The Sean McDowell Show - J.P. Moreland on Suffering, Doubt, and Facing Death Without Fear

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

J.P. Moreland is one of the most influential Christian philosophers alive and he's spent the last twelve years enduring what most of us never will: a rare genetic condition, more than two dozen cancer surgeries, and two seasons of debilitating anxiety and depression. In this deeply personal conversation, he sits down with me to talk about pain, doubt, and why he says he now has no fear of death. CHECK OUT: Logos Bible 60 Day Free Trial (https://logos.com/mcdowell) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell... Instagram:   / seanmcdowell   Website: https://seanmcdowell.org   CHAPTERS 00:00 – The worst physical pain of my life 00:38 – Introducing J.P. Moreland 02:18 – From skeptical chemistry major to Christian 07:49 – Why he chose philosophy of mind 09:19 – Advice for young apologists and thinkers 13:04 – How Talbot shaped Sean 14:11 – Where the church needs thinkers next 16:03 – The most important training: philosophy 19:04 – Distinctions that dissolve bad arguments 23:04 – Two seasons of anxiety and depression 26:17 – "Don't waste your suffering" 30:24 – Depression, the body, and the soul 34:09 – Two kinds of doubt, and how to handle each 37:00 – "When did you last hear a truly new objection?" 40:47 – Afterlife apologetics and near-death experiences 42:15 – Facing death in a hospital parking lot 48:12 – 25 surgeries and a rare genetic condition 54:52 – Sean's own season of pain 58:00 – Faith, politics, and getting removed from a church 1:05:48 – What he's working on now 1:09:46 – Closing Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Life Audio Well, good morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Sean McDowell. Not only does my family call the shoreline our home church, but I get to teach now and then as a part of the pastoral teaching staff. Thank you. One person appreciates that. With that said, and the enthusiasm in the room,

I do want to start with a question, and I'm curious. How many of you recognize the name Nabil Qureshi by a show hands? Okay, good. Maybe a dozen or two of you do. So Nabil was a former Muslim, challenged by a Christian apologist to consider the evidence for Christianity. Even though it cost him a lot with his family, ended up becoming a Christian. Three master's degrees, got his medical doctorate, was working on his Ph.D. at our New York Times best-selling author, Amazing Apologist,

tragically died a decade ago in 2017 because of stomach cancer. I remember when this happened, and I asked my dad, who at that time was in his mid to late 70s, moving towards the end of his career ministry, I said, Dad, why do you think God allowed Nabil to die? never forget what he said he looked at me he goes son i don't know the answer to that but why wouldn't he take me humanly speaking that's a very natural response how would god protect one of his servants but not the other in anyways this question is a part of the bigger question of the problem of evil and suffering in the world and it's a person

question for many of us here. Why did God allow me to lose my job? Why did God allow my family or friend to die of cancer? Where is God when I hurt? I'm not a Christian because I have a simple answer for that question. I'm a Christian in part because God invites that question. He's big enough for that question. And I think Christian offers the most satisfying emotional existence. and intellectual response to the problem of suffering and evil. We've been working through the book of Acts. When you get to Acts chapter 12, it's interesting, because God spares Peter, and everybody wants to talk about that miracle, but he let James die.

Why protect one, but not the other? I think opening up this chapter and wrestling with this question can help us be better witnesses for the gospel today. So let's stand if you're able and listen to Acts Chapter 12 together. It's almost been three years where I went through for about three months, the worst physical pain I've ever been through. It was probably three or four hours a day. I'd just kind of lay on my back, taking a breath at a time. It hurts so bad. And I knew I wasn't going to die.

I had two surgeries. It was not a fatal kind of thing. Did you have that kind of experience? Did it make you doubt your faith at all? I didn't have doubts. What I did doubt was that God, I knew God loved me, but I didn't know what his larger program was. And it could well be that he was allowing this to happen to me to accomplish a greater good. JP Malone, you are considered one of the most influential living philosophers

first today, especially you work in philosophy of mind. By my standard and an objective one, you would be one of the most influential apologists of the past three or four decades. You've also been through a lot of physical pain and hurt, and you're at a unique place in your life and ministry. Thanks for you're willing to sit down with me and just talk about what you're up to, about your life journey, and kind of your advice and reflections on the ministry in apologetics today. Well, Sean, I love and respect you so much. We've been buddies in the war,

and it's a privilege to be with you and just to chat. Thanks for inviting me on. Oh, my goodness, it's a treat for me. You know I went through a period of doubts and a period of questioning. I do. And I told my dad that I was not sure that I was convinced Christianity was true.

And even though my dad was and still is the great Josh McDowell. I needed somebody else to weigh into it and honestly move beyond popular apologetics to more academic. I remember knocking on your door. This is, I don't know, 94, 95, 96, bugging you a few times. You're like, I got to get some work done. Get out of here.

I'm kidding. You're patient with me and really formative in my life. So it's an honor that you come on. We're going to get to what you're doing today. Some of the surgeries you've been through, you've been very public and honest. with some of those struggles. But let's go all the way back. I suspect there's a lot of people that don't even know your journey to the faith. So tell us your story of how and why you became a Christian. Well, I was born in Kansas City and moved to a suburb when I was two. And I grew up

through high school attending a kind of mayonnaise Methodist Church. Jesus was basically a white Midwestern Chiefs fan. But I never, it was a liberal church, but nobody really knew it. And so I heard about, you know, do right and do good, and Jesus tells us to care about the poor.

