 Hey everybody, today we're debating whether or not Christianity is true and we are starting right now with perspective philosophies opening statement. Thanks so much for being with us perspective. The floor is all yours. Hello there. Thank you for having me on and thank you to Matt for being willing to have this debate. It's a great opportunity and I'm very happy to talk to you, Matt. So thank you again. Okay, so my opening statement and my argument as a whole is going to be based on whether Christianity is true. But in order to give a full account of whether Christianity is true and reasons for that, I think that we need to first understand why we would choose, let's say one position over the other, why we would choose Christianity over something like agnosticism or atheism. Myself have been, I myself have been an agnostic and understand the doubts that people go through engaging in this kind of theistic thinking. So I really want to make this very perfectly clear. We are engaging in a philosophical position which looks towards the epistemic justifications of either all position. Okay, so for my position, I believe that it is important to stress the epistemological advantage that Christianity brings to the table. So the reason I am engaging, well, the reason I am arguing for Christianity is because of the importance of grounding. For those of you who are not familiar with grounding, grounding is essentially finding the rational root of an argumentative inference or a way of logical thinking. It is essentially the grounds of any form of argumentation or epistemology as a whole. So you would see this as, for example, if you were to reason back in terms of physics, you would reason back to first principles, first physical principles, and we usually count these as things like the laws of physics. If you go past the laws of physics or beneath the laws of physics, you'll find things like normal logical laws and the laws of logic, the fact that certain things must be identical with themselves. For example, that something to be itself has to be identical with itself or that something cannot be itself and its negation. These are the kind of laws which structure are thinking at its bedrock, and there's something that we cannot deny. And when I say we cannot deny, I don't mean that simply as it is beneficial to accept these logical structures, but rather it is an indudable structure that to doubt it, you will have to invoke the structure itself and they engage in the active affirmation of the thing you are trying to negate. That is essentially what I'm going to argue happens if you engage in an argument against the existence of God. Now, so the argument that I'm using is essentially a form of a cosmological argument that was put forward by Leibniz. Leibniz was a philosopher in the 17th century and he came up with what is called the principle of sufficient reason. The principle of sufficient reason is an argument which premises that there are two kinds of beings. There are necessary beings and there are contingent beings. Necessary beings are indudable, like the laws of logic as I have talked about, or necessary principles that are indudable. Contingent beings have a cause or a reason, more specifically a reason for their existence. In order to give an account for their existence, you have to be able to say why it exists. For example, something like the laws of logic are indudable, or perhaps the number five being the number five might be indudable, or perhaps something mathematically like, you know, a squared plus b squared equals c squared. That seems to be, at its root, an a priori and arguably an indudable proposition. However, me wearing this shirt today or that the sky is blue right now, it's not raining, whether there is somebody outside your door, they are contingent. They are contingent upon whether it actually is the case or not. We don't have to say that they are true unless we can either prove they are true or through empirical or rational argumentation, but really empirical argumentation with those examples. So there are two kinds of principles there. Now, every single contingent being, which means that pretty much everything that you see around us today, whether it's yourself and what you are doing, or the world being the way it is, whether it's raining outside, whatever it is, that is a contingent thing. It's something that is changeable and something that will necessarily change, and you can only give an account for it if you go through a causal chain. In that causal chain, you will give a reference to a prior reason. That prior reason contains the justification for the antecedent gives a justification for the consequence that you are experiencing. So if it's raining outside, you could reason that there are clouds in the sky that are essentially made of water vapor, and that is what has led to this rainfall. In the case of God, I'm going to argue that all contingent beings engage in a causal chain that will necessarily lead back to what has to be a necessary first cause. The reason it has to be a necessary first cause is to affirm the existence of rational argumentation itself. Reason in order to flow requires that there is a necessary link from antecedent to consequence. This is essentially logical inference itself. So any attempt to deny this would deny logical inference, and so would deny the very capacity you would need in order to again try to deny it. So it's impossible. So at the very bedrock, we have to say that there is a necessary first cause. Now that necessary first cause has to be something which itself is not caused. It has to contain its own causal actualization. It has to be, in other words, unactualized. So at the bedrock has to be a principle which simply exists. Okay. Now a denial of this can be through what's called an infinite regress, in which you say that there isn't a first cause, but an infinite regress of causes. Unfortunately, this has the same effect in which an infinite regress of causes means that there is actually no single cause at the very bedrock at the very beginning, which means that there was no actual first cause or first principle to the argument or to the mode of thinking. And so it actually undermines reason just the same. So you can't do that either. So you're going to have to affirm that there is something at the beginning of rational argumentation, which makes rational argumentation possible. Especially in terms of analyzing the way in which we think and understand the world. So if you try to gain knowledge of something, there has to be this fundamental first principle. Now in this fundamental first principle, people will argue that, and I've seen Matt do it personally, that this does not have to be God. And that's fair enough. I think Matt actually takes the position that there is no way to essentially ground anything. And he just assumes it, which I think is absurd, but we could get onto that later. But other people may say that it could be something like a quantum field or the universe itself or existence itself. And this is fundamentally ill-equipped to provide us the means of rational argumentation. Because although it gives us a first cause that is considered a brute fact, something that Bertrand Russell would mention, it does not give us the basis of how rational argumentation is. It does not give us the basis of how rational argumentation functions, which is not simply to have a first cause, but to also have a last cause, a telos, an end. It has to be a rational link between what is a first principle and a last principle, a consequent. And that relationship itself must be one which is undeniable, in which you say, for example, two plus two equals four. It's not that the relationship is simply applied through an accidental set of circumstances, but that relationship between those, I don't want to call them objects, so that gives me maybe too much to numbers and we could go too far with that. But those entities is something that if we were to combine them, it will necessarily produce the consequent which is four. So the relationship between two plus two, let's say like a major premise in an argument, a minor premise in an argument, and a conclusion in an argument is something which must necessarily follow. And so the consequent is something which is the end of rational thinking. Now, what moves rational thinking, I think is also a very important aspect of this. Rational thinking isn't something that necessarily, or reason itself, isn't something that is unmoving. And the Christian conception of God isn't something that is necessarily just unmoving, it is self-actualising, it is willing. It is a relationship of activity which moves rational argumentation. And this is an argument that's essentially given by Hegel and in arguably Thomas Aquinas, in which case we would say that the relationship between three specific logical moments is what we mean by the Christian God, universality, particularity and individuality. The universality is the bedrock first principle, something's all-ness, for example. A particularity is its concrete existence and the unity of these two is its individuality. And through that we can essentially give an indication of anything that exists through three primary syllogisms. And this is really important, because if we say that this is essentially the bedrock of existence, and we would affirm, and I think this is very important, and we would affirm that this logical structure exists objectively, which I think Matt will deny, and I think that will be the main point of contention, that this logical structure exists objectively, then the being, which is the universality, particularity, and therefore individuality of existence itself, is necessarily God. Because God is the most perfect, we could say, the most perfect conceivable being. That which combines in the way that Thomas Aquinas describes him as essence with existence. That which perfectly understands itself in his absolute. That can only be something which contains all logical moments combined. Now, in Christianity, this is known as the Trinity, the unity of the Father and the Son in spirit. And that unity is essentially what I'm going to argue is the fundamental basis of all rational argumentation. Now, I don't know how much time I have left. Ten seconds left. Ten seconds, so I'm going to end that there, and I'll try to elaborate as we go along, but thank you. Thank you very much for that opening perspective. And if it's your first time here, folks, at Modern Day Debate, I'm your host James. I want to say we hope you feel welcome, no matter what walk of life you are from, Christian, Atheist, Muslim, you name it. We are glad that you were here, and if you haven't yet, hit that subscribe button. We have many more debates coming up. You don't want to miss them. We're going to kick it over to Matt for his opening as well. Thanks for being with us, Matt. The floor is all yours. Oh, and I'm going to start with a cough. Sorry. That's the way the timing goes. You sit here nice and quiet, and then all of a sudden you get a cough, right? When you're supposed to speak, hey, everybody, thanks for having me on. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lewis. I jotted down some notes for an opening. I'm sure we'll get to rebuttal things, but I will say that that opening prompted a lot of note take. Yeah, thanks. I think the biggest difference, the biggest subject that we're going to end up addressing today, which interestingly you brought up as well, is not so much whether or not Christianity is true, which is the subject of the debate and what I'd like to hit, but what does it mean to say that something is true? Because for me, truth is that which comports with reality, and apparently for perspective philosophy, truth is that which comports with the mind of God, this kind of Hegelian idealism. To me, that is an example of putting the cart before the horse. My model, if there is a God and its mind is consistent with reality, then my model will include it. I just haven't seen sufficient evidence to warrant reaching that conclusion. And the problem is, though, if there's not a God, then Lewis has no truth model at all, despite there being an evident reality with apparently observable, verifiable facts. That may get to the crux of why we've reached different conclusions, or whether or not we're going to be able to reach any sort of strong agreement here at all. For me, I tend to view propositions as either true or not true, rather than true or false, because not every proposition is a truth value to proposition. You may not be testable, it may not be falsifiable, it may be a paradoxical statement, a liar's paradox, whatever. And so it's much easier to view things in terms of propositions being true or not true. And so for me, when we say, is this claim true, there's two aspects of this. One is, is it true and we're unaware of it? Like, is it true that there's a rock shape exactly like my head on Mars? It could be. Maybe it could be. I don't even know if we can say that that's possible. We haven't ruled it out. We have served for somebody to come along and say, it's true that this is the case, because to me, truth is something that you don't get to declare until you can actually demonstrate it and show it in some way or another. The other aspect is that one component of demonstrating the truth of a claim is whether or not it's falsifiable, whether