Real Atheology (Justin Schieber, Ben Watkins, Ben Bavar, Ryan Downie)

In this episode, Ben Watkins sits down with Professor Pete Mandik to discuss several different ways of conceiving of materialism along with strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Professor Mandik also gives a summary of a view inspire by Quine he calls “Type-Q Materialism.” Additionally, Ben and Professor Mandik discuss various aspects of religious mysticism and touch on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein.

After the apparent demise of a popular version of the logical problem of evil, philosopher William Rowe sought to resurrect the problem of evil in an inductive form. The result was his 1979 article titled The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism. In this episode, Justin Schieber and Ben Watkins have an in-depth dialogue about that important article.

In this episode Ben Watkins interviews philosopher Dr. Paul Moser. Dr. Moser is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. Professor Moser has published over 80 articles and authored many books including The Elusive God and The Evidence for God; Religious Knowledge Reexamined. Professor Moser’s research interests include epistemology, metaphilosophy, and the philosophy of religion. The interview touches on issues of religious epistemology, the hiddenness of God, and even natural theology.

In this episode, Ben Watkins sits down with Matthew Adelstein to discuss utilitarianism and theism. Utilitarianism, in its classical forms, claims that what we morally ought to do is act in ways that would maximize happiness and minimize suffering. This simple moral calculus is open to several important objections, but if true, has important consequences for theism as traditionally conceived. If God morally should create a world that maximizes happiness and minimize suffering, as would be the case if hedonistic act utilitarianism were true, then we are clearly not talking about the actual world. There could be much more happiness and much less suffering, therefore, there is no God as traditionally conceived in the actual world.

Matthew's blog: https://benthams.substack.com/

The intrinsic probability of a theory is the probability that a theory has purely in virtue of its intrinsic features. In this video, I give a brief overview of Paul Draper's theory of intrinsic probability according to which the intrinsic probability of a theory depends only on its modesty and coherence.

Ever since philosopher John Schellenberg published Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason in 1993, the argument from divine hiddenness has received an immense amount of attention from philosophers and laypersons. This episode features a lengthy interaction between Justin Schieber and Blake Giunta of beliefmap.org. The interaction was hosted on Unbelievable with its ever-gracious host, Justin Brierley.

YouTube

Facebook

Twitter

Patreon

Paypal

This episode is part interview and part dialogue between Justin Schieber and Christian YouTuber Kyle Alander about Kyle's preferred approach to the problem of evil. Alander adopts a defeat-based approach along the lines of Marilyn McCord Adams, Trent Dougherty, and John Schneider. In this almost four hour long episode, they discuss how defeat is understood in the dialectic surrounding the problem of evil. We also unpack Kyle’s preferred defeat-based theodicy before exploring at some length multiple objections to it in an effort to clarify details. However, one topic we avoid here is whether adding such rich detail to one’s core theory in response to the data of evil and suffering should come at some epistemic cost for the theist. That topic will hopefully be explored in future videos.

This episode is not only ridiculously long, it is also unique in its format. Rather than being a live recording, this is instead composed of video clips recorded with our cell phones in response to each other as time permitted - in most cases, this meant every other day. Those clips were then edited together into what you’re about to watch.

Because this is a complicated topic, the conversation does include some misinterpretation but ultimately I think you’ll see that it tends toward clarity and understanding.

Kyle's channel (Christian Idealism):

https://www.youtube.com/@christianidealism7868

In this episode, Justin Schieber sits down with philosopher Evan Fales to talk about some of his work on the problem of evil as well as how he became interested in issues in philosophy of religion. Dr. Fales is professor emeritus at University of Iowa. Professor Fales' research interests include philosophy of science, metaphysics, epistemology, and most relevant to today's episode, philosophy of religion.

