¶1Asalam alaikum everyone. How are you guys doing? So recently Joe Schmidt from the YouTube channel Majesty of Reason converted from atheism to Catholicism. And his main reason as to why he converted specifically to Catholicism was that of vindicatory miracles. And in this video I will be diving deep into his argument.
¶2More specifically I will be showing you guys why his argument simply fails to show the truth of Catholicism. why his argument actually goes counter to his own beliefs. So, I hope you guys enjoy this video and let's begin. Prior to starting this video, I hope you guys watch the incisive thoughts video specifically on Joe Schmidt. It is a fivehour video where they're diving deep into the vindicator miracles argument from Joe Schmidt.
¶3It's a very well done video. The link to that video will be posted down in the description below. So to start off, what is Joe Schmidt's argument from vindicatory miracles? Well, let us take a look at what Joe Schmidt says himself. >> I basically got overwhelming miraculous evidence for Catholicism and Christianity.
¶4Come on. >> And basically once I got that, it kind of I see. >> Yeah. Once I had that, I was like, okay, >> I must just be missing something, you know? I must be missing something.
¶5And then along the way there were some interesting and new theodysies or responses to the problem of evil that I thought like yeah maybe they have some force and maybe we can go into those but I only kind of came to appreciate their force >> after >> I basically was just >> inundated with miraculous evidence for Catholicism. So miracles are basically events produced by God within the natural world that are naturalistically inexplicable. In other words, they are divine deeds that exceed the powers that created things have by their natures. And here we need to distinguish vindicatory from nonindigatory miracles. Vindicatory miracles are miracles that events a divine intent to authenticate or confirm a divine legate or divine revelation.
¶6In other words, vindicatory miracles involve God putting his public miraculous stamp of approval on some doctrine or some puditive divine message or someone who is claiming to speak on behalf of God. That's what a divine leate is or at least a purported divine leggate. you know, someone who purports to speak on behalf of God, God the creator. Non-windigatory miracles are ones that don't even a divine intent to authenticate a divine message or messenger. They instead might have a whole host of other intents.
¶7Maybe to compassionate someone in need, to save someone from death, to manifest his glory, to just heal someone, etc. So for Joe Schmidt, there's a clear difference between miracles like common everyday miracles and vindicatory miracles. A miracle is something that can occur on a daily basis or throughout any place in the world and across different religions. So for instance, let's say somebody is sick. He's by himself in his house.
¶8He prays to God and the next day he is magically cured from his illness. That individual might say that is a miracle from God. I am cured from my illness. This is not the type of miracles that Joe Schmidt is talking about in his video. He actually says that these types of miracles can occur throughout many different religions across the entire world and so on and so forth for a variety of reasons.
¶9Maybe God just wants to show his grace to individuals because he loves people. Maybe God wants to show forgiveness to people and so on and so forth. What he is talking about is that of vindicatory miracles. Vindicatory miracles are miracles that occur out in the open in front of a large group of people, in front of other people. There are many eyewitness testimonies to those miracles and these miracles are so amazing that they cannot have a natural explanation behind them.
¶10Not only that, it is done as Joe Schmidt is arguing through a very specific religion through only one religion for Joe Schmidt that is Catholicism. The purposes of these vindicatory miracles is that God is sort of putting his stamp of approval on that religion. So God will have a saint or a messenger or an individual of that given religion doing this super unique miracle that cannot be explained through natural processes. Now, an important point to clarify here is that Joe Schmidon's video says there could be claims to vindicatory miracles from other religions. However, those are simply claims.
¶11There's no really strong evidence of those claims. Maybe just one guy stating that, oh, this person in the Protestant faith or this po or this person in the Muslim faith performed performed this vindicatory miracle out in the open. But is not a lot of strong evidence supporting those and especially when compared to Christianity, the evidence is very weak for those so-called vinticatory miracles for other religions. Joe Schmidt is making the case that because the evidence in Catholicism is just so strong, there's so much evidence for these vindicatory miracles only in Catholicism. And there are so many of these vindicatory miracles in Catholicism.
