Pints With Aquinas - 205: God and Atheism

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

This is a special two-part episode of Pints with Aquinas. Part 1: I discuss 10 things that people miss about what Aquinas has to say about God and Atheism. Part 2: I read from a short story I wrote about a Christian and an Atheist, titled "A Shuttered Universe," in which the Christian becomes and Atheist, and the Atheist becomes a Christian and their correspondence back and forth. Questions/comments about the story? https://www.patreon.com/posts/36986185 SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints  Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/    Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pints_w_aqu... MY BOOKS Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist... Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecr... The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myt... CONTACT  Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequ... Website - mattfradd.com Facebook - facebook.com/mattfradd/ Instagram - instagram.com/pints_w_aquinas Twitter - twitter.com/mattfradd

G'day, g'day, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Bradd, and I have a special episode today for you. I think you're going to really enjoy it. I have written a short story, and it involves a Christian who talks his atheist friend into coming on this big Christian conference with him. While at the conference, the Christian ends up becoming an atheist, and the atheist ends up becoming a Christian. And then over the course of nine letters, they go back and forth about why they have made the decisions they've made.

I love Dostoevsky, and one of his short stories is called A Novel in Nine Letters, and I just loved that title, so I stole it. There you are. So the story is called A Shuttered Universe, which is a shout out to Sheldon Van Ocken's poem, which we talk about in the story. A Novel in Nine Letters. I think you'll really enjoy it. But before we get to that, I want to say thank you to our sponsor, Halo. Do you want to pray more or just pray at all? Do you find it difficult to concentrate while praying? Are you not sure you're kind of doing it right? Halo will help you. It's a Catholic meditation app that helps you pray. It has free content

that's updated every day. The app is really well produced. You're going to love it. But if you use that link below, it's in the show notes, and then use Matt Fradd as the promo code when you sign up,

you'll get the full experience of the app for a limited time. So please check it out. It's a fantastic app. As I've said in the past, it's very sophisticated and very well produced. You can tell they put a lot of money and effort into this thing, but at the same time, it doesn't fall into new age ways of thinking as many, if not almost all meditation apps out there do. So check it out, hallo.app. Okay, so before I get to this story, before I tell you a little bit more about this story, I thought it would be fun if I just went over 10 quick things that people often miss about what Aquinas has to say about God and

atheism. Since this is going to be a story about atheism and God, I thought it would be cool to kind of go over these just really quickly. Again, these are 10 things people, that is not just people who are not familiar with Aquinas, but even people who've read Aquinas, both Christians and atheists are often unaware of. So let's go through them. Number one, Aquinas only comes up with two arguments for atheism. That's interesting. When Aquinas writes in the Summa Theologiae, De Marlo, and other works, he sets himself objections that he thinks are the best arguments and then responds to them. So for example, in his work De Marlo, he asks the question, is evil an entity? And he sets himself 20 objections to his position. That's pretty amazing, right? And then he responds to each of those 20. What's interesting is that in the Summa Theologiae, where he addresses atheism,

he can only come up with two arguments for atheism. And these are the two that are still offered today more than any others, namely evil and science. Here's the second thing I want to share with you. Only one of those two arguments proves atheism, namely the problem of evil. His other argument that we don't need God to account for natural phenomenon doesn't disprove God. It just leaves you with agnosticism. So that's also interesting. Here's the third interesting thing. Thomas Aquinas rejects the most famous argument for God's existence in the Christian tradition, namely Anselm's ontological argument. So when people out there in YouTube land tell you that Thomas Aquinas ought not to be treated seriously as a philosopher

because he was under the thumb of the church, you should ask them why it was that he not only disagreed with the ontological argument, but that he did so publicly. Here's the fourth thing. Aquinas' famous five ways that he comes up with for God's existence, the argument from the first mover, from the first cause, contingent being, the first cause, contingent being, degrees of being, and finality. These are summaries, summaries of his arguments. I want to show you something here, and this will show you what I'm talking about. So if you just look at the, if you look, sorry, if you look at the argument, say, from motion in the Summa Theologiae, check it out.

Here it is right here. That's one paragraph. The first and most manifest way is the argument from motion. Now, if you go to the Summa Contra Gentiles, check this out. This here is his argument from motion. See how much longer that is? So that's really interesting. And I point that out because I think sometimes, and Richard Dawkins seems to do this, people think that this is all he has to say on the matter, and that definitely isn't the case.

