Larry Sanger is a philosopher who was in on the ground floor of Wikipedia. He got his PhD in analytic philosophy from Ohio State University, where he also taught philosophy, but he set the world alight a couple of weeks ago by coming out as a Christian. Here's my conversation about why an agnostic philosopher in his fifties would pick up the Bible and start to become a Christian. I'm Glenn from Speak Life. We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus. If you like this kind of content, please do subscribe to the channel. Here's my conversation with Larry Sanger. Larry Sanger, uh co-founder of Wikipedia. So great uh to have you on the channel. Uh you wrote an article around about two weeks ago explaining uh your journey to faith. Um was it a surprise to you that you became a Christian?
SPEAKER_00Well yes, it was. Um it was a surprise to me how much that I became a Christian and the the uh uh the response that I have had in the last couple of weeks, I uh I uh really uh almost couldn't believe it. Um, to be uh perfectly honest. I can even show you a message that I wrote to a friend of mine saying, now nobody's really gonna care.
SPEAKER_03I was wrong. You were wrong, because you you kicked off that very long article um with with a quotation from the old King James version of of Mark's Gospel. Go into all nations and preach the gospel. And it seems like you've you've done just that with this article. Um tell tell me about some of some of those uh reactions that you've been getting to the article. From from where have people been uh interested?
SPEAKER_00Oh, there's there's been a lot. Um for one thing, uh a lot of people noticed and I think really fixated, understandably so, on the one of the last sections of the essay, which is about my failure um to start going to church. I admitted it, I know that I should, but um I I have reasons. Reasons that are fairly idiosyncratic to me, but a lot of people uh responded basically plugging for their own for their own denomination. So, you know, the Presbyterians thought I was a Presbyterian, the Anglicans thought I was an Anglican, a number of Catholics thought I was a Catholic, and so forth.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fresh meat. Yes, people people trying to get their hooks into into Larry. Um now I asked you I asked you to begin with that uh was it a surprise to you that you became a Christian? And uh and I guess um you know a lot of your background has been very, very much uh in the area of academia and uh not only your history with Wikipedia, but uh you've been an analytic philosopher and you've taught uh philosophy at at university and that kind of thing. You talk in your article about kind of methodolog methodological skepticism. Um can you can you talk to us about what that is for if if that's the first time somebody has has heard that that kind of um that phrase, what did it mean to you and and how did that impact the way you were hearing faith claims? Because you grew up in a sort of a Lutheran Christian uh sort of church background, but nevertheless, methodological methodological skepticism was there as the filter through which you were uh perceiving the world. What what impact did that have?
SPEAKER_00So it's an approach that I took to truth seeking, is how I would describe it. And it isn't my term. Um I was told that it is the correct term. Umrdinary skepticism, or the best place to begin, is with that. Ordinary skepticism simply says you cannot know that there is uh, well, for example, an external world. In other words, there's some domain of knowledge, and a skeptic says you can't know stuff about that. All right. Um methodological skepticism doesn't actually make claims about what it's possible to know. It simply uh recommends the stance of not taking a stand on things that are uh insufficiently supported, and uh with with the view of at some later date coming to a firmer belief to true knowledge in the long run. So the the it's it is a uh uh something I I would say that a lot of people with a sort of scientific outlook, at least classically, um have uh have had. Not all of them, some of some of uh the advocates of scientism will uh simply endorse whatever mainstream science says, whereas methodological skepticism says, well, we're not gonna endorse anything at all until we have really, really, really good reasons to believe it, essentially.
SPEAKER_03We had uh on our channel um last week uh a philosopher called uh Philip Goff, and uh in the area of consciousness, he uh he's really made quite a popular stand now uh for panpsychism. Um and so that that's really where he's kind of made his uh his name. But he he was an agnostic philosopher very much. Uh he wrote a great book uh called Galileo's Era, talking about the scientific method as a method of exploring the world via this methodological skepticism um inherited from Descartes, and that's a very good way of explaining um physical aspects of the physical world, but uh hits the buffers hard when it comes to issues like consciousness, issues like the mind-body problem and that sort of thing. There are lots of questions that it leaves unanswered, and uh certainly for Philip Goff, um he recognized that that method of doubt uh was not going to get him very far with some of the biggest questions, like questions about consciousness and mind. Um is that something that you found similarly?
