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- [00:02]
Narrator
Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the life and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the church with faith expertise and humor.
- [00:37]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Hi. Welcome to another episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmont, and I'm joined by my friend, Dr. Richard Leduc.
- [00:45]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Hello, Garrett. Thanks for having me back. Very excited to continue our discussion of atheism. And even though we didn't even really get to it in the last episode.
- [00:56]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
We named it that we talked more about Christians. I think so of course, quite a bit more. I think we were. It seemed more like we were trying to make Christians become atheists than it was.
- [01:05]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Look, we're going to get you one way or the other. Either either you're going to become one of us or nothing at all.
- [01:10]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, I mean, luckily we got Baptism for the dead, so we've got that going for us.
- [01:15]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So we will go straight into Christy's corner as we discuss doctrine covenants. Section 87. Correct.
- [01:23]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
When you want to look smart in Sunday school, if you want your friends to think you're cool, when you want to seem wise and not a fool, it's Christy. Misty Corner. Yeah. I mean, you knew that that's where I was going to go. This is one of my favorite prophecies. In fact, I believe Richard plans to.
- [01:40]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We're going to do a re release of the full episode from season one, episode 10. We'll do a re release as a bonus episode. So if. If folks want to dive into that, they. They're welcome to a full hour of.
- [01:53]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yes.
- [01:54]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Of whatever this is.
- [01:56]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It is one of the greatest revelations as far as predictive prophecies that there is. And what's stunning to me is much like our last episode, how readily discounted it is, and it's readily discounted by false beliefs and statements. So, you know, you go to an anti Mormon subreddit and they will say, well, everybody knew there was going to be a civil war. Oh, oh, really? Well, seems like for everybody knowing it, nobody said that. So it's very surprising that everybody knows it. Okay, So I asked ChatGPT.
- [02:43]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Oh, very good.
- [02:44]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Can you name me one major political or religious figure in the United States that believed that there was going to be a major bloody civil war? It couldn't. But of course everyone believed that.
- [02:58]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, I mean, the Sky's blue. Everyone knows the sky's blue. No one's talking about.
- [03:02]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I see. Except for the nullification crisis where people actually are talking about conflict. See, one of the things that's fascinating about doctrine covenant, section 87. And I know that our, our default position, because you're a 21st century person, you know, I don't know where everyone's living. I mean, Richard's telling me we've got people downloading things in Egypt. We know we have at least one listener in Djibouti.
- [03:30]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So I mean, she is moving back though. So we're gonna lose that Littner and.
- [03:34]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Djibouti, we're gonna need to see if she can extend her time in Djibouti.
- [03:37]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, we own the Horn of Africa.
- [03:40]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I figure that it, that it's standard of Truth and Somali pirates. Those are the two major Horn of Africa things. That's, that's. We've got to be killing it in Eritrea.
- [03:52]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Oh, for sure.
- [03:53]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, yeah, Eritrea. We're dominant probably in South Sudan. I mean, I don't know what the numbers are in South Sudan.
- [04:00]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I'm going to get to that. I'm going to get the, the crack research after the bottom of that.
- [04:04]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay, yeah, maybe, maybe pull up some Kazakhstan while you're at that.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
Kazakhstan? We have like five or one or we have a, at least one listener in Kazakhstan.
- [04:12]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I assume that whenever we get a couple of downloads from like Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan that those are the hackers trying to hack our service.
- [04:20]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I can't imagine that somebody is using a VPN to go into Kazakhstan to then download the podcast. Right? Like it's like, hey, I want the freedom of cause.
- [04:29]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, I, I want, I don't want, you know, anyone to know. So I'll go through the Liberty loving Tajikistan.
- [04:37]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, I don't want any of this, you know, European Union shackles.
- [04:43]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe they're trying to avoid a VAT tax.
- [04:45]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Oh, there you go.
- [04:46]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, the, our, our Canadian listeners will appreciate a VAT tax discussion.
- [04:50]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Quite.
- [04:51]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
But our, our Americans are like so, like, so like a vat of acid or I mean like the joker.
- [04:58]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I mean, kind of. I mean you have to pay 18% on that vat of acid.
- [05:01]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, well, that's the problem. The problem is it would be hard to create a joker in today's America because the VAT is Canada. Today's Canada because the cost of the VAT tax to the VAT of acid and VAT means value added, so.
- [05:17]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Value added tax. Yeah, it's like atm.
- [05:21]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I actually now Am very con. Very interested in what the VAT tax is on a vat. If you were to buy a vat.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
We'Re going to get to the bottom of this. While you talk about one of the.
- [05:32]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Most impressive millers could help us. Do you think they could.
- [05:36]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I will reach out to the millers and see what the cost of.
- [05:39]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That's our think that they purchased.
- [05:42]
Dr. Richard Leduc
You know what? All right, I would text them now.
