I’m going to introduce to you our speaker, Dr. Timothy Keller. Dr. Timothy Keller was born and raised in Pennsylvania in 1989. He started Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan with his wife Kathy and their three sons. He’s the author of multiple books, but is best known for his New York Times bestseller, The Reason for God and Making Sense of God, and uh and making sense of God, from which the series is based. A fun trivia fact about Tim tonight is that he’s actually a very musical person, and he has largely memorized the musical Music Man from Broadway. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Timothy Keller. I memorized some of the music man a long time ago. So who told her that? >> Um hi. Questioning Christianity. Um why are we here? We’re here one reason we’re here because we live in a polarized society. We’re polarized about so many things uh including religion. And it would be great, wouldn’t it, if we just could find a place where we could talk with each other about religion without yelling at each other. Now, uh that would be, I think, a contribution. Now, there’s a lot of ways to do that. There are more than one way. The way we’re going to do in during this series is just this. Uh seeking to be as respectful as possible to all points of view. I still am going to each week try to present a thesis a part of Christianity for uh I’m going to recommend it to you to say I think this is something worth worthy of your consideration. This is something worthy of you to believe. And there’s going to be presentation. Then there’s going to be plenty of time for questioning my presentation. You get to text in your questions. You may some of you already have. You can do it tonight. So it’ll be almost equal time. I hope if I don’t run on too far. I’d like to give your presentation, then you get to question me, and then afterwards we get to go upstairs and eat u not bad food and uh talk informally. and I’m I’ll be present for you to just come right up and tell me what you really really think. Uh and that’s what we’re going to do. So each week that’s what we’re going to do. Thesis question go upstairs and talk. Uh we’ve done this a couple years uh a couple other years before and it’s been really really fruitful and that’s why we’re doing it again. Uh now this first session to some degree I’ve got to set the table. have got to do ground work. And because you can’t talk about whether you can believe in God or not believe in God, whether you can believe in Christianity or not believe in Christianity. There’s no way to do that unless you first go back far enough and say, well, how do you decide what to believe in any situation? How do you believe in anything? Uh what how do faith and reason uh relate? Or the subtitle, can you believe in things you can’t prove? How can you believe in things that you can’t prove? And so, we’ve got to get all the way in the back and ask ourselves the question, how does faith and reason work? And the way I like to do that tonight is I like to pose a problem for you. I like to show you a problem, give you a couple of theories that don’t work as solutions, and then I’m going to tell give you what I do think works as a solution and a way forward. So, we’re setting the table for all the other talks. problem, solutions that don’t work, a solution I think that does, and a way forward. Now, here’s the problem. And because uh you probably have your own list, I’m going to give you a list of very smart people that I know of who looked at the evidence and the arguments and converted to Christianity. And a whole lot of people who are just as smart, who looked at the same evidence, the same arguments, and they left Christianity, became atheists or agnostics. Tonight when I use the word secular, I’ll probably mean certainly an atheist is secular. Certainly an agnostic is secular. A lot of secular people say, “I really don’t know.” Or then there’s the indifferent person who says, “I don’t know if there’s a God and I don’t care. It’s completely irrelevant to me.” So there’s there’s a lot of brilliant people who’ve looked at the evidence and have converted to Christianity from being secular or converted to being secular from being a Christian. Um, I’ll give you a couple of my own. You have your own list. Uh, uh, Elizabeth Anskim, who taught philosophy at Oxford and Cambridge in the middle of the 20th century and was probably the most prominent female philosopher in history. And a lot of you are saying, I never heard of her. That’s telling, isn’t it? That, but that’s another lecture right there. Why have you not heard of her? She’s brilliant. Brilliant. Greatest female philosopher ever. She converted to Christianity. uh Francis Collins who uh led the human genome project is one of the leading scientists in the whole world is the head of the NIH uh he was an atheist and converted to Christianity. Uh TS Elliott probably heard of him very very famous playwright poet man of letters who was an atheist or an agnostic and then converted to Christianity. on the other side. Uh these are some people you know and some you don’t people I know. Mark Lila who teaches humanities at Columbia University. Brilliant man. I’ve been in a couple of uh forums with him. Uh he’s written some great books recently. Uh Mark Lill had a very strong religious background. Uh and yet he grew up and after becoming an adult he looked at it and said no and became a secular man. uh Richard Dawkins, very famous guy who was raised an Anglican and somewhere in his late teens said this is ridiculous and he became an atheist and Bert Russell Burton Russell was a very famous 20th century British philosopher who was an atheist and near the end of his life somebody asked him uh he said Mr. Russell Dr. Russell. Uh, what happens if you die and you find out you were wrong and you stand before God in his judgment seat? What are you going to do? And Bertie Russell didn’t miss a beat. He said, I’m going to say, don’t blame me, God. There wasn’t enough evidence. In fact, he says, I I’ll say to him, there was not enough evidence, God. Not enough evidence. So, you know, you should not blame me for anything. But here’s the funny thing about this. TS Elliott, Francis Collins, who by the way is a scientist, Elizabeth Anskim, who’s a brilliant, brilliant analytic philosopher, they thought there was enough evidence. They thought there was plenty of evidence. So here you have equally brilliant people looking at the same stuff. One group saying, “No way. No way. No evidence at all. It’s just no proof, no evidence, no reason to believe in God.” another group saying yes there is plenty of it. How do you account for that class? Don’t raise your hands on let let me suggest two theories of how to explain that that I don’t think work. The first one I’m going to be really quick about with this theory because even though I know people who believe this and I’ve met people who believe this, they’re un almost it’s very unlikely any of you in this room would be in this in this uh uh this category. But there are some people who say that the reason why the the uh this group of people uh believe and this group of people uh don’t believe is because the secular people are simply closing their eyes to the evidence. In other words, the people who believe in God are rational and the people who refuse to look at the evidence and become atheists and secular people, they’re being irrational and biased. This approach says this. This group says, “Look, the proofs for God, the cosmological, teological, ontological, moral, the proofs for God, they’re really strong.” And we’re going to get to those sometime in the in the series later. And the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is very, very strong. And therefore, any rational person who is objective and open-minded will simply say, “Why this? There’s every reason to believe in God. And if you don’t, it’s because you have some uh bias and you’re just closing your eyes to the facts. Now, maybe I maybe uh the reason I’m being so quick on this, I’m not going to spend much time on it. I don’t think that works for a couple reasons. I’m not going to take much time on it because I again I don’t think any of those people live in New York City. Um hardly. Uh and there’s here’s here’s a couple reasons why. By the way, there is such a thing as bias. Secular people can and do have their biases against belief. The book of Romans actually talks about them, and I’m going to get to that a little later. But having said that, spending decades and decades with people who’ve wrestled with whether to believe in Christianity or not, and wrestled with the arguments and wrestled with the the evidence and all that, I’ve spent decades with people. And