Another conversation with Jake

Jake's YouTube Channel is at:


How often do we as Christians think about our relationship with God? Is it merely inherited from our upbringing, or do we carve our unique path in understanding and connecting with the divine? In today's episode, I explore these questions with my son, Jake. We explore the complexities of faith, the journey from inherited beliefs to personal conviction, and the challenges of living out Christian principles in today's world. Join us as we unpack what it means to truly own your faith in a conversation that promises to challenge, enlighten, and inspire."Expanded Key Takeaways:

• Conceptualizing God:Jake shares his internal struggle with forming a tangible concept of God, moving beyond traditional images to a more abstract, yet personal understanding. This highlights the journey from a child's simple faith to an adult's nuanced relationship with the divine.
• Visual Learning: The importance of personal learning styles in faith development. Jake's reliance on visualization underscores how personal traits can shape our spiritual experiences, suggesting that faith can be deepened by engaging with it in the way we best understand the world.
• Apologetics Journey:Jake's exploration into apologetics isn't just academic; it's a quest for personal truth. His dive into arguments like the fine-tuning of the universe shows a quest for rational foundations of faith, bridging science and spirituality.
• Arguments for God's Existence:A detailed look at three philosophical arguments:
  • Chance: The likelihood of the universe's conditions being perfect for life by mere accident.
  • Necessity: The idea that the universe's constants must be as they are for life, yet this doesn't explain why they are necessary.
  • Design: This argument resonates with Jake due to its logic that complex systems suggest a designer, paralleling our human inclination to recognize design in less complex creations.
• The Hiddenness of God:This point delves into the philosophical and emotional challenge of God's apparent silence or invisibility, exploring how believers reconcile the lack of overt divine intervention with their faith.
• Evangelism:Jake and Kenny discuss the modern Christian's dilemma: how to share faith without alienating others. The takeaway is the emphasis on showing love and respect, allowing actions to speak as loudly as words, and understanding that conversion is not about numbers but about genuine connection.Dealing with 
• Doubt:Doubt is portrayed not as a failure but as an essential part of faith's maturation. Jake's experiences remind listeners that questioning can lead to stronger faith, as it forces one to engage deeply with their beliefs, moving from passive acceptance to active conviction.

Three Applications for Listeners:

• Visualizing Faith:Encourage listeners to explore or create visual metaphors or symbols that resonate with their personal understanding of God or spiritual truths. This could be through art, nature, or even personal symbols that help bridge the abstract with the tangible in their spiritual life.
• Engaging with Apologetics:Suggest that listeners delve into apologetics not just to defend their faith but to explore and deepen their understanding of it. This could involve reading books, attending lectures, or even discussing with others who have different views to strengthen their own beliefs through dialogue and reason.
• Embracing Doubt as Part of Faith:Encourage listeners to view doubt not as a threat but as an opportunity for growth. They should be prompted to ask questions, seek answers, and understand that doubt can lead to a more robust and personal faith. This might include

Transcript

Exploring Faith and Rationality in Christianity

Speaker 1 0:00

In this episode of Balancing the Christian Life, we follow one Christian's journey, my son Jake. Welcome to Balancing the Christian Life. I'm Dr Kenny Embry. Join me as we discover how to be better Christians and people in the digital age. So how did you grow up as a Christian? As some of you may know, this podcast was originally targeted toward my son, jake, and at a time when he was about 17. There were conversations I knew I wanted to have with him, but I wasn't sure exactly how they would happen. Well, this is another conversation with my son Jake, and now he's 21. I just wanted to see what Christianity looked like from a 21-year-old's point of view. So we just start with some very simple questions about what his relationship looks like with God. Who is God? I have a hard time conceptualizing.

Speaker 2 0:54

I know he's the creator and I know he is a heavenly father and as a Christian, I believe he's also the son but I have a hard time visualizing him. Why, I don't know. I used to think of him as a man in the sky and I've abandoned that idea, I guess but it's more because I feel like it's wrong. I didn't abandon it because I don't still think that way. I try not to think that way now because I feel like I'm thinking about it wrong.

Speaker 1 1:25

Do you think it's important that you have a visual image of who God is?

Speaker 2 1:28

For me it is. I'm a very visual person. I visualize everything, so it's easier for me to understand something if I can think about how the thing might look like.

Speaker 1 1:38

Okay, what if you're not going to get that?

Speaker 2 1:41

Then I guess it wouldn't be important, because when you asked that question my first thought was no, it's not important to my salvation whether I can have a picture of God. But it makes it really hard for me sometimes because I have a hard time picturing Him and. I think of a lot of things and images and pictures.

Speaker 1 1:59

Yeah, you've been going through a journey of what we call apologetics. You've been talking to me and you've been thinking about things like who is God, how do you know that there is a God, and things like that. What are some of the things that you've learned within the last few years?

Speaker 2 2:16

fine-tuning of the universe. That's been the one that's been on my mind a lot, yeah and how there's universal constants and they're very specific values. The idea proposed is that if they were off by a hair's breadth then the world wouldn't exist, right? So that's been one that I've been thinking about recently, which has strengthened my faith in God.

Speaker 1 2:41

How so, how so.

Speaker 2 2:42

I just have a hard time believing that it could be anywhere else the the three logical arguments I heard was that it would either be chance, necessity or design, and the probability of it being chance is so extremely low.

Speaker 1 2:54

It's like okay, just stop that for a second and unpack each one of those. What is chance? What is necessity? What is design?

Speaker 2 3:01

So chance would say that our universe was created by an accident. There was a, it just happened. Yeah, yeah, the Big Bang just happened, and then these universal constants also just happened, and they just happened to be the correct values we need to sustain life.

Speaker 1 3:18

Well, yeah, all the scientists believe that.

Speaker 2 3:21

Why don't you believe?

Speaker 1 3:22

that.

Speaker 2 3:22

I just find that very hard to believe Nothing in our universe that I, the science backs this up, jake, the science backs this up.

