Should Confidence in a Belief Be Informed by How Long the Belief Has Been Held?

Summary

Podcast Summary: #STRask

Episode: Should Confidence in a Belief Be Informed by How Long the Belief Has Been Held?

Hosts: Greg Koukl and Amy Hall

Date: July 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Greg Koukl and Amy Hall answer listener questions on the rationality and epistemology of Christian belief. The main focus is whether the historical longevity or widespread acceptance of a belief should increase one’s confidence in its truth—using the example of annihilationism as a point of theological debate. The conversation further explores the rationality of belief in God in response to claims by skeptics and contrasts how tradition works in theology versus science.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Should Long-Held or Widely-Held Beliefs Inform Confidence?

[00:22 – 15:47]

• Historical Longevity as a “Red Flag”

  • Greg argues that if a belief goes against what the church has historically believed for thousands of years, it should serve as “a red flag, not an open-and-shut case, but it ought to give us pause” ([02:42] Greg).
  • Notable Quote:

    “It’s hard for me to imagine that the church as a whole has gotten all of this wrong for so long…we somehow see it better and more accurately than they do.” ([02:48] Greg)

  • The widespread, longstanding consensus—especially given shared Scriptures—is significant, although not absolute proof.

• Difference Between Fallacious Appeals and Principled Tradition

  • Greg distinguishes between the genetic fallacy (dismissing something because of its origin) and appropriate deference to “very, very thoughtful and godly people” through church history ([01:16 – 02:00] Greg).
  • Legitimate appeals to authority occur “when the authorities know a thing or two more than what we do and the appeal to the source…is sometimes appropriate” ([01:18] Greg).

• Scripture as Final Authority

  • Regardless of tradition, “the scripture is our final authority to assess any doctrinal issue” ([04:11] Greg).
  • Even respected church fathers made mistakes; every doctrine must be tested by Scripture itself.

• Application to Annihilationism vs. Eternal Conscious Torment (ECT)

  • Regarding hell’s nature, Greg contends that “the text does not support annihilationism,” and that the consistent testimony of church history on ECT should not be lightly overturned ([05:08 – 06:18] Greg).
  • Recent deviations are not heretical but “heterodox”—and thus require especially strong biblical justification.

• Notable Quote: Tradition as Informative, Not Determinative

  • Amy summarizes:

    “It’s a red flag, but it’s not determinative.” ([08:21] Amy)

  • If a new doctrine truly is at odds with historical consensus, one must “really, really work hard to clearly and unambiguously demonstrate” it from the text ([07:56] Greg).

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2. Theological Doctrine vs. Scientific Change

[08:21 – 13:50]

• Stable Text vs. Changing Data

  • Amy and Greg highlight that, in theology, everyone interprets the same, unchanging text (Scripture), whereas in science, new data constantly revises interpretations ([09:32 – 10:13] Amy).
  • Notable Quote:

    “[In science] you are discovering new input all the time that changes how you’re interpreting things…with Scripture, it’s a different sort of thing.” ([09:35 – 10:14] Amy)

• Scripture’s Authoritative Role

  • Greg stresses “Scripture is an authority. Science is not an authority. It’s a way of knowing” ([11:11] Greg).

• Implications for Consensus

  • Theological agreement is more stable since interpreters share core presuppositions and worldview, unlike the variable philosophies influencing science ([11:11 – 12:29]).

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3. The Role of Church Community and Canonicity

[14:13 – 15:47]

• How the Early Church Determined the Canon

  • Greg introduces three tests for canonicity: apostolic origin, orthodoxy, and catholicity (widespread acceptance by the church as guided by the Holy Spirit).
  • This collective recognition sets a precedent for considering historical consensus significant in doctrine.

• Recognizing Errors

  • Amy points out that “sometimes we can see where [the early church] went wrong,” reaffirming that tradition is a safeguard, not infallible ([15:47] Amy).

