The Eric Metaxas Show - #176 - John Zmirak

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, John Zmirak joins Eric to discuss mass immigration, Islam, Western self-rejection, the viral Oxford Union debate, the coming midterm elections, and why he believes America should consider a decades-long pause on immigration. Later, philosopher Douglas Groothuis discusses his new book Taking Back Truth: A Biblical Response to Common Cultural Lies, explaining why objective truth matters, how postmodernism and critical theory changed the culture, and why Christianity makes concrete claims about reality that cannot simply be reduced to “your truth” and “my truth.”⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World📕: https://a.co/d/0ir3NlapTODAY'S SPONSORS:🛏️ MyPillow — Save BIG with code ERIC: https://www.mypillow.com/☀️ Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/0:00 John Zmirak Joins1:29 Mass Immigration And The Crisis In Europe6:11 White Guilt And Western Self-Rejection13:33 The Oxford Union Debate On Islam16:13 Zmirak Calls For Zero Immigration17:48 Iran, The Midterms, And Texas22:59 Douglas Groothuis Joins24:01 Why Objective Truth Matters28:15 What Is The Correspondence Theory Of Truth?31:50 How America Became A Post-Truth Culture37:03 The Christian Case For Truth- - -LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/@ericmetaxas#EricMetaxas #TheEricMetaxasShow #News #PoliticsChapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

Right now, in a moment, I get the fun, the joy of speaking with our friend, John Zmirak. And in the second half of the program, I speak with our friend Doug Grootheis. Grote Heis is a Dutch word, a Dutch name. And he and I are going to be talking about his new book on truth. I'm in favor of truth. I believe in truth. I believe truth is a person. So that's the second half.

Doug Brodheis, he's with Cornerstone University. But right now we have to talk to John. John, Zmirak. John, welcome. Hey, Eric, I just missed you. You were in Texas in the Dallas area at the same time as me, but I can't believe how you rebuffed me. I reached out and you allowed me just to fall flat on my face. You said, nah, I'm busy.

And I was weeping and weeping and Suzanne couldn't console me. But eventually I fell asleep. I cried myself to sleep. But I was in Dallas very briefly because I spoke at Elevate Life Church in Frisco. But John, there's a lot of current events. There's a lot of stuff going on. I want to talk to you about that because this is just for the first half of the program. So where do we start, my friend?

Where would you like to start? Let's talk about the recent events in the city of Seut, Spain. It's a part of Spain that is actually at the north tip of. Africa. It's right across from Gibraltar. It has been Spanish since the 1400s, occupied, lived in by Spanish people, churches, Spanish buildings that happens to be an enclave on the north tip of Africa. And Spain conquered it from the moors a long time ago in order to control the entry to the Mediterranean. And Gibraltar, of course, was conquered by the British. So just last week, something like 60,000 immigrants, Africans, not even Moroccans, actually, most of them were Africans from other countries who smuggled themselves into Morocco.

They stormed the border. They swam around the border fence. Sixty thousand of them stormed into the city. Some of them started looting people's homes. tried to drive out the inhabitants and then claim swatters rights over the homes. It was a microcosm of what's happening to all of Europe and to America of massive third world immigration by non-Christians who are intolerant of Christianity because they are Muslims, storming in and demanding welfare,

demanding charity, it's claiming they have the right to go on public assistance, in European and Western countries just because they happen to be poor. Now, John, I just have to ask you because I've been so distracted that you filled in a few of the details for me here, but it seems to be something that was coordinated. In other words, 60,000 young men don't suddenly show up in a country like this.

I mean, like all at once without some coordination. So who is behind this? What is this exactly? What's going on? I mean, it's not as though they came, this is not Morocco. Who is this? Who are these people? Leftist activists who want to destroy Western countries did an online campaign, letting people in Morocco know, letting would be refugees in Morocco know. This is the day. It was like a meet, you know, they do those, those sudden events. Flash mobs. Trashmops. Everybody show up and do a teen takeover at this mall. Those teen takeovers are very similar. A chaotic collapse of law and order that's been coordinated in advance and the authorities are not prepared to deal with it. Kind of the way when Antifa takes over it downtown, when they just say, we're going to seize control and the police have no authority here. What brought this on was the left-wing anti-Catholic government of Spain. announcing it would give amnesty to over a million illegal aliens who were present in Spain, most of the Muslims. The government is doing this because they know they can turn those people into voters.

