149 - January Cornucopia - Apologetics 315 Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Apologetics three fifteen podcast with
your hosts Brian Auten and Chad Gross. Join us for
conversations and interviews on the topics of apologetics, evangelism, and
the Christian worldview.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I believe that everything happens for a reason.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hello, and welcome to the podcast. Happy twenty twenty five.
This is our first episode of the year. I'm Brian
Aughton and I'm joined by the One, the Only, the
chad Ster of Disadster, Chad Gross.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Happy Happy New Year, my friends.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Oh thank you, Happy New Year to you. I just
got kind of a WWE introduction.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
I like this.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
It reminded me of it in Rocky when they're introducing
Apollo Creed and they give him like ten names. That
was pretty great. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
I did try to come up with some names because
I had always been thinking I need to call you
Chad GPT or something or Giga Chad. And then speaking
of Chad GPT, I said, well, what would be all
new nicknames we could give Chad? And there was like
chad olac Chatters, Chad Zilla, the Chad Father, d Chad Father,

(01:13):
Chadley Mcchadface, chad Acorn, Captain, Chad Sparrow, Chad Vader, Alchadito,
but I like the Chadster of the Zads.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, that is pretty great. I'm gonna I'm gonna get
a T shirt with that on it. If I were
a professional wrestler, that would definitely be my name. I'm
just trying to think of what my entrance music would be,
because that's key when you're a wrestler.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
You know, Well, let's talk to the listeners. Is for
a moment, happy new Year? And what's the purpose of
this episode? Sometimes we do what we call cornucopia episode,
which is a bunch of different topics old roll together.
We don't have a particular guest today, but we have
some guests lined up and we're really looking forward to
getting back into a new season or new year. So

(01:59):
today we'll talk a little bit about what's coming in
twenty twenty five. We're going to be talking a little
bit about the Wesley Huff interview on the Joe Rogan Podcast.
Not too much about that. You've probably heard about it,
but if you haven't. Some books we're going to be reading.
We've got some encouragement for Christian parents, and we're answering
a listener question at the end, and so stick around

(02:20):
and hope you'll be entertained and edified. So, Chad, because
it's the new year, and yes, we haven't recorded a
podcast in a while, I have a little game to play.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Oh boy.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yes, so a few questions for you to I have
five questions for Chad. All right, So what's the first
apologetics topic that you ever studied?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Hmm? It was the reliability of the New Testament? M well,
how can we know that what was recorded was is well,
is reliable and was close to what was a region
only recorded? Because that was an important question for me

(03:03):
because I didn't have a lot of personal struggles with
I felt like I had a good handle on Okay,
I get who Jesus is claiming to be, I get
what he accomplished, but how do I know this actually happened?

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Right?

Speaker 2 (03:22):
So that's kind of led me into that question. And
that was actually through what where I started there was
with Lee Strobels the Case for Christ, and then some
of the people he interviewed in that book. Of course
I started looking into their work, so that was where
I started, and then I began looking into some of

(03:43):
the scholars work and I did come to a point
where I felt like what we have is is very reliable.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
I didn't really plan on answering along with you, but
I think maybe if I feel like it, I will.
But it's interesting you say that because I actually know
for sure what the answer was. And by the way, listeners,
he hasn't heard these questions in advance. He has no
time to prepare, so you're.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Get of disaster, has not heard these For me, I.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Think that was also the same topic because for those
who may or may not be familiar with, you know
me talking about how I got into apologetics before, but
I came out of in church experience back maybe in
two thousand and six, where I got burned by events
and things that transpired into church and I lost all

(04:34):
trust in people and leaders, and I was just thought
to myself, well, how could I even trust the Bible.
I'm willing to, but I need some reasons to trust
this because I thought I could trust people, and no,
it turns out I can't. I can't, you know, very
very pessimistic and cynical and jaded. And you know, after
I left that situation, the first thing I came him

(04:54):
into contact with, providentially was some Christian apologists talking about
how you can truy the New Testament, how you can
trust the scripture. And I was like, yeah, this wasn't
what I need.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, And wasn't that wasn't that when you were like
visiting a church?

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah. The next Sunday after I left Psycholand, I came
to a church and they had a panel of a
Christian Apologists. For all I know, it could have been locals,
you know, in southern California who were into Polstics, because
I was in Southern California and I have only after
I left it I realized that it was like, oh,

(05:30):
you got BIOLA, You've got RTB, You've got SDR. And
I'm like, why did I leave the place I should
have stayed? Oh no, But now because it's on fire,
I'm like, oh yeah that's why.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Oh there you go, there you go. It came full circle.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yes, yes, I mean, you know, eighteen twenty years later
it's like, okay, well you know it burned up. Yeah,
all right, moving on, moving on, sparing no time, don't
number two, I'm rubbing the ends together. Oh the first
uh oh no, no, what's your favorite one liner for
starting a conversation about faith m. I mean, besides, hi.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
My name's Giga Chad, you know, exactly exactly, or the
Chad Stir of disaster, Yeah, exactly. Honestly, the the most
helpful one. It's not very catchy or whatnot, but it
just stems from reading tactics with Greg Gogel just asking wow,
that's interesting. What do you mean by that?

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Mm hm.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
I find that's very helpful because most people are very
anxious to talk about what they think or believe, and
it's very harmless because you're you're genuinely just saying, wow,
that's that's interesting. I don't I don't understand what you
mean by that. Can you explain that to me? It's
an inquiry that that kind of shows puts them in

(06:56):
the position of informing you and uh. And then then
that leads into things like oh wow, I've never heard
that before. Have you ever thought about this? Or where
can I learn more about that? And hopefully can lead
to further conversations. But yeah, I mean, it's not maybe
super catchy or anything, but I find it effective.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
No, that's good. So for your second question, also.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Correct, Oh thank you?

Speaker 1 (07:20):
It is a star.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
So you can see these? Can you so?

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Moving? On to number three. Which argument for the God's
existence do you think is the most fun to explain?
Most fun to explain?

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Mine is definitely that the best explanation for the facts
surrounding Jesus's resurrection is that God rouse Jesus from the dead,
and that entails that God exists. And the acronym I
like to use, which I've used on the podcast before,
is case and those facts that just outlines a group
of facts that are highly evidenced, and also that the

(07:59):
majority of crit would even grant, and that the C
would be for crucifixion, The A would be for the
appearances to various people at various times in various places.
The s would be for skeptics who change their mind
after experiencing the risen Jesus, particularly Paul and his half
brother James, Jesus's half brother James. And then of course

(08:22):
E would be the empty tomb. And I have found
that to be first of all, very easy to remember
because of the acronym. And secondly, I do find that
the other explanations, don't they The other explanations fail to
give the best account for the facts. And as I
said in the beginning, if the best explanation is that

(08:43):
God rose Jesus from the dead, then that entails that
God exists. Now, some people like your classic apologists, would
you know, they and I would tend to agree with this.
What I would want to do is maybe use a
few arguments like maybe the colomb or the contingent see argument,
or the moral argument, which I think is a good argument.

(09:03):
It recently, I've noticed has fallen under criticism by a
lot of apologists the moral argument lately, but I still
find it to be a good argument. So to use
those arguments in tandem with the resurrection argument first, you know,
because if God exists and miracles are more likely, therefore
we can hold to the resurrection. And that's I mean,

(09:25):
I would do that too. But in specific, if I've
only if I only get to explain one argument, and
what argument do I enjoy explaining the most, it would
definitely be that one. M Yeah, yeah, what about you?
I'd like to know your answer on that one. I
think I know it, but I've been before. Guess I
think it would be the contingency argument.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Hmmm, but because I know that it's.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Wrong, because to be honest with you, to be honest
with you, I used to find the contingency argument. I
didn't find it helpful. And there was a statement you
made to me at some point in our friendship where
you said, wow, really, you know, I find that foundational,
is what you said, and it made me kind of
really revisit the argument. And now recently I've been actually

(10:15):
looking into that argument and wrote my own version of
it because I actually think it's I think it is persuasive.
So wow, I thought you would. Okay, well, which one
is your favorite?

