In this episode, Trent shares a dialogue with the one critic of the Faith that keeps him up at night!
Welcome to the Counsel of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Council of Trent Podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers apologist and speaker, Trent Horn. The title of this episode, a little click-baity but I’m okay with that, The Apologist I Fear the Most. Who is the apologist that I fear the most, the critic that I don’t want to go up against? The answer, it’s me. Me. I hate to say it, but I have a friend who’s going to help us rebut me. His name is David Bates. He is the host of Pints with Jack, a wonderful podcast on C.S. Lewis. And so today we’re going to talk about my fiercest critic, and we’re going to do a live table read for you. David, welcome back to the podcast.
David Bates:
It’s wonderful to be back again. I couldn’t help but think when you said that you were going to try and rebut yourself, I thought of that scene in The Office where Dwight fights his greatest enemy, the only person who could possibly beat him, himself.
Trent Horn:
It almost drives him over the edge, he cannot handle that. For me, and I am serious, there are critics out there who are formidable, who advance good arguments, but for me as an apologist, and what I try to do, and I try really hard to understand arguments, and sometimes people are critical of me, they’ll say, “Oh Trent, you give too much credit to this person. You give too much credit to that person. You’re too nice to this person.” But I will say I got an email last night from someone saying, “I’m a Protestant. I’m entering the church because your videos, you always show respect to the people that you disagree with.” So I’m not going to abandon that. I would rather be too nice to someone than to be too mean to them, frankly.
But so, when I do that, David, what I try to do is I’ll look at arguments and a lot of times when I come up with an argument for the faith, sometimes people will take that, if you’re an apologist and say, “Oh, this will work. This is great,” and just run with it. But I have a tendency I want to stop and say, “Now, wait a minute. What are the weaknesses in this? Where can you poke holes in this?” I want to think it through a little bit more. I’m not okay with just pat answers, and I think I’m really glad to talk with you because I feel like the people that you read and study, especially somebody like C.S. Lewis probably have a similar attitude. They don’t want pat or trite answers. They’re willing to ask those hard questions. I think you feel that same way.
David Bates:
Absolutely. You can give a snappy response that doesn’t actually really address the issue and it can be dismissive and sound very confident, but unless you’ve really responded to the substance of what the objection is, you haven’t really done anything apart from alienate your audience.
Trent Horn:
Right. So what I want to do today, this is fun, I am currently writing a book and the title is TBA, but it’s going to be something like, Confronting My Inner Skeptic: Confronting My Inner Anti-Catholic. And it’s a book. I love dialogue books. One of my first apologetic books that I read was, Between Heaven and Hell, a Peter Crave dialogue book between C.S. Lewis, Aldous Huxley, John F. Kennedy, and we talked about that when we had our discussion about C.S. Lewis and counterfeit Christs. I love dialogue books. When I first started studying philosophy when I was 17, 18 years old, I loved Plato’s dialogues. Dialogues are really fun. We need to bring them back more. And so I wanted to do a dialogue book about the faith, but I just didn’t want it to be your standard boring dialogue.
So I wanted it to be really with that voice that’s inside of me, that when I go out there and I put forward arguments for the faith, there is a voice inside of me. People say, “Oh, how do you do this? I have doubts. I have this.” I get a voice inside of me that says very disturbing things about our faith that tries to instill doubt. But I’m not going to shut that person up. I wanted to in this book engage that person for the benefit of others who have that little voice inside of them as well. And you know what, I’m glad you’re here actually because you can comment on this, I think this is something C.S. Lewis was very sensitive towards as well, because he wrote that great little prayer, The Apologist’s Prayer, where he takes away the glamor for being an apologist, right?