It's exactly what the Biden regime did to the United States when it led in some 20 million illegal aliens, knowing we would not be able to deport them all, that eventually they would give birth to anchor babies who would grow up to be Democrat voters. and that probably, excuse me, loser Republicans like John Thune, people like Mike Pence, would find a way to give them amnesty because they want cheap labor. So it's the way that the squishy worthless rhinos cooperate with the far left to bring in cheap voters to the Democrats and cheap labor for the big business Republicans. And it's how Western civilization disappears.

It's how we get conquered by jihadism. Muslim. That's what's going to happen. Well, there's, I mean, there's nothing particularly new here except the details of what just happened. But what's fascinating to me is that it seems obviously to be coordinated. And then the question is, who is coordinating this? You know, it's kind of like when they stole the election in 2020, who gave the order to stop the counting in the middle of the night? You, we never seem to get that answer. Who was behind this? Who is the one that says, let's make it on this date and let's send out the word in social media? You just want to know who that is. Well, it's the same kind of

people who smuggle illegal immigrants into European countries. The same kind of people who did the Gaza flotilla, the same kind of people who organize Antifa attacks on ICE officers. it's radical leftists who are animated by a new religion, by the new gospel of Antichrist, which is white guilt. I'm thinking of writing a book on this. White guilt is the new gospel of Antichrist. It infects the brains of Christians. It replaces biblical Christianity.

It allows you to repent of your ancestor's sins by punishing your descendants and other people's descendants. Well, because slavery was bad, we have to masochistically mutilate ourselves and destroy our countries. An example of it, the female quote, unquote, Archbishop of Canterbury has just announced she's going to send $100 million of Church of England money

to African countries in reparations for slavery. You're kidding. I can't believe. Are you serious? I've not heard that. Yeah, $100 million. This while churches all across England, medieval churches, beautiful old churches that the Anglicans stole from us Catholics hundreds of years ago, but beautiful old churches

are falling into disrepair and are being closed down, being torn down, being turned into mosques. And the Anglican Archbishop Canterbury is going to send $100 million to African dictators who can then buy gold watches and Lamborghinis with the money. All of this while England was the first country to outlaw slavery, and England, the British Navy, spent 60 years eradicating the slave trade. British explorers and missionaries went into African countries, which were still enslaving their own people, and got them to stop enslaving them.

England, and especially the Church of England, people like William Wilberforce, who was a member of the Church of England, the Church of England was the single greatest anti-slavery force in the history of the world. Why should they, of all people, be paying reparations? Because they're not Christians anymore. They're white guiltists. I just want to make a spiritual point because I've been thinking along similar lines to what you just said.

And we know that the voice of the devil, the devil is Satan the accused. He's called Satan the accuser, wants to curse and damn. And when you curse someone, what you're doing is telling them there is no repentance, there is no restoration, there is no healing. You have to rise in your sin. There's no escaping your sin. So in other words, the Christian says, if I confess my sin, God forgives me and I can be healed and I can move forward, not burdened by that sin.

sin. The gospel of Antichrist says what the devil says, that you are eternally cursed in that sin. You cannot escape that sin. That sin eternally dams you. And that's what that perpetual guilt is, the white guilt. In other words, it's the satanic voice, the diabolical voice, says, you are forever mired in your sin. It is a stain that cannot be eradicated. You are forever. maculate, you can never be healed or cleansed. It's like the 1619 project. It says like America is forever stuck in racism and slavery. That is who you are. You can never move past it. You can never cleanse yourself. You can never repent. Of course America did repent. Of course, the British Empire did repent and did do something glorious and end slavery and end the slavery and end the

slave trade. But this gospel of Antichrist, as you are saying, is just the opposite. It's absolutely wicked, and it is a curse, a perpetual curse. And it also has a kind of perverse racism built into it. White guilt liberals, they expect, and they welcome the fact that other ethnic groups, Latinos, Muslims, Arab Muslims, black people, Asians, Asians, Asians, Asians, Asians, Asians, they're all allowed to organize as groups. You can have the Asian American Caucus. You can have black civil rights groups. You can have Hispanic pride groups.

