Can atheism really be reduced to “I’m not convinced”? In this episode, Trent Horn joins Matt Fradd to respond to some of the most popular atheist clips online, including arguments from Ricky Gervais, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Matt Dillahunty, and Alex O’Connor. They tackle bad definitions of atheism, burden-shifting, the “one less god” objection, fine-tuning, divine hiddenness, and the problem of evil from a Catholic perspective. Whether you’re wrestling with belief yourself or want better answers to common atheist objections, this conversation is packed with sharp arguments, clear distinctions, and practical ways to think through the debate.
Matt Fradd (00:00):
Trent. Matt. How are you?
Trent Horn (00:02):
I’m doing well.
Matt Fradd (00:04):
Answering atheism, how has it held up, your book?
Trent Horn (00:08):
It is the worst book I have written.
Matt Fradd (00:11):
No.
Trent Horn (00:12):
Well, it’s my first book. I’ve learned a lot since then, both in how to write a book and how to approach the subject of atheism. It’s not a bad book, but it’s one where I think I might try to approach the subject of atheism again. I’m glad I wrote it because there wasn’t a similar treatment on atheism from a Catholic perspective at the time. That was back in 2013 when I wrote it. And I really wanted to help Catholics have a solid response on the issue. So it’s definitely a subject I’ve learned a lot about since I’ve written the book and I want to revisit it at some point in the future.
Matt Fradd (00:41):
I’ll tell you something that I’ve never told you before.
Trent Horn (00:43):
Okay.
Matt Fradd (00:44):
I was sitting in a sushi restaurant in San Diego and I spoke to you on the phone and we’d never met before. So you hadn’t yet started at Catholic Answers. And you were talking about wanting to get into debates because we were talking about Dr. William Lane Craig and you said something like, “Yeah, I think I might throw my hat in the ring.” There was a slight part of me that was like, “All right.” I mean, I’m sure I don’t know if you’re that good to throw your hat in the ring.What do you mean throw your hat in the ring? And no, you’re that good. You’ve done an excellent job of debating atheists.
Trent Horn (01:12):
Yeah. It’s been a good experience and I’ve really enjoyed the quality of atheists that I have engaged over the years. I would say it’s increased. My very first debate was-
Matt Fradd (01:21):
I was there.
Trent Horn (01:21):
Yeah, you were?
Matt Fradd (01:22):
Front row.
Trent Horn (01:22):
In San Diego, yeah, was Dan Barker, Freedom From Religion Foundation. Dan and I debated again later in Minnesota. And I think his arguments really do lack in substance and he mirrors the evangelical Christianity that he despises in just not as intellectually rigorous position. And since then, I’ve debated other atheists and other people. And it’s something I definitely want to continue doing for sure.
Matt Fradd (01:46):
But the question is, can you refute these TikToks that producer Maria has chosen for us to watch? We will see. Let’s see. So let’s look at the first one.
Ricky Girvais (01:56):
This is atheism in a nutshell. One person says, “There’s a God.” An atheist says, “Can you prove that? ” They say, “No.” The atheist says, “I don’t believe you. ” That’s it. That’s all it is. You see, if you took every holy book, every holy book there’s ever been, every religious book, every bits of spirituality and hid them or destroyed them. They went away and never … And then you took every science book and destroyed that. In a thousand years time, those science books would be back exactly the same because the test would always turn out the same. Those religious book will either never exist or they’d be totally different because there’s no test.
Matt Fradd (02:40):
Oh my gosh, this breaks my heart because Ricky Givaz is so hysterical, but that is so sophimorically awfully bad. Have you ever spoken to a Christian? Anyway, what do you think?
Trent Horn (02:52):
Yes. I don’t even think … Well, he played … In his version of The Office, he played his name David,
Matt Fradd (02:58):
I think.
Trent Horn (02:58):
David
Matt Fradd (02:59):
Brent.
Trent Horn (02:59):
David Brent. Yeah. And I don’t think David Brent could come up with a take as bad of trying to say that. So there are two things that I noticed there. First, this is atheism in a nutshell. Excuse me. This is atheism in a nutshell. Well, how do I get in this nutshell? What’s happening to me? No, he has an inadequate definition of atheism. Very common. I’ll see among new atheist arguments. Well, atheism is just saying, I’m not convinced of theism. That’s not atheism. Philosophically, you look at the internet encyclopedia philosophy, Stanford encyclopedic philosophy. The best defenders of atheism, like Graham Oppy will say that atheism is the denial of the existence of God. So you look at it this way. There’s a question, does God exist? There are three ways to answer it. Yes, no, I don’t know. So yes would be theism. No would be atheism.
