#STRask - Why Would Any Rational Person Have to Use Any Religious Book?

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Questions about why any rational person would have to use any religious book, whether apologetics would be redundant if there were actually a good, unrefuted argument, and how to get enough people interested in apologetics to start an apologetics group.   Why would any rational, thinking person have to use any religious book, including the Bible, unless they don’t really think with reason or comprehend logic and logical fallacies such as circular reasoning? If there were a single good, unrefuted apologetics argument, then apologetics would be redundant. Outside of faith, can we really say we know? If we can’t, then why do apologetics? If, as Greg says, “you can’t start a fire with wet wood” when starting an apologetics group, how can someone keep “wet wood” from putting out their fire? How can I get others interested in apologetics and the importance of being able to have fruitful conversations with anyone who disagrees with their Christian beliefs?

Welcome back. And we're actually going to continue with our question from the last time, Greg. We had a question about tools of reasoning you use to determine true and false, right and wrong, that sort of thing. And I have a question that kind of goes along after that. at. This one comes from Kagan. Why would any rational thinking person have to use any religious book, including the Bible, unless, of course, one doesn't really think with reason and doesn't comprehend logic and logical fallacies such as circular reasoning? Okay. So, do you know what I'm thinking right now? I actually probably do. Well, I could be thinking a whole host of different things.

Okay, you don't. Let's just say you are the most perfect reason. in the world. Would you now be able to know what I was thinking? No. No. So knowing what another individual is thinking has nothing to do with your rational capacities. So much about what we learn from a religious book is meant to explain the nature, the foundational nature of reality, which isn't always directly accessible to rational thinking. And certainly when your religion entails a personal God who has thoughts about things like salvation, for example, those are things you're not going to be able to conclude

simply from perfect rational thinking because every aspect of rational thinking has to start someplace. It's got, and you made this comment in our last podcast, it's got to start with either a moral intuition or a fact about the physical world or a series of facts from which you are going to infer some detail. So let's just say you were the perfect moral reasoner, and there was no, and you are completely isolated from any details of the world or from God's thinking. You're not going to be able to produce any information about the nature of the world or almost any. What you can do is what René Descartes did. Well, I think, therefore I am. Or in my version, is I fish, therefore I am.

But the idea is, it was kind of a joke came. I just didn't get that. But the idea is that they're, look at it, maybe here's another way of putting it. Let's just say I had the expert skill with my hands and tools to be capable of building remarkable things with wood. My brother's kind of an amateur, Luthier. I don't like to say amateur because he makes unbelievable band.

and guitars and ukuleleys, but if nobody gives him a machine or wood or mother of pearl or whatever it is that he's including in these things, he's not going to be able to make anything, no matter how skilled he is at that. And that's the nature of this question. What if you're really, really skilled at thinking? Why would you need anything else? Because your thinking has to be applied to concrete real things. and I don't mean concrete necessarily physical.

They can be concrete realities like ideas and thoughts and proposition, but you have to have something to work with in your craft of thinking. And many of those things are not available directly to our senses or to our intuitions. So we could say, all right, we have moral intuitions. There are some things that are right or wrong. Those are transcendent because they're objectively applicable to all humanities. They're above humanity. Laws require lawmakers, therefore there must be a God.

So you could do that work, but you're not going to find out whether God is loving. Maybe he's just, but not loving, not forgiving. This is all something or... Not Trinitarian. Not Trinitarian, or not, you won't understand his purposes and plans for history as it unfolds, that it's directional, it's going somewhere, it's teleological, those are all things that that individual, God, has to tell us to know, and no amount of rational reflection, even the most flawless, ability to rationally reflect is going to tell you the contents of the mind of God. This is why I started the way I did, just to make that point. And Paul makes this point in 1st Corinthians.

