Spencer Claven joins us again. Last time he spoke about ancient philosophy. He is host of the Young

Heritage's podcast and an associate editor of Claremont Review of books.

His new book is Light of the Mind, Light of the World, Illuminating Science Through Faith.

That's our topic today.

Welcome, Spencer.

We're on a first name basis.

We've interacted before, so welcome.

Thanks, Mark.

It's great to be here. You announced in the

introduction what you label a, quote, necessary truth, which is, this is a far, simple but far

reaching statement, quote, the human mind is not an accident. What lies behind that assertion, presumably, that there are many

people who say the human mind certainly is an accident, yes? There are. And most of those people

claim to be speaking in the name of science or even to be reporting some sort of scientific

discovery, that it's because of the developments of science or even to be reporting some sort of scientific discovery, that it's because of

the developments of science over the last several hundred years that were compelled to admit

that the human mind really is a random product. It may have special properties, like its

ability to do math, for instance, but these weren't designed or planned out in advance by anybody.

They are just a happy coincidence that has emerged through random mutation, and as indeed

everything emerges through the deterministic but ultimately uncaring interaction of atoms.

And effectively, the argument of this book is that historically speaking, this is a nonsense.

In other words, in order to start doing science at all, the revolutionaries of the 1300s, 1400s, 1500s, and on into the 1600s,

basically all had to believe something diametrically opposed to the accidental mind theory,

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