RealAtheology.com

YouTube

Facebook

Twitter

Patreon

Paypal

Perhaps the most common response to the problem of evil is an appeal to the goodness of free will. Free will, it is argued, is so good that it justifies God's policy of non-intervention in cases where evil is the result of the free actions of moral agents. in his 2019 article published in The Heythrop Journal titled The Moral Problem with the Free Will Defense Against the Problem of Evil, Dr. Andrew Pavelich argues that there exists a deep disconnect between the theist's appraisal of free will's value and the role it plays in our everyday moral judgements. In Justin's interview with Dr. Pavelich, they discuss the ideas in that paper.

This is our second discussion with philosopher doctor Kenny Pearce. In this episode we pick up the conversation by discussing Pearce's thoughts on the practice of apologetics in contrast to philosophy. This led to a consideration of what arguments for or against God may need to be retired or deemphasized. In particular, Pearce explains why the moral argument isn't the most promising argument in the theist's bag. We end by discussing strategies for making dialogues in the philosophy of religion more productive, especially between theists and atheists.

Welcome back to the Hiddenness Series. In the last episode, we looked at Schellenberg's concept of a nonresistant nonbeliever which plays a central role in his argument from Divine Hiddenness. To refresh, somebody is a nonresistant nonbeliever if they (1) fail to believe that God exists and (2) that failure is not the result of their resistance to God. We also looked at the concept of resistance at play here and we saw that it included a desire component in conjunction with actions or omissions driven by that desire. Certain desire/action/omission combinations, if expressed by a person could conceivably cause that person to fail to believe that God exists even though they did believe to begin with. Some form of Self-deception would have to be at play here. Schellenberg calls such persons resistant nonbelievers and, according to the Hiddenness argument, if a perfectly loving God exists, resisters are the only type of nonbeliever that could exist. However, Schellenberg claims resistant nonbelievers are not the only type of nonbelievers that exist. According to him, some nonbelievers are nonresistant. His argument requires this. But is he correct? Lets take a look.

All creatures that exist in the actual world are finite creatures - that much is obvious. If God exists, he has created them. But should the fact of their finitude count against theism? Does theism lead us to expect to observe fundamentally different beings? In this episode, Justin Schieber and Canadian theologian Randal Rauser dialogue on these questions and more.

YouTube

Facebook

Twitter

Patreon

Paypal

In this episode, Ben Watkins sits down with Professor Paul Russell to discuss David Hume, philosophy of religion, and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion.

Professor Russell is a leading Hume scholar and author of “The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise” which argues irreligion is central to understanding the naturalism and skepticism at the heart of Hume’s philosophy, specially, that expressed in his “A Treatise of Human Nature.” These irreligious themes culminate in Hume’s masterpiece: “Dialogues of concerning Natural Religion.”

Professor Russell walks us through different models of god, the argument for design, the argument from evil, and what has been called “Hume’s strange inversion” at the end of the Dialogues.

Paul Russell's Website:

https://sites.google.com/site/paulrussellubc/paul-russell

Philpapers:

https://philpeople.org/profiles/paul-russell

Hume’s Skepticism and the Problem of Atheism:

https://philarchive.org/archive/RUSHSA-4#:~:text=theist%20nor%20an%20atheist%20but,%2F%20186%E2%80%93%2087%3B%20cp.

In this episode the Real Atheologians interview Jason Thibodeau about the famous Euthyphro Dilemma and how to respond to apologists who try to split the dilemma.  Jason is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Cypress College.

Before her death in 2017, Marilyn McCord Adams had a long and impressive career as a philosopher and theologian. While she had many interests both philosophical and theological, the problem of evil loomed ever-present in her thinking. I intend this video as an introduction to her views on the problem of evil; specifically on the notion of axiological defeat that features so heavily.

Adams, M. M., & Sutherland, S. (1989). Horrendous evils and the goodness of God. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, 63, 297-323.Adams, M. M. (2018). Horrendous evils and the goodness of God. Cornell University Press.

Adams, M. M. (1999). Horrendous evils and the goodness of God. Cornell University Press.

