0:03 my name is Alex uh I am a graduate of
0:05 philosophy and Theology and I'm a
0:07 YouTuber and that's about all there is
0:10 to me I'm afraid uh but I'm ready when
0:11 you are if you could let me know when
0:12 I've got two minutes remaining by saying
0:13 two minutes that would be very helpful
0:16 thank you thank you uh of course Brian
0:18 and Jonathan and Satler college and
0:20 ladies and gentlemen for coming uh this
0:22 is the second time that I've engaged
0:25 with uh Jonathan publicly uh I'm glad to
0:26 pick up where we left off we didn't
0:27 quite get to the bottom of God's
0:30 existence last time I'm confident might
0:31 get there
0:33 today uh I wonder it' be quite
0:34 interesting just to get a fill of the
0:42 Christians is that is that the
0:44 time okay well it looks like I've got my
0:47 work cut out for me but that's my
0:50 favorite kind of debate I think um of
0:51 course this is an opening statement so I
0:52 won't respond to the arguments you just
0:55 heard just yet instead I want to uh make
1:00 my own case that upon uh an honest anal
1:03 of the world we find ourselves in it
1:05 should compel us to dismiss the
1:07 hypothesis of a supernatural Creator I
1:09 will not be asking you to look in
1:11 ancient scripture nor to the beginning
1:14 of the universe nor indeed down a
1:17 microscope instead just to your uh
1:19 direct experience of the world and fact
1:20 about the lives of people within it I
1:22 will however indulge in a brief biblical
1:24 recital um because I want to begin with
1:26 a book uh with a reading from The Book
1:28 of Psalms so if you could all turn to
1:31 Psalm 13 9 unless of course you've
1:32 already committed this famous passage to
1:36 memory verse 7 onwards reads where can I
1:39 go from your presence or where can I
1:42 flee from your spirit if I Ascend to the
1:46 heavens you are there if I make my bed
1:49 in the depths of the shal you are there
1:51 if I take the wings of the morning and
1:52 settle at the farthest limits of the sea
1:54 even there your hand shall guide me and
1:56 your right hand shall hold me fast this
1:58 poem in its entirety is given by the
2:02 nrsv a title the inescapable God it's a
2:04 message of bold reassurance to the
2:05 believer reminding them that since God
2:07 is present everywhere pervading every
2:09 inch of our universe he is in the
2:12 happiest sense possible inescapable but
2:14 my first argument and it's going to be
2:15 the first of
2:19 three uh against the viability of theism
2:20 flows from the demonstrable fact that
2:23 this Divine consolation is seemingly not
2:25 offered universally and often in fact
2:28 restricted from those who want it the
2:31 most I'm going to be making the claim
2:33 specifically that atheism or naturalism
2:34 provides a better account for three
2:36 facts of our universe the first being
2:39 the hiddenness of God the second being
2:43 the geographical uh statistical
2:46 uh uh Arrangement shall we say of
2:48 religious belief and the third will be
2:50 the problem of gratuitous suffering and
2:53 we'll see if we get time to finish it
2:55 off far from being unable to escape God
2:57 there is a very real contingent of
2:59 non-believers and I would count myself
3:01 among among their number who are unable
3:05 by any means to discover him who seek
3:07 and do not find who knock and receive as
3:10 it were no answer this strange
3:11 phenomenon is known as the problem of
3:14 divine hiddenness if there is a God then
3:16 simply why is he hidden from so many of
3:18 us so much of the time if theism is to
3:20 offer a sufficient account of reality
3:22 then it must offer an account of what JL
3:24 shellenberg has famously labeled
3:26 non-resistant non-belief which he
3:29 distinguishes from resistant non-belief
3:31 it's sometimes said by a theist who
3:33 wishes to explain uh the problem of
3:35 divine hiddenness that people simply
3:37 disbelieve through their own fault
3:39 they're too stubborn they're
3:40 purposefully blinding themselves to the
3:42 evidence because they don't want it to
3:44 be true they're not approaching the
3:46 arguments honestly with an open heart
3:48 and that if they would only do this then
3:51 God would surely reveal himself such a
