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Hello 15:17 podcast listeners. This is Caleb Keith, director of the 15:17 podcast network, here to talk about
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our June Podcast Fundraiser.
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The June Podcast Network Fundraiser has become an integral part of the fundraising we do to support these shows throughout the entire year. The 15:17 podcast network is special. We have many shows ranging from topics in the Old Testament, New Testament theology, history and so much more. And each one of these manages to keep the focus on Christ and Him crucified for the forgiveness of sins. We thank you for being a listener and for your support, both subscribing and donating to keep these shows on the air this year. The Podcast Network Fundraiser has a goal of $150,000 to support the production, the posting and the hosting of these shows. We believe that the Podcast Network is worth it and we think that you do too. We keep all of these shows free and ad free, meaning that we do not put these shows behind paywalls. You can listen to all of the episodes, the entire archive of our shows for free, and when you do so, that experience will be ad free. No advertisements jumping in between the content, just the entire recording presented to you uninterrupted. We believe that these are the best ways to present our podcasts and the best way to listen to podcasts as a whole, and we greatly need your
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support to keep it that way.
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Without collecting revenue from subscriptions and ads, the Podcast Network is entirely dependent on donors who love and are impacted by these shows to keep them going. If you would consider supporting this show, you can go to 1517.org donate. You can also go to the Show Notes here and there are links directly to a giving page where you can support the Podcast Network Fundraiser. Thank you for helping us reach our goal of $150,000 this June and we hope that you continue to enjoy these shows by.
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Hello and welcome to the Thinking Fellows Podcast. My name is Caleb Keith and the Thinking Fellows is brought to you by the 15:17 podcast network of shows. Go to 1517.org podcasts to see all the shows there. Today I am joined by Scott Keith, Bruce Hillman and Adam Francisco. There are some new things over at the 15:17 podcast network. In fact we have the newest thing is legacy audio from Rod Rosenblatt that is being remastered from old tapes and CDs and VHS and however else it was captured throughout the career of Rod's teaching career and both at churches and other places. And so whatever we've been able to get our hands on that's being remastered, put into audio form, input for free on this podcast Channel. I'll put a link in the show notes below. It's called dad Rod Legacy. You can find it on Apple podcasts and Spotify and the all the common places that you would listen to podcasts. You can find it there. That's audio only for the moment, so you can go again. Subscribe in your favorite podcasting apps and you can find it on the 1517 website as well. Okay, guys, so a couple months ago, I don't know, maybe six months ago, these go by so fast. We talked about the definitions of words. We did. What was it? It was like the difference between evangelicals and Lutherans, something I think I titled that episode, Same words, different meanings when it came to. And we identified a couple and looking over some topics that Adam and Bruce came up with, there was one about the meaning of the words certainty, assurance and faith. And so I thought, hey, let's revisit this same type of topic here. What do any of these words mean? How do we understand them or use them in theology? There's been a lot of talk lately about just sort of like sloganized phrases in Lutheranism. Are certainty, assurance and faith just slogans that help us, I don't know, get around talking about theology in any serious way? What do they mean? Maybe we approach that other one too. Are there differences for how these would be understood in the other sort of big traditions in America? Or maybe from people who are considering Lutheranism or studying a confessional tradition for the first time who come from an American non denominational background? Those are all questions that are going through my mind. But which one of you came up with this one? Your names aren't next to them on the list.
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C
This would be Bruce. Come on. You think I'd put something down for
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B
a topic I can't tell on the list?
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D
Like, they're all more alike than you think. Epistemology. Epistemology. Epistemology. Yeah, epistemology. Well, apologetics.
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C
I'm not one to talk about words.
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D
I'm not one to use words.
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C
And existential topics.
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B
Existential.
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C
Oh, let's just get going. You'll see.
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B
Existential.
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C
I almost wore my Talk Less shirt today too. I'm gonna save that for a special occasion.
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B
My job is to host a podcast. I'm going to talk less. That's like what this is.
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D
He's in a mood today.
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C
It's like Scott, but remember our episode? Why are Adam and Scott boring? Did we do an episode on that? I know. We talked about it.
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D
We talked about it. I'm not.
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B
Because we came up in a Q and A or something.
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C
We kind of think like Wittgenstein ended his Tractatus, what one can't speak about. You ought to pass it over with silence or whatever, however it's translated. Right?
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D
So I do agree with that.
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C
Yeah, yeah. No need to make mouth sounds if you don't know what you're talking about.
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B
Did you put all these, like, scholastic ones on here? Like, who Moved My Cheese?
