This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 660: Debating God's Existence with Andrew Drinkard This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Audio file 660 Andrew Drinkard.mp3 Transcript 00:00 Sean Finnegan Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan, and you are listening to Restitudio, a podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 00:12 Sean Finnegan How do you know God exists? 00:14 Sean Finnegan What reasons do atheists have to doubt God's existence? 00:18 Sean Finnegan Can you arrive at certainty? 00:20 Sean Finnegan These questions are among the most significant that you can ask. 00:24 Sean Finnegan Let's face it, if God exists, there are huge implications for your daily life. 00:28 Sean Finnegan But if not, 00:30 Sean Finnegan then you can more or less choose your own adventure, making up meeting as you go. 00:34 Sean Finnegan My guest today is Andrew Drinkard, the editor and project lead on an interesting book called Debating God's Existence, Believers and Skeptics in Friendly Conversation, published by Urbans. 00:46 Sean Finnegan In the interview that follows, I ask him about his backstory, as well as the story behind the debate this book was based on. 00:53 Sean Finnegan We discuss Dan Barker's argument against God based on the problem of evil, as well as Adam Johnson's argument for God based on objective morality. 01:02 Sean Finnegan Then we engage a bit with Drinkard's own content in the book regarding divine hiddenness. 01:08 Sean Finnegan But before getting to the interview, let me say a couple of words about our guest today. 01:13 Sean Finnegan Andrew Drinkard is the director of Inspiring Christianity Ministries at InspiringChristianity.com, which is a blog where he showcases his own research. 01:22 Sean Finnegan He holds an MA in Theological Studies and Apologetics from Liberty University and is currently completing an MA in Philosophy of Religion at Palm Beach Atlantic University. 01:33 Sean Finnegan His work has been published in the Journal of Classical Theology, and as I mentioned before, he has a book that has just come out called Debating God's Existence. 01:43 Sean Finnegan Here now is episode 660, Debating God's Existence with Andrew Drinkard. 01:56 Sean Finnegan Andrew Drinker, welcome to Restitudio. 01:59 Andrew Drinkard Sean, thanks for having me, buddy. 02:00 Andrew Drinkard How are you? 02:01 Sean Finnegan Doing pretty good. 02:03 Sean Finnegan To get us started, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? 02:06 Sean Finnegan Why are you so passionate about your faith and what was your spiritual journey to Christianity like? 02:11 Andrew Drinkard I grew up in Kansas and as a kid or a teenager, I really didn't have any interest in God or spiritual things. 02:21 Andrew Drinkard My parents did take me to church quite often, but it's just something that I just never had an interest in. 02:28 Andrew Drinkard And it wasn't until after my freshman year of college at the university that I was at, where I started to realize that the kind of way that I was living, I guess, felt somewhat superficial or shallow. 02:44 Andrew Drinkard And I felt like there was more that I could be doing, I guess, somehow 02:50 Andrew Drinkard change the trajectory that I was on. 02:52 Andrew Drinkard I just felt like I was stuck. 02:54 Andrew Drinkard And even though living a college life that you'd think would be fun, it just, I guess it wasn't very fulfilling to me. 03:01 Andrew Drinkard And so I think the Lord was working in my heart and my mind at that time, drawing me away from that. 03:07 Andrew Drinkard I left Kansas, went to Florida, attended a Christian college there. 03:11 Andrew Drinkard And that's kind of where I found my way, I guess, and gave my life to Christ. 03:16 Andrew Drinkard And 03:17 Andrew Drinkard kind of rededicated my life to the Lord. 03:19 Andrew Drinkard So that's my spiritual journey in a nutshell there. 03:22 Andrew Drinkard Yeah. 03:23 Sean Finnegan Okay. 03:24 Sean Finnegan So how long ago was? 03:26 Andrew Drinkard That? 03:27 Andrew Drinkard was, let's see, 2005. 03:30 Andrew Drinkard So 2006. 03:31 Andrew Drinkard A little while ago. 03:32 Andrew Drinkard Yeah, a little while ago. 03:34 Andrew Drinkard Yeah. 03:35 Sean Finnegan 20 years ago now. 03:37 Andrew Drinkard Yeah, it's hard to, yeah, I have to think about that. 03:39 Andrew Drinkard Wow. 03:39 Sean Finnegan Yeah, that's something. 03:40 Sean Finnegan So since then, you have really been pursuing apologetics. 03:45 Sean Finnegan What really got you onto apologetics? 03:48 Sean Finnegan It seems like such a tough field. 03:50 Sean Finnegan It's always changing. 03:52 Sean Finnegan Once you've mastered like one area of defending the faith, you know, the atheist has come up with a response and, you know, then there's a counter argument to the counter argument. 04:02 Sean Finnegan Tell us a little bit about your interest there. 04:04 Andrew Drinkard After Florida, undergrad, I moved back to 04:09 Andrew Drinkard Lawrence, Kansas. 04:10 Andrew Drinkard And I started sharing my faith with some of the individuals in my workplace, actually. 04:16 Andrew Drinkard I worked for a financial institution. 04:18 Andrew Drinkard As I started sharing my faith, inviting people to church, I was met with a lot of pushback by some of my peers and good questions, not in a hostile way, but just answered some really good questions and challenges. 04:31 Andrew Drinkard And I really didn't know how to answer those. 04:33 Andrew Drinkard And it kind of got me thinking, why do I believe what I believe, I guess? 04:38 Andrew Drinkard And I started looking into these things and started finding that there was some really good answers to the questions that they had that I didn't know existed. 04:46 Andrew Drinkard I didn't know these answers were out there. 04:49 Andrew Drinkard Yeah, it was through that I kind of discovered apologetics. 04:52 Andrew Drinkard And I saw that God was doing quite a bit with it as I was using it and talking with people. 04:59 Andrew Drinkard I think the Lord was using that in their minds and their hearts. 05:04 Andrew Drinkard And so it allowed the conversation to continue. 05:08 Andrew Drinkard It didn't just stop at sharing a Bible verse. 