What I Learned Watching Dad Saves America Interview Matt Fradd

Timmy Bauer

0:00Today I'm going to be reacting to Dad Saves America's interview with Matt Fred. So this is the first reaction or breakdown or whatever, like watching of virtual interviews of people that I admire. So my goal is to watch every virtual interview that I can find, where it's an interviewer that I may or may not know, interviewing somebody that I admire, Matt, Fred, somebody I've been listening to for a while now.

0:31I just really like his podcast, and there's not many people, there's not many interviews of people interviewing him. And so he's somebody that I am subscribed to, I admire, and Dad Saves America. I think I've listened to one ever interview of him interviewing somebody, and he does virtual interviews, which is what I'm interested in in this little project.

0:54So I'm just going to watch it and I'm looking for things like way he starts the video. How does he do? What kinds of questions does he ask? Like I'm looking for moments where I think as an interviewer he's doing something interesting or shining or like, yeah, that sort of thing. So I'm just gonna watch it and let's see what happens.

Dad Saves America

1:17As I approach 50. Catholic school will do that to you. The school will do.

1:28Matt. Fred, welcome to Dad saves America. Thank you for having me on. So it's it's dad meets Fred here in Holy Week heading into Easter and I am I am a I am a cradle Catholic who is coming back to.

Timmy Bauer

1:45So that was, you know, like kind of a little joke there on the beginning. Dad meets Fred. Cool. No problem. But then he jumps right into this is now his intro, and he's leading with something interesting. He's saying I am a cradle Catholic. So that gives us a sense of where this is going, or like how he's going to lead into his first question.

Dad Saves America

2:08To actually paying attention to being Catholic.

Timmy Bauer

2:11And why this would be interesting to us, the listener.

Dad Saves America

2:14Which when you're a cradle Catholic, often you don't pay that much attention to you, sort of. You do your you do your your thing. I went to 12 years of Catholic school. And then and then I think, like a lot of Catholics, I kind of left. I parked that not in the past, per se, but I sort of parked it in the back of my life and my identity.

2:35And now as I approach 15, Catholic school will do that to you. The school will do that to you. But I was so excited for the chance for us to speak, because I think you are among sort of, I think, the leading voices and engaging the culture on behalf of the faith. You're the host of pints with Aquinas.

2:53And and for viewers who aren't familiar at all with what this week mean.

Timmy Bauer

3:01Oh, I thought he was going to do the. And for viewers who aren't familiar at all with you, introduce yourself. He doesn't do that, which I think is good.

Dad Saves America

3:09You know, we intend to release this on Thursday, the day before.

Timmy Bauer

3:13He just kind of says, like, everybody knows you for X.

Dad Saves America

3:18Holy Thursday before Good Friday, before Easter Sunday. What does this week mean to Christians? Why is this week important?

Matt Fradd

3:28Yeah. So the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Christ.

Timmy Bauer

3:33What I love is they're getting right into the topic. They're not spending any time on introductions. I think that's a great thing. I'm sure in this series I'm going to find interviewers that do introductions. I just love that. I personally love going right into the topic, or going right into the discussion with a topic that the listener would find interesting.

3:55It's still kind of a softball topic. It's like, what's the meaning of Holy Week? That's pretty like, that's a layup of all right, start talking person. Start talking about something we both care about.

Matt Fradd

4:10What saves or redeems humanity. And so it's our holiest of weeks. We celebrated the triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem called Palm Sunday yesterday on Sunday. And so we follow our blessed Lord. Throughout this most intensive weeks. We have the the Last Supper and the washing of the disciples feet, the agony in the garden, the arrest of the good Jesus, his torture and sentencing to death.

4:40We see the the apostles. All but John flee from him. So you see John and his mother Mary Magdalene at the cross. And then there's that awkward pause on Saturday where no one really knows what to do, because we're not necessarily remembering the crucifixion, and we're not yet at the resurrection. So we just sort of sit and we wait now.

Timmy Bauer

5:00So Matt started answering the question with some like, facts, just factual information, but now you can tell by the tone of his voice that he's hit on something that is like, interesting or potentially worth talking about. So I wouldn't be surprised if dad saves America asks a question related to. Oh yeah, I noticed. Yeah, I've noticed that too.