Speaker 2 3:29

Well, from what I understand, the science doesn't say that it's chance. They just know what the values are, and that's one of the theories is that it could be chance. I just find that so hard to believe. I don't know exactly the number, but it's like 1 in 10 to the something. It's such an extremely low number. I almost just refuse to believe that we live in a universe that has existed for at least 2,024 years. That is completely by accident. Okay, so you believe in a young Earth.

Speaker 2 4:01

Well, I mean, it's at least 2,024 years old, because we're in year 2024, but right, I don't know exactly how old the earth is, but I just I refuse to believe that it all happened by chance. I, I completely understand.

Speaker 1 4:16

What is this necessity argument? You're basically talking about chance, which, yeah, the necessity argument.

Speaker 2 4:21

what I've heard about the necessity argument is that when the Big Bang happened, that because these values are the way that they need to be, or because these values have to be this way in order to sustain life, that through some necessity they just aligned themselves that way because it had to be that way. That doesn't seem, that doesn't make sense to me, because when I think, if you believe in a materialist world which, if you're atheist, I think you have to If there's no God, then you have to believe.

Speaker 1 4:53

What do?

Speaker 2 4:53

you mean by a materialist world? Worlds only matter in energy. There's nothing divine, there's nothing transcendent, it's all just stuff.

Speaker 1 5:03

Yeah, can you see anything?

Speaker 2 5:04

more than just stuff. I can't see anything more than just stuff, but when I think about, well, consciousness is more than just stuff. So if I'm thinking consciousness is more than just stuff, yeah, you're right. But when I think about the idea of a universe with just stuff and then these invisible stuff, these constants needed to align themselves that way, I feel like need implies some sort of fate or intention behind the aligning so there's a problem with that necessity argument.

Speaker 1 5:35

What do you think the big problem with the necessity?

Speaker 2 5:37

argument is. I just think it doesn't stand. I think in order to why? Why I think necessity implies an underlying order, almost, or some sort of intention. But if the world is just matter and energy, I don't see how invisible forces can have intention. It also implies that the goal of the values was to sustain life, and that's why they align themselves that way, and that doesn't work, because if all you have is matter and energy, there is no such thing as a goal. A goal would be something metaphysical, not physical. It's just a goal, is an idea. We have something arbitrary that we pursue.

Speaker 1 6:17

Yeah, and really, when you come to that necessity argument, what it has to be is well, I mean, the world is like this because it has to be. Is well, I mean the world is like this because it has to be like this, right, because we couldn't have a world if we didn't have this. So we need it to be this way and it I think you're you're cottoning on to the problem with that argument, which is it kind of starts by begging the question. Do you understand what I mean by begging the question?

Speaker 2 6:43

well, like that why does it have to be that way? Or does it need to be that?

Speaker 1 6:47

way, that's exactly right, and and the way they answer, that is well, just because it does.

Speaker 2 6:52

Yeah, to me that seems that one seems more ridiculous than the chance. I'm at least willing to believe the possibility of the chance argument. I know the probability is really really, really, really low, but at least it's probable. It's very improbable but it could have happened that way. But necessity I just don't even think makes sense. It had to be that way.

Speaker 1 7:12

But there's nothing transcendent that directed it that way.

Speaker 2 7:16

That doesn't make any sense to me, right.

Speaker 1 7:18

And then, when you come to the probability argument, again that idea that it is improbable and yet here we are. Yeah, so I mean, I think, with the probability argument, one of the things that scientists continue to do is well, we just have to make the universe bigger, we just had to add more time, we have to add more variables, so this all makes sense. Do you see what that?

Speaker 1 7:47

I think I see where you're going yeah, okay, one of the arguments that they talk about sometimes is how long would it take a room full of monkeys typing on a typewriter to get the works of shakespeare? Yeah, right, have you heard?

Speaker 2 7:57

that okay. Well, this kind of goes that the inside the necessity argument. I've heard the theory of the multiverse proposed that we live in a universe, we live in a multiverse and there's just universes are constantly being created, Right, and that if that is the case, that would make sense. If universe are infinitely being created forever, then just by necessity you would eventually get one that has the correct values to sustain life. But that still doesn't answer the question of well, where did the multiverse come from? Because if you keep going back and back and back and back, eventually there has to be. If there's always something, then where did the something come from? And something doesn't come from nothing, so eventually the something would have had to come from an eternal something yeah, yeah, and that's a hard thing to to grapple with.

Speaker 1 8:47

Yeah, because one of the things that we haven't really addressed yet is the question you're trying to answer isn't a scientific question. No, why not?

Speaker 2 8:57

because well, uh, I I look towards scientific evidence, but so the question I'm trying to answer is is there a meaning to life? Does life have value? Uh-huh, and that would not be a scientific question, that would be a moral question.

Arguments for and Against Belief

Speaker 1 9:23

It's a moral question. But what other kind of question is it? It's not just moral. Look, the beauty of science is it does a great job of predicting patterns. You look outside, you see that you have dark skies. You better get an umbrella why? Because the pattern is, when you see dark skies, it's probably going to rain. Science is great at answering those questions. If you take this drug, this drug is likely to fix your problem. That's why, again, another pattern. And yet when we look at what kind of question you're asking, you're talking about things that only happen once. Right, and science is lousy with things that only happen once, because they're just going to go back and, okay, this pattern, it happened like this before and I guess before that it happened the same way yeah okay, what you're looking at isn't just a moral question, it's.

Speaker 1 10:23

Science does a great job with nature, but the beginning of something happened outside of nature. Yes, and by definition of what it is, it's supernatural. Mm-hmm. Do you understand? Do you see that? Yeah, okay, which leads you to your third argument. Do you understand? Do you see that? Yeah, Okay, which leads you to your third argument Design, right, yes, so how did you arrive at design?