I never heard the gospel. And to be honest, it was really boring. I went to college to 1970, 76, rather, graduated in 70, to do a major

and physical chemistry. And I actually ended up getting a full scholarship to the University of Colorado to do a Ph.D. in nuclear chemistry. But something happened in my junior year. And there was some crew people. Camps crusade for Christ formerly. Yes. Who came to my fraternity house and they presented evidence that Jesus Christ was the son of God who performed miracles and died for our sins,

rose from the dead. I had never thought that evidence had any... I thought you just inherited it from your family and believed it, just believed it with no basis. Well, I was shocked, John. And it was my junior year. I met with this staff member. He gave me some books to read on apologetics. And I came to the conclusion that it was highly likely this was true. I wasn't certain.

I don't think you can be epistemologically certain, which you can psychologically. But I went up to my room in November of 1968 and said, Lord Jesus, I've been pulling for you, but I just wasn't sure you were there. And I want you to forgive me for my sin. And I prayed the sinner's prayer.

And, dude, I became a radical. I got up on free speech platforms. I would have been a Christian three months, and there was a bunch of Black Panthers that came from Kansas City and went to the student union. 200, 250 students having lunch and studying. He gets up on this chair, and he's got this box with him with a microphone. He starts yelling and cussing and criticizing the country

and some of it was legitimate. But I swear I said to myself, there's a son of the living God in this room. It's me. And I'm going to go up there and take the mic from him and preach the gospel. So I went up and said, hey, can I have that mic? Well, he didn't know what he was doing, so he gave it to me. And I started saying, I know that what some of you're saying is out of truth and frustration, but there's a deeper issue.

and I gave my testimony to this guy and told them the gospel. And I would do stuff like that. And so when I graduated, instead of the fellowship, I joined Campus Crusade and went to Colorado, oddly enough, for two years, and then opened the ministry in Vermont from 72 to 75. It is so cold up there. One day I got out of bed, and I tripped, and I broke my first. pajamas. It was unbelievable. But by 75, I wanted to go to seminary. So I went to Dallas Seminary, 75 to 79, met my wife, who was on crusade staff there. We got married in 77.

And Scott Ray, right? Weren't you there with Scott at that time? Yeah. In fact, his team and my team played for the Intermural Championship. And he guarded me. And we were, It was tied with about five seconds left. This is no kidding. And I faked him, and I drove to the bucket, and they had a 6-10 forward or center. And he came over and blocked, tried to block my shot and knocked me down, so I had two free throws. And I sunk those babies. Amazing.

And we beat him by two points. You know, Scott hasn't told me that story. I now understand why. I'll ask him at some point. You please do. I think you'll enjoy that. But then from 70 to I guess it was about 75, we went out, no 70, I got out of Dallas 79, so then we went out and taught at the International School of Theology at Arrowhead Springs. Yeah.

And I did my MA during that time at UC Riverside and my PhD under Dallas, Willard at SC. And I've been teaching ever since. A couple of different places, a couple of secular schools. But then I've been at Biola working with the apologetics and the philosophy program since 1990s. So that is 36 years ago. I have two daughters that are in the early 40s, five grandchildren. They live close. And we have a really close family.

So what was the shift to go from studying chemistry to decide you want to study the philosophy of mind in particular? Well, there were a lot of Christians that were doing their work about the existence of God or the reliability of the New Testament. And I can do that. I've done my work in that. But I began to read some books, and they were written by Christians. one was a Stanford professor, Richard Bube, and another British scholar, a D.M. McCoy was a psychiatrist, and they were saying that the idea of the soul

is an ancient Greek notion that the Bible never teaches. When it uses the word soul, it's simply talking about a way the brain can function soulishly. We can relate to people and so on. I didn't believe that. And so I began to do study and, from that point on, that has been my area of specialty. I have an area of confidence in philosophy of science and metaphysics.

But I think I was trying to fill a hole that our soldiers, there was a place that wasn't filled, and I wanted to step up and see what I could do to help. So is that the kind of advice you would give to young apologists or young thinkers or young Christians today, kind of ask the question, where's their need and can I fill it? Is that the case? And what other advice would you give to young aspiring thinkers? I think the first thing I would ask is what are the passions of my heart? You know, love God and do what you please, Augustine said. And I recommend this only if a person is reasonably dedicated to Jesus.

This isn't a game or a hobby. They're serious about their faith, and they want to make a difference, but they want to know the Lord better the rest of their lives. Well, I would just ask the Lord to help you create some desires that fit the person you are. Because we all might have, some people would be interested in Bible and science and others and ethical issue. So what you want to do is to ask first, where is my, what do I do? What do I drift toward when I go to a bookstore or look at Amazon? And I think that if you follow those passions, you'll stick it out the long haul.

But the second question then is if my passions are somewhat general, where do we need people to fill the gap? Like we don't have very many people working in political philosophy and philosophy of law. And we could use some help there. So that would be a good place for apologists that are coming up to go into those. But you have to also have a passion. And those would be some things like that. There is a third thing. And in our philosophy program, we consider ourselves

a movement, not a department. And we use movement language. And our goal is to make the name of Jesus famous and respected and help fulfill the Great Commission by spreading four values through writing, teaching, speaking, however, podcasts. The first one is to develop a rigorous, philosophical Christian mind that it respects the inerrancy of Scripture. Secondly, to develop a very tender, loving, and warm heart toward Jesus and to fall in love with him and want to be like him. And then the third is that we're activists. We don't just sit and write articles, but we want to get out there, push back on the

culture. We want to strengthen our brothers and sisters. And the fourth one is that we're a community. and we're not, don't, we're not, it's not all about me. We don't tell people our grades after you. And if you see students that are hurting, reach out to them and see if you can help them get up to speed. We pull for other programs around the country.