(03:49):
I don’t know would be agnosticism, would be saying, “I don’t know. ” And that’s the position that you should have if you are completely unaware. Even if you’re not sure if theism succeeds, you can’t say no. All you could say at that point would be, “Well, I don’t know if there is a God or not. You’re not justified in saying no yet unless you have other additional arguments.” So right there, he’s shifting the burden of proof. And also, I don’t know any philosophers who would say, “Oh, well, I can’t prove it. ” Yeah, maybe I can’t prove in the sense of a mathematical proof like an arithmetic, but I could make an argument that satisfies proof because the premises of the argument are more likely to be true and than false and there’s no logical fallacies in the reasoning. So I could call that a proof.
(04:34):
People can always bite at the premises, but I could still put forward a proof or a case at least that I would say this provides good reasons for believing that God exists. It’s
Matt Fradd (04:44):
Like the only Christians, it sounds like he’s ever encountered of people who are like, “It just seems like it. I just feel in my heart.” That’s the kind of straw man he’s attacking. And that’s
Trent Horn (04:52):
Not what Christian-
Matt Fradd (04:52):
Which is sad because he’s so intelligent. All right. It seems to me. I don’t want to go to the next one yet. I want to talk-
Trent Horn (04:58):
Yes. The other part about the science books, that’s probably the silliest part of it
(05:03):
Because he’s a few things he’s wrong about there. First, if we got rid of all science books, there isn’t a guarantee that they would come back because many scientific discoveries were historically contingent on societies reaching certain levels of development or having discovered things like you left the Petri dish out of things discovered like penicillin or many other things were discovered by happenstance in certain historical contingent facts. And that would explain why, for example, not every society on earth has achieved scientific progress at the same level. I mean, medieval European science was very different than medieval East Asian science, for example. So that’s not the case. We also know in a lot of the sciences, there’s something called the replication crisis where you can do an experiment and you can’t replicate it. This happens a lot in social science, social sciences. Also, the question about the holy books not coming back, well, a few things there.
(05:56):
One, I guess you’re correct that the historical facts in those holy books probably would not return again if they were all destroyed and all memory of them was lost, but so what? That doesn’t prove it didn’t happen. If you destroyed every history book on earth, they wouldn’t come back, but that didn’t mean history never happened. Also, many religious texts, the things that are in there that are trues of the natural law, do good, avoid evil, understanding moral duties that we have to others, many of those would return because the moral law is written on our hearts. The fact that there’s this universal witness to it is evidence in favor of theism that you don’t find comparable to atheism. I’m
Matt Fradd (06:36):
Going to put you on the spot because he says, I’ll say to a theist, why do you believe in God? And they say, “I just do or whatever. I have no arguments for it. ” If he was to say to you and you had to give a very quick answer, why do you think God exists? What would you say?
Trent Horn (06:49):
I would say that there are many things in the world. There are many things in the world that make much more sense if God exists than if he doesn’t exist. And the atheist converse explanation doesn’t follow. So the fact that there are things that exist and do not have to exist, the fact that a beginningless past would create contradictions if there were no God, the fact that we live in a universe where the odds of it being right for life are on par with finding a randomly marked Adam somewhere in the universe. The fact that there are universal moral laws and that human beings have moral features like moral responsibility and moral knowledge and that there have been so many experiences of God. I would say to him that for atheism to be true, every reported claim of a religious experience or a miracle must be false, but I need only one miracle fortheism to be true.
(07:48):
So which one’s more likely there?
Abraham Piper (07:50):
Nobody believes in God, and I can show you. First of all, I don’t mean believe in God exists. Lots of people believe God exists, but nobody believes that he’s like the ultimate determining factor of the universe. We’ll use run of the mill Christianity as an example. You’ve got God and you’ve got Satan. God, the source of all light and truth. Satan, the opposite, the deceiver. So what’s his job as the deceiver? Well, it’s to trick us. If he’s any good at his job and rumor has it, he is. It’s going to be hard to tell the difference between God and Satan. So who decides? We do. Nobody believes that God is the ultimate decider because that would mean deciding that God is the ultimate decider, making you the ultimate decider. Whether you think you’re believing God or your priest or you’re women’s Bible study leader, you’re not.
