Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - On the Nature and Existence of GOD!

Dec. 31, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:09:32

On the Nature and Existence of GOD!

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	Been a long time listener and had quite a keen interest in philosophy for some time.
	But yeah, so I've written a book.
	It's Signature of the Trinity, How Science's Deepest Patterns Reveal God's Design.
	So yeah, just be essentially getting into that.
	All right.
	Let's, you know, the God thing is a big thing.
	I'm always happy to chat about it.
	So I'm all ears.
	Yeah, so I think perhaps like a good place to start is why I've kind of decided to write the book.
	So I think when it comes to this question of God and philosophical sort of arguments for God, there's obviously a long history of that.
	And they generally sort of fall into categories.
	So you have the like cosmological arguments, which get you like an uncourse first cause or a first cause of the universe.
	You have your design arguments, which argue for a designer of the universe, etc.
	And I think that the main limitation that these arguments have is that they're not very specific in terms of the sort of God that they are arguing for.
	So for instance, you'll find that a Muslim will use a cosmological or design argument as well as a Christian.
	So there's nothing within the argument that kind of gets you down to a specific sort of God.
	It may get you to a cause, but not to, say, the Christian God or the Muslim God.
	So I think that what I try to set out in the book with the book is an argument that's kind of specific to the Christian God, the Christian Trinity.
	So that's kind of where it's unique and it's looking to do a unique thing that's that's not quite been attempted before with philosophy, specifically Christian philosophy.
	So to give you a general overview of how the book goes about that, the starting point is with a 19th century theologian by the name of Robert Gavet.
	Now, Robert Bovet was kind of, he's kind of like a priest in England.
	He wrote on quite a few topics, a lot of stuff on the end times and on general biblical interpretation.
	But his work, which is particularly significant here, is what's called the twofoldness of divine truth.
	And essentially, we don't actually know all that much about the work.
	There's perhaps a suspicion that it was originally a spoken work.
	And so he spoke it to his congregation in Norwich, England.
	And it was then later picked up in written form.
	But essentially, his case here is that there's what is called, he terms twofoldness to truth.
	Now, what this is essentially is that throughout the Bible and throughout nature, he identifies These instances of twofoldness.
	And what twofoldness is, is essentially where we have two truths which can't be reduced down and are seemingly in opposition.
	So I think the example within, say, Christian theology that is most prominent and most easily comes to mind is the example where you have God's sovereignty and man's free will.
	So we have two things here that are very much affirmed within the Bible: that God is sovereign over all things, yet man has a free will.
	And these two things seemingly don't fit together.
	They're seemingly opposed.
	We can't reduce them down.
	So what has happened within Christian history is for a lot of people, they end up taking an extreme stance either way.
	They either say, like the Calvinists do, that man doesn't actually have a free will.
	God ultimately predetermines everything.
	There's an elect, and you just so happen to be chosen by God.
	And then you have the Arminian extreme where in like God's sovereignty is diminished and man's will is kind of dominant.
	So you have these two extremes.
	And Govette's point with the twofoldness of divine truth is him saying that we don't have to take, we don't, basically we can take both truths without being able to reconcile them.
	And the reason for this is that we have God's very nature itself, which exhibits this.
	So the Christian claim is that God is one and yet God is also free.
	So he's free in one, one in free.
	And Gevet's claim is that this master truth, this truth, which ultimately within the Godhead itself flows out into his works, which is why we see this twofoldness present throughout scripture and also within the world itself.
	Now, of course, speaking and writing in the 19th century, Garet had a somewhat limited view of nature and obviously science at that time.
	But his claim is essentially that this twofoldness is also present within the world as well.
	I'm sorry, I just want to make sure and I understand this.
	So the contradiction between God being all-powerful and all-knowing and human beings having free will, I'm just going to try and sort of rephrase it or just sort of make sure that I understand it.
	So the contradiction is that if God knows everything, then God knows what we're going to do in the future.
	If God knows what we're going to do in the future, then we can't really be said to have free will.
	Is it something like that or is it?
	Yeah, it can be even more specific than that.
	Like we find instances within the Bible, which clearly indicate that God is predetermining things, that God has chosen us, etc.
	And, you know, there's an instance with Pharaoh, right, where it says that God hardened his heart.
	But there's equally an instance where Pharaoh hardens his own heart.
	So it seems that the Bible is presenting something where We can't say that you know humans don't have free will, but we also can't say that God doesn't ultimately control everything, so we have an irreconcilability here.
	Okay, yeah, so I got that.
	So, I'm not sure I follow the theologian's solution to say, Well, I'm going to counter your seeming contradiction with another contradiction, which is that God is both one thing and three things: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, at the same time.
	I'm not quite sure how bringing up another seeming contradiction resolves the first contradiction.
	Yeah, so I think for Govet, he would say it's not that it's a contradiction, because what he would say is that there's something underlying that's explaining it.
	So, God's very nature being relationally free and one, one in three.
	Yes, we can't grasp that.
	And similarly, divine sovereignty and human free will, we can't grasp how that's operating.
	But the underlying explanation is that God's very nature is this way, which is why his works flex that.
	And again, just from a sort of philosophical standpoint, saying we can't grasp it is not an answer.
	Yeah, well, I think that there's a degree to which obviously God being God and God being divine is a different category to sort of human reason.
	So, we can, you know, within the Trinity.
	So, let's let's get into it and explain.
	No, no, hang on, hang on.
	Sorry, saying it's beyond human reason is philosophically, that's not an answer.
	Yeah, I mean, if I put forward a contradictory argument, right?
	If I say, uh, um, Socrates is a all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, but Socrates is immortal, right?
	I put forward a contradictory argument.
	It is not an answer to say, philosophically speaking, theologically, I get we're in a different category, but but philosophically speaking, it's not an answer to say the contradictions in my argument are resolved by claiming that my argument is beyond reason, or the nature of my argument is to be true despite its contradiction.
	Uh, that doesn't work, right?
	If I say two and two make five, and a mathematician says no, two and two make four, I don't get to say, well, I'm right because my argument is beyond reason or is somehow true despite its opposition to reason.
	Does that make sense?
	Like, I can't just remove something from the category and claim that it's true, yeah, absolutely.
	So, I totally get where you're coming from.
	Um, so in the book, I discuss this, and I say essentially what Govett is recognizing and what we recognize, what we're able to basically recognize within all these scriptural and scientific examples of what he would call twofoldness.
	There is an underlying logic to it.
	So, if I just bring this up a sec, so there's these two logics that are going on.
	So, there's what's called asymmetric dependence.
	So that's where one pole is prior to the other and presupposes it.
	So within the Trinity, right, you have the Son being begotten of the Father, and you have the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son.
	So that exhibits asymmetric dependence.
	But you also have what's called mutual constitution.
	So that's where two aspects are co-primodial and they define or constrain the other.
	So two aspects are what?
	Co-primordial.
	So they both pre-exist together and define each other and are dependent on each other.
	So in what Christians have identified that with historically has been called what's called the doctrine of co-inherence, which is where essentially the three of the Trinity indwell each other and interpenetrate each other.
	And you have also the aspect of incorporation, which is where any one act of a distinct person of the Trinity, that act incorporates the others by sort of like a necessity.
	So this is what is going on.
	I mean, that's a lot of words.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Okay.
	Right?
	I mean, the two aspects are co-primordial, doctrine of co-inherence, some sort of incorporation.
	Does that solve the logical problem?
	So it's not going to make it fit within like a logical framework, but it does ground what is happening.
	You know, what was the problem?
	No, no, see, ground what is happening doesn't answer my question.
	I need something.
	Now, you can say, you can say this is beyond the realm of logic.
	This is a matter of faith.
	It is logically contradictory.
	It's a matter of faith.
	Right?
	You just have to believe despite the contradictions, or that's the challenge of faith.
	But saying it is logical when it's not, that's the problem.
	Yeah, okay.
	So I would say it's not logical, but it is there is an underlying explanation there in the sense that it exhibits what I just described.
	So it exhibits this aspect of asymmetric dependence and mutual constitution.
	Well, again, these are some phrases, some buzzwords, whatever you want to call them.
	But let me ask you this more.
	And I really enjoyed the conversation.
	So I appreciate the topic.
	So at what age do you think children should be taught about religion and God and sin and virtue?
	So I would say it's good for them to have familiarity from a young age, but you don't want to be presenting certain things before they're ready for it.
	So I would say something like the Trinity and the sort of discussion, we're going to have that, yeah, that's going to be, you know, at least a teenager before you're going to be able to perhaps seriously consider that side of things.
	Okay, so but what age should children be taught about the existence of God, the virtues, right?
	Because in the Christian worldview, which I appreciate, the virtues are dependent upon the existence of God, right?
	Right.
	No God, no virtues, right?
	Because God is the ought that comes out of the is.
	Right.
	Or rather, God is the ought that precedes the is and so on, right?
	And so if you construct a cabinet, the cabinet only exists because you have an ought.
	Out of the is of wood, you create the ought of the cabinet.
	So, and I'm sorry to sort of oversimplify things, but so let me ask you this.
	At what age do you think children should be taught about right and wrong?
	Oh, I think that from an early age, really, that we should be instructing these, you know, when it comes to their, you know, I think that kids can see more, perhaps, than we initially give them credit for.
	So I think that, you know, probably from maybe two, three plus, once they've sort of developed language and are interacting with others, they can begin to get a sense of right and wrong and be instructed in that.
	Okay, so two, three years of age.
	Now, do you think that children are somewhat logical?
	Yeah, I certainly think so, yeah.
	I mean, that's certainly been my experience.
	Do you think that we're born with, I won't say necessarily an instinct for logic, but are we born with logic operating to some degree automatically in our minds?
	In other words, if you tell even a very young child to do something illogical, that the young child will get a sense that there's something wrong.
	Like if you say to a young child, I want you to walk away from me and towards me at the same time, what will the child say?
	Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
	If you say to your children, I want you to eat all of your candy bar and share your candy bar with your brother later, what will the child think?
	Again, when they ought to make sense of that.