here’s one of the things I know. There is no even the strongest, put it this way, even the strongest logical arguments for God and for Christianity always, they’re never completely airtight. They’re never completely airtight. Uh maybe there may be one argument that’s kind of airtight, but all it does is take you to be to believe in Aristotle’s unmoved mover. It doesn’t take you to the God of the Bible. Uh the reality is that there are there are great good arguments. I’m going to give them to you if you’re willing to be here tonight and to come back later. Uh but when it when it comes to to saying every rational person has to accept the evidence for religion and Christianity because frankly uh all the arguments are completely airtight. That’s not true. There’s always wiggle room. There’s always room for doubt. Always. And the the reality is that so many of people I’ve seen who just cannot believe are people of real intellectual integrity. So, it’s really not fair to say, “Oh, they’re just being biased.” Besides that, I’m a Christian, which means I believe that God wants faith. And however you define faith, it’s more than just reason. In other words, if to say, well, you know, anyone who’s open to the evidence would be compelled, every rational person over the evidence is compel would be compelled to believe. Well, that’s all I know is that that doesn’t make that doesn’t leave room for faith. God has set things up. This is the Christian view. So that you do you you can exercise faith which means whatever that is is somewhat beyond reason. Uh reason is not enough to make you a Christian or a believer. It never has been. And so it’s really wrong to simply say well religious people they they’re being rational and the secular people are being irrational. Um and that’s the reason why uh Richard Dawkins and those people and Bur and Russell they just closed their eyes to the truth. No, these are people of intellectual integrity and uh we we we have to realize there’s a limit to just how uh even the strongest logical arguments for God. But theory too, the second theory which is dominant in a place like New York City and that’s why we’re going to spend some time on it. The second theory says this that secular people are secular because of reason but religious people are religious because of faith. Secular people have reason but religious people have faith and they have an emotional need to believe. Secular people are just being unbiased. They’re just simply looking at things with a clear eye of fa of of reason. But anyone who becomes a believer has some emotional need. We’re not saying that TS Elliott and Francis Collins and and Elizabeth Anskam aren’t smart people, but they must have had some need because if you just look at things objectively, you’ll be secular. So that idea is this theory is secular people have reason, but religious people have faith. And I’m here to tell you that’s not true. uh Charles Taylor in his landmark book, A Secular Age, calls that a subtraction theory. Now, what do I mean by the subtraction theory? Excuse me. I’ll bring this up just so I know. Charles Taylor says that most secular people tell a subtraction story. What they mean is they say, “I used to believe in God, but then I just took away belief in God in the supernatural. I subtracted it out and now I just see things the way they are with a clear eye of reason. Um I I found this uh you might say a testimony on the internet. A guy who had been a Christian and he lost his faith and his name is uh doesn’t matter. I mean he’s a name his name is SA Joyce but here’s what he said. He was looking at the evidence and he said the question entered my mind what is a god for whom there is no real evidence? Non-existent came the obvious answer. And at that point, the blinders of dogma and the yoke of dread were finally taken off. For the first time, the universe now shown in a wholesome new light. The comforting glow of reality no longer distorted. I was free. Now, Charles Taylor calls that a subtraction story, which is to say, I was a believer and I just took out God and the supernatural and I just used my reason. I got rid of faith and emotion and I just am looking at it objectively and when I see that now I can finally see see things uh clearly and um in fact what they would say is finally I’m uh uh able to see life as it is. Now, how do they ex explain say Francis Collins and Elizabeth Anom Anskum and and TS? What they say is well look the reality is there’s lots of reasons why you might want God to be there. Like you want to believe that when you die it’s not the end. You want to believe that when you die you could be with your loved ones. There’s all kinds of reasons uh emotional reasons uh that you don’t really want to see life as it is. But if you are just willing to get rid of emotion and get rid of dogma and get rid of all those things and just look at the world through the clear eye of reason without any faith or belief just objectively then you’ll become a secular person. Uh, interestingly Frank, uh, the, um, Charles Taylor’s massive book, A Secular Age, and Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher, French Canadian philosopher. He devotes the entire book almost to showing that that’s not true. And here’s what his thesis is. And here’s my thesis tonight. And this is a thesis I want you to push back on. And I happen to know it’s a thesis that’s very unpopular in New York. Okay? Thesis is this. If you’re a secular person, secularism is not the absence of belief. It’s a new set of beliefs which are just as unprovable as other religious beliefs. Let me say it again. If you’re a secular person, secularism is not the absence of belief. It’s not just rational objectivity. It’s not the absence of beliefs. It’s the presence of a whole new set of beliefs which also are not provable either. And therefore, secular people and and Christian people equally have to justify their beliefs. But one does not have the higher moral ground. Secular people cannot say, “Well, we’re rational and if you religious people can prove God, then we’ll believe it. We’re rational and if you give us the evidence, then we’ll believe it.” No. No. you’re on the same playing field because it’s two sets of beliefs, neither of which are provable. Both of which need to be justified. Does that make sense? I know that it’s I know it’s very unpopular. So, let me follow along uh with what Charles Taylor says to make his case. Ready? Charles Taylor says the subtraction story doesn’t work. The idea that secular people are don’t have faith, but they’re just being reasonable and objective. Uh the first reason it doesn’t work is because you can’t disprove the existence of God. And because you can’t disprove the existence of God, that means if you’re living as if there is no God, you’re doing it on faith. You have faith that there is no God. You’re betting your life that there is no God. And therefore, if you’re a secular person, you are living by faith. See, I’ve talked to many secular people who say this. I don’t believe in the abominable snowman unless you can give me evidence for it. So why should I believe in God unless you give me evidence for it? Now, when you say that, you’re making a category mistake. It’s a category mistake because God, no religion, I’m not talking about just Christianity here. No religion actually believes that God is an object inside the universe like the abominable snowman. Here’s a better way to understand what religion is saying. Religions, all the religions of the world say this material world cannot exist on its own. Matter could not just happen. Matter cannot just keep itself uh maintained. That there must be something some immaterial being, some supernatural reality that generated matter and that upholds matter. Okay. Secular people say no no no no matter generated itself. It just it caused itself and it can support itself. So religious the religions of the world say matter cannot generate or maintain itself. And secular people say well yes it can. There’s nothing but matter. There is no transcendent reality. Now how are you going to prove one of those views? What experiment? What scientific test could you use to to even test the secular thesis that matter generated itself and doesn’t need any uh undergirling reality behind it? How do you test for that? You can’t uh when uh when a secular person says, “Well, we don’t know where matter came from. It just came.” Okay. How do you how do you test for that? You can’t test for that. um bla1 Pascal’s famous wager maybe you’ve heard of it he basically says you cannot prove that there is a god but you cannot prove that there is no god it’s impossible to prove something like that and therefore whoever you are you’re basing