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Then that's a different question than what's most persuasive. What's
most fun to explain is ones where for me you
can just riff on it without worrying about being too precise,
and we're bothering people with terminology and anybody can like
so for me, design argument, and for me is the

(10:48):
thing I enjoy the most is just looking around and
just finding design everywhere. You know, if you just look
at the clouds, you think, wow, you know this is
part of a system. If you look at the sun,
it's part of a If you look at the ground,
the ecology, it's part of a system. Systems within systems
within systems, all balanced on a razor's edge, all with

(11:09):
like sort of controls and variables that compensate for one
another to keep everything in balance. And you know, the
whole reason people are freaking out about global warming because
they don't want to upset the system, you know. So
I just think that you can. For me, I think
it's fun because you have to give a reason why

(11:30):
everything works so well or is designed so well, or well,
look at your tongue, you know, just grab anything. It's
like your tongue has all these sensors and useful tools,
and you know, you can speak, and you can articulate,
you can communicate, and to me, it just there are
just so many things that you can You could just

(11:51):
take anything and just riff on it and and then
kind of go back to why do you think it's
like that? Remember that Joe Rogan interview where he's like,
you know, we're so interesting. You know, humans are so
interesting and they're so unique, and we're so advanced, and
he's trying to find an explanation for that. And I
think that everyone wants to know who am I, where

(12:14):
did I come from? Why are things the way they are?
And then you could just look around and pull on
that sort of part of their their psychologies part of
their spirit, if you will, or whatever it is, you
can just explain that and cause them to start thinking
about all the things, and then maybe they just start

(12:35):
thinking about just challenge them to, Hey, look around everywhere
and tell me where you don't see design? And and
and everybody hates bad design, me the most of all people.
I always I hate bad design. My kids know it.
I always am just complaining like a grumpy old man,
like who designed this? Now? Why is it not working properly?

(12:57):
And the reason I think, why am I so by
bad designs? Because I'm spoiled by good design? You know
when everything's working right, you know when they I mean,
my arm hurts because something's not working, And that's actually
a signal, you know what I mean. And so, yes,
everything that's happening is inputs, outputs, and signals to keep

(13:20):
the system working properly. And I don't think that's adequately
explained by well, you know, all these evolutionary pressures and stuff.
They don't generate the time, they explain, They don't explain
the origin, they explain why things work well and what
works best.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
But anyway, yeah, a couple thoughts there in regard to
what you said And first of all, I think one
of the things that I've always found you to be
gifted at, and you've helped me with a lot, is
and it speaks to what you just said is simplicity, right,
appealing to things that most people can see and most
people can make sense of, and you do a good

(14:03):
job with that. In regard to the design argument, I
remember back when we did the podcast you Know five
Arguments every Christian should know, and one of the points
you made in that podcast was that just that simple
syllogism is every design has a designer. The universe is designed,
therefore there is a designer. And I remember you talking
about how those are just very simple people can grasp that,

(14:24):
And I think that's just a good reminder to start
with those simple arguments that most people experience just as
they apprehend the world. Right. And then, secondly, speaking to
the strength of what you just said, I go through
debate loops. I've talked about this before, where I've gone
through Matt Dillahunty debate loops, Christopher Hitchens, Frank Turk, William

(14:49):
Lane Craig, and sometimes Trent Horn. And sometimes you go
through debate loops of one person because they do a
lot of debates, right, So, I've been going through William
Lane Craig debate loop lately and one of the things
that sticks out to me is that when he talks
about fine tuning, which speaks to what you're saying, most
often the explanation, the best explanation the atheist can give

(15:12):
is well, we just haven't figured it out yet. We
don't know, we don't know. We're going to explain it,
you know. Dawkins would say something like, what is it?
Physics hasn't had their Darwin yet. It's kind of expressed
in that way. But I think that, you know, first
of all, I think the more complex I think we're
finding the problem is more and more complex. Second of all,

(15:33):
I would also say that we can only We've got
to look at what the best explanation is of what
we know right now?

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Right right? So yeah, just thinking, no good thoughts, good thoughts. Okay,
moving on now. Similar to the previous question, prior question
before that one, what's a question you like to ask
people who don't believe in God?

Speaker 2 (15:54):
I like to ask have they looked into the evidence?
Because and I'm saying this, this is my experience. So
if a non believer would be listening to this, and
there's somebody who actively looks into arguments for the existence
of God. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't put it on.
I'm not talking about you, right, But most often when

(16:16):
I get into conversations with people who don't believe, and
I say, I'll even name some arguments. Have you ever
looked into the column cosmological argument, or what do you
think of the contingency argument? Most often my experience has
been there, not even familiar with them. Now, I'm not
doing that to trap them, Honestly, I'm not. I mean,

(16:37):
God knows my heart. I'm not trying to trip them
up or flex intellectual muscles. I'm trying to assess how
much of you actually looked into this. There's one atheist
friend I have who I dearly love, and I remember
specifically asking him, well, what arguments have you looked into
for God's existence? Because he could name a few against

(16:57):
God's existence, right, But when I asked him to express
a few against or for God's existence, excuse me, he
couldn't do it, and so I gently just said, well,
you know, before you're going to make this adjudication as
to whether or not God exists. You want to make
sure that you've given the arguments a fair hearing, and so, yeah,
the question I like to ask is you know what

(17:18):
arguments or what evidence have you looked into?

Speaker 1 (17:21):
That's that's great. I like that one. I haven't really
thought about that. Let me think for two seconds and
see what comes in my mind. Yeah, I think I
think maybe the question would be what do you mean
by God?

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (17:36):
Right, you know, what do you think of when you
think of God? You know? Define God for me. I
think something along that line is very helpful if someone
doesn't believe in God. Like if you were to say, well,
I don't believe in God, I'm to say, okay, well
describe God, you know, because I might not believe in
that one either.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
I was just going to say, I was just going
to say, you were totally reading my mail, because I've
heard people say that. You know, you always want to
ask people what what do they mean by God? Because
you most likely don't believe in the god they don't
believe in either.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Right, Yes, you'll probably say, well, I don't think he's
an old man up in the heavens bear right exactly?

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, And you know, of course that's that that always
raises a question when that said, you know you skydaddy
or whatever, it's kind of like who who who? Who's
arguing for that?

Speaker 1 (18:28):
You know, So there's so much as much there, you know,
when it talks when we think about conversations, there's so
much there about getting on the same page and without
you know, before even butt heads so to speak. Hopefully
you're not butting heads, but ideas do conflict. But before
you even get there, it should be more like, all right,

(18:48):
let's let's just put all the pieces out there and
just see what we're working with, Like what do you
actually think about that? And so it should be a
long maybe a long term thing where depending on how
well you know someone were you kind of building building
out there doing some world building. You know, you're building

(19:08):
out what we have to work with. What are all
the pieces you got in your worldview? Because I don't
want to start telling you that these things don't fit
together unless I see what you're working with and how
you're trying to fit together these pieces. So anyway, moving
on to our final fifth question of interest, if he
had to use one had to use a movie character

(19:30):
to illustrate the moral argument who would you choose?

Speaker 2 (19:37):
So I wrote an article about this years ago when
Christopher Nolan's film The Dark Knight came out. It starred
Heath Ledger as the Joker, who unfortunately passed away shortly
after the filming of the movie. But in the film, Ledger,
as I said, plays the Joker. Now, obviously in the

(19:57):
comic books, the Joker is a sociopath, and Ledger plays
this to a t, plays it very well, easily my
favorite comic book villain of all time on screen, and
he makes some statements that one of the premises of
for example, William Lane Craig's moral argument would go, if

(20:18):
God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
So Leger Ledger's Joker. He basically argues, when Batman is
interrogating him, that this moral code that these people have,
meaning like the police and the people that are in
charge of Gotham, this moral code that they have, you know,

(20:40):
when push comes to shove, it's a joke, they'll eat
each other, is essentially what he says. And he says,
the only way to live in the world, in this
world is without rules. And then later on he is
in a conversation with another villain named Harvey Dent two Face,
and he's having a conversation with two Face, and he

(21:03):
essentially tells two Face that, you know, I don't have
any plans. I'm not making any grand plans. You know,
I'm just like a dog chasing cars. I'm just reacting,
you know, to stimuli. And so I would say that
that kind of models what Craig would argue in that
first premise of the moral argument. If if God does
not exist, then we can't really say that the Joker's wrong.

