In this episode, Trent shares a talk he recently gave for Young Americans for Freedom that undermines moral errors of modern liberalism.

Transcription:

Trent:

Well, it’s the morning after election day and since I filmed this episode a few weeks ago, I don’t know who the president is. I don’t even know if we know who the president is by this point. But no matter what happens, we still have an obligation to defend the moral foundations of our faith in society. So in today’s episode, I want to share with you a talk I recently gave for the Young Americans for Freedom Foundation, YAF. It’s a great program for high school students, so I definitely encourage you to check it out if you’re in high school or if you know someone who is in high school, and definitely pray for our country during this important time. So without further ado, here is my talk seven questions. Liberals can’t answer.

Thank you guys so much for being here today. I’ve been invited to speak on the question seven, sorry. On the topic, seven questions Liberals cannot answer, and actually they can answer these, but in doing so, it undermines many of the positions that they put forward that are often and just not good for the common good of society. So I’m going to go through those morning with you, but I also want to point out why I want to talk about questions because I think that’s one of the most effective ways when you’re on a college campus, when you are dialoguing with other people. I find that using a question-based approach, also called a Socratic approach. I’m sure you guys know who Socrates is. Hopefully if you have a good classical education, I find it to be so helpful. Before I began working at Catholic Answers, I worked for a pro-life organization called Justice for All, and I would travel the country engaging college students, and I found one of the most effective ways to engage them on different beliefs, whether it was the issue of abortion or religion or the value of western civilization.

Moral relativism was to ask a series of questions instead of just saying, I’m right and you are wrong. It might be like the Matilda approach, right? I’m right, you are wrong. I’m big, you’re small, I’m smart, you’re dumb. That makes people feel very reticent, hesitant to want to listen to us. But when you ask people questions as the Christian apologist, Greg Coco says, it takes you out of the hot seat and puts you into the driver’s seat of the conversation. Lemme repeat that again. When you ask questions, it takes you out of the hot seat and it puts you into the driver’s seat of the conversation. That’s what’s so powerful about doing. That’s why Socrates is called the gadfly of Athens, that he said that what made Socrates so wise, many people said, oh, you’re so wise and you’re wiser than all men. That’s what the Oracle at Delphi said about Socrates.

He said, the only reason I’m wise is because I know what I don’t know. And he can spot other people who think they know things. But after a series of questions reveal that they don’t, another person who is great at using this particular approach is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I remember one of my favorite interactions when Jesus engages the Pharisees, they walk up to him. This is the loose dynamic Trent Horn translation, and they say to Jesus, who gave you the authority to do these things? Who gave you the authority to teach and to preach? And so Jesus said, all right, well I’ll answer your question, but first you got to answer my question. The baptism of John, John the Baptist. Is it from heaven or is it from earth? Answer my question and then I’ll answer yours. Even back in the day, Jesus understood that when people are cornered, when they have a deficient position, they’ll often resort to filibustering or changing the subject.

You can see this when people like Charlie Kirk for example, go on college campuses or when you watch politicians be answered in town halls, people will ask them a question and they’ll say, I’d rather talk about this instead. So Jesus says, no, no, no, answer my question, then I’ll answer yours. And so the Pharisees get into a huddle and they realize Jesus has got them in a bind with this question because they had a live and let live policy with John the Baptist. And he said, okay, if we say it’s from heaven that he’s a real prophet, the people will ask, why didn’t you believe him? Why didn’t you support him? If we say it’s from Earth, the people will revolt because they think John is a legitimate prophet. So they go back to Jesus and they say, we don’t know. So they try to split the horns of the dilemma.

And then Jesus says, then neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. And in that moment, it’s so powerful. Jesus revealed the hypocrisy of the religious authorities of his day that they didn’t care about authority, they cared about preserving the status quo. And by asking a simple question, he was more powerfully able to demonstrate that than by simply saying that they were hypocrites. I mean, he saves that for Matthew chapter 23 and unloads on them. There’s a time and a place for that. But asking a very strategic question I find is very helpful. So let’s go through these seven questions. I find when you engage people on different subjects, whenever they come up, be sure to ask these questions and also have your own answer to these questions because people might turn around and ask you the same thing. They might ask you the same thing.