3:52 person would be what shellenberg calls a
3:55 resistant non-believer he disbelieves in
3:57 some sense because he actively resists
3:59 it for what it's worth I do think that
4:01 such people exist I think many such
4:03 people exist uh there are people who
4:05 come to this debate with their minds
4:06 already made up there are people who
4:09 want it not to be true that God exists
4:11 and in fact wouldn't submit to that
4:12 truth even if it were true there was a
4:14 recent poll run by The Atheist
4:15 Experience YouTube channel which I know
4:18 Jonathan you're a fan of uh which asked
4:20 if there was a God would you worship it
4:23 to which an astonishing 85% of
4:26 respondents said that they would not
4:28 there are however also people who
4:31 disbelieve in God not out of resistance
4:33 or stubbornness or a hardened heart but
4:36 rather due to sheer lack of conviction
4:39 indeed many such people actively want to
4:40 be convinced of God's existence and
4:42 would jump at the chance of entering
4:44 into a relationship with him if they
4:47 thought that he did but no matter how
4:50 hard they search they simply find no
4:52 answer forthcoming from the heavens and
4:53 this is the
4:56 non-resistant non-believer formerly then
4:58 shellenberg problem of divine hiddenness
5:00 can be stated as follows premise one if
5:02 there is a God he is perfectly loving
5:04 something I'm pretty sure Jonathan
5:07 agrees with premise two if a perfectly
5:09 loving God exists non-resistant
5:12 non-belief does not occur premise three
5:17 non-resistant non-belief does occur for
5:20 therefore no perfectly loving God exists
5:21 and the conclusion from the first
5:23 premise is that therefore there is no
5:25 God a loving God like the Christian God
5:27 would surely not refuse any willing
5:29 person from developing a relationship
5:31 with him and so if somebody is truly
5:33 non-resistant and open to receiving
5:36 God's grace we should expect them to
5:38 receive it thus shellberg assertion that
5:40 if God exists then non-resistant
5:43 non-belief does not exist the question
5:45 then is there such a thing as
5:48 non-resistant non-belief a non-resistant
5:50 non-believer to which all I can really
5:53 say is nice to meet you the last time I
5:55 debated Jonathan a number of years ago
5:56 when I was just a few months out of
5:59 being a teenager I said that even if I
6:01 thought even if I found Christianity to
6:04 be true I still wouldn't want to worship
6:08 the god uh that it promotes I now since
6:10 then have realized how irrational and
6:12 self-defeating this assertion is and
6:15 stand before you today as an example of
6:17 a non-resistant non-believer I think it
6:19 would be great if God existed I really
6:22 do I would I would absolutely love to
6:24 escape death I would relish being the
6:26 recipient of unconditional love less
6:28 selfishly I would love to be able to
6:31 worship that which deserves to be
6:34 woried I just don't think it's true I
6:37 try as I might look where I can I find
6:41 no response no hint nothing I don't
6:43 choose to disbelieve in God anymore than
6:46 I choose to disbelieve in Aliens despite
6:48 how much I might want them to so when
6:51 faced with a Psalm like Psalm 139 I'm
6:53 overwhelmed with a sense not of beauty
6:56 and consolation but envy and
6:58 disappointment where can I go from your
6:59 spirit where can I flee from your
7:02 presence where can I go I should ask in
7:05 response to find it of course you cannot
7:07 know my heart you can't know if I'm
7:09 truly as non-resistant as I claim but I
7:11 hope that my actions here might betray
7:14 me uh as as a Catholic child I was once
7:17 an an alter boy I would serve the altar
7:18 of mother church every Sunday dressed in
7:23 a white robe um in the time since then I
7:26 have to put it mildly been looking for
7:28 God I went to Catholic schools I studied
7:31 philosophy and theology at a levels I
7:33 made a career out of engaging with
7:35 religious arguments I have explored
7:36 arguments from contingency from
7:39 fine-tuning from motion from mathematics
7:42 from indeed from uh irreducible
7:44 complexity and the alleged resurrection
7:46 of Jesus of Nazareth it may surprise my
7:49 followers online to learn uh that at