So those were some of the things that, that I think are values. And I would just say to people, whatever you do, this is about Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. and it is also about you because we'll get rewards for what we do. And we're told in Timothy that we're to respect the elders who labor among us. Well, what are they supposed to do? It wasn't me. It was Jesus.

You know, don't respect. Hey, listeners, it's Kelly from Life Audio. We know life gets busy, and sometimes it's easy for your faith to get pushed to the side. That's why we created the Good Word, a free weekly newsletter designed. to give you a moment to slow down, be encouraged, and reconnect with what matters most, God's Word. Inside, you'll find devotionals, guided prayers, podcast recommendations, and other faith-filled content we think you'll love. No ads, no clutter. Just good content to help you stay rooted in God's word throughout your week. Sign up for the Good Word today at life audio.com forward slash the good word.

That's life audio.com forward slash the good word. It's me. It is I and Jesus. The Bible says we co-labor. But you got to stay close. You have to stay in love with him. Don't lose that first love. Keep finding ways to cultivate.

You and I had breakfast. I think it was 1999. Somewhere in Yorba Linda, he showed up with a Talbot sweatshirt on. And if you forgot this, it doesn't bother me for one second. I was doing help my dad. update his book The Resurrection Factor. But you also talk to me about the Talbot program. And the next year I started. And I said this multiple times that actually my wife has one of pointed this out.

She said two times in my life, she's seen the most growth. And I know my wife going back to third grade. Oh, no. Wow. That's a separate story for another time. She said during the Talbot M.A. philosophy and theology, my confidence, my sense of a movement and purpose blossomed. And then a few years ago, when there's some significant pain and suffering for a season, God just softened my heart and shaped me. Absolutely. We're going to come to the way some of the suffering and pain and hurt you've been through and how that's shaped you really importantly.

But I do want to ask a question from before. You said in the area of philosophy, an area would be philosophy of law. And you mentioned one other. I sent out a tweet and political philosophy. I sent out a tweet slash X a few weeks ago. go. And I was trying to think of areas. I said, apologists and Christian thinkers, here's some areas I'd love to see people lean into. What were they? And so, good question. One was AI. Second was a theology of the body, which I, that's a huge topic. Good stuff. Third was Islam. That's

only going to grow an increase. I agree. And fourth, afterlife apologetics. Yes. And so I want to circle back to this also, the near-death experiences, death that experiences, visions, dreams, et cetera, that are happening today. Yes. Well, would you add any to that? What does you kind of look at the landscape now of, I don't know, I mean, just the next two, five, ten, twenty years, what are some areas? Because I asked Gary Hobbes on the resurrection, he's kind of like, we've done most

of the work. We need to nuance certain things, but we've done a lot of the work there. What areas would you encourage young Christians to consider as well? Well, I think when I used to go on campus decades ago and give an evangelistic talk, people would raise their hand and say, well, I don't think what you're saying is true. I don't agree with that. But the point is that they recognized that I was making truth claims. It shifted, I would say, in the 80s, where people, would say things like, well, I'm offended by what you're saying. And my response was always, have you tried therapy? Because whether you're offended or not, the issue is, if I may say honestly, whether what I'm saying is true. But you've got to convince, so what I would encourage people would be

to convince people that truth matters and say a little word about what truth is. It's a correspondence between our thoughts and so on and reality. If we think about reality the way it is, then our thought is true. And I think I would learn some just basic epistemology. In Bill Craig's in my book, Philosophical Foundations for Christian World View, there's a whole section on epistemology. And there's one thing people need to learn. And that's the difference between particularism and Methodism.

That's not a denomination. It's a way of approaching epistemology. And I won't go into detail on it now, but I will say that that has been one of the single most important things to me. The basic idea is that if you're a particularist, then you can know things without having to know how you know them. You can start. Look, I know that I had breakfast this morning,

but I might not know how. I know I do now, but I still know it. The Methodist says, no, you can't know something unless you can say how you know it. And that's true in some areas, but not just a general epistemology. And the problem is that if that's true, then they would have to know how they know their criterion for knowledge is the correct one. and then you have to know how that was, to know how that was, to know how that was. And it leads to an infinite regress. And the skeptic, who says we can't know anything, has got the Methodist.

And the particularist says, doggone it, before I ever started this, field of philosophy, I came in and I know some things. Two and two is four, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the burden of proof is on the skeptic. to convince me I don't know things, it isn't on me to convince him that he does, because if the skeptic says we can't know anything, he cannot give a reasoned principled argument for skepticism. Because once he does that, then I can say,

well, do you know that that's a good reason for skepticism? I mean, it might not be. Do you know what it is? And he can't answer the question. So he ends up just asserting skepticism. Well, I'm just claiming this without any reason at all. It's a pretty embarrassing place to be. But that issue is something I would really encourage people to study.