But white people are expected to loathe and detest our own heritage. You can't have a European heritage organization. You can't look at and say, well, what are the interests of white voters? That just, that some makes you sound like you're in the Ku Klux Klan. So what they're saying is tribalism, this kind of tribalism, which is a natural part of human nature. It's fallen like everything else. The sexual instinct is fallen. You don't deal with the sexual instinct by saying, okay, we all have to be celibate.

Celibacy is the only answer. Universal celibacy because sexuality is fallen. Well, I would solve a lot of problems. In about seven years, we would have no more social problems. But obviously, we don't embrace universal celibacy because sex. sexuality is fallen, likewise you can't say tribalism is evil because everybody practices it. So what they do is they say, okay, only our tribalism is evil. We are going to be better than every other group in the world because they practice tribalism, but we white people are above

such things. We're so pure. We're so good. We're so superior to all these other groups that we are going to have no self-interest. We're not going to have a group identity. We're not going to look out for ourselves. We're not all even allowed to have any countries. But I mean, honestly, though, I would quibble with you because to me, even the idea of whiteness, it's just so stupid. Like whiteness, it's like grading somebody on the color of their skin. It's just ridiculous. I mean, if you say, we're, you know, Greeks, okay, we're from Greece and we have a culture. That's a culture. Italians from Italy, that's a culture. Celebrating culture, but like white, white culture, in other words, if you're talking about African American culture, you're talking

about a culture, but it's not just based on the color of the skin. Otherwise, somebody that came over here yesterday from the Bahamas would be part of that group. They're not, you know, they're from a Bahamian culture. What I'm, I'm talking about the way these liberals think of things. They think they see all white people as the same. They see all white countries as the same. They see them all as guilty, and they want to see them all eradicated. They want to flood Norway and Iceland and Ireland and every European country on earth. They want to flood it with immigrants who will vote to take over the government and impose Sharia law. This I am replicating their mindset, which is stupid.

Right. Well, John, only because we only have eight minutes left, I want to ask you, can we talk about the debate in Oxford? I was in Oxford the other night. when there was a debate in the Oxford Union, my friend Lawrence Fox was one of the debaters. I could not attend. We were doing Socrates in the city events. So I wasn't there, but I watched his speech online. Talk a little bit about that at the Oxford Union. If you know where to find it on YouTube, you should tell people. This was a debate in the Oxford Union on whether it was appropriate for British people to be afraid of Islam. And conservatives and patriots got up and

explain all the things about Islam that you should be afraid of. Sharia law, domestic violence against women, hatred of Jews, hatred of Christianity, hatred for dogs, violence, terrorism.

The other side sneered at them and said they were contemptible, but the best part of it was when the president of the Oxford Union, a Muslim woman, told the conservatives, you people really are lucky

that we have armed security. Because if we didn't have the armed security, if we weren't generous enough to have armed security, you would be torn apart by angry Muslim moms. They admitted it. They said in their own words about their own people, our people are violent savages, and you're lucky we don't turn them loose on you.

thereby effectively proving the point that there's something to be afraid of in Islam, namely that they act like violent savages and they will tear you apart. They will kill you for disagreeing with them. They will murder you. I was just yesterday talking to a former Muslim who's now a Christian evangelist.

I won't give her name. She keeps her location secret because there are fatwas from Muslim organizations declaring that she deserves the death penalty. So she has to live in secret in America. I got to hear Her Pertvilders, the former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, came to Dallas.

We had heavy armed security because there's been a fatwa on him, a death penalty for 20 years for making a film critical of Islam. So a religion that kills you if you criticize it is something to be afraid of. And people who believe in that religion should not be admitted to our country.