(21:28):
We can't really say that all the mayhem and all
the death and the killing that the Joker is carrying
out in Gotham is really wrong. We can say we
don't like it, we can say that it's unfashionable, but
we can't really say it's objectively wrong. But if God
does exist, then there's a standard outside of the Joker,

(21:50):
outside of Batman, outside of the police officers and the
mayor and all the people he's referring to, a reference,
a referential point where we can say, no, there is
there are laws, There is a moral law. We are
obligated to God and to one another, and therefore there

(22:10):
is a way to live. And so the Joker is wrong.
But I think Craig would argue that on atheism, you
can't really say the Joker's wrong. You could just say
you don't like it.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, what's that, dust? I have ski quote? If God
doesn't exist, everything, all things are permissible, All.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
Things are permissible.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, yes, powerful, there you have it. If God does
not exist, we can't say that the Jokers objectively wrong,
but we can say that jokers objectively wrong, therefore God exists.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Bingo. All right, and we will dub that the joker argument.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
We're going to move on to our next segment of
our corner Quopia now, and this is just to kind
of talk a little bit about you know, what's coming
in twenty twenty five and thinking about podcasting. One thing
comes to my mind is I felt like when the
when the podcast started back in the day, back in
back in pre pre iPhone time.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Was this BC before chat? Yeah, yeah, okay, we're talking
before chat. Okay. I didn't know if you meant when
the reboots started.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
No, No, I mean back when it started, back when
people were like reading blogs, the blog you know, blogging
was bigger than podcasting, it seemed at the time. At
any rate, it's the times they are change in so
you know, now you know before it was like, oh,
what do you what do you do? Oh, I I'm

(23:38):
a podcaster. Now if you say what what do you do?
People might say something like, I'm a content creator. And
I think that for me, I'm just talking about my
philosophy of podcasting presently and maybe in responding to the
culture of content creation presently, is that the farther I
can stay from content creation, the better. And what I

(24:03):
mean by that is, I feel like this need to
create more content so that more listens can happen, so
that more popularity can happen, so that more profit can happen,
so that more platform can happen. Blah blah blah blah blah.
I don't like that. I think that that's that poisons

(24:24):
things because whatever metric you put on, whatever you're doing,
it will influence how you create. And so, for instance,
I was talking to my daughter about art and you know,
would you want to be called an artist or an
art creator? You know, no, I want to be an artist.
You know, as soon as you say content creator, you've

(24:46):
commoditized what you're creating so that it serves as a
currency to get something, to get likes, to get shares,
to get ad revenue, whatever. So I feel like if
we were to be spon concert, or if we were
to receive funds from the podcast, or if we were
to gain things from getting more views or put that

(25:09):
as a metric that we measure in order to gauge
our performance, then it becomes skewed somehow. The dark side
of poisons everything, you know, clouds everything. So anyway, I'm
just kind of throwing that out there as sort of
like a principle that I mean, kind of exploring when
it comes to would someone create a piece of art
if no one were to look at it out of

(25:30):
it being its own great thing, or would someone have
a conversation with someone for its own value and for
their own enjoyment, for their own edification, regardless of whoever,
if someone else was going to listen to it. So
and a conversation like we're having today with those questions,
I really enjoyed them, And I was not creating that
for the listener per se, but because I thought that

(25:53):
would be fun. And so I think it's inherently good
and whether or not people like it or now, that's
up to them they can listen whatever they want. Back
to kind of what we've said, like a couple of
years ago, like would we records, would we do an interview,
you know, if the book wasn't free, or if someone
didn't want to do uh oh, we've got this new
book and we're running around promoting it with whatever publishing

(26:16):
company and their marketing team is Apologetics three fifteen just
another cog in the machine of marketing new books, whether
it's Christian books under a category or Apologetics Christian books
under a subcategory of the marketing machine. And so I
just want to stay away from all that. And so

(26:38):
I mean, just maybe so the listeners know what is
our what's our driving force behind this. It's not we
don't receive anything from the podcast. We don't plan to
receive anything from the podcast. We're trying the best we
can to record conversations we are thrilled to have. Now
it's there are going to be plenty of books that

(26:58):
that people say, hey, there's a book coming out, will
you do an interview about this? And we're happy to
because we like, Yeah, we love these authors, we like
the topics, we find it interesting. Yeah that sounds great.
So now there's other people who send us books, stuff,
and replying to those emails saying that you don't want
to do it is the hardest job because you have

(27:22):
to explain now, I'm either not interested or I think
that's just too much stuff out there, or no, I
just you know, I just don't want to, you know, so,
And if I, if you and me, both of us
are recording interviews with people, we don't we're not interested
in that topic. We're not helping anyone. We're creating noise.

(27:42):
We are if we're just doing it to how many
more episodes can we crank out a day or a
week or whatever, I think that's just counterproductive now. So
for this year the goal is to we were thinking,
you know, what do we want to We want to
keep havingcu having conversations with apologists and authors about their books,

(28:04):
about what they're doing and topics they're interested in. But
there's also there's a lot of talking me and Chad
do personally when we're both reading stuff. And if we're
only if one person's reading something, the other person is
hearing all about it. But when we're both reading something,
then we're always talking about it. If we watch a debate,
or something. We're always talking about it, and those conversations

(28:25):
are great to have, and I do think that that
would create value for a listener. So we've come up
with a list of books that we want to read
this year, and we'll share them as we select them
and go along, so that dear listener, if you care
to read along and then enjoy the conversation about the
book afterwards. We're going to be doing a combination of
two things in the podcast during this season, and that

(28:48):
is we're going to interview apologists and authors and people
we're interested in talking to, and then we're going to
explore subjects slash books. We're going to talk about those books.
So it'll be a combination of both. It will not
only be interviews, will not only be read alongs or
talking of a book or a subject, and it might
be cornucopious or listener questions of something. But that's what

(29:11):
I wanted to just clarify for our listeners. Any thoughts
on that chat or things you would want to add, No.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
I just I appreciate what you're saying, and I do
like the approach in the sense that we are doing
topics that we're genuinely interested in talking about books or
debates or interviews that were genuinely interested in. And it
is easy, You're right, to get caught up in that
kind of cycle of just creating content for the sake

(29:39):
of creating content, and I don't think that best serves
us and our time, or listeners, or ultimately even the Lord. Now,
the only thing that pops into my head, it just
popped in there, is what would you say to somebody
who's listening and they're retreating in their mind to this
idea of, oh, well, I know so and so who

(30:02):
calls themselves a Christian content creator? Does that mean they're wrong?
Does that mean they shouldn't be doing that's right?

Speaker 1 (30:09):
Yeah, a good question. I think what I would say
to that is, like, I think that it's about awareness
of what the system out there, the like is doing
to your choices. I notice that Let's say someone sends
you a product for a review and it's free if

(30:31):
you offer to pay for that. I've heard of people
where companies will send them something to review and they'll say, no, no,
I'd like to pay for that, and the company will
be no, no, we insist it is a gift. And
so the reason they do that is because you will.
It will always persuade you to you can't be objective.