	Right.
	And so we're born with a built-in logical processing unit, which we would assume is by God's design, because God could have designed us to be anti-logical, but really, really couldn't survive if we were anti-logical.
	So children have a sort of built-in logical set of processing, and most animals do, but we do it more conceptually because we would transmit these commands that would be impossible to fulfill, like come here, go away at the same time through language.
	So children are more or less automatically logical.
	And you want to teach morals to children at a very early age because you don't want them whacking each other and taking each other's stuff and all that kind of stuff.
	So you want to teach children morals at a sort of very early age.
	So do you think that it's very helpful if you say, well, there's this twofoldness, there's these asymmetric dependence within the Trinity, mutual constitution, two aspects are co-primordial, both exist together, contradictions are truth, and there's a doctrine of co-inherence that incorporates these opposites into one unity.
	Do you think kids would have any clue what you're talking about?
	No.
	And I don't think this would be appropriate for kids.
	Okay.
	But hang on.
	So, and I appreciate your patience.
	And I do want to get to your thesis.
	I just want to, this is something I've always sort of been curious about.
	Yeah.
	So if children need to start learning morals at two or three years of age, or they have some moral responsibility at two or three years of age, and they cannot possibly understand the nature of God, which would be the source of morals, then how do you teach children about morality?
	Don't you just have to say, do it because, not because you understand?
	Yeah, so I'll be honest, if I've not given this sort of thing much consideration, I'm not a father myself.
	Well, no, no, but you want to teach, you want to teach kids morals.
	And listen, I've been studying philosophy for over 40 years.
	I don't understand these terms.
	But you want kids of two or three years of age to be morally responsible.
	And it's better to be morally responsible, not because you're simply ordered, right?
	Not because you're threatened, right?
	Like, like, not be like, don't steal because otherwise I'm going to put you in a timeout.
	I'm going to yell at you.
	I'm going to withhold a treat.
	I'm going to take away something you like or I'm going to spank you or, you know, whatever, right?
	You don't want children, I think, I think you don't want children as a whole to simply be threatened or bullied or bribed into virtues.
	I think you want children to understand the virtues.
	Now, I understand that, of course, explaining the nature of God to a two-year-old is tricky, for sure.
	But you do need to be able to explain why be good.
	And if you say, well, you have to be good because a God orders it or God commands it, then you are simply saying you have to do it because a big, powerful guy who's even bigger and powerful than mommy and daddy orders you to do it.
	And then that is not giving the child understanding.
	That is simply saying, well, you have to do it because either I'll punish you in the here and now or God will punish you in eternity if you don't.
	And so I guess my if the source of morality is very, very, very hard for the vast majority of people to understand, and understanding requires a suspension of our God-given automatic ability to process reason.
	In fact, it does just require a suspension.
	It requires to work in opposition.
	And if, let's say, only one person in a thousand or one person in 10,000 can truly, I don't even know what to say, grasp or follow these reasonings, aren't you excluding the understanding of the source of morality from the vast majority of the population?
	If it's this complicated, if that makes sense.
	Like if I said, in order to be good, you have to truly understand quantum physics, then the vast majority of people would never really have the opportunity to be good.
	Yeah, I get where you're coming from.
	I think that what a lot of Christians would say is that, you know, God is the creator of like the moral sort of law.
	So it's not perhaps that God is the justification isn't God says do this.
	So you wouldn't say to a kid, God do this.
	Say, don't do that because that's wrong.
	And you can ultimately say that that's wrong because God has created this moral law that's on the heart of all men, and we should abide by that, even though it's been obviously corrupted by the nature of sin, etc.
	So I think that you don't need to understand the Trinity in order to understand the inner conscience, the inner moral law that God's created, I guess, would be the answer.
	Okay.
	All right.
	I just wanted to sort of understand what it is that you meant.
	Certainly, as you know, my approach to ethics is it needs to be comprehensible and understandable by children.
	Sure.
	Right.
	Because if we're going to hold children morally responsible, which, you know, we have to do, right?
	Then we have to give to children.
	We have to give to children answers that they can understand.
	Because if we say to people, you're bound by a law you cannot understand, or a source or the justification for the moral law is something that you cannot understand, all we can do is appeal to authority.
	Yeah, I think that I just add as well that I don't think there's like anything within your moral framework that you lay out that would be like incompatible with a Christian belief.
	If anything, you perhaps could say, you know, these objective truths that Stefan's establishing are ultimately grounded in God sort of thing, you know.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So we can come back to that.
	I don't want to completely derail you.
	I just wanted to sort of point that out as a whole.
	But yeah, if you wanted to get on with the proof of the argument, I'd appreciate that.
	Yeah, sure.
	So essentially, let's just move on to the sort of criteria for what makes what Govett would call a twofold.
	And so I've got that here.
	Just a second.
	So to basically be a twofold, I think there's five sort of criteria that have to be met.
	So the first is distinctness.
	So the two things have to be genuinely different from each other.
	So within the Trinity, we would say that, you know, each person is distinct from the other.
	So it would meet that criteria.
	A second is joint necessity.
	So you need both to explain the phenomena.
	Neither alone would work.
	So within the Trinity, you'd certainly have joint necessity.
	So for instance, like the incarnation of God, the crucifixion of God.
	We can't explain these things.
	We can't get rid of the Father or the Spirit and just be left with, say, the Son to explain such things within the Christian view.
	The third is irreducibility.
	So that would basically mean that there's not an underlying explanation that you know it's the thing.
	So, for instance, if we could get rid of the Trinity, we could explain the biblical text and the world, et cetera, with just a unity, with just one God, say the Father, then irreducibility would not be met.
	And then there's centrality, so it's foundational to the claim.
	I think that certainly any Christians would agree that the Trinity is a central claim to the faith.
	And then you have persistence, so it would have survived over a long period of time.
	So, of course, there's been many sort of what have been identified as heresies throughout the history of Christianity, which kind of try to dissolve the Trinity.
	And the claim is that Trinity alone sort of stands.
	And basically, the argument that I present in the book is that these theological cases that we find, so like sovereignty and responsibility, the Trinity itself, the nature of Christ, all these examples of twofoldness,
	they exhibit they're also present within science itself and our descriptions of scientific reality.
	So throughout the book, I'll just list off the examples I get into.
	So we have general relativity and quantum mechanics.
	We have entropy, negentropy, and the past hypothesis.
	We have the wave-particle complementarity, the four forces and the matter-field distinction.
	We have dark matter and dark energy, genetics and epigenetics, the particle, antiparticle asymmetry and quantum information, consciousness and the brain, and then the origin of life.
	And basically the argument is that these examples we find within science meet the criteria for twofoldness.
	They are distinct, jointly necessary, irreducible, central, and persistent.
	So I think the sort of key example and the one I discussed most in the book is general relativity and quantum mechanics.
	So maybe before we get into that, just make sure that you're following me sort of so far.
	So there are things in science like the wave-particle distinction where things appear to have two properties, but are one thing?
	Yeah, so the claim is that these great theories that we have, they are not, we can't reduce them down into one.
	So if we take general relativity and quantum mechanics, for instance, so with general relativity, that's the description of space-time.
	It governs cosmic evolution, expansion, the error of time.
	It's deterministic, geometric, it's continuous.
	And then you have quantum mechanics.
	So general relativity, you could say, it's like the large scale, the global side of things, describing space-time.
	And then you have quantum mechanics, which describes matter and energy interactions at every point within that space-time.
	It governs the behavior of particles, field dynamics.
	In its nature, it's probabilistic, it's algebraic and discrete.
	So we have these two theories that are describing the same reality, but in two ways that are very opposed to each other and in a way that we can't reduce it down to one.
	So, you know, the scientists and physicists have been for a long time now, obviously, over 100 years, looking to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity.
	But we've been unable to do so.
	And the claim of the book is that the reason why reality is this way is because reality is full of this twofoldness, which is ultimately grounded in the very nature of God.
	So, no matter how hard we try, how much we try to make sense of it, how much we try to unify reality under, say, a theory of everything, we're just unable to do so because reality is a reflection of God himself, and God himself doesn't like to fit in with our sort of way of making sense of the world,
	using sort of traditional logic and such things.
	Okay.
	So if I understand this correctly, because there are sort of unresolved seeming contradictions within science that accepts that that which is counter-rational can be valid and therefore God's counter-rationality does not invalidate God?
	I'm sorry to simplify it and I'm not trying to sort of say, oh, it's just that simple, but I just want to make sure I understand it from that standpoint.
	I'd say it's the other way around, Stefan.
	So I'd say that because God in his very nature is a unity with distinction and exhibits, you know, the description I gave of mutual constitution and asymmetric dependence, the creation that he's made reflects that nature.
	So we see throughout the sciences and throughout the creation, we see this unity with distinction and asymmetric dependence and mutual constitution.
	So that, and of course, you know, the goal of science, of philosophy, etc., of logic is to describe reality in a way that makes sense, you know.
	But it seems to be the case that reality is at its fundamental level.
	I think the main claim of the book is that reality at its fundamental level is relational.
	So it reflects the nature of God, which is a unity with distinction, rather than the sort of logical unity, logic, whatever, you know, that we strive for as humans.
	Okay, and if you can just tell me unity with distinction that is three in one.
	So for God, it's three in one.
	But, you know, for the various examples we can find within science, it can be many.
	What's consistent is that it meets the criteria for being a twofold and it meets the criteria for exhibiting asymmetric dependence or mutual contrast or maybe even a common sense.
	So you keep using these terms and they're relatively new to me.
	Yeah, yeah, sure.
	I totally get that.
	So I'll try again clarifying what I mean by that.
	So basically with asymmetric dependence, we have one thing grounding another.
	So within the Trinity, we have the Son being grounded, begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeding.
	So an example from within science of that would be, say, the relationship between genetics and epigenetics, where genetics is the actual sort of information level.
	And we have epigenetics, which is kind of like the regulation of that information.
	So obviously with epigenetics, we have something that is dependent on the information being present, but we can't reduce the epigenetic down to the genetic.