SPEAKER_00Essentially, um if you w want to arrive at any uh firm conclusions, uh not to say uh logically uh or method all methodologically established conclusions, but just ones that you're willing to take firmly, um you have to be willing to countenance a little bit of uh speculation, let's put it that way. Um and and I I think also that it's it's pretty important, and this was important uh when I was studying the Bible, that I I uh essentially bracket my doubts. Um in other words, like I don't take this stuff terribly seriously, I'm just trying to understand what the Christians think. Um you know, first of all, what what the ancient Hebrews thought when they were writing the original um or hearing the original uh you know words of the Old Testament, but uh also what m modern Christians or later Christians anyway thought about what they meant. And I was just trying to understand that. Um and there's a certain approach to skepticism which basically says, well, if I'm not seeing any evidence right away, uh if I'm not really grokking anything that seems to be at all important, then I'm just gonna turn off and turn away from the discussion. So um I I had separate separate reasons, I suppose you could say, to want to uh stick it out with my reading, with my study of the Bible. And it was it was the result of doing that and simply trying to acquaint myself, uh to acquaint myself with the um with the thought world of Christianity, uh the or the biblical thought world, um that really changed my uh my outlook on everything, ultimately.
SPEAKER_03Yes. I'd love to get there. Let's let's think about that in a in a second, about the the way in which entering into the strange new world of the Bible um changed things for you. Um but I I guess you you were kind of teaching philosophy in an age when the new atheists were all the rage, uh this publishing phenomenon was was uh rampant uh all across the Anglosphere, uh the God delusion, God is not great, all that kind of stuff. Um you as a kind of an agnostic, um did you did you align yourself in any way with that tribe or or how was that striking you at the time?
SPEAKER_00It's like I I wanted them to make good points, I wanted them to to um uh be uh persuasive to use the best arguments because like I was familiar with them myself, you know, because they're ultimately philosophical arguments. Um but I ultimately was very disappointed, at least the new atheists, as they're called, um were mostly not philosophers at all. You know, Daniel Dennett was the great exception because he's he was well known and uh highly respected um in philosophy before uh he became known as a um as a skeptic. Um sort of like in his later years he became almost like a professional skeptic. But for decades before that, he he was very well known in philosophy of mind. But anyway, but the point is that yeah, I I uh I was not uh on board. I actually found a lot of the things that they said to be sort of a little crude, crass, um, a lot of low blows, even from people like Richard Dawkins, which was kind of surprising to me. Um and you know, uh I I knew um from experience dealing with the people one-on-one. I mean, I I had been I'd gone to a a dinner with Alvin Plantinga, who was invited by Ohio State, not for his his uh work in um in philosophy of uh of religion, but you know, metaphysics and philosophy of language and epistemology and logic. You know, he's a great philosopher. He's like one of the great philosophers of the 20th century, 21st century now, huh? Um and uh you know Christians only know him as this you know philosopher of religion, but he's better known among philosophers for other things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So so you had respect for well, you had respect for the discipline of philosophy, which you were teaching, um, which many of the new atheists didn't have respect for. Not only did they not respect theology, they didn't respect philosophy in in so many ways.
SPEAKER_00So I I should say something though. I had respect for the philosophers of religion that I knew of, and that like I had taught philosophy of religion a couple of times in like 2004 or so. Um and uh so I had respect for those guys, sure. I thought it was possible to be a rational believer, but I didn't was not one myself, and I thought there was very little danger of my becoming one, too. Um and uh theology, well that's another kettle of fish. I thought, you know, I didn't know much about it, didn't think much about it at all, really. I just I knew it that it existed. Okay, this is an attempt to like systematize the Bible or something, I don't know. Um but um I thought that it was basically an elaborate procedure of rationalism. Uh sorry, not ration not rationalism, rationalization. Rationalization. Yes. Um so I I didn't actually take that terribly seriously, but that's because I didn't understand um what it was all about. And that ultimately is because I didn't understand the Bible. Right.
SPEAKER_03So Right. And I I think you you say in your article that your students couldn't really guess where you came from uh when when your philosophy was touching on matters to do with God's existence, uh a a third of the class uh thought you're a theist, a third thought you're an atheist, a third thought you're an agnostic, and um that was sort of a a tribute, I guess, to your um your neutrality in teaching. So that that gives you I guess some sense of where you're coming from um when eventually you do start to think maybe I should read the Bible. Like what why would that strike you as uh the the next step to take?