7:51 University I visited numerous churches
7:52 on the invitation of various friends I
7:54 spent hours talking with religious
7:57 friends until the sun rose again if you
8:01 like I spent I attended Bible groups
8:03 regularly too which might surprise
8:06 people uh as well and in fact I I still
8:08 do attend such groups just recently I
8:10 agreed to embark on a series of study of
8:12 the wisdom literature specifically
8:14 reading it again in the hopes that this
8:16 time I might finally feel a divine
8:20 presence seeping from between the lines
8:22 I moved into a house for a year with two
8:24 devoutly Christian housemates with the
8:26 express intention of seeing if the
8:29 obvious truth of Christianity and theism
8:30 that people like to talk about can be
8:33 found in the minutia of daily
8:36 life I have looked in other words in a
8:38 great deal of places I read athanasius
8:41 and anel I read Augustine and aquinus I
8:42 I looked in Julian of Norwich and
8:44 Katherine of Sienna I looked at the
8:46 sociological origin of religious belief
8:49 in durheim and Marx and Freud and young
8:51 I looked at religious experience in
8:53 William James and Rudolph alsoo I've
8:54 looked in the modern works of people
8:56 like Ed faser and Bill Craig and Michael
8:58 Murray and Richard swinburn and Alvin
9:00 plantinga I've looked in poetry I've
9:02 looked in the Psalms I've looked in job
9:04 I've looked in Ecclesiastes I've looked
9:07 in dooi I read CS Lewis I listened to
9:09 worship music I prayed I studied the
9:11 gospel I even got an actual degree in
9:16 theology from a university and nothing
9:19 nothing not once not nearly not ever not
9:21 even briefly have I experienced anything
9:25 that speaks to the existence of a God in the
9:26 the
9:29 universe I think it's asking a lot of
9:31 any atheist to seriously engage with a
9:32 religion that he does not believe is
9:35 true in any circumstances but I think
9:37 like I have gone above and beyond what
9:39 can be reasonably expected of any
9:41 atheist who wishes to entertain the god
9:42 hypothesis and for my efforts I have
9:45 been awarded radio silence the
9:47 inescapable god of the nrsv in other
9:49 words is for me the invisible God or The
9:53 inapproachable God the deaf distant God
9:55 the best account that I can give of this
9:57 experience of complete and utter Silence
10:00 from De heaven is that all that truly
10:03 exists to me is impersonal space and air
10:05 and rocks I know I know it sucks I'm
10:06 sorry it's it's it's a shame but there's
10:08 no need to cry about
10:11 it and nothing more my question to
10:14 Jonathan then is simple how can theism
10:16 account for this lived experience how
10:18 can it account in other words for
10:21 non-resistant non belief and if atheism
10:23 and doesn't atheism offer a better
10:26 explanation at the very least am I a
10:30 non-resistant non-believer if so
10:33 what offers a best account or a better
10:35 account of such a condition a universe
10:37 in which there is a loving God who does
10:39 want to be my friend but is for some
10:42 reason refusing or hiding or toying with
10:45 me or a universe without one or is there
10:47 no such thing as a non-resistant
10:49 non-believer which is the only remaining
10:52 option do we all secretly resist in some
10:54 way or other after desperately in other
10:56 words trying to convince myself of God's
10:58 existence for years and being left
11:01 painfully unconvinced will you just
11:04 submit as if to add insult to this
11:06 spiritual injury that this is in some
11:10 way my fault and if it is then what
11:11 could I have done differently what
11:13 should I be doing differently what could
11:15 I possibly have done differently given
11:19 the course of my life now assume for a
11:20 moment ladies and gentlemen the
11:23 alternative hypothesis of naturalism of
11:25 atheism and ask if it provides a good
11:28 account of non-resistant non-belief and
11:30 I think the answer is obvious
11:32 but it does get worse yet you'll
11:33 remember that my second fact that I said
11:36 that I would bring up is the
11:38 geographical predictability of religious
11:40 belief not only does theism need to
11:42 account for non-resistant non-belief but