or not you have a proposition that could in principle be shown to be false. And so the example that I came up with today for this is, let's imagine that someone is hiding in a room and we'll start with it just being a child. And somebody comes in and says, there's a child hiding in this room and we go in and we look around and we don't see anything. Well, that's really cool. The child must be pretty good at hiding in the room. And they'll say, no, he's right there. Now, children don't tend to possess at, probably to a certain age, object permanence. And many people have seen a child like run around behind the, the rocking chair and hide like this and hang on to it. And it's because in their mind, they can't see you and this does not click that you can't see them. This is an issue with playing hide and go seek with little kids. They don't realize that their legs might be sticking out from the bed or whatever else. When we look at this though, the people who are engaging in reason and inquiry can look at this. And if you brought 100 people into the room and there's a kid hiding behind the rocking chair and you had them all point to where the kid is hiding, everyone with functional senses are able to point to the rocking chair. We get seemingly or nearly unanimous agreement on that. Anybody could also demonstrate this. You move the rocking chair, there it is. There the child is. And a wise person who's hiding behind there would know once people have pointed to them and identified and everything else that they've been discovered and if you bring a bunch of people in, they'll get similar answers. It's true that there's a child hiding in the room and it's demonstrable. If there's an adult hiding, it may be much more difficult because they probably have object premise. So they're going to find better hiding spots and yet the process is still the same and we can figure out, hey, there's a person and it's right there. If we've removed everything in the room or everything that we can, if we've ruled out, you know, if there's nothing left but a tiny box that's too small for a human to be hiding in, then we could conclude that it's most likely false that there's a person hiding in the room but you don't get to claim it's true until you can actually demonstrate it. But some people will say, that's really neat but God isn't hiding in reality. He's real and he communicates with people all the time. I don't see that. I see the claims of that all the time but any person who isn't hiding and wants to interact with me can do so and can do that with other people as well. And any person who has been, for example, misrepresented and there's an important aspect to correcting it can do so. There are thousands of denominations all identifying as Christian. They are all different and there's no God coming in to correct any of this myth's information at all. The problem of divine hiddenness is probably one of the strongest and my favorite of the arguments against the existence of a God and without going into detail about the origins of it. Essentially it means that the world we see doesn't look the way we would expect it to look if in fact there were a God there. And when you abat apparent hiddenness to the fact that Christianity like other religions uses similar methods as similar claims, similar impact on its followers and similar excuses when we go around looking at, hey, well, why didn't this work? Why doesn't this work? Why is there suffering in children? Why hasn't this prayer been answered? You get the same sort of answers. God works in mysterious ways. God has reasons that we don't understand. God answered the prayer, but he answered it with a no. God has a plan and knows more than us. So he has a really good reason for why he's created a broken world and then hiding. It's interesting to me to hear a take on is Christianity true? That if I were to go back in my head and replay it involves almost a presuppositional argument for a grounding of logic. Definitely contingency arguments for both logic and reality and even more all of these general concepts that are really difficult that perhaps philosophers don't have a solution to. Maybe we don't have a grounding for logic. Maybe it's grounded in as I think the foundational principles of identity non-contradiction excluded middle which also lead us to math which leads to set theory which allows us to categorize anything else and maybe there is no grounding beyond that or maybe there couldn't be. I don't know, but it's strange to have an argument for is Christianity true that is based in these kind of almost entirely abstract concepts when Christianity and Christianity as perspective philosophy as a Catholic is advocating for it a God with a bunch of properties that seemingly have been discovered or identified in some way that he's omnimax that he's trinitarian that he's responsible for creation and these concepts of sin and redemption and answered prayer. The notion that there's a God that exists and has these properties is an order of magnitude removed from do we have a grounding for logic and that would require it to have its own evidence. Now I was a Baptist for most of my time as a Christian and I have a particular view on Catholicism that is definitely more biased by my Baptist upbringing than it is by my atheism itself but an interesting line of reason to get us from we need some way to understand why there must have been a an uncaused first cause or a grounding logic to therefore the transubstantiation happens. If you are as and we haven't dug into this at all and I don't know how much we're going to and I'm probably not qualified to dig in on this too much but I was told that prospective philosophies is like a Gailey and idealist and that it defines truth as that which is comports with the mind of God or truth is merely the mind of God I'm not quite sure if there's a distinction between those two but then saying Christianity is true is just to say that Christianity accurately reflects the mind of God which may in fact be a tautology but how do we know what the mind of God is? How do we know if there is a mind how do we know that we're not just projecting our lack of understanding of a certain topic and saying there must be something and then I'm going to give it these properties and these properties and then I'm going to add to those and create not just a specifically a Catholic God drilling down to there how do we know that there's a mind and if there is in fact no God then does that mean there's no truth and if there's not a God and no truth then how could we ever investigate or explore anything my model is just that truth is what apparently comports with reality which we have the ability to investigate to varying degrees and we learn through scientific principles this is how I go about figuring out what's real and true in the world and to date Christianity does not fit that bill. You got it. Thank you very much for that opening as well Matt and folks want to let you know if you didn't know Modern Day Debate is available on podcast so if you haven't yet look up Modern Day Debate on your favorite podcast right now so that you can find these debates as we put them into the open dialogue thank you very much gentlemen the floor is all yours I really like your opening statement I think it was very good faith and not a bad representation I think of what I was trying to get across a few things I think that maybe we've struck sort of a sort of a sort of a sort of a sort of a sort of cross ways I think in this is that in my argument I'm not a presuppositionalist the veracity of my argument is in fact very much against presuppositionalism I actually think that the affirmation of what would be a presupposed axiomatic grounding I'm very much for the ancient Greek consideration of axiom which is something which is I wouldn't really say it's self-evident as much as it's indudable so when we talk about something which is like logic for example it's not something you presuppose it's something you couldn't do without it's not something that you can get away from and that would be the difference presuppositionalism to be polite makes me feel physically ill as a philosopher I really hate it I understand that that anything that talks about the grounding of logic must be presuppositionalism in some form not that you're presupposing logic but presupposing a foundation for it and I think it may be a little bit of wordplay as to whether or not this is truly presupposed because you and I would agree I suppose on identity non-contradiction excluded middle and I just stopped there and you seem to say there needs to be something that that can't be grounding enough on its own there needs to be something else and so you're claiming a ground for it that I don't see any demonstration for and that's why it kind of gets close to presupposing I see what you're saying I probably wouldn't necessarily affirm the excluded middle I think that's the most controversial as well it's sort of long history in Hegel of why basically he fervently rejected the law of the excluded middle and I think I probably agree with his argument but that's like a separate thing but I think we do necessarily agree on the law of identity and the law of non-contradiction now I think what I'm saying is what I'm not I'm not trying to give a ground for this they are the ground like I would say that logic is the ground now what I'm doing is talking about giving an account of why this necessarily has to be the ground and why it doesn't make sense to reject it and why this I would say it is only understood in terms of a law as the Christian God now the sort of two things to be said there I think that there is a metaphysical proposition that I probably haven't outwardly expressed which is that I say this and I'm arguing that this logic isn't something that we are exporting to reality it is reality that when we look at reality and we see that it conforms to these laws it must necessarily conform to these laws it's not that and this is why science can give us objective truth you know that we can analyze and come to rational propositions through the application of logic and logical argumentation which will lead us to the point of going to the point of that I think that the way that these elements are essentially birthed from stars which can trace back to a big bang and that causal chain necessitates that there is a causal inferential or logical inferential link between contingent events and that is what I'm saying is necessarily true that we cannot free ourselves from the a priori manifestations of the same thing, which is a logos and now obviously, you know, you might say, well, why is that Christian God and you know, like you did actually say, I think you said like Christian God applies many different properties, for example, to God, which I think we can go over. I don't want to tangent that just yet, but I'm willing to defend. But what I am really defending is that it is a grounding in of itself. And I think that's what's reflected in the Trinity. And it's not something that it's not enough for reality to simply be this way. It has to. It's not sorry. It's not enough to simply say that reality has this logical foundation. I don't know where it came from, you know, and these are the facts. You have to show that, for example, universality is necessitated in terms of logical thinking that particularity is necessitated in terms of logical thinking, and that individuality is therefore necessitated in terms of logical thinking, which means you have to essentially create a syllogistic argument defending each and every single one of those premises in relation to each other and show that it can only be understood in relation to each other, which is exactly what Hegel does. Now, if you were to say that that those specific logical, I don't want to say, I mean, you could say persons, if you want to, but logical moments exist. You are going to find that they are distinct, and they are distinct, but mutually dependent moments of a same substance. And that substance, that sort of foundation of reality, if we will, or even, you know, that which explains all of reality is what I'm arguing God is. And that's that's what I'm really getting at. So I want to make, I'm genuinely trying to make sure that I follow and get this as close to the right as possible. It seems like that you're looking at the problem of, we'll set aside excluded middle for now, I don't know how you or anybody else can do that, as I feel that it is essential and obvious once you once you have identity. I mean, for me, the foundations of those are best represented by a single circle with a and not a and that that is a visual description of the all three of them. But if my position is that that logic may not have a ground to be on the fact that it is just merely true that it is, we have no way to show that it is universal that it is inviolate. And yet I'm willing to accept that it is because, as you pointed out in your opening, you would have to assume that it is in order to prove that it's not essentially. And it seems that what you're arguing for is that that's not enough. And so let me go ahead and claim that there's must then be some being that serves as the foundation and guarantor for logic. Is that? No, it would be that it is logic. Like, I mean, like it's in kind of like John chapter one where it's like it was with God and he was God. In the original