Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Philip Goff: From Agnostic Professor to “Slightly Heretical Christian” || SLP567

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Philip Goff: From Agnostic Professor to “Slightly Heretical Christian” || SLP567 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Glenn from Speak Life.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's my great privilege to introduce onto the channel Philip Goff.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Philip, hello.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Glenn.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Good to speak to you.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to having a chat.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: You are a famous heretical Christian now.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, on on our channel, we in we we we kind of interview all sorts of people, whether they are Christians or not.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure whether anyone has self-diagnosed as a an heretical Christian before.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like to me, um your self-diagnosis is is due to an answer, I guess, to two different philosophical problems that you want us to really pay attention to.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're a uh professor of philosophy at uh Durham University, and um you very much want us to pay attention to the fine-tuning of the cosmos, that's the the the constants that allow life um in this universe had to be just so in order for us to be here and even uh have uh a theology at all.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and that's a very remarkable thing, and you want us to pay attention to that.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: You also want us to pay attention to um the problem of evil on the side of theism, and and say that uh if there is a God, then uh squaring such a God with a world that is uh so full of evil is is a great difficulty.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you've kind of hit upon um I I is it a unique solution, do you think?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um t tell us about what it is for you to be a heretical Christian.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks, Glenn.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was a really, really good summary of of some of my recent motivations.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, maybe what you captured there was the first stage of this, um, and which just started actually when I came to Durham University about seven years ago teaching philosophy of religion and you know the classic course where you teach the arguments for God, you teach the arguments against God.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I I just came to think that both sides of this perennial debate had something right and something wrong.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: As you said there, that you know traditional theists struggle to explain suffering, but there are also things traditional atheists struggle to explain, like for example, the fine-tuning of physics for life, and and this led me really to explore what I think of as the neglected middle ground options.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I So this led to my my my most recent book, modestly titled Why the Purpose of the Universe, where I lay out these problems with both sides of this traditional dichotomy and then explore these middle ground options.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: One of which I'm particularly attracted to is a a loving God that's not all powerful.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think this can elegantly account for all of these difficulties with the traditional options.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that so that with the why book, that was this first stage, if you like.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: There was nothing about heretical Christianity in that book.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: But since then, actually just learning about the great diversity of forms of Christianity, and in particular learning more about the mystical traditions of Christianity that are perhaps a little bit more prominent in the Eastern Church, but have always been there in the Western Church as well, and slowly deciding that actually some of these middle ground options I'd become attracted to in this Y book fitted quite well with these mystical versions of Christianity, and so after a long period of soul searching and reflection, this ultimately led me to embrace this mildly heretical version of Christianity, but yeah, that that's where I'm up to.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: Lots to lots of different directions you can go with that, but anyway, I'll leave it to you.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, have you always been a fan of third-way solutions?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because it it seems to me like uh one of the other areas of philosophy that you're famous for, panpsychism, um that's that's kind of a classically third-way kind of a uh kind of an option, would you say?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, I think that's a very pertinent observation.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do seem to I don't know if it's something in my personality or I suppose I don't like these dichotomies we get stuck in.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, you know, are you a US capitalist or a Soviet communist?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So many people seem stuck in that, whereas, you know, of course there's a lot of options in between, or are you do you believe in the soul?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it just electrochemical signalling in the brain?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, that's what I was taught as an undergraduate in the dying embers of the 20th century.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, which of those is correct?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I've spent most of my career opening up this middle ground option, panpsychism, that to my mind captures some of the benefits of both of these traditional options whilst avoiding some of the costs.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I it is I wonder I probably should ask my ask a psychoanalyst, you know, what's going on here.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I I suppose I do seem to be have been drawn to something similar recently in philosophy of religion that I'm exploring options like this limited God that seem to get what seems right with both the traditional views, but avoid what seems wrong.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And is is there a part of you that perhaps also doesn't mind um taking a a heterodox position or does doesn't mind swimming slightly against the stream?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you think you get that from?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the things I'm blessed with, if I can use that word, is I do have quite a thick skin.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean I was quite a weird kid, but I wasn't bullied that much as a kid, and I think it's because it didn't really bother me, you know.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then you you know you're not a fun target, are you, if you if it if it doesn't bother you.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I I mean I do get I have had over the years a fair bit of abuse on Twitter uh of one form or another.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it sort of doesn't bother me that much.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I like to think, I hope I'm not just doing this to, you know, to cause mischief though, and to um, you know, ultimately I do have a a deep, deep thirst for the truth.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: I want to I'm I I I think I'm following the arguments where they lead.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, there I suppose there are certain points where I feel people have got stuck in certain m forms of thinking and they can't see beyond them.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think in Western intellectual circles we're very well trained to be alert of religious biases, you know, from a religious upbringing.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, do you just believe that because of your, you know, your religious upbringing?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: But we also need to be aware of secular biases or just biases from a certain way of thinking that academia has got locked into.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there are so many cases of this as you look back in history, but people always seem to forget maybe they're stuck in that at the present moment.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Humans always think they're at the end of history, you know, we've sort of got it sorted now.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I suppose I I I like to think what what I'm doing maybe with fine-tuning, maybe with people ignoring the importance of philosophy, maybe with consciousnesses.