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C
You know, that was a joke. No, who Moved My Cheese was a title of a book that I forget which.
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E
Yeah. Dr.
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B
So and so.
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C
Yeah, you know, I went to. It was a fall faculty retreat, and that was. The assigned reading, was who Moved My Cheese?
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E
Really?
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D
That's terrible.
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C
Oh, my gosh.
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E
That book was such a big deal when it came out.
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D
Who is I? You can tell me after. I think I could probably guess who the assigning.
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C
Yeah, you probably could. And then somebody brought into the retreat, they were playing this song. Where'd the Cheese go at?
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D
All right onto the topic.
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C
Yeah, sorry. We should talk about assurance.
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B
Yeah, we should talk about assurance, certainty and faith. Adam, you've got to have something to say about certainty. For sure.
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C
I do, but I'll chime in after Bruce.
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B
Okay, you'll chime in when you.
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C
So Bruce's existential moments.
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B
Yeah, Bruce, why a definitional topic on the list and why these lumped together?
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E
Yeah, I wasn't thinking. It would just. We would just talk about definitions. Obviously, there's a lot of application here. And this is. This is really the big question of the Reformation. How do you know that you're saved? Like, how do you. How do you know that the penance system is working? Or you don't need the penance system. There's a great book. Forget who wrote it. Was a woman years ago called the Sin of Certainty? No, that was Peter Enns.
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C
It's a.
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E
It's a book on certainty and the Reformation. And I think that this is. Now that we're moving into post Christendom faster and faster, and people are starting to acquire sort of a buffet spirituality and stuff. The question of how, like Scott said, the epistemological question, like, how do you know what's real? How do you know what's true? I think the classic Lutheran way of understanding certainty, the way Luther put it, it's the thing that you're willing to die for. You know, the thing that you're willing to die for is the thing that you're certain of, otherwise you wouldn't be willing to die for.
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D
It's a classic sort of example, even when you do, like an object lesson example, it usually has to do with some sort of object lesson that pairs the difference between knowing, quote, unquote, knowing something is true, to being willing to bet your life on it. Rod used to say things in class like all chips on red in Vegas. There's the whole like, you know, get in the wheelbarrow on the tightrope sort of thing. That. That's. It's just. But that. You're right. Are you willing to die for it?
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C
I used that as an illustration once, Scott, At a. I guess it was a sort of a faculty kind of gathering to ensure that all faculty, whether they're Lutheran or not, were kind of on the same page. And somebody asked us to define faith and certainty and so on. I use Rod's example, and I had a. There's a theologian who just shook his head and he says, that is gambling for God.
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D
You know, I didn't even know where
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C
you were going to go with the
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D
story, but I should not be as surprised as I am.
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C
Yeah, and I bet you could guess who that was, too. Yeah, but I won't. We won't do that.
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E
Caleb. There was just one last thing I'll add, which is what I find interesting about this is so that definition of certainty, that sort of. That Luther gives that example to, is a way of thinking about certainty that is very different, I think, than the way people hear and think about certainty today. Because what happened between Luther and us is Descartes. And so Descartes gives you a Cartesian certainty, the sign of certainty that you have in mathematics, the kind of certainty that you get from the scientific method, the kind of certainty that can be proven objectively by reason and observation and all this other kind of stuff. And the Apologetics Project takes up this view of certainty, too, especially in modernism. C.S. lewis would be a great example of that, but John Lennox today would be another. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. It's just that that's a narrower, in my mind view of what certainty means than what the Reformers and what the early Church meant by certainty. And so you get a lot of people today, I think, who experience a crisis of faith because they're trying to find the same kind of certainty in their faith confession that they find in one plus one equals two. And it's not that you can't be certain about your faith. It's just a different kind of certainty that the Reformers and the early Church are dealing with. It's a life staking certainty. But it's not a knowable certainty. And that can be demonstrated beyond all doubt through a mathematical or scientific method. And I think that harasses and oppresses a lot of people.
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D
Before I literally shake out of my seat, I want to do a distinction between mathematical certainty and the certainty that comes through the scientific method, because they're not the same thing. One is, is 100% certainty. It's definitional in nature. Two plus two equals four is a definitional kind of certainty. If you know what two means and you know what a plus sign means and you put them together, you're going to know that that's four. It doesn't really tell you anything other than the definitions of 2, 2 and 4. But it's 100% certain because you're making a statement of fact. Right.
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C
It's tautological. Right?
