TLDR;
The speaker recounts his journey from a devout Catholic upbringing through atheism and agnosticism to belief in theism. He presents a cumulative philosophical case arguing that theism is a reasonably simple and coherent hypothesis that explains a wide range of otherwise surprising features of reality better than naturalism does.
- Contingency arguments support a necessary foundation for reality, while the universe’s laws, fine-tuning, consciousness, rationality, moral knowledge, beauty, and religious experiences are presented as evidence favoring theism.
- The speaker responds to objections involving suffering, divine hiddenness, evolution, the multiverse, and alternative non-theistic explanations.
- He concludes that theism is more probable than its competitors, while noting that further videos will address miracles and the distinctively Catholic case.
Intro and Outline [0:00]
Joe Schmid introduces a three-video series presenting his case for Catholicism. This first video focuses on natural theology: his personal path from Catholicism through atheism and agnosticism to theism, followed by a cumulative philosophical argument for God’s existence. The series’ later videos are planned to cover miracles, alternative explanations of miraculous claims, objections to Catholicism, and his conversion itself. Schmid directs viewers to a resource document containing further reading and materials, as well as a full script available to patrons.
Catholic Upbringing [5:32]
Schmid grew up devoutly Catholic. He prayed, read the Bible, attended the sacraments, went to Catholic school, and regularly debated religious and philosophical questions. Learning about evolution in middle school initially unsettled him because he wondered how it fit with the Catholic teaching that humanity’s first parents fell from grace. He later encountered models of theistic evolution, including proposals in which God used evolutionary processes and specially endowed ancestral humans with rational souls and supernatural gifts. These approaches let him retain both Catholicism and evolution for a time.
The Deconversion [7:12]
In high school, Schmid’s faith deteriorated as he considered the suffering built into evolution: animals endured predation, parasitism, starvation, disease, and natural disasters over immense stretches of time. This seemed more expected under naturalism—a view in which nature is ultimately purposeless and indifferent—than under belief in a perfectly good, powerful God. He also encountered arguments concerning evil, religious diversity, divine hiddenness, and problems in Christianity, including apparent biblical contradictions and troubling Old Testament passages. After extensive research, he concluded that he was a naturalistic atheist, believing the universe was all that existed and that religion was largely a product of social and evolutionary forces.
The Agnostic Turn [12:52]
Before his final year of high school, Schmid discovered the YouTube channel Worldview Design, where Josh Rasmussen presented arguments for God and engaged seriously with objections. Schmid corresponded with Rasmussen, then read work by Alexander Pruss on contingency, the principle of sufficient reason, modality, and infinity. These arguments challenged his confidence in naturalism. He also realized he had not encountered many serious arguments defended by professional philosophers and had judged the question of God’s existence prematurely. By the start of college, he suspended judgment and remained agnostic through college and his first year of graduate school.
Intro to the Contingency Argument [15:27]
Schmid explains the distinction between contingent and necessary things. A contingent thing could have failed to exist, while a necessary thing cannot fail to exist; for example, people and ordinary objects are contingent, whereas the truth that 1 + 1 = 2 is necessary. He argues that contingent things plausibly require explanations. An endless chain of contingent causes does not explain why that entire chain exists, just as a chain of shiny spheres would still need an explanation even if it continued infinitely. If contingent things have explanations, their ultimate explanation cannot itself be contingent without assuming the existence it is meant to explain. This points toward a necessary foundation for contingent reality.
The Shift Toward Theism [31:32]
Three considerations renewed Schmid’s inquiry into theism during graduate school: he became less persuaded by objections to fine-tuning, encountered the argument from psychophysical harmony, and found empirical reports of supernatural phenomena difficult to explain atheistically. He stresses that this video’s philosophical case is not the whole case for Catholicism; later arguments from miracles are intended to provide further evidence. The philosophical arguments still matter because, in his view, a strong case for theism can make someone more receptive to evidence for miracles.
