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- [00:02]
A
Thank you for listening to this Q and A session of questioning Christianity. We hope you'll continue exploring Christianity by requesting your free copy of Tim Keller's book, Making Sense of God. Free copies will be shipped while supplies last. To get your copy, go to gospelandlife.com free again, that's gospelandlife.com free.
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B
All right, so let's dive into.
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C
In.
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B
And I like this question that came in because this is something that will affect all of us. Death and taxes.
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C
They say the taxes talk is next year.
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B
Okay. All right, so if you're wondering how Christianity thinks about that, stay tuned. So this is a personal one. Start with a personal one. So, Tim, are you saying that because of the certainty that Christianity gives you, you don't worry about death or the death of your loved ones?
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C
Yes. Now, I think, you know, when Sam looked at the. At the star, he wasn't learning something he didn't know before. But it says a shaft, like a shaft, clear and cold, it pierced him. The knowledge that there's in the end, the shadow of evil is only a passing thing, and there's light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. It's not like he didn't know that before, but experientially, it. It struck him. It's just like everything you. There may be a belief you have, but sometimes listening to a song or, or meditating on a text, something you've read, it brings it home to you. So I would say when the, when, when my hope is brought home to me, it gets easier. And when I'm maybe distracted and God and my faith isn't as real to me, maybe. Maybe anxiety would creep in. But in the end, the answer is yes. I, I guess I get this one. I got fairly personal in this at the end there, because when I had thyroid cancer some years ago, quite a while ago now, it wasn't. Everybody expected there to be a good outcome, but hey, it's cancer, you know, So I was going in and everybody was anxious, and I was anxious as well. And I actually meditated, not on the Bible, but on that passage in Lord of the Rings. So just don't. Just don't tweet that. You know, it's a. You know, Tim Keller, the Protestant, has added a book to the Bible. So. But I was actually meditating on it, and the reality of it hit me, too. And I sat there and I actually, I told you what I felt on the table. I had this amazing. I wish it doesn't always happen this way by any means, but I had this Assurance. I said, you know, I'm stuck in this little tiny dot of darkness, which is the earth in a sea of light and love and glory, which is God and the rest of the universe. And if I die here, it'll be, you know, by the. Yeah, it'll. I'll be okay. And will my. My kid, my kids, my wife, but they're going to be okay, too. In fact, one of the things that Christians believe about eternity is, you know, in eternity, you don't have duration. We can't really understand what that means. In other words, you can't have an hour in heaven, right? You can't have two hours because it's eternity. So don't ask me to explain more than that. But my guess is that we. We probably all get there at once. It's not like you're up in heaven, you know, for 50 years waiting for other people to die and come to be with you. That's just. That's just too earthbound. That's too. That's too anthropom. Anthropocentric. It's. My belief is that when you burst the bonds of this world, that we probably all feel like we're getting there at the same time, and we're probably going right to the end of history. So. Yeah, I mean, the answer is. Yeah. Personally, yes, the answer is, I have that hope for myself and for my loved ones. Personally, sometimes it's been really powerful. Other times, actually, it doesn't feel that powerful, and I get anxious, just to let you know.
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B
I really appreciate this next question because I think it captures a concern that many of us have about things that are going on in our world. This person says, I'm 31 and most of my generation and younger feel hopeless about the future consequences of global warming. We are scared to have children because we know that we will be worse off than. That they will be worse off than we are. What hope does Christianity have to offer in the face of overwhelming evidence of the impending global catastrophe?