(08:27):
You’re believing yourself that they are worth believing. We are our own authorities, not because we’re arrogant and set ourselves in that prominent place, but because there’s no other option. If you have decided to follow Jesus or whatever other God, you are subordinating that deity’s authority to your own decision making. So yeah, you believe they exist, but they’re not in charge. You are.
Matt Fradd (08:51):
What Do you think?
Trent Horn (08:52):
I would say that he’s half right, but he’s discovered something that’s trivial and he’s making a big deal out of nothing. So yes, ultimately the entity that decides what you and I believe is you and I, God doesn’t make decisions for me. I have to decide what I am going to believe and what I’m going to do. The intellect can comprehend things and the will can choose to act or not act on that. But while you and I are the ones that decide what we will believe and do, we are held accountable for those beliefs and decisions by other people. So the point he makes is just rather trivial. So what? This term, I don’t know any Christian who says, “Well, God’s the ultimate decider.” What does that even mean? I think God is the ultimate foundation of reality. I’m sure he believes that there is something that’s the ultimate foundation of reality beyond himself, like atoms or molecules, but he has to make decisions.
(09:52):
What is he going to believe and how is he going to live his life? And then he would say, “Well, when you choose to make beliefs or decisions, you’re going to be held accountable for that. ” If you choose to live virtuously or viciously, he’s going to judge the decisions that you make where society’s going to judge them. But what if he’s wrong or society is wrong? What is the ultimate standard that we judge our decisions against? If it’s just ourselves, then we can never be wrong. If he doesn’t like what I do, well, hey, man, I’m the ultimate decider. Who are you to tell me if I’m right or wrong?
Matt Fradd (10:24):
I see.
Trent Horn (10:24):
I’m the ultimate decider in my life. You’re the ultimate decider in your life. But if he’s going to say that we can be held accountable for bad beliefs or bad actions, there has to be an ultimate standard beyond us that we subordinate ourselves to. So the question is not, who is the ultimate decider? Well, we have to decide for our lives. The question is, what is the ultimate standard that we conform our lives to?
Mehdi Hasan (10:46):
Before we go any further, I just want to check something. Are you an atheist?
Richard Dawkins (10:52):
For all practical purposes, yes. Nobody can actually say for certain that anything doesn’t exist, but I’m an atheist in the same way as I’m an alepricornist and an afariust and an apic unicornist.
Mehdi Hasan (11:05):
So you’re not 100% sure God doesn’t exist, but you are sure enough to make it practically-
Richard Dawkins (11:10):
I’m as sure as you are sure that fairies and leprechorns don’t exist.
Mehdi Hasan (11:14):
And do you see an equivalence between the idea of God and the idea of a fairy and eleprical?
Richard Dawkins (11:19):
The evidence for both is equally poor.
Matt Fradd (11:22):
It’s remarkable how bad that is. And it makes me think of what Bishop Barron has said, that he’s grateful to the new atheists because they came onto the scene, they seemed formidable, unstoppable, brilliant, but then it forced Christians to go, “Okay, to dig into our intellectual tradition to show why these were intellectually vacuous.”
Trent Horn (11:44):
Right. So we could say here, all right, first, he’s incorrect when he says you can’t prove the non-existence of something. You can easily do that. I can confidently say square circles do not exist because that would be a contradiction in terms. So there’s lots of things we can say do not exist. We can say there is no elephant in this room we are occupying elephant, the standard definition of the animal, adult size elephant, because if there were, the room would be a lot different. So we can prove the non-existence of things, even the universal non-existence of things. So he’s incorrect about that. And some atheists have tried to do that, but those arguments really don’t exceed. They usually misunderstand God rather than try to refute God. Next, he tries to say, “Well, basically there’s no God, there’s no leprechauns, no fairies, no pink unicorns.” But he doesn’t explain, well, how do you know there’s no leprechauns, no fairies, no pink unicorns, things like that.
(12:41):
So how do you know that? And then how do you apply that to God? So typically with creatures and magical creatures, we’d say if these are, even if they’re magical like leprechauns or fairies, they’re natural in the sense they belong to the ecosystem. So there are creatures that we discover like animals we didn’t know existed. And then we go and find them like a black swan, for example. Back in Australia though, “Oh, no such thing as black swans.” And you go to Australia, “I saw one in person.” I’m like, “My world is shattered. I thought they were all white.” So we discover new animals, new organos all the time. But if these things existed, there would be different evidence than there is now. So we would have more evidence. If there really were pink unicorns, we’d find horse carcasses, special hoof prints, people would identify them more.