Nobody can know the mind of God except for the spirit of God who reveals the mind of God to us. So, this, Kagan's point is not a sound one. what he's talking about with rationality are faculties that we use on something else. But we have to have the something else to use the faculties on, just like a woodworker needs wood and tools, even though he's got the skill. And in the case of the contents of other minds, there's the only way we can know those contents that would include the mind of God, obviously, is if God tells us. I suspect what he could be doing is confess.

using rationality with naturalism. And I think a lot of times atheists will do this where they say only naturalism is rational. And I suppose because that's all you can reason about from observation. So maybe that's why. And so they deny the existence of these other things. They deny the existence of God. So why would you need to know? So anything you know about the mind of God is clearly for them irrational. But notice that's because they're starting with this presupposition that naturalism is what's true. Therefore, anything that reasons about anything else is no longer rational. You know, but the odd, the irony of a person like that making this claim that you just look at what actually is and you'd never come to the conclusion of a God, you need a revelation

for that is Richard Dawkins, probably the most famous naturalist in the world right now, has written so many books, translated to so many languages, his proofs against God's, his arguments against God, and probably his most famous work is the blind watchmaker, all right? And he starts the blind watchmaker in the very first paragraph of the book by saying that the biological realm is a complex realm. that gives the appearance of having been designed for a purpose. Now, he's going to argue against the appearance. Appearances are misleading.

We know better. We know Darwinian natural selection, working on mutations, is going to produce all this complexity. Now, that I think fails on the merits. But what I want you to focus on is something different, that he acknowledges by looking at the natural realm, it's natural for us to infer a designer. because it looks like someone's design things.

And this is the fallacy of what some atheists will bring up, like the flying spaghetti monster, you know, or they come up with these kind of absurd, what they think are accurate characterizations of the Christian or theists' beliefs. When the flying spaghetti monster is not going to leave any evidence that there's spaghetti flying around unless you find gobs of sauce, whatever.

But they're just trying to make it look ridiculous when even Dawkins will acknowledge it does appear that there is a designer. And there are all sorts of, there are all sorts of, you know, people have been reasoning to God for millennia. Yeah. You know, you have the Kalam cosmological argument. You have the argument from morality. You have the argument from design. All of these things can be reasoned to just from what we see. It's called natural theology.

Yeah. Yeah. of course, as you mentioned, there are things we need to know. If we want to know the mind of God, we can reason to his existence, I think, clearly, for a lot of reasons. But if we want to know who he is, we have to hear him tell us who he is. So here's a question from Jonathan. I saw a comment on Quora that reminded me of the agnosticism topic. Quote, if there was a single good undemunked apologetics argument, then apologetics would be redundant, end quote. Outside of faith, can we really say we know? If not, why do this? And I assume by this they mean apologetics.

This makes little sense to me. Read the first phrase again. If there was a single good undemunked apologetics argument, then apologetics would be redundant. Okay. If there was a single powerful argument for the guilt of a murderer, then a trial demonstrating that argument to convict them would be redundant. No, it's not redundant. It's the process in which you take the evidence and you apply it to a conclusion

or you follow the evidence to a conclusion. I don't know why people say things like this and I think what's in their mind is obviously your view can't be true because if it were really true, you wouldn't be making a defense for it. You are making a defense for it. Therefore, it's not obviously true.

That's irrational. I mean, that's just silly. But I hear, I mean, this is a variation of all kinds of things you hear people say. And this is the implication is, well, now, if you have evidences for it, then you have to, then you have to, then it must be something. kind of leap of faith. Here, let's just go back to the gospel of John for a moment, because I think the way he closes this gospel, I mention this all the time when I talk to audiences to clarify and misunderstanding about the nature of faith. And John says in John 20, he says many other signs and wonders, Jesus performed, that's miracles, that have not been written in this book. So

he performs so many. John says later, you couldn't fill all the books. Lots of stuff Jesus did, that were signs and wonders. What are signs and wonders? They're miraculous evidences of the truth of his claim, just like when he says your sins are forgiven, who can forgive sins but God alone, in order that you might know that the son of man has the authority to forgive sins. I say to you, paralytic, rise, take up your palate, and go home. So he's doing a miracle in the physical realm they can see to verify a, something he claimed about the non-physical realm that they can't see.