So his five ways are only summaries. Thomistic scholar Ed Fazer wrote that Aquinas never intended these five proofs to stand alone and would probably have reacted with horror if told that future generations of students would be studying them in isolation, removed from their immediate contact in the Summa Theologiae and the larger context of his work as a whole. I think that's meant to say. Okay, here is the fifth thing you should know about Thomas Aquinas' arguments for God and atheism, and that is to say his five ways are, they're all cosmological arguments. That is to say that they begin with observing things in the world. I think that was just, that's kind of interesting. I think you can probably think of three types of arguments for God's existence.

Ones that begin in the world, you know, the things that you observe. And then there would be sort of interior proofs, if you want, arguments from desire or experience, maybe morality. And then finally, the only third category would be definitional, which is just to say Anselm's ontological argument. Okay, sixth, this is very important. Thomas's five ways do not depend on the assumption, nor do they argue for, the finitude of the world. the world. I have been just shocked at how many people, even people who teach philosophy at universities who I've bumped into, who think that Thomas Aquinas is basically giving a version of the Kalam argument. You know, the universe had to begin to exist and something had to cause that. That's not what he's saying at all. Listen to what he says in the Summa Contra Gentiles.

Aristotle also uses another, this is Aquinasra Gentiles. Aristotle also uses another argument to show that there is no infinite regress in efficient causes and that we must reach one first cause, God. This way is as follows. In all ordered efficient causes, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, whether one or many, and this is the cause of the last cause. But when you suppress a cause, you suppress its effect. Therefore, if you suppress the first cause, the intermediate cause cannot be a cause. Now, if there were an infinite regress among efficient causes, no cause would be first. Therefore, all the other causes which are intermediate will of causes and an accidentally ordered series of causes. and an accidentally ordered series of causes. So when people talk about the Kalam argument,

which is what we'll get to next, for example, they're talking about an accidentally ordered series of causation. That's sort of like when you say, well, I gave birth to my son, right? And then my son gives birth to somebody else one day, perhaps, or he doesn't give birth rather, but his wife does, okay? For my son to have his own son, I am no longer required. If I die, it doesn't mean my son cannot have another son. So the intermediary cause is not dependent on the first cause to produce a cause of its own. But what Aquinas is talking about isn't an accidentally ordered series of causes. He's talking about an essentially ordered series of causes. And in that, think of that as like gears. Think about you turn the handle and one gear turns the

intermediary gear, which turns the other gear and so on. If you stop cranking the gear or the handle, all the gears stop. So that's what he's talking about. So Aquinas thinks that the universe did begin to exist because of the Bible, but he does not think you can prove that from philosophy. And that leads to the seventh thing. And that is to say, he denies the Kalam cosmological argument. A contemporary of Thomas Aquinas' at the time was Bonaventure. Bonaventure thought that the Kalam argument worked, and Aquinas just flat out disagrees. He thinks it's a terrible... And by the way, the Kalam argument, so the philosophical version, obviously Aquinas had no idea about modern cosmology and the Big Bang and all that, but that basically says something like this, okay? If the universe never began to exist, then there have been an infinite series of moments preceding this one.

But since you can't traverse an infinite, now should never have occurred. Therefore, the universe must have had a beginning. Something like that. He thinks that doesn't work. Aquinas wrote a whole work on this called On the Eternity of the World. And there he shows that it's not at all improbable all eternity, that footprint, which is the cause of the foot, will also be infinite. So the effect doesn't have to come after the cause. It can be simultaneous with it. I'm not saying I agree with that. I'm just saying that's what Aquinas thought and that's what a lot of people don't realize. Number eight, he's not a fideist

who says we can only know by faith, nor is he a rationalist who says that we can only know what we can show by philosophy. So Aquinas thinks that you don't need faith to believe in God because you can show that God exists apart from divine revelation. Okay. So in that sense, he's not a fideist, right? Nor is he a rationalist because even though he thinks you can believe in God without revelation, he doesn't think you can know everything about God. There was a man by the name of Hugh of St. Victor, I believe, who tried to argue for why God must be triune. And Aquinas disagrees. Aquinas thinks that the only way we can know that God is a trinity is because of divine revelation. All right, here's the ninth thing people don't often know,