5:23This whole thing about what do we do on Saturday? I'm curious. I've not watched this, so let's find out.

Matt Fradd

5:29Until we celebrate the resurrection of Christ.

Dad Saves America

5:32The, What do you say.

Timmy Bauer

5:36He's thinking of? Where do I take this conversation next? Or he's thinking, like there was a thought that he had while Matt was talking, and he's trying to, like, resurface it.

Dad Saves America

5:46To the the person who says something along the lines of, I don't know about Jesus coming back from the dead, but I think he's.

Timmy Bauer

5:55So he has skipped the potentially interesting thing that Matt said to continue with his main idea of like, I think this, I think, well, let's see where he's going and then I'll.

Dad Saves America

6:11His teachings are great. He's a great moral teacher. And so I, you know, I'm, I'm down with Jesus because I like what he has to say. But all this magical stuff about coming back from the dead and ascending into heaven, that all sounds I don't know about. I don't know about any of that. How do you respond to somebody who feels like they're maybe a cultural Christian, or just sort of a a moral, philosophy ish Christian ish?

Timmy Bauer

6:37Yeah. Okay. He's he's staying in his main topic like, he which, which was, like Christian Identity but not actual believer. That was the initial thing he first started talking about. And even though Matt said something that might be interesting to latch on to, which I would be tempted to as an interviewer, he's keeping the conversation on that.

7:03I don't know that it's necessarily a wrong or right move here I, I lean towards hook into the potentially interesting thing that the guest just said. Before you go back to your main idea.

Matt Fradd

7:18What are they, even a Christian? There's a lot of interpretations on our Lord. Some say he's a moral teacher, some say like a political revolutionary. Some say maybe merely a myth or what have you. All of these interpretations, other than the Christian one, seek to understand him apart from his divinity. So I would say that if Christ wasn't divine and if he didn't rise from the dead, then yeah, you're right not to believe that.

7:41Not to what? To want to believe that perhaps. So we could ask ourselves the question. Do we have any good reasons to think that's the case? But one thing C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity is, okay.

Timmy Bauer

7:54So this is just as an interviewer, I'm like, I'm listening for what am I going to? Where am I going to go next? Where can I leap from what the guest is saying? And so he gave a like a classical apologetic answer to that question. And then now he's going into something that occurred to his mind, something interesting that C.S. Lewis said.

8:17Da da da da da da. The tone shift in his tone makes me think that could be interesting to hook into.

Matt Fradd

8:24Is that given what Jesus said about himself, he's.

Timmy Bauer

8:28I think this is going to be the liar, lunatic Lord.

Matt Fradd

8:30Either who he says he is, namely the Lord and he's a liar, or he's kind of nuts. There's really no fourth option. There's no way of really coming at him respecting what he said with this, to quote Lewis patronizing nonsense of calling him a good moral teacher. I mean, he forgave people who didn't, you know, sin against him personally.

8:55If he wasn't the Lord, he said before Abraham was, I am. He said, all.

Timmy Bauer

9:00Of that's a great point. And like a very yeah, bold thing is like, who goes around saying, I forgive you to people that have not sinned against them? That's a very this is not that's not related to the interviewer. Interviewee.

Matt Fradd

9:17All of these things, he was he was killed, handed over to the Romans for, for, for blasphemy, for claiming to be God. And so if I claim to be God and I mean what I'm saying. Then I don't think you should be calling me a good moral teacher. I think you should either say, well, he was lying and he knew that he was lying or he was.

9:36He was nuts. Now Gary Habermas, Doctor William Lane, Craig, Trent Horn and others I think, have done some good work showing why the resurrection of Christ is the best explanation of the facts of the resurrection. This isn't something I'm studied up on, but whenever I listen to them, it makes sense to me. And so I guess I would encourage somebody say, I would encourage somebody who says that sort of thing.

10:01But no, I don't think you should call him a good moral teacher. And I would also say, I think it's good that you don't just want to believe something that's false just because it makes you feel good. I agree with that sentiment. When I was young, I believe.

Timmy Bauer

10:12I wonder what's going on in Dad Saves America's Head right now, because I know for me, when I'm interviewing somebody, there are two things happening at the same time. All the time I'm listening to what the person is saying and I'm thinking like, oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's that. And I'm like trying to remember, like, what are my thoughts?

