The hero of the story comes and dies for the villains. That seems like if there was a God, that would be the most loving and most virtuous and most simple version of a God that I can access. A God that's willing to come and redeem me and rescue me.
SPEAKER_02I want to pick you up on this. I feel like Christians actually kind of shoot themselves in the foot a little bit by saying our intuitions are shaped by Christianity, and then simultaneously going, wow, isn't it miraculous that our God died for our sins and that's the true God? Of course it makes sense that Jesus is our Lord and Savior when our intuitions are shaped by Jesus.
SPEAKER_01Elliot Buick is a 20-year-old agnostic atheist who's really blowing up on YouTube at the moment. He's had Michaela Peterson on, he's had Bryce Crawford on, he's had the Connectleys on, he's had Blair White on, he's had Freya India on, he's had Kemi Badenok on, he's even had me on. He's also had Ruslan on, and it was a terrific conversation in which Roslan tried to lay out the case from evil for God. Let's watch Roslan make that argument, and then Elliot Buick has a brilliant pushback on it, and I think he's right, and I think we Christians need to deal with his objection because it puts its finger on something absolutely vital. Let's see, Roslan make the argument, and then let's hear Elliot push back.
SPEAKER_00I think that is what started the cascade to go, man, maybe there is a God because all this evil is clearly here. And then you go down to again one click over, there is a God. Well, which God is he? Is he the God of Islam? Where the best, the best relationship you could have with the God of Islam is a a a uh slave master relationship. That's the best relationship you can have. What do you mean by that? Like in the Christian worldview, we are children of God. We are all children and image bears of God. In the Islamic worldview, the best relationship you could have is not child of God to father, it is slave to master. That is as that is as good as it gets. That that feels disjointed. And then you go down the rabbit hole of, well, their prophet married a six-year-old and consummated into marriage at nine. They can't really get around that. Does that seem right? Does that seem like we're gonna spread through conquest? Does that seem like good, right? Or is that a perversion? And then you keep going down and you get to the Christian story, which we've all taken for granted, especially the Vinil West. We've all taken it for granted. But you go and you examine a Christian story and you go, wait a minute, the the the hero of the story comes and dies for the villains and rescues us from ourselves and the destruction of ourselves. Man, that seems like if there was a God, that would be the most loving and most virtuous and most simple version of a God that I can understand. A God that's willing to come and redeem me and rescue me.
SPEAKER_02It does seem like that. And I want to pick you up on this because I haven't seen it talked about much. Christians love this idea of the air we breathe being shaped by Judeo-Christian values. And I'm sure Glenn Scribner and Tom Harling. Glenn Scrivener, Tom Holland's Dominion, and I'm sure you'd agree with their thesis. But the thing is, I can take that thesis as an atheist and say, well, yeah, that's why Jesus seems like he would be the guy to do the job. It's because our morals and our intuitions are distinctly shaped by the Christian West that's existed over the last 2,000 years. If we didn't have that, then it would make sense that Muhammad was the prophet. It would make sense that he spread Islam through the sword because that's what would have shaped our intuitions. So I feel like Christians actually kind of shoot themselves in the foot a little bit by saying our intuitions are shaped by Christianity, and then simultaneously going, Wow, isn't it miraculous that our God died for our sins and that's the true God? Like it sure, it it well could be, but I I feel like in terms of actually believing whether Christianity is true or not, using your very own thesis, of course it makes sense that Jesus is our Lord and Savior when our intuitions are shaped by Jesus. I'm sure in the East, it doesn't make any sense at all because they haven't had those Judeo-Christian foundations, right? So I think we need to be careful not to overstate the fact that isn't it obvious Jesus is the only Lord? Um, because a Muslim who's grown up in Saudi Arabia would disagree with your intuitions, right, and your explanation for that.