(13:32):
The same with leprechauns or fairies. We just have some folktales, isolated folktales of them. One, the cottonly fairies was there was a photograph of little girls with fairies that they later said was a hoax. They cut it out. And you could tell in the photographs, you could see their cutouts. So if these creatures existed, there would be more evidence, but there isn’t.
(13:55):
So to make a similar argument for God, you have to say, “Well, if God did exist, we’d have more evidence.” And I said, “What more do you want? ” The belief in the divine is a universal thing across human history. There are people in all places and cultures who sense a connection with a transcendent other, though they might have the attributes are different, they don’t espouse materialism. And we have lots of other evidence that the universe is the product of God, whereas we don’t have natural things that we can say, “Oh yeah, a leprechaun of fairy or a unicorn definitely caused this thing.” You can explain stories about leprechauns and unicorns as the product of imaginations. You can’t explain the universe as the product of human imagination, but you can’t explain it as a product of a divine imagination.
Matt Fradd (14:41):
I don’t mean to pick on Ray comfort, but it seems to me that … But here we go. But it seems to me today Christians view Richard Dawkins the way atheists and many Christians view Ray comfort.
Trent Horn (14:51):
Look at the banana.
Matt Fradd (14:52):
Right.
Trent Horn (14:53):
Perfectly. God made the
Matt Fradd (14:55):
Banana
Trent Horn (14:56):
Perfect-
Matt Fradd (14:56):
I know what you mean, but explain what you …
Trent Horn (14:58):
Yes. So once Ray Comfort was making a comparison about how the universe or the earth is intelligently designed and we can locate design, if we can locate design in manmade objects, we can locate God’s design and natural object. So if you take a Coke can, he says, “Look, there’s a pop tab. It’s made perfect for me to open this Coke can. “
Matt Fradd (15:19):
Fits in my hand. It
Trent Horn (15:19):
Fits in my hand. The Coke is not a product of randomness. It was designed by a human. And yet now look at this natural object, the banana. It has a little pop tab. I can peel it open. Look, this also is a product of design, but presumably it is of a divine design because it’s part of the natural world, except the banana that comfort referred to was genetically engineered through selective breeding over many generations from wild bananas. So it’s actually more … I mean, all living things have divine design at their root level, but the elements of the banana Ray points out like the pop top, the easy peel, it’s general edibleness, this product’s of human design. So it was just a poor example in the analogy, but it’s lived on infamy.
Matt Fradd (16:07):
Well, I pray for his comeback story. Wouldn’t it be a beautiful thing if Dawkins came to Christ? We can pray for it.
Trent Horn (16:15):
There is still time.
Sam Harris (16:16):
When talking to any person of faith, the atheist is always in a position to say that you know exactly what it’s like to be an atheist. So for instance, you’re a Christian. You know exactly what it’s like not to believe that the Quran is the perfect word of the creator of the universe, right? And you know exactly what it’s like not to lose sleep over whether or not you should convert to Islam. And you know that feeling for a thousand other gods, right? You know what it’s like not to care about Zeus or to think that Zeus needs to be in just the mythology section of the bookstore. You know what it’s like not to be a Mormon and add infinitum. The atheist is simply in that position with respect to one more God and one more faith tradition. And so there really is … 99% of my experience would be deeply familiar to you and in conversation with any other faith tradition.
Trent Horn (17:14):
Yes. This is the one less God objection. Actually as its roots, I remember reading a very early account of this objection in the works of H.L. Mankin, who was an early 20th century newspaper author, reporter. He reported on the Scopes Monkey trial, the famous evolution trial, Tennessee, I believe, that took place. And he talked about how, why believe in God? He’s just in the graveyard of the gods with all the other gods who have died before him that people don’t believe in. So I think that’s one of the earliest
(17:43):
Use of the argument. The one less God objection fails because Christians do not reject other deities arbitrarily. We have reasons for that. And primarily these other beings we reject. The reason I don’t believe in Zeus or Thor isn’t because I believe in my God rather than those gods, I don’t believe in Zeus or Thor because they’re not God with a capital G. When I say that I believe in God, I say I believe in the infinite, uncreated, purely actual ground of all being in reality. And so that cause which is not limited in existence, in power, in knowledge or goodness, that is what I mean by the word God. So all these other candidates in mythology and other religions, you can wipe out like 98% of them because they’re not the God of classical theism. They’re not actually God. They’re just super beings with lowercase G.