(30:51):
It just it persuades you too much to get put
it in a good light. And so whatether it's Christians
or non Christians doing it, whether they know about that
or not, is beside the point. I think that for me,
I can tell if how much pressure I've had in
the past to keep a schedule or to try to

(31:15):
keep up with others, or there was a time when
I think back in the day where Apologetics three fifteen,
I hear would hear people saying, oh, this is the
this is one of the top sites, and stuff like that,
and so I would try to keep that reputation. And
the more I tried to keep a reputation or try
to keep up a certain schedule, the more I burned

(31:38):
out and the more my heart was gone from it,
and the more I was trying to schedule interviews or
create content simply because it was I've got to fill
this slot so that I don't lose a streak or
so that people and you know this idea like, oh,
if I'm not creating, then what are people going to

(31:59):
think about me? So for me personally, I could tell
what that system, what those system of measurements, was doing
to me. But if I change my metric to the
filter I use two, is this something I would want
to do whether someone saw it or not. That removes
the pressure that creates. Yeah, I would do this whether

(32:20):
or not people saw it or not. And so yes,
I understand. We live in a society and a system
and an economic sort of situation where we have to market.
It's sort of like the necessary evils, for lack of
better terms, And I think it's just important to have
awareness of how those things affect you, whether or not

(32:41):
you know it or not. They're they're affecting, you know,
the conversations and the things we're creating because there's something
profit involved, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah, And I think it's important to point out to
you that, you know, this is me speaking of the
listener right now, not so much to you. That I
know Brian personally and have known him for many years,
had many many conversations with him. This is something that
is a personal conviction unique to him. So in the
sense that he's saying right now, this is how I

(33:10):
view this, this is how the pod, this is the
direction of the podcast. And here's the reason why. That
does not mean he looks at person a who might
be a Christian content creator and says, oh that's terrible.
Oh they're ungodly. Oh they're wrong. No, no, no, not
at all. He's saying, there are these temptations, there are
these potential pitfalls, be aware of them. But somebody else

(33:33):
might not have those same convictions, and that's okay. Their
approach might be different. He's just expressing what his approach is.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah. I just think it's some sort of the nature
of the beast that as soon as something is monetized
or there's metrics for popularity or fame or comparison, then
those things, as people were very hard not to be
influenced by. I would want people to know that, Hey,
if they think, hey, why not so many episodes, because well,

(34:05):
that's part of the reason. Like I kind of want
them to think, like, hey, are you guys like doing
this or not? Why is there no consistency? Well, part
of it it's like taking a break. But the other
thing is like we've kind of for me, I've switched
off the thing in my head that says, uh oh,
I get to make sure I'm pleasing the masses. You

(34:25):
know what I mean, living up to expectations. Now, No,
there's enough content being created where I'm only interested in
are we going to enjoy this? Or is this going
to create value? It's going to be able to build
people up. So I hope maybe people understand where I'm
coming from with that, if it's not a judgment on
others or what anyone's doing, but it's sort of an
explanation or things that have been rolling around in my mind,

(34:48):
because I do think demonetization of things, whether it's art
or music or everything, like, oh well, this song wouldn't
be on the radio if it was longer because people's
attention spans are so bad. See that's completely apart from
the podcast. It's just an observation about how the system
quote unquote has affected creation of art or edifying good things,

(35:12):
Like if you think about certain classic songs like Stairway
to Heaven by led Zeppelin, it's so long it would
never have gotten on the radio today because people are
too impatient. The only way it would have got on
the radio if it was part of a viral video
or a popular movie. But it's too long to become
popular today if it had only just been heard or

(35:34):
there's a lot of things like that where there are
some certain musicians or bands I've followed and I love
some of their earlier stuff, but as soon as they
got popular, then it's like, hey, why does every song
on this album sound like it's trying to get on
the radio and it won't go over three minutes and
you know it's tied to a very tiktoky video. It

(35:58):
ruined your music. It was better when you weren't trying
to get popular, So you know, they they'll try to
measure these things based upon attention spans and stuff, and
like it's just you know, maybe there're maybe it's better
to be popular and get out there and go ahead
and use that system. If you can use it and

(36:18):
gain a platform, great, But I just from a purely
artistic creation standpoint, I hate what the whole internet system
is done, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
I'm gonna sound like maybe we need to get get
Doug growt Ice on the show and make like that
we can sound like we're really progressive and he could.

Speaker 1 (36:37):
Be the curmudgeon, you know. So oh man, anyway, sorry
for that old man rant.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
No no, no no, and I appreciate it. I just
wanted to make sure everybody, all our listeners, understood that
that you were saying that you know, this is where
God has led us, this is where God has led
the podcast. But that other other people who approach it
differently than you know, that's between them and the Lord
and there's no judgment.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Hey, I wanted to say, Chad, I do you ever
read reviews about the Apologetics three fifteen podcast? If I
do something?

Speaker 2 (37:09):
I mean I have it in a while, but I have. Yes.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
I used to go on just the website and or
like an iTunes online to see if there were in
a reviews and would never see any. To be honest,
I kind of was like, nobody's listening because no one's
reviewing this, and and you know it's just Apple's bad design.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
It.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
If you go into the iTunes like podcast app, you
can actually see some reviews. So yes for those who
and I think last last year, about the end of
the year, we ask people, hey, if you enjoy the show,
please leave a review, because you know that's encouraging and
it helps the show. We don't like go fishing for reviews,

(37:53):
but I actually came across them a couple of months ago,
and I want to thank everybody for their positive reviews.
It was very encouraging to me. I don't I haven't
really read any lately, but thank you for those. It's encouraging.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Yes, And thanks for not saying, oh my gosh, why
did he ever bring Chad aboard? That it was so
much better when it was just Brian, Because even if
you think that, I don't want to know. No, I'm
just kidding.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Dear listeners, if you have recommendations or things that you
would you know, hey, why don't you interview so and
so or we would like to hear about such and
such topic, please send an email to podcasts at Apologetics
three to fifteen dot com for consideration, and you know,
maybe we'll do that. So here's the next topic. Thoughts
on the Wesley Huff interview on the Joe Rogan podcast. Now,

(38:48):
before we talk about that, what is this Wesley Huff guy?
Who is he? How did this Joe Rogan thing happen?
Do you think you can give a quick summary of
that or do you want me to?

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, So, some time ago there's a podcast guy named
Mark Manard, and Mark had Billy Carson from Forbidden Knowledge
on and Billy Carson who was not on my radar
before this. Honestly, if you would have asked me who
he was, I would have had no idea. And apparently
he's very into ancient civilizations. He travels around the world

(39:21):
and to actual sights, and he also has some beliefs
about you know, us originating with aliens and things like that,
and he claims to be an expert in ancient texts.
So Mark was friends with Billy Carson and kind of
last minute, Mark got wind of Wesley Huff of Apologetics

(39:43):
Canada and he invited Wesley onto the show. He asked
Billy if it was okay, and Billy agreed, and what
ensued was kind of a very kind, polite, nice undressing
of Billy Carr by Wesley Huff. And unfortunately, if anybody

(40:03):
objectively watches the debate, it became very apparent that Billy
Carson in some ways is a bit of a fraud
when it comes to his claims of being an expert
in ancient texts, and Wesley, in the most christ like,
kind patient manner throughout this debate kind of exposed that.

(40:24):
And this debate, Wesley or excuse me, Billy didn't want
the debate to get released Mark Minard, and both Mark
and Wesley received cease and desist letters. They went ahead
eventually and released it anyway. And there's a lot of

(40:46):
information that goes into this an explanation, I'm not going
to go into all of that. So the debate just
kind of blew up, and as a result, Wesley Huff
was invited onto the Joe Rogan Experience and this week
he was on the Joe Rogan Experience talking about all
kinds of topics.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yeah. I had never heard of any of these guys.
I just heard saying I just saw you put Wesley
Huff on there. I'm like, okay, I wasn't. I don't
keep up with apologetics the way I used to. I
just keep up with what I want to keep up with.
And so yeah, I watched the Joe Rogan thing and

(41:27):
I was like, Wow, he knows his stuff.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
I was.