	It's basically how reduce the epigenetic down to the genetic.
	If you could help me understand that.
	So basically, we need both descriptions.
	They are both distinct, but we can't.
	Sorry, what do you mean by distinct?
	So distinct is a good question because when we're talking about distinction here, it's not that they're separate.
	It's just that they're not the same.
	So they work together, but they're working together like we have with the descriptions of the Trinity in a way that we can't unite them.
	We can't reduce them one down to the other.
	They are in that sense distinct from each other.
	Okay, so just help me understand what you mean by, I mean, I think genetics we understand.
	What's your definition of epigenetics or what sort of definition of epigenetics are you working with?
	Just, let's see.
	I'd say just the sort of standard scientific definition of what epigenetics is.
	Not sure I have one within the book, but we could probably just find one online.
	Well, I mean, if there are changes in gene activity that don't fundamentally alter the DNA sequence itself, like turning genes on and off, You could say, here's how cells are going to use genetic instruction, but you don't change the underlying genetic code and so on.
	And so, I don't know how that is that is that contradictory.
	So, there's genetics and epigenetics, but they're not contradictory.
	They're just two ways in which genes and cells can work together.
	Yeah, I would say that they meet the criteria for what we call twofoldness because they are so both descriptions are distinct.
	So, they are two distinct things.
	So, you have genetics, you have epigenetics.
	We can't collapse one down into the other.
	And they're both necessary.
	So, we need obviously the genetics to you know, and DNA, etc.
	But we also need this means of regulation which comes in through epigenetics.
	So, they're both jointly necessary.
	Again, they meet the criteria for irreducibility.
	So, we can't unify them.
	We can't, in a sense, do away with one or the other.
	But they don't contradict each other.
	They're not self-contradictory, right?
	So, a sort of typical example of epigenetics would be in the Second World War in Holland, there was a horrible winter.
	And if babies in the womb were exposed to this level of famine, then there were this lasting DNA methylation changes.
	It increased risks to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, schizophrenia, and so on.
	Maternal nutrition, maternal stresses, and so on can alter epigenetic markers, and that affects fetal development.
	And of course, at the very beginning, right, stem cells develop into things like neurons, muscle cells, skin cells.
	I mean, despite the fact that all the cells possess identical DNA, so you couldn't really have genetics without epigenetics.
	You couldn't have evolution, you couldn't have life without genetics and epigenetics, and they don't contradict each other.
	So, to go back to sort of the original question, God being all-knowing and all-powerful, and human beings possess free will is contradictory.
	And saying that God is both three and one is contradictory, because three and one are not the same.
	So, saying that two things that aren't the same are the same, that's not how epigenetics, and again, I'm no geneticist, right?
	But that's not how epigenetics and genetics work, because genetics are the transmissal of long-term code for life.
	Epigenetics accepts that you don't know what kind of environment you're going to be born into, and therefore you have to have some adaptability that isn't multi-generational, right?
	Because let's say that in this case, there's a lot of hunger, then you're going to have to have different gene expressions based upon the fact that there's a lot of hunger.
	Now, the hunger could be very short-term, right?
	It could be, oh, you know, seven years of bad weather or a year of bad weather or whatever it is, right?
	There's no game, or I don't know, or it could be something that's very, very long-term.
	But in the short term, having the capacity to adapt to your environment without requiring multi-generational adaptations, which is bad, right?
	Multi-generational adaptations Would require a lot of babies or children or adults to die in order to weed out sort of negative genes.
	So having an adaptability to localized environment for a gene set is a massive advantage, and that's why it has evolved.
	So in terms of like selection pressures and Darwinian pressures and so on, long term, you need the stability of long-term gene transmission, but you also need adaptability to more immediate circumstances that don't require the weeding out of multi-generations.
	Or to put it another way, those organisms that didn't develop epigenetics did not survive well relative to those organisms that did develop epigenetics.
	So again, I don't see how, and I'm certainly happy to be schooled, probably more of an expert on this than I am, but I don't see how that contradicts genetics.
	To say that there's epigenetics, to me, that is more proof of the viability of selection pressures and so on.
	And having the ability to adapt to localized immediate conditions is a massive advantage genetically.
	So that's why I think it developed.
	Yeah, so I think that to meet the criteria of being a twofold, we don't need a contradiction.
	So in the sort of five criteria that are laid out, so distinctness, joint necessity, irreducibility, centrality, and persistence, there's not a requirement that there's a contradiction for that to be met.
	I'd say that as long as that criteria is met and the asymmetric dependence or mutual constitution is present, I'd say that it's ultimately that is which what gives us our ultimate pointer to the Trinity.
	But the Trinity is to some degree, as far as I understand it, a contradiction in that you're saying something is both one and three at the same time.
	But epigenetics is not a contradiction.
	It's just long-term evolution versus short-term sorry, it's long-term evolutionary adaptation versus short-term evolutionary adaptation.
	So to me it's kind of like saying, well, the long-term adaptation for a rabbit is to be alert and fast, because that's what they need to survive.
	But once the rabbit is born, then its genetics won't tell you which way it runs, because which way it runs is depending upon which way the fox or the wolf or whatever that's chasing it is going to run.
	So it's not contradictory.
	And so having long-term adaptation in the form of stable genetics and short-term adaptations in the form of epigenetics is not a contradiction but rather a confirmation of the sort of theory of evolution or selection pressures and so on, and and it's better to have epigenetics than not.
	So that's part of it.
	So it's not a contradiction.
	But so so invoking it to resolve a contradiction such as god knows everything but we have free will, like that's a contradiction.
	If god knows what we're going to do.
	We can't be free to choose what we're going to do.
	And, as you point out, if God interferes and and tells Noah, build the ark, and then does Noah really have the free will to build the ark if God's who he believes go is all-knowing and all-powerful, tells him to build the ark, or the example you gave of hardening the heart and so on, those are, those are contradictions and saying epigenetics somehow resolves contradictions in theology.
	Again, I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but I don't follow the argument.
	So it's not that we're going to resolve resolve this resolve that.
	The argument isn't we have we have twofoldness within creation, therefore God is twofold and that's not a contradiction then to say that God is free in one.
	The argument is that the sort of same criteria upon which we establish God as twofold, we can use to establish other twofolds throughout creation.
	Okay, so twofold just so twofold is genetics versus epigenetics, is that right?
	It's it's an example.
	I would say it's it's it's an example where I'm not as well versed as say quantum mechanics and general relativity.
	I mean, one of the challenges with putting the book together is, of course, I can't be an expert in all these various oh no no, I completely, as neither can I.
	So I completely understand that and and so on.
	And the one to me that I'm more familiar with epigenetics and genetics, sort of from my work in IQ and so on, but I'm of course less familiar with the details and complexities of quantum mechanics.
	And you know, there's sort of a famous statement from a professor of quantum mechanics.
	Is that the one thing I want you to learn from this course on quantum mechanics is that nobody understands quantum mechanics.
	So uh, but but certainly quantum phenomenon resolve itself to stable and consistent behaviors of matter.
	By the time we get to the sense data level, like there's freaky stuff going on at the subatomic level that's almost impossible to measure without alteration, and so on.
	But by the time it gets to our sense data level, which is, you know, aggregates of, you know millions or billions of atoms and so on, everything's stable.
	And we couldn't have life if things weren't.
	You know if, if food was constantly warping back and forth to poison right, then then we, we couldn't survive as organisms because we'd eat something and then it would kill us um, or we'd avoid something that could feed us, but then when we ate it it would kill us again.
	So there has to be sort of stable properties of matter and energy for life to evolve at all.
	So this yeah, I agree that there's.
	I don't view epigenetics as a freaky stuff.
	It's just you need to fast forward sometimes because environments change uh considerably.
	And if you have one generation uh, where things are peaceful and plentiful, then you need a particular kind of person.
	If in the next generation or or during the transition between the generations, things become stressful and horrible, maybe you're taken over or sold into slavery or, you know, something destroys your food source, then you need a different kind of person and you can't wait for evolution to weed people out because you're all going to die.
	So having a fast forward on evolution based upon environmental cues, often in the womb or other other ways, I think that's.
	That's great, that's that I mean that that's a fulfillment of evolution.
	And I don't see how it resolves contradictions in theology to say there's, there's two aspects to evolution, both of which serve each other.
	Yeah I, I think that the the, the key is um, that we can't where what and where we kind of get why why, i'd argue it's an instance of what's called twofoldness is that you can't reduce epigenetics down to genetics or genetics to epigenetics so with.
	So with epigenetics um, it certainly does exhibit emergent features um, But we can't actually reduce that down to the sequence.
	So we can't reduce it down to genetics.
	We have two things that are distinct that we take together to explain, you know, life, to explain biology.
	So I think in that sense, it meets the criteria for being a twofold.
	Now, sorry, did you mean that we can't use epigenetics to explain human biology?
	No, but we can't basically the claim is that we can't explain human biology without both, right?
	So we need the epigenetic description and we need the genetic description.
	And we can't reduce one down to the other.
	Both are both are required.
	And the claim is that it's therefore established as what's termed twofoldness.
	So rather than reality being a simple unity, we have a unity in plurality, which is itself reflective of God's nature as the ultimate argument.
	Okay, a unity in plurality.
	Yeah.
	So this is ultimately grounded in Gervette's work.
	So it was Gervet who turned that unity and plurality, plurality and unity.
	And his claim is that the scriptures and the world exhibit this twofoldness because that is what's this unity in plurality, plurality in unity, because that is the very nature of God.
	And the very nature is God is therefore reflected in his works.
	So we have that with all these examples from modern science.
	And I think that.
	Okay, and again, I'm going to just have to circle back and say, I don't understand how epigenetics, which is a subset of genetics, right?
	So the ability to adapt genes based upon immediate environments is a genetic, like if genetics didn't allow you to do that, it wouldn't happen.
	So epigenetics is a subset of genetics.
	Right.
	You have the larger thing called genetics.
	You have the smaller thing.
	There's no epigenetics without genetics, but there's genetics without epigenetics.
	So genetics is the larger circle.