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4. Is Belief in God Irrational or Illogical?

[16:09 – 24:24]

• Reversing the Burden of Proof

  • Greg answers Cody’s question about friends who claim belief in God is irrational by teaching the “tactical game plan”—ask: “What do you mean by that?” or “Really, what is irrational about belief in God?” ([16:21 – 16:57] Greg)
  • Notable Quote:

    “I do not understand anything about belief in God that is even borderline or marginally irrational.” ([17:15] Greg)

• Historical and Philosophical Support

  • Greg notes virtually every significant philosopher for centuries believed in God, and that their reasoning “flies in the teeth of all kinds of evidence that’s been offered” ([18:42] Greg).
  • Points to Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, etc., as examples of “major league heavyweights” offering rational support for God’s existence ([18:55 – 20:12] Greg and Amy).

• The Problem of Equating Reason with Materialism

  • Amy suspects skeptics equate reason with naturalism/materialism, but that’s “not the same as reason” ([20:12] Amy).
  • Greg explains this is circular reasoning: “You’re not gonna start with exclusion of God and then somehow arrive at the conclusion that God exists or doesn’t exist. But that’s cheating.” ([20:37] Greg)

• Logical Structure of Theistic Arguments

  • Greg lists the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments—adding that some may find them unpersuasive but cannot say “there ain’t nothing” ([21:21 – 22:21] Greg).

• Prevalence of Theism

  • It is rational, statistically and intuitively, to believe in God; the “sensus divinitatis” or “sense of the divine” is both biblically attested and widely experienced ([23:20] Greg).

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Memorable Quotes

• Greg Koukl ([02:48]):

  “It’s hard for me to imagine that the church as a whole has gotten all of this wrong for so long.”

• Amy Hall ([08:21]):

  “It’s a red flag, but it’s not determinative.”

• Greg Koukl ([11:11]):

  “Scripture is an authority. Science is not an authority. It’s a way of knowing.”

• Greg Koukl ([17:15]):

  “I do not understand anything about belief in God that is even borderline or marginally irrational.”

• Greg Koukl ([20:37]):

  “That is a classic example of circular reasoning. And that is irrational.”

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Important Timestamps

• 00:22 – 08:21: Appeal to tradition vs. fallacy; why recent innovation is a red flag in theology.
• 09:32 – 13:50: Comparison between developing scientific theories and doctrine; Scripture’s authority vs. scientific method.
• 14:13 – 15:47: Church tradition in determining canon; collective wisdom of the Church.
• 16:09 – 24:24: Rationality and logic of theism; handling objections about belief in God; classic apologetic responses.

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Tone & Style

The episode features Greg Koukl’s calm, logical, and methodical reasoning paired with Amy Hall’s clear, concise clarifications. The conversation blends light humor (“Thank you, Amy, always there when I need you!” [21:37] Greg) with serious analysis and practical apologetic advice.

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Summary Takeaway

The episode concludes that while tradition and the consensus of church history should inform a Christian’s confidence in doctrine, ultimate authority rests in Scripture. Apparent innovations must be scrutinized carefully, and it is both inappropriate and unfounded to dismiss belief in God as irrational—historically, philosophically, and theologically. Listeners are encouraged to ask clarifying questions when challenged and to understand the nuanced role of tradition, reason, and revelation in Christian confidence.

Transcript

[A]

This is the straskpodcast from Stand to Reason. And Greg, this first question comes from Johannes Velux.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And it's in response to a comment that you made about annihilationism and what you said. The topic actually doesn't even. The specific topic doesn't even really matter for this question. But the quote from what you had was that annihilationism is not what the Church has characteristically believed for thousands of years. So then the question is, should confidence in a belief be informed by how long the belief has been held or by how many have held it?

[B]

In this case, I think the answer is yes. I'm chuckling because there's a fallacy that's involved here. Maybe two fallacies, one genetic fallacy, and also a fallacy of how do they put that? A lot of smart people hold this view.

