A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar
Mixing a cocktail of philosophy, theology, and spirituality.
We're a pastor and a philosopher who have discovered that sometimes pastors need philosophy, and sometimes philosophers need pastors. We tackle topics and interview guests that straddle the divide between our interests.
Who we are:
Randy Knie (Co-Host) - Randy is the founding and Lead Pastor of Brew City Church in Milwaukee, WI. Randy loves his family, the Church, cooking, and the sound of his own voice. He drinks boring pilsners.
Kyle Whitaker (Co-Host) - Kyle is a philosophy PhD and an expert in disagreement and philosophy of religion. Kyle loves his wife, sarcasm, kindness, and making fun of pop psychology. He drinks childish slushy beers.
Elliot Lund (Producer) - Elliot is a recovering fundamentalist. His favorite people are his wife and three boys, and his favorite things are computers and hamburgers. Elliot loves mixing with a variety of ingredients, including rye, compression, EQ, and bitters.
A Pastor and a Philosopher Walk into a Bar
What Happens When We Die?
Heavy. Weighty. Decentering.
In this episode we discuss the afterlife. What happens when we die? Kyle takes us on a journey through historic philosophical thinking about afterlife and why we just don't know what happens when we die. Randy mixes in some pastoral and spiritual insights here and some possible heresy there...delicious.
Content Warning: If the idea of the possibility of there being no life after death is too disturbing at this moment to consider, please don't listen to this episode. We've got lots of other episodes for you to catch up on.
The whiskey we tasted in this episode is Ezra Brooks 99 by Lux Row Distillers.
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Cheers!
NOTE: This transcript is for the unedited video version of this conversation, so what you see here will not match the audio-only podcast version exactly. For the video version, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdug1rl6yR0&t=1s
[Music]
00:04
well hello and welcome friends to a
00:06
pastor and a philosopher walk to a
00:08
bar
00:09
we're excited to share this time with
00:10
you we have for you a
00:12
a solo episode we call them when we
00:14
don't have any guests it's just us
00:16
talking this is kind of the idea of the
00:18
podcast when we started and uh guests
00:20
just started happening so
00:22
we are going to talk about a heavy one
00:24
today yeah yeah today we're talking
00:26
about afterlife what happens
00:28
when we die and i got to tell you
00:31
i want to let you know this is the
00:32
pastoral thing
00:34
this is heavy business and it's cutting
00:35
straight to the heart of most religious
00:37
people's deeply held beliefs
00:39
and
00:40
kyle in particular but we're gonna we're
00:43
gonna consider some things that
00:45
might challenge you quite a bit and so
00:48
we're gonna suggest some difficult
00:49
things to think about we're gonna try to
00:51
do it as respectfully reverently gently
00:54
as we can but
00:56
it might be too much for you if if
00:58
questioning the afterlife and thinking
01:00
that holding the idea that perhaps and
01:02
after the afterlife doesn't
01:04
exist
01:05
if that rocks your boat just hearing
01:07
about that yeah no it's good okay
01:10
just
01:15
if the idea that the afterlife might not
01:17
exist if that
01:19
rocks your boat way too much even just
01:21
me saying that makes your skin crawl and
01:23
it makes you all sorts of uncomfortable
01:25
please push pause and just move on to
01:28
the next episode don't listen to this
01:29
because it's not going to be helpful for
01:30
your journey yeah
01:32
but
01:33
we're going to talk about the afterlife
01:35
from both a philosophical and a
01:36
religious point of view and really
01:38
kyle's going to be kind of guiding us
01:39
through the philosophical point of view
01:42
stronger than
01:43
should i start restart that sentence
01:46
okay
01:47
let me get the nun
01:50
i do not disturb
01:57
we're going to be thinking about the
01:58
afterlife from both a philosophical and
01:59
religious perspective but we're really
02:01
going to be hammering in and kyle's
02:03
going to do it he's going to take us on
02:04
a journey through that philosophical
02:06
perspective of afterlife is there an
02:08
afterlife what happens when we die and
02:11
i'm excited to dive in and be challenged
02:14
i just reading this outline i was
02:15
challenged kyle so yeah now it
02:17
challenges me too frankly and
02:20
something i think about every time i
02:22
have a friend or a loved one pass away
02:24
or every time i teach it in class right
02:26
and death is always a unit that we cover
02:27
in my intro classes so something i've
02:29
thought about for a long time and
02:30
something that still keeps me awake at
02:32
night frankly yeah yeah and it's
02:34
something that's
02:35
been interesting on this journey of this
02:37
podcast that i've noticed about you is
02:39
i've i've known your relationship has
02:41
been you know well friends but also
02:44
pastor and you're you're you're part of
02:46
my church
02:47
the church i lead and um i've noticed
02:50
over the course of this podcast in our
02:52
conversations that you if you have to
02:54
pick between
02:55
thinking as a philosopher or thinking as
02:57
a follower of christ as a christian you
02:59
usually choose thinking like a
03:01
philosopher
03:02
and that's very interesting and that's
03:04
going to come up in this episode a bit
03:06
can you yeah you can tell us about that
03:07
just a little bit i try to i try to keep
03:09
those consistent that's that's one of my
03:11
main pursuits really is to figure out
03:13
how those can go together so that's
03:15
interesting to hear he said
03:16
well maybe revisit that at the end of
03:18
this and we'll see how you think i did
03:20
all right all right keeping those
03:22
together so kyle the afterlife
03:24
afterwards what happens when we die
03:27
uh
03:28
let's let's dive in yeah this could be a
03:30
super short episode if we wanted it to
03:32
be we just say i don't know
03:36
cue the music
03:36
[Laughter]
03:39
yeah but neither do you and then there's
03:40
more to say right yeah
03:42
yeah
03:43
so let me let me tell you a i'm going to
03:46
try to make it brief a philosophical
03:47
story
03:48
about death
03:50
all right i'm going to tell this in two
03:51
parts so part one starts in ancient
03:54
athens so you have socrates who i know
03:56
i've mentioned before on the podcast
03:58
you're going to get tired of hearing
03:59
about him eventually
04:00
socrates goes out into the city of
04:03
athens and he does a couple of things
04:05
simultaneously that piss everybody off
04:08
uh one thing he does is that he
04:10
questions the religion of the city
04:13
this is something you're not supposed to
04:14
do he wasn't the first to do that there
04:15
were some philosophers ahead of him that
04:17
did similar things but he was very
04:18
public about it and had a method for it
04:21
that uh he just wouldn't relent and and
04:24
really made people mad questioning the
04:26
religion of the city
04:27
and
04:28
part of the religion of the city was a
04:30
certain view of the afterlife
04:33
and he questioned that view he would go
04:34
and talk to the poets and he would ask
04:36
them you know how do you know the gods
04:37
are like this and how do you know this
04:38
is what it's going to be like and turned
04:40
out they didn't that couldn't give a
04:42
good justification for that uh but
04:44
interestingly you might think that he
04:46
would then have rejected
04:48
an afterlife or that we could have any
04:49
knowledge of such a thing but he didn't
04:51
he's very famous for making some
04:53
arguments for the existence of an
04:55
afterlife
04:56
he thinks that we are immortal that we
04:58
have souls which maybe we can talk about
05:00
in another episode
05:02
uh and that those things are
05:04
immortal they don't pass away when we
05:06
die they continue forever and that
05:07
that's what we fundamentally are so our
05:09
thoughts and
05:10
you know how we understand ourselves and
05:12
all the things we cared about and
05:13
believed that's all going to continue
05:15
when the body dies and decays and he
05:17
gave some reasons for that but
05:19
interestingly they weren't religious
05:21
reasons
05:22
they weren't because homer said so which
05:24
is what everybody kind of expected
05:26
they were philosophical reasons which
05:28
means they appealed to premises that any
05:30
reasonable person should be able to
05:32
understand and get behind and see the
05:34
truthfulness of
05:36
so he was simultaneously questioning
05:38
religion but affirming an afterlife
05:39
except he was doing it for philosophical
05:41
reasons and what this does is take this
05:44
traditionally religious discussion what
05:46
happens when we die
05:48
and puts it squarely in the realm of
05:50
reason
05:51
and we're now demanding justification
05:53
for what the religions have taught us
05:55
and if and if we can't get it right or
05:57
if or if the justification we get isn't
05:59
satisfying or if it just reduces to so
06:02
and so said so
06:03
then
06:04
it's within our
06:05
rational rights to reject such reasons
06:09
uh and and
06:10
see if we can do better by going out
06:12
into the world and exploring and making
06:14
better arguments
06:15
so that's one thing he does
