144 - A Case for the Soul with Eric Hernandez - Apologetics 315 Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Apologetics three fifteen podcast with
your hosts Brian Auten and Chad Gross join us for
conversations and interviews on the topics of apologetics, evangelism, and
the Christian worldview.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
The body is what the dwelling place of the soul?
Hello and welcome to the Apologetics three fifteen podcast. My
name is Chad Gross, and once again I will be
flying solo today as Brian Aughten is down at the
local library investigating some strange PKE activity. I sure hope
he has a better plan than Ray, Egon and Peter
did when they encountered a specter at the New York library.

(00:41):
Get her, that was.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Your whole plan.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Actually, speaking of movies, my daughter and I went to
see A Quiet Place day one. She really wanted to
see it because Joseph Quinn from A Stranger Things season
four fame he played the character of Eddie Munson was
in it. Just say, Lily really enjoys his acting abilities.

(01:05):
But I will tell you I was not expecting much
as this was a prequel and I really wanted a sequel.
But man, I really dug this movie. It was a
masterfully told story, a very human story. Which is somewhat
ironic considering the fact that it has aliens attacking Earth,
and it was just a masterclass in acting and storytelling.

(01:28):
Mister Quinn was quite good in the film, which Lily
was of course thrilled about, because of course she's all
into his acting abilities. And at the center of the
story was John fifteen thirteen. Greater love hath no man
than this, that a man laid down his life for
his friends. Now, of course that wasn't explicitly stated, but

(01:49):
when you see the film you will of course understand
what I mean by that. Also central to the film
was the idea that humans have inherent value simply by
their nature, and of course we Christians would argue that
that makes the most sense on the Christian worldview. So anyway,
if you are into those films, I would encourage you

(02:09):
to check it out. Of course, if there is some
mild peril and some scary moments in it, but nothing
incredibly gory or anything like that, because I don't really
dig those kind of films. So anyway, check it out.
If you enjoyed the first two, I'm pretty confident you'll
like this one as well. But let's move on to today.
Today I will be sitting virtually down with author, Christian apologist, debater,

(02:33):
founder of Eric Hernandez Ministries, of course, Eric Hernandez, to
discuss whether or not the soul exists. Our interview is
going to center around Eric's helpful essay, I don't have
enough faith to be a physicalist, A case for the
soul featured in the recent book Faith Examined, New Arguments
for persistent questions, and of course in this book are

(02:54):
essays put together to honor mister Frank Turik of Cross
Examined Ministries. And if you're wondering, well, what do you
mean by the soul, Chad, That is actually one of
the first questions I will be asking mister Hernandez. Eric
Hernandez is a dynamic evangelist and apologist with a heart
for proclaiming the Gospel and defending the faith on theological

(03:15):
and philosophical grounds. He's the author of the book The
Lazy Approach to Evangelism, A Simple Guide for conversing with
non believers, which has actually been endorsed by people you
may have heard of like JP Morland, Mike Lacona, Jay Warner, Wallace,
Frank Turik, and Lee Strobel. And he also contributed a
chapter to the book We're talking About Today, Faith Examined

(03:36):
New Arguments for Persistent Questions. He's also a licensed minister,
a certified formation therapist ooh, I don't know what that is,
and the apologetics lead and Millennial Specialist for the Baptist
General Convention of Texas. Oh my tongue got a little
tied there. Eric has spoken and debated on a public
level at college campuses, where he adamantly defends the Christian

(03:59):
fis against skeptics, atheists, and agnostic professors who hold different
views than his own. He also holds an associate degree
in social science, a bachelor's degree in theology, and a
certificate and Apologetics from the one and only Biola University.
All right, let's get to the interview. Let's get ready
switch me on. All right, Eric Hernandez, welcome to the

(04:24):
Apologetics three fifteen podcast.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Hey, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yes, very happy to have you. We wanted to reach
out to you after I watched your debate with Justin Schieber.
As I was telling you, I was very impressed with
your argumentation. Then I saw you had this essay out
in a book called Faith examined new arguments for persistent questions,
and it was on making a case for the soul.

(04:49):
And of course that book's kind of unique. So can
you before we get into kind of the meat of
the interview, Well, first of all, tell us a little
bit about yourself and then tell us a little bit
about the book.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, my name's Eric Carnandez. Like I said, I'm the
apologetics lead for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, which
encompasses everything from speaking at churches, hosting around the state
of Texas three annual Unapologetic Evangelism Conferences, is what we
called him. And being on fine shows like this excellent.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
So tell us about this book, Faith Examined.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yeah, it's a good question, So Clark Bates. It was
his idea to put this together. And it's called a
fetch shrift, which I had to learn I kept mispronouncing
when usually when someone passes, you do essays in honor
of them, and I forget the word for that. But
if they're still alive, it's called a festes shrift. So
Frank Kurk, he is still alive and well, and in

(05:42):
fact people asked me to something happen to him he said, no,
we're just honoring him, and he wanted to just kind
of get people whose lives have been impacted by his ministry.
And I think I don't have enough faith to be
an atheists. Was probably the first apologetic book I picked up,
and I really enjoyed it, especially where I was at
at the time. Hear my background into philosophy, I'm sure
later in the interview. And interestingly, when my wife and

(06:05):
I first met, and this was already years after I
had read Turk's book, I was already an apologist, and
she asked what that was, and as I began explain
to her, she asked if there were any good books.
So I didn't first buy my wife flowers when we met.
I didn't buy her a drink. I bought her I
don't have enough fates to be an atheist. That's the
first thing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
I read that in the notes in the essay and
I was just laughing so hard. I thought that was great.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
That's right. And we've had marital problems ever since.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
But at least you can argue well about your marital problems.

Speaker 4 (06:39):
Right.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
That's not a good thing either. That's a whole other story.
Real quick. One of the first times I met Craig,
it was a Q and A at the conferences that
I am now in charge of, and I remember I
went up to ask during the Q and A, and
I had two questions. One was a really serious, deep
philosophical question, and then the second question I had, I
posed it as if it were the deeper philosophical question,

(07:03):
and I said, you know, Craig, given that you're a
professional philosopher, you know how to identify logical fallacies, you
know how to you know, identify when someone's not making
a coach and argument. I said, what is the best
way to argue with your spouse without doing that? And
I thought him I was asking for a friend, And
he didn't answer the question I had asked him later,
so I claimed the title as a one person to

(07:25):
stump Willhem Lane.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Craig, Well, you know what's funny is and obviously this
is the focus of our interview today. But fun do you?
I'm sure you've heard of Greg Coco's book Tactics.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yes, he actually came up with the title of the
book that I have out, the Lazy Approach to Evangelism.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Oh yes, yes, And I mentioned that in the intro
and maybe we'll cross paths with that as well in
the interview. But what was funny is when I read Tactics,
I mean years ago, I did realize that I'd be
in conversations with my wife and the conversation would get
i don't know, challenging or maybe a little contentious, and

(08:05):
I found myself going, what do you mean by that?
How did you come to that conclusion? And I realized
really quickly that Tactics probably wasn't the best thing to
bring into marital conversations.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Yeah, not the best.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
So speaking of Frank Trek, and you mentioned the book
I Don't have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. Your
essay in the book Faith Examined is appropriately called I
Don't have enough Faith to be a physicalist a case
for the Soul, which I got a smile out of that.
So that's kind of the main reason we wanted to
have you on today is to talk about the case

(08:41):
for the soul. But what I have found, and you
do a great job in your chapter of hashing this out,
but what I have found in reading here and there
about the soul and listening to talks and things, is
that sometimes that can be kind of a thorny word
to define, and so I thought it would be helpful
that before we get into you the case for the soul.

(09:02):
What are we talking about specifically when we talk about
the soul? Is it the same as the spirit? Is
it different than the spirit? Is it consciousness? How does
all that hash out?

Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah? So a great question. And then you ask like
two or three other questions. I open up whole other
kind of worms, but to focus on just a first
for now, the soul can simply be defined as an
immaterial substance that possesses consciousness and animates the body. In
simpler terms, I hold to what's called substance dualism. So

(09:33):
dual means two. And so it is the notion that
I am an immaterial substance and that there is a
physical aspect to me. So there are two things at
play here. But at my core, I am literally a soul.
So I like to put it this way. I don't
have a soul, but rather I am a soul and
I have a body. So I have a body, but

(09:54):
I don't have a soul, and a body without a
soul is nothing more than a corp. And to be
honest with you, I actually have recently changed my view
on this because I do now believe I have a
soul because a few years ago I went to the
dealership and got a Kio soul and it's a part
in my garage right now. It's a very rich punchline,
if you know. I was soul searching when I got

(10:19):
to melk it for every cent because I bought the
car just to make that joke.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
I was actually getting ready to ask you, did you
just buy the car to make that joke? I really classic, So.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Okay. So with that in mind, then you now have
this notion of something immateial. Now some listeners may be thinking, well,
wait a minute, how can a substance be a material?
Aren't substances physical things. Atheists love to bring this up,
and you know, like to throw this as an objection,
But what they failed to realize is the word substance
was coined by Aristotle, and when he first used it,

(10:54):
he was talking about immaterial things. So the word substance
is a full of so term that science later adopted.
So it comes from philosophy, not from science, And a
substance is essentially the thing that stands under, so like
a submarine means to be something that is under and
a substance is literally to stand under, to substand, and

(11:18):
the substance is the thing that grounds all the properties
of a thing. What does that mean If I were
to take a cup, well, it's it's a cylinder shape,
it's a color, but this is all possessed by something.
Now I don't think a cup is a substance, but
it at least gives you the idea that there are
properties in the world like color, shapes, and sizes that

(11:40):
are possessed by something. And a substance is the thing
that is going to possess all its properties in parts.
So when it comes to living organisms, my dog has
a property being brown, female and a tail, four legs,
and she is the substance. So the dog, her name
is Bella, is a substance that possesses and grounds all

(12:02):
her properties and parts. Now how I got into this
as I touched into my chapter, this is kind of
what really got my mind going in that direction. Long
story short, freshman year of college that took my first
philosophy class, not because I was interested in philosophy, but
I long story short again, I got a scholarship for
two years books intuition paid for to be a cheerleader,

(12:25):
so they offered me two year scholarships that little girls
in the air, and I said, let's do it. Wow. Yeah,
it was fantastic. So I wasn't paying for school, wasn't
taking it too seriously either, and I wanted to fill
up my elective with the class that I thought I
could just blow off, maybe skip a few times, didn't
have to show up. And I saw philosophy and I thought, well,

(12:45):
that's just making stuff up and sharing your opinion, and
I can take it on my slate. So this is
going to be an easy eight again, to be brief,
first week of class, I was hooked immediately. Professor said
something about what's called the burden of proof. If you
make a claim, you bear the burden to prove that
your claim is true. And he said, as a random example,
if you're a Christian and claim that God exists and
someone asks you to prove that, you cannot say, prove

(13:08):
to me, he doesn't because you're shifting the burden to proof,
and if you make the claim, you by the burden.
Now that intrigued me for a few reasons. One because
I remember my youth pastor saying, if someone tells you
to prove God exists, you simply have to tell them
to prove to you. He doesn't, And I thought, oh,
that's brilliant, put it in my back pocket. And then
first week at philosophy class, he just destroys that notion.

(13:28):
But I wasn't upset. I was intrigued. I wanted to
learn more, and I later, like I said, found out
he was an atheist, but he was very even handed.
I learned a lot, and most importantly, I was allowed
to ask questions, which was not like the youth group
I grew up. In second semester rose around and again
I need to fill up my electives and I'm hooked
on philosophy at this point, and I want to take

(13:49):
another class, and everyone warns me, whatever you do, do
not take Professor Penions class. Not only is he an atheist,
he's antagonistic and condescending towards religion and his goal will
to make you lose your faith. And my thought was, well,
where can I sign up? Not because I wanted to
lose my faith and I didn't know what apologetics was
at this point. I had not Again, it was just

(14:11):
my first class of philosophy I had just taken. Didn't
know what apologetics was, but I knew that, you know,
call me old fashioned, but that if God existed, then
all truth is grounded in him in one way or another,
so I shouldn't be afraid to learn anything agreed. And
if Christianity is true, I should know why it's true.
But it also occurred to me that if Christianity is false,

(14:31):
I would still like to know why it's false. And
maybe this is a guy for the job. So while
there's lots to say about my time in his class,
the one class in particular that was pivotal to set
me to where I am now is when he walks
into class, reaches into his pocket, pulls out this antidepressant
film and he looks at it in the light for
a second, and he starts his lecture by saying, religion

(14:53):
wants us to believe in something like a soul, and
because of this we can have hope in an afterlife
and seeing our family and friends gone before us. And
according to Christianity, your thoughts, emotions, sensations, and moods are
all supposed to be within this immaterial soul, and these
are also supposed to be immaterial things. And he said,
but here's a problem with that. If I were to

(15:13):
take this anti depressant pill, which is physical, then it
has a power to change and effect the alleged immaterial
states of my soul. But how could that be? How
can something tiny and physical have the power to affect
them material? Because every time we look at the brain,
you know, in a brain scan, scientists only ever find
and see, you know, neurons firing. And every time scientists

(15:37):
look at the body under microscope, all they see is
nothing but the base elements of hydrogen, oxygen and so forth.
But no scientists has ever found or seen anything even
remotely close to something like a soul. And how do
we explain that? And he said, the answer is simple,
I'll tell you how. The answer is that there is
no God, there is no heaven, there is no hell,
there is no afterlife, there is no soul. You were

(15:58):
just a physical brain body, a meat machine. And we
need to learn to get on with our lives, live
with this fact and stop believing in these fanciful, foolish
fairy tales. Class dismissed essentially. Now, what troubled me most was, well,
first of all, I didn't know there are people who
didn't believe in the soul. I thought everyone did, and
I had certainly never heard an argument against it. And

(16:21):
as a freshman in college, for the first time in
my life, I hear an argument that if is true,
it would prove that Christianity is false. And briefly, here's why.
To paraphrase Paul one Corinthians fifteen, he says, if there
is no resurrection, Christianity is false. It came over and
suffice to say that if there is no soul, then
in principle, there can be no resurrection. And thus, if

(16:42):
there's no resurrection, Christianity cannot be true. So I had
two choices. I could ignore this and sweep it under
the rug, which is not like me to do, or
roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty with
some philosophy and metaphysics. And I chose to do the latter.
And this is when I eventually came to learn of
the work of guys like JP Morland, who was just
a lifesaver for me and such a huge blessing in

(17:04):
so many errors of my life, ministry and even marriage.
And he even endorsed the book that I mentioned earlier,
The lazy approach and has just been such a great
guy to get to know. Okay, so how do we
deal with this conundrum? If you will, well, a few
things to throw some terminology. We already talked about what
a soul was. What my professor was arguing for is

(17:27):
something known as physicalism. What is that? Essentially, it is
the view that human beings are purely physical properties and parts.
There is nothing immateial about us. And this stems from
a strong naturalist worldview that says the physical world is all.
There is nothing more, nothing less. Now, when it comes
to the nature of human beings, are essentially two questions

(17:49):
that we have to answer, and this follows into what's
called the philosophy of mind. And the first question is
what is consciousness? What kind of thing is consciousness? And
the second is what is your self? When I use
the word I, I'm referring to me. But what kind
of thing am I? With this in mind, Let's now
look at the first question, what is consciousness? Briefly, consciousness

(18:10):
comes in five states and it's something that we define ostensibly.
What does that mean? If I were to ask you
to define the color purple? How would you do it? Well?
You couldn't give me a verbal definition. And to those
listeners who may be thinking, yeah, you can describe the wavelengths,
but wavelengths are not colors. In fact, you know some
people say, well, you need wavelengths and light to see color. Well, no,

(18:32):
because I can close my eyes and see the color
purple and there's no wavelength in my brain, nor is
there any light. So wavelengths are not the same thing
as color. So how would you define it? Well, you
couldn't define it with words. You would have to point
to an example of it or provide an instance of it.
This is why you can never define color to a
person who's born blind. Consciousness is the same kind of thing,

