Kyle and Randy discuss faith, reason, existentialism, and what it means to be a Christian with a little help from 19th century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. We touch on all sorts of fun things, like why being American has nothing to do with being Christian, why being religious isn't the same thing as being Christian, why approaching faith with your brain first is probably not Christian either, and much more. There's something here to offend everyone, we promise.
The beer we sample in this episode is Pilsner Urquell. The book Kyle recommends at the end is The Essential Kierkegaard. For more on Kyle's thoughts on the relation between faith and belief, see here.
=====
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Cheers!
Kyle and Randy discuss faith, reason, existentialism, and what it means to be a Christian with a little help from 19th century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. We touch on all sorts of fun things, like why being American has nothing to do with being Christian, why being religious isn't the same thing as being Christian, why approaching faith with your brain first is probably not Christian either, and much more. There's something here to offend everyone, we promise.
The beer we sample in this episode is Pilsner Urquell. The book Kyle recommends at the end is The Essential Kierkegaard. For more on Kyle's thoughts on the relation between faith and belief, see here.
=====
Want to support us?
The best way is to subscribe to our Patreon. Annual memberships are available for a 10% discount.
If you'd rather make a one-time donation, you can contribute through our PayPal.
Other important info:
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=o9GfSecvvr4&t=5s
[Music]
00:03
Welcome friends to another episode of a pastor
00:05
and a philosopher walk into a bar
00:08
we're always excited to share this time
00:10
with you and chat and just bring you
00:12
into our heads and our world in our
00:14
conversations and today literally is
00:16
going to be just bringing you into a
00:18
conversation that kyle and i had and we
00:20
stopped and said wait a minute we need
00:21
to share this with our friends
00:23
yeah
00:24
clearly that happened yeah yeah a couple
00:26
days ago we were talking and kyle talked
00:28
about how
00:29
kierkegaard talked about the end of
00:31
reason
00:32
where is the beginning of faith is that
00:34
about what you say kyle yeah more or
00:36
less we're going to unpack that here in
00:37
a few minutes but yeah
00:39
and how my view of faith has changed
00:40
over the years to become gradually
00:42
closer to his even though i resisted it
00:44
at every turn so
00:46
yeah we thought you know this is
00:47
something we should put on the podcast i
00:49
think it's going to be fun i'm excited
00:50
about it i'm also excited about what
00:51
we're drinking i don't know how many
00:53
other people are going to be excited
00:54
about we're drinking but i don't really
00:55
care
00:56
when we started this podcast i was
00:58
mocked fairly openly by some people for
01:01
being a lover of pilsners but i'm not
01:03
just a lover of any kind of pilsner i'm
01:05
the lover of european pilsners and
01:08
there's something about european
01:09
pilsners that can't be duplicated no
01:12
matter how hard americans try i've never
01:14
met it and for this episode we have a
01:16
great friend of ours his name is chris
01:18
johnson he
01:20
brews beer he
01:22
makes whiskey don't tell anyone are we
01:24
supposed to tell people that it's uh
01:26
allegedly yes allegedly so chris welcome
01:29
to a pastor and philosopher walking to a
01:31
bar thank you you guys are so pretty
01:34
all right i can see where this is going
01:35
to go
01:37
all right so this is pilsner kel this is
01:39
i think probably the best representative
01:40
of european pilsners it's got the right
01:42
amount of hops it's got it's clear crisp
01:45
it's funky
01:46
let's try it
01:50
and we're drinking it out of a super
01:52
tall pilsner glass for those of you who
01:53
can't see it's actually quite pretty
01:56
yep there it is
01:58
chris why don't you tell us something
02:00
about pilsners
02:02
so as far as uh pilsners go
02:05
um czech var is actually
02:08
and pilsner cal is
02:11
touted as one of the most original of
02:13
the styles of pilsner
02:16
it is a lager so that means that it is
02:18
fermented
02:19
in lower temperatures with a specific
02:21
yeast that is a lager yeast
02:25
the
02:27
bitterness of this is
02:29
not harsh not like an ipa it's fairly
02:32
mild to match the malt profile
02:36
and this particular beer
02:40
i believe is known for having a
02:42
particular
02:43
style of
02:46
boiling the
02:47
wort
02:49
multiple times so as to get a particular
02:52
caramelization is that right
02:54
out of the
02:56
beer
02:57
this could be completely um bs
03:00
but that's what i'm saying for now
03:06
uh you know what i don't hate it which
03:07
for pilsner is really saying something
03:09
um i expected it to have no flavor
03:11
whatsoever
03:13
uh and there is some so
03:14
i think it's already better than i
03:16
expected yeah that's the thing about
03:18
american pilsners and lagers in general
03:20
i think is that uh
03:22
they're almost nothing to them it's like
03:24
drinking brown water yeah if you drink
03:26
this compared to any american pilsner a
03:28
budweiser or mildly light or whatever
03:31
it's going to be completely different
03:33
well the interesting thing is for me
03:34
there's there have been microbreweries
03:37
craft breweries who've tried to
03:38
replicate european pilsners and i've had
03:40
a bunch of them because i'm like it has
03:42
to be able to be duplicated i haven't
03:44
had one yeah never why is that for years
03:47
you know as a home brewer i tried for at
03:49
least three to five years to try to
03:51
replicate what i loved you know european
03:53
couldn't do it couldn't do it what do
03:55
you think it is that keeps them distinct
03:57
i don't know if i knew i would
04:00
knew it obviously no other americans do
04:02
either because because these aren't aged
04:04
in any way there's nothing about the
04:05
terroir or the water available in
04:07
certain places that would make a
04:08
difference it could be the process it
04:11
could be a lot of things but i haven't
04:12
gotten close weird yep i will say
04:15
they're very pretty to look at they have
04:16
the bubbles that just continue it's like
04:18
champagne you're never gonna get in a
04:19
nail
04:21
so you don't hate it huh i don't hate it
04:22
all right good i feel like you i wish i
04:25
did i wish i could say
04:26
that it was terrible and you have no
04:28
taste but it's actually pretty good
04:31
so kyle as we've been talking about our
04:33
faith journey and um particularly yours
04:36
intermingled with your philosophical
04:40
i was gonna say indoctrination
04:43
hopefully the opposite of that
04:46
um we'll find out we'll find out but
04:49
you were speaking of kierkegaard's
04:52
studies on the end of faith in the
04:53
beginning of reason and the marriage of
04:55
faith and reason and how that works
04:57
and
04:58
i want to hear more about that so i'm
05:00
just going to basically play host
05:02
ask you some questions let you talk and
05:04
um maybe just kind of how this started
05:05
anyway right i guess so chillin talking
05:08
after one of our recording sessions yeah
05:10
yeah let's just have a conversation so
05:12
um
05:13
faith and reason is one of those huge
05:15
topics in philosophy of religion like
05:17
there's probably encyclopedia entries on
05:19
it if you go to some philosophy
05:20
encyclopedia it's just one of the main
05:22
things that you learn about when you
05:24
start studying that
05:26