So let’s start with a basic one here. A lot of times the issue of socialism will come up on college campuses. I wrote a book that you heard about in the introduction. Can a Catholic be a socialist? The full title of the book is, can a Catholic be a Socialist? The answer is no. Here’s why. So I gave the whole thing away right there in the book cover, which is amazing because you have people like Pope Pius c 11th and others being very clear saying in the 1930s, no good Catholic can be a true socialist. And I think the Pope is interesting when he said that he added the qualifiers there. No good Catholic or Christian because you have people who say they’re Catholic or Christian and believe all kinds of crazy stuff can be a true socialist. So there’s might people who might say that there’s socialists and they’ll argue saying, why do you believe in the evils of capitalism?

What about socialism? What about caring for the poor? What about doing all these things? Why shouldn’t government be helping people? And people will think to themselves, socialism is just government helps people and makes there aren’t billionaires sucking up all of the wealth or something like that. So I would recommend asking the person, if you’re engaged in a dialogue on the subject, what is socialism? What do you mean by the term socialism? And if you’re on a college campus, nine times out of 10, the person will not give you the correct definition of the term socialism. Instead, they’ll vaguely describe the Nordic economic model. Nine times out of 10, they’ll describe the Nordic economic model in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, which are essentially their capitalist free market societies that take a lot of the investments from their own industries and reinvest them into various social benefits, social entitlement programs.

And people can have good nature debates about whether these are feasible or whether these are good or bad systems or relative merits. But that in itself is not socialism. You can say, alright, what was the difference between the United States and the Soviet Union? Alright, it’s not just the fact that people will say, oh, do you believe in public roads and public libraries and public airports and you’re a socialist? No, because the United States had all of those things and so do the Soviets, but we were not socialists like they were. So we have to ask also, when it comes to entitlement programs in the United States, people only starve to death if they have some kind of a mental illness and they’re not able to acquire state benefits and help. We do have entitlement programs here. So that is not the essence of what socialism is. And it’s also not the allocate preventing billionaires from existing.

There are more billionaires per capita in Sweden than in the United States. Yeah, all that IKEA meatball money went somewhere, right? Whenever my wife says, let’s go shopping at Ikea, I’m all for it. I don’t want to buy anything that I can’t read the instructions, but I’m addicted to the meatballs. And that’s why they have all the billionaires over there. So it’s not just that what socialism is, socialism is when the means of production are socially controlled. That’s it. So the means of production farms, corporations, businesses, the things that produce the goods and services that we need to survive as an economy, the question is who owns them? Should the majority of it be private firms, maybe an individual, a company, a public, or a private company? Not necessarily a hundred percent. You might have government owning some companies that tend to be very inefficient and propped up to survive.

Think about comparing the post office to UPS or Amtrak to any other way of trying to get around the country. But the majority are private firms and businesses in a socialist society, it’s socially controlled. And people will often try to say, oh, well, it’s about everybody gets to be involved and we all run it. And that way, if we’re all involved, then we’ll make sure all the workers and everyone is treated fairly. So would you like to spend your Saturdays going to an eight hour meeting talking about dividends and benefits and salary, wages? No. When people say it’s socially controlled in a real socialist economy, you’re not going to do that. You’re going to vote, vote to have someone else do that on a committee. And so it’s not going to be society that controls means of production, it’s government that will control it. And we see what happens when government controls the means of production. By the way, pointing out, asking what socialism is when people talk about it, well, it’s the Nordic model, which is not socialism, but when it’s actually presented, like say the Soviet Union, Cuba, east Germany, Venezuela, a variant of it in North Korea. That’s not real socialism.

Well, what is it? So give me a definition of that. The last thing I’ll point out when it comes to socialism is this, you should point out in these countries that actually are socialists that have the government control of the means of production and they’re supposed to be workers. What’s interesting is that all these countries think to the Soviet Union, think about East Germany, Cuba, North Korea, they have security barriers, security barriers that prevent travel. But it’s not to prevent workers from trying to illegally immigrate into these worker to prevent the people there from illegally escaping, which should tell you something about the merits of that system. Another element though from socialism, this will tie in as we go through the rest of the questions, they’ll all chain together. As you’ll see, I think one of the biggest flaws in socialism is to tries to make government the basis of society.