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C
Well, let's see. The climate change thing is only one thing that people are afraid about, even though it's a pretty bad one. There's also fears of. When I was younger, America and Russia had all the power and all the nukes. And as long as there was a kind of detente between us, the rest of the world felt safe. And now the world doesn't feel safe about. About dirty bombs, about nuclear weapons. It doesn't feel safe about technological disasters. I mean, it doesn't. It's not just climate change, but Jesus said, I'll build my church and the gates of hell will prevail against it. There's really no expiration date on that. It's saying, you bring children into the world and you can give them. If you're a Christian, you give them the same hope. It doesn't mean that you're going to be with them forever. It's also true that I got to tell you this, is that generally speaking, when things are kind of bad, it usually makes the human race get together and do great things. This is a terrible thing to say, but most of them are dying out now. But if you talk to older British people, people in their 80s now or 90s, who went through World War II, they're always a little embarrassed about how much, in some ways people were dying. There was fear, you know, 72 nights straight, you know, the Germans bombed London and all that. And yet most people look back at World War II with a lot of fondness, too. They're very ambivalent about it because when every, when all the chips were down and they thought they're going to be invaded every day, everybody pulled together. There's a fair number of things about how the human race almost gets back in touch with itself. When things are bad, it stops. Everybody stops just going off, trying to do their own thing and be successful in their own way, and they pull together and they work together. My experience and even my understanding of history and even what I know about the Christian faith is that Christianity tends to thrive when things are worse. It tends to actually do poorly. When everybody's prosperous and everybody's happy, the human race tends to thrive in some ways. It's community, it's virtues, it's working together, very often thrives when things are worse. And besides that, all I know is I, I've got these promises in the Bible that say I don't know what's coming. I'm really not sure. But the promises in the Bible are more real than climate change to me, because I also know I'm old enough to know that a lot of things that everybody said were supposed to happen within 20 years didn't happen. So climate change might be a disaster. It might be, I suppose, but I, if things are bad, don't you want a family? Don't you want, don't you want more people around? I, I, so I, I think I, I want to talk to you more directly. Come up and ask me more about that. But I really don't think that the fact that there might be bad times ahead is any reason to not have more people in your family, not to have more people in your church, it. I mean, that's when you're going to need community. So if you, if every. If basically people atomize, if they just go off and they stay alone and they, they're not living in families and they're not marrying and they're, they're all in. You know, they're all actually more and more detached from each other. When the bad times come, we're really going to be in trouble. So go ahead and build Christian community and build human community and wait for whatever is going to happen. Besides that, you're not really sure about the future either. So.
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B
But just to follow up, isn't that potentially saying, like, just focus on now, don't think about the future?
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C
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Look it, there's now, there's the future, and then there's the ultimate future. And the ultimate future is new heavens and new Earth. You know, do I want. Do I want to. I, you know, however bad things are. I've got seven grandchildren, I've got three children. The idea that so many of these people are going to be with me in the new heavens and new Earth, I don't know that they all will be, but I don't know how all that works. But the ultimate end is, is, Is certain. The, the immediate end is pretty terrible. Maybe, but listen, you're not. African American slaves had a brutal life, but they were able to hold their heads up and have hope in spite of the fact that they had very little in the way of prospects of social progress. They didn't think there was going to be social progress, but they did know in the end the universe was going to open to them. Remember, he said, in the end, your deepest longings will be fulfilled by the universe, but in the meantime, they may not. So I would say, as a Christian, raise up your eyes and look ahead. If you're a secular person, then I don't know how you answer the question about climate change, because that might be the end of the world, but for Christians, it can't be. I don't mean things will get better. I mean, I don't know, but I just know there's going to be a new heavens and new earth wherein dwells righteousness. Okay.
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B
You know, when you think of hope, you alluded to multiple communities, individuals who experienced a great deal of suffering, but just wanted to give another opportunity to speak more to how suffering can rob us of hope. This person says, how do you find hope when facing relentless Chronic pain and debilitating suffering. I feel like God is letting me waste away rather than let me live my life.
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C
Well, read Joni Eareckson's books. She's a quadriplegic. Somehow she's lived to age 70, even though she's been in a wheelchair since she was 18. I think she would say that it's her hope that. She says, I can't wait for my resurrection body. She says, I'm going to dance. She looks ahead of the now. My first illustration was you experience the present in light of what you believe about the future. And I would say that I'm sure. I know. I mean, Joni's second book is, by the way, it's spelled J O N I. I know it sounds like I'm saying it's not Joni, it's Johnny. It's how it's pronounced. It's Joni Erickson. Joni Eareckson. Tada T A D A. And if you find any of her books, they're great, but her second book was called A Step Further. And there she talks a fair amount about the, you know, handling the fact that God has obviously given her this. The point is she, you know, she's going to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair and read that. I don't. Listen, I haven't suffered like that. And whoever you've, whatever you've asked, whoever it is that asked that question, I'm sure I haven't suffered like you have either. So I don't want to be liked. And by the way, we will at some point in the future, if you stay with this series, talk about how do you handle evil and suffering? But Joni was trying to say, in the end, I can experience my present. I can bear my present by thinking about my future. And that's what I've been trying to say. Now, if in the present you feel like God's let me down, that's another subject. And you do have to. We do have to talk about why would God allow evil and suffering? And that is almost another subject. But I would just say Johnny, who's maybe probably suffering as much as anybody has in her illness over the years, has said, if I focus enough on my future, the present is bearable. If I. If the future is, like, opaque, then the future become. The present becomes unbearable.
