Basic Christianity: Who is God?

In this thought-provoking episode of Balancing the Christian Life, Dr. Kenny Embry engages in a conversation with Tommy Humphries, a college professor at Saint Leo University, about the existence and character of God. They delve into the complexities of belief, drawing parallels between faith and marriage, and explore the transformative power of love in the Christian journey. Join them as they navigate through questions of doubt, the limitations of human understanding, and the pursuit of a deeper relationship with God.

Key Takeaways:

• Simple but Complicated: The question of God's existence is foundational to Christianity, but it's more complex than a simple yes or no.
• God as Love: Tommy believes God is love, and you can't talk about God without talking about love.
• Human Reason & Faith: Both human reason and faith play a role in understanding God. Even atheists and theists can have similar views if terms are clarified.
• Doubt and Faith: Doubt is part of the human experience, even for Christians. A lack of doubt can be a sign of shallow thinking.
• Marriage as an Analogy: Both marriage and faith involve commitment before full understanding and deepening of the relationship over time.
• God's Character: Believing in God involves understanding His character, not just acknowledging His existence.
• Love as the Core: Love is the greatest of all virtues, and the ultimate goal is to become a perfect lover of God and neighbor.
• Good of Believing in God: Belief opens us to a deeper understanding of the world and a transformative relationship with God.

Memorable Quotes:

• "I became a Christian for very different reasons than I stay a Christian, because I think the reason I became a Christian was to escape hell. But I don't stay a Christian to escape hell." - Kenny Embry
• "God is love, and the heart of love is the ability to give yourself completely to another for their good." - Tommy Humphries
• "The real work of a theologian is to present a love which cannot be deconstructed." - Bishop Daniel Flores
• "Faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love." - 1 Corinthians 13:13

Call to Action:

• Sign up for the free Balancing the Christian Life conference.

Additional Notes:

• Dr. Kenny Embry is a conservative church of Christ member and communication professor.
• Tommy Humphries is a Catholic and a college professor.
• The conversation explored the complexities of belief in God, the nature of faith, and the importance of love in the Christian life.
• Dr. Embry emphasizes the importance of learning from people with different perspectives.

Remember to be good and do good.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In this episode of Balancing the Christian Life, we
talk about the existence of God.
Welcome to Balancing theChristian Life.
I'm Dr Kenny Embry.
Join me as we discover how tobe better Christians and people
in the digital age.
You believe in God.

(00:22):
I know you do, or at least Iknow you think you do.
Why listen to a Christianpodcast if you don't believe in
God?
But do you know what thatactually means?
Lately, I've been thinking aboutreally simple but complicated
ideas about Christianity.
They are what I consider thefoundations of what it means to
be a Christian, and the firstone that I wanted to tackle was

(00:46):
who is God?
It's a three-word question thathas really endless
possibilities, but I think oneof the things that we often
struggle with is does he existat all?
That is the struggle of theatheists, that's for sure, and
many agnostics.
I think once you get past theidea of if there is a God at all

(01:08):
, you have to start grapplingwith who is he?
Is he good, is he bad, and howdo you know?
For this conversation, I decidedto talk to a colleague of mine,
tommy Humphreys.
He's a college professor at StLeo University, which is a
Catholic school.
I realize he and I come fromdifferent faith traditions.

(01:32):
I am a conservative Church ofChrist member.
I would be called anti by many,and that's fine with me, but I
strongly believe that we havesomething to learn from everyone
, including people who don'tgrow up the same way we do, and
I'm willing to put that to thetest.
I vouch for Tommy.

(01:52):
I know we have some theologicaldifferences.
I know he believes in the Popeand I do not.
What we talk about here is sofundamental to Christianity and
so fundamental to both the wayhe thinks about God and the way
I think about God.
I think there's a lot ofoverlap.

(02:14):
Some of the very best thinkersabout Christianity include names
like CS Lewis or RR Bruce orsome of the great thinkers who
have thought about some of theramifications of what it means
to be a Christian and how we doit very practically, and none of
them are from the Church ofChrist tradition.

(02:35):
I want to learn from people whoare great thinkers, and I think
Tommy is one of those greatthinkers, as well as just an
excellent guy all around.
I also knew the way that Tommywould go with this, and he ended
up exactly where I thought hewould.
He believes that God is love.
It's hard for me to argue withthat, because I think he's right

(02:59):
you can't talk about Godwithout talking about love, and
that's exactly where Tommy'sabout to take us.
So, tommy, let's just starthere.
Do you believe in God?
I do, I do as well.
What is it exactly that webelieve?

Speaker 2 (03:18):
I mean, obviously it's meaningful to say there's a
God, we believe in God, andoften we think we're saying the
same thing.
Right to say there's a God, webelieve in God, and often we
think we're saying the samething.
So I suppose you know, onequestion or line of questions to
ask would be something likewhat do we mean by God?
That's right.
Is the object of that beliefthe same thing?

(03:39):
Right, but there's another wayto open up the question.
Maybe we don't mean the samething by believe, right.
Believe, I think, think, has atleast two ends of the spectrum.
Okay, one is the normal waythat we use the word when we're
speaking.
It's a verb of knowing, it's averb of thinking and it
indicates, uh, a lower degree ofcertainty, right?
And so it's like um, how hot isit outside?

(04:01):
I don't know, but I believeit's over 90, right Because I'm
sweating right.
I just walked in, but then youknow it's like well, we could
test, that, we could go look ata thermometer and then I
wouldn't say, man, I believeit's 92 degrees.
I would say something like I'mcertain it's 92 degrees, right?
So belief might be how certainam I about a thing?

(04:23):
And it would indicate lesscertainty, all right.
So there's one way of asking aquestion to like a Christian, do
you believe in God?
And the answer is yes, but I'mnot certain, right.
But I'm thinking of it as thesame order of knowledge as
what's the temperature outsideor how late is Home Depot open.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
So basically you're looking at this as kind of a
tenet of faith.
That faith is kind of that ideaof belief.
Is that right?

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I mean faith and belief would
simply be the same word, samething yeah.
But another sense of belief, andthis is the explicitly
Christian sense, and this, Ithink, is unique across all
conversation partners that wemight envision things that we
call religion, things that wecall philosophy, things that we
call theology and their beliefis not so much my way of knowing

(05:08):
things and asking whether ornot I'm certain, but it's God's
way of knowing things right.
And so theological faith, as agift from God, as a virtue,
means that I'm doing somethingrelated to human ways of
knowledge.
It's still my mind, but it's mymind acting on grace, it's my
mind acting on God's knowledge,and an intermediary in there, or

(05:31):
a dividing line, is revelation.
Is God providing that knowledgeto me?
And so one way of asking thequestion do you believe in God?
Is like do you have a hunch?
How certain are you?
When you list the order ofthings you know, two plus two is
four.
You're married, you're sittinghere, it's hot outside.
Where does God fit in that?