(18:53):
and it comes in five states. You can think of
it analogously to water. Water is a substance that can
be in five different states, solid, liquid, and gas, and
the properties of water in a certain state will tell
you the kind of thing that it is. So if
I know that water right now has a property of
being hard, then it tells me a little bit about

(19:14):
the nature of the substance of water and tells me
what state it's in. In a similar fashion, on my view,
I would argue the soul is a substance, and consciousness
are five states that the soul can be in via
the faculty of my mind. So you have thoughts, believes, sensations, desires,
and acts of will, or you can say volition. Now,

(19:36):
just to without unpacking all of them, let's just do
the first two. How do we know that thoughts and
beliefs are not the same thing? Well, because I can
have I can think about things that I don't believe,
and I believe things that I'm not currently thinking. So
because there's a difference, we automatically know these are two
different things. Now, this now brings us to a very
important metaphysical principle. And what is metaphysics it is? It's

(20:00):
a funny story also with Aristotle. One of the first
books he wrote was called the Physics. And after he
wrote the Physics, he began to look at the nature
and properties of a thing, you know, like a tree.
What is the nature of a tree? What is the essence?
What are its properties? And he never got to title
that book, and so they didn't know what to do
or what to title it. But since it came after

(20:22):
the Physics, they called it, well, let's just call it
after the Physics. Hence metaphysics, it's literally you know the name,
So it's it's beyond the physics, after the physics, and
so the the long word. If there are any single
guys out there who want to impress some young lady
with their philosophical knowledge, the long phrases Lightnitz's law of
the undiscernability of identicals. Yeah, for sure, we just call

(20:46):
it lights is long. Oh yeah, girls go crazy over that,
just kidding it.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
And then you could give him a copy of I
don't have enough faith to be an atheist?

Speaker 3 (20:55):
That yeah, and then givehim a copy of The Faith
Examine even better. And so what is the Liibnance's law
of identity? So essentially this in philosophy, when we say
two things are identical, we mean they are literally the
same thing. So if I said Eric Carnandez and the
guests on your show are identical, I'm saying they're literally

(21:16):
the same person, which means I'm talking about one person,
not too and I'm just using two different references or
titles to describe one thing one person. Okay, Now, according
to the Leibnanz's law, if let's say some A and
be are the same thing, then whatever's true of A
is going to be true of B and vice versa,
because again they're the same thing. But if in principle,

(21:36):
I can find something true of A that's not true
of B or vice versa, then they cannot be the
same thing. They cannot be identical. So a quick thought experiment.
Suppose you walk into a lab and see two bottles
of clear fluid. One is labeled water and the other
one is labeled chemical X. But let's suppose the label
for chemical X was ripped off and you cannot read
it well without picking up any instruments. You're going to

(21:58):
apply Leibnanz's law of identity, and you want to know
if these two liquids are the same substance. In so far,
you think they are because they both have the property
of being fluid, they both have the property of being liquids,
they both have a property of being clearer, and you
assume they must be the same substance until you turn
over the bottle of chemical X and you see another
label on the back and it says caution flammable, And

(22:20):
you think, ah, well, I know water's not flammable, which
means even if I don't know what chemical X is,
at the very least, I know it cannot be the
same thing as water, because now I have this thing
that has a property that it is not shared with water.
So you automatically know they're not the same thing. And
that's the test for identity using limness as long. All right, now,

(22:42):
with this foundation in mind, let's look at the two
central questions. What is consciousness and what is the eye yourself?
Beginning with consciousness, as we've said, you have five states. Now,
if physicalism is true, like my professor argued, then the
mind is going to have to be identical or reducible
to something physical like the brain, which because remember on physicalism,
everything is going to be purely physical, just matter and chemistry.

(23:06):
So if conscience exists, it's going to have to be
identical to the brain. But the question is is it
identical to the brain? And the short answer is no,
and the longer answers no with more o's attached to
the end of it. So, using likeness as a law,
we can do a simple tests and we only need
one example to show they're not the same thing, and
I'll just briefly give you three. So are the mining

(23:26):
brain identical? Now take a state of my mind, like
let's say a thought or belief. My thoughts and beliefs
can be true or false. And we know that when
you have thoughts there will be a correlated group of
neurons firing. But while my thought and belief can be
true or false, the neurons that fire aren't true or false.
It makes no sense to say that these neurons are

(23:48):
firing truly, but these neurons are firing falsely. Neurons don't
fire true or false. They just fire. It's just a function,
and functions aren'true or false. Two. My brain can be
in a state that weighs three pounds, but the thought
that I'm talking to you right now doesn't weigh three pounds. Sure,
while your listeners may be having heavy thoughts after this interview,
they won't have to go by a neck brace when

(24:09):
we're done here. My brain can be in a state
that measures seven inches long, but the smell of a
rose or the taste of a banana, which is in
my mind, is not seven inches long. And while we
can go on and on and spend hours just talking
about consciousness, the point is simply as this. If all
the properties of my brain are physical, and all the
properties of a mind are not physical, then it follows

(24:31):
that if consciousness exists, it cannot be identical or reducible
to the physical. And if it cannot be identical or
reducible to the physical, then it would follow that physicalism
cannot be true. So if we were to put this
into an argument, we can say I'm either a purely
physical object or an immterial soul. If I'm a purely
physical object, consciousness can't exist. Why not, Because we've just
established the Alignments's law, it's not physical. Well, consciouness does exist.

(24:55):
Therefore I'm not a purely physical object, which would mean
physicalism is false, and therefore I must be something like
a soul. So that would answer the first question. And
I don't know if you want to push back or
ask any questions on that so far.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, first of all, super helpful. I mean,
you've covered a lot of the ground I wanted to cover,
so good stuff. One of the bits that I typically hear.
And I know that there is a response to this
within what you've said, but I kind of want to
pin it down. Is this idea you hinted at it
with the antidepressant, you know, why can this physical antidepressant

(25:29):
impact something that is supposedly an immaterial substance, right, in
the same way, I think of a dementia patient. Right,
that's another thing that's commonly brought up. And well, this
this person physically is clearly fading. But then yet this
impacts his consciousness, if you will, So that shows that
the physical it's you can reduce it to the physical.

(25:54):
So I guess how would you respond to that idea that? Well?
And then one more example, sorry, a wordy question, you know,
something like, well, you know, if somebody has brain damage,
then that obviously affects them. Doesn't that show that this
can just be reduced to the physical.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, great questions, And this is the typical pushback, the
typical objection I get, mm hmm. And this is so
bizarre to me, quite frankly, because, like you said, they'll
say something like, well, look, Alzheimer's, you know, it deteriorates
parts of your brain associated with memory, and thus it
shows that your memories and your brain and the mind
is nothing more than the brain. And I say, nonsense, people.
Here's another popular question that relates to this. People will

(26:31):
say something like this, show me a mind without a brain,
and my response is, typically, will do me one better?
Show me a mind first? Do that for me to
show me a mind? Yeah, because they're already assuming that
the mind exists. But that's the very thing in question.
Does the mind exist? Because I would argue, it's a material,
and if it's a material, you cannot point to something

(26:53):
if it's not, if it's not something physical that you're
going to going to be able to see. I like
how I heard Moreland once put it, a neural scientists
can know more about my brain than I do, but
he can never know more about my mental life than
I do, because my thoughts are not in my brain,
they're in my mind. And every time I ask someone,
you know, show me a mind, they'll typically point to
neurons firing. And sometimes I'll even get a piece of

(27:15):
paper and I'll draw or I'll write the word mind
on the left and write the word brain on the right,
and I'll say, show me this one, pointing to the mind,
and they show me neurons firing, and I circle brain.
I said, you show me this, but I'm not asking
for this. I'm asking for the mind. Show me that one.
And they can't do it because it's not something physical. Okay,
But back to this question here, and essentially what my
professor was arguing, what he's essentially doing is showing that

(27:38):
there is a cause and effect or correlation between the
mind and brain. And every substance to a list will
say yes and amen. But here's the important piece to understand.
Causer dependence is not the same thing as identity. So
thought experiment. Say I'm the world's greatest guitar player, which
I'm not, and there were certain strings I needed to

(27:58):
press on the guitar to play the notes see. But
let's say those strings popped and I am now no
longer to play the note see. Well, look, how we
have so far established there is a cause and effect
relationship between my ability to play the note see and
the guitar's function, and a dependence relationship between me being

(28:18):
able to play the music and a properly working guitar.
But does it follow from this that therefore I am
a guitar No, of course not. Who would be so
silly to say that?