and that is that Aquinas did not only offer five arguments for God's existence, he actually offered somewhere between 15 and 20. And if you are interested in learning about those 15 or 20 arguments, different arguments that he offers for God's existence, check out the metaphysical thought of Thomas Aquinas by John Whipple. Look at the size of that thing. Here's the 10th thing people often misunderstand. We cannot know what God is, only what he is not. So you might say, and I've heard Bishop Robert Barron put it this way, and I think it's a valid way of putting it, that Aquinas is agnostic when it comes to what God is, but he's a theistic in regards to that God is. Now that might sound a

little, maybe that kind of leads people astray. So let me kind of put that a different way. Aquinas says that you can know that God exists, but you cannot know what he is. And that's interesting, I think. Listen to what he has to say in the Summa Contra Gentiles. He says, in considering the divine substance, we should especially make use of the method of remotion, for by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus, we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is, yet we are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not. So that's the tenth thing people should know when it comes to Aquinas, atheism, and arguments of God's existence. He thinks that we cannot know what God is,

we can only know what he is not. Okay, before we get into this fantastic story, or if not fantastic, just story, I want to show you this thing. This is a course I created. It's called Strive, strive21.com. If you are a man who struggles with lust in any way, shape, or form, go and check out strive21.com. It is a 21 day challenge. We have over 14,000 men in the course. We have it in Spanish as well. Basically every day I lead you in these like little videos, five minute videos, and there's a challenge you have to perform. And then you interact with the brothers in the forum. It's really great. I would just, look, just trust me. Go to strive21.com and click reviews, and you read what real men have said after doing this course. Check it out.

Here's two really cool things about strive21.com. Number one, you don't have to pay a cent. It is free. Number two, you can be as anonymous as you want. There you go. So I'm not even trying to sell you something here. So if you struggle with pornography or lust in any way, go to strive21.com. And if you know somebody who struggles, please send them to strive21.com. Okay, here is this little story I wrote. I hope you enjoy it. Let me just say a couple of things before we get into it. Number one, neither of the characters are meant to be

a mouthpiece for me. This is not a preachy story. So if you're a Christian out there who thinks, oh good, this is going to be a story where the Christian clobbers the atheist. That's not what it is. I tried to write this as realistically as I could. I have actually written a book on God's existence called Does God Exist? A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas. You can get it on Amazon if you want. That's a much more sort of robust and sophisticated book in that we go through arguments for God's existence and atheism. So if you're looking for something a little more sort of philosophically dense, check that out. I guess this book, or this short story rather, is maybe trying to make the point that many of us believe the things that we believe, not because somebody gave us a knockdown syllogism,

but because of all sorts of other reasons. The second thing I want to say is this is not a story for kids. So the atheist speaks quite disparagingly about Catholics and takes some low blows, as it were. So I wouldn't want any parents out there to think, oh, good, I'll play this for my eight-year-old. Don't do that. Some of it's a little, well, a little intense. So I think you'll very much enjoy it. Thank you very much for being here. And I would love to know what you think. Here's what I'll do. I would love to get your feedback. Whether you are a patron or not, I just kind of want to hear from you. So if you go to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd,

I will put up a post today and it'll be for anyone to check out whether you are a patron or not. And you can tell me what you thought of the short story. You can tell me that you thought it was terrible, that it was unrealistic, or that it was fantastic and that it helped you, whatever. And while you're at patreon.com slash Matt Fradd, feel free to sign up as a patron and you get a bunch of free stuff in return. You can come here and check all that stuff out for yourself. Okay. All right.

Here is the story. A Shuttered Universe. A novel in nine letters. The Shuttered Universe. A novel in nine letters. One. From Thomas Smith to Peter Johnson. Dear Peter, I've tried calling you for days now.

Your phone seems to be off and you're not responding to your emails. You've also been absent on social media. What's going on, brother? You were acting kind of strange when we departed from Ohio. I'm sorry we didn't get to talk much during those three days. At any rate, I thought we could communicate by letter, the way we used to when we were boys. I want to thank you sincerely for inviting me to the conference. You know I wasn't keen on going, and I'll admit that for the first night and most of Saturday,

