more questions that was really
helpful. And I, I think a lot of people
resonate with that story as well.
I, I had that same conversation with my son recently where he's
like, the world could be better and was like, tell me, if you
(42:11):
were God, what would you do differently?
OK, what do you know of all the,the knowledge in the universe?
How much of it do you know? How many languages do you speak?
How many planets have you seen? And so I think, I think you got
the point. That's how I parent.
I think that's good parenting. It is.
It is. And to, you know, quote Kendrick
Lamar, the famous philosopher, the.
The great theologian and philosopher Kendrick Lamar.
Yes, be humble. Sit down.
(42:36):
I got two more questions for you.
This has been fantastic, by the way.
And I, I, I appreciate you. He's read his articles.
He's written over 20. He's got several books.
Buy his stuff, make him rich, ideological.
When I first met you, you were an evangelical Protestant and
have since converted Roman Catholicism.
Can you chat with us a little about why you made that change?
Because I, I think that I, I, I think there's very few people.
(42:56):
I mean, there are a few that just make a case for pure
theism. It's usually within a faith
tradition, a God that exists that you can't know, don't know
anything about. What I did practically is not
super helpful and goes against intuition for sure.
So give me your thoughts on on that change.
Yeah. So whenever we met a long time
(43:18):
ago in a Galaxy far, far away, yes, I was what we would call a
particular Reformed Baptist right and and fiery.
If I remember, very fiery. Very, very like a.
James White kind of sling and apologetics.
That's right, yeah. I thought, you know, Catholics
are going to hell. I thought Catholics believe that
you're saved by your works. Haven't they ever read Ephesians
(43:39):
289 through 10? Haven't they?
Don't they ever, ever, ever readFirst Timothy?
Like there's only one mediated between God and man, the man
Christ Jesus. What's going on here?
Right. And then when I got into
Graduate School and I started reading Catholic philosophers
like Eleanor Stump and Ed Phaserand of course, Thomas Aquinas
and St. Anselm and Thomas Flint and
these sorts of guys, I was like,what?
They're, they're pretty smart. They're really smart.
(44:02):
And they even seem to be taking their faith seriously.
Haven't they read? Piper.
Yeah, that's right. That's.
Right. That's right, the quarry of God.
That's actually pretty. Good, you got to make the little
flower hands and hide behind it.That's right.
That's. Right now we're getting super.
Nerdy. If you know what this is, who
cares? Wrestle with a Does God exist?
Who knows? Keep going.
And yeah, so then it was like, OK, do Catholics actually
(44:24):
believe this stuff? Have I been, like, believing in
straw men this whole time? And so then I started, like,
reading what the Catholic catechism says.
I started reading, started a journey on the church fathers,
reading the fathers and I was just like oh it seems like what
they are saying is consistent with Catholic theology and
orthodoxyology, less consistent with evangelical theology.
(44:44):
Though broadly I consider myselfan evangelical, depending on how
you define that evangelical. Catholic.
That's the thing. Yeah, that's right.
Just like with the Reformed epistemology, you can that's
right. Take I mean, all all true.
Scott's truth plunder the Egyptians.
Exactly. Exactly.
So, yeah. So you know, that that that
started in kind of a dispositionto kind of see the church and
its beauty and its witness. And, you know, just kind of
(45:06):
found myself thinking, yeah, this, this, this, this is right.
Matthew 16 and light of Isaiah 22 with there being
intertextuality there where, youknow, in Isaiah 22, Peter gives
a key or sorry, God gives a key to like him says, hey, whatever
door you open will be open. Whatever your door you shut will
be shut. And he's become this kind of
Prime Minister of the Davidic Kingdom type role.
(45:30):
Yeah, that that that when I readMatthew 16 in lie to that.
And Peter gets a key and he's told his keys, whatever he opens
in heaven will, you know, or whatever he binds on earth will
be bound in heaven. And whatever he loosens on earth
will be loose in heaven. Seems like, well, maybe Peter's
just kind of new alike and he's a new Prime Minister of the
Davidic Kingdom. And just as the Davidic king,
his mom would be the queen. So Mary is, is, you know, is the
(45:52):
queen and and Jesus obviously isKing Jesus.
And, you know, these sorts of ways of thinking about it, of
course, also got me. So yeah, I ended up becoming
Catholic. Yeah, I was.
I had a a guy who was a former mega church pastor that had me
on his podcast recently to talk about kind of the intellectual
history difference between Protestants and Catholics and
whoever I'm talking to. I always push.
So when I'm sitting with the Catholic, I'm like, what about
(46:13):
this? When I'm sitting with the
Protestant, I always push. And for him I was, I was pushing
to say the the only Christianityfor 1500 years that it is only
is Catholic. Maybe Greek Orthodoxy to the the
Great Schism and that's it. And also Sola scriptura as a
facade. There is no just Bible.
There's an interpreted Bible. So Catholics like the Bible,
Protestants like the Bible. Cool.
What hermeneutic do we take to the Bible kind?
(46:35):
Of a paradigm McIntyre sort of this that that.