Speaker 2 10:49

So design makes the most sense to me because when I well, so chance just seems very low. So I'm not ruling it out and I think that's reasonable.

Speaker 1 11:00

I think you can't rule it out.

Speaker 2 11:02

It just seems very improbable.

Speaker 1 11:03

Necessity.

Speaker 2 11:04

I don't think just makes any sense at all With design. It at least adds up with the way the rest of the universe works. So when I see a baby, I don't think, oh, I wonder how the baby got there. I assume that the baby was created through sexual reproduction. If I see a book, I don't go oh wow, I wonder how this book got here. I look at the book and I think someone must have wrote the book.

Speaker 2 11:29

If I work on I do computers for school when I'm looking at a program I don't think, oh, wow, it's crazy that this program just happened to be this way. I think that someone actually wrote the program. So at least design adds up with the way the rest of the universe works. Everything that we have in the universe that is created by humans is created. It's done, created. The only thing we don't know is the stuff outside of humans. But as far as I can tell, it would make sense. If all of living beings, or if all of life creates more things, then it would make sense that the stuff outside of life would also have been created. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 12:06

Yes, it makes perfect sense, and one of the things you're talking about. This is really a very abstract way of proving God, and it doesn't necessarily even prove God. What it does is it gives you a reasonable argument why you might believe that God exists. So I think that's a beautiful argument. Is that the only way that you can argue that God exists? So I think that's a beautiful argument. Is that the only way that you can argue that God exists? No, how else could you argue that God exists?

Speaker 2 12:31

So one of the another one that I like is the free will argument, which is that humans seem to have a capacity to bypass their animal instinct. So an argument I used in a video I made recently was if so, charlie, your son-in-law, my brother-in-law, sent me a video in our group chat or one of our Snapchat group chats of a cow and they were branding the cow. And when they put the brand on the cow, it started shaking and like running away, and then, once they opened the gate, the cow ran off. But if I put my hand on a hot stove, it'll hurt, but I could choose to leave my hand on the hot stove, right, the cow doesn't have the ability to choose to just sit there and deal with the pain of the brand, and that seems to me to be very interesting.

Speaker 2 13:16

Why are? Why are human beings the only beings capable of like? Right now, I'm really hungry, but I'm not getting up to go eat anything. I'm choosing to sit here and talk. So, but when, when our dog is hungry, it just goes and gets food, it doesn't choose to sit there and starve, right?

Speaker 1 13:36

That seems to me to at least beg the question of why are we able to do that and other beings are not? Yeah, and I don't, I don't.

Speaker 2 13:40

I've heard that we just evolved to a higher order, but that doesn't answer the question of where in the evolutionary chain did it come from? Like, at what point did the monkey go from? Just monkey, see monkey do to monkey see monkey, think about thing and then monkey do I don't see where that part comes to be Right right?

Speaker 1 13:58

Well, so you got your free will argument. You got basically an argument about the beginning of time and the beginning of creation. Sure, what other arguments do you have?

Speaker 2 14:12

There's the moral argument that most human beings and this is really interesting. I was listening to a debate recently between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox. John Lennox is a theist, richard Dawkins and John Lennox John Lennox is an atheist, richard Dawkins is an atheist and Richard Dawkins actually said to himself all human beings seem to have an underlying understanding of morality and it really begs the question of like well how.

Speaker 2 14:37

Yeah, where did that come from? Yeah, because my dog doesn't have an underlying sense of morality. When my girlfriend walks through the door, my dog will just run at her and bark. But Kent doesn't run at her and bark, kent just says hi. There obviously seems to be some sort of understanding of well, it's not very nice to go run at someone and yell at them when they enter the house. And if the world is just matter and energy, morality is something super, super abstract. I mean, it's this idea of that, it's the ought argument that CS Lewis proposed. You can't have an ought from an is. You can't have the world, it just is. But you ought to do this thing. That doesn't make sense. Why should I ought to do that thing? That doesn't Right right, right.

Speaker 1 15:23

So now you've got the moral argument. What?

Speaker 2 15:25

other arguments do you have? Well, those are the three big ones Order and design, free will and morality. I'm sure there's a bunch of others, but Well, there's a historical argument as well. Yeah for the argument of Jesus, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 15:39

So I mean again that there is a God. Have you figured out anything about him yet?

Speaker 2 15:57

See, this is where, like, this was going to be the topic of the talk I wanted to talk to you about, like I have reasons to believe in God, but I also feel like I have reasons not to. The biggest one on my mind right now is people call it divine hiddenness or hidden whatever. I don't know God being hidden.

Speaker 1 16:18

You can't see him.

Speaker 2 16:19

Yeah, he's invisible, can't hear him, can't speak to him. I can speak to him, but he doesn't seem to speak back in the way that I would. I can't hear his voice like I can hear yours. I can't touch him, I can't see him. So how do I even know he exists? And that's been a really big problem for me, because I'll pray about something and I don't hear a booming voice from the skies or I don't see, you know, a vision of bright light like Paul did. So it's like how do I even know God? How do I even know there's something there?

Speaker 2 16:50

Listening to my prayer, I feel like I'm just on my knees saying stuff, but I don't. I don't get any response. Right, why does that bother you? I think the reason it bothers me. Well, so the reason it bothers me is because I would like God to do that. That's been what I've come to is the main reasons I don't believe in God is because God does not act the way I wish he would act. But in my head I kind of reason out that, like I feel like this is a reasonable way for God to act. If I go to you and ask a question, you give me an answer. So why, when I go to God and ask a question, you give me an answer. So why, when I go to God and ask a question, he doesn't give?

Speaker 1 17:29

me an answer, the same way you would give me an answer.

Speaker 2 17:30

It's just hard for me to get around.