11:44 also for the fact that such belief is
11:47 unequally present across the globe
11:49 Steven maton has pointed out that the
11:52 populace of Saudi Arabia is 95% Muslim
11:55 and therefore 95% theistic whereas the
11:58 populace of Thailand is 95% Buddhist and
12:02 therefore at best 5% theistic How likely
12:04 you are to be a theist in other words is
12:06 intimately tied to the place in which
12:10 you happen to be born what can better
12:13 explain this geographical spread theism
12:16 or naturalism or atheism well let's
12:17 consider our two competing hypotheses
12:20 could it be that God does exist but that
12:23 the tie are simply naturally 20 times
12:26 more likely to be resistant to belief in
12:28 God than say the Saudis are they just
12:30 naturally 20 s more stubborn or
12:32 something this seems implausible this
12:35 doesn't seem to be their fault okay so
12:37 maybe then it's not their fault and God
12:39 just has some reason to hide his face
12:42 disproportionately more from the ti than
12:44 from Saudis or indeed from those born
12:47 here in Massachusetts which uh has a
12:49 theistic according to one statistic is
12:54 75% theistic if theism is true it seems
12:56 to me that God has a lot to answer for
12:58 here is it not troubling Jonathan for as
13:01 a Christian that your place your place
13:04 of birth is a reliable statistical
13:06 indicator of How likely you are to be
13:10 saved I'll say that again your place of
13:12 birth which is entirely arbitrary is a
13:15 reliable indicator of How likely you are
13:19 on Christianity to be saved you're
13:20 significantly more likely to be a theist
13:22 if you're born in Rwanda than if you're
13:24 born in Thailand can this situation
13:26 really obtain under the supervision of a
13:28 God who wants to come to know us and
13:29 makes his existence equally accessible
13:33 to all the chances seem infinitely small
13:35 now consider naturalism or atheism
13:37 religion varying by region is exactly
13:41 what we would expect if it is a man-made
13:43 cultural phenomenon and nothing like
13:46 what we should expect if there is in
13:48 fact one true God who loves all equally
13:50 again I think atheism provides a much
13:52 stronger account of this fact of our
13:55 world finally
13:57 then the third fact of our universe
13:59 which is gratuitous suffering
14:01 gratuitous here means something like
14:04 unjustified or unwarranted or
14:06 meaningless I do this because it's easy
14:09 to see how some instances of suffering
14:11 may be uh beneficial in certain
14:13 circumstances or necessary to bring
14:15 about some desirable State of Affairs
14:17 some desirable end but the existence of
14:20 meaningless or unnecessary suffering
14:22 does seem to be incompatible with the
14:24 existence of a God who loves us and has
14:26 the power to prevent it from happening
14:29 we're sometimes told that God has
14:31 morally sufficient reason to allow
14:34 suffering to exist indeed if God is good
14:37 then he must have such sufficient reason
14:39 perhaps suffering is necessitated by
14:42 human Free Will perhaps suffering helps
14:44 to develop a person's moral character or
14:45 maybe it's necessary to achieve some
14:48 other end that God wishes to bring about
14:50 but intuitively there appear to be
14:52 instances of suffering that cannot serve
14:57 any such end and if even one example of
14:59 these turns out to be an actual case of
15:01 unnecessary or meaningless suffering
15:03 this would be enough to cause a
15:06 problem I want to propose something that
15:09 might sound a little strange at first
15:10 which is that the biggest problem for
15:13 theism here is not famously the the
15:15 great intense sufferings of the world
15:17 like holocausts or earthquakes but
15:21 rather me uh menial less significant
15:23 suffering like being caught out in the
15:25 rain or stubbing your toe or tripping
15:29 over a curb on the street why it seems a
15:31 Tad absurd I'll I'll grant you that but
15:32 consider this when we experience a great
15:35 suffering like the death of a loved one
15:37 or a devastating earthquake or indeed a
15:40 holocaust it's easy to imagine that this
15:43 might somehow be part of a grand plan
15:46 the depth of our suffering uh may make