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D
Yeah, you're just making a statement. Scientific certainty is, at the end of the day, still gotten through inductive reasoning to some degree. It's inductive reasoning. It can be tested. You know, you're looking at facts on the ground. You're coming to a conclusion. You're testing that conclusion based on using sort of those same facts and other available facts, and then you're making a conclusion based on that testing. But that is still probable in nature. Right. And that's why scientific reasoning is always testing itself to. Well, I mean, supposed to. Ought to be. Supposed to be testing itself to make sure that the conclusions that are made still fit the facts on the ground. It's probable in nature. Those are two different things. I get where you're going with it, that certainly when we ascribe the idea of certainty to saving faith or actually in a sense, not talking about either of those things. So I understand that. But within this sort of apologetic realm, you can use the scientific type of reasoning to get you to a probability of the truth statements of specifically the Gospels. But that still, then even if you get there, the point being made, that still is not saving faith and it's not certainty. I think that the leaning into are you willing to die for it? You know, that's kind of. You can. There's a way where you can. That's sort of analogous to patriotism. Right. There are people that sign up and are willing to die for their country based on a kind of patriotism where they might say, either this is. I defend it because this is my home. I defend it because it's the greatest country in the world and whatever country it is. Right. Or whatever. And that I'm then I'm so certain of that proposition that is sort of like a meaningful proposition that I'm willing to put my life on the line for it. And they're certain about their willingness to do that. That's in a sense closer at the end of the day. And there are all sorts of facts that could feed into that. But that sort of willingness at the end of the day to, as Rod would say, because I don't care about the gambling component, put all chips on red is the last move to certainty within the Christian faith. And the difference between that and math and. Or scientific reasoning is that that final step has to overcome your sinful will. And that's why we say then at the end of the day that final step is only given to you by God given faith from the Holy Spirit in the preached word. And I just. That distinction between math and science is helpful just to know that there is a certain amount of precursor work within the apologetic task that can happen. Kind of scientific reasoning too. I'll be quiet.
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C
Yeah. In fact, do you know the name Richard Swinburne? I think he might be still living. Oxford philosophical theologian or philosopher of religion. I don't know exactly the title he would ascribe to himself, but he wrote a little book. I think it's just called the Resurrection of the Son of God or the Resurrection of God Incarnate or something like that where he himself. It's kind of. I'm kind of giggling a little bit because he applies Bayesian probability calculus to whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. And he arrives at, I think it's been many, many years, 20 years probably since I read it, but arrives at like 97% degree of certainty that Jesus rose from the dead based on probability calculus. Of course that's beyond the reach of, you know that his argument is beyond the reach of. Of most of us. But.
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D
Well, and you. I remember looking at that years ago. That's. And he makes the point to say. And this is where sort of like the. You can have this connection in the quote unquote, modern, postmodern, post postmodern, whatever world we're in now to say he's. He says based on available information in a sense. Right. And so you. That's sort of what you're doing. That's one of the things that you're doing on the evidential apologetic front too. And it's getting. With the complete realization that you're never driving people all the way to saving faith. Right.
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C
Definitely.
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D
But you're giving the opportunity for them to Use the same kind of reasoning that they would be expected to use in the world to come to other conclusions, to at least come to sort of the rational side of the conclusion. When it comes to the Christian claim, which is what you can do, and then say 97% probability. That's not depending on who you talk to. That's not certainty. When I do this with high schoolers, one of the things I'll say all the time is, yeah, but it's better than, you know, it's a better percentage than you used to make most of your other decisions in life, like real consequential decisions too. Decisions that might kill you for sure, you know, and it's better than that. Like one of the examples I use all the time is every day we all walk into buildings that we just assume like paths, health and safety inspections that were engineered properly. I mean, I was just in New York City and went into freaking skyscrapers that I assume, you know, some of them old, that I assume DEI hires.
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C
Is that why you trusted it?
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D
I assume they hired competent engineers and architects and construction workers and that they, you know, it's New York, that they didn't get like faulty cement because they failed to go through the mob or something like that to get the cement to make it so that this is all going to stay up. When I walk into the building now, am I 100% certain that it's not going to collapse on me? I'm nowhere near 100% certain that it's not going to. I'm probably around 90, 90 something. And so I go in the building, you do the same thing. I don't want to trigger Bruce here, but you do the same thing when you get on an airplane, right? Even more so. You do the same thing every day you get in your car, you're way more likely to die in a car accident than an airplane crash. And yet every day through the sort of mechanical process of not even thinking about what the probability is of us safely making it from point A to point B, we get in the car and do it. All these things are literally betting your life on things that are likely less certain than did the resurrection of Christ ever happen?