(05:53):
And then another way of askingthe question is something like
do you think that you'rethinking beyond your own human
ability with something that Godhas given you?
And of course, for Christiansthe answer to both questions is
yes, and so we all have somedegree of certainty, rational

(06:13):
processes.
I've worked it out and I canhave a conversation about belief
, faith, with any other humanwho's rational, and of course I
cannot have that conversationwith my dogs, because I can't
have a rational conversationwith my dogs.
But human rationality would bethe limiting factor of that
conversation.
But then the other way that wemight use that word would be do

(06:35):
I have some experience,something that tells me I am
thinking in a transcendent way,in a way beyond what I normally
could come up with, and you andI both have those experiences
too.
And so we would say somethinglike do you believe in God?
And respond yes, I'm thinkingwith the mind of God.
God has revealed himself to mein a way that I would never
figure that out on human reason.

(06:57):
Second division we were makingis like what do we mean by God?
And I think a lot of times whatwe mean by God sort of
corresponds to what we mean bybelieve.
And so if we're asking thatquestion entirely within the
limits of human reason, then theobject of that belief is more
or less going to be some kind ofpropositional content that we
could always talk about underhuman reason.
It's going to look like do youbelieve two plus two equals four

(07:21):
?
I do, in fact I know I'mcertain.
Well, do you believe two plus Xequals four, and therefore X
equals two?
Well, some people start sayingI'm not quite as certain about
that one, but I do believe,right.
And so we come up with the samequestions, right?
Do you believe that God exists?
Yes, do you believe that God isomniscient?
Right, and we go through theselists of traditional attributes

(07:43):
of God.
The answer to all thosequestions is yes.
The resources for answeringthem very well might just be
sophisticated human reason.
But then the other way ofasking the question is but is
this personal?
Have you had a revelatoryencounter with God?
And of course, that alwaysradically changes your life.
It gives you new abilities tothink.
But then, well then I may notbe able to have a conversation

(08:06):
with you if you've not had asimilar experience.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
Well, I definitely want to go down that rabbit hole
in just a moment.
I think one of the things that,especially as we come to terms
with how we relate to the restof the world, there are people
who believe, like me and you,that there's somebody who's
going to hold us to a standardthat we will not hold ourselves

(08:32):
to.
In other words, that there issomething that we would call
good and that God is thegreatest good that there is, and
there's that perfect standardthat if you're acting like a
numbskull, you know you'reacting like a numbskull because
you're not acting as good as God.
Would you see what I'm saying?
Yeah, so I think to me, and itkind of goes back to that idea

(08:54):
of Hebrews 11, where he says inorder to please God, you must
first believe that he is andthat he is rewarded of those who
diligently seek him.
So I guess the simplest waythat I think about this question
is do you believe in the factof God, that, whether you want
to believe that there's an oldgray-haired dude in the sky,

(09:16):
that, whether or not you wanthim to be there, he is there and
you believe?

Speaker 2 (09:20):
that he's there.
You see what I'm saying yeah,yeah, no, I mean certainly I do,
and certainly any number ofother people do.
I mean, this is something thatI think you don't even need.
Christianity, for you don't needrevelation, you don't need
scripture, you don't need anencounter with Christ.
I mean Socrates, plato andAristotle, all of whom famously

(09:41):
agree and disagree with eachother and Socrates is a teacher
of Plato directly and Plato is ateacher of Aristotle directly.
Like these men knew each otheras elder and younger, they all
accept that there must be thisfundamentally good, divine thing

(10:01):
.
It's a real question aboutwhether thing is the right word,
or being is the right word, orwhether he's so good that he's
just beyond any of those termsas well.
But yeah, I think that'sperfectly natural and makes
sense within human reason.
And, frankly, if you'reconstructing a picture of the
world and the universe in whichthere's not something like that
or someone like that, then Ireally think you have a flawed

(10:24):
understanding of yourself andthe world.
I mean, I don't see how you canmake a consistent picture of
the world simply as a rationalbeing.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
But you know as well as I do,there are people who consider
themselves atheists and theywill actively argue against this
being.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah.
And so there again, you knowtwo broad, or maybe three broad
now, parts of the conversation.
One, an atheist could be saying, in all honesty, I've never
experienced the God you'veexperienced.
Right, it's not that way, and Ihave to be open to.
Well, maybe you and God have adifferent relationship than I do

(11:05):
with God, right, I mean, that'sa possibility that exists.
But then, within that limits ofhuman rationality, it may be
that when I say I believe in God, I think it's credible, I think
that it's reasonable, right tobelieve in a God who's
all-powerful.
You and I are constructingpower in very different ways,

(11:26):
and so when you think of thisGod just your definition of what
the object of belief is you'rethinking of a God who exercises
power in terms of violence orpower over, and I'm thinking of
a God who exercises powerfundamentally in terms of love.
Right, I'm thinking of the Godwho creates out of love and
you're thinking of the God whodestroys out of hate.

(11:46):
Well, again, we just don't havethe same meaning of the word
God there, and often I think thecase is, if we could clarify
those bits entirely within humanreason, we'd find that the
atheist and the theist aresaying remarkably similar things
.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Oh, I completely agree with that.
I think one of our problems andyou've kind of already
addressed this is that we arelimited to the relationships
that we have with the peoplethat we know and suddenly this
idea of who God is looks a lotlike the people that we know.
Right, because that's the onlyframe of reference we have.
Right, and we recognize thatour friends and the people that

(12:25):
we know all have limits andyou're trying to take basically
a limited understanding of thepeople around you and I think
most of us unintentionally givethe same limits to God because
that's all we have a frame ofreference for.
You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, Now can we go back to the Hebrews.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
You were saying there's like an end of faith or
a goal of faith.
Yeah, can you articulate thatagain?

Speaker 1 (12:48):
Well, sure, if you go back to Hebrews 11, where he
says that he goes through whatwe call the Hall of Fame of
Faith, here are all these peoplelike Abraham, who was given a
lot of promises and basicallydid not live long enough to see
any of them fulfilled.
What he says there is thesepeople all died in faith.
And then during that he talksabout, he says I want to say in

(13:10):
like verse six or seven in orderto please God, you must first
believe that he is and that hewas your warder of those who
diligently seek him.
And the argument that I havewith that is that first part is
something that there is a God,that you believe that he is.
Because if you can argue Godout of existence, then you're

(13:36):
not pleasing to God.
And I think and you might agreewith this, you might disagree
with this, this you mightdisagree with this You're also
not being very intellectuallyhonest, because if you don't
believe that there is an eternalcreator, you recognize that we
all somehow get along and wehave a moral sense.