Adams, M. M. (2001). Afterward. In S. Davis (Ed.), Encountering Evil: Live options in theodicy (pp. 191-203). Louisville: Westminster John Knox.

Adams, M. M. (2006). Christ and horrors: The coherence of Christology (Vol. 4). Cambridge University Press.

Adams, M. M. (2013). Ignorance, instrumentality, compensation, and the problem of evil. Sophia, 52, 7-26.

Moore, G. E. (1903). Principia Ethica. Cambridge University Press.

Skeptical Theism is a philosophical position about our ability to make meaningful inferences about what God, if such a being exists, is likely to create or allow. In this episode, Ben and Justin discuss one particular version of Skeptical Theism and the implications it has on arguments from evil and a few other issues as well.

In this video, Justin Schieber joins Dr. Gavin Ortlund for a friendly conversation on Schellenberg's argument from Divine Hiddenness.

If an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God exists, how does one explain the existence, intensity, and distribution of moral and natural suffering in our world? In this episode, Justin Schieber and Christian theist Timothy Arndt square off for a lively philosophical debate on the age-old puzzle that surrounds God and suffering.

The debate was held at Grand Valley State University’s Allendale campus in the Cook DeWitt Center Auditorium on March 2, 2017.

Hosted by Center for Inquiry at Grand Valley and RatioChristi.
Moderated by CJ Thompson

RealAtheology.com

YouTube

Facebook

Twitter

Patreon

Paypal

A few weeks back I was delighted to have the opportunity to interview Dr. Quentin Smith. We sat down not far from the Western Michigan University Campus where he was professor of philosophy from 1993 until he retired in 2015. Dr. Smith received his bachelor's degree in philosophy from Antioch College and his PhD in philosophy from Boston College. He has written and published over 140 articles and has written and co-written several books including one with William Lane Craig titled Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology. While brief, the interview covers a wide variety of subjects from Smith’s 1986 book on The Felt Meanings of the World to his contributions to the problem of evil focusing on Evil Natural Laws as well as his thoughts on some contemporary arguments for God.

In this episode, the Bens get a fresh perspective from Zach Christ, a Muslim from America who now lives in Turkey. During the interview, Zach and the Bens compare and contrast the beliefs and philosophical defenses of Islam and Christianity, delving into the concepts of God, miracles, and the afterlife. They also discuss people's attitudes toward Islam in America and Turkey.

This episode ran a bit long, so we're splitting it into two parts. Here we interview Dr. C.M. Lorkowski on his new book Atheism Considered: A Survey of the Rational Rejection of Religious Belief (2020).

This book is a systematic presentation of challenges to the existence of a higher power. Rather than engaging in a polemic against a religious worldview, Lorkowski charitably refutes the classical arguments for the existence of God, pointing out flaws in their underlying reasoning and highlighting difficulties inherent to revealed sources. In place of a theistic worldview, he argues for adopting a naturalistic one, highlighting naturalism’s capacity to explain world phenomena and contribute to the sciences. Lorkowski demonstrates that replacing theism with naturalism, contra popular assumptions, sacrifices nothing in terms of ethics or meaning.

In this interview, we take a tour of some of the major themes of the books with Dr. Lorkowski and discuss many topics including his background, the various arguments of natural theology, apologetics vs. philosophy, David Hume, and a whole host of other topics. This is definitely the episode for those who want introduced to the more philosophical aspects of atheism.

Dr. Lorkowski's work can be followed here: https://philpeople.org/profiles/c-m-lorkowski

In this episode, Ben Watkins sits down with philosopher Dr. Erik Wielenberg in Raleigh, NC immediately after his debate with philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig at NC state University. The debate, held on February 23rd, 2018, was on the question of what better explains objective moral values and duties. Wielenberg defended a form of godless normative realism while Craig defended a modified divine command theory. The discussion surveys the arguments and responses used in the debate as well as a few other topics in philosophy of religion. 

