In this episode Randy and Kyle discuss disagreement, a current topic if there ever was one. Kyle did his PhD dissertation on the epistemology of disagreement, and this conversation explores what it is, some common pitfalls, how to do it better, and what it looks like for Christians in particular.
The beer featured in this episode is King Sue by Toppling Goliath Brewing Company.
In this episode Randy and Kyle discuss disagreement, a current topic if there ever was one. Kyle did his PhD dissertation on the epistemology of disagreement, and this conversation explores what it is, some common pitfalls, how to do it better, and what it looks like for Christians in particular.
The beer featured in this episode is King Sue by Toppling Goliath Brewing Company.
[Music]
00:14
i'm kyle
00:15
and i'm randy and this is a pastor and a
00:17
philosopher
00:18
walk into a bar
00:22
oh super friendly nice
00:23
[Music]
00:28
we're so glad you joined us for this
00:30
latest installment
00:31
of a pastor and philosopher walking to a
00:33
bar today it's gonna feel like we are
00:36
really walking into a bar together
00:37
because we're gonna do what you do with
00:39
your friends
00:40
at a bar maybe even family at a bar
00:43
disagreeing
00:44
we're going to talk about disagreeing
00:46
and that happens really well
00:48
over a couple of pints and maybe maybe
00:51
one too many and it gets a little sloppy
00:52
but
00:53
disagreement is something that is very
00:56
common in this world but what's very
00:58
uncommon is disagreeing well and that's
01:01
something that our resident philosopher
01:03
knows a thing or two about kyle can you
01:05
tell us
01:06
your passion about this sure
01:09
i actually wrote a dissertation about
01:11
this so i recently
01:12
completed my doctorate in epistemology
01:15
which is the branch of philosophy that
01:17
deals with
01:17
knowledge and there is a little in-house
01:20
conversation debate
01:22
among epistemologists that's only about
01:24
15 years old or so
01:25
about disagreement believe it or not you
01:27
would think that philosophers would have
01:29
been talking about this for thousands of
01:30
years but it's actually
01:32
a really recent topic so i've been
01:34
thinking about disagreement
01:35
whether it's possible to have rational
01:37
disagreements
01:39
for a little over two years probably
01:43
and it's unusually it's one of the few
01:46
areas where
01:47
the sort of high level abstract
01:50
philosophical research that i do
01:51
actually has some pretty relevant
01:53
practical implications
01:55
researching disagreement for two years
01:58
just take that in dear listener let's
02:01
just pray for kyle's soul
02:03
okay so this sounds really interesting
02:05
uh but you're supposed to have walked
02:06
into a bar and my glass
02:08
is still empty so we need to get to that
02:09
segment
02:11
fair point kyle what are we drinking
02:13
today today we are drinking
02:15
one of my favorite ipas now an ipa
02:19
india pale ale there's all kinds of
02:22
different forms of ipas
02:23
this one would fall on the hazy side or
02:27
you might call it a new england ipa but
02:28
it's actually made in iowa
02:30
by a brewery called toppling goliath
02:33
that just made me like it even more
02:34
iowa decorah
02:37
iowa there's nothing else there there's
02:40
two breweries
02:41
and a little town and that's and yes i
02:43
have driven all the way there just for
02:45
toppling goliath beer in fact i've
02:47
camped out overnight in the winter
02:51
yes so this beer is called king sioux
02:54
they have a very well known ipa called
02:56
sudo su that sort of put them on the map
02:58
this is kind of a bigger version of that
03:02
so this is a double
03:04
ipa which means a little stronger
03:06
usually a little higher
03:07
abv this one's 7.8 percent 50
03:10
ibus which are bitterness units which is
03:12
actually pretty low so for ipas
03:15
you can go anywhere from 40 to 120 to
03:19
well beyond that there was a there's a
03:21
brewery called mckellar that in 2007
03:23
they made a beer with 2007 ibus i cannot
03:27
imagine
03:28
drinking something like measuring
03:31
uh chemistry that i don't understand
03:34
that sounds like
03:34
that sounds like a bunch of dried up
03:36
puckered up hipsters to me i cannot
03:38
imagine drinking
03:39
but this will actually be pretty light
03:40
bitterness which is one of the reasons
03:42
so there's no fruit in this one we don't
03:43
have to roll this candy
03:45
fruit this is this is citra hops only
03:48
um and it should surprise you it has
03:50
surprised me the
03:51
previous times i've had this beer but
03:53
it's been a while it should surprise you
03:55
how fruity it tastes without
03:56
doing anything i like that yeah
04:01
so king sioux has to be a reference to
04:03
sue the
04:04
tyrannosaurus rex that's in the chicago
04:06
field museum right it's just like the
04:07
same time
04:09
i never put that together there is a big
04:11
tyrannosaurus rex on the can
04:12
so i bet you're right about that
04:16
all right it is pretty light in color
04:19
hazy golden
04:21
yeah wow just super super fruity take a
04:24
whiff of that
04:26
it's like smelling flowers yeah
04:30
flowers with some banana and grapefruit
04:34
to them
04:35
yep oh man once you smell that
04:37
grapefruit you can't unsmell it
04:39
i'll bet if you were to find yourself
04:42
diving into
04:43
a big pool of king sioux and you had
04:46
goggles on
04:47
you wouldn't be able to see that the
04:48
hand in front of your face holy moly is
04:50
that hazy
04:51
it's a nice cloudy beer does that have
04:53
to do with it being a double
04:54
ipa i don't know what the double party
04:56
no it has to do with the way they hop it
04:58
now i'm not
04:59
a brewer or an expert on this by any
05:01
means um but the process is that you
05:03
would put a west coast ipa through to
05:05
make it clear they just don't do in this
05:07
and they hop it towards the end with dry
05:09
hops and
05:10
somehow that makes it uh hazy i don't
05:14
know all the specifics of that
05:16
brewers out there listening are probably
05:18
cringing at them
05:19
i've got to tell you this is freaking
05:22
ridiculous it's delicious
05:24
it's really good and the best thing
05:26
about this beer is that you can get it
05:28
at any decent liquor store it's very
05:32
widely
05:32
it like three or years ago it wasn't but
05:34
now i got this
05:36
at woodman's just i've never tasted an
05:38
ipa like this that's
05:40
incredible it's got actually the look of
05:43
it
05:43
mirrors the the flavor and mouth feel
05:46
because it's got a creamy essence to it
05:48
almost like a mouthfeel and like a
05:50
flavor
05:50
with no lactose so there's a very common
05:52
trend in hazy ipas to add lactose which
05:54
is just milk sugar
05:56
to give it that kind of creaminess this
05:57
doesn't have that that's incredible it's
05:59
just
06:00
yeah just that's like brewery genius
06:03
that's incredible that you can do that
06:05
to a beer oh my goodness i'm in love
06:08
i was trying to pick out what there was
06:10
another flavor there that
06:11
was like in the fruit family i think
06:14
pear is
06:15
how i would label it like it's there's a
06:17
the notes that they give
06:18
in the description or mango orange and
06:20
pineapple yeah
06:22
yeah oh the pineapple for sure now that
06:24
you say that
06:26
lovely yeah oh man all right well good
06:29
round
06:29
what's the brewery toppling goliath
06:32
toppling goliath
06:34
king sioux if you are a fan at all of
06:37
ipas grab one of these and hold on to
06:40
your pants
06:41
yeah they also make some security chairs
06:44
pretty stellar
06:45
barrel age stouts which maybe we'll get
06:47
into in a later episode
06:49
i hope it works for me
06:52
you stout heads i don't get you but this
06:54
is delicious
06:55
thank you kyle thanks for buying cheers
06:58
cheers
07:01
so as we mentioned today we're talking
07:02
about how to disagree and how to do it
07:04
well
07:06
that is particularly interesting to me
07:08
because we find ourselves in this moment
07:11
and i would say really particularly
07:12
within the last five years even
07:14
well into the obama presidency our
07:16
nation just feels like we forgot
07:19
how to disagree well our nation is so
07:21
polarized our nation is
07:23
so separated and
07:26
disunified and we identify ourselves by
07:29
what we're not
07:30
by and large and we don't know how to
07:32
have relationships with people who think
07:34
differently than us
07:35
particularly politically but also
07:37
religiously
07:38
also ethnic and racially also
07:42
you could just go down the line
07:43
socioeconomically generationally
07:46
we just don't know how to engage with
07:48
one another when there's differences and
07:50
when there's disagreement even not just
07:51
differences but disagreement
07:54
and i think it's one of the one of the
07:55
things you know we talk about how our
07:57
world is going to hell in a handbasket
07:58
first of all i don't believe that
08:00
i think new creation is taking root more
08:02
and more all the time
08:03
but when i think about one of the things
08:06
that i could if i could fix
08:07
one or two things about our culture
08:10
right now
08:11
it would be how to fix the polarization
08:14
and the way that we just fill
08:17
the airwaves and fill the air around us
08:20
with hatred judgmentalism cynicism
08:24
and anger towards one another so
08:27
i think this is a extremely pertinent
08:29
extremely timely thing to talk about
08:31
that i hope
08:32
lots and lots of people listen to not
08:34