(18:40):
That’s not God. Same a Mormonism. I’m not a Mormon because I believe the universe was created, not crafted and cobbled together by a heavenly father who’s an exalted man. So that would leave me with maybe just like Bahai, Islam, a few other monotheisms that believe in an infiniteity, to which then I would say, “Well, I believe in the Christian God because God revealed himself historically.” The objection is also similar. It’s like somebody who would say, “Well, Matt, a single guy tells you, Hey man, I know what it’s like. You know what it’s like to not be married. You’re not married to Susan. You’re not married to Rachel. You’re not married to all these other women. I’m just married to one less woman.”
Matt Fradd (19:24):
We’re all single.
Trent Horn (19:24):
Yeah. You’re basically, you’re a bachelor when it comes to millions of wives. I just have one less wife than you. It’s like, no, I am not. I am married. My life is radically different and you are radically different from me in this regard. So similarly, I could say you could use this argument for any kind of skepticism. It’d be like, imagine an anarchist saying, “Well, look, you don’t believe in constitutional monarchy. You don’t believe in communism or fascism.” There’s all kinds of governments you don’t believe in Matt.
(19:58):
I just believe in one less government. It makes it seem like, oh, you don’t have to make a case for anarchy because all the other governments are arbitrarily rejected. You say, “Well, no, I don’t reject them arbitrarily. This is the best form of government that can work.” So you have to prove why we shouldn’t have anything at all. You still have a burden to prove. And it’s the same when it comes to atheism or being amoral. They say, “Well, you’re not a utilitarian, you’re not a virtue theorist. I just believe in one less morality than you. No, I think I have the best moral system.” Why do you think there is no moral system at all? Make your case. It’s very typical of new atheism is this idea that, oh, well, the theist has to carry the whole burden of proof and we don’t have to do anything, which is a shifty way of dealing with the burden of proof.
Matt Fradd (20:42):
Reflecting back on the four horsemen, so- called of the new atheism, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and- Dawkins. Who did you find most insufferable and who did you like the most?
Trent Horn (20:57):
That’s a good question. They all have their flaws to be sure. Daniel Denitt is a philosopher, so he’s probably the most adept one to answer the question, but he tried to, for a while, rebrand new atheism and be brights.
Matt Fradd (21:14):
We’re
Trent Horn (21:14):
The brights, which would mean that you and I are the dims.
Matt Fradd (21:17):
Yes.
Trent Horn (21:18):
And that’s kind of a bit much. I think my favorite was probably Christopher Hitchens.
Matt Fradd (21:23):
Everyone says that. He’s at least charming. He’s at least funny.
Trent Horn (21:26):
He is at least charming. Harris might be a number two. I always appreciate that Harris is willing to go after Islam and nobody else would. So I appreciated that. I rank him at number two. So probably be a tie between Dennet and Dawkins. And I feel like Dennet is at least a decent enough philosopher. I’m going to say, I think Dawkins is probably the most insufferable because he was trying to wield that Oxford biology PhD when it’s completely unrelated to the subject being discussed. Alvin Planting did a great take down of him in a review of the God delusion. He said that to call the God delusion sophomoric would be an insult to sophomores everywhere. So I am going to say Dawkins was the most insufferable one to me.
Matt Fradd (22:08):
Now, I remember, I think it was back in 2009 perhaps when Williemine Craig debated Christopher Hitchens.
Trent Horn (22:14):
Yes
Matt Fradd (22:15):
I Remember because I had, like you and every other Christian who was interested in these things, I had listened to every William Lane Craig debate on MP3 on some random website. I was really afraid to watch this debate because I just could not see another Christian. I didn’t want to see another Christian apologist get his ass handed to him by Christopher Hitchens. No, it was definitely the other way around.
Trent Horn (22:39):
Absolutely. Absolute slaughter. Because Hitchens, it was a formal debate. Craig stuck to his arguments and Hitchens did not bother to even try to rebut the arguments. And Craig was completely on point in that. And that’s why what we’re seeing now is that’s why I think this kind of snarky new atheism, it’s really fallen out of favor where people more want to say, “Well, if we’re going to address it, we at least have to get to the arguments because Christians are really using a lot of these against us.”
Matt Fradd (23:04):
All right. Let’s look at the next one. Ah, your friend, that Dillahunty here, before we play this, you debated him on my channel, didn’t
Trent Horn (23:10):
He? I did. Yes, I did.
Matt Fradd (23:11):
He’s the, I’m not convinced guy.