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I suppose I am pushing against certain mainstream established modes of thinking, but I hope I'm not just doing it for the sake of it.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's part of what I really believe is is the case.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want you to help us.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um I want you to help us f first of all, let's let's push against some materialist assumptions.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then um let's as we face the problem of uh of evil, um, I want you to help um bring to this Christian's attention and our Christian audience's uh uh attention um the depth of that problem, um, because I I guess that's something that we uh we might uh shirk uh if if we're not um paying attention.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: So first of all, um let let's think about some materialist assumptions.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um in your book Galileo's Era, you you talk about among professional philosophers that um over half of them are materialists.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: You uh I think you cite something like 56% um at that stage, and then and the book's about five years old now.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: The last survey on this, Phil might people might be interested actually, that the what's called the Phil Papers survey, where they survey English-speaking philosophers throughout the world on their views, you know, do you believe in God?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do you believe in free will?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: God doesn't come out that great, I'm afraid to say.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, on on physicalists versus their opponents, actually, it's 52% physicalists, 32% anti-physicalists, the others don't like the question or can't make their mind up or something.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: So so it is phys ph physicalists, you know, the the the more popular option, but anti-physicalism is is you know is a very strong minority, you know, 32% it's not it's not a tiny fringe position.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then I suppose panpsychism, my own view, is um a minority within that minority.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very much the third option, but it's a significant minority within a significant minority.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way people should think about these things.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but you don't go with the majority, and you certainly don't go with um the majority of physicalists.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um can you explain to us a little bit uh about why, and and perhaps if in in so doing you could uh explain to us the hard problem of consciousness, that would that would really help as well.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, you wouldn't where to start, where to how much depth to go into here.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean perhaps the starting point is just we don't even have the beginnings of an explanation of how electrochemical signalling in the brain could make feelings and experiences.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've learnt a lot about the brain, we've learned a a fair bit about which kinds of brain activity go along with which kinds of feelings and experiences, the correlations between these two phenomena, although there's still massive lack of consensus.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: But there's another important question which a conversation I had a few years ago with Joe Rogan, I couldn't get this distinction over to, but there's another important question.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Why does brain activity give rise to consciousness?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Why should that be?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe an analogy if you think about water, you know, we understand a lot about how water behaves, why it boils at the temperature it does in terms of the underlying chemistry.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: If if mis if materialism or physicalism is true, then we ought to be able to give a similar explanation with experiences and electrochemical signalling in the brain.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: We ought to be able to give a satisfying explanation of why this pattern of neural firings gives rise to a feeling of pain or seeing of colour, and we just have absolutely nothing.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, a a lot of people respond, I mean, that's broadly accepted that we don't have anything at all.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the science of consciousness has come along a long has come along a long way, but that precise formulation of an answer to what is called the hard problem of consciousness.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: How what how and why does brain activity produce consciousness, we've got nothing.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: But a common response from many of my scientist friends that I've publicly debated many times, like the neuroscientist Anal Seth or the physicist Sean Carroll is to say, well, you know, we just need to give it time.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Just, you know, hold your horses, we just crack on with the science, we'll get there in the end.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I suppose what I want to press is this isn't a normal scientific problem.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Consciousness is not a normal scientific problem.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: That that's what I'm most keen to push, and there are a variety of ways of pushing it.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what one way I've pressed this, for example, in my in my book Galileo's Era, this was the reason for the title, is that physical science that we've been operating with for the last 400 years was designed to exclude consciousness.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was designed to exclude consciousness.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because Galileo wanted physical science to be purely mathematical, purely quantitative.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: This was a radical conceptual innovation.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: But he believed, rightly, I think, that you can't capture the qualities of consciousness in purely mathematical terms.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: An equation can't capture that deep red you experience as you watch the setting sun.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Mathematical language can't fully convey colours and sounds and smells and tastes.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: So Galileo said, right, well, we take that out of science.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's in the soul, that's outside of science, you know.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Forget about that.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Then we can capture everything else in mathematics.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now that went really well.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: That created mathematical physics, that has led to 400 years of increased understanding and wonderful technology, but the whole thing was premised on putting consciousness outside of the domain of science.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, 400 years later, we find that we struggle to explain consciousness in those terms.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think if Galileo were to time travel to the present day, he'd say, of course you can't do that.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I designed physical science to exclude consciousness.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think you know, if if we now want to bring consciousness fully into the scientific story, we need to rethink those intellectual foundations that Galileo bequeathed to us.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just very finally, I've talked too long already.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: People forget that there's there are always philosophical assumptions in the background of science that that influence and govern how how we operate.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that the challenge, the problems of having with consciousness are due to those intellectual foundations that Galileo laid down, and we need to rethink them a bit.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you say that I guess the epistemological starting point um that we should have as as people facing this world um ought to include consciousness and and perhaps begin with consciousness as as the most basic fact of our awareness.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing else gets off the ground um without actually our conscious awareness of all other things?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is it not very strange that um a materialist would begin with matter in motion when what is nearest to the materialist is not actually matter in motion, but the conscious awareness of matter in motion?