- [05:44]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay, yeah, let's find out. We need some VAT story. But what's interesting is that people will. What we think in our. In our world is that when we look back on the past, they. The most salient feature of America's past, there's essentially two things, right? Slavery and the Civil War that ends slavery. It's pretty hard to have any conversation about history, and it actually sometimes makes you a relatively lazy historian because, you know, even though you're reading about what people are talking about in 1825, you know that there's going to be a civil war 35 years later. Similarly, after the fact, everyone interprets everything based upon what actually did happen. And so you get critics who will say things like, well, everybody. Everybody knew there was going to be a Civil War. Okay, well, why don't you show me the everybody then, since everybody know. They just knew it. They just knew it. Okay, how do you know that they knew it? Because you've studied a lot of multiple people proclaiming that there's going to be a major civil war. In fact, as I pointed out, when the actual Civil War comes, people are so convinced that it's not going to lead to a bloody conflict that rich people from D.C. actually go out to the Bull Run battlefield because they think they're going to watch, you know, a little bit of a protest of the Southern troops, maybe a couple shots fired, and then the Southern troops will, like, retreat and lay down their arms and say, okay, we made our protests, things are fine. And so when The Union General, General Irvin McDowell, is trying to retreat from the battle after they're defeated, part of their problem is the roads are clogged with hundreds and hundreds of rich people with their carriages who are trying to escape the battle now that the battle turned against them. I'm just going to guess that that rich person going out to have a picnic, watching a battle didn't think that it was going to be severe or they wouldn't have gone. You don't have a whole lot of other people in carriages going out to watch, you know, the Battle of Shiloh. You don't have a bunch of people like I'll bet this is fine. And then you know, it's not fine. So the thing that's so interesting is that, is that Joseph is asking God because of the nullification crisis, which is where South Carolina refuses to accept a national, a federal law that's a tariff that's taxing imported goods. Now it affects every state but South Carolina feels like it unfairly affects them. So they passed a bill saying we can just nullify any law that we want that we don't think is constitutional. Well, the people that are involved in this argument are Andrew Jackson, who single handedly did more to expand slavery than just about any other president because of both his fighting in the War of 1812 and his Indian Removal act, who personally owned slaves, is pro slavery, is a pro slavery Democrat. And John C. Calhoun, the leader of South Carolina, who is similarly one of the most firebrand pro slavery Democrats that there is, saying that the war would be about taxes and tariffs would be reflective of the time. Saying that the war is going to be about slavery is not reflective of the time. Now were there tensions about slavery? Sure. But when a state first declared it wasn't going to follow the federal government, it was not over slavery. In fact, the United States has multiple examples of when states actually said they weren't going to follow the federal government. Take for existence the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania. I mean it sounds more, it sounds better than it is, right? Because you know, everyone's getting drunk while they're doing it. It's because there's a national tax that's applied to whiskey that farmers, especially in western Pennsylvania and other, the western portions of other states feel like it unfairly affects them so they start resisting this tax. If you look at the Hartford Convention in the War of 1812 where you had numerous New England states discuss seceding from the Union. Now they didn't actually vote to secede, but they discussed it. And I mean that's already, it's, it's kind of a problem.
- [11:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, for sure.
- [11:26]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I feel like there's some things that you can't really have a conversation about publicly and still be okay even if you decide against it. You know, you can't be like, well, I mean, should we become serial killers? Let's discuss this. You know what the vote came down. No, I think the very fact that you had the discussion is also like, why are you having the discussion? So the Hartford Convention, the fact that those states discussed disunion and that was all about economics. It was because The War of 1812 was crippling New England trade. And so these smaller states in New England discussed the idea of leaving the Union because they were being hurt so bad economically. So what's interesting is when you, when you actually know your American history, what do you find that when states have threatened some kind of disunion or large portions of people have threatened some kind of disunion, it is always up to that point on economic taxation principles rather than slavery. So had Joseph Smith said, you know, tensions are still going to keep rising between South Carolina and the north, then someone could say, well, he was just playing off of what was going on at the time. And, and you know, frankly, it's such a ridiculously weird thing. It kind of calls to mind the discussion between, you know, our atheists and Christians in the, in the last episode. Yeah, there's like not any proof at all. There's like no proof. There's no proof. Well, here's some proof. Well, that doesn't count as proof. Okay, well that's weird. It's weird to declare that there's no proof to have one single historical figure of any import whatsoever in 1832 declaring that there was going to be a bloody, horrible civil war that would terminate in the deaths of many souls, that that would start in South Carolina and that the south would call upon other nations to help it. Bingo, bingo, bingo. Sometimes people will criticize. Well, it says that slaves will rise up against their masters and not very many of them did. Well, actually there are tens of thousands into well beyond 100,000 former slaves who join up to help the Union army as they are being liberated. Yeah, but they're not rising up at all. They're just carrying guns and shooting at them. But that's not a rise up.
- [14:20]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That's very different.
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Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, very different. Because the way I think of a slave insurrection is the way that it actually is.
- [14:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So the parsing is hilarious.
- [14:28]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It is instead of just saying, okay, Joseph was right about that. The argument is, you know, frankly, half the time, if you ask an AI chat bot on this, it'll actually get it wrong. It will claim that one of the points against it is that it wasn't canonized until after Joseph's, until after the Civil War. And so because it was written down later that, you know, it likely wasn't a real prophecy. And the crazy part about, I've heard antagonists to the church make that argument, it is actually one of our best documented 1832 revelations. We have multiple manuscript copies from 1832. We have multiple copies of it. In Revelation books. And even if you wanted to claim that all of those were just later forged, even though there's no evidence that they are, it was published in 1851. And for those of you who don't know your Civil War history, the Civil War takes place in 1861. In fact, in 1851, tensions between the north and the south were at their lowest. That they would be all throughout the 1850s, because the Compromise of 1850 had just settled, at least they thought, the expansion of slavery issue. So people say things all the time, and hopefully one of the things this podcast does is it, is it helps you say, just because someone says something like, yeah, everybody, everybody knew there was going to be a civil war. That's not the same thing as they're actually being evidence that everybody knew that. And that's. I think that's a very key point to, to keep in mind. So when you go to Sunday school, I expect lots of discussions about tariffs, maybe some VAT taxes. Richard, do you have anything?
- [16:42]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I do, I do, absolutely. So if you could guess the. Some of the top VATTED items sold into France.
- [16:49]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Into France.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah. So these aren't. So first of all, the VAT for a VAT is 20%.
- [16:56]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
So if I go to buy a VAT.
- [16:58]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes. That's going to be 20%. I feel like there's a little bit. Who's on first? A little bit here.
- [17:02]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Right. So if I go to buy a VAT, it's going to be 20% VAT. To buy a VAT.
- [17:05]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Sure. You've got a stainless steel VAT and you've got a copper vat. Those are the two most popular vats. A medium stainless steel VAT could run you as much as €12,000, while copper one would be around 10,000.
- [17:19]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
But then I'm. I'm paying a goodly like €4,000 in.
- [17:23]
Dr. Richard Leduc
VAT tax, at least another additional $2,000 in, in the value added to tax. What is the value that is being added?
- [17:31]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
No one knows the values being added to the government.
- [17:34]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I see. Very good. So the most VATTED items, do you.
- [17:39]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Think, in France, I mean, I mean, what do French, what do the French want to import? Or is it domestically?
- [17:46]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, so there's a lot of reasons to VAT something.
- [17:49]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. So let's say, let's say wine.
- [17:54]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Okay. Very, very, very good, Gary. That's number two.
- [17:58]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Because you're, because you're trying to maintain your own wine press.
- [18:01]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes. And you're gonna. Yeah, absolutely. You're gonna be shipping large quantities of that I'll give you the oli outside looking in on the most batted items in France.
- [18:10]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
- [18:10]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Mayonnaise, cider, mustard and this must.