I thought those people up there were a bunch of phonies. What is it with Christian musicians and felt-brimmed hats? Or, if not phonies, sincere, but sincerely deluded. At any rate, on Saturday I met a few people from Cleveland and we got to talking. One of them was a professor of philosophy from your school, Dr. Philip Dinkins. Do you know of him? I think Catherine mentioned having him for logic. By the way, have you heard from Catherine or seen her on campus? She's not returning my calls either. I'm beginning to worry. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, this Philip guy is a Catholic and a big fan of Thomas Aquinas. As I say, we got to talking and spent most of the day arguing back and forth about God's existence,

the reliability of the Gospels, that sort of thing. Nothing I hadn't heard before, but a really smart guy nonetheless. At the end of our discussion, when he said he needed to be going, he asked if he could pray for me. I nearly laughed, I'm ashamed to say. It seemed like a line from one of those awful Christian movies you've made me suffer through on more than one occasion. Anyway, wanting to show him how open-minded I was, I said yes. He put his hand on my shoulder and prayed very simply for me that whatever obstacles were blocking my path toward accepting Jesus Christ, that they'd be smashed. That's the word he used, smashed. And that was it. Very matter-of-fact and unemotional. He just smiled and then said we'd chat later.

Look, I don't want to go on and on in this letter. I'd rather talk to you by phone about it all. I just wanted you to know that I've given my life to Christ. I'm joining RCIA next week, and it looks like I'll be baptized next Easter. Glory to God. I don't know how to explain it very well, I'm afraid. Without running into cliches, that is. Still, maybe cliches aren't so bad after all. My heart feels like it has been dormant under several feet of ice for years now. several feet of ice for years now. Well, brother, the ice is melting and it's waking up. I'm waking up. Trying to tell my family about this has been more than painful. They keep looking at me with one eyebrow raised as if they're trying to decide if I'm mad or just joking. Haven't posted anything to my blog about it yet, so please keep this private for now.

Please call soon. If I don't hear from you soon, I'll drive up to see you. P.S. If you see Catherine, please tell her to call me. 2. From Peter Johnson to Thomas Smith Thomas, thanks for the letter. Sorry I've been hard to reach. I've been doing another one of these tech-fast things. I find it much easier to study for exams when I'm not being distracted by YouTube. I'm more than happy to communicate with you by letter, as I'd rather not pull out my phone right now. Wow, your letter definitely came as a surprise. Not because it was a letter, but because you're thinking of becoming a Christian. Look, I'm sorry we didn't

get to speak much at the conference. There were just so many people. That and being in charge of so many details meant I didn't have as much free time as I would have liked. I don't know how to tell you this, so I suppose I'll just say it. I'm no longer a Christian. Ironic, right? You're thinking of becoming a Christian right when I'm deciding I'm an atheist. I say deciding and not becoming because, well, the truth is, I've been an atheist for a while now. That will probably come as a shock to you, so let me explain.

I've been following your blog. Oh, goodness. What are you going to do with your blog? Quite closely for about a year now. Not telling you, of course. Some of the posts quite rattled me, and I binged as many William Lane Craig debates as possible to prove to myself that you were wrong. But I must say, the more debates I watched, the more I found his arguments increasingly obtuse. His comebacks were pithy, but unsophisticated. I started attending an evangelical church about seven months ago, didn't tell anyone, thought I could have Christianity without the Catholic guilt and bigotry. Anyway, look, long story short, it occurred to me, while we were all praying on Saturday night,

that even if none of this God stuff were true, we'd all still be experiencing the same emotions. In other words, the thing that most of our friends point to for why they're Christian is something that would have convinced them even if God did not exist. Does that make sense? Of course it does. I mean, you've written about it. I mean, come on. They stuff 2,500 teens and young adults in a dark gymnasium, play emotional music and tell us we're loved and that God is fighting for us and all that, of course people are talking about feelings of elation and transcendence. Admitting that I am an atheist, I said it out loud to myself while the music was blaring Saturday night, was one of the most difficult yet liberating things I have ever

done. No more pretending. No more needing to talk myself into believing ridiculous things like a wafer can turn into God and that people can go to hell for all eternity. All eternity for masturbating. Thomas, you're not seriously thinking about becoming a Christian, are you? 3. From Thomas Smith to Peter Johnson Dear Peter, Got your letter yesterday. I assume you're still on your tech fast. I've been trying to call you. Just think we could process all this better by phone.