[A]

Appeal to authority.

[B]

Thank you. The appeal. I was working on my workaround and you came through for me. Thank you, Amy. An appeal to authority. There are times, though, when these things are not fallacious. And I've been reflecting on this lately, and I won't go into it now, but I'm thinking about writing an article when fallacies are not fallacious. That is where it looks like a fallacy, but it turns out that this is not a liability to the point that's being made. And so when appeals to authority are appropriate, when the authorities know a thing or two more than what we do, and the appeal to the source either to accept or reject something which might be considered a genetic fallacy is sometimes appropriate, depending on the nature of the source and the issue you're discussing. So part of the way that I approach theological problems is I realize we have 2,000 years of very, very thoughtful godly people that are reflecting on Scripture and the doctrines that are formed from Scripture. And when there is a doctrine that kind of shows up out of the blue or that has very, very thin historical support, this, to me is a red flag. Because it's hard for me to imagine that the church as a whole has gotten all of this wrong for so long. When they're working with the Same scripture now, 2,000 years later, where we're linguistically and culturally and temporally removed from the writings, we somehow see it better and more accurately than they do. Now, it doesn't create an open and shut case kind of situation, but it ought to give us pause. If the Church has not seen this in the Scripture for thousands of years, and now somebody's finding something in the Scripture that nobody else has seen, this ought to be a huge red flag. Now, ultimately it is the scripture that is our final authority to assess any doctrinal issue. And even notable church fathers, esteemed church fathers, got certain things wrong. I think Origen believed in reincarnation or something, or the pre existence of the soul or something. So even when you have church fathers that are offering some ideas and beliefs, you still have to go back to the text. You have to see their reasons for it, their belief that seem to be contrary to the text. And then you go back to the text. But in my view, the text does not support annihilationism. I think if you especially taken as a whole from top to bottom, all the way to the book of Revelation and, and keeping in mind there's progressive revelation, the Old Testament, you don't have a lot of information about what happens after you die for either party, for the believers or the non believers, not a lot of detail. There's an ultimate resurrection. Everybody gets raised, that's in Daniel. But what that looks like and what the nature of the consequence for each is, doesn't get fleshed out, so to speak, until you get to the New Testament and then finally to the book of Revelation. And the way I put it in the piece that Tim Barnett and I wrote, actually a three part piece called Hell Interrupted where we respond to the arguments in favor of what's called conditional immortality, also more popularly known as annihilationism. In that I'm trying to remember how I put it. It's either the last word is the final word or the final word is the last word. But you get the point. It's when you get the full revelation and you see what the end of the story actually says regarding detail of the judgment. And this is very clear not only in chapter 20 of Revelation, but chapter 21 and 22, because the bad folk are not gone, they're outside the gate, even in chapter 21 and 22. So that's the final authority. But my conviction is that usually the church gets it right and it doesn't in general. Now there are exceptions to this. I think salvation by grace through faith foundered fairly quickly. By the end of the first millennium. You had all kinds of things that were intervening that undermined grace. But when you read the book of Galatians, I mean, please, Galatians is, and so is Romans, I know that's your favorite, but Galatians addresses very directly this question of law versus grace and over and over again from multiple angles. And so when later the church deviates from that, particularly the Catholic Church, in this case, we can go back to very clear statements in Scripture that help us to see that this later development is in fact a deviation from the text. I don't see that the Church's view, the consistent view regarding the nature of hell, which is characterized as ect. Eternal conscious torment, how that is undermined by anything else we see in the text now by these more recent people who are changing their view on this now. It's a heterodox view. It's not heretical in my view, and very good people have departed from the eternal conscious torment point of view. I count them as brothers, or let me put it this way, I don't count them as not brothers. In light of that view, maybe there's some other things that are problematic. And this is the view of Jehovah's Witnesses, by the way, and they're for other reasons are totally off the reservation. But in this particular case, I think it is appropriate in general, it is appropriate to take counsel from the history of the Christian thinkers on this matter. And if you are swimming upstream against everybody else on this, that is not a good sign. And in those cases, I think a person has to really, really work hard to clearly and unambiguously demonstrate that their view, contrary to the historical majority, is actually the sound biblical view. And I see nothing like that in the case of the final fate of the lost.