your life and betting your life on an act of faith that either there is or there isn’t a god so secular people actually have a view of the material world and reality that can’t be proven and therefore it’s based on faith. That’s the first thing Charles Tiller says. Here’s the second thing he says. Now, the second reason that subtraction story doesn’t work is because there are as many emotional reasons to disbelieve in God as there is to believe in God. And therefore, that’s a wash. I’m a believer and I got plenty of there’s plenty of emotional reasons I might want to believe in God and it might cloud my rational faculties. But if you are here tonight and you’re not a believer, there is plenty of emotional reasons to that you might have to not believe. You might have to not believe in God. And that can also cloud your rational faculties. Uh Thomas Nagel taught um for many years taught philosophy at NYU. Very famous uh philosophy professor down there. He wrote a book some years ago. He’s an atheist. And here’s what he said. He said, ‘I want atheism to be true, and I am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God, and naturally, I hope that I’m right. It’s that I hope there is no God. I don’t want there to be a God. I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem that I have is not rare. Isn’t that interesting you called that a cosmic authority problem? My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about human life. This is a ridiculous situation. It is just as irrational to be influenced in one’s belief by the hope that God does not exist as by the hope that God does exist. You may have heard of Aldis Huxley who was a famous atheist British uh writer uh and he wrote this. He said the philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with the problem of pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there’s no valid reason why he should not live the way he wants to live. I must admit for myself the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. I objected to the morality because it interfered with my sexual freedom. And Tom Nagel adds a footnote. He says, “I am curious whether there’s anyone who is genuinely indifferent as to whether there’s a god or not. Anyone who, whatever his actual belief about the matter, doesn’t particularly want either one of those answers to be correct.” See, what I’m trying to say is simply this. There’s lots of emotional reasons why you might not want to believe in God. Because as Aldis Suxley said and Tom Nagel said, that means I can’t live any way I want. But there’s also plenty of emotional reasons why I do want you might want to believe in God. And therefore, just realize wherever you are, whoever you are, you do have some biases. You do have some needs that might cloud your rational faculties. It’s not going to be easy. therefore to to think about this in a in a good way in a in a clear-minded way. But you mustn’t say all the emotional needs are on that side. Believers should never say, “Oh, secular people, they just don’t want to believe in God because they want to live any way they want.” And secular people must not say, “Oh, religious people, they want to believe in God so that they can know they can go to heaven when they die.” Well, the answer is yeah, they’re both true. And therefore, it’s a wash. In other words, this argument does not cut either way. But it certainly does not mean that secular people can just say, “Oh, there’s absolutely no reason why, you know, I’m I’m that I’m being totally objective.” It’s Do you hear what Tom Nagel said at the end? He says, “I doubt very much there’s anybody who comes to the question about God in a objective, unbiased way. I don’t believe anybody does.” But here’s the main reason why Charles Taylor says secular people have got to admit that their secularism is really a new belief set, a new set of beliefs, not the absence of belief, is because they have beliefs about rationality and morality. Secular people have beliefs about rationality, morality that are unprovable and they yet they’re the very basis of their lives. What do I mean by that? Well, what does he mean by that? I’m still following Taylor. So Taylor says for example um whenever somebody says I’m just being rational if you could prove Christianity to me or he could prove God to me then I believe and Charles Taylor who’s smarter than you and me and anybody in this room and who’s a philosopher says uh would you please define proof he says you know there’s at least four you can look this up even on even on online go to Wikipedia there’s if you put in the word rationality you’ll see there’s at least four or five different working definitions of rationality. Each one thinking the other ones aren’t rational. And outside of math, when you talk about proof, there’s proof in mathematics. That’s one thing. But proof in law, proof in philosophy, proof in science. Nobody agrees on exactly what proof means. And here’s the weird thing. You cannot advocate for a particular view of proof without using that view of proof which is the thing you’re supposed to be establishing. Which means reason is always based on antecedent faith. But let me go on a little further. Martin Haidiger, the philosopher, Michael Palani, who was a scientist, both wrote about uh what they called tacet beliefs. They said anyone who ever thinks they’re being objective never is. Anyone who ever thinks they’re being completely rational never is because we have background beliefs that are he they call it well Michael Pauline called them tacet beliefs. They’re background beliefs which are virtually unconscious but which actually affect whether we consider certain arguments convincing or not. So let me give you a perfect example of this. Charles Taylor in his book asks a interesting question. And he says, “Why is it that before 1500, 1500 AD, you know, the the year 1500, before 1500, people suffered? They’ve probably suffered worse than we suffer today.” But nobody said that that meant there couldn’t be a god. Nobody. But since the year 1500, increasingly people say because of evil and suffering there can’t be a god. So you know the argu it’s called the argument from evil and the argument or it technically it’s called the aological argument from evil which is because of the evil and suffering of the world god can’t exist because if he was good and all powerful he would stop it that’s the argument uh and we’re not going to talk about that tonight we’re going to talk about it later if you’re willing to come back but uh Charles Teller says why is it that in the asked that argument was totally unconvincing to people and why is it today it’s very convincing to many people and the answer is he says background beliefs that you’re barely aware of he said ancient people background belief was that if there is a god of course I wouldn’t understand him if there is a god of course my reason my human reason would be incapable of plumbing the depths of him but modern people are very very confident that human reason can figure out the universe very confident and therefore modern people say if I can’t think of a good reason why God would allow this evil and suffering there can’t be any good reason got that ancient people would never have thought about that so why is it that modern people find that argument very compelling ancient people didn’t find it compelling at all it’s the background beliefs that we’re not even sure of we’re not even we don’t even see them it’s the background beliefs and so Michael Ply and Martin Haidiger say nobody comes to the evidence evidence. This is by the way one of the reasons why Collins over here and Dawkins over here both great scientists would look at the same evidence. One say yes God exists and one says no God doesn’t exist because neither of them are completely objective. There’s background beliefs about human nature about the nature of human reason about all kinds of things Haidiger and Palani say that are actually affecting the way in which you read. I’ll give you a couple more of those in in a minute. But so you see the main point first point Charles Taylor says if you say I’m being rational you’re defining reason you’re defining proof you’ve got all kinds of background beliefs and the fact is that all reason whenever you’re rational whenever you’re using your reason your reason is always grounded on antecedent faith beliefs about the nature of proof about the nature of reality and background beliefs that you can you’re barely aware of and so the one one reason why secular people actually are based on faith is because they have faith in a particular view of rationality. But secondly, and this is maybe the one I’m going to probably the one that’ll hit home the most, Charles Taylor