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C
Yeah, it's like I got a 16 year old daughter who got her driver's license not too long ago and getting in the car. I don't run it through my head discreetly, but I'm a little more nervous in that car than say with my 18 year old daughter because the probability of us getting in Iraq is a little higher with the 16 year old than it is with the 18 year old. Is that kind of what you're talking about? Yes. Or the.
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D
I mean, I took a probability calculations and it's probably, you know, you're probably even more scared with your 20 some odd year old son.
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C
Yeah.
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E
I think part of what leads people sometimes to have doubts or maybe a crisis of faith, like say they grew up in the faith and they start to have a crisis of faith is precisely because they start to try to play all the pro. Between all the pluralistic things that are being thrown at them out there. And then it's just really quick to kind of. It happens very quickly that you start to go, I don't really know how to do a lot of these probabilities. It's not to say like a mathematician couldn't do them like Swinburne or something, but like the average person just plays numbers in their heads. Right. They might be completely inaccurate, but they're just sort of like, well, I sort of think this is true based on my experience and the way I'm looking at the evidence that I have and the. And the more contending stories there are about what's ultimately real and what happens after death, the more people run that through previous familiar systems to them. So if they're used to a scientific method, then they're going to run that through that method. If they're used to a faith method, they're going to run that through that method. If they're used to scrutinizing the presuppositions of the scientific method, they're going to do that. So there's a lot going on behind the surface. Certainty is always the end result of something that's happened before, whether that would be a search or whether it would be faith. In the case of the gift of faith, as Scott said, that the Holy Spirit gives through the word, certainty is the end result. There was a church father. I always get confused if it was either Athanasius or Ignatius on this quote, I have to look it up. But they said belief precedes understanding, or belief comes before understanding. And what they meant by that in the context of what they were writing was that there is a point in an unbeliever where they're believing like they have saving faith, but they don't necessarily have the confident awareness that they have saving faith. And this church father was saying, there's a point where like, you already are trusting and you already are believing in Jesus, but you just, you don't have the vocabulary yet or you haven't gotten all your doubts out of the way yet. And so you don't actually. You don't have an awareness of your assurance just yet. But actually, if you were to die, you would be saved because you are. You do believe in Jesus. You just haven't been able to kind of settle everything else around that yet. And it's a short period of time. He says he does. He, of course, he doesn't know how long that is, but there's this period where it's sort of the Holy Spirit has already worked before. You're kind of assured of that working. And I think that that often is the case with any sort of change of mind. Like there's something going on behind the scenes first before people then have a sort of reflexive way of saying, okay, now I understand what I possess.
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D
There's a book that's really helpful on this. I think I made Caleb read it when he was probably 11. It's James Sire, why should anyone believe anything at all? And now I assign it to college and master students and can't get them to actually read it. Yeah. And to your sort of previous point, he lays out the different sort of. When I do this, I call them sources of authority that lead to trust, but he just says different reasons why people believe things. Right. And he. And he brings up your point exactly, Bruce, is that some people are way more analytical and that they're going to want like all the stuff. They're going to want you to kind of run through the probability and they're going to the reasoning and everything. But some people are more emotional and they're going to believe for psychological reasons. And then some people are more cultural oriented. They believe just what their parents and their kin believed. And then there's people that are sort of really attached to particular religious movements in general, and that that religious movement is going to really have a hold on them from the beginning. And he does a really good job of laying this out. But then going through those one by one and then teaching people how to identify. Like, even if it is people, let's say your source of authority is just people you're really drawn to believe. Charismatic people. How do you investigate whether that charismatic person is feeding you a line of crap or not? And then if it's cultural, how do you examine whether your cultural beliefs actually hold water, whether you're just holding onto them for emotional reasons? It's a really good Rod used to tell us to read it all the time. I'm not even sure if he assigned it for a class but he would, in almost every class, tell you to buy it and read it. Back in the day when professors could tell some students to buy extra books that weren't assigned and some students did it, this is what happened. I know it's crazy if you're a modern student and you just heard that you fell out of your chair, but this occasionally happened. A professor would recommend a book that you didn't have to buy for the test, and you would buy it and read it and you would learn more. This was one of those books, James Sire, why should anybody believe anything at all?
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E
But why should I read now? I can just have chatgpt tell me what it's all about.
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D
Okay, that's a great point. And one of the things I was about to tell Adam is Adam, I think we're back in business on the epistemology thing because we were out of business for a while.