10:31Like what questions popped into my head while they were talking. And then I'm also, if the person I'm interviewing stops talking and I happen to like, have a temporary moment of forgetting, like, what was I thinking I was going to ask? I have this like panic of like, where do I take the conversation from here?

Matt Fradd

10:51I believed in Father Christmas, as we called him in Australia, and when I did, especially around December, I was better behaved and happier probably. But just because something makes you moral and happy, that's not a good enough reason to believe it if it's false. So I think it's good that people want good answers to these things. They don't want to believe a lie.

11:12And I would say that there's good argumentation out there that they might be interested in looking into.

Dad Saves America

11:17All right. Real quick, if you like what you're seeing and you want to see more, be sure to hit the like button. Subscribe to the,

Timmy Bauer

11:25Interesting. All right, five minute mark. We got him saying like and subscribe.

Dad Saves America

11:30Channel and read the word. So it's one of the best things. You know, one of the things to support what we're doing. And now back to the show. You know, one of the things that I think was maybe the last time it was brought into like the broadest culture in America was with the movie The Passion of the Christ, the sheer brutality of the crucifixion.

11:54Anytime you go into a Catholic church and you see.

Timmy Bauer

11:57This makes me think that he's working through, I mean, he's got his notes right in front of him. He's working through a prompt list, because so far, he's not really latched on to anything that the guest has said conversationally. It seems like now he's gone to another prompt, which is the way that culture has responded to passion of the Christ.

Dad Saves America

12:21See the image of Christ hanging on the.

Timmy Bauer

12:24And there's not necessarily I mean, like, I don't I think if I wasn't analyzing this interview the way that I am, I don't think that I would be so critical. I think that I would just be like, oh, okay, that's the next thing they're talking about. So it's not necessarily I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's probably a good idea to have a prompt sheet in front of you for just about every interview you do, so that when you have that panic moment, you're able to just.

12:48All right. Forget what I was going to ask you. I'm going to go to my prompt.

Dad Saves America

12:53The cross. Sometimes it can be beautiful. Sometimes it's like he's like this and he's looking great, but a lot of times he's laying head down, bleeding. And it's and it's macabre. It's a, it's a, it's a brutal image. How do you think about that? How do you think about the. And I know you've written recently about sort of the way Thomas Aquinas talks about what we can learn by from Christ on the cross, but it is it's it's a bizarre image, objectively, to say, here comes.

Timmy Bauer

13:29Yeah, this this to me feels like 3 or 4 hard pivots, one right after the other, almost like he's being interrogated, which is again, it's it's not wrong. It's just I'm like, I'm looking at Matt. And so far, nothing he said has gotten latched on to like, worked from.

Dad Saves America

13:49The Son of God.

Timmy Bauer

13:51And and maybe this is fine and normal for a two hour interview. Maybe you do several of these before you hit on something that really takes you down a conversational road.

Dad Saves America

14:02Our image will be him mutilated.

Matt Fradd

14:06Yeah, I think we live in a bizarre world, and it's far more bizarre than we've been led to believe. And so how do I think of Christ on the cross? I like how Bishop Rob.

Timmy Bauer

14:17I could probably do this with guests because I've got my guests. Like information in front of me, and I can I can look at it and I can go, all right, based on the information about this guest. What? That's my son. All right. Based on the information about this guest. Like what things? Am I naturally curious about that?

14:44I could ask them that they would probably have something to say about. And I could basically just run through that list until I hit something that I want to dig deeper into. And I know that might seem like a no brainer, but it's not something I. It's not something I do like, and it takes just a little bit of thinking ahead of time.

15:03All right, here's my guest. Here's what they say. They're an expert in here. All the here are like 4 or 5 things I'm curious about. Or I ponder about that touch on what they say they're an expert in. Let me write these as four different questions or prompts, and I'm just going to hit them with it and see how they respond.

15:21If they don't say something that I'm super interested in, I'll just jump to the next one. That's a good way to do an interview, and someone watching this is going to be like done. No brainer. But like, I've done 600 interviews and I have, I could count on my two hands how many times I've done what I just said.

15:37And it's a great prep tactic. I mean, I'm seeing it right now and it's it's not. I don't find it off putting.