David Bates:
Yeah. He speaks about his witty responses that while the audience laugh, angels weep.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Yeah, and he understood that how he gets out there and does the debate and he feels so weaker in that moment defending these doctrines. I want to confront this and so what I want to do is you and I will do a table read. So, everybody, this is a rough draft. I mean, we’re still in the writing process. Things could change later, but I’m going to share with you the first chapter, and then one of the later chapters with this dialogue book. So David will be my inner skeptic inside of me. I will be the apologist writing this book. And the goal of this book, as I said, is to confront those doubts I have, because they might be the very same doubts you have. And, for me, the doubts are always going to be different, by the way. There’s different things about the faith people have difficulties with. My difficulties may not be the same as your difficulties, and that’s fine.
I’m writing this book more about myself, but I just wanted to be honest in this assessment and show the methods we can use when we confront these difficulties. So shall we have at it, good sir?
David Bates:
Absolutely. And I have to say, I do love the fact that your inner cynic is an English guy.
Trent Horn:
There’s is a little British accent. “Well, what about this?” Oh no. Oh no. All right. We’ll begin scene chapter one, a used faith salesmen.
David Bates:
Why you doing this?
Trent Horn:
Doing what?
David Bates:
This, this whole, “I’m going to write a book where I talk to my inner skeptic about my doubts about Catholicism.”
Trent Horn:
Well, it’s an interesting idea. People will get to see how I confront the doubts and the concerns I have with the Catholic faith.
David Bates:
But it’s not really an honest investigation into your doubts, is it?
Trent Horn:
What do you mean?
David Bates:
Look, you’re the equivalent to a used car salesman, a used faith salesman, if you will. This book isn’t about honestly wrestling with doubts that could lead you to abandoning your faith. This is about you glossing over a car’s problems in order to jip some sucker into buying it. Why should anyone trust what you have to say about Catholicism when you’re so clearly biased in favor of it?
Trent Horn:
Let’s pump the brakes on your analogy. In your example, the salesman knows the car is a lemon and is engaged in deception. But I sincerely believe the Catholic faith is true, good, and beautiful. I could be sincerely wrong, but I’m not trying to sell anyone a faulty product.
David Bates:
Really? How much is this book going for online?
Trent Horn:
The fact that you can purchase this book or Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion or any other book doesn’t mean the author is only out to make money.
David Bates:
But if you’re convinced Catholicism is true, then why do you still have doubts?
Trent Horn:
I don’t have doubts if by doubts you mean I formally reject something the church obliges me to believe. I admit, some things the church teaches are difficult, but every belief system has difficulties. I read well-known atheists who said things like consciousness or objective morality have to be illusions because they’re so difficult to explain under atheism. I’ve read Protestants who admits some Bible passages sound a lot like proofs for what they consider to be un-biblical Catholic doctrine.
David Bates:
Right. But you think those difficulties are insurmountable and so they should become Catholic. Isn’t it hypocritical of you to not convert in the face of similar difficulties within Catholicism?
Trent Horn:
Well, I don’t think the difficulties are equally insurmountable. When people say all religions are basically the same, for example, that’s like saying all sports are basically the same. It reveals a shallow understanding of the subject at hand. For example, there are some atheists that I’ve engaged online who’ve told me that Muslim apologetics are incredibly inferior to Christian apologetics and that of all the Christian denominations Catholicism has the best chance of being true. Also, the fact that every belief system has difficulties doesn’t mean every belief system isn’t true. Some of them have to be right about some things.
David Bates:
Why can’t they all be wrong?
Trent Horn:
Because either atheists are right that God doesn’t exist or theists are right in believing God does exist. Either Christians are right that Jesus rose from the dead or non-Christians are right and he didn’t. And after reviewing the evidence, I believe Catholicism has the greatest chance of being true in spite of some of its difficulties. I like how Cardinal Henry Newman puts it. “10,000 difficulties do not make one doubt. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem of which the answer is or is not given to him without doubting that it omits of an answer or that a certain particular answer is the true one.”
David Bates:
Yeah, but you make a living defending the Catholic faith. There is no way you’re going to write a book that cancels your meal ticket.