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C
Absolutely.
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D
I think we're back in business because people are going to want to know how do I tell what's AI and what's real? 100% back in business, baby. Adam's got Islam back and he's got a pistol.
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C
It's sort of like the.
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D
He's gonna be working forever.
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C
You're experiencing what I experienced a little while ago with, you know, I was bemoaning the. You know, this is offline, of course to you, but I'm gonna say it out loud now, how over Covid, everybody just sort of forgot about Islam. Then all of a sudden this big stuff happens and I'm like, I'm back in business. I'm relevant again.
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D
You know, I'm relevant again.
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C
Well, it took some pretty awful things, but I probably shouldn't make light of them, but, you know, I.
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D
A man's gotta eat.
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C
Caleb's getting his monergistic itch. I can tell it. He's twitching.
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B
Monergistic?
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C
I think so.
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B
No, my. I think the interesting thing for me listening to you guys go back and forth here is how the epistemological certainty or probability, high probability, and the event that needs to be examined there. And the only thing that I know of that the scriptures speak about in terms of assured or assurance. Assurances or where statements of certainly or you should be certain or we are certain, is the resurrection of Christ. And that the apostles, especially in Acts and the preaching, is that when the question comes of how will you be assured of what God has done or what we are proclaiming, it is to say that Christ rose from the dead. So this is the position of Acts it's also the position of Paul about the certainty of salvation, our resurrection from the dead, the forgiveness of sins is placed on the death and resurrection of Christ. There's a pivot there at the Romans 6, where that act is where God has placed his assurances to you. And so for the Scripture, I think there's the interesting thing that people take away is that assurance is because God has made a promise to you and he's giving you assurance. He's assuring this thing is done. And the sign, the seal of that assurance is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so while in Lutheranism or in Christianity there can be kind of two camps on this whole, you know, how important or how much should we give into scientific methodology and investigating Christianity or give weight to that versus, hey, just preach the word. If we all agree that that's what creates faith, yet both pursuits have to terminate at the same place. Both camps have to terminate at the same place. Apologetics to is kind of ends up
- [26:44]
A
being, you know, mind games or maybe
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B
it's kind of occasional in the same way that we would say Luther is occasional when it sometimes doesn't do this, but can be very frustrating when there is no, like Christ terminus. So, for instance, a lot of the youth apologetic stuff that I've been asked to consider our help with terminates basically a genesis in these, like, stories that everybody's afraid that middle school science class is going to undo right about the creation of the earth and doesn't often say a lot about Jesus Christ. Instead, we're doing historical investigations and getting excited when satellite footage might show a hill that contains the ark or something, you know, but the Scripture tells us to run to Christ. The bet that scripture tells us to take or where the assurances of faith are and its gifts are both spiritually and intellectually and for what knowledge is important is the death and resurrection of Christ. If Christ rose from the dead, was, you know, is he who he claimed to be? Was he God? If he's God, then the assurances that he makes and the promises that he makes and the authority that he then dispenses to the apostles and the church. And the Scripture gives you certainty because beyond, as we were saying, beyond the scientific certainty, because if it's God telling you something, it is all of a sudden definitionally true. The creator of the universe has assigned truth to something that's, you know, that is, you're, you're told and you're bound to ask if that's true based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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D
You know, did you hear, Caleb, move right to abduction there?
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C
Yeah, yeah, I was thinking. I also made a point there, Caleb. I think of the. Think of Paul at Mars Hill, Acts 17, the latter half of it, where, you know, he starts off, he's in the marketplace and he's, as Luke tells us, the author of Acts. He's preaching Jesus and the Resurrection. And nobody's heard of this before, right? And then the Stoke and Epicureans bring him up to Mars Hill and he gives this, you know, we just get a little snippet of it from Luke, a summary of it, this kind of natural theological argument. But that terminates in, you know, the point in Acts 17:30 and 31, that God's patience has worn out and he's going to judge the world. And then it goes, this is Acts 17:31. If you look at the NASB, it's going to say, and he's given proof of this to all men by raising his son from the dead. Or ESV is something like has given assurance to all men. Or you think so that's before even pagans who've never heard of the Resurrection, you know, but for Paul, this is the proof that this whole, this his message, the message of the gospel, the, you know, the Christian worldview. I hate to trigger you with that word, Caleb, but is true because of this. Or you think of Paul before AGRIPPA In Acts 25 and 26, where he, you know, he's stopped mid speech by, I think it was a guy named. Or I think it was Festus who says, you know, Paul, your great learning has turned you mad. Would you, in so short a time think you could convince the king to become a Christian? And Paul says, the king himself knows that I speak true and reasonable, or depending on your translation, rational words, that the things I speak to him about did not happen in a corner, namely, you know, the crucifixion and the Resurrection. So, Caleb, if we weren't 2,300 miles apart, I'd give you a big hug because I really like that it all terminates in the. The same spot.