05:10 Andrew Drinkard It was long conversations that got to continue on and relationships develop and it was really good. 05:16 Andrew Drinkard So many people out there have personality types with an analytical mindset that haunts them, so to speak, in a way. 05:26 Andrew Drinkard That is how I am as well. 05:29 Andrew Drinkard And so intellectually speaking, there's a lot of people out there that really need certain things to make sense 05:35 Andrew Drinkard in order to get them to the place that they need to be so they can finally, say to themselves, okay, I'm A rational person and this worldview that I'm about to commit myself to seems coherent because no one wants to commit themselves to an incoherent or nonsensical worldview. 05:53 Andrew Drinkard And so it, you know, it appears rational. 05:55 Andrew Drinkard So now I can choose, basically, I can choose to trust or have good reasons to believe that this is most likely true. 06:03 Andrew Drinkard And so I think it's important because of that, because of so many people out there with that kind of mindset. 06:09 Andrew Drinkard Not everyone's like that, obviously, but there's quite a few. 06:13 Andrew Drinkard They want to make sure that this stuff makes sense before they commit themselves to it. 06:18 Andrew Drinkard And so I also hear a lot of testimonies like this from former agnostics and atheists. 06:22 Andrew Drinkard Some of the ministry that I'm involved in, I've heard several testimonies of people that used to be atheists and non-believers. 06:32 Andrew Drinkard when they were introduced to the basics of apologetics, which is just giving an answer, reasons for your faith and defending your faith, explaining the Christian worldview. 06:43 Andrew Drinkard Through that series, the Lord used that in their lives to bring them to Christ. 06:47 Andrew Drinkard And so it's interesting to see how many people have been impacted by basic apologetics. 06:53 Andrew Drinkard And even someone like Philip Goff, he's a great example. 06:56 Andrew Drinkard He is an atheist writing. 06:58 Andrew Drinkard He actually, I reached out to him to write a chapter in this book. 07:02 Andrew Drinkard And Philip Goff has been on Joe Rogan, BBC News. 07:06 Andrew Drinkard I mean, highly respected philosopher at Durham University. 07:10 Andrew Drinkard Extremely bright. 07:11 Andrew Drinkard One of the world's leading thinkers on what's called panpsychism and some other things. 07:15 Andrew Drinkard But he started out at teaching as an atheist. 07:19 Andrew Drinkard And at his class, he taught philosophy of religion. 07:22 Andrew Drinkard And I think he said it was there that once he started teaching for the arguments against the evidence of God, 07:29 Andrew Drinkard Okay, that he basically was like, this is a done deal. 07:32 Andrew Drinkard I mean, this is why I don't believe what I, don't believe in this stuff. 07:36 Andrew Drinkard But then when it came time to start teaching on the evidence or the arguments for the existence of God, that's when he said it started to move him. 07:45 Andrew Drinkard During the course of this book, even though he's writing as an atheist, he converted to what he calls a mildly heretical form of Christianity, but still Christianity. 07:56 Andrew Drinkard Wow. 07:57 Andrew Drinkard Nonetheless, he didn't pick Buddhism or Islam or Hinduism. 08:01 Andrew Drinkard He picked Christianity because he thinks it's the most coherent view. 08:05 Andrew Drinkard And that was largely in part due to philosophy, religion, which is, you know, a fancy way of doing apologetics, I feel like at times. 08:12 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 08:13 Sean Finnegan Yeah, it seems like he's got a chapter in here, non-theist responding to the debate, God or the multiverse? 08:19 Andrew Drinkard Yeah, so he, after he told me that he became a believer during the course of this book, he's like, I don't think I can write this. 08:30 Andrew Drinkard And I said, well, how about you just do it from a non-theistic perspective, you know, the way that you're going to originally write it. 08:36 Andrew Drinkard And he agreed to that. 08:38 Andrew Drinkard Yeah, so even though he's a theist, he's writing from a non-theist perspective. 08:41 Andrew Drinkard So just another case in point of the power of what thinking can do in the Christian worldview and analyzing some of the stuff. 08:50 Sean Finnegan Seems like you're into apologetics because of evangelism. 08:54 Sean Finnegan Sometimes people say apologetics is no good for evangelism. 08:58 Sean Finnegan All that apologetics is good for is helping people to not get deconverted, right? 09:03 Sean Finnegan But I agree with you. 09:04 Sean Finnegan I think it's very helpful for evangelism. 09:07 Sean Finnegan So many people have not thought through their worldview. 09:10 Sean Finnegan They have not thought through the question of origins or morality or any of the other big questions that come up in this whole subject. 09:18 Sean Finnegan So I totally agree with you. 09:21 Sean Finnegan Now your new book, Debating God's Existence, centers on a debate that occurred back in 2022 in Orlando between atheist Dan Barker and Christian Adam Johnson. 09:35 Sean Finnegan Were you at the debate? 09:36 Sean Finnegan And if you were, tell us about it. 09:39 Andrew Drinkard I was, yeah. 09:40 Andrew Drinkard So I met Adam a year prior to this debate at the annual Evangelical Philosophical Society meeting. 09:48 Andrew Drinkard And I actually recognized him from a YouTube video I watched because I'm a nerd and I like to watch debates and YouTube videos like that and discussions on the existence of God while I'm working out or whatever. 10:02 Andrew Drinkard I recognized him from a debate that he did, he hosted between a philosopher named William Lane Craig and another moral philosopher named Eric Wielenberg at NC State. 10:11 Andrew Drinkard And I said, when I saw him at this conference, I said, hey, man, you did a good job hosting that debate and moderating it. 10:20 Andrew Drinkard And so just after that, we struck up a conversation. 10:23 Andrew Drinkard We kept running into each other at this conference. 10:25 Andrew Drinkard And he told me that he was going to be, he was invited down to Florida 10:31 Andrew Drinkard in Orlando to this annual atheist conference, and he was going to be having a debate on the existence of God. 10:37 Andrew Drinkard And I said, that's awesome. 10:38 Andrew Drinkard I said, well, if you ever need any help preparing or if you need anything, let me know. 10:44 Andrew Drinkard Basically, he contacted me out of the blue a few months later and said, hey, I want to take you up on that if you're still willing to help. 10:51 Andrew Drinkard And I said, sure. 10:52 Andrew Drinkard So I helped him prepare for the debate. 