06:18
he also uh starts with what we can
06:21
establish just with our reason
06:24
so
06:25
one of the one of the reasons he ends up
06:26
with his view that there is an afterlife
06:29
is because he thinks knowledge is
06:31
possible and try not to get too
06:33
complicated here the goal of philosophy
06:35
is knowledge we want knowledge he thinks
06:38
we can have knowledge that there is
06:40
there is such a thing as knowing things
06:42
right we could know that two plus two
06:43
equals four for example we can be really
06:44
damn sure about it
06:46
but he thinks and
06:48
this this would take us too far into
06:49
tangent to explain fully but he thinks
06:51
that
06:52
we don't know things like that with our
06:54
bodies
06:56
you can't know that two plus two equals
06:57
four with your body
06:59
in fact your body can only get in the
07:01
way of that kind of knowledge
07:04
because our senses they tell us things
07:06
about the world that are sometimes wrong
07:08
right and we can discover that they're
07:09
wrong and
07:11
we can be fooled and we can reason
07:12
poorly and stuff like that so he really
07:15
thinks and he starts this long tradition
07:16
of people thinking that the body just
07:18
kind of gets in the way where philosophy
07:20
is concerned what we really want is pure
07:23
reason which is an activity of the mind
07:27
and so plato was one of the first
07:28
dualists somebody who thinks that
07:30
there's a material world and there's a
07:32
mental world and the mental world is
07:34
eternal and unchanging that's what
07:37
that's where we properly live and the
07:39
material world is changing and fleeting
07:41
and temporal and that's all going to go
07:43
away and it's going to dissolve and if
07:44
we were just that then we would go away
07:47
and we would dissolve and that's it but
07:48
he doesn't think we're just that we're
07:49
more than that we're a soul we have
07:51
reasoning powers
07:53
and he believes that for
07:55
reasons again that he didn't get from
07:56
religion it's all philosophical for him
07:59
so that's story number one and it
08:01
doesn't end with plato that continued
08:03
for thousands of years of philosophical
08:05
history and there are still people today
08:06
who
08:07
take that view they would call
08:08
themselves platonists
08:10
actually story number two so sometime
08:14
around the modern period
08:18
or what philosophers call the modern
08:19
period begins about with descartes
08:21
in the 17th century continues through
08:24
kant
08:25
in the 19th century
08:27
you have a bunch of philosophers
08:30
questioning a lot of things they're
08:32
questioning pretty much everything that
08:33
came before
08:35
they're trying to put knowledge on a
08:37
firmer footing than what they thought it
08:39
was on before they're questioning
08:41
religion in a big way this is where the
08:42
enlightenment happens and you know the
08:45
the credo of the enlightenment taken
08:47
from kant which says think for yourself
08:49
this is where that all gets birthed and
08:51
so you have modernists people like
08:54
descartes but more more prominently
08:57
people like locke or
08:59
barkley or david hume or various others
09:03
and kant himself as well
09:05
and you have another tradition that
09:06
emerges around this time and continues
09:08
through the 20th century and that is
09:11
existentialism
09:12
kind of based on this modernist period
09:14
and these people do a couple things they
09:17
question religion too
09:19
very much in line with what plato was
09:21
doing yeah
09:23
they don't question it quite the same
09:24
way many of them especially the
09:26
existentialists are just dismissive
09:29
they just they don't even think that's a
09:31
question worth conversation with having
09:33
anymore right they're just kind of hand
09:34
wavy well that's obviously false so
09:36
let's start on the presumption that
09:37
that's false
09:39
um and so
09:41
they're doing what plato is doing there
09:42
but when it comes to the question of an
09:44
afterlife they reject it
09:47
not without exception there are debates
09:49
of course but most of them reject it
09:52
certainly most of the existentialists
09:53
and again for philosophical reasons
09:56
and that tradition is alive and well
09:58
today as well in fact probably most
10:00
philosophers today would take more from
10:02
those traditions the modernist and
10:03
existentialist traditions than they
10:05
would from the ancient platonic
10:06
traditions
10:07
which implies that most philosophers
10:09
today would probably reject an afterlife
10:11
which is i think true
10:13
um so let's call these two
10:15
traditions that i just kind of
10:18
really quickly went through the
10:19
optimists and the pessimists where where
10:21
the afterlife is concerned so you have
10:23
the platonus or the people that followed
10:24
plato and other ancients let's call them
10:27
optimists they don't know for sure and
10:29
plato's socrates really clearly doesn't
10:31
know for sure
10:32
but they at least think there is some
10:33
philosophical reason to think that that
10:36
when we die and our bodies decay that's
10:37
not the end there's more
10:40
they have historically kind of lost the
10:42
argument in terms of numbers but they're
10:44
still around and then there's the
10:46
pessimist the people that follow some of
10:47
the modernists
10:49
actually some ancients too including
10:50
aristotle
10:52
but mostly the existentialists and a few
10:54
modernists who think that
10:56
we we don't have an afterlife and part
10:58
of the reason they think this is because
11:00
they tend to be materialists
11:02
or physicalists which means they think
11:04
that the world is made up of atoms and
11:06
uh things that obey laws of nature and
11:09
we're part of that and so one of the
11:10
things we know about the laws of nature
11:12
is entropy and things die and decay and
11:14
that's that
11:15
so if we're part of that whole story
11:17
then you know we're not an exception so
11:20
let's call those people the pessimists
11:23
now one thing that both of these sides
11:26
are agreed about interestingly is that
11:28
this is a question religion shouldn't
11:29
decide okay
11:31
uh that it should be plucked out of the
11:34
purview of religious belief whether that
11:37
be monotheistic or polytheistic or
11:38
whatever
11:39
this is a question best left to the
11:41
philosophers and there are many reasons
11:42
religion shouldn't decide i'm just going
11:44
to list some of them for you here
11:46
basically religion can't be trusted to
11:48
answer a question like this
11:50
and the reason is
11:51
some reasons are
11:53
that one religions have a vested
11:55
interest in the answer
11:57
right
11:58
they want followers
11:59
and telling people that this is the end
12:02
is not a good way to get followers but
12:04
telling people that hey we actually have
12:05
some inside knowledge and this is not
12:07
the end and there's a whole lot more
12:08
happening and we can even actually tell
12:10
you about it and it's going to be really
12:11
good if you xyz
12:13
that's a really good way to get
12:15
followers so
12:16
kind of one of those first rules of
12:18
critical thinking if you're dealing with
12:20
someone who has a vested interest and
12:22
the outcome of your dialogue you should
12:24
be a little suspicious of that person so
12:25
that's one reason philosophers have been
12:27
suspicious of religions their existence
12:29
and their payroll kind of depends on
12:31
people having a certain view of this
12:33
right so that's one reason another
12:35
reason to be suspicious is that
12:38
religions and religious thinkers have a
12:40
tendency to maybe not follow the
12:42
argument where it leads
12:44
they have a tendency to follow the
12:45
argument right up to the point where it
12:47
starts to get uncomfortable
12:48
and then to kind of batten down the
12:49
hatches and say uh and here's uh
12:52
revelation right or here's authority or
12:54
whatever um often if the argument is
12:57
gonna lead outside your tradition
12:59
religious people are not willing to
13:00
follow it so that's another reason to be
13:02
suspicious
13:04
uh some philosophers like hume famous
13:06
skeptic in the modern period argued that
13:09
the evidence we get from religion about
13:12
afterlife and what it's like
13:14
actually cancels itself out because the
13:16
christians say one thing and the muslims
13:18
say another thing and the jews say
13:20
another thing and those are just the
13:21
monotheisms and then we have the hindus
13:23
that say a different thing in the
13:24
buddhists that say a different thing and
13:25
the sikhs and the jainists all of it and
13:29
they're contradictory they can't all be
13:31
right you know and they're all appealing
13:32
to different kinds of authorities
13:34
and you know specific revelations that
13:37
they claim happen in their histories
13:39
and if the christians are right then the
13:40
muslims are just mistaken
13:42
and vice versa
13:44
and if the buddhists are right then all
13:45
the monotheisms are mistaken and and so
13:47
him says you know as kind of a neutral
13:49
observer who are we supposed to believe
13:51
here
13:52
it seems like what the buddhists tell me
13:54
has just as much behind it is what the
13:55
christians tell me i have i wasn't there
13:57
to observe any of these events and so
13:59
if i'm going to trust one over the other