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (28:26):
And if I were to play the guitars and if
you were detuning the guitar as I was playing it,
it would affect the pitch and sound of the music
I'm playing. But again, it does not follow from this
that therefore the note see is inside the guitar, and
if you broke it open and gave it a good shake,
the notes would fall out. All it shows that there
is a cause and effect or dependency relationship between a

(28:48):
musician and his instrument, But it doesn't follow that the
same thing because, as I said earlier, cause independence relationship
is not the same thing as identity, nor can it
establish identity. So just showing a cause and effect or
dependence your relationship between those two things doesn't show they're
the same thing, if anything, cause independence assumes two things
in question. And now you're back into the dualist camp,

(29:10):
and I'd like to tell people welcome to the team
again showing these relationships don't prove anything other than cause
and effect, which no dualist denies. And it's not like
this is something new we founded. Neuroscientists. Caveman knew that
if you hit them over the head really hard with
the club, they get dizzy, So obviously there was a
cause and effect relationship. And people who throw that out

(29:30):
there clearly have not studied or even read anything on
the philosophy of mine, and of course the book we're
talking about would be a good place to start. So yeah,
none of that works to show that they're the same thing,
and that's what the physicalist needs to establish that physicalism
is true.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah, very helpful. What do you think of the example?
Do you think the example of a radio is a
good example. I've heard that one used in the sense
that you know, the radio signal is available, but that
if the radio is damaged, you're either going to get
a harshal radio signal sound if you will, or you're
not going to get any sound at all. Do you

(30:05):
think that's a good illustration.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
Or yeah, yeah, it works to get across you know,
the point of the of the analogy. I've heard people,
you know, use Wi Fi routers, you know, same thing.
Moreland talks about a CD. You know, you break the CD,
you don't break the music. The music's not in the CD.
And it gets a little bit more complicated because you
know there are grooves in the CD and under the
right retrieval system, it will play the music and just

(30:28):
like your brain has certain grooves, your thoughts are not
in your brain, but there is an associated relationship. Again,
just like music is not in a CD. You're not
going to break a CD and then you know, all
the songs fall out of it. But there is a
cause and effect in dependence relationship between a properly non
scratched CD and the system playing the music that is
correlated with those groups.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Okay, I thought it was interesting. You had a really
great debate that I want to point our listeners to.
I think I'm doing this for memory, but I think
it was May sixth, twenty twenty three with Justin Schieber,
co host of Real Atheology, and consciousness was one of
the topics that both of you tackled, and he had
a really interesting take, particularly in the crossfire or regarding

(31:14):
this idea that he acknowledged consciousness. But it was almost like,
and I know you'll be able to speak to this
better than I, because, to be honest with you, I
did have a bit of a hard time following it,
which is why I'm asking you about it. It was
almost like ontologically necessary maybe or just the kind of
the foundational thing. But I might be mischaracterizing that. I

(31:37):
don't know, which is why I wanted to ask you. So,
what did you think of his take on consciousness and
what ramifications did it have for his atheism and your theism.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
Yeah, so Justin Sheeber was a naturalist. You know, not
all atheists were naturalist, right, Sheber was one, and a
certain kind of naturalist. Nevertheless, he held to a type
of something called pen psychism. That's another fun thing is
when you start saying these things, learn about all these
new words and I there's a lot to say here
and it's very telling. So I'll start with this. What

(32:07):
is panpsychism, just like pantheism pan meaning all or, you know,
throughout all, pan psychism pan all or throughout all, and
psyche a solar mind is essentially the idea that there
are conscious bits of matter in every piece of physical
parts and every molecule, there are potential conscious bits. And

(32:30):
this is going to get it be a good segue
to the next question of what am I and think of?
Like legos, if you put enough of these conscious physical
things together, you'll eventually get consciousness scorting into existence and
so on. The pan psychics view, every material thing literally
has the potentiality to become conscious if put in the

(32:51):
right physical structure. So your desk, your headphones. Yeah, one
of the great things about learning philosophy is you get
to appreciate a new kind of memes. And if you
type in like panpsychism memes, you find that people get
like those googly eyes that you can find at craft
stores and they put them on like their toaster and
their desk and like, you know, the refrigerator, and it's panpsychism.

(33:14):
So here what for the panpsychists. Here's why I say
it's telling for the longest time. And atheist John Sorrow
alluded to this. He is a really good eighthis philosopher
of mine, and he says a lot of the philosophy
of mind that's been written in the past fifty years
is really just trash my paraphrase, but not that far
off from what he says. And he said something like,
you know, at first they were telling us consciousness is physical,

(33:37):
and then they told us consciousness is not physical, and
so it must not exist. And now they're telling us
it does exist. It's not physical, and it is not physical,
but it's just fundamental to reality. In other words, it's
becoming more and more of a problem. In fact, so
much so that I think if there are any aspiring
apologists out there, I would highly encourage you to get
into and learn some philosophy of mind, because I think

(33:57):
that is where the next column, if you will, is
going to come from. It's from a philosophy of mind.
And what they're essentially doing is they're starting to realize
we have to do something with consciousness. And as we argued,
a lot of atheists have realized that if it's not physical,
it can't exist on a strict naturalist view, and some
philosophers will bite the bullet pay the price tag and

(34:18):
say consciousness does not exist. The irony there is if
you say consciounces does not exist, then you're saying something
similar to saying beliefs don't exist. So if you say,
if physicalism is true, beliefs don't exist. However I believe this.
Therefore beliefs do exist. Therefore consciousness exists. Therefore physicalism cannot
be true. So it becomes self defeating for the panpsychis.

(34:40):
What they now do is say, okay, maybe it can't
just pop up by rearranging physical matter, you know, So
what we have to do is front load it from
the beginning and say it's just always been there, and
under the right conditions it will pop and it will
arise a single conscious subject. Why is this telling? Because
one it it's like the philosophy is twisting their arm

(35:03):
to admit you cannot get consciouness from matter. Thomas Nagel,
another atheist philosopher, argued this in his book Mind and
Cosmos and two it tells us that they are starting
to realize that because you cannot get consciouness from matter,
it has to be fundamental to reality. Well, what does
that start to sound like? Here's what I pointed out
to Justin Sheeber in my debate. I said, so you

(35:24):
agree that consciouness is fundamental. He said, yes, it seems
like it has to be. And I said, well, then
why not just become a Christian because that's exactly the
part of the Christian worldview that everything comes from mind,
namely God's mind, and so God is fundamental to reality.
It's like, yes, and amen, just take a few more steps.
So you know, to all the pansychics out there, you know,
bless your heart, you are giving it the best shot

(35:45):
you can. It's just one of those things that becomes
so ad hoc and it's just like, Wow, you're getting
so close to the right side. You know, just keep
pushing a little bit further. So that's essentially what the
panpsychics would argue that consciousness is already fundamental. It's already there.
You just need to put it in the right conditions
for it to kind of spring up, if you will.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
That's good. Yeah, I thought that part of the discussion
was one of the most interesting, and for reasons that
you've just pointed out, one of the more telling, because
I was much like you, and I even like how
you pointed out, how doesn't this challenge kind of the
idea of simplicity, which I thought that was helpful. But
I also just and this is a side note from

(36:25):
our topic today, but I also found it really interesting
how you were pointing to moral obligation and he was
kind of trying to say that obligations are enough, and
you were trying to point out that, yeah, but we're
only obligated to persons, and I thought that, yeah, because
you can't be obligated to obligations. So and that's a

(36:47):
very crude, kind of quick and dirty way of putting it.
But I thought those two points were really powerful in
the crossfire.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, and that's another thing he was conceding as you said,
you know this being a side note is he was
he just like natural are starting to realize they're going
to have to do something with consciousness and they can
no longer call it physical. The same has become It's
become the same for moral properties and values. So someone
like Eric Willenberg has really made this popular so for