Speaker 1 (41:31):
I was well impressed. I thought, what an amazing opportunity.
And then I'm like, who the heck is Billy Carson?
And then I watched the debate and I thought wow.
My first thought was are you serious? This is like,
this is like what we're made by aliens? Like you
know what the heck. I was shocked by what this

(41:56):
guy must have just built his whole little podcasting our
YouTube kingdom without ever interacting with anyone, and just as
a complete con man. Like, if I speak more confidently
enough about this and throw around big words and bling,
then people will believe me, and apparently they must have,

(42:18):
you know, because of his popularity. And of course if
it's against Christianity and you can give me something that
sounds great then and tickles my interest in ancient civilisations
and aliens and pyramids. Great, That's the impression I got,
And so I thought, Wow, this is just out there.
But the thing that was stuck with me most was

(42:41):
I was super convicted and challenged and impressed by Wesley
Huff because throughout the whole thing, I'm like I was
imagining my response, and it was my response would have
been something not as christ Like as Wesley, because I

(43:01):
was thinking, dude, you're out to lunch, what are you smoking?
Dude heavy? You never read a book? You know, I'm
I'm being. I realized my hyper critic criticality, if that's
the word. I realize how impatient I was. I realized
how I was more like just writing the person off
as like, dude, you're you're just out to lunch. It

(43:24):
was kind of like and and but Wesley was like
so patient. He never got flustered. And it wasn't a show.
I mean, I could tell this. He was just genuinely patient.
He was genuinely It was every time he would start
to speak, they would interrupt them, and he'd start to speak,
they'd interrupt, they keep going and going, and he would
just calmly. He was so calm, he was so patient,

(43:48):
he was so generous, so christ like never went against
the other guy's character, never said anything, you know, to
diss him or insult him. He was super gracious. It
was like, dude, if you'd say that, that was Jesus
like right there, I was that convicted, you know what

(44:09):
I mean. So I was like, Wow, God, make me
more like that. That's that's been a great example of patience.
That's a great example of calm, calm, generous kind like, wow, man,
and all the people watching that he didn't seek seek
after that opportunity. Then he's on Joe Rogan and it's

(44:31):
like all this quiet building in the background, all this
faithfulness in the background, comes to this pinpoint of boom.
You know, exposure of a great ministry. I was like, man,
so good. Anyway, That's how I felt. I think everybody
should watch those.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Yeah, yeah, a couple a couple things that came. First
of all, Yeah, Wesley's approach, I'm calling him Wesley, like
I know him. But what Huff's approach. I I thought
it was so impressive that he recognized. If you watch
the debate, and it's on Wesley's YouTube channel, if you
watch the debate, you can tell that there's this point

(45:09):
early on in the debate when Wesley just realizes that
Billy doesn't know what he's talking about. He's misinformed. He's
talking about the Sinai Bible, which isn't even a thing.
And then he realizes that he really meant the pseudo Gospel,
the Gospel of Barnabyss. I mean, it was just a mess.
And Wesley just, you could tell, put on his teacher

(45:32):
hat and he went into, Okay, I recognize this guy
doesn't know what he's talking about. But instead of shaming
him or calling him out or something like that, he
just said, oh, well, that's really interesting because and he
would educate, and he just put on the hat of
an educator and I just thought it was great because
I think Wesley also understood that, you know, the moderator

(45:54):
and people listening were also going to benefit from his knowledge.
The other thing I think is encouraging about this is that,
you know what here Wesley was. He's working with Apologetics
Canada making these infographics on his Wesleyhuff dot com. If
you haven't seen those, check those out. They're just amazing.
But here he is just plugging away. I mean, I

(46:17):
have a I'm co host of an Apologetics podcast, I
do a weekly newsfeed. I'm reading this stuff every week.
I had never heard of Wesley Huff, but he was
doing all this excellent work, doing all these excellent videos
and just quietly kind of doing his thing, and look
what God is doing with them. And so I think
it's encouraging to see that God still works that way

(46:38):
with people who are just plugging along and being faithful.
The last thing I really appreciated watching the interview with Rogan.
I really am impressed. I want to say that Joe Rogan,
I've watched like four interviews with him. I watched the
interview with Steven Meyer. I can't remember who else, but
maybe not even four. Now that I'm thinking about it,

(47:01):
But I love how Rogan is just sincerely interested in
having a conversation. So I don't get the sense that
even in the conversation with with Wesley Huff, that he
went into that conversation with an agenda. I just got
that he had a couple like bullet points, and you know,
he did reference that he had watched Wesley's stuff and

(47:23):
visited his website to prepare for the interview, so he
was well prepared. But I think that for me, just
as somebody who interviews people, it left me with this
idea of sometimes I feel like I can't ask certain
questions because I'm like, oh, they're too far off the reservation,
or I've got to stick to what the book is about,
or something like that. And it really challenged me to think,

(47:45):
you know, maybe I should approach it differently in the
sense that I just want to have a good conversation
with this person and kind of and Rogan very much
approached the interview of like, this guy is an expert
in this area and that's what I'm going to pick
his brain about. But they weren't afraid to go in
other areas. Last thing I want to say about it is.

(48:05):
I want to apologize, not that there's not a chance
he would, not high chance that he would hear this,
but to the moderator, Mark Minard, I hope I'm saying
his name correct. I think I am. When I first
watched the debate, I made a comment in the comments
section that Mark made the second half of the debate
almost unwatchable because of all of his interruptions. Well, I

(48:30):
watched Mark's over an hour long video of his explanation
of what he's experienced from Billy Carson and Billy's lawyers.
He actually explained that he was friends, very good friends
with Billy, and their sons are friends, and their wives
do things together. They live in the same neighborhood. Unfortunately,
but this is undone there friendship. But Mark explained that

(48:51):
the reason he started asking the questions and raising the
objections he did was because he actually kind of felt
bad for Billy, and some of the questions and the
objections he raised really weren't things that he struggles with.
He was just trying to make it less one sided.

(49:12):
And so, just if Mark were ever to hear this,
my friend, I apologize for misjudging you and and looking
back and hearing your explanation, it made complete sense, and
you know, kudos to you, and you know, my apologies
for misjudging you.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
Yeah. I learned a lot from watching that. And then
I went and I saw I saw some of those
some of the content that Wesley huff has got there,
like how can we trust the Bible? And I'm thinking, wow, wow,
you know these are these are actually great. Yeah, and
you think, okay, jug Ruggins sitting here watching these things, Yeah,
this is wonderful. This is wonderful. And then how many
people I mean twelve some million people are more? It

(49:52):
is his listenership so so good because you know, I
know everybody wants to hear about ancient aliens and there
building the pyramids and all this stuff because it's it's
out there. But then they can hear someone who's actually
researched this stuff and be like, ah, so this is
what the truth tastes like. You know, this is way better.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Wasn't it interesting? In the interview where mister Rogan actually
said that, he actually said, at one point in the interview,
I know it's in the last hour, he actually said, yeah,
it's way more fun to talk about how we got
the pyramids, aliens and all that other stuff. He said,
but the work you're doing. He's speaking to Wesley, of course,

(50:36):
and I'm paraphrasing. He said that you know who wrote
the text, why did they write it? And all of
those things. He said, those are the important questions.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Yeah, and he also I think he also said truth matters.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Yeah, he did.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
And then I was watching a little bit of a
video where Wesley and his team were sort of doing
a post post all these events, the world win of It,
WorldWind of Events, uh, and they were talking about it
on their YouTube channel and basically saying like there were
so many times where Joe Rogan said, wow, wow, yeah,

(51:12):
I agree, man, it was it was really it was
really impressive. I mean, I thought to myself, I could
never do like I don't. I wouldn't expect myself to
be qualified because I'm not. But I mean, I think
Rogan said something like this. He goes, you know, when
someone's an expert, you can wake them up three in
the morning and ask them about something, and then even

(51:34):
though they're out of it, they could they could give
you an answer without even thinking about it, you know
what I mean. And I mean I was thinking, well,
what could you ask me about and that I don't know.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
You can ask it. You could ask me about being
an elementary school teacher. I could talk about that at
four in the morning if you want. Okay, so real quick,
I just want to end end that segment with this.
I think we need to, for a couple of reasons,
really pray for Wesley huff.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
The first reason I say that is because he's a
brother in Christ that God is using mightily right now,
and who has been using. He just found out about
it recently, but you know, he he is under attacks.
For example, I saw that the cosmic skeptic Alex O'Connor
made a video kind of, you know, trying to correct
some of the statements that Wesley said on the Joe

(52:25):
Rogan experience, as if he's supposed to have an encyclopedic
memory in a three and a half hour conversation. Gavin Norton.
Ortlund has put out a great response showing how unfortunately
Alex O'Connor didn't represent Wesley very fairly. And while I
find Alex to be usually pretty fair minded, I felt
like he was he was trying too hard to create

(52:46):
some content ironically. Yeah, yeah, Doug Grutice I saw on
Facebook put out you know, we really need to pray
for Wesley because he did just all the busyness and
everything that's coming at him. He has such christ Like character,
and you know that the enemy's going to notice that.
And so I think we just need to pray for Wesley.