10:54 Andrew Drinkard He asked for me to travel down there with him, and I did. 10:58 Andrew Drinkard Yeah, kind of the rest is history. 10:59 Sean Finnegan So you were a total insider from the beginning with this whole thing? 11:02 Andrew Drinkard Yeah, so it was me and him down there exactly. 11:04 Andrew Drinkard So I went from A-Z basically. 11:07 Sean Finnegan Yeah, awesome. 11:08 Sean Finnegan Dan Barker is pretty famous. 11:11 Sean Finnegan I've certainly watched some of his stuff in the past and I'm not really big in the apologetics space. 11:16 Sean Finnegan I'm A primarily just a pastor. 11:19 Sean Finnegan And so I care about apologetics as it relates to working with people who have doubts that come up. 11:26 Sean Finnegan And so I have a very sort of limited, pragmatic approach to the subject of apologetics. 11:32 Sean Finnegan But even I've heard of Dan Barker. 11:34 Sean Finnegan You know, he's kind of a big name in that arena. 11:38 Sean Finnegan And so in the debate, what would you say was the strongest argument that you thought was just like really needed to be responded to? 11:47 Andrew Drinkard Yeah, he 11:50 Andrew Drinkard brought up the problem of evil in a way that appeals more to the emotions of people. 11:55 Andrew Drinkard He does a good job, I think, rhetorically speaking. 11:58 Andrew Drinkard And so when you start working on the emotional aspect of the problem of evil, not really the rational or the logical problem or the evidential problem, then basically you can really get people to be persuaded by what you have to say there. 12:15 Andrew Drinkard So 12:17 Andrew Drinkard I think he did a good job of bringing up just different problems that we see, out there as far as, kids with cancer and, moral evil, stuff like why do people hurt other people, natural evil, earthquakes, hurricanes, So, but that's been the toughest thing that Christians have, I think, had to deal with since the beginning of doing this stuff, of thinking about their faith. 12:42 Andrew Drinkard And the problem of evil is probably, is without a doubt, the most difficult thing 12:46 Andrew Drinkard to wrestle with as a Christian. 12:48 Andrew Drinkard So I think that's where he did the best at presenting his case. 12:54 Sean Finnegan Well, just in case anybody out there watching this is not familiar, run us through what the problem of evil is and like how atheists use that to argue against Christianity or theism, I suppose. 13:05 Andrew Drinkard Yeah. 13:06 Andrew Drinkard So the problem of evil basically says that, you know, if God is all loving and he's all good, then why are we seeing so much evil and hurt in the world? 13:16 Andrew Drinkard right? 13:16 Andrew Drinkard If he's all good and he's all powerful, then surely he'd have the strength to stop it. 13:21 Andrew Drinkard So if he's not stopping it, then maybe he's either too weak and he's not all powerful, or maybe he's not very good himself because he's choosing not to prevent the stuff that he could prevent. 13:32 Andrew Drinkard And so it's that kind of trilemma. 13:35 Andrew Drinkard Atheists want to say, 13:36 Andrew Drinkard There's so much evil and suffering in the world that if there is a really good, loving God out there, then he would prevent all this bad stuff from happening. 13:44 Andrew Drinkard That's kind of the problem of evil. 13:45 Sean Finnegan And Dan Barker is a former preacher, right? 13:49 Andrew Drinkard He is. 13:49 Sean Finnegan Pastor. 13:50 Sean Finnegan Yep. 13:50 Sean Finnegan And whether he's a Christian or not, he's still a preacher. 13:54 Sean Finnegan So like. 13:55 Andrew Drinkard Right, that's a good point. 13:56 Andrew Drinkard That's right. 13:57 Sean Finnegan When I see a defending, you know, talking about this problem of evil and other stuff, 14:02 Sean Finnegan he uses the Bible and he, uses emotion like a preacher would. 14:08 Sean Finnegan And it is pretty powerful. 14:09 Sean Finnegan What would you say is like the most convincing rebuttal to the problem of evil from a Christian point of view? 14:17 Andrew Drinkard There's a few different ways that you could take that. 14:20 Andrew Drinkard One is what they call like the no-see-um objection. 14:24 Andrew Drinkard Basically, if you don't see it, you know, you don't see any reasons, 14:29 Andrew Drinkard for why God is allowing this stuff to happen doesn't mean that there's not good reasons. 14:35 Andrew Drinkard So basically, it's we're in as this finite creatures, you know, there's this infinite being out there, this maximally great being who knows all things, right, and has a plan and purpose for some of the stuff that's happening. 14:51 Andrew Drinkard And so we're basically not in the right state of mind or intellectual capacity or the right position to know 14:58 Andrew Drinkard if there's good reasons for allowing certain evils to occur. 15:02 Andrew Drinkard We can trust God and His character that even though some terrible stuff happens along the way, it's not for just nothing, and that God can bring a lot of good out of that evil and that stuff. 15:14 Andrew Drinkard So that's one way of looking at it. 15:17 Andrew Drinkard And so kind of another way is that some of the stuff that we see out there, you know, the things that we see, 15:26 Andrew Drinkard God uses in our lives to make us stronger, right? 15:28 Andrew Drinkard I mean, if you work out, you look like a guy that works out, that if you lift weights and you start building muscle, that's not a pleasant experience, but it benefits and yields great results. 15:40 Andrew Drinkard And so you can't have strength if you don't have weakness, you can't have courage if you don't have fear. 15:45 Andrew Drinkard So a lot of these things, what some people call a soul building theodicy or 15:52 Andrew Drinkard basically a way to explain of your moral development, your character, you become a much better person through trials and circumstances, various circumstances, rather than just having a button that you could push to get out of any trouble at any time, right? 16:08 Andrew Drinkard You'd probably become pretty spoiled, pretty weak. 16:11 Andrew Drinkard And so the Lord can use these difficulties in your life to point you to him. 16:17 Andrew Drinkard And so I think C.S. 16:18 Andrew Drinkard Lewis said, 16:20 Andrew Drinkard God speaks to us in our conscience, whispers in our pleasures and shouts in our pain. 16:25 Andrew Drinkard It's his megaphone to rouse a deaf or a dying world. 