says secular people still have morals. Secular people in particular have two two moral values. He says it’s equal human rights and universal benevolence. Now, when Taylor talks about equal human rights, you know what I’m talking about. the idea that every human being is equal in value and dignity and has rights. That’s one moral belief that uh secular people have. And the second moral belief is universal benevolence. That is I shouldn’t just take care of the poor people in my neighborhood or my family or my race or my community. I really should be concerned about po the the poor and the needy everywhere, every place. I should be talking, you know, I should be caring about all of them. So the belief in the moral obligation of honoring human equal human rights and the moral obligation of um of universal benevolence. He says now Charles Stiller says okay those are moral beliefs. Secular people have them. Prove it. Give me a scientific proof that all human beings are equal. Give me a scientific proof that everybody’s uh got equal rights. Do it. And the answer is you can’t because those moral values, all moral values, if you’ve got them, are always matters of faith. There’s no scientific way to prove them. But, and here’s what here’s where I’m going to push it a little bit. For a Christian to believe in human rights, according to Friedrich Nichi, Charles Taylor, and a uh John Gray, who uh is a a philosopher who’s still writing right now. He just recently wrote a book called Seven Types of Atheism. According to Friedri Nichi and Charles Taylor and John Gray, who is an atheist by the way, what they all say is that the idea of human rights and the idea of universal benevolence makes sense. It’s a logical inference if you believe there’s a God who created the universe who made all human beings in his image and who commands you to love as he loves. So if you have a God of love who creates everyone and and and puts his image on everyone then the to believe in universal benevolence and equal human rights for all is actually not a matter of faith. It might be h you might have faith to believe in that god but once you believe in that god it’s a logical inference human rights and universal benevolence but here’s what nichi says ni says what if there is no god which is what he believes and what if the universe is impersonal and what if we’re not here for any purpose and what if the only way you got here was through evolution which is the strong eating the weak which is the way of nature it is absolutely natural for the strong to devour the weak. That’s how you got here. That’s called evolution. And Friedrich Nishi says, “If you still want to believe in equal human rights and you should take care of the poor and the needy, which of course is the exact opposite of the way you got here, which is evolution to totally opposite. If you still want to believe in that, that’s fine. But it’s an amazing leap of faith.” And by the way, Nichi says it’s not fine because Nichi says if you believe in equal human rights and you believe in universal benevolence and you say I don’t believe in God, you’re still believing in Christianity whether you like to believe it or not. Ni um because he says he says those values made sense in a universe in which you had a personal God of love who made everyone. They don’t make sense in our universe at all. If you want to believe in them, okay, but it’s a massive leap of faith, a bigger leap than Christians are making. So, for example, John Gray says this about Nietze. He says, “With few exceptions, contemporary atheists are earnest and militant liberals.” Awkwardly, Nchief points out that all liberal values derive from Jewish and Christian monotheism, and he rejected those values for that very reason. What Nichi recognizes is that you can be rid of God only if you also do away with all innate moral meaning. Civilization is in the process of ditching divinity while still clinging to all the those values that came from the belief in divinity and that this egregious act of bad faith must not go uncontested. So um you see what’s going on. So for example, a guy named uh Andrew Kppelman is a professor of law and political science at Northwestern University and uh he’s a secular man, an agnostic he calls himself. He reviewed Charles Taylor’s book, The Secular Age. And he really felt the power of this whole point, the subtraction story. And he really felt the power of the argument that said, if you’re a secular person and you believe in human rights and you believe in universal benevolence, that sort of thing, you really don’t have any basis on it. And it’s a it’s a complete leap of faith into the dark. And this is what he says. He says, “I’m not prepared to argue, as other secular people do, that there is no transcendent basis for my commitment to human rights.” and that my commitment to human rights is of a purely contingent historical formation and therefore I have to admit there’s a permanent gap in my belief system. He goes on and he tries to say what he means by secular people who say that human rights is a purely historical formation. What they mean is that they say, “Yeah, today we think slavery was wrong because now it’s the majority opinion, but in the past it wasn’t wrong and in the future it might not be wrong again because there are no moral absolutes. There can’t be. What could what could be what could be what could be wrong with nature? Nature is strong, eat the weak. What could be wrong with nature unless you have a supernatural transcendent basis by which you can judge? Some things in nature are right and some things in nature are wrong. But there can’t be such a thing.” So this guy is saying, ‘Well, I don’t believe in God, but I still believe what he says. I actually believe slavery always was wrong and always will be wrong, no matter what the people say. And so his is his final statement. Quote, he says, “Modern secularism then is a religious worldview with its own narrative of testing and redemption, and it shares the vulnerabilities of such views.” And there’s another guy who’s not a faculty member. He’s just a guy I found on the internet who also reviewed Charles Taylor’s book. The reason I was interested in it is a young man, his name, his first name is David, I’ll just call him David, who uh grew up in a very very very fundamentalist conservative background, went a very conservative fundamentalist college and moved to New York City probably 15 20 years ago I think now and lost his faith and he’s now a secular person. And then he read Charles Taylor’s secular age which said you’re not objective. what you’ve done is you’ve you have left aside one set of unprovable beliefs and you have just adopted another set of unprovable beliefs. And this is what he says. Really really interesting. He says, “When I began to lose my faith, a lot of my Christian friends told me I was just trying to be cool. At the time, I told them that my loss of faith was strictly the result of good, solid intellectual arguments.” All by the way, capitalized. good capital G solid capital S intellectual arguments. In other words, he basically said it’s all a matter I’ve just looked at the re the reasons. I looked at the evidence. It’s all rational. I’m just being objective. In other words, he told him a subtraction story. But this is what he said after reading after reading uh Charles Taylor. He said, ‘I now must concede that rational arguments though it played a role in the change was my coming to secular uh beliefs was not a new more or yeah pardon me. He says okay he says what actually happened to me was not me coming out of the cave into the daylight but it was a matter of a new more or less equally faith-based story eclipsing the old one. What happened here he said was that as many value judgment there are as many value judgments in liberal humanism as there are in its parent religion in other words Christianity and many people who come to the point of unbelief are happy to accept them despite objecting to what they consider the similar ungroundedness of Christianity it’s amusing now how little my values intrinsically had to do with materialism I’ve been convinced of nothing about individual liberty human rights or civilizational progress follows from the fact that I now believe God is not does not exist. Now, so what he’s saying is I used to say the reason I became a secular person was because I was just being rational. Actually, I know that my belief in human value, my belief in human rights actually does not follow from my belief that God is doesn’t exist. There was a uh Alexander no Salvaf he was a Russian philosopher um and he says this in a nutshell trying to say what Nichi saying he says man descended from apes by a process of the