Master Argument for Theism [33:32]
Schmid’s central argument is Bayesian: theism is not very improbable before empirical evidence is considered, and it predicts the evidence much better than atheism. If a hypothesis has a reasonable prior probability and strongly predicts the data, then the data make that hypothesis probable. He argues that theism is simple, coherent, and non-arbitrary, rather than an implausible hypothesis requiring an extremely low starting probability. The argument’s two main premises are that theism has a reasonable intrinsic probability and that it explains or predicts the evidence better than naturalism.
First Premise: Theism’s Intrinsic Probability [36:10]
The intrinsic probability, or prior, of a hypothesis is its probability before empirical evidence is taken into account. Schmid uses comparisons such as spatial uniformity versus a universe with an unexplained anomalous patch, and temporal uniformity versus laws that arbitrarily stop applying in 2050. Both alternatives might fit present observations, but uniformity seems more probable because it is simpler, more compressible, and less arbitrary. He identifies modesty, simplicity, non-arbitrariness, and coherence as factors affecting a hypothesis’s intrinsic probability. Theism, understood as a fundamental mind unlimited in power, knowledge, and goodness, is immodest in what it rules out but may compensate through its simple, unified, and coherent account of ultimate reality. He presents several ways of unifying the divine attributes, including deriving them from perfection, limitless mentality, or a basic orientation toward value.
Objections to the First Premise [56:24]
A central objection says naturalism must be simpler because it posits only the natural universe, whereas theism adds God. Schmid replies that counting entities alone does not determine simplicity: a theory with more entities can be simpler at its fundamental level if it explains complex data through a compact underlying principle. Solipsism and the “short past” hypothesis illustrate how apparently simpler accounts can require a complicated, coincidental collection of unexplained facts. He argues that theism may unify data that naturalism must accept as separate brute coincidences. He also maintains that theism need not prove that its divine attributes are likely fundamental; it is enough that there is a non-negligible chance that they are, or that they follow from a simpler foundational attribute.
Second Premise: Evidence for Theism [1:02:30]
A fact supports a hypothesis when it is more likely under that hypothesis than under its rival. Schmid illustrates this with DNA at a crime scene: it is evidence of guilt because it is more expected if the person committed the crime. He then lays out the evidence he will examine: contingency, laws of nature, nomological harmony, fine-tuning, psychophysical luck, non-skepticism, moral and other a priori knowledge, beauty, and religious experience. He begins by comparing theism mainly with naturalistic atheism, then considers non-naturalistic alternatives.
Contingency [1:04:47]
Schmid restates a more modest contingency argument: for any contingent thing, there is at least a defeasible presumption that it has an explanation, meaning an explanation is reasonable to expect unless there is evidence against one. Applied to contingent reality as a whole, this supports the probable existence of a necessary foundation and reduces the probability of views that deny any such foundation. He argues that a necessary foundation is more naturally understood as unlimited than as a limited deity or an initial singularity with arbitrary finite properties. He also replies that a necessary being can explain contingent things without making them necessary: its explanation could involve a free choice among possible outcomes rather than a deterministic process.
Laws of Nature [1:08:46]
Even if contingent reality exists, it need not contain laws governing how its contents change. A universe might instead have lawless initial conditions that remain static or evolve chaotically. Schmid argues that laws are more expected under theism because orderly development makes valuable outcomes—such as conscious life, knowledge, love, virtue, agency, and relationships—possible. This argument depends on rejecting “Humeanism” about laws, the view that laws are merely summaries of patterns in spacetime. Schmid notes that under many non-Humean views, including governing-law and powers-based theories, a universe without laws remains conceivable.
Nomological Harmony [1:10:52]
Nomological harmony is the fact that the laws of nature match the universe’s contents so that the laws can govern those contents and produce change over time. Schmid compares this to a game whose rulebook fits the pieces on its board; a mismatch between laws and physical contents would leave the universe unable to evolve in the way ours does. He argues that the match is highly fortunate under naturalism but unsurprising if a good God seeks a world containing valuable outcomes. He considers three theories of laws: Humeanism, the powers theory, and the governing view. In his account, Humeanism faces problems including circular explanation, disagreement about what laws exist, and a “cosmic coincidence” problem; the powers theory relocates the issue to why the relevant powers fit the actual contents; and governing-law theories still face the original matching problem. Proposals involving vast ensembles of laws or universes may incur costs in simplicity, lack support from standard physics, or generate skeptical scenarios involving short-lived observer duplicates.