so it's super old and everybody that's
05:27
anybody in the history of philosophy has
05:29
had something to say about it
05:31
my own journey on this issue started as
05:34
an undergrad i guess when i was super
05:36
into apologetics this is something you
05:38
and i have talked about before
05:40
and so i thought it was really important
05:41
to defend the faith right i thought
05:43
there were a lot of people out there who
05:44
wanted to attack it and we're asking all
05:46
these hard questions and i thought there
05:47
was lots of christians who like were
05:49
desperate for answers
05:51
and particularly lots of unchurched
05:53
people who were desperate for i later
05:54
came to realize those that's largely a
05:56
myth right there aren't that many people
05:58
out there care about that stuff
06:00
unless you're like a 20-something white
06:01
kid and like that's exactly the only
06:03
person who's interested in that in my
06:05
world more or less yeah but it took me
06:07
several years to figure that out so my
06:09
initial thinking musings i guess on
06:11
faith and reason were that they were
06:13
almost the same thing
06:15
that i wanted to make faith super
06:16
rational
06:18
and i was really concerned
06:20
with critiques of christianity as being
06:23
irrational in fact just totally
06:26
coincidentally today you know how
06:27
facebook sometimes shows you what you
06:29
posted you know this on this day
06:31
about my kids
06:33
yeah well it showed me today on this day
06:34
10 years ago you posted this blog post
06:37
and so i followed the link just to see
06:38
what i'd said
06:40
and was reminded of how into this stuff
06:42
i used to be and how you know i used to
06:45
talk about faith as
06:47
almost this
06:48
proof-oriented evidential forensic thing
06:52
to counter what i thought the atheists
06:53
were saying which some of them were
06:55
saying right they were saying things
06:57
like
06:58
look faith is just believing in
07:01
contradiction to the evidence or or
07:03
believing entirely without evidence
07:05
that's the point of faith if you listen
07:07
to people like sam harris or richard
07:09
dawkins or whatever
07:11
i later came to see that you ought not
07:13
to form your theological beliefs in
07:15
response to people like sam harris and
07:17
richard dawkins but
07:19
at the time that's what i was doing and
07:20
so i i knew that faith couldn't be what
07:22
they said it was it couldn't be this
07:24
anti-evidential thing where you only
07:26
believe a thing if you have no good
07:28
reason for it or you have good reason
07:30
against it and you believe it anyway
07:31
that can't be what faith is if it is i'm
07:33
out right because i'm sure a person that
07:35
has a brain so
07:37
so i was trying to make it really like
07:39
evidential it's it's this thing that
07:41
you have good reason to believe god is a
07:43
certain way and then you step out in
07:47
faith meaning
07:49
you
07:49
do a thing based on
07:52
your evidence based on the belief that
07:54
you have that god is that way
07:56
i later let go of that i don't think
07:58
faith is evidential anymore a huge
08:00
reason for that is kierkegaard who
08:03
says it's an entirely different sort of
08:04
thing which which we can get into but
08:06
along the way i had occasion to think a
08:08
lot and write quite a bit about faith
08:10
and how it's related to belief or maybe
08:13
how it's not related to belief and
08:15
so we can talk however much you want
08:17
about any of that stuff um
08:19
if you're interested in what
08:21
current philosophers are saying about
08:23
faith i'm happy to fill you in on that
08:26
how it's related to belief how it's
08:28
related to other attitudes like trust or
08:30
yeah or whatever well let me let me ask
08:32
this this is probably going to break our
08:33
outline but you're smart enough to go
08:36
with the flow
08:37
i've heard a lot about kierkegaard and
08:40
have heard quotes from kierkegaard but
08:42
what would kierkegaard have to say as
08:45
maybe a thesis statement to this
08:46
conversation
08:48
ooh that's interesting he would be
08:50
against thesis statements i think
08:54
um yeah uh faith is subjective
08:58
okay is is one i suppose if we're gonna
09:02
pluck out uh a statement
09:04
that's pithier than it sounds that
09:07
that's that's one of them faith is
09:08
subjective meaning it's not objective
09:11
meaning it's not the sort of thing that
09:13
can be understood in evidential terms or
09:16
in argumentative terms
09:18
or in really cognitive terms at all
09:20
if i'm setting out to understand with my
09:24
reason
09:25
my relationship to god then i'm already
09:27
not
09:28
aimed at faith yeah which he would say
09:30
some people might be challenged by that
09:31
idea to me that just sounds obvious i
09:34
sure was challenged by it i mean
09:36
it's interesting that you think it's
09:37
obvious um i certainly didn't and i
09:40
don't think most people do when they
09:42
first encounter it
09:44
to say that faith is subjective and not
09:47
objective is to say that trying to
09:51
understand cognitively what god is like
09:54
trying to understand theology in the
09:56
mode that theology is typically written
09:58
and intended
09:59
trying to understand
10:01
um
10:03
whether there are any
10:05
objective reasons to believe that
10:07
christianity is true
10:09
if you're interested in more on truth go
10:11
listen to our episode on that
10:13
those questions just don't come up for a
10:16
sincere christian according to
10:17
kierkegaard and in so far as they do
10:20
come up and in so far as those are your
10:22
focus
10:23
you're not acting as a christian
10:26
kierkegaard said it's something
10:28
fundamentally other than that which
10:29
leads
10:30
a lot of people to charge him with being
10:32
a
10:33
fideist which means someone who thinks
10:35
that faith is what those atheists
10:37
thought
10:38
something that is
10:39
fundamentally contrary to reason which
10:41
means you have to
10:43
shut off your brain
10:45
to be a christian i don't think that's
10:46
the right way to interpret him i think
10:48
he's saying something richer and more
10:49
interesting than that but
10:51
so you can see how people get there so
10:53
he's saying though if you do try to make
10:55
your faith concrete and objective
10:57
empirical provable you're actually
10:59
playing into the atheist hands yeah
11:01
you're playing into their hand but he
11:02
doesn't care about that because he
11:04
doesn't care about the whole apologetic
11:05
effort at all here's where he's coming
11:07
from and hopefully this will at home for
11:09
a lot of our listeners i think
11:11
so kierkegaard was writing in denmark
11:15
in 19th century denmark
11:18
where the state religion is christianity
11:21
so
11:22
much like the contemporary united states
11:26
if you're born in the country you kind
11:28
of assume the religion of you know the
11:31
people that you're around
11:33
in the united states it's something like
11:34
what 70 of americans report being
11:37
christians or something like that
11:39
i don't know what it was in denmark at
11:40
the time but probably similar if not
11:42
higher yeah and so kierkegaard is
11:45
encountering all these people who think
11:47
that because they're danish they're
11:49
christian and so if you ask them are you
11:51
a christian that's of course i was born
11:52
here yeah
11:54
much like you might encounter you know
11:56
in america and you ask them you know
11:57
what what's your religious background
11:59
i'll tell you the the church they grew
12:00
up in and
12:01
uh say something that
12:04
identifies them with a particular
12:05
community and think that that answers
12:07
the question right and so kierkegaard
12:09
was very concerned with what it took to