In this, the second half of Justin's interview with Dr. Dustin Crummett, they discuss an early paper of his in which he expands on an objection to the argument from divine hiddenness. The objection, known as the responsibility objection, claims that one reason God might have to keep belief from non-resistant persons is the good of the responsibility on the part of some in helping others learn truths of and about God. We also touch on his recent work on the argument from psychophysical harmony.

In this episode Ben Watkins continues his series on Hume with a look at section IX of Hume's Dialogue's Concerning Natural Religion. Section IX finds Hume's Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes presenting and subjecting to analysis a cosmological argument for the existence of God. Ben and Dr. Joe Campbell discuss the argument as presented and the various criticisms that Hume brings to bear through his three characters. Dr. Joe Campbell's paper on Section IX of the Dialogues. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40026984

In this episode, returning host Justin Schieber interviews Dr. Michael Hemmingsen on his 2020 paper titled Soul-Making and Social Progress which was published in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. John Hick's Soul-Making theodicy, according to which suffering exists to provide opportunities to develop our moral virtue, is a popular response to the problem of evil. In his paper, Dr. Hemmingsen argues that advocates of John Hick's Soul-Making theodicy are thereby committed to opposing social progress.

We sit down with leading analytic philosopher of religion Prof. Josh Rasmussen to discuss Leibnizian cosmological arguments. We also bring on a special guest, Logos, to facilitate a dialogue with Prof. Rasmussen as we all journey together to explore the very cutting edge of this important debate. This dialogue pushes the dialectic forward in ways that can benefit both theists and atheists.

You can follow Prof. Josh Rasmussen's work at:

https://joshualrasmussen.com/

Be sure to check out Prof. Rasmussen's magisterial work Necessary Existence:

https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198746898.001.0001/oso-9780198746898

You can find Logos's work on his blog, which provides some context for the discussion. See his posts on Leibnizian cosmological arguments below.

Part I:

https://logosreviews.wixsite.com/theist-reviews-apolo/post/thoughts-on-the-leibnizian-cosmological-argument-part-1

Part II:

https://logosreviews.wixsite.com/theist-reviews-apolo/post/my-thoughts-on-the-leibnizian-cosmological-argument-part-2

In this episode, Justin Schieber interviews philosopher Dr. Dustin Crummett (dustincrummett.com, https://www.youtube.com/@dustin.crummett, @Dustin_Crummett). Dr. Crummett received his PhD from the University of Notre Dame in 2018, and specializes in social and political philosophy, ethics, and philosophy of religion. In this first of two episodes, we discuss Dr. Crummett's fascinating work relating to the problem of evil.

The Hiddenness Series returns. Richard Swinburne's responsibility argument aims to show it's good for God to stay hidden. That way we can investigate God's existence together. Assisting others in this endeavor, says Swinburne, is a very good deed—one we should be thankful to have the opportunity to do. In this video I discuss Swinburne's argument, Schellenberg's response, and Travis Dumsday's reformulation. I then share some of my own objections to the responsibility argument. Most importantly, I explain how it fails to undercut Schellenberg's hiddenness argument.

In this episode, Real Atheology co-host Ben Watkins takes us on a tour through parts one and two of Hume's controversial essay 'Of Miracles'. Ben begins by providing context that serves to undercut some popular but ultimately uncharitable readings of Hume's central thesis. With the infamous argument clarified, other common objections are also explored.

For this episode, we interview Dr. Felipe Leon on the metaphysical possibility of creation ex nihilo - or creation ‘out of nothing’. This is an indispensable metaphysical doctrine to classical theists. Dr. Felipe Leon is professor of philosophy at El Camino College in Torrance, CA. He received his M.A and Ph.D at University of California Riverside, and his current research interests are in philosophy of religion and modal epistemology. Recently, Dr. Leon co-edited and contributed to a collection along with Bob Fischer entitled Modal Epistemology After Rationalism. Among other things, the collection indicates the recent trend in modal epistemology to seek the ground of our modal knowledge in empirical sources, such as observation and observation-sensitive theory. Felipe also runs the ex-apologist philosophy of religion blog which has a wealth of fantastic content that listeners to this podcast will no doubt enjoy.