What is the foundation of society? And people say, oh, well it’s government. No it’s not. Government serves us, not the other way around. It is not the foundation of society. But the other extreme is to say, well, it’s the individual. The individual is the foundation of society. And you can have radically libertarian views that are antithetical to the common good as well. It’s not government, that’s the foundation of society. It’s not the individual. What is it? It’s the family. The family is the foundation of society. That’s why early socialists and socialists today have wanted to abolish the family. In the 1920s in Oregon, the state attempted to pass a law banning private and homeschooling compelling all students to attend public schools. This went to the Supreme Court Pierce versus it was a nun, a private Catholic school, society of sisters, Pierce versus Society of Sisters and the Supreme Court, there’s a passage in there that the Pope later quoted when the court ruled against the state and said, you can’t make everybody attend government run schools.

It said, the child is not the mere creature of the state. The child is not the mere creature of the state. The family is the foundation of society because where does society come from? It comes from people. And where do people come from? They come from families. And if you don’t have that, then society starts to fall apart. So that gets into the next question that I find that liberals have a difficult time answering. So the first one is what is socialism? The second is, what is marriage? What is marriage? When we talk about families, what makes a family a family? What makes then what bonds that together? It’d be the issue of marriage. Once when I was doing a documentary for Catholic Answers, I was going around Balboa Park, I was asking people what they didn’t like about the Catholic church. It was a wonderful afternoon.

What do you really hate about the Catholic church? And we go through and one guy said, he said, look, I think the Catholic church wants to impose its views on everybody. I said like how marriage? It wants to tell other people, only a man and woman can get married. What’s wrong with two women or two men getting married? It’s not fair. They’re imposing their view of marriage on everybody else. So remember what Greg Cocal says when you ask questions, it takes you out of the hot seat, puts you into the driver’s seat of the conversation. Here. You might be tempted to argue with him saying, well no, marriage is a man and a woman and here’s why it’s always been that way for thousands of years. And that’s true, but when you ask questions, it turns it around a little. So I just asked him, I’ll call him Steve.

I guess I can make everybody these examples. Steve, I only say that I don’t remember his name. Not for his anonymity. So I said, Steve, lemme ask you a question. What is marriage? When you use that word marriage, what are you talking about? He said, well, marriage is when two people are married literally. So he said, marriage is when two people are married like a man and a man or a woman and a woman or man and a woman. That’s what marriage is. Now I feel like my 7-year-old could probably give a better definition that doesn’t have the term you’re trying to define in the definition, which is a hallmark of a terrible definition. But you see the problem that will arise. And with many of these terms, it gets hidden in the definition. I asked him, well, okay, what is marriage? I said, how do you know that?

You can also ask people, what do you think? How do you know that’s true? What is marriage? How do you know that? Well, it just is. That’s just my definition. I know that’s what marriage is. I said, okay, well I’ve seen reality television shows online and on Netflix and other places with polyamorous couples, polygamous couples. Why does that have to be two? Could a man marry two women? Could a woman marry two men? What if they all love each other and they all want to share life together? He said, well, no, they can’t do that. And I said, okay, well Steve, help me understand what’s going on here. You’re mad at the Catholic church. They say this is what marriage is and some people disagree and they don’t fit under that definition, but you said this is what marriage is. It’s two people, but then three or four, however many people don’t fit under your definition. Aren’t you doing the same thing that the church does that you hate? And he sat for like a minute and he said, you’re right. It’s a double standard, but it’s my double standard, so it’s okay.

I’m not kidding you. That’s what he said. So when you call people out and ask questions to their terms, a lot of times you’ll see these problems arise. So how should we define marriage then? I like the definition from William B. May a moral theologian marriage is that which unites men and women to one another and to any children that proceed from their union. That’s what marriage is for. So notice how it’s phrased. It’s what unites men and women to one another and to any children that proceed from their union. And so it’s not requiring children, it’s just saying that if you form a union, men and women form the unions that tend to make children. Look, when kids are born, they’re utterly helpless. Who’s supposed to take care of them? Probably the people that created them. So parents are irreplaceable to their children if they die.

We do our best to find a substitute, but it’ll never be the exact same. So before parents become irreplaceable to children, we should have something that makes the man and woman irreplaceable to one another. And that would be marriage. That’s why nearly every society on earth has discovered this. It’s not something, marriage is not something that just the west invented or an arbitrary concept. It is a universal norm. You can’t redefine marriage just like you can’t redefine friendship or justice. It’s a basic natural good created from he who gave us all the goods in the universe. Because also some people, this definition, the idea that it’s open to that it’s a union from which children may proceed, but they may not. And so what binds men and women together answers an objection. People say, well, what about infertile couples? Are you saying they’re not a real marriage?