Trent Horn (23:13):
He’s the claims are not evidence guy, which I made a video about how asinine a phrase that is to say claims are not evidence. They’re not proof, but most things we believe in life is a claim that somebody made. And even many atheists phrased the response I made to him because it’s absolute silliness to say something like claims are not evidence.
Matt Dilahunty (23:36):
People say, “Oh, it’s amazing that the universe just seems so fine tuned for us.” Well, first of all, all the best evidence points to the fact that we evolved to fit the universe that we find ourselves in. Additionally, Hawking has pointed out that if the universe is fine-tuned for anything, it seems to be fine-tuned for the creation of black holes, which is antithetical to life. And we know that the vast majority of the universe is also antithetical to life, that there are the building blocks of life all over the place. But if I just stick you, I don’t even have to stick you out in space and just hold you underwater for a while. The idea, oh look, it’s all comes together just for us is so monumentally arrogant. But then to say, “I just can’t imagine how this could have happened unless there was a creator and that makes a creator likely is fallacious.”
Matt Fradd (24:20):
All right. So the fine-tuning argument, what do you think?
Trent Horn (24:22):
The fallacy here is he is misunderstanding the term fine-tune,
(24:29):
Which is very common in the literature on this argument. Fine-tune does, because we often think, oh, fine-tuning argument means that a creator designed the universe for the maximum amount of life possible. If fine-tune is used as a synonym for design, it is a fallacious argument. If you say like, “Oh, the constants and conditions that allow life to exist are designed, therefore the universe is designed, therefore God exists.” That would be circular reasoning. Fine-tuning does not mean designed. It’s a neutral term. All it means is that to say the constants and conditions are fine-tuned is to say that the conditions that are necessary for life are extremely narrow within a far, far wider band of possibilities. That’s all fine-tuned means. It just means the conditions that are right are really, really, really, really narrow and the band of possibilities is extremely, extremely wide. We’re talking orders of 10 to the 120th power magnitude of wide.
(25:39):
And so the odds of it being of the constant conditions falling within that narrow band that are life permitting is incredibly, credibly unlikely if we are operating by chance alone, but it’s much more likely if design is another competing theory. So that’s why when he brought up a few different terms there, he said, “Well, the universe isn’t fine-tuned. It looks like he’s using the word fine-tuned to mean designed.” It doesn’t look like it’s designed. It looks like replace fine-tuned when he’s speaking with the word design, you’ll see what he’s getting at. He’ll say, “It’s not designed for humans, it’s designed for black holes because there’s a ton of black holes.” That’s fine-tuned doesn’t mean designed, just means the odds of us being able to exist. It’s much more likely if there is design rather than chance.
(26:27):
Then he says, “Well, the evidence is that we evolve to fit the universe.” No, because these constants and conditions are what makes the evolution of life possible in the first place. So if the constants were wrong, for example, you could get a universe that’s the size of an atom or one that’s only filled with hydrogen and you can’t have complex life with just hydrogen. So he’s just incorrect that we evolved to make that. And then yeah, he just misunderstands what the fine-tuning argument is saying. He’s trying to say, “Oh, well, the universe isn’t designed because only a tiny amount of it has life.” Well, imagine you visit a thousand acre ranch. Well, something that’s part of a thousand acre ranch and it’s uninhabited wilderness, you come across a cabin in the middle of it. And if I said, “Oh, this seems like it’s designed.” If you said, “You look at this huge ranch, there’s no cabins.” I can’t believe we could say this ranch was designed when it’s just this cabin here.
(27:26):
Okay, maybe not the whole ranch, but definitely this part of it, for sure. I don’t see how that’s relevant to me reaching the conclusion that design is evolved here. So yeah, the fine-tuning argument does not say the universe was created for producing the maximum amount of life. All we are saying is that the conditions necessary for life to evolve exists within a tiny narrow band within a much wider range of constants, and it’s much more likely for that, the constants to fall within that band if they were designed rather than if chance is operating.
Alex O’Connor (27:59):
There is a very real contingent of non-believers, and I would count myself among their number who are unable by any means to discover him, who seek and do not find, who knock and receive, as it were, no answer. This strange phenomenon is known as the problem of divine hiddenness. If there is a God, then simply, why is he hidden from so many of us so much of the time? I think it would be great if God existed. I really do. I would absolutely love to escape death. I would relish being a recipient of unconventional love. Less selfishly, I would love to be able to worship that which deserves to be worshiped. I just don’t think it’s true. I try as I might. Look where I can. I find no response, no hint, nothing. I don’t choose to disbelieve in God anymore than I choose to disbelieve in aliens despite how much I might want them to.