Navigating Faith in Daily Interactions

Speaker 1 17:32

Well, I understand that. One of the things that I'll tell you and you're not asking me about this, but I'm sure at some point you will you're just going to have to come to terms with that is the way it is, and we've talked before about I think one of the most important books in the Bible is Job, because Job is basically tempted and put through a bunch of trials. I mean, he's just hit on over and over and over again and at the end of his trials God doesn't tell him what went on. It's a very dissatisfying ending from our perspective.

Speaker 2 18:19

Yes.

Speaker 1 18:21

Did Job, do the right thing.

Speaker 2 18:24

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 18:25

Yeah, was Job rewarded for his righteousness?

Speaker 2 18:33

At the end. Yeah, he got everything back, doesn't he?

Speaker 1 18:35

He gets all his stuff back. Yeah, yeah, he does. He absolutely does. If he didn't get all of his stuff back, would he have been rewarded?

Speaker 2 18:43

Yeah, I mean physically, no, I guess, but I guess spiritually he gained a deeper relationship with God, deeper understanding of God, yeah, and I think that's that would be the reward.

Speaker 1 18:58

That's the reward, I think, one of the things that you see there is and again, I didn't write Job, but if I did, it's actually a really good examination of what it means to be in a relationship with God, because Job has kept being made weaker, he's not made stronger, throughout the entire story and I hate that. He I don't hate it. I'm glad for him that he has all of his stuff basically given back to him and more, because that's an awfully nice way to end the story. But the argument that you make is the argument that I would make.

Speaker 1 19:42

The relationship that God has with Job is stronger because of what he went through. It's just like the trials that you go through as a child. I mean, if you're bullied as a child, is that fair? No, does it make you stronger? Yes, if you survive bullying, you have survived something that makes you stronger and again, it's that idea of the trials are the things that perfect us. That gold that goes into the smelter has all the bad stuff taken away and what it's left with is something that's better, and that's a hard lesson for us to learn.

Speaker 2 20:20

This reminds me of. I saw like a Navy soldier, and he was saying that he wouldn't wish it upon anybody to have to lose a brother or watch a friend die. But he is happy, if you can use that word, that he lost a brother or watched a friend die because it turned him into the person he was today. Now he is able to do more good for the world because he's grown to appreciate the things he has more because of it, and he always says like I wish they were alive now, but if they were, then I wouldn't have gone through the lessons that I did and I wouldn't be able to do the good for people that I've done now.

Speaker 1 20:55

That's right, and that's a hard lesson to learn, yeah, and that makes perfect sense to me. I understand that I don't wish tragedy on anybody, but by the same token, you see how tragedy often makes people stronger. I remember a conversation that I had, well at this point, two or three years ago, with Jeremy DeHutt, who lost two children. I can't imagine going through that, but I also, in a very perverse way, I'm grateful that I get to learn the lessons that he did and not have the life experience that he did. Yeah, because that, to me, is faith-building for me. Yeah, so, anyway.

Speaker 1 21:36

So you have a problem with God not giving you what you want when you want it and the way you want it. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, me too. I wish I had a better answer for you, because I think you're always going to be. Again, you called the hidden God. I don't know why God doesn't make things more straightforward, but I do know that he doesn't. And again, when it comes to that is the faith journey, right there. I think the other mistake we can make is that we read God into every decision or in every action, that we look for signs. Yes, yes, and I think sometimes those might be signs. I think it's easier for me to look back at my life and think that might have been God acting on my behalf. But again, god's business is God's business, it's not mine.

Speaker 2 22:34

Yeah, that's something I've learned recently is that there's nothing wrong with looking back on my life and saying that was definitely something God was trying to show me. But it can be a problem to go out my life thinking to myself what is God trying to show me right now through these actions? Because then it gets to a point where I'm really really overthinking out my life, thinking to myself what is God trying to show me right now through these actions? Because then it gets to a point where I'm really really overthinking any action I do, because I'm like is God trying to tell me something here? Or it's like, yeah, I'll see.

Speaker 2 23:01

I remember I walked out of work one day when I was leaving and there was someone sitting at one of the tables outside and he was talking to his friend about the Bible. And I had said a prayer the other night before, like the other night before I went to bed, asking like, can you give me the boldness to talk about God with my coworkers at work? And then I saw that person and I thought is that God trying to tell me that I should go talk to this guy? And I eventually didn't. And maybe maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, I don't know. But then it got to a point where, like anytime anyone would say anything relating to God or Jesus, I would think, oh, that's God, he's trying to get me to talk to this person, and it creates like almost a paralysis because I start thinking, like, is he actually yeah?

Speaker 1 23:44

Well, let me ask you what do you do in those situations? Should you talk to that person?

Speaker 2 23:51

Yeah, I think you should Well. So something I've been trying to focus on recently is that we're all made in the image of God, so that person is just as important as I am. And there's always a chance that the person you're talking to doesn't know Christ. And if you think Christ is the way to heaven, you should tell that person about it. And I think so. I mean, if you don't, then who knows? Maybe the reason that person never finds out and lives a life separate from God is because you just were too selfish to, or you were too scared of some sort of social backlash to tell them about it.

Speaker 1 24:29

Yeah, and I think that second one is probably a better reflection of what you actually go through. I think most people are not nearly as selfish as they are scared.

Speaker 2 24:38

Yeah, that's what it's been for me. I really want to talk to people about Christ when I started taking my faith more seriously recently. I want to tell people at work about it, but I always get kind of paralyzed sometimes. Why? Because I'm like I don't want these people to get offended that I'm bringing up Christ or I don't want people to look at me differently because I'm a Christian. It's like I want to be able to go to work and still enjoy my shifts. But I also know some of these people don't believe in God and I would like to tell them about it. How?

Speaker 1 25:09

can you do that?

Speaker 2 25:11

What I've realized recently is just so. Tommy Matthews' famous quote of people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, right. So I tried now when I'm talking to people that even if I can't bring God into the conversation naturally, without making this person feel like I'm just trying to force my faith upon them I try to just really show that I care about the person. So yesterday I was working and I was me and this other girl were working like we have to work together. It was a station that we have to work together.