- [18:13]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Mayonnaise for fries because that's how they like their fries.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
It's great, actually. I love dipping my fries in a thing of mayonnaise and then a thing of ketchup and then.
- [18:23]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
But they don't have ketchup.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
They do.
- [18:25]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
They do, yeah.
- [18:26]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So you do one and two and then you have fry sauce. It's incredible. The Belgians loved me over there. It was. So they have. On the ola. They have soap and that must be a misprint. You've been to France? It's absolutely nothing.
- [18:39]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, I mean, is the VAT so high that no one's buying it?
- [18:42]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It must be. So you have duck fat number five.
- [18:46]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Why are we buying duck fat?
- [18:49]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I mean, it's like a Thneed. There's so many uses.
- [18:51]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay. Wow.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
Perfume or fragrant oils. Dough for baguettes or croissants. Then number two is wine. And coming in at number one, cheese.
- [19:02]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay. French cheese. You're not brie.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
Sure. Some of the softer cheeses.
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Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Roquefort.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
I don't see Roquefort on there. I've got to imagine.
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Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
What about Limburger?
- [19:15]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That's. That's a. That's a terrible cheese. I'm not a fan.
- [19:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, we'll. We'll leave our great VAT discussion to move into the mailbag.
- [19:24]
Dr. Richard Leduc
The Phoebe Draper Palmer Brown mailbag starts us off with Lindsay. Dr. Dirk Mott's embarrassment about the dander meter or the dandometer does him credit.
- [19:37]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Did she write dandometer?
- [19:39]
Dr. Richard Leduc
No, no, this is before.
- [19:40]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
You're just inventing.
- [19:41]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes, I was. You are parsing out her language does him credit. And the minute he stops. The minute it stops bothering him is the moment we know he's lost his soul. Yes, of course, were supposed to be peacemakers. And yes, Satan stirreth up the hearts of man to contend with anger one with another. But if it's any consolation, dander levels 6 to 900 million. Put this littner more in the mind of Captain Moroni meets Elijah and the priests of BAAL rather than the author of contention.
- [20:19]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Oh, that's very floral and kind.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
I know. Sometimes a firm word is needed to defend those who are seduced by men of cunning devices. Many are full of many flattering words who lead away the hearts of many people to do wickedly and seek to destroy the church of God. And I must concur with Dr. Leduc. It's always satisfying to listen to a righteous man of dander. Mock sophist arguments. Call down historiographic.
- [20:50]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
- [20:50]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Historic Historiographic. Fire.
- [20:53]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Lindsay's a poet.
- [20:55]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, she is. I wish she would use simpler words than historiographic.
- [20:59]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
You'd have to use words that are shorter than five letters.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, historiographic. You know, I've never seen the word before.
- [21:05]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, well, I've seen it many times.
- [21:07]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Many a time I wake up in.
- [21:09]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
The morning, it's historiographic. I go to lunch. Historiographic.
- [21:14]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Fired. To obliterate them and beat Chatgpt to death.
- [21:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That's funny.
- [21:18]
Dr. Richard Leduc
For all have not every gift given unto them. To some is given one and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby, etc. Etc. A proud and loyal Brighamite. But for the sake of Garrett's mental health, please let him talk about townships again as a treat.
- [21:37]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
You know what? I feel like I've earned that.
- [21:39]
Dr. Richard Leduc
You have. We're going to talk about.
- [21:41]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I need something that makes me happy.
- [21:44]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So this next comes to us from Julie. I want to provide a second witness to what Richard said about Garrett's epic rants. It is. Actually, there's a theme here because I feel like one's coming in this episode.
- [21:57]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I am going to do everything I can to passively respond to whatever you're about to play for me that I have not heard.
- [22:04]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes. And I will say the. The atheist arguments I don't think you're going to get mad at because their questions are reasonable questions.
- [22:12]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
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Dr. Richard Leduc
And I'm going out of my way to not play strident.
- [22:16]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. You're the guy who's like, well, if God appeared to you, would you worship them? No. Wait, so if God appeared to you, you wouldn't worship him? No, I wouldn't. Oh, all right.
- [22:26]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Histographic fire. No, I'm kidding. That's not the subject. I'm just trying to get that in as many times as I can. Historiographic.
- [22:33]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Oh, pardon me.
- [22:35]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Historical. Very, very good. My biggest problems when confronted with arguments designed to derail my faith or that my family is that my intellectual fight or flight response is fine tuned to fight. I never come up with something helpful or conciliatory because I'm so angry at the audacity and intellectual dishonesty of the argument that that's the thing that gets you going.
- [22:59]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It is what? That is the part that makes me mad because we're not actually having the conversation about the facts. Because like, like Bart Ehrman in the. In the clip you played last time. We didn't even get to have a conversation about the facts because the conversation was about the lying premise that the host put up. Well, there aren't any witnesses to Joe Smith stuff. Yeah, actually, there are. No, they're not. Well, there are. Well, they don't count. You just said there aren't any. Now you're saying they don't count. How could you possibly know if they count? You didn't know they existed seven seconds ago. Sorry. Dander meter.
- [23:41]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, I have just. Just look at that.
- [23:42]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Look at that.
- [23:43]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I didn't even play the clip yet. Just.
- [23:44]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I'm remembering a past clip. It's like PTSD on clips.
- [23:49]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And then I spend days obsessing over what I coulda or should have said. When Dr. Dirk Mott's dander meter or dandometer is up, I feel incredibly validated. He says what I wanted to have been able to say. And have you noticed that when Garrett's dander is up, he gets really succinct into the boy.
- [24:13]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Boy. Is that a compliment or a shot?
- [24:16]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That's a shot. Okay, that's hilarious. I think my best learning about how to deal with these kinds of arguments come when Garrett is called an anonymous truth seeker. A faithless loser.
- [24:29]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I still. I should. That should be banned. I. I simply said that someone who was attacking. I mean, that was when he called an anonymous truth. Well, she has truth seeker in quotes. Because they weren't.
- [24:42]
Dr. Richard Leduc
They weren't. Somehow having my anger spoken diffuses it and gives me a minute to think about what to do. She goes on to give some very nice examples and stories. But we must, must move forward, ever forward, as we discuss atheism and the arguments.
- [25:00]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I think it's very important to note that I have not heard any of these clips. Just like I hadn't heard the clips from last week either. This is a dangerous thing to do, and maybe we'll have to start actually editing the podcast even back. We play it, and I don't even know how to respond. So we will let the clip go on. You want to introduce.