(37:13):
the longest time. And a really good book I would
highly recommend is Adam Johnson's book. It's called Divine Love
Theory Adam Johnson, and he really I think, takes Willenberg
a task and points out the flaunt in his view.
But Willimberg says, yes, moral valleys exists. No, they're not physical,
but they are necessary. And what's what's really fascinating. This
is why I say philosophy of mine is where it's

(37:35):
at and where it's going to be. In order for
Willenberg to argue for the existence of these immaterial moral properties,
he literally says this in his writing. He says, well,
let's just pull a page from the Philosophy of mine area,
and just like they can get consciousness from matter because
it's already there, maybe we can do the same thing
with moral properties. And that's essentially what he argues so

(37:56):
it's a really interesting it's it's it's like the same
move being done in a different area. But but yeah,
another one of those errors where if you're going to
concede these things, you're you're losing out on simplicity. You're
what's called bloating your ontology. You're adding these things to
your worldview that doesn't seem to fit naturally in them.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, and I wonder too, with those two points you
know that you made there, and how they're connected. Obviously,
would you go as far as saying that this this
may be in some cases just evidence of how people
are willing to entertain kind of any explanation as long
as it's not a theistic one.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
Oh, absolutely, same thing kind of reminds me of like
the multiverse, don't I don't know if it was John
Lennox or Creig who first said this. You know, when
you talk about fine tuning, they posit, well, maybe there's
a multiverse and we just happen to live in the
one that's fine tuned. And either Lenox or Craigs, it's
something like, so you're telling me that in order to
eliminate the existence of one god, you have to posit
the existence of an infinite amount of universes. Yeah, and

(38:53):
you think your explanation is a more simple one. Yeah, yeah,
I've heard.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
I've heard I've heard Richard Swindberg say something like that
as well. So yeah, yeah, yeah, well thanks, I was
just curious about that. So we've talked a lot about
kind of your first contention in the chapter consciousness is
not physical. When you were kind of giving the overview
in the beginning, you also talked about and you have
throughout am I more than a brain? And am I

(39:18):
more than a brain and body? So do you want
to talk more about that?

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah. So that's why we've established conscious and not physical? Right,
So we've answered the first question, what is consciouness? It's
an immaterial state of the mind or soul. Now the
next question becomes, okay, what kind of thing in mind?
Here's a segue, is that given that these conscious states
and properties exist, we now have to ask what is
a thing that grounds or possesses or owns them? And why?

(39:43):
And here's why this is important. Whenever properties show up
in the world, like take the property of redness, they
don't just float around in the world just existing. They're
always grounded or possessed by something. So when I get
on the freeway, I don't try to avoid hitting the
property of redness. In instead, I tried to avoid hitting
objects that possess the property of redness. So the same

(40:04):
thing would be true for conscious states and properties. What
is a thing that possesses on crowds them? Well, I
think we can all agree that for each person, you
can say I possess my conscious states and properties. Moreland
once said something really preass a lot of profound things
that are so simple but profound. He said, Thoughts have thinkers.
Thoughts don't just float around by themselves, are always grounded
in a conscious subject. So I own and ground my

(40:28):
mental states and properties. But then the question naturally arises,
what kind of thing am I? Okay, now here's where
it gets a little bit more technical at the metaphysics,
but not hard to follow it all. The terminology is
I am either an immaterial soul and immatial substance, and
we describe what that is. I am the thing that
grounds my mental states and properties and everything else about me,
and I unify them into one thing. I am either

(40:48):
an immatial soul or I am what you would call
in philosophy a myriological aggregate, but we're just going to
call it aggregate for short. What is an aggregate? An
aggregate is a collect of separable parts held together in
a certain structure. So things like watches, lego, bricks, or
cars are what we call aggregates. They are a collection

(41:09):
of separable parts held together in a certain structure. And
there are certain features of aggregates that we can learn
to identify them by. So one important thing is that
for aggregates, their existence and identity is a dependent necessarily
on the parts and structure. What do we mean by that?
Another quick thought experiment. If I remove a tire from

(41:31):
a car, it remains a tire because its existence and
identity is not dependent on its connection to the car
as a whole. So for aggregates, the hole depends on
the parts. Contrast that with substances. For substances, the parts
depend on the whole. Here's what an example Aristotle used

(41:53):
if I sever If I cut off my arm, then
it will lose its identity as a human arm, which
is evident by the fact that within a few days
it will decay and cease to exist. So my parts
are dependent on their connection to me, whereas for aggregates,
their parts exist independent of their connection to the whole.
Another quick thought experiment, take a tricycle. A tricycle is

(42:16):
what it is in virtue of the fact that it
has three wills. But if you remove just one will
from a tricycle, then we can say that in a
metaphysical sense, a tricycle has ceased to exist and a
bicycle has come into existence. Well, we'll unpact some of
this more, but the point is simply this is that
for aggregates, their existence and identity necessarily depends on their
part and structure. By contrast, if you chop off my hands,

(42:38):
I'm still Eric Carnandez because I don't depend on my parts.
My parts depend on me. Okay, So with this in
mine and again using liveness as long identity, we can
I'll give three brief arguments for the notion that I
am more than a branding body. I am a soul.
We can start off each argument with this premise I
am either a purely physical object, an aggregate, or an

(42:58):
immaterial soul. The first argument we can talk about is
identity through change and part replacement. So another thought experiment.
Have you seen the show WandaVision. That Marvel show. Oh yeah, okay,
trick question, that's not a Christian show. So I got you. Yes,
it's a good show. One of the last episodes spoiler

(43:19):
alert to anyone who hasn't seen it. You have two visions.
And what's interesting is they begin to talk about what's
called the ship of theseus, which the thought experiment and
philosophy of mine. And I give a modern version, and
I just use a car and I modify it because
I think the way I modify it helps the point
come across Clark. So let's say you have a car,
and I start by doing this. I ask a person,

(43:41):
if I replace the tires on this car, is it
the same car? Now? Whatever your answer is, let's now
suppose I replace every single nut and bolt, everything, the
wind showed, bumper, every single thing on the car. Is
it the same car? But then, before you answer that question,
here's where I modify it. Let's take the place parts
and put those back together. And now we have two cars.

(44:03):
Now the question we can ask is which one of
these two cars, if any, is the original. And regardless
of your answer there, I think one thing is clear.
They both cannot be the original. And what I think
this shows us is that when it comes to purely
physical objects aggregates, they do not retain identity through change
in part replacement, they do not remain the same object. Okay,

(44:25):
with this in mind, we can now do this argument.
I am either a purely physical object or an immatial soult.
If I am a purely physical object, I do not
retain identity through part replacement and change. But I do
retain identity through part replacement change. Therefore I'm not a
purely physical object. Therefore I am a sult Let's unpack that.
Take something like let's say any kind of physical object. Again,

(44:49):
Like we talked about the tricycle. You remove on one will,
it's no longer tricycle. Now we know that. We know
now through science that we replace virtually every cell in
our body every seven to ten years. Now physicalism is true,
and I'm identical to a brain and body. Then after
part replacement and chains, there's a new brain and body,
thus a new person. So imagine seven to ten years

(45:14):
ago I commit a crime. This is not me admitting
to any guilt or anything. It's just a thought experiment. Sure,
you got to watch out when you talk about these
thought philosophical thought experiments in public. And let's say I
get a knock on my door and it's Jay Warner Wallace,
and he says, you know, we just found the evidence
to convict you of a crime you committed seven to
ten years ago. Would it make sense for me to

(45:36):
look at him and say, Jay, come on, you know
that we're just purely physical objects, and we replace parts
every seven to ten years. And so the person you're
looking for is someone else that existed seven to ten
years ago. Go find them, but good luck, because they
no longer exist.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
Right.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Well, now he's going to laugh and slap the cuffs
on me. Why because we know that human beings.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
Sorry, I was just going to say, nor would that
work in a court of law?

Speaker 3 (46:00):
Exactly? Because we know intuitively human beings retain identity through
change or part replacement. And thus if I retain identity
to change a part replacement, then I can't be a
prely physical object. Thus I must be a soul. Jaguan Kim.
I don't know if I put this in the chapter
because I only had so many words. Sure, Jaguan Kim
an atheist philosopher of mine. He gives a similar argument.

