¶1All right, so Joe Schmidt recently made some videos about his conversion to Catholicism. And I just wanted to respond to a few of the points there. So, you know, he builds this case up for theism and then kind of builds upon that for like Catholicism specifically. And his case for theism, one of the big things that he mentions is Josh Rasmussen's contingency argument. And that, you know, basically says there's some necessary thing and that necessary thing probably doesn't have any of these weird arbitrary limits.
¶2So, you know, if the necessary thing is like the laws of physics, you kind of have all these arbitrary physical constants. You know, why is this physical constant 3.478 instead of 3.479? Seems kind of arbitrary, doesn't it? I think that's a valid point, um, which is why I wouldn't be so surprised if Joe, yeah, converted to theism. I'm a little more surprised that he converted to Catholicism though, because I think that Catholicism uh, introduces a lot of arbitrary limits on God that his very case for theism kind of relies on.
¶3So, um, I I guess one example of that is like miracles. So, he has a whole video about all these miracles for Catholicism, but it these miracles are just kind of to me they just seem so random and arbitrary. You know, why did God choose to heal Billy but not Bobby? Why did he choose to do 37 miracles but not 38? I think that it you can posit this kind of theoretical God that doesn't seem so arbitrary at first, but then whenever you start going into his like actions and his decisions, I think all that arbitrariness comes right back, you know, as to why he did all these things.
¶4And maybe there are some like super consistent principle that God has for like what criteria needs to be met for a miracle and he just employs that consistently for all miracles, but then what is that explanation? Cuz they they just seem so random to me, um so arbitrary. I would kind of want to know what that non-arbitrary consistent principle is if I were to try to see God as not arbitrary, especially in like the Catholic view. Um some other, you know, arbitrary qualities of God is you know, why is God a trinity not a quadrinity? Why, you know, why does he have three persons, not four, not 57?
¶5Um that's another arbitrary quality of God that I think just once you get past that like argument for theism stage, I think that Joe kind of starts allowing all of these arbitrary uh features of God, and and those should count against the the explanation if the whole explanation is founded on this idea that uh random physical constants shouldn't have arbitrary values. Well, it Okay, fine, but the God explanation that is supposed to be a better alternative shouldn't also have these arbitrary um values or arbitrary decisions of God, either. And so, yeah, my So, basically, my first claim is that uh Catholicism introduces arbitrary limits on God that uh kind of undermines the whole case for theism. Okay, so that pretty much sums up my view on like the points for theism. And I want to talk about the uh evidence for atheism, and I think the best piece is the problem with evil.
¶6Joe has some responses, so I'm going to respond to those, um because I think that's just the best argument for atheism. Uh my my claim is that the theodicies he provides, uh they have contradictory moral implications, they explain way too much, they undermine moral knowledge, and they're ad hoc. So, one of the theodicies that he gives is this omission theodicy. The idea is basically uh God created angels, gave them this obligation to steer evolution in a good direction, and they failed. So, a lot of the evil we see is just due to the uh failure of these angels to do their, you know, obligation that God gave them.
¶7And God's justified in doing this because the, you know, opportunity for them to have to make a real moral difference outweighs that. If he were to, um, intervene and swoop in, it would kind of undermine their uh true decision-making because the outcome would be the same whether they chose to do their obligation or not. Um, it's kind of like uh greater goods theodicy where these angels can, uh, show off greater virtue by following their obligation. Um, I think that, uh, so for one, I think that this has some like contradictory moral implications, you know, parents are obligated to feed their children. If you see that your neighbor's child is, you know, on the brink of starving to death, and you see the parents just drive away, does that obligation not fall on you to intervene and, you know, swoop in and and save the child?
¶8Um, I I feel like most people would say yes, it does, but I feel like this theodicy implies that no, you're actually better off not intervening because, uh, then the parents wouldn't have like a true decision-making, uh, yeah, they their decision wouldn't change the outcome. And, yeah, so I just think when we try to apply these like theodicies to our daily lives, they have these weird implications that I don't think, um, Catholics would agree with. Uh, let's see. Okay, so uh, Joe says that this isn't ad hoc because it actually fits with this view that, you know, God gives us humans, you know, deeply uh risky moral decisions. So, why wouldn't he do this for angels?