14:01
i need to have a good reason and i don't
14:02
so maybe they just cancel each other out
14:04
so that's another reason to be
14:05
suspicious
14:07
so
14:08
my question here would be
14:10
do philosophers think that religion
14:12
should decide
14:15
that's a anything question
14:18
uh yeah so
14:21
obviously there's not broad agreement
14:23
about that or i shouldn't say unanimous
14:25
agreement about that
14:27
there are religious philosophers
14:29
uh they're minority but they're out
14:30
there i think i'm one of them
14:33
um
14:34
things that are strictly within the
14:35
purview of religion would include
14:37
doctrine you know uh defining yourself
14:40
and the tenets of your faith and what
14:42
your practice should look like and all
14:45
the philosophers i know don't have any
14:46
interest in getting involved in those
14:49
kinds of discussions but when religions
14:51
pronounce on things that are of
14:53
universal human interest
14:55
like
14:56
what's the world like fundamentally you
14:58
know where did it come from how old is
15:00
it can we know much about its nature uh
15:03
what happens when humans die how should
15:05
humans
15:06
behave towards one another ethics
15:10
uh then philosophers are
15:13
like their hackles go up a little bit
15:15
now now it's not to say you know
15:16
theologians or whoever shouldn't
15:18
participate in those conversations i
15:20
think
15:20
most of the philosophers i know would
15:23
welcome that but they would welcome it
15:25
kind of on terms of philosophical
15:27
argumentation right you can't just bring
15:29
in your tradition and say qed here it is
15:32
because the bible said yeah yeah you
15:33
need to you need to be able to back that
15:35
up sure that's fair yeah
15:37
uh so just couple more reasons that uh
15:40
maybe we should be a little bit
15:41
suspicious of religious claims about
15:42
these things
15:44
um religions and again this is not
15:46
universal there are clear exceptions to
15:47
this but they tend to hold on to
15:49
antiquated notions of human nature
15:51
despite new evidence to the contrary
15:54
so we could name several times in
15:57
church history or the history of various
15:59
religions where this sort of thing has
16:00
happened
16:01
uh darwin would be
16:03
a very big one probably the big one
16:05
right
16:06
um and so it makes you wonder why they
16:08
would do that it makes you wonder if
16:10
maybe they really are open to learning
16:12
the truth about this if they were you'd
16:14
think they would incorporate all new
16:15
evidence as it came rather than trying
16:17
to kind of hold on to a tradition that
16:20
might be in conflict with it and let me
16:22
just say for right there because
16:24
people hear this and they think we're
16:26
saying things that maybe we're not um
16:29
you're not inherently saying
16:31
it's
16:32
you're dumb or
16:34
it's a terrible thing to not believe in
16:36
evolution and to believe in you know
16:38
create a design and six day creation the
16:40
whole deal i mean you don't agree with
16:42
that but i think you would say and other
16:44
philosophers would say as long as you
16:46
believe in that and say the reason that
16:49
i believe that is because i i give the
16:51
bible authority over and above science
16:53
right like that's that's okay you would
16:56
say well it's not okay it's intellectual
16:57
suicide it's a mistake but it's honest
17:00
it's honest
17:01
yeah yeah and that happens you know i've
17:04
um i've read and heard of
17:07
young earth creationists for example who
17:08
will argue in that way so some of whom
17:10
are convinced by scientific arguments
17:13
that the earth appears to be old you
17:15
know the universe appears to be
17:17
in the way that science describes it but
17:19
the my reading of the bible says
17:21
otherwise and i'm going to privilege
17:22
that because that's my thought yeah you
17:24
do occasionally run across like really
17:26
honest
17:27
um justifications like that but it's
17:30
it's not the norm i think that's the
17:31
exception
17:33
yeah to the rule
17:34
the rule tends to be no no no the
17:37
the tradition is obviously true yeah and
17:39
the you know the scientific consensus is
17:43
either
17:44
some kind of conspiracy
17:46
or the the product of sin or something
17:48
we talked about all that
17:50
evolution episode
17:51
the point i'm trying to make now though
17:53
is just that there you know religions
17:54
have a track record
17:56
of
17:58
having a particular sometimes niche view
18:01
of what a human being is and not wanting
18:03
to let go of it yeah even when you know
18:05
the consensus of experts changes
18:08
and then
18:09
lastly
18:10
i'll make this my last reason to be
18:12
suspicious i feel like thank you
18:14
yeah word vomiting here um so
18:19
religions religious thinkers tend to be
18:22
unable to give
18:25
an ultimately
18:26
non-psychological reason
18:29
to believe in an afterlife
18:31
that would be compelling to a neutral
18:32
observer
18:34
a neutral observer being somebody who
18:35
wasn't already committed to a particular
18:38
religious view what i mean by
18:39
non-psychological is
18:41
there are clear psychological reasons to
18:43
believe that heaven is real and then i'm
18:45
going to go there when i die it makes me
18:48
happy
18:49
right it alleviates the despair that i
18:52
would feel if i thought that weren't
18:53
true
18:54
it
18:55
helps me deal with the death of loved
18:57
ones like real practical
18:59
you know psychological
19:01
uh benefit to believing these things
19:05
and it's not that i'm not even saying
19:06
that psychological reasons aren't good
19:08
reasons i think they are good reasons
19:10
but often usually maybe almost always
19:14
religions do not present their reasons
19:16
for belief in an afterlife in purely
19:18
psychological terms
19:20
they don't limit themselves to that
19:22
right now there have been some
19:23
philosophers like william james who
19:24
suggests that
19:26
look it's perfectly acceptable to choose
19:29
to believe in an afterlife for
19:31
psychological reasons
19:33
but there are some caveats
19:35
one caveat is that the independent
19:37
evidence has to be neutral on the
19:38
question
19:40
so
19:40
uh it's not like for example choosing to
19:42
believe in creationism because the
19:44
evidence is not neutral right in that
19:47
case so that's why it's an intellectual
19:49
mistake it's a flaw of reasoning to
19:51
choose to believe
19:52
in creationism over evolution because
19:54
the evidence points in one direction
19:55
rather than another we love you
19:58
i'm a creationist
20:00
whatever listen to our previous episode
20:03
if you want to know what he means by
20:04
that he's not really um
20:07
but if let's say something like the
20:09
afterlife we don't have let's i'm gonna
20:11
make this claim and we can hash it out
20:14
if you want we don't have compelling
20:16
evidence one way or another right
20:19
you watch these movies like what would
20:20
happen if we did like you know some site
20:22
i watched one i can't remember the name
20:24
of it some scientist figures out a way
20:26
to like scan the brains of dead people
20:28
and like
20:29
uh come up with images of what they're
20:31
experiencing just after their death
20:32
that's the thing no it's a movie
20:35
but it's it makes for an interesting
20:36
movie because it's like okay well if
20:38
humans suddenly possessed evidence that
20:41
neutral observers would recognize as
20:43
compelling that there is an afterlife
20:45
how would that change how we live and in
20:48
this movie a lot of people start to
20:49
commit suicide
20:51
because they're done with this and they
20:52
want something different now they have
20:54
evidence that it's there
20:56
but people don't behave that way because
20:58
we don't have compelling evidence one
21:00
way or another this is something that
21:02
socrates used uh to argue that we
21:05
shouldn't be afraid of death
21:07
because we simply don't know and why
21:09
would you be afraid of something you
21:10
don't know about to be afraid implies
21:12
you know it's negative when you don't
21:14
nobody comes back to tell us
21:17
we can talk about near-death experiences
21:18
if you want but they're not the sort of
21:20
thing that convince a lot of people
21:22
and so
21:23
james would say if that's your situation
21:26
the evidence doesn't point conclusively
21:28
in one direction or another and that
21:29
does seem to be the case with afterlife
21:32
then why not use psychological reasons
21:35
to choose why not say well okay
21:39
i'm going to choose to think that there
21:41
is something else that maybe i will get
21:43
to see my loved ones again because that
21:45
has all these identifiable measurable
21:47
psychological benefits and james would
21:50
say it's perfectly good reason there's
21:51
nothing irrational about that at all and
21:53
i actually think he's right about that
21:54
so i don't want to denigrate
21:56
psychological reasons the point i'm
21:58
making is that the religions don't
22:00
present themselves typically as giving
22:02
you
22:02
merely psychological reasons they
22:04
present themselves as giving you
22:06
you know this is the truth
22:08
and we can demonstrate it from our
22:10
tradition yeah no i mean
22:12
in
22:13
thinking about this episode in this
22:14
conversation
22:15
it made me realize that
22:18
if it wasn't for my commitment to the