just so we can get popular
08:35
but that's so we can actually start
08:38
listening to one another so we can
08:40
actually start respectfully engaging
08:42
with one another so we can actually
08:44
start walking in the way of jesus
08:45
that many of us listening probably seem
08:48
to say that we esteem so highly and that
08:51
we love so much
08:53
so with that being said kyle can you
08:56
just tell us why you got into this topic
08:58
why you got into this
08:59
whole idea well some of what you just
09:02
described
09:03
is some of why i got into the topic
09:05
noticing the
09:06
seemingly sharp increase in hostility
09:10
and contempt between people that i loved
09:13
and respected and even learned
09:15
christianity from
09:16
you know some of whom would disown me
09:18
because of views that i take that they
09:21
view with hostility so that was part of
09:24
why i got into it was wanting to figure
09:26
out where do i stand on this is it
09:27
possible to actually have
09:29
rational conversations with these people
09:33
who i admire and i respect and i really
09:35
really want to say
09:36
that they have maintained their
09:39
integrity and i really want to say
09:41
that they can remain reasonable even
09:43
while having an active disagreement with
09:45
me i want to say that that's possible
09:47
but i don't understand how it could be
09:48
and so that's how i got into
09:51
studying this topic specifically and
09:53
also frankly i went to graduate school
09:56
and graduate school is just really
09:58
unique
09:59
in some ways destructive mentally and
10:03
spiritually destructive experience
10:05
and you're just constantly challenged
10:07
constantly forced
10:09
to prove yourself but the great thing
10:11
about it
10:12
is that you're surrounded by people who
10:14
are a
10:16
way better informed than you they're all
10:18
experts in their fields
10:20
often much smarter than you i've met
10:24
people in graduate school that make me
10:25
feel like i'm just
10:26
an imposter sometimes and also
10:30
they tend to by and large treat you with
10:33
respect they
10:34
they want you to develop
10:37
your ability to defend the views that
10:40
you hold
10:41
and they help you to do that by
10:42
critiquing you and it's
10:44
it's direct often sometimes it feels
10:46
attacking but more often than not
10:48
they're good people
10:49
who want to develop your rational
10:51
capacity uh and that's
10:53
that forced me being just existing in
10:54
that environment forced me to reckon
10:56
with the fact that there are people
10:57
who are as informed as i am or better
11:01
as smart as i am or smarter and disagree
11:04
with me
11:05
and i want to say we're all rational so
11:07
how can i explain that that that's what
11:09
really triggered
11:11
this topic so when we talk about
11:13
agreeing and disagreeing
11:15
it feels like we are being taught how to
11:19
disagree with one another by social
11:21
media and our interactions on social
11:22
media
11:23
and also we're in election season and so
11:27
i
11:28
spent a lot of time watching the debates
11:30
because i didn't didn't know who i
11:31
wanted to vote for and so we watched and
11:33
i watched with my daughter even my 12
11:35
now 13 year old daughter and what i saw
11:39
was shameful to me our politicians are
11:42
reducing
11:43
debating into shouting over one another
11:47
and not stop talking so that the people
11:50
can hear and i'm going to force the
11:51
interviewers to
11:53
to to honor my time and my space because
11:56
i just
11:57
bully my way through it and we're just
11:59
talking back and forth we're not
12:00
listening to another we're not actually
12:01
having a real conversation that reminds
12:03
me of social media even
12:05
the the way we on twitter and facebook
12:08
just soapbox something so much
12:11
and then react against that on the other
12:14
side and either write them off
12:15
on friend unfollow right that's easy or
12:18
we just slap a bunch of generalizations
12:21
on their comments
12:22
and think that that's disagreeing so
12:25
maybe kyle could you could you tell us
12:27
what's your idea
12:28
even what's a philosophical idea of what
12:32
it means to disagree and have a
12:33
disagreement
12:35
yeah good yeah to understand uh what's
12:38
going wrong in those kinds of
12:39
interactions we need to sort of back up
12:41
a little bit and first
12:42
realize what it even means to have a
12:44
disagreement in the first place
12:45
and then we can discuss in more detail
12:47
how to have a good one
12:49
so philosophically speaking a
12:50
disagreement is
12:52
simply this it is one person takes
12:55
a particular proposition to have a
12:58
certain truth value
12:59
that another person takes that
13:01
proposition to have a different
13:02
truth value now to understand what that
13:04
means you have to know what a
13:04
proposition is
13:06
so a proposition is kind of philosophy
13:08
speak for
13:10
something that can be true or false or
13:12
you might just say
13:13
an idea thank you for thank you for not
13:15
making me ask
13:16
what a proposition is by the way
13:17
appreciate it i mean it's it's a fraught
13:19
question
13:20
even within philosophy there are whole
13:22
debates about what propositions are
13:23
but if you and i are going to have a
13:25
disagreement there has to be some
13:26
particular
13:28
identifiable idea something that can be
13:31
true or false that you take a position
13:35
on
13:35
and that i take a contradictory position
13:38
on
13:38
you have to think it is the case that
13:40
that proposition is true
13:41
and i have to think it is the case that
13:43
that proposition is false or
13:45
perhaps unknowable something like that
13:47
but if there isn't
13:48
such an identifiable proposition you and
13:51
i are not
13:52
having a disagreement and often what
13:54
happens in the
13:55
sort of political and social media
13:57
context that you describe
13:59
is people think they're having
14:00
disagreements and they get really
14:02
passionate about these disagreements and
14:04
the ideas that are being batted around
14:06
but they're not actually having
14:07
disagreements because
14:09
if you were to ask them to they would be
14:12
unable
14:12
to identify the specific proposition or
14:15
set of propositions
14:16
that is actually in conflict between
14:18
them and their
14:20
peers so to even get to the stage of
14:23
having
14:24
a disagreement you have to first
14:25
identify what it is specifically
14:27
that you and i are disagreeing about and
14:30
often this this just doesn't happen let
14:32
me give you an example
14:33
that i use with my students so i teach
14:36
on a jesuit catholic campus
14:39
and often at this campus at least once a
14:42
semester
14:44
there will be picketers who come onto
14:46
the campus and they stand around the
14:48
quad
14:48
and they hold signs about abortion and
14:51
often
14:52
these signs depict really graphic images
14:54
of just stuff you don't want to look at
14:56
and they'll also
14:57
include phrases like human life
15:00
is sacred or human life is
15:04
intrinsically valuable something like
15:06
that and sometimes
15:07
you get counter protesters you get
15:10
people who come to campus and stand on
15:11
the other side
15:12
of the sidewalk or on the other side of
15:13
the street and they hold their own signs
15:15
and their signs say things like it is my
15:18
choice what to do
15:19
with my body bodily autonomy
15:23
is a right something like that and so
15:26
let's say you have these groups of
15:27
people
15:28
holding their signs and maybe they're
15:29
even shouting these phrases at each
15:31
other
15:32
you don't yet have a disagreement
15:35
because
15:35
it is very possible that everybody in
15:37
that space
15:38
agrees with everything that's being said
15:41
who is gonna what reasonable person is
15:43
gonna deny
15:44
that what happens to your body is up to
15:45
you what reasonable person is gonna deny
15:48
that human life is intrinsically
15:49
valuable because they have they think
15:51
they're disagreeing they're very
15:52
passionate about the disagreement
15:53
they're having but they haven't
15:54
identified the proposition
15:56
so this hasn't even gotten interesting
15:57
yet from the perspective of
15:59
philosophical disagreement first you
16:01
have to locate well specifically what is
16:03
it
16:03
that we are in conflict about and
16:06
sometimes you can have merely apparent
16:07
disagreements
16:08
and you waste lots and lots of energy on
16:10
those and it's deeply unhealthy
16:12
and that's most of what i see in
16:14
political debates
16:15
i gave up watching political debates
16:17
years ago i think the last one i watched
16:19
was from beginning to end
16:22
was the sarah palin one
16:26
and i just said no i can't do this
16:29
anymore
16:30
yeah there's no debating happening here
16:32
because there's no reason giving
16:34
there's no proposition that's identified
16:36
as being intentioned and then different
16:37
reasons to take different positions on
16:40
none of that it was cliche throwing
16:43
and posturing and what can i say to get
16:47
the audience to
16:48
laugh and be on my side that's that's
16:51
not disagreement
16:54
so as most of us live on social media
16:56
kyle and we
16:57
you know surf our phones or our devices
17:00
on
17:01
the news and little sound bites and
17:04
hear about what trump said or what nancy
17:06
pelosi said or
17:08
what joe biden said whatever that might
17:10
be
17:11
we get all sorts of bad examples
17:15
on how to disagree in a poor fashion but