Matt Fradd

15:45Robert Barron put it in one of his recent sermons. He said, you know, the crucified God is what you find when the rebellion of human sin comes against him. He says, whether we consider the mass murderer or a sort of smaller but intentional, much smaller but intentional sin, they all have in common this rebellion against God and His law, and so on.

16:12The cross we see depicted what happens when the masks are taken off and the rebellion of man comes against the good God, and the what we find is completely shocking. As Saint Paul says, it's it's laughable to the Greeks, you know, and the Jews don't understand it either. What we find is the forgiveness of God, who sort of absorbs our sin and says, father, forgive them.

16:40They know not what they do. To me, that's almost more bizarre that anyone would have that response than that. Christians would hang these things in their churches. I agree with you that, you know, just like the background.

Timmy Bauer

16:53What is he going to do now? Is he going to do another prompt pivot like another, or refer to my prompts pivot? Or is he going to latch on to something that Matt is saying?

Matt Fradd

17:05Well, the the screensaver on your phone, you put it on the first day and you see it all the time, but a week later you stop seeing it. And I think Christians don't see the cross often because we see it all the time. It just becomes like background noise. Which is why Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ and other depictions of him help us like wake us up to the reality of what Christ went through.

Dad Saves America

17:28I think I have I have a good friend who's he went through a period of.

Timmy Bauer

17:34This seems like a a response. This seems this. Yeah, it seems like he's actually engaging with what Matt said, so that now we're getting into a conversation.

Dad Saves America

17:44Time of being a born again Christian and now has a more, you could say, integral New Age type of theology, let's say. And one of the things that he's always been challenged by is this question of evil. Like, why would the kind of God that Catholicism and Christianity puts forward a loving God, a forgiving God? Why would that kind of God create a world that's got so much misery in it?

18:15It's a very difficult challenge. How have you grappled with that? Because I this is part okay.

Timmy Bauer

18:23I'm not sure if this was a response to what Matt said or another. Well, clearly what's happened is something that Matt said while he was just talking made Dad Saves America. Think of something. Think of like a personal experience to bring up because it doesn't look like he referred to as prompt sheet there. It looks like something was triggered to say something.

18:45And even though I can't necessarily conversationally connect the dots, maybe when I look back on this, it'll be obvious. I'll be like, yeah, Matt said this, he said this, but right now, in this moment, I can't think of what it is. That's clearly what happened this time, although it does feel a little bit like another pivot to another topic.

Dad Saves America

19:04Part of my like, middle aged new child, childish grappling with faith.

Timmy Bauer

19:10But this does feel a little bit more conversational. This does feel like he said something. He's reacting to that thing with an internal thought surfacing it, and it seems like we're starting to get conversational.

Dad Saves America

19:24And it is. It's a very hard question to answer.

Matt Fradd

19:27I think it's really important that we grapple with the things that bother us, and we don't pretend that they don't bother us when we pretend that the things that that do bother us don't bother us for whatever reason. We're not actually like in we're not actually engaging with that thing from the heart. So I think it's crucial that we do that.

19:44And I would agree. Well, first of all, I would say that the problem of evil needs to be distinguished between the philosophical problem of evil and the emotional problem of evil.

Timmy Bauer

19:55So now he's again, he's extemporaneously expounding on his initial statement. This is usually when I would be listening for something to. Oh, that's interesting that you said that. Well, what do you mean by this or something like that?

Matt Fradd

20:10Right. So it might be the case that the argument for atheism based on evil doesn't work ultimately. Okay, that might be the case. And I think I'll show why that is the case in a moment. But that doesn't mean that evil isn't deeply terrible and traumatizing and awful, and we want it to go away. And so if I'm talking with somebody who my friend recently just lost his wife to cancer last week, if I was to sit down and give him a syllogism and explain why God's omni benevolence doesn't exclude the possibility of evil, that would be a stupid thing to do when people are in deep and desperate suffering.

20:47What they need isn't Christian apologetics. They need someone to come alongside with them and be compassionate to them. That is to say, suffer with. That's what the word compassion means. We need to suffer with our friends and be Christ to them. Okay, but what about this philosophical problem? How might one lay it out in a syllogism? Certain atheistic philosophers, such as the Australian philosopher J.L. Mackey and others have done this.