22:20
scriptures and
22:22
trust in christ in the person of jesus
22:24
christ
22:24
i would probably have no reason to
22:26
believe in an afterlife and i probably
22:28
wouldn't and unless i knew a person who
22:31
had an after post-death experience and
22:32
came back you know all that stuff that'd
22:34
be that'd be pretty fun um but that
22:36
probably be the only way i believe in an
22:37
afterlife i don't know why why you would
22:40
yeah and i think most religious people
22:42
are in the same boat that tends to now i
22:45
can i can imagine
22:46
uh i can try to get myself in the
22:48
headspace of an agnostic or something or
22:50
an atheist i mean it's actually not hard
22:51
to do i feel like i think that way
22:53
anyway in many ways
22:55
and i can imagine wondering if like some
22:58
future super intelligence would be able
23:00
to figure out
23:01
you know how to how to map certain
23:03
aspects of space time so that they could
23:05
recreate it and have some kind of de
23:07
facto resurrection or something like
23:08
that just because
23:10
you know we have no idea what is going
23:12
to happen scientifically technologically
23:15
in the next let's say our species
23:16
survives in the next million years i
23:18
mean imagine the difference between
23:21
where we are now and where our species
23:23
was even 200 years ago much less a
23:25
hundred thousand years ago we we simply
23:28
cannot extrapolate what we might be a
23:29
hundred thousand or a million or a
23:31
billion years from now which we could do
23:33
if we don't destroy each other so
23:35
so when i'm in that frame of mind i can
23:37
think who knows maybe something like
23:38
that could be true but it would be due
23:40
to some kind of intelligence i couldn't
23:42
fathom
23:44
but then a religious person could say
23:45
well what's the difference really i mean
23:47
we're still we're still hoping for an
23:49
intelligence that we can't fathom
23:52
to work something out in a way that we
23:53
can't imagine isn't that what religious
23:56
confidence in an afterlife is anyway
23:58
yeah
23:58
i'm honestly barely with you on that one
24:01
i barely understand what you're saying
24:02
but um did want to add in there like we
24:06
talk about the psychological benefits
24:07
that many religious you know
24:08
philosophers would say religious people
24:10
hold to that's the reason why they
24:12
believe in the afterlife and a great
24:14
friend of mine i have the
24:16
story that of the opposite of that where
24:18
a great friend of mine who believed in
24:20
the afterlife believed in resurrection
24:21
all that stuff for his whole life
24:24
then lost his dad yeah and
24:28
that's a moment when i would think a
24:29
person would cling to their belief in
24:31
the afterlife more than anything and
24:32
that where you think where you believe
24:34
in it
24:34
more solidly than ever because you hope
24:36
to see that person again in this person
24:38
this friend of mine did the opposite
24:40
actually he
24:41
went to this place where he said i
24:43
i think all the stuff that we believe
24:45
about the afterlife and
24:47
seeing my dad again i i don't think it's
24:48
real and
24:50
he dropped it like he's
24:52
i don't know if you call it a faith
24:53
crisis or uh you know deconstruction or
24:56
just flat out just is done with it but
24:59
yeah i think
25:00
he he was confronted by the closest
25:02
person to him dying
25:04
and really when that actually happened
25:06
it disrupted him so much he just saw
25:10
the
25:11
what you're talking about really which
25:12
is just we don't know
25:14
we believe it we like to think that and
25:16
it actually had the opposite effect he's
25:18
like i can't do this anymore i don't
25:19
think i'm ever going to see my dad again
25:21
yeah that's really sad it's rough but i
25:23
get it
25:24
i actually had somewhat the opposite
25:25
experience i remember
25:27
i was in the room and my grandfather
25:28
passed this was on my mom's side and
25:30
that would have been
25:33
while i was in grad school first year or
25:34
two i was in grad school and
25:38
i was like everybody kind of looked to
25:40
me to
25:42
like when it happened to like
25:44
pray and do the religious thing you know
25:46
because that might sound weird to you
25:47
now but at the time i was sort of
25:50
looked at as maybe you've known me long
25:51
enough i know a religious person and at
25:54
least that group and yeah i found myself
25:58
talking about resurrection and
26:01
having a kind of
26:02
renewed confidence in it i suppose
26:05
but the more i've thought about it since
26:07
i i still certainly have a hopefulness
26:09
for that but
26:10
i'm not as intellectually committed
26:13
as i once was
26:16
and that uh yeah it makes me sad
26:21
that yeah maybe it's worth pausing this
26:22
is a desperately sad thing we're
26:24
considering here
26:25
right i mean paul said literally if if
26:29
we're not resurrected there's what's the
26:30
point yeah of the whole thing and
26:33
i totally get that i feel that in my
26:35
bones like i think that's
26:37
i think he was right i don't actually
26:39
really no oh let's talk about that why
26:41
not because the way of jesus even if
26:44
there is no afterlife even if there is
26:46
no resurrection even if
26:48
the whole thing is
26:50
just
26:51
a hoax yeah
26:53
i haven't encountered a better way of
26:55
living than following christ and the
26:57
living in the way of jesus and the way
26:58
of agape love and preferring others over
27:00
yourself and the whole deal you can run
27:02
the whole gamut and i would still say
27:04
if you tell me on my deathbed it was all
27:06
all a lie i'd be bummed out and i'd want
27:08
to think my way through it you know live
27:10
long enough to do that but then i think
27:11
i would say
27:13
i still think it's the best way to live
27:14
and i'm glad i did it yeah so let me
27:17
just say you're going on the record here
27:18
disagreeing with the apostle paul to
27:20
strengthen i don't know if paul would
27:22
disagree with that
27:23
paul was
27:24
paul was making an argument
27:27
for and about the resurrection and i
27:29
think it was a really good argument in
27:31
first corinthians 15.
27:33
so i don't think i really
27:35
don't think the apostle paul would
27:36
disagree with me that like hey paul if
27:39
this always
27:40
make believe do you still think it's the
27:42
best way to live i'll bet he would say
27:43
yeah
27:44
interesting so yeah
27:46
now
27:47
i'm not remembering specifically the
27:49
context there but uh maybe he would
27:51
agree that it's the best way to live it
27:53
gives us a really interesting ethic
27:55
although that hadn't quite been worked
27:56
out by his time
27:58
uh jesus's teachings in other words are
28:00
worth following right let's say he's a
28:01
great thinker philosopher a rabbi or
28:03
something
28:04
maybe he's one of the greatest ones and
28:06
maybe paul wouldn't disagree with that
28:08
but he seems pretty strong
28:10
that if if there's not this thing that
28:13
we believe happened to jesus that will
28:15
also happen to us
28:16
he was dead and then god raised him he
28:19
was alive again and he was the same
28:20
person
28:21
and he had an eternal life ahead of him
28:24
paul seems to think that if that's not
28:27
the case if that's not concretely true
28:29
then christians are wasting their time
28:31
yeah no i think
28:33
haven't you ever been in you know tried
28:35
to prove a point
28:37
and gone real hard exaggerated a little
28:39
bit exaggerated a little bit yeah you
28:40
think that's what was happening perhaps
28:42
a little higher i think paul was paul
28:43
was a great debater great you know he
28:45
made great arguments he's very
28:48
very eloquent
28:49
this is funny
28:50
in the face of persecution though i mean
28:52
he's talking about this is the whole
28:54
hope in the future and this is the like
28:56
you're
28:57
putting your eyes on that prize and it
28:59
seems like that's this whole framework
29:00
is that this is only worth it
29:03
if that's true
29:05
isn't that isn't that one of his themes
29:07
that he continues to return to
29:10
um yes
29:12
but i think
29:14
we don't understand the the context and
29:16
the reality of the early church and the
29:18
like how
29:20
unclear so many of the things that we
29:23
take in the churches is just givens and
29:26
like very known very established
29:28
orthodoxy dogma all that stuff um
29:32
in when paul was writing this to the
29:33
church in corinth he was writing to a
29:35
bunch of people who didn't not all of
29:37
them believed in the resurrection and
29:40
argued against it and so he's trying to
29:42
make as compelling the case for the
29:44
resurrection of christ as an apostle as
29:46
one who's met jesus on the road you know
29:48
and um he's he's trying to make this
29:50
argument to a group of people who isn't
29:52
he's not preaching to the choir here
29:54
this is a real
29:55
life debate and so that's how i take
29:58
first corinthians 15 is him just being
30:00
like you guys have no idea how essential
30:02
the doctrine of the resurrection is for
30:04
followers of christ and he's he's kind
30:07
of doubling down on it almost like if
30:09
it's if it's not real walk away from
30:11
this it's not worth it yeah but i really
30:13
don't think you would say that about
30:14
jesus
30:16
yeah well i'm guessing i see that it's