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: How how did how did we get to the the stage where you know more more than half of uh of philosophers take for granted that that matter comes first when surely by the nature of the case it it is consciousness that comes first?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: I would say the starting point is that human beings have two very different ways of accessing reality.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: We access the physical world through using our senses, right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: And through science we learn to do that better.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: But we can also access consciousness, our feelings and experiences, just through our immediate awareness of them.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if if you're in pain, you're just directly aware of your pain.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, that is the only way we know about consciousness.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Consciousness isn't something that's publicly observable.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: If I cut open your head, I'm not gonna see your feelings and experiences inside your head.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: The only reason we know about consciousness is because we're conscious and we're we're just immediately in contact with our feelings and experiences.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's another way of saying why this is a very different scientific problem.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got these two things which we know about in very different ways: consciousness just because we're conscious, and the physical world through doing science.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then we've got a question how do these fit together, right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is uh maybe maybe the physical world is the fundamental thing, like which is still the dominant view, and consciousness emerges from physical processes in the brain.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe but maybe it's the other way around, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe consciousness is the fundamental reality, and the physical world emerges from some deeper story about consciousness.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe, third possibility, maybe they're both fundamental but very different.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: This is the dualist view, which has probably been the most popular view throughout human history.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: A very good recent defense of dualism by the philosopher Ralph Weir, who makes a good case for that.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: That almost all societies have been dualists.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So dualism is you know, consciousness is in the soul, that's intimately connected to, but um but but distinct from the body and the brain.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So look, there are just these different options, and the scientific data about oh, you know, certain brain activity goes along with consciousness, that is neutral.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: That is neutral on all these possibilities.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: So what do we do?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: We we could say, I don't know, I don't know, you know, or we could try and evaluate them, see which offers better explanations, maybe which is more simple and unified, and and I've tried to make a case that when you do that the the consciousness first approach or the panpsychist approach looks in better shape.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, just finally you say what you know why is physicalism so popular?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm inclined I mean it's it's a relatively recent thing, actually, you know.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's I mean panpsychism had a real heyday in the 19th century.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's and and the uh one of my history of philosophy uh sorry, one of my history of science colleagues uh shared a quote with me from a physicist from the 30s saying, of course, all physicists think consciousness is fundamental nowadays.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's only sort of the post-war years that physicalism has come to dominate.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we could speculate historically about why this is.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think at least part of it though is just being blown away by the understandably, blown away by the success of physical science and the incredible technology it's produced, and that leads intelligent people to think, this is it, you know, this is this feels so tangible, everything else seems like fluffy thinking.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: I understand that, but you know, I think when you really think carefully about why physical science has been so successful, as I said earlier, I think it's because we've put consciousness on what's side for a rainy day, and and so once you take that into account, it sort of weakens this argument oh, physical science has been so successful, it's gonna deal with consciousness.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's been so successful because it was designed to ignore consciousness.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I'm kind of repeating myself a bit.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, but that I think that's what was so helpful about Galileo's era is that you can affirm everything that that science has brought to us in the last 400 years.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, Galileo has sent us off on our way and has sponsored us in in that direction.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and you can you can affirm all of that while still raising the questions, hang on, what about what about what's been excluded from this from this picture?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um absolutely.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: People people think people think physicalism is the scientific option.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, the science is neutral on all these options.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: That that's what I'm most passionate about getting across, actually.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in in that book, you you kind of you you don't really um consider idealism in Galileo's era.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: You you the the sort of dualism that you consider is sort of materialist dualism, um a la um uh David Chalmers, um, and then there's the there's the physicalism and there's panpsychism as as these options that you sort of um have looked at as as as ways of um of of considering mind and matter and and and their interactions.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um were you considering at that point having a look at more theistic uh accounts of dualism?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why why did you go for materialist dualism rather than sort of dualism more broadly back in in uh Galileo's era?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of dualism, I suppose.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, actually I've I've changed my mind a little bit since I wrote Galileo's Era.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: In Galileo's era I made a case that we've got good scientific evidence against dualism that um that we the more we've learnt about the brain, we've found that everything that happens in the brain has a, you know, can be explained in physical terms, and if there were a soul that was impacting the brain all the time, that would that would really show up in our science.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: It'd be like a polchergeist was playing with the brain, and it would be really obvious, and it isn't, so that gives us a case against dualism.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, the more I've talked to neuroscientists, uh I just don't think we know anywhere near enough about the brain to make that case.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think we know a lot about big bits of the brain.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think we know a lot about the very very basic chemistry of the brain, how neurons fire, how chemical signals are sent and stuff.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: But how it works the kind of in the middle bit, how it works, how the large scale functions of the brain are realized at the cellular level, we Are pretty much almost clueless on um how to examine a PhD actually uh on this precise topic and and and this um the the candidate had a nice analogy saying you know it's like it's like I mentioned a poltergeist earlier, it's like thinking, you know, would you know if there was a poltergeist in your washing machine?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't know actually in in the UK we have these washing machines where there's a sort of glass cover and you can see what's going on inside.