SPEAKER_00Well, um it's a little complicated. Like for years I I felt like I hadn't really done uh gotten a full education um in one of my holes was I never read the Bible all the way through. So there was that. Um But uh the previous summer, to make a long story short, a friend of mine told told me, sort of tuned me into that the the whole phenomenon of um elite pedophile rings. Um the idea that people like um uh Jimmy Savile, uh the Rotherham scandal being uh covered up for so long. The uh those are just a couple of British examples. The whole British school system has got this rife with pedophilia, famously, has been for a long time, right? Um and then uh then, of course, there's the Epstein case, and there's the Nexium case in the United States. There's the whole pedo wood, which is a whole series of scandals in Hollywood. Um and I could go on and on, but the point is, but there are there are a lot of people with a great deal of influence in our society and all all around the world, in fact, um, who uh l like to rape children. And um, you know, uh the the uh evidence of well I'm not gonna get into it any more than that. Let's just put it at that. And uh one thing that he pers he tried to persuade me of, he didn't entirely persuade me of this. I even even now will argue with him about it because the evidence isn't perfectly clear. But nevertheless, a lot of the people who are involved in that sort of thing are are on the record of being new agers and and occultists of one sort or another, um Freemasons, etc. Um, uh at least the people who are accused of it, right? Um and and my friend said, I know these people, and they take it seriously, and it's like part of their sex rights. It's like, what? No, that's and uh he he said, you need to read these books, and the books that he was referring me to were uh uh uh uh books about the occult. Um not necessarily the uh the occultists' books themselves, but books about the occult. And I just I d couldn't get very far into them because the occultists themselves say that the knowledge, the gnosis, as it's called, um is itself powerful and will open up spiritual doorways. And I said, Well, if there are any spiritual doorways, I want to keep them shut. Um not that I took it terribly seriously that there were, but I thought maybe there's something to it. I mean, these these people are undertaking enormous risks. Why would they do that if they didn't believe that it was true? And how could they, being some very bright people, right? You can't deny that the people who are accused of raping children around the world are not bright, because they are. Um and so they've got to have some reasons if they actually are into this weird occult stuff, um, for for being into it. Well, I said, well, at least what I can do is come to understand what they're reacting to, because what the occult is, to a very great extent, is is a perversion, an inversion of um uh the Bible and biblical symbology um and so forth. So uh and uh I put it off, I suppose, for several months. I I didn't it wasn't really high on my priority uh list, but uh one you know winter night, uh looking around for something to uh to r uh read at bedtime, and I thought to myself, well, there's the Bible. I could do that. I won't always wanted to do that, just go all the way through, and so I I launched into it.
SPEAKER_03How long ago was this?
SPEAKER_00It was uh December 2019.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00I was converted in 2020, so I put off announcing it until I was ready to defend my my doctrine. So that's fascinating.
SPEAKER_03There is this um awareness of spiritual reality, um, and that not all of it is light. Possible.
SPEAKER_00Possible uh uh spiritual reality, yes. Right. That's that's all I admitted at the time.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Yes. And and but even the possible dark reality of dark spiritual power was enough to make you think, well, it might be worth uh checking out if there are if there is a corresponding light um that this darkness is a is a perversion of. Um and and it and it occurred to you straight away that the Bible was going to be your your primary source of of information on on spiritual truth?
SPEAKER_00I didn't I certainly didn't put it to myself that way. I when I started reading the Bible, I thought I was just learning about the Bible. I wasn't like abandoning methodological skepticism or anything. And so I wouldn't have put it to myself that I'm now uh wanting to learn about spiritual truth and I was gonna accept the Bible. Um, you know, uh no, that that was that was not the idea at all.
SPEAKER_03It was filling in a blank in in terms of your knowledge of the world.
SPEAKER_00I mean I mean that the motivation was simply I wanted to to uh fill in a gap in my education, first of all, and second of all, I wanted to understand what these occultists were actually reacting to, basically.
SPEAKER_03That's fascinating. And and I wonder whether your reading of the Bible with that background, you were actually more attuned to the the weirder stuff in the Bible that that a lot of us who sort of grew up in the faith um we we kind of skip over the stuff about supernatural evil and and you know, angels and possession and and that kind of stuff. And we we I did? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_00I tried to understand that on its own terms. Well, I tried to understand everything on its own terms, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03I love that. Yeah. I love you trying to understand because I I've heard you um give an interview to Sean McDowell where you talk about the the supernatural ability of Sarah to give birth. So, you know, in the Genesis story, here is a woman who is ninety years old and suddenly she's going to give birth to the promised child, and how is that going to work? And what you said on that interview just fascinated me because it sounded to me like you were taking the story on its own terms and thinking to yourself, well, narrativally, how is this a consistent story? What is the coherence of Sarah at age 90 giving birth to the promised child? Oh, and and then drawing the the biblical links, the scriptural links back to that.