- [25:23]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, so, no, I'm gonna play this clip here, and it'll be kind of our jumping off point.
- [25:27]
Unknown Speaker
Okay, we're going to the problem of evil. That is the first argument. The first. The first one that we're considering. And yeah, I'll just go right into it. So there are two kind of broad. Yeah, the problem of evil.
- [25:38]
So for those of us who haven't heard of it, it sort of rings a bell. So maybe you can Just refresh my memory as to what it is.
- [25:47]
Right. So it's basically if God exists and God is all good, all knowing and all powerful, why is there so much evil in the world?
- [25:55]
This is like the atheist argument. It's like the first thing that people go to, it's the last thing that people sort of complain to about God. Probably if they made it to the pearly gates themselves and were still criticizing him, it would be either that or maybe there's sort of not enough evidence would come in at a very, very close first or second. I mean, the initial response to the logical problem of evil is to essentially say that, well, God can have good reasons to allow evil. There are lots of reasons why God might allow evil. God might need to allow evil because human free will is a valuable thing. And therefore in order to have free will, people need to be able to freely choose to murder each other. You know, C.S. lewis talks about how if God were to, were to still the triggers of every gun in World War I, preventing, you know, preventing war from happening, it would seem to, you know, disallow the freedom of the soldiers to, to fire guns at each other. And as evil as that is, if you take that away, you sort of rid the world of something even worse than evil, which would be the, the mechanistic kind of no free will animals that they would become. So that's one famous reason. Another might be that evil is necessary to attain higher order goods. You know, you can't have bravery if you don't have fear, so you need the bad thing to get the good thing. So lots of sort of reasons why God might allow some amount of evil.
- [27:20]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So this comes from Alex o', Connor, which we mentioned in our last episode, and it's his podcast Within Reason, and he has as a guest on the podcast Joe Schmidt, who's a Princeton PhD candidate. And they're kind of having this philosophical exercise of this discussion of the problem of evil and they're just kind of setting the table for it. So I mean, this is your understanding of the issue, but you've mentioned something to me before where, when they're. Because the example that they give from C.S. lewis about stealing the triggers in World War I, and perhaps there are things that could have come from this. You feel like the atheist arguments don't go far enough.
- [28:00]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, I feel like they're missing, they're so excited, you know, to, to grab the fruit off the tree that they're not recognizing that they're standing in quicksand with alligators pulling the fruit it's like, yes, you know, war and famine is, you know, things like that that are associated with it are super easy arguments to make because war is always terrible and it's always awful and it always necessitates suffering. The problem is, you know, focusing on the soldier's guns and them being stilled by God. It doesn't deal with the non agency horrors of this world. So you can say, okay, well, war happens because people have agency and they, they use their agency to hurt one another. But the reality is there's all kinds of things that are terrible for which there's no agency involved at all. So I think we're gonna hear a lot. I don't know if these clips, but my guess is we're gonna hear a lot of agency arguments that some of the. From the Christians.
- [29:18]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, some of the defense is on.
- [29:20]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Agency is gonna say agency. And my guess is that is it's actually one of the harder things for the atheist to refute that if there's free will, then people have the ability to do bad things. So if I'm an atheist, I'm not just so everyone knows. I would tack much harder to not, you know, why. Why does God allow someone to shoot someone when he's robbing a bank? I would tack much harder to, you know, why is a baby born with an inoperable brain tumor, which there isn't at least any agency that matters there. I mean, you will find people that will say things like, well, the agency was in the parents having the baby because if they didn't have the baby, then the baby wouldn't have brain brain tumor. It's like, well, yeah, but for agency to matter, you have to know you're making a choice. I mean, to say things like, you know, all these people in Indonesia that were killed by the tsunami, their agency was that they chose to live by the water. I mean, again, that's a pretty hollow argument to try to maintain agency given the fact that if people don't know they're making a choice, then, I mean, what kind of agency is it? And even if that was the case, guess who can stop tsunamis? All powerful gods.
- [30:57]
Dr. Richard Leduc
But even the existence of agency at all. That's also the problem that I don't feel like the atheists here are making that strong of an argument that they're.
- [31:05]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, why is there, why is there even agency?
- [31:08]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So people, people are, are arguing a point when the atheist should. I'm trying to give atheists better.
- [31:14]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, I think it's because the atheists, because they're trying to see the world rationally. And so they don't want to question their own positions. Right. So what's the rational position? The rational position is scientific position is humans make choices. An atheist would have to argue against their own rational position to make that argument.
- [31:36]
Dr. Richard Leduc
But I feel it's a stronger argument to be.
- [31:38]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
But they'd be undermining themselves.
- [31:39]
Dr. Richard Leduc
But only if there's no God, then actually, who cares what the undermining of ages sound good?
- [31:46]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I mean, you hope that maybe someone visits you in your graveyard, I guess. I don't know.
- [31:50]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, all right, so. So the next one is, is, is kind of an extension on this issue. And then we'll be able to get into some of the Christian rebuttals.
- [31:58]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay, that's, that's where you think my dander will shine.
- [32:01]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I, you predicted you're doing a pretty good job predicting where they're going to be going with this.
- [32:05]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, I have a, I have a. I mean, this isn't my first rodeo.