(46:20):
He's not a duellist, but he's going through the dualist arguments,
and I like his. He says something like this, in
two thousand and one, this brain and body did not exist.
However I did exist in two thousand and one. Thus
I cannot be identical or dosible to this brain and body. Okay,
So that's the first argument identity through change. The second
one is known as the indivisibility of personhood. What does

(46:42):
that mean? Again? With terminology, first, philosophers distinguish between what
are called degreed and nondegreed properties. A degreed property is
something that can fluctuate and change and exist in percentages
or degrees. So, for example, the property is being loud
or heavy or soft can again be divided or exists
in percentages or degrees. A sound can be louder or softer,

(47:05):
weights can be heavier or lighter, and you know, textures
again can be softer or harder. So these are degreed properties.
By contrast, nondegreed properties are properties that are that cannot
exist in percentages or degrees. They're what we call all
or nothing kind of properties. They either exist or not exist,
but there is no in between to them. So For example,

(47:27):
the number two and the number six are both even,
So let's talk about the property of being even. The
number two and the number six are both even numbers,
but it makes no sense to say that the number
six is quote more even than the number two. Sure
why because evenness is not a degreed property. It either
is or it isn't there is no in between. Okay,
with this in mine, now let's think of purely physical objects.

(47:49):
If I were to cut a table in half, it
would make sense to say that I have fifty percent
of a table. So for purely physical objects, they can
exist in percentages and degrees. But note how the same
thing cannot be said of a person. So if you
were to sever my limbs, then you could honestly say
I have fifty percent of a body. But note you
could not, in the same breath say that I am

(48:09):
therefore fifty percent of a person. That's why, because while
my body can exist in percentages or degrees, I cannot,
because I'm an all or nothing kind of thing. Now,
this has huge implications to so many areas, But just
before going there, So here's the argument. In a syllogism,
am II, there a purely physical object aggregate or a
soul and material substance. Purely physical objects can be divided

(48:33):
and exists in percentages or degrees. I cannot be divided
or exists in percentages or degrees because I'm an all
or nothing kind of thing. Therefore, I'm not a purely
physical object. Therefore I am a soul. So you have
Even if someone wants to say, what's your brain? That is?
You know that's where your personhood is at well, same thing.
You can have operations where they remove let's say, thirty

(48:53):
percent of your brain, But does that make you seventy
percent person No. While you may lose functioning, you don't
whose personhood. And here's where the implications comes in. Even
with ethics. You know, think about the question of abortion. Well,
sure the unborn are smaller than us. But here's the
big overall question. Does having more mass and matter mean

(49:15):
that you matter more? Well, now, men are typically larger
than women, but no one would say that men are
more valuable or more persons than women. Why because your
personhod is not grounded, grounded in the amount of master
matter that you have. So an interesting implication is that
a physicalism is true, you have to ground your value
as a person, because person who is going to be

(49:37):
grounded in the physical makeup your brain and body, which
would have to imply that the more massive matter you have,
the more valuable person you are. But again we know
that's intuitively not true. Thus, if I cannot be divided
and physical objects can, then physicalism can't be true and
I must be a soul. Wow.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
That's really good, very clear, very helpful. Love that all right.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
So the last one is an argument from free will.
What is free will? In a nutshell, I would define
free will is the view that I am the first
mover or source of my will or action. For example,
if I lift my arm to vote, and I was
the one that lifted my arm, then you could say
I had free will, and more specifically for the listeners,

(50:20):
what you call libertarian free will, but we're just going
to call it free will for short.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
By contrast, if you shock me with the taser and
that makes my arm go up, then I was caused
by something external and prior to myself, which means I
was not the first mover, and thus I did not
have That wasn't a free a free will or free action?
All right? Now, if physicalism is true, then human freedom
becomes impossible because the consequence of physicalism and the worldview

(50:46):
of naturalism is that determinism is going to be true.
What is determinism essentially the view that all thoughts, believes, desires, sensations,
and actions of human beings are causually determined by prior
factors external and beyond their control. So if we're reducible
to purely physical properties and parts, as the physicalists would
have us to believe, then all our actions are determined

(51:10):
by the laws of chemistry and physics. In other words,
physical objects don't act on their own, but are caused
to act by something external and prior to themselves. So
you know, water does not freely choose to freeze at
thirty two to green grease fahrenheit. A bullet cannot choose
to disobeyton Newton's laws of motion and swerve left instead
of go up. And you don't put a dollar into

(51:30):
coke machine and expect it to choose to sing you
a song instead of give you a coke. This is
because purely physical objects, again do not freely move or
act on their own, but are causally determined to act
based on the inputs and outputs of their you know,
physical makeup. Okay, So here's the syllogism. I'm either a
purely physical object or an immaternal soul. If I'm a

(51:53):
purely physical object, I do not possess free will. I
do possess free will. Therefore I'm not a purely physical optos.
Therefore I am a soul. Now here's a thought experiment
that I believe Aristotle again use this. He says, if
I move a rock with my staff, then we can
say that the staff move the rock, my hand move
the staff. But then we have to ask a question

(52:14):
what moved me? Now, in order for libertarian free will
to exist here, I have to be the first mover. Now,
let's see how a physicalist would have to answer this
if they want to hold onto free will. Well, first
I're going to have to show us that the moving
of the hand and the staff in the rock was
caused by you when you were the first mover. Now,
what they will? Typically, you know, when I ask people this,

(52:34):
will typically say, well, neurons firing. Neurons firing are in
my brain. It starts with me, and thus I'm the
first mover. Thus I have free will. But here's a
problem without going to all the details. If physicalism is
true and naturalism is true, and there is no God,
then something known as the law of causual closure would
have to be true. What is the law of causual closure.
It's essentially the law that every physical event must necessarily

(52:58):
have a prior physical cause. So every physical event is
going to have a prior physical cause. So note when
the physicalist says, well, neurons in my brain caused my
hand to move, called the staff to move, cause the
rock to move. They're pointing to a physical event. And
if their worldview is true, then given the law of
causal closure, they now need a physical explanation for that

(53:19):
neuron firing. Well, at this point they have two options,
both of which will make free will impossible. The first
option is to say, well, a different group of neurons
firing caused that first set of neurons firing. Okay, fine,
but again it's a physical event, and thus you now
need another physical cause. And what they'll eventually find out
is that this leads into an infinite regress where the

(53:41):
rock will never move. But given that the rock did move,
then it follows that that option isn't available, so we
cannot use the infinite regress. The second option is they
can posit, however, many sets of neurons firing in their brain,
But at some point they're going to have to point
to something external and to and beyond the person's control

(54:01):
that made that neuron fire, and that made the hand
movement the staff moved me in the rock move. But
note now they're having to point to external factors, which
means they are no longer the first mover, but intermediate
secondary movers, and thus that eliminates the possibility of free will.
So the only thing that could even allow free will
is if I am not a purely physical object determined

(54:22):
by the laws of chemistry and physics, but if I
am something that trendscendsive physical and that has the power
to act as a first mover on the physical, namely
the soul.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
What I've noticed in debates and discussions of this nature
with atheists and when these tensions are brought up between
this idea of well, if physicalism is true, determinism is true,
therefore how can we have free choices? This even has
moral implications, of course, is when one says, well, how
are you going to prosecute somebody if they had no choice?

(54:52):
But to do what they did right, but they always
not always, but many times. For example, I'm thinking of
Michael Schrmer. He would punt to compatibilism. And now I
personally can't get my mind around compatibilism in the sense
of I don't see how it solves a problem. But
I'm thinking of an atheist listening to this right now saying, oh, well,

(55:13):
I'm a compatibilist, So that really kind of solves the
tension between this idea that our choices still matter, but
that determinism is true. Am I characterizing that correctly? And
then if so, what do you think?

Speaker 3 (55:26):
Yeah, I think it's nonsense. So compatibilism is literally known
as soft determinism. So compatibilism is a type of determinism,
and it is essentially the view that determinism and free
will are compatible. Now, each compatibilist is going to well,
not each but you know, they are a variety of
compatibilists who will explain this differently. Sure on a popular level,

(55:50):
it's essentially they will argue that your will and actions
are necessarily caused by your greatest desires, and they think
that this helps them saves them because they say, well,
if my desires are in me and that's the cause
of my action, then I'm the first mover. But here's
a problem with that. It's a bait and switch. To

(56:10):
explain it one more time in a different way. Sure,
I may be caused to I don't know, left on
my arm, but guess what I want to lift on
my arm? So I'm being caused to do what I
already want to do. So what's the big deal if
I want to do it or think of this way?