¶9It actually fits into this larger picture view, so it's not ad hoc. And I'll say, "Sure, that, you know, reduces its ad hocness, but that doesn't mean it's not ad hoc." Similarly, like, imagine an example of like, you're talking to a conspiracy theorist and they believe the Earth is flat and you say, "Well, how do you explain these pictures from space that clearly show that the Earth is round?" And they say something like, "Oh, well, NASA made those up." That's clearly an ad hoc explanation, but they may say, "Hey, look, it's not ad hoc cuz it actually uh fits with the idea that large agencies lie, like the uh tobacco industry lied about the dangers of tobacco." And so, this actually just fits in with that view perfectly. And I similar it similarly, I would say, "Yeah, that reduces its ad hocness, but that doesn't mean it's not ad hoc." It's still invented uh on the fly to explain this thing, even though it fits with one thing uh about our world view, it doesn't fit with so many others, you know? It also doesn't answer, you know, why NASA would have this incentive. Yeah, we can still see that that's an ad hoc explanation, even if it fits with a larger picture view in some small areas.
¶10There's many areas where it doesn't. Um Let's see. Uh Yeah, so the the way in which uh the Odyssey is also undermined moral knowledge is just because uh at one point Joe talks about skeptical theism, which is just the idea that God's a lot smarter than us. Uh so, maybe there's reasons that he has that we don't know. Uh sure, that's that's true, but I think that that starts to undermine our our moral knowledge because if there's all these explanations that have moral implications that we don't know, maybe murder is actually good and there's actually a really good explanation for why it's good, but we just don't know it.
¶11You know, that that's a possibility, too, and we have to include that. And so, if we're weighing in just you know, all the unknown unknowns, one, I don't really know how to do that, but two, yeah, just starts to under my undermine our knowledge generally. And I don't know, I'm fairly confident that uh that a lot of the suffering we see is bad. I'm fairly confident that the idea of eternal conscious torment is bad. Um and let's see.
¶12Uh yeah, so one thing I wanted to point out is Joe actually uh at this point in this video, he talks about how you you've done something wrong if you're a naturalist and you see every single atom with the words made by God with love written on the atom in every human language. That should be strong evidence for theism. And I agree, that should be strong evidence for theism. And if it somehow fits with your naturalist view, you've done something wrong. Uh and I feel like that's kind of what Joe does with with these theodicies and with like defending eternal conscious torment hell.
¶13Uh that's the type of thing where if if your theodicy can explain any amount of suffering, if there's no suffering, it couldn't fail to explain, you've gone you've gone wrong somewhere. Um you know, imagine that the world is like a hell world where it's just full to the brim with as much suffering you could as you could possibly imagine. The theodicy he provides here would still fit, right? The angels were supposed to stop it and they didn't, but it was good that they had this real difference-making opportunity to do so. Um if your theodicy fits with every data point, no matter the amount of suffering, then I think you've gone wrong somewhere in because the the same reason as why the naturalist has gone wrong if their view explains this made with made by God with love.
¶14So, I guess in summary, uh, my point is that uh, Joe makes some really good points. I just don't think that he applies the those points that he makes uh, equally to both naturalism and theism. I think he should apply that same logic to his own views. And I think if he did so, it would really start to undermine uh, his his view, but mostly just the Catholicism and Christianity part. I actually think that a lot of the points that, uh, I brought up in this video don't apply to theism generally or certainly not as strongly.
¶15So, I think that it I'm just kind of surprised that Joe went as far as to become Catholic and not just, uh, a theist, um, some more generic version of theism. I think it's a lot more defensible. Uh, yeah. I Hopefully, I'm I'd be really curious to see what Joe has to say in response. So, if somehow this gets to him and he sees it, I'd be really interested to talk to him about it.
¶16Um, and if I missed something in his video, you know, I tried my best to to be thorough on these two very like narrow, uh, topics, but uh, obviously he made a lot of content that I did not make a lot of content. So, he's a little more thorough than I am. Uh, so if I missed something, let me know. Uh, and I'll maybe I'll make a follow-up or something.