(53:07):
That God would keep him humble, that God would help
organize his day, and that he would take these attacks
and even just the interviews and stuff all of it
and stride and help him discern as to what he
should do and what he needs to step out and
protect his family and all of those things. So just
and if you don't mind, I'm just going to go

(53:28):
ahead and pray for him right now while I'm thinking
about it. Well, we thank you for Wesley Huff. We
thank you for the work that he has been doing.
We also thank you God for these opportunities you're giving him.
I pray that you would protect him, that you would
protect his family, that you would give him clarity of
thought and mind, and I pray that you would just

(53:49):
allow him to rest in the peace that you give
through Christ. And I pray that again you would just
help him to be mindful of that all of this
is for you, and that this is to serve you.
And again, just pray protect him and keep him level headed.
We thank you for his witness, We thank you for

(54:10):
how you've used him, and we also pray for Joe Rogan. Lord,
we pray that you would soften his heart and bring
him to an understanding of who you are. We thank
you in Jesus' name. Amen.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
Amen, thanks for that. All right, So, listeners, we mentioned
that we're going to be reading books. Yes, no human
being would read books like this, but we're going to
be reading one called Rational Faith by Stephen Davis. Yeah,
there's so many Stevens PHO V. E. Davis, Stevin Evans. Anyway,

(54:44):
Stephen T. Davis, Now you chose this book. You chose
this book, so you're going to have to sell it.
A couple of weeks from now, we're going to be
recording a combo about it. So we want people to
go fetch the book if they want to like understand
what we're talking about. Yell, why is this a great
book that we want to read together and then have

(55:05):
a conversation about.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Yeah, for a couple reasons. First of all, it's well
for two or three reasons. I'll say, first of all,
it's not a really long book. Sometimes when you're reading
a book and the subtitle this book is a philosopher's
defense of Christianity, sometimes when you get a book that's
three four hundred pages long and it's first of all,

(55:30):
requires a lot of time commitment, of course, and also
there's a lot of things in it that I feel
like anyway, a lot of times that could be cut
and you could make the same case. Davis in this
book just does a great job of providing a very tight,
succinct case for Christianity, and I put him in the

(55:51):
same category that I would Travis Dickinson and Paul Gold,
who both we've had in the podcast that they are
able a lot of times with popular apologetics. I get
frustrated because I know there are people out there like J. L.
Schellenberg and Paul Draper and Graham Api, and they have

(56:11):
these substantial objections to Christianity, but a lot of popular
apologetics really don't address kind of those types of objections.
And I feel like Gold and Dickinson and I would
say Steven T. Davies do a great job, and in
some cases they name these guys but in other cases
they're just addressing the objections like they bring up. They're

(56:34):
able to do it where they're able to take those
objections and make them accessible to a layman and also
address them. Particularly in this book Rational Faith, The Philosopher's
Defense of Christianity, Davis does a great job of addressing
the problem of evil. It's one of the most succinct,
understandable treatments of the problem of evil that anybody can access,

(56:58):
and so I really value that. So that's one reason.
It's just it's accessible. Secondly, I told you that when
I introduced the idea to you off podcasts that one
of the things that I like about it is that
I don't agree with Davis on everything, and I think
that's going to make for some fruitful discussions. One big

(57:20):
area I'll mention, and I hope that readers are not
turned off by this. I hope I can articulate this
in a way, is that he is a theistic evolutionist.
I am not a theistic evolutionist, but he does a
very good job of representing the Young Earth view, the
Older Earth view, the idview. In most cases. There are

(57:41):
a few statements he makes that I definitely disagree with,
but he presents them as viable views, and he talks
about why he comes down on the theistic evolutionist side,
and I think that's going to make for some fruitful discussion.
I didn't want to pick a book where the whole
way we were reading through it we were just going, yeah,
I agree, Yeah, I agree, Yeah, I agree. I mean,

(58:01):
not a lot of fun there if there's no clash, right.
Another thing that the book really does a great job
with is representing the reliability of the New Testament and
the Resurrection. This was the first time Davis was the
first one to help me understand kind of a chain
of custody between Paul's letters and how what Paul wrote

(58:23):
about Jesus correlates with what Mark wrote about Jesus. Mark
is our earliest Gospels, which adds credence to the reliability
of the Synoptics, if you will, And so that is
really really helpful as well. And so yeah, it's just
a really tightly written book that presents a bottom up

(58:44):
case for Christianity. And I also like the fact that
he has the last thing I'll say about it and
then I'll let you share whatever you want. Of course,
is that he has this way of writing that is
like he's talking to you and you're thinking through the
things together. It's not high falutin in the way that
sometimes philosophers can write, but it doesn't sacrifice the technicality

(59:09):
it's necessary for some of the arguments.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
So readers go dig up the book and get ready.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Yeap. And by the way, when I said it's short,
just because I guess that can be some people, when
I say short, they might think swifty pages short.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Yeah, it is a silmarillion. It's really quick.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
It's it's one hundred and seventy six pages.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Yeah, under two hundred is like lightweight.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Right right, Yeah, I see, it's a thin little book.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
But four.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
Sitting there with like a little monocles reading a word
by word.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
I do do, man, I do have a few books
like that, Like they they look like oh, yeah, you know,
and then you open it up and the font is
so tiny. Yeah. So so anyway, yeah, I'm I'm really
looking forward to it, and I'm also looking forward to
hearing what you think of it, because I have such
a high opinion of it. So but hey, I did
want to just alert listeners to this. I did contact

(01:00:10):
Steven T. Davies, just in case anybody or Davis excuse me,
who may be thinking like, well, why aren't you having
them on the podcast? I emailed him and he thanked
me because I gave him like a glowing, you know,
glowing thoughts about his book and just said how I've
revisited it so many times and he said, uh, he said,
thank you so much. I'm glad you liked my book,

(01:00:30):
but I'm retired, like I don't do that kind of
thing anymore. So that was I told my wife that
that was a that was a bit of a blow
when I read that email, because I thought, man, I'll tell.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
You one thing. He is tearing up the shuffle board cord.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
Oh my gosh, you know where my mind went where
you said that, Florida. I just picture some old guy
with like plaid shorts, you know, with like blacks socks
pulled up an orthopedic. She is like, oh, that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Stuff, all right. So uh all right, well listeners, uh,
particularly Scott in South Dakota. We've been sitting on this
little question you sent for a while, so hopefully you
were planning your life around our answer. So uh, here's sorry, Scott.
We did breaks just so you know, people, if you're

(01:01:26):
sending us a question, you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Know, you could sit there like next to moldy loaf
of bread or something, or it's in the back of
the fridge and some tupperware container and we're afraid to
open it. Okay, my gosh, all right, So I.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Have here's the question from Scott in South SD and
so Dak. I heard somebody say so Dak before, so
I know the lingo all right, He says, I have
a question concerning the expression the will of God that
both scripture and believers use. Do you think the expression
of God's will could fall into both of the following categories?

(01:02:07):
Number one control deliberately exerted to do something, and two
to intend, desire, or to wish something to happen. People
may say, if it's God's will for me to have
a certain something, then it will happen. Using the first definition,
they're saying that they have no active role in the outcome.
They're just along for the ride. If they switched to
seeing it by the second definition, they would know that

(01:02:30):
God wanted good things for them and would strive to
accomplish them to his glory. I think at times the
will of God is an imposing force of action he
takes to set things right, and at other times it
expression of his desire for an outcome where he remains
hands off. What are your thoughts on the use of
the term God's will and do you see it having

(01:02:51):
differing meanings based on context. We don't want people crossing
the streams now love got Scott, You see, Scott, That's
why we had to read this because we promised we would.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
So you said crossing the streams was bad. Sorry, I'm sorry, Scott.
I'm totally off heres exactly. Okay, all right, do.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
You want to go first and I'll go second on
what you think about this?