(13:56):
And where did that moral sensecome from?
And again, if we were going tobe talking about CS Lewis, one
of the things I would say is.
He would argue that that moralsense really almost has to come
from God.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Absolutely.
Yeah, cs Lewis is a greatdialogue partner on these and
there are lots of thesearguments about well, they kind
of fundamentally come to a pointthinking of CS Lewis with like
you could either begin with anall-good God, you could begin
with an all-evil God, or youcould begin with equally evil
and equally good, and the onlyway to explain any good in the

(14:34):
world is if there'sfundamentally good, because if
it were fundamentally evil, evilwould never allow good to come
about.
Right, and if there were equalevil and good, then you would be
stuck in a similar way, right,like there would be no sense
that good overcomes or no reasonto prefer one to the other.
So the fact that we do have apreference for the good suggests

(14:56):
that the good must befundamental.
Yeah, I was thinking about whyyou want such a faith, why
Abraham wants that kind ofrelationship with God and why
God wants that relationship withAbraham, if we could speak that
way.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
No, I think that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
I think that's the better question, quite frankly,
yeah and I think the answer tothat question has to be that
belief, faith in the Christiansense, is the beginning of
something, not the end.
And I mean this is all over theNew Testament, I'm thinking of
Paul often.
Faith, hope and love, right,and this is a sequence, this is

(15:36):
an order.
And so let's pause and ask aquestion.
Sure, why would belief be thebeginning of something, or of
what is at the beginning?
What is the end result ofknowledge?
Now, the end result ofknowledge in that first sense of
faith, like just I'm less thancertain, is usually I want to

(15:57):
seek a higher degree ofcertainty, right, I'm not sure
if I drop something how fast itwill fall.
Let me drop it a bunch of timesand count and see how fast it
falls.
And now I drop it a bunch oftimes and count and see how fast
it falls, and now I'm morecertain.
I have a theory and right, wecan, we can move along those
lines, but the point ofknowledge of a person is open to
a lot more than how fast do youfall when I drop you?

(16:18):
Right?
Yeah, the the point ofknowledge with a person opens to
love.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
The reason to know not another thing, but another
one right Not just simply tothink of objects of knowledge,
but subjects of knowledge isthat my knowledge allows me to
love.
Now, what is it that suspensethat's holding out right?

(16:47):
Well, I don't know Godperfectly yet, but God gives me
enough knowledge in thetheological sense, enough faith
that I can begin to love him.
Love begets its own kind ofknowledge, and it's a deeper
sense of knowledge than just theintroductory, I see you, right

(17:08):
kind of knowledge.
And so I think we hit the cycle.
I think what Hebrews ispointing towards is yeah, in
this life there's a kind ofsuspense where I realize one I'm
not the determiner of thiswhole relationship, at best I'm
one part of it.
I'm not the determiner of thiswhole relationship, at best I'm
one part of it.
And then I realize, actually,if I'm comparing my part to
God's part, I'm the small partof it, right?

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Oh, yeah, and so.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
I'm not in control of this.
So, yeah, there's a sense I'vegot to step out, I've got to
trust, I've got to open, and I'malso opening myself to all the
vulnerabilities.
This is exactly like when wemet our wives, you know.
Like hey, I kind of like you.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
Would you tell me your name, right?

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Like there's a lot of stepping out.
The stepping out that we'redoing is both a stepping out in
lack of knowledge please fulfillmy knowledge and a stepping out
in love, At least at thebeginning of.
I think you might be one whom Ican love.
Let me know more about you thatI might love you more, and now
that I love you, I also know youmore in ways that I did not

(18:10):
know you before.
Now in this life, the realityis we die before we have what we
are told is going to be thefuller relationship with God.
We die short of resurrection.
We die short of seeing God faceto face.
We have momentary glimpses ofhim, we have experiences, but we
know that they're not yet itright.
Eyes not seen, ears not heard.

(18:31):
We're headed somewhere elsewhere it's going to be a better,
more solid knowledge and love,and so I think this is what
Hebrews call him Paul,traditionally, or not Paul, if
we think that it doesn't looklike that.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Oh, I don't think it's Paul.
Yeah, I don't think it's PaulSure.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
This is what Hebrews is pointing out too.
All of these fathers in faithhave had enough knowledge of God
to know there's no one elseworthy of your love.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
You know that you mentioned marriage.
I mean, the fact of the matteris, you make a commitment before
you understand the commitmentand I think one of the things
and this is my own opinion Ithink God gave us marriage in
such a way that it illustrateshis relationship to us.
He could have given us anynumber of ways to procreate, but

(19:19):
what he makes us do is tocommit to one person, ideally
commit to one person for life,not understanding them
completely, but in sickness andin health, really in everything
that's good and in everythingthat's bad, and you don't know
what the good parts are going tobe and you don't know what the

(19:40):
bad parts are going to be.
But you're in and before youhave all the information, are
you going to do this or not,which sounds a lot like
Christianity.
Before you get into this, areyou going to do this or not?
Before you know everythingabout this, are you in or are
you out?

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Does that make sense?
Yeah, Are you in enough tofigure it out Now?
I mean, there's somepreconditions to that, right?
You have to know enough toreasonably commit to something,
right, I mean you don't justmarry the first woman you meet
on the street, right?
Well, she said no, hey, morethings alike between us.
Yeah, there also there's aprecondition on that, which is

(20:20):
something like self-possessionright.
Before I can say I do, I have toknow the I right.
I mean I have to be in chargeof myself enough that right now
I can say yes and meaningfullycommit to the arc of what I
don't know is coming for thenext half of my life.
That's a pretty radicalcommitment.
Right To say I'm inself-possession enough today

(20:43):
that I can commit the rest of meto this relationship.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
But here's what I like about this, tommy.
I promise this is true and youknow it's true.
You have had doubts during yourmarriage.
100%, yeah.
And again, this, in my opinion,relates very nicely to this
idea of do you have doubts aboutthe existence of God?

(21:09):
Do you have doubts about God?
Right, and I think that's quitefrankly, and I don't know if
you'll agree with me on this ifyou don't have doubts about God,
I don't know that you're doingit right.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
No, I agree with you 100%.
And there's this book by.
It was Pope Benedict XVI, butbefore he was pope he wrote the
book as Cardinal RatzingerIntroduction to Christianity and
it opens kind ofcounterintuitively with stories
about doubt.
But the point he makes is thatwhat unites the atheist and the

(21:42):
theist is doubt.
But the point he makes is thatwhat unites the atheist and the
theist is doubt.
There's actually no perfectlycertain atheist or any perfectly
certain atheist is a low-orderthinker, in the same way that
any perfectly certain Christianis a low-order thinker.
You're not being honest withyourself, right?
Because, as we were talkingabout before, like the universe

(22:03):
that you understand, if theuniverse is simply that which
you understand, if you are thedefiner of the universe, right,
you are the center of theuniverse.
Like, that universe falls apartfor sure on day two, if not a
minute two.
Right, right, right, right.
So at some point you have tosay I don't have it figured out.
And then what you're actuallysaying is I'm an atheist means

(22:25):
I'm committed to this traditionof thinking, I'm committed to
this philosophy that we do haveit all explained within human
resources and we don't need Godto explain it.
Or I hate Christianity becauselook at the horrible things
they've done and come up with alist of of abuses and and and
war crimes, I mean, like, likeeverything you can imagine.
Okay, um, uh, the other, theother thing, and my wife, um,

(22:50):
does not appreciate the story asmuch as I do, uh, so I'll
caveat it with maybe, uh, maybethis is a conversation between
the two guys, but, um, when wewere doing our marriage
preparation, uh, one of the setsof questions was something like
doing our marriage preparation,one of the sets of questions
was something like are you ableto commit?
Right?
And I know what they're askingabout is are you under duress?
You know, are you marrying thiswoman just because she's got

(23:13):
money and you don't, or you know, and well, those are bad
reasons to get married, right?
That can't be the sum total ofit.
Yeah, okay, go ahead.
But I was also thinking a lotabout this question of like.
Actually, I don't think I'm incharge of myself right now to
commit myself to every unknown,like I realize this commitment
is huge, and so the questionswere worded are you able to do

(23:36):
this, or how certain are you?
And I marked a number of themas well.
It's a delicate question.
I'm not actually ready tocommit, or if the question is
simply can I, on my ownresources, do it right?
All right.
So this comes up.
My wife is horribly embarrassedand, like I can't believe that
you would express some doubt ingetting married.
You know the answer to thequestion is supposed to be yes.