No, of course they are. If you have nine guys throwing pop flies playing in a field and just throwing the baseball around and catching pop flies, it’s probably a lot of fun. But that’s not baseball. But if you have nine guys organized as a team to try to win a baseball game and they never score a single run all season, they’re still a baseball game. They’re still a baseball team. Even if they don’t reach their proper end. I remember reading a critic though, who said, Ugh, these marriage radicals, are you saying infertile couples, if they don’t have children, are losers like a losing baseball team? No. But this view of marriage is the only one that explains why their infertility is a genuine loss that they feel two men or two women. It is not logical for them to feel a sense of loss at being unable to conceive children because they are not engaging in the act that does that.

Just like I don’t feel a sense of loss that I can’t fly by flapping my wings. That would be cool if I could do that. But if I could not walk, I would feel a sense of loss because in my nature I should be able to do that. But if in my nature I can’t do something, I don’t feel a loss towards it. So this gets into question number three then, which when we understand what marriage is that which unites men and women to one another and to any children that proceed from their union, this helps us answer the next question. Liberals have a hard time with. Number three, what is sex for? I once went around the University of San Diego. That was the Catholic school. Although honestly if I went there, the answers would be pretty much the same. I went to San Diego State University, a public school probably got similar, would’ve get similar answers.

And I went around for a video, I was recording and I just asked students, what is sex for? What is it for? And the answers usually I got something like, well, it’s for emotions and it bonds people together and it’s way to show love. One woman did say though, she said, it’s not for anything. It’s just whatever you want it to be for. But what’s interesting then, if sex is not for anything or if it’s just for emotions and bonding, this can’t explain widespread intuitions. People have. Now what’s difficult when you talk about sexual ethics, when you talk about sexual ethics, usually you have to argue, okay, here’s your view on sexuality. And it’s bad because it leads to this crazy thing. We do that a lot with moral arguments. Here’s the thing, you believe it’s bad because it leads to a crazy thing. And what’s hard is people say, that’s not really a crazy thing.

I’m okay with that too. So that’s why it gets hard when we argue about abortion, right? We’ll say, well, it leads to infanticide. So that’s crazy, right? Maybe it’s not so bad. So the challenge then, when you’re arguing sexual ethics on a college campus is to find at least crazy things that people still think are crazy. So sexual behaviors that don’t cause injury but are extremely disordered and perverted leading to something like that, showing that I’ve also talked about just infidelity, that if it’s just about what sex is for is just sharing emotions. Or if it’s not for anything at all, why is infidelity such a big deal? Why is it such a big deal? Imagine your significant other goes to see a movie and you two promised you’d see it together and they see it with another friend. Instead, you might be peeved, but you’re not going to be devastated.

But let’s say your significant other has sex with that friend. Instead, you’re going to be more than peeved. You’re going to be more than peeved. You should be, hopefully. But why? Because I’ve asked people if sex isn’t for anything, why is infidelity wrong? And they say, oh, well it’s breaking a promise. Yeah, but that’s not quite it, is it? We are not as devastated by that. There’s something deeper. So what is the deeper answer? People will turn it around on you, right? They’ll say, well, okay, what do you think sex is for? And there’s a trap answer here. If you say, well, sex is for babies, that’s the trap answer. Because then people will say, oh, so you’re saying infertile people should never have sex, should never get married. You’re saying older people past menopause. This is the answer that I prefer sex is for.

You’re waiting the expression of marital love. That is what it’s for. That’s what it’s for. It’s for in marital love. So that goes back what we just said about marriage. Marriage is what unites men and women to one another. We need something that bonds them together. If sex is just for emotional, oh, it’s a good way of expressing emotions, it makes people feel more united, well then sex by that definition then sex should be great for friendships. It makes you more emotionally united. But guess what? Sex is usually terrible for friendships, right? Everything’s awkward and weird after in hookup culture and you ask people about it, it messes things up. That’s not what it’s for. Friendship. Aristotle said that friendship is two bodies sharing the same soul. There’s two bodies like sharing the same soul. It’s the idea that you are united at the mind.

It’s like two minds put together. That’s the love of friendship. Any love seeks union with the beloved. I love in and out. So I’m always trying to be united with a double, double and I in the double, double become one. And sometimes it still sticks around right around here. Friendship, we union, we spend time with our friends. Where is the union in activities? In conversation, we unite at the mind level, at the souls. It’s one soul inhabiting two bodies. Marriage is two souls inhabiting one body. They become one flesh. It’s not ... Read more on Catholic.com