30:18
connected you know the the great hope is
30:21
eventual union with jesus in an embodied
30:23
way like real community the thing that
30:25
the apostles had with jesus that that
30:27
that's available to humans in
30:29
indefinitely
30:31
eventually
30:33
yeah and i mean i think paul had a
30:35
pretty
30:37
beautiful and
30:39
vital connection with christ when he
30:41
would i mean when paul talks about
30:44
living for christ dying is gain when
30:46
paul talks about um
30:48
him
30:49
paul's experience is one where
30:52
one of deep intimacy with jesus
30:54
and i think a lot of his quote unquote
30:57
certainty came out of that intimacy that
30:59
him
31:00
embodied experience where he's he's
31:03
loving and walking with jesus who's
31:05
transformed his life in such a radical
31:06
way that for him is just
31:08
this is it here it is and so i think
31:12
paul's connection to jesus
31:14
brings a lot of the stuff that we talk
31:16
about and that we think about when we
31:18
talk about the apostle paul and his
31:20
doctrine and his theology and what he
31:21
believed when he did and all that stuff
31:23
paul comes off very certain
31:25
right and i think many christians get
31:26
permission from from that to come off as
31:29
very certain but i think it's just a
31:31
result of intimacy with christ
31:33
yeah okay i have three questions for you
31:36
three follow-ups here this is
31:37
interesting none of this was on our
31:39
outline by the way if anybody cares
31:41
um so
31:43
first question would you say that
31:46
the crucifixion and death of jesus would
31:49
have been equally meaningful
31:52
and
31:53
um let's say
31:55
theologically important
31:58
if the resurrection had not happened
32:02
no
32:04
um
32:05
i mean theologically important you said
32:07
i think yeah um
32:09
i mean it's atonement i think you're
32:12
talking about atonement here right i
32:14
mean atonement is a package deal it's
32:15
not like if you if you take the death
32:18
i believe
32:19
and i think this is kind of a scriptural
32:21
atonement theology if you take the death
32:23
of christ away the atonement doesn't
32:25
happen if you take the resurrection away
32:28
full of atonement for sins happens when
32:30
jesus is sacrificed but resurrection and
32:32
new life happens because jesus preceded
32:35
us in that resurrection and new life so
32:37
um
32:38
i mean i think the crucifixion without
32:40
the resurrection is it
32:42
is still the clearest picture we'll ever
32:44
have of who god is and what god's like
32:47
can we say that there's all sorts of
32:48
things you can say about the the
32:49
significance of the crucifixion of
32:51
christ if you take away the resurrection
32:53
but the what what is done for us
32:56
is absolutely not the same without the
32:58
resurrection okay let me ask it a little
33:00
bit differently
33:01
if the story was the same but the
33:03
concrete
33:05
event of the resurrection had not
33:07
happened let's imagine that bart airman
33:09
is correct for example
33:10
and that you know jesus's body was
33:12
stolen or something i don't know if
33:13
that's what he actually thinks but
33:14
people like that you know so there's
33:16
some alternative explanation for the
33:18
empty tomb
33:19
but the story remains the same and is
33:21
handed down through church history the
33:23
same
33:25
do you think that makes a significant
33:26
difference
33:28
difference in what
33:30
in well a couple of things a theological
33:32
difference first but also
33:34
a difference for you as a practitioner
33:37
of the faith
33:38
so
33:40
we have this imaginary scenario where
33:41
i've been
33:42
believing
33:43
in the resurrection the whole time and
33:45
preaching about it and all of a sudden
33:47
somebody comes to me with direct
33:48
evidence that the resurrection really
33:50
didn't happen was a hoax jesus is still
33:51
dead yeah and you're so you're asking if
33:53
that happened to me
33:55
would that change anything would yeah
33:57
would that what would that change for
33:58
you if anything
34:00
i can't answer that uh honestly but
34:03
because let me let me frame that because
34:04
i think that's the same question we're
34:06
dealing with right if
34:08
uh if there's no resurrection for us
34:10
and christianity maintains its integrity
34:14
i don't know what the right word is but
34:15
like it maintains its worthwhileness
34:18
as as a system to be practiced and
34:20
followed and adhered to
34:23
then what couldn't we say the same thing
34:25
about the resurrection of g i mean we
34:26
believe in our resurrection because of
34:28
his right so
34:29
i mean what would change for me is
34:32
the uh the astounding hopefulness i have
34:36
about all of reality about
34:39
where all this is headed about
34:42
the restoration of humanity of
34:44
um
34:45
the restoration of the wrongs that's
34:47
been done to millions and millions and
34:49
millions of people who you know have
34:51
suffered violence and oppression and
34:53
injustice that would change it would
34:54
actually change if there was no
34:55
resurrection um what would not change i
34:58
don't think
34:59
would be me being committed to the way
35:01
of christ and inviting people into it to
35:04
experience
35:05
the life of the trinity or the life of
35:07
the way of christ in the here and now
35:10
because again
35:11
i mean and i think this this bears out
35:13
in my preaching i don't talk about the
35:14
afterlife a ton
35:16
right i don't talk about
35:18
you know
35:20
follow jesus because you're going to go
35:21
to heaven when you die i talk about
35:22
following jesus because it's the best
35:24
way i've talked about following jesus
35:25
because
35:26
the way of jesus fixes what's wrong
35:28
about our world i believe
35:31
am i am i answering yeah yeah that's
35:33
interesting it's funny to me that the
35:36
one of us who is totally fine with
35:38
openly disagreeing with paul ends up i
35:40
think being more conservative on the
35:41
issue this issue than the one who is a
35:43
little hesitant about
35:45
disagreeing with him you don't want to
35:46
disagree with paul i'm fine with it i i
35:48
don't i think i think that i think that
35:51
we actually agree and that he uh
35:54
thinks that resurrection is necessary
35:57
like a concrete event in the future is
35:59
necessary for the meaningfulness or
36:01
worthiness of
36:03
christianity in general but it's just
36:04
funny to me that like you're more
36:06
hesitant about disagreeing with them and
36:08
also you're the one i think
36:09
reinterpreting
36:11
probably yeah
36:12
i mean paul's a real person does i mean
36:14
i know you guys think have had these
36:16
thoughts but i mean i really want to
36:17
know what's behind paul what what's
36:19
behind paul's thinking when he writes
36:21
about women or when he writes about
36:22
sexuality when he writes about you know
36:25
the afterlife when he writes about
36:27
what's important what's not important or
36:28
kicking out the immoral brother all that
36:30
stuff i i want to know
36:31
what was going on around paul that made
36:33
him say that and
36:35
yeah what were his biases and what were
36:37
what was he grumpy about you know and
36:39
what what brought him life i want to
36:41
that's the kind of thing that i think
36:42
about when i yeah in these conversations
36:44
no i love it i love your response it
36:46
wasn't at all what i expected so that's
36:48
that's one of the reasons people just
36:50
left my church
36:52
more heresy after the break
36:56
now can i issue my complaint about the
36:58
framing of this conversation going back
37:00
to
37:01
i think your your initial
37:03
structure was basically uh religion
37:06
can't be trusted to approach with any
37:09
real rational evidence this issue of the
37:12
afterlife
37:15
to which i would say
37:16
in my tradition
37:19
faith is a virtue
37:20
yeah and it seems to be one of those
37:23
things where
37:24
not seeing and believing is actually
37:26
something to be
37:27
upheld jesus kind of said it
37:30
so
37:31
if you say well you don't have any
37:33
rational evidence for that and i say
37:35
i'm supposed to have faith it feels like
37:36
we're entering the conversation through
37:38
different doors and neither of us is
37:40
really going to care what the other
37:41
person has to say at the end of the day
37:43
yeah no that's great
37:45
yeah so i'm i was speaking there on
37:47
behalf of uh mo well i shouldn't even
37:50
say
37:51
most a lot of historical philosophers
37:53
who have been very influential right um
37:55
and i'm trying to explain
37:58
by doing that why
38:00
probably most philosophers nowadays
38:02
including many religious ones
38:04
interestingly
38:06
would reject an afterlife at least in
38:08
the classical sense
38:10
so most philosophers tend to be atheists
38:12
most philosophers tend to be
38:14
physicalists in the sense that they
38:15
believe the world is made of
38:17
atoms indescribable by the laws of
38:18
nature and there's no such thing as a
38:20
soul or a spirit or any disembodied and
38:22
you know immaterial existence to people
38:24
it's all these philosophical reasons
38:26
that
38:27
philosophers have to reject this
38:30
including the epistemic reasons we were
38:32
just going through we just don't have
38:33
sufficient evidence
38:35
but there have been
38:36
a lot of philosophers more recently
38:39
since say the mid 20th century
38:42