That's an attesting miracle. And so John there, and the end of John is saying, I've given these the seven miracles that you find in the book of John, and here's how he puts it, in order that you might believe. What? That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, two things, the Savior, and God come down. And in believing you have eternal life. He's just connecting these all together in a very straightforward fashion.

Now, people can choose whether they think the evidence is adequate to the task or not. That's a different issue. But this is just meant to show how silly this, at least the opening comments here of this challenge are. If you really had evidence, you would need apologetics. Apologetics is giving the evidence. It's just the process of giving the evidence. and multiple evidences from multiple angles to demonstrate that the smart money is on Jesus. I mean, what's wrong with that?

It's just some kind of inside-out way of trying to be dismissive of any Christian belief because it was really true. You wouldn't need to give a reason why it was true. Nonsense. If atheism were really true, they wouldn't be bringing up problem of evil, natural, all the kinds of things that they would bring up. to try to disqualify theistic belief. It's just a silly statement.

Well, it's like saying if calculus is true, you wouldn't have to explain it to me, give me evidence for it. And defend it, right, yeah. I wouldn't have to learn it because it would be true. But, of course, you have to learn all sorts of things that you don't just immediately perceive. You have to learn about what's out in the world. You have to learn about what the evidence is for everything we learn about. And I will say that because Christianity is connected to reality, we are able to reason about it. You know, we've been talking in the last couple episodes about reasons for thing and reasonings from different things in the Bible.

And you're talking about the Bible saying that it's giving evidence for Jesus and who he is and God working in history. And then we can look at history. It can all be reasoned about because it's connected to reality. Right. Now, there are other religions that are, maybe they're just a revelation about something that can't really be reasoned about. There are some religions where the whole goal is to kind of lose yourself in the oneness. And that's not really about reason. It's about losing yourself and letting go of your reason to become part of the universe or whatever it is. So this is, Christianity is different. Christianity is connected. to history and reality and ideas, and it's been reason about since the beginning. Right, right. Yeah, I think there was another part to this. I was responding mostly to the beginning, you know, you would need it.

What was the other? Outside of faith, can we really say we know? And if not, then why do apologetics? Well, knowledge is justified true belief. I mean, that's the most basic way to characterize some philosophers have found some exceptions to that and the so-called gettier examples. But the point is, I mean, when we say we know something, it means that we have such good evidence for it,

that it arises to the level of knowledge. All right. Well, do we know anything? Well, there are lots of things we know. In fact, our life depends on us knowing things, knowing things that are true. we'd be dead to day if we could know things that were true. So if we can know things that are true such that we will base our life upon that,

and like I say, you get in a vehicle, there are all kinds of things that you know to be true about traffic patterns and functions of the vehicle and stoplights and all these other things that are what keep you from being crunched, you know, when you're going to kill at a car, especially traveling at really high speeds. And on highways where both cars are going past each other with just maybe six feet between them, it's our knowledge of the truth that keeps us alive. If we can know those kinds of things, why couldn't we know other things with equal confidence?

sense. I'm not tempted in the least to think that torturing babies for the fun and enjoyment it might give somebody who's doing the torturing is in the least wise morally benign. I'm not tempted at all to think that that's not wrong. I can't not think that it's wrong because it's so obviously wrong. I know that that's wrong. Why is that so hard to accept that there are some things like that, that rise to the level of knowledge, and it's not just a leap of faith. Certainly, John, there in the first chapter, or the last, what, the 20th chapter, whatever, the end of the book, he's not asking us to take a leap of faith. He's enjoining us to take a step of trust based on substantial evidence, and it will have a consequence. The trust is that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God,

and the consequence is going to be eternal life. And here are the good reasons for it. It's not blind faith, but this is the way these questions are often characterized. Well, and so much of this has to do with the misunderstanding of what it means to have faith. And it's just trust. And trust increases the more confidence you have. And your confidence increases the more reasons you have to believe it's true. Right, right, right.