SPEAKER_00And I it's shall I set it up for your for your listeners? Yeah. So um basically uh Abraham and Sarah had been waiting for uh thirty or forty years um for a child to arrive. Sarah was ninety years old, and uh she had uh the the pair of them had just received a visit from um the Lord God in uh apparently human form uh with with two angels also apparently in human form. Um and and uh and he told her, um, or rather told Abraham um that he was going to become a father. Um, you know, I will return this time next year and you will have a child. Um and and uh but she was ninety years old, and so she left. Uh And um and actually that's why Isaac is called Isaac because it means, you know, laughter. Um and uh so let's see. Uh they uh there is a famine uh happening uh um uh while they are conceiv uh trying to conceive or or perhaps she is already pregnant, it's not clear. Um and so they they uh uh throw themselves on on the mercy of a local king named uh Abimelech, looking for food, basically, and a place to to water their crops and so forth, um, or not their crops, with their flocks. Um and uh Abimelech takes Sarah um as a concubine, essentially. Now, uh he doesn't consummate the relationship, so to speak, um because God warns him first about it. But here's the the the thing. She had to have been sexually attractive. But she was ninety years old and she laughed because, you know, am I going to have pleasure at my age? Um at least the pleasure of a child. No, uh uh if she looked like she was ninety years old, there's little danger of her becoming a concubine. So I I conclude, um I don't think I'm the first one to have this thought, that um, well there had to be some way for God's uh promise, a promised miracle, to come true because she was well past menopause. So either her womb was going to be rejuvenated and made able to to bear a child, or the whole woman was. Well, considering that she was again um sex or sexually attractive as she had been in her younger days, uh now then clearly uh the her her entire appearance was rejuvenated, was made young appearing. Well the the the thing is, if you didn't think about the question why was she sexually attractive to Abimelech, then you never would have uh realized that that was actually an important part of the story. And in fact, people who don't think about these questions, because uh, well, you know, only true believers ask things like that, um they they come up with other explanations. They they say things like, well, this story obviously doesn't belong there. It's been misplaced by later copyists or whatever who didn't understand what they were copying, which is ridiculous. I mean, this is their holy text, and they didn't have that many at the time, as far as we know. Um, they're gonna treat it with great, great care. No, the reason that it's there is that it's illustrating that um well, that uh the the miracle had taken place.
SPEAKER_03And that's a brilliant example, I think, of you taking the Bible on its own terms and seeking within the text and within the world of the Bible the answer to the questions that the Bible itself is raising. And what fascinated me as you were describing this to Sean is I was just thinking, isn't it interesting that the agnostic skeptical side of Larry's brain wasn't being triggered at that moment? That what was what was being triggered was not, well, I I don't have evidence for you know mirac the the miraculous, I'm I'm not sure I can believe in the miraculous. It was it wasn't the skeptical side of Larry's brain that was being triggered, it w but it was very much a side of your brain, and it was very it was very much a a a rational um seeking after coherence and consistency, but it was on the terms that the Bible was giving to you rather than on the on the terms of the philosophy that you might have brought to the Bible. And I think that's that's that's fascinating to me.
SPEAKER_00Well, and and um and the thing is, what what I realized um as I was going through that process is that uh, you know, many, many, many people had gone through the same process over a period of 2,000 years. It's called theology. Um and and uh for that matter, you know, um even ancient uh Jewish, even before Christianity, ancient Jewish interpreters were were um coming up with their uh e explanations and elaborations of of uh biblical stories, making sense of it. And uh it's a it's very the Bible is very, very rich and it uh repays exploration. There are many things hidden in the text that I've just given you an example, um, and I I had no inkling that that was the case. But of course, it isn't just like the the revelation, the solving of a puzzle that was persuasive to me. That actually really had little to do with it. But it's interesting that it is, and that that gave the Bible a kind of uh interest and hold that I didn't know that it could have for somebody like me.