- [32:11]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, for broadly the reasons that you've mentioned, philosophers have mostly turned away from logical arguments from evil just because it seems like, sure, God might want to prevent all evil, provided that that evil isn't necessary for bringing about certain outweighing goods, and you identified some of those goods. But if certain instances of evil are indeed necessary for bringing about greater goods, then you can sort of see how God may very well want to allow that sorts of evil to exist. So for that reason, philosophers have turned to evidential arguments. There are lots of different evidential arguments. Probably my favorite, and probably your favorite, is a sort of argument from evolutionary animal suffering. And we can probably put it in Bayesian terms. I'm not going to go into the mathematics. Right, so don't get scared. But basically we're comparing different hypotheses about reality and seeing which one does better predicts or better explains the data and which everyone does better predict or better explain the data is supported by that data. So what is the data here? Well, it's basically that natural history has been pretty grotesque. For hundreds of millions of years, animals have been ripping each other to shreds. They've been preying on one another, they've been parasitizing one another. Natural disasters have ripped through entire species. Something like over 99% of all species that have ever existed are extinct. And just in general, starvation and misery and languishing seems to be kind of like the norm throughout evolutionary history. And given this, given the bloodbath of evolutionary history, we can kind of ask, what best explains this? Well, one hypothesis is that there's this perfectly good being that orchestrated this from the get go, that chose this as the very means by which this being is creating biological diversity in general and humans in particular. Another hypothesis is that no, like the foundation of reality, whatever it is, doesn't really care about the flourishing and languishing of creatures. And so if there's going to be a certain kind of evolutionary process, then it's not terribly surprising that it's going to be so fraught with profound and egregious suffering and things like that. And just to, like, make this a bit more. Make this a bit more palpable for people, think about all the different ways that God could have created biological diversity in humans. You know, he could have created it in 6,000 years as young Earth creationists think he actually did. But no, he chose hundreds of millions of years of animals ripping each other to shreds. He could have made photosynthesizing animals, animals that get their energy from the sun instead of having to devour each other savagely in order to survive. But instead, no, he chose animals devouring each other savagely. He could have made animals chemosynthesize so get their energy from chemicals. He could have made animals or biological organisms or whatever out of material that doesn't constantly get lost to the environment. So there is no need to kind of continually imbibe new materials.
- [34:57]
Natural selection is the process by which we come about. And natural selection does not just involve, but relies upon the death and destruction of the weak. Survival of the fittest is the same thing as the death and destruction of the unfit.
- [35:16]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay, well, I, I've heard parts of that argument before. Although it's interesting that if you're going to have a debate about it, you probably can't discount the position of the young Earth creationists. It was very interesting how they did that. Like, well, we know that evolution is going on for millions and millions and millions of years. Well. Well, that's not what some of your opponents think. So if you're trying to convince them, why are you even making that argument? You don't need to prove that evolution's been going on for tens of millions of years to say that there's animals that suffer. Right. Yeah. Just take them at their premise. Okay. For 6,000 years, animals have suffered.
- [36:04]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Or this week.
- [36:04]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
- [36:05]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Or yesterday.
- [36:06]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Right now. Right. Legitimately driving to Kai's basketball game. I'm driving. I pull up to a stop sign, stop, start pulling forward again. So I'm not traveling I'm in a neighborhood, I'm pulling away from a stop sign. I'm probably going 10 miles an hour. Bam, something hits my side window. My knee jerk reaction because I was by a high school was some stupid kid just threw something at my car. Now I don't know where that puts me in the level of not good people, but it my. Legitimately, my first reaction was someone, some kid threw something at my car.
- [36:52]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I don't know. You live by a high school, you've had a lot of stuff thrown at your car.
- [36:55]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
This was someone else's high school. Oh, yeah. So even worse. Yeah, they're the kind of. I won't say what high school. I don't want anyone thinking that it's what I think. Right.
- [37:07]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Orem.
- [37:07]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
No, no, no. I'll just say that there's two different forks in Utah. There's a Spanish.
- [37:16]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Was it one where they spoke Spanish or was it more of a.
- [37:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
There's a Spanish fork where I might live and then there's another fork.
- [37:23]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Is it named after a gulf that's near Florida and Texas?
- [37:27]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, it's now named after a gulf that's near Florida and Texas. It seems to be a very recent phenomenon. Anyway, I literally stop and turn my car around because I'm like. And then I'm like, oh, I see like the, like they threw this thing at me in the road. So I drive back over. I'm looking for kids. I'm still looking for kids. It's a beautiful bird.
- [37:52]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Was.
- [37:54]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yes, that is. I check it's totally dead. I never saw. Slammed into the. My, my driver's side passenger window, the seat behind.
- [38:05]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Had you been speeding, you could have.
- [38:07]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Saved the bird, boy. Now, now, now you're making me feel worse. I thought your pulpit flew into your committing suicide. The bird was like, this is it. I lost my job at the factory.
- [38:21]
Dr. Richard Leduc
He had like a tie that was like loose. He just tied one off.
- [38:25]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
He like found out that, that his bird wife was having another bird.
- [38:30]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Lost his job.
- [38:31]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, so, I mean, and, and I. And it was completely. I mean, if you want to say, you know, senseless violence caused by the fact that I was in a car and the bird must have thought my window was flat through.
- [38:48]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And actually speaks highly of the cleanliness of your windows.
- [38:52]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I had actually just gone to the car wash and so that suggests it's my fault.
- [38:55]
Dr. Richard Leduc
My agency, 100%.
- [38:57]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I mean, you would say that, but. And so I realize this is gaining traction among atheists today. You certainly hear people talk about it much more than you did 150 years ago. And that's because more people care about animal rights now.
- [39:14]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, 150 years ago.
- [39:15]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. I mean, there was. Peter didn't exist 150 years ago, surprisingly. But I think still there is this sense. In some ways, the atheists themselves are the ones playing God when they make this argument. Right. Well, I know what would be best for these animals. And you're assuming that they've been created out of nothing and that I know that, you know, the suffering of them is so great and evil that it means that a good God couldn't have allowed it to happen. I can see why it's a strong argument with a limited segment of the population. But I would say this. You're talking to people. If you don't have an argument that explains the suffering of people, then it doesn't really matter if you have an argument about the suffering of animals. Right? So talk about missing the forest for the trees is what I would say. Now, for Christians rebutting this, I would say the same thing. If. If you have an explanation for why animals suffer, but you don't have an explanation for why humans do, it doesn't matter. If you have an explanation for why animals suffer.
- [40:45]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That'S great. That's a. That's a. That is a great response. So now would you like for the next. So we're going to play two rebuttals. One one from a gentleman that you. You like and respect at least his candor, and one that I know that you do not care for. Which one would you like to hear first?
- [41:01]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Let's start with the do not care for just so I want to end happy.
- [41:05]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Okay, sounds great.
- [41:08]
Frank Turek
Now, is evil an argument against God? At least three people say no, actually, no. Evil is actually an argument for God. Why? Because objective evil presupposes objective good, and objective good requires God. You say? What do you mean? Because evil does not exist on its own. Evil only exists as a lack in a good thing. Evil does not disprove God. It may show there's a devil out there, but it can't disprove God. You could look at it this way as well. The shadows prove the sunshine. In order to have shadows, you have to have sunshine. In other words, in order to have evil, you have to have good. Oh, you can have sunshine without shadows. You can have good without evil, but you can't have shadows without sunshine. You can't have evil without good. If evil exists, and everybody knows it.