Exploring Faith and Miracles in Christianity

Speaker 2 25:41

So I try to spend the entire time just talking to her and asking her questions about herself, instead of trying to like to every person I see, like do you believe in God or do you know who Jesus is? Like I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but I try to just show that like, hey, I care about you and I'd like to know more about you and like to get to know you, because I think eventually then they're at least seeing some sort of love of Christ in that. Hopefully, even if they don't see it, that's what I'm portraying and then hopefully I can get to the actual topic of the conversation of. Well, let me tell you why I treat you this way. It's because I think you were made in the image of God and because I think Christ, you know, something like that.

Speaker 1 26:19

Sure, sure, sure, sure. Do you think that's a failing on your part that you can't bring up Christianity?

Speaker 2 26:25

At times yes, at times there's been when people ask me directly about my faith and like are you a Christian? And my answer is just yes. And I think in those points, when I look back on those points, my answer should be more than just a yes. I feel like it should be. I do think I'm a Christian. Let me can I tell you why? Or something like that. But at most points it's just a yes and it's because I know why. It's because I don't really want to talk about it. It's like I just I don't want to feel like I don't know. I'm just like nervous about other people hearing or something, or I'm nervous about this person looking at me differently. So when they ask me, are you a Christian, I just say yes and let the conversation move forward.

Speaker 1 27:10

Would you like to change that?

Speaker 2 27:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:13

Yes, how would you change it?

Speaker 2 27:16

Well, like I said, I mean I've tried more recently to with every conversation focusing more on the person instead of on me. So anytime I talk to somebody recently, I try to turn the conversation completely towards them so they can see that I care about them and I'm interested in them and who they are and about their life. But I think the answer would just be, the next time someone asks me about my faith, to give them what I see as the correct answer instead of just saying yes, what do you think the correct answer is? I think the correct answer is definitely yes, like you should. If you're a Christian, you should own up to it. Like, don't lie. But I think the correct answer is to say yes and ask them can I tell you why? Or maybe ask them themselves, like, are you a Christian? And if they say no, like do you mind if I ask you why not? Or something like that.

Speaker 1 28:11

Yeah, I think one of the things that Chuck talked about again is just that courage, and I think once you get past the courage to do it, then it's kind of the conviction to do it. And I think one of the things that you need to figure out is and I think your impulse is correct, you got to care about other people first. And I think it's perfectly legitimate to say look, I am a Christian. If you ever want to talk about that, I am all for it, and leave that door open.

Speaker 2 28:45

I used to feel really guilty that I would have, like I'd have friends at work that I'd known for a year or something, like when I worked at McDonald's, and I never talked to Jesus about them. But then I started to think to myself, like, well, am I even showing that I love them in the conversation? Am I even talking to them as if I care about them? And it's like if I can't even have a conversation with them and show to them that I love them, I don't think it really matters how much I bring up Jesus in the conversation, because they're going to be turned off by the fact that, like, I just seem like I don't care, or I just seem like I'm just trying to get some numbers up. You know in heaven, I'm just trying to raise the baptism rates or something, it's like.

Speaker 2 29:23

I think I think the main, the first goal, like you said, or like we just talked about earlier, like, is love others, love your neighbor as yourself and then love God with all your heart, soul and strength. I think the first goal should be let me show this person I love them and then, if they ask, or later down the line, I can bring up you know where this love is coming from and tell you about Jesus, oh yeah, I think something else that I would just recommend is start giving God credit for things that he deserves credit for.

Speaker 2 29:52

Yeah, yes, I've tried doing that, yeah.

Speaker 1 29:53

Yeah, and I think that's a great way to, because I think it's easy for us to have an inflated sense of the self because we believe we are in so much control of what we do. And we're just not, we're just not, we're just not.

Speaker 2 30:13

Something I've tried to focus on recently is I always hear people say you're not the one doing the converting, it's the Holy Spirit doing the converting. You're just the one talking. And that's never how I used to think. Every time I would ever have a conversation about Christianity with somebody, I would always be thinking to myself okay, how can I break apart this person's worldview and explain to them why they're wrong, so I can show them why my view of God is correct, or something. But really, then I started thinking I'm focusing way too much on how can I convince this person to believe in Christ? How can I change this person's heart? And it's like I can't do that. All I can do is tell them about it, and then it's up to God to do his work, now that the seed's been planted.

Speaker 1 30:56

Yeah, that's right. I think something else that you need to. I think it's a misnomer. Do you know what misnomer means? Not really Okay. What it means is calling something by the wrong name.

Speaker 2 31:08

Oh, okay, oh, I didn't know what that means, yeah, so a misnomer.

Speaker 1 31:11

I think it's a misnomer or a mistake to think that there's only one person that converts somebody. The fact is, you may or may not conduct a Bible study, but you were the one who showed initial interest, mm-hmm, you were the one that basically introduced them to Christian activity or Christian actions. I think there's a lot to be said for that, and I think one of the things that I kind of worry about on the one hand but I don't worry about a lot is that when you are basically trying to raise a Christian, it's not just one person that does even most of the work. There are so many people just at the church where you are Names that you could rattle off just as easily as I could that have all had something to do with how you became a Christian or how you grew up as a Christian, and that is pretty cool. But it's not like I could have been all of those things to you. I don't, I can't.

Speaker 1 32:22

So Christianity is a community project. Yes, yeah. So I think that's something that's important. Okay, so you have basically grappled with the idea of who God is. You have grappled with the idea that God just does not want to conform to what you want him to be. You're just going to have to basically come to him on his terms, not yours, and basically you've been grappling with the idea of how do you evangelize, how do you tell other people about him? What else have you come to learn about God or Christianity?