I've been meaning to write a blog or do video on what I consider the most important training apologists and thinkers can get. And that would be in philosophy because the distinction you made is only one of many. Oh, yeah, exactly. In your book, Love God with your mind, and I had you 1998 for apologetics. And you talked about the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. That is such a powerful distinction. And so when people argue, well, we shouldn't be surprised that we're in a fine-tuning universe,

fine-tuned universe because we couldn't find herself anywhere else. They're confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. The point that you just made, like I remember in class, you're like there's four or five different ways the word is can mean. And this is in the 90s not long after Clinton, so everybody was laughing about that point. But I realized that is of identity, the is of accidental predication, that is of Constitution, knowing these distinctions avoid silly errors like I just was reading this morning, a leading thinker of a church I won't mention. It's like, Christians say God, you know, the Father's God, Christian say the Son is God, was Jesus praying to himself. I'm like, if you just would understand what we mean, you could avoid these mistakes. So this point about Methodism versus Particularism, in the moral argument, for example, this is where Bill Craig is often said,

if somebody doesn't know that torturing a child for fun or adult entertainment is wrong, that person doesn't need an argument. They need a therapist. That's right. Why? Because we know it. We don't need a method. We know certain things like that. We may not know how we know it, but we know it.

But we know it. And even like that truth is important. Why is truth important? An atheist can only give a pragmatic utilitarian value of truth. You nailed that. But we know truth is important. It's axiomatic. Oh, it is.

But that only makes sense if there's a truth-gitter. I'm preaching to someone who knows this, but I'm trying to point out the ways this philosophical training. So I'm going to throw some of your books out there for people. But your book, and I'm going to butcher the title, I think it was with, IVP with Gary Deweis on philosophy made slightly less difficult. Is that close? Yes.

I would recommend that for people. Hit pause, read that book and come back to make the distinctions that you're talking about. Now, before we keep going, I'm curious, you're in the late 60s, and someone gave you apologetics books. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, they didn't give you my dad's books because evidence came out in 72 and more than Carpenter 77. Was it mere Christianity and who moved the stone? Like, what apologetics book?

Well, one of them was Paul Little's book, Know Why You Believe. And that was really, at that stage of my life, it just really meant a lot of needs because he was actually taking critics' questions seriously and responding to them. The very fact he did that showed me that he was confident that he could say something meaningful about their criticisms. Mirr Christianity. Francis Schaefer was around then, and I read him. And so those were the ways that I sort of got in the door. There was another guy named Fritz Rudinauer. I don't remember him, but he wrote a little apologetics book. No way. And I read it, and I loved it. And, you know, nobody's ever heard of it. But, yeah, it was fairly good in those days. That's amazing. I love that. So let's shift. to, I show up in 94 at Biola. You were rocking out apologetic stuff.

Had you in class 98. When I came, my dad said there's two people I needed to, well, three. He said, Scott Ray, Walt Russell, and you. Oh, my. And took each of you in class in different ways. But you started writing, it seems like, shortly after that. You went through a pretty serious, and it's public, you've shared it, just season of depression.

and maybe two of them, we could do five or six videos just on this, but maybe share with us what happened, what you learned through it. Well, I was born with the genetic predisposition to anxiety. I can trace it four generations on my mom's side of the family. That doesn't mean you have to be that way. It just means I'm more inclined than the average person to get anxious. and then my mom was a very anxious person and part of anxiety is a learned habit and I watched her and I internalized it

and so I was high strung I guess you'd say and I would get anxious about things but it was never debilitating but after the school year 2003 Sean, I had a horrible set of things happen to my family and to a close friend. And it was a stressful year. At the end of the school year, the day of graduation, when that was over, I went out to my car, and I began to fall apart. And I didn't know what was going on.

I was having panic attacks, but didn't know what they were. and I went through, I'd say five months of this. I got into Christian therapy. I began to read passages in the word that spoke to me, warmed and made me feel secure. I started on medication, and eventually I got out of it, and it hit me again in 2000. 2013 after graduation.

Really? Yeah, because that year was the second most stressful year I'd ever had. And what I was doing was I was stuffing my anxiety and stress because I had to get through the classes. But when the school year was over both times, whoop, I fell apart. So I ended up right, I did, said, I don't want this to happen again. And it hasn't. since 2013. So I did research

in secular and Christian literature on psychological issues and spiritual formation books, you know, Dallas Willard's writing, celebration of discipline, things like that. And I wrote a book called Finding Quiet where I explain four practices

that four can form habits When Paul says, present your body to God as a living sacrifice, he's really talking about doing habitual things in parts of your body so that you outgrove the tendency to be afraid or discouraged or whatever, and you put grooves in there where you just see it, the glass half full or more. And it really, really helped me. So a couple of things, I learned. Yeah.

Number one, always be formed and not deformed. Now, what I mean by that is don't waste your suffering. If you suffer anxiety or depression and it just makes you, you don't do anything and it makes you a more bitter person, not only have you suffered, but you've been harmed. So it's a two for one. if you're suffering do things to form you learn from your suffering

because the times I have suffered I have let that draw me even closer to God I've sought him more passionately I was desperate and so at the end result of that suffering was I was my character and my closeness to God were formed and so while I wouldn't want to suffer again, I benefited from it.

That's the first thing. The second thing is don't hide it. Don't be embarrassed and not let other people know you're suffering. No, no, no, no. We all have times where we suffer in a lot of different ways, anxiety, depression, other ways, loneliness. And you need to have. a group of Christian friends. And you can have, you know, friends, you can have 50 friends. But you want to narrow it down to four or five. And these are, but these are real buddies.

And you can open up and say anything. And, and they'll listen and give you feedback. Well, I had some friends that I could talk to. And they said, you're not crazy. you're going through a crisis time and other people are going through it and you're going to make it. Just kind of getting that sort of help, but open up and be honest about it and then work smarter, not harder.