	Epigenetics is the smaller circle.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Sorry, I just want to come in there.
	I think that's the key to this claim is that actually you can't have genetics without epigenetics.
	You need both in place.
	You can't have a purely genetic description or purely epigenetics description.
	You need both to be able to explain phenomena.
	No, no, but they're both consistent with each other.
	Genetics is an adaptation that is more stable in the long term.
	Epigenetics is adaptation that is based upon more immediate stimuli.
	It's like saying with a computer, there's hardware and software.
	So hardware is the fixed part.
	That would be genetics.
	Software is the part that adapts to you touch, you type, you whatever, right?
	And so saying a computer is either hardware or software wouldn't make any sense, right?
	Hardware without software is just a bunch of metal, and software without hardware doesn't have anything to run on.
	So, saying that because computers are both hardware and software, God exists, I don't follow.
	So, I think that it's perhaps useful to draw out a theological parallel at this point.
	So, the claim in the book is that the genetics and epigenetics best reflect sort of law and grace that we find within the Bible.
	So, as you said, you have with genetics, you have the fixed code, which is perhaps somewhat similar to law and like hard constraints of heredity, etc.
	And then you have epigenetics, which provides flexible adaptation, which is somewhat comparable to grace.
	So, the parallel, and again, this is where a lot of Christians have fallen short, at least in my view and in Gerbert's view, is that we can take an extreme.
	So, we can say, you know, we're justified just by works and following the law, or you can take the other extreme of we're just justified solely through grace, which has come to place the law, etc.
	So, I think that the comparison you the two are, in a sense, comparable in that sense.
	Okay, and so the problem.
	So, the problem I have logically is that we have a logical contradiction, right?
	Which God knows everything, but we have free will.
	So, that's a logical contradiction.
	I think we accept that, right?
	Yeah, you can't square it with logic.
	Okay, so that's a logical contradiction.
	So, then saying epigenetics somehow justifies this when epigenetics is not a logical contradiction, but it's simply genetics operating in two modes: long-term and short-term.
	It's a continuum, right?
	Genetics is long-term, epigenetics is short-term.
	They're both adaptations to environments.
	One is more stable and long-term, which is necessary as the foundation.
	And, like, you know, you have a foundation to your house that doesn't open and close and doesn't change, or you shouldn't, right?
	Because if it changes, your house collapses.
	And then you have doors and windows that open and close.
	That's not a contradiction, right?
	There's one aspect of the house that shouldn't change, and there's another aspect of the house that has to change, otherwise, you can't open the door and get in the house.
	So, they're both part of the house.
	Not a contradiction to say that there's a stable foundation and that there's things that change based upon whether it's hot or cold.
	You want to breathe or you want to get into the house or get into the bathroom or so on, right?
	You want water in your toilet, you don't want water in your basement, right?
	So, it's not a contradiction.
	And so, epigenetics and genetics are not a contradiction.
	They're not two phases that somehow oppose each other.
	And so, they are both fulfilling the need for survival and genetic adaptation.
	One is more stable and long-term, the other is, in a sense, less stable and more short-term.
	But they're both genetic adaptations to the environment.
	I mean, you can change your genetics by smoking, but it doesn't pass to the next generation, right?
	And so, given that you may have temporary situations, like in sort of the example in Holland of the 1944 to 1945 starvation, that was a temporary situation.
	So you don't want to transmit those genes permanently.
	You just want those genes to be altered in the current generation.
	Now, of course, if it turns out that there's some sort of starvation situation that's permanent, then those genes will win out and you'll change the sort of underlying code.
	But you don't want to change those genes permanently for a temporary situation.
	And so that's what epigenetics is for, is to adapt rapidly, but without changing.
	I guess they're like executive orders rather than changes in the law through Congress or whatever it is, like the Constitution or something like that.
	So those two things are not contradictory, but actually are perfect, perfectly fulfill, or at least as best as can be after 4 billion years of evolution, perfectly fulfill what is needed for optimum survival.
	So they're not contradictory.
	They both serve survival.
	They're complementary.
	And so I don't see how those two things, which are both perfectly serving survival and are not in any way contradictory, and in fact complement each other.
	I don't see how that is used to address God knows everything, but we also have free will, because that's a straight up contradiction.
	Yeah, so it's not being used in that way.
	I think what the book and the argument is trying to say is that reality.
	Now, I would say that ultimately that is going to remain a mystery.
	How it is that God is sovereign and man has free will, how it is that God is one and get free.
	These things ultimately remain a mystery.
	But what the book is claiming is that what we have with science and what we have with the various instances within the scripture is we have reality exhibiting what Govett calls unity in plurality and plurality in unity.
	I agree, you know, genetics and epigenetics, they work together.
	You know, they accurately describe reality.
	They're not, as you say, incoherent contradictions.
	But what they do exhibit is the fact that we can't get rid of, we have to retain both.
	So we can't have genetics without epigenetics and we can't have epigenetics without genetics.
	So that exhibits what the book identifies as asymmetric dependence, which is where one pole is prior to the other and presupposes it.
	So in this instance, genetics is presupposing.
	I'm sorry, epigenetics is presupposing genetics, because obviously if there's no genes to regulate, then it can't be operational.
	But we nevertheless require that epigenetic explanation to be in place in order to have genetics itself.
	So they are in a sense irreducible.
	So the claim is that they meet the five criteria and they meet the relation.
	They meet the same five criteria and the same relation criteria that we find within the Trinity itself.
	So that's essentially the claim is that the Trinity is the best explanation for what we find within the sciences because it meets the same criteria as what we find within the sciences themselves, if that makes sense.
	Okay.
	Now, what did the 19th century fellow what examples did he use?
	Because of course, this is prior to the theory of relativity, certainly prior to quantum mechanics, prior to epigenetics.
	So what examples did he use to resolve these?
	Yeah, so I'll give you some of the examples from his work.
	So let me see.
	So I'll just actually just start with some of the quotes, one of his opening quotes.
	So he says, the oneness and harmony of divine truth as contained in the scripture is a pleasing and profitable subject of contemplation.
	Though proceeding from so many pens under such varied conditions, at dates so distant, the Bible contains but one grand scheme.
	Yet it must not be forgotten or denied that there are continually exhibited within its pages truths seemingly opposed to each other.
	I'll just and his methodology is essentially captured within this quote here.
	So he says, do you ask which you are to believe, which both?
	It is not necessary to reconcile them both before we are bound to receive and act upon the two.
	It is enough that the word of God distinctly affirms them both.
	So in some of his examples from nature, so from planetary motion, he says, what keeps the planets moving in beauteous order around the sun?
	Not one force, but two.
	Two forces pulling each particle of matter in two opposite directions at the same instant.
	Leave our oath to one of these and it would fly away into infinite space.
	Give undivided scope to the other and the globe would soon be drawn down to the surface of the sun.
	But between the two forces, it moves harmoniously on its way.
	From respiration, how is life supported?
	By two airs or gases of opposite qualities.
	If we leave one of them alone, we would die quickly from the intense expenditure and exhaustion of the vital forces, place us in an unmingled atmosphere of the other, and life would be extinguished in a few minutes.
	And then he's got from physiology, the bodies in which we live are ever subject to the opposite action of two forces.
	By one, the flesh and blood and bones are being continually taken to pieces, while the other, new particles are being continually added.
	I'd just add on to that one that, you know, that's kind of been formalized since him in entropy and negentropy, which I discuss in the book.
	So he somewhat foresaw that one.
	So from chemistry, what is the salt we eat?
	A compound is two substances, either of which alone would destroy us.
	And his key inference from all of this is he says that it's not then to be wondered at if two seemingly opposed principles are found placed side by side in the scripture.
	Unity and plurality, plurality in unity is the main principle on which both the world and the scripture are constructed.
	So I think that the goal of the book is basically to make the claim that, you know, Govette has been, in a sense, vindicated by modern science.
	What we find is this unity and plurality, plurality and unity throughout every level of description that we have within the sciences.
	And that's essentially the argument for them ultimately being grounded in God.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	I understand.
	So he's saying that gravity and centrifugal forces are two in one.
	Yeah, so it's...
	The orbit requires both, which it does, of course, right?
	Yeah.
	So it's, yeah, the central claim is that we have, you know, we have this plurality, but we have the unity in plurality, plurality, and unity, much like we have within God himself.
	And ultimately, for Govette, he would take the step to say that the reason why reality is this way is because that's the way that God is and that's God's nature flowing out into his works.
	And so the book is essentially trying to obviously update and expound on Govette's work.
	So it touches on all these various examples.
	I would say that, you know, as I touched on, I myself and I'm of course limited.
	So I know that there are examples even beyond what I touch on in the book, but I tried to focus in on what I take to be the sort of the key ones.
	Perhaps, you know, because you're more familiar with the biological side of things.
	Another one worth touching on is the information material sort of dyad.
	So that's where we have, you know, things like DNA and information being present within biological life.
	But of course, biological life is also material and we need both these, we need both these to be in place in order to describe life.
	And we can't reduce information down to the purely material and we can't reduce the material down to purely informational.
	We require both to be in place.
	So we have, again, an instance of unity and plurality, plurality and unity within the sciences.
	Another example from sort of biological life would be both the brain and the mind.
	The fact that we have obviously physical brains, but we have this consciousness, so this self-awareness that we can't, and you know, again, they're distinct.
	We can't reduce one down to the other and jointly necessary, etc.
	So they would meet the criteria to what it would be to be a twofold.
	But I would say, ultimately, of course, there's still this level of mystery.
	You know, although we can say the Trinity exhibits this twofoldness and it exhibits these two sort of relational logics which keep coming up, so mutual constitution and asymmetric dependence, it is ultimately beyond our mind to grasp how it is that God is ultimately free in one, one in three.
	We can describe it, you know, using co-inherence, using twofoldness, etc.
	But we're not ultimately able to grasp how it is that he is that way.
	Much in the same way, how we, you know, much as we may try to reduce down these various laws and those various instances of twofoldness down into one, we can't, much as we may try, we're not able to do that.