strong eating the weak therefore let us love one another and what he was what he was trying to do is summarize what Nichi was saying he was saying I’m sorry the idea of love and of human rights is not follow from the idea that there is no God. And therefore, if you want to believe in human rights, go ahead. But realize that’s faith. It’s faith. So, what’s the solution? Now, I’m telling you that the reason why you get smart people who look at the evidence and come out on different different places is because the process of losing your faith or gaining your faith is more complicated than anybody wants to admit. It’s not just a matter of looking at arguments and and uh evidence. Number one, you’ve got to look at your own background beliefs. You got to try to discern your own background beliefs. And number two, you have to realize wherever you stand at that moment, you’re not being objective. You’ve got your own set of commitments and beliefs. And therefore, the way forward is to compare beliefs. Uh when I’ve given this talk before, usually people say, “Wait a minute. So you’re saying we’re all kind of religious. We we all are are filled with faith.” Yes. I’m saying that secularism is a set of beliefs. They’re not provable scientifically and logically. They’re not self-evident to everyone. And they have their own contradictions and problems. So, some people say, “Well, that means that we’re all sort of stuck in our little bubbles of faith. We can’t I can’t prove my beliefs to you. You can’t prove your beliefs to me. So, we’re stuck.” No, no, not really. Because you can rationally interrogate your set of beliefs. You can at least at least do these five things. You can at least do these five things. Number one, you can ask if your beliefs are consistent with one another or whether your beliefs contradict each other. Number two, you can ask whether your human experience fits your beliefs. Are you actually able to live your your faith out or do you find that your faith is constantly bumping up against the reality of human experience? Number three, can you deny something one minute and then the very next minute show that you actually had another way believe it? In other words, the way to put it is uh can you deny something one minute and yet go on to assume it the next minute which means you end up borrowing from the beliefs of other systems. Alistister McIntyre a philosopher who says how do you deal with people who’ve got these different systems. One of the ways you can check is if you have one set of beliefs and you find yourself constantly having to borrow ideas from another set of beliefs and maybe your set of beliefs isn’t just isn’t really working. Uh one more is are you willing to embrace the conclusions of your beliefs the logical conclusions of your beliefs and if not why not? So you see the point is that even though we can’t prove absolutely everything in our set of beliefs to people who have got other beliefs, we can compare them. What I’m going to do the next several weeks is I’m going to say here are a number of things that you have got to uh uh a number of things that you have to have in order to live. You need to have a meaning in life. You need to have a way of handling suffering. You need to have a strong identity. You need to have happiness and and and and uh satisfaction in life. You can’t live without these things. How is your set of beliefs doing? I’m going to compare how your beliefs are doing with what Christianity offers. And arguably Christianity gives you resources for those things that are unequaled. So instead of the next four or five times we meet together, uh eventually I’d like to give you evidences and arguments, but that’s not how it should start. The reason you got smart people that come down on both sides of this, smart people who believe and smart people who don’t believe, is because the process is complex and it’s a matter of comparing your sets of beliefs. I want you to think about what you believe and compare it to Christian beliefs in how the two sets of beliefs do with accounting for reality and helping you face suffering and giving you an identity, which is how you’re supposed to test these things. Last idea. Um Jesus Christ was once approached by a man who said, “Would you come heal my son?” And Jesus said, “Sure, I’d be happy to heal your son if you believe.” And what the man said is, crying out in desperation, he says, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” Wow. There’s an honest man. I believe. I don’t really believe. Say, you know, I Jesus says, “Hey, if you believe, I’ll heal your son.” I believe. I No, I don’t believe. I believe. Help my unbelief. And guess what Jesus does? Does he say, “I’m sorry. Not good enough. You need to go to Tim Kelly’s questioning Christianity course. You need to you need to get at least Oh, you know, you just need a lot more certainty. You got to get rid of these doubts.” No. What does he do? Some of you know he heals the boy. Now, what does that say? Two things. Number one, coming to faith is a process. It’s a process. And Jesus recognizes that. But here’s the other thing. The faith that Christians are looking for is not some pure perfect psychological certainty. Because at least in in the Christian understanding of things, it’s not the quality of your faith that saves you, the purity of your faith that saves you. It’s the object of your faith that saves you. If you’re about to fall off a cliff and you just reach out scared to death and grab a branch and it holds you up, you’re saved. Why? What saved you? Was it the quality of your faith? No. You weren’t sure when you grabbed the branch. You weren’t filled with certainty. You weren’t sure. But when you grab that branch, even without a whole lot of perfect faith, it saved you. Why? It’s the object of your faith, not the quality or purity of your faith that saves you. And so the Christian understanding of faith is it is a process. It is messy. It is complicated. You it is a process of thinking and intuition. Yes, you can use your reason and yes, you can use your intuition, but when it all comes down to it, the Christian understanding is it’s a commitment to Jesus that saves you, not the quality of your faith. You don’t have to be perfect in all this. It’s messy and Jesus has mercy on those that doubt. >> Well, Tim, I like the way that you ended things with that um a statement that it’s not about the quality of our faith or the quality of one’s faith, but the object of one’s faith. Um you seem as someone very confident in the object of your faith as a Christian. Um, someone is asking, Tim, do you ever have doubts about the validity of Christianity? >> Um, yeah, but here’s the good thing is my doubts uh they migrate. What I mean to say is it’s not the same doubt year after year after year. Um, it’s like this. Look, if if uh if you are going to hire somebody, I mean, I don’t want to do if you’re going to hire somebody, you have three candidates, you use your reason to get to the place where you decide which of the three candidates is probably the best. You’ve read the references, you’ve interviewed, um are you 100% totally sure, without any doubt that that person is going to be perfect for the job? And the answer is no, you can’t be. Uh however um if it is the right person in about 3 years or two years you will know that that was really the right person. The job’s never been done better. The person was even better than you thought blah blah blah. So you you use your reason to get to a place of maybe you say probability but then it takes experience to get you to certainty. Um and so what happens is when you first I’m trying to get that across to you here. When you first you might say bite on Christianity if you do bite on Christianity no you don’t have to have this incredible in internal psychological certainty that was the purpose of my little talk there at the end it takes time for you to find grow in your certainty about um the things you can experience and you know what you can experience you can experience the presence of God you can experience his forgiveness you can experience his grace you can experience the reality of Jesus you can experience the reality of the Holy Spirit so the things that you can actually not just uh infer from rationally but you can also then commit and experience those things no I don’t have any doubts about but when you say are there parts of the Christian faith yes of course because the Bible is a pretty long book and there’s lots and lots of teaching in it and sometimes I say is that true I mean there’s two ways to doubt something one is maybe I don’t understand it right maybe I don’t get it. Maybe maybe I’m not getting this right. The other possibility is you say, “I don’t