SPEAKER_03I'm loving talking to Larry Sanger about getting on the inside of Christian faith. And when you dive in with both feet to the Christian story, you will find an internal coherence and beauty that draws you in. And uh we hope that will be your experience as you go to 321. Have you done 321 before? It's our online learning platform where you can see life according to Jesus. Based in the scriptures, we get to know who Jesus is and then his vision of God and his threeness, his vision of the world, and its two-ness, his vision of you and your oneness. It's all about seeing the Bible's vision for God, the world, and you. So go to 321course.com, start an account, it's completely free, and we'd love you to do that now. Anyway, back to the interview. So the richness of the Bible itself was the compelling thing that was drawing you to go deeper, and I guess incrementally making you think, uh, I think the text has resources within itself that can satisfy the questions that that that I have about it. Um tell tell me what what what was it about the richness of the text? Like what what what was it that was beginning to fascinate you as you started studying the scriptures?
SPEAKER_00Oh, there's uh a lot of things. That's a good question. Um well one thing is that um occasionally there were some and and to a lesser extent all the way throughout, there are a lot of interesting claims made about God. And whenever God was portrayed as saying something or doing something, I just said, well, this is the creator of the universe, and this is how God is being portrayed as as behaving. This is very different, of course, from a like a Greek god who acts very much like just a horny guy. Um uh but this is this is a different being altogether. And uh for example, and then that that you know captured my interest. When I got to Exodus III and and other later parts of the Bible, there are some interesting statements made that have philosophical import. Um so one of the arguments for the existence of God is the argument from contingency. It says, all the events that you uh that are happening around you, all the things that are around you, they could have been otherwise. They're contingent on things that happened before them. Um but uh not everything can be contingent. We actually think that there are explanations that show that you know if a bird flies by my window, it it must fly by my my window. Um and uh well that uh it and to make a to to make a long argument briefer, um uh ultimately what we conclude is there must be something that is necessary in itself, if you want to explain how all the contingent things uh are can can be understood as required by the order of nature, essentially. Um and uh uh I I don't I wouldn't conclude, and this we call God, but the point is um that there is a necessary being which explains the contingent things in the universe. Okay um how does God describe himself in Exodus 3? He says, I am that I am. So I tried to understand that. At first it doesn't sound grammatical, um, and and it just doesn't make a lot of sense. But but you know, I I looked up commentaries and so forth and looked into the Hebrew a little bit. Um and the bottom line is what it means is I am that which exists, or uh that which must exist. I am the necessary um being. Um and another way of uh explaining it, and this is why Yahweh or the name of God is translated as it as it is essentially in English as Lord, is that he is sovereign, because a Lord is someone who is sovereign. He's like in control of everything, and no one is trying is controlling him. Um and uh well uh this is also a reflection of the very idea of the necessary being. Um if he is necessarily necessary in himself, then um uh uh his existence doesn't depend on anything outside himself. Everything else depends on him, um, and therefore in that sense he's sovereign. Um and and uh you put that in and again this is the name of God. And in in Hebrew, if you say that uh uh something is is a a person's name, then you're saying what what they are about sort of essentially. You know, it's their identity. Um it's a names are supposed to be meaningful in that way. So uh what it's saying is what I am, most essentially, is that which exists or which must exist. That's fascinating. In in context, that that implies that everything depends on him, and everything that has been going on in the story before that and after that is like part of his design, the unfolding of his ultimate will. Um now I wasn't immediately persuaded of that point, but I didn't understand that until I had read the Bible and like sort of put all that into context. It gave me a much deeper understanding of um not just the Bible, but uh of the field that philosophers call natural theology or philosophy of religion, the study of the arguments for the existence of God, um, and arguments about God, essentially. Um those arguments. I had no idea.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you because you were first aware, really, of the argument from contingency um with your philosopher hat on. Um and so it in in a sense at that stage um uh all you get to is the i the idea that well well I guess God is not a silly idea. Um it reminds me a little bit of Blaise Pascal when he he he talked about in the 17th century and and sort of a contemporary of Galileo. Um he he said i even in his day he said men despise religion and uh hope that it is not true, and and then he said that we should do three things and he and and he said um uh f firstly, I I I think to convince people of its its reasonability and then he says make people of good will wish it were true and then show them that it is. And it it feels to me like as you describe the the non-silliness of the contingency argument and the the non-silliness of natural theology um at least gave gave it a plausibility.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's a good way of putting it. Um yes, I I had thought that that religion in general was uh was just pretty silly. I thought the Bible was pretty silly. You know, serious people don't really take it seriously. If if people who are serious, like uh I I knew there was some tension there because there are some very serious people who did take it seriously, and I knew that, but nevertheless I thought they were just like, I don't know, enthrall to some bit of nostalgic, you know, irrationalism, who knows exactly what was going on. Um I didn't think too hard about it. Uh I didn't consider that much, uh, didn't take very seriously that um there actually might be uh a way of understanding the Bible that actually makes uh really good sense of of not just it, but of many other things in our world.