Fine-Tuning [1:29:18]
Fine-tuning refers to the fact that the universe’s laws, constants, and initial conditions fall within ranges that permit life and other valuable phenomena. Schmid distinguishes fine-tuned law structures from fine-tuned constants and initial conditions, and also discusses fine-tuning for discoverability and an a priori version of the argument. He argues that countless simpler laws would produce barren, static, chaotic, or trivial universes, while the actual laws permit complex, evolving structures. The cosmological constant is a key example: a value roughly one part in 10¹²⁰ larger would prevent stable structures from forming, while a comparable decrease would cause rapid collapse. Physicist Luke Barnes estimates that, taking relevant factors together, the chance of a life-permitting universe under naturalism is below one in 10¹³⁶. Schmid also presents evidence that certain parameters may make the universe unusually discoverable by scientific observers, and argues that the universe’s coherent, value-supporting history is more expected under theism than under purposeless chance.
Seventeen Objections to Fine-Tuning [1:51:11]
Schmid responds to seventeen objections to fine-tuning. The puddle analogy fails because a puddle conforms to whatever hole it occupies, whereas life cannot exist outside a narrow life-permitting range. The anthropic principle—our inability to observe a universe incompatible with our existence—does not show that the observed constants are equally likely under theism and naturalism; survival after a firing squad would still be evidence of intentional intervention. The argument is not limited to carbon-based life, and Bayesian reasoning can assess unique events without relying solely on repeated samples or frequentist probability. It requires conceptual alternatives for the constants, not proof that each alternative is metaphysically possible.
Schmid argues that saying the constants are necessary does not automatically remove the evidence: a general claim that their actual values are necessary does not explain why those values fall in the life-permitting range, while specifying that these exact values are necessary carries a correspondingly low prior. He also rejects the idea that God requires fine-tuning, since God is not a composite object made of narrowly calibrated parts. Other objections—such as the claim that life has no objective value, that the universe is mostly lifeless, or that a designer’s intentions are unspecified—are addressed by arguing that theism need not make life overwhelmingly probable, that several plausible goods may explain a sparse universe, and that an all-good God can be expected to favor valuable outcomes. He further argues that limitations on probability measures, appeals to the principle of indifference, deeper laws, and multiverse hypotheses do not remove all fine-tuning evidence. In particular, standard multiverse proposals do not explain discoverability or the selection of life-permitting law structures, and may invite Boltzmann-brain and skeptical problems.
Psychophysical Luck [3:09:52]
Psychophysical luck is the collection of fortunate ways consciousness is linked to physical reality. Schmid first explains dualism, the view that consciousness and matter are fundamentally distinct, and contrasts it with physicalism. If dualism is true, psychophysical laws specify which physical states are associated with which experiences. He argues that such laws are surprising under naturalism because consciousness enables valuable things such as love, enjoyment, knowledge, and rational agency, but less surprising under theism.
He then introduces psychonomic harmony: the fact that the psychophysical principles pair consciousness with physical states that actually occur. They could instead have linked consciousness only to impossible arrangements, nonexistent matter, or states never realized in our universe. A third group of facts concerns the ways consciousness is connected to value: our perceptions generally correspond to the environment, our feelings and actions tend to align rationally, and our conscious lives avoid an overwhelming proliferation of overlapping subjects. Schmid argues that these features are improbable under naturalism but expected if God intends to create conscious beings capable of valuable lives.