(23:58):
So the priest is asking us hey,what's up with this?
And I said, father, this is anincredible commitment, I could
not do it alone.
And the question anticipated canI commit to marriage on my own?
And my answer is no, but I'mnot committing to marriage on my
efforts alone.

(24:19):
I'm committing to marriage asexactly as you say, a pattern
that God has set up andsomething I think God is
blessing and God's going toprovide graces that I don't have
yet, right, like I'm notmarried yet, and so I have this
full faith that God will provide.
I got no idea how that's goingto look, what the joys and the
difficulties are going to be,absolutely, in all honesty, I

(24:43):
doubt I have struggles.
I think everybody does.
You got to be honest about that.
You also have to be honestabout the point you were making
earlier that for Christians,this is not something we're
doing alone.
And in fact, let's go back andthink about Genesis.
One does not envision thepossibility of human existence

(25:05):
apart from a male and female whois fertile and multiplies
what's created in the image ofGod.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
Man is created in the image.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Go ahead, Let us create man in our image, male
and female.
He made them.
Yeah, you're right, right and soI mean I don't want to say you
cannot read it, as I, as anindividual, have made the image
of God.
Of course you are, but don'tclose yourself to what Genesis
actually says, which is that weare made in the image of God and

(25:41):
there's something about thathuman community, something about
that marriage which, exactly asyou said, is an icon of God, is
the image of God and there'ssomething about that human
community, something about thatmarriage which, exactly as you
said, is an icon of God, is theimage of God and we have to be
open to that right that I aloneam not the perfect image of God
and I, with Christine, my wife,am an image of God in a way that
seems to be much more naturalto Genesis.

(26:03):
Genesis 2 makes the sameargument right.
Imagine if there were one human.
It is not good to be alone.
Imagine if you tried to betogether with all of the rest of
creation.
None of those are a suitablehelpmate right.
That's why there's male andfemale.
I think we're beat over thehead with it in Genesis 1 and

(26:23):
Genesis 2 that there's somethingabout community and,
specifically, marriage, where wehave to meditate on being the
image of God.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Right, and in the Catholic tradition you would
call that a sacrament.
I would not Go ahead.
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think.
So much of the metaphor ofbasically both marriage and
family.
I don't know about you, tommy.
I got married for very differentreasons than I stay married.
I thought my wife was gorgeous,I thought we would have a great

(26:55):
time and that, quite frankly,was the reason I got married.
Sure, but my marriage is muchdifferent to me now and, quite
frankly, I still enjoy thesexual part of my marriage.
Right, glad I do, right, but.
And I love my wife in a verydifferent way, and it's not that

(27:15):
I've jettisoned that part of it, it's that I understand her
more and I appreciate her moreand she's in some ways she is
completely insane and in someways she is a lot more
insightful than I am and shemakes me look like not an idiot
than I am and she makes me looklike not an idiot.
So I mean, that's somethingthat I appreciate and, quite

(27:37):
frankly again, this is areligious discussion I became a
Christian for very differentreasons than I stay a Christian,
because I think the reason Ibecame a Christian was to escape
hell.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
But I don't stay a christian to escape hell, but I
still want to, yeah I was goingto make exactly the same point,
that this is the dynamic we weretalking about, about, uh, faith
in the theological sense isopen to love and and, uh, you
have to have enough knowledge tostart the relationship, and,
and so we think of the beginningof faith.

(28:12):
That's right, right, that'sright.
But then that faith, andespecially if it doesn't include
hope and love, it stagnates, itstops and then you fall out,
right, and so the life ofChristianity is exactly the life
of marriage, and I mean this isall over scripture as well.
The wedding feast of the lambChrist is married to his bride,
right?
I mean, like, there you have it, old Testament, all over the

(28:34):
place in the prophetic calls Ilove you, I will call you into
the wilderness and my love willmake you pure right.
We're faithful to each other.
All of that is so deeply ladenwithin God's revelation of how
we fit together.
Yeah, it's beautiful, it makessense, and I think you're
exactly right.

(28:54):
The chart that any man can, orthe path that any man can chart
in his relationship with hiswife, is one of deepening and it
never abandons the initial part.
Of course I still find youwildly attractive.
Of course I still like hangingout with you and holding hands,
and all of those things hangingout with you and holding hands,
and right at all of those thingswhich were first impressions,
beginning of love, those don'tgo away, right, they, they take

(29:18):
on incredibly more significance.
Of course, I still have fear ofGod in the sense of avoiding
punishment, but I also don'twant to let God down, but I also
love God.
But I also have a deeper andmore abiding relationship with
God which is fulfilling in a waythat, again, I couldn't imagine
.
Or sometimes, you know, I thinkof it this way, like were you

(29:39):
married on the day that you saidI do yes, yes, yeah, somehow
more married.
Today we have to speak both asyeah, but the way I was married
20 years ago, 10 years ago, man,that's nothing like the way I'm
married today, that's right,but it's still the same marriage

(30:07):
and we have the same paradigmand I was Christian then and I'm
Christian now, but much moredeeply, so, much more better.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
So You're taking this a lot deeper than I was
anticipating.
We would go, tommy oh.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
I thought we were going to start with Moses at the
burning bush.
And who is God?

Speaker 1 (30:20):
I mean, yeah, I do want to get back to basically
this idea of because you'vealready made allusion to it we
have a lot of ideas about thecharacteristics of God.
But we have a lot of ideasabout the characteristics of God
and I think one of the reasons,one of the things you've
already said that makes a lot ofsense to me, is we keep on

(30:40):
trying to make God as small aswe are and because of that, the
ideas of the omnipresence of God, the omniscience of God, the
omnipotence of God, those wekind of got in part and parcel
with, basically, the traditionof God.
Why do we think God iseverywhere?

(31:01):
Why do we think that he knowseverything?
Why do we think that he has allpower?
Could we not have a creatorthat has less than all knowledge
, that has less than all power?

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, I mean multiple lines of thought about that.
I think I'd like to go back tothe point in the conversation we
were thinking about, likemaking God in my image versus me
in God's image, or what is itthat human reason wants?
And human reason recognizes aneed for things which transcend,

(31:39):
recognizes that in fact, I amnot the center of the universe.
That's just not a satisfactoryuniverse.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Wait a minute.
Are you saying I'm not centerof the universe?

Speaker 2 (31:48):
I am saying you are not the center of the universe.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Your wife is.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah.
So one thing that we're doingwhen we're saying God is
omnipotent is we're sayingrationally, I realize, I want, I
need, I've worked out thereought to be a thing which is
transcendent, which is beyondwhat I am.
I right, I'm not omnipotent, Iam, and so God must be right.