15:48 us into better people the people who die
15:50 may be experiencing a much happier State
15:53 of Affairs in the afterlife now perhaps
15:55 by allowing the Jewish Holocaust to take
15:57 place God uh makes it such that we are
16:00 far less likely to allow even worse uh
16:02 projects of genocide to occur in the
16:05 future but what could possibly be served
16:06 what possible end could be served what
16:08 possible meaning could there be in
16:11 subbing your toe or tripping over a curb
16:13 or having a pigeon use your new suit as
16:16 a restroom such instances are not
16:18 significant they're usually forgotten
16:20 within a day or two and therefore do not
16:24 and cannot develop the soul nor do they
16:26 seem plausibly part of some Grand Design
16:29 or plan they seem that is to say
16:31 meaningless and
16:35 unnecessary more meaningless uh more meaninglessness
16:36 meaninglessness
16:40 than instances of let's say great uh or
16:42 intense suffering much more meaningless
16:44 than these and truly meaningless
16:46 unnecessary suffering is certainly more
16:48 expected in a world without benevolent
16:50 supervision than in a theistic paradigm
16:52 a successful theodicy in other words
16:54 then needs to provide not only an
16:55 account of the great and intense
16:56 sufferings of the world but also the
17:00 menial sufferings which pervade Human
17:02 Experience now I'm actually quite
17:04 surprised uh that I've made it this far
17:05 without mentioning animals yet it's
17:07 quite unlike me but that's a final
17:09 consideration that does deserve our
17:11 attention whatever theodicy might
17:13 explain human suffering the existence of
17:15 animal suffering seems infinitely more
17:17 difficult to explain animals are not
17:19 free in the way that we are and so are
17:21 immune to the Free Will defense they
17:23 cannot morally develop in the way that
17:25 we can and so are immune to Soul making
17:27 theodes they are on most accounts not
17:29 going to heaven and so they will not be
17:32 compensated for their suffering yet
17:34 their suffering is immeasurably large
17:37 somewhere right now billions of animals
17:40 are suffering in the wild from predation
17:43 from disease from Hunger from Fear
17:46 imagine a deer with its leg caught under
17:50 a Fallen Tree dying of starve
17:53 confusion it doesn't know why it's there
17:55 it feels hungry it's starving to death
17:57 and it's trapped under a tree and it has
17:59 no idea why
18:01 what could possibly be the purpose or
18:03 meaning of this I'll remind you that
18:05 this is exactly exactly the kind of
18:07 thing that we should expect to see if
18:10 the natural world is an amoral Arena of
18:12 accidentally existing organisms fighting
18:14 with each other to stay alive but can we
18:16 really expect this on theism should we
18:18 expect this on theism what offers a
18:22 better account keep in mind that in
18:23 other words I'm not arguing that theism
18:25 can offer no account of these kinds of
18:28 situations and sufferings though I am
18:30 skeptical that it can I'm only arguing
18:32 that assuming that theism is false
18:33 offers a better account of it than
18:35 assuming that theism is true assume
18:37 atheism assume that human beings and
18:39 other animals are nothing more than
18:42 evolved creatures who developed pain
18:44 receptors to make them more prone to
18:46 avoiding the menial and great sufferings
18:48 that upset our survival prospects on
18:50 this account the existence of all
18:52 suffering small and great is not only
18:54 explained but
18:57 expected thus atheism offers a better
18:59 account in my view than the of three
19:01 crucial and unavoidable facts Divine
19:04 hiddenness geographical religious
19:06 statistics and the existence of
19:09 gratuitous human and non-human suffering
19:12 and I am truly excited to hear how
19:14 Jonathan might account for these uh on
19:16 theism in defending it as a more
19:19 plausible account of our reality thank
19:21 you the full conversation that the clip
19:22 you just watched was taken from is
19:24 available via the link that just
19:26 appeared on your screen don't forget to
19:28 subscribe thank you for watching and
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