SPEAKER_01That is such a good point from Ruslan and such a good pushback from Eliot. I think Ruslan is right to focus on the story of Christ and him crucified. This is the greatest story. You've got the highest figure descending to the deepest depth, to make this ultimate sacrifice for the world forever. The dimensions of this story are unimprovable. Christians point to that figure on the cross and we say, Do you think he's the hero? Doesn't he look like the hero? And if you say, Yeah, he's best, he's ultimate, he's tops, then you're basically saying Jesus is Lord, and bad luck you're a Christian at that stage. But here's Eliot's pushback. He says, Hang on, it's your moral intuitions that Jesus gave us in the first place that make you think he's the hero. We are all living downstream from the telling of that story over 20 centuries. So of course, after the telling of that story over 20 centuries, our moral intuitions say that sacrifice is best, and so when we look back at the story, of course we're going to see that he is the hero. If our moral intuitions were different, if we had not been shaped by the story of the hero sacrificing for us in that way, then the cross would just strike us as vulgar or unimpressive or stupid or irrelevant or easily dismissible. But if the air-we breathe thesis that Glenn Scrivener talks about and Tom Holland talks about, if that is true, then of course we're going to find the Jesus story to be tops because it has been tops. It has been the story that has been told and that has shaped our civilizations. Christians are arguing in a circle, is basically what Elliot is saying here, and I kind of agree with him. I think it is true that meditating on Christ and him crucified for 20 centuries has shaped our moral sensibilities. And I think that those who have not been shaped by those moral sensibilities are not naturally inclined to look at a victim choking to death in ignominy and conclude that there is the power and wisdom of God. We're dealing with a unique hero here when we tell this hero's story, and we shouldn't take for granted that everybody just with some kind of natural moral intuition is going to look at that story and say, ah, how self-evidently glorious. That's a great pushback from Elliot Buick. What can be said about it? I'm going to give four points, and the first point is there's something inescapable about what Elliot is talking about here. It is simply the nature of the case that when you're talking about ultimate reality, then that ultimate reality is going to lead to ultimate values. Metaphysics and morals are linked and linked in the most profound way. You cannot have a vision of ultimate reality without that vision shaping what you think ultimate values are going to be. So if you think there is no God and we are just at the mercy of physical powers in the universe, then actually you're going to have a morality. I don't think that that is an immorality. I don't think that atheists are immoral. I don't think it is possible to be immoral. And I wish Christians would sort of stop saying you can't have a morality without some kind of idea of God. The question is always, which God are we talking about? And maybe you just think that physical laws are the ultimate in your system. Well, that that's kind of your God with a little g, not with a capital G, but you've got some kind of doctrine of God and you've got some kind of morality. Everybody has some kind of God, everybody has some kind of morality. It's impossible not to have some kind of value structure that you live your life by. But if you think that this is a godless universe, then we kind of probably run on power, and whatever morality that you have within that power-driven system, it's going to be a power-driven kind of a morality. If you believe in Islam, in which Allah's will is the highest, the most transcendent reality in all things, then of course submission is your highest ideal in the moral realm. And Roslan is absolutely right that Islam means submission, and the greatest that you can hope for is to be a slave of Allah. Allah is continually saying within the Quran, I am not a father and I have no son within Islam. You must never call Allah a father and you are not his child. There is not that kind of relationship between God and his people within Islam. Ultimate reality leads to ultimate values. Your metaphysics leads to your morality. And those two things inescapably belong together, so that when Christians come along and say Jesus is Lord, we're also saying, therefore, self-giving love is the ultimate in morality. Jesus, as the Son of the Father filled with the Spirit, coming to us on this rescue mission of love, he reveals God to be love. That's the great verse. 1 John chapter 4, verse 8. God is love, and he demonstrates his love for us in this. And you'll notice that God is love is a statement of there is this metaphysical reality called God, and there is this kind of life of self-giving called love. And the Bible is saying those two things go together. God is love because God is a Father loving his son in the joy of the Holy Spirit. Christians who have been telling this love story for 20 centuries, of course, when we look at the ultimate picture of love, the self-giving of Christ on the cross, of course, we say, ah, that's divine. Is that circular? Well, it is circular in the same way that everybody is bound within the circularity of metaphysics and morals. Eliot is 100% right, and it's inescapable. It is inescapable that if you're going to be telling this story over the years, then of course we're going to reconfigure our