12:12
actually become a christian to actually
12:14
be one i like this um and and not just
12:17
to be a member of a group
12:19
right that that sort of objectively
12:21
identifies with a
12:23
religious history or something
12:25
but to actually be a follower of christ
12:28
to actually be someone
12:30
who
12:32
embodies the teachings of christ who
12:34
takes on the character of christ
12:36
who can look forward to the kinds of um
12:43
we'll pause
12:46
thanks chris you can actually do that
12:48
yeah we'll have to go back yep that was
12:50
good my name is chris johnson i'm here
12:52
to say i am the hot rocking baby in the
12:54
usa yo
12:56
peace out
13:02
nice
13:06
okay
13:08
so kierkegaard is really concerned with
13:10
uh trying to find a way
13:13
to convince
13:15
or to reveal
13:17
to his fellow danes
13:19
that they're not christians when they
13:21
think they are so at one point he
13:23
describes his project as
13:25
introducing christianity to christendom
13:29
so you you it's like reverse evangelism
13:32
i like it
13:34
most christians are i like this a lot on
13:37
making the rest of the world christian
13:38
kierkegaard thinks well
13:40
how can we do that if we're not and and
13:42
we're not even asking the question
13:44
whether we are and when you do ask the
13:45
question
13:47
you're you're likely and you can even
13:49
get somebody to take it seriously you're
13:50
likely to get some kind of objective
13:52
reply
13:54
here are the evidences here are all the
13:56
reasons that can be understood in a kind
13:58
of objective way that i am a christian
14:00
right look at uh the
14:03
place i go on the weekends look at where
14:05
i give my money look at my habits of
14:08
reading this book look at the kinds of
14:10
friends i have look at the causes i
14:12
support look at the kinds of things i
14:14
don't do with my genitals
14:16
you know all the things here right look
14:18
look at look at my ethical life
14:20
or look at my look at my aesthetic life
14:22
look at the kinds of art that i imbibe
14:25
and the kinds that i resist and
14:27
look at who i hang out with and who i
14:28
don't these are all these sorts of
14:30
objective reasons and kierkegaard thinks
14:32
they're all completely irrelevant
14:34
because
14:36
because god doesn't need to exist for
14:38
any of those things to be true okay uh
14:40
there's there's no real relationship
14:41
with christ implied by any of those
14:43
things and so kierkegaard thinks
14:45
if that's your orientation to christ
14:47
then you're missing it entirely you're
14:49
just not a christian and he was totally
14:51
fine with pointing that out but he did
14:54
it in a really interesting way he did it
14:56
in an indirect way
14:59
so this is one of the challenging things
15:00
about reading kierkegaard is that
15:03
he doesn't just come out and say a thing
15:06
very very rarely does he do that
15:09
he writes under pseudonyms
15:11
so you know he'll write a really long
15:14
book
15:15
under one name
15:16
saying
15:17
something
15:18
to in great detail like a thousand pages
15:20
or arguing this point
15:22
and then he'll write another equally
15:24
long book under a different name arguing
15:25
the opposite
15:28
and
15:28
in some places he'll claim that okay
15:30
that author is a christian that author
15:32
is not
15:33
and that author's trying to be whatever
15:35
and so he writes anonymously very little
15:38
of his work is under his own name and
15:40
part of the purpose of that was to
15:43
lead people to the conclusions that he
15:45
wanted them to draw which is that
15:47
they're not in fact christians more
15:49
often than not rather than trying to
15:51
argue directly because he didn't think
15:53
that would work people people are very
15:55
rarely convinced by direct argumentation
15:58
if they're going to change their minds
16:00
about anything
16:01
and screw their minds if they're going
16:03
to change their existential orientation
16:06
it's going to be because
16:07
they
16:08
uh thought through something on their
16:10
own came to see
16:12
that their values were one thing when
16:14
they should be a different thing and
16:16
they felt like the decision was theirs
16:18
how do you get people to do that
16:19
super difficult he thought the only way
16:21
to do it is indirectly you have to kind
16:24
of
16:25
lead them down a path
16:27
demonstrate for them or help them
16:29
demonstrate to themselves that something
16:30
is the case yep
16:32
so did the
16:34
kierkegaard do go to great labors and
16:37
write thousands of pages to prove people
16:39
aren't christians or what a christian
16:41
should be did he do that because he was
16:43
passionate about
16:45
the the pure form of christianity that
16:46
found in the gospels or did he do that
16:48
because he found uh so many people
16:50
around him in denmark hypocritical did
16:52
he do that because he was dedicated to
16:54
something or another like why why go
16:56
through such great pains to show his
16:58
fellow countrymen you're not actually
16:59
christians yeah that's a good question i
17:01
think probably all the above i'm not an
17:03
expert on kierkegaard or the history of
17:05
that i know that
17:07
he was influenced by the hegelian
17:09
philosophical tradition and he wanted to
17:10
kind of respond to that and
17:13
he was strongly influenced by the
17:15
um
17:16
you know political nature of
17:17
christianity at the time in denmark and
17:19
wanted to respond to that at the end of
17:21
the day i think he was just a sincere
17:23
lutheran
17:24
he thought that
17:26
you could have a relationship with this
17:28
person jesus
17:30
and that faith was a gift of god
17:34
and that
17:35
you're you know saved by grace and
17:37
that's a gift of god
17:39
and that what you
17:41
believe and what you can prove
17:44
and what you can explain
17:46
that these are all secondary and they
17:48
can become idolatrous i mean i think the
17:49
guy was just really trying to understand
17:51
what it means to love god
17:53
and to love other people
17:56
from from a place where you know
17:58
from a place of grace i suppose yes
18:00
so let's let's dive into this
18:03
question or idea of kierkegaard's
18:05
notion of there is an end to reason and
18:08
that's kind of where faith begins i know
18:10
i'm i'm butchering it as an amateur but
18:12
um
18:12
i think that's right yeah
18:14
he has i think he has a more expansive
18:16
notion of reason than has become popular
18:18
in the last i don't know century or so
18:20
within philosophy
18:23
and not just philosophy than economics
18:25
and other fields too
18:26
i think he thinks of reason in a broader
18:28
sense but
18:30
he definitely thinks that there's a
18:31
limit to
18:33
um
18:35
what your cognitive capacities can get
18:38
you to as far as
18:40
justifying a decision
18:42
which is unique for a philosopher i want
18:44
to say it's not unique but it's it was
18:46
unusual in the time and it i mean it
18:48
kind of spawned a tradition so he's
18:51
he's known as one of the fathers of
18:53
existentialism which i think we've
18:55
mentioned before
18:56
interestingly probably the only famous
18:58
theistic existentialist
19:01
all the later ones kind of rejected that
19:03
part of his thought and held on to some
19:05
other parts what does it mean to be an
19:06
existentialist
19:07
uh okay so that's a huge question so
19:10
um
19:11
the basic the real like sort of cut and
19:13
dry quick answer is that
19:16
it means to focus on
19:18
questions that are live to actually
19:21
existing people okay
19:23
uh prior to sort of metaphysical or more
19:25
traditional questions so
19:27
uh kierkegaard thought for example
19:30
that
19:31
to be a christian which is kind of his
19:33