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E
The reverse
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D
is cracked rib.
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C
The reverse rib. I'd do it.
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D
Yeah.
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E
Like he says, if Christ is not raised, then we're to be pitied above all people. So even the inverse becomes sort of true.
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B
And Caleb, the counterfactuals are about the rest.
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E
The counterfactuals, exactly. Just to build off what Caleb said, this is just my kind of framing. The way I think about it is, you know, certainty is, is a, in some ways a self produced Thing in that you take in the matrix of all that's been given to you, wherever that's been given to you by. And you sort of are saying, okay, I'm willing to. I'm willing to die for this, or I'm not, or I believe this completely with all the probabilities or not. But I think assurance is something that's outside of you. The word itself is very personal and relational. Like you can have certainty without really having a relationship with anyone. But assurance comes in a much more personal way. And I think it's a way of framing the kind of certainty we have is a kind of certainty that requires the personal interaction, touch, grace of God himself, who in his word, outside of us, is giving us grounds, as Caleb was saying, giving us promises, giving us actual things. So we're being actually assured by a person about facts. But it's a person who's helping us and not just something that we're responsible to come up with. Like, if you're doing a math sum, you know, you have to understand the math to get the right answer. Or if you're doing the scientific methods, you have to, like Scott said, keep doing it and making sure it still plays out.
- [31:56]
B
True certainty is an overrated word, you know, like, because it's hardly ever a thing besides your emotions or your emotional disposition towards now you're onto it, something. So the only thing that's certainty in the way that people conceive of it is math or, I guess, definitions, grammar, which nobody likes. Which nobody likes.
- [32:20]
E
The postmodernists and the linguists say that even definitions aren't stable. It's really just math. No, it's the only thing everyone agrees on.
- [32:27]
D
Certain, the postmodern linguists are just so wrong on that. But whatever, we'll get past that.
- [32:32]
A
And then even that, or you're right,
- [32:34]
D
even that gives you signed things here.
- [32:37]
B
You know, weird theoretical sciences, you know, relativity, string theory, like, all this stuff too, even tries to attack that there is mathematical or definitional certainty when it comes to nature, physics, whatever it might be. So it's an overrated word.
- [32:56]
A
And the better one, I mean, the
- [32:58]
B
better one here is, I think, as Bruce was just saying, is actually assurance. Because we're more used to getting assurances from things and even the evidence then playing into that. The example of getting on an airplane or getting in your car, you have assurances from an airline company and the government and experience and reason that say, you know, it's safe to get on this plane.
- [33:23]
D
The trick when you're doing this kind of apologetics with people, whether you're trying to teach them to sort of be okay with their faith in a world that's trying to assail it, or whether you're actually doing apologetics with an unbeliever. One of the, one of the tricks is to try to break them of the idea of that kind of certainty that you're talking about. Because even though everybody hates math, everybody inevitably has easy mathematical calculations in their head. When they say certainty, they are talking about 100%. Now, oftentimes they have no idea I've done this. When you introduce to people that they make life and death decisions every day based on things that are not, quote, unquote, certain, because they are not, it actually is. It's quite jarring to them because a lot of people do walk around believing that they, when they get in their car, it's 100% chance that they're going to make it from point A to point B without injury. They believe that. They don't maybe like, process it out exactly like that, but they don't get in their car with any doubt that they're going to make it. They don't get on an airplane with most people with any doubt that they're going to make. Bruce's. Bruce is probably like 30%, 70%, you know, to the negative.
- [34:42]
E
That's really optimistic, but go ahead.