vision for what heroism looks like and what the ultimate morality looks like because we consider Jesus to be tops. Eliot is absolutely right to point to that circularity, but that's not a defeater of Christianity. It's just the nature of the case. Your metaphysics and your morals go together. They necessarily do. And so that is an inescapable necessity. And so that's the first thing I would say back to Eliot. You're pointing at something that is absolutely right and true and correct. You're seeing things clearly. But I would say it's it's inescapable that your metaphysics and your morality are linked and that you're involved in this circular kind of reality. And that's not just a Christian thing, that's just a thing. It's just a thing that we all need to deal with. The inescapable uh fusion of ultimate value and ultimate reality. But the second thing I would say back to Elliot is that this is an inimitable story. Okay, I'm gonna stick with eyes because I'm a preacher and uh so insufferable alliteration is uh my stock in trade. And so it's inescapable what Elliot is talking about, but the cross story, it is inimitable. It is utterly unique. The story that Roslan laid out for us. The story that Roslan laid out for us is that God comes to sacrifice himself for the weakest so that we the weakest might survive. It is the upending of nature in that sense. If natural selection is the survival of the fittest and the sacrifice of the weakest, this is the sacrifice of the fittest for the survival of we the weakest. And maybe one thing that recommends to us the Jesus story is the fact that it is inimitable, that it is unique, that it is very distinctive to have a look at Christ on the cross, because there you're seeing the upending of nature. That's certainly what the uh philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche thought. Nietzsche said that pity on the whole thwarts the law of evolution, which is the law of selection. Where has this impulse towards pity come from? Nietzsche is absolutely clear that it comes from Christianity, which Nietzsche called life's nausea. And he said, unfortunately, Christianity has taken the part of all the weak, the low, the botched. It has made an ideal out of antagonism to all the self-preservative instincts of sound life. And where did Christianity get this idea from? He says, God on the cross. That's where we got it from. Hitherto there had never and nowhere been such boldness in inversion, nor anything at once so dreadful questioning and questionable as this formula. It promised the transvaluation of all ancient values. Ancient values tended to be, of course, you love those who you are close to. Every day you should do something to help your friends, but you should also do something to harm your enemies. Of course you should do that. That's how nature operates. Nature is all about survival of the fittest and therefore the sacrifice of the weakest. There is a kind of compassion within that system, but it's a very tightly bounded compassion to your kith and kin. Jesus comes and loves the stranger, loves the enemy, loves those who are on the very fringes of human society, and at the cross demonstrates a love that is for all, no matter how sacrificial that love proves to be. And so that is the story that has shaped the West. Nietzsche thinks that is an unfortunate thing. And when he looks at the cross, he thinks that that is a vulgar monstrosity. It is the transvaluation of all ancient values, it is the upending of everything that nature is trying to teach you. Nietzsche totally got how inimitable the Christian story is. So nature is telling a kind of a power story in which you struggle for survival. That's the way in which the metaphysics and the morals go together for Nietzsche. Um's Lan was pointing to Islam, in which, again, there is a metaphysics and a moral that goes together, and you've got Allah's will, and therefore, for us, it is all about dominance and domination and submission. And within Islam, they also find the cross to be so vulgar that they they save Jesus from the cross. Even though Jesus is merely a prophet within Islam. Um, a prophet is too exalted a figure to ever show up on the cross, and therefore Muslims try to save Jesus from the cross, even though it is one of the most settled facts of ancient history that Jesus of Nazareth died upon the cross. It is a settled fact of history that the Quran gets wrong. It gets it wrong precisely so that it can save Jesus from the ignominy of the cross. Because if your moral sensibilities have been shaped by the power and will of Allah, then it is utterly unworthy for this story of divine love to be a story of the cross, to be a story of that kind of self-giving sacrifice. Islam must reject the cross because of its doctrine of God, just as Nietzsche must reject the cross because of his doctrine of nature, which alerts us to this one truth. Whatever else is going on at the cross, it is inimitable. It it is this unique story. It might be a completely wrong story. This might say that Christianity is almost certainly false because it is saying something so distinctive from all the other worldviews. You could certainly conclude that, but its uniqueness might be a point in its favour as well. Certainly Christians claim that Christ is a unique Lord, and this is an inimitable story, and it turns out that that is in fact the case, that this story has a uniqueness to it that might make you reconsider the cross, and it might recommend the truthfulness of the cross to you. So what Elliot is pointing out is inescapable, um, and yet the cross is inimitable. I