who want to make a place for faith
38:44
actually goes back a little further than
38:46
that if you want to include kierkegaard
38:47
who is one of the fathers of
38:48
existentialism although he's kind of an
38:50
outlier in his own tradition um
38:53
who who want to make room for faith in
38:55
the sense that
38:56
it's not
38:58
it's not an irrational disposition you
39:00
don't have to sacrifice your intellect
39:02
to be a person of faith
39:04
but it's also
39:06
not motivated just by reason it's
39:08
something that happens after reason has
39:10
kind of run its course
39:11
kind of what james is doing because
39:13
james wanted to make make space for
39:15
religious faith too he just thought you
39:17
know faith can kind of pick up where
39:20
the evidence runs out
39:22
when the evidence points in a direction
39:24
i have a responsibility
39:26
but when it doesn't and the question is
39:28
still live and important and has
39:29
concrete practical consequences
39:32
then faith picks up there i think that's
39:34
a pretty healthy way of thinking about
39:36
faith it's not the full story of course
39:38
but i don't think of faith as being
39:40
something contrary to reason i think of
39:42
it as
39:43
being something that goes beyond the
39:45
balance of the reason in the sense that
39:47
it involves
39:49
action
39:50
right it involves practice it involves
39:53
putting my trust
39:55
in a being or a group of people or an
39:57
institution maybe
39:58
to behave in a certain way towards me
40:02
beyond what i have good evidence to
40:04
guarantee
40:06
right will happen not now i have some
40:08
evidence
40:09
i believe that
40:10
afterlife is possible
40:12
all right i have these stories from the
40:14
new testament
40:16
that's some evidence and i don't think
40:18
it's necessarily even defeated evidence
40:19
like overcome by other better evidence
40:22
i think that the people who testify to
40:24
jesus resurrection were probably telling
40:26
the truth
40:27
and that gives me some reason to believe
40:29
it but it also like really directly
40:31
contradicts all of my other experience
40:33
so i also have some reasons to be
40:35
suspicious of it a little bit
40:37
um and so i think the evidence there is
40:39
indecisive
40:40
doesn't point firmly in one direction or
40:42
another so i think there's room for
40:43
faith in that sense i can
40:45
trust that if god exists and loves me
40:49
then this is something he would want my
40:51
continued existence with him you know as
40:54
me and he wouldn't uh allow this thing
40:57
to happen where
40:59
a whole tradition is based on a promise
41:01
that ultimately wasn't a promise
41:02
you know but but but i also admit that
41:04
that's
41:05
that's something i'm choosing to believe
41:07
at the end of the day i think that's
41:08
what faith is it's something you're
41:09
choosing to believe not on the basis of
41:12
bad evidence but
41:14
on the basis of trust in the character
41:16
of a person
41:17
so and there are a lot of philosophers
41:18
who want to who want to incorporate that
41:20
into
41:22
into their philosophical practice
41:24
that that's not the majority
41:27
but they're out there for sure so
41:29
yeah i don't want to discount that does
41:31
that help at all yeah yeah i mean here's
41:34
why i'm perfectly okay with you know
41:36
your tree ties the first thing that you
41:38
said
41:39
that philosophers
41:40
don't think religious people should
41:43
get to be the authority on the afterlife
41:45
i'm completely comfortable with it
41:47
because it's probably true from an
41:49
intellectual
41:50
in reason perspective
41:52
from a logical perspective um my
41:56
faith in the afterlife is not based on
41:59
concrete evidence or logic or you know
42:02
reason the reason i believe in it is
42:04
because
42:05
of all the reasons that i still choose
42:06
to give authority in my life to the
42:08
bible in some way shape or form the the
42:10
reason is because
42:11
i see the way of jesus and it's just so
42:14
strikingly the best way i've ever seen
42:15
to to live that it makes me trust the
42:18
the other stuff more you know and it's
42:20
kind of like this thing that you build
42:22
and so it leads me to this place where i
42:23
say i can still listen to you and still
42:25
listen to all these philosophers and say
42:27
that's great and it makes sense actually
42:30
but i still choose to believe in the
42:31
afterlife in afterlife i still choose to
42:33
believe in a resurrection and it really
42:36
is helpful for me and here's where i
42:37
think
42:39
i mean i think
42:41
this fits within the scripture the
42:42
narrative of the scriptures i mean you
42:44
have matthew i believe it's matthew 28
42:47
where matthew's putting a bow on his
42:48
gospel
42:49
and jesus is about to ascend into heaven
42:52
and matthew says hey we all went up to
42:54
this you know this top of this hill hung
42:56
out with jesus resurrected jesus right
43:00
we all saw him die we know he he died he
43:02
was dead and all the stuff we're hanging
43:04
out with jesus now and it still says but
43:07
some still doubted yeah that's one of
43:10
the most hilarious verses in the bible
43:12
that i know of that you're hanging out
43:14
with the resurrected jesus and some
43:16
people are looking at it and be like
43:17
nah
43:19
nah didn't i don't believe it i'm seeing
43:21
an aberration um
43:23
matthew included that for one thing
43:24
that's incredible if we even if we
43:26
believe in the inspiration of the
43:27
scriptures
43:29
god saw fit to include people's raw
43:31
process of being face to face with the
43:32
resurrected jesus and still saying
43:34
i don't buy it you know but it just
43:36
tells me this conversation has a place
43:39
and we can actually work it out together
43:41
and i can still
43:43
choose to believe in afterlife and
43:44
resurrection in the face of a really
43:45
brilliant philosopher and i'm not
43:47
talking about you i'm just saying a
43:48
hypothetical one who doesn't believe in
43:50
it
43:50
because you believe like you choose to
43:52
believe in the afterlife i think more
43:53
than not um and i could be looking in
43:56
the face of a philosopher who thinks i'm
43:58
foolish for it but i can stay that's
44:00
fine but i still choose to believe it
44:02
yeah yeah that's that's one of the
44:04
things i love most i think about the new
44:07
testament and it always gave me solace
44:10
when i was struggling through
44:12
what i thought about these things was
44:13
that it includes stories like that it
44:14
includes thomas you know it makes makes
44:16
kind of a point actually out of
44:18
including thomas and his doubts and
44:20
that becomes an important part of church
44:22
tradition as well and yeah i always
44:24
identified with that i get it if i was
44:26
there and saw it i would still wonder
44:28
that some kierkegaard wrestles with too
44:30
if people that were contemporary with
44:32
christ had any leg up on anybody else
44:34
and he thought they didn't
44:37
because because there's only so much
44:38
like direct perceptual evidence or any
44:40
kind of objective evidence can do
44:43
in relation to faith
44:45
it can get you so far but it's just as
44:47
likely to get in the way
44:49
because you're going to end up believing
44:51
for the wrong reasons if if the point of
44:53
the whole thing is to open yourself up
44:55
in an ethical way in a personal way
44:58
to this other being who has demands on
45:00
you and how you should live
45:02
then the objective evidence for you know
45:04
what's the concrete truth what's really
45:05
going to happen blah blah blah blah
45:07
that's just as likely to distract you
45:09
from the point as it is to get you there
45:11
that was kierkegaard's whole thing so
45:13
um so yeah i always loved the emphasis
45:15
on you know it's okay to doubt that
45:17
doesn't like disqualify you from the
45:19
point of this
45:21
which is to have a relationship with
45:23
this person and to behave in the way
45:25
that this person
45:26
told you to be
45:28
you know
45:29
and demonstrated yeah i think
45:31
i mean i really i agree with that and i
45:33
think um
45:36
i think a lot of
45:38
faith crises could potentially be a
45:40
little bit smoother
45:42
if we really just drilled down
45:45
again to like why we believe why are we
45:47
why am i on this faith journey and why
45:49
do i say yes to jesus
45:51
and there's i think there's better
45:52
answers than others right i don't think
45:54
all answers are equal and i think the
45:57
more we can drill down and say but if
45:59
this wasn't real would you still follow
46:01
jesus
46:02
and if this wasn't real would you still
46:03
follow if you can keep going down the
46:04
line and just say
46:06
at the end of the day i just
46:08
i like
46:09
jesus and what he's what he said or what
46:11
this person wrote down that this pretend
46:13
jesus person said
46:16
it just works it works and the world
46:18
would be better for it if we followed it
46:20
if that's our baseline then
46:24
then we got a lot of freedom to have
46:26
these conversations and to not feel so
46:28
insecure and i feel like many of us
46:31
we feel like we have to hold on to the
46:33
certainty of afterlife where we have to
46:35
hold on to the certainty of the
46:36
inspiration and fallibility and error in
46:38
inerrancy of the scriptures you can go
46:40
on down the line
46:41
because we've been given this this
46:43