We should not allow one more Muslim immigrant into America. The First Amendment does not apply to foreigners. The Constitution does not apply to foreigners. Just like somebody in Pakistan doesn't have the right to vote in American elections, though the Democrats will probably try on his behalf, he doesn't have the right to come over here and practice his religion. He doesn't have any such rights. He has no right to be here at all.

We ought to be shutting down Muslim immigration. Now, that is politically so sensitive. It seems to go against the First Amendment, even though it doesn't. So the answer is we need to have zero immigration. We need zero immigration into the United States for the next 40 or 50 years until we have found a way to assimilate the tens of millions of non-Christians, non-Westerners, who don't believe in our culture, don't believe in our values, don't practice, our values, set up Hindu temples and Muslim moslem mosques in America to promote these alien religions,

we need to simply say no more. And if we have to be non-sectarian, fine. We should be calling for absolute zero immigration into America, and I would say European countries too for the next 40 or 50 years until we get over this masochistic self-destructive gospel of Antichrist that is white guilt. Agreed. Is there anything else in current events that we should talk on? We just have four minutes left today. We'll catch you later in the week to talk about other stuff. I am worried about the midterm elections and what I do think Donald Trump should take any kind of deal he can get from Iran until the day after the midterm elections. We should look at Iran as the way we looked

at Japan in 1942. They were a little run wild in 1942 because we couldn't do anything. about it. But eventually the Battle of Midway came and then Hiroshima Nagasaki. Likewise with Iran, I think we give them whatever they want to get out of there until after the midterm elections and do whatever we have to do to resolve this war. I don't think we are ever going to do a regime change in Iran. It's too big a country. It's too stuffed with fanatics. It would create millions of refugees who would then move to Europe and help make Europe Muslim. I don't think much as I would love to eliminate that evil regime in Iran, I don't think we can. I think the Democrats in America are so evil and so close to taking power. They are worse than the

regime in Iran. Democrats in America are worse than the government of Iran, and they're here, and they will oppress us if they come to power. We need to do absolutely whatever it takes to win the midterm elections and to make sure the Democrats never come to power again because they are no longer a mainstream patriotic political party. They are a left-wing terrorist movement that happens to be huge. Look, in Germany in 1932, you had two fringe parties, the Nazis and the communists, but they were huge. They were still fringe extremist parties that were unpatriotic and wanted to destroy the system of government in the country and imposed totalitarianism. That, is the Democrats. So if the Democrats ever take power again, we will be worse off than the people

are in Iran right now. The midterms are, let's see, we have August, September, three months away. It is, it is interesting. I was also, I'm concerned about the polls for the Senate seat in Texas, with the radical lunatic Tala Rico on the Democrat side and Ken Paxton on the Republican side. The polls are not looking great. I don't know why that is. I think in part it's because the Republican establishment in Texas, which was deep in the pockets of the Bush family and Carl Rove, they hate Ken Paxton so much for having taken out John Cornyn. They would rather have the Democrat win than have a conservative.

like Ken Paxon, who beat their favorite son, John Cornett. So I think a lot of this is internal treason, the Benedict Arnold's of the Licking Party. But I don't think there's any real chance that Tala Rica will win. I really think those polls are misleading. I think what we need to do is drive turnout. We need to drive turnout in Texas. People are discouraged.

The Trump administration has not done mass. deportations. It did not keep its promise to keep us out of stupid wars in the Middle East. I think, unfortunately, the Trump administration has been floundering and it's hurting Republicans across the country. So getting out of Iran and lowering oil prices would go a long way towards making sure that race communists who hate the Constitution don't come to power all across America. Ladies and gentlemen, you don't hate John Cornyn and the Bushes enough. Imagine that they would rather have Calerico than support Ken Paxton. That tells you everything you need to know, and it's no different than Mike Pence, refusing to support Donald Trump in the 2024

presidential election's despicable. Unfortunately, we're at a time with John's Merrick. John will catch you later in the week. We're now going to go to Doug Grootheist. Hang on, and here it is. When we look at the headlines coming out of Iran and Israel right now, the fog of war is real. It's hard to know whom to trust. That same feeling of confusion often hits home when you're trying to navigate Medicare. There are so many bad actors in this space looking to capitalize on confusion rather than provide clarity. That's exactly why I am proud to partner with Chapter. Chapter acts as a trusted advocate, helping you cut through the noise to understand your Medicare options.