SPEAKER_03And I wonder how important those plausibility structures are and how how important things like um the vibe shift um is. I mean, uh on on the channel I've probably used the word vibe shift about ten times in the last five videos, um, having not used the the phrase at all, and and I think uh a lot of people just apply that to politics. But I but what we're seeing, I think, in terms of uh the rise and then fall of the new atheism is uh a hunger for something that is non-silly, um a serious house built on serious earth, as Philip Larkin called the church, and a d a desire, um yeah, a desire to find out the story that that our ancestors believed in and at least fill in that gap in their education, um which which tracks so well with with your kind of story. Um can you talk to us a little bit about the ways in which um elements outside of the Bible and outside of studying the Christian faith directly how that has an impact on somebody um who is making a faith journey? Um because it's it's not just Bible study that brings you to faith, is it?
SPEAKER_00Uh the the ground was softened up uh in advance of the of the assault. Um basically um a lot of a lot of impediments to my taking um theism and the Bible seriously uh were were cleared away. Um well uh one of them well let's let's go back a little bit. When I was a graduate student, uh sometimes I didn't even like to say that I was an agnostic, let alone an atheist. I said I had a no-concept view of God. I I thought that um uh we are incapable of having an idea of what God is, because what God is supposed to be is uh a being that created uh everything with a thought. Um, well, we have no sh and and here I was sort of drawing on kind of Humean um patterns of thinking, um, we have no experience of mind causing things to come into being. Uh and if that's the case, then we have no concept of what God is in his most essential being. Um if if the like the core of the concept of God is is that he is a uh a you know a mind that can create things with a thought, um then we we just have no idea what that is. Like our minds don't do that. Um and therefore I have no concept of God, was my conclusion. Well, I still believe the premises. I don't think that I can have an idea of what it is like for a God to bring things into existence ex nihil with a thought. But now I think that we can say enough other things about God um to hang uh our discourse on about God. And there's nothing wrong with doing that. Uh and I I never was able to answer that wrist reply to me. So, okay. Um but I I uh basically disabused myself of that notion entirely with the following sort of argument. Um a thousand years ago uh there were um uh people looking at technology of today would think that we're doing magic, um, or we're all gods or something, like talking to each other uh across thousands and thousands of miles instantly, um, and so forth. Um it's uh ridiculous, they would say, well, imagine a thousand years in the future a turbocharged uh singularity-enhanced, AI-enhanced um uh technology that that uh through for complicated reasons we can't understand, um, has what would appear to us to be a sort of mental existence, and with a thought, it's able to bring, I don't know, planets into existence. We're talking about how about a billion years of development uh that extrapolates from the development that humanity has enjoyed in the last hundred years, um, but even more so because it's post-singularity. Isn't that possible? Isn't it conceivable? Sure. You know, I I had read this uh book by Larry Niven, Ring World, um, and that was that was about such a thing. That actually helped a little bit. And and then I said, okay, well, if we can sort of imagine the idea of a creator of that sort, then all we have to do is go one step further and say, well, just imagine that such a creator um was self-created.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00There it is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, and so that's there there is another um step along the way in in terms of the plausibility, the non-silliness of faith. There is scripture itself doing its work on you. And y you also speak uh about the personal side of things. That you know, um marriage, children, um recognizing that we are beings in communion with others, uh in dependence upon others, um and that love has a kind of a quality to it that that sort of evidences itself to us as as having uh uh this this transcendent reality. Um tell tell us that personal side of things, how how that's sort of shaping your philosophy and theology.
SPEAKER_00Sure. This is uh a little more idiosyncratic than than you make it uh sound. I uh uh between the ages of 16 and 26, I was sort of a devotee of the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Um and uh she thought that all of our obligations, um talk of right and wrong, could be explained in terms of um our uh our enlightened self-interest. So basically, um if I should treat you well, it's because ultimately it it renounce to my own benefit. Um well when I had a a wife, and and even more when I had a child, uh, I I reflected uh occasionally that I would die for these people. But whenever I had that reflection, I said, now wait a minute, I can't really justify that in terms of my own self-interest, can I? Um so then that ethical egoism must be wrong. And I had I had never thought of myself as being a particularly selfish person. In fact, I I'd try to be, you know, conventionally moral quite a bit. Um and uh I try, I try. Um that uh and and and yet I I don't uh this was like a real counterexample for me. You know, Ayn Rand was a an atheist, not just an agnostic. She thought that God did not exist. Um and uh and her atheism sort of connected. Confirmed me in mind to a certain extent. It wasn't very important, but it was kind of. I thought, okay, well, she's wrong about that. She's wrong about ethical egoism, and she could be wrong about other things. And I just sort of idly wondered what else could she have been wrong about? Didn't think about it too hard, but that was, you know, another brick in the wall removed, so to speak.