¶12If there were a God, it would be very clear that God is the God of Catholicism due to these vindicatory miracles. To better understand his argument, Joe Schmidt discusses the first person he discusses in this video is that of Padre Peio. Padro Peio was a priest, an Italian priest who by many accounts performed many amazing miracles. There were miracles of him having the wounds of Jesus Christ somehow coming in his hands. They could not be healed up.
¶13Those wounds were exactly like the wounds of Jesus Christ when he was up on the cross. There were miracles when some people would come to him to confess their sins and he would tell them of their exact sins to them prior to them even opening their mouths. He would seemingly go to people and heal them from their years of sickness or paralysis or whatever the case may be. Padre Peio is a prime example of these vindicatory miracles that many Catholics who uphold the vindicatory miracles argument actually use. And all of these miracles were done by a Catholic priest, somebody in the Catholic faith.
¶14And there are so much evidence attesting to these miracles that have no naturalistic explanation behind them. Hence for joshett Padre Peio is one of the many evidences pointing to the fact that these vindicatory miracles clearly show the truth of Catholicism. Now that we understand Joe Schmidt's argument, let us go into why his argument fails. And there is a couple of fronts we want to delve into. For starters, I want to grant that all of these miracles from Padre Peio, for instance, actually occurred out in the open.
¶15Even though there have been many people who have claimed otherwise, such as in this incisive thoughts video, there was actually people who went to Padre Pio and found him to be a pathological liar, to be somebody who was faking all of this up. Um so Agostino Jilli prominent physician frier and one of uh Milan's Catholic university Catholic university assess Padre Peio as quote an ignorant and selfmutilating psychopath who prayed on public gullibility. >> Wow. So it doesn't seem like everybody who analyzed him at the time analyed the evidence from the Catholics themselves came to the conclusion that all of this was just totally legit m you know miracles. There was a chap uh Sergio Lazat who discovered archival evidence showing that Padre Pio secretly ordered some ingredients including acids and so on which would just so happen to produce these horrendous lesions on his hands.
¶16But I don't want to delve into that. I want to take those miracles as if they actually occurred. How do we debunk the vindicator miracles from that? Well, the first approach I'm going to be taking which will lead into the grander point of this video is that these vindicatory miracles are not specific to Catholicism. To for Joe to say that is simply because he is only looking at western documents at Western history.
¶17But when we go to the east, when we go to Islamic history, this claim that Joe Schmidt is making is simply not the case. Many, and I mean many of the companions of the prophet Muhammad sallall.aii wasallam had these vindicatory miracles appear in front of the enemies of Islam and the companions of the prophet sallall.aii wasallam. One such miracle was that when an army approached Kaladb, when one of the enemies of Islam approached Khaled W, they gave him a poison to drink. And what did Khalib do? Did he fear?
¶18Did he throw it out of the way? No. He grabbed that poison and with full faith of Allah subhanana wa ta'ala drank it and he never suffered any of the consequences from the poison that came from the enemies of Islam. During the time of Omar who as Omar was giving the Friday sermon he yelled out saying el jabel oh the mountain many people who witnessed at Omaru during his Friday prayerbah at the masid in an enclosed space not at the battlefield where he was going somehow he screamed out to this individual to one of his companions saying Look at the mountains. Meaning the enemies are coming from the mountain.
¶19What is so interesting about this story is not only did Esther Seria act not only did Seria hear what Omar said which would have been impossible based on the location of where Omar was but they actually looked and saw the enemies approaching from behind the mountain which was impossible for Omar Seria or any of the companions to actually witness to actually see the enemies approaching from behind behind the mountain. But because Omar warned them, they were able to succeed in that battle. And many of the scholars Iben Cathed this is a very good chain of transmission from companions who showed that yes, we witnessed all of this occurring that we heard Omar yelling at us even though Omar was physically not even close to them. There was another very interesting story where where Elrami he was with his army and there was this huge body of water in front of them that they could not have been able to cross across that water with their horses. Their horses would have been stuck and not able to cross the water.
¶20Yet Abu Hurer which as many Muslims know has documented the most of mount of hadith sayings of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam compared to every other sahaba. He saw with his own eyes as did the many companions with Abu Hurer and Allah. They saw that they were able to walk through the water, walk on top of the water. And here's the most amazing part. Abu Hurer said that none of the horses and none of the Sahabas became wet when crossing that.