21:12They've formulated in arguments sort of like this If God is all powerful, he could do away with all evil. If he were all knowing, he couldn't claim to be ignorant of some of the evil in the world. He would know about all of it. And if he were all loving, he would want to do away with all of the evil in the world which is capable of doing away with, and which he knows all about.

21:36The fact that there is evil, though, would seem to prove that God is either impotent, ignorant, or wicked. So either try to cling to that God if you want, or just confess that you were wrong and that God doesn't exist. And before I respond to that, it's interesting. In the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas, what he often does in his works is he'll present a dozen or sometimes two, in different works of his arguments against the position he wants to make.

22:09What's really fascinating is when it comes to arguments against God's existence, he can only think of two. One of them is it's superfluous. You know, maybe this whole thing came about because of different reasons that we now know about. And we don't need to.

Timmy Bauer

22:24Just to just totally separate. Like random thought that I had is just the quality of their sets. Even though this is a virtual interview look really nice. And that's something that in a lot of virtual interviews by people that don't have 500,000 subscribers, you don't see that. And it's tough. It's tough to just get your I mean, in this particular case, it's not tough because he's in an expensive studio.

22:51They and and then dad saves America gets to curate and do the interview from wherever he wants to so he can make sure that he's in a nice studio environment. It's tougher when you're interviewing people that aren't famous influencers to get them to be in a nice environment and make sure that you and them are in a nice environment.

23:13You're shooting with tech that makes you both look crispy, but that's just a side thought. Nothing to do with the conversation.

Matt Fradd

23:20You deposit a god.

Timmy Bauer

23:21But something I know I need to get better at, which is like getting my guests to look good in the interview and making sure that I look good in the interview set wise, like everything looks, we don't look like we're having a crappy zoom call.

Matt Fradd

23:37The second is the problem of evil. Well, the first, the of God doesn't end up being an argument at all. Because just because something is superfluous doesn't mean it's false. Maybe we don't have any good reasons to think God exists, but he still does. But the problem of evil, I think, is the strongest argument against God's existence. Well, there was this, Calvinist philosopher by the name of name of Alvin Plantinga, who made some real progress in, in this area of, of, of Christian philosophy or philosophy in general.

24:08He said, okay, take Mackey's argument and just insert a fourth premise. Right. And here it is. Maybe God has morally permissible reasons for permitting evil and suffering in the world. All right. Now, you don't have to like that premise. You don't have to think it plausible, so long as it is even possible that this God may have reasons for permitting evil and suffering in the world, then it follows that therefore God does not exist, or therefore God is either impotent, wicked, or what have you doesn't follow at all.

24:46So the argument doesn't work.

Dad Saves America

24:50Leave that out. Why? Why does that? Why is that the case? Here we.

Timmy Bauer

24:53Go, here we go. Yes. Great, great. So yeah. So now he's he's he's listened to something that he's challenging the guest to lay out like expound on that. That's a great way of saying like what do you mean by that. Or can you expand on that. Just say like, wait, lay that out. Let me hear how he said that again.

25:15Book.

Dad Saves America

25:17Lay that out. Why why does.

Timmy Bauer

25:18That notice he interrupt the guest to this is the first time he's interrupted the guest.

Dad Saves America

25:25Why is that the case?

Matt Fradd

25:26Yeah. So if I say if.

Timmy Bauer

25:28God lay that out, why is that the case? So he just said something.

Matt Fradd

25:33Let's see. Or therefore, God is either impotent, wicked, or what have you doesn't follow at all, so the argument doesn't work.

Dad Saves America

25:43Leave that out. Why?

Timmy Bauer

25:44Maybe he didn't understand. Why does adding this fourth premise make the argument not work? And so now he's saying, lay that out. Make the case. Why? Why is that the case? Like, why is it that the argument doesn't work when you include the fourth premise?

Dad Saves America

25:58Is that why is that the case?

Matt Fradd

26:00Yeah. So if I say if God is all powerful, he could do away with all evil. If he's all loving, he would want to. If he's all knowing, he would want to. He could do away with it. Okay. Fourth premise. Yeah, but maybe, maybe there's good reasons that that God.

Timmy Bauer

26:16And this back and forth where now where it's starting to feel more conversational at least this is a lot of times this is how men talk to each other as we kind of like, wait. So hold on. Wait, what are you saying? You're saying this? Wait, explain that to me. Because I'm not sure that I. I'm not sure that I'm getting what you're like.

