Truth Unites - Christian Apologetics Must Learn From Rhett and Alex

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

Gavin Ortlund reflects on the nature of Christian apologetics in light of a conversation between Alex O'Connor and Rhett McLaughlin.Original video: https://youtu.be/Y9wjVLKy8Xk?si=FhrNGUFXKryafJlKGavin's book on Augustine: https://www.amazon.com/Retrieving-Augustines-Doctrine-Creation-Controversy/dp/0830853243/truthunites-20Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

Alex O'Connor recently interviewed Rhett McLaughlin, and it raised a lot of points that Christians need to consider, I think, especially Christian apologists, which would be someone like me. Well, you were pretty knowledgeable, right? Like, you would be able to talk to people and convert people. I mean, presumably that doesn't go away. Like, you've still got the knowledge, right? Yeah.

You've still got it inside of you. That the evangelical Christian part of my brain will never go away. is always there judging the deconstructed Los Angeles YouTuber, you know, I think, so I

whenever I see somebody talk about me and I try not to do that very often. Like I know just being on your podcast and talking about it, like we get, you know, you know this game very well, you give the, you give the material, you provide the material for all the Christian reaction channels.

And whenever I respond to people, I've responded to Alex several times, read once or twice maybe, it's because I respect them, relate to what they're saying, think they're saying something worthwhile we need to think through, and so forth. And also just the issues they're addressing are so important and how they affect people who watch these conversations. Maybe a metaphor can help explain why I feel this like fire in my bones,

wanting to speak into conversations where you see a conversation that is shaping the public perception of Christianity, and you're watching this and you might want to speak out, imagine, here's the metaphor, imagine you love democracy and sincerely believe that it's a form of government that tends toward human flourishing, as I do, and most of you probably do.

And if you see a conversation happening that is shaping the public perception of democracy, maybe more negatively, you might want to speak up and say, hey, democracy is really good, and here's why and so forth. And this is how I feel about Christianity. I think it is good and true.

take the feeling that you get in your heart at the end of a movie when good triumphs over evil. Think of that feeling, like in a favorite movie of yours, that feeling of hope and goodness. That is how Christianity feels to me. I'm not making any arguments right now, just a personal statement here. Christianity is like this for me at a personal level. It's like oxygen, you know, and I feel that personally, but also just for society as a whole. I even think that much of what makes the modern world a best better place, has a Christian influence behind it, like individual human rights, which I'll come back to at the end of this video, and even the origin stories of particular hospitals and universities and orphanages and so on and so forth. But there's a point that is raised in this discussion

between Rhett and Alex that's totally, it's a fair point to consider, precisely because Christianity is so important to me, that can become a form of bias. And they bring up several concerns about how Christian apologetics is done, too little curiosity, too much certainty, and inconsistency. These are the three things I took the most, actually. And I think we need to hear these, not to challenge what Rhett says here, but more to ourselves as Christians be challenged by it. And then I want to address the creation-evolution debate, and then I'll at the end of this video state my question for Rett. There's a type of answer that someone gives when their allegiance is to the truth that they need to be true. And there's a type of answer that people who are actually

interested in the truth give. And what I kept finding is that Christian apologetics really consists of people who are like, well, the truth cannot be questioned. The truth we've predetermined that this is true. And now we've got to find a way to buttress that truth. And there's a, there's a tenor to those arguments that they don't hold up very well under scrutiny. When you get the answer to the answer to the answer to the answer, you just keep finding it. It just seems like these people seem to be interested in what actually happened, and these people seem to be interested in the truth that they hope that happened. One person seems to be, like the critical scholars actually seem to be interested in what

happened. Like, why do these people write this? why is it like this? Where did this idea come from? And then the Christian apologist seemed to be like, well, we know it's God's word, so how do we prove it? So one of the concerns here is assuming that Christianity must be true and therefore failing to have a genuine curiosity about alternative possibilities. At one point, Rhett references his prior mentality in a Christian context as full confidence and no curiosity. And I have to say that I think we see this a lot. Mike Graham and Jim Davis wrote this really great book called The Great D-Churching, and it's talking all about how, so why so many people have left the church, though, of course, we're seeing that trend slow down more recently. It is not because Christians lack good enough arguments far more commonly.

It's because we lack curiosity and kindness and calmness in the way we relate to other people. That is what the data indicates. Christians, especially those of us who are doing apologetics, we found ourselves drawn into this, we really need to take this to heart because we can fall into a kind of dogmatic mindset that lacks humility, lacks curiosity, and just isn't open-heartedly listening to the other side. Now, to be fair, I think that all perspectives fall into this. Okay, this is a human condition. We're very tribal in how we function, and I don't think this is inherent to apologetics.