You want to try to do some reading about whatever you've got, anxiety and depression will focus on that. Now, I'm not trying to sell my book. It's doing fine. But a book like that. Tell us the title. I want to sell your book. Yeah. The book is finding quiet. And if you look at an Amazon, the 550 or more review so far, I mean, it's just, it's helped so many people. Praise the Lord. And so be pro, try to be proactive. If you can, get exercise. And if that's just walking around the block,

if that's all you got, walk around the block. But don't just sit in front of the television and become a couch potato. I love television like the next person. So I'm not saying they're watching TV. Great shows on. But those would be some things that I could mention. What is JP Moreland's all-time favorite TV show?

Oh, goodness. Just give us one of them. You don't have to give your time. top. I would have to say probably the top one was the, I think it was a Netflix series called Homeland. Oh, yeah. Okay. And it was, it was really good. Amazing. Good stuff. All right, fair enough. I love Breaking Bad, but that is a conversation for another time. So I want to come to some of the physical suffering you've been through recently, but I'd love to talk about how the suffering you went through as I listen to you.

You described that it's brought on by certain genetic tendencies that have been passed on. It's important to exercise, which deals with the body. But then you said certain ways of thinking and patterns don't be deformed, be formed, or transform, which is really Romans 12, 1 and 2, is thinking. So going through this, how does this experience of going through depression fit in with a substance dualist perspective of what it means to be human. And honestly, are you reading this into the data or since you've read 40 or 50 plus books, does it really bubble up to the surface that the best way to deal with depression is to

care for the body and care for the soul? Yeah, it absolutely does. Because for someone who believes that I'm my soul, I also believe I'm embodied. And I can affect my body through my mental life. So if you change the way you're thinking, it literally can re-grove damage parts of your brain. So the mind can have an effect, especially your thought life. But the body and the brain can have an effect on you.

If your brain chemistry gets out of balance, then you start being afraid for no good reason. And so the couple of things that were very helpful about thought, doubtless Willard said in renovation of the heart of the heart that emotions make wonderful servants but terrible masters. And he said, you don't want to live your life by emotions. You have to train yourself to live your life by your thinking and what you believe. and an example of that is your self-talk. We have habituated, formed the habit of talking to ourselves.

And in the book that I wrote Finding Quiet, I list 10 different thought distortors. Now, for example, emotional reading. You look at somebody's face and you think, oh, they don't like me. So you're feeling that they're scowling at you, but probably aren't. But the one my favorite one was, and this is what hurt me most, is I would catastrophize or magnify what might happen to me in the future. So I would say, gosh, you know, I haven't found a wife yet.

I mean, or, what if I never get married? Well, okay, so then are other things. If I don't get a raise, you know, how am I going to send my kids? These are big things and probably small things just consistently. Yeah, small things too. So what you have to do is you have to learn to pay attention without being obsessive and overly introspective. But you've asked the Holy Spirit at the end of Psalm 139, search me and know me, examine me, and see if there's any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way of flourishing.

And so I invite the Holy Spirit to come in and help me during the day to be aware of how I'm talking to myself. And if I start catastrophizing, um, I catch it. And then there's a set of steps you can do to have in the book that you can learn. And if you practice it a couple of months, two and a half months, it'll go away. It won't go away overnight, but you have to stay with it. So your thought life is tremendous. And there are two kinds of doubts that people have.

One's an emotional doubt. And those are because you never learn to connect. with your dad or your mom, and you're the kind of person that finds it hard to emotionally touch with, to connect with other people. And so you experience God's absence, which we all do, but you experience God's absence, and that creates emotional doubts that God is there or that he's listening or he loves me or what have you. Now, the way to deal with that is not to find an answer to a question, but to try to get to, some help in finding out how you can escape the burden of not being attached to important people

in your life. An intellectual doubt is a legitimate thing. People really have them. They're not smokescreened. Some are. But if you have an intellectual doubt, you ought to be a write it down, let's say in a paragraph on a piece of paper, because it ought to be specific enough where you can verbalize it and put it down. Then what you do is you do, is you don't rest until you get an answer that thing. And you Google, you go online, you go to, if they're a pastor that is kind of up on answering questions or others, you go and you, you go and you, until you get, because there will, there are answers out there. You just have to go find them. And so that, that's the way that you deal with that kind of doubt. And that's what my

approach was. And I, I thought that it was important. for me to have the courage to read what the atheists were saying. And if some people don't feel strong enough to do that, then postpone it later. Get yourself strengthened by what you believe and why. But generally speaking, as you mature all the way through life, you have to understand who your critics are. So in my philosophy mind classes, Sean, we use most of the most of the people. books by complete materialists that are the top of the feet.

I remember him. Yeah, I know. I read him. Yeah, you did read him. Jaguant Kim and Cyril, if I remember. That's exactly right. He was at Berkeley, yeah. And then I give responses.

And the students can tell whether my response is good or bad. But that's the way you grow. But you don't do it at the beginning. If you get started, you start reading things that, strengthen you to the point where you'd be able to do that and it wouldn't upset you. You're right. We could agree or disagree. Although I do remember a claim like, you know, Sean, if you disagree, this will affect your grade. And I was like, well, you know, definitely not kidding aside. But I'll tell you in the mid-90s, I remember I came in. And at that time,

the questions stuff I remember this, reading on the internet. The three big ones I remember was, is evolution incompatible with Christianity? What's the evidence? Contradictions in the Bible. really thought that through. And the pagan mythology claim that Adonis and Osiris and Mithris, Christianity was borrowed from that. And I asked you something. I remember, I said, J.P. Actually, I said, Dr. Morrillen at the time, I'm sure I stayed it that way. Come to think about it. J.P. would have been fine. But I said, when's the last time you heard a new question or objection? You looked at me and you said, there's certain nuances that are new, but it's been a long time. and you said if you study this enough,

you'll get to the point where you feel the same. And I remember thinking, okay, I trust him. I like this guy. He's smart. That must be nice. And it hit me, I don't know, maybe five or ten years ago, it came back to me like 20 years later and I thought, really?