(28:53):
It seems to me that God has a lot to answer for here. Is it not troubling, Jonathan, for as a Christian, that your place of birth is a reliable statistical indicator of how likely you are to be saved. I’ll say that again. Your place of birth, which is entirely arbitrary, is a reliable indicator of how likely you are on Christianity to be saved. You’re significantly more likely to be a theist if you’re born in Rwanda than if you’re born in Thailand. Can this situation really obtain under the supervision of a God who wants to come to know us and makes his existence equally accessible to all? The chances seem infinitely small, but the existence of meaningless or unnecessary suffering does seem to be incompatible with the existence of a God who loves us and has the power to prevent it from happening. We’re sometimes told that God has morally sufficient reason to allow suffering to exist.
(29:48):
Indeed, if God is good, then he must have such sufficient reason. Perhaps suffering is necessitated by human free will. Perhaps suffering helps to develop a person’s moral character So, or maybe it’s necessary to achieve some other end that God wishes to bring about. But intuitively, there appear to be instances of suffering that cannot serve any such end. And if even one example of these turns out to be an actual case of unnecessary or meaningless suffering, this would be enough to cause a problem.
Matt Fradd (30:20):
All right. So we’re dealing with the problem of the hiddenness of God and the problem of evil. I think the problem of the hiddenness of God could probably be a subset of the problem of evil. And I like the response because I’ve sometimes heard Christians, not so much these days, but back in the day, say, and maybe today, say things like, “Well, the only reason you’re an atheist is because you want to do all these terrible sins.”That’s the only reason. You just have bad faith. You’re not actually desiring that it be a God. If you were, then you’d find him. And then you’ve got people who I think are very sincere like, “No, no, I really mean it. ” And then Christian’s like, “No, no, you don’t really mean it.
Trent Horn (30:54):
” Right. And what I would say here is that smart, sincere people can still make cognitive and rational errors where they fail to apprehend the truth. I think that the argument from divine hiddenness that Alex is putting forward makes questionable assumptions, like that God would make it the case that everyone would automatically come to believe in him and not make bad choices or incorrect choices that make that belief difficult or not obtain. I would say that the answer to the divine hiddenness is kind of similar to the problem of evil, that one reason evil obtains is that human beings have free will. And so if God gives us free will in the moral area, he also gives us free will in the cognitive area of our lives. And there can be very smart, sincere people who come to deny things that I think are very obvious.
(31:49):
Paul and Patricia Churchland are philosophers who are limitative materialists. So they would say that the self does not exist. They speak about, “My brain did this or my brain did that, but not I. ” That I is sort of a folk psychology or an illusion. And
Richard Dawkins (32:05):
There
Trent Horn (32:05):
Are philosophers who deny the existence of the self. But just because they’re very smart, it doesn’t mean I’m still pretty confident I exist. So I’d say to Alex, yeah, but there’s also lots of people who are very convinced that God does exist. So you saw the same problem saying that there isn’t a God. How do we explain all of that? Where even if someone doesn’t know God, God can judge them based on what they have come to know. Either knowing like conscience, for example, knowing that they’re called to something else in this life, that God will not punish someone merely for a cognitive error, merely for something that is not a moral decision that they have made. Rather, God holds us accountable for the moral choices that we make in life. Finally, I would say when it comes to divine hiddenness and suffering, you can kind of flip the argument around.
(32:56):
All of it divine hiddenness, this person really wants God to exist and can’t find him or a really bad thing happened. Why would God allow that? His arguments basically can be subsumed into this. If non-justifiable suffering exists, then God does not exist. Non-justifiable suffering exists, therefore God does not exist. You can run the argument backwards. If gratuitous evil, no God, God, therefore no gratuitous evil. And even he would admit, well, there are evils that are justified. You say, “Oh, I could see a good reason for that evil. I could see how God would allow that. I could see how God would allow that. I can see how God would allow that person to end up not knowing he existed because of the free choices they made, but I don’t know how God could allow this, this or this. ” To which I would say, so you’re saying you can’t see it, but what’s to keep an all powerful, all knowing God from bringing good from those things?
(33:48):
When you’ve already shown he can bring good from these other things, I have no reason to doubt he can bring good from those things, but I have good reason to believe that there is a God. I have better reasons to believe God exists than that an omnipotent omniscient God cannot bring good from X, Y, and Z. I have better reasons to believe there is a God than he’s incapable of addressing these problems. Therefore, I can hold fast that God does exist and these problems aren’t actually problems at all.