Speaker 2 32:52

Another problem I've had is I guess you call it lack of supernatural why don't we have miracles? Why haven't I seen one? I grew up in a Christian, basically a primarily Christian society, my entire life. I'm 21 now and I've never seen a miracle. Neither have I, or at least I've never seen what I would consider to be a miracle. I ran this thought experiment the other day of like maybe there's things that are miracles that I just don't know, but that's not the way we describe it in the Bible, it's something supernatural.

Speaker 2 33:30

So if I see something and I think to myself, well that could have happened, then it's probably not a miracle, that's a problem I struggle with. It's like why have I never seen a miracle and I talked to you about this the other day why did Moses get to see the Red Sea part? Or why did Thomas get to see the resurrected Jesus and actually touch his? Well, I guess in the gospel they never tell us that he touched his side. But you know, you get my point Like why don't I get to see these kind of things? And that's been a problem I've had.

Speaker 1 33:55

Well, one of the number one. Moses saw the Red Sea part. He didn't see the Jordan River part.

Speaker 2 34:04

Did I say Jordan?

Speaker 1 34:05

You didn't say Jordan, and that's what you needed to me Because it's and it's kind of Jordan and that's what you needed to me because it's and it's it's kind of the Caleb, I mean, joshua does the same thing with with the Jordan river as, and the Georgia river parts, which is far less impressive because it's much smaller, yeah, but, but the Moses did see the red sea part and the I think one of the things that we've talked a little bit about this. I am curious about how convincing the miracles truly were.

Speaker 2 34:37

Yeah, you were talking with me about that the other day.

Speaker 1 34:40

Because the people who saw them and participated in them were almost never convinced. Right Pharaoh did not change his mind about who God was After seeing 10 plagues. Yes, after going through 10 plagues, after experiencing a lot of wrath from God, he did not convert. It did not change his mind. Well, it changed his mind enough to say get out of here, you guys are a pain in the rear end.

Speaker 2 35:08

Well, I guess, now that I think about it, I guess my more point is like well, since I'm already a believer, why can't I see some miracles? You know what I mean? I think that's more what it is. I think it's more of like a well, you know, pharaoh didn't even believe in God and he got to see the plagues. And the Egyptians didn't even believe in God and they got to see the Red Sea part. So, god, I believe in you. Why can't you show me some cool things? You know It'll help me not to doubt, right Like It'll help me not to doubt right Like I can not that it would help me completely, but at least I know you exist. Like if I walk down to the lake down here and I saw it split, you know, if someone asked me at work, like does God exist? I'd be like I bet you he does.

Speaker 2 35:48

Like I saw the water part, but I think that's more my problem, which is, I guess, more again a selfish thing of like you know, I believe in you, god. Why don't I get to see some cool things?

Speaker 1 35:57

Yeah, Well, and again go back to the New Testament, where we've got miracles coming back. The miracles are the exception, they're not the rule. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, for the vast history of mankind we didn't see miracles. And again, just talk about the miracles of Jesus. They didn't convince the Pharisees of.

Speaker 2 36:19

Jesus.

Speaker 1 36:20

They didn't convince the Pharisees yeah, they didn't convince the Sadducees yeah, for some people, I think the miracles of Jesus were basically the circus coming to town. Yeah, this guy had no idea how he can cure people of their illnesses, but he sure does. Do you know anybody sick? And that was where they left the miracles, that this was just a sideshow to get people healed. And that is sad, because they did not recognize that the purpose of the miracles was to confirm the teachings that he was giving them and also confirm that he had the power of God, I think maybe I just struggle with this, but I think I also have an idea of what I would like a miracle to be.

Speaker 2 37:04

You know, like I never. I never saw Jesus fly around like Superman, or I never saw him. I never. I don't read of him like picking up a bus or something, yeah, and I wonder if that's how a lot of people viewed him back then. It's like like you said, like yeah, he could heal, but like we have doctors, doctors can heal. And when he says I'm from God, people are like, well, why don't you ride into the air in a fiery chariot, like that one guy did? But it's like they maybe I bet you they were expecting something and when they didn't get it, they were like nah there's just no way, so they just move on.

Understanding Doubts and Miracles in Faith

Speaker 1 37:36

The didn't do anything with them Right.

Speaker 1 37:38

I think that you would probably have the same kind of reaction and I don't know that for sure but I do think that even if you saw one, I'm not sure how much it would actually change your faith, which is, on one hand, sad, on one hand sad Because, again, I think that the miracles themselves were the proofs of who God was, and almost everybody missed it. And I think that's I mean, you even think about God, who you think about Jesus, who had to turn to his apostles and say all right, guys, you've seen me actually feed 5,000 people and you're worried about what we're going to feed them now. Yeah, you know I can do this right. Yeah, you know I can do this. No, we didn't even okay. Or God, the storm is about to take us out. Why aren't you worried? You see me like change things right. You see me like raise people from the dead.

Speaker 2 38:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1 38:42

And you're worried that a storm is going to make us perish. Yeah, and I think that's one of the things that I understand your problem. But I think you also recognize your problem, which is now you're trying to get God to do what you want him to do. Yeah, and he's just not going to do that for you. Yeah, and you're going to have to be okay with that.

Speaker 2 39:06

Yeah, you see what I'm saying yeah, okay, what else has changed.

Speaker 1 39:12

What other kind of questions do you have? What kind of doubts do you have?

Speaker 2 39:18

I'm trying to think the evil and suffering one is always there.

Speaker 1 39:23

I've been willing to.

Speaker 2 39:28

I usually can work that one out myself, but that one is kind of a big deal. Why do so many people suffer, and seemingly innocent people? Let's just use Hurricane Milton as an example. Why did so many people suffer, and seemingly innocent people? Let's just use Hurricane Milton as an example. Why did so many people lose their lives and seemingly? I would guess I would call them innocent people, and I'm willing to bet some of them were children, it's like. Why did they lose their lives? Or there's children in third world countries that are dying to diseases.

Speaker 1 39:55

Why doesn't?

Speaker 2 39:56

God, just stop the disease.