17:19
we get numb to it because we see it so
17:21
often and it's just become
17:23
normal we think this is just just the
17:25
way you disagree so
17:26
can you point out some actual bad ways
17:29
to disagree common mistakes that are
17:31
made some
17:32
examples of what is hurting our common
17:35
dialogue
17:36
yeah good so in my experience
17:40
the main mistakes that are made in
17:43
disagreeing with others
17:45
come down to three things the main sort
17:47
of ways that you can go wrong
17:49
in disagreeing first you can be dogmatic
17:52
about your view and what that means is
17:55
you need your view
17:56
to be true so there's something that you
17:59
need to be certain about
18:01
and you're psychologically and
18:02
emotionally invested
18:04
in the truth of that belief such that
18:07
questioning it
18:08
costs too much for you to even go there
18:11
that's so much of religious
18:13
disagreements it's not even funny right
18:15
there
18:15
not just religious political relational
18:19
even sometimes academic i've witnessed
18:21
this in the academy as well
18:22
you get so invested in your particular
18:25
perspective
18:26
that when counter evidence or counter
18:29
perspectives are presented to you you
18:30
you do one of two things you shut down
18:34
and flee or you react with hostility
18:37
and this is the result of not being able
18:39
to hold your beliefs with an open hand
18:42
not being able to consider that there
18:44
might have been some information that
18:45
you missed
18:46
and you might actually be mistaken about
18:48
this that is viewed as dangerous
18:50
by the dogmatist and that leads to all
18:53
sorts of hostile and contemptuous
18:54
reactions to others who
18:56
disagree with you also leads to
18:59
exclusionary
19:00
communities where open inquiry and
19:03
disagreement is not welcome in this
19:04
space
19:05
because we have our values we're certain
19:07
about our values
19:08
we need to be certain about our values
19:10
because of the importance that they hold
19:11
in
19:12
our communities and so we we just simply
19:14
don't allow
19:15
contrary voices if they arise we kick
19:18
them out
19:19
we silence them that's dogmatism
19:22
the opposite extreme is called
19:24
relativism
19:25
so this is a another way of going wrong
19:28
in disagreement
19:29
in fact it's a way of giving up on
19:30
disagreement entirely
19:32
the relativist in this context is
19:35
someone who thinks that everybody
19:37
can be right it's it's sort of the uh
19:40
can't we all just get along
19:41
approach to living in society with other
19:44
people the relativist thinks that
19:46
being disagreed with they actually agree
19:49
with the dogmatist about this
19:50
interestingly
19:51
being disagreed with is an act of
19:52
hostility and because
19:54
hostility is uncomfortable and we don't
19:56
like it the best way to
19:58
solve that is to admit that everyone has
20:01
their perspective
20:02
and everyone's perspective is equally
20:04
valuable and it can be
20:06
you know equally affirmed and everybody
20:08
can be right and let's just all
20:10
get along which of course removes the
20:11
need to actually have the disagreement
20:13
to present the reasons for and against
20:15
uh positions now that's interesting give
20:17
up on that
20:18
what's interesting to me is there's this
20:20
new catch phrase or this new
20:22
statement that people make that sounds a
20:24
lot like what you're talking about
20:26
and i'd be interested to get your take
20:28
on it i don't know if you even know what
20:29
i'm about to say but it's
20:31
this idea that everyone has their own
20:32
truth right
20:34
that well that's your truth that's that
20:36
person's truth
20:37
what do you think about that yeah that's
20:39
been around a long time all right
20:40
it's new to me yeah i mean it's nonsense
20:44
from a philosophical perspective it's
20:45
it's literal nonsense
20:47
which means it has no meaning it's it's
20:50
like saying
20:51
no you know the number seven is green
20:55
it expresses exactly as much semantic
20:57
content as that nonsense sentence that i
20:59
just said
21:00
if you understand what truth means from
21:02
a philosophical perspective
21:04
it's just impossible that everyone has
21:06
their own
21:07
and that those all disagree uh if there
21:10
is such a thing as truth
21:11
it is one thing this is some one of the
21:13
very few things that many philosophers
21:15
can agree about they don't all agree
21:17
about what truth is
21:18
they don't all agree that there is such
21:19
a thing but they all agree that almost
21:21
all of them anyway agree that if there
21:22
is such a thing
21:24
contradictory positions cannot both
21:26
attain it
21:27
this is basic logic okay so that
21:29
catchphrase is just kind of silly
21:32
now to be fair to these people what what
21:34
they probably
21:35
mean by that they probably haven't had
21:37
critical thinking or logic courses
21:40
although they all should plug for
21:41
teaching logic in high school
21:43
what they probably mean is not that
21:46
everyone can have their own position and
21:48
their own truth and be right
21:49
they probably mean something like this
21:51
they're probably making a moral claim
21:53
you should respect the opinions of
21:55
others
21:56
you should respect the pizza you should
21:58
be tolerant
21:59
you should not be disrespectful or
22:01
judgmental that's probably what they
22:03
mean
22:04
and we can definitely find something to
22:05
affirm in that
22:07
but taking that to the extreme that the
22:09
relativist takes it to which is to say
22:11
that
22:12
either there is no truth or there are
22:14
multiple versions of the truth and that
22:15
contradictions don't matter
22:17
well that's just cognitive suicide like
22:21
it
22:21
cognitive suicide we need a sound effect
22:27
so that's two of three kyle
22:30
the third which is related to both is
22:32
judgmentalism
22:34
we we categorize people before
22:37
hearing their reasons before hearing
22:40
their perspectives
22:41
i see that you you know on social media
22:43
or whatever i see that you believe
22:45
x about issue y and
22:48
i immediately lump you into oh you're
22:50
one of those
22:51
and now i'm not open to have you know a
22:54
free exchange of ideas or reasons with
22:56
you anymore because i've predetermined
22:59
what my opinion about you and your view
23:01
is that's
23:02
judgmentalism and it absolutely shuts
23:04
down conversation
23:06
it's often a moral evaluation of another
23:09
person
23:10
you are i i'm now suspicious of your
23:12
motives
23:13
i'm suspicious of your capacity to
23:15
reason
23:16
objectively uh and so i'm just not gonna
23:19
engage
23:20
even if you make a brilliant argument
23:22
i'm not gonna engage with it because
23:23
i've pre-judged you
23:25
this absolutely destroys the possibility
23:28
of any kind of productive disagreement
23:30
this is like ninja level social
23:32
commentary right here
23:34
i mean you just you just like explained
23:38
all of what i see on social media in a
23:40
little nutshell there so
23:42
that's the that's the crappy way to go
23:44
that's that's the pitfalls that we find
23:46
when
23:47
when engaging with one another in
23:48
disagreement what's
23:50
what's the ideal yeah
23:54
well philosophy to the rescue here
23:57
the ideal i think is best expressed
24:01
in ancient athens it's probably
24:03
expressed in many other ways
24:04
in many different parts of the world as
24:06
well but in the beginnings of greek
24:08
philosophy
24:09
we get this idea in socrates and plato
24:12
that disagreement is the best thing that
24:15
can happen to you
24:16
that it's something desirable that it's
24:19
something it's actually the highest form
24:21
of life
24:22
seeking a critical context in which your
24:25
ideas are
24:26
challenged is the best thing you can do
24:29
it's the best kind of human life you can
24:31
have it's the life of contemplation
24:32
and that right there is why so many
24:34
college freshmen say i want nothing to
24:36
do with philosophy philosophy
24:38
check right now actually you know
24:39
believe it or not my students are
24:41
quite receptive to this idea they they
24:43
find it interesting maybe because
24:45
they're
24:46
fed up with the kinds of pseudo
24:48
disagreements they see from their elders
24:50
i don't know
24:51
but they're actually pretty into this
24:52
idea the idea that you can
24:54
actually embrace challenge and that your
24:57
your faith
24:58
and not just your faith but i mean any
24:59
of your beliefs can actually
25:01
withstand scrutiny that it can be
25:03
something you can actually put a lot of
25:04
weight on
25:05
is often quite attractive to many of my
25:09
intro philosophy students is very
25:11
attractive to me when i went to college
25:13
and had a lot of my beliefs shaken
25:15
so in socrates you see this this
25:18
really open really honest embrace of
25:21
critique
25:23
socrates says something along the lines
25:24
of be my friend
25:27
and because you're my friend refute me
25:30
show me where i'm wrong because i want
25:32
to better myself and i'll do the same
25:33
for you this is the dialogue format that
25:36
that you get in platonic philosophy and
25:39
then
25:40
later on uh in the more modern
25:42
philosophical tradition you have a
25:44
british philosopher named jon stewart
25:45
mill and he's he he says he can sort of
25:48
extends this thought
25:49
and says if i'm going to be sure of any
25:51
of my beliefs at all if any of my
25:53
beliefs are going to
25:54
meet the level of justification where i