Unlike most agents who only show you a few plans, Chapter looks at every plan nationwide. They're completely unbiased and focus on what's best for you, not the insurance companies. If you're turning 65 or just have questions about your current coverage, give them a call at 571-421-1-253. That's 571-421-1253. It's free, it's quick, and it's the kind of honest guidance we need more of today. Call chapter and get the peace of mind you need. Hey there, folks. Right now I have as my guest, an old friend of the show, Douglas Grute Heiss. When he came on the show the first time, I had no idea how to pronounce his name. Now I sort of do know. It's Douglas.

Douglas Grude Heis is a distinguished research professor of apologetics and Christian Worldview at Cornerstone University. You've heard me talk about Cornerstone University. One of the few universities in America that I could recommend. I'm involved with them. I have the privilege of being a distinguished president's fellow at Cornerstone University, Douglas Groot Heiss. Welcome back. Thank you. Happy to be back, Eric. I want to talk to you about your new book.

Your new book is called Taking Back Truth, a Biblical Response to Common Cultural Lies. You opened the book with a personal story about waiting for a biopsy result. So why did you start the book? It's a book about truth. Why did you start with that story? Yeah, it might be kind of a grim way to start a book, but I was emphasizing that when I found this strange mass in my body, I needed to know the truth about it.

I needed to know if it was cancer. If it was cancer, how do we treat it? If it's not cancer, what do we do about it? So opinion was not enough. You don't do a gallop poll about a biopsy. You need to know the truth, the fact of the matter. So I use that as an example of the fact we need truth about the most important things, the truth about God, the truth about morality, the truth about the self, the truth about

sexual identity. And we shouldn't just settle for the most common or popular meme or what's going viral. We need to try to penetrate to the truth. And I think sometimes medical examples make that point because we care about our health and the health of our loved ones. So we should care about our intellectual health. Are we living on a diet of truth? Or are we settling for some kind of gruel of mere popular opinion, mean, sound bites,

even AI fakes or whatever it is? I guess it was 10 years ago now that the Oxford Dictionary named the word or the term post-truth as the word of the year. What the heck is post- truth. What are they getting in when they would use a term like that? Well, it's the idea that the truth is really not pertinent to society. What's more important is power and influence and images. So a post-truth society doesn't really care about the way things are or using reason and evidence to get to the truth. It's a matter of manipulating ideas.

And you see this all the time with all these various conspiracy theories. and these massively implausible ideas, but they become popular and they're attached to a personality that is charismatic. And so people don't seem to care about the truth or how to discern the truth. So I've got a chapter in the book

that deals with what I call truth tonic for a sick society. How do you find logical mistakes? How do you find logical fallacies? How do you interact with media such that you're not bamfuzzled by the most recent conspiracy theory or a deep fate or whatever it is. So you want to get beyond the post-truth society.

I mean, of all people, people of the book, that is Christians, biblical people, should be people of truth. Jesus said, I'm the way of the truth and the light. No one comes the father except through me. He said, if you are truly my disciple, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Lies will not set you free. Lies are of the devil, as you think.

that's why I wrote the book. There's so many, it's so fascinating to me that some people have the luxury of stupidly not thinking clearly about this. I say the luxury just because, you know,

when it is your life on the line, you know, there's a biopsy, whatever, we don't play this game, but people play the game when they have the ability to play the game, when it costs them nothing.

And it's, it's so important that we understand. I mean, I always say as a Christian, like either Jesus rose from the dead bodily or he didn't. Now, if you don't believe he did, that's fine. But let's not say it doesn't matter. It matters.