He's right about that. I still, I'll hear new things and new challenges. There's always some new. But in the back of my mind, it's like, I've done this long enough to know that there's a good answer if I'm willing to find it. Right. And I find myself saying that to young people all the time, not to tell them not to research and ask tough questions, but just to say, give yourself some space and some time.

And so I appreciate you saying that. I still remember it. And thanks for bringing that up, Sean, because another reason it's so important is because you will build up a track record from when you're born again and to the first 10 or 15 years or whatever where the track record will be that there was a problem that was kind of causing you a doubt but somebody in the body of Christ had an answer to it

maybe Augustine dealt with it in the 400s your job is to try to find where that answer is and you know what happens you succeed. And you find that you have these questions and you think, oh, this is going to knock the whole thing over. But doggone, you find an answer to it.

Well, after a while, you realize that these questions have had answers. And so now I don't know a good answer to this particular one, but I know I'm going to find one because it's happened to me all the time. and that's a very comforting thing to know and they all people need to remember we're a body we don't all have to know everything there will be I don't believe in certain views of the Old Testament

but I don't have time to study all that I go to our Old Testament scholars and I say tell me about this or if you don't have the availability go online and ask the question and that way we're we we spread the sustaining of our lives because

we all have a different role to play. I don't have to be omniscient. And that's very important to have brothers and sisters. And we hope that those that are listening to this program will come here and do the apologetics program. Amen. Or the philosophy program, which you ever won. And strengthen yourself so you can be a resource to your brothers and sisters. That is exactly the vision.

Now, one more line of questioning before we shift to some of the more recent, just physical suffering you've gone through and what you've learned from it is afterlife apologetics. So I'm going to guess maybe seven, eight years ago, two, three years before COVID. I don't remember if he was in a staff meeting or somewhere. You kind of held up a book or maybe you referenced the book on evidence for near-death experiences by Steve Miller, who's now. a friend of mine, he just taught a class here a few weeks ago. And you said, you want to check this out.

This stuff is compelling. And I thought, you know, I'm an apologist. I've read a lot of stuff. I probably need to study this. And I really, to be honest, to be honest, you had pretty low expectations. I was like, well, J.P. said, I'll give it due diligence. I've heard fake stories.

You can't confirm this stuff. That was my expectation. Yeah, right. And it honestly blew me away. And I've become one of probably the most, maybe the most outspoken apologist. Lee Strobel has written a book on The Supernatural just last year that he included a chapter interviewing Steve.

And he was in part motivated by reading my interviews with Steve. And he looked at some of the comments and was like, oh, my goodness, story after story after experience. It kind of blew him away. But I'm trying to thinking of like, what is it going to take to get more people to study and do apologetic work biblically, philosophically, scientifically, scientifically. for near-death experiences, because I could probably count them on my hand who are doing it well. But why did you start studying that?

Why do you find it so compelling? Well, knowledge can increase. It's like the sky being cloudy. It can be 80% cloudy or 50%. Well, knowledge can be a certain level of strength if you have a true belief based on adequate. reasons, but then it can actually grow into greater knowledge. So I knew there was life after death because I was convinced Jesus rose from the dead. Amen.

Based on the evidence and it was strong. The only argument against it is, well, miracle. It involves miracles as well. So anyway, but when I started getting sick, about 12 years ago, I was facing death. And there were times when I would go get a scan, I didn't want to wait to get the results. And I would go down and I'd get a copy of it

and I was sitting there in a parking lot in my car and I was going to open this thing and it could be one of the other. And so I my knowledge level at that point of

life after death needed strength because I was now facing it. This was not just an... It was an existential. It was an existential issue. Pull this mic back in a little bit just to make sure we get you there. There we go. It was an existential issue.

So I began to read. And I tell you, my wife and I probably read 40 books or 50 books on this. The number one I would read. Just on near-death experiences? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay.

And I would recommend John Burke's Imagine Heaven as my first book. And I wrote a book called A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles. And in that book, I showed how you can tell the difference between a miracle and a coincidence. There's a way to tell. And then I listed vetted stories that I verified and that were publicly verified in five areas, answer to prayer, healing, hearing God's voice, angels and demons, and near-death experiences. Now, in the back of the book, I have a bibliography where I've listed, I'll put my reputation on the line here, credible sources of all five kinds of miracles.

And there's a section in there of near-death books that you want to read if you're interested in it. Yeah. And you can start with Burke, but that's great. But there are a lot of other ones. And that would be a place to go find some further sources if you're interested. But it did nothing. But strengthened me. And I have absolutely no fear of dying.

Like when you say absolutely no, you talk about knowledge from zero 50s agnostic. 100% is certain. You are 100% certain. No, well, I don't think you can be 100% certain about anything because of my own existence. But I have, I have sufficient evidence from the resurrection and from what I've read. And I can tell that these are credible stories for a number of reasons. that what these NDE books have done besides being persuasive is that they take what the Bible paints in sort of gray

and puts color on it. And it makes it real, that you feel it's real. You already think it is, but it's an experiential kind of thing as well. So I'm at the point where I'm actually where Paul was when he said to depart is better. but to stay here is worth it and I've told the Lord I said Lord you know what I I'm looking forward to to coming on your side and and leaving this place but I said I don't think what you put me here to do is I'm finished my family they need me financially I they need my presence and I

They all tell me that. I've helped my grandchildren along the way, and so I don't think I'm finished with that, God. And so I'm asking you, I'd like to teach at least two or three more years, 78, and I'll reevaluate. But if you're going to take me, take me when I can feel somewhat confident that I've finished the job that you put me here to do, and I'll be comfortable. Now, there are ways of dying that I'm afraid of. I agree with that. So, I mean, I don't want to go through. So that's kind of about those issues.

