"Aww, $&#@, I just became a Platonist"
I had a very similar experience with Aristotle. Had a friend who patiently talked to me for years about Christianity and philosophy, but I was about as typically nominalist as an American liberal could be. I had, incidentally, converted to Orthodox Christianity in my early 20s after leaving nondenominational Protestant Christianity and drifting for awhile. My catechism in Orthodoxy wasn't bad, per se, but it wasn't very thorough and I wasn't exactly the sort of person at the time who thought very much about theology or philosophy. Few years into that and I'd fallen out of the church in general, became one of those "Nones" you talk about so much.
This friend of mine (an Evangelical, which is kind of funny) spent years talking to me about all of this stuff. At one point my marriage fell apart and I wound up going through a pretty dark time; in that crisis I did actually start to dig deeply into philosophy in a very ham-handed way. Let me be the first to suggest that reading Nietzsche during a divorce is a good way to wind up in a weird place.
Anyway, that friend pushed me into reading a lot of other things, one of which was Edward Feser's "The Last Superstition". It's a simple book, but it was my first real introduction to realism. After that, it was a short hop into Aquinas and Aristotle. I did the same thing you did too; I went digging through every philosophical school I could find, trying to figure out if I was a human being with free will created in the image of God or just some kind of hallucinating brain in a vat, or any other thing in between.
It was actually in an argument with some other guy about the whole "brain in a vat" thing where I realized I'd been making realist arguments the entire time, and I said to myself, "Well $#&@, I guess I'm a Realist now." Seven or so years later, and here I am listening to you basically describe my own journey in slightly different words. Found my way back to Orthodoxy, married with tons of kids, and life is far, far, far more meaningful and beautiful than I could have ever imagined back then.
Thanks for doing what you're doing man, and keep it up. I'm certain there are plenty more of us out there who will benefit greatly from all of this.

So glad you finally made a podcast. I've been hoping to see more from you for a while now

Thank you so much for the last 20 minute explanation of Christianity’s confessional commitment to realism

Just found your channel from your recent podcast with Jonathan Pageau, "The case for realism". Wonderful videos!

ICXC NIKA
🙏🏿☦🙏🏿

Dr. Jacobs, It is so, so encouraging to hear your clear, rational case for realism. I'm a Christian and trying to explore my faith from a philosophical point of view. Your shared story and expertise is helping me immensely. I've already listened to several of your other podcasts. You're doing very important work, keep it up!

Nathan, this is a fascinating episode. I’ve always been a realist (I just didn’t know it). I’m a newbie to philosophy and also EO (I’m an inquirer with the intention to become Orthodox). I met you at church recently, but I won’t say where since we are on the internets 🤣 I’m loving your podcast! Thank you for being another EO voice out there helping the rest of us to grow and learn. God Bless ☦️

Awesome stuff

These ideas are relatively new to me, but I've been loving your content on spotify! I weld food grade stainless piping for a living and have the luxury of listening to podcasts while I weld. I am grateful for everything you've put online.
Now, forgive my ignorance, but how would your realism compare to that of John Meirsheimer? I listened to a debate between Steven Pinker and John meirsheimer, where both men were given the mic and asked to answer the question "can human reason lead to moral progress" (under the heading "the enlightenment and it's alternatives). Anyway, I found meirsheimers arguments very compelling, and that's where I actually heard of realism for the first time, and your podcast was recommended to me on spotify as a result. I would love to hear your breakdown of their conversation!! (Ive listened to it three times already) But I know you have many important things going on.
I love your content. I feel like my faith has been enriched through understanding these ideas you share.

Hey Dr. Jacob’s, I really hope you have an episode on how you got from more pagan process theology stuff to Eastern Orthodox belief. I feel I am going on the same path but not fully understanding how to fit into EO and some of the doctrine. Thanks!🙏🏻

The problem of Chaos is there would be no fields preventing the whole structure of the universe from unravelling and becoming otherwise. There is nothing about randomness that entails stability; it is the antithesis of it.

It was occurring to me as you were talking about what a self defeating pair empiricism and nominalism are! Leads to all kinds of mental gymnastics materialist atheists have to go through rather than actually admit the incongruity of their project.

You almost couldnt straight face it through that introduction

Jesus, this guy sure likes the sound of his own voice...

How do you explain the hard problem of consciousness?

You’re a nominalist until you have to engineer a car.

lol at 54:11 - "Yep, I just tasted God's ideas."

I don't think it was instructive (or correct) to make the switch from realism vs. nominalism to idealism vs. materialism (beginning at 41:29). And I have a sense that, in hindsight, Dr. Jacobs might even agree with this. I've put some effort into grasping and absorbing the contents of previous videos on this podcast, which, to my delight, I discovered about a month ago. The most important realization for me, the one that Dr. Jacobs kept stressing throughout several episodes, is that THE REALIST-NOMINALIST DIVIDE IS FUNDAMENTAL TO THE POLARIZATION shaking our western civilization. I had already been aware of the other divide - the idealism-materialism one - but the realist-nominalist angle offered a fresh perspective, which, to me, resonated even better with much of what we are  witnessing in the world around us. Reframing the discourse from realism vs. nominalism to idealism vs. materialism, even as just a means of clarification, undermines the basic thesis: that of the realist-nominalist divide being the metaphysical root of our current problems and disagreements.

I find this switch not useful because I'd say that the realist-nominalist proposition offers more in the way of mutual understanding between the two sides. For many people, the idealist-materialist divide seems too wide to bridge or jump over, with reasons for this being both historical and inherent in the two positions. From my personal standpoint, the realist-nominalist lens opens a better path of communicating the truthfulness of realism (to which I adhere, being an Eastern Orthodox Christian) to those seduced and misdirected by nominalism.

I find the switch to also be inaccurate, since one can be an idealist and still also a nominalist. Dr. Jacobs himself has given us (taught us) examples of this: William of Ockham and Immanuel Kant. Moreover, one could in principle imagine a materialist who is also a realist: in spite of (or better yet - because of) mind coming from matter (since, for a materialist, matter is all there is), it (the mind) may directly channel how matter is. (OK, I borrowed this one from Plato's view of the soul coming from the world/reality of forms, but I still think it may hold.) Wouldn't this precisely be a true and ultimate materialist position, anyhow: that the world and the mind are both just matter, i.e. of one and the same reality?

Since he admitted he doesn't read the comments, I won't hold my breath for Dr. Jacobs responding to these amateur ruminations, but I would like to here what the others think.

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Martin Luther and his “alien imputed righteousness” by mere divine declaration is peak nominalism. The Bible, of course, teaches participatory, synergistic realism.

For me it was working thru 1st letter to Corinthians.  The question of meat and spirits.  Paul wrote that physical cult object in the temple is not a thing. YET, eating meat in temple is participating with demons.  If you unpack this, its apparent that in acient world, cult objects were hyperlinks to stories, narratives and ideas.  Today we don't have physical objects as our literacy is much higher than in ancient world.  So we fashion our idols with words and call them ideologies.

Problem with Aristotle is that using naturalist taxonomy on the spiritual world.  It doesn't work that way.