If he didn't, then all kinds of stuff follows. If he did, all kinds of stuff follows. You have to first care whether he did. You really have to care about that. But what we're talking about is people who, they act as though, well, what does it matter? You have your truth. I have, I mean, this has only been in the last few decades that people have been talking that way. So you argue in the book that there's only

one valid theory of truth. I haven't heard this term before. You call it the correspondence theory. So now you're a philosopher. What is that term the correspondence theory of truth? Well, it's really very common sense. Ago when most all philosophers have held it. And when they deny it, they actually end up passively affirming it. And it means that a true statement is one that matches or reflects or correspond to reality. So I can't make a statement true by believing it with all my might by commissioning an opinion poll. So, for example, whatever the American public thinks about same-sex marriage, there literally is no such thing as same-sex marriage. Because God defines marriage in Genesis 2 and throughout the Bible. And it cannot be a man

in a man or a woman and a woman. So on that level, popular opinion or even the law doesn't make anything true to reality. It's a matter of the correspondence of the statement. So a real simple thing would be something like, you know, I am 69 years old, which is a true statement. I can want to be 58 or 48 or whatever, especially with my back problem, but I can't do it. I can't make it true. There's one truth value for my age right now today. And there's one truth value about who is God, who is Jesus Christ,

what is the gospel? Did Jesus rise from the dead, as you said, 1st Corinthians 15th? The great passage you go to on that. So that's what we should aim at. Now, we can't always find it. But on the most important things,

I'm arguing in the book, the truth about truth, about God, about self, about morality, about sexuality. We can find the truth in the scripture, and we can have good reason to think the scripture is a revelation from the one true God. So we are suffering from this malaise. I mean, 25 years ago, I wrote another book called Truth Decay. Sadly, the problem is still out there, so I'd write another book called Taking Back Truth. But it's only the truth that will really align us with reality and set us free to do what's right and good and say.

serve God who is a God of truth. How did it happen that we moved from a world where everybody understood what we mean by truth to the world we live in today? In other words, something's been shifting. And I'm always fascinated by how things shift. They shift typically first among the intellectual elites, but then it filters down. And you get to a point where it's out there and where everybody is kind of, stuck thinking about the stuff.

So when we're talking, for example, about truth, for me, I guess, when I was in college, I for the first time encountered these ideas. So this was in the early to mid-80s that I was in college. And you hear about this stuff. And it seems like it's a fascinating thing because in college, you know, people debate every kind of idiotic thing. That's kind of, I guess, what college is for, right?

we were able to sort of have the fun to go wherever, and it doesn't cost us anything. It costs our parents millions of dollars, but it doesn't cost us anything. But how does that filter? How did that filter from, you know, people studying critical race theory in the 80s down to where there are, you know,

where the woman who is now sitting on the Supreme Court was afraid to identify to say what a woman is? How did it get to that level? Well, it's both intellectual history, the history of ideas, and also the social climate. So one very significant thinker on this was Frederick Nietzsche. He said there's no truth, only interpretation. Of course, he's claiming that that's true, so he's refuting himself. But it comes through social science. People will say we have various people groups, various communities of discourse, and there's no one overarching truth that could be the standard for all of them.

But what's happened with critical race theory, and I deal with that in the book, is shifted from there's no truth, or everybody has their own truth in a subjective relative individual way, to the truth is whatever oppressed minority group says it is. So you go from no truth to, oh, wait a minute, we have the lived experience of oppressed groups, and now that automatically becomes the truth that nobody can counter. Well, no, you don't get to own the truth because you're white or black or yellow,

people of color or whatever it is, personal color. Again, the truth is what corresponds to reality. And we've got to figure out how to get to the truth. So if you want to know what the three-fifths clause and the Constitution means, you study that historically. We don't say, well, I'm a black person, so I know it means, that humans are three-fif blacks are three-fits humans. That's not what it means.

What it means is another issue. I deal with that in my book, fire in the streets. So it's weird. You go from this classical view, of correspondence view, to the relative view, everything's an interpretation,

to the interpretation of supposedly oppressed groups is the absolute truth. Well, you don't get to create absolute truth because you're in a minority group or you've been in a oppressed group. You have to align with reality. So that's what I'm trying to get people to do in this book.