(32:15):
In other words, we're definingin reference to a thing we know
and we're saying but it's notthat, and we do this all the
time.
Right, we can't remember theword for this.
You remember that thing, it'snot this one, it's not that one.
Right, we're kind oftriangulating or walking our way
back and forth, or sometimesthink of it as a ratchet where
you kind of turn a bit and goback a different, and so you're

(32:37):
blocking in what it is.
And for people following in thephilosophical tradition, this
is in the apophatic term or thealpha privatives.
Right, god is not this, god isinfinite.
God is without boundary.
Right, god is not this, god isinfinite, god is without
boundary.
And there's a real questionabout are we limiting God by
applying our concept of infinite, which is what we intend not to

(33:01):
do?
Right, there's a real questionabout how language works.
Okay, so one reason that we willcome up with a God who's
omnipotent, omniscient,omnipresent, all of these things
.
Is that, effectively, whatwe're trying to say in language
is there is a God and I'm not itand I know these things about
me.
I'm present in one place, soGod's got to be different.
God's got to be present in allplaces.

(33:21):
That's helpful and meaningfuland that you can find in all
manners of rational thinkers,philosophers of every kind.
Right, you don't even need akind of religion, I think, to
come up with that.
Pure human reason can come upwith that.
Physics does this.
Right, we describe things andwe're like, yeah, this is the

(33:44):
model, but it's just a model.
That's not actually what it is.
So models are helpful, but I'vealways got something going on,
some analogy, some transcendent,some other.
Another thing we're doing withthat is not so much trying to
deny there's a God I'm not itbut I think we're trying to

(34:08):
imagine what the life ofperfection would be, and I'm not
sure that we can get to thatwithin human reason.
In my own thoughts.
I don't know where mytheological conversation picks
up and my philosophicalconversation ends, but I think

(34:31):
what we're aiming at ultimately,the Christian theological sense
is, as John says in the firstletter, god is love, and the
heart of love is the ability togive yourself completely to
another for the good, and sothere's freedom and there's

(34:54):
truth, and there's goodness andthere's beauty.
I mean all these things that weattempt to articulate the
transcendentals in philosophytraditionally.
So these are all ways of ustrying to say what would perfect
love look like.
Perfect love would be everywhere.
Perfect love can do anything.
Perfect love knows the fullnessof truth right, and so

(35:17):
certainly from the theologicalperspective, I think we can come
at it in that direction.
All of these are ways to saywhat would perfect love be.
It must be like that.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
I think the other thing that you would say is that
there's a very practicalreality to this as well, which
is, if God is going to be theSavior of everyone, he has to
have some ability to get to knoweveryone, and if you limit God
to just being able to get toknow a few with relative
shallowness, then what youworship has very little power

(35:56):
absolutely, in fact.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Uh it, it's very hard for me to come up with a a
notion of what worship would beif the object of worship is not
the god who loves.
Uh like, like what's why?
Why worship?
What is worship if God issimply power to destroy?
That doesn't seem like worship,right, that just seems like

(36:21):
common sense, because I don'twant to get wiped off the face
of the earth.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, but that's what idolatry looked like in,
basically, the Babylonians andall those which is— and today
still.
Well, no, you're exactly right,and, quite frankly, I think we
do that with God as well, whichis we're going to make bargains
with God as if he wantedanything from us.
That's right that we are.
You will have my allegiance ifyou will do this for me, and God

(36:46):
never needed your allegiance tobegin with.
And it kind of goes back toanother part of the conversation
that we already had, which iswe are not in an equal
relationship with God, unlikeevery other relationship that
you've had.
The reason that you're in agood marriage is because your

(37:07):
wife and you are still workingat it and you've agreed that
you're in a good relationship.
Right, but that's not the wayit is with God, because you
don't get to negotiate thatrelationship.
That relationship is dictatedto you on the very best possible
terms.
You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yes, the thing I want to add to that is that the very
best possible terms include Godinvites me to be a partner with
him.
That's right, right and so it'snot ultimately over and against
my will.
It's to the conversion of mywill in love, so that I do want
what God wants.
God will always want what'sbest for me Right, and will
always be what is best for me,but you don't know what's best

(37:46):
for you.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
That's right.
Yeah, and that's the.
You talked about 1 John, wherehe says not that we loved God,
but that God loved us, godstarts the relationship.
God starts the relationship,but he also perfects the
relationship, because we keep onmessing it up.
Yes, you see what I'm saying.
Yes, so I guess, going back tothat idea of why do we have to

(38:09):
believe that he's allpowerfulpowerful and all-present
and all, yeah, Sure, sure.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
So like what would be lost if we had a God who was
not all-powerful.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Who was limited?

Speaker 2 (38:18):
yeah, yeah, there are lots of arguments that work
like this.
Imagine that there is a God whois partially powerful.
Now imagine that there's a Godwho is fully powerful.
Right, isn't the fully powerfulGod better?

Speaker 1 (38:37):
Yes, and I want him to be better.
But what if he's?

Speaker 2 (38:39):
not.
You mean what if?
What if he's limited?
Well, but you would have tomean what if being limited is
better than being unlimitedright, Because part of the
definition of God is good, theperfect Right.
And so you can always ask thequestion is it better to be all

(39:00):
powerful or not?

Speaker 1 (39:04):
And the answer, traditionally so, was of course
God, who is all powerful, isbetter.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Is it better to be limited in your presence or
present everywhere?
Of course it's better to bepresent everywhere.
Is it better to be in time orout of time?
Of course it's better to belimited in your presence or
present everywhere.
Of course it's better to bepresent everywhere.
Is it better to be in time orout of time?
Of course it's better to be outof time.
So all of those things arewrapped up with normal arguments
about just what perfection was,and I can imagine a thing
better than what you'reimagining, and so I'm going to

(39:30):
replace your imagination of Godwith my imagination of God.
Right, I can just substitutethe best.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
I think one of the other things that I would say is
I've gone to some lengths notto define God by his revealed
message, by the Bible.
But if you even take a cursorylook at really any of the books
of Bible I'm thinkingspecifically of Job, where Job
has all these grievances againstGod and God's response is not

(39:58):
well, here's what was going on.
No, his response is where wereyou?
And basically what he does isvery.
He just basically says he putsJob in his place and he says I'm
sorry, but you're not a partyto basically creating the world.
That's my job.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
That's right.
Job does not get to define thetruth, and he says that right.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Like his wife says, you know it's time for you to
curse God right, like you'vecome to the end, and he says, no
, I can't.

Speaker 2 (40:26):
Why?
Not?
Because what Job is wrestlingwith is, but if I curse God,
what Job is wrestling with is,but if I curse God, I've put
myself in the position ofdefining the good here, and I
think I mean I think we're kindof retelling or meditating again
on the tree, the knowledge ofgood and evil, and the question

(40:46):
for Job is something like Jobdon't you get to define the tree
of the knowledge of good andevil?
Don't you get to be thedeterminer?
of what is good and what is not.
That's right and Job is likehey man, we've been down that
road.
It doesn't go very well for us.
No, the last thing I'm going todo is say I planted that tree
in my garden.
I didn't, god put that tree inmy garden and I have to be

(41:16):
cognizant enough to realize thatI'm at my limit.
I don't understand what any ofit's going to do, but I know if
I jump in and say I dounderstand all of the
implications, that'll be wrong.
That's a sure way to get itmessed up.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Yeah, although basically what you're arguing
there is God gets to define whatgood is and we don't have that
luxury, we just know what wewant but God gets to define
morality.
Do you see what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, yeah simply an arbitrary set of rules, right.
If it were all based on God'swill, which is what arbitrary
means, then I think a lot ofproblematic assumptions would
come right.
Could God have wanted itdifferent?
God could want anything, couldhe have made murder?