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: But obviously, would you know if there was a poltergeist, but well no, because it's all a kind of mess anyway, you know, and that's like the brain, there's just so much going on and we've got so little understanding of the workings.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think we'd we'd know we'd know scientifically otherwise whether whether dualism were true or not.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I suppose my reason for going for panpsychism rather than dualism is just simplicity, Occam's razor, right?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: As scientists and philosophers we try to have the simplest account of the data, and the benefit of physicalism on the one hand and panpsychism on the other is that I think they're they're simpler, that the physicalist tries to just start with physical stuff and get consciousness out of that, the panpsychist does it the other way around, starts with consciousness, tries to get physical stuff out of that.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: The dualist takes both as fundamental, so it's if we can get away with just having one fundamental rather than two, that's a better that that's a benefit.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I suppose that that's my motivation.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm I'm very I'm very much open to dualism, and I'm I'm much more open to dualism than physicalism, uh, which is not always the case.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: They've a very good Luke a very good panpsychist philosopher Luke Roloffs, who is very much probably the more very reductionist, atheist, secular, uh, panpsychist, and he said to me he's much closer to physicalism than dualism.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: He would become a physicalist before he became a dualist.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for me it's definitely the other way around.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I'd become a dualist before I became a physicalist.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: But if we don't have to go there, go for the simpler option.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because we follow Occam's razor.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've I I'd love to talk to you about Occam's razor because um William of Ockham um doesn't always have the best name among kind of realist philosophers and and and theologians.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um he he was a nominalist uh of of the Middle Ages, and I know a lot of people who would just say, why let William of Occam ruin even more by by applying his razor uh willy-nilly?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: W what is it about you know Occam's razor that you know things should be you know made as simple as possible?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um when uh there are clearly limits to that.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um in one sense, solipsism, um, just you know, imagining that me myself, my my own consciousness is the only thing in all existence, that's an incredibly simple kind of um philosophy to hold.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um but but it probably doesn't account for the variegated nature of of reality very well.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: What are the limits to Occam's razor and yeah, why why does it often get wielded so so often and so quickly when I don't know, my my intuition is is that perhaps a more variegated approach to reality is more likely to account for a world that is full of m wonders than one that's always trying to boil things down to the most simple.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you're you're totally right.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Solipsism is well here here's here's a view that's even simpler than solipsism.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing exists.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so so clearly we're not motivated wholly by Occam's razor.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean what I suppose broadly speaking, my approach is you go for the simplest theory that accounts for the data.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that that's the fundamental thing.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: We want to account for the data.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: But there might be multiple, there are often multiple theories that account for the data.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Go for the simplest one.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Important qualification though, I would have a very liberal understanding of what data are.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not talking just about scientific data, observations, and experiments.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: I would also add to that the reality of consciousness.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's something that doesn't come out of experiments.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't find out about consciousness looking down a microscope.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's we know it's bloody real, so that's a data point.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: I also, stepping further, I also think uh certain claims about value um I would take to be data in some sense.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's more controversial.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, we can have a philosophical fight about what the data are, and then you try to find the simplest theory that accommodates them.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean I think a philosophy is as a task of synthesis.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: You take all the different things we take to be real and you try and find a simple, elegant, unified way of bringing them all together.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a good question.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Why should we think um you know simpler theories are more likely to be true?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure I have a great answer to that, other than to say it's hard to see how we could do science without it, because you know, there's always an infinite number of theories that fit the data, you know, and we tend to think you know, why why can't I just believe in furries?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because, well, there's simpler theories of reality that can avoid a commitment.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just throw in one one extra little little thing there.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: From I argue I argue a lot about fine-tuning on on uh X and and uh Blue Sky.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all the liberals have gone to Blue Sky.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm doing both.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um third waves uh it's interesting the different kind of arguments you have.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not even third waves, it's just uh having your cake and eat it, isn't it?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but um what was I saying?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, so I think there's a question people say, well, you know, how do we assign probabilities to the constants being what they are or the constants being different?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: I actually think one axiom that needs to go into that is that simpler hypotheses are more likely to be true, um somehow intrinsically more likely to be true, and therefore this is part of how you justify that a uniform distribution uh of the of the constants is is what you would ex expect to be.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well we should go for a uniform distribution of the constants with each option being equally likely uh on a chance hypothesis, whereas you wouldn't get a uniform distribution on a theistic hypothesis.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, making sense of the probabilities of fine-tuning, I think, uh this this emphasis on simplicity plays a role.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's move on to um uh fine-tuning arguments and and that kind of thing.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um there are physical constants that have to be just so for a life-permitting universe.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um why is the answer to that not simply to say, well, of course we we've woken up on a world in which the constants are just so.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um if it were not the case, then we wouldn't exist, and therefore there is nothing odd to be explained.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um we we simply happen to live in the one one in a trillion kind of shot that that happens that is that is not noteworthy, because if it were not the case, then we wouldn't be around to notice it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you respond to that response to the fine-tuning argument?