Eight Objections to Psychophysical Luck [3:46:56]
Schmid argues that natural selection cannot explain psychophysical harmony because evolution selects physical behaviors and structures, not which experiences are paired with them. If the psychophysical mapping had been different while the physical processes remained the same, evolution could have proceeded identically but produced experiences that were chaotic, unhelpful, or inverted. He maintains that this problem persists on dualist, panpsychist, and most physicalist views; even if psychophysical identities are metaphysically necessary, alternative mappings remain epistemically conceivable.
He addresses further objections involving physicalism, phenomenal powers, normative roles, multiverses, imperfect or disharmonious experiences, God’s own supposed “psychophysical luck,” and Philip Goff’s rational panagentialism. He contends that appeals to necessary psychophysical principles do not eliminate the evidence, that conscious qualities need not automatically produce their familiar physical effects, and that standard multiverse models do not vary the psychophysical rules. Imperfections in memory or perception, he argues, do not outweigh the broader evidence that mental life is highly orderly and useful. Rational panagentialism, the proposal that fundamental matter responds rationally to experience, is said to relocate the mystery to the microphysical level and fail to explain how rational micro-experiences yield harmonious human-scale experiences and subjects.
Non-Skepticism [5:00:48]
Schmid argues that it is striking that human beings avoid many possible skeptical scenarios, including deception by spirits, simulations that began recently or may soon end, Boltzmann brains, disembodied minds, philosophical zombies, and arbitrary breakdowns in the laws of nature. These possibilities threaten knowledge of the past, future, external world, other minds, and science. He compares their shared feature to the presence of several Inuit people at the same street corner: separate explanations for each case may be possible, but a common explanation is more satisfying. Theism, he argues, unifies the fact that people generally do not occupy skeptical scenarios: God would be unlikely to create a world that systematically frustrates human knowledge and flourishing.
Beauty and Aesthetic Experience [5:35:02]
Schmid lists the variety of beauty found in nature, organisms, deep space, landscapes, mathematics, music, architecture, art, cultures, and ideas. He argues that the world could have been aesthetically dull while still containing conscious beings, so its abundance of beauty is more surprising under naturalism than theism. God could have reason to create beauty because it is valuable, can draw people toward God, and displays intelligence and creative power. The existence of beings capable of appreciating beauty is also not guaranteed by evolution. Responding to ugliness as counterevidence, Schmid draws on Augustine’s idea that apparently ugly parts may contribute to a beautiful whole, and argues that ugliness can create contrast, enable aesthetic development, or serve other goods.
Religious Experience [5:46:53]
Schmid presents accounts of people who reported experiences of God, Jesus, saints, angels, or heaven. Examples include a person who became Catholic after praying for the intercession of Mary and Augustine and then dreaming in Latin about the saints; a former leader of a Satanic organization who reported encountering Jesus; a man who attributed a woman’s recovery to a Hail Mary he had prayed; a child who said Jesus showed him heaven and instructed him to be baptized before a fatal illness; a couple who described seeing a luminous figure of Christ; and a motorcyclist whose crash was reportedly anticipated by a warning received by another driver. Schmid does not present these stories as a complete proof of Catholicism, but as examples of religious experiences and apparent corroborations that occur widely.
He argues that such experiences are more expected if God seeks relationships with people. He also discusses Richard Swinburne’s principles: people are generally justified in trusting how things seem to them unless they have a defeater, and testimony about others’ experiences can also be trusted absent a defeater. In response to objections, Schmid argues that religious experiences do not always directly contradict one another, that many are corroborated by other people or events, that neurological correlates do not prove they are false, and that the absence of religious experience in some people does not cancel the evidence from those who report it.
Summary of the Evidence [6:16:10]
Schmid brings together the preceding arguments as a cumulative case. Contingency points toward a necessary foundation, while laws, nomological harmony, fine-tuning, psychophysical order, non-skepticism, moral and a priori knowledge, beauty, and religious experiences are presented as distinctively favorable to theism. He argues that these facts form a pattern of “fortunate coincidences” that naturalism must treat separately or leave unexplained, while theism offers a unified explanation. He compares the explanatory role of theism to evolution, which explains many otherwise separate biological patterns through one framework. He also claims that evidence against theism, especially evil and hiddenness, is less independent than the positive evidence: once one major problem has been considered, other forms of suffering or apparent deficiency may be less surprising under the remaining theistic hypotheses.