Greek, it's logos. And if you look at the ancient Greek conception of logos, the ancient Greek conception of logos is a grounded logic. It is logic. It is the logical reality. That's what I'm arguing. Got it. So like, for example, you if we're going to talk about allness, for example, universality, which as a concept is a necessary concept, I would say for knowledge as a whole. And you would say something like being, it would be like abstract to be very abstract. And like the paramedic and is that which must exist right is must be right. I think is the argument that he gives right what is must be. And that's what I would say, for example, universality is, but to give universality any sort of to know of universality, you'd have to be able to particularize that you'd have to say that, like, this is universal. And when you say that this is universal, you have to give a concrete observable existence so that, you know, you have to be able to observe a being beings existence. That would be whether it's through rational means or like through direct observation empirically, which I think is really just sort of a development of rational means, but that's that's separate. And I don't want to go down the sort of Augustian point that epistemology and even in the ways in which we observe the world are structured in such a way as we can logically detect, let's say, patterns or like pattern orientated, and that these patterns are there to be detected. But that's essentially what's going on. But when we do observe reality, we can we observe particulars. So I'd be like this cup, this glass or whatever. That's a particular. And in particularity, it's conceptually distinct from anything else. So logically, we could say how these relations work. If you say something's on this, it's something's identity in relation to itself. Something's particularity would be its identity in relation to something else. It's individuality would be the unity of those two logical moments. And so I'm arguing that existence necessarily contains that structure and that structure. When we apply it to existence itself is everything because it's it's allness. It can be particularised and made concrete. I would argue this would be Jesus Christ. And the unity of these two would be God. I know this is, I know it sounds like a jump. I know, I know, but bear with us. But I would say that the unity of these two is spirit. And that spirit is a necessary logical relation between that which is abstract or universal and that which is particularised in a way that's more sort of, you know, easier to conceptualise in a normal sort of everyday level. We would say that this is a glass. When we say glass, the word glass is a universal. It applies to all glasses. It's not specific to this glass. And the concept is applicable to anything which would necessarily conform to the logical properties or like to the properties that are revoked within the application of the concept. The particularity of this glass would be its actual existence. And the unit, the unity of the two would be being able to say that this is an individual glass, individual glass, which means that it is a member of a species, that it can be contained within a set. So if I was to say that there was a set, that was the set of sets that we existence. There is the set of sets and that the set of sets necessarily must contain itself and be united with itself in order to be the set of sets. That would be the logical relation between God and itself. Yeah. So we began with this, me trying to figure out, and I'm still at some point, maybe not even in this debate, but at some point we're going to have to get into tossing out the law of excluded middle. But yeah, we can, we can. If so, I'm fine with, we'll just go with logical grounding. And I tried to suggest that you were trying to find a solution to a problem that may not be a problem, may not have a solution by applying God to it. And then your reply was that God is logic, except that logic as we're describing it isn't an agent. A being, it doesn't have desires and properties beyond this. So I don't know how one can say that God is logic. And then it seems, and I'm not trying to be insulting, but it seems like you've taken a look at the difficulties in epistemology and decided that, hey, it'd be really cool if I could map the Trinity on not as a metaphor, but as an actual. And so then particularity becomes Jesus Christ and unity becomes the Holy Spirit. So you've gone from, hey, we have identity and non-contradiction to these things are essentially the instantiation of God, the Father, God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I would say that this isn't necessarily just epistemology, by the way. Let's say that it's, I mean, it is and it is not. It's metaphysics and epistemology, because I'm arguing that this is necessarily part of reality. So for example, if I was to say to you, is there a necessary first cause? Would you agree with that? Do you believe that there is a first cause to reality itself? I don't know. But let's just say, I don't know. So if you say yes. So if we were to trace that causal train down, can it end in a contingent object? No. A contingent being? No. So it's something that which necessarily must exist. And would you agree that it must therefore contain the possibility for everything that comes after it? I can't use the right word. Well, when you say contain the possibility, the thing is, I don't know that it would necessarily have to contain the possibility for everything that comes after it because I don't necessarily. So one of the problems I don't know if you if you saw and my apologies for bringing up debates that you weren't a part of. But in a recent debate that I did with Hussein, he tried to do an argument from contingency to get to the God of Islam and argues. It's funny that you're sticking specifically with the Trinity because that seemed to be his biggest sticking point was that the Trinity was just absurd. And so he's going to stick with Islam. But on this notion of of there being a contingent being I would agree that if in fact there isn't an infinite regress and if in fact there must be some first thing that it must necessarily be non-condition. But I don't necessarily know that there needs to be merely one non-contingent thing, nor do I think that the one or more non-contingent things individually must include the potential within them for everything else. Apart from in a like I don't contain the potential to fire to create fire without other like a match and fuel and those things. And I don't create those things. And those things are not a part of me. So if there was a single non-contingent thing, then obviously everything comes from that. But the interactions between those things. Are you counting those as potentials within it? Because if so, then yes. Well, yeah, I mean, like look at it like this. You know, if we were to say like even in physics, right? Like, you know, you see the gravitational potential energy of two bodies in space. For example, we would count that in terms of calculations, even if they aren't, let's say, like colliding or like coming into collision. You could, you could, you can actually like, you know, it's like big, big G, you know what I mean? And then the energy specifically of that body in relation to that, to another body would then be mapped as a form of acceleration. Right? You know what I mean? But what I'm saying is. So, so like if you look at you strike in the match, like the potential for you to make the flame from the match, that your causal interrelation with that is necessarily included in your action. Right. But I'm talking about I didn't, I also didn't make the match. And so somebody did. Yes. And if I could have finished the sentence, that's literally what I was going to say. Sorry. Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. So what this is why I'm saying I'm not, I'm not sure that it needs to go back to a single contingent, but perhaps a collection of things. But even if we do go back to a single contingent, I think I probably would favor. I know there are some that are favoring mathematics as a foundation. I think mathematics is, is derived from logic, which is why I just stick with logic. That's fair enough. Yeah. But then that's fair enough. I mean, there's nothing really wrong with that. I mean, in terms of like, if we were to go back, then yeah, we say there is a necessary first course. Can we get to Christianity? So what I would say is in terms of particularizing any, any specific being, we have to give a kind of causal account in order to give to convey what I would describe as the essence, the idea, the, the meaning of something. So when I say that this is, you know, I'm supposed to say that, you know, this is a microphone or whatever or give a name to an object. I'm actually describing essentially logical properties within that object that infer its logical relation. And in physical terms, it's physical relation with other objects. That is something which, which implies a relationship to something which preceded it, which is why Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas in the cosmological argument and Leibniz show that contingent beings can only be understood in relation to that which preceded, which was its antithesis, antithesis in the first place. So it's not just that you, it's more of the fact that now we have, if we were to say that there is this sort of universality or there is this first cause, that this first cause necessarily is used to understand something. So even if we just say like, let's say that this first cause is just the particular starting event. It's particularity, we'll say the particular starting event in order to give an explanation for every event past that we are going to assume universality. It's the same thing with universality, we're going to have to assume particularity. So if we accept that there are these three logical relations, that they necessarily exist, that their existence is necessarily within the universe itself, then we have a logos. Now the only thing that I think that separates, if we accept the existence of a logos, the only thing that would separate a more secular or atheistic position and let's say my position in terms of being Christianity would be whether this is a mind, which I think you brought up before, whether we can accept that this logos is a mind or, you know, it would be, which is essentially what I think. Sorry, I heard a pause in my bed. No, no, it's okay. I think that's a, like the first step would be to show that, yes, it's a mind. And then there's about, I don't know, I don't want to exaggerate too much, five billion steps between it's a mind to, it is the holy trinity of the true Catholic Church, according to the Athanasian. I mean, that's, there's a lot of steps between whether or not it's a mind to, it's not only a mind, but it's this particular mind. So for example, if we were to nuke, let me, let me ask you a couple of quick hypotheticals that might be useful. Yeah. Do you think there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? Very most, most likely. I can't prove it, but yes, I would imagine there is. Do they have the Catholic Bible? Probably not. Unless Jesus went and visited them and perhaps the Holy Spirit has revealed to them the same thing. But wouldn't that need to be the case? I mean, if, oh, okay, because my, my thought is that your definition of truth is that which comports with the mind of God. So then they don't have access to truth. No, they do. I mean, that's, there's a difference between if I was to say reality in the mind of God are one and the same and that we are set within a pantheon, within a panentistic conception of reality, then their existence would simply give them access to the mind of God. So long as they have epistemological mechanisms, they're capable of reasoning and perceiving the world. If they have access to the mind of God and the mind of God comports directly to what you understand as Catholicism, then they would have access to Catholicism. Well, they would have access to evidence that Catholicism was true, which is exactly what Thomas Aquinas argues. That we could look. We don't necessarily need to look to scripture in order to prove the truths that are in Catholicism. And he argues that they're all provable through natural reason, which I would concur. So you think that the statements in the Athanasian Creed are all provable through reason? Really? Because it starts off, well, there's the historical facts would require them actually going to they, you know, doing a lot of archaeological evidence. But the spiritual facts, I would say, are accessible. So the things that the things that supposedly actually happened here on earth that were then written about that becomes the religion. They don't have access to any of those. Well, I don't think that becomes a religion at all either. And I mean, I'm almost a perennialist. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. I'm almost a perennialist when it comes to this stuff. But you're saying they don't have access to any of that. But they will know that there's a trinity? Yeah, the trinity that could come to the truths of the trinity without it necessarily including the allegory or even the historical account of Christ. No, I don't think that's necessary to come to the spiritual truths of the trinity. No, it might make me very popular among many Catholics. I think that the I don't rely upon divine revelation through scripture in order to create a rational logical inference in which how reality is purported to work within scripture. It's not like it's not when when when we look towards the truths of Christianity, they should be observable within the natural world. And if you're well, any Christian, I would say there's any Christians version of Christianity, which does not purport nature needs to give the head a wobble because they are being actively contravened by their experiences, which demonstrates that they are wrong. So no, so no, I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily have to rely upon simply a scriptural take. Okay, but if we go through this thing, so they would be able, these aliens to conclude that Jesus is God, because God is his father, and is human, because his mother was human, even though they have no idea what humans It wouldn't have to say human. And specifically, they would have to understand that he could have particular concrete existence. And I would say that would be the experience of God, for example, in all of us. I think Isaac Peshevist Singer said there was a divine spark. He wasn't a Christian, he was a Jew, actually, but there was a divine spark that exists in all creatures, for example. And now we would see that as the spirit in Christianity. But if we were to essentially say that there was a being, which contained all of spirit, essentially all of the unity of the father, like all of the father, right, and it's universality. But as a particular being, and we would see that this necessarily must exist for any other particular being to exist, you know, because a particular can only be understood if this was necessarily possible, or necessarily concrete. Then we would see that there is a being, an alien might portray it as its own race, you know, could portray it as a cow, I don't really care. They might portray it as something else. But that would necessarily, you know, like for example, the father, the son and the spirit, in logical terms, they could come to that truth. And I think that they very well might come to that truth. So for clarity, we'll go with Klingons. Klingons, good choice. So Klingons wouldn't know anything until they actually met and interacted with humans, wouldn't know anything about humans. So would they then discover that Jesus was fully God and fully Klingon? Sorry, that Jesus was fully God and fully. Yeah. I mean, like in theory, yeah, he could be. Yeah. Like, for example, I would I would affirm, for example, that Jesus Christ can make well God and Jesus Christ specifically could manifest him in any anywhere that he chooses to, whether he comes down as a human man, whether he comes down as a dog, he could do what he wants. That's kind of the point, right? But it's not about what he could do. It's about what supposedly happened. It's what he is. It's more about the fact that he is everything in its own action. So, no, his human part is not perfection. His human is the sinful nature. This is supposed to be an atonement for human sin. I'm still talking where sin and death were brought into the world by the sin of Adam and Eve. Did their sin bring it in for the Klingons, too? Or do Klingons have their own Adam and Eve? They've been naughty boys themselves, but the story just repeats everywhere where there's intelligent life with Jesus repeatedly coming down, taking that form and dying in order to free them. Remember, Catholics as well, don't take, for example, something like Genesis to be literal. We take it to be allegorical and lots of people to be allegorical. Well, we're supposed to. It's the Word of God, not the words of God, which has been divinely inspired. So, one true faith specifically talks about, you know, he suffered for our salvation, descended to hell, arose from the dead, ascended to heaven, is seated at the Father's right hand. Is all that allegory, too? I mean, I wouldn't have a problem interpreting it as allegorical. I would probably be heterodoxical for saying that, still contained within the Catholic Church. But not the primary interpretation of Scripture. But, yeah, I would say that it's very possibly allegorical. I'm not here to debate biblical history. I'm here to debate spiritual fact. And that's why I'm arguing that this is possible and accessible to, let's say, Klingons. And if you look at the Bible, and look at the, I can never say the Athenian Creed, it actually says that humanity is assumed into God. So actually, the unity, Catholics argued that the unity of the divine and humanity is absolute. It's not that Christ is imperfect. He is perfect even in his humanity. It would be more typically Protestant to say that actually the humanity and the divinity within Christ was only made possible, even though it's a contradiction, was only made possible through the power of God. He was perfect when he said, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Absolutely, because that shows the... Perfect weakness, perfect confusion? No, it shows his humanity. There is nothing wrong with having weakness. It is perfect flawed humanity. His humanity is... There's nothing imperfect about having weakness. If he's God, then how can he think that God betrayed him? He's God, because how could... Have you ever thought you've betrayed yourself? Have you ever doubted yourself? Do you think God could be... Am I perfect? True to himself without the capacity to doubt himself. Am I perfect? No, but do you think that he could... If I were perfect, I would not doubt myself, because I'm perfect. How could you know you are perfect unless you did doubt yourself? Well, I'm rejecting the phrase to just say how ridiculous. But you just said, how could you know you're perfect unless you did something imperfect? No, I'm saying, how would you know you are perfect unless you engaged in the capacity? And there's nothing imperfect about it. A perfect circle doesn't exist, but if we assumed that a perfect circle does exist, could God create a perfect circle? Yeah, I suppose, yeah. Sure. I mean, the concept of the circle in general would be... If the circle is truly perfect, is there any possibility that it is imperfect? Well, there is the possibility that could be something other than itself, otherwise it wouldn't be able to be itself. That which is... It's like the necessitation rule, right? There has to be possibility. This is what happens when you throw out the law of excluded middle. Okay, we can talk about the law of the excluded middle. No, this is not happening. There's nothing to do with this. The thing is, I'm talking about, here's something that's perfect. If it's perfect, is there any possibility that it is in any way imperfect? How would this relate to the law of the excluded middle? I'm asking a question. No, I'm asking you how this relates to the law of the excluded middle. It may not. Why don't you answer the question? Okay, I'm sorry that you don't grasp this, but I said something, and now I'm going back to try to figure out exactly where this went wrong so I can show that. All I'm saying is, if something is perfect, is there any possibility that it is imperfect? So long as it obtains its identity, then it has been shown to be perfect, then it would be... I wouldn't say it would be... I'd say that its existence contains the possibility of its existence, which would contain the possibility of its... Maybe it's... Yeah, I would probably say that there's no possibility that it could not be itself. That would be the law of identity. I don't know why this is so painful. I just figure if something's perfect, then there's no possibility that it's not perfect. I just affirmed that. I know, but it took a while before we got to the final sense. That's the law. Yeah, so now, one, before we move on. Now, please explain. So are you saying that this has nothing to do with the law of the excluded middle? I don't know yet. This is what I'm trying to suss out. You're the one with the position. Look, okay. It's the law of identity. That's what you're affirming. No, it's not merely the law of identity. Identity is what entails the other. Maybe the law of non-contradiction. Yes. Okay, so you're saying that it would be a contradiction to be perfect and imperfect simultaneously. Correct. Okay, great. That's not the point. If it's... That would be a metaphysical point. True. That's absolutely true. How do you know that's not the point? It's my point to make. I'm asking a question to try to get to clarity. Is it possible? Is it possible for something to be both perfect and not perfect? Of course not. Would a perfect mind understand that? Yes. Would a perfect mind ever have reason to doubt that it was perfect? How would a perfect mind understand it? So when I get to the question, say you're answering a question, you're answering a question, and when I get to the one that exposes your flaw, you ask a different question. It's not a flaw. It is a flaw. It is a flaw. If something is perfect, there is no chance that it's not perfect. If there's a perfect mind, then there is no chance that it is imperfect. The whole... Sorry. If there's a perfect mind, then it would understand that there's no chance that it's not perfect, right? Okay, let me... If you want, I'll even use the Christian allegory for this, right? If we look at the existence of God the Father, all knowing... I'm not talking about Christian. I'm talking about X is perfect. I'm talking about a perfect mind. I know. I'm not talking about Christianity right now. I'm talking about a perfect mind. Can a perfect mind doubt that it is perfect? In terms... I'm trying to answer the question. It's a yes or no question. Why would you engage in such a way? Like, that's just ridiculous. Look, I'm trying to... Why would I engage in such a way that's just ridiculous? I just did it with a circle, and you did a tap dance. Stop. Will you please let me speak? Stop. You did a tap dance around. I will not... Alright, then I will stop. Gentlemen, we need a hold on a second. To figure out who's talked the most, and which one is dancing around. What I do have to do is... perspective, I want to give Matt a chance to unpack, just because we've given you... I know there was much earlier in the debate to be fair, but there were some portions where it was, you know, like four or five minutes. So I do want to give Matt plenty of time to give a quick rebuttal, and then I promise to give you a chance to respond perspective, but bear with me. Go ahead, Matt. If X is perfect, and you've agreed that if X is perfect, it cannot be imperfect. And if we have a perfect mind, then it can't be an imperfect mind. And a perfect mind should understand that it's a perfect mind, unless you want to claim that it doesn't know that it's perfect, and then I don't know how it's perfect. And so how could a perfect mind ever doubt whether or not it was perfect? That's the question. Okay, is it all right if I speak now? Yeah, okay. Fair enough, I understand that. So I'm arguing not that it necessarily had the doubt obtains, but that the doubt was only a moment within the existence of God. So when we look at knowledge, and we're not just simply seeing truth, not something's identity with itself, which necessarily something is perfect, it must be perfect. Absolutely, 100% agree with you there. If God is perfect, it must be perfect for himself to be perfect. What I'm arguing is that the the way in which you know something is to have the capacity to accept that is what, falsifiable. Now you made that argument. You said that something to be true and normal must be falsifiable. So unless you are going to say that that is not the case, then you have to affirm that in order for God to be perfect, to know itself, it must have the capacity to doubt itself or be unsure of that certainty, and therefore overcome it. Now that is exactly what happens within the story of the Trinity. God the Father asks something of the Son, the Son doubts the Father, the Son overcomes that doubt, ascends into heaven and is united with the Father and Spirit. That is essentially the logical unity that is going on there. So yes, absolutely. I do believe that there is nothing imperfect about Christ in that moment. So for those who are watching, I removed Christianity from this and specifically talked about a perfect mind and whether or not it's possible for a perfect mind to doubt that it is perfect, whether or not this leads to some sort of contradiction showing that it's not perfect. And your response is that it was a moment of doubt. It was a moment and once they had overcome that moment, a perfect mind would not need to overcome that. And so what you repeatedly said is what I'm arguing is, what I'm arguing is, what I'm arguing is. So instead of addressing the abstract notion of a perfect mind as an abstract, you would not view it except in terms of your argument with the Trinity, which I don't recognize the possibility that there is such a thing as a perfect mind. I'm not the one making the argument that any such thing exists, but you took the abstract single perfect mind and overlaid it into your story even though I had gone to efforts to remove it from that. And then you basically said, yeah, it's perfect, but perfection includes the ability to doubt for a moment whether you're perfect. I disagree. Okay, that's fair enough. I can see that you disagree. I think that the disagreeing