Speaker 2 (56:27):
See, that's fine, Sorry to interrupt it. That's where my
brain goes. What like that just doesn't connect, But anyway,
go ahead, I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
That's where your mind goes.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Exactly.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Yes, So think if you were to buy a plane
ticket and get on the plane, then the speed of
the plane, maybe even where you will sit, and the
time you will arrive at your destination is all causally
determined and you cannot do anything else. But guess what,
it doesn't matter because that's what you want to do,
so you're still free to do it even though you
cannot do otherwise. That gets a little more technical, but

(57:01):
let's just here's where the problem. Here's where this ring
to the problem on compatibilism. Although we could say, let's
just grant that your actions are necessarily caused by your
greatest desire, the problem is your greatest desires are themselves
causally determined. So the reason I say it's a bait
and switch is because they're essentially saying this, I am
free to do whatever it is that I was causally

(57:23):
determined to do in the first place, and I'm going
to do what I want. And while I am free
to do what I want, here's a problem. You're not
free to want to begin with. So if my wants
and desires are causy determined by external factors beyond my control,
then I cannot be held accountable for anything that I want.
Just like a magnet cannot be or piece of metal

(57:46):
cannot be held accountable for its attraction to a magnet,
a person cannot be held accountable for their attractions, as
immoral as they may be.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
That's good. That's good.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
So here's where now. And this is a good segue
because is now what I often have some time, well
not often depends on who I'm talking to. People will say, well,
I just deny free will and if they take that route,
then here's where I extend the argument a little bit.
If they're going to deny free will, then two price
tags arise in philosophy. Price tags are the intellectual price

(58:19):
you have to pay to deny something. Yeah, in order
for someone to be logically consistent.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
Yeah. And I love how you explain this in the
chapter and repeatedly show the price tag throughout. That was Eric,
particularly towards the end of the essay. It was really helpful.

Speaker 3 (58:33):
Thank you. So the two price tags are going to
be a price tag of intellectual, intellectual integrity and moral responsibility.
So let's start with more responsibility. Okay. If they want
to deny the soul for this argument, they have to
deny free will. Okay, let's start with this. If external
factors beyond your control cause it determine your beliefs, behaviors,

(58:54):
and decisions, then no one could ever be held morally
responsible for their actions. So imagine a murder in which
a gun was used. Now let's look at the chain
of events. We see that the gun fired the bullet.
The bullet is actually what penetrated the victim's heart, and
it's actually the bullet that killed them. And caused a
person's death. But note that although the bullet was a
direct cause of death, we don't blame the bullet why

(59:17):
because it did not act or move in its own
It was caused to fire by the gun. So now
let's go back one step. Do we blame the gun? No,
or it depends when you vote for But no, we
should not blame the gun because we know the gun
did not act on its own, was caused by the
fire of the trigger, which was pulled by the person.
And we assume that persons were the first movers in

(59:39):
this chin of events and thus hold them morally accountable. However,
if human beings are purely physical objects, then much like
the gun or bullet, the person becomes nothing more than
an intermediate secondary mover in this cultural train of events.
In other words, if determinism is true because there was
no free will, even if they want to call it compatibilism,
then the person didn't choose to act on the but

(01:00:00):
like the gunner, bullet, was causy determined to act by
some prior event beyond their control. So, simply put, if
we cannot blame the gunner bullet because they were intermediate
secondary movers, then we cannot blame the person either. All
three were purely physical objects, neither of which was a
source of their actions, and thus neither can be held
morally accountable. So here's a price tag. If physicalism is true,

(01:00:22):
determinism is true. If determinism is true, human beings are
not morally responsible for their actions. But we know that
human beings are moratal responsible for their actions. Therefore, determinism
is false, and thus physical illness falls as well. Now
with the second one, the price tag of intellectual integrity. Now,
by intellectual integrity, I mean that a person has come
to believe something based on the evidence in a rationally

(01:00:45):
responsible way. That one's beliefs were formed through a process
of rigorous research, analyzing the evidence, and then freely coming
to one's own logical conclusion. And if someone does this,
then they can claim a sense of intellectual integrity for
their beliefs, whether they are atheists or Christians or whatever.
But note how this notion of intellectual integrity assumes that
in some sense people are rationally responsible for their beliefs

(01:01:08):
and had the freedom to come to these beliefs in
the first place. However, again, if physicalism is true, then,
and if naturalism does not allow for the possibility of
human freedom, then it cannot by default allow for the
possibility of intellectual integrity or rational responsibility either. So if
all my thoughts and actions are carsially determined, then here's

(01:01:30):
the irony is because some athists like to say that,
you know, they're the rational ones, they're the intellectually superior ones. Sure,
but if all these things are determined, then being an
atheist is no different than having blue eyes or green eyes.
You didn't do anything to earn that. It's something that
was biologically or physically determined by factors beyond your control.
And if that's the case, you cannot claim a sense

(01:01:51):
of rational superiority or responsibility for your thoughts, which means
that the non believer in this scenario is no more
into intellectual or no more rational than the religious knot
who's yelling on the street corner. They're both causey determined
to believe what they do, and neither is responsible for that.
Here's another piece of irony. Atheists like to typically call

(01:02:13):
themselves freethinkers, which means they're enlightened and unbound and not
brainwashed by the shackles of religion. Because they are free
to think for themselves. But if the atheist hosts of
physicalism and acknowledges that freewood does not exist, then they
must equally acknowledge that none of their thoughts or beliefs
were ever free to begin with. However, if none of
the thoughts or beliefs were ever free to begin with,

(01:02:35):
then ironically, by their own standards, the last thing they
could possibly call themselves is a free thinker. So, in
a syllogism, if atheism is true, freewood does not exist.
But because of the evidence, I freely chose to become
an atheist. Therefore free will exists. Therefore atheism is false.
And thus we see conscious is not physical, which answers
the first question, what is consciousness? What is the eye yourself? Well,

(01:02:58):
we saw three arguments that I am not identical to
my brain and body identity to change. Physical objects don't
retain identity to change. I do in the visibility of personhood.
Physical objects can exist in percentages or degrees, but I'm
an allernessing kind of thing. And three the argument from
free will. Purely physical objects don't have free will, but
I do. And if someone wants to reject free will. Well,

(01:03:20):
they also have to reject more responsibility and intellectual integrity.
And here's something that I've always found ironic that I
don't think I included this in the book, But in
the book The Laser Approach to Evangelism, A Simple Guide
for Converse with non Believers, I go into a little
more of the implications. Is I've always found it ironic
when an atheist argues with me that there is no

(01:03:40):
free will, because note that by doing that, they are
assuming that I have the free the free will to
listen to them and change my mind. But if I
don't have the free will to change my mind to
begin with, then it is utterly pointless to try and
change my mind on the question of whether or not
free will exists. So it becomes self feeding. Sam Harris

(01:04:01):
wrote a book on free will arguing that there is
no free will. Well, why would you do that if
we don't have the freedom to change our minds? Maybe
he was just hoping we would be determined to buy
it and just believe him. I don't know, but note
the irony in all of this, And so well, there's
lots more we can say, as a title implies, Given
all this, I simply don't have enough faith to be
a physicalist.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
That's good stuff. Well, you know you mentioned JP Moreland
a lot, and as you were going through those prices
to pay, if you will, for holding to this idea,
these false ideas is I keep thinking about how Morelan
will repeatedly point out how there are certain views that
people claim they hold, but the way they live betrays
something else. And you know, obviously you can deny that

(01:04:45):
we have free will, but everybody lives as if we do.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
I once heard I forget what book it is, but
it was a chapter on free will, and in the
book it says, if you don't think we have free will,
turn to page fifty two and you turn to page
Fiftywo gotcha.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
I love that. That's outstanding. Well, hey, this has been
absolutely outstanding, exactly what I wanted. You just have given
us such a great overview, and of course I want
to point people to the book to learn more. But
before that, you said something during the interview that you
said this, You said, philosophy of mind is where it's at,

(01:05:24):
and you also encouraged people who were getting into apologetics
to start pursuing this area. So before you tell us
where to find your stuff. I was wondering if somebody
was listening in there. They were all on board and
they're like, okay, I want to learn more about philosophy
of mind. Where would be a good place to start,

(01:05:45):
other than, of course your essay that's a given.