Matt Fradd (34:17):
And what about his claim about the poor fellow in Thailand who’s born into a culture that doesn’t believe in the existence of God and perhaps through no fault of his own is an atheist? What does the Catholic church say about that?
Trent Horn (34:28):
Well, what the church says in paragraph 16 aluminum is that God desires the salvation of all people. So it is possible for anyone to be saved and God will take into account the historical circumstances that could prevent a person from knowing he exists or fully trusting in him. So just because someone doesn’t know God, if they don’t know God through no fault of their own, what we would call invincible ignorance, then God can take that into account. And if a person receives infinite unending happiness in the next life, that compensates for any suffering they may have endured in this life due to the lack of knowledge of God, whereas God may have justifiable reasons for not making his existence
(35:13):
Obvious. And there’s a wide variety of goods we can think of. So for example, God may want us to freely choose to obey him without feeling like he’s just always over our shoulder. It’s like when you’re on the highway and there’s a police officer behind you, you don’t slow down out of the goodness of your fellow motorist. You do so because you’re worried about being punished. And so maybe God will want us to have more free reign to be able to choose or not choose him or make choices for or against him in the moral life, for example. That would be one reason that would come about there.
Matt Fradd (35:51):
I remember one question you have asked atheists, and I want to ask you why you asked this question. You say to them, and I’ve done this too, I’ve learned from you, what’s the best argument for theism and why does it fail? Why is that a good question?
Trent Horn (36:07):
It helps to root out the new atheists and the Reddit atheists and others who just want to sneer at God and sneer at Christianity, but are unwilling to examine the evidences we have put forward. Why should you and I have to go to all that trouble to present it when they won’t even go to see what’s already there? Our Lord said, “Do not cast pearls before swine.” And I think there’s wisdom there. If a person is not willing to do some effort on their own part to examine the case, you don’t necessarily have to present that to them, especially if you’re not as familiar with the arguments. But it’s a way to reveal that they haven’t bothered to do any of the work at all. So maybe they can do that and then they can come back to you, but they’re not in a position to boast that Christianity is intellectually vacuous when they’re unwilling to even examine it in the first place.
(36:57):
And
Matt Fradd (36:57):
What do you say to the person who’s willing to believe in God, but is afraid that they could never go up against Alex O’Connor in a debate and of the opinion either explicitly or implicitly that unless I can respond to every possible objection from every possible contender, I really shouldn’t go ahead and accept something like God’s existence.
Trent Horn (37:17):
I would say that you can believe something is true without being able to prove that to others. My favorite analogy of this would be if you were wrongfully convicted of a crime you didn’t commit. And actually there is, in the United States, there is a plea for this. It’s called an Alford plea. It’s a plea where you can say, “Look, I don’t want to go to trial. I admit the court has enough evidence to convict me, but I didn’t do it. ” That’s different than guilty. So a lot of times to avoid a trial, you would say, “Well, I’m not fine. I’ll plead guilty. I don’t want to. ” You could say, “Look, I didn’t do this, but I don’t want to go to trial because I admit you can probably convict me. I know I didn’t do it, but nobody’s going to believe me.
(37:58):
I may all get a lighter sentence because we’re not going to trial, but I want to make it clear I didn’t do this. I’m not admitting guilt.” So in the same way, you could be wrongfully convicted of a crime. Does that mean like, oh, they have all this evidence and you can’t answer it, but I have evidence that they can’t share. So you might have evidence interiorly and subjectively of the existence of God, and that’s one of the surest evidence that we have. You’re not able to communicate that to others, but it doesn’t follow. You should abandon that sure faith you have in God just because somebody raises an argument somewhere and odds are they’ve raised an argument someone else could have raised an answer, you just don’t know where to find the
Matt Fradd (38:33):
Answer. Yeah. And if I’m not epistemically justified and accepting a belief until I can respond or unless I can respond to every possible objection or individual, then I will never accept anything. You
Trent Horn (38:47):
Couldn’t believe anything. Because there’s always somebody. I mean, there are people who obsess about flat earth theory, who come up with what seem like convincing
Matt Fradd (38:54):
Arguments. Yeah. And if I got into a debate with them, they would win because I haven’t thought about this.
Trent Horn (38:59):
Right. But that doesn’t mean you are not justified in believing, no, the world is round and I have good reasons to believe that.
Matt Fradd (39:06):
Yeah. Trent, thanks so much.
Trent Horn (39:07):
Thank you.