Speaker 1 39:58

Right, right. Do you have an answer for that?

Speaker 2 40:01

I heard one guy say that he God's primary purpose is to get people to choose him freely, and if he was to intervene, even in the smallest degree, it could lead to people choosing him out of like safety from harm and not choosing him for the right reason, which is something that made sense to me. I heard someone else say that God created the natural world. But natural things happen and it's not God's control. That one doesn't work well for me, just because I don't know he created it that way, so why can't he stop it? I don't know. I completely understand man-made suffering. I don't blame God for murder, because that just seems kind of dumb. It wasn't God who did the murder, it was this guy who did the murder, free will. But I have a hard time not blaming God for kids dying of diseases in Africa or kids dying from a hurricane. It's like, well, we didn't have any control over that and we can't stop that. So why did you just let these people die, do?

Speaker 1 41:15

you have an answer for that? I don't think so. These people die, yeah, do you have an answer for that? I don't think so Do you think that? Means that there's not a God? No, no, it doesn't.

Speaker 2 41:31

Does it mean that God's not good? See, I don't know, because my thought process is that goodness is God.

Speaker 1 41:41

I do too.

Speaker 2 41:42

I agree with that. Whatever God does is good by definition, but it's hard to tell somebody that well, it was a good thing If God is directly controlling the hurricane, which I don't necessarily know if that's true, but if he is, it's hard to tell somebody. Well, it's a good thing that your child died, because God did it. And that makes it good.

Speaker 1 42:04

Was it good that Job lost everything it was in the long run Like for him.

Speaker 2 42:12

Was it good in the moment? No, but it wasn't God doing it, it was.

Speaker 1 42:18

Satan, I guess. Yeah, I think one of the things you're grappling with is we live in a place that is broken. We live in a place that is less than perfect, and if you want to make it perfect, what happens to us? If you want to live in a place that is perfect, what happens to us? Oh, we got to go, yeah.

Speaker 2 42:44

Yeah, why? Because we're not perfect.

Speaker 1 42:48

That's right. So we live in an imperfect world until we're redeemed into a perfect world.

Speaker 2 42:56

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 42:57

Does that make sense? Do you see that we're redeemed into a perfect world? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 42:58

Does that make sense? Yeah, do you see that? That reminds me of John Lennox. He was a theist mathematician and he said that human beings right now are trying to create perfect beings in perfect environments. We've done it. It's called computers and it's called robotics, but those people don't actually do anything Like robots, don't do anything moral. They've done it. It's called computers and it's called robotics, but those people don't actually do anything. Robots don't do anything moral. They're not good. They may do exactly what you told them to do every single time, but they're not doing it of their own volition. And if you create an environment where it works exactly the way you told it to, it's just happening and there's nothing bad.

Speaker 2 43:38

There's nothing good, there's nothing bad, there's no moral value at all, because it's just robots.

Speaker 1 43:46

There are a lot of people that I know that I think a lot of that are worried about artificial intelligence. The thing about artificial intelligence is it's not getting its intelligence from anything other than other people. As good as they are at predicting the next word in the large language models, it can just as easily be wrong as it can be right, and it still takes somebody with the ability to think well to figure out if the artificial intelligence is actually authentic intelligence or if it's artificial. And I think the better that it gets at giving us the right answers, the factual answers, the verifiable answers, the better it is, the more useful it is. Does that replace us? No, I don't ever see that artificial intelligence will replace us because and you've kind of already made this argument computers are not moral.

Speaker 2 44:50

Yeah, computers do not have a soul, and I mean this wasn't going to be a computer discussion, but we still, science still does not understand where the if there's no God and if everything is just natural. They don't understand where the creative mechanism came from in human beings.

Speaker 2 45:09

So an AI could not actually create something. It could just produce something using blueprints that's already been given and, as someone who works with computers, that's how AIs create. That's how AI writes programs. They're told logic and they're told how the syntax works and they just create it using that. But they can't create something new because they don't have that in their database. They can only create something that they've already been given that's exactly right.

Speaker 1 45:38

What would you tell yourself like 10 years ago? Because, you well, maybe not even 10 years ago. When were you baptized, you were 16. 16?, yeah, five years ago. So five years ago, what would you tell yourself five years ago? What's changed? Hmm?

Speaker 2 46:00

I think, I don't know, I wish I would have taken it. Okay, so this is a hard one because I wish I would have. If I could go back, I would tell myself to take it more seriously when I was baptized, but at the same time, I don't like telling people that they have to be seriously committed before they get baptized, because I think it creates this fear of like, well, I'm not good enough to be baptized yet.

Speaker 2 46:28

And I don't want people to feel that way, because I don't think that's correct. Like I think the reason you get I mean everyone uses the metaphor of, like you don't get in the shower when you're clean, you get in the shower when you're clean. You get in the shower when you're dirty. So you don't get baptized because you're sinless. The reason you get baptized is because you are sinful.

Speaker 2 46:47

But I think one thing I would tell my younger self is to understand the decision you're making and try to take it more seriously. If you actually believe it, take it more seriously. And I don't know how much I actually believed it, but maybe I would just try to tell him exactly what I just talked to you about, like, give him more evidence to try to convince him to really believe it. But I wish I would have taken it more seriously when I was 16, because I think I got baptized and for five years I just didn't care. I still lived the life I did before. I just got baptized as a safety precaution. If Christianity's right and I die tomorrow, then at least I'll be baptized and I'll have a better chance of going to heaven. I think that's what my brain was telling me. I wish I would have taken it more seriously. But again, like I said, I'm kind of going in circles here. I wouldn't tell myself to reconsider the baptism, I would just kind of urge myself to take it more seriously.

Speaker 1 47:45

Did you have enough experience to take it more seriously?