[A]

I think the key to what you said here is that it's a red flag. It's not determinative, but it's something that if you come to some conclusion about Scripture and it's against what everyone else has said over the years or what most people have said, that should just be a red flag. And that should cause you to think more carefully and clearly and make sure you've got all your ducks in a row if you're going to believe that. Now, one thing that occurred to me is that when you have, let's say, a theological doctrine versus something else, such as, let's say it's a scientific view, here's the difference between the two. When you're coming to conclusions, Scripture is a set amount of information. And what's happening over the 2000 years is that we are all interpreting the same exact text. When that is the case, what you have are people coming at it from all different angles, challenging each other on it, thinking about that one text. Whereas, let's say you've got a scientific view. You don't just have one text that you're. Well, the text is reality in nature,

[B]

physical world, right but you are discovering

[A]

new input all the time that changes how you're interpreting things. So in that case, you expect things to be changing over time. And it's what someone might have thought 200 years ago, before we knew about what the inside of a cell looked like or what, you know, any. Any number of things in nature. You can expect that to move over time. You can also expect a lot of. Of people's personal opinions and ideas and philosophies to enter into that discussion that are gonna influence it. So what you have are different authorities that are feeding into people's interpretation of nature.

[B]

Right.

[A]

With Scripture, it's a different sort of thing. There's a much bigger danger of going with what everyone is saying when it comes to science, because there are different philosophies and authorities and discoveries and all sorts of things that are feeding into this system.

[B]

And even those authorities disagree with each other so often.

[A]

But when you come to Scripture, what you have is a worldview that's developed by Scripture. You have a set list that we are comparing ourselves to and that we're submitting to. And everyone who's in agreement on that set of data is going to be much more. What's the word I'm looking for? They're going to be in much more agreement than, say, someone on some other topic that will be changing. So this is why I think, especially when it comes to doctrines and theology, you're going to see a lot more stability over time.

[B]

Right, right. Also, I'm thinking of some other distinctions. Those who are reading from the Bible in virtue of the nature of Scripture are going to be sharing largely the same worldview. And so they're trying to read the text in light of that worldview. Now, not everybody, obviously, you have people who are not Christian at all. They're theologians who could be atheists, for that matter, and they're bringing a whole different set of presuppositions to the text. But characteristically, what we're talking about, as we look back on the history of the church and people within that fraternity, so to speak, that academic fraternity, these people share a worldview. So you're not going to have as many conflicts because of alternate worldviews, presuppositions that are brought to the discussion. Here's the second thing, and this can be surprising for people to hear this, but science is not an authority. Scripture is an authority. That's the nature of it. It's given by God. The nature of Scripture is that it's authoritative, and we are obliged to understand it. Correctly, we work at that. But it has innate authority to it. But science isn't an authority. I've heard people, even Christians, say, are you going to believe the authority of science over the authority of God? Science has no authority. It's just a way of knowing. No particular way of knowing whether it's empiricism or a whole host of other things is not an authority in itself. It is a means of knowing that we have to assess our empiricism so our senses can deceive us. And we have ways of kind of working around those misperceptions. But the point is it's not an authority. And there are different things and we learn more about things and we weigh them based on other well justified information. But when it comes to scripture, that is authoritative. And those who come to scripture, we're talking about the Christian community now, are acknowledging that's authoritative. And so we have an obligation to be careful how we read, obviously. But that's the source of our authority, what God has said. And then we have to work to properly understand it. So that's another important distinction, I think, with that and something science, which it was a great observation. They're always learning new things that could change our take on the world. Which is why science isn't an authority. It is a way of knowing that can be well justified or not, depending on the evidence.