25:57
can be
25:58
confident about them and ensure that i'm
26:00
holding them in the right way
26:01
if that's going to be possible at all i
26:04
have to
26:05
seek out actively disagreement i have to
26:08
put myself in a social situation where
26:10
i'm
26:11
regularly critiqued and not by just
26:14
lay people i'm regularly critiqued by
26:16
the best representatives
26:18
of contrary views people who sincerely
26:21
passionately hold views that i find
26:24
false or maybe even reprehensible i have
26:27
to seek those people out
26:29
and invite their critique about my own
26:31
views or my own views aren't justified
26:34
this is mills view and somewhere in here
26:37
i think
26:38
is the solution or the the antidote
26:41
to the kinds of problems i described a
26:43
moment ago
26:44
you have to you have to learn to see
26:45
disagreement as a healthy thing as a
26:47
good thing
26:48
as something that is not necessarily
26:51
hostile
26:52
so there was a i think it was barna or
26:55
one of
26:55
maybe it was pew one of those big
26:58
polling
26:59
organizations a couple years ago
27:02
did a poll and they found that
27:04
millennials
27:05
tend to view disagreement someone
27:08
expressing disagreement
27:10
as hostile more so than previous
27:13
generations even
27:14
did and this is dangerous
27:17
we have to somehow figure out a way to
27:19
teach our youth
27:20
that to model for them really not just
27:22
teach it but model it
27:24
the disagreement can be healthy and
27:26
constructive
27:27
and friendly that it can actually be a
27:30
kind thing to do
27:32
for a friend i mean that sounds good
27:36
but is it because i've never i so rarely
27:40
see
27:40
disagreement modeled well that i can say
27:43
disagreement
27:44
is a kind thing to a friend or how much
27:47
can you
27:47
how much is it humanly possible for a
27:49
person to
27:50
detach their emotions to a certain to
27:53
such an extent to where you can receive
27:55
that kind of
27:56
critique critique and criticism or um
27:59
disagreement
28:00
and still feel grounded as a person and
28:02
not attacked
28:04
or belittled or you know you're yeah
28:07
good
28:07
i'm not sold on that that yeah the kind
28:10
disagreeing with the person is the
28:11
kindest thing you can do
28:12
so a couple things one you'll notice
28:16
i did not say anything about detaching
28:18
from one's emotions
28:19
so part of learning to disagree well and
28:21
this takes practice trial and error
28:24
you have to learn to control your
28:25
emotions but the best arguments
28:28
are arguments that are passionate
28:32
that are emotional uh they just shepherd
28:35
those emotions well
28:36
so there's there is i'll grant you this
28:38
there is an old tradition
28:40
in philosophy uh it goes all the way
28:43
back to the greeks
28:44
very pr prominent in the modern period
28:46
of viewing emotions as something
28:48
dangerous
28:49
something that is inherently irrational
28:52
and that
28:53
uh to to have the best kind of human
28:54
life you need to learn to suppress those
28:56
so that you can be purely rational that
28:58
was certainly plato's view
29:00
but since then there have been some
29:03
really productive movements within
29:04
philosophy most prominently by
29:06
feminist philosophers and other minority
29:09
philosophers
29:10
who have pointed out the danger of that
29:12
uh and
29:13
given us a corrective it's you don't
29:16
have to actually
29:17
demarcate your reason from your emotions
29:20
and then split yourself
29:21
like that because that's not how humans
29:23
actually work we experience these things
29:25
as
29:26
one thing i i am being a human means i
29:29
am rational it also means i'm emotional
29:31
i feel and think simultaneously and
29:33
these are one experience
29:35
uh so i do not advocate trying to
29:38
you know privilege one over the other
29:40
what i do advocate is trying to do both
29:42
responsibly
29:43
uh and you you can learn to do this
29:45
there are virtues of the mind there are
29:47
virtues of the emotion and you can
29:48
practice these virtues and become
29:50
good at being passionate being emotional
29:54
but in a controlled way sometimes anger
29:57
is the most rational response
30:00
to the position that someone else has
30:03
just taken
30:04
and it is possible not easy but it's
30:06
possible to express that anger
30:08
while also respecting the other person
30:12
uh you can be angry at them so i'm going
30:14
to borrow a distinction here
30:15
that i that i heard from someone else
30:17
scouting arthur brooks
30:18
uh he draws this distinction between
30:20
being angry
30:22
and being contemptuous to hold someone
30:25
in contempt
30:26
is to view them as worthless not worthy
30:29
of your respect
30:31
but you can be angry at them and still
30:32
value their perspective
30:34
still still value them as a human being
30:37
if you're a christian value them as
30:39
someone who bears the image of god
30:41
and express your anger as you would
30:42
express it to someone who you value
30:45
anger is not is not incompatible with
30:50
respect it's not incompatible with
30:51
kindness contempt is
30:54
viewing someone is worthless that's what
30:56
we have to train ourselves to avoid
30:59
friends before we continue we want to
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so this sounds this sounds all great
31:42
kyle and
31:43
i like the distinctions i particularly
31:45
like the
31:46
bad ways of disagreeing in the three
31:49
realms
31:50
of faulty ways of engaging and
31:53
disagreeing but
31:54
how does it look between you and your
31:57
wife
31:58
right i i sat at a cafe table with you
32:02
and emily
32:03
and did pre-marital counseling with you
32:04
guys and pretended that i was the expert
32:07
at it
32:07
and i officiated your wedding now kyle
32:10
the husband who
32:11
you know letters behind his name doesn't
32:12
mean a whole lot a whole lot and
32:14
when you walk through that door what
32:16
does disagreeing well look like on an
32:18
intimate personal level yeah
32:22
it's much much harder
32:25
so this is not in my dissertation so i
32:28
don't have any
32:28
particular expertise about uh intimate
32:32
uh relationship you know dynamics or
32:34
anything like that but what i can say is
32:35
that the stakes
32:37
in intimate relationships are much much
32:39
higher
32:40
than they are in workplace disagreements
32:43
or
32:44
academic disagreements or the sort of
32:45
disagreements you might have on social
32:47
media
32:47
with friends or strangers it's very very
32:50
important
32:51
and this is important across the board
32:52
but even more so in intimate context
32:55
very important to first understand
32:58
why someone holds the position that they
33:00
hold before trying to have the argument
33:03
the argument still has to be had in in
33:05
my experience
33:07
brushing it under the rug is not going
33:08
to help anyone but understanding the
33:11
psychological work
33:13
that someone's view is doing for them
33:15
why they hold the view
33:17
why it's important to them why they
33:19
place as much weight on it as they do
33:21
that is crucial it's a necessary step to
33:24
having successful
33:25
disagreements that's in other words
33:26
emphasis especially true
33:29
empathy is an aspect of it but this is
33:31
something that can be achieved even by
33:33
people who have a difficulty with
33:35
empathy
33:36
um so for example i think sociopaths
33:39
could still have successful
33:40
disagreements
33:41
if they adopt certain kind of
33:43
methodological stances
33:46
there's hope for dexter indeed
33:50
so yeah so just give you a little
33:52
example
33:53
not about my wife uh about someone else
33:56
so
33:57
i was in a home church a little small
33:59
group of christians
34:01
who met together once a week in our
34:03
homes
34:04
and there was a another person in this
34:06
home church who was very sweet
34:08
very kind just really genuinely good
34:11
person
34:12
uh but they believed something that i
34:14
did not believe and this came up in one
34:16
of our
34:17
one of our meetings something about
34:19
evolution i think it was
34:21
and sort of unthinkingly when this came
34:24
up i just kind of
34:26
steamrolled this person just you know
34:28
said all the reasons that i thought
34:30
this particular view was dumb why this
34:33
other view was obviously better
34:35
i didn't really think much of it and
34:37
then a couple weeks later
34:39
i find out that this seriously shook
34:42
this person's faith
34:44
they kind of had a faith structure so
34:46
that everything was kind of precariously
34:48
placed leaning on everything else
34:50
each little component of it needed to be
34:52
there you might call this like a house
34:54
of cards kind of structure of faith
34:57
but there were some really good
34:59
psychological reasons having to do with
35:01
this person's past
35:02
that they held this view and it was a
35:05
view that i didn't place any weight on
35:06
at all i was years removed from thinking
35:08
this was even an important view
35:10
but because i didn't take the time to do
35:12
the kind of investigative work of really
35:14
getting to know that person prior to
35:16
having the disagreement
35:17
i could have done some serious damage
35:19
fortunately it worked out this person
35:21
was forgiving
35:22
i was able to apologize and explain a
35:26
little more in depth my perspective and
35:27
it was all okay
35:28
but it could have been much worse and it
35:30
often is much worse
35:32
so you have to first prior to critiquing
35:34
of you