26:34That is the way that men usually talk to each other, and it builds rapport. So, like, up until this point, the. And this is all normal. This is a two hour interview and I'm just going at the first like 15 minutes of it. But up until this point it's been like a classical like you are being interrogated sort of interview like, all right, now give your answer to this.

26:58Now give your answer to this. Now give your answer to this. But now they're having a little bit more of a bro like rapport esque. I'm challenging you. Explain what you mean. Wait, how how how does that equal that? And that is, that is some of the rapport that happens much more naturally in an in-person conversation. So part of the reason I'm doing this project is just because as a person who does a lot of virtual interviews, I, I, I want to do them well.

27:31And it's much easier to do. I think it's much easier to do. And in person one well, if your goal is not just content but also rapport building like relationship building, it's easier to do relationship building in person. This, this, these little we're starting to get into some they're talking to each other a little bit more, a little bit less like a guy who's interrogating another guy.

Matt Fradd

27:59God permits evil and suffering. I mean, what the hell do you know? The difference between you and God is greater than the difference between.

Timmy Bauer

28:06Because he's tugging on something that the guest values and getting the guest to speak with a non canned answer, like almost a defensive kind of non can't answer from their values, but not in not in a attacking argumentative way in like a more friendly like I agree with you, but help me like I'm going to challenge you like I don't agree with you because I want to agree with you more.

Matt Fradd

28:31In a sparrow's brain and trying to understand.

Timmy Bauer

28:35And dad saves. America does a good job in his tone, communicating that he doesn't say, wait, no, I think you're wrong. Like it's not an attack. It's a he's challenging. Wait, lay that out for me. What? How does that equal that? And I found that when I do that with my friends, it, it like pulls out like a stronger, better answer from them.

28:56And it's good like relationally good Wi-Fi.

Matt Fradd

29:01So maybe it's possible. And even if we don't know the reasons, if it's possible, it shows that the argument isn't airtight. So sure, it might still be the case that atheism is true, but this argument doesn't.

Timmy Bauer

29:16And I don't know if what I'm saying makes any sense. Maybe it's all a bunch of like, nonsense. Maybe somebody watching this would be like Da or like you're making a big deal out of nothing, but but I'm just saying that for me, sometimes I have to be a little bit robotic when I break stuff down and I go, oh, okay, I could do this, like this person in this way.

29:37Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know if this is helping anybody, but it's helping me.

Matt Fradd

29:43Show that to be the case. If it's possible that God would have morally sufficient reasons. And at that point, it's it throws the burden of proof back on the atheist to show that God doesn't have morally sufficient reason for permitting evil. But I'm not sure how one would do that. Here would be a couple of.

Timmy Bauer

29:58Just also totally like that's a good argument. Throws how it throws the burden of proof.

Matt Fradd

30:04I don't know, ideas off the top of my head as to why God might permit evil. All right, so we talk about God being all powerful, and we say if he's all powerful, he could do away with all evil. But to be all powerful doesn't mean.

Timmy Bauer

30:18The way that Matt Fred is getting to talk. Now. You can even see in his posture. He's like getting comfortable speaking from his own thoughts where before it was a little bit more like, oh, okay, this is the question I was asked. Well, here's my answer to that question. Okay. This is the question I was asked. Here's my answer to that question.

30:37And it's cool. You can do that for ten minutes before you get into something where it's like you're getting the guests to lean back a little bit and speak from their chest.

Matt Fradd

30:49Mean to be able to do what is.

Timmy Bauer

30:51Right and you can, he said. Yeah. It just it becomes a little bit more normal. No more. What's the word I'm looking for? Casual.

Matt Fradd

31:00Casual to do. Nonsense. You know, if I say, can God create a square circle? The answer is no. And it's not because God.

Timmy Bauer

31:07And I'm going to stop it here because of going for 30 minutes now. But I just wanted to see, like, I was, I was curious to see, like, when, when does it change? And I think this is the moment.

Matt Fradd

31:21But is impotent. It's because a square circle doesn't mean anything.

Timmy Bauer

31:24I do want to see how he pivots into the next topic though.