really fragile faith
46:45
that if one aspect of it crumbles then
46:47
the rest of it does too and we can't
46:49
trust it nothing can be trusted if you
46:51
know i can go on down the line that's
46:53
just not a really healthy way to
46:56
construct a faith and many of us were
46:57
given it it wasn't our choice
46:59
it's just it was given to us it was
47:02
built for us we were indoctrinated let's
47:04
be honest
47:05
and now it's our jobs to
47:07
let go of some of that stuff and to
47:09
really ask questions of why do i follow
47:11
jesus why am i following in this way why
47:13
do i think in this way
47:15
these are they shouldn't be like well
47:16
they are earth-shattering questions but
47:19
we should make space for them
47:21
just like
47:23
what happens when we die
47:24
yeah
47:26
so let's talk a little bit about
47:29
misconceptions
47:31
so can i take this a little more in the
47:34
objective direction here
47:37
a lots of christians believe lots of
47:39
things about the afterlife and um many
47:42
of them as you said are
47:45
there are better and worse ways to
47:46
picture this and there are better and
47:48
worse ways to justify your views of this
47:50
so what are some big misconceptions that
47:52
you think christians have about what the
47:54
afterlife is like or why we should think
47:56
it's that way or maybe things that uh
47:59
a lot of people think are in the bible
48:00
but aren't or you know think are in the
48:02
christian tradition or aren't can you
48:03
think of anything
48:06
yep
48:07
um
48:08
i mean
48:09
our our understanding of the afterlife
48:12
and by that i mean
48:15
what heaven is like or what hell is like
48:18
those two things were mostly constructed
48:21
by non-biblical sources
48:24
so that's a problem
48:25
right like what do you mean what do you
48:27
mean let's give a little detail there
48:28
okay so let's start with
48:30
hell this is this is the easy one um
48:34
hell the word hell i don't even know if
48:36
it's actually in the bible there's all
48:38
sorts of different
48:39
words greek and hebrew words for whether
48:42
it's gehenna or whether it's tartarus or
48:45
whether it's there's a there's an
48:47
many words that are used for this what
48:49
we have now is this idea of hell
48:51
but the the concept that we have of
48:53
health fire and brimstone
48:55
um
48:56
all the nastiness it's either in the
48:58
bible it's either a metaphor for a
49:00
literal place in outside of jerusalem
49:02
called gehenna which was a place where
49:04
they would have this fire that doesn't
49:06
go out it's the dump it's the town dump
49:07
outside of jerusalem and it's always
49:09
used in this metaphorical way to say
49:11
this is what happens if you don't follow
49:13
jesus you get kind of thrown into the
49:15
the dump that's good for nothing
49:18
that's metaphorical language i mean
49:20
they're using a literal place it'd be
49:22
like if we named our town dump right
49:24
over here and then you call that you use
49:26
that name for hell right it my cup yeah
49:30
okay
49:31
but the ideas of fire and brimstone and
49:34
um
49:35
are our clear
49:36
things that we think about when we think
49:38
about a pet from hell came mostly from
49:40
dante
49:41
um came mostly from dante's vision of
49:43
hell and all of the angry wrath and
49:46
judgment all that stuff yeah um so
49:47
that's one
49:49
and you might be
49:50
just wiggling in your car seat right now
49:53
and really angry at me
49:55
but just go through the scriptures do
49:56
some scriptural reflection you'll find
49:58
that all of our language about hell is
50:00
metaphorical um
50:02
second thing the idea of heaven has
50:05
gotten
50:06
super
50:07
weird to you know where we have these
50:10
mythological pictures of floating around
50:12
in clouds and you know living in
50:14
candyland and we get to pick our own
50:16
paradise or whatever it's our choose
50:17
your own adventure
50:18
um
50:19
all of that is as well is not scriptural
50:22
yeah it's just not at all the only thing
50:24
that we get about
50:25
maybe one of the only things that we get
50:26
about heaven is jesus saying to the
50:28
thief on the cross today you'll be with
50:30
me in paradise yeah and then we get
50:32
revelation we get pictures of
50:34
saints waiting for
50:36
judgment to happen to be released what's
50:38
a better picture scripturally
50:41
of heaven
50:42
is kind of maybe a
50:44
a waiting pla a place where you wait for
50:46
the resurrection to happen a place where
50:48
perhaps you go paradise with jesus all
50:51
that good stuff but that's not the end
50:53
of the story yet the end of the story is
50:55
resurrection the end of the story is new
50:56
creation the end of the story is
50:58
revelation 20 21 20 all this stuff um
51:01
am i being clear yeah yeah there's
51:02
something in t wright writes about a lot
51:04
right yes
51:05
yes that's his stuff i'm borrowing it
51:07
yeah yeah the idea that uh
51:10
the kingdom of heaven is something that
51:12
jesus inaugurated and you know started
51:14
and when he was here and then it was
51:15
always intended to be a physical thing
51:17
an embodied thing a thing on this planet
51:20
it's now and
51:23
right that makes a big difference right
51:25
because if you think of heaven or hell
51:27
either one as
51:29
something somewhere else then you you
51:31
know it lessens your responsibility that
51:33
you have towards this place and what we
51:36
do to it so it says ecological
51:38
consequences
51:40
yes absolutely i mean
51:41
a prominent pastor said you know a few
51:43
years ago said who cares if i drive a
51:45
humongous suv and burn up the ozone
51:48
layer because this is all burning up and
51:49
in the end anyways yeah that's what
51:51
happens when you have bad scriptural
51:52
reflection yeah
51:54
maybe sometime we'll talk about where
51:56
they where they get that yeah sure why
51:58
they read the bible that way so that's
51:59
just an example of bad ideas within
52:02
chris and dumb about afterlife that's
52:04
really not scriptural yeah on that
52:07
that idea that um
52:09
there's like this disembodied state when
52:11
we die right where
52:13
yeah maybe there's a resurrection out
52:14
there in the future somewhere but i feel
52:16
like a lot of christians maybe even most
52:18
when they think about an afterlife
52:19
they're thinking of
52:20
something like a ghost
52:22
right so some kind of existence where i
52:24
have my consciousness and i have my
52:25
memories and i have my thoughts
52:28
but my body is changed or different or
52:29
maybe non-existent
52:31
and and realizing that that's not in the
52:33
bible and that it that it wasn't even a
52:36
very prominent idea in church history
52:38
right i mean there were debates about
52:39
this sort of thing through the middle
52:41
ages and
52:42
aquinas for example who was an
52:44
aristotelian thought that
52:46
look we're embodied creatures and so we
52:48
need a body to exist and
52:50
so when the body decays that's the end
52:53
of our existence and so if there's going
52:55
to be something in the interim it's
52:56
going to be a miracle of god that we
52:58
can't in principle understand right um
53:01
not not saying he couldn't do that
53:03
couldn't preserve that but like
53:05
the future hope of the church the thing
53:08
that's enshrined in the creed has always
53:10
been a re-embodied existence something
53:12
physical something on this planet in
53:15
this in this world yep and yeah i find
53:18
my my students who are religious have no
53:20
no concept of that
53:22
they think of themselves as disembodied
53:23
spirits which is interesting sure
53:25
and i will say another
53:27
i think extra biblical
53:29
concept that most
53:31
most protestant american christians hold
53:34
is the idea of
53:35
eternal conscious torment
53:39
when you see it in the bible and
53:40
everyone who's trying to defend that in
53:42
their heads right now as i say that is
53:44
thinking about you know g the scripture
53:45
is saying where you know
53:47
where the worm never dies and you know
53:49
blah blah blah
53:50
that's metaphorical language friends
53:52
it's 100 metaphorical language and you
53:55
don't find it all over the scriptures
53:56
it's rare
53:58
i think eternal conscious torment is a
54:00
unbiblical and b now if you believe in
54:03
eternal conscious torment and it seems
54:05
to be important to you right now
54:07
that's okay i love you we can be friends
54:09
we can talk
54:10
but i do think it's a terrible doctrine
54:13
that paints got into being a monster and
54:15
i'm not interested in a god who wants to
54:17
torture people for eternity
54:19
yeah i'm of the opinion that the problem
54:21
of evil is hard enough let's not have
54:23
doctrines that make it worse yeah
54:26
and i think i think john the apostle
54:28
john is with with me on that and uh i
54:31
think
54:32
i think all of it is yeah um
54:34
but again that's something that we need
54:36
to wrestle with and we need to
54:39
reckon with and hold that maybe these
54:41
things that we see is so essential to
54:44
the faith
54:46
when you actually ask where do you find
54:47
that in the bible and when you actually
54:48
consider how it's said and what
54:51
what genre it's written in and all that
54:53
stuff yeah then all of a sudden it gets
54:55
a little bit less concrete and we can
54:57
have these conversations and hold these
54:58
spaces yeah
55:00