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B
Next question begins with a bit of a statement. This person says, I disagree with your premise that love is the only thing that gives life meaning. What about those who never find romantic love? Is their life somehow meaningless? What about the pursuit of knowledge, learning and innovation. What about good works and care for the poor? Surely someone who lives their life devoted to these pursuits has not led a meaningless life.
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C
Okay, touche. I didn't want to give the impression that romance. By the way, now look, you're a very modern person. If you think when you hear me say love, you right away think you mean romantic love. I didn't mean that at all. That's very modern of you. And by the way, you say, what about help for the poor? Okay, you tell me what your motivation. It's evidently not love, right? I mean, if you say, well, love doesn't give meaning of life, what about helping the poor? I don't know what what you're doing that for then unless it's love. Friendship is extremely important. No, I'll push back a little bit. I certainly didn't mean that there's no meaning in life without romantic love. I would never say that. But I do think there's no meaning in life without love accomplishment. Why are you accomplishing it? To feel good about yourself or to help the human race to help other people? That's love. So I would say, I want to correct you. I did not mean romantic love. But I really would still say that actually what makes life meaningful is love. Here's my anecdotal evidence. As a pastor, over the years, I've talked to a fair number of people who were dying. I have to admit that because since I've been in New York, it hasn't happened as much because New York churches are younger. I had a church at one point where I was doing a funeral like every three weeks at one point. I talked to a fair number of people over the years as they were dying. And they never say at the end, I wish I'd spent more time in the office. Never. They never say, I wish I'd accomplished more. Whatever. They always, if they have any regret, they say, I didn't love my family enough. I didn't take care of my children. In other words, I neglected relationships for accomplishments. And in the end, it's very clear that it's the relationships that is the thing that is any consolation to them. So now I stand corrected if I gave the impression that I meant romantic love. But I will push back and say I still think love is basically the meaning of life. I would also say it's not the only thing that gives meaning. Maybe I gave you that impression too, but I'd still say it's the supreme thing. Okay, would that help? I hope it does.
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B
Another Question. Getting back to the statement that Christians can experience certainty, Christianity offers certainty. This person says, if Christians are certain to be forgiven, then is there any drive for one to be a good person, do whatever we want, and will we still. And we will still be forgiven?