[A]

And ultimately, as we've said, the Scripture is what we're trying to match. So it could be that everyone's been wrong. I mean, that's theoretically possible. Everyone's been wrong about something for the whole time. So this is why you have to prove it from Scripture. It's just that it seems very unlikely to me that everyone's gonna be wrong about any particular thing.

[B]

I suspect you're right.

[A]

For thousands of years.

[B]

Yeah. One other detail here on that note is that I wrote a piece about maybe two years ago, a canon, and it's called the New Testament. Which books and why? And there are actually three tests for canonicity. These are practical tests. You see, Histor a way the early church was able to determine which books should be in the Bible essentially. And one of them is apostolic, apostolic origin or apostolic authority associated with the book. The second one is orthodoxy. In other words, whatever they weren't sure was written by an apostle had to match the theology of the apostles. The third one was catholicity. And that means that the whole church pretty much had a universal acknowledgement that these books were actually God's books. Now that requires a commitment to a work of the Holy Spirit in the community of Christians. For us to even have this sense that they are recognizing the books that are actually inspired by God. And that's the same kind of thing I'm appealing to here. We're making this kind of appeal and it becomes a foundation for our understanding of which books and why, basically. And it's the same kind of appeal as we look longer term, we look at the body of Christ and how they have understood these doctrines to be properly characterized from the text. They understand to be inspired.

[A]

And sometimes we can see where they went wrong. So sometimes you can see their argumentation and say, look, this is what they missed. And you can argue that way and say. And find reasons to think that they were wrong. And certainly errors can sneak in and. And then they just get perpetuated over time because not everyone is thinking as clearly about it. So it's a red flag, but it's not determinative.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Okay, let's go to a question from Cody. I have a friend that is telling me that it's irrational and illogical to believe in God. He also said you have to go against reason to believe in God. I know this isn't correct, but not sure how to word it.

[B]

All right, I actually have this in my talks about tactics. This is a. A golden opportunity to use the very first question of the tactical game plan, which is, what do you mean by that? Now keep in mind, this is a model question, the way I apply it in this circumstance, because atheists say this all the time and it seems to put the onus, the responsibility on the Christian to show why belief in God is not irrational. Now the ball's in the Christian's court, and the Christian doesn't realize that the responsibility is on the objector in this case who makes the claim to support the claim they just made. All right, and so my question is going to be, and this is what I mentioned, when somebody says it's irrational, it goes against logic. I say, really, what is irrational about belief in God? Tell me how belief in God goes against logic. Okay, now I'm saying it slowly and deliberately here so people get it. But that isn't the way I would say it to a person. I would say it just more naturally, obviously. But I do not understand anything about belief in God that is even borderline or marginally irrational. Now they might be saying it's irrational to believe anything you don't have good reason to believe in. Okay, that might be where they're coming from, but I don't know that Unless I ask him what's irrational about it. And if they said, well, it's irrational to believe anything you don't have any good reason to believe in. And I would say, are you saying that there were absolutely no reasons to support belief in God? And what's ironic about if he says yes, there are no reasons? If you look at the history of philosophy, it's like a 10 volume set by. I'll think of his name in a minute. It's a classic work looking at all the philosophers from the ancients all the way 4th century BC to present time. And it turns out that after the time of Jesus, virtually every significant philosopher up until the enlightenment was a Bible believing Christian. Now that doesn't mean they're right in everything, but they're not idiots. And for someone to say if they're going to hold this, that there is no good reason of any kind to think that a God exists is flies in the face. It flies in the teeth of all kinds of evidence that's been offered. Now it may be a different matter. It may be that the person is acquainted with all this and they said, I'm not convinced by any of it. Okay, fair enough, I get that. But that's not the same as saying that belief in God is irrational. Read Thomas Aquinas. There was probably no one smarter except for Jesus than Thomas Aquinas. I mean the Summa Theologica and the Summa Contra Gentile, all these. I mean this guy was unbelievable. Most people can't even read him because he's too smart. But he offers all of this reasoning, why? So he's a major league heavyweight and so many more since then. And before him, he came right around the turn of the millennium, somewhere in there and there were so many thoughtful people that have offered reasons for God's existence.