35:36
find out why it's there and connected to
35:38
that make sure you understand it
35:40
make sure you really get the full
35:42
picture of the reasons this person has
35:45
one great tool by the way one great test
35:47
if you're not sure how to do that
35:49
it's very simple repeat the person's
35:51
view back to them
35:52
and say is that your view and they will
35:56
say yes or no
35:57
and if it's not you need to listen more
35:59
that's good
36:00
that actually can be used in marriage as
36:02
well technically
36:05
now as we think of ourselves hopefully
36:08
we think of ourselves as christ's
36:10
followers and
36:13
jesus seemed to have an awful lot to say
36:15
about
36:16
what it means to be his follower and
36:18
there wasn't a whole lot about being
36:19
right
36:20
or even truth right i mean
36:24
when he said when he talked about truth
36:25
he pointed to himself
36:27
as a truth a person is the truth but
36:29
what he did talk
36:30
an awful lot is how people around you
36:34
are going to notice that you're my
36:35
followers
36:36
is by the way you love one another and
36:38
he talked
36:39
even a lot about unity within
36:43
disagreement because unity actually
36:45
means that we're together even if we
36:46
don't
36:47
agree with one another so as a
36:50
philosopher who also happens to be a
36:51
christian
36:52
and a christ follower kyle is one
36:56
nagging
36:56
is one kind of competing with the other
36:58
this value of agape love
37:00
that prefers the other unconditionally
37:04
but also is seeking the truth are those
37:07
in competition with one another
37:09
how does that work yeah
37:12
this is a hard question i i'd like to
37:14
say they're never in competition
37:15
i've had a running disagreement with a
37:18
good friend of mine
37:19
another philosopher about this specific
37:21
question
37:22
i think sometimes they can be intention
37:25
the truth
37:26
and love but i need to make a
37:28
distinction here between two
37:29
senses of that tension so we can talk
37:32
about there being attention in a
37:33
metaphysical sense
37:35
which means the way the world
37:37
fundamentally is
37:38
uh like inherent in it there's some kind
37:41
of tension
37:42
and in that sense i don't think that
37:43
there is a tension between truth and
37:45
love because
37:46
as a christian i believe that the truth
37:49
and love
37:50
are metaphysically the same thing now
37:52
that's very complicated and we could
37:53
have a longer conversation about that
37:56
but that is not the sense of tension
37:57
that i mean another sense of tension
38:00
is there's a kind of epistemic or
38:02
epistemological
38:04
tension which means with respect to what
38:06
we can know
38:08
about the world there might in fact be
38:10
attention or
38:11
or what we can establish maybe or
38:13
convince others of about the world
38:15
in that sense there might actually be a
38:17
tension between truth
38:19
as a value and love as a value
38:22
sometimes in practice those things do
38:24
come into conflict
38:26
philosophy in the greek tradition at
38:29
least is all about
38:30
the truth i mean it's all about wisdom
38:32
the word literally means the love of
38:33
wisdom
38:34
and that means finding out one what the
38:36
world is like and two how do i live in
38:38
it
38:38
what should i do what am i what should i
38:40
do we want to know what reality is
38:43
uh truth is the whole thing and
38:47
love when it comes up which is not that
38:49
often is
38:50
secondary or it's talked about in a kind
38:52
of romantic way or an erotic way or
38:54
something like that
38:55
the christian emphasis on agape love
38:58
which is this kind of self-sacrificial
39:01
other oriented extended even to enemies
39:05
that kind of love the kind of love that
39:07
god has for us
39:08
the kind of love that's exhibited by
39:10
jesus on the cross
39:12
that doesn't really appear in philosophy
39:15
very much
39:15
unless it is philosophy done by and
39:17
motivated by christians
39:19
and i thought for a long time i even
39:20
wrote a paper about this about what it
39:22
means to be a christian philosopher and
39:24
it's
39:25
something that kind of keeps me up at
39:26
night i'm still a little bit torn on it
39:28
but i have to say at the end of the day
39:30
if the two are in conflict i have to
39:32
privilege love
39:34
i have to value the person in front of
39:36
me
39:37
over coming to agreement about the truth
39:41
or or even over the truth being honored
39:44
and that sounds really bad but in
39:46
practice fortunately it's usually not
39:47
that bad
39:48
uh i think i think there's a there's a
39:50
hypothetical space in which
39:52
those that tension could be really
39:53
pronounced but in practice
39:55
thank god most of the time these things
39:57
go together and in fact most of the time
39:59
when i
40:00
approach someone in love and i value
40:02
them
40:03
more than agreeing more than being right
40:07
it actually ends up helping the truth to
40:10
be
40:10
discovered or at least helping us make
40:12
progress towards it together
40:14
because it kind of undercuts the
40:16
hostility it undercuts the
40:18
contemptuousness that is the real
40:20
roadblock
40:21
to coming to the truth if i can gain the
40:23
trust
40:24
of the other person by demonstrating
40:26
that i love them
40:27
then the truth becomes much more likely
40:30
and that is a very good thing otherwise
40:32
it would be even more difficult for me
40:33
to reconcile
40:34
the philosophical part of me in the
40:36
christian part of me yep absolutely
40:39
so i asked you what are bad ways to
40:41
disagree and what are
40:42
what's behind those bad ways what does
40:45
it look like to disagree well
40:49
yeah unfortunately i've had lots of
40:51
great models of this my whole life
40:53
i don't know i've just been really lucky
40:54
to have good spiritual advisors yourself
40:56
included who
40:57
uh model for me sort of humble way to
41:00
approach people
41:01
uh even while disagreeing with them and
41:03
so i've been lucky and fortunate to
41:06
to see a lot of people doing it well and
41:08
then
41:09
through studying it i've also come
41:10
across several sort of general
41:13
methods or general approaches that you
41:15
can take
41:16
to doing it well across the board that
41:19
don't always come naturally
41:20
to everyone so part of it is as i said
41:23
before becoming comfortable
41:24
being challenged reaching a place of
41:27
personal
41:28
maturity where someone challenging your
41:30
belief
41:31
you don't take that as devaluing you as
41:34
a person
41:34
you take it as actually an honoring
41:36
thing because they care about you and
41:38
your view enough to
41:39
engage with it but the most important
41:42
thing
41:44
is to develop a kind of intellectual
41:46
humility
41:47
to to recognize that you are finite
41:51
you are limited the even if you're an
41:53
expert the amount that you can know
41:55
about any issue
41:56
is very very small the the little niche
41:59
part of the world that you have insight
42:02
into
42:03
is minuscule and you're going to
42:06
encounter people who know more than you
42:08
you're going to encounter people who
42:09
have thought about something longer than
42:10
you have
42:11
and you have to approach your own
42:13
beliefs and the beliefs of others
42:15
with some humility with the ability to
42:18
admit that
42:19
maybe i don't know this i can be
42:22
confident about it confident enough to
42:23
act on it
42:24
but i'm not certain and
42:28
maybe in some circumstances it's not
42:30
even appropriate for me to say that i
42:31
know
42:32
that this is true and that's okay so
42:35
so developing some intellectual humility
42:38
is really
42:38
the key to having successful
42:40
disagreements because if you don't have
42:42
that if you're certain that you're right
42:43
then you're never going to engage with
42:45
someone else because you won't value
42:47
their view and this entails that you
42:49
have to be able to admit when you don't
42:50
know something you have to be able to
42:52
say
42:53
i'm ignorant this was actually the
42:55
beginning of philosophy
42:57
in the western tradition socrates said
43:00
look wisdom is simply
43:03
admitting that you don't know it's the
43:06
opposite of wisdom
43:08
is pretense pretending that you know
43:11
what you don't know all legitimate
43:14
inquiry
43:14
science itself doesn't get off the
43:17
ground until you can admit that you
43:18
don't know something until you can be
43:20
genuinely curious about the way the
43:21
world is
43:22
and admit that you don't know the way
43:26
the world is so that you can then
43:28
investigate it openly
43:29
that's the key to the whole thing if you
43:30
can't admit that you're wrong
43:33
there's really no chance for successful
43:35
disagreement
43:37
now that right there those three words i
43:40
don't know strike me as remarkably rare
43:44
in the world we live in today on a
43:46
number of levels right
43:48
but i don't know that sounds like just a
43:51
forgotten tool
43:53
to me yeah yeah and some
43:56
in some context it's not even allowed i
43:59
mean
44:00
imagine you work in a corporate context
44:02
and you were in a meeting
44:03
and your boss asks you a question and
44:06
you don't know the answer and you're
44:08
tempted to say
44:09
the responsible thing which is that you
44:11
know i don't have enough evidence about
44:12
that right now
44:14
maybe i can look into it and get back to
44:16
you but right now
44:17
i don't know often that's just not a
44:20
welcome response
44:21
that's not an okay thing to say it's the