I made an announcement on my blog last night about my experience at the conference and about how I've come to believe in God and Jesus Christ. I posted that at about 2pm and by the end of the night had lost about 200 patrons. Glory to God, what do I care? Better to be rich towards God. Luke 12, 21. Peter, I'm sorry you're going through all this. Doubt is very destabilizing, isn't it? Especially when it comes to things concerning the reality of the world, our place in it, the meaning of our lives, and so on. It's like having the ground fall out from under you and then not knowing if there will be something solid beneath or if you'll just keep

falling. I experienced that. I know my letter came as a shock to you, and while my conversion was rather sudden, I have been thinking about and open to the claims of Christianity for a while now. Obviously, I never said anything, but look, I would never have agreed to go to that conference if I wasn't in some way open. For years now, I have told Christians that they are biased and that their biases do not permit them to weigh arguments for and against God, that they only want their beliefs to be true and so are eager for any scrap of an argument, however bad, to convince them. That they were arrogant, that it was tribalism that kept them committed to the claims of their particular Christian sect, not truth. It was about a year ago that it suddenly dawned on me that this can be, and indeed so often is,

true of atheists also. Seeing the way my followers would comment on my posts, how they would call Christians stupid, how they would straw man their positions. Well, I started to see in them the same closed-mindedness and tribalism I had accused Christians of having. I started to ask myself if I was like that. Anyway, this is the sort of stuff I want to talk to you about. Would you please just call me? I'm praying for you, brother. God is good and he loves you and he understands your doubts. Let me leave you with a poem I recently came across by Sheldon Van Ocken that sums up my conversion experience entirely. Did Jesus live? And did he really say the burning words that banish mortal fear?

And are they true? Just this is central here. The church must stand or fall. It's Christ we weigh. All else is off the point, the flood, the day of Eden or the virgin birth have done. The question is, did God send us the sun? Incarnate crying love, love is the way. Between the probable and proved, there yawns a gap. Afraid to jump, we stand absurd, then see behind us sink the ground and worse, our very standpoint crumbling. Desperate dawns, our only hope to leap into the word that opens up the shuttered universe. P.S. I still haven't heard from Catherine. Do you mind checking on her? I think I might come up next Wednesday when I have a day off. Perhaps we could get together then too. I miss you, brother. Four. From Peter Johnson to Thomas Smith.

Thomas, thanks for the letter. I'm sorry, but I'm not ready to talk or meet in person. Let's just stick to this for now, okay? Catherine is no doubt studying for exams. I'd just give her some space. Listen, I'm happy for you. Really, I am. But can I warn you about something? Many people go to conferences like the one we just went on and get all excited. They come home all passionate and feeling alive. They think that it's going to be that way forever. It won't. only say this because I don't want you to be fooled. These feelings you're having, this desire to pray, this closeness to God, it will all begin to evaporate, okay? It always does. And when that happens, you'll get concerned and turn to some well-meaning Christian who will point you to that story of Jesus on the mountaintop and tell you that we can't live there, that we have to descend the mountaintop just the way the disciples did.

They will try to spiritualize a perfectly natural psychological phenomenon. Don't you see that everything, even the absurd, must be brought into the tapestry of their faith. It all has to fit. It will be made to fit. Why is there evil? Oh, yes, well, that's because God gave us free will and wants us to love him freely. But this means we can also do horrible things. Why is God so distant?

Where is he? Why doesn't he answer me when I pray? Well, that's because he wants you to pursue him, you see? He gives enough light to those who are determined to seek him and not enough to those who really don't care. What about Adam and Eve and the fact that modern genetics proves we couldn't have evolved from a single couple. Ah, well, the Bible writes history differently than we do today. Maybe the couple represented groups of people. See, there is not a question to which they don't have an answer, but even if their answers are coherent, they do not prove Christianity. answers are coherent. They do not prove Christianity. If you were to ask me a hundred questions about Star Wars, I may be able to give you 100 answers that help you see the coherence of the story, but it would remain just that, a story. You talk about losing patrons. I'm sure

your Christian friends will tell you that it's a good sign that you're being persecuted, shows you're a true believer or some such. Alternatively, it might just be a matter of good people not wanting to financially support someone who's come to believe in things they consider nonsense. You're not a victim. This isn't a sign that God is blessing you. Forgive me for being blunt, but it's true. 5. From Thomas Smith to Peter Johnson Dear Peter, forgive the late response. Catherine has broken off our engagement. late response. Catherine has broken off our engagement. Needless to say, I'm devastated. God has a plan, I'm sure. Look, I'll talk to you about all that later. Anyway,

this is why I never drop by to see you on Wednesday. Let's see, so much to respond to. And given that you're not answering my calls, I guess this way of communicating will have to do for now. Would you be up for grabbing a coffee sometime next week? I don't mind driving up to you. Just tell me when you'll be home. I can't help but notice you didn't comment on the poem I shared with you. What did you think of it? And no, brother, rest assured, I do not consider myself a victim.