like this. In fact, I wish it wasn’t true. It doesn’t feel credible to me.” So, the Christian faith, there’s enough stuff in the Bible that there’s going to be always things that you might wrestle with that are very difficult. Uh some which you don’t know. Is it me? Is it is it uh what is it? But I would say you’re talking about the core things. If you’re asking me personally the core things, the reality of Christ, the reality of the resurrection, those things, no, there’s not much doubt left. But it’s because it’s like it’s the way you wouldn’t have that much doubt in the person if you hired the person. The person was you were you were working with that person day in and day out and you just you just knew about their character. It’s like that. >> That makes sense to me. Everyone, half the room is like um someone sent this in and I had to ab I’m gonna have to abbreviate just it just a little bit, but uh it it resonates with me personally. Um so if the Christian God really exists and is omnipotent, why would he set the world up in such a way that makes faith very difficult and then subsequently condemn skeptics and believers of other religions? Why doesn’t he help us out given the gravity of this matter, given that he supposedly loves us? >> Yeah. Well, now be first of all, I do think uh you could ask a bigger question than that, of course, which is why doesn’t God just end history right now, put everything right, get rid of all suffering, reveal himself to everybody? I don’t know. And in some ways, that question uh is that that’s a subquest of that bigger question. Why why does why why hasn’t God just said absolutely everything right? And please let me remind you of what Charles Taylor I use this illustration tonight. What Charles Taylor said is modern people have a tendency to say because I can’t see how God could do that and still be just or because I can’t think of a good reason why God would let that happen therefore there can’t be any. Um he said ancient people would say if you have a god big enough to be mad at because he’s all powerful and all wise. If you have a god big enough to be mad at that he doesn’t fix things and you’ve got a god big enough to have some reasons why he doesn’t fix things that you might not know. You can’t have it both ways. If he if if he’s great enough for you to be mad at, he’s great enough to know something you don’t. and in uh so I don’t have a good answer to that question because from my h limited human vantage point some of that sounds unfair. Nevertheless, uh I can I can kind of get there. I can kind of say I’ll just tell you two or three things. Um salvation is through Jesus Christ. We Christians believe because it’s by grace. Um other religions say if you’re a good person then you can go to heaven. And a lot of people tell me, “Well, why can’t all good people go to heaven? Why is it only Christians?” And one of the answers is, “Well, if only good people go to heaven, that leaves us bad people out.” And I’m one of them. And I’m not exaggerating. And I’m being falsely modest. Um Jesus Christ says, “If you believe in me, no matter who you are, you go to heaven.” And so every single approach to salvation pretty much leaves somebody out. Even those of you, by the way, I’ve had a lot of people who said to me, “Oh, I believe everybody goes to heaven.” I say, “So Hitler, oh well, you know, see basically everybody wants somebody not to go to heaven and somebody to go to heaven because everybody has a sense of justice and so does God. God’s got to have the mo the most finely tuned sense of justice of all. So as soon as you start talking about who goes to heaven, who’s not, it’s not fair, they don’t get a chance of it. Look, at some point there’s a cut off. Somebody some pe if there’s an afterlife and everybody understands and there’s justice that means some people are in, some people are out, but we leave that up to God. Anyway, I’m I’m just letting the the bigger question is does he does do we allow God to have some ability to be wise beyond what we can uh fathom? And I think the answer has to be yes. Or else you’re really not allowing for the very existence of God, which of course we already said tonight is a matter of faith. >> Okay. A lot of questions are coming in about the validity or reliability, I should say, the reliability of the Bible since the Bible uh the Bible is um where the Christian belief stems. So basically to pair down a lot of the questions, can you prove the validity of the Bible? >> Yeah. Now you’re making me go uh this is a series and in fact I suppose one of the things I wrestle with the most tonight was not going very far. Uh in other words tonight all I try to do is I say please do not believe that you can’t that you will never become a Christian unless somebody can prove that there is a god and prove that Christianity is true and prove that the Bible’s true. I mean, my point here tonight was to say nobody can prove wherever you’re standing, you’re you’re standing in a set of beliefs that you can’t prove either. Now, therefore, if I can’t utterly prove these things, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be considering what the Christian beliefs are, and you should be comparing them to your beliefs. Uh, in this case with the Bible though, if you’re willing to come back and eventually we get there, here’s what I would tell you how I understand that. If you believe that the gospels are historically reliable and that they basically give you a picture of Jesus Christ and what he did. Now, how do you establish that? That takes historical work that I just can’t do right here. But I I I would say you can do that. You can ask historians, does the Bible have the earmarks of an eyewitness account? Does the Bible have the earmarks of a reliable history? I’m not asking you whether it’s infallible or inherent. I’m just saying, do you have evidence for that? I’m I would say yes, and I could make that case. Then once you have the Gospels as just a historically reliable account of the life of Jesus, then you’ve just got to figure out what you think about Jesus. At that point, you’re not talking about the Bible anymore. you’re talking about Jesus. Uh, let’s just assume that Jesus did say most of what the Bible says he said. Let’s just assume that Jesus did most of what the Bible says he did. There’s plenty of evidence that he did. Then you you figure out who he was. And if you decide, nah, I don’t know who he is or he was just a nice teacher, then you don’t have to worry about the rest of the Bible. But if you decide, wow, I don’t know how to explain him. I don’t know how to explain his character, his claims. I don’t know how to explain the accounts of the resurrection. If you decide, I think I do believe in Jesus, then the rest of the Bible comes along with that because Jesus trusted the Bible. He he quoted every 10 things he says. He quotes the Bible. He bases his life on the Bible. So, if you’re going to ask me how would you prove the reliability of the Bible, I would say I wouldn’t. I would show you the historical reliability of the Gospels. I’d show you Jesus. And if you decide you want to go with him, that you trust that and you believe in that he’s compelling to you, then that brings you back around to what’s his view of the Bible. And that would be the order in which I’d go. >> Getting multiple questions about evolution. I’m going to go with >> about evolution. >> Okay. Doesn’t the fact that love exists that we can experience love isn’t our capacity for love itself because we have evolved under the theory of evolution. >> The secular understanding of love is it just a chemical reaction in your brain that helped your ancestor survive. >> You don’t believe that. You don’t believe that’s all love is. You believe it’s more than that. And yet that means you’re taking a leap of faith in which you’re in a sense contradicting your secular view of the world. Uh Tom Stppard, you know, the famous playwright, he did uh Rosen Cransson Gilder Stern are dead and he he wrote um Shakespeare in love. He won an Oscar for that. He’s a great playwright. He just recently had a play here called The Hard Problem. It was playing at Lincoln Center. It just closed at Christmas. I didn’t get a chance to go see it, but I have read it. And his whole point is that very thing. He says, if you if you’re a secular person and you believe that the you feel the the reason the evolutionary biologist says the reason love feels significant to you is it helps somebody it helped your ancestors survive and it’s a way for you to pass on your genes. And that’s the reason it feels that significant. Not that it is that significant. It’s just a it’s just chemistry. In the play, Tom Stoppper does a really good job of saying