Trent Horn:
Sure, there may be people who have a counterfeit faith that only exists to keep their careers afloat. But that’s not me. You remember when I became Catholic in 2002, when the abuse scandal broke? It was embarrassing to tell people I’d become Catholic, but I didn’t care. Even during my career as an apologist, I’ve written articles and I’ve taken positions that have made other Catholics mad at me. And guess what? I don’t care. The only thing I care about is if my beliefs are true.
David Bates:
You also care about providing for your family. I mean, if you were really honest and Catholicism turned out not to be true, you’d have to give up your job, your livelihood. Would you really do that?
Trent Horn:
I’d have to. I hear stories from Protestant pastors, Protestant pastors who’ve read my books or other works of apologetics, and they gave up their entire careers in order to become Catholic. If I would encourage them to do that in order to pursue the truth then I’d have to be willing to do the same. I mean, I like talking about disaster preparation on my podcast. I suppose that’s always an alternative career or a backup.
David Bates:
But this book is going to be totally boring. We all know how it’s going to end. I make the objections, and then you, the apologist, the defender of the faith, ride in triumphantly with all the perfect answers. And since you control what I’m saying, it’s not going to be a fair fight. You can always make sure you win. So why would anyone even bother reading this?
Trent Horn:
Because I don’t have the perfect answer to every question. For example, in the face of some difficulties, there may be multiple answers that are all possible but I still haven’t figured out which one is the most probable. And you’re right, I am biased, but so are you. So is everybody. So let’s not pretend there is some group of people immune to bias that we alone should trust on questions about religion. We all have psychological defects that lead us to things like confirmation bias or the tendency to welcome evidence that supports our current beliefs and ignore evidence that contradicts those beliefs. That’s why I’m excited to write this book with you, David.
David Bates:
Me. Why?
Trent Horn:
Because you ask those questions that keep me from accepting easy answers that may not be true. So go ahead, let’s have an honest talk about some tough issues. So we’ll do end scene right there. I also want add, one thing that inspired me to write this book is I read a wonderful dialogue book by my friend Randall Rouser, who is a Christian apologist, where he talks to his inner atheist. And I said, “That’s a really fun idea. I need to do this.” And Randall said, “You should.” So that’s, by the way, I just have to add that intermezzo where I was a big inspiration for the book. Now, let’s jump forward in the book a little to a later chapter so you can see how I might engage a tough question and a real doubt or concern that I have. So begin scene.
David Bates:
You’ve got to admit there’s one nice thing about being a Protestant apologist over a Catholic apologist.
Trent Horn:
What’s that?
David Bates:
Well, as a Protestant, you have a fixed amount of data to defend. It’s just a set number of books of the Bible. After studying them, you’ll know all the major objections people will throw at it. It’s not like an atheist will say, “Can you believe the Bible says this?” and you need to turn on the evening news to see what he’s talking about.
Trent Horn:
But for Catholics, it’s different.
David Bates:
Right. You have to deal with everything that was said by the Popes and the church councils for 2000 years after Christ.
Trent Horn:
So far, the only difficulty you’ve presented is that Catholic apologists have to do more homework than Protestant apologists. We have more to cover, but the historical objections to Catholicism are pretty well-worn. When you read Luther, Calvin, Whitaker, Salmon, Turnitin, and modern Protestant apologists, you see the same objections recycled over and over again. It’s more material to know, but it’s not a different kind of problem.
David Bates:
Mm, not quite. It’s not just that you have more material to learn, it’s that the amount of that material continues to grow every day, and each day that passes you face the threat of a contradiction that will falsify Catholicism emerging from the mouth of a Pope or the bishops. I mean, on more than one occasion, you’ve had to go online to find out about yet another controversy surrounding Pope Francis’ off the cuff remarks.
Trent Horn:
I think you mean controversy, but my inner skeptic, fair enough. Yes.