44:23
most responsible thing to say
44:25
but it's not an okay thing to say and
44:27
you could run into serious trouble about
44:28
that
44:29
this is a deeply unhealthy way to
44:30
proceed and it's pervaded our culture
44:32
yeah yeah as a pastor
44:38
i i have no idea what you're talking
44:39
about it's dangerous to say i don't know
44:42
that must be particularly difficult for
44:44
you um
44:45
i mean because people put a lot of stock
44:47
in what you say you
44:48
in some ways represent god to them uh so
44:51
admitting ignorance
44:52
about god i would imagine would be
44:55
particularly fraught for you
44:57
yeah i think probably because of what's
44:59
been modeled you know for me for other
45:01
spiritual leaders which is
45:02
we're not talking about faith we're
45:04
talking about certainty
45:06
faith has been taken out of the equation
45:09
and we have to pretend that we're
45:10
certain about something and so that's
45:11
just become a culture
45:13
within our faith tradition honestly
45:17
particularly within evangelicalism but i
45:19
think probably within
45:20
many religious traditions and it's just
45:23
expected and
45:24
yeah that's a lot of pressure i mean
45:26
i've spent years of my young
45:28
ministry years practicing actually
45:31
answering
45:32
certain questions and and then kicking
45:35
myself when i didn't word it right or
45:37
say it right or
45:38
or appear that i that i have it all
45:40
figured out or whatever
45:42
that stuff that's the stuff that kept me
45:44
up at night and it just got to a point
45:45
where
45:46
i saw a lot of beauty and humility and
45:48
things being unlocked when i would say
45:51
i'm not sure or yeah i haven't landed
45:53
there yet or i don't know
45:55
that's a like those three words are very
45:58
discipling words is the way i see it now
46:01
um that you can have a faith leader who
46:04
has put a lot of time in
46:05
in in efforts in research into
46:08
what he's talking about or she's talking
46:10
about and to still come to a question
46:12
and say i don't know makes a lot of
46:14
space
46:16
for for humility but it challenges some
46:19
people too some people will walk away
46:21
because they have a pastor who said i
46:22
don't know about something that's really
46:24
important to them that's dangerous
46:25
in some sense absolutely that's so so so
46:28
important
46:28
as i'm listening to you both talk about
46:30
this in the context of disagreeing well
46:33
if i'm disagreeing with somebody who's
46:35
able to say
46:36
i don't know even if i know that they
46:39
can say i don't know about something
46:40
that gives me such a better
46:44
platform of respect and conversation
46:47
yeah that i appreciate that and and so
46:51
in the conflict then i would much rather
46:54
talk with the person who can say they
46:55
don't know
46:57
even if they actually are going to have
46:59
have an opinion or something that i
47:01
might disagree with in the midst of not
47:03
knowing
47:04
that's that's refreshing it changes the
47:07
whole like energy dynamic of the
47:08
conversation
47:10
uh my wife and i read a book by rob bell
47:12
and his wife called
47:13
the zim zoom of love there was this uh
47:16
concept he's good at titles
47:18
i know there's a concept that he
47:20
borrowed of like the energy that exists
47:22
between people and you can kind of tell
47:23
when that energy is off
47:25
and just something as simple as
47:26
admitting your ignorance saying i'm
47:28
really not sure
47:29
about this i'll you know share with you
47:31
my view but but i'm not
47:32
certain that can just totally change the
47:34
dynamics
47:35
and allows people to be more honest and
47:37
more open it makes it easier to
47:39
forgive each other and to love each
47:41
other well in that context it's super
47:42
important
47:43
randy you were saying about that you
47:46
felt this responsibility to have
47:48
the answer ready and then sort of kicked
47:51
yourself when you didn't
47:52
i think you and i both have had some not
47:55
so great experiences with
47:57
evangelical apologetics and maybe
47:59
eventually we'll
48:00
have a separate episode on that i've
48:02
intended for years to write a book on
48:04
all the problems with apologetics
48:06
culture and the main one and i was
48:08
personally
48:09
harmed by this the main one is it's like
48:12
hostile
48:13
to humility i mean it trains we very
48:16
specifically train people
48:18
to have a ready answer whether or not we
48:20
fully understood the view
48:22
that we're answering we're supposed to
48:24
have a ready answer for what people say
48:26
so that we can
48:27
demonstrate the rational superiority of
48:30
our view
48:31
that this is not compatible with
48:33
intellectual humility yeah i mean i
48:35
would say
48:36
the idea of certainty or always being
48:39
right or having a handle
48:41
and a firm grasp on who god is and that
48:44
being a
48:44
static reality that i've got it and i've
48:47
got god
48:48
that in many ways could be our modern
48:51
tower of babel
48:52
you know that we we think we've ascended
48:55
to this place
48:56
of understanding god and i i wonder if
48:58
what god's gonna do to
49:00
confuse us to create a little bit more
49:02
humility and
49:03
and wonder as well yeah
49:06
it's interesting that you mentioned
49:07
wonder i don't know if you know this but
49:10
another famous quote of socrates is that
49:12
philosophy begins in wonder
49:14
it's literally looking at the world and
49:17
being genuinely curious
49:19
at how it all works how it all fits
49:21
together this is the birth of science
49:23
this is the birth of ethics this is the
49:24
birth of
49:25
metaphysics in some ways it's the birth
49:27
of uh critical religion
49:29
we we just wonder what the world is like
49:32
it's
49:32
sort of this innate human curiosity that
49:35
every kid
49:36
has and you have to suppress it out of
49:38
them
49:39
or it'll stay there
49:43
that's the beginning of philosophy
49:44
that's that's what the whole thing's
49:45
about
49:46
and i mean i feel like you can spot a
49:48
person who
49:50
is acquainted with wonder
49:53
from a mile away right i mean because
49:55
those are the kind of people who just
49:56
can't stop asking questions
49:58
about you and your world those are the
49:59
people who are just genuinely excited
50:02
about who you are
50:03
what's your what you're doing what
50:05
you're excited about
50:06
that kind of person is just irresistible
50:08
to be around
50:10
rather than that douchey person who
50:12
loves talking about themselves and loves
50:14
talking about their ideas and their
50:16
opinions and
50:16
he can't can't is always carrying their
50:19
soapbox around now i'm
50:21
describing myself in many ways but that
50:24
wonder that socrate you're referencing
50:26
from socrates and that wonder that i
50:28
think is
50:28
missing from a lot of our modern
50:31
religious
50:32
world i just it's if right now
50:35
it's like a drug to me like i just can't
50:37
get enough of it i
50:38
i can't talk about wonder enough because
50:41
it's
50:42
there's such a vacuum of it in the
50:44
religious world that i live in
50:46
and when you're motivated by that by
50:48
wonder by genuine
50:49
curiosity there's no disappointing
50:53
answer
50:53
i mean there's no there's no place the
50:55
investigation can go that won't be
50:57
thrilling
50:58
yes because you don't have a
51:00
predetermined agenda that you're trying
51:02
to fill out the details of you just want
51:03
to know
51:04
that's good there's something very i
51:06
feel like divine about that something
51:08
maybe even part of the imago days we we
51:11
want to understand and that's a good
51:12
thing
51:13
that's good yep so speaking of religion
51:17
god spirituality you know we were
51:19
talking earlier about political
51:20
disagreements and how that's kind of
51:21
filling the error
51:22
in our culture when you talk about
51:24
disagreeing about god
51:26
right i've i've i've had some of my most
51:30
painful disagreements have been over
51:33
views of god or ways that i live or
51:37
don't live based
51:38
because of certain people's expectations
51:41
and
51:41
all that it just takes on a different
51:43
layer a different dimension a different
51:45
weight to it
51:46
can you talk to us about how to disagree
51:48
about god well
51:50
yeah good uh well so first there are
51:52
some general tips that work
51:54
for all disagreements and therefore they
51:56
also work for disagreements about
51:58
religion and about god
51:59
uh we already discussed being you gotta
52:01
be humble you gotta approach the issue
52:03
with
52:03
humility you got to be able to admit
52:05
when you're wrong you got to be
52:07
willing to listen try to understand the
52:09
other perspective first
52:11
again repeat it back to the other person
52:12
to make sure that you've understood it
52:14
approach someone as though you can learn
52:16
from them rather than just having
52:18
things to teach them explicitly affirm
52:21
the other person
52:22
has to be explicit and it's not good
52:23
enough that you believe that the other
52:24
person is valuable you have to tell them
52:27
that they're valuable this even works in
52:28
social media disagreements i found
52:30
i just say the words you are more
52:32
important to me
52:33
than this disagreement and that again
52:36
changes the dynamic of the whole thing
52:38
but you're right disagreeing about god
52:41
is special
52:41
because it's the stakes involved are so
52:44
much higher
52:45
for religious people their beliefs about
52:47