¶21How is it possible that they were somehow miraculously walking on top of the water? or some reports saying they went through the water but none of them became wet. This is miraculous to say the least. It's shocking. How did this occur?
¶22All of these are vindicatory miracles. There's no doubt about it. These are just astonishing things that have occurred. But even if we look past the companions of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, let us look at Iben Tia. Iban Tamia's closest student Iban Kaim has reported numerous miracles vindicatory miracles from Sheikh Alislam Iben Tamia.
¶23Many of these miracles interestingly connect back to the exact same structure of the miracles from Padre Peel. One of the miracles that Iben Clay attested to for Islam Tamia was that prior to fighting the Mongols, Iben Tamia stated that by Allah you will certainly be victorious. Some of the commanders, some of the people say, "Oh, Ibent Tamia say inshallah say God willing." And Ibent Tamia said very interestingly, "I say it as a certainty, not as a condition." Ibent Tamia said for certain we will win the Mongol war. We will win against the Mongols. When he said this, he wasn't stating it in a way of trying to boost morale up.
¶24He truly knew with certainty that they were going to win and they actually ended up winning. Furthermore, there was an individual who snuck into the city late at night during the time of Ibent Tamia and Ibent Tamia went to him and told his companions, he is going to him to heal him because he is sick. Upon arriving, this individual was shocked. How did you know I came here? I purposely came at night.
¶25No one saw me and no one was told that I was sick. The only individual that knew who was sick was well me. No one else knew this information. Ibent Tamia knew this information. Ibent Tamia knew and openly stated the sins of individuals when they came to him to ask him for guidance.
¶26Iben Tamia in debates many times would interrupt the individual to tell them you are going to say this and then that. And he would state the exact objections that this individual would have prior to the individual even arguing or even stating anything at the time of the argument. And the individual admitted openly that Ibentia knew exactly what objections he had in his mind. Interestingly, Iben Tamia told Iben Kaim in detail about the first Mongol invasion. Iben Tamia told Iben Kaim this.
¶27Ibent Tamia foretold that the Tatars would enter Syria in 699 ah that the Muslims army would initially be defeated but that Damascus would not undergo general slaughter or mass enslavement. And this is exactly what occurred as Iben Cayam states in his books. And all of these miraculous events were seen by Iben Kayim and the many companions and the enemies of Ibamia as well. Even the enemies of Iben Tamia attested to these vindicator miracles from Alisam Tamia. Now one objection that Joe can have is that when he's making the claim for vindicatory miracles, he's meaning something with super strong evidence.
¶28is not just about the miracles but also about the evidence. And he might say this because all of the evidence that I presented were testimonial evidence. Starters, testimony is evidence. In fact, the stories I presented when looked at through the hadith science, the indepth hadith science that we Muslims have, both modern and scholars of the past have attested that those were sahe, good, sound chains of transmission, that they were told by honest individuals who never told the lie, who did not have bad memories. And some of these stories were mass transmitted that so many individuals claim the exact same story that unless you are a fullblown skeptic, you won't believe it.
¶29Any form of skepticism that one will bring to testimonial evidence can be brought to video and photo evidence from the Catholic faith. Such as maybe they were lying. Maybe the photos were maybe the photos were fake. Maybe the videos were fake. Maybe they were all trying to lie to us when they were claiming that you know Omar did X Y or Z.
¶30Furthermore, I wanted to mention only some of the vindicatory miracles of Islam. There are many individuals who do rukia, who do exorcism, who claim and have videos and photos and documents claiming the exact same vindicatory miracles. The point of me bringing up Ibent Tamia and the companions of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam was to show that even in the past we had these evidence of vindicator miracles and even with scholars such as Ibent Mia vindicator miracles existed but more importantly testimony is evidence and I do not find that a photo or video is at a greater level of standard than a mass transmission of testimonial evidence. evidence. I can go on and on on and on with these vindicator miracles that have many eyewitness testimonies to them, but that's not the argument I want to make in this video.