SPEAKER_03She did not have children. No, she did not have children. And and when you look back at so many of the leading lights of uh the last sort of three hundred, four hundred years, um I think Descartes did have uh a child out of wedlock who who died very early. Um but you think of Locke and Hobbes, um, both of them childless, you think of Rousseau, who had children but abandoned them. Um and and so many of these these figures of in of the Enlightenment and I draw a link. There might not be a link to be drawn, but but if you're going to go about the the project of man as realized in himself as this autonomous individual who is a choice maker, um you are you are imagining the the primal state of humanity to be, this social contract in which humans are standing on their own two feet, and whether it's philosophically Descartes kind of you know thinking therefore he is, or whether it's you know Locke and Hobbes and having a, you know, I'm an individual making a social contract again, you're an individual standing all by yourself in splendid isolation. Um and I do wonder whether one of the the great ways of just just unweaving the the um the enlightenment enchantment that is on us is to just meditate on the fact that I was a child and I I came from being utterly dependent in my mother's arms, the smile of my mother was the first thing I knew, and trusting in a gracious reality that is outside of myself and and coming to me um when I and and being told who I am rather than asserting who I am. All of this is actually very natural when you just think about family and you just think about children and you just think about the the life of love that that is the most fundamental thing to us. Um I I don't think it's incidental that that having children actually uh i is a really significant wake-up call for people.
SPEAKER_00Right. Well, I I think you explained it beautifully. I I think that's I think you're entirely right.
SPEAKER_03So tell us um w we haven't we haven't got long left. You've been very gracious with your time and and thank you for um persisting uh through through my technical issues here. But um I'm not searching for a come to Jesus moment. I'm I'm an Anglican myself, and so I I I'm very happy with uh belonging happening first and believing happening later, and I'm not quite sure when I came to Christ. It was either at the beginning or the end of the 1990s. I don't know what it was. Um but interestingly, it was it was probably two decades of a praying mother. That's that's probably the the shortest version I can say.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03A few extra decades of a of a persistent mother.
SPEAKER_00I talked to my mother last uh yesterday about this and she and and told her about about how how uh you know all of the all the attention that my story has gotten, and and that's the first thing that she said. Yeah, I was um I I prayed every day.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and so every Augustine has a moniker. Um yeah, his his mother was was praying for him for for for so many years. Um but what when did you decide, okay, that's it. I I'm going to identify as Christian, I'm I'm jumping in with both feet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I I thought of myself as a theist before I was willing to call myself a Christian, but it didn't take that long after that. Um the it i several things had to happen. Um I mean one of them was I had to to actually make sense of the Bible, you know, why the Jews, uh Deus Absconditus, why why does g God like not uh speak constantly to us if he exists? Why is he why does he hide? I had to like really understand these things which were uh great intellectual impediments, but I can explain them now. I won't, but um I can. And and um uh uh all throughout this I ever since I was a child, off and on, not all the time, especially in my non-believing years, I would I would imagine conversations with God, or later it was just with some supremely intelligent, wise um being, and you know, have philosophical dialogues, essentially. Well, I started doing that after I started reading the Bible again, but at some point I I had to admit to myself that these are actually prayers, um, and and um there might be something going on here than uh merely me imagining what God would say, although I think it's certainly mostly that. I don't claim to be a prophet or anything. Um and um as they say, God speaks to you where you are. Um and uh uh nevertheless that was a very important part of my conversion. Um this this notion that I was able to have these sorts of conversations with God, sending thoughts to to God and and having very clear notions based on the Bible uh uh to be sure, um uh of what God would say in response. And um this this uh I think creates a kind of reality, but it's more than uh creating a reality. I actually felt the presence of God. Um and it at some point and and it just became stronger and stronger to the point where I had to admit to myself, you know, kind of despite myself, uh that that I I seem to be believing in God now. How is this possible? Um like the the very phenomenon of my own uh my own belief was well puzzling to me.