god are the core of who they are
52:49
they're the most important things
52:52
usually
52:53
and for that reason many religious
52:54
people are simply unwilling to engage
52:56
they're dogmatic about their religious
52:57
beliefs
52:58
in fact the word dogma sometimes just
53:00
means religious belief
53:02
and so they're simply unwilling to
53:03
engage because of the stakes if
53:05
if it turns out i'm wrong about this
53:08
there goes the world
53:09
there goes everything right everything
53:11
that's important to me
53:13
and this is dangerous it gives you a
53:14
really shallow faith a faith that can't
53:16
withstand scrutiny of faith that
53:18
probably can't withstand
53:19
the the things that life is going to
53:21
throw at you just because you're human
53:24
so in my view the best way
53:27
to have a disagreement about god
53:30
is to focus a little bit less on
53:34
the object of the disagreement
53:37
the specific thing you're disagreeing
53:38
about and a little bit more on how
53:41
you're doing the disagreement
53:42
or the method of the disagreement so if
53:45
you're a christian
53:46
we're christians most of our listeners
53:48
are probably christians
53:49
disagreeing about god is not just
53:51
disagreeing about
53:53
the christian god as an idea it is
53:56
learning to disagree in a christian way
53:59
how can we
54:00
how can we make our method of
54:01
disagreement christian how can we
54:03
disagree like jesus would
54:05
disagree or like the holy spirit would
54:08
have us
54:08
disagree and when we frame it in that
54:10
way the
54:11
the question takes on a different um i
54:14
don't know a different tinge it
54:16
becomes a little bit easier to discuss
54:19
what that might look like because
54:21
we know hopefully what's distinctive to
54:23
christianity i mean we know what
54:25
christianity is about it's it's about
54:27
things like agape love
54:29
and grace graciousness and mercy
54:33
and being incarnational you know giving
54:36
giving up our power
54:38
uh for the sake of the goodness of
54:40
another person
54:41
and so when i when i approach someone
54:43
i'm disagreeing with
54:45
with all those values in mind i'm
54:48
honoring them as
54:49
an image bearer of the divine as
54:51
something of unsurpassable worth as
54:52
something
54:53
that i have a duty of agape love towards
54:58
changes the whole dynamic of the
55:00
disagreement so i'm a little less
55:02
interested in
55:03
how to disagree about god than i am in
55:05
how to disagree like god
55:07
like like the person that jesus would
55:10
would have me do
55:12
and now practically what does that mean
55:13
concretely it might mean
55:15
giving up on winning it might mean
55:19
being willing to let this disagreement
55:20
just continue for a while
55:22
it might mean helping the other person
55:24
make their point
55:26
they might be having difficulty
55:27
expressing it they might be getting
55:28
heated or frustrated
55:30
care for them in that moment help them
55:33
to
55:33
to flesh out their own view before
55:35
trying to correct it
55:36
it might mean letting them have the last
55:38
word all that stuff
55:40
yep so i'm sure there's some listeners
55:43
who are maybe in the midst
55:44
of a major disagreement that's causing
55:47
disruption
55:48
or we've been in this before and you get
55:50
to that point where you're
55:53
you feel certain that you're right
55:56
and almost like it's injustice to let
55:58
this
55:59
go wrong and to let this settle because
56:02
you're wrong
56:04
yeah what do you do then a couple things
56:08
it rarely is actually injustice
56:11
i know it feels that way very often but
56:14
that is very rarely the case and when it
56:16
is the case it's usually pretty obvious
56:18
but more importantly even than that is
56:21
you're not
56:22
certain you're just not going to have a
56:24
successful disagreement until you
56:26
realize that certainty
56:27
is a cancer certainty is not attainable
56:31
by humans about anything about god about
56:34
science about politics
56:36
even about perceptual beliefs like their
56:39
certainty is simply
56:40
not attainable you have to come to terms
56:43
with that
56:44
and be okay with beliefs that are
56:47
fallible beliefs that are maybe a bit
56:50
more probabilistic
56:51
it's not to say you can't be confident
56:52
it's not to say you can't act on
56:54
beliefs with some surety but you're
56:57
never certain
56:58
certainty is the enemy of faith so
57:01
certainty
57:02
is the enemy of faith i agree with that
57:04
but here's
57:06
in my world i've got some people that i
57:08
really
57:09
i'll even go into a an engagement with a
57:12
certain person
57:14
or certain kind or certain few people
57:16
and think about what i'm
57:17
willing or not willing to share because
57:19
i don't want to
57:21
stir something up right and most of
57:24
mostly those people are pretty
57:26
fundamentalists
57:27
christians who have this view of the
57:29
bible but the bible in particular seems
57:31
to be a tipping point for
57:33
for disagreements and for ways that we
57:36
disagree
57:37
where they have this view that if
57:39
there's a contradiction in the bible or
57:41
if
57:41
if there's a human element to the bible
57:44
that wasn't maybe 100
57:45
inspired right it's far be it for me to
57:48
say that
57:49
that the whole thing then falls apart
57:51
and so i know that as
57:53
as i'm talking to this person that i can
57:55
bring
57:56
all the data and all the reason and all
57:58
the
57:59
all the logic that i can but they will
58:02
never be able to say
58:03
yes you might be right or man i got to
58:05
think about that or wow that's that's
58:07
really interesting
58:08
because if they say that the faith that
58:10
they've built
58:12
completely falls apart like a house of
58:14
cards
58:15
how do you actually engage with a person
58:16
like that is it possible to
58:18
yeah i think it is possible usually now
58:22
i'm enough of a realist to say there are
58:24
probably situations where
58:26
people are just unwilling to let go of
58:28
their dogmatism maybe there's good
58:29
psychological reasons for that
58:31
and probably engagement after a certain
58:33
point with some people
58:34
is probably not possible and as a human
58:37
with limited
58:38
time and limited energy and limited
58:42
ability to engage with everybody
58:44
sometimes you have to make a sort of
58:45
cost-benefit decision
58:46
and decide who's who's best worth your
58:48
time but what i found to be most
58:50
successful
58:51
with dealing with people like this
58:53
extreme dogmatists
58:55
is to just bracket the issue we disagree
58:57
about all together for a while
58:59
and just be really really nice
59:02
so i had a i had a friend in college who
59:05
i used to have a blog and it was a blog
59:07
about
59:08
faith and religion and god and stuff and
59:11
he would regularly comment just really
59:15
hostile things
59:16
on this blog call me names call me a
59:19
fascist thing
59:20
all these things and sometimes you do
59:22
some public too
59:24
and i just decided that the best way to
59:28
approach this is to try to get to know
59:30
him
59:30
and so the next time he called me a name
59:33
i invited him to lunch
59:34
and he accepted and he probably thought
59:37
we were going to hash it out
59:38
and so we got to the cafeteria and we
59:40
got our food and he sat down and he
59:41
started to launch into things and i said
59:44
let's just i don't really want to do
59:46
that right now let's uh let's just get
59:47
to know each other
59:48
a little better if that's okay and we
59:51
had a series of meals together
59:53
like this and eventually uh he would he
59:56
would go around campus saying man those
59:58
christians they're all so stupid i hate
60:00
them they're so full of themselves they
60:01
have no idea what they're talking about
60:03
except that one guy that one guy he's
60:06
okay but the rest
60:08
uh so i was able to gain his trust and
60:10
then eventually we had some fairly
60:11
productive conversations
60:13
about god and about faith which would
60:15
never have happened if he
60:16
viewed me as someone uh suspicious
60:18
someone that he couldn't trust
60:20
sometimes that works i think it's the
60:22
best chance any of us have
60:25
it's not full it probably won't always
60:27
work
60:28
again because of how much importance we
60:31
put on these particular kinds of
60:33
beliefs but again if you can't get past
60:36
the need for certainty you're simply not
60:39
going to have a healthy faith
60:41
yep yep it's good so randy i'm curious
60:44
about something from your own experience
60:46
with disagreement you are a pastor of a
60:49
moderately sized church the the church
60:52
is
60:52
elder led which means there's a team of
60:54
people that you're sort of
60:56
at the same level i guess
60:57
authoritatively speaking is that not a
60:59
team of old people but yes
61:03
yeah good um so like the decision-making
61:06
power is distributed
61:07
among this group of people and i would
61:09
assume there's often disagreement
61:10
between i know all of you so i i know
61:12
there's disagreement often
61:14
between you about some probably pretty
61:16
important stuff what's been your
61:17
experience with
61:18
navigating disagreement in the context
61:20
of that kind of
61:21
church structure it's a great question i
61:24
mean i think
61:25
for me it's all about what kind of
61:27
culture you set are you setting a
61:29
culture
61:30
in which the loudest voice in the room
61:33
usually gets their way or a culture in
61:36
which
61:36