	I'd say that the goal of science and the goal of philosophy generally is to reduce things down, to explain things in simpler terms using less where we can.
	But what we find is that reality is just not that way.
	It's not the way we would expect it to be or would like it to be in terms of how our minds operate.
	Instead, what we have is this unity and plurality where what's being described is a single thing.
	So, say, the human life or biological life or matter or energy.
	So, that thing is a single thing.
	It's a unity.
	But in order to describe it and to explain it, we have two things going on which we can't reduce down to a single thing.
	We can't.
	So, basically, yes, we have this unity and plurality, which Gavet had said many years before science sort of established it, that that's how the world is.
	So, in that sense, I think it gives certainly a somewhat fresh approach in terms of saying that, okay, God is the ultimate source of reality because reality exhibits his very nature.
	I think that there's certainly something that needs to be to be grappled with.
	Why is it that reality has this structure and this relationship and this unity and plurality that would seemingly map on to a creator who has that nature?
	Right.
	So, I mean, here's where we certainly part ways in terms of our approach.
	And that's, you know, not the end of the world, but here's where I have significant issues with what it is that you're doing.
	And that's fine.
	You know, we're all fighting for the truth.
	But so saying to people, well, we just can't grasp, we're insufficient to understand this, to me is kind of toxic.
	It's kind of corrosive because it's saying, well, gee, if your brain was better, kid, you could square a circle.
	You could make two and two make five if your brain was just better.
	If you were smarter and wiser and more understanding like God himself, then you could make the self-contradictory perfectly consistent, that it's a failure of your brain that you cannot square a circle.
	I find that gross.
	I find that quite negative.
	And it kind of annoys me significantly, which doesn't mean that you're wrong.
	I'm just sort of telling you my emotional response to it.
	And then I'll sort of tell you the reasons why.
	I don't consider my brain deficient because I can't square a circle or make self-contradictions not self-contradictory.
	I don't consider that a failure of my brain.
	I wouldn't consider it more advanced to believe that two and two make five.
	I would consider that a problem, a deficiency in my brain.
	I would consider that a form of madness to say, well, I accept that two and two make four, but it would be vastly superior to believe that two and two make five, or that there is such thing as a square circle, or that omniscience and free will can both coexist.
	I would not consider that an advancement.
	I would consider that a breakage, a problem.
	Now, the challenge with regards to this is, let's say that your argument is true, and that once we have, I don't know, the new holy trinity of epigenetics and quantum physics and the theory of relativity, then we can, with more reason, accept the existence of God.
	Okay, well, what about everyone who came before that?
	If believing in the existence of God is essential for human flourishing, and if God is perfectly willing to let people discover these three scientific truths and that helps them believe in God, well, what about the people in the Middle Ages?
	What about the people in ancient Greece who had no access to this understanding, which furthers people's acceptance of the existence of God?
	If it's really important for people to believe in God, why on earth wouldn't God put epigenetics and quantum physics and the theory of relativity into the Bible so that people could understand God's structure and nature and the two-in-oness and so on, mutual dependence?
	Because it would seem kind of unfair if this really helps people believe in and accept not just God, but the Christian God, it would seem kind of unfair for the Christian God to place this knowledge, which he has perfectly, of course, in the hands of people and only a small number of people in the 20th and 21st centuries rather than Reveal it as he did with miracles and so on beforehand.
	Wouldn't that be great?
	Also, of course, if God had put something in the Bible that was scientifically true, but nobody knew or believed at the time, that would be a significant indication that a greater than human consciousness had his hand in the Bible, but you really can't find anything in the Bible that turned out to be scientifically true later that was not believed in by anybody at the time.
	I mean, if people had said, if in the Bible it said the tides come from the gravitational pull of the moon, or if the Bible had E equals M C squared written in it somewhere and people didn't even know what it meant, but then it later turned out to be the foundation of Einsteinian physics, that would be pretty cool.
	And the issue that I have as a whole, why I've taken a different approach to ethics, and this is why I was asking about children, is that the huge problem with Christian ethics or religious ethics as a whole is you can walk away from them by not believing in God.
	Now, people can say, ah, yes, but nothing compels people to accept UPP either.
	And I understand that, and I'll get to that in a second.
	That's a good objection.
	But if I simply say, I don't accept your argument, I don't accept that complementary aspects of the behavior of matter and energy prove completely self-contradictory aspects of God and man, then what is your recourse?
	Well, you can say, well, then you're an unbeliever.
	Maybe you'll go to hell.
	You won't get to heaven.
	And then it just turns into threats and bribes.
	Now, I understand that the same criticism could be made of UPB.
	However, in order to survive in the world, in order for you and I to have this conversation, we have to accept non-contradiction.
	So you're trying to make God conform with science, so you're trying to remove those contradictions.
	And I get that you say that there's what you call a mystery that we're not capable of understanding, which I would just call error.
	If my father says, well, we're going to boycott this store because it's doing evil things, and then he keeps going back to that store.
	And I say, well, hang on, you said you were going to boycott the store, and now you keep going back.
	And he says, well, that is a mystery.
	I'm perfectly moral and consistent.
	That's just a mystery that you don't understand because your brain isn't advanced enough yet.
	That would not be a good father.
	That would not be good parenting.
	Now, for you and I to have this conversation, we have to accept non-contradiction.
	All the technology that we rely on has to accept non-contradiction.
	We also have to accept, which is why I was asking for the definitions of the words, we have to accept that the words have some reasonable meaning that we both agree on.
	In other words, I don't say true when I mean false and vice versa for you, because then we couldn't even have the conversation.
	So we have to rely on consistency and non-contradiction in order to have the conversation.
	And so saying truth is consistency and non-contradiction is perfectly consistent with how the conversation operates, how our life operates, right?
	We can't say that contradiction is the essence of life because then we couldn't function.
	We wouldn't know the difference between a wall and a door.
	We wouldn't know what to eat, right?
	We wouldn't know if our next breath might kill us.
	We wouldn't know if we still needed sleep.
	We wouldn't have any way to really survive.
	So accepting non-contradiction, accepting consistency is required for conversation.
	It is required for life.
	So, people with UPB, which is perfectly consistent and non-contradictory, which is my approach to ethics, universally preferable behavior.
	For those who are listening, it's a free book at freedomain.com/slash books.
	And if you want a shorter version, you can go to the last third of my book, Essential Philosophy, which you can get at freedomain.com slash books or essentialphilosophy.com.
	So, what I say with UPB is I say consistency, non-contradiction is what truth is.
	Right?
	So, all men are mortal.
	Socrates is a man, therefore, Socrates is mortal.
	That is your deductive reasoning.
	That is what truth is.
	And so, UPB is perfectly consistent and rational and accords not just with reason and evidence, but also with our own general instinctual sense of virtue, that rape, theft, assault, and murder are all great wrongs.
	So, people can say, I reject UPB, and then they are acting inconsistently with reason and life itself.
	So, people can say, Well, it's true that theft can never be universally preferable behavior, but I don't accept the proof.
	So, then they are inconsistent.
	They are acting in opposition to life, the nature of the argument, and they are saying, I reject a logical proof.
	And then, what they're doing is they are rejecting logic itself.
	And if someone rejects logic, then there's no point having any conversation.
	And to everyone who's watching, they get a very strong sense that that's not rational, right?
	That's not rational.
	So, Thaddeus Russell, I think, if I remember rightly, he said that a woman was capable of having a child with a tree.
	So, that's a rejection of logic biology.
	And so, he's not taken as credible by anybody who values those things.
	My debate partner in this banking debate recently said that he was fine with genital mutilation for boys, and that's totally moral and it's not a problem.
	So, that's somebody who obviously has no problem with the initiation of the use of force.
	So, it loses some credibility.
	But even those people say that what I'm doing is rational according to my principles.
	So, if somebody rejects a rational argument, then all rational people reject that person.
	Now, again, we're trying to spread reason and so on, but people almost never say, your argument is true, right, fair, and rational, but I reject it.
	And this is, I think, part of your mission, which is to make belief in the Christian God more rational and empirical.
	So, I do not require for my system of ethics saying, Well, my system of ethics contradicts reason and evidence, but your mind is just not sophisticated or divine enough to understand it.
	That's an argument from almost almost intimidation.
	It's an argument that appeals to insecurity.
	Well, I guess if my mind was better, I could understand this argument.
	It's sort of a Emperor's new clothes situation.
	And so, I don't like appealing to those kinds of arguments.
	I don't like saying to people, Well, if your mind was better, the contradictions in my argument wouldn't be contradictions.
	I think it's my job to remove those contradictions.
	Now, you, of course, can say, and you do, that there's mysteries and this is the realm of theology and so on.
	But those are all just, I can't resolve the argument.
	The argument remains self-contradictory, but I'm going to appeal to faith.
	And again, you can do that.
	To me, the advantage of UPB is I don't need to do that.
	I could just say, here are the rational arguments regarding ethics.
	And you can't walk away from them without walking away from reason itself.
	And once you walk away from reason itself, you are now innately self-contradictory because reason is required for life.
	Reason is required for conversation.
	Reason is required for survival.
	Reason is required for debate.
	And people don't say, your argument is perfectly rational, but I reject it because in this particular area, I reject reason itself.
	I mean, some people would do that from a religious standpoint, of course.
	But you can't walk away from UPB without opposing reason itself, which makes you hypocritical.
	And so I don't mean you personally, but whoever I'm debating, makes that person hypocritical and self-contradictory because usually they can't admit that they're rejecting reason.
	And of course, so they have to make up a reason as to why they're rejecting reason, which is self-contradictory.
	And also, they are only alive because they accept reason and evidence.
	And evolution has only been possible for billions of years because the universe is stable, rational, and predictable.
	And so they are rejecting the entire conditions of their survival.
	They are rejecting the entire conditions of conversation.
	And they're also, and again, I'm not talking about you in this conversation, but they're false and hypocritical because if someone comes into a debate with me and says, it doesn't matter what you say, I have the perfect right to reject reason and evidence at a whim.
	Well, I wouldn't engage in a debate.