orienting concept he wants to understand
19:35
what it means to be a christian he wants
19:37
to understand what it means for for god
19:38
to be a human like these very basic
19:40
christian ideas
19:42
uh the
19:44
the live questions
19:46
for
19:47
a christian
19:48
he thinks are
19:50
how can i
19:52
as just a normal human person with all
19:56
the kinds of desires i have and all the
19:57
weaknesses and frailties i have
20:00
how can i do that impossible thing
20:03
of being like jesus that he thinks is
20:06
the live question
20:08
that you should ask as a as a religious
20:10
person
20:11
and you should ignore
20:14
or
20:15
maybe even be a little hostile to
20:17
the kinds of questions that often get
20:19
discussed in
20:21
scholastic theology or in you know
20:23
mainstream philosophy of religion
20:25
you know what is the trinity like or
20:28
uh what does it mean for jesus to have a
20:30
dual nature can you lose your faith yeah
20:33
you know what is predestination let's
20:34
work that out
20:36
um or you know in the in his own
20:38
lutheran tradition there'd be many
20:40
examples of that sort of thing too but
20:41
what's solo scripture or what's whatever
20:45
these are
20:47
these are cognitive questions that might
20:48
be interesting
20:50
maybe we can get to the bottom of them
20:51
maybe we can't
20:53
but they're not
20:54
the essence of christianity yeah and if
20:56
you get bogged down in them it's really
20:59
easy to ignore the essence of
21:01
christianity it's even worse than that
21:02
it's really easy to think you've gotten
21:04
the essence of christianity because
21:06
you've been able to explicate those
21:08
other questions
21:09
and for kierkegaard it's just
21:11
it's just not what it's about it's about
21:13
can you make this decision
21:16
decisions lead to action
21:19
so
21:20
to be a christian means
21:22
you've decided to
21:25
make christ your lord
21:28
right to follow him to try to become
21:30
christ-like to accept the gift of grace
21:32
despite your own sinfulness
21:35
i mean he's like any lutheran big on the
21:37
idea of sin
21:39
and so
21:40
yeah whether or not you can understand
21:42
that or explain it or argue for it or
21:43
justified or whatever
21:45
just irrelevant it might actually get in
21:47
the way
21:48
and so
21:49
he wants to again kind of indirectly
21:52
lead people into the realization that
21:54
all the things that they were kind of
21:56
leaning on
21:57
to
21:58
make them feel like good qualified
22:01
christians religious people whatever
22:05
that those were always vacuous and
22:06
probably misleading
22:09
this is fun i'm
22:11
again i've heard like little shadows and
22:13
hints of kierkegaardian philosophy and
22:17
dare say theology but i haven't known
22:19
anything about what he actually thought
22:21
but i just know this resonates with my
22:23
experience of i've had way too many
22:25
conversations as a pastor about people
22:27
asking can you lose your faith or is the
22:29
bible inerrant or what does it mean to
22:31
you know all these things and i i've
22:33
gotten to a point where i just want to
22:35
i hope you're not listening if you've
22:36
asked me those questions before but i
22:38
want to just say it doesn't matter like
22:40
those questions don't matter well so
22:43
they they might not matter they probably
22:45
don't matter for most people right they
22:47
i don't think he would say they couldn't
22:49
matter like if there are things that
22:51
really do come from like your being and
22:54
they keep you up at night and they're
22:55
keeping you from embracing christ
22:56
whatever but how often does that yeah no
22:59
i mean mostly we're just trying to win
23:00
in our argument or you know but here's
23:02
what matters
23:04
how do i act like jesus how do i
23:06
manifest the incarnation the life of
23:07
christ in my life in my world and my
23:09
neighborhood
23:10
those are the things that matter there
23:11
is a little bit i think there's
23:13
something in kierkegaard to make
23:14
everyone uncomfortable including you and
23:16
me i'm sure so
23:18
there are things we've complained about
23:19
in evangelicalism before that are
23:22
there's a kernel of them within
23:23
kierkegaard's thoughts so
23:25
the idea that
23:27
uh you want ought to have a personal
23:29
relationship with jesus
23:30
that there ought to be some kind of
23:32
conversion experience
23:34
he likes that were you he he likes the
23:37
idea that christianity is an individual
23:40
relation to an infinite being i agree so
23:44
so
23:45
if we can borrow the idea from martin
23:48
buber i don't know if you've ever read
23:49
boo
23:50
that the relationship to god is always
23:53
second person
23:55
it's never a relationship to an idea
23:57
it's never a relationship to a community
23:59
it's never
24:00
um you know we it or anything like that
24:03
it's always i thou that's boober's
24:05
phrase so my relationship to god is very
24:07
much like my relationship to you
24:09
randy and not the idea of randy right
24:12
now
24:13
not somebody's ideas about randy but but
24:15
you the person
24:17
and all the complexity and whatever that
24:20
goes into that relationship
24:22
faith for kierkegaard is a second person
24:24
relation to god
24:26
because god is a person
24:27
jesus you know
24:29
and you can be in a relationship with
24:30
that person and
24:32
you don't have to understand
24:35
the relationship that you're in to be in
24:37
it
24:37
you don't have to be able to explain it
24:39
to anyone else
24:41
in fact if you're if you're default in
24:43
understanding the relationship is your
24:45
ability to explain it to someone else
24:46
you probably don't have a very good
24:47
relationship
24:48
right if i if i think of my love for my
24:51
wife in terms of all the good qualities
24:53
about her or my ability to
24:55
justify my living with her to someone
24:57
else probably don't have a great
24:59
relationship with my wife that's a weird
25:01
orientation so
25:02
so did kierkegaard frustrate a lot of
25:05
his contemporaries he sure did and i'm
25:07
talking philosophers yeah yeah for a
25:09
long time and even today he's
25:11
kind of relegated to
25:13
the margins like not a lot of people
25:15
study him directly people are interested
25:17
in for his historical influence more
25:19
than anything else the existentialists
25:21
that followed him mostly were atheists
25:23
and really didn't understand him and so
25:24
took the parts that they liked from his
25:26
pseudonyms and chucked the rest of it
25:29
didn't read his own thought his journals
25:31
or anything like that certainly weren't
25:32
interested in his christianity so
25:34
yeah he's been largely misunderstood and
25:37
ignored unfortunately okay so you
25:40
mentioned this um word fetism is that it
25:43
yeah
25:44
yeah just tell me tell us about that
25:46
yeah that the word faith right fetus and
25:49
latin's faith okay um so it's this idea
25:51
and it's one of those pejorative terms
25:54
nobody ever uses it for themselves like
25:55
nobody says hey i'm a fetish it's like
25:58
you
25:59
you accuse someone else of being it
26:02
when they seem to be irrational
26:04
so there are several thinkers
26:06
kierkegaard being prominent among them
26:07
who have suggested that luther as well
26:09
who have suggested things that
26:11
sounded to other people as though they
26:14
were shutting their brains down okay and
26:16
so
26:17
admitting that the evidence points in
26:18
the other direction but faith is the
26:21
kind of stubborn refusal to admit where
26:23
the evidence points i don't think that's
26:26
what kierkegaard is saying i don't think
26:28
most of the people accused of being
26:29
fetus are actually saying that that
26:31
would be a kind of cognitive suicide