- [41:57]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Does.
- [41:59]
Frank Turek
Then God must exist. Because if there is no God, that Means there is no good, which means there is no evil. Now, after I explained all this at Michigan State, how do you think the atheist looked? He looked like this. He said, that doesn't explain at all. Okay, I can see how some evil can lead to good, but there's some evil out there that has absolutely no good, that results from it. It's what philosophers call gratuitous evil. There's no good that can ever come from it. So I said, sir, how could you know that? You'd have to be God to know that. Now it is true. If life just ends at the tomb, yeah, there is a lot of evil that probably has no ultimate good to it. There's no justice. Right. There are many people that go to the grave who have committed crimes that have never been punished. Many rights are not wronged. There are many goods that never arrive because if life ends at the grave, there's no resolution. But what if life doesn't end at the grave? What if it goes beyond the grave? Then what? This is what Paul's saying. We need to have an eternal perspective. I've been struggling with evil, the question of evil for a long time, until I discovered one thing called the ripple effect. What's the ripple effect? That everything that happens today ripples forward into the future to affect billions, if not trillions of other events. In fact, think of the ripple effect in your own life. Let's just think about your parents. Your parents had to meet for you to be here. Then their parents had to meet for them to be here and you to be here. And then their parents had to meet. Think about all the ripples that went into you sitting here right now. Some of those ripples were good, some of those ripples were bad. But God can bring good from evil even when we can't see it. Why does a particular baby die now? I don't know. But I know why. I don't know why. Maybe a particular baby dying now ripples forward into the future to somehow create, 500 years from now, a great evangelist who saves millions of people. That baby dying contributed to that great evangelist. I can't see that. I'm not, I'm inside of time. But God can see the end from the beginning. This is why he can bring good from evil.
- [44:35]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Now.
- [44:35]
Dr. Richard Leduc
There were many things that he said that I agree with. I certainly agree that God can, can make good out of evil things. God can consecrate things for our good. Certainly that's the case. It's a 50 minute long kind of speech presentation that he that he gives. He talks about agency as part of that, but it wasn't very strong. But he really feels like he discovered how to split the atom when he discusses the ripple effect. So that's kind of the main thing that he ends on. If you look at multiple videos that he does where he talks about this issue, the ripple effect is his main point that he's trying to make where. Well, because we're not God, we don't know the good that could come from this. And by saying that this bad thing didn't have to happen, we would have to be God in order to know that that's the particular case. So the ripple effect is his main argument. I don't know why there's this suffering. I don't know this. But I know that ultimately that God knows.
- [45:40]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. And so, I mean, there are certainly some things to agree with on that point. It is a true statement that without God's powers, none of us actually know the final outcome of every good or evil act. I mean, of every act, period. We don't know. And so one of the best Christian arguments about the problem of evil is that you don't know whether or not it would ultimately turn to good. Even when it seems like it doesn't turn to good, you still don't know whether or not it ultimately turned to good. God knows that, but you don't know that. I would say this could find some level of truth, but only when you're talking about groups and not individuals. Right. So why did the Holocaust happen? How in the world do you point to the good of the Holocaust? Even if you point out and say, well, this happens and this happens and this happens because of it, and I mean, in a non anti Semitic way, I'm assuming everyone listening is not like, well, because you murdered them dudes. That was.
- [47:15]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That's our hope. That's our hope.
- [47:17]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. We hope that everyone listening isn't anti Semitic. We hope you're not racist. We hope you're not anti Semitic. We. We hope you believe that all men are created equally in the eyes of God. It's a. That's what the hope is. Yes, I know now we're setting the bar high, but think about it for the individual. While you might claim that, oh yeah, World War II was terrible, but it ended the Holocaust. See, in larger issues you're able to do that, but it didn't end the Holocaust for one of the six and a half million Jews who were murdered, that already happened. Right. And when you argue that there's some kind of redemptive value in that evil. Well, here's part of the problem. The same person who's arguing that there's redemptive value in that evil. I know he didn't use this example, but I'm going to use it for him, also believes that person's going to burn in hell forever because they're Jewish. So how do you have.
- [48:33]
Dr. Richard Leduc
He didn't make that argument.
- [48:34]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It's interesting he didn't make that argument.
- [48:36]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes, quite.
- [48:38]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
But he's saying there are lots of things that don't. You can't see how they turn out. And that would be fine. If there wasn't the next life. I would actually argue against him were. I would. I would, I would confront him to the face, as Paul did. Peter. That's actually the problem with Christian theology. All of your arguments work to a degree if everyone on earth has a positive afterlife. So if you say yes, you know, justice isn't served until the next life. You don't know why God is letting this killer go, but in the next life that that killer will, will be judged and you will have your justice. That works. If you're talking to a Christian, and by that I mean a Christian who believes in trinitarian creedalism, because most likely you're going to say that a Christian like me or Jehovah's Witness or Seventh Day Adventist or maybe even an Anabaptist doesn't count as a Christian. And so they would still be going to hell. The argument that there is a redemptive afterlife is a very, very, very good argument right up until it's redemptive for almost no one. Speaking statistically, for all the people who lived in the world, all of the horrors that have taken place, all of the injustices, all of the bad things, almost none of those evil actions will be somehow made right in the next life in Christian theology. Why? Because almost all of those evil actions have happened against non Christians.
- [50:43]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So there is. So I don't, I don't want to cut you off because you were on a roll, but I feel like we can build towards something as we go to divine hiddenness in a bit. Because I think that, that really like your, your dandometer right now. You are chill.
- [50:59]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I'm, You're. I was rising a little bit.
- [51:01]
Dr. Richard Leduc
No, but you're like, you're like Cusco, Peru. You're just tranquilo. You're chilling. So let me play because we got time for one more here. Let me play the response from, from a person that I know that you that you at least respect John MacArthur recently? Well, I mean, yes, he's straightforward.