So again, take my working metaphor of if you believe in democracy and people are critiquing democracy, you can allow yourself to be drawn into democracy apologetics. There's a place for defending what you believe to be true, giving arguments, but you can become so focused on defending democracy that you stop listening. There are particular temptations to which we are subject when we're doing apologetics. And so I find personally, I come back to this great poem by C.S. Lewis, a great deal. I come back to it repeatedly. I sort of always live trembling before it. I'll just read you the first half of it. It's called an apologist evening prayer. The second half is even better. From all my lame defeats and oh much more from all the victories that I seem to score, from cleverness shot forth on thy behalf, at which while angels weep the audience laugh, from all my proofs of thy divinity, thou who wouldst give no sign, deliver me. Do you hear what he's saying there? First of all, he's saying, I need God more when I win than when I lose. Second of all, he's saying sometimes the audience might be laughing, but the angels might be weeping.

And third of all, he's saying, we can be more ambitious than God. We can try to give proofs and arguments where God himself hasn't. And there's so much we could reflect about all of that, but for now we can just at least say this much that Christians should be humble. And we should be good listeners. And sometimes we fall so short of this, and it's a real issue. You know, to genuinely try to see the world through someone else's eyes and make a genuine effort to understand and to consider and to listen, that is not compromise. In fact, there's no way to have integrity in the way we commend our views without that. And so this is something to really, really,

now I think that's always true, but I think that's especially true right now. In 2025, moving into the 21st century, I would love to be a part of a new era of Christian apologetics in which we, first of all, have more curiosity. But second of all, here's another thing we can consider. Even if it did happen, it doesn't feel like a really penetrating investigation into the historical circumstances is what's going to like, oh, make it click and be like, oh, it did happen. I looked under the last rock of history and I found the resurrection. Like, it doesn't seem like God intended for that to be the way if. That's right. This is clearly some sort of, this is a revelation. I just find it so interesting the way that some of these apologists go so hard on trying to prove

it. So do you really think that that's going to be the, that's going to be the thing that changes somebody's mind? Yeah. I mean, it's not like it's what Jesus was doing. No, barely I say unto you, premise one. Yeah, he wasn't doing apologetics. It doesn't work like that. It's, it's clearly like not what it's all about. Right. And apologetics can only take you so far. Apologetics only can take you so far. I think that's roughly something what Alex said there that I think is that seems right to. me, those of us who do apologetics should be the first to acknowledge this. To the extent that we ever give the impression that arguments can get someone to faith or that arguments completely cement

you into certainty or something like this, we're doing a disservice to people. Generally speaking, I think we can and should acknowledge that arguments are not what causes someone to believe. Sometimes arguments, the thing is we can go too far with that, because arguments sometimes really help people. They can have a role. But usually other factors like social, emotional, psychological factors are very part of the process for whatever we choose to believe. You know, again, this is not just true about Christian apologetics. This is true for every worldview, and it's true for those who reject faith as well. So, you know, secular people shouldn't act as though they've risen above this human dynamic. But I think apologists will do well to sort of put out,

you know, you think of it like this. At the same time, you're saying, here's my argument. And at the same time, let me tell you the modest purpose for which I give this argument. So in my approach, and I know there's different views among Christians about this, but I think most of us can recognize it's possible to over-rely on arguments and just have too much dogmatic certainty. That's just not human. It's not realistic. You know? everybody has doubts and struggles and so forth. Sometimes Christian apologists, we don't even acknowledge how much doubt is a part of Christian experience like it was for the disciples, not just Thomas.

In my approach, arguments generally are useful to show that a belief is rational, even if they don't decisively prove it, prove it, they can show it's plausible, maybe even probable at times. Maybe they can even get close to certainty in particular situations, but they're not going to get you all the way into the kind of existential commitment of faith. And often arguments are useful defensively to undercut an overconfident critique against us, because that same lack of curiosity can come against us at times. But the arguments aren't usually why we believe. So, for example, if somebody says, oh, you believe in God, you know, there's no proof for that. You might as well

believe in Santa Claus. We can give arguments to respond to this overstatement. And we can, you know, the contingency argument and the fine-tuning argument. You go to those two arguments and you can say, no, look, theism is rational and the contempt for theism as though it's got nothing behind it is not warranted. But then we can also make clear, I don't believe in God because of the fine-tuning and contingency arguments. There's a lot more pieces that are involved in something like personal faith. Now, I will say that those arguments help me. They've helped me many times. I find them nourishing. I find them kind of fun, you know. I do think they are. really suggestive, but they don't get you into the existential commitment of faith.