16:28 Andrew Drinkard So yeah, and I think that's right. 16:30 Andrew Drinkard I think sometimes when you're on your back, the only way you have to look is up. 16:33 Andrew Drinkard And a lot of people, if you ask them their testimonies of how they are a great person or how they're so resilient, they went through hardships and trials and it made them better. 16:44 Andrew Drinkard And they found Christ through that. 16:46 Andrew Drinkard So those are a couple of options that you can give people that, but it's, again, it's hard because you're doing it from more of a rational, logical side. 16:55 Andrew Drinkard And that's not what people are looking for when they're going through distress. 16:58 Andrew Drinkard They need more of a personal, right, an emotional, they need an emotional answer and not always a rational one. 17:05 Andrew Drinkard So problem of evil is very, is a touchy, tough one to deal with when you're talking with people. 17:11 Andrew Drinkard So it makes sense on paper. 17:13 Andrew Drinkard It makes sense when it's logically structured out and it's not incoherent. 17:18 Andrew Drinkard And it does, we do see that a good God could still exist, but we just are as people and fallen creatures in this world affected by sin and pain, it's still not easy to answer. 17:31 Andrew Drinkard And when you deal with it, the emotional aspect of it, that's, it's, very challenging. 17:36 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 17:37 Sean Finnegan I appreciate your two-pronged answer here because 17:41 Sean Finnegan Typically the sort of people that go for answer number one you just gave, which is God has his reasons and we don't have access to them, are the very people that don't go with option #2, which is there are some goods that can't exist without the kind of world that also allows for suffering, even gratuitous suffering. 18:01 Sean Finnegan And those people in that second category usually don't 18:05 Sean Finnegan Except that first one. 18:06 Sean Finnegan So I think, those are really two interesting answers. 18:10 Sean Finnegan As far as Adam Johnson in the debate back in 22, what do you think were his strongest arguments for God's existence? 18:19 Andrew Drinkard Well, Adam's a moral philosopher. 18:22 Andrew Drinkard He did his PhD in philosophy, religion, and concentration in moral theory and ethics and stuff. 18:28 Andrew Drinkard So I think he did the best in presenting the moral argument 18:32 Andrew Drinkard for God's existence and basically showing that if God exists or why do we see these things that seem to be good and why do we see things that seem to be evil, like objectively speaking, like true independent of whatever you and I think, like, you know, truth is exclusive by definition, you know, 2 + 2 equals 4, regardless of what, how you feel about it. 18:55 Andrew Drinkard And so that's kind of how we see things about like goods and certain evils in this world. 19:01 Andrew Drinkard And so he's saying that the best explanation for that is most likely that there's a God who is goodness himself. 19:09 Andrew Drinkard And his nature is the very good, the standard that we look to. 19:13 Andrew Drinkard And so I think he did a good job explaining the objective moral values that we see out there, goods and evils, and then some of the duties involved with that as well. 19:23 Andrew Drinkard Why do we feel an impulse to help someone, even if it means risking our own lives in the process? 19:30 Sean Finnegan So the moral argument points out that if there are objective morals, then there must be some sort of lawmaker or standard by which you can judge them. 19:40 Sean Finnegan Could you run us through just like a simple version that Adam... 19:44 Andrew Drinkard Yeah, so basically, objective moral values exist. 19:50 Andrew Drinkard God is the best explanation of objective values, moral 19:55 Andrew Drinkard objective moral values, therefore God probably exists. 19:58 Andrew Drinkard That's basically how it goes. 19:59 Andrew Drinkard It's not deductive, it's abductive. 20:02 Andrew Drinkard So it's more of an inference, the best explanation or looking at things, explaining this using what information we have and the likelihood that God exists. 20:14 Andrew Drinkard So it's based on that. 20:16 Sean Finnegan Now, lots of debates happen. 20:19 Sean Finnegan Why do you think this one needed to become a book? 20:22 Andrew Drinkard Right. 20:23 Andrew Drinkard That's a good question. 20:24 Andrew Drinkard Well, I felt like there could be something fresh put out there. 20:31 Andrew Drinkard And I felt like this was unique in the sense that, it was at an atheist conference and usually debates being held about the existence of God are typically at churches or things of that nature. 20:44 Andrew Drinkard They're usually not at, from what I've seen, at atheist conferences. 20:48 Andrew Drinkard We just thought it would help bring skeptics and believers together for a respectful dialogue. 20:53 Andrew Drinkard So even though there's a lot of debates out there, I feel like that are happening, I don't, there actually aren't a ton of debate books. 21:00 Andrew Drinkard And so we just thought this had a unique story. 21:02 Andrew Drinkard This actually had developed, this debate started because the annual atheist conference was going to happen regardless, but the person that's in charge of it down there met a pastor in the area in Florida. 21:17 Andrew Drinkard And through that friendship, they said, hey, we should, we should have this debate. 21:22 Andrew Drinkard And so it actually happened through, it stemmed through a mutual respectful relationship. 21:28 Andrew Drinkard And we thought that was kind of unique as well. 21:30 Andrew Drinkard So. 21:31 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 21:31 Sean Finnegan Now in the book, it's more than just a transcript of the debate. 21:36 Sean Finnegan There's all kinds of other content in here. 21:40 Sean Finnegan Tell us about the overall project and why you invited others into it as well beyond the two debaters. 21:47 Andrew Drinkard I wanted to get opinions of some of the world's leading experts in these areas and also influencers. 21:55 Andrew Drinkard so I wanted to get these guys and girls to give us a deeper glimpse into what was being discussed in the debate. 