SPEAKER_03Yes, I yeah, I often say that to people as they're exploring faith. You know, if you look into the scriptures and you see that Jesus is Lord, um it gets to the point where it's like bad luck, you're a Christian. Um if you get to that if you get to that stage.
SPEAKER_00I just want to add this. Uh it didn't stop there, obviously, right? Um I'm I'm I'm describing a a moment that was actually almost exactly five months or five years ago. Um and then over the next six months and especially like a year or two, I came to understand the full body of Orthodox Christian doctrine and to understanding it increasingly um connecting it with the God of the Bible and the God that I was praying to, and simply understanding the whole as a system, which I'm writing down in a book.
SPEAKER_03A very large book, I understand.
SPEAKER_00So far. Yes.
SPEAKER_03And and getting larger then.
SPEAKER_00It is. It is for now. And uh I maybe what'll happen is I'll try to publish uh a long version first and then a shorter popular version later.
SPEAKER_03Um amazing. And just do you have a final word of wisdom if somebody's listening in and thinking they couldn't yet call themselves uh uh a Christian as you now do, Larry, but they they perhaps even want to. Um what advice would you give them?
SPEAKER_00Um doing the things that I did uh uh seem like good general advice, so like reading the Bible all the way through for good understanding will help you understand so much. I I have a young friend who um I like to think I I uh led to uh faith in God, if if not necessarily quite the God of the Bible yet. Uh he's getting there perhaps. Um and uh he told me that uh he just like has too many thoughts when he starts reading the Bible. It's just like he gets overwhelmed and he has to stop and he can't go on, which is an interesting, you know, reaction. Um I I think it's important to just try to understand it on its own terms as well as you can. Don't take too long. I mean, I read the the thing. It took me like two hours a day or more sometimes um of reading, but I got through it in a hundred days. So that was a that was a major commitment, but I felt really motivated. Well, I was I was motivated by the Holy Spirit. Um But nevertheless, I I felt very motivated. I I think somebody who's really interested in in this and is seriously considering it should just give it a try, you know, go all the way through, try to understand it, use a study Bible, use other free resources, there are so many. Um just pay a little bit of money and you can get resources that are that are very complete and and uh and helpful. Um and uh you will probably be uh surprised as I was if you try to get your your questions answered. Now, if you don't try to get your questions answered, then you will definitely be left in in uh disbelief. Because um that's just sort of the nature of uh very smart people. You know, you find yourself with questions, you assume that there are no answers, but there are. Um that's the interesting thing. A lot of people have talked about the answers. And it if at first the answers seem like nonsense to you, that's okay. Just try to understand them and keep going. And eventually they will actually, I I predict, be a lot more compelling. But you don't have to start believing them on faith or something like that. That's not what faith is. This is this is like the last thought that I'm gonna leave you with. Something this is a great stumbling block of many, many intelligent Christians or would-be Christians, and that is the faith that saves is not assent to a proposition. Okay? It is a loyalty to a person. It is trust in God and His Son and the Holy Spirit that indwells you when you are adopted into God's family. So it's very important, I think, um that you uh you know, do all you can to to understand things that you might not understand at this point. Um and uh bracket your doubts, come to uh a global comprehension of of um the Bible in its theological context, and then um you might find that a lot of your doubts are or are not as uh as important. The main thing is to put your trust in God, which is different from being totally convinced on every point of doctrine. It helps to be to understand doctrine, don't get me wrong, that's very important. But but uh I I put my trust in God before I understood all doctrine, let's put it that way.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yeah. Which is how all relationships work. I I didn't get to know my wife with the clipboard and a pen and 17 questions, each more tricky than the last, um, which is why you know the first year of marriage is always so interesting, because there are still very many uh unanswered questions, but uh you ask them from the inside of the relationship, uh that that loyalty, that trust, and that makes all the difference. Um Larry, how can people keep up with you uh online if they want to uh find out more?
SPEAKER_00Well, I uh I post uh on uh Twitter a little bit, uh x.com at lsanger. Um probably a better place would be to sign up for my newsletter on Larysanger.org. Um and uh basically all of the content that I put online is shown on the front page of Larysanger.org. I've got my own little social media cell phone, social media feed called Sangerfeed. And people are welcome to like uh reach me through that. You can post there too if you want. Um fantastic.
SPEAKER_03And we wait with bated breath uh for the book to come out. Uh but uh I've I've been so blessed by hearing your story and uh and hearing you uh explain the faith in ways that I think will really cut through to uh many seekers today. So uh Larry Sanger, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Glenn. I appreciate it.