	So a debate, and I know we're not exactly having a debate, but rather an exchange of ideas.
	But usually when I engage in a debate with someone, it is on the assumption, or sometimes it's the express statement, that reason and evidence are going to win.
	That if I prove someone wrong, they're not just going to stick their fingers in their ears, say la la la la, and ignore everything.
	I mean, I know people do that a lot, but that's then a break in the contract that is a form of fraud.
	To enter into a debate is based upon the assumption that reason and evidence are going to win the day.
	And then if somebody then rejects reason and evidence, then they've done something dishonorable.
	They have done something fraudulent and they have rejected reason and evidence.
	And they're usually not even honest about that.
	And again, I'm not putting you in this category.
	I'm just saying in my general debating style.
	So the good thing with UPB is you can only reject it by being a fraudulent hypocrite and rejecting reason itself.
	Whereas, of course, with religious morality, by being consistent with reason, you tend to reject the existence of God and therefore have no basis for morality.
	And I don't like giant escape clauses.
	Like, you know, when I was in the business world, you'd sign these, you know, 100-page contracts and you'd get your lawyers to look over it all to make sure there weren't any sort of weird escape hatches or escape clauses, sometimes they're called.
	And with morality being such a serious topic, and I think that you and I are certainly in very strong agreement about what a serious topic morality is, but I don't like that there's an escape clause.
	And again, there's always an escape clause.
	You could just reject reason and evidence, or my debating party can reject reason and evidence.
	But I don't like that escape clause having a sort of foggy place where it's somehow superior.
	If people are going to reject reason and evidence, fine, they can reject reason and evidence.
	And then they've done something fraudulent, they've done something false, and it's clear to the audience that they're in the wrong, but just won't admit it, which discredits them in the eyes of anybody with any wisdom.
	However, if you have an entire area or environment where you're wrong, right?
	Because against reason and evidence is wrong, God cannot be all-knowing and human beings possess free will.
	That is a square circle.
	That's just wrong.
	And you can say, well, but the problem is that your mind is not sophisticated enough or godlike enough to understand that that's perfectly consistent.
	I consider that an insult to my intelligence.
	I would take, I mean, I know you're not saying that to me directly, but given that I've heard that a bunch of times, I consider it, you know, kind of an affront and it's kind of offensive to say, well, I have an argument that's contradictory, but the problem is that your brain or my brain or no brain is sophisticated enough to understand that a square circle is perfectly valid, that two and two make five, and the problem is you're just not good enough at thinking to understand it.
	I don't like that just sort of at a philosophical and also just at an emotional level, because of course that is applied to children.
	Children say, well, hang on, this doesn't make sense, or that doesn't make sense.
	And of course, I experienced this as a kid.
	I was raised a Christian and I had, well, some questions, right?
	And what was I told?
	Well, it's true, but you're just not sophisticated enough to understand it.
	And as I got older and learned more and studied more and read more and thought more and reasoned more, I realized that this was not the case, that nobody could explain it to me.
	But everyone kept saying, well, it's true, but we're just too limited to understand it.
	It's true.
	It's true that God exists, but God gave us a brain that cannot understand that God exists.
	And then God holds us to be rewarded or punished based upon our belief in God, but God gave us a brain designed for reason, designed for evidence.
	And then God made belief in him the opposite of everything he designed our brains to do.
	So if you're going to say, well, the human brain just isn't sophisticated enough to understand the existence of God, but God made the human brain and God requires human beings to believe in him, then I say that it's not a good argument for God.
	Because God could absolutely have designed a human brain that could comprehend the existence of God directly.
	There's nothing God can't do.
	God could have absolutely created a human brain that comprehends the existence of God directly.
	So either God is a poor designer that he requires us to believe in God, but designed us a brain that does not believe in God because our brain can only survive on reason and evidence and God conforms neither to reason nor to evidence.
	In fact, it's a direct contradiction to both.
	So either you're going to say God is a poor designer or God is a good designer but kind of sadistic or God does not exist.
	So those are the sort of major issues that I have.
	I wanted to design a moral system where people could not escape it except by rejecting reason and evidence completely, which discredits them in the eyes of all reasonable people.
	And I did not want to create a mystery realm of pretended superiority where things that are obviously self-contradictory can somehow be true.
	So that's my sort of big speech.
	I'm happy to give you the last word.
	And I do appreciate the conversation.
	I found it very, very interesting.
	Yeah.
	So what I'd say is that, you know, the writers of the Bible are, you know, they're clearly intelligent people.
	So, and they would be well aware of the fact that, you know, what they're presenting doesn't make sense to us.
	And I'm sorry to interrupt you right at the beginning, but was God not the writer of the Bible?
	Certainly God is involved, but of course there is the aspect where it's ultimately a human writing the words, right?
	But God would dictate and would find the best words for the human writing.
	And God, being all-powerful and all-knowing, would know the best words to give to people.
	I mean, I don't believe in a literal dictation, but yeah, I can agree with the general idea there.
	Sorry, so God could have.
	Sorry, God could have inspired people to write the most accurate possible words, but God chose not to.
	I think that, yeah, God, the way that God relates to us, it is through man.
	So it's in the sense that, you know, when he's with what we have with the Bible is a work that's clearly offered by man, but it's it is it is divinely inspired.
	I mean, I don't believe it was literally like God saying, write this.
	I certainly believe that God had a hand in it all.
	So God says God chose not to have it that way, right?
	Yeah, I mean, that would have been a choice, yes, not to have it just dictated, because I would say that's not how God operates.
	Sorry, how do you know how God operates?
	Isn't that saying that you understand God's completely?
	We have the Bible, right?
	Which is the revelation of how God relates to.
	Okay, so God dictated the Bible, and you know God through the Bible.
	Because if there's human error in the Bible, then you don't know God through the Bible because you're not sure which is God and which is human error, right?
	Well, it's human.
	If I say I know the income of a business, but I also say that some of the entries in the business ledger are false, then I can't know the true income of the business if some of the entries in the ledger are false.
	If there's a million dollars there that never actually came into the business, but I don't know that.
	If I say there are errors in the ledger, then I can't say I also know the income of the business.
	Yeah, I mean, I didn't say that there are errors in it.
	I'm just saying that it's the work of both God and man together, right?
	It's not just solely God dictating it, at least it seems to be that way for any errors that exist in the Bible would be allowed by God because God could certainly correct that.
	Sure, and God allows a lot of stuff.
	Yes, but it's an instruction manual.
	So if you allow errors, I mean, if you get something complicated that you have to put together and there are errors in the instruction manual, would that be good or bad?
	That would not certainly not be of much use to her.
	Well, it would be bad.
	Especially if I said it's morally good for you to put together this complicated structure.
	It's morally good, and I'll punish you if you don't.
	And then there are errors in the instruction manual, that would be cruel, right?
	Yeah, certainly, yeah.
	Okay, so there can't be errors in the instruction manual because God can't be cruel, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	At least not without reason.
	And if you put errors in the instruction manual, so we have to assume that there are no errors in the instruction manual, which means that God made sure that there weren't any errors in the instruction manual.
	Otherwise, that would be kind of sadistic.
	And so that's sorry to hiccup at the very beginning, but you said when the people who wrote the Bible, and it's like, no, if people wrote the Bible, then it's not a religious document.
	Yeah, I mean, my point for saying that is more that, you know, it's both.
	It's obviously man who's writing it.
	But yeah, God is God in his relationship with man has revealed himself through his word, through the Bible.
	My point was what the point I was trying to get at is that the people who wrote this text, who wrote the Bible, would be well aware of the fact that it doesn't make sense to say that God is fully sovereign and man has free will,
	yet within even books within the Bible, this claim is present.
	You know, you'll have, like, I think it's the book of John, which makes where you can pull out quotes which clearly indicate that man both has free will and that God is ultimately sovereign.
	And again, with God being one yet free, you'll find books in the Bible which establish both.
	So, I mean, these are not like these authors, these people who wrote this text are too stupid to realize that, you know, that doesn't make sense.
	I think that they were well aware of the fact that it didn't make sense to them, but that nonetheless, this is what God had revealed to them regarding himself and his works and how he relates to us.
	And I would say that, you know, I'd say there's a degree to which both the atheist and, in this case, the Christian, you know, we're going to bottom out at mystery.
	You know, we're going to bottom out at a mystery at something we can't make sense of or we can't explain.
	So I think that my pushback would be that sure, you know, we have at the bottom here, we have a mystery which is a trinity, which we use to ground all of reality, which we can't, which is, yeah, it's just a mystery.
	It's, you know, as I as I said, although we can explain how it's operating, we can describe it, and we can clearly see that it's one in three, three in one, we can't grasp how that could be.
	And I'd say, okay, that's, that's okay.
	That, that's a mystery.
	And I'd say that in the same sense, if one were to accept That there's this, say, this twofoldness across reality.
	And that twofoldness could have been otherwise.
	So it's to say it's contingent.
	It's not self-explanatory.
	It's not contained within itself as to why it is that way.
	I think that, again, the unbeliever themselves will have a mystery.
	You know, they will have, you know, like, ultimately, I can't ground why reality is this way.
	I can't explain it.
	I'm not sure why our picture of reality exhibits this twofoldness, why it is the way it is.
	And that's a mystery.
	So I think in a sense.
	Yeah, I mean, I guess it comes down to which one you're more happy to accept in a sense.
	Well, but that's just hedonism.
	You can't base your worldview on hedonism, which do you prefer, which do you like, which gives you more comfort?
	I mean, people who like heroin as a drug, right, they prefer heroin.
	It gives them more comfort and so on.
	So I can't get down to sort of which you like.
	And the other thing, too, of course, is that this contradiction equals mystery is applied in no other sphere, right?
	So if you order something from me and you pay me 500 bucks and I don't deliver it and I say, well, it was delivered and you say, no, it's not.
	It never came to my house.
	And I said, well, it was delivered.
	You just have to believe it as a mystery and then not bother me to get a refund.
	You would reject that.
	There's no other contradictory system or area or pattern of thought in life that you would just put under the category of mystery.
