On the Conversion of Joseph Schmid

I am overjoyed to see that the person most cited as the reason nobody should become Catholic has just become Catholic.

I jest—but only slightly.

For years, the person I have been most asked to respond to concerning objections against the existence of God, the coherence of classical theism, or the plausibility of Catholicism, has been Joseph Schmid. And, indeed, I have spilled much ink and spent many podcast hours answering objections Joe has raised—with considerable attention being devoted to his issues with classical theism or traditional proofs for God, from modal collapse to existential inertia. While I have obviously disagreed with Joe about these matters, I have always found his challenges interesting and important—not to mention, difficult. Never once did Joe strike me as a bad-faith interlocuter; rather, he always came across someone genuinely interested in trying to figure things out.

By now, I’m sure many of you have heard the news—it’s literally all-over social media—that Joe Schmid is (once again) a practicing Catholic. “Once again”, because Joe was baptized Catholic, though he fell away from the faith in his teenage years, going through a spell for atheism before spending considerably more time in agnosticism.

If you haven’t seen it, Joe has uploaded a story of his conversion to YouTube. I highly recommend giving it a watch and then staying “finely-tuned” (Joe’s joke, not mine!) for his upcoming Comprehensive Case for Catholicism. If it’s anything like Joe’s work elsewhere—and I’m sure it will be— it’s certain to be exceedingly thorough and well thought out.

Joe will also be joining me on my channel toward the end of this month.