26:33
yeah
26:34
but he is saying faith is
26:37
more than what your reason can do
26:40
faith is something that kind of begins
26:43
when your reason has reached its limits
26:45
faith is something that
26:48
is
26:49
in its in its practice
26:51
can be inconsistent with the practice of
26:54
your reason because reason would then be
26:55
trying to
26:56
kind of fill a space that it's not
26:58
qualified for
27:00
if i'm if i'm trying to to be a
27:02
christian to follow christ by thinking
27:04
about stuff real hard
27:07
then then i'm probably less likely to
27:10
actually be able to act in faith
27:12
because it's just not what it was kind
27:14
of cut out for but he wasn't advocating
27:15
for a brainless no
27:18
no i don't think so there's debate about
27:20
that in kierkegaard scholarship but i
27:21
come down firmly on the side that no
27:23
he he would i think in my mind align
27:25
with people like william james who is an
27:27
american philosopher who says look
27:29
there's
27:30
reason can take you pretty far
27:33
and and if you ever have
27:36
say evidence that points in one
27:37
direction you should follow that
27:40
but there are many questions that are
27:41
live questions meaning they're important
27:43
to people and they're momentous
27:45
questions meaning
27:47
um
27:48
they're the kind of questions where you
27:49
have to make a decision on them and you
27:52
can't delay
27:53
they keep you up at night yeah they're
27:55
important
27:56
to almost everybody and you can't just
27:58
put them off to put them off is to make
28:00
a decision and one of those questions is
28:03
religion or god's existence am i going
28:05
to live in accordance with you know the
28:07
plan of a higher being or not
28:09
and james says look when it comes to
28:10
those kinds of questions often the
28:12
evidence is indecisive
28:14
so we can do our best to look into it
28:16
but it's it's not actually going to
28:18
compel us in one direction or not that's
28:19
not the way to go about it
28:21
yeah even if you wanted to
28:23
if you're if you're intellectually
28:25
honest you're going to get to a place
28:26
where you realize
28:27
wow those really smart people over there
28:29
in that other religion or those really
28:30
smart atheists over there they have just
28:32
as much reason for their views i have
28:34
for mine and so
28:35
i'm either going to suspend judgment or
28:37
i'm going to make a decision and this is
28:39
a forced choice i can't suspend judgment
28:41
because that is making a decision so um
28:44
i would put kierkegaard in the camp that
28:46
says that's where faith begins okay when
28:48
you have that kind of
28:50
um
28:51
that kind of equilibrium evidential
28:54
situation and so then i'm saying okay
28:58
i don't know for sure
29:01
i also don't have strong evidence to the
29:03
contrary
29:05
and i have to do something
29:07
am i going to open myself up to the
29:08
possibility that there's a person out
29:11
there that wants to be in communion with
29:12
me
29:14
and i can even that's not quite enough
29:16
though so kierkegaard says even once
29:18
i've come to that point
29:20
and i've recognized that
29:22
the next step beyond my reason
29:24
is going to be required for me to
29:26
understand this religion thing
29:28
understanding kind of a loose sense
29:30
right a non-cognitive sense
29:32
that's still not quite yet faith because
29:36
i can approach religion aesthetically
29:39
i can approach it as
29:41
an artist would
29:42
approach it right i can build fancy
29:44
cathedrals
29:46
full of all kinds of wonderful art and i
29:48
can go through these elaborate
29:49
liturgical routines and i can be totally
29:52
fulfilled by that for 80 years and die
29:55
and never approach faith or i can
29:58
approach it ethically
29:59
i can
30:00
i can take it to be
30:02
sort of a program for
30:04
improving the world
30:06
like concretely
30:08
and i can give my money to certain
30:10
charities and i can spend my time in
30:11
service of orphans and i can whatever
30:14
and i'm still not approaching faith in
30:16
those modes so kierkegaard is famous for
30:18
his kind of three-tier
30:21
stages i guess
30:23
when we talked with brian mclaren he
30:25
mentioned kierkegaard and his book as
30:26
having sort of a stage view of existence
30:29
you start in the aesthetic
30:31
you move to the ethical because you
30:33
realize there's something more important
30:34
than how beautiful things are
30:37
and some people then move to faith and
30:39
many don't and so for some of his
30:41
pseudonyms they end in either the
30:43
aesthetic stage or or the ethical stuff
30:46
after like a thousand pages they're
30:47
still just stuck in the ethical and they
30:49
never get beyond it because they
30:50
recognize in order to get beyond it i'm
30:53
gonna have to
30:55
accept
30:56
some gift that's completely external to
30:58
me
30:59
and step out of my own categories
31:01
aesthetic or ethical categories and i'm
31:04
either unable or unwilling to do that so
31:06
kierkegaard thinks when faith starts
31:08
it's a decision
31:10
to
31:11
receive
31:13
grace
31:14
rather than to be what he calls offended
31:18
because there's an offense to the
31:20
christian idea
31:21
that
31:22
the infinite could become finite it's
31:25
offensive to your reason because it
31:27
seems like a contradiction
31:28
it's offensive to your ethical sense
31:31
because then god could command a thing
31:33
that you don't understand
31:34
it might be offensive to your aesthetic
31:37
sense
31:38
so once you've understood christianity
31:40
kierkegaard says you're confronted
31:42
with something offensive
31:44
you either take offense and the result
31:46
of that he thinks is despair
31:49
or you embrace it and you step out in
31:51
faith take the leap some people some
31:54
people know him for that phrase the leap
31:56
of faith he doesn't mean a leap into the
31:58
abyss with like
32:00
you know nothing to stand on he just
32:03
means you're sort of venturing beyond
32:06
any of those senses that people normally
32:08
operate in now that's interesting
32:09
because i never
32:10
have looked at the incarnation
32:13
and take an offen have taken offense to
32:15
it
32:16
maybe this is because i grew up in the
32:17
christian faith and am used to it but
32:20
for me the incarnation was one of the
32:21
most beautiful things about our faith
32:23
tradition sure and i think he would
32:25
agree with that um he might also say
32:28
yeah if what you love about it is its
32:30
beauty then you've missed it
32:33
or if that's the mode that you primarily
32:35
approach it and then that's probably not
32:36
faith
32:37
um
32:39
it's offensive in a few ways it's
32:42
it's offensive to reason in the sense
32:44
that
32:46
god simply couldn't be not god i could
32:48
see that you know well
32:51
that's a whole nother thing because
32:52
whether jesus was not god you know yeah
32:55
yeah i mean this the idea that like the
32:57
creator of all that is is somehow now
32:59
part of all that is he wrote a few books
33:02
trying to like make sense of that and
33:03
failing this is one of the indirect
33:05
things he likes to do he'll take the
33:06
posture of someone who's sincerely
33:08
trying to understand a christian
33:09
doctrine
33:10
and
33:11
make attempt after attempt after attempt
33:13
to understand it and fail every time and
33:15
then that's the end of the book
33:17
that sounds wonderful yeah yeah so he
33:20
has his most famous book is probably
33:21
fear and trembling which is this guy
33:25
who's not a christian or a jew trying to
33:28
understand abraham and how abraham could
33:30
be the father of faith and
33:32
how what it means for the clearest
33:35
expression of faith to be your
33:36