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C
Okay, great question. And by the way, a very natural question which shows you're really listening, and I appreciate that. Honestly, I actually take it as a compliment because it means you're saying, okay now, but please notice something. You are saying, if I'm not afraid, if I'm not fearful, I better live a good life or I won't go to heaven. Okay, you say, if you take that fear away, what's your incentive for living a good life? And I'm saying, do you think that maybe there's other motivations? I would say that fearfulness, a fear of missing out on eternal life because I better live a good enough, good enough life. I would say fearfulness is what I call dirty energy. It's true that fearfulness does produce a lot of good works. There's a lot of people that have helped the poor because they think, if I help the poor, then God surely will bless me and take me to heaven. And you know what I say, in some ways, that's great, but I call that dirty energy because you're fearful, you're. You're anxious, and you're not doing it out of love and gratitude. In a way, you're doing it for yourself. So if you. There's a story about. Listen, there's a story about a king, and there was a gardener who had a garden, and one day he grew this massive carrot. And he came to the king and he said, you, Majesty, he said, I am a gardener, and this is the biggest carrot. This is the greatest thing I've ever grown. And I want to give it to you as a token of my esteem and appreciation. I just so love you, my sovereign. And I want to give this to you as a token of my esteem and appreciation. And the king looked at that and he perceived the man's heart, and he said, thank you so much. And by the way, I can see you're a wonderful gardener. And I own the plot of land next to your. Your garden. And I'm going to give that to you as a gift so you can be twice the gardener you are now. And the gardener went home rejoicing. But there was a nobleman at court. There was a, you know, wealthy nobleman, and he overheard this entire conversation. And he sat there and he said, wow, if you get two acres for a carrot, you know, what if I gave the King a bigger gift? And so the next day, the nobleman walks into the King's presence and carrying, leading a beautiful horse, and he says, o sovereign, I raise horses. And this is the finest and fastest horse I've ever, ever raised. And I want to give him to you as a token of my esteem and love for you as my sovereign. And the king looked at him and figured out what had happened and perceived the man's heart. And he said, why, thank you very much, and just took the horse and had somebody lead it away and said, you're dismissed. And the nobleman looks at him and goes, and the King says, let me explain. That gardener was giving me the carrot, but you were giving yourself the horse. If I help the poor, because I'll go to heaven, and because I'm anxious about going to heaven, I am not loving the poor. I'm loving myself. I'm not feeding the poor, I'm feeding myself. I'm not clothing the poor, I'm clothing myself. But if I'm absolutely sure that I'm going to heaven, if I know because of what Jesus Christ has done that I have, that I'm unconditionally loved, what that frees me to do is to say, if he's done all this for me, then the least I can do is start to love the people the way he loved me. And then when I help the poor, I'm actually loving the poor. I'm not loving myself. See, I'm giving the poor my money, whereas if I'm anxious, I'm not giving the poor my money, I'm actually doing out of fear, and therefore I'm giving myself the money. Got it. So if you say, when I lose my fear and anxiety, I don't have any incentive to live a good life, what you're saying is the only incentive you had to give a good life, to live a good life was fear and anxiety. Isn't there any other motive? Sure, there is. Love and gratitude when somebody just does everything for you. And now you say, the least I can do is do something back. So there's now a. I'd say clean energy. You can help the poor, you can do all those good deeds, but now it's clean energy. It's not basically a form of egoism or anxiety.
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B
Tim, you. This is to clarify something you said.
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C
I'm sure the things I say need clarification.
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B
I do think you highlighted that Christian certainty can bring hope because an ultimate debt is paid or there's an ultimate disease that it Addresses. Can you expound on what you mean? What is this ultimate.
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C
Yeah, you know, when it got to the end, I looked at my. Why I looked down here at this little. My shot clock, and I said, oh, time's up. And I probably was a little too fast on this. If you. If the big debt. Christians would say the big debt is my debt to God. I have not lived. If I should. If God created me and keeps me alive every second, I should live for him. Right? And it would be unjust not to. I mean, if I. The story I could tell. I could tell you a story. Imagine a woman who, you know, slaved away to help her son go through college. You know, she's a single mother, nothing in the way of money. And so she worked three jobs and put her son through college. And after the son gets out of college, gets a great job, he never comes to see his mother, hardly acknowledges her. Would that be just? No. Why not? Because he owes her so much. He ought to be loving her and doing things for her and acknowledging her. Right. But you owe far more to God, if there is a God, than he owed to his mother. Do you acknowledge him? Do you live for Him? Do you love him? No, we don't. None of us. Nobody acknowledges him the way we ought to. Nobody lives for him like we ought to. We all are guilty, therefore, of an injustice if there's a God. Now, if you don't believe in God, you know, like I said, come back next year when we do this and we'll talk about that. But the point is, if there's a God, you owe him, and. And therefore there's a debt. And Christians believe that Jesus Christ paid that debt. Another way to put it is the fact that we are dying. The fact that we're mortal is a disease. It's called sin. And we weren't originally created by God to die, but because of sin. Sin is like a spiritual disease, and as a result, we die. But if you believe that in Jesus Christ the great debt has been paid, and if you believe in Jesus Christ, the great disease, as it were, has been healed. It doesn't mean you don't die, but the fact of the matter is it's not fatal because all that death can do to you now is make you a better person. You realize that that's the Christian view. So if you know that the only disease that can really kill you forever and the only debt that can really kill you forever has been paid and has been cured, then all other debts and all other diseases look small by Comparison. So there's a little bit more. A little more exposition of that.