Is the thing, So you have a Bible and have a Bible.
Cool. How are we going to interpret
it? Are we going to interpret it in
light of tradition, in light of the Father's in light?
Or are we going to interpret it in light of Renaissance thinking
and new forms of hermeneutics? And so it's it's, it's more
difficult than when people are like, just read the Bible and
I'm like, which Bible and where did you get that Canon?
(46:57):
And also, how should I interpretit?
It's all going to come back to philosophy.
Philosophy is the thing. And so that that the reason I
like it so much is it's the foundation for all the other
sciences. And so, yeah, fascinating.
Unlike God. It's the thing, yes.
Yes yes, unlike God, that is theground of being it is just a
being lower case right? It's OK again, nerd like our
(47:18):
wives love this they're just like wow, you guys are so, so
handsome. That's love a man with a big
brain or a big mind, which isn'tactually big because it's not
spatial. OK, so any final thoughts or
things that you want to say to our audience?
So the podcast is kind of just deals with anything in the realm
of philosophy, politics, culture.
I've got atheist viewers, agnostic viewers, Jewish
(47:39):
viewers, Christian viewers. I've got a few Islamic viewers.
Anything you would want to say on the issue of theism versus
atheism, religious epistemology,Any anything you want to talk
about that we can just back and forth.
Yeah, it's like. I guess I could say that the
kind of philosophy that goes on with atheists and theists at
(48:00):
the, at, at the, you know, academic level at the, the kind
of the highest level is much different than what you see like
on Twitter. The butt slinging and the like,
name calling and the fine spaghetti monster stuff.
That's right. That's right.
Or like the definition of atheism is just simply a lack of
belief where then all of a sudden, like rocks are atheists
and dogs are atheists and newborns are atheists.
(48:22):
And, and people take seriously cognitive science of religion,
which I didn't mention earlier, just kind of like helps kind of
that plant again, 'cause that I mentioned earlier, where
religious belief is an evolutionary spandrel.
So it's naturally human faculties.
Yeah. So I mean, you, you, you have,
you have theists going, OK, So atheists all kind of being on
the same page were there. And then theists being on the
(48:42):
same page where it's like, no, no, you can have really smart
atheist 100% philosophers and they're making really
interesting points. And I might not agree with him
at the end of the day, but I cansee where they're going.
Faculties are. Working rationally, that's the
point. Neither side, because I hear
this from a lot of you. Neither side is stupid.
There are smart people that are well educated making cases where
their presuppositions again willdetermine where they end.
(49:04):
And the problem is you can't prove the presupposition.
That's where you start. And so those initial axioms,
those properly basic beliefs, tome that seems to be the thing.
Yeah, so I mean, just just reading like I've got a, you
know, friend Kenneth Pierce, whohas a book with Graham Opie,
who's a a well known atheist philosopher and they debate no,
(49:25):
does God exist? Like reading something like that
instead of something from Richard Dawkins.
Richard Dawkins. Or from the other side, yeah,
certain, certain, you know, Christian apologists where it's
just like maybe if you want likea really sophisticated kind of
charitable reading that might surprise you, read something
like that. And then also the last thing I
was going to say is just, you know, good epistemology covers a
(49:48):
multitude of sense. That's what I always like to
say. And you know, having a good
base, a big structure, go read something like wart and proper
function or something like that.Knowledge, Christian belief,
just to kind of go out and kind of say, oh, wait a minute, we
don't always have to have arguments to be rational about
something. We could, we could know it
instinctually through intuitions, through seeming.
(50:10):
And I think those kind of to be be be charitable, know that what
goes on at the higher levels, not what goes on at the lower
level. And then you're having a good
kind of rooted epistemology. I think I could go a big way,
yeah. I might mention so because
you're a big planning good guy. I, my plan of the story is I got
to, I went to this conference where he was teaching and my
claim to fame is getting to drive him to the airport.
(50:31):
So I've not done anything big inmy life.
I just drive people to the airport.
And what I wanted to do is just try to poke him a little bit
while we were in the car. I was like, what can I, because
we're, we're laughing, we're chatting about he's a big rock
climber. He was doing that like in his
90s. I mean that guy like he's a
stud. And but I was like, all right,
what can I do to like kind of fire him up?
And so I said, Hey, where does revelation play into your
epistemology? Cause William Abraham at SMU
(50:52):
would critique you for that, that you are starting with a
philosophic system that is actually outside the tradition.
Is not the tradition of the church or of scripture or
whatever properly basic. And I mean, he mentioned like 2
sentences and then we just talked about rock climbing.
I'm not going anywhere with thatstory.
I just wanted you to know. Yes, No, it's.
Good. I love planning of stories.
Those are the best. That's awesome.
(51:13):
Cool, well, dude, thank you so much for for being on the show,
Doctor Tyler McNabb and talking about a case for for theism.
Almost had a case for atheism. Sorry, case for the I've had one
drink. I'm a I'm a lush 1 drink.
So thanks for joining us. We hope that you will TuneIn
next time, and we'll see you then.
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