i will say that kind of returning to
55:02
what we were talking about before
55:03
that
55:04
afterlife and resurrection feel
55:06
essential to me whether whether there's
55:09
like a good historical case to be made
55:11
or biblical case or or even
55:13
philosophical like they feel essential
55:16
so what do you mean like
55:18
they're a huge part of my motivation to
55:19
be a christian there
55:21
there's something that i would be
55:23
um
55:25
i don't know the idea that they're not
55:28
true and that christianity ultimately is
55:32
a kind of ethic
55:34
a really good one maybe the best one
55:37
that
55:38
is deeply disturbing to me it makes me
55:41
it makes me think
55:43
it makes me feel like i should say that
55:45
i've wasted a huge chunk of my life and
55:48
that i'm probably going to waste a lot
55:49
more of it
55:51
so i i'm wondering
55:53
how do you how does it strike you
55:56
just psychologically emotionally when
55:58
you think
56:00
that
56:01
when you acknowledge as you have done
56:02
that
56:03
believing in an afterlife believing in a
56:05
resurrection believing that you'll be
56:07
you know reunited with loved ones that
56:09
you'll see jesus face to face all the
56:10
things
56:11
that that's a choice
56:15
what does that do psychologically for
56:16
you because it's super hard for me i got
56:18
to be honest
56:19
something i do it's something that i
56:20
find inevitable actually right because i
56:23
i'm of the opinion that you can't make
56:25
yourself believe things that you don't
56:27
believe there's evidence for so if i
56:28
believe as i do that the evidence is
56:31
inconclusive then
56:33
i can't make myself believe that it's
56:34
not and so i simply don't have the
56:36
confidence i used to possess
56:38
so i find myself saying things like you
56:40
know if somebody asks me if i believe in
56:42
a resurrection or whatever
56:44
i'll flippantly say something like well
56:46
it depends on the day of the week
56:48
which is a you know an offhanded way of
56:51
wriggling out of the question because
56:52
it's really
56:53
difficult yeah
56:55
yeah i mean first of all this is getting
56:58
to be quite depressing
57:01
so
57:02
thanks for hanging with us friends um
57:05
yeah it would be deeply disappointing i
57:06
mean
57:07
profoundly disappointing if resurrection
57:10
wasn't a real thing jesus isn't alive
57:13
and um
57:14
and but i can't speak to what that would
57:17
do to me
57:18
because of a loss of a loved one because
57:20
i haven't lost someone who
57:22
means that much to me i mean i have no
57:24
surviving grandparents all this stuff
57:26
but i haven't lost a parent and i
57:27
haven't lost a spouse and i haven't lost
57:29
my kids
57:30
um so come back to me
57:32
you know hopefully long long time from
57:33
now when yeah when those things happen
57:34
and i could answer that honestly because
57:36
i can't right now but i would say
57:38
the thing that i really hold to
57:41
with the resurrection that
57:43
why i want the resurrection to be real
57:45
so desperately is because again of the
57:48
way it helps me to interact with the
57:50
world around me and the brokenness that
57:52
i see it's the only thing that gives me
57:55
hope it's not the only thing but it's a
57:57
it's the biggest thing that gives me
57:58
hope and it's the biggest thing that
58:00
makes me think
58:01
that little girl who
58:03
was tortured and you know or
58:06
circumcised in africa and you know all
58:10
she knew her four years of life
58:12
was awful torture and then she died
58:16
it give the only reason that i have hope
58:18
in the the
58:20
the reason that i think that can be a
58:22
story can be redeemed is because of the
58:23
resurrection because that those wrongs
58:25
will be rewrited and that to me is the
58:28
idea of judgment in the book of
58:29
revelation where god sets all the wrongs
58:31
to write
58:32
and
58:34
and brings that vengeance of the holy
58:36
one
58:37
that stuff to me would be profoundly
58:39
disappointing if the resurrection isn't
58:41
a real thing um
58:43
because then redemption
58:45
only happens in this life and it just
58:47
doesn't happen enough does that make
58:48
sense yeah
58:53
but i do believe in the resurrection and
58:55
i believe in it
58:58
right now
59:00
really strongly
59:02
and i see hints of the resurrection i
59:05
see signposts as nt wright would say of
59:07
the resurrection
59:08
on a regular basis and i think
59:11
i think you could say objectively even
59:14
the world is getting better
59:16
over the course course of human history
59:20
particularly in the last 2000 years and
59:22
we could do that
59:24
on a statistical data-based methodology
59:28
and say actually the world is getting
59:29
better and i think resurrection in new
59:32
creation the reason reason for that is
59:34
jesus is alive and this is all heading
59:37
somewhere good that all things are being
59:38
made new by
59:40
the holy one of israel so we like to end
59:42
our podcast these days with some version
59:45
of the question what's a better way so i
59:47
think the the version of that that's
59:48
relevant here is
59:50
how should christians be thinking and
59:51
talking about afterlife that is distinct
59:54
from the way they
59:56
have been
59:57
because we both grew up in traditions
59:58
where there was certainty about these
60:00
things and there was heaven and it was
60:02
going to be like this and there was hell
60:03
and it was going to be like that and we
60:04
knew specifically who was going to go
60:05
there and who wasn't you know um and
60:07
it's we're all very sure of it and then
60:10
stuff that we have to deconstruct later
60:12
and that kind of you know drives you
60:14
into despair when you realize probably
60:16
at a funeral that
60:18
gosh i'm saying these things but i'm not
60:19
sure
60:20
so what do you think is a better way to
60:22
talk about these things in our churches
60:25
i mean i wouldn't be having this
60:27
conversation if i didn't think it was a
60:28
healthy conversation to have and a
60:30
healthy thing to consider i wouldn't
60:33
like i would ask us to not air this
60:35
episode so i think this kind of
60:37
conversation is a healthy one um coming
60:40
to a place like we've uh
60:43
a chorus on this podcast a couple of
60:46
courses one is epistemic humility yeah
60:49
and i think we do well to just deal with
60:51
it with less certainty and to reckon
60:53
with the fact that the reason that we
60:55
believe in the afterlife is because we
60:56
believe in the afterlife we don't know
60:59
can't know um
61:00
and
61:01
i think
61:02
dealing with less
61:04
sorry
61:05
i gotta rethink i just said certainty
61:08
there was another thing two things that
61:09
i had in mind
61:10
oh no i said epistemic humility
61:12
certainty is out okay
61:14
and
61:15
this idea of certainty we would do well
61:18
to to just wash it
61:20
from from our consciousness from our
61:22
belief system from our faith journey all
61:24
that stuff
61:26
and i still think that you know holding
61:28
something humbly with less certainty but
61:30
with
61:31
still
61:32
i can i think i can in this moment say
61:34
the same amount of faith i believe in
61:36
the resurrection the same amount is when
61:38
we started this conversation as i do now
61:41
because i'm because i know that that's a
61:42
choice and that's a that's that's a
61:44
thing that i put faith in
61:46
and there's more reasons than that but
61:48
that's really it
61:49
and i think those are healthy
61:50
conversations to have
61:52
um i want to give my kids i've said this
61:54
a couple times but i'll say it again
61:57
me and my wife are trying to give our
61:58
kids a spirituality that doesn't have to
62:00
be deconstructed when they turn 22 or
62:03
18. and i think these kind of kind of
62:05
conversations and saying
62:08
when when my kids ask what happened
62:09
happens to grandma when she dies saying
62:11
well we don't know
62:13
but here's what we think and here's what
62:15
the bible says here's what
62:17
you know we believe
62:18
that's a better way to frame it than
62:20
saying with certainty here's what
62:22
happens when grandma dies here's what
62:24
happens when dad dies
62:25
i guess i'm just trying to imagine like
62:27
what would i have wanted my pastor to
62:29
have said instead of what he did say
62:31
when i was you know
62:32
what did your pastor say whatever
62:35
well i had a slew of different pastors
62:37
one of them i think my earliest was
62:39
would have been honest but i was already
62:41
out of his church by the time i was
62:42
asking these questions
62:44
so i had southern baptist pastors and
62:45
pentecostal pastors who presented false
62:49
confidence
62:52
because i'm about to have a kid
62:54
and he's going to ask me about these
62:56
things someday
62:58
presumably
63:00
and probably early if he takes after me
63:03
and
63:04
i'd like to have a response that doesn't
63:06
crush him
63:12
i don't know how's getting emotional
63:16
it's amazing what parenting will do to
63:17
you one of those times i wish kyle was
63:18
parenting ahead of us instead of
63:20
behind us
63:24
i regret that in my like i still believe
63:26
in the resurrection i call jesus the
63:27
holy one of israel i want to take back
63:29
on that one
63:31
i don't like that i don't think i even
63:33
caught that
63:35
and i said it i was like oh god do you
63:36
want to just say el shaddai
63:42
[Music]