Well, I've created a whole playlist of just near-death experiences. I've had a chance to interview Michael Sabom, who's a legend in this. Oh, he is. Pim von Lommel, Eben Alexander, John Burke twice. He has a new book coming out this fall. Steve Miller, I think, 10 or 12 times. And I'm going to keep doing it. reviews on this. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, he is. A couple more. And actually, Steve and I are

working on a book together in due time, trying to have the best chronicled, established, academic case for each one of these. That would be unbelievable. I think there's a need for that. But let's shift. You look the best physically that I think I've seen you in a while. Yeah, yeah. Tell us what you've been through physically, and then you kind of said, don't waste your suffering. What have you learned through this physical suffering? Well, I didn't know this, but I inherited a rare disease from my father, who died at 37. And it's called Lynch Muratory Syndrome. And what it does is it makes me more likely to get a range of cancers than the average population.

So I'm kind of be, it's easy for me to get cancer. And I've had so many different kinds. And in the last 11 and 3-4 years, August will be the 12th year, I've had 25 surgeries. 25 surgeries. Yeah, in 11 and a half years or so. And that's, you know, that's more than twice a year. And I've had every kind of surgery you could imagine. And I just had one last week to bring.

replace my pacemaker. And so I'm used to that. I'm, I was really afraid the first, I'd say 10. But after a while, you kind of get used to it. And I'm just, I'm not afraid of surgery. That's because of practice and I've been exposed to it. Yeah.

And, I mean, I've had, you know, I've had a lot of physical pain through this. Because some of the areas where surgery has been performed were painful, and they were trying to get rid of that. And then the surgeries themselves recovering are painful. And so, you know, I'm not complaining, but I have suffered more than my share of physical suffering. and I realized again that I could either have a pity party

and I don't disparage anybody who's feeling a little bit picked on and wonder what God, you know, are you still up there? I don't doubt that, but I would say, you know, what's, what are you doing? or I could ask God to help me and to be present to me in a special way so that I could honor him in his kingdom without faking it. I'm not going to fake anything. And so what I began to do is I began to practice various kinds of prayer, contemplative prayer where you sit quietly and you tell the Lord I receive you if you have anything

you want me to notice or say read the scriptures through the Ignatian way where you put yourself in the passage a lot of different ways but I really increased my in intensity and reading spiritual formation books there's a lot of really good ones out there and I think what that did is it caused me to be formed by these things, not deformed. And as a result, I think I've been an encouragement to people. And that means a lot to me, including my family. So the good news is that modern medicine, and I also believe in divine healing, and very much, I've seen. I see. that happen. So I've also sought divine healing, and I believe that in one of the occasions, I was healed without medicine. But medicine has reached a point where it's so, they're so good,

and they've been able to handle pain. And so, you know, you get surgery, and there's just, it doesn't hurt. You're knocked out the next time you're in the recovery room. So it's not something to fear. You have to trust me on that if you're not there, but you can get there. And, you know, this is not your citizenship. It's in heaven. It's not here.

And we were made to live here, but to do it in light of, there and to honor the kingdom that way. So I just tried to do that, but do it wisely. And I'd look for books and I'd ask people things to read, practices that they'd done that have helped them deal with, you know, fear. And that's, that's what happened. The only thing I have not been able to deal with is because of those 25 surgeries and I'm 78, my energy is low. Now, I can get really excited about teaching. I told you before the show here, I don't know when I've enjoyed teaching as much. I'm having a ball in those times.

I love that. It's so much fun. But I come home and I need. You're white. I'm kind of wiped out, you know. And so I don't have the energy I used to. and that just means there's a lot of things I can't do. I can't keep a really too busy a schedule,

and I've learned that they're stages of life. One period is where I needed to be busy because that was appropriate to that stage, but now I'm not as busy as I used to be, and I'm focusing a little bit more on my inner life, and my connection with Jesus, and those are kind of the things that preoccupy me, although I'm writing a little bit.

And kids and grandkids you always talk about as well. Oh, those little stingers. You smirked up the most when I mentioned that. Yeah. So I hesitate to even make this comparison. I'm 28 years younger. It's almost been three years where I went through for about three months, the worst physical pain I've ever been through.

there was probably three or four hours a day I'd just kind of lay on my back, taking a breath at a time. It hurts so bad. And I should have taken non-addictive opioids, but I just was so, like, afraid to get addicted to anything. Looking back, I was like, that was kind of dumb. But it was, it was so painful. And I dropped down about 135 pounds. That's unbelievable. And I learned that if you don't have enough fat on your body, you can't even regulate some of the motions that you have.

That's actually true. There's a couple times that I just emotionally broke, and I remember saying to just one of my best friends, a pastor, I said, I'd be lying if I said I could thank the Lord for this. I can't. But all I can do is pray that at some point I would see it. God help me hang on so I can see it at some point. And that is the honest to God, only prayer that I could make. And I knew I wasn't going to die.

I had two surgeries. it was not a fatal kind of thing. Did you have that kind of experience? Did it make you doubt your faith at all? You know, no. I mean, but what I want to say is that there's nothing wrong with doubting. Just keep growing. But I don't know.