(42:03):
Fine.
But that, traditionally speaking, and certainly for me, is just
a bad formulation of God's will,because it anticipates that God
does not will the good.
And we're saying but there's anecessary connection between the
good and what God wants.

(42:25):
There's a necessary connectionbetween the perfect, the true
right, all of these things.
And so the fact that this isthe moral law is not simply a
reflection of God's will in theabstract of the truth of the
situation, but it is in fact anexpression of the truth.
It is in fact an expression ofbeauty, it is in fact an

(42:45):
expression of all of thesethings we've been discussing.
And that means, then, thatmorality is not obedience to
another will.
Right?
That would be a problematicunderstanding of marriage.
I want to do this, my wifewants to do that.

(43:06):
I'll just do what she wants,I'll obey.
Now, in fact, the paradigm ofmarriage is that I want the same
thing my wife wants.
That's why we're both committedto the same struggle and that's
why we can both come to eachother and say, hey, I think you
made a mistake, right, because Iknow your end goal is our good,

(43:26):
a fruitful, productiverelationship that draws us both
closer to God and witnessesGod's love to everyone else.
I think you fell short of themark and that's why both of us
are willing to hear thatconversation, right?
Like, actually, yeah, I foundmyself not wanting, and acting
on not wanting, the good.
All right.

(43:46):
Morality, then, is a lovingunion of wills.
Morality is a conversion of mecoming to want the same good
that God wants for me, and thatfeels good when I'm mature, for
the same reason that it feelsgood when my wife and I want the
same thing, and it's good.
Now, I'm always subject to myown limitations.
I don't always understand thegood, I don't always want the

(44:09):
good.
I can't always accomplish whatI do understand and want.
Yeah, I live in limitations,but okay, let's not make the
mistake of thinking of moralityas an arbitrary will of God,
which is not also alwaysconnected to the truth and the
goodness and the beautiful tothe truth and the goodness and

(44:33):
the beautiful.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
But one of the things that I would argue with you on
that is God gets to define alsowhat is true and what is
beautiful, because I think oneof the things, the marriage that
works is the marriage that'snegotiated.
But ultimately, if my wifedecides to do the objectively
wrong thing and I decide to dothe objectively wrong thing,

(44:57):
it's still bad.
You see what I'm saying?
Because god is the one whodefines what good and bad is.
You see what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 (45:04):
yes, okay, yeah uh, could we also say god is the
definition of what is good andbad?

Speaker 1 (45:11):
yes, okay yes, that, yes, that's what I'm saying I'd
be happier with thatarticulation.
Yeah, yeah, okay, honestly, Ithought we would just stick with
.
Do we know that God is and whoGod is?
But I think really, what you'restarting to talk about here is
the character of God himself.

(45:31):
It's not enough just to knowthat there is something in
existence, but part of believingin God is also defining the
character of God.
Is that accurate?

Speaker 2 (45:45):
you think yeah yeah, and coming into relationship.
And I mean again the parallels,and we know we're on strong
grounds theologically.
The parallels, marriage Likemany people know, there is a
spouse out there.
For me, right, there is someonewith whom it can work.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
I was 37 when I got married.
I doubted that for a long time.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Were you also married in our 30s?
I was at the age of Christ whenI made my consent 33?

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah here we are, there you go.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Yeah, well, okay, there is this sense in which
human reason can recognizethere's a need for something
right.
I mean this we've been callingthe transcendent or God or
something right, where it's likethere must be something more
and that motivates us to go findthe something more.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
Yeah, I completely agree with that, and you talked
about being in relationship withGod.
I think one of the things thatI worry about with Christians is
we have too much of a heavenfocus, that we have too much of

(47:01):
a focus of my life starts afterI'm dead, and there's a concept
in Christianity labeled thealready, but not yet.
And the argument that I wouldmake is the most exciting part

(47:22):
of heaven is the relationship,and you're already in that
relationship.
So the best part of heaven isalready here, but you're not yet
in heaven.
And I think one of the thingsthat I like about that
conceptualization because Ithink partially one of the
problems that we have is that wecan idolize heaven.

(47:44):
We can idolize rule keeping, wecan idolize a lot of the things
that in and of themselves, aregood and great things for
meditation.
We can idolize the law and losethe relationship.
You see what I'm saying, yepabsolutely yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Yeah, I think that's well said.
And there's also the temptationto make my local tradition,
however big, that is an idol,and there's even I mean it
sounds sacrilegious a temptationto make scripture an idol,
right, and these are all waysthat we sell short what the

(48:21):
fundamental relationship withGod is.
Yeah, I think that's right.
We also use the already not yetwith marriage.
I mean, this is what we weredriving at.
Wasn't I already married when Isaid I do, yes, but not yet in
the way that I am now right.
And we must have those old menin our life, like I remember Mr

(48:41):
Manus, a carpentry teacher, whojust said to me in my 20s when
you finally get married, I hopeyou find a woman like mine.
Right, and there's a certainsense in which these fathers in
faith, the Christians before us,are saying when you finally
settle down with God and enterthat deep relationship, I hope

(49:03):
you find my God, I hope you findthis God that's bigger than
anything you've ever imaginedyet and fundamentally more
deeper.
And there's a sense in whichwe're saying about heaven when
you finally get there, I hopeit's the right one, I hope
you've landed on the real heavenand you're already connected to
it, but don't let your alreadyconnection so short.

(49:24):
What else can happen?
Don't try to be married in theway of, for us, your 30s, or
most people, in the way of your20s, for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
Yeah, I see what you're saying and I really do
agree with this, because I thinkthe woman that I idolized in
concept was a very differentwoman than the real person I
ended up marrying and the realwoman's even more exciting.
It's different than me, yeah,and the important parts of it

(50:00):
are the parts that are differentthan me, because I could not
conceptualize the parts of it,because it comes from me, and I
guess one of the things thatyou're kind of addressing here
is don't get enamored of yourconcept of heaven.
Yeah, because you don't knowenough yet to figure out what's
good for you, much less whatheaven is really like.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Yes, some of what you know is right and some of what
you know is not right, and theprocess has to be clarifying
your image of heaven.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
And, to a certain extent, abandoning your idea of
heaven.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
That's absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Because I think the best parts of my marriage I did
not know I had to negotiate, Idid not know I had to and just
like that, the best parts ofChristianity.
I'll go out on a limb on thisand say I don't really
understand the best parts ofChristianity Because, quite

(50:56):
frankly, I keep on trying tomake Christianity in my image
and this is what Christ wants meto do, because this is how I
interpret, this is what Christwants me to do.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Right.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
And if I would and this is the corniest line I've
ever heard If I would just letgo and let God, I would probably
be a lot better off, right,right, I let go and let God was
big in certain phases of my life.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
The, the form that it has taken, uh, and, and I
actually like burned it into apiece of wood to keep it in
there is shut up and let Godlove you.
Right?
You're talking too much, tommy,right?
Um, yeah, um, yeah, that'sright, there's.
There's that constant, thatconstant call to something
deeper and more, and and thatGod.
At the same time, we don't wantto overextend ourselves and say