every person who says that’s all it is then turns around and doesn’t live the way that’s all it is. Always treats love as more significant than that. Which shows you’re doing a leap of faith. It also shows I think that there is an inongruency between what you believe about the universe and what you actually know deep in your heart. That’ be one of my arguments against being a secular person and why you would say Christianity can account for why you feel love is that is that significant Christian if you’re a Christian then you know we were created by a triune God we Christianity believes the father son and the holy spirit have been loving each other for all eternity and therefore love is the very heart of the universe and that we were created out of love and that’s the reason why we feel love is so significant so I would I would just ask you to consider Whether your idea that it’s just a chemical reaction to help your ancestor survive and therefore is not obligatory on you at all. You realize that if that just helped my ancestor survive, it might be practical for me, but it’s not obligatory. Love is not obligatory in the secular viewpoint. Yet you feel it is why Nishi would say because you’re just a, you know, you’re a hungover Christian and you don’t know it. I would say because deep in your heart you know what the Bible tells you about the nature of things. Um Tim, you high you made a claim that both secularism and the Christian faith are based on faith. >> Um but yet you said we can also rationally interrogate our beliefs. Um someone saying that you mentioned the Christian set of beliefs as providing a list of things such as satisfaction, a way to deal with suffering, etc. >> That other belief sets may not provide. But isn’t this even a more emotionally biased way to look at a set of beliefs? Um yeah here here look look at this way if I if I um if I start to um if I show you for example that Christianity no I get it and by the way I I agree with the with the uh gist of this question. If I show you that a Christian Christianity gives you a better way of understanding love, a better way, a better basis for doing justice, a better uh foundation for a solid identity that you where you really really do have a sense of self and worth. You say, “Well, that doesn’t prove Christianity is true. It just proves Christianity. All it proves is it would be great if it was true.” And that’s my first goal. See why why would you sit? You remember what I said about um background beliefs? I’ll give you a couple of examples maybe. Well, uh it’s not exactly answering this question, so I better wait. Remember I told you that we’re not rational totally. We have always have background beliefs and the background beliefs very often color the way in which we or it affects the way in which we are looking at arguments. Sometimes two people look at the same argument. One says it’s compelling, one says it’s not. And it’s because the background beliefs are different. So for example, if your background belief is that Christianity basically is bad for you, it’s bad for you. I’ve seen it be bad for people. It does this. It does that. It does this. It does that. Okay. So you come in here and I make a I make a an argument for the for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Are you going to find that compelling or not? Probably not. Even though I think it would be wonderfully compelling because I’m making it and I think it’s wonderful, but you may not. Why? Because your background belief is that you know what, Christianity is really bad for you. But what if when you compare how Christianity gives you meaning, identity, uh a way of dealing with suffering, and you say, “Actually, I never thought about that. I had no idea. You know what? Christianity isn’t so bad. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s actually pretty good.” Well, it’s really pretty good. Wow. It would actually be great if it was true. Then and only then, I believe, once that background belief is taken away, the background belief that it’s really bad for you, unless I get rid of that, I don’t think you’re going to be objective. You still may say, I see all of your arguments for why it’s true and I it’s not compelling. Okay, this is what we’re here for. We’re here to talk and to question and to be respectful of each other. But I would say unless I get rid of that background belief which is really prevalent in places like New York City, I don’t think you’re going to be able to get a give a fair hearing to the uh the more rational arguments. So that’s actually a great question because you’re you’re you’re it’s fair to say if that’s what you’re going to do for a while that doesn’t actually prove Christianity is true. No, but it puts you in a position where I think I’m I’m I’m peeling away some background beliefs that might create a bias. Uh, first of all, thank you so much for all the questions. Uh, I love Tim. I think people really want to talk to you. People are sending really large paragraphs and these are great, but a little hard to read as quickly as I’d like to. So, if you wouldn’t mind, um, pairing them down just a a bit. Um, also, uh, I know it’s kind of echoey, and I want Tim to be able to understand what I’m saying. So, um, but thank you, and this is another reason to join us on the fifth floor afterward to talk more. Um, uh, the next question, Tim, following up on what you’re saying is, uh, you mentioned background beliefs. Is there any reliable way to discover what my background beliefs are? Okay. Just dialogue and talking. Um, I would say that probably not on the internet. It’s I think I think face-to-face discussions I mean some of you know that this this very the very way in which we um structure this event and how you can come to it is trying to get friends basically to come together. uh and uh we we we actually do think that most everybody I know who has uh made any kind of progress in faith matters usually happens in the context of relationship. So let me give you an example though of three background beliefs. These are probably not the kind of background beliefs you’re thinking about, but some years ago, there was a man who came to Redeemer Church. Um, and had had given up Christianity. And when he came, he listened to the preaching. I was back then I was the only I was the preacher, the main preacher. And um one day we had a long talk and then we had a series of talks and he realized that the preaching had stripped away some of his background beliefs and uh here’s what we here’s three things that he had grown up in the Christian church and he realized he had picked up three beliefs that had when he moved to New York it completely the all those three beliefs um basically um made Christianity seem implausible. Here’s why. The first belief he grew up with was and he been he said is that if if you meet an atheist or an an agnostic, a person who’s not a Christian, that person will be really creepy because secular people atheist people are really bad people. So you see, he was raised in a very conservative um environment. So the first belief he had was that secular people will be really creepy. The second thing is if you ever have sex outside marriage, you’re going to feel so bad and guilty and shameful. And the third belief he’d been taught or given was that if you’re if you’re uh living a good Christian life, God would only let wouldn’t really let anything bad happen to you. Not really bad, maybe a little bad. Teach you a lesson. you know, you know, you break your leg and you lo and you miss the appointment, but then you get in the hospital, you meet a great nurse and you marry her and you live happily ever after. So, the the three the three background beliefs were uh non-Christian people are creepy. If you ever have sex outside marriage, you’ll feel horrible and um God will never let anything bad happen to you. He got to New York and all those background beliefs played havoc in his life because first of all, met all kinds of non-Christians who were better people than the people he grew up with. Secondly, he did have sex outside of marriage. And it felt really good. And then number three, some really bad things happened to him that he said, “I didn’t think God would ever let something like that happen to a good Christian.” And as a result, Christianity seemed like completely stupid. It just didn’t make any sense to him. And when he came here, he said the preaching showed him that those three beliefs are not part of Christianity at all. he had grown up. It was implicit in the in his Christian community. He grew up in those three beliefs. People talked about that. They taught that. They said that. When he got here, he realized that none in fact, I think, by the way, I’ll