I guess I'd reach the age where those kind of things I had been diligent in getting solid about my beliefs. And so I didn't have doubts. What I did what I did doubt was that I knew God loved

me but I didn't know what his larger program was and it could well be that he was allowing this to happen to me to accomplish a greater good. Now I don't think he was just using me as a means to an end. Sure. But, but, but, and so I didn't, I, I said, Lord, is this, what, where is this going? I mean,

are, is there something you, you're trying to accomplish and this is the only way that you can get done? Um, can you find another way? You know, so, those were questions that I couldn't solve, you know, and, uh, at some point, you just have to say, well, I've either got to choose to live, the life I've got right now or make it become bitter about it. That's great. And for the record, it didn't make me doubt or question my faith at all. I think I was just in so much physical pain was like, can I just go, yeah, thank you, Lord, for this.

The way we do it was like, I can't thank you for that. I want to be able to see it. And I do now looking back in different ways, but that was just the level of faith I could muster. That's helpful. So tell us, maybe as you wrap up, you mentioned before you've done like 12 podcast interviews recently or something like that. And you had a debate with a guy in Syria who's an atheist or something.

Tell us a little bit of what you're up to. Well, I'm not able to get on an airplane right now. So I'm doing podcasts. And I've been getting a lot of invitations. And there was this one podcaster that wanted me to debate a just retired professor of philosophy. I think he was in the UK because that's his accent, I'm not sure. But the broadcast came out of Syria, and the moderator was a Christian. Well, it was a very fair, it was a cordial debate.

But he wanted to debate one principle, and it is a principle in the broader Calam cosmological argument. The principle was it's impossible to cross actual infinity one at a time. And I affirmed that, and he thought, he didn't believe it. And so we went after that, and I think I may have, I won the debate. I don't mean that, but that's the moderator. Yeah, that's fair. He said, thank God, man. He emailed me.

Thank God you were there because this guy just didn't have a clue compared to what you were saying. He was a bright guy. I mean, he's a professional philosopher. So, yeah, I don't know how to get, how to, I'm not sure I kept it. I'm going to try to find it. I would love to share it and have people go watch it. And just so people understand the Clom Cosable Argument says whatever begins to exist has a cause. Yes.

The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause that would be outside of the universe. Yes. That's second premise the universe began to exist. You can defend it scientifically. Yes. Or theologically, biblically, but also philosophically. Yes.

And the idea being traversing an infinite, just like we can't count up to infinity. In fact, at any point in time, you would look back and it'd be finite in the past. You never arrive. Then we couldn't count down in the negative from infinity to the present. We thought we could. And he apparently thought we could. I told him, look, you're going the same distance both ways, number one. Number two, that you're confused about the issue.

The issue isn't about whether the series has a start or doesn't have a start. It's about the nature of actual infinity itself. That's what this is about. What is an actual infinite? And no matter which direction, forward or backwards, you're going, It's still an infinite. Still an infinite. But at least, if you go forward, you can start.

It's like jumping out of an infinitely tall pit with a four. But on your view, you're jumping out of an infinitely tall pit with no floor. It's bottomless. Not only can you not finish the cross, but you can't begin. Because you take any finite number in the past, and there's an actual infinite number of moments before that that have to be crossed. we'll pick a moment a trillion years before that. So the problem is that's it or it goes over and over again,

and you will never be able to even get started, much less finish. That is one of many arguments that the universe had a beginning, which cries out for what caused the universe to come into existence, which you've talked about another book author out there, Scaling the Secular City. Maybe a little dated, but it has some timeless factors in there that I would still encourage people to pick up and read. J.P., I have so many more questions for you, but this has been wonderful, really helpful, really encouraging.

Folks, you said you're teaching maybe two or three more years. Your classes were just, I loved them, hung on every word. My classmates and I would oftentimes go to the Common Grounds, coffeehouse afterwards, and say, okay, what did you get? What's he saying? How do you understand this? Sometimes you had two periods that come sneak in. The second one to hear it again to try to understand.

So, folks, you've got a living legend. Come join us at Talbot. You got two or three more years to have him in class. Don't miss it. Come study here, apologetics and philosophy. You had to get that in there. But most importantly, appreciate you. Love you, brother.

I love you, my friend. And I respect you. And I'm so honored to be here. Thank you. This is a joy. My privilege. Hey, friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button on your podcast app.

Most of you tuning in haven't done this yet. And it makes a huge difference in helping us reach and equip more people and build community. And please consider leaving a. podcast review. Every review helps. Thanks for listening to the Sean McDowell Show, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, where we have on campus and online programs in apologetic, spiritual information, marriage and family, Bible, and so much more. We would love to train you to more effectively live, teach, and defend the Christian faith today. And we will see you when the next episode drops. Hey friends, Nicole Eunice here from the How to Study the Bible podcast.

I want to invite you to experience a fresh look at the story of Joseph and what it means for you today. Life can totally throw us for a loop, whether it's your family or your marriage, work, church, or something else entirely. Maybe you have found yourself in a season that you never would have expected and that you certainly wouldn't have signed up for. In this six-week Bible study together, we're going to talk about the biblical story of Joseph, a man who lived an unexpected life and trusted God through it all. We'll talk about the blessings he experienced, the promises God keeps, the way that tests of our character can actually refine our faith. We'll talk about patience. We'll talk about loss. Absolutely talk about redemption.

So come join us for the six-week series over on the How to Say the Bible podcast. Can't wait to dive in with you.