- [34:44]
D
Okay, 90% to the negative, you know. So I think what you're saying is right, Caleb. When you, when you do this, like in real life, irl, as the kids would say, that you really are trying to break that in a way because it's just not operational in daily life. But more than all that, I think what you said earlier, that when the scriptures speak about this, and Adam brought it up too, with the Acts things, at the end of the day, this all lands on the resurrection. Like, how can you know? Because you can know that the resurrection is true. You can look at all the witness examples and everything. But even more important than that, when Paul does that in Corinthians, of course, and you see the accounts of Paul doing it in Acts, but Paul connects you directly to that certainty through the assurance of your death and resurrection with him in your baptism, right? And so when this becomes, as Bruce was saying, emotional and personal and it needs to be touched personally by God's grace, you ask, where does that happen? Well, the most certain place to get that assurance is in your baptism. Which is why, in addition to sort of evidential apologetics being sort of the most, I think, Lutheran way to do Apologetics, because it's silent, where there's no information to speak on. And it really focuses on what you can attain and what you can know from the Scriptures. The Lutheran answer then to this assurance is to do what Paul does in connecting you to the certainty of Christ's death and resurrection to your death and resurrection in your baptism in Romans 6. I mean, it's just. It's just the way it's set up.
- [36:37]
E
And to, and to add to that, you're not saved by certainty and you're not saved by the faith you have in your faith. Like, there's the guy in scripture, I believe, help my unbelief. The famous story there. I remember Tim Keller gave an illustration once, interestingly, about an airplane, about two different people who get on an airplane, and one of them is pretty much 100% certain that they're going to arrive at their destination. And the other person is terrified and isn't quite so sure. And he says they get on the plane and the plane takes off and the plane lands and they get to their destination. They get off the plane. And he said they only got there because of the pilots and the crew, not because of what they were, the level of their faith in the pilot or the crew. And yet one of them had a much better experience than the other by virtue of the fact of how much they believed in the pilot and the crew. But ultimately they were saved or brought safely there by the pilot and the crew, and the fact that they just got on the plane was really all it took. Faith isn't a quantity thing where, you know, if you have more of it, you're. You're more likely to land at your destination than the guy who doesn't. It's just that little bit of that little bit of trust, that little bit of belief in Jesus. And then I think over time, of course, God shows us more and more who he is as we expose to His Word and His sacraments, and we gain that certainty. But I wouldn't want anyone to think that you're also saved by certainty, because that's not true either. You're saved by what Christ is.
- [38:03]
B
No, you're taken.
- [38:04]
D
No, you're absolutely not saved by it. But the thing is that what Paul does so brilliantly in his writings is he says this thing happened and it happened for you. Now it's connect. You're connected to it in your baptism. And if you ever want to know if you're still connected to it, look to your baptism, this thing that happened.
- [38:26]
B
Right.
- [38:26]
D
But I think the Thing of getting on the plane. And I have the faith. And it's not the faith that got you there. It's, you know, the crew. Yeah, absolutely. Your crew is Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
- [38:37]
B
Yeah, I think the faith in faith thing, Bruce, is super relevant. I see a lot of Christians who struggle with the idea of unbelief in not their. Usually not even their own. Well, maybe it is their own, but the theoretical unbelief of children and family members and the future of people. And it's usually just like, hey, double down on that faith. A drive towards your feelings or your inside or hey, you know, your life is better when you're acting in a faith way or something like that instead of taking them to the place where God makes promises. So, you know, that's kind of the job we've been given as Christians is like, you can't. You're not authorized to speak for God on every issue. So you can't go around promising that somebody's going to be wealthy or that somebody's going to be healthy or that their life is going to be easy. But you can. God has authorized us and told us to go make promises about the resurrection to people. And the other promises you can literally give them that are from God are you can forgive their sins, you can baptize them, you can do these things and they are a promise from God. But then to treat the promised people with the knowledge that God has entrusted us with the scriptures. And so I see, like to the attacks on the faith thing, there are ways to operate in the realm of epistemology without it being a convincing you to choose to be Christian because it makes the most sense project or something all the time that I see, you know, mistakes about. Like an example that recently hit me was, you know, you. If you're worried about like kids, this is often, I think kids transitioning from high school, college, young adulthood that were that, you know, it can be older people too. But these crises of faith happen usually during the educational process because that's when you have opportunity to enter in some sort of materialist worldview or introduce questions about the faith. And sometimes they just don't even know basic facts about the Bible, the scripture. Things have happened. And so then it really does all seem like a fairy tale at the end of the day because nothing's truthful. An example I've been thinking about is not knowing that first and Second Chronicles in 1 and 2 Kings record similar to the same historical events with drastically different accounts and numbers of some of those events. And Take that to a kid who's never heard that before, never wrestled with, why could that be these things not history? And all of a sudden they decide they hear that and go, okay, it must not be history. So is Genesis history? Oh, are the Gospels history? Oh, are. What else don't I know that can be avoided? That's not even. That can just be avoided by teaching that for the first time in an environment that's just being transparent and honest about the way knowledge works, the way Scripture works, the fact that it's a book, the fact that these records have explanations, time periods, styles, genres, whatever it may be, instead of telling people, well, you just gotta trust God that that's all true. It's like, okay, so the answer to the number differences in Chronicles and Kings is just trusting God. That's insanity.
