¶1Welcome to this episode of Intellectual Catholicism. My name is Swans Sona and I'm so delighted to be talking about Joe Schmidt's conversion to Catholicism. I honestly never thought that I would say those words and it's not because Joe is like a closedminded person, but that Joe is so brilliant that I thought we would need like a Nobel Prizewinning discovery. Just something of that grandeur and scale to convince Joe to become Catholic. And uh honestly, it's been so encouraging uh heartwarming, life-changing really to watch Joe's journey to Catholicism.
¶2And so I want to share with you today just a little bit about my friendship with Joe over the years. And I also want to talk about just my small role in Joe's conversion. So, the first thing that I want to say is that I was always a little nervous that Joe was not Catholic. Take it from me, I'm not usually somebody who's nervous about what I believe. I kind of live and thrive in the questions, but I remember for the longest time I was nervous because I had this very or I still have this very brilliant friend of mine.
¶3When I say brilliant, I mean take 10 of me and his mind is still greater than mine. Ivy League philosopher, child prodigy. It always made me a little nervous that he wasn't Catholic. I always thought, okay, maybe I'm missing something. Maybe he sees something that I that I don't know, that I'm not privy to.
¶4And one day, this friend of mine, he messaged me and he said, "Swan, I'm looking into Catholicism." And I said, "What changed? Why?" And he said, "I don't know what to do with the Eucharistic miracles. I I don't know what to do with some of the Marian apparitions. I don't know what to do with some of the miracle claims. You know, this friend of mine, he's dissected arguments for the existence of God.
¶5I mean, he's at one of the top institutions in the world in the philosophy of religion. And it's the miracles, the supernatural that stump him. And lo and behold, one day it was either Joe or Cameron Bertusi or a mix of both that began opening up about Joe's interest in investigating Catholicism and to really give it a fair shake. And um I haven't at this point in the story, I hadn't met Ethan Muse just yet. My meeting with Ethan was a lot more recent, but I did know that in the background, Ethan was lurking and apparently uh doing wonders on Joe's skepticism.
¶6Eventually, uh, Joe began sending me some questions about the inherency of scripture, uh, the ethics of lying, animals, uh, animal suffering, that sort of thing, and the conquest of Canaan. And so, I focused on the things that I knew best, which were, you know, the things related to scripture and the ethics of lying. As you know, I take the traditional timistic stance on that question. Although that doesn't mean you always have to assert the truth. If someone doesn't have the right to know, you can be deceptive without lying.
¶7But the thing is lying is an intrinsically disordered act from a metaphysical teological perspective. And so it's never permissible. Uh that's my stance on the question. But leaving that to one side, um I put on Substack my responses to Joe's questions about the inherency of scripture and questions related to the conquest of Canaan. You can find that on my Substack.
¶8What we believe as Catholics is that the Bible is inherent or without error thanks to inspiration in whatever it asserts to be true. Now, asserts to be true is a bit clunky and repetitive, but it's there for a reason. That whatever the Bible asserts to be true is true in the manner or literary form or genre in which the assertion is made. If the Bible asserts the truth that you know the trees will clap their hands in the presence of the Lord but then we go out and we don't see trees clapping when a eucharistic procession is walking by. That's not a problem for biblical inherency.
¶9Right? Things are true in the manner in which the assertion is made. Now certainly the magisterium has said that there are certain things that you have to take to be historical like the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus, the immaculate conception. I'm not playing with those things. But other things such as the conquest of Canaan, the pontipical biblical commission was willing to say we should not interpret that as a literal conquest but as a kind of parable.
¶10That is a permissible interpretation endorsed at least from the Pontipical Biblical Commission, an advisory council now, not an organ of the ordinary magisterium. You don't have to give religious submission of intellect and will to its teachings. But it does show you what the higher-ups in the church mostly think. Now, leaving that to one side, uh I talked to Joe about uh gospel contradictions or apparent contradictions. is how do we make sense of the genre of the gospels?
¶11I talked to Joe about the ethics of the conquest of Canaan. Uh Joe and I um do not endorse the killing of nine combatants, including women and children. Rather, I hold the position that the Pontipical Biblical Commission currently endorses. So, those are just a few of the things that I'm going to say there. But overall, I do have a few general comments about Joe's conversion.
¶12The first thing that I appreciated about Joe's conversion is that Joe always emphasized that sometimes when he would run into skeptics, they would just kind of show some minor discrepancies here, apparent discrepancies here and there in miracle accounts and then kind of run away. But they wouldn't sit down and really wrestle and give a fair shake to these miracle accounts. And that even when the skeptics were giving something more substantial, you have people like Ethan Muse who can roundly profoundly answer those objections. I you I used to know like, yeah, okay, there are there are miracle claims that seem pretty credible, but I just I never realized how strong these claims actually are until Ethan Muse came onto the scene and just showed me, wow, there's a lot going on here. And it it's so profound that, you know, you can't really I mean, I I I don't want to be um arrogant here, but it's almost like we're without excuse at this point given how powerful these miracle claims are, or at least the the whole confidence in our secular culture, in materialism and naturalism is so excessively blown up.