[A]

You don't even have to go after Jesus. Go thousands of years before. Look at what people were reasoning to why they believed there existed a God. They gave reasons for it. They were reasoning towards him.

[B]

Aristotle's unmoved mover. Yeah, duh.

[A]

So there are, I think, I suspect that they are equating reason with naturalism, materialism, the idea that there's no supernatural. So they might be saying belief in God goes against materialism and naturalism, but that's not the same as reason. So this is why you have to ask the question, to find out what do they mean by rationality and logic.

[B]

Yeah. And the irony is if that's where they're going to go. That is a classic example of Circular reasoning. And that is irrational. That itself is irrational because they're violating a basic concept of rational thought. They're assuming their conclusion based on their materialism. If they start with materialism, that excludes God to begin with. So you're not gonna start with exclusion of God and then somehow arrive at the conclusion that God exists or doesn't exist. Or doesn't exist. Yeah, and. But that's cheating. So the question here is precisely how is belief in God irrational? How is it. I'm not sure how the wording was, but irrational.

[A]

And illogical.

[B]

And illogical. So, I mean, you think of the cosmological arguments for God's existence, that they can be presented in syllogistic form. Okay? The Kalam cosmological argument, the argument for contingency, which is.

[A]

Leibniz.

[B]

Leibniz. Thank you. And always there when I need you. Amy. Leibniz is our. So those are cosmological. Those are arguments based on the existence of the cosmos. Then you've got the teleological argument, which is based on the design of the cosmos. And then you've got the moral argument, based on the reality of evil in the world. Evil in the world is evidence for God based on the moral argument. It gives support to the moral argument. Now, some people may not be impressed. There's just three. There's a whole bunch more. There are historical arguments. There's argument for desire. There's all kinds of stuff. And okay, they may not be persuasive to this atheist here, but they ain't nothing. And that's the way it's being treated. So that's the question that needs to be asked. And let the other person dig his own hole. Let them talk, let them tell all the reasons they think that belief in God is irrational. It's actually just the opposite. This is why, statistically speaking, very few people are atheists. Now, again, I'm appealing to the multitudes here, but it's a principled appeal. This is like. Most people believe in the color blue. Why? Probably because there is a color blue. Okay. And most people believe in God because there's this intuitive sense, in addition to the arguments that I offer, there's this intuitive sense that there is some greater being beyond us. Paul makes that appeal in Romans 1, for example. The Psalmist makes that appeal in Psalm 19. The heavens are telling of the glory of God, et cetera. And so we are making appeals to a common understanding based on obvious evidences implicit in the world that we live in. Now, if a person wants to be an atheist, they're welcome to do that. But what they're going to have to do is work really hard to explain a away these inferences. And Romans 1 says it's not only visible out there, but God has made it evident to us within. And that's what Calvin called the sensus divinitatis, the sense of the divine. So I think that the atheist has a long way to go to even begin to demonstrate that the that theism is irrational and atheism is the most rational, because atheism can't even make sense of consciousness by which you do the thinking to arrive to the conclusion of atheism. And it can't make sense of the rationality that people are using in order to conclude there is no God.

[A]

Yeah, it can't make sense of order.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

All right, well, thank you, Johannes and Cody. We appreciate hearing from you. And you can send us your question on X with the hashtag STRI or just go to our [e-mail] and all you have to do there is just look for our podcast page. You'll see a link to podcasts and then you go to the Strask page and you'll find a link there to send us your question. We would love to hear from you. Well, thank you for listening. This is Amy hall and Greg Kochl for Stand to Reason.