you're you're always suspect of one
61:38
another or are you
61:40
establishing a culture an underlying
61:43
foundation
61:44
of love for one another that's
61:46
prioritized over and above this thing
61:48
that we're doing or even this
61:49
disagreement that we're having
61:51
right and so what we've established a
61:53
culture
61:54
that prioritizes loving one another that
61:56
prioritizes a relationship
61:58
with one another in such a way that we
62:00
rarely and i
62:01
i really mean this that sounds it sounds
62:03
i'm sure this sounds weird to people
62:04
particularly people who have been on
62:06
church leadership teams or elder teams
62:08
we rarely vote on anything ever
62:11
i think i think i could count on one
62:13
hand the time we act
62:14
times we've actually voted on something
62:17
within the last
62:18
five to six years i'm not exaggerating
62:20
and that's mostly because
62:22
we disagree with one another and
62:26
honor one another within that and we'll
62:28
walk we'll air that out until we get to
62:31
a point where we can say
62:32
okay i think that's best or even some of
62:35
us can get to a point and say
62:37
i still disagree but i see your point
62:40
and i'm gonna prefer the group or prefer
62:42
you and and just
62:44
so we rarely ever get to a point where
62:46
we have a vote which i think speaks to
62:48
that culture that we've established and
62:51
you've got to be willing to be wrong
62:52
you've got to be willing to
62:53
to trust one another and something that
62:55
really has helped actually in the way
62:57
that i've engaged with our leaders
62:59
is the enneagram i know that you're
63:02
you know you you're a little bit cynical
63:04
about a couple of things kyle and
63:05
one of those would be the enneagram but
63:08
we did
63:09
last year last june we did an enneagram
63:12
assessment and then
63:13
a spiritual director came in and did an
63:16
enneagram workshop with us where he went
63:18
through all the numbers and we got to
63:19
hear
63:20
after we did our assessments who's what
63:22
number and then the spiritual director
63:24
talked about the strong suits and the
63:26
weaknesses of those numbers
63:28
and it got me to understand the people
63:30
that i'm leading with so much more
63:31
whereas
63:33
for a long time whenever we'd be ready
63:35
to make a decision i'm ready to go i'm
63:36
ready to
63:37
i'm the guy who's wanting to go and just
63:39
like forget about what people think
63:41
because this is just the best way let's
63:42
go let's move we move too slow as a
63:44
church
63:45
but then there's this other guy in the
63:46
room who's constantly saying
63:49
well what are people going to think
63:50
about this what's the congregation going
63:52
to
63:53
how's the congregation respond and i
63:55
always saw that as weakness
63:56
in him i usually saw that as why are you
63:59
so afraid of people right
64:01
and so in my heart i would judge him and
64:03
i would you know
64:05
condescend and come down to you know
64:07
okay let's answer him if he needs to
64:09
have this but once we did the enneagram
64:11
i learned that he's a nine on the
64:12
enneagram which means that europe
64:14
you want to maintain peace as much as
64:16
humanly possible you're a peaceful
64:18
person you love peace you love making
64:20
peace you're a peacemaker
64:22
and that's beautiful in many ways in it
64:25
all of a sudden
64:25
it just helped me realize i actually
64:28
don't care at all about what people
64:30
think i don't care about maintaining the
64:32
peace i'm an
64:32
eight i i challenge things and i don't
64:34
care about it as a matter of fact i
64:36
thrive when i challenge things
64:37
so it actually would help me to listen
64:40
to this other person
64:41
who cares about maintaining the peace
64:43
because i might actually destroy
64:45
relationships along the way if i don't
64:46
listen so that's just a little example
64:48
of
64:48
knowing one another preferring one
64:50
another actually helps us disagree in a
64:52
way that we know that
64:54
nobody's gonna not come back next week
64:56
nobody's gonna
64:58
take their their toys and go home
64:59
nobody's gonna be
65:01
so broken over this that we're gonna
65:04
break a relationship because we care
65:05
about one another more than we care
65:06
about this thing that we're leading and
65:08
that's something that we've established
65:09
from the very beginning is
65:11
this is an important value to us into
65:13
our culture
65:14
you and i in our relationship is more
65:16
important than this organization that
65:17
we're leading
65:19
and it sounds crazy it sounds like
65:21
antithetical to good leadership
65:23
but we've actually that's the i think
65:25
that's the way you create a culture in
65:27
which disagreeing becomes safe then
65:30
yeah yeah yep it's so good preferring
65:33
others isn't there something in the
65:34
bible about that
65:35
uh consider maybe more maybe somewhere i
65:38
feel like that's in there somewhere i
65:39
don't know
65:40
yeah that's that's good stuff and and
65:42
actually
65:43
to the people that think that sounds
65:45
kind of weak
65:46
making that commitment to prefer each
65:48
other above the disagreement we're
65:50
having
65:51
actually in my experience does not make
65:54
the disagreement less effective
65:56
in fact it tends to make it more
65:57
effective because it encourages
65:59
it makes the person feel trusted and
66:01
valued and
66:03
makes you more motivated to reach a kind
66:05
of resolution
66:06
or to get things done at least that's
66:08
been my experience
66:10
so it's not to prefer someone else's not
66:13
to give up on
66:14
solving the problem it actually makes
66:16
solving the problem more likely
66:19
that's good here's why i think this is
66:23
so important
66:24
particularly for us jesus followers but
66:26
for for also
66:27
the atheists who are are listening or
66:30
people of different faiths
66:31
who we're so glad to have you journeying
66:33
along with us i mean really you make us
66:35
better
66:35
and in in brilliant ways but
66:38
here's why for me this is so important
66:40
because we have jesus
66:41
who's praying for the church he's
66:43
praying for the for us for those who are
66:45
going to come after
66:46
the disciples and he asks the father for
66:49
one thing
66:50
he asked the father for for this one
66:52
thing for the church that
66:53
if i could have anything for the church
66:56
this is in the
66:57
jesus high priestly prayer in the book
66:59
of john if i could have anything for the
67:01
church
67:02
father would you bless them with this
67:04
beautiful gift that's called
67:05
unity not truth
67:09
not being right not good dogma
67:12
and good theology right not
67:15
not knowing the theology and the
67:17
doctrine of the trinity perfectly
67:19
inside and out not the right
67:21
denomination
67:22
but unity how many of us would actually
67:25
say if we could
67:26
ask for one thing out of the church and
67:29
see one thing
67:30
in the church happen that's the highest
67:32
priority how many of us would say unity
67:34
would be number one and see here's the
67:36
thing we see unity as being
67:38
all of us are agreeing are agreeing
67:40
together this is why we see churches
67:41
that are
67:42
98 white or 97 percent black or latino
67:46
this is why we see churches that are
67:48
just calvinist or armenian or open
67:50
theology this is why we see churches who
67:52
are
67:53
who believe in one way about baptism and
67:55
not another way it's because we think
67:57
unity means agreeing with one another
68:00
and that's why we're just
68:01
completely incapable many of us many in
68:04
in many ways
68:05
of sitting in the same room in a per
68:08
with a person
68:09
who fundamentally disagrees with us
68:11
about something that's important to us
68:13
but choosing the way of love in that
68:15
moment choosing
68:16
to see them as a person not an idea not
68:19
as a disagreement not as a soap box
68:22
but just as this beautiful person who's
68:23
created in the image of god
68:25
what would the church look like if we
68:28
could have that what would
68:29
our society and culture look like if we
68:31
could value unity
68:32
above being right unity above proving my
68:35
point
68:36
unity above looking good right
68:40
so much as we began this episode so much
68:43
of our world
68:45
is right there could be could be just
68:47
made so much more beautiful
68:49
elevated and just so much more enjoyable
68:52
if we could actually figure out what
68:53
unity in my neighbors looks like
68:55
unity in my home unity in my family not
68:58
agreement
68:59
not being right but actually choosing
69:01
one another and choosing to be
69:02
with one another choosing solidarity
69:06
over disruption and exclusion choosing
69:09
inclusion in the midst of disagreements
69:12
this
69:12
is an important conversation so thank
69:14
you kyle for leading us in it
69:17
you passed you got your phd
69:19
congratulations doctor
69:21
well done thanks randy you too
69:26
i don't know how to respond
69:30
thanks for listening we hope you enjoyed
69:32
this conversation you can find us on
69:33
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69:34
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69:36
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69:38
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69:40
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69:41
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69:42
till next time this has been a pastor
69:44
and a philosopher
69:45
walk into a barn
69:49
[Music]