Speaker 3 (01:05:49):
Oh yeah, of course, other than the lazier post to Evangelisa.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
Depends on how how much they know about philosophy in general,
because there are certain principles that one needs to know.
But two great resources. One. JP Moreland has a short
book called The Soul, How we Know It's Real and
Why it Matters. I prefer the thicker version, which is
more of a little bit more academic, but he explains
it so well and he defines it. I mean, you

(01:06:15):
may have to read it a few times, but I
sure we should love our love God with our minds.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Right amen.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
It's called Body and Soul, Human Nature and the Crisis
in Ethics, and it's co written with Scott bi Ray,
who's in a philosopher and ethicis And the first half
is the philosophy of mind stuff. It's going to give
you what you need, the different views of physicalism, why
they fell. It's going to break down a much more detail.
You know what I broke down when it comes to substances, properties,

(01:06:44):
things of that nature. And then what I like about
this is that it goes into the ethical implications again.
So you're talking about abortion, euthanasia, in virtual fertilization, all
these things that are relevant to what is a person
in person because this will go take us much deeper.
So I won't won't go too much into this, but

(01:07:05):
suffice to say that my soul is what grounds my essence,
my nature. And so I'll open just this brief can
of worms. Everything that is conscious, given that consciousness is
a material, everything that is conscious is going to require
a soul. So, yes, animals have souls. And whenever I
debate do debates on the soul, I'd say four times

(01:07:29):
out of five the eighth this will ask me, oh,
so do animals have souls? And they expect me to
say now, and I say yes, and they look I
don't know why they look surprised, right, I mean, if
they would just read the Bibles they don't believe in.
You know, in Hebrew in Genesis, when it talks about
God creating the land creatures, it says he creates the
land of feesh, and that word of fetish is a
Hebrew word for soul. Animals are conscious us, animals have souls. Now,

(01:07:51):
someone might ask, what does that mean animals go to heaven?
Without answering that question, I think so, but I'm not
a hard position on that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
You just nevertheless, you just moved up my ladder a
favorite apologist, thank you anyway, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
Well there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
Thank you when you were already moving up. But you
just went up a couple of rungs really quickly when
you said animals go to heaven anyway, go.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
Oh, very nice. Sorry, sorry, no, no, that's okay. Usually
Christians asked me, does that mean animals have souls? The
reason I point this, I mean go to heaven. The
reason I point that out is because note the implication
Christians typically assume. If you were to ask your average
Christian what is a soul, they might say something like, oh,
it's the thing that goes to heaven. My goodness, it
is so much more than that, and it is not

(01:08:31):
in souls by their very nature don't go to heaven.
God is not obliged to send a soul to heaven.
That's another deeper theological discussion. But nevertheless, if you assume
all the soul is is the thing that goes to heaven,
my goodness, that there is so much you're missing out on.
And again, maybe we'll have to do another show. But
this gets into spiritual formation. This gets into anxiety depression OCD,

(01:08:53):
This gets into spiritual disciplines. This gets into Roman seven
where Paul says, what I want to do I don't do,
and what I don't want to do I end up doing.
And I've discovered that there's nothing good within myself. And
then he clarifies that is my flesh, and then he
talks about it makes this distinction between the inner man
and his flesh, and this war between his soul and body.

(01:09:14):
So you have Paul making substance dualist distinctions between his
body and him the self, and how that plays into sin,
spiritual formation, sanctification. This is why our bodies are living sacrifices.
He says, I beat my body into submission. This is
why fasting is important, because your soul is essentially telling

(01:09:34):
your body. I know you're hungry, but shut up. I
tell you when to eat. You don't tell me when
to eat. And thus we are building our inner man
and weakening the desire and will of our flesh because
there is a warrn between the soul and flesh.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
And no, this doesn't go into narcissism, because I've had
people bring that up. People say, but if you're going
to make this distinction between the body and soul, how
do you avoid narcissism? And my answer is always, and
it's pretty simple. I avoid nacissism by not being a gnostic.
You just don't do it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
I mean, I don't know what that's a good advice.
I mean, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:10:10):
So we can say that I am a soul, I
have a body. It's biblical. That would be an entire
other discussion, fascinating one too. But it shows that if
we are there's more to us in the physical then
naturalism physicalism cannot be true and there is an immature
world and it is foundational to reality. His name is
God and you should get to know him.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
M that's so good, good stuff, and real quick. I
would just add to your list of resources, if I
may be so bold. The first place I started to
get my mind around the soul and philosophy of mind
and stuff like that was actually JP Morland's interview with
Lee Strobel in the case for the Creator, that's kind

(01:10:51):
of a smaller, bite sized bit that somebody could get
their teeth around initially, But those other resources obviously are
going to give them much more than what you'd find there.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
That that is actually a great recommendation. Just go online
and look up morelands, you know, moreland stuff. That's how
I started, you know, before before I'm willing to you know,
pay my heart earned money, you know, to buy the books.
I want to see what this guy has to say.
And yeah, I have probably listened to everything I could
find online of Morland, especially when he talks about the
soul my channel, this segues into what you're asking. Where

(01:11:21):
they can find me. Just type in Eric Carnandez and
YouTube or YouTube dot com slash Airic Carnandez one of
the few Mexicans on YouTube doing apologetics, so it shouldn't
be hard to find. And I have a lot of debates,
not just on God, but a lot on the soul,
debates on consciousness. I always bring the soul and consciousness
into my debates, even if it's on God because of

(01:11:42):
what we talked about here, the implications. But yeah, lots
on my channel on there. Again. Anything Moreland puts out
there is going to be gold as well. Yeah, find
me on YouTube. You can. As I said, I work
with Texas Baptists. You can go to Texas Apologetics dot org.
I'm in charge of doing three and conferences around the
state of Texas and we've had everyone from Will and

(01:12:04):
Lane Craig. We've had Jpmorland, even Frank Turret, Greg Cochol
at our conferences. Our next one's in al Paso. We'll
have David Wood. He'll be one of our keynotes. Awesome guy,
great story. And then we'll have one in the Dallas
area at the end of this year. Just go to
again Texas Apologetics dot org and you can check it

(01:12:24):
out there. You can also go to Erickrnandezministries dot com.
I don't keep up with it as much. I've been
with Texas Baptist for about six years, and before that
I was working like three or four or five jobs.
That's a whole other story.

Speaker 2 (01:12:36):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
And when I started getting donations, I needed to get
a five o' one C three and that included a website.
I'm not very creative, so they asked me what you
want to call the website, and I said, Eric Hernandez,
I guess and they're like, how about Eric and his ministries.
I'm like, sure, but yeah, you can find stuff on there,
some articles, and it'll also link you to the book
and to my YouTube page as well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
Excellent. Well, Eric Canandis, thank you so much for coming
on the podcast. It's been a delight.

Speaker 4 (01:13:03):
Hey, thank you, thanks for listening to the podcast. If
you have a question you'd like us to address, or
just a message for us feedback good or bad, you
can either email us at podcast at apologetics three fifteen
dot com or leave a voice message for us using
speak Pipe. Just go to speakpipe dot com slash apologetics

(01:13:23):
three fifteen to leave us a message. And remember, if
you include a Ghostbusters quote in your question, we guarantee
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up to fifty percent better quality answers. Also, if you've
enjoyed today's podcast, please leave a review in iTunes or
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(01:13:45):
can find lots of Apologetics resources at apologeticspreefifteen dot com,
along with show.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
Notes for today's episode.

Speaker 4 (01:13:51):
Find Chad's Apologetic stuff over at Truthbomb Apologetics. That's truthbomb
dot blogspot dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
This has been Brian Auten and

Speaker 4 (01:13:59):
Chadgirl Us for the Apologetics three fifteen podcast, and thanks
for listening.

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144 - A Case for the Soul with Eric Hernandez

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