22:02 Andrew Drinkard So I felt like it was 22:05 Andrew Drinkard is unique in that sense, as well as having not only these academics and these professors and people, some of these world-leading experts like Robin Collins on the fine-tuning argument, Dave Baggett on the moral argument, but you also have influencers, right? 22:22 Andrew Drinkard People that do this that are not professional academics, but are very intelligent and have large followings. 22:30 Andrew Drinkard I think Joe Foley from Unsolicited Advice has 22:33 Andrew Drinkard a couple million subscribers or something like that. 22:36 Andrew Drinkard So getting these people's opinions and what they think about this stuff, I think it was interesting. 22:43 Andrew Drinkard I don't think, there hasn't been a book like that as well, where you have both professional academics and then these non, a couple of non-academics discussing the topic. 22:53 Andrew Drinkard So that's why I wanted to invite the people that I did. 22:57 Sean Finnegan Yeah, very cool. 23:00 Sean Finnegan Let's talk about your chapter on divine hiddenness. 23:04 Sean Finnegan And just to start off, what is hiddenness? 23:07 Sean Finnegan Why do you think it's so important to tackle this subject? 23:09 Andrew Drinkard Divine hiddenness is basically it looks at the problem of why don't more people believe in the existence of God, right? 23:16 Andrew Drinkard I mean, where's he at? 23:18 Andrew Drinkard Why are we even having a debate at all? 23:20 Andrew Drinkard If God exists, why doesn't he just show up, present himself? 23:23 Andrew Drinkard Debate's over. 23:25 Andrew Drinkard So it's a problem that we all face. 23:28 Andrew Drinkard It's 23:29 Andrew Drinkard something that not only non-believers face, but in a way, there's a kind of hiddenness that, Christians face. 23:35 Andrew Drinkard And we see in Psalms and other parts of the Bible where, people are crying out, God, where are you? 23:42 Andrew Drinkard Why are you hiding your face from me? 23:44 Andrew Drinkard Where are you at in my calamity and my troubles? 23:47 Andrew Drinkard There's that aspect of hiddenness, but then there's another aspect of hiddenness where 23:51 Andrew Drinkard you have non-believers that are not resistant to the idea of God, and they're just flat out don't believe. 23:59 Andrew Drinkard And they're like, hey, where's this loving God at? 24:02 Andrew Drinkard I mean, at least let him show up so I can actually believe in him, right? 24:06 Andrew Drinkard You gotta at least start believing before you can have a relationship with somebody, is what they say. 24:11 Andrew Drinkard And so that's the hiddenness argument in a nutshell. 24:13 Sean Finnegan Okay, and so how do you respond? 24:17 Andrew Drinkard From the literature that I'm seeing, I like to 24:20 Andrew Drinkard categorize it basically that there's a major, what I call in the book, major resistors, there's minor resistors, and then there's non-resistant people. 24:30 Andrew Drinkard So you have these non-believers that some of them are majorly resistant, and they will even tell you that, you know, if God did show up, they want to believe, but they also will say, on the other hand, that if God did show up or if something showed up, they'd say, well, I probably was hallucinating, so they wouldn't believe anyways. 24:50 Andrew Drinkard right? 24:50 Andrew Drinkard So they would say, maybe I'm being tricked. 24:53 Andrew Drinkard Maybe someone like David Copperfield's doing a trick. 24:57 Andrew Drinkard And there's been atheists that have said that. 24:59 Andrew Drinkard Then you have what I call minor resistors. 25:03 Andrew Drinkard And these are people that think that they would enter a relationship with God had God revealed himself to them. 25:11 Andrew Drinkard And they think, yeah, I'm open. 25:13 Andrew Drinkard I want to believe. 25:14 Andrew Drinkard I'm ready to accept you, God. 25:15 Andrew Drinkard But really, internally, they're not ready, and they're just not aware of their own psychology to know this, just like we are. 25:23 Andrew Drinkard A lot of times we think a certain thing, and then we're faced with a circumstance, and then we change our minds. 25:28 Andrew Drinkard But I think a lot of people wouldn't be willing to enter into a relationship with God, being these minor resistors, even though they say they would, when push comes to shove, they wouldn't, kind of like a marriage, they wouldn't want to be committed to God for that long. 25:43 Andrew Drinkard And I call this an optimal relationship, like God wants an optimized relationship with us, which one is meant for eternity. 25:51 Andrew Drinkard A lot of people I feel like don't want to be with God for eternity. 25:55 Andrew Drinkard They don't want to be with God, feel like even now, let alone for the rest of all of time. 26:01 Andrew Drinkard And so then you have the non-resistors out there that don't believe, and they're not resisting. 26:07 Andrew Drinkard That's why they're called non-resistors. 26:09 Andrew Drinkard And so I say, I, first of all, I don't even know if such a person exists, if there's anyone truly not resisting out there. 26:19 Andrew Drinkard I personally think that everyone's probably a minor resistor to an extent, if not a major resistor. 26:24 Andrew Drinkard But for those that swear up and down, you know, I'm not resisting, I would enter relationship, you know, if those people do exist, then why isn't God revealing himself to them? 26:35 Andrew Drinkard And I say, well, they're temporarily non-resistant non-believers. 26:39 Andrew Drinkard Whereas God's going to wait for the right time to reveal himself to them so they can enter into a belief and a relationship with him. 26:47 Andrew Drinkard So I don't know why exactly the time it takes for those to enter it and why he reveals himself the way he does at those times, but it's just temporarily they're non-resistant and God's going to use this in their life to draw them into a relationship just later on. 27:07 Sean Finnegan That's a helpful distinction. 27:09 Sean Finnegan What do you think about Alex O'Connor and his work? 27:12 Sean Finnegan How would you reply to his take on this subject? 27:16 Andrew Drinkard So, and the longer I think about, you know, thinking about this more, I've come to realize that, you know, I just don't know. 27:23 Andrew Drinkard And for those who aren't aware, Alex O'Connor, very well-known atheist YouTuber, has several million subscribers. 