Ryan Pauly
Ryan Pauly is the founder and president of Think Well and the Director of Immersive Experiences at MAVEN. He has been working with junior high, high school, and college students for over a decade as a missionary, school teacher, field guide and speaker.
After graduating from college he became a missionary in the Dominican Republic where he spent four years teaching English, Worldview, Apologetics, and Leadership to junior high and high school students. Ryan moved back to Southern California in 2015 and started teaching Historical Christian Doctrine and Apologetics, Comparative Religions and Worldviews, and Philosophy of Ethics at a Southern California Christian high school. He taught high school full-time for 12 years until 2023 when he left to work with Think Well and MAVEN.
Ryan started in the apologetics world back in 2015 with his blog, Coffeehouse Questions. This led to the podcast in 2016 and YouTube in 2020. Think Well was officially launched in June of 2022. Ryan joined MAVEN as a field guide in 2017 and was promoted to Director of Immersive Experiences in 2023. He also serves as a faculty member at Summit Ministries, a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Reasons to Believe Scholar Community, and a volunteer at www.talkaboutdoubts.com.
Ryan received a Bachelor’s degree in Theology with an emphasis in youth leadership from Vanguard University. He completed his Master’s degree in Christian apologetics from Talbot School of Theology and is currently working toward a Doctor of Ministry in Practical Theology. His research is focused on what Scripture says about the most pressing practical issues of our day like gender and sexuality, race, technology, politics, deconstruction, and more. He also holds a certificate in Science Apologetics from the Reasons Institute.
think-well.org 
August 7, 2017 at 10:11 pm
I’m saying this, having not yet seen the video. I’m basically tossing in my own two cents on this subject, in the hopes that someone in the video hasn’t made the exact same point.
The argument I’ve used to combat relativism in the past is actually quite simple. The idea of relativism self-destructs when one comes to the realization that relativism actually forces God into the unenviable position of self-contradiction.
While some like to argue otherwise, the truth is that all faiths contradict each other in very fundamental ways. For example, the Hindu faith argues for the existence of an eternal soul, while the Buddhist faith denies the existence of one.
Similarly, there is a massive disagreement between Christianity, Judaism and Islam. While we Christians believe in the Trinity, Jews and Muslims categorically reject and deny the idea of God as anything but unitarian in nature.
These can’t be explained away as the “big stuff”, while the “little stuff” (read moral codes) are all that matters. The most fundamental element of any faith is their interaction with the divine.
The Buddhists essentially deny the existence of God, the Hindus insist there are millions of gods, the Wiccans worship nature instead of God and the Abrahamic siblings can’t agree on the essential nature of God Himself, let alone where Jesus fits into the entire thing.
Either God is by His very nature self-contradictory, or relativism falls flat on its face. My vote? Relativism is a farcical argument, used by the ignorant in the hopes of forestalling any kind of argument or conflict, so that they may continue to languish in their ignorance.
However, if you remove that comfortable veil by knocking aside this non-argument, you stand at least somewhat of a chance at getting through. Sadly, the last time I used it, the other person simply did the equivalent of sticking her fingers in her ears and chanting. (“Well, if you believe it’s true, then it is” repeated ad nauseam)
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