David Bates:
Your inner skeptic is English? He knows how to pronounce things.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I know he does. Well, he won’t engage. Maybe he’ll do some conspiracies and wear an aluminum hat. Yes, the controversies related to Pope Francis, they frustrate me. But a comment he says to a reporter or a filmmaker, it’s not part of Catholic teaching.
David Bates:
Just wait till they make their way into an encyclical. As a Catholic, you have to live in fear that Pope Francis or the next Pope, after him, all the bishops as a whole, are going to contradict a supposedly infallible teaching of the church. How long do you think it’ll be before the pro-gay lobby in the church gets the teaching on homosexuality changed or contraception? Once that happens, it’s game over, man. Game over.
Trent Horn:
Well, by that logic, it’s game over for most Protestants and even Eastern Orthodox who’ve accepted the morality of contraception and remarriage after divorce. Why in the world would I leave Catholicism because of a speculative fear it will embrace these errors for a church or community that have already embraced them?
David Bates:
But you’re assuming that they are errors. What if they aren’t and the Catholic Church is wrong about contraception and divorce?
Trent Horn:
Well, we’ll get to contraception later. But Jesus made the issue of divorce and remarriage crystal clear. Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. This teaching may be difficult to live out, but it’s not difficult to understand. If Jesus walked out of his own tomb then I’m going to trust him on this one.
David Bates:
But here’s the thing, Protestants get to have a here’s what Jesus said that’s it attitude. You don’t. They don’t have to worry about a Pope waking up one day and falsifying their whole worldview. They only have the Bible. They know what it says and that’s that. But you have a nebulous magisterium, and you can see how that would make some people hesitant to take on the baggage associated with Catholicism.
Trent Horn:
Your objection seems to be that an event in the future like a false infallible definition could falsify Catholicism but it’s far less likely, or maybe even not possible, for a similar future event to falsify Protestantism.
David Bates:
More or less.
Trent Horn:
Okay. First, it is possible for Protestantism to be falsified in the future. For example, when atheists ask some Protestant Christian apologists, what would it take for you to give up your faith? They give examples like a letter from the apostles saying they were frauds, or archeologists finding a bone box that says Jesus of Nazareth. So it’s not true that Protestantism is impervious to developments in the future that challenge its essential teachings.
David Bates:
But doesn’t it unnerve you that it’s quite possible you could wake up one morning, turn on the internet, and find out Catholicism is false because church teaching is now in conflict with itself? The odds of finding something like Jesus’ bone box is way, way less likely than the odds of a Pope declaring a heresy.
Trent Horn:
How do you know that? If God exists and he raised Jesus from the dead, then it isn’t the case that the odds are lower merely because it’s easier for the Pope to utter heresy than it is for archeologists to find Jesus’ bone box. If the Holy Spirit tells us Jesus rose from the dead then there simply is no bone box to be found. Likewise, if the Holy Spirit tells us Christ established the Catholic Church then the Pope will never formally bind the church to a theological error.
David Bates:
Ah, notice your hedging your bets with phrases like “formerly bind the church to error,” instead of just saying, “Say something heretical.” Protestants don’t have a million qualifications for the Bible.
Trent Horn:
Once again, that’s not true. Even conservative Protestants who fully defend the inerrancy of scripture say that only applies to the original copies of scripture. There could be errors in the copies that have made since then. Plus, they admit the Bible is not inerrant when it’s merely describing but not asserting ancient views of science or nature like the firmament in Genesis One.
David Bates:
Of course, you’re saying that just as Protestants believe the Holy Spirit protects the Bible from setting errors only under certain conditions. The same is true for the Holy Spirit’s protection of the Pope, terms and conditions apply.
Trent Horn:
Yes. For example, if the Pope is just speaking as a private theologian, he could be in error. But here’s the deal, my confidence in the church doesn’t come from looking forward and estimating a low or non-existent probability of a falsifying event occurring. It comes from looking backwards and concluding the Christ established the church, and because of this fact, he will protect it with the charism of infallibility. Just as a Protestant apologist is confident the Bible is without errors, not because he solved every difficulty in the Bible, but because he trusts in the Bible’s divine origins. I’m confident in the church because of the good evidence of its divine origins.