willingness to kill your son
33:38
and so this person tries and tries and
33:40
tries and fails and fails and fails
33:43
and never really comes to understand
33:44
faith because you can't understand it
33:46
from the outside
33:47
something i talked about in one of our
33:48
deeper dives
33:49
so
33:51
so it's offensive in that sense um there
33:54
are things that christianity commits you
33:56
to that are offensive
33:58
in a to my ethical sensibilities i have
34:01
an idea of the way i think the world
34:02
should be
34:03
and i want to say that that's consistent
34:05
with
34:06
the character of god
34:10
but i can't
34:11
i can't fully justify that i can't fully
34:14
argue for that because god's also beyond
34:15
my categories
34:18
so there are various ways that it it
34:19
becomes offensive but
34:21
mostly it's because it's kind of outside
34:23
my control i think at least this how i
34:25
interpret him
34:27
for kierkegaard there's like
34:28
he takes really seriously this idea that
34:31
faith is a gift
34:33
it's not something you can get to on
34:34
your own
34:35
it's something that is given to you from
34:37
the outside and that can only kind of be
34:39
understood
34:41
and practiced from the inside
34:43
so that's something you can it's not
34:44
something you can get to on your own you
34:46
would say that's interesting yeah
34:47
because that's
34:49
that flies in the face of a lot of
34:50
modern
34:51
protestantism at least that says
34:54
faith is my choice it's the badge that i
34:56
get to put on that says that i'm
34:57
justified by faith and i was given grace
34:59
you know all that which might just be a
35:00
misunderstanding of those protestant
35:02
thinkers i mean i think kierkegaard is
35:04
pretty orthodox on that idea
35:06
that yeah
35:08
faith is a gift of god you're dead in
35:10
your sin there's no way you could have
35:12
achieved it on your own
35:13
your job is to accept it or not accept
35:15
it i think that's
35:17
pretty consi at least with lutheranism
35:18
it's pretty consistent
35:21
yeah so
35:23
it's
35:24
he he says a lot of things that should
35:25
upset a lot of people
35:27
depending on
35:29
where you come from it's kind of an
35:30
equal opportunity offense that you get
35:32
from him like he thinks that
35:34
um
35:36
faith isn't primarily about belief
35:38
because belief is cognitive
35:40
right which is somewhere i eventually
35:41
got to kind of independently and then
35:43
read kierkegaard and thought oh okay
35:46
i i was not the first to think that this
35:48
was you know hundreds of years old this
35:50
idea belief could just be irrelevant it
35:53
could actually get in the way of faith
35:55
maybe it's even possible to disbelieve
35:57
and have faith i've argued for that
35:58
personally um
36:01
well i i think that it's if faith is
36:03
more um a relation to a person
36:07
a sort of decision
36:09
that one makes
36:10
an action procedure you commit yourself
36:12
to certain practices to a way of life to
36:14
living
36:15
in a loving orientation towards people
36:18
i think all that's consistent with
36:20
disbelief and doctrines
36:22
or even in the existence of god
36:24
so you know i've argued what do you mean
36:26
consistent with
36:28
it can happen simultaneously okay but
36:30
you're not saying that like
36:31
it makes more sense to disbelieve in god
36:34
following the way of christ no but i am
36:35
saying the belief isn't necessary and it
36:37
isn't the proper part of the faith
36:39
actually that would be my claim
36:41
which is pretty unusual pretty
36:42
unorthodox historically
36:44
that faith is a gift and that anything
36:47
that's
36:48
any orientation towards it that's not
36:50
approaching it as a gift that you didn't
36:52
earn that you didn't get to on your own
36:54
they didn't understand that's just
36:56
ethics or aesthetics or something like
36:57
that it's something that any atheist
36:59
could do
37:00
um
37:02
that
37:03
faith is non-objective we talked about
37:05
that that you know trying to understand
37:07
christianity by like figuring out the
37:09
science and the metaphysics of the
37:10
resurrection or did the resurrection
37:12
happen historically that that's
37:14
fundamentally a wrong orientation
37:17
um
37:19
this one is something that should really
37:20
bother americans that being from a
37:22
christian country
37:24
is no help at all
37:26
to being a christian that in fact
37:27
there's no such thing as a christian
37:28
country because the only sort of thing
37:30
that could be a christian is a person an
37:32
individual person and that
37:35
you're much more likely to
37:37
fail to be a christian if you come from
37:39
a christian country because you're less
37:40
likely to see that
37:42
uh he has a really interesting story
37:44
uh where he he loves metaphors and
37:47
analogies and things and they're often
37:49
very creative and
37:51
he talks about you know somebody from a
37:53
christian country and somebody from a
37:55
pagan country and one prays in truth and
37:57
one prays in falsehood meaning thinking
37:59
that they're you know praying to the
38:01
correct god
38:03
because they're from this place or
38:04
whatever
38:05
um but arguing that the pagan who prays
38:08
in truth is actually the one with faith
38:10
and the other one is that's a familiar
38:11
idea to many of us
38:14
and that
38:16
faith is not religion
38:19
or as he calls it religiousness
38:22
it's not
38:24
just practices it's not just liturgy
38:27
it's not just beliefs as we said
38:30
it's
38:32
yeah i don't know it's it's something
38:34
that can't be explained objectively it's
38:36
it's a
38:37
a personal subjective relation
38:40
to christ
38:42
that will then entail lots of actions
38:44
right and it will entail love and
38:46
whatnot but
38:48
yeah because if it's just religiousness
38:50
again you don't need god for that
38:52
it kind of comes back to that yep um so
38:56
yeah any the people who are kind of fond
38:58
of condescending to the spiritual not
39:02
religious crowd
39:03
which i've encountered a few times
39:06
from like theological types that i've
39:08
known
39:10
they'll you know roll their eyes and say
39:11
oh god christianity is a religion get
39:13
over it
39:14
what does it even mean to be spiritual
39:16
but not religious
39:18
but a more compassionate take and i
39:20
think a more guardian take
39:22
is that there's a deep truth there
39:24
that to be christian is
39:27
in many ways distinct from being
39:29
religious
39:31
one can be religious to whatever degree
39:33
you want and never approach christian
39:35
faith
39:37
yep
39:38
i find this
39:39
super helpful in just thinking about the
39:42
christian world that we live in which
39:45
i mean kierkegaard
39:47
did and would i think probably could
39:50
critique the crap out of it but this
39:52
this notion that it's harder to be a
39:54
christian in a christian nation in a
39:56
quote-unquote christian nation
39:58
is
39:59
so good and it's so gospel-centric where
40:01
you see jesus
40:02
speaking to the religious elite and
40:06
calling them whitewashed tombs and
40:09
you know i mean just
40:10
scathing
40:12
critiques and then looking at not even
40:14
just the religious leaders because we
40:15
like to hammer on the pharisees the
40:17
sadducees the the
40:18
gatekeepers but then he looks at the the
40:21
jewish people and calls them children of
40:23
the devil and they're like are you
40:25
kidding me we're children of abraham and
40:26
he's like doesn't matter what your
40:28
lineage is
40:29
you're clearly a child of the devil
40:32
jesus
40:33
kierkegaard is channeling that inner
40:35
jesus right there right yeah this goes
40:37
back to something nick said in our
40:38
previous episode like when you read
40:41