27:31 Andrew Drinkard He actually endorsed the book, but he is one that says he's a non-resistant, non-believer. 27:37 Andrew Drinkard I mean, when you talk with these people, it's not like you can, you're in their heads and it's not, and you're not them. 27:44 Andrew Drinkard And obviously, and so it's really hard to know what these people are really going through and what they really mean, what they believe, what they think they believe. 27:58 Andrew Drinkard And so again, we're so unaware of our own psychology and what we would do in certain situations. 28:03 Andrew Drinkard As I explained in the book, I think 28:05 Andrew Drinkard I think Alex would classify to me as a minor resistor that even though he thinks he's not resisting God, I think there's a portion of him that is or would if God did reveal himself to him or just maybe a non-resister if, like I said, there is such a thing, which I don't think there is, someone that will eventually believe, you know, at the right time. 28:25 Andrew Drinkard So, yeah. 28:26 Andrew Drinkard But it's so hard. 28:27 Andrew Drinkard It's so hard to know that these, you know, because that person, you know, we're not them. 28:33 Andrew Drinkard So we, 28:34 Andrew Drinkard we can't experience what they're going through. 28:36 Andrew Drinkard So it's hard to say. 28:38 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 28:39 Sean Finnegan If you were to have a conversation with Alex, what evidence would you bring? 28:45 Sean Finnegan Like, would you say, well, I prayed a prayer and God answered my prayer, but like, he could just say, well, that's just coincidence. 28:53 Sean Finnegan I mean, like, what could you bring to show that you have experienced God? 28:59 Andrew Drinkard You know, it's almost like, 29:02 Andrew Drinkard Alvin Planaga, a famous philosopher, he's well known for his reformed epistemology and some things about properly basic beliefs and being justified in what you believe. 29:13 Andrew Drinkard And there's certain people that if they're so set in their mind that they don't believe that no matter what evidence you present to them, it's not going to maybe be enough. 29:26 Andrew Drinkard And so, but a court of law, like if you're guilty, 29:31 Andrew Drinkard I mean, if you're not guilty, but all the evidence looks like it's pointing to you that you did some crime, but even though you're, you know that you're innocent, it's kind of like that. 29:39 Andrew Drinkard Like, you know that you've had a transformative experience, that you've experienced God, and you have this properly basic belief that you know that you've experienced God. 29:49 Andrew Drinkard And even though you can't necessarily prove it or explain it to someone else, you're still justified. 29:55 Andrew Drinkard in that belief that you've had that encounter. 29:58 Andrew Drinkard Really, it's going to have to come down, I think, to that, because anything you point to, if someone's not willing or wanting to believe, they can just push it aside and point to something else and say, well, yeah, you only did this because of maybe your psychological state, or, you only had this moral development character because of this, or, you look at other religions, they did the same thing. 30:21 Andrew Drinkard So it's really hard when it comes to someone 30:25 Andrew Drinkard like Alex or other people that are really, and I don't even know about Alex, but just people that are really against believing and have had a lot of evidence presented to them. 30:35 Andrew Drinkard But, there's also tons of atheists and agnostics, out there, former ones that are now Christians that are saying the same thing and ended up 30:43 Andrew Drinkard accepting Christ because of the evidence presented to them. 30:46 Andrew Drinkard So it's really tough. 30:48 Andrew Drinkard It's really hard to say what could convince someone unless God's going to actually do it in their life with certain people, you know, with the mindset that they have. 30:58 Andrew Drinkard It just might take a big kind of Apostle Paul type experience. 31:04 Sean Finnegan Which happened from time to time. 31:05 Sean Finnegan I mean, there's lots of people who testify that. 31:08 Andrew Drinkard And that's, and I tell people, you don't need to have an Apostle Paul-like experience. 31:12 Andrew Drinkard You can just have, as long as you think that, you know, the likelihood is greater than not, that God exists, that's enough to afford belief. 31:19 Andrew Drinkard You don't have to have this 100%, you know, absolute certainty and you're just blown away spiritual experience. 31:27 Andrew Drinkard You know, for a lot of people, it's a gentle nudging, you know, that God's working in their lives. 31:32 Andrew Drinkard And it's kind of subtle, you know, it's not, 31:35 Andrew Drinkard It's not a big getting hit with a bright light. 31:38 Andrew Drinkard And so I think just a lot of people are so distracted in this life with so many other things going on, whether it's hobbies or extracurricular activities, whatever it is, we're so distracted that we're not paying attention to the nudging that's happening with God every day and his goodness. 31:55 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 31:56 Sean Finnegan When you were talking about Alvin planting a, I was 32:00 Sean Finnegan reminded of something a friend of mine, Josh Anderson, said, which he may have stolen from planting, I don't know, but it's the funny scenario where Neil Armstrong goes to a moon denier conference where they're saying nobody's ever been to the moon and here's Neil, who was the first man on the moon, right? 32:20 Sean Finnegan You know, he sits through the conference and he listens to everything and he's like, wow, these 32:24 Sean Finnegan These are really great points you guys bring up, like the photograph of the flag, the shadows are weird, or, all the different evidence they present. 32:33 Sean Finnegan And he's really not even able to offer counter arguments to all of their really interesting lines of thought. 32:43 Sean Finnegan But, in the end of the day, he basically just says, well, I know I was on the moon. 32:52 Sean Finnegan I might not have responses to all of these really sophisticated arguments, but I still know by personal experience that I did this thing and that's good enough for me. 33:04 Sean Finnegan And if you don't believe it, that's fine. 33:06 Sean Finnegan Have you read that analogy before? 