Let's see if we can dig in to some of the issues you've brought up. I'm reluctant to do this because both you and I know the arguments for and against Christianity. if I begin to criticize the reasons you seem to have for becoming an atheist, you'll have a rebuttal in mind before you've heard me out and thus won't actually hear me out. Please try to, okay? You have said that what many people call an experience of God may be nothing more than an emotional response to a prayer service that was, intended or not, emotionally manipulative. This point, I think, is obviously true. But so what? It's not an argument against God or Christianity, is it? You say that these feelings people have of elation and transcendence are the result not of them experiencing a God who exists, but of a God they merely think exists.

Fair enough. I concede that if one believes in a God who is all-loving and has a plan for his life and wants him to be in heaven, etc., that this would naturally produce feelings of comfort and peace, even if God did not exist. Just as a man may experience anxiety over a real or merely perceived threat, so a man may experience peace over a real or merely perceived God. But you still haven't given any good reasons for thinking God does not exist, have you? You point to the fact that Christians have come up with a coherent story. Okay, but if God exists and Christianity is true, then we should expect a story that is

basically coherent. What's your argument against Christianity? I can give an argument for why Star Wars is merely a story. Can you do the same for Christianity? You alluded to evil, to the hiddenness of God, to Adam and Eve. We have spoken at length about these things, and I know that you are more than familiar with the Christian responses to these apparent problems, is it that you now think that the responses fail? If so, tell me how. Give me an argument. If Adam and Eve did not exist, how does this disprove God's existence or Christ's rising from the dead. Honestly, Peter, it seems to me that you are reacting emotionally to an experience or perhaps the lack of an experience you had on the conference. Let's talk this through in person, hey? And you should also keep in mind that if Christianity is true, which I now believe it to be, then there is an enemy of your soul who wants to lead you to hell. In other words, assessing the merits of Christianity versus atheism, if Christianity is true, is not merely a matter of assessing the probability of various syllogisms

from a comfy chair. We are in a world at war. Surely you are not so convinced in the reality of a godless world that you're not open to praying this prayer with me. Go on, pray it now from the heart. And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. P.S. I had my first RCIA class last night. The people teaching it, and forgive me if this sounds judgmental, they don't seem to actually believe this stuff. One of the leaders made a remark about Catholics not having to accept church teaching about contraception. Six. From Peter Johnson to Thomas Smith.

Thomas, you've seen that I'm back online, no doubt. I'm still not up for a phone call, and I certainly don't want to meet in person right now. Maybe later. Please just respect my wishes. You say that if Christianity is true, then it's not merely a matter of assessing syllogisms and that we are in a world at war. This, I presume, you said in order to make the point that not only are we as individuals biased due to our upbringing, experiences and temperaments, but that there are outside agents, invisible ones at that, muddying the waters, as it were, making it difficult for us to see things rightly. But don't you see that this cuts both ways? If Christianity is not true, and you think that it is, then that has tipped the scales towards Christianity. You experienced a bunch of warm fuzzies at a conference and you now say you're a Christian. Now you assess the arguments for and against Christianity and conclude that those arguments for Christianity, arguments you rejected five minutes ago, must be stronger because, after all, there's a devil who's running about the place clouding

people's minds, not wanting them to see that Christianity is true. Now, if you come across an argument for atheism or against Christianity that you find compelling, well, you can chalk that up to Satan's craftiness. I really am surprised at you, Thomas. You went from a free-thinking, intelligent guy with an atheist blog that had a significant following to someone who is now telling me the devil is after me. Honestly, I feel bad that it was me who talked you into coming to the conference. Let's see. The poem you sent me was fine. I'm happy that you're happy. I'm not interested in praying that St. Michael prayer. Sorry. Think of what you're asserting, would you? That there are invisible angels and demons all around

us fighting each other or tempting us. It's all so ridiculous. And I feel sorry for you that you've come to accept all that. You say that maybe Adam and Eve were just symbols. Okay, good luck trying to square that with the Catholic Church's view of original sin. I'm sure you'll try. And when you don't find an answer, people around you will say that you've just got to have faith and you'll nod sagely and go to another conference, get the warm fuzzies again and forget all about the legitimate questions you had. Marx, it seems to me, was right. Religion is the opium of the masses. Look, all of us find ourselves in a world we don't understand. Mystery lurks everywhere. All humans at all times have sought to push back that mystery, to understand what it is we are and what kind of world it is we live in. used religion to try and understand things. It made sense. Why is this person ill? Oh,