jesus
40:42
you you get a sense
40:45
like just reading the gospels the sort
40:46
of red text so to speak or even the sort
40:49
of extra canonical sayings of jesus
40:51
things like you getting the gospel of
40:53
thomas
40:54
like christianity's really hard
40:57
following jesus's heart and he doesn't
40:58
try to make it easier for anybody
41:01
more often than not
41:03
he he counters their thinking that it's
41:05
easy or that it can be accomplished in a
41:07
religious liturgical way
41:09
with making it impossible it you know
41:12
it's easier for a rich person to go
41:14
through the i have a needle than to make
41:15
it to the king of heaven or unless
41:17
you've eaten of my flesh and drink of my
41:19
blood you cannot be my disciples
41:21
everyone leaves and then he looks at his
41:22
disciples and say hey everyone else left
41:24
are you going to go too yeah he almost
41:25
says it in like a
41:27
yeah he's not super sad about it kind of
41:29
way yeah at least you know not surprised
41:31
i mean yeah yeah because because in many
41:34
in many ways in many senses the
41:35
reasonable thing to do is leave
41:38
when you realize what it costs
41:40
when you realize that the evidence is
41:41
indecisive
41:43
why why would you
41:44
put
41:45
all of your effort and all of that
41:47
expense and all of that sacrifice into
41:49
something that you can't be sure of
41:52
it makes sense to leave
41:54
and kierkegaard is in many ways
41:55
following that tradition of making
41:57
christianity harder for people
42:00
his evangelism is like
42:02
it's like the worst kind as far as like
42:05
success and church building right yep
42:07
it's uh
42:09
yeah you're gonna have to sacrifice
42:11
everything for this thing that you can't
42:12
understand
42:14
and it might not pay off in the end and
42:16
hopefully i'd like to want to sign on
42:18
right
42:19
i think the people who might have a hard
42:21
time with this might be some of the
42:23
pastors who who
42:25
may or may not listen but i'd like to
42:26
think most of us would just agree with
42:29
that on a fundamental level like we've
42:31
made christianity too easy like we've
42:33
taken the edge off of christianity we've
42:36
we've made christianity into a pop
42:37
culture sort of thing that is is a
42:40
bracelet i wear and uh you know a
42:44
pop culture basically instead of this
42:48
radical way
42:49
of living in the way of love instead of
42:51
this subversive
42:53
way that says i cannot give my
42:55
allegiance to the empire that i live in
42:57
because my allegiance belongs 100 to
42:59
christ in his kingdom these are things
43:01
that are just it's just if you're
43:03
reading the bible
43:04
it's clear there's just no arguing that
43:06
this is what it means to follow jesus
43:08
we've just made it so easy and simple
43:11
and palatable to follow jesus you sign
43:13
on the dotted line then you're good to
43:14
go and he'll give you everything you
43:15
want
43:17
i think most of us listening resonate
43:19
with us like yeah this is the way of
43:21
jesus it makes sense and i i'd like to
43:24
inspire i'd like to be inspired to live
43:26
more in this way rather than this
43:28
civil religion that i've been given yeah
43:31
yeah i hope you're right about that i i
43:33
wonder what kierkegaard would think if
43:34
he were alive today and able to sort of
43:36
see the current state of the american
43:38
church if he would be encouraged by
43:41
the you know millennials in ginza years
43:43
and whatever who seem i think a little
43:46
dissatisfied with that kind of um i
43:50
don't want to say organized religion i
43:51
hate that phrase as though you know
43:53
organization is a bad thing but like
43:55
they definitely seem dissatisfied with
43:58
the kind of easy christianity where it's
44:00
just a social club and you can
44:03
sign up or not sign up and you can do
44:04
certain things and you know be a member
44:06
and it really only affects the way you
44:08
vote or something like that yeah um
44:11
i think they want more
44:13
or they don't want anything that seems
44:15
to be the case that's my question i've
44:16
been obsessed for the last several years
44:18
of you know the numbers are trending
44:20
very obviously down for the church
44:23
people who say they're nuns they're
44:25
they're no religious affiliation
44:28
it's plummeting right now or going up
44:30
i'm sorry and the people who are
44:33
affiliated with
44:35
traditional christianity evangelicalism
44:37
you know whatever
44:39
that's plummeting and i want to know how
44:42
to get those nuns i want to know how to
44:44
how to show them that
44:46
jesus doesn't look like the church does
44:47
in america in many ways but i wonder
44:51
would those with those millennials and
44:53
nuns who are walking away from the
44:55
church church in droves
44:57
are they attracted to the way of jesus
44:58
genuinely like if you show them a real
45:01
picture of the gospel if you show them
45:03
who jesus really is and what the
45:05
incarnation is at its roots will they be
45:09
interested in that enough to say yes to
45:11
it i'm going to give my life to that or
45:13
is our has our culture come to this
45:15
point where we just love deconstructing
45:17
so much that the thought of actually
45:19
having a foundation of some sort sounds
45:21
offensive
45:25
yeah i just i'm i don't know that
45:28
anybody that likes the idea of a
45:30
foundation
45:32
is gonna find it
45:34
in
45:35
a sort of kierkegaardian form of
45:37
christianity
45:39
like foundation brings to mind a thing
45:41
that you can stand on that it's firm
45:43
that's unshakable you can be sure about
45:46
that never really changes
45:48
and that's just not what people are like
45:50
and if god is a person
45:52
than being in relationship with a person
45:54
why would why would you expect it to
45:56
have the nature of a foundation
45:58
so i'm just kind of riffing on something
46:00
you said that i'm not sure exactly how
46:01
you intended it but
46:02
i really do think there's a possibility
46:05
for offense for everybody
46:07
in kierkegaard's version of christianity
46:09
whatever you're looking for
46:11
god is probably not that
46:14
and that's kind of scary
46:16
that at the essen you know the core of
46:18
christianity is
46:20
really
46:21
something beyond what you have fathomed
46:24
yeah and probably what you're able to
46:25
fathom so like every time we grab a
46:27
thing that we really like and we say ah
46:29
this is it
46:30
i fathomed it isn't that beautiful isn't
46:32
that good
46:33
now we can present that to the world
46:35
that'll fix the problem of people not
46:36
wanting it
46:38
whatever we've grabbed isn't god yeah
46:40
yeah and that's where i want to say i
46:41
don't want to come off as saying you
46:43
know the more you talk kyle the more i
46:44
think that means kicker guard would be
46:46
great friends um but what i do i i am
46:49
resonating with what you're saying what
46:51
kierkegaard brought
46:52
um
46:54
oh man i lost my train of thought i want
46:55
to start over again what were you just
46:57
talking about
46:58
i think the last thing i said was
47:00
whatever the thing you let you get like
47:01
oh yeah yeah i wanted to talk about
47:02
mystery
47:04
okay
47:05
so i don't want to get to this place
47:06
where i feel like i'm i'm constructing
47:08
this world where randy nine sir and
47:10
kierkegaard are best friends right but i
47:12
am resonating a lot with what you're
47:14
bringing that kierkegaard brought
47:16
and
47:17
when you're talking in this fashion it
47:19
makes me
47:20
it makes me think of this thing that
47:22
i've been fascinated with for the last
47:24
couple of years
47:26
as i got into my 40s which is just this
47:28
idea of mystery that