¶31My argument is not because there's vindicatory miracles in Islam and there's more of them in Islam, therefore Catholicism is wrong. No, clearly vindicatory miracles is not just something found in Catholicism. if vindicatory miracles was the tipping point for Joe Schmidt. But now we just showed that vindicator miracles are not just solely found in Catholicism. Where do we go now?
¶32How do we know which religion is right? This actually leads into a very interesting story that she als mentions this story. Among the satanic states is that of Abdullah ibn seed who appeared during the time of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam. Some of the companions thought that he was the dal the antichrist and the prophet peace and blessings be upon him withheld judgment concerning him until it later became clear to him that he was not the dal. However, he was of the type of soothsayers.
¶33The prophet said to him, I have concealed something for you. He said eld the prophet had concealed for him the surah alan. So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said to him be off with you. You will not exceed your limits. That is you are merely one of the brethren of the soothsayers.
¶34A soothsayers who have a companion from among the devils who informed him of much of the unseen through what it stole by eavesdropping. But now what does the story tell us? Well, there was an individual even during the time of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam where the prophet wanted to test him. Did he really know the unseen and the prophet purposely concealed a surah, a chapter of the Quran that only the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam had knowledge of because only to him the revelation came to. However, this individual knew what the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was concealing.
¶35And what did the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam say? Did he say, "Oh, we must follow you now." Did he say to the companions, "Hey, we have to actually follow him." Did any of the companions follow this individual? No. None of the companions followed him. And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam told him to leave off with you because he knew that this individual was not a messenger that this individual was a soothsayer.
¶36And this story is kind of leading into the greater argument I have for the vindicatory miracles. And that is Ibent Tamia's statement on why other religions have these miraculous events occurring. Why other religions have vindicatory miracles? And by looking at the statement of Shik Islam Tamia, we will see why the vindicator miracles argument simply fails. Ibent Tamir writes Shikam Ibent Tamir states concerning those who experience satanic states these are people whom devils accompany and descend them.
¶37They disclose to people some matters and they possess extraordinary powers of the kind associated with sorcery. They are akin to soothsayers and sorcers upon whom devils descend. Allah most high says shall I for shall I inform you upon whom the devils descend? They descend upon every sinful liar. They pass on what they hear, but most of them are liars.
¶38All of these claim revelations and extraordinary occurrences. If they are not followers of the messengers, they must inevitably lie and their devils lie to them. Their deeds must also contain sin and immorality such as some form of polytheism, injustice, obscenities, extremism or religious innovations in worship. This is why devils descend upon them and accompany them so they may become allies of Satan rather than allies of the most merciful. What Iben Tami is stating here is that there will be individuals who perform amazing miracles and crazy things that we can never imagine.
¶39But and this is the most important point. Every single person who does this is working with the devil. Is doing something sinful. is doing something that is not allowed for them to do. They are not doing so from Allah subhana ta or god.
¶40They are doing that from satan. Ibia further states and you find that many of these people base their beliefs of some that someone is a willy. There is nothing in any of these matters that indicate that one possessing them is a willy of Allah. Rather the allies of Allah have agreed that if a man were to fly through the air or walk on water, one should not be deceived by him until his adherence to the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam and his conformity to his commands and prohibitions are examined. The miracles of the allies of Allah most high are greater than these matters and these occurrence that defy customary norms.
¶41Even though the one possessing them may be a willy of Allah, he may also be an enemy of Allah. For these extraordinary occurrences happen to many disbelievers, polytheists, people of the book and hypocrites. They also happen to people of innovation and they may be from the devils. What is Iben Tamia stating here? And this is the criterion for Ibent Tamia that none of us should be deceived by them till we know what his connection is to that of the prom.
¶42Wasam. Meaning putting it another way he grants that Muslims can perform miracles and non-Muslims can perform miracles. If you see somebody flying in the air pointing and somebody dies, it is not because of the miracle that we should follow this individual because Iben Tami is saying that both sides can do miracles. Many polytheists can do miracles. He is stating that we should only follow the individuals who are already following the messenger of Allah and not anyone who does a miracle.