In this episode Justin Schieber continues the hiddenness series by presenting J.L. Schellenberg’s Argument from divine hiddenness. Since the 1993 publication of his Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason Schellenberg’s argument has received widespread attention and still generates deep engagement. This is because many atheists find it to be quite powerful and persuasive. Many theists find it challenging and worth responding to. This episode is intended as a presentation of Schellenberg’s argument, not a full-throated defense. https://www.realatheology.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/RealAtheology Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q...

In this episode, Justin Schieber sits down with Jeffrey Jay Lowder for a wide-ranging interview. Fans of the show will no doubt be familiar with Jeff's work. From founding Infidels.org and the Secular Outpost to his contributions to The Empty Tomb and his several public debates, Jeff has earned his reputation as a fair-minded and philosophically informed atheist. We discuss the origin of infidels.org, Paul Draper's famous argument from Pain and Pleasure and everything in between.

See Jeff's debate with Phil Hernandez

See Jeff's debate with Kevin Vandergriff

See Jeff's debate with Frank Turek

Jeff's youtube channel

This episode ran a bit long, so we're splitting it into two parts. Here we interview Dr. C.M. Lorkowski on his new book Atheism Considered: A Survey of the Rational Rejection of Religious Belief (2020).

This book is a systematic presentation of challenges to the existence of a higher power. Rather than engaging in a polemic against a religious worldview, Lorkowski charitably refutes the classical arguments for the existence of God, pointing out flaws in their underlying reasoning and highlighting difficulties inherent to revealed sources. In place of a theistic worldview, he argues for adopting a naturalistic one, highlighting naturalism’s capacity to explain world phenomena and contribute to the sciences. Lorkowski demonstrates that replacing theism with naturalism, contra popular assumptions, sacrifices nothing in terms of ethics or meaning.

In this interview, we take a tour of some of the major themes of the books with Dr. Lorkowski and discuss many topics including his background, the various arguments of natural theology, apologetics vs. philosophy, David Hume, and a whole host of other topics. This is definitely the episode for those who want introduced to the more philosophical aspects of atheism.

Dr. Lorkowski's work can be followed here: https://philpeople.org/profiles/c-m-lorkowski

Cory Markum joins Ben Watkins to discuss some questions about normativity. Many apologists put forward moral arguments for the existence of God which claim that atheism implies some form of moral nihilism. While both Ben and Cory do not find these arguments persuasive, Cory is not so sure about the view that is often called "moral realism." This view states that there are mind independent moral truths about what actions are good and bad, right and wrong, and virtuous and vicious. Ben, on the other hand, is a moral realist, because he accepts a realist view about normativity in general. In an effort to convince Cory of moral realism, Ben defends the view that some things matter in the sense that we have reasons to care about things for their own sake. Such truths are 'irreducibly normative.' Ben holds that there are some irreducibly normative truths about what we have reason to believe, to desire, and to do, and that some of these truths are moral truths.

RealAtheology.com

YouTube

Facebook

Twitter

Patreon

Paypal

For this episode, Ben Watkins and Justin Schieber interview Counter Apologist on the moral argument. The moral argument is an argument about moral ontology and includes a premise which states, if God exists, objective moral values and duties do not exist. We discuss various strategies for interacting with this argument.

This debate was between Christian apologist Eric Hernandez and atheist podcaster Justin Schieber. The event was organized by Capturing Christianity and held on May 6, 2023 at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, TX. Visit capturingchristianity.com for this and similar events.