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B
Well, so this person agrees of some of the things. Like, for example, they say, I understand that Christianity gives people validation to soothe their fears and hopelessness. So they see that. But the question is, but how does this prove that Christianity is true?
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C
Well, see, I don't mind you asking that, even though I've tried to say in the grand scheme of what we're doing. These first seven weeks, which we're doing this year, have been looking more at how Christianity comports with your intuitions, how it helps you with your practical issues, how much more, I think, consistent it is with itself than alternate. And these are all signs that it's true. I mean, for example, last week and the week before last, we talked about the fact that everybody has to believe in moral absolutes even if they say they don't. And then we talked about the fact that if there is no God, you wouldn't expect there to be moral absolutes. But, oh, we see them. If there is a God, we would expect them. Does that prove that God is true? No, but what it does prove is, is that Christianity makes more sense of our experience than a lack of belief in God. It's just one part of the evidence, it's not the whole thing. I'm trying to make a cumulative case. Richard Swinborn was a philosopher. I guess he's still alive at Oxford for many years. And at one point he said scientific theories are basically explanatory theories. So the way a scientific theory works is you see a phenomenon and then you say, what theory would explain the phenomenon? If the existing physics theory doesn't explain the phenomenon, then you change the theory to explain the phenomenon so that you now have a theory that is more accurate. He says that's basically how theories work, Christian. The scientific theories are always changing. He says no theory is ever usually completely proven. They're just constantly updated to. And they're getting more and more accurate. We believe. Scientists believe they're getting more and more accurate because when a new phenomenon comes, you try to explain it and you change the theory to explain it. I'm trying to say secularism doesn't explain the things we know about. About moral. Moral absolutes or about meaning or it doesn't do a very good job. I haven't done the more intellectual side. I've done more the existential side, especially tonight. But I hope it was helpful. But no, it doesn't stand alone as a proof. No, it doesn't.
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B
Okay, so someone is asking so if I buy into this Christian hope, but if I have friends and family that do not agree or believe as I do and they face death, that would remove my hope, how do I proceed?
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C
Well, the God is more merciful than we are. What I usually have said over the years, nowadays if I talk to people who are wrestling with this, most people don't want to believe or they, they're, they're not real happy with the idea that, that God would just simply save everybody. I mean there are, there are very evil people. There are very evil things that have happened. And if you want to just God and don't you want to just God? I mean it's interesting. Thirty years ago an awful lot of people told me I just want a loving God. Young people today, by the way, are not that big on a God who doesn't judge evil. And I think that's right. I want to affirm that intuition. Even on the part of atheistic people that I talk to. They say if there is a God, I would want a God who judges and therefore that evil is judged. Okay, so that means not everybody in a sense gets into the new heavens and new earth, okay? But then the question is, who does? And as far as we know, we say here's Christ, believe in Christ, and that's the way for you to know. Beyond that, what we just try to say is only God knows the heart, only God. And God is much more merciful than you are and therefore just trust him at that point that in the end when we find out how he has disposed of things, we're not going to find any fault with how he has done it. Meanwhile, I mean I've, I'm in, I'm like everybody else. Look at me, I look, I'm old. I've seen plenty of people die who, I wasn't sure about their own faith. And I didn't just sit there and say, ah, it's all hopeless. I don't know, I don't know how God does things. I don't. As far as I'm concerned, as far as I'm told you, you know, we have a need, we have a lot of knowledge in the Bible on a need to know basis. My wife's favorite verse is Deuteronomy 29:29. The secret things belong to God, but the things that God tells you about are there for you to do them. That's her favorite verse almost because what it tries to say is God tells you a lot of things, but, but a lot of things are given to you on A need to know basis. You need to know this, you don't need to know that. That's all you need to know. And when it comes to the eternal destinies of people that I don't know where they were in their faith and all that I actually can, after many years rest in God, to say, because I know God is more merciful and wise than I am. Now, if you don't believe that, I think you spend a lot of time being anxious. But if you believe he's more merciful and wise than you are, then I think you can leave those folks in his hands somehow.