47:31
all of our language that we use to talk
47:33
about god we've talked about this art is
47:34
metaphorical yeah
47:36
pretty all of it you can say and
47:39
that shouldn't be so scary if god really
47:41
is the creator of the cosmos if you just
47:43
do a little bit of research in quantum
47:45
physics and you know the
47:47
astronomy and the origins of the
47:48
universe you'll you'll quickly find that
47:50
like if if god really did make all that
47:53
then it's
47:54
really hard for me to grab get a handle
47:56
on that god we have to make room for
47:57
mystery in our experience and that
47:59
sounds like maybe kierkegaard's going
48:01
down that
48:02
that that line or that thinking of
48:04
mystery being more important than we
48:06
think it is yeah maybe um again not an
48:09
expert so i don't know what his specific
48:10
thoughts on mystery are but
48:12
i do think that from inside
48:15
the orientation of faith
48:18
it's not scary it's probably exciting
48:21
because you know that at bottom the
48:23
world is loving
48:25
and probably necessary right
48:28
what do you mean
48:29
mystery is necessary to have a real
48:31
faith journey sure yeah and you're kind
48:32
of comfortable with your own limitations
48:34
god's limitlessness and you know
48:36
whatever
48:38
from outside
48:39
that orientation of faith so outside the
48:42
gift of grace
48:44
you know objectively looking in on it
48:45
trying to understand i think it's
48:46
terrifying
48:48
mystery is
48:50
is
48:52
by definition
48:54
something beyond all of the things that
48:56
could give me comfort
48:58
so which
49:00
which in your saying knowledge equals
49:03
comfort
49:04
i'm i'm saying the things that
49:06
do in fact comfort me and just in my
49:09
experience so trying to think of this
49:10
like an existentialist would right what
49:12
in fact makes me feel comforted in my
49:14
life the answer to me maybe you're
49:17
different
49:18
is either
49:21
someone loves me
49:23
and
49:24
i trust that that will continue
49:27
or
49:29
i've understood a thing and i know it to
49:30
be safe
49:32
or maybe i know it to be exciting
49:34
doesn't have to be safe right because
49:35
sometimes challenge is good sometimes
49:37
risk is good that's part of life that we
49:38
want
49:40
but i i know that there's like a limit
49:43
to the risk such that it will be to my
49:45
benefit in the long run those are the
49:47
things that give me comfort and if
49:48
something falls outside of those
49:50
categories
49:51
it's not
49:53
not actually possible for me to be
49:54
comforted about that thing this is why i
49:56
disagree with plato when he said that
49:58
death is uh a good thing hmm
50:02
or or at least that we ought not to fear
50:04
it because we don't know anything about
50:05
it
50:06
i think it's perfectly reasonable to
50:07
fear a thing you don't know anything
50:08
about yeah
50:10
for the reason that you don't know
50:11
anything about it and if god is by
50:13
definition beyond my knowledge
50:16
then
50:17
yeah if i don't have the orientation of
50:19
faith then the mystery is terrifying and
50:22
the mystery as you say is necessary
50:25
the kicker is i i can't give myself the
50:28
orientation of faith sure i can either
50:30
accept it or not and i think kierkegaard
50:32
would say it's extended equally to
50:33
everybody yep
50:34
so that's parts of choice yeah
50:36
i would the reason that for me mystery
50:39
and embracing mystery has been a freeing
50:42
experience and a comforting experience
50:44
actually is because i felt i feel like
50:46
i've spent a majority of my christian
50:48
life
50:50
trying to prove things like we started
50:52
out this
50:52
this episode talking about i i felt like
50:55
it was my job and i didn't even think of
50:57
myself in his apartment as a as an
50:59
apologist i just thought of myself as a
51:01
good christian who's trying to prove his
51:02
faith and having a good answer ready in
51:04
season
51:05
um yeah and so i i got to the end of
51:09
that in many ways like i realized that i
51:11
can't prove everything and i realized
51:12
that i don't have an answer for
51:14
everything and that's a crippling
51:15
terrifying reality to get to to look in
51:18
the face and say i don't know or if i'm
51:21
going to continue this i'm going to have
51:22
to fake it i'm going to fake that i know
51:24
that's that was my experience for a long
51:26
time and when i just realized that i
51:29
don't have to fake it
51:31
because i don't have to know because
51:33
it's actually impossible for me to know
51:35
this is what faith is all about and
51:37
there's so so like the vast majority
51:40
that's real about god
51:41
i have no clue about
51:43
because
51:44
god's god the divine
51:47
reality the the ground of being in my
51:50
knowledge of the divine being if if it's
51:53
real if god's real is so limited and so
51:57
that's actually been a comforting
51:58
reality for me that i don't have to have
52:00
the answers when my kids ask me these
52:02
really really hard questions that i feel
52:04
like i need to go take more bible
52:06
courses on to answer
52:08
it actually frees me and it gives them a
52:12
certain amount of freedom and
52:14
beauty to say
52:15
daddy said daddy's the pastor who
52:17
preaches for 40 minutes every sunday and
52:19
he thinks he looks like he's got all the
52:21
answers and he just told me he doesn't
52:23
know
52:24
that for me is a comforting place to
52:26
live in even though it's mess it's chock
52:29
full of uncertainty
52:31
i think these are things that we need to
52:32
get more comfortable with
52:34
yeah agreed
52:36
i'm reminded of something i want to say
52:38
it was julian of norwich said i'm going
52:40
to not get the quote right but
52:43
someone who if ever there was a paragon
52:45
of christian faith probably she was
52:49
and
52:50
yeah some something along the lines of
52:51
after one of her visions
52:53
like the idea that
52:56
the truth of the matter is none of us
52:57
ever had anything to worry about
53:00
like you know god
53:02
in his infinite love has been behind the
53:04
whole thing
53:06
and you can only kind of see that from
53:08
the inside and it's only a comforting
53:09
idea from the inside
53:11
um
53:13
but i hope hopefully seeing it from the
53:16
inside i i find it an extremely
53:18
comforting idea and
53:19
a very hopeful idea
53:21
um
53:23
it makes me wonder what kierkegaard
53:25
would have
53:26
said if he had lived to see
53:28
the
53:30
pentecostal um
53:32
movement you know the sort of global
53:35
spirit revival thing that happened
53:38
around early 10th century just after he
53:40
died i guess um
53:43
because in many ways i think that's
53:44
really resonant with
53:46
the kinds of things that he was was
53:47
focused on
53:49
an experience driven faith
53:51
that centers
53:54
love and um
53:57
yeah communal unity and experience over
54:01
doctrinal understanding or liturgy or
54:03
anything like that
54:04
um but he was a good lutheran boy too so
54:07
i'm not really sure what he would have
54:08
thought of that yeah yeah interesting
54:12
well listeners we bless you to
54:15
embrace the actual way of jesus not the
54:17
way of the american jesus we bless you
54:19
to
54:20
say i don't know and come to the end of
54:23
your reason and
54:24
find the beginning of faith and uh
54:27
we bless you to find all of
54:29
kierkegaard's
54:30
pseudonomic
54:32
manuscripts and and wrestle with them
54:34
good luck with that if any if anybody
54:36
wants to start with kierkegaard there's
54:37
a
54:38
good collection edited by
54:40
howard and edna hong
54:42
i think it's called the essential
54:43
character guard it's not a short book
54:45
it's not an easy book but it's the place
54:47
to start
54:51
[Music]