Our weekly Saturday Q&A this week will host our very own Michael Jones of Inspiring Philosophy. If you want to have your questions answered, you don't want to miss this call!

It’s that time again 🎉 Wednesday objection handling and real-time apologetics conversation training 💯 Super excited to be back for another week with you all. Looking forward to seeing what everyone brings. Let’s get it 🙌🏽

Tim mentioned a good Christian philosopher (seems to be Catholic) on the problem of evil and I completely forgot. Posting to recollect so I can watch. Thanks!

If you’ve been on the internet for any significant period of time, you’ve come across creators, comments, and debates where someone throws around the phrase “that’s a bad answer” or “that doesn’t answer the problem.” But for whatever reason, no one has stopped to ask: what do we mean by “good answer”? This has always baffled me. If both parties (assuming good intent) desire to be as objective as possible, then why has this notion of “a good answer” not been unpacked or precisified? It seems like the most obvious and fundamental step to take. And yet, mainstream apologetics never stops to first provide clarity. Here’s what we don’t want: a good answer being one where the person receiving the answer feels satisfied. Why? Because that turns something objective into something psychological. If our goal is to track the truth, then why is our litmus test for rationality someone’s psychological state, rather than the merit of the reasons given? That is clearly not the right way to go. Ultimately, we don’t care about the psychology of answers, but the epistemology of answers. Epistemology concerns anything to do with giving reasons for a belief. In apologetics, epistemology is the cornerstone of what we do. So the question becomes: what is the right epistemology of answers? And to that, we turn to a fun little concept called “ad hocness.” You’ve probably heard this term used a lot. “That’s ad hoc!” someone declares, as though the rest of the discussion is now moot. However, there’s quite a bit to say about this concept, and it’s much more nuanced than many make it out to be. Ad hocness occurs when the explanation given to save the truth of one’s belief(s) cannot be ascertained from the principles within that person’s already-held framework. In other words: when resisting having one’s belief(s) defeated, if what’s appealed to is not already expected within their system, it’s said to be ad hoc. Now, you can already see how most who throw around the term do not use it in this rigorous of a manner. Keep note of that.

I’ll be running a few minutes late to tonight’s call! Thank you for the patience 🙏🏽