with this would necessarily lead you to reject your earlier statement that what can be shown to be true necessarily has to be falsifiable. Why? Well, because if a perfect mind could not doubt that it was itself, then it would have no ability to actually affirm or falsify the truth of the proposition that it is itself. No, it would know. It would already know this. There would be no point of doubt. There would be nothing that it wouldn't understand. Would it be unfalsifiable? Would what be unfalsifiable? It's knowledge that it is itself, that it is perfect. Well, the only thing that matters with regard to falsifiability is truth claims. You were talking about the ontology of a perfect mind. So you do think that... So when you say that the ontology of a perfect mind, yeah, that's fine. We agree that it's perfect. We've already agreed that it's perfect. I said that in the moment in which... How would it know it? It would be a process, an active process. And we agree that this process... Well, I'm arguing that this process led... A perfect mind doesn't need a process. A perfect mind knows and understands everything without exception. Well, yeah, but that would be the unit. Like, look at it like this. There's nothing wrong with... It does need a process, actually, but that would be its actual constant affirmation of itself. It would have to say I am... Why would a perfect mind need constant affirmation? Because it would have to constantly obtain itself. It wouldn't need anything. It would have to... Well, it would need itself. That's the point. It would need to be itself. It has itself. It doesn't need itself. It just is itself. If you're going to be desperately flailing around to find something it needs and just say it needs itself, it already has itself. You might... I don't think you realize that for something to be itself, and this is the whole point of my argument, that there is certain logical conditions to be itself. For example, it's particularity. Which means, and as I said before, the particularity is a logical analysis or a logical affirmation of something in relation to others, which means that it has to affirm that there is a possibility of others. So, for example, if we take a circle and just say that this is a circle and not a square, we would say that, well, it's a circle and not a square. Its identity is... It doesn't matter if it's a square. It does. It doesn't. It's a circle. It's like... Look at it like this, right? If I was to say that something is perfect, okay, then I have to be able to say that it is not imperfect. That's about you being able to tell whether or not it's perfect. You're not a perfect mind, either. But even if I was a perfect mind, I would have to affirm that it is not... How do you know that? They're not a perfect mind. How do you know what a perfect mind would have to... Because it's logically necessary. It's not logically necessary. If it's perfect, a perfect mind wouldn't need anything. So, do you think that a perfect mind could engage in a form of knowing which excludes, let's say, a kind of syllogistic reasoning? I don't think a perfect mind can exist. Okay. But that's not the point. This is a hypothetical and you're holding made at the point of... If you're willing to say, how would I know what a perfect mind is? If I was to say, well, I know it exists and that's how I... It's a hypothetical. You are engaging with it in such a way. Yeah. If there was a perfect mind, what's the question? So, if there was a perfect mind, would it have to engage in the form of logical analysis to understand itself, to get knowledge of itself? No. So, how would it know? How would it know? It just is. It just does. It is. It is perfect. Well, you say that it's perfect, but what's its perfection if it doesn't have... It's perfection is... So, a mind is a... This can be hard to describe, but a mind is the thinking thing. Sorry. So, let's say there's the thinking thing. A perfect thinking thing is incapable of error. Mm-hmm. It doesn't require any thought to say, hmm, am I actually incapable of error? Because that would suggest that it could be capable of error, but it knows that it's not capable of error. There's no process. It is merely perfection. Perfection is perfection. You mean to demonstrate or affirm it. It is perfection. The demonstration is to itself. It's that it is a unity between itself. It's the thinking and the thoughts that it has. It doesn't require a demonstration because it can't be wrong. But the whole point is that it can't be wrong and it knows it can't be wrong. Yes. And the reason it knows it can't be wrong is because it understands its thoughts perfectly. Yes. And the reason it understands its thoughts perfectly is because it is a logical relation with itself which is perfect. Yes. Unless you're implying that there is a form of thinking which does not conform to logic. All of those things are correct. And none of them require a moment of doubt. So, just so I understand this, you're trying to say that what I'm arguing as a logos has the possibility of denying logical analysis or logic in order to gain knowledge. It has knowledge without itself. No, it precedes logic. It doesn't precede logic. No Christian believes that it precedes logic. I don't care what most could know Christian believes. What no Christian believes is irrelevant. We're not even talking about Christianity despite the fact that that's supposed to be the topic. I'm talking about a perfect mind. You seem to be incapable of focusing on this abstract perfect mind without injecting Christianity and without injecting what other Christians say or anything else. And at no point in this did I mention whether or not most Christians say it or why would I care what most fallible flawed minds think about a perfect God? So, the argument you're trying to engage in is the same as the argument of allegory that Thomas Aquinas or someone would engage in that we cannot know the mind of God perfectly. And so for us to attribute something to it would mean that we would diminish its perfection. Sure. Yeah, the reason why that was actually what made me an agnostic a few years ago because how could I know God if I as a human am incapable of knowing? Then I understand that that's a big moment of doubt for people. So, there's a few things in that. One, it's not that you can't know God. You might even know God in his perfection but you can know aspects of God just necessarily be the case. I understand that. You can't know perfection. Yeah, so I don't know God and this is Thomas Aquinas again. He actually argues that the ontological argument doesn't make sense because in his argument, in his belief, he thinks that the absolute knowledge of a mind, the most perfect being that would necessarily have to exist, well that is incomprehensible to a human. But yet he still believes in God and actually argues that he can rationally believe in God. So, do you see the reason that he does this is because it's not that you need to know what God knows about himself. You simply need to know how God would know himself and that's because how things can be known necessarily because you cannot posit something not the whole point of what I'm arguing. How something can know itself from a limited perspective. Yeah, I'm arguing from... Okay, I'm arguing from... And my limited human perspective can come to the conclusion that the only way something can know that there can be knowledge requires that it can be falsified or has the possibility of being false otherwise it's simply an assertion. So, this is why I said unless you're affirming that knowledge itself can be unfalsifiable which I've seen you in other arguments as well rely upon this. Unless you're affirming that knowledge itself can be unfalsifiable you have no reason to say that just because Jesus doubted God on the cross that it means that the Father on the cross means that he's not God. It's such a strange way to say that. As if the very act of engaging in the thinking that would make him most credibly God the fact that he has proven himself to himself you see that as a weakness I see that as only strength. Well, that's because you've... Well, here's the thing you're looking at this from the standpoint of a flawed being and trying to put how we attain knowledge and our understanding of knowledge and trying to say that God must also or a perfect being must also attain knowledge in the same way. I think that is a critical failure just as if you were saying that God exists in space and time and you tried to make God contingent or dependent on space and time or causality. I'm saying that our understanding of how we attain knowledge and how we go about thinking we try to extend that to perfection and we can't get there and say that a perfect God has the same limitations that we do is bizarre and when Jesus... Now, if you were to say yes, Jesus was fully man and fully human does that not make sense but the Trinity doesn't make sense but his human part wasn't perfect that it's the part that had doubts and not the God part that had doubts but as soon as you say God had doubts then that's not perfection. I would definitely disagree for reasons that I've already stated and I don't want to just keep going with it but I just sort of want to say that not only do I pervertly disagree but there is when we look at... and I think this really is where we differ and I think this is the fundamental aspect of it which is why I said I think that it's probably a metaphysical difference in terms of for example, I'm an idealist I don't know what you are I'm an objective idealist or an absolute idealist in the style of Hegel but when I say something like when I'm talking about God and I'm talking about the ways in which we understand the world in which we recognize certain characteristics in reality for example the existence of a species the fact that gravity is like that we can calculate Big G for example and come up with essentially concrete facts about an objective reality which exists necessarily and I can know these facts when I say that and we engage in that for example we couldn't do this if we're perfect or that the logical analysis unless you're a perfect robber or that the logical analysis in which I engage in doesn't have the capacity to come to this kind of knowledge the reason that we wouldn't say that and I think for example I think that you just assume that it does I think that you just assume that these categories we just assume that this applies to reality that the categories of space or name we perceive them and project them onto the world I would argue that these categories are objective now whether we're categorizing correctly is separate to affirming whether these categories are objective or not now I would say space and time for example as objective it's come to be known as space time we get greater and greater knowledge of this and I wouldn't affirm in terms that this is just in my head and I'm a limited agent and so on it's rather that in engaging in a form of categorization there is a self-correcting mechanism in which the category is applied to itself which creates essentially a feedback loop and this is the basis of truth and this is why logic leads us to truth because it is I try to apply the category the category is not applied perfectly I reevaluate the category and so on this is what's called the hermeneutic circle if you've ever seen it in terms of in philosophical terms and essentially that's what I would say that we engage in in terms of a perfect mind it would engage in the same hermeneutic circle we're going to go into the Q&A soon pardon my interruption we're going to go into the Q&A soon also wanted to be sure that we before we do that have one last quick response from Matt and then I'll give you a chance to finish that point though perspective if you wanted to finish that point okay sorry, yeah so that circle is I see that God engages in that same kind of thinking and that is its unity it is that it knows itself as perfection it's the unity of essence and existence that's why it's a logo it's not just simply a sort of abstract being but a being which knows itself you got it we'll kick it over to Matt before we go into the Q&A is God bound by space-time I wouldn't say so okay it depends if he chooses to be I guess you got it any last thoughts before we go into the Q&A section oh I'm sure there'll be more coming up let's get to Q&A we're going to jump right into it I want to say folks what I'm going to do here in just a moment is only for 30 seconds so don't worry this is something we do really rarely but just to be absolutely sure in case you're not paying attention we have channel membership so just 30 seconds I'm going to flip on members only chat like I said just 30 seconds want to make sure that you know we do have these channel memberships it has emojis from the channel we are working on building the perks for these memberships so do want to encourage you to check that out if you click on the join button just below the video feed so where it usually has the channel name and where it says stuff like subscribe you can click join to see those perks as like I said we have additional perks for June we're setting those to launch soon we just want to be sure you see those and we're going to jump into as I mentioned the Q&A I want to say folks as usual I want to say we do not want insults toward the guests so I want to have you be your regular