	If I said, if I'm your professor and I give you an A plus and then I fail you, I say, well, you got an A plus on everything in the course, but then I failed you.
	And you say, well, how can you fail me?
	I got an A plus.
	And I said, well, it's a mystery.
	Would you just say, okay, well, I guess I'll just accept the failure?
	No, you would fight it and say that's a contradiction.
	You can't give me an A plus in everything in the course and then fail me.
	So in no other area would you accept these contradictions under the canopy or the banner of it's some interesting mystery that I just have to accept.
	And so that kind of contradiction is the problem.
	If everything that is self-contradictory is a mystery that you just have to accept, you couldn't function in life.
	You couldn't get anything done.
	You couldn't exist, really.
	And so saying, I'm a philosopher, which means I strive for consistency.
	If you say, well, everything falls down and then, well, what about the helium balloon that goes up?
	Well, that's something you have to explore.
	You can't just write it off.
	Well, that's a divine mystery that God had.
	You don't understand then the differences between displacement and lighter than air and so on, right?
	And if you were to say, well, water is generally inert, well, but we've got the tides.
	Well, that's just a mystery.
	That's just Poseidon.
	You can't just take up challenging things and ascribe them to a mystery and then say, well, there's no more inquiry to be had, really, because even though it's self-contradictory, which I would accept nowhere else in my life, it's just a mystery.
	I mean, I guess in theology, you do carve off this alternate universe of mystery where you can believe things that are self-contradictory, which I don't really think you can, but at least you suspend your disbelief about it.
	But as a philosopher, I don't have that option.
	I don't have a giant area of the universe where the opposite of reason and evidence is the truth.
	And I actually consider that carving off a part of your brain that is not mentally healthy.
	I don't think it's mentally healthy to say that I need reason, evidence, truth, and consistency in order to survive.
	But the most important aspects of life, truth and morality and so on, and meaning, are carved off into a section which is the complete opposite of reason and evidence.
	And I have to believe that too.
	I just don't think that's healthy.
	And I think that's one of the things that's holding back humanity from discovering real solutions.
	Because if you have pretend solutions, you stop looking for real solutions.
	And I criticize both, of course, religious people and atheists because atheists just generally hand everything over to the government and eventually to hedonism, which is why I sort of railed against this.
	Well, it depends what you like or prefer or gives you more comfort.
	I can't base things on emotions.
	I can't base things on preference.
	I can't base things on history.
	I can't base things on anti-rationality or superstition or religiosity or faith.
	I have to base things on reason and evidence.
	It has to be consistent.
	And we've tried everything else.
	We've tried religion for 50,000 years.
	We've tried statism or centralized political authority for almost as long in many ways.
	What we haven't tried is truly consistent reason and evidence.
	And given where humanity is and how things are going, I think we need a new solution, which is why I sort of make this case.
	But again, I'll sort of give you the last say, and I really do appreciate the conversation.
	Yeah, certainly.
	I would say that there was, oh, there was something you said that I wanted to.
	Sorry, a bit of a gish galloper.
	So I would say I'm not proposing just hedonism.
	Basically, I have a section in the book which basically argues that the Trinity is the best explanation for it.
	So, I mean, I very much come down on the side that the Trinity best explains this pattern that we're seeing within the sciences.
	So it's not, I probably didn't phrase it very well earlier when I was coming to that.
	And I guess my pushback would be is, you know, how do you, if you're not going to ground it in the Trinity, so ground ground all these examples of twofoldness that I indicate within the book, if you don't ground them in the Trinity, what would you ground them in?
	I guess would be my question.
	Sorry, how do I, I'm not sure what you mean by ground in.
	How do I explain?
	So let's just say, I think the things we're more familiar with, epics and sorry, genetics and epigenetics, what do you mean by how would I ground them?
	Well, how would you, what's your explanation for why reality exhibits this unity and plurality that could have been another way?
	And so why is there genetics and epigenetics?
	Well, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to trap you.
	I just want to make sure I understand.
	If you're saying, if you're asking me why is there genetics and epigenetics, is that your question?
	Well, it's more broad than that.
	What's more broad than why are things the way they are?
	What's more broad than that?
	But my point is, it's not limited to just genetics.
	I understand.
	We've got to have an example, right?
	Okay.
	Well, I would say that a more useful example would be if you take, you know, general relativity and quantum mechanics, right?
	So they there's nothing to say that.
	So although the book doesn't go into the details around this.
	I'm sorry, I just, because it's like we've almost two hours.
	So if you were to ask me, how do I ground genetics and epigenetics, I would say, but that's the most finely tuned mechanism for optimal survival, which is a biological imperative.
	So that's why that is the way it is.
	If you're going to say, well, why is gravity gravity, or why is matter matter?
	And so like, why are there centrifugal forces and why are there forces of inertia, as you pointed out from the 19th century theologian that this is why we have orbits?
	Why do those things exist?
	They're irreducible primaries.
	They are, they just are.
	I mean, why is there such a thing as gravity is not, it is taking a biological perspective and putting it on blank, blind, inanimate matter.
	So the nature of reality and the physical laws, just they're irreducible primaries.
	And saying, well, why do they exist?
	Well, we can say, well, why do I exist?
	Well, my parents had sex and raised me and blah, blah, blah.
	So that's why.
	And there's genetics.
	And so we can say, why I exist?
	Because I am an animal.
	Why does a rock exist?
	Well, we can give sort of causality.
	Well, there was a mountain and then there was a force hit that mountain, some sort of continental drift or maybe an asteroid hit the mountain and then there's a bunch of rocks and erosion and water.
	And so this is why there's a rock.
	And we can say all of that.
	But as to why does matter exist and why are there physical laws, those are just irreducible primaries.
	And of course, you know, people say, ah, yes, but God is an irreducible primary.
	It's like, well, no, but we have endless evidence for the existence of atoms and we have endless evidence of the reality of physical laws.
	Why?
	Why is the acceleration to Earth 9.8 meters per second per second?
	Nobody can answer that.
	Why isn't it 10 or 8 or 5 or minus 6?
	Why is there not?
	Well, of course, the point is, is that this is what allows us to ask these questions.
	The fact that there are stable universal gravitational constants and that we're in the Goldilocks part of an M-class star and we have just the right mixture to allow for carbon-based life form to so I mean.
	But there's tons of planets that don't have all of that.
	I would imagine it's the vast majority of planets throughout the universe.
	But so we can ask why?
	Because there are all of these stable properties, but the stable properties themselves don't have a why.
	They are the necessary but not sufficient cause of the why, which is us asking questions, but there is no why to those things.
	So the answer as to why there's genetics and epigenetics is that because you need a stable base of genetics in order to have a stable organism that can reproduce, and you also need immediate adaptations to local environments, which is why you have epigenetics.
	So they're both finely tuned.
	It's like when?
	Why is there?
	Why is there more than one gear in a car?
	Because sometimes you're going uphill, sometimes you're going fast, sometimes you're going downhill, sometimes you're going slow.
	It's not a contradiction to say, you know, if you have a.
	I had a three-speed bike when I was a kid.
	Right then, why did I have a three-speed bike?
	Because I needed different uh tensions, different torques.
	So why is there epigenetics?
	Because it is the best and most finely tuned way for organisms to flourish and survive in a changing environment.
	So uh, in terms of how do I ground epigenetics in reality, in biology, in evolution, in survival, in the imperatives of successful gene reproduction, so i'm not sure if I need to ground it any further than that.
	But if the question is, how do I ground physics?
	There is nothing underneath physics.
	There is no grounding to physics.
	Physics are irreducible primaries.
	Yeah, I guess my pushback would be, and you could probably have a whole new like two-hour conversation around the full implications of that sort of view.
	But I guess my pushback would be that from what we see within the from analyzing these laws from doing science, what we've discovered is that these things had a definite beginning.
	So, you know, life has a definite origin and the universe has an origin.
	So to say that these are, you know, sort of self-explanatory laws, you know, they're just explanatory.
	I don't say self-explanatory.
	I'm saying that they're irreducible primaries.
	What exactly do you mean by that?
	Well, so I can't explain why gravity is the way it is.
	I can't explain why matter is attracted to matter.
	There is no why for that.
	It just is.
	So if it just is, how's that different from it being self-explanatory?
	If it's not an explanation, be it?
	No, there is no explanation.
	I can't say, like I can say, I exist because my parents had sex and raised me.
	And life exists because of, you know, whatever primordial super evolution.
	Like, what I don't know if we have a perfect explanation, but we know that life has evolved over time.
	And so there are some explanations.
	And we can say, why does the Earth exist?
	Well, because there was a bunch of matter around a star and it coalesced and blah, blah, blah.
	And so we can say, why does the crater in Arizona exist?
	Because a giant meteor struck there some millions of years ago.
	So we can say that there's causality for things.
	But things which are eternal, and as far as we know, the laws of nature are eternal.
	The current manifestation of the universe, whatever, maybe it's a giant heartbeat that expands and collapses.
	I don't know.
	I mean, doesn't really, from a philosophical standpoint, it doesn't hugely matter because philosophy is primarily focused on morality and morality is not dependent upon what happened over 14 billion years ago in terms of physics.
	But irreducible is there is no explanation as to, well, the reason why grand.
	Now, of course, for a religious standpoint, the reason why gravity is the way that it is is because God designed it that way.
	But from a philosophical or materialist standpoint, there is no explanation.
	It is the first cause is matter, so to speak.
	Like if you can say, well, God exists and doesn't have an explanation and doesn't have a causality.
	What is the cause of God?
	Well, there is no cause of God.
	That would be, he's the prime mover, right?
	He's the first cause.
	So you and I both accept that there are irreducible primaries for which no explanation or causality is required.
	I just put that on matter, you put that on God.
	And I put that on matter according to reason and evidence, and you put that on God according to faith.
	But we both accept irreducible primaries.
	I'd say that the trouble you have with that is that the latest science indicates that matter is not eternal, that the universe did begin to.
	Well, okay, and maybe it did.
	So we can, but matter changes for sure.