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Or sure? Yeah, So I think your question is great
and to answer it directly, and then I'm going to
add some kind of meat to the bones where you say,
I think at times the will of God is an
imposing force of action, right, and then other times an
expression of his desire for an outcome where he remains
hands off, at least from our perspective. Right from our perspective,

(01:03:45):
it looks like he's hands off, but he's providentially ordering things.
So I always think of an an article that I
read by Sean McDowell, and he talks about in that article,
and I think this will speak to this. First of all,
I think you're a spot on with your assessment, but
I also think that there is God's general will and

(01:04:08):
then there is God's specific will. Right, So as far
as like God's general will, we know what that is.
Sean talks about how it incorporates five things that were saved,
that were filled with the Holy Spirit, that we live
a righteous life, or that we're pure, that we submit
to the proper authorities, and that we suffer for doing

(01:04:30):
what is right. And he argues along with other people,
that if you're doing those five things, then as long
as the choices you're making are not in a contradiction
with God what God has revealed, then you can do
what you want right and that God can providentially order

(01:04:51):
things right. So that would kind of fall into that
category you're talking about with an intend, desire or wish
of some thing to happen right, you're moving in that
direction and trusting that God will providentially order things. Now,
in regard to does God directly act to force things,

(01:05:12):
I mean I would say yeah, and I would say
we have direct evidence of that in scripture. So, for example,
I think of God chose and he acted in history
when he chose John the Baptist, right, I mean John
the Baptist didn't necessarily have like a choice as to
whether what he was going to do. God had picked him,

(01:05:33):
He had chosen him for a specific purpose. So there
we see God directly influencing his will in history. So
it's kind of a both. And now I did mention
a specific will for your life? Do we do see
examples of God kind of audibly speaking in history to
make his will known. But that's not the norm, and

(01:05:55):
I don't think that should be our expectation. So in
his article how to I Know God's Will for my life,
Sean talks about how if we want to know God's will,
specific will for our life, that we should seek wisdom.
And wisdom comes from scripture, comes from God, it comes
from research, it comes from counsel, and it comes from

(01:06:17):
life experiences. Kind of summing up my answer, and then
of course Brian is probably going to give a much
better one. I think that does. I think God does
intervene directly to enact his will, absolutely, and I think
we have a plethora of examples of that if we
look for them in scripture. I think that He also
providentially acts through our free choices to enact his will

(01:06:43):
and to give us some of the desires of our heart,
if you will. And I'm trying to be succinct here. So,
but then of course there is a general will that
God has for us that if we're living that out
and we're not living in contradiction to what He's revealed,
then we can do what we want in a sense.
But then if we want to know his more specific

(01:07:04):
will in certain situations, then we seek it in the
way that mcdowe outlines in this article.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
That's great answer. I don't think I have anything better,
but maybe I can add something different. I think when
it comes to reading scripture and seeing what is going
on there, based upon the context, you can determine what
is meant there. There are times when it seems like

(01:07:30):
God wills something and so that he makes it come
to pass, and then there are other times where, for instance,
it says God wills for all men to be saved well,
and that's not coming to pass. It's his heart, it's
his intention, and so I don't think the word will
there means the same thing so we can't maybe select

(01:07:53):
where all the places where it says God's will and
then ascribe the same meaning to each one. At me,
he must be deduced or arrived at from exeg eating
the text, so you have to look at the contact
to see how God is acting. I kind of think
everything Chad said was really helpful and good, and especially

(01:08:16):
it's scriptural things that he's pointing to. The only thing
I think I can add is like how I kind
of see God's will based upon hits, his sovereign will
and our ability to act within his will. Because I
always thought, well, there's this perfect will for my life
that God has and I want to get that perfect will,
and I've sort of seen how my views have shifted

(01:08:40):
over the years about that, and to come back to
this idea of crossing the streams I see. I see
God's will is like a river. And there's a scripture
in Proverbs where it says something I'm sorry, we should
have had it right in front of me, but it
says the heart of a king is like a course,

(01:09:00):
and God steers at wherever he wants it. And I
think it's like this river where God's sovereign will, we're
in this river, and we are going down that river,
and there are the banks of the river, and there
are rapids, and there are comfortable places within that river,

(01:09:20):
and if we obey the Lord, we're going to be
in a good place in that river, with maybe a
few less bumps and maybe a few less falling out
and going around in circles and getting dunked and tortured
on the rocks if we obey his guidance that. But
I think they were always going to go through rapids,
and I think there's always going to be a place

(01:09:42):
where we cannot get out of his will, his sovereign
path for our lives. So that's back to this idea
of the river, and we're on that, and I think
that within there we have the freedom to sort of
row where we want in his will. And there are
times where I think that he will narrow that river

(01:10:05):
and make it so that he's constraining our actions and
our situations so that he gets us to where we
need to be. But then there are other times in
our lives when there's a widening of that river and
we have more freedom that we're going to be within
his will no matter all these different choices we might make.

(01:10:25):
And so that's kind of a non scriptural analogy where
I think it sort of fits within what I think
I've observed in my lone life and what seems to
be consistent with God's sovereignty. And I would take the
idea that, you know, he does give us freedom, and

(01:10:47):
I think there's freedom there and I do think that,
but there's certain things that He's just going to make
sure that happens within his sovereign determination. So I think
that sort of maybe whole the tension of both those
ideas together, and for me, it just gives me an
encouraging way of looking at like, you know, God's gonna
let me choose how to how to live my life.

(01:11:09):
I'm never going to be outside his will, is sovereign will,
but i might be disobedient and within his will, and
I'm going to sort of pay for it if if
I'm not doing what he says, if I'm not obeying him,
I'm trying to go up streams, I'm only hurting myself

(01:11:29):
within that overall path that he's given him my life.
So I don't know if that's soberly helpful, But what
are your thoughts on that yet? Well?

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
A couple of things. I mean, first of all, it's
great that you came back to a stream. Yeah I know, yeah, yeah,
I mean that's just you know, poetic. And then secondly,
just to kind of wrap up, I think what you're
saying goes along. I was just looking at that article
that Sean McDowell wrote in the Apologetic Study Bible for Students,
and he says, Remember, he says that as long as

(01:12:00):
you are saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, living righteously,
submitting to the proper authorities, and you're suffering for what's
doing right, then you're in God's will right. And then
he says this, he says, knowing the will of God
begins internally. I think this goes with what you're saying, Brian.
Are you following the five principles above the one the

(01:12:21):
ones I just named. If you have truly followed them,
then you are free to make choices based on your desires.
And if you are living a godly life, God will
give you the right desires. This is why Psalm thirty
seven four says take delight in the Lord, and he
will give you your heart's desires. And so I think
that compliments what you're.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Saying yeah, hopefully the picture helps. Yes, what was written
in that article, So.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
Yeah, and you know that's why Sean gets paid the
big box.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
I know, I know that's right there.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
There you go. Bingo.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
Okay, So thank you Scott in South Dakota. May God's
will be done in your life. Over to you, Chad.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
I've just been recently, I've just been burned recently by
parents who, to the best of their ability, raise their
children to follow Christ, and when their children reach a
certain age, they rebel, or they apostasize, or they walk away,
or however you want to express it. And one of

(01:13:23):
the things I see, and I can imagine this hasn't
happened to me. It could, but it hasn't yet or
and hopefully won't. But one of the things I see
that the natural inclination, and I can totally understand why
of Christian parents is to look to themselves and look
and automatically assume that it's their fault. So, you know,

(01:13:44):
if Bob and Sue raised Johnny to fear the Lord
and to live, and you know, to live for him,
to know him and to make him known however you
want to put it, and then Johnny rebels, They automatically think,
what did we do wrong? Or we must have been
we must we should have done X, Y, and Z.