friendly self so jumping into it thank you very much for your question this one first coming in from do appreciate it David Spencer says to acknowledge logic is to pre visa the rainbow giraffe is this a meme that I'm like new to I've never heard of that me neither I'm assuming he's just saying to apply logic is to presume logic I think that's necessarily mistaken to apply logic it's not that you apply logic or that you have the choice to not apply logic it's something that is indudable if you try to reject logic you will apply logic and you can even see examples of this in Aristotle's metaphysics where if you try to reject the law of non-contradiction you will essentially affirm a contradiction and you'll actually have to or even rather you'll have to apply the law of non-contradiction which then leads to a contradiction so it ends up essentially destroying itself and that's what I'm getting at you got it any thoughts Matt nope you got it we'll jump into the next one it's Pezzazu says how can Jesus be God if God is a trinity so I think a broader challenge of the trinity yeah sure so this is what for example if you look at something like Aristotelian metaphysics and you ever see something which is substantially the same but containing different aspects it's something similar to that but a bit different so the substance of what is God would be contained within each of the persons in very indifferent ways if I was to judge God in His oneness then I would see the Father existence itself, absolute reality which is why the Father is often seen as something which escapes comprehension if I look at God in His particularity I would see Jesus Christ I would see a man who is this universality made real he walks the earth, he drinks water does some mad stuff he's a cool guy if I see the unity of those things I will see the spirit that's often considered love because it's a form of caring a unity in which there is a necessary relationship in which its identity actually affirms itself or is affirmed within this reality so it is the concrete universality of God and it is the unity of those two thoughts Matt you got it this one from Fitor thank you for hosting this James my pleasure and all credit to the guests they're the lifeblood of the channel they say looking like a good one I may have a question later if that's okay yep let me know Fitor if you got that question displace gamer thanks very much says perfect can't improve they're saying perfect as in colon can't improve perfect being wouldn't change perfect state perfect alone before the universe universe's existence changed perfection contradiction God's existence contradicted I can answer that I can understand why you would look at it that way but remember that God is eternal and atemporal so the whole point of John chapter 4 is to say that Christ who is assumed into heaven already existed prior to his experience on earth actually existed before earth and so existed came to earth lived the human life and assumed into heaven so the relationship in the Trinity and it's in the Athenian Creed was already necessary prior to this relationship although seeing prior is a bit of a mistake in some respects because it implies temporality remember like it is eternality but it's not eternal as in everlasting but as in timelessness the absolute relation of God to himself is what necessarily produces this reality which is why Thomas Aquinas would say the knowledge of God is actually the most causative aspect of God it is what causes his willing it is the constant creation or sustenance or sustenance of reality itself so it is that relationship which manifested the story and the historical events that would then occur and all of this you got it this one from appreciate it Ozzie in talks thanks so much for gifting those memberships in the chat folks if you got a membership check out those channel emoticons including juicy and others Ozzie in says if God's mind requires a process to know things then that means God works within time which means God is a contingent being to time not necessary it's actually a really nice part like we say what you're saying like within time then you know this implies a kind of a procedure which implies that it is not something which is complete even as well the issue with this really as I've said is that it's more of the fact that God not only exists outside of time it creates time it's not a process in the sense of it being a the way in which humans think which is a linearly it is a logical relation between something in itself so it's that there are three separate persons of the Trinity which are logically related to itself you get if you Google Athanasian Creed or you Google the Trinity and you'll find a little diagram which essentially shows a picture which is like you know the father is not the son which is not the spirit which is not but they are all contained within God that unity is everlasting it's it was eternal it's not something that is procedurally sort of happened and then stops it is the happening it is what produces reality itself but it's not something that's like temporal it's something above and beyond that but I can see that me use of terminology maybe ascribed a temporality onto it that I wasn't affirming it's not like that you got it I'm actually working on a video pointing out the absurdity of that very diagram and so maybe you can help can God change his mind it depends what you mean can God change his mind I guess I mean God just because if God is his mind and he is this thing can God learn anything new can God learn anything new no I guess not then this is why I raised this problem of doubting there can't be a moment of doubt if you already know what the answer is going to be you have nothing to overcome if you can't learn anything new okay but now take that think of it non-temporally the doubt is accepted and overcome in the same moment yeah so as soon as I don't accept that there is anything that's non-temporal but that's fine you don't accept anything that's non-temporal that's like no offense but like what about the notion that there's a mind that isn't bound by time or that there's causation of time all of those things are necessarily temporal as far as I can tell I mean look at like what about like relations and quantum dynamics we see that that's not necessary causal in the sense that it's still bound by time well it depends the fourth dimension is not necessarily the fifth dimension is above the fourth dimension I'm not necessarily arguing for something like string theory but I'm just saying that I think that there would be no model of physics which could apply non-linear causation or retro causative effects which I think we see evidence of the exact opposite in quantum dynamics where we see something from the future changing the past or having occurred which has an effect on the past so I don't know why like I'm not affirming like any specific theory but I don't know why you would argue that yeah because God isn't quantum mechanics and you're arguing by analogy if something isn't in any way bound to space or time if it knows there can't be a moment of doubt if there's no moment must move on to the next one this one, appreciate it Aerie Poplar says Deuteronomy 23 12 through 14 suggests that God views fecal matter as unclean yet God is comfortable in dwelling humans with all the matter they have inside of them what's up with that I think that's meant to be serious not one of Matt's arguments I don't really understand I'm the one that's most likely to say another word for fecal matter but maybe here let me help out maybe caller or questioner maybe it's perfectly clean and acceptable it's inside and not when it comes out because when I first put the food in my mouth it was seemingly clean and acceptable it's only after it makes it through the entire process I don't know why God would be upset about better question is why puts the fun factory and the defecation place so close together just to try and be clear I'll understand what you're saying the whole point of the relationship between identities is to say that this is a constantly occurring relationship so like the God's relationship to his own doubt or the capacity to doubt that's ever exceeded I don't see how it's I don't see how it's an issue more than anything because I think that you would have to ascribe temporal God for this to be an issue I had no idea that you'd gone back to the previous question I was actually answering the one that was just asked that was an affirmation that something could not be itself it was a perfect or imperfect it was in relation to what we're talking about no it wasn't it was a complaint that in Deuteronomy God seems to be upset about poop which is perfectly natural poop is being natural not being upset about poop this one coming in from Displace Gamer says does the question of what explains God lead to an answer of epistemically infinite regress with an unending chain of explanations of God's existence I'm not sure who it's for I wouldn't say it does because I would say that the point that I'm trying to raise here is that it can't be an endless regress that it is a permanent relation between what is reason and itself even in the attempting attempting to sort of regress for that would be the affirmation of itself so no it couldn't be it's not like that's why it's be gotten not made it's why it's necessary not contingent because it can't be doubted this one from The Trib 1 says not a simp but Matt's mind is perfect FRFR says no cap FRFR no cap I tried to look up what FRFR I think it's for real for real oh okay thank you but I don't actually have a perfect mind so I might be wrong about that this one from ASEAN Talks says Matt is it possible for a perfect mind to defeat you in chess in one move so chess isn't solved by humans but if it's solvable I would think that a perfect mind would have already solved it so if it's possible for chess to be one in a single move I would definitely do that and if it's not possible then a perfect mind would already know that I think that is brilliant though I think that was really well said because essentially that shows that something is bound by the rules in relation to itself so if it's logical relationship to itself it's bound by the same rules of logic that everything else is well that's not a rule of logic that it's bound by it's just like god can't make a married bachelor and so it's contingent on whether or not chess is in fact winnable nobody's asserting no modern theologians asserting that god can do what is logically impossible I would say that you're arguing that god can do something logically impossible by engaging in a kind of knowing itself without actually engaging in a possibility of knowing itself you're saying that me saying that god can know itself and has always known itself and doesn't require time to do it I never said time I said the process of knowing itself time is a process you are arguing time is the process of dependent upon time you have argued for a god that knows itself as perfection that can't learn anything but it can take a moment of doubt and express that moment of doubt within space time and that this isn't a problem no you said I said that I can't learn anything new it can constantly know itself learn itself that's what it is doing not if it says my god my god why has thou forsaken me that is something within space time an expression that took some duration that expressed of doubt which you described as a moment of doubt that can't happen as the product of a perfect mind I fervently disagree but you already know why hopefully we must move forward this one coming in from do appreciate it you already gave up the ghost when you admitted the hypostasis is a contradiction I think that must be for you perspective sorry could you repeat that there you already gave up the ghost when you admitted the hypostasis is a contradiction I think maybe they mean hypostatic like hypostatic union but I'm not sure yeah I don't really think that I have gave up the ghost because the union isn't something that it is the process of it is the logical relationship united it's not like the whole point and this is what I would say the whole point is to say that if you look at the way logic works or like you know if we put this in syllogism and you put it universally in particularity individuality the individuality is separate and distinct from particularity and universality but it is what allows for particularity and universality to exist just as they also allow it to exist so it's not like it is the means of their relation it is why you would say from the father and the son comes the spirit if that makes sense you got it this one coming in from do appreciate it displacegamer says how does a timeless entity interact with time as a timeless entity can't have changes in states which would include mental states right that's a really interesting point now Thomas Aquinas does address this in some of theologica and actually addresses most of this in some of theologica essentially God would experience everything simultaneously as himself so God actually only ever wills himself he only ever knows himself which is the willing of himself which is the production of all of this so it is this that produces it is this act of actualization, self-actualization or being actual as the thinking thing which is this this reality so yeah it's not something that necessarily is sort of stuck