	I mean, hydrogen and oxygen combine to make water and so on, right?
	So matter changes, for sure.
	But the laws of physics, as far as we know, have never changed.
	So the matter may change configuration, form, shape, manifestation to the senses, but according to eternal laws of matter.
	So again, you and I both accept irreducible primaries.
	I just don't need a God to do that.
	I just accept that as matter and energy.
	As far as we know it, and I don't know.
	As far as what's going on at the beginning of the universe, that's a hotly debated issue in physics.
	So we can't ground our metaphysics or our epistemology, like nature of reality and nature of knowledge.
	We can't ground that on hotly debated topics.
	It's like asking, what is the final price of a house when eight different people are bidding eight different amounts and it's in the heat of debate.
	Well, what is the final price?
	Well, I don't know.
	The final price is whatever it finally changes hands for.
	So where things are being hotly debated, we can't come to conclusions.
	I mean, if the experts with decades of training and experience in the field can't come to conclusions, neither can we.
	And when conclusions are come to, then we can start to ground things in our metaphysics and epistemology.
	But right now, it's been, you know, it's like superstring theory.
	It's been, I mean, I remember reading articles about that when I was 20.
	And there's no particular conclusion about any of these things.
	And so I can't ground any particular metaphysics or epistemology on things that are being hotly debated by experts in the field, because if they can't figure out the truth, I'm not going to ground anything.
	I would just say this is an unknown.
	So it doesn't have any particular philosophical relevance in the here and now.
	In the here and now, matter can neither be created nor destroyed.
	The properties of matter and energy are stable in the essence and matter and energy behave in stable and predictable ways.
	Otherwise, we couldn't exist and the world couldn't exist and life couldn't exist and conversation couldn't exist.
	I mean, you and I rely on a bunch of atoms and electrons being pushed back and forth even to have this conversation.
	And we rely upon it in an absolute fashion.
	And that I don't think that your arguments are being scrambled by all of the complex atoms that divide the thousands of miles between us that pushing back and forth at incredibly fast speeds on fiber optics under the ocean.
	So even as a conversation, we need to accept the stable properties of matter and energy.
	So yeah, what's going on at the beginning?
	Honestly, it's no relevance to epistemology in the here and now.
	Even if we say, well, the universe came into existence 14 billion years ago out of nowhere.
	Okay, well, but we have to deal with the world.
	How would that change the bridge that you built over a canyon?
	It doesn't.
	And it doesn't change the fact that we live in a rational, empirical universe with absolute physical properties and rules.
	Whatever happened 14 billion years ago that's hotly debated is irrelevant to what's going on right now.
	It'd be like if you put on a trial, some guys are being accused of murder and you say, well, we don't know if he was an accidental birth or was a plant birth.
	It's like that wouldn't actually have any relevance to whether he was guilty of murder or not, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, I think perhaps this is again where we take a different approach because I would say that the laws of nature, which science are describing, I would put them in the category of something which is contingent, which is to say that they could have been otherwise and they could have not existed.
	Well, but then you and I wouldn't be having this conversation.
	So the very fact that we're having this conversation is because the laws of physics are what they are.
	So I'm not going to sit there and say, well, they could have been different because that would be to have us not have this conversation at all.
	Like we wouldn't exist.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I get that, but that's that's descriptive.
	It's not explanatory.
	Well, but again, you can't explain irreducible primaries.
	Can you explain how God came into existence?
	No, but that's.
	No, wait, wait, wait.
	Hang on.
	Hang on.
	You can't explain how God came into existence because God is an irreducible primary for you.
	Sure.
	Right?
	So you can't criticize me having irreducible primaries that are empirical and rational when you have an irreducible primary that's anti-rational and anti-empirical.
	But I guess that's my point: is that you have to have something, right?
	No, no, but my irreducible primaries are empirical and rational and relied upon exactly by you and I to survive and have this conversation.
	Do you accept that?
	Yes.
	Well, you're not there.
	Do you accept that the laws of physics and the nature of matter is rational and empirical?
	That we can study the laws of matter, we can study the laws of physics, and they're rational and empirical.
	Yes.
	Okay, good.
	Hang on, So my irreducible primaries are rational and empirical and affirmed by us being alive and having this conversation.
	We both have to accept them as rational and empirical, right?
	Certainly.
	So I have irreducible primaries that we both accept are rational and empirical.
	You have an irreducible primary that is anti-rational and anti-empirical.
	So you cannot criticize irreducible primaries.
	You can't.
	I mean, you can, but it's crazy.
	Honestly, I'm not calling you crazy, but the argument is crazy.
	To say, look, you, Steph, you have irreducible primaries that are rational and empirical, and that's bad.
	But I have an irreducible primary for which there's no evidence and no reason, but mine is good.
	Okay.
	I mean, what I'd say to that is that from what we know about the laws of physics, you know, the laws of nature, they can't act as irreducible primaries.
	They are contingent.
	What do you mean by contingent?
	I mean, is God contingent?
	God isn't.
	Okay, so there are things for which we have no evidence that are not contingent.
	Or things, sorry, there are things for which there's no empirical or rational evidence.
	In fact, reason and evidence contradict the concept of God.
	So there are things that go against reason and evidence that are not at all contingent, but matter is contingent.
	Well, why I wrote the book is to say that give some reason, you know, from science and from what we observed to ground that in God.
	So I wouldn't say that it's anti-reason or not God reason.
	And that's.
	Okay, but let me ask you this.
	Do you accept that matter, that the laws of matter and energy are empirically demonstrable?
	Of course.
	Is God empirically demonstrable in the same way as gravity?
	Not in the same way as gravity, no.
	So there's infinitely more empirical evidence for the laws of nature than there is for the existence of God.
	Directly.
	Like you can observe the laws of nature directly.
	In fact, we're relying upon them to have this conversation and to be alive.
	But you cannot observe the existence of God directly, right?
	Well, I would say that we can experience in God in a direct way.
	We can experience God in a direct way.
	Yeah, I mean, okay, so if you and I are playing volleyball, we're both experiencing the volleyball in a direct way, right?
	Okay, so, but it's not that, right?
	It's not that.
	It's at the spiritual level, right?
	So anti-empirical, anti-rational.
	Because if you could prove it, and I know you're trying to, but if you could prove it in the way that we could prove the laws of nature and physics and so on, but you're talking about a feeling, subjective experience, a faith, all of which can be reproduced by putting certain electrodes in the mind, right?
	You give people religious visions by producing, by stimulating certain parts of the brain.
	So that is not empirical.
	That is not rational.
	That is a subjective experience, like a dream at night or something like that.
	But if you want to claim that something exists outside of your subjective experience, you need reason and evidence, right?
	Otherwise, every schizophrenic who thought that he was being chased by ghosts would be completely correct.
	And everyone who thought they could fly because they were crazy or high on drugs would be able to fly.
	So in order to take a subjective experience and claim that it is a universal truth, you need reason and evidence.
	Otherwise, every crazy person is correct and there's no such thing as sanity.
	Yes.
	So certainly.
	And I get that you're trying to do that.
	And I will do me a favor if the book, how is the book going to be distributed?
	Because obviously people who are interested in your thoughts should be able to get a hold of it.
	Yeah, certainly.
	So it's already available on Amazon as an e-book.
	There may well be a physical book to follow.
	I mean, we really have to see.
	Obviously, I'm not someone who's got a platform.
	This is the, you know, obviously it's great to have this because it's a means by which people can begin to get some familiarity with me.
	And give me the link and I will make sure that I put it in the show notes.
	And again, I really do appreciate the very, very stimulating conversation.
	And it's been a while since I've done some theology.
	And I really appreciate your patience as I sort of tried to get up to speed on some of the terminology.
	Yeah, certainly.
	I sent you a copy of the book, Stefan, if you want to go for it.
	Sure, I think if I release that, I'll put the Amazon link, but I appreciate the copy of the book as well.
	Yeah, I think, as you say, it's interesting stuff.
	You know, hopefully this conversation has been compelling enough for people to check it out and check out the argument.
	I must say, I probably didn't present it as well as it is.
	Oh, it is in the actual book.
	I've been doing UPB for like 20 years.
	It's really tough.
	It's really tough to have these conversations.
	And I think you did a great job.
	And I really do appreciate your time today.
	Oh, it was good stuff.
	You know, I knew if you're going to bring it to someone, you've got to throw it to get feedback and things, you've got to bring it to Stefan.
	Because, yeah, I did think that you would ultimately bring that sort of approach in terms of saying that these are the irreducible sort of laws and we don't go beyond that.
	I mean, it's fair enough.
	I would just say that I don't think they can be.
	But, you know, I'd say there's a degree of, I don't know if faith's the right word, but there's certainly a degree of mystery that we have to accept either way.
	And I guess the...
	Well, we don't have to, but listen, let's not start again.
	Okay, let me stop it there.
	Let people give us the feedback and maybe we can chat again.
	But again, I really do appreciate your time today.
	I hope you have a great day.
	All right.
	Thanks, man.
	I'd just say that I am contactable as well.
	So I yeah, basically I've started a business, which has been the means by which I'm able to do the work as just starting a business.
	As you know, Steph, you have that difficulty of starting out.
	So you can end up with having quite a bit of free time.
	Well, why don't you give your website and we can have people visit your business if they want to.
	Yeah, yeah, sure.
	So my business is Overcome Mortgages.
	It's a mortgage brokerage based in the UK.
	So yeah, I help people with mortgages.
	Obviously, you've got an international audience.
	So I'll just say that I can help arrange international mortgages for if you're wanting to get property in the UK as someone outside the UK, I can do that sort of fee as well.
	And yeah, there's contact details on my website.
	It's www.overcome.
	So O-V-E-R-C-O-M-E mortgages.co.uk.
	And I'm reachable there, email, phone, etc.
	So if you have any need for my services or you want to discuss the book at all, I'm reachable there.
	All right.
	Well, thanks, Mel.
	I'm sure we'll talk again, and I appreciate your time today.
	Have a great day.
	Yeah, yeah, great stuff.

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