- [51:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yes, I respect John MacArthur. He's a Calvinist theologian. He just recently passed away. So I also wondering what he's thinking about the fact that he's in a spirit world that he said didn't exist, but I respect the fact that he is unlike. I mean, look, there are some theologians who aren't real theologians who use word games to play around the actual reality. Especially Christians do this when it comes to the idea of so many people burning in hell. So you have, I mean, you know, not to call him out, but he doesn't know who I am. So you have people like Wesley Huff who, when they're confronted with the fact that people, you know, who don't accept Jesus don't go to heaven, he'll play word games around it, or at least I've seen him do it a couple times, rather than acknowledging the reality. Look, what's the reality? If you say that you have to accept Jesus to go to heaven and there's only heaven and there's only hell, and if you don't accept Jesus, you are not going to heaven. So there's only one other option. You find increasingly Christian theologians who are not willing to be vocal about what that actually means. If in fact there is only one way to go to heaven, it means that almost no one goes to heaven. I mean, Christianity might be the largest religion in the world, but let's be frank. Most of these people don't accept Catholics as Christians. But let's say that they do.
- [53:09]
Dr. Richard Leduc
They do. When they're counting those numbers.
- [53:10]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, when they're counting the numbers, they do. But you won't find a Christian who will say that all people claiming to be Christians are all true Christians. You won't find that.
- [53:21]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Wesley Huff sure doesn't. About Mormons.
- [53:23]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
He's.
- [53:24]
Dr. Richard Leduc
He's very outspoken on that.
- [53:25]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
He's very clear that we're not. Because we worship the wrong Jesus. Right. Which is in and of itself a work. Right. Because it's not enough for me to say I believe in Jesus. I have to believe in Jesus the right way to be saved, not just not to say that I believe and I have to believe in the right way. Well, I do believe he died for my sins. Yeah, but you have to believe in the threeness and the oneness in order to believe he died for your sins. Yeah, I remember reading that in Corinthians.
- [53:53]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, because you can't have faith in a Jesus that doesn't exist.
- [53:57]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I Guess I'm telling you I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is divine and he died for my sins and that the only way I can be saved is having faith in Him. And you're saying, well, that doesn't count because you don't understand the Trinity the way I do. Even though when I tell you about it, I have to say it's a mystery and no one can understand it. Right.
- [54:20]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I'm gonna use eggs or ice or something.
- [54:22]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
So we both don't understand it. You're saying I slightly don't understand it less than you do. And that's why I'm going to burn in hell, even though I believe Jesus is my Savior.
- [54:32]
Dr. Richard Leduc
All right, here we go with John MacArthur.
- [54:36]
John MacArthur
Because he said, if God is good, then why is there so much bad in the world? And if God is all powerful, he would fix it. So either he's not good or he's not powerful. But the Bible says he's both good and powerful. And so the answer to evil is simply the fact that it's designed by God to be allowed so that he can manifest his glory. Everything is for his glory. If you go starting in the book of Genesis, you'll find a phrase for the sake of the Name. For the sake of the Name. For the sake of the name. Just take a concordance sometimes and look up that phrase for the sake of the Name. It's all over the Old Testament and it's all over the New Testament. Everything is for the sake of the Name. So why did God allow evil? In order that he might put his glory on display. If there's no evil, there's no sin, then there's no forgiveness, there's no grace, there's no mercy, there's no compassion, there's no kindness. And God doesn't display that part of his glory. So ultimately, it's all for his glory. God allows evil. God does not cause evil. He is absolutely holy. He cannot cause evil, but he allows it for the sake of his own glory. And then, of course, in the light of evil, he redeems those who put their trust in Him. And that shows the ultimate glory. That's the glory of his grace, as Paul calls it in Ephesians 1, which is the greatest expression of his glory as far as we're concerned, because that's what redeems us.
- [56:01]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
This is the reason why I respect, though I disagree incredibly with John MacArthur, because you'll notice there was a lot less razzle dazzle to his explanation than there was to our first clip.
- [56:19]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So his the entire Clip is like five, six minutes. The other one was an hour.
- [56:25]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
And I would argue that in his five or six minutes, John MacArthur was much more clear and much more logical. We know that God is good because that's the definition of God. We know that God is all powerful because that's the definition of God. Therefore everything that happens must be good because that's God's will. And, and so he allows evil. Now, now this of course, where I take some, a little bit of. We didn't really define evil. Our first clip of Christian response makes the argument that you would not understand what good is if there wasn't evil. Now I think we can all think about a certain Book of Mormon chapter in second Nephi.
- [57:20]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Sure.
- [57:20]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Chapter two. That would say something similar. Right. That that opposition is necessary in all things. The difference is I believe opposition is necessary in all things because I believe the purpose of the world is entirely different than what John MacArthur or our other Christian friend Rick believes. They are arguing on the basis of a belief that God created everything out of nothing. And that's why when you ask the one question further, there isn't really an answer. The one question further. Right. God has to allow evil in the first clip. He has to allow evil so that you can understand good. Think about what you're saying. God has to. There probably shouldn't ever be anything in a classical Christian theology that you ever say the words God has to anything.
- [58:35]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Dr. Frank Turek, by the way, is that is the first gentleman.
- [58:40]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
God doesn't have to do anything. Now, I also object to the idea that all evil is. Is the absence of good. Well, I mean, I guess if you're not including suffering in evil, if you're splitting the problem of evil to where evil is only things that happen to you. If I drown. Well, I mean, it's not. I mean, evil is it? But there's a lot of suffering and there's some absence of good, some absence of good. Air. But I don't think that you would say that that's a positive. I mean, maybe someone listening at this point is like, you know what kind of sounds like it would be. But so I disagree on that point as well. That all evil is. Is the absence of good. No, in fact, their own theology should say that it's not that. What is Lucifer? Is he just the absence of good or is he doing active actions of evil? I understand how that might work in some explanations. The problem is it doesn't work for many explanations. And if we have an explanation that doesn't work Most of the time or even a lot of the time. Well, then it's not really an explanation, is it? On John MacArthur's point where he's being much more straightforward. Look, evil exists. God allows evil to exist. God allows evil to exist to showcase his glory. By the way, he's almost word for word quoting John Calvin there and Jonathan Edwards. It's a very Calvinist theology. And the reason why it's straightforward is it's the only logical conclusion you can come to. And you can always figure this out by arguing the. The opposite. If God's all powerful, could God stop evil? If God wanted to, you have to say yes. So then that places you in a position of having to say that God allows evil. Now, I'm not saying he causes evil, although you do start to split hairs pretty quickly. I mean, you could say that tectonic plates are in motion and that that caused a tsunami that killed a hundred thousand people. And you could say that that's not God directly doing it, but he created the tectonic plate. He did create tectonic plates, and he did create earthquakes. Or again, always ask the opposite question. Could God, if God wanted to prevent all earthquakes from happening?