he has a demon inside him. Why is there a drought? Ah, we've sinned against God. He's angry. But we are now living in the 21st century, Thomas. We've come a long way since Abraham cut a bit of his penis off with a knife to quell the wrath of God. How the hell do you not see this when you once made these arguments better than I am now? We no longer need to rely on documents that are 2,000 plus years old to make sense of the world. I'm not saying that the Bible is bereft of wisdom and insight. I'm just inviting you to read it for what it is, a series of books written long ago which try to make sense of the world. There are other ways to do this now, astrophysics and cosmology, genetics and archaeology, etc. etc. So when I tell you that Christianity is false, I'm not saying it has no truths to teach.

And maybe that's the good that's come out of this conference. You now see the value Christianity has to offer. But you can recognize that without having to accept a God in the sky and demons under every rock. P.S. I'm not saying you're not intelligent. You're obviously very intelligent. Didn't mean it to come off that way. I just think you're not thinking straight. P.P.S. I'll be taking philosophy of religion this semester with Professor Dinkins. Looking forward to studying all this with a clear, unbiased mind. Dinkins, looking forward to studying all this with a clear, unbiased mind.

7. From Thomas Smith to Peter Johnson Dear Peter, I want you to know that I have great affection for you and that I pray for you daily. I understand that my prayers mean little to you, that you perhaps think me condescending for mentioning it, but I want you to know that I care for you, brother. I wish you'd answer my calls or agree to meet. What is it that has made me so repellent to you? I think I know, but would rather us discuss it in person like men. I think I know, but would rather us discuss it in person like men. I've been texting with Anna, who says you won't respond to her either, that it's as if you've dropped off the face of the planet. I note that in your previous letter, filled though it was with invective and faint mockery, you did not respond to my challenge for an argument against Christianity.

You make fun of the Christian doctrine of angels and demons, but making fun of something because you find it absurd isn't an argument. It's a fallacy, the fallacy of personal incredulity. That is to say, just because you find something difficult to understand or are unaware of how it works, it doesn't follow that it's false. Listen, it's easy to isolate theological claims to make them look absurd. My blog, I'm ashamed to say, is filled with that sort of thing. It's become something of a cottage industry in atheist circles. thing. It's become something of a cottage industry in atheist circles. But look, if you take any specialized knowledge discourse and isolate certain theoretical claims made in that discourse, apart from any context as to how the practitioners of the discourse arrived at the claims, then you can make those claims look absurd. If, for instance, I tell you that, according to physicists,

the pen I'm holding is made up of vibrating packets of energy in empty space, well, you can mock that. You can make it look absurd because why would anyone think pens are made of that? The only way you're going to come to appreciate that description of the pen is by appreciating the way the reasons physicists have for adopting that description. It's the same thing with robust theological claims about who God is and how we relate to him. You can't just isolate the claim and complain that it's absurd. I'm hearing that dismissive tone coming through your letter,

Peter, a tone I'm more than familiar with because I used to speak like that too. Let me try and see if I can sum up your arguments thus far. One, people claim to have experienced God when what they may have experienced was merely an emotional induced prayer service. Fine, but read the great philosophers of the past and you'll notice that no one has argued for God's existence based on warm fuzzies. This is a straw man, Peter. Two, you alluded to the problem of evil and the hiddenness of God, but instead of giving an argument from this to atheism, you merely complain that Christians have ways of responding to these arguments. You've yet to show me why these responses are inadequate. Three, you've said

that modern genetics disproves two original parents of the human race. You didn't provide me with evidence for this, but be that as it may, given the tentativeness of this area of science, it may be the case that this opinion will be overturned. Besides, as I've said, this is not an argument against God or the resurrection of Christ, but at best an argument against the inerrancy of Scripture. I say at best because I can also see an argument for Genesis relaying truth through symbols, as is the case with the serpent and tree of knowledge of good and evil. Four, I've already addressed what you've had to say about spiritual warfare. Personal incredulity is not an argument, especially when you argue for the Christian position in such a straw man fashion. And this business about Christianity being anti-science is such a