just let you know since I was the preacher that the Bible actually teaches directly against all three of those things. It doesn’t say you’ll if you have sex outside marriage, you’ll necessarily feel bad. It doesn’t say that bad things can’t happen to really, really good people. Look at the book of Job. It doesn’t say any of those things. And he said when those things got pulled away, I he had to go back and look at Christianity again because when he got here and those three those three beliefs let him down and made all of Christianity looks stupid. Once he realized that that wasn’t part of Christianity and they weren’t right, Christianity started looking good again. Now I’m not tell Well, by the way, if there’s anybody if the shoe fits, wear it right now. uh if there’s any of those I I you’d be surprised how often people who come up from very conservative backgrounds bring these kinds of beliefs with them thinking it’s part of Christianity when it’s not and then what it does is it eats your faith out the to find out what those might be takes time to find out what those things might be reading discussing with people um but of course by the way I want you to know that you can be a Christian and have your life very distorted by background beliefs that are not really Christian teachings at all. And so, uh, I would just say it happens in community and it happens in relationships, and those are so much more important than, uh, anything else. Really love this question. I’m not a Christian, but I have no issue with believing in God. My whole life, I have felt that I have I have a strong faith in God. Why is this not sufficient? Why must I believe in Jesus to be a believer? Well, um, well, it depends on who Jesus is. When you say, “Why is it necessary?” Um, if God sent Jesus to Earth, think about this. I mean, in some ways, I love the question, too. But it’s actually the easiest question I was asked tonight. That’s why I really love this question. Okay. Point is, if you believe in God, great. Then you need to find out whether God sent Jesus, his son, to Earth. If he did, then it is necessary to believe in him. It’s if he’s the son of God, it’s necessary. If he’s not the son of God, it’s not. So, which means you just need to check check it out. That’s what we’re here for is to look at the evidence and look at the at the text and that sort of thing. That’s all. So, uh now when I guess I could that’s the objective answer, which is if I believe in God, why do I have to believe in Jesus? The answer is if God sent Jesus and he really is the son of God, then of course you need to it’s necessary. Subjectively, I’ll just say this, though I’m sure I’ll get back to it in the future. I can’t just love God in the abstract. If you just tell me love God, I can say, how do I do that? If I believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God who who emptied himself of his glory that he was he was living this this incredible life and he came down became a human being was rejected was tortured died on the cross for our sins. In other words, it takes a lot to believe that. But if you do believe that and you believe that he did that for you, then it’s not that it evokes a love a sense of being loved and and a and a and a love. And therefore I have to say God subjectively God in the abstract doesn’t do a thing for me. God being willing to involve himself in the suffering in this world does. So subjectively that’s why I think it’s important to believe in Jesus. Objectively I think you just have to check out whether he really uh God actually sent him to earth as his son. Um, so, so based on that, since it’s really all about Jesus and you mentioned his life, his death, his resurrection, uh, we actually got this question earlier, um, before this evening and it relates to this, so I’d love to ask it. I like how this person words it. Um, this person says, “Are you 95% 99% 99.99% or fully 100% convinced that Jesus was truly resurrected in a supernatural fashion as described in the Bible? And if 100% why do you not allow for the risk that a risk that you made a mistake in your analysis? Well, no, that’s great. That’s a great question. Uh, you know, um, you do have to say for example, uh, c can I prove that my wife is not a Russian spy in incredibly deep cover? Where are you? >> It’s possible. >> I wondered occasionally. >> I didn’t even see her there. >> Yeah, there she is. That’s right. And yeah, now she is Croatian. So that’s Eastern Europe. U the the uh the reality is every in any philosophy class, they’re going to tell you, “No, you can’t be 100% sure that she’s not a Russian spy in deep cover.” You can’t. But uh psychologically, emotionally, am I 100% sure she’s not? Sure I am. Sure I am. You know, right? Okay. So rationally, can I be 100% sure? No. Emotionally in every other way, at least the kind of certainty you need for life, can I be? Yeah, of course I can be. Same with Jesus. Sorry. When it comes to the resurrection, uh can you be 100% rationally sure? No. Of course not. Because first of all, you can’t be 100% rationally sure of anything. Didn’t you ever see the Matrix? How do you know that you’re not in a vat somewhere with these things coming out of your back? I mean, that’s Ludwick Witkinstein. That’s the every every flosser worth his salt or her salt is going to show you that you can’t be rationally sure of anything completely. Um, and and I want you to know I had thyroid cancer 17 years ago. And during that time, the only time in the last 50 years that I actually was laid up without doing anything for about four weeks, and I read a big book on the resurrection by NT Wright called the resurrection of the son of God. It’s the evidence of the resurrection, 900 pages or so, a best book on the resurrection done by a historian in the last 100 years. And I realized as I read it, my rational certainty was going up. It was so convincing and so compelling. And I saw evidence I’d never seen before. And probably my rational certainty was was advancing by reading that book. But can it go to 100%? Of course it can’t be. But for all intents and purposes, I can be every bit as sure that Jesus was raised from the dead as I can be that my wife is not a Russian spy in deep cover. Thank you so much, Tim. Unfortunately, that’s all the time we have left for questions. Thank you so much to everyone who sent them in. We’ll share the rest of them with Tim. Also again immediately after this we invite all of you please to join us on the fifth floor for food drinks and also um we know there’s so many questions to come in but in addition to this questioning Christianity series redeemer also hosts questioning Christianity groups these are groups for eight weeks they’re peer-led discussion groups that are that will be launching throughout Manhattan about four of them in various locations in the city and we have one that’s going to be starting on Friday evenings on March 22nd on the Upper East Side. So if you’re interested in continuing the conversation even beyond this with other peers that are exploring, we’d love for you to check that out on the fifth floor. You can also talk to one of these questioning Christian group leaders at a table upstairs. Um so please do that. And also Ivan Riasco’s artwork is upstairs. And before we end, uh Tim, can you give us a teaser about next week? It’s about the subject of meaning. >> First week, uh the second week is going to be meaning in particular. Um, how do you get a meaning that suffering can’t take away? A meaning in life as suffering can’t take away. Uh, if your meaning in life is your job, I can tell you right now, suffering can take that away. But how do you get one that enables you to face anything? uh and that will be uh we’re beginning that series that I mentioned before in which we’re comparing the way for example we will look at how Buddhism, Hinduism, secularism, Christianity, the the various ways people give you uh handles for dealing with suffering and we’re going to compare them and that’ll be next week. >> Great. Thank you so much Tim and thank you all again for coming. Hope to see you on the fifth floor. Have a good night. Thank you for listening today. Gospel and Life’s Ministry is supported by generous partners all over the world. Your gifts allow us to share the gospel message with millions of people through our podcast, radio, and other channels, including here on YouTube. We’re seeing God change lives through the increasing reach of this ministry. So, thank you for your part in it. If you’d like to make a gift today, go to gospelinlife.com/youtube [Music] and we’ll send you one of my books as thanks for your gift. Thank you again for your generous support because the gospel really does change everything. [Music]