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a very common response, certainly, on on tw on X anyway, um, or Twitter, whatever you call it.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I suppose well, you know, one thing that's fortunate about the times we live in is that we we do have some mathematical precision to how we understand how evidence works with something called Bayes Theorem.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: When I teach philosophy of religion, I make them do Bayes theorem when they're thinking about fine-tuning arguments, and uh I think they get a bit annoyed with me.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: They think I think some of them think philosophy of religion is gonna be a bit of an easy ride.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that you know they've done some philosophy of religion at school, high school, and they think I'm just gonna be like that, and then and then I make them do equations of probability.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, without getting into too much technicalities, the core of our standard way of understanding evidence, if you've got something that's incredibly improbable, right, and then you've got a hypothesis that removes the improbability, you should probably go for that hypothesis.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: So let me give you a very, very everyday example.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh right, suppose we've got bank robbers who've you know broken into a bank and they've they've gone into the safe and there was a 20-digit combination on the safe and they got it right first time.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um two hypotheses.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Hypothesis one, they guessed it.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hypothesis two, uh, they had inside information.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Of course you're gonna go for hypothesis two because hypo the hypothesis one is this ridiculous improbability that they just guessed it that is removed by the hypothesis that they had inside information.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Likewise with fine-tuning Yes, you know, from our current physics, according to our current physics, it is incredibly improbable that you would have the right numbers for life just by chance.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, more than astronomically improbable, whereas if we have theism or some kind of goddish hypothesis, it is much less improbable.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's not not necessarily inevitable, but that improbability is removed.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: So just in our standard ways of thinking about evidence, on the face of it, this looks like evidence for something goddish.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm just inclined to think this is being ignored for cultural reasons.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I mean there's still plenty to debate how we make sense of these probabilities.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's plenty to debate, but this is fairly uncontroversial science, broadly accepted, which it's incredible people are so happy to deny.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, uh I I I wind people up by comparing it to climate change denial.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's people just sort of happy to deny what's broadly accepted science for seemingly ideological reasons, and um in our standard ways of thinking about evidence, it's evidence for something goddish.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: The only reason we're not taking this more seriously is because we've just got so used to this idea, oh, science is ruled out, and a thing like that.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think future historians will look back and think, why did why did people just ignore what was standing in the face uh for so long?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just to say again, it's not there is still plenty to debate, but this ought to be taken much more seriously than it is, and I think that's cultural reasons.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's cultural reasons.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting, yeah, because I I guess as a Christian I've got theological kind of um guesses as to why people might want to suppress uh a knowledge of God.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I I was at a university uh when was it a couple of years ago, and I was um giving to a uh an English student a copy of John's gospel, and I said, you know, wouldn't that be great as you as you read this book, you get to know John's vision of what it looks like when God shows up.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't it be amazing if God showed up on planet Earth and you could get to know him?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I just remember um this uh English student just saying, No, that would be really inconvenient.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, what do you mean inconvenient?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Well, I just want to live life the way I want to live life.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: If if God shows up on planet Earth, um, that might have some some implications for me.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so sort of I I had that going on the in in the background of my mind um for some theological um uh reasons why people might might might want to not go with the the god or a god-ish hypothesis.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and but you're you're saying sort of cultural reasons, um people kind of figure the cool the cool kids and the clever kids uh the atheists.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't want to I don't want to be found among the the faith heads.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is that what do you think what you think is going on?
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose I wasn't thinking of it so much like people really not wanting God to exist.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: More just I think you know, every generation absorbs a worldview they can't see beyond.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: Who was it?
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: One of the founders of quantum mechanics, I think, who said, you know, science proceeds one funeral at a time, you know, it's a pretty gruesome way of saying, you know.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, you know, certain sea w when panpsychism started getting taken more seriously a decade ago, you know, certain senior members of of the profession really incredibly aggressive and abusive to me, you know, because they've spent their whole careers teaching this stuff and then um and then things turn around.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, here's a here's a small example.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um I feel very silly defending cosmic purpose to my peers, and it took a lot of you know time to build up to this.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: I still feel silly talking to my peers about this, you know, because it's it's it's a bit weird, isn't it?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I've got a very close childhood friend who's is kind of is an atheist and doesn't like religion, and when I talk about these things, he says, Oh, this is just your Catholic upbringing.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I sort of think, my Catholic upbringing I rejected quite easily when I was 14, upsetting my grandmother.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: But and whereas, you know, what has more of an impact on me is the intellectual circles I swim in that not deliberately but make me feel very silly talking about this stuff.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: So as I say, probably it's a benefit that I'm kind of thick skinned and I can kind of rise to the challenge, and and um that's just uh so but yeah, I think I think that's just always the way humanity works.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but every paradigm is difficult to overturn.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: People humans always think they're at the end of history.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: They always think they're at the end of history, that's it.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's press into then why for you um fine-tuning is is sort of answered by a god-ish hypothesis.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think you've got some um uh you've got some words of caution to to raise for the Christian um but before we all sort of say, okay, it's the it's the omni god of classical theism, all powerful, all good, all-knowing.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he is behind the cosmic fine-tuning.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um you want to raise the issue of the problem of evil.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, can you can you raise that problem for us in in a way that that our our viewers will will feel, and we can then maybe kind of uh uh push the question back and forth?