¶43Interestingly, this exact testament, this exact idea is even found within the Bible. In Matthew 24, it states, "False prophets will produce great signs and wonders enough to deceive the elect if that were possible." In Theosians 2, it states it describes the lawless one arriving with powers and signs and lying wonders. And what this means is that both Christianity and Islam attests to miraculous things occurring from other people. But both of them are warning the followers that these individuals who are doing these things are not from God. They are not doing it through the right religion.
¶44Now, Ibent Tamian's point is this. The only criterion to distinguish between which miracles are actually truly miracles from God is not by the miracle of who does it but by knowing the truth of the religion and knowing which and knowing whether this individual is truly doing a miracle based on the right religion. I.e. you don't look at the miracles and go to that religion. You start with the belief of a given religion and then you go based off of that.
¶45And to really further cement this point across as to why this argument from vindicator miracles is faulty, I want to look at something that both religions share and that is of the antichrist, the dal. Both Christianity and Islam have this opinion have this view that towards the end of mankind towards the end of the times before we go back to Allah go back to God there will be an individual named the antichrist the dal as stated in Arabic in the Islamic context. This individual, the antichrist, will come to people performing miracles out in the open that no one else has experienced in this life. In both accounts from Christianity and Islam, this antichrist will come to people whose parents or family members have died and he will raise them back from the dead. This antichrist will come and change weather.
¶46It can be a bright and sunny day and by his own hands he can change it immediately to raining. This antichrist will make fire like water and water like fire. He will perform miracles that no one has ever seen in this world. And this is exactly what both Christianity and Islam state about the antichrist. So my question to Joe Schmidt is if vindicatory miracles are right, would you believe in the antichrist?
¶47No one will perform miracles as open with as with as many eyewitness testimonies as the antichrist with as astonishing of a miracle as antichrist. So my question is would Joe Schmidt believe the antichrist? Would he believe the doual? Will he change his religion because of what he's seeing? The miracle that he's seeing.
¶48If Joe Schmidt were to be honest that vindicatory miracles are such a powerful indicator, then he must say yes, he will follow the antichrist to hell. If it is the case that he feels intuitively, well, I don't want to follow him because of what my Bible says, because of what the Catholic Church says, even look at Muslims, what Islam says. Then what are you doing? You are going back to the criterion placed by Sheikh Alisam Ibia that you start with the belief and then test the miracles. Not starting with the miracles and then going based off that miracle to the belief.
¶49If Joe Schmidt is not going to follow the Antichrist because of what the Bible says, then it follows that vindicator miracles cannot be proof for Catholicism because no one else performs such great vindicatory miracles as the antichrist as the doub. And this just shows that the entire second video of Joe Schmidt's 25-hour Magnus Opus simply falls apart. He cannot use miracles. Joe Schmidt cannot claim that vindicatory miracles is proof of Catholicism. In the same way he wouldn't want to say that v that the vindicatory miracles of the antichrist is proof that the antichrist is god.
¶50His argument simply falls apart and we have to go back to the roots of what Iben Tamius stated that we start with the belief and then judge the miracles. Originally for this video I made a clip describing the miracle of the Quran and the miracle of Islam. However, that was delving too deep into it without putting in a lot of information. So, if anybody wants to see proof of Islam, proof of the that the Quran is the word of Allah subhana wa ta'ala and proof of prophethood and all the miracles that come within it, please watch the videos that I did with incisive thoughts because I believe those are the best compilation of videos that show evidence for the truth of Islam. So to wrap this video up, as you guys can see, Joe Schmidt's vindicatory miracles argument simply fails.
¶51It fails on multiple fronts. There were many vindicator miracles done through Islamic history. Even Hindus, Buddhism, and every other and many other religions have vindicatory miracles. But not only that, by looking at the criterion of Sheik Alamabad Tamia, we see that if vindicator miracles were to be proof of a given religion, then we should all angel Schmidt follow the antichrist. Obviously, none of us would because of our given religions.
¶52So, we cannot go from vindicatory miracles to the religion. We have to see which religion is right, then go base and see which miracles is actually miraculous from God. So, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. I hope to see you guys next time and assalamu alayikum.