(51:48):
, well, therefore, I can saynothing.
Or on what grounds, then, am Isaying Christianity is right?
The grounds in which I'm sayingChristianity is right are
something like God is definitelylove.
I'm not wrong to say that Idon't know yet fully what that
means, and that's the same thingas saying how did you know your

(52:13):
wife was the one?
Well, I'm not wrong to say thisis my wife.
I'm not wrong to marry herright now.
I would be wrong if I said Iknow exactly how that looks,
right.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
A buddy of mine talks about the difference between
perfection and devotion.
And what he argues is,christians often focus on
perfection and we never meet, wenever get there and we keep on
beating ourselves up because wearen't perfect.
And in the back of our minds wealways know we're not going to

(52:44):
be and we never will be.
And in the back of our minds wealways know we're not going to
be and we never will be.
And some of us look at grace asthe spiritual whiteout that
covers over the thing, ourproblems, and that's the wrong
concept of what grace is.
God is devoted to us as far aswe are devoted to him, to us as
far as we are devoted to him.
And again, I think about thisas a parent.

(53:06):
Quite frankly, there's not muchthat my kids can do, that I
won't look past as long as theycome back home.
When they come back home, I'mgood.
And when they recognize, yeah,you're going to have to clean
that mess up, but we're goodWell, because what?

Speaker 2 (53:30):
you've always wanted as a father is what's good for
your children.
And there are many times inwhich you've known precisely
what the good is and theyhaven't.
They're still maturing, they'restill coming to terms with that
, they're confused.
I mean, there are all thesethings and we are too right.
I mean, like, I still chat withmy dad every week and many
times he's like yeah, that wasdumb son, what did you like?

(53:50):
What did you know?
I did not want you to make thatmistake.
You did make the mistake.
Let's move on.
Yeah, there must be somethinglike that.
That that's.
That's a very helpful way toconceive of God.
That's what God says.
I want what's good for you,only what's good for you, always
what's good for you.
Let's do that.
And yeah, I think you'reprecisely right about grace.

(54:13):
It cannot be whiteout.
It has to be transformation,right.
It cannot be God is denyingthat you got something wrong.
God's lying or looking theother way, right?
I mean, like that's aproblematic conception of God.
If that's how grace works,that's not a very helpful God.
Right, I got a better image ofGod than that.

(54:34):
No, the way grace works has toinclude.
I am now no longer the one whois attached to that sin.
I am now no longer the one whomisunderstands.
I am now better.
I am more in the image of God.
I am the one that God has mademe to be after grace, not before

(54:56):
.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Right?
Well, I'll tell you what I mean.
This is a conversation that isreally just talking about the
existence of God and really thebelief in God, and you've kind
of honed in more on that idea ofbelief, quite frankly, and you
have absolutely painted apicture of God.
I see that.
But what it means to believe, Ithink basically means that

(55:20):
there are a lot of things thatyou kind of have to sign on to
before you believe in God.
Am I characterizing thiscorrectly?

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
You're welcome to say no, Tommy.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Well, I mean, that's got to be right.
There's rational content to it.
There's something that you know.
The expanse that I want to openup is that it still also has to
make sense to say I believe inGod, and by God I mean these
three things that I know aboutGod and God has given me to know

(55:55):
about Him.
And 10 years from now I willstill believe in God, it will
still be the same God.
But now it's not those firstthree things, right.
And so as long as belief doesn'tget narrowed or static and
simply defined as what belieflooks like for a seven-year-old
or what belief looks like for a17-year-old or a 27-year-old,

(56:17):
I'm happy with that, becausethen it's something like our
daughter's seven, right?
And so what does it mean for aseven-year-old to believe in God
?
Well, we don't have to have aconversation about transitive
properties of identity and theTrinity, right?
That's not appropriate.
That's not the way to expressthat faith.

(56:39):
So she's still signing on tosome propositional content.
She's still accepting a certainamount of things, but as we
would list them, those thingswould be different from what I
hope they are when she's 17.
Now there's also that sense offaith We've been saying you know
faith, as knowledge has to bewhat allows for love, and so

(57:01):
faith is fulfilled in love.
Right, and I mean this is Paulagain all over.
Faith and law are thenparallels, and law is also
fulfilled in love.
Because you need this actionright, and so we can't.
We also need to be sure thatwhen we say, in order to believe
, you have to sign on the dottedline for certain content, that

(57:21):
that content is not simplyintellectual, that that content
is a way of life, right, and Imean Christ says I am the way,
the truth and the life.
To believe in me is eternallife.
To have a relationship withFather and Spirit through the
Son, of definition of that wouldbe.

(57:48):
If I'm asking what does it meanto have faith, then it's
something like what would faithin your condition look like in
an active life?
How would faith play out in thelife of love?
And that's then how I wouldknow do you have faith or do you
not have faith.
And so that would involve aconversation like you and I are
having what's the content ofthat faith?

(58:09):
Intellectually so, but it mustalso involve the other
conversation, which is how am Ileading my life?

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it reminds me of James.
Faith without works is dead.
Yeah, and I think that thatmakes a lot of sense to me
Really.
I mean, this is theconversation I wanted to have,
which is about that existence ofGod.
What did I miss when it comesto basically the idea of God?

Speaker 2 (58:41):
Well, I mean, we spoke about the traditional,
like all-powerful, omnipotent,all-knowing, omniscient and
omnipresent, the all-powerfuland all-knowing.
We have to think in anotherround that knowledge is really a
claim about truth, and there'sthis fundamentally incredible

(59:05):
ability for us to speak thetruth.
Right, that's a novelty.
It's not a given that alanguage can convey truth, right
?
We gotta think about that.
There are lots of problems ofcommunication.
In fact, like I have theseideas in my mind, you have these
ideas.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
How do?

Speaker 2 (59:18):
we get them out?
How do we know we're talkingabout the same thing?
That's a mystery, that's apuzzle, and a lot of modern
linguistic analysis andphilosophy and people that read
literature have seen the problemand many of them have actually
been unable to come up with theanswer.
We have the answer, right.
God is truth.
God provides like.
Truth is a foundation of theuniverse.