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: The way I raise it in in my book uh it's maybe a little bit distinctive.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I talk about what I call the cosmic sin intuition, which is just the intuition uh that it if there were a being who could do anything and knew everything, it would be morally wrong for them to create a universe like this.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh why is that?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean I think that maybe that the the problem has deepened as we become sensitive to the suffering of of non-human animals, you know.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean th the explanations theologians have offered for why God allows suffering, things like free will or that suffering can deepen you or something, you know, these tend to apply to human beings, but what about the gruesomeness of of the natural world?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um what a b why would a loving God who can do anything choose to bring us into existence through such a gruesome long-winded process like evolution by natural selection?
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think why would such a God choose to create us with bodies that randomly get old and ill and fall apart, and good fortune so unevenly distributed, and um you know, to me just a superficial look at the world, there seem a lot that is pointless, tragic, gratuitous.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um there seem also some things that are too good to be fluke, like the fine-tuning.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, to my mind that the universe as we find it is a is a cocktail of accident and design, and we need something that accommodates both.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that's the basic idea that it seems to me that it would be it would be wrong for a being who could do anything to create a universe like this if they have other options.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to press into um is that intuition of cosmic sin uh that intuition that you know if if um I I've heard you um say this in another context, that that if if I was to generate a world um like like a can in a computer game, and yet every single character within the computer game was conscious themselves and could feel the pain that they were going through and and feel the pleasure that they were going through, um that to generate this world, the the kind of world that we have in in the year 2025 and and everything that led up to it, that that itself um would never get past any kind of ethics board.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um that that is not that would not be an ethical or righteous thing to have done.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to press into is that the sort of intuition that Westerners have in 2025?
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: Might it be the same thing might might it be the same intuition that we would have in in 1725 or in 1425?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um and does and does that matter if it's if if our intuitions are so culturally and and and necessarily culture bound?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is that important?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um how how do we think through the value of an intuition that is held um here in 2025?
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's uh yeah, it's a fascinating take on the problem and one I haven't reflected on that much.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I s I would say part of it is that I think the problem has become deeper as we've become more sensitive to the the moral significance of non-human animals, but then I suppose I would say well that is a a a cognitive advance that moral that that non-human animals, in my view, do have this moral significance that perhaps we were previously unaware of.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose also yeah, I mean I guess I don't know I'm a kind of liberal progressive kind of person.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know morality has advanced as we've come to see the importance of of human rights, uh well, human dignity, partly through Christianity, at least partly.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh um and that has deepened the problem.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose I I think you know, a creator who allowed cancer and hurricanes and all the rest of it would be infringing the the rights of people, their right to freedom, their right to life, their right to security.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um now people yeah, people think there's something wrong with with um saying that of God, you know, God is bound to respect our rights, but yeah, why not?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if uh the moral intuitions that I find myself at least with in the 21st century to do with human rights, to do with the moral importance of non-human animals do seem to me to make it pretty implausible that there is an all-powerful loving cre creator behind it all.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe those moral intuitions are incorrect.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we had a better idea of things a thousand years ago.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I suppose all you can ever do is work with the moral moral intuitions that seem most evident to you, w with due humility, of course, that you that you might be wrong.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't have certainty that God doesn't exist, but my moral understanding as I take it to be seems to me to render it not very probable.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think for me as a as a Christian Um and recognizing that that my moral intuitions are as um likely to be in error as anybody's, I I I I kind of take I kind of take comfort from in Hebrews chapter 12 it says that uh Jesus um for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I I I would not know how to make any kind of calculus of the suffering of this world and any good that could come out of the redemptive act of Christ.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I I can't make that call, but that there is one person who is sufficient to make the call uh and who has taken on himself, you know, in my understanding, has taken on himself the suffering of the cosmos burned down on a single point.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he seemed to think that the suffering of the world was worth it for um a redemptive hope that is beyond.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, um I I never want to solve the problem of evil.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think the the main problem that you need to have with the problem of evil is to make sure that you've got the problem.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um the the real trick is to ensure that you have a problem if if if somehow you know my solution to the problem of evil was oh there's X, Y, and Z, so so obviously everybody needs to suffer hor horrif horrifically.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that would be that would be an immoral solution to the problem of evil.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think we need to maintain this category of evil, but I think within the Christian story there is there is evil and there is redemption, such that you know when we look at the world of today, we're not looking at the finished article, but that we are looking at act two of a drama um in which um you know the the the the ending is good um and there's a heck of a lot of darkness in the middle.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is it worth all that darkness for a you know a a proposed happily ever after?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not in a position to make the call, but there was one guy who was in the position to make the call, he endured the suffering and thought it was worth it for the hope.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: How do you process what uh what I've just said there?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: That was yeah, it was very nicely articulated, and I I do think the more plausible, to my mind, at least, responses to the problem of evil do press the mystery and the something we're not getting here.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: My my colleague Karen Kilby is a esteemed Catholic theologian, pushes things in these in this direction.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I mean one response I get going back to Twitter again is you know, who are you to question God's judgments?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you God knows better than you.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: And look, of course, if there is a God, if look, if there is a God who is all-powerful and perfectly good, then God's judgments are right and mine are wrong, obviously.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I just I've just about enough humility to admit that.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but look, when we're in a position of uncertainty about whether God does exist, at least as an all-powerful being, I believe in God in some sense.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: But when when that is uncertain, then we've got to assess the situation, and and it seems to me all we can do is use our own moral reasoning.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: What what else am I gonna do to assess that?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have an analogy in in the Y book, um Dark Matter, you know, the many physicists think, what is it, 93% of our universe is dark matter or energy, so we you know it's a very small proportion of the universe we have access to.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: You might say, well, we should give up physics because we're in such a position of ignorance.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we don't, do we?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: We we we just do the best we can with what we have.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: So so uh in assessing whether God exists or whether an all-powerful God exists, I I do the best I can with my moral reasoning to make a judgment.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I hope God is you know understands that I'm doing the best I can if God does exist.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it, you know, it it seems to me um it there would even if there is a wonderful afterlife that sort of in a sense more than compensates, because it it it's so much more uh uh joy than there had been suffering, still it's hard to see what the expon what the need for there to be the suffering previously would be.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I can't I I don't think any plausible view has has been produced as to why there would need to be all this suffering.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so and and there are other options, there are other optimistic options.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think limited god is actually fits with Christianity and is an op is a hopeful optimistic option that to my mind just fits with the evidence and the arguments we have a little bit better.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's all very uncertain, of course.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: What's so from that understanding, pre preach to me a gospel that comforts me in the middle of suffering?