in or outside of spacetime it contains spacetime within itself because it creates spacetime you got it Emery King says perspective philosophy does your argument also prove other gods though no it doesn't actually if we look at the argument I make you could see that it has many similarities between for example I think my argument can be used to show aspects of Hinduism which I think have a lot of truth in them I think that there is parts of the argument that can be used to affirm certain aspects of Islam and Judaism for example this kind of idea of an abstract single simple entity which is often affirmed but you know like for example someone like Thor or Zeus or something no you got it this one coming in from do appreciate it Displaced Gamer says how does he time us did I read this one let's see which one include got that one Ozzie in talks says time is a logical entailment of doubting sorry could you see that one again they said that time is logically entailed by doubting well I don't really agree because I think that what we mean by doubt the first place is this is the the possibility in this case that it could not that the essence could not obtain its existence it's just the possibility it's not to say that it's an actuality so it wouldn't be temporal it's not something that you'd have to say unless you were to say that possibility itself necessarily has to be temporal in which case you're making a point of saying that time necessarily exists like linear time necessarily exists and which I don't I don't really see so what we're talking about really is just a logical moment of an act of this could this is relationship to other things or if other things existed could it not be itself and the answer is essentially no you got it this one coming in from Kent Hoven CPA says abstinence makes the church grow fondlers okay that's interesting let's see this one from says Christians don't believe Jesus had doubt don't they say Jesus was reciting a psalm when he said that I don't really think that it matters I think that you can say that Jesus has doubt I don't think there's anything wrong with that even if like I think that it's probably a little bit cheap to just say that he's reciting a psalm in the sense that I think that the meaning of the psalm is what Jesus is affirming anyway like it's not something that you have to go like if you were to say like the answer in many ways the story is an answer to the question of why humans have doubt over God and how to overcome that doubt over God but more than that it sure is affirming his humanity and he's affirming his divinity and he's overcoming it which I would argue in the in the case of what we're talking about is this is his particularity which is his death and if you look into sort of metaphysics of this the particularity of something is the fact that it is it can change or diminish or go away which is the fact that it can die you got it this one from this place gamer says God seems to possess contingent properties such as being the creator of the universe which depends on the universe's existence and relational properties like being loving towards humanity I don't actually think that the omni traits are in any way contingent I didn't get a chance to address that with Matt but essentially the omni traits I would argue like Thomas Aquinas does are actually rationally contained within what God is and knowledge of what God is so for example his omnipresence would be in his universality if he is everything or he is existence then everything would contain an aspect of God he must be in everything in order for it to exist he must partake in God in terms of his omniscience it's the fact that he knows himself and so if he to know himself he must know everything which is contained within himself in terms of his all loving nature it's that if he is to be one with himself into essentially care about himself which is I would argue an unnecessary aspect of being a mind but we never got on to the metaphysical and he will necessarily care about all of existence so he is all loving so it's not something that is I think ad hoc on to the divine simplicity of God it is in the the idea of a perfect substance nothing in that answer addressed the actual question the actual question was about the notion that God seems contingent because he is the creator and has a relationship with creation that I don't necessarily know that that's correct but that was what the issue is and I would say that the thing that makes him more contingent is this notion that Jesus the human air quotes part existed alongside God as God before anything else which meant that this was all well there's almost a contingent loop but that's what the issue was that God seems to have contingent properties because he's contingent on creation which I don't think is actually correct but that's what the question was I don't know what you answered well I think that's actually a nice way of putting it it's more of the fact that it wouldn't be that God has contingent properties it would be that God has it contains contingent truths which means he's the set of sets he's not necessarily dependent upon the existence of those specific contingent truths but he would have knowledge of them and they would partake in him which is exactly what Thomas Aquinas says and that's what I've been arguing this whole time the particular is contained within the universal if there's any way we can know the universal is through the particular we only know contingent truths typically but he knows all contingent truths all universal truths and he knows that in what is called absolute truth and if you look into the philosophy of Hegel you'll see what what he means by that and that's at the end of the phenomenology of spirit in what's called absolute knowing I'll give you full credit if you've got something you want to say it doesn't matter what you were asked ever this one coming in from thunderstorms says opinions on Nikola Tesla vortex math 369 theory and also is God and creation meaning the same thing from a spiritual perspective and math perspective so two very different questions opinions on Nikola Tesla vertex math 369 theory absolutely no idea I'm a philosopher I'm not really engaged in that sorry I can't answer that I have no opinion I don't really know anything about it and I don't know if math has anything to I know okay is God and creation meaning the same thing from a spiritual perspective and math perspective from a spiritual perspective is God creation in terms of it depends on what you mean by creation he's the creator you know like in that sense and you'd say that creation is contained within the creator as the act of creation is creating himself right from the Christian perspective but no I wouldn't say that I would limit God to creation because when we usually reference creation what we really mean is the actualization of particular possibilities and part of God but does not fully contain but God exceeds that it's not fully representative of what God is you got it run in has a question for you Matt says just wanted to ask Matt how he would argue against presuppositionalism well you can go once a debate that I did with Cy although I don't necessarily recommend that as a good debate or anything else now I would go a different route I don't presuppositionalists are attempting to solve real problems in gaps of our our understanding kind of like we touched on at the beginning of this and I don't see the need to presuppose further than the universe and presuppose further than logic as in identity non-contradiction in excluded middle I don't see the reason to presuppose further than those merely as a pragmatic thing Occam's razor and so whereas people who are essentially making like ontological arguments are almost defining God into existence the presuppositionalist why are they arguing at all if it's okay for you just to presuppose God as the explanation for the things that you need an explanation for then there should be no discussion or debate nobody should waste time having any sort of conversation with you other than because the issue then becomes well what reason do you have to presuppose what you don't need one that's why it's a presupposition if it were a conclusion if it were a reasonable inference if it were you know the result of a deductive argument that was based on evidence then you wouldn't be presupposing anything and so presuppositionalism is in my view basically an admission that you've got nothing so you're just going to make something up and pretend that you do I don't have an explanation for why logic is in violet so I'm going to say that there's a God that guarantees it's not well cool I'm going to say that it's you know the poop that we didn't want to talk about earlier I mean I agree actually to be honest I didn't know as well I knew you did actually that much I knew from what you said earlier tonight this one coming in from first super chat I've appreciated algorithm or says is it possible for God to have not known itself it to have not known like I mean like God in theory could create itself and not necessarily it could create something separate but was contained in itself which didn't know like me like I'm a part of God and I could not know of my own existence in a theistic way I could only know it in a very thin sort of no other things and no things in myself kind of way so in that way yes in terms of could God not know himself and really like in terms of what he substance substantially is and be God and no not really like that that is the I think the whole the whole point like he affirms himself is this constant affirmation of himself just just for clarity did you just say God could create himself not God is constantly well that's I'm using the wrong word really I shouldn't say create okay I just saw come up on the transcription and I was like wait yeah it sounds like I'm saying create from like you know create from why you know no no he's begotten not made like so I'm not really seeing he's creating himself in the sense that it's like a temporal act but he is willing himself that he is his own will which is himself which you can see a probably more concise explanation of that in again Thomas Aquinas is somewhat theological you got it also forgot to say thank you I have forgotten this for like 30 let's see Corey Clark Oliver Katwell Scott Mitchell thank you guys so much for your support as amazing channel members appreciate that and Displaced Gamer says if God is spaceless God exists outside of space but the concept of a spaceless God seems to be in tension with the concept of a God who interacts with the world and is present in specific locations and I mean no because you could say that God can can be in space and outside of space simultaneously it's kind of like it like and I kind of a vocal kind of like a weird way of looking at sort of higher dimensions if you were to enter a higher dimension it could be perceived that you're in two places at the same time right like you would actually be united in yourself but the I mean that's begging a lot I'm not I'm not a physicist by the way so if I make any mistakes in physics just less on but it's it's it's kind of like that but not really it God in his internality contains space time he can exist within that space time it necessarily does but it's not limited to that space time if that makes sense and this is why in terms with Matt when we talked about the law of the excluded middle and the way that Hegel talks about it for example being and non-being are boundaries but we could see that they are united in what we would describe as becoming which would be the process of both being let's say being one place and not being another it's becoming into a certain place or it's moving in a kind of motion and this is how we resolve Zeno's paradox for example and that relationship in terms in which they can something can what is seen as one logical moment can actually fall into another logical moment and can only be understood in that unity of opposites I would say then you have the kind of concept of God there as well not trying to get in on the excluded middle thing but you you I was with you while you were saying being and not being but then you transcribe that into being in a place versus not being in a place I continue to be even if I'm not at my mom's house being being and non-being are independent from the location it's the law of excluded middle just says that so identity is A equals A and non-contradiction is that A does not equal not A and the law of excluded middle is that everything is either A or not A the fact that God may be able to be in two places simultaneously is not a violation of the law of excluded middle because that's a the law of excluded middle doesn't say anything about what God can do or what anything else can do matter of fact the foundation of logic identity non-contradiction excluded middle specifically are 100% content agnostic which is why I use the Venn diagram of a single circle with an A in it and not A is outside everything that is in the circle is in the circle everything is not in the circle is not in the circle and everything everywhere in the circle or not in the circle so I just when you switched being and not being to being here and not being here I think that was a mistake no it's not a mistake so like it would be if I was to affirm like obviously that we're talking about the existence of like