¶13It is way beyond what the evidence actually allows. And yet, you know, the everyday person acts as if, oh, we're in so much uncertainty about whether miracles happen. No, there are some really genuinely weird things out there that do happen. And I remember too, Joe, talking about like things related to demonic possession. And I always thought it like, you know, like like the paranormal ghost investigations, demonic investigations.
¶14Uh there's something there that just I find compelling. uh the the darker entities or or forces in reality that seem to be doing things and you know you have all kinds of accountant stories from different cultures. You know I you have to and Joe mentions this too. The church is not uncritical of these. If there is a psychological explanation the Catholic Church is the first one to find it and to weed it out.
¶15But when you see how rigorously the church investigates miracles and even demonic possessions to make sure that they are beyond the natural realm, it's just as I said before, it just seems like we're at a point where we're beyond excuse. The other thing that I want to mention is that right now you're seeing a lot of people online saying Joe at one time was so brilliant but now as though they were on the Princeton doctoral dissertation committee telling Joe oh you know your arguments didn't quite meet up to the muster. So, the first thing is that, you know, people are being so obvious here that, oh, now that the guy disagrees with me, I'm going to say that he's uh uh, you know, c caught up in this romantic uh blindness towards the the faith and he's just so enamored and taken over. He's truly unsept. Joe clearly demonstrated on pints of Aquinus, which I I watch Matt Frad's interview with Joe Schmid.
¶16He he showed his intellectual rigor as usual and how intense his study was. And on top of that, Joe um clearly said that, you know, he he did not think Catholicism was probable. He understands where skeptics are coming from. And at least skeptics should be open that somebody from their own camp who was genuinely one of them can come to the other side and not be an idiot. And I think that if we could have a greater epistemic humility all around where there are intelligent people who can disagree with us, then that should at least help us approach each other in a more charitable way.
¶17So, I just think it's really funny when people who were praising Joe yesterday are condemning him today and it's just so obvious, you know, the difference is like night and day. But I want to say to um, you know, Protestants in particular, right? When I've seen some Protestants respond to Joe that, you know, miracles no matter how convincing they are, they can never justify conversion like this. I just want to cue up my favorite clip of Dale Allison or one of my favorite clips. Now when we think of Luther and Calvin and the reformers, we don't think of skeptics, but they were skeptics big time given their doctrinal convictions.
¶18Martin Luther and the other reformers looked at stories of miracles and stories of saints and stories about mirak. They had to disprove them. So they argued against visions of Mary. They argued against healings at shrines. They argued against eucharistic miracles.
¶19They argued against statues moving. Now if you're a Protestant, this seems again from our time and place no big deal. This is a major event in history and this is really the birth of skepticism writ large. People always talk about David Hume and his doubting of miracles and how important he is. In my judgment, he's the direct descendant of Martin Luther.
¶20>> Yeah. It it seems as if history is repeating itself. The second thing is that I've seen people dismiss Joe from the Protestant side, saying he's a cage stage papist. I mean, to say something that dismissive towards someone as brilliant as Joe, it shows a lot more about the person than it does about Joe. The other thing that I want to say is that when people say, "Oh, Joe returned to his childhood faith." Joe was totally open to not returning to Catholicism.
¶21In my conversations with Joe, Joe was willing to look into like progressive, more liberal forms of Christianity. for him, something like evangelicalism, uh, fundamentalist Protestantism was just not in the cards for him. Joe has a video coming out on his case for Catholicism, which I can't wait to watch. And, uh, you'll see the full case on display, and I know that Capturing Catholicism has some videos coming out in Defense of Joe, but man, I this is incredible news. So, I want to say first off to close off the video, glory to Jesus Christ.
¶22Glory to the blessed trinity for Joe's conversion. And just a shout out to people like Caleb Jackson, Matthew Levana, Ethan Muse, Jimmy Aken, and u I just want to say that Cameron Buzzi of course. I just want to say that I hope all of you find uh the kind of love one day that Joe expressed and how he said the names of Ethan Muse, Jimmy Aken, and Swansona. making a difference in the lives and salvation of others. >> Yeah.
¶23>> Evangelism, right? Think about like how beautiful >> my story is with Ethan Muse and Jimmy Aken and Swansona coming to me and just basically >> in a kind of secondary derivative participatory sense saving me, right? >> Mhm. >> So like think about how beautiful that is and that can actually in fact improve our relationships for all of eternity, right? So that could reap an infinite benefit >> throughout all of eternity.
¶24I hope all of you find that kind of love. And Joe, I want you to know that you're probably, you know, inundated with a bunch of messages and responses from the world online. Uh, but Joe, I want you to know that you are my brother in Christ, that you're my brother in the church, that I'm always here for you. And honestly, Joe, you talked about how me, Jimmy Aken, Ethan Muse, Cameron, others participated in your salvation. Joe, I feel like you saved me.
¶25You've encouraged me so deeply. You've given me so much hope.