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: What would what would you say with like putting you the the most Christian hat you own on?
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm I'm uh uh a fellow sufferer in this veil of tears.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um what what would you say to me um with the sort of Christian understandings that that that that you've come to um that could give solace and comfort in the midst of the suffering?
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose the core of Christianit the Christianity I've come to embrace, which uh uh fits quite well with what is common in the Eastern Orthodox Church, is this idea that the that the purpose of the ultimate purpose of creation is for God and humanity and ultimately the entire universe to enter into a state of deep intimate uh organic unity.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the thought is th this is what Jesus was getting at in the um Last Supper monologue in John's Gospel when he talks about uh the vine and the branches, right?
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: But think about the idea of the vine and the branches, that the there's a connection of deep organic intimacy there.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if you read it carefully, there is a lot of oneness, this idea that um Jesus talks about a a sort of oneness between him and the Father that is now being kind of extended to the people he's talking to, extended to humanity, extended to creation.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so this is a way of thinking about Christianity where you know it's about God sharing in our form of existence so that we can share more deeply in God's form of existence.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this is a concept of Christianity which deeply resonates with me in a way that the understanding of Christianity that was taught to me as a Catholic child ri really didn't make sense to me.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I also think it fits quite well with this l limited God hypothesis on the more kind of intellectual side of things.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: So so I guess how I think Christianity, you know, there's a God who's who's on their way to making a a perfect universe where God and God and the universe are perfectly harmonized.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: But unfortunately, God just just can't do it with the click of God's fingers, right?
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: Can't do it in an instant.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: The only way they're able to do it is by creating a universe with the right physics that will eventually evolve intelligent life, and God knows that's kinda gonna be messy and there's gonna be a lot of suffering.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: God's I'm sorry, that's you know, this is all I could do.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: But ultimately, good will come out of that when creation is at the right stage, when creation is evolved enough, it starts to become uh more intimately involved, more deeply unified with God, the key moment here being uh the Jesus bit, and yeah, so there is a happy ending, and to my mind, it's in a way it's it's more poignant because God deeply regrets the suffering and the tragedy and the meaninglessness, and God wishes it were not so.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: I remember seeing things I never remember films, but then things stick out for me.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: I remember seeing a film about Martin Luther King, and when somebody was killed, and Martin Luther King said to the widow, you know, God is God is weeping for for this, for your loss, God is mourning for you, and then if God is all powerful, you sort of like you could have done something about it.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: But if you know, if God is it was unable to do it any other way.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, there's a happy ending and there's suffering along the way, but I guess we already knew that, didn't we?
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean I I'm constantly explaining the gospel in terms of you know, God's life is is life and light and love, and here we are in the darkness and death and disconnection.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what does love do?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, love enters into the pit and says, Your darkness will be my darkness, your your pit will be my pit, and your debts will be my debts, and uh and and and hence, you know, God the Son becomes God our brother, embraces us in the darkness, takes that darkness on himself on the cross, rises up again and says, I've taken your darkness, do you want my light, and and that oneness with him uh is is the you know the the the essence of of the good life that's offered.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I get I guess if it's this this Jesus who is revealed to us most purely um as the one who enters into our pit with his arms outstretched to the world, praying, Father, forgive.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um if cruciform love is the expression of of what God is like, then there there is something very profound about that and about that entailing suffering somehow.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: In in that, you know, the the probably the most mind-twisting verse for me in in the whole Bible is is Revelation chapter 13, verse 8 says that Jesus is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's there's something about the cross that reveals God and reveals the purposes for this world, um, right there from the foundation of this world, which is not the same sort of platonic ideal of a God that's just benignly smiling and above it all at all.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a very blood-earnest kind of a god.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that's kind of what it what what it doesn't explain suffering, but it but but it does make me expect suffering in a world.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: If if the way that God reveals God's self most purely is in Godforsaken execution, then we are in for a wild ride.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's that's very beautiful, and I will continue to uh reflect as I always do on some of the things you've said there.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean I you know, and I can uh sign up to a lot of that, yes.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose Christianity as I see it is about uh God sharing in our form of existence with all the suffering and pain that that involves so that we can share in God's form of existence?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose it's just the question is is that how God would have wanted it ideally, which I suppose goes along with God being all powerful, or is it how God has done it because God didn't have another option, you know, and I uh And ultimately I mean how much difference w will this make in terms of actual day-to-day spiritual practice?