(59:39):
We're made in the image oftruth and we have this ability
to speak a language.
You got the Tower of Babel, yougot Pentecost.
You got you shall speak thetruth.
The name of the Lord shall bekept.
Holy right.
What a marvelous thing it isthat God allows his name to be
spoken in a language, that Godcreates a language which can

(01:00:00):
somehow reference his name.
All right.
So when we're thinking about aGod who is omniscient, I mean
this has got to be read into thefirst commandment.
This has got to be read in theTower of Babel, this has got to
be read in a Pentecost that youknow God will give us the
ability to speak the truth.
You cannot proclaim that Christis Savior apart from God

(01:00:23):
inspiring you with the HolySpirit and giving you the grace
to speak that truth, torecognize it.
Similarly, when we speak ofGod's power and again, I think
this is a fundamental dividebetween a Christian and many
Jewish understandings of God andany other understanding of God
that that is not power asability to do violence, it's

(01:00:46):
power to love.
Right that the ultimate poweris love.
And once we get on that line ofthought, we're fundamentally
connected to the Holy Spirit,right, the God who pours out his
love into human hearts, as Paulsays, the God who will take out
your stony heart and replace itwith a fleshy heart.
Right that will write his lawwithin you in the prophetic

(01:01:10):
tradition.
Now we're talking about theHoly Spirit, right.
We're having a reflection, onthe one hand, on the truth of
God, on Christ, and on the otherhand, on the power of God, the
love of God, on the Spirit.
These are not opposed at all.
The spirit, these are notopposed at all.
But lo and behold, humanrationality has always been

(01:01:30):
searching for that thing whichturns out to be the Trinity.
Not a thing, but a three-personexistence of love right, a
communion of persons.
And so well.
No wonder I cannot fully findmyself except in a sincere gift
of self.
No wonder I'm looking for thekind of knowledge that leads to

(01:01:51):
love.
No wonder marriage is like theperfect icon of God.
The way to be in the image ofGod is to live in this
fundamentally committedrelationship of self-gift.
Fundamentally committedrelationship of self-gift.
Well, I think we have to makethat turn for sure, to see what
Christians are talking about and, if we wanted to put it in an

(01:02:11):
intellectual conversation, whatChristians add to the
conversation.
Why should an atheist have aconversation with a Christian
theologian?
Well, because a Christiantheologian can say yeah, man, it
really is true.
All you want is to love and tobe loved, and that's because
we're creating the image of theGod who is love.
You will not find yourselfexcept paradoxically, in a

(01:02:35):
sincere and full gift ofyourself.
Why is that?
Because that's God's existencecomplete gift of self, father,
son and Spirit.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
I'll go ahead and tell you that what you're
leading to is a really goodconversation about love.
That's not this conversation,but I think one of the things
that I appreciate about as beinga father.
The most loving thing I can dois spank my kids, sometimes Sure
, or tell my kids no, and loveis not always permissive, as a

(01:03:05):
matter of fact.
Often it gives some prettyharsh realities.
But that said, I mean love, andI knew you were going to go
here, tommy, and it's one of thereasons I wanted to go over
this with you.
It all has to lead to love andand really, of all the things

(01:03:26):
that we cannot, I think we canget so many things wrong when we
focus on them.
Heaven, I think, is one of thethings that we can get wrong if
we only focus on heaven.
I think we can, we can, uh,righteousness I think we can get
wrong if we only follow on,only focus on righteousness, if

(01:03:48):
we only focus on relationshipand if we only focus on love.
I don't know that that's the,that's the wrong thing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
I?
I've been thinking a lot aboutthis and had a number of
conversations.
There's a he's a CatholicBishop, Daniel Flores, in
Brownsville, Texas, and we werespeaking at length about these
and some other things from adifferent direction.
But he said you know, the realwork of a theologian is to
present a love which cannot bedeconstructed, right, A love

(01:04:18):
which is not just idolized,right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
And I think that's exactly what you're saying,
right, right, and I think that'sbe self-interested, right, like

(01:04:47):
I have a role in love, I wantit to be there, but there's
something about having anygenuine, honest love which is
like, yeah, I need another rightBone of my bones, flesh of my
flesh, right, I need another one, like me, but different.
And yeah, there's somethingunique about reflections on love

(01:05:08):
which sort of self-containedwill always get outside of
themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Yeah, again, it reminds me of 1 Corinthians,
where he talks about faith, hopeand love and the greatest of
these, love.
And really the argument thathe's where that follows in that
argument is you guys arebickering about who has the best
spiritual gift, who has thegreatest gift of miracles that
you can prophesy, and all thatstuff, and and he just, and

(01:05:35):
again, it's it's the beauty ofthe pauline letters, which is
you guys are numbskulls, yep, um, and if you don't recognize
that love is the most importantof these gifts, y'all are
fighting, fighting about thewrong thing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
That's right.
You're fighting the wrong fight, right?
Yeah?
The only fight worth fighting,at the end of the day, is what
completely transforms me intothat perfect lover of God.
And the perfect lover of Godturns out also to be the perfect
lover of neighbor.
And Paul says it so oftenthat's what it's always been

(01:06:07):
about.
How have you forgotten this?
It doesn't deny that it'simportant to have the really
distinct conversations.
What can I do on Sunday?
What can I do on Saturday?
Is this a way of loving myneighbor?
Is this not a way of loving myneighbor?
Those are all very importantquestions, but, yeah, they're
all headed towards exactly thereality.
You're saying that this life ofI completely exist for another,
and somehow, what looks likecrucifixion to the rest of the

(01:06:31):
world turns out to be the verymeans of saving the world and
opening it to real life.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
I end all of my podcasts with be good and do
good, mm-hmm.
What's good about believing inGod?

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
It's?
I mean, it's a tricky question.
I don't mean just to pause fordramatic effect.
I'm thinking this through in away that we've been leading to

(01:07:25):
what is good about believing ina different orientation to the
entire rest of the world, muchas we're fathers and we get to
set order and build boundariesfor our children and our

(01:07:49):
families with these things?
I need that too, right, I amnot the definition of the world,
and belief opens me to that.
Belief also opens me to thatpossibility, that reality that
the continual fall of falling inlove is a building up right.

(01:08:12):
Is it becoming better?
Not an exhaustion.
It's not the crush which wearsme out and does not allow me to
function in all the otheraspects of my life, but it's
actually that which is thecenter of my life, builds me up
and gives everything moremeaning than it possibly could

(01:08:33):
have had before.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
Tommy, we might have to talk some more.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
I would love that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Well, anyway, I want to thank you for this.
This was excellent.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
I appreciate the conversation with you as well.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
The thing that I walked away with this
conversation was that you cannottalk about the existence of God
without also talking about thecharacter of God.
If you believe that he exists,then you have to start thinking
about who he is and what hestands for.
Our values as Christiansrevolve around who he is.

(01:09:13):
The other thing that I reallydidn't think much about was how
we often limit God by what wecan conceptualize.
In other words, sometimesunintentionally, we can try to
make God too small because weare limited.

(01:09:34):
I appreciate Tommy's perspectivea lot and I promise you this is
not going to be the only time Italk to Tommy Humphreys Again.
I'm not sure that we willalways come to the same
conclusions, and that thrills me.
I appreciate people whochallenge my Christianity and
make me think deeper aboutthings that make me better.

(01:09:58):
I really didn't do a properintroduction to who Tommy is.
Like I said, he teachestheology at St Leo University,
where I teach.
I also know this about Tommy heis an EMT as well as somebody
who teaches at the universityand at graduation.
When most of us are wearingmortarboards, he's wearing a

(01:10:21):
cowboy hat.
I love that about Tommy he is aredneck in the very best
possible sense of the word.
He is somebody that I havealways appreciated because he is
very down to earth andpractical, both in the classroom
and in his own Christianity.
I really appreciate who he isand what he does.

(01:10:43):
As for the good thing I'mthinking about, I'm excited for
the Balancing the Christian Lifeconference that's going to be
happening in about three weeks.
If you have not signed up forit, please do.
It's free, although there are acouple levels where you can
financially contribute to helpme defray some of the costs.
I think there's some excellentcontent that's going to be had.

(01:11:05):
So until next time, let's allbe good and do good.