This is a new beginning for Real Atheology as Ben Watkins welcomes Ben Bavar and John Lopilato as new co-hosts to the cast. Justin Schieber has taken a break from philosophy of religion in general to focus on college.

We’ve decided to start things off with a Big Bang by tackling the Kalam Cosmological argument!

Today I interview Dr. Scott Davison. Dr. Davison is professor of philosophy at Morehead State University where he specializes in Metaphysics, Ethics, and Philosophy of Religion. Dr. Davison and I connected back in May of last year at a conference here in Grand rapids - a science and religion dialogue for which he was the keynote speaker. The presentation was on his recently released a book titled Petitionary Prayer; a Philosophical Investigation. I really enjoyed his analysis and had to have him on the show.

In this episode the Real Atheologians interview philosopher Dr. Graham Oppy.  We discuss the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism, defining naturalism, the Modal Ontological Argument, and a number of issues in contemporary philosophy of religion.

This is a follow-up episode on the Kalam Cosmological Argument where we interview philosopher Alex Malpass about his upcoming paper, co-authored with Wes Morriston, on the Kalam. Among other things, we discuss potential vs. actual/completed infinities, beginningless pasts, endless futures, and symmetry breakers.

We'd also like to apologize to our Patreons, this episodes our return to properly thanking each of you at the end of the episode. 

For this episode, we interview Aron Lucas about his objection to the Fine Tuning argument in his paper "Naturalism, Fine-Tuning, and Flies" that is published at https://infidels.org/library/modern/aron_lucas/flies.html

According to Schellenberg’s argument from Divine Hiddenness, a nonresistant nonbeliever is, simply put, somebody who fails to believe in God in such a way that the failure is not itself the result of resistant self-deception. A key premise of the divine hiddenness argument just is the claim that such persons exist and/or have existed in the past. For most people, this premise will appear obvious and this appearance likely the result of their connections and communications with other people. People they know and understand. People they trust and respect. On the other hand, some people claim to be skeptical about this premise. Can we really know that these nonbelievers aren’t resisting? To answer these questions, we’ve got to take a closer look at Schellenberg’s concept of the nonresistant nonbeliever.

In the second part of Ryan's interview with Dr. Kenny Pearce, they discuss some of the issues surrounding the debate between Protestantism and Catholicism. In the second half the discussion turns to the issue of apologetics and whether there exists a clean distinction between it and philosophy of religion.

In this episode, we critically review our co-host Ben Watkins's debate against Trent Horn of Catholic Answers at Capturing Christianity's conference CCv1. We are joined by esteemed guests Felipe Leon and Joe Schmid. This wide-ranging discussion covers such topics as intrinsic value, classical versus personalist models of God, the argument from motion, existential inertia, and the privation theory of evil.  

You can find Felipe Leon's work via the links below: 

http://exapologist.blogspot.com

https://elcamino.academia.edu/FelipeLeon 

You can find Joe Schmid's work here: https://linktr.ee/majestyofreason

Youtuber Ozymandias Ramses joins Justin Schieber and Ben Watkins to discuss competing contemporary definitions of atheism. Agnosticism and the burden of proof or justification are also discussed.

Rather than a live debate, what you are about to hear is an audio performance of an already written debate that’s been going on behind the scenes for the last month or so in the form of a series of essays written in reply to each other. The debate was on the problem of evil and it was between Justin Schieber and Cameron Bertuzzi. The debate clocks in at about an hour.

In the first installment of the Real Atheology Podcast, we discuss our plans for the show as well as the benefits that the podcasting format has over Youtube with regard to the kinds of long-form philosophical discussion we're after.

RealAtheology.com

YouTube

Facebook

Twitter

Patreon

Paypal

This video is a response to a recent video by Christopher Cloos at Christian Philosophy Academy.