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it's the problem of evil is an intellectual barrier.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_01: I did um uh a debate recently with the Christian writer Liz Oldfield and atheist Alex O'Connor and Rowan Williams one.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: Liz Oldfield said to me, you know, you're you're too intellectual, you're too Christianity is not about philosophy and well I mean you've got to do both.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do you mind the the intellectual stuff is is is a is a sort of gate gatekeeper, right?
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: You don't you shouldn't believe ludicrously improbable things, even if it feels right, you know, so the the And it was only when I found a way of I mean not that I was going out of my way to find it, but when this way of dealing with the problem of evil presents itself to me, that the the idea of a limited God, that the that Christianity then became much more probable that the intellectual gatekeeper opened opened the gates.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's still very uncertain.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: I always I want to add actually it's it's ver I'm very uncertain still whether Christianity is true or not.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think I'm at a position where I wouldn't be surprised if it was true, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't true.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, w when people are thinking about religion often they think, you know, but is it definitely true?
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think you should rather think two things.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: One, is it a credible possibility?
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a reasonable chance this is true?
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe not even 50%.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: And will it bring me happiness, right?
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: Will it bring me community, spiritual practice, a deeper sense of meaning and purpose?
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: So this way of thinking about things has opened the intellectual gateway to me and allowed me to trust and engage with this and it's brought me great joy and happiness, lessened my ego a little bit, allowed me to be more present and joyous in the present moment.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um so probably I wonder whether in terms of our actual spiritual practice that this would make much difference between us.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose I I'm less where it might make a difference, I don't know.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what your views is, but I I suppose I'm both intellectually and spiritually very opposed to penal substitution, the you know, this idea of Jesus taking our sins and um you know in some sense even being punished for our sins, or there are milder ways of putting that.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: I find that intellectually problematic, but also spiritually does nothing for me.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: So so for me, Christianity is more about this more sort of mystical idea of God and God and humanity becoming unified.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um but with the God of limited powers, um I'm not sure whether it would actually make that much of a difference.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it would.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: Something to think about more.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is fascinating, Philip.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I and and I think um there are many people who are in your position as well.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's certainly many people who show up in our church.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just in an Anglican church on the south coast of England, and there are people who aren't quite sure what they believe about anything, but they're very glad to be in church and to be drinking it in and trying it on for size, and we're very glad to have them.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and if people listening in to this uh assume anything about Christianity, um, well, if if uh they can answer your two questions um in anything like the affirmative, um, then I really do hope that they kind of give church a go.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and um yeah, as as Rupert Short uh has said on on this channel just a a couple of weeks ago, he says, um uh you you don't tend to think yourself into a new way of living.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: You you you do tend to live yourself into a new way of thinking.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I do see um people showing up in church and and finding hope and solace and maybe even finding God, you never know.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well uh yeah, I'm I'm an Anglican as well, and I mean like at my church there is a professor from the physics department who who believes even less than me, right?
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: He sort of doesn't believe any of the specific he's got he said to me once, why do you believe all that mumbo jumbo?
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he's he sort of has a a sense, a very deep sense of a greater spiritual reality, but that's it.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's not none of the more specifics, and he's at church every week and he's engaged and he's uh he he did a talk on his faith and was was weeping with emotion.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: So he has a very a very deep spiritual sense that it connects him to the community.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: A physicist as well, uh well, an astronomer.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: Good with me.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why I qualified that.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_01: But uh yes, no, no, that that all resonates with me.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I just you know, I I would like I've just started a book actually, um a new book on sort of reimagining religion, and one of the people I'm I'm I'm really aiming at the spiritual but not religious group, and maybe just saying that there's like a way of thinking about religion that you might be able to engage with and that will bring you bring you concrete things like a community, like a structured practice.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, being spiritual and not religious, as I was for many years, can be can be kind of aimless, uh unstructured, lonely, you know.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I suppose that that's one thing I'm trying to convey to people.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you don't have to be totally certain this is true, I'm certainly not totally certain it's true.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you can even be a bit heretical if your Anglican community is alright with that, which uh which mine certainly is.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, yes, that makes sense to me.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, Philip, if people want to keep up with you online and if they want to read some more from you, uh can you give us some uh best next steps?
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, the books I've talked about uh why the purpose of the universe on the more god atheism middle way stuff, Galileo's era, I guess, is the the m one more on consciousness and panpsychism.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: My website, PhilipGoughphilosophy.com, has a lot of videos and articles and so on.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: I write a lot of popular articles.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always, unfortunately always arguing on X Philip underscore goth, Philip with one L and Blue Sky now.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um too much time.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to have a fight, do so.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: Got a substack I write on a little bit.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've probably forgotten some other things, but that'll do for now.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: Philip Gough, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's been lovely.