Speaker 2 47:51

I think I had enough to do something I think I could have been doing. I mean, obviously you could always be doing better, you could always be doing more good, but I think I could have been doing a lot more good than I was at the time. I don't think at the time that I was using my abilities and my experience to the fullest, so I think I could have. There's a lot more reasonable good that I could have been doing, not just hypothetical oh I could have done this, but I think there's a lot more reasonable good that I could have, that I could have been doing, not just like hypothetical, oh I could have done this, but like I think there's a lot that I could have done that I just chose not to because I didn't care.

Speaker 2 48:24

But I think that's what I would urge someone like me now, like a very, a younger person, like, if, if you believe this, if you're baptized and if you believe this, well then you should try to find out if you believe it first. But if you believe this, find what you could do. Just find something you can do. Did you believe it at that point? I don't know, I don't know. I believed in a God. I did If belief just means intellectual acceptance, like I thought there was a God and that was my thought, that was my statement was I think God exists, but I didn't believe it in the acting sense.

Speaker 1 49:05

It wasn't enough to compel me to do anything, do you? Think it's reasonable to grow into a faith.

Speaker 2 49:11

Yeah, yeah, but at the same time.

Speaker 1 49:18

I Could have done more.

Speaker 2 49:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't know how to put this. I think it's definitely reasonable to grow into a faith, but if you're young and you get baptized and you just get baptized out of peer pressure I don't think that changes the fact that you got baptized and now you still just don't care and you're just doing what you wanted to before. Now, yeah, like I think there's a growth there and part of it is growth, but did that make sense?

Speaker 1 49:51

It does but I think one of the things that you can't see, but I do is that you usually appreciate things more after they're gone. Yeah, yeah, you realize, at this point you're 21. Mm-hmm, 21 years you have spent basically with your mom and I. With an exception of the first few years, mm-hmm, you have spent the majority of time that you will ever spend with us. That, from here on out, you will spend far less time with us do you recognize that?

Speaker 1 50:31

yeah, and I don't think you'll recognize what you lost until it's actually gone. That said, the relationship starts before you understand it.

Speaker 2 50:49

Yeah.

Speaker 1 50:49

Before you appreciate what it is, after things change, after you begin to realize that, no, I really am a Christian. No, I really do have problems. Yes, god really can fix things. Because I think, as you begin, you have real reservations about all of those things. But it's the beginning of a relationship but it's the beginning of a relationship.

Speaker 2 51:19

I guess the reason I have this thought process is, like I'm always taught that the only way you can lose salvation is if you choose to turn away from God, if you choose to no longer be a child of God. But I'm also taught that we're not once saved, always saved. Once you're baptized, you can choose to go away. But my thing is, I got baptized when I was 16, but then for the next five years I really only went to church. I guess maybe for the next three, once I got to college, I started to take it more seriously.

Speaker 2 51:56

But for the rest of high school so 16, maybe 18 or 19, like I only went to church because y'all did. And even when I got my own car or not my car, but we didn't even got my driver's license Like I still only went to church because you guys were going, that's right, and I was just afraid of being judged by you guys for staying home, okay, and I didn't read my Bible ever. I didn't really. I only prayed before meals, because that's what I've been taught to do. But it's like the reason I think this way is like, well, if baptism is part of salvation, then for those next three years? Did I just completely lose it because I turned away and that doesn't affect me now because I've come back but I fear for other kids like they're 16, 17, that have been baptized and are not doing anything with it. Are they no longer saved because they're choosing not to do anything? Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 52:46

It does. But one of the things that I would say is I think they need to have an awakening about what that relationship means, and my argument would be to you about them Are they truly in a relationship with God or are they not? And I think one of the things that happens and it's one of the things that we talk about, when we have to disfellowship from somebody in church, in other words, we have to get, basically we take them off the roll, but the reason we do is because they haven't been showing up to church, and at that point, it's not so much that we're disfellowshipping ourselves from them. They've already disfellowshipped themselves from us, and so we're kind of, in some ways, just recognizing a reality that's already there.

Speaker 2 53:35

Right, just saying okay, you don't want to be here, that's fine.

Speaker 1 53:38

Yeah, well, that's already there, right, just saying, okay, you don't want to be here, that's fine. Yeah, well, it's not fine. But the thing about that is, I think, when you think about your relationship with God, is it authentic? Is it yours? And I think it's perfectly reasonable for your mom and I to take you guys to church? Yeah, but at some point.

Speaker 1 53:59

What you're going through right now is you overcoming your upbringing. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, you're starting to forge a relationship with God. That's yours, not your mother's and mine, and I think that's reasonable. I think that happens to a lot of people. I hope you do the same thing for your kids reasonable, I think that happens to a lot of people. I hope you do the same thing for your kids. I hope you basically give them the germ and the seeds and just start thinking about who God is and start asking the right questions. But you're figuring this out yourself. You can't answer that for your kids. You can't answer because that's their relationship. It's not yours. See what I'm saying. Okay, what else do we need to talk about?

Speaker 1 54:47

I don't know I don't know either. All right, I had all the podcasts with be good and do good. What's good about establishing your own faith?

Speaker 2 54:59

I think it makes you a. It makes you you grow closer to God, which I think just makes you do more good. Does that make sense.

Speaker 1 55:16

That does. That does. In other words, what's good about finding your own or creating your own faith? It's good. Okay, I can handle that. Jake, I'm very proud of you. Thank you. I'm glad you're turning into a Christian. Thank you. Yes, as you might be able to figure out, I am proud of my son, but I'm proud of all four of my children Emma, jake, kent and Abby. I think they've all turned into fine young men and women. That said, it's been an exciting time to be a father watching their Christian walk and how they have developed their own relationships with God. For the record, I'm excited to talk to anybody in my family, but Jake is one of the few that is willing to get behind the microphone and talk about his faith. If you're interested, Jake has started his own YouTube channel where he talks about why he believes in God and how he came to the conclusions he has about God. If you're interested in finding out about that, I'll put his information in the show notes. So until next time, let's be good and do good.