Matt Fradd

31:28If I say, Can God create a married bachelor? The answer is no. And again, it's because it's meaningless. Just because I ask a sentence beginning with Can God? It doesn't follow that the sentence will be meaningful. And so if God has given creatures free will and wishes them to have free will, then to say, well, God should be able to do away with all evil.

31:52Well, not not no, not necessarily. Not unless he restricts their free will. I mean, that's so the two have to work in harmony. That's at least one possibility. You don't have to like it again. You don't even have to feel convinced by it. But you can see that. Okay. Fair enough. That's maybe one way around it. Or if you say God is all knowing.

Timmy Bauer

32:12Now, if I was the interview and I'm listening to this, there's a couple of things happening. One, I'm starting to like, nod along like, oh yeah, that's a great point. There's a couple different things you can do with that. If you want to stay on the topic, you could respond. When the person finishes, you could respond with, that's a great point.

32:31I loved the thought of x, y, z. And sometimes you can just say that let them let little silence hang and the person will keep going even more. If as the person is talking, you're thinking of potential objections to what they're saying. When the person's done, you could say while you were talking, something I thought of was Dada.

32:51Dada. So how do you how do you reckon with that? How do you how do you respond to that? How would you respond to that? How do you deal with that, like that kind of thing? Or if you didn't have either of those two things, you could look back down at your notes and go, all right, well, what's the next thing I wanted to talk to him about?

33:11The other thing you could do is you could try to segue. You could try to say, segue from what he's saying into something that was in your notes.

Matt Fradd

33:20Knowing so he knows about all evil. It's like, okay, yeah. Since God is all knowing, maybe there are. Maybe evil does something to us that's beneficial. It's not that God wills there to be evil, but there might be positive consequences that result from us enduring terrible hardships. I've seen this in my own life. A lot of people have seen it in theirs.

33:41When they're hit with something. It was like C.S. Lewis. He says, God speaks to us in our pleasures, but shouts to us in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a sleeping world. How many people are out there who would say, it wasn't until I hit fricking rock bottom, or till my wife left me, or what have you.

Timmy Bauer

34:00I love how ubiquitous C.S. Lewis is. Here we have a Catholic loving C.S. Lewis. CS Lewis, I think was Anglican.

Matt Fradd

34:10That I was able to wake up from this days I was in and to start taking my life more seriously. Again, that isn't an answer for every person. Some people would just sort of dig their heels in deeper, but it isn't an answer for some. And then to say, well, if he was all loving now this is interesting, right?

34:29Because I think it betrays something. I think many of us have a sort of thing little.

Dad Saves America

34:34Pet our puppy dog.

Matt Fradd

34:36And it's God's job to create a comfortable little habitat for his human pets.

Dad Saves America

34:42So he can. Tell us so he can just, oh, I love you. I love like like we pet our puppy dogs.

Matt Fradd

34:47Yeah, well, so that we can flourish in the way that we wish to. But what if that's not at all God's desire? What if what if God's desire is to bring free beings into a free relationship with him so as to find salvation? And it doesn't seem implausible to me.

Timmy Bauer

35:07This is where I would go conversationally next if I didn't have an agenda. What do you mean by bring free beings? I'd probably dig into, like the freedom of the will and like, what are we as free beings? If I didn't have somewhere else to go? Conversation like, that's just something I think about a lot.

Matt Fradd

35:26That to think that only in a world suffused with this level of suffering.

Timmy Bauer

35:31Sometimes while a guest is talking and I'm like, just sort of letting them riff, I will try to write down little like one word mementos of like, like where if I read that word, I'll remember what I wanted to say. A lot of times I don't remember to have a piece of paper next to me, and sometimes I'll literally like with my fingers.

35:52I like, try to try to do something with my fingers that will make me remember.

Matt Fradd

35:59Would the maximum number of people come to accept the salvation? So again, look, if my wife dies tonight, I'm not interested in listening to this argument. In fact, it would make me angry. I'd tell you to go somewhere. But that's why I say we do need to make that distinction, because I think. Look, when I think about the level of horrific suffering taking place.

Timmy Bauer

36:21Another place conversationally that I could go from this is the distinction between the psychological or the logical problem of evil and the emotional problem of evil, because I have thought a lot about the problem of evil, but also I've experienced tragedy and you process it very differently. You process your thoughts about God very differently in those two different kinds of experiences.