And the Bible says, I'm trying to think of there, there's a verse about confidence, and I can't think of what it is right now. But it certainly is not against having evidence to increase your confidence, which is what you just described the whole purpose of John riding John. Yeah. All right, Greg. Let's do one more. This one comes from Joe. My question is regarding a quote of Greg's. I can't remember the exact context, but it was in relation to STR Outposts.

And the quote was, you can't start a fire with what would. I recall it so easily because it is what helped me overcome the disappointment of my failed. attempt to begin an outpost at church. How can someone keep what would from putting out their fire? Well, this point that I'm citing is actually in the last chapter of the tactics book. And I'm just making a general point that if you want to build a local interest in apologetics, it's not, sometimes you're working against, you're swimming upstream. Let me use that metaphor.

So, and the problem is now to mix the metaphor, you're trying to start a fire with wet wood. These people are not interested, right? So how do you dry the wood out? You have to make a smaller blaze and you use Tinder, okay? So following the illustration, the idea is find others of like mind, of kindred spirit that you can gather together with. that's the Tinder. You've got to find them, okay? And then when your group is, in a sense, that fire is started with the smaller group, it's more likely that the wood of the rest of the church will start getting dried out and take an interest. Now, it's just a metaphor. It's a figure

of speech to help people understand how to overcome some difficulties they're running into. Now, it may turn out that in the local community a Christian finds themselves in, that there is no tender. It's all wet wood. Now what? Well, it doesn't seem that you're going to be able, in some cases, it's just going to be the case that you cannot, you can't initiate an interest in your local church community in apologetics. They're just not interested. That's going to happen. and you're not going to have enough people there to start a group that maybe will start drying out the wet wood. And then the circumstances you're going to have to do something else. You're going to have to go elsewhere.

Do you have a response? Well, let me follow this up with another question because it goes along with this. This one comes from Michael. How can I get others interested in Christian apologetics and the importance of being able to have fruitful conversations with anyone who disagrees with their Christian beliefs? So there's a simple way that we've done this. And this was, actually we learned this from Brett Kunkle, who was with us for many years and now has his own organization called Maven. And Brett used to set up what he called atheist role plays.

He was the first person that I know that did this as a regular thing. Sean McDowell picked it up from him, and then he did it, and a lot of our team does this too. And what they do is they go into, say, youth groups where there may be no real. interest in defending the faith or whatever, but they go into the youth group at the behest of the youth group leader, and unbeknownst to the youth group, though in this case Brett was a Christian apologist, he was presented as a professor from the local community college who was an atheist. And in Brett's case, this was actually autobiographical, because when he went to

junior college, he was confronted by an atheist professor. that really messed him up badly. And that's what fired him up to get into apologetics. So following that pattern, if he goes in there and then messes up, messes with the minds of all of these Christians, gives a short presentation in favor of atheism, then opens it up for questions, and then deals with the inadequate responses that the students give, this helps the students see that they are not up to the task. And, you know, someday they're going to leave.

that youth group, and they're going to have to go out in the world and face this kind of thing. Now, of course, at the end, he reveals that he's actually a Christian and a Christian apologist, which is a sigh of relief from the group because they realize that all the challenges that he presented to them as Christians he's able to deal with. There are answers to this. But sometimes simply put, the best way to motivate a Christian regarding apologetic is just to beat them up. Just to treat them like, just go ahead, okay. So let's just have a little session here.

And I'm going to be, why are you a Christian? I'm just curious why you're, oh, because I was raised a Christian. Well, so were Muslims. They were raised Muslim. So what makes sure it's better than them? Well, I have this feeling. I just have this experience. So do Mormons.