Evidence Against Theism [6:24:13]
Schmid acknowledges that the problem of evil, divine hiddenness, and religious diversity may provide evidence against theism. He argues that the cumulative evidence for theism can outweigh it, and that a range of non-negligibly probable theodicies—explanations of why God permits evil—can reduce how surprising suffering is under theism. These include the goods of free will, opportunities to help others, self-sacrificial love, virtue-building, and redemption. He also appeals to modest skeptical theism: given the gap between human and divine understanding, God may have reasons for permitting some evils that humans do not recognize, without implying that all evidence about God is inscrutable.
The Problem of Evil [6:25:36]
Schmid lists possible goods that may require or make serious suffering more likely: morally significant freedom, opportunities to improve others’ welfare, costly love, and virtues such as courage, compassion, mercy, patience, and resilience. Christian doctrines of incarnation, redemption, and atonement are also presented as goods that may be connected to humanity’s estrangement from God. He argues that humans may not be able to assess the full value of a world whose history and possible afterlife extend beyond what they can observe. A modest form of skeptical theism therefore weakens the inference from apparently pointless suffering to atheism, while leaving open that sufficiently extreme patterns of suffering could still count against theism.
Hiddenness and religious diversity [6:38:20]
Schmid argues that hiddenness and religious disagreement are not fully independent from the problem of evil, since a God who permits great suffering might also permit periods of non-belief and confusion. He suggests that religious diversity can create opportunities for people to help one another find truth, form deeper relationships, and develop perseverance, humility, courage, and faith. Non-belief may also coexist with an implicit relationship to God that later becomes explicit; Schmid sees his own decade away from faith as having increased his empathy for nonbelievers and his appreciation of religious arguments. He adds that Catholic teaching does not condemn people merely for non-culpably belonging to another religion and holds that God gives all people sufficient grace for salvation, though the manner is known to God. These considerations, he says, do not eliminate the evidence from hiddenness or diversity but reduce its force.
Non-Naturalistic Alternatives to Theism [6:45:05]
Schmid compares theism with non-naturalistic alternatives, including axiarchism, teleological laws, the simulation hypothesis, and limited-God views. He says such alternatives often explain less of the evidence, unify it less effectively, have lower intrinsic probability because of complexity or arbitrariness, collapse into theism, or lead to skepticism. Axiarchism holds that reality exists because its existence is good, but Schmid considers this explanation incomplete unless a mind chooses to bring about the good; he also argues that axiarchism may make God’s existence more probable. Teleological laws—laws directing the universe toward value—cannot explain the existence of physical laws, contingency, or many forms of psychophysical harmony unless they are made fundamental in a way that approaches axiarchism.
The simulation hypothesis leaves unanswered questions about the base reality and may undermine confidence in the past, distant places, and other people if they are not included in the simulation. It also relocates problems involving fine-tuning, moral knowledge, and psychophysical harmony to the simulators. Limited-God views face a tradeoff: vague limits make them poor at predicting evidence, while precise limits are arbitrary and lower their prior probability. If a limited God can explain the positive evidence for theism, Schmid argues, that God may also be capable of addressing evil and hiddenness, making the proposed limitation less helpful. He concludes that these alternatives are inferior to theism in explanatory power, coherence, or probability.
Summary: The Master Argument for Theism [7:18:23]
Schmid restates his conclusion: theism is not especially improbable before empirical evidence because it is reasonably simple, coherent, and non-arbitrary. It also predicts the total evidence better than the most intrinsically plausible versions of atheism, while alternatives that predict the evidence similarly well are said to have much lower prior probabilities. Therefore, he concludes, theism is probably true. He ends by saying that the next stage of his broader case will present what he considers even stronger evidence: miracles, including miracles he believes support Catholicism specifically.