would also say a third eye, um, I would say that this story has been incredibly influential, and that the influence of this story might recommend it to you. This story has borne fruit in culture, and I think it has birthed civilizations that have stood the test of time. I think maybe the fruit of the Jesus story might recommend it to you, the fruit of the Jesus story in culture. I think the fruit of the Jesus story in local church communities is where that fruitfulness is really experienced. And Rosalind really does a great job of saying to Elliot, you know, when you get around Christians and you get into homes and you understand how families operate and a way of love up close and personal, that's that's when the story is really going to kind of pop and come alive for you. Watch the whole interview. I think Roslan does a great job of showing how there's a fruitfulness to this story in culture, but also a fruitfulness to this story in the church, in local embodied lives of sacrificial love. But there's also an influential character to this story in individuals, in in you, Elliot. Jesus says in John chapter 7, verse 17, he says, uh, if anyone puts my words into practice, they'll see whether I speak on my own or whether I've actually come from the Father. I think as you live out this way of self-giving love, there's something self-authenticating about it. There's something about when you live into love, you go, Yeah, this is this is it. This is ultimate, this is tops. And perhaps, Elliot, I'd say to you that the influential character of this story happens at a civilizational level, at a church kind of community level, but also in an individual level, that I think you've tasted and seen some of as you have stepped out in cross-like love. I think you've seen the glory, the self-authenticating glory of that kind of way of life. So we've had three eyes, and Elliot is absolutely right. Um, there is a circularity here, but it's an inescapable circularity here. I think secondly, there is an inimitable story. There's a unique and distinctive story here that might recommend it to us. It is an influential story, and and perhaps the fruitfulness of Christ crucified and the retelling of that story, the fruitfulness of that story recommends it to you. Um, and then just fourthly, I'd say there's an iridescence to this story. There's a shining brilliance to this story that recommends it to you. And there does come a moment when you look at Jesus and think to yourself, He's Lord, he's it, he's tops, he's numero uno, and where you just say, Ah, I think you're Lord. And the thing is, you can't come to the conclusion that Jesus is Lord because of something else that is outside of Jesus, that is somehow greater than Jesus, that's pointing to him. If he is Lord, then there has to be something self-authenticating about him. And let me try to point out the iridescence of this story in two different ways, one using a painting and one using the Bible. The painting is by a friend of mine called Paul Hobbes. He is an artist who was in hospital visiting somebody else when he came across this older man who was dying. He was homeless, he had no family around him, he was not economically valuable to anybody, he was not even relationally valuable to anybody, he knew nobody. No one was coming to visit this guy and he was dying. Paul Hobbs painted the picture and it's called kneel by mouth because that's the sign above his head. He couldn't uh eat anything because of an operation that he was about to have, but this guy was on his way out. And yet, what does Paul Hobbs put above his head? He puts a halo. He paints him in the style of the saints of old and points us to this transcendent, iridescent glow for this man who was not economically valuable, he is not relationally valuable. Nobody cared about this guy, and yet does he have an intrinsic value? And Paul Hobbes is inviting us to see him with Christian eyes and to see that he is an image of God and that he shines with a divine glory that is given to him, even in the midst of all the ignominy and the pain and the shame and the death and the dying. Can you see this guy as valuable with a value that is supernatural, that goes way beyond what nature would assign to him? If you can, well, ultimate values are linked to ultimate reality. And the reason I would say why we see that kind of guy as having an intrinsic value and dignity is because we've been meditating on another dying figure. And we have accorded to that dying figure the highest honors possible. He is the image of God with a capital I and has always been, and you've never seen anything more divine than that figure dying on that cross. And to the niches of the world, it is bonkers and it is disgusting, and within Islam, again, it is utterly unworthy of anything divine. But in this world in which ultimate values and ultimate reality are united, do you see the coherence of the world? And do you see the iridescence of this world? And can you see a shining, brilliant, self-authenticating truth to this? If you can, we call that faith. That's the way to do it artistically. Let me show you how to do it biblically, and then we'll close. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians in chapter one, he says, The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased, through the foolishness of what was preached, to save those who believe. Jews demand signs, and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Paul is saying if your whole moral system is focused on power, then you're going to look at the Christ. And just think it's weak. If your whole moral system is based on wisdom, like the Greek philosophers thought, then you're going to look at the cross and just think it's dumb, it's moronic, it's imbecilic, it's stupid. But there is a way of looking at the cross, of hearing the story of this Savior who is the greatest hero. You hear the story and you hear the story and you hear the story, and somehow you start to think, that's actually the most powerful thing I've ever seen. That's actually the wisest thing I've ever seen. It's so powerful that God would stoop so low in order to redeem the whole cosmos. Actually, there's a power in this sacrificial service. And there's such a wisdom to it in God using his enemies against him in order to bring about a greater victory. Man, that's the cleverest thing there's ever been. And Paul is just happy with the mystery here of I don't know how it happens, but somehow God calls people through the story. And through the story, you can go to naturalists like Nietzsche and the miracle of God. They can look at the cross and go, actually, I've never seen anything more beautiful. I've never seen anything more divine. You can actually go to Muslims and you can preach the cross. And there's a miracle that just happens. And Muslims come to see the power and the wisdom of God. That's not natural. A Nietzschean doesn't naturally see the power and wisdom of God, and a Muslim doesn't naturally see the power and wisdom of God. But somehow the story, by its own iridescent brilliance, extracts faith from us, calls forth faith from us. And it has been the story that has called forth more faith than any other story, which is remarkable. Because it's a bonkers story. It's a bonkus story of the fittest being sacrificed for the weakest. And yet it is a story that has called more faith out of more people than any other story, and has built more impressive civilizations than any other story, and it is embedded in communities that have an iridescent glow of self-giving love to them. And and I think Eliot, even you, have experienced some of the brilliance of this. And I think what I'm trying to do in the air we breathe, what I'm trying to do in pointing people back to this story, is to say, you know what? There is a cognitive dissonance at the heart of the West. And Eliot is constantly using this line from uh Vladimir Solovyov, and he's this 19th-century Russian philosopher, and Eliot is absolutely right to quote him because Solovyov talks about the cognitive dissonance at the heart of the West. He says, man descended from apes, therefore we must love one another.
SPEAKER_02Vladimir Solovyov's uh sarcastic aphorism before he says, man descended from apes, therefore we must love one another. Some days I will feel like it's so stupid that people think this universe just came about from a big bang and then we evolved from apes and we have this qualia and this sensation of love, and like you atheists are more religious than the Christians.
SPEAKER_01And he's putting his finger on the fact that we're trying to live in two different stories. We're trying to live in the power story, which would lead to a totally different ethic. And yet we kind of know that the love story is the true story. And Eliot knows that there's a cognitive dissonance at the heart of the West. And I guess I'm just saying, can we lean into that story to the point where we acknowledge that I believe in love even more than I believe that this is a godless universe? And that there are plenty of atheists and agnostics in my life, and they believe that this is a godless universe, but they also believe in love. And they believe in love a heck of a lot more than they believe in the godless universe. And I think Eliot knows that there is a cognitive dissonance there. Those two things don't go together. And while it might seem like a circularity to say that loving metaphysics and loving morality go together, that might might seem like it's arguing arguing in a circle. The far greater error is to divide metaphysics from morality and somehow try to live out a loving morality when all that's going on in the metaphysical realm is just power. I think Eliot recognizes there's a cognitive dissonance. And I'm not trying to solve everybody's problem by pointing out the cognitive dissonance, but I am saying it's an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance and it's an unnecessary cognitive dissonance. You can come home to this iridescent story that glows with its own brilliance that recommends itself. So those are my four eyes that I would say back to Elliot. I think that this kind of circularity is inescapable. Everybody's got it. It is inimitable, it is a unique story around the world which might recommend it, it is an influential story which might recommend it, and I think it is an iridescent story. And my prayer is that Elliot and others will continually look to that figure on the cross. And if you start to see that he is the hero with a capital H, then you might conclude that he is Lord with a capital L. That'll do us for now. If you want to meet this Jesus, uh Elliot Buick does a great job of recommending this course 321. He does it on his own podcast. I'm gonna do it on my podcast here. Why don't you go to 321course.com and discover life according to Jesus? We'd love you to check that out at 321Course.com. It's totally free, but we think it would be the best news in the world if you came to see that this story is not only the greatest story, but that it's also true. Please do give the video a like, share it around the place, and subscribe to us so that you can catch us on the next one. God bless.