Dr. J. Budziszewski

He did not want me to.

He didn't follow up.

I didn't follow up.

I just thought, what does that mean?

Okay, so was this before or after the student said you're either an atheist?

Oh, that was long before.

That was when I was in graduate school.

The student said that after I was already teaching at the University of Texas.

And what did that do to you?

That obviously is memorable.

Well, it churned around in my memory, but you don't know what those things are doing down there.

You don't know when they're churning around, what kind of churn they're stirring up.

You don't know what the Holy Spirit might be using them to churn up.

Right.

and so i'm sure that that in god's providence this this there was some reason for him making this comment to me at that time but um but uh no that wasn't what brought me back what what brought me back was that um look on the one hand this ate me up i was miserable believing as i believed or at least telling myself that i believed those things long long afterward i came to realize that i had always known that there was a god and only told myself i didn't know that

that I'd always known that there was a real difference between good and evil and only told myself that I didn't.

But I believed that I believed that, okay?

My wife used to laugh at me.

I would talk about this nonsensical, nihilistic stuff, and she would just laugh.

And she would say, you don't believe that.