David Bates:
But as the evidence for that divine origin really as good as you claim it is?
Trent Horn:
Done, done, done, then we go into our next chapter. I will say though, by the way, I was debating what chapters to put forward. I’ve written other chapters where the subjects, some of them including things like Adam and Eve or the resurrection, span multiple chapters. And I do run into some real head scratchers where I can only offer multiple possible answers and I haven’t settled on a correct one. So just to let you know that even though that kind of response is not in this section, I hope this gives, well, I’m sure you can see, David, the feel that I want to honestly engage at. And yeah, I’m just saying, this is the voice I hear inside. Everybody’s voice is different, but I think you’re going to appreciate that when we try to defend the faith, we need to be honest about the strongest arguments that come up against it.
I see this argument the most on social media, but not in apologetic articles, but I felt like it was important. This is one that it gets to me and I see a lot of people have it. I want to know what you think.
David Bates:
Well, it was actually something that resonated with Lewis. He was always a champion of Mere Christianity. He didn’t want to get involved in denominational squabbles.
Trent Horn:
Right.
David Bates:
And he always resisted it whenever people tried to draw him on the subject. But there are a few places where people did manage to draw him out a bit.
Trent Horn:
Right.
David Bates:
And it does seem that one of his major concerns was what the Pope was going to force him to believe further down the line.
Trent Horn:
Right.
David Bates:
He said, “It’s one thing for what Catholicism is today, but if I sign on with that, I basically have to believe whatever the Pope tells me to believe in the future,” because Lewis lived in an era around the time when the immaculate conception and the assumption of Mary were promulgated.
Trent Horn:
Right.
David Bates:
And so I think this was very much on everyone’s minds. If I become Catholic, I don’t know what I’m actually signing up to. It’s something in the future.
Trent Horn:
Right. Well, wow, so there you go. And that’s why I’m really excited about this book, that you never know the doubts that I face, other people might have similar ones. But also what I’ve tried to do is, you can entertain the doubts, but when you stop, pray, and apply just some sound reasoning to them, you can really take away their bite and so they’re not as scary basically. Like he said, “Yeah, that’s a scary thing to think about.” Well, wait, why should I be concerned about that? How does that impact my faith? Is that even a true argument or is it more of a boogeyman to face?” So yeah, I’m excited about that. And, David, thank you so much for coming on to be my spare reader for at least this excerpt, if not more. Maybe we’ll we’ll return to this. But hey, let people know, by the way, where can people learn more. You’ve been talking about CS Lewis, where can people learn more about your conversations and episodes about Lewis?
David Bates:
Well, as I said earlier, first of all, I am very happy at the thought that I am the skeptical voice in your head, that you are hearing an English accent on a regular basis [crosstalk 00:22:34]
Trent Horn:
He’s refined and intelligent. So he’s either you or Vision from the MCU, basically, one of the two.
David Bates:
Either work. Either work. I have a podcast called Pints With Jack. It can be found at pintswithjack.com or on Instagram, Twitter, and all the things. And each week we work chapter by chapter through the works of C.S. Lewis. We’ve done Mere Christianity, the Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces. And this season, we’re starting to wrap up The Screwtape Letters.
Trent Horn:
Wonderful. Be sure to check that out, Pints With Jack. Thank you everybody for listening to the podcast today. David, thank you so much for joining us today.
David Bates:
You’re very welcome.
Trent Horn:
All right. Thank you so much, everybody. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe, iTunes, Google Play. Visit our YouTube channel. You can watch the video of my exchange here, and check out other great rebuttal videos, things we have there on the podcast. If you go to trenthornpodcast.com, you’ll be able to get a sneak peek of more of the book after it’s been written, and very excited to share more of that with you. Thank you, guys so much and I hope you all have a very blessed.
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