(01:14:07):
And again, I completely understand why that's a natural position
to take. But I had a pastor point out something
to me about that position years ago that really stuck
with me. And this was before I even had kids,
but it really made a lot of sense. And when
I was reading yesterday, just in my own study time,

(01:14:28):
Genesis chapter two and three, it was impressed upon me again,
and I just want to offer it. It's not super profound,
but I think it's really encouraging. So when we look
at Genesis chapters two and three, we see that God
creates the garden, and God gives Adam and Eve everything

(01:14:50):
they need. They have, they're in a right relationship with Him.
They have what they need to They can eat from
any of the te trees in the garden, except of course,
for the from the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. They live in a beautiful place that again

(01:15:10):
has everything they need. So let's see what they have.
They have a right relationship with God. They have a
great relationship with one another right by all intensive purposes
that we see, and they live in a place where
all their needs are met. Okay, so it's kind of
the ideal environment, right, and we see that given the opportunity,

(01:15:33):
because they have free will, that they rebel, they walk
away from the Lord. Now, no Christian worth their salt
would at any time say that was God's fault. Of
you know that somehow, Oh God wasn't a good father.

(01:15:57):
Of course, understanding Christian theology, God is the perfect father, right,
he is the ideal father, and they were in a
perfect relationship with him. But yet because they have free will,
they unfortunately fell. Now, I think if you apply that
to parenting, it should offer some encouragement because in the
same way, I can't imagine these Christian parents, I know,

(01:16:19):
saying God was a terrible parent, or God should have
done X, Y and Z. Well, here, if we have
God being the perfect parent, the all knowing, all loving parent,
have his kids rebel, but yet we don't indict him
for being a terrible parent, then perhaps Christian parents should

(01:16:42):
be a little bit more lenient with themselves in the
sense that they can raise their children to the best
of their ability in a godly environment. But their children,
just like Adam and Eve, have free will. So that
doesn't mean they're always going to make the right choice.
And so I personally as a parent, even though I

(01:17:05):
have neither one of my children at this you know
the date of this recording, have walked away from their faith,
I at least understand that I can do my wife
and I can do everything we can within our power
to raise them to fear the Lord. But because they
have free will, there is a chance that they could experience,

(01:17:28):
you know, walking away from him, or I could experience
them walking away from him. But that doesn't have to
mean that I somehow should feel terrible or look at
myself as a terrible parent anymore that I would blame
God for being a terrible parent. Because Adam and Eve rebelled,
and I find that very encouraging.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
Yeah, I think that's a good encouragement. And when you
were talking there, I was reminded of a time when
a couple of years ago, I met with a Christian
who's a leader and who I respect, and I was
having coffee with them. We were talking about certain things
and it came up I was like, Hey, you know, what,

(01:18:06):
what tips would you have for me? Two, you know,
help me to raise my kids and have them you know,
know the Lord, and I feel like I'm not discipling
them how I could or should, and I still feel
that way still. I guess the thing I fear most

(01:18:26):
is that I'm just not doing a good enough job
and that it's all on me. I need to do
what I was in front of me. But back to
the idea here is he said, well, you know, I
have so such and such number of kids and they're

(01:18:47):
not walking with the Lord. And I thought, wow, you know,
I didn't even think that was possible based upon this
person's character and their knowledge, their their demeanor, their ministry.
And it didn't take that down a notch at all
when they said that. It just made me realize that

(01:19:09):
even someone that is so I esteem it very highly,
who probably did everything way more right than me as
far as all intensive purposes. As far as I can tell,
I know they've done more than me. Yet that outcome
is not based upon their performance. That outcome is not
based upon their how hard they work or whatever, because

(01:19:34):
you can't control on someone else's choice. Yeah, and you know,
one could even argue that the harder you push maybe
the harder they push away, you know, And there's there's
something to grapple with too. But let's go back to
the encouragement you want to share. Is that even in
the perfect situation what you're describing the garden with God,

(01:19:55):
and I'm describing a situation where I'm asking advice from
a leader who I high respect, whom I think is
the perfect person to ask, and then I find out, oh,
actually that outcome wasn't what they want and they're still
praying for their grown kids. So yeah, that's just a reality.
And I think knowing that adjusting our expectations and what

(01:20:17):
we think is dependent upon us. It's like, do what's
in our control, but realize what's not in our control.
We don't control the outcome, but we do control our inputs.
Can we say, have we created the environment that we
should have that we want to right now? Are we
doing what we can right now and just take every
day as it comes. I suppose, you know, as far

(01:20:40):
as not from my perspective, not beating myself up, or
from a retrospective point of view, not beating yourself up
after the fact, because for the other thing is maybe
that's part of their journey. You know, maybe they're going
to run away and then come back and they need,
and that God's going to use that in a different way.
They're going to have to go learn the hard way

(01:21:00):
or something.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
Yeah, I was actually going to add that was one
thing I wish I would have said is also, don't
give up hope, because there are so many stories of
people who were raised in a Christian home. They have
this period of questioning or walking away or tasting the world,
and they come back. I mean, I know so many
people that that is part of their testimony. I also

(01:21:23):
wanted to speak to what about the parent who's listening
and they think okay, Well, that speaks to the parent
who looks back and says, man, I just I feel
like I did a pretty good job and they walked away.
What about if I look back and say, I know
I made mistakes and I feel like it's my fault. Well,
in that case, I think the best thing to do

(01:21:44):
is to first of all, go before the Lord and
repent of the things that you know you did wrong.
Go to your kids and ask for forgiveness, and let
them know that those things you did are a reflection
of you and to they're not a reflection of who
God is, and that they should accept or reject Christianity
based on the person of Jesus, right God with a face,

(01:22:06):
if you will. And so those are just some additional
thoughts I had, But I just my heart just really
goes out to a parent who you know, the world
is a is a as Rocky Balbo would say, is
a really mean place, you know, and it will beat
you down, and and it is. It's a it's a
tough place. But you know, we have that encouragement in

(01:22:28):
the Lord that even though we're going to fall, we're
going to stumble, that that there's forgiveness and that there's
mercy and that there's His grace, and so take it,
take full advantage of that.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
Thank you ched for your encouragement. Thank you listeners for listening,
and we hope you'll come back next time. The next
interview you'll hear, we'll be talking with Melissa Dougherty about
her book and the topic of happy Lies.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
I'm begun reading the book and it's going to be
something you might want to get your hands on. Based
upon this idea of a movement called the New Thought movement.
But it's an old movement from about one hundred years ago,
but it's influenced so much stuff going on and still
going on in our culture today, from self help stuff

(01:23:14):
to some new age practices and things that have infiltrated
things like the Word of Faith movement and seecret friendly
churches and affirmations and name it and claim it all
these sorts of things. So yeah, it's going to be
a really an interview I'm looking forward to. So join us. Then,
thank you for your huge, giant five star reviews. Oh
you haven't left one yet, that's no problem, we are

(01:23:37):
waiting for that review. Just go to your podcast player
and just type away tell us what you think. But
thank you so much and we'll see you next time.
Thanks everybody, thanks for listening to the podcast. If you
have a question you'd like us to address, or just
a message for us feedback good or bad, you can
either email us at podcast at apologetics three fifteen dot

(01:23:58):
com or leave a voice message for us using speak pipe.
Just go to speakpipe dot com slash apologetics three fifteen
to leave us a message. And remember, if you include
a Ghostbuster's quote in your question, we guarantee that we'll
read it on the podcast. We also ensure up to
fifty percent better quality answers. Also, if you've enjoyed today's podcast,

(01:24:19):
please leave a review in iTunes or the podcast platform
your choice, and please share this episode with a friend
if you've found it useful. Remember you can find lots
of Apologetics resources at apologeticspree fifteen dot com, along with
show notes for today's episode. Find Chad's apologetic stuff over
at Truthbomb apologetics. That's truthbomb dot blogspot dot com. This

(01:24:40):
has been Brian Auten and Chad Gross for the Apologetics
three fifteen podcast, and thanks for listening.

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149 - January Cornucopia

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