36:49That could be an interesting place to go conversationally, so I could see myself doing that. I'm just thinking like, what would I latch on to.

Matt Fradd

36:57Place just in my own city? I presume there's prostitution and fathers beating their children. Like, if I was to really reflect on that, I would find it hard to believe in God. Yes, but the question isn't, the the the question is what should make me lose faith in God? And it's not how I feel. It's it's really has to be arguments.

37:21It has to be led by our rational.

Timmy Bauer

37:23One of the challenging things about virtual interviews is like, so when he makes a point like the one you just made, the question is, what should make me lose my faith in God? It's so natural. When you're in the living room with somebody or you're in, you know, you're in armchairs next to each other for you to be like.

37:39Yeah. That's good. But the challenge with virtual interviews is when you do that it it like especially on zoom calls, it like makes the other person interrupt much stronger than if you did it in person. What does it do. It. There's like a, there's it's like a, like a technological thing that happens where it like, it cuts to you.

38:08It, it, it it interrupts. What does it it does something. I've noticed that whenever I do it, it causes a little interruption. And so he's it's just one of the challenges of virtual because like, he's having to nod without gesticulating with his vocal cords, though. Yeah.

Matt Fradd

38:36Intellect. Not our emotional.

Timmy Bauer

38:39And doing things like that. Is relationship really more relational? It helps to feel connected to the person you're talking to when you do that, and it helps that person feel connected to you. And so that's one of the reasons why virtual interviews are more difficult connection wise. And people can say that they didn't have a relationship with somebody that did a two hour interview with them where if they were to do a sit down two hours with them, they would feel like they had a relationship with that person.

39:14I've I've heard other people talk about like other I've heard people talk about interviewers that have interviewed that person as if they didn't actually know that person, even though they did a two hour interview before. And I've seen the opposite of that. When the person has done a sit down to our interview, like in person.

Matt Fradd

39:34Wants to.

Dad Saves America

39:34Things, you know, one of the things.

Timmy Bauer

39:36And, and I'm very interested in what does it take to be able to do virtual such that the person feels like they know you a little bit better and you know them a little bit better, and you've started something. You've started a relationship, a real relationship, and I've been successful at it in a small number of cases where I have real relationships with people that I've mostly only spoken to virtually.

40:05The solidify is when you go visit them in person or they come visit you in person. That's like the puts the seal on it. But it's not the only way to put the seal on it. But it is like a really strong marker. But I, I, I can think of somebody that I interviewed them for an hour, and then I just was texting them and talking to them and random phone calls.

40:30And these are the kind of things that friends do, and it builds relationship. And then helping them with stuff that they care about, that's a great way to build a relationship, but then ultimately inviting them, hey, if you're ever in Florida, like come like come down like we we go Disney together, we could do something together and that and then finally the person taking you up on that, then it's like the relationship is like much more solidified.

Dad Saves America

41:00That, has helped me try to grapple with God. Wrestle with God, if you will. Is, that there's something about the very fact that this has been transmitted as a father son relationship, the father son, the Holy Spirit, but that the notion of God the Father and as a dad, I mean, this is dad saves America. I know you're a dad.

41:29When you think about what it means to love your children, it.

Timmy Bauer

41:33There's nothing wrong with what I'm about to say. But he's still talking like an interviewer. And honestly, that's probably a lesson for me is spend more time talking like an interviewer on the beginning. That's probably the lesson here is I am now 18 minutes into this, and I naturally would think that it is high time I get into conversation mode with this person and stop talking like an interviewer.

41:56But here we are, 18 minutes in. It's been interview question interview question interview question, interview question. Very little digging into what the person just said. Not not zero of it. And I'm sure when we get further into these longer chapters, there's more back and forth. But I'm going to stop here. And I do feel like there was some conversational, conversationally ness.

42:22And this has been very informative for me. And that's what this project is ultimately for, is for me as a virtual interviewer, how can I get better at doing virtual interviews, virtual interviews? So first, first one, and I already feel like I'm getting good takeaways. And I don't expect anybody to watch this content other than me. And like in the future when I'm able to say, hey, I watched X number of virtual interview interviews to get better and recorded my thoughts and it's all here.

42:55Maybe then someone else will get value out of this, but until then, I expect it to pretty much mostly be me. Unless for some reason this finds somebody who is also interested in this.