And again, finding the truth or finding knowledge, which is justified true belief, can be tough in some areas. But at least we have to try. It's not as simple as saying, you have your truth, I have my truth. Or if you're African American or Hispanic American, whatever you think, it's automatically true. Those views are not true. Those views are not rational. I think, I mean, part of what we're dealing with here is a lot of people fear the truth. A lot of people don't like the truth or they don't like certain truths.

And they don't feel, I guess my attitude would be that, you know, when Jesus says that you will know the truth and the truth will set you free, there is at the heart of all reality the idea that truth is a good thing. And it's important that we believe that. I think there are people who don't believe that. They're just afraid that truth might work against them. So they would rather ignore it or twist it. I think of Socrates. I mean, I started this thing called Socrates in the city because it amazes me. Socrates was not a Christian.

But he obviously believed truth is a good thing. There is such a thing as truth. We can reason our way toward the truth. We don't have to be afraid of it. Somehow that project was a good project. And I would argue that he got that idea. because he's created in God's image. So he sort of innately sensed this.

But there are people today who don't, they're suspicious of the truth. And you say, you quote in your book, Pascal, that we have to love the truth. Right. He said truth is so obscured in our day and lies so well established than unless we love the truth,

who will never find it? He said that about 1660 in France. But how much more is that the case with social media and deep fakes and all the rest of it? it's an orientation of the heart. It's a very biblical idea that we need to be open to the truth, even if the truth will convict us or even if it will condemn it.

Josephine said, the truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable. So you preach the law, you violated the Ten Commandments. You need a Savior. You need to repent. You need to accept Christ as the way the truth in the life. Well, you have to humble yourself. But truth will humble you.

and truth is not anything that you own or I own. We can discover it by the greats of God. We can defend it by the grateful God. But then we need to live by it. And we're under the truth. We're not over the truth. I get to have opinion. I don't get to have truth.

I don't create the truth. Who is it that said, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own truth? That really captures it. So you want your opinions to align with reality through the evidence of reason and argument. That's the project that everybody to be involved with. Christians claim to know the truth. You and I have written on apologetics defending it. You're not a Christian. You should seek the truth because it matters and you don't have an endless amount of time to find it.

You've written this book for a wide audience. This is not just for people who are Christians. So how do you make the case to non-Christians concerning truth? Well, first of all, I try to explain the nature of truth, and I start with that medical example. I think we have an intuitive sense of what it means for a statement to be true. And then I say we should care about the truth and religion. All religions cannot be true because they claim mutually contradictory things about ultimate reality, the human condition, and salvation. And then I look at some of the evidence for God from science that you have worked on as well, fine-tuning, the evidence for the beginning of creation,

in biology, there's all kinds of evidence that there are machines that are designed, these intricate systems. They couldn't have come about through FaceTime, chance, and matter. There has to be a designer. Now we switch to the discussion to scripture, to history, go from science to history, look at the scripture, start with the New Testament. Do we have reliable records about Jesus? Were they written by people in the know?

Yes, have they been handed down faithfully over time? Yes. What do they say about Jesus? They don't say he was just another sage or guru. He was the Lord. And that claim holds up because he was not a madman. He was not a liar. He was who he said he was.

He was Lord. And he rose from the dead. There's one religion based on their divine founder who rose from the dead. It's not Buddhism. It's not Buddhism. It's not Islam. Baham is dead? Is Muhammad still dead?

I believe so. I did not hear about that. Yes. Wow. He is still dead and Jesus is very much alive at the right hand of the father and he is alive in the lines of his followers. So I make kind of a mini apologetic in the book for the Christian world view. I've got the longer book.

I think we did an interview on that maybe some years ago. Call Christian apologetic. That's the bigger fuller 839 page apologetic. And people think might be. books are long. 839. Well, this book is very readable. It's called Taking Back Truth.

The problem will be spelling your name, Douglas Groot Heiss. That's a Dutch name, is it not? It is Dutch. It means large house. It means large house. Groot-H-H-E-S. Yeah. That makes sense.