- [42:00]
C
We began this conversation, what, 40 minutes ago with Bruce describing. I don't know exactly how I put it, but how people have. I think you said a crisis in faith or something like that is the phrase you used. And I think when we started, this was more about. I was teasing you about these existential kind of things, right?
- [42:24]
D
But
- [42:26]
C
that was all in jest because, you know, like, you think of even Luther, right? You talked a bit about Luther and his crisis of faith. He describes over the course of his life that it's normal for a Christian to experience what he called anfectung. This is just sort of what happens to the Christian. And it's going to be different for everybody, where they're going to be. They're going to have doubts about whether they're saved and whether this is all real and so on and so forth. And for Luther, when he uses the term amphictum, for him, this isn't just some sort of epistemological crisis, and it's not just spiritual in the sense of a subjective kind of thing, but it's a real objective assault from the devil and the demons. So, for in many ways like these, crises of faith are what they require to be sure if it is a legitimate intellectual kind of struggle. There's ample. We've just sort of snapshotted it over the course of the last 30 minutes. But what the Christian who's having a crisis of faith needs is not to be told, as Caleb just said, to just believe stronger, have more faith in your faith kind of thing. But what you need is somebody to point you to Jesus, point you away from yourself and what's going on with you, and point you to the one who can actually defeat the devil and his min. So you need your pastor, your Christian brother or sister. Or maybe I should say Christian sister or brother. That's become fashionable. And I know it'd probably make Caleb twitchy here, but you need to hear something about the object of faith. Point you away from your faith in a way, to the one who has died for your sins and risen for your justification.
- [44:12]
D
Placard Christ. As Rod would say. Placard Christ. By the way, those podcasts are pretty good. Caleb.
- [44:22]
B
Good. The dad Rod legacy. Yeah, I really do think people should go see it. It's kind of an amazing window back into Rod at, like, the prime of being able to go teach and do it all before the Internet. Well, not. I mean, not the full Internet, but as we have it today in its most evil form.
- [44:41]
C
Yeah, that was, like, yesterday for your dad and I. I remember those days well.
- [44:46]
D
Get ready for an emotional response where you hear his voice and you hear him teaching. Yeah, well, Ted, these are recorded right around the time when we were at CUI with him.
- [44:55]
C
Yeah, well, Ted posted something on one of the socials. Just a picture of Rod back when he, you know, back in his prime. You know, I wrote, I said, it's hard to even look at this picture. It just brings back, like, wonderful memories
- [45:09]
D
of Golden Age Caleb. And I got to see the preview of the documentary. It's a gut punch. Yeah, I mean, it's awesome. It's amazing, but it's a gut punch. Anyway, sorry.
- [45:22]
B
Well, no, we're good. I'm going to close this out with saying I think that the thing here is, in all cases, don't stop preaching the resurrection of Christ. I know I've been accused of that.
- [45:36]
A
This is boring.
- [45:37]
B
If you just come to, you know, a pulpit, or you come to a Bible study, or you come to a chapel, and every time, this is mainly what you pigeonhole everything into.
- [45:51]
D
Don't come to shepherd in the pines of Big Bear.
- [45:53]
B
Don't you have something else to say? Not really. Not really? Christ died and rose for your sins. It's a promise from God to you and for you. And from it, he creates faith. He gives assurances. It's the thing that any certainty could be hung on at all. So that's kind of the takeaway from this show. And I think for Christians who move certainty into accidentally move it into the realm of another epistemology, like your life or your work's working out, or your relationships being better, or you've moved it into that realm of that other realm of epistemology that's no longer about investigating or trusting or clinging to the resurrection. And now it's open to, well, my life's not good. I can't tell if the stories are real or not. And now I'm uncertain. Don't shift the benefits of this whole thing away from the resurrection. That's where they are. That's where the assurances are. And so keep preaching Christ and him crucified for the forgiveness of sins.
- [46:52]
D
Amen.
- [46:53]
B
All right, guys. Well, with that, we're going to end this episode of Thinking Valleys podcast. Thank you for joining me. To the hosts, thank you for listening to our listeners out there. Don't forget to share it with family and friends. Friends. And if you enjoy the Thinking Fellows, a word of mouth is one of the most powerful ways that you can support this show. We appreciate you listening. We will catch you next time. Bye.