33:08 Andrew Drinkard I have not, but that's a pretty good one, right? 33:11 Andrew Drinkard Yeah, that's a good one. 33:12 Andrew Drinkard I like that one. 33:13 Andrew Drinkard That's exactly right. 33:14 Andrew Drinkard Yeah. 33:15 Sean Finnegan And on good days, that is good enough for me. 33:20 Sean Finnegan On bad days, as a pastor, I deal with people a lot and sometimes walk with them through suffering. 33:27 Sean Finnegan And sometimes that suffering is honestly overwhelming. 33:32 Sean Finnegan For me personally, being more like you, more analytic in nature, I find the classic apologetic arguments, the sort of like cosmological argument in particular, but fine-tuning, moral argument, 33:47 Sean Finnegan William Lane Craig's work on the historicity of the resurrection. 33:50 Sean Finnegan We could throw Gary Habermas in there and you know that whole crew. 33:53 Sean Finnegan That's when those arguments are really that I that I cling to them. 33:59 Sean Finnegan You know what I mean? 33:59 Sean Finnegan Just like just being real vulnerable and honest here that most days I don't need any of that logic. 34:05 Sean Finnegan I don't need the sophisticated, you know, fine tuning of all the constants, you know, the charge of an electron or the, you know, 34:15 Sean Finnegan capital G. 34:16 Sean Finnegan I think it is the variable to determine a gravitational pull, right? 34:21 Sean Finnegan Like all that stuff. 34:22 Sean Finnegan I don't think about that at all. 34:23 Sean Finnegan I'm like, I'm just like Neil Armstrong. 34:25 Sean Finnegan I'm like, I know God, you know, exists because I've experienced God. 34:29 Sean Finnegan He's done this in my life. 34:30 Sean Finnegan He's done that in my life. 34:31 Sean Finnegan I know these other people. 34:32 Sean Finnegan I look at testimonies of people whose lives have been changed that I know personally and that I've read about that I don't know. 34:38 Sean Finnegan And that's fine. 34:39 Sean Finnegan But then in the times of darkness, this apologetic stuff is super helpful to me. 34:44 Sean Finnegan to sort of just like box me in so I don't like let go of the ledge and fall completely into unbelief. 34:53 Sean Finnegan And I just kind of will, in my mind, just run through the more analytic reasons that the apologists have developed over the years. 35:00 Sean Finnegan And I find them incredibly helpful personally in those times. 35:05 Andrew Drinkard I've heard a lot of people say that as well, a lot of Christians. 35:08 Andrew Drinkard And the same thing in my experience, you're exactly right. 35:10 Andrew Drinkard Because the emotions aren't always there, but 35:12 Andrew Drinkard some of this other stuff that has been developed. 35:16 Andrew Drinkard It's just, yeah, it's rock solid and it really does help you in those times of distress. 35:23 Sean Finnegan So tell us about your website, inspiringchristianity.com. 35:27 Sean Finnegan What would people find if they go there? 35:29 Sean Finnegan Why should they visit? 35:31 Andrew Drinkard It's still a work in progress, so to speak. 35:34 Andrew Drinkard But I did do quite a few articles in there over the years, started several years ago with that. 35:40 Andrew Drinkard And 35:42 Andrew Drinkard basically just a little bit more in depth than your average blog. 35:45 Andrew Drinkard So I created it as more of a tool, a resource for just believers and friends that I know personally that may be struggling with their faith or that want to share something with somebody because it's a thorough look at the topic without having to buy a book. 36:01 Andrew Drinkard And you are an expert. 36:03 Sean Finnegan You know, like you've been working on this. 36:05 Sean Finnegan You've been doing graduate studies. 36:07 Sean Finnegan You've been exposed to like the top level reasonings. 36:10 Andrew Drinkard Yeah. 36:11 Andrew Drinkard I just try to present something that is digestible. 36:15 Andrew Drinkard I try to put it down on a really a lay level way to explain it, but it's something that will still take you some time to work through, but it saves you from going through a bunch of books. 36:26 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 36:27 Sean Finnegan That's the real advantage of it. 36:29 Sean Finnegan Very good. 36:30 Sean Finnegan Well, anything else you'd like to say about you or the book or other resources? 36:36 Andrew Drinkard I do know right now that you can purchase the book through Erdmans.com with, and they're doing a 40% off discount until the end of September. 36:47 Sean Finnegan Nice. 36:48 Andrew Drinkard So that's pretty cool. 36:50 Andrew Drinkard That's the same discount they give me when I purchase it. 36:54 Andrew Drinkard And so it saves you quite a bit of money, you know, rather than doing Barnes and Noble or Amazon or whatever, because they have it at those places as well, but it's, you know, $38.99 there. 37:05 Andrew Drinkard So you can also watch the debate. 37:08 Andrew Drinkard It was filmed on YouTube and you can find that at Convincing Proof YouTube channel. 37:13 Andrew Drinkard That's Adam Johnson's ministry. 37:16 Andrew Drinkard It's called Convincing Proof. 37:18 Andrew Drinkard So if you want to watch the debate that happened there that this book is based on, you can go and check that out on YouTube. 37:25 Sean Finnegan Very good. 37:26 Sean Finnegan So once again, the book is called Debating God's Existence, edited by Andrew Drinkard. 37:32 Sean Finnegan Thanks so much for speaking with me today. 37:35 Andrew Drinkard Thanks, Sean. 37:36 Andrew Drinkard Thanks for having me, buddy. 37:41 Sean Finnegan Well, that brings this interview to an end. 37:43 Sean Finnegan What did you think? 37:44 Sean Finnegan Come on over to restitudio.org and find episode 660, Debating God's Existence with Andrew Drinkard, and leave your comments, questions, and feedback there. 37:55 Sean Finnegan On episode 655, God spoke to himself in Genesis 126 with Sam Mansfield. 38:01 Sean Finnegan David Tench wrote in saying, great explanation. 38:03 Sean Finnegan I suppose I could feel better 38:05 Sean Finnegan about talking to myself now. 38:07 Sean Finnegan I mean, hey, if it's good enough for God, and of course, he's referring to the famous verse where it says, let us make man in our image. 38:16 Sean Finnegan And Sam Mansfield was exploring that. 38:19 Sean Finnegan He also wrote in on episode 567, Are the Dead Conscious, which was the interview I did with Dustin Smith and Sam Tiedemann. 