boring, worn out trope. It's not even worth addressing. But here you are, I'll do it in several names that come to mind. George Lemaitre, Francis Collins, Ernest Walton, Blaise Pascal, Ernest Walton, Blaise Pascal, Nicholas Steno. I could go on all day. Honestly, Peter, throughout your letter, you interpret my point in the least charitable way. I tell you that there is a spiritual war going on and you accuse me of saying that the spiritual war prevents a person from reasoning from one premise to the next. That's not at all what I said. I do, however, think that sometimes we choose to find convincing what is expedient for us. If a man feels judged by God, say, for taking another man's fiancée, he may wish to ease his conscience more than following the truth where it leads. P.S. I am no longer in RCIA. I have joined an evangelical church. I forgot to mention that earlier in response to your point about reconciling modern genetics with original

sin. It's a false binary, brother. P.P.S. Dr. Philip Dinkins? 8. From Peter Johnson to Thomas Smith On the 16th of October, Peter Johnson received by mail one envelope containing two letters. He opened the one labelled, Read First. Thomas, I am tired of beating my head against a wall, okay? You're a good and sincere man, but I can't keep going down this road. It's exhausting. Surely there's enough people who still comment on your blog to spar with. You remind me of myself a year or two ago. I was so eager to convince other people about Christianity because

I was deep down utterly unconvinced myself. And your insinuation that I've become an atheist to cover up some deeply immoral behavior, that's beneath you. Not to mention hypocritical. Catholic priests are screwing altar boys, but atheists are morally bankrupt. The Catholic church was responsible for the Inquisition and the Crusades, but atheists are the immoral ones. Catholics justify their homophobia and bigotry with scripture, but we're the immoral ones. Unbelievable. P.S. Tape the next letter enclosed to your bathroom window. I look forward to chatting with you when you come full circle.

9. Thomas tore open the second letter. Modernism leads to the annihilation of all religion. The first step in this direction was taken by Protestantism. The second is made by modernism. The next will plunge headlong into atheism. Pope Pius X. okay thank you very much i hope you enjoyed that short story i want to give you a respond to a couple of questions that people often have when they've said i shared this story as a pdf with my patrons before i shared it with y'all and so i'm going to respond to some of the questions

that they had um before i do though i want to say that I've created a program called Strive. Strive 21. It's a 21-day detox from porn course. If you are a man, it's designed for men. We're working on one for women right now. If you're a man who struggles with lust in any way, please go check out strive21.com. This is a 21-day detox from porn course. It's a step-by-step plan to break free from porn. you'll experience powerful videos see it says it right here i'm reading directly from it and challenges every day you will have a worldwide community of other men to dialogue with and i'm not just saying that there are over 14 000 men in it right now here's the cool thing two really cool things about this program

strive21.com is 100 free and you can be as anonymous as you want. So please take advantage of this. If you're a man who struggles with lust in any way, check it out. If you know a man who is struggling with, you know, pornography or lust, please pass this on to them. So I hope you enjoyed that little story. As I said in the beginning, this was not meant to be like a pulpit. I wasn't trying to use a fictional back and forth as a pulpit to kind of, you know, get a lot of my, a bunch of things that I want to say out there. That wasn't really the point of it. I disagree with both Peter and Thomas in different areas. I was just trying to write it as realistically as possible. So a couple of questions we got here on Patreon. Somebody wrote, just finished it and I'm confused.

Was it the ex-Catholic that wrote the quote about modernism? Why would he say that if he didn't believe anymore? And that's a good point. So you'll remember this ninth letter was a quote from Pope Pius X, and the atheist told the Catholic, put this on your mirror, and when you come full circle, let's talk. Pope Pius X had that warning, you know, about Protestantism leading to atheism. So what you'll notice, right, is that Peter goes from a Catholic to a Protestant to an atheist, but he ends up, we find out in one of the final letters, taking a class with Dr. Dinkins, and that's the man who prayed over Thomas in the beginning.

And so the reader hopefully is left with this thought that he might end up becoming a Catholic again. Whereas Thomas goes from an atheist to a Catholic to a Protestant. And so with that warning from Pope Pius X, by the way, it's a warning from Pope Pius X, but Peter, the atheist, thinks that it's not so much a warning as it is something to look forward to, a promise. Like, here's how you progress to atheism, which is a good thing. That's why he shared that with him. But you'll notice that the atheist goes from being an atheist to a Catholic, and now he's a Protestant. And so we're left wondering whether or not he'll come full circle back to atheism. That's it. Hope you enjoyed the show. Do me a

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