something's existence or non-existence in a way that is only it's more about we would understand something in relation to a combination of being and not being so for example if I was to say that if I was to say that like I don't know like Hegel gives the example of a bright white room or a pitch black room a bright white room is you can't see anything a pitch black room you can't see anything but a combination of essentially light and darkness in this respect you know essentially being and not being and gives the indication of what we can understand and the combination of those two is what is understandable and that unity is the unity of opposites and you'll find stuff on the unity of opposites in Plato it is the actual logical unity of something being A or B in the first place which you would I'm sorry no that's fine a bright white room is not a pitch black room doesn't matter whether or not you're blinded in both of them you are in fact blinded in both of them or not blinded in both of them but a bright white room is not a pitch black room yes I understand what you're saying and this is where like Hegel would affirm that for example a contradiction would exist in our mind but not in nature all along it's been the same thing you know and this is the Christian point it's all along it's been the same thing we could affirm it as a single thing God but in each aspect of itself if I was to describe it as in one way another way it appears as if we are separate because I am applying three different modes of judgment yes but that's about the content and the law of excluded middle is content agnostic that's what I'm saying I mean it depends on my content agnostic all three identity non-contradiction excluded middle all three of them are content agnostic they are descriptive I'm telling you they are descriptive of that single van diagram with a circle they don't care what the content is they apply universally this is how you get to the universality a bright white room whatever a bright right room is even if this phone is a bright white room whatever it is that's what it is and it's not not a bright white room and everything is either a bright white room or not a bright white room period I think we're just going to talk about this in another time if you like this one coming in from do appreciate it yay D.E.N. oh by the way folks we put a poll in the live chat right now we want to know where modern day debate can expand where would you like to see it expand we asked if you use discord so we do have a modern day debate discord but it's something that we're like hey maybe we should put more time into developing this although like I said Shane I should say Shane's been done doing a fantastic job along with Hannah and others in making our discord awesome already that's in the description box we're going to have a discord hangout after this show I'll be there personally to get to meet you so we appreciate you guys all being with us we have a couple more questions we're going to try to move through but let us know if you use discord or not we always like learning about where you want to see modern day debate this one coming in from yay D.E.N. says if God is outside of time and how humans interact changes significantly with their society's longevity education level and communication style why does God seem like a snapshot of past beliefs is that like a serious question or like think it is because I'm I don't know necessarily what you mean like a snapshot of past beliefs like I don't I don't necessarily know what they're trying to get at do they mean like as in like it's a dated belief or do they mean that that reason is historical is it like that kind of because if they're saying like if I understood this correctly and you say that it's content like human knowledge of God is dependent upon let's say a chain of human reasoning but yeah that's our knowledge of God that's not the existence of God and that's just sort of the human epistemological issue if you're saying that we only used to believe in God now we've gone past that and if God exists then why don't we all believe in God well I don't think that's actually an argument you know we could be wrong and even in order to understand God you could argue that it is necessary that we have this moment of doubt we could say you got it this one coming in from do appreciate it displace gamer says Lord Stanis says perspective who created the rule that universal forgiveness required a human sacrifice and if it was your God how isn't this circular reasoning who created the rule that are content I think that the allegory allegory of the atonement is really important and the whole point I think of the atonement in general is to express that that God is united with the particularity of existence the content contingency of existence and that contingency will be overcome and that it is overcome it's the truth within the moment of the atonement is to say that in terms of a teleological conception of this contingency this moving through to engage to a greater end will actually be achieved and it is achieved already and so when this happens it is that God has already actualized himself perfectly that he is perfectly actualized you got that makes sense thank you and folks want to let you know we can't take any more questions we're going to try to read the remaining questions the speakers out of here this one from displace gamer says if God is omniscient God knows all future events with certainty which implies determinism and negates the possibility of God's own free will to I disagree I mean I could go into the reasons why pre-determinism pre-determinism or predestination rather is absolutely compatible with free will Hegel argues that I think that the issue is that people like to make a separation between ourselves and God and specifically God and himself if he is willing himself to be the way he is then he is perfectly self-actualized the issue that you probably see is that you probably think that to be free means to be unlimited which is usually a mistake that is sort of developed from Protestant nominalistic thinking but this was never an issue and it's more to do with our limited conception of freedom within today I think it's not really so much free as in not limited but free to be wrong you got it this one coming in from do appreciate it Jacob B says perspective would you characterize your position as being pantheism per Hegelian monism in contradiction to classical theism I would probably say that I'm a panentheist which basically means that if a pantheist is someone that believes God is nature or the universe a panentheist says that the universe God contains within himself the universe but is not limited to the universe so I would say I'm a panentheist and I would actually say that Catholics are panentheists I even actually asked a priest whether he would agree with that he thinks that we are he said don't hoard us but he's like I would agree and in terms of theism it is really quite similar because there is that logical relation still between God and reality did create reality but he's separate from it in a manner of speaking you got it displace gamer says God would be the efficient cause of the universe for God to be efficient cause there would be a material cause in parentheses pre-existing matter for God to act upon which contradicts the concept of God creating the universe ex nihilo quite the contrary Thomas Aquinas deals with this again in some of theologica you probably control effort essentially the the argument he gives is that matter itself exists in a certain form so for matter to have certain logical relations to be itself or to be possible it has that possible relation essentially birthed from the idea in the mind of God so matter is actualized by God and so God is not limited to matter so even if he created matter to create from it's just a part of the process you got it and this question from Germanic 06 says thank you both for an intelligent respectful debate so far they say James thank you for hosting thanks so much we appreciate it all credit to the speakers they say perspective philosophy please share an argument against excluded middle and then Matt please respond to it I think we've already kind of covered that if that's unless you want to go back into it essentially the argument I gave is essentially that the law of the excluded middle is that something can either be a or b but the relationship to this law is to say that something has the possibility of not containing partialities of itself or change and I say that that is essentially what we mean by something contingent so I guess rather than me maybe butchering the argument check out why Hegel discards the law of the excluded middle you got it law of the excluded middle despite what he just asserted is not the claim that something can be a or b there's no b involved but it's too much to dig into right today you've got it with that I want to say folks if you haven't hit that like button already we appreciate that we've got about 1250 people watching and we're at about 336 likes we could easily hit 400 so we appreciate your guys's likes as I really watch let me get your guys's opinions you guys are both familiar with youtube matt and perspective are we doing like a quick closing remark or not if you guys would like I hadn't built one in but if you guys would like we can I just had a couple sentences to throw out but sure let's do how about would two minutes be okay probably I could probably do it in 25 seconds sure let's give you each 30 seconds I'll go ahead and go so you get the last word is Christianity true I wish I could say no it's false but it may be not falsifiable and claiming to falsify the unfalsifiable would be irrational I can say that it hasn't been demonstrated to be true and this coupled with the notion that it includes a God which should see this problem and who could take an obvious action to alleviate the problem and doesn't and that that coupled with the similarities to countless other competing religions which are mutually exclusive is enough to reasonably infer that Christianity is not in fact true Jesus whether he's human Klingon or dog which are all according to perspective philosophy possible he wasn't a perfect mind he cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season doubted the plan and seemingly hasn't done anything to address any of the problems including the ones I just stated over the intervening years I'm not sure if the truth of Christianity was remotely addressed here but I still enjoyed it you got it thanks very much perspective thank you very much and thank you Matt and so the argument that I gave was essentially that God is a logos in that the logical relationship between existence and itself implies universality particularity and individuality as a single concrete union which is the absolute and you can find more about that in Hegel and the end of Hegel's logic and is genuinely I think a really great argument the point of contention that I think was most concerning for me was the fact that we got hung up on whether God could doubt himself in which Matt I believe tried to argue that God would not have to have the possibility of have to engage in kind of a logical inquiry and just sort of spawn knowledge out of nowhere and and overall I've enjoyed it I wish that we had have got on to more metaphysical differences that I think really sparked the differences in opposition I'm an idealist and so the separation between our different positions I think really comes from the fact that I would say reality is necessarily reducible to mind but we never really got there and hopefully we can talk again another time you got it and one last one oh Dion I folks no more questions but Dion I'll give you 20 seconds if you can perspective why do you call God a he I'm happy to say that God could be a woman I think that like whatever like the the whole point of giving let's say the father there's no reason to say that the father could be is male or female or anything like that because he's only know I've signed for I'll be back you got it he's only noble to the son we often say the son is a he because of the existence of Jesus Christ in terms of Scripture and so he's a he in that respect I don't see an issue why God couldn't be a she they or whatever you know and when I say they I mean an alternative to the two genders that exist and with that what I'm going to do is folks we're going to do something special today one we're going to have a very short because I know that about half of you don't use discord according to the poll that we put in by the way put up another poll to ask if you use Patreon and I'm like wow 76% say nope never only 13% say they log it 14% login once a month so we know that only about half based on the earlier poll use discord so I'm going to do a short post credits show or greeting hello right after we let the speakers go and then after that five or so minutes of doing that I'm going to move into the discord chat we encourage you check out modern database discord in the description box and then I'll see you in that after show on discord so you can actually go to both if you'd like but want to say huge thank you to Matt and perspective it's been a true pleasure to have you guys today thanks thank you very much and thanks again pleasure is all mine I'm going to let these guys go folks I'll be back in about 18 seconds so stick around