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B
All right, so we only have time for one more question. And there's multiple questions that are coming in kind of in this direction. So I'm going to try to.
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C
A summary kind of question.
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B
A summary kind of question.
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C
One that represents a lot of the others.
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B
Yeah, represents multiple questions. So you highlight that afterlife heaven will be where we get to say, is that you, Tim, you know, that's where. That's where the glorious experience will be. So people are asking, therefore, why is life necessary if eternity is everything life wants to be? Is life a type of payment for passage to heaven?
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C
No, I wouldn't use the word payment, but you're right. The intuition behind your question is that is life on earth necessary for the future glory? And evidently it is. Let me just give you. My guess is the reasons are probably far more than we can intuit. But let me just give you one example of this. Somebody once said the, you know, God, son of God, Jesus Christ. Somebody once said to me that, you know, if there, if this world hadn't kind of broken apart and had all the evil and all the bad stuff, we would never know that God was capable of the kind of self sacrifice and even courage. You know, Jesus Christ, by becoming mortal and coming to earth and facing incredible pain, that was courage. And you know, without somebody once, by the way, the reason I'm saying somebody once told me this is I feel like he was going where I was a little afraid to go, but I still was helped by it. This guy was trying to say if there hadn't been sin and evil, there wouldn't be courage, there wouldn't be self sacrifice, there'd be no need for these things. There's probably some way in which God knows that the ultimate glory and the ultimate bliss and joy we have are going to somehow be enhanced by all the trouble that happened here. That God must know that the final defeat of evil and suffering is going to be that the evil and suffering will only make our eventual joy and glory greater for having happened. And that's a little further than I want to go. It just feels a little. Because I think the evil and suffering that's here is pretty terrible. And so it sounds a little bit like well, God figured out I'll just make things really bad because therefore in the end it'll be good. But I, I do, I, I did have an experience one night in which I was. I, I don't know what in the world I ate that night, but I had a horrible dream and I would love to know what I ate because I'd like to avoid it in the future but I dreamt that somebody had come into my house and was starting to hack up and kill my children and got into the room and hacked up and killed my wife. And then I woke up. And by the way, I love my children and I love my wife. I hope. I just want you to know I do. But I gotta tell you, when I woke up and I saw that it was, that it was a dream and I saw Kathy in bed next to me. It took everything, all of my self control not to immediately jump on her, throw my arms around her and weep and say I'm so glad you're okay because she looked like she was sleeping very nicely at 3am and so what I'm trying to say is the terrible, terrible dream made me love my. And having lost them, I, I love them more for having lost them. Even though it was only a dream. Isn't there, isn't there going to be something like that? Is, in other words, isn't. We're, you know, we're, we're, we're. Sam wakes up. Sam Gamgee wakes up and he sees Gandalf and he doesn't. He thought Gandalf was dead. And he says, he says Gandalf? He says I thought you were dead. I thought I was dead. And then, then he says is everything sad going to come untrue? So there's something like that. I think that the terribleness of life, somehow God is not going to let it be the final word. But somehow the terribleness he's going to bring up into the glory to make the glory better. So that guy was trying to say, hey, there would have been no courage if there wasn't trouble here. There would have been no self sacrifice. I wouldn't have loved my family as much as I hadn't lost them in my dream. That's getting near the edge of how God is probably going to bring glory out of darkness, but it's pretty mysterious. I'm not sure we can possibly ever really understand that, but I just wanted to hint in that direction. So you say, oh, I can see how that might be true.
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B
So that's all the time we have for questions. Thank you so much to everyone who sent them in. Thank you, Tim.
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A
Thanks for listening to the Questioning Christianity podcast. And remember, you can find more content to help you explore the claims of Christianity by visiting gospelandlife.com explore that's gospelandlife.com explore. The Questioning Christianity talks in this series were recorded in 2019 in New York City, where Dr. Keller spoke with a local live gathering made up of attendees who did not identify as Christian and their Christian friends who invited them.