Mormons have an experience too. So what makes your view better than them? And so you just begin asking the questions, offering the kinds of challenges. I mean, evolution obviously disproves God. If you're, if you're, you know, believe anything, you're going to believe evolution, right? Everybody knows that's true, Darwinian evolution, and that disproves God. Now what? So, by, of course, I don't believe what I just said, but this is the kind of question you

roleplay to the believer, say, well, what do you got to do when you come up against people like this who raise these issues or your kids? how are you going to survive? So sometimes, you know, beating them up either as a group or as an individual will help get them interested. That's exactly where I was going to go, Greg. You have to get them interacting with non-Christians. So if not you, as, you know, role-playing, find ways to get them interacting with non-Christians. And one thing you could do, hopefully you have a friend who's not a Christian. You could invite them to some sort of gathering and say, just go to town. I want you to challenge every person in that room about Christianity and just as, you know, go as far as you

want and let's see what it happens. So that's something you could do. That would be a real atheist. That would be a real atheist. You could actually, you could, if you have a friend who could do it, you could actually do that too in a sneaky role play. Yeah. Or another thing you could do is start with people who are interacting with more non-Christians. And that could be students because a lot of students are in public schools. They're getting it from their teachers. They're getting it from their other students. So if you can't get it started among your own age group, try the students because they might be dealing with stuff that even their leaders don't know they're dealing with. So they might be more interested than the people than the adults. But I think, oh, another thing you could do, you could go out and just start talking to people, take people out. to evangelize. Anytime they start evangelizing, they're going to come up against questions and they're going to want to know how to answer them. And so maybe they don't understand what apologetics is for. But if you can get them in a situation where they don't know what to say,

and then they ask you, and then you say, well, you could answer this way. That's apologetics. Do you want more of that? That's right. Or you can ask them, what are your doubts? Do you ever have doubts about Christianity to the Christian friend? Do you ever have doubts? Now, I say, if they're going to be honest, they'll say, well, yeah, I guess I have. They may not be really comfortable sharing them because church environment is not where those, sharing those doubts are welcome, and that's a problem, actually. But no, just between you and me, do you ever have doubts? Yeah, I guess I do. What is it that has caused you to doubt? What is it that has caused you to doubt? And now you're going to get the Christian to raise an issue that,

That has been problematic for them. And I've often said that the toughest critic that any Christian will ever face is going to be themselves. And how do, not just do you answer the challenger, but how do you answer the critic within yourself when these things come to mind and you're wondering, wow, maybe I'm mistaken? It happened to me, and I have to answer those questions. How do I do that? Well, I go back to my apologetics, and that's what gets. He gets me on my feet again. And it might be people aren't interested because they think apologetics is just two people standing up there doing a debate.

Or arguing. Yeah. So in that case, you might want to start with tactics because you could introduce it saying, hey, if you want to answer people's questions when you're talking to them about God and they're asking you questions you don't know how to answer, this is very practical. And this will help you have a conversation. You don't even have to say it's apologetics. You can just say, look, here's how you can have a good conversation, even if you don't have all the answers. Because it could be that fear is holding them back. Or an idea that it's not practical.

So if you can make it practical and you can put it in terms of evangelism or talking to others or give specific examples, if you're going to be talking to your family soon, it's going to be Christmas and you're all going to be together, what's going to happen when they start talking to you about these things? So I think it's a good idea to do something like start with tactics and then again say, guess what? This is apologetics. Yeah. Do you want more of this? All right. Well, I just had to throw those in there since we had some kind of anti-Christian questions,

which leads automatically to the idea that you want to be able to answer questions like this. That's right. So hopefully you'll be able to start that group, Joe. eventually at your church. So if you're interested in Outposts, I encourage you to go to sDR.org and start one of our groups. You can learn all about those there.

And I think those have been very helpful and they've been growing quite a bit. Yeah. All right. Thank you so much for listening. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kogel for Stand to Reason. Thank you.