- [61:49]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes.
- [61:50]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
If you say no, then God's not all powerful. So it's not just that God allows agency. And I think even as Latter Day Saints, we fall into this trap a lot where we say agency, agency, agency, agency. The problem is some of the most unspeakable suffering of this world is suffering where no one's agency is involved. And that's a real problem, because at the very least, if I get in a car wreck because someone is a drunk driver and it causes me all kinds of physical and emotional pain, at the very least, I have an explanation for it. Someone had agency, they made terrible choices and they destroyed my life. What do you do when there's not any agency attached to it? Now, how do you find an explanation? And I think when you talk to many former Christians who become atheists or agnostics, it's that position that they are taking. I'm not taking the position that God can't intervene in every single thing, or we would just be automatons who, you know, doing whatever God were little puppets on a string. But there's so much senseless or, as they said, gratuitous suffering. There's suffering that is not in any way redemptive. Now, you know, our first clip, you know, Turk is going to say, well, you don't know. It probably is. You just don't know that it is again a plausible explanation if you're talking about Christians who die when their fairy sinks. But what if it's Hindus who die when they're fairies sinks? That's the suffering. This is evil. But they aren't being recompensed in the next life. They are writhing in the agonies of a hell that is so many times worse than the mortal suffering they experienced. Why are we even talking about the mortal suffering in Bart Ehrman's book that he writes the Problem of Evil, I always thought he really missed the boat. A lot of it's great argument, but if I were an atheist, and I'm not.
- [64:34]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I like that you keep qualifying that.
- [64:36]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, I feel like you kind of have to let people know. I don't want someone tunes in at the very. Make sure you. What is this standard of true stuff here? Like if I was an atheist. Oh my goodness gracious.
- [64:47]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It's the same anti Semite that was on earlier.
- [64:51]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
He's got a lot of issues. I keep bringing on guests who have lots of issues. The real question that this entire argument about atheism and Christianity, and we're gonna have to cover this in the next episode because I'm not gonna be able to cover it all here.
- [65:11]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Divine hiddenness does hit on this point.
- [65:13]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
But the real question is actually not about mortal suffering. Because whatever my mortal suffering is, I could make an argument, right? I could make an argument that God being good in the next life because he's all powerful will somehow make up that suffering to me, right? So. So it appears to be. It appears to be gratuitous, but it's not actually. It's redemptive in some way. And not only is it redemptive, I'm going to be recompensed, right? So there is a justice to it. The problem is almost no one's going to heaven. So instead of talking about, look at how much this person suffered and look at how much this person suffered. Oh, this person had 80 years of suffering, this person had 40 years of suffering, this child died and had three years of suffering. Isn't a much more important question, what about the next 70 trillion years of suffering, which by every account is worse than any kind of suffering on this earth. So I always feel like atheists and Christians, they often talk around each other in these debates. Because if I was an atheist, I wouldn't spend my time arguing about whether or not there's something redemptive surrounding the horrors of the Holocaust. I would spend my time saying, why did God create people that he was going to punish for forever. Why? Why did he create them? Because they didn't exist until he created them. So why did he create them? You, you can claim redemptive suffering all day long and twice on Sunday. Hopefully twice on Sunday. But you can't get beyond the fact that Christians believe eternal hell exists. And anyone who does not believe in Jesus when they die is going there. Which means most people in our best percentages, in our best case scenario, most people who have ever been created are going to burn in hell because they didn't have faith in Jesus. I mean look at even the two most populous. Look at three of the four most populous countries on Earth right now. China, 1.2 billion. Christianity's banned. India. What? 1.3 billion. Almost. No, I mean, yes, I know there's several hundred thousand getting a temple and that's. There we go. So 1.3 billion non Christians right now.
- [68:23]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Right.
- [68:23]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
But you know, we'll get you and.
- [68:24]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Come the next one. Indonesia.
- [68:26]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Indonesia.
- [68:26]
Dr. Richard Leduc
There you go.
- [68:27]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Muslims.
- [68:27]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, there you go.
- [68:28]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
So I know that there are smatterings of Christians and I can already hear a Christian passing. No, there's lots of underground Christians in China. It's the same anti Semite, isn't it?
- [68:39]
Dr. Richard Leduc
He's everywhere.
- [68:40]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
He's there everywhere, sure. But that's not the same. Unless you can prove to me that every single person in China, including the Wegers in concentration camps, have the same access to the preaching of the word of God that you do in Tennessee. Well then I guess it wouldn't be equal, would it? In the world right now, three of the four most populated countries on earth have essentially percentage wise, almost no Christian Christians. And a Christian is saying every person living in China right now, every person outside of the couple hundred thousand in India are. I mean there's probably, there's actually probably several million Christians in India.
- [69:31]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I would imagine there are, yeah.
- [69:33]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I apologize to all of our Indian brothers and sisters, but except for a few million, let's just, we'll call it a billion Indians are going to hell and 400,000, 500,000 Indonesian Muslims are going to hell. I mean, 400 million, 500 million. So I really think it's interesting that both groups don't engage in the longer term question. I think Christians don't engage in it because they know there's not a good answer to it. And frankly, John MacArthur's answer is what you're ultimately reduced down to. And that is God allows evil, even the evil of people burning in hell forever. Now, now Christians get around this by saying, well, everyone is a sinner, everyone's fallen. But then you just only have to ask the larger question of why are they fallen? Who decided to make fallen man? You can blame Adam and Eve all you want, except that God made Adam and Eve. And that God, because God knows everything, made Adam and Eve, knowing that they would fall. And you know, there's a clip from RC Sproul, who's another Calvinist preacher who just passed away. Also, great respect for this guy because in a discussion about this, he actually, he admitted, he said somehow the fall, as horrible as it seems, it must in some way be good because you can't get past the fact that God must have intended it. If you claim that God did not intend the fall, then you are dealing with a an incredibly shortsighted and an incredibly weak God, since he's the one creating everything out of nothing. Now, of course, Latter Day Saint responses to all of this transform everything because we believe in a premortal life and we believe in a our own eternal nature and we believe in a progression. So we'll have to talk about that in our next episode.
- [71:55]
Narrator
Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmont and Dr. Richard leduc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. Until next time.