Chris' Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja9dldyWQwE&t=1445s In his video, Cloos presents an objection to Schellenberg's divine hiddenness argument from a recent essay by Daniel Howard-Snyder which argues that, possibly, God may hide from people to attain a 'better start' to a relationship with them even while being perfectly loving. I first trace the dialectic between Daniel Howard-Snyder and J.L. Schellenberg before examining Howard-Snyder's most recent attempt to undermine Schellenberg's argument. I conclude that Howard-Snyder's most recent reply fails to undermine Schellenberg's argument. ⁠Web - https://www.realatheology.com⁠ Twitter - ⁠https://twitter.com/RealAtheology⁠

As a follow up to the last episode which gave a general overview of Hume's famous essay, Ben Watkins interviews philosopher Dr. Bill Vanderburgh on his 2019 book David Hume on Miracles, Evidence, and Probability. The conversation explores some of the reasons the text is often misinterpreted. The importance of placing Hume in his historical context is emphasized in response to common objections.

Get Dr. Vandenburgh's excellent book here: https://www.amazon.com/David-Hume-Miracles-Evidence-Probability-ebook/dp/B07PV79RRL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3UDWN1IY3TMUE&keywords=vanderburgh+hume+miracles&qid=1682108975&sprefix=vanderburgh+hume+miracle%2Caps%2C341&sr=8-1

Oxford philosophy student Josh Parikh joins Justin Schieber to discuss Josh’s rejection of a key premise in Schellenberg’s Hiddenness Argument (previously discussed in RA004). The premise, which states that there do in fact exist persons who are non-resistantly in a state of non-belief about God’s existence, is largely taken to be true by most philosophers of religion.

RealAtheology.com

YouTube

Facebook

Twitter

Patreon

Paypal

For this episode, we interview philosopher Dr. Felipe Leon on the topic of Mitigated Modal Skepticism, the view that our modal knowledge is limited to the mundane.  It seeks to the ground our modal knowledge in empirical sources, such as observation and observation-sensitive theory. This would mean our modal knowledge can not be extended to possibilities critical to a large variety of theistic arguments. We end up covering a number of related topics in the philosophy of religion. Felipe also runs the ex-apologist philosophy of religion blog which has a wealth of fantastic content that listeners to this podcast will no doubt enjoy. http://exapologist.blogspot.com/ 

In this first part of Ryan Downie’s interview with Dr. Kenny Pearce, strategies for productive dialogue with those who hold opposing views are discussed.  The conversation then turns to discussing the value of historical approaches to philosophy. Finally, they discuss Leibniz contributions to philosophy of religion and the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to cosmological arguments.

A few weeks ago, Gavin Ortlund of Truth Unites released a video exploring the argument from divine hiddenness and giving several objections to it. While I appreciated Gavin's wrestling with the argument, I did not think his objections are successful. This video seeks to respond to those objections by clarifying aspects of Schellenberg's reasoning.

Gavin Ortlund's video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d-6UhOS0FE&t=2262s

In this episode, Ben Watkins sits down to discuss the Van Tillian tradition of presuppositional apologetics often found online along with objective idealism— an epistemological view often associated with Post-Kantians like Hegel, Fichte, and Schelling. Two claims of Van Til are challenged using the resources of objective idealism:

Those two claims are (i) Christianity is a necessary condition to know anything at all and (ii) the Christian and the non-Christian have no neutral ground to resolve their disagreements.

In addition to challenging these claims by appeal to a form of objective idealism, Ben also gives a brief exposition of the argument from divine hiddenness. Contrary to Van Til and other presuppositional apologetics, it is not the case everyone believes God exists. In fact, there are some people who do not believe God exists, and this fact is evidence for atheism over theism.

Broadly speaking, Arguments from Hiddenness are philosophical arguments with atheistic conclusions arising from the fact that either the felt presence of, the nature of, or the very existence of God is somewhat less clear than we might expect if God existed. As with the problem of evil, there is no single argument from hiddenness. Rather, there is a whole family of arguments united by these ideas. We begin our new hiddenness series with a broad introduction to that family.