G-R-O-O-T-H-U-I-S. Got it. And how do you pronounce it? I want to hear you say it. I say Grote Heist. You do. That's not appreciation. That's right.

That's not slight people. The Dutch is basically Hort Holt. I just say with the... Gozenheit. Grote Heist. G-R-O-O-T-H-U-I-S, taking back truth. You've been doing philosophy for a long time. You've written a lot of books.

It's interesting to me that we're talking about, there's nothing more basic than what you're talking about in the book. truth. What is truth? Is there such a thing as truth? How do we get back there? I assume that your students at Cornerstone University understand this. They're not swimming along with the zeitgeist at Cornerstone. Well, if they don't, they will after taking my intro to philosophy class, because we emphasize the classic issue, what is truth, how do we use reason to find truth? What is a worldview? You know, metaphysics, systemology, ethics. So we're not playing around with postmodern

perspectivism. We're not playing around with critical race theory. Truth is what a press group say. Really trying to lay a foundation of truth, rationality, biblical worldview, defending the Christian worldview, through apologetics. And I'm very grateful and very happy to be here doing that. And you're part of it as well.

We see you two or three times a year. Every time you have a new book, you're so prolific. I don't, I don't have a new book. this time. Well, I have a new book, but it'll be a while before I have another book. This book, as you know, is a 600 page story of the American Revolution. I will be back at Cornerstone in September, for sure. I think I'm back in October as well. Cornerstone, of course, in Grand Rapids. How long have you been at Cornerstone? This is just the start of my third year. Cornerstone is a great place. I have to say, even a few years ago, I didn't know about it.

And then when you discover a place like Cornerstone, you think, I am so glad it exists because a lot of so-called Christian universities have, even if they haven't gone full woke, they've opened the door, they're wobbly. And it's dismaying to see places, even like Biola or Wheaton, kind of open the door to this stuff. but Cornerstone has been has been rock rock solid. We've just got a minute or two left. The book is taking back truth. And the subtitle is a biblical response to common cultural lies. What is the number one cultural lie before we close when you say common cultural lies? Well, the one at the root of all of it is that there is no objective truth.

truth is relative to you or truth is determined by an oppressed minority group. I put those in the same category. So if you have either one of those ideas, you're fundamentally wrong in your whole approach to reality. So we've got to correct that, deal with that. Then we ask the questions about gender identity and about the nature of the self and so on. But if we don't get straight on that fundamental foundational issue, we will just go wrong completely. I mean, I think we have to say it, and you've been sort of saying it. just to say that it is a diabolical lie that there's no such thing as truth. And we're living at a time

where I think a lot of people are affected by that because to say there's no such thing as truth or objective truth is ultimately nealistic and very bleak. And you can see how disturbing that could be to people, I mean, especially to young people who are looking around for what is the meaning of life. And then somebody says, well, actually, here's a secret. There is no meaning. That's horrifying in a way. because how do you function when people tell you that? Well, the default mode, then, is the self-defines truth, expressive individualism. Carl Truman's written brilliantly about that. So, you know, the truth is what I say the truth is, but you have your own truth.

So what I express and my deepest desires is true and meaningful and full stop. That's it. Nothing can correct me. So that's rebellion against God and rebellion against reality. Well, I mean, some people have the ability to do that, to fool them, and they're kind of like, you know, the Nietzsche and Ubermensch. But most people, I think, don't. I mean, I remember, you know, when I was in college and after college, not really

understanding this stuff and being, I was not going to be some like brazen sinner. I was just lost and confused. And I think most people end up closer to that where they just, they're just, I think many people know somehow this can't be right. it doesn't feel right. But if they don't have the information such as you write in your book, taking back truth, to really understand, no, no, no, there is such a thing as truth.

And the Bible is clear and God loves us and he has a plan for us. If you don't know that, life is bleak. So folks, grab a copy of Taking Back Truth by our friend Douglas Groatheist, Taking Back Truth. Douglas Groot Heist, thank you. Well, you're welcome. Thanks for having. I appreciate it.