38:27 Sean Finnegan And he writes the following, 38:29 Sean Finnegan The discussion between Tiedemann and Smith is a good one, but a full definition of death, an understanding of what death and its intermediate state actually is, gets inadequate attention. 38:40 Sean Finnegan The passing of animated soul life, that is circulating oxygenated blood, a la Leviticus 1711, passes in a punctiliar fashion, similar to flicking off a light switch. 38:53 Sean Finnegan The body, however, does not instantly become a pile of dust and ashes. 38:57 Sean Finnegan The departure of the body is not punctiliar, but progressive. 39:02 Sean Finnegan A sunset cannot be compressed into a single moment because it happens progressively. 39:07 Sean Finnegan So Tench is talking about what happens when people die, and Smith was taking the perspective that the dead are unconscious, and Tiedemann was taking the dualist view that the soul survives death and lives on in some fashion. 39:21 Sean Finnegan Tench continues, 39:23 Sean Finnegan Okay, so what about human consciousness? 39:25 Sean Finnegan Neurological scientists will be the first to tell you that we, humanity, still do not have a fully comprehensive understanding of exactly what consciousness is, but copious evidence demonstrates that the passing of human consciousness is not, or at least is not always, punctiliar. 39:42 Sean Finnegan Human consciousness can linger. 39:44 Sean Finnegan There is a time period when human consciousness can still function after breath life ceases, and when people experience this and are revived from it before final 39:53 Sean Finnegan hits, they consistently speak of a strong sense of timelessness. 39:57 Sean Finnegan Called NDEs, near-death experiences, or OBEs, out-of-body experiences, many people, especially strict Christian mortalists, are automatically dismissive of such testimonies. 40:07 Sean Finnegan Anyone who has been taught that death means 0 consciousness and also knows the story of the Witch of Endor from 1 Samuel 28 can easily assume that the person telling such a story has been demonically deluded. 40:19 Sean Finnegan Of course, such a judgment is unnecessarily harsh. 40:23 Sean Finnegan Once death is complete, there is no human awareness, just as we read in Ecclesiastes and Psalms. 40:29 Sean Finnegan But the full process of death unfolds gradually in what is described by thousands upon thousands of revived experiencers as a timeless state. 40:39 Sean Finnegan The progressive interim between the start of death and its completion point explains much. 40:44 Sean Finnegan But typical discussions and debates overlook this important reality by speaking as if there exists only two states, the fully alive and the fully dead. 40:53 Sean Finnegan But there is a temporary interim state, and any discussion that ignores this reality is boxed into an oversimplification of the issue. 41:01 Sean Finnegan According to 2 Corinthians 12:2, the apostle Paul had an OBE. 41:05 Sean Finnegan That's an out-of-body experience. 41:08 Sean Finnegan How long does it take for the process of death to finish? 41:10 Sean Finnegan Nobody knows for sure. 41:12 Sean Finnegan But my theory holds that once a body has decomposed, no consciousness can exist. 41:17 Sean Finnegan The fact that the experience is often called an OBE is possibly quite ironic. 41:23 Sean Finnegan Testimonies from antiquity often depict the dead as being alive after death because persons revived from an NDE were simply doing the best they could with their limited knowledge base and vocabulary. 41:33 Sean Finnegan Most moderns also face difficulties explaining their experiences in terms that people 41:38 Sean Finnegan can grasp without distortions automatically taking over. 41:41 Sean Finnegan This topic discussed in greater detail in my book, Heaven, Every Use and Usage in the Bible. 41:49 Sean Finnegan Well, thank you, David Tench, for writing in such a thorough and interesting comment. 41:54 Sean Finnegan I totally agree with you that there is this liminal state on the threshold of life and death 42:03 Sean Finnegan when all this weird stuff is happening that people report about. 42:07 Sean Finnegan And when they are revived and brought back to full consciousness, they do have these reports that I think are mounting evidence that something is going on here. 42:17 Sean Finnegan And it's not just a lack of oxygen. 42:20 Sean Finnegan Some of the reports are quite impressive. 42:23 Sean Finnegan But at the same time, I am bound by scripture to agree with the clear statements that the dead are asleep or that there's no thinking 42:33 Sean Finnegan in the grave where you're going or work and so forth that we find in Psalms and Ecclesiastes that you mentioned. 42:40 Sean Finnegan So I want to marry these together. 42:42 Sean Finnegan I want to say, well, just like a computer that is going into hibernation mode loads all of its data from its CPU and basically short-term memory onto the hard drive so that it can be revived and that is a transition process. 43:02 Sean Finnegan Going into high, if you've ever seen an older computer in particular do this, like it actually has a little progress bar that is filling from left to right as it literally just prepares to go into power off mode, where it's not using power and it's put things in long-term storage. 43:20 Sean Finnegan And then when you press the power, it has to reanimate. 43:23 Sean Finnegan It has to reload 43:25 Sean Finnegan all of that data into the CPU, which would be like the brain of the human, and get everything back to where it needs to be so that, boom, it picks up right where you left off. 43:35 Sean Finnegan So I don't know, I find that to be a pretty helpful analogy. 43:38 Sean Finnegan What do you think? 43:39 Sean Finnegan Come on over to restitudio.org, find episode 567, Are the Dead Conscious, and leave your thoughts and feedback there. 43:47 Sean Finnegan Well, that's going to be it, everybody, for this week. 43:49 Sean Finnegan Thanks so much for tuning in. 43:50 Sean Finnegan If you'd like to support us, please share this episode with your friends. 43:54 Sean Finnegan Let them know about the show. 43:55 Sean Finnegan And if you'd like to support us financially, that would be great too. 43:59 Sean Finnegan You could do that at our website, restitudio.org. 44:02 Sean Finnegan I'll catch you next week. 44:03 Sean Finnegan And remember, the truth has nothing to fear.