The reason I believe is a complicated host of different reasons, some of which I don't even understand, and all of which are deeply personal. An apologists should just put this out there and just recognize this is a human dynamic and do apologetics in light of this human dynamic. At least that's how it seems to me. Sorin Kirkgaard famously taught that the only access we have to truth is in a way that involves personal, existential relation because we are finite temporal subjects. And that is how I experience faith. I would say faith is more like falling in love than being convinced by an argument. You know, when you fall in love, that's not an irrational experience. You could give an argument for that

experience and say, you know, here's an argument to show you that I love this person, but the argument doesn't produce the experience. And apologetics should be done with that in mind. And we can just acknowledge our experiences inevitably affect us, you know, Just like if you're arguing for democracy, to come back to this metaphor, you can admit, you know, look, I've grown up in a democracy. I've had a great experience living in a democracy that surely influences me. And I admit that. Now here's my arguments. You know, here's the third thing we can learn from this discussion. The level of scrutiny they apply to criticize Mormonism. If they would just for a moment turn that level of scrutiny on their own story, you'd be like, guys, come on. Do you see what you're doing? Or like, and if you, if you had been born in a Muslim country and you were of the Muslim faith and you, and you didn't believe that Jesus actually raised from the dead, what would your, what would your Muslim apologetic about the resurrection be? Like, do you really think these arguments are as strong or is it just you need them to be true? Yeah. It's so foundational to who you are, you need this to be true. It is true that Christians are sometimes inconsistent because we argue against another religion more strictly than we argue against our own.

Now, again, in fairness, I think this can work against Christians as well. Sometimes a secular perspective can be inconsistent because it's arguing against Christianity with greater strictness than it argues against certain beliefs that it might even try to retain from Christianity. And I'll come back to that talking about human equality and individual human rights in just a moment, make a case for that. But all of us can fall into this. We need to be mindful of this.

I'm actually going to try to learn more about Mormonism. This year, Rhett and Alex were talking a lot about Mormonism, and I was thinking, you know, I've gotten kind of pulled into apologetics, not really the main thing I set out to do with YouTube, but I kind of enjoy it. It's, I, it's, and if you do it in the way, you can actually hopefully build friends along the way, but I realized, you know, it actually is a fair point that I'm pretty ignorant about Mormonism. And so I'm going to do a dialogue with a Mormon, not really about, I don't want to do a dialogue about something I'm ignorant about, so we're going to just talk about the Trinity, because I can do that. But the point is I want to start learning more, because I think

it's a fair concern that you need to be able to do these kind of comparative evaluations of evaluating different religions consistently. But I would also say that it's perfectly fair to think that ultimately, even when you're being equally strict, the arguments for the resurrection of Jesus are superior to arguments for the truth of another religion, just like an agnostic can say, my arguments for agnosticism, my reasons for holding to that, are superior. They rise above other religious claims. I'll return to that in a moment with my question for Rhett. But first, let's talk about evolution. I didn't really buy into the progressive creationism thing, but I was so sure the evolution didn't happen. I was like, when you're raised in the Christian faith

and the only exposure to the idea of evolution you've ever had has come. through the filter of a Christian scientist telling you why it's not legitimate. You know, somebody comes into your church and they're like the evolution expert and they're like, they make it seem so impossible that you walk out of that with the full affirmation of the idea that evolution definitely didn't happen. And it's a horrible explanation. It will be debunked by the scientists themselves within our lifetime. Like, that's the kind of stuff that we told ourselves, right?

Right. And we firmly believed it. This issue of evolution played a key role in Rett's deconstruction. He talks a lot about this. This was a great deal of the time of their discussion. Go watch their whole discussion. I'll put a link in the video description. It's fascinating. And I think this is an area that Christians need to really work at. I want us to understand, and I'm speaking to Christians here, please hear me. I really believe this. I know a lot of you disagree with me. But just please consider this. I want us to feel the psychological and social effects that it has when we make the issue of evolution a kind of

Christianity versus unbelief issue. And that happens a lot within evangelical culture. This was the seismic shift. And I think a lot of people that I tell this story to are like, what do you mean? But there's all these Christians that believe in evolution. Like I can't believe that this was so significant for you. But I think the reason it was is because at that point, I realized how wrong I could be about something so fundamental. Yeah. And I never, ever considered that I might be wrong about something so fundamental. And then not only was I wrong, but all of these Christian apologists who were so sure about their critiques of evolution,

they had missed the boat so significantly on this that suddenly I was like, can I, can I trust anything else they've got to say about this? So that was the first big domino. Yeah. It's significant. Like you say, I mean, you might think,

well, there are Christians who believe in evolution, but it depends which way you come at it. I mean, if you're somebody who's like a scientifically minded person who comes to faith in Jesus, you're not going to abandon evolution, but you might think,

okay, I can make this all work. But if you've come from the background you've come from, It's like It's like going up to your wife and saying, you know, I just think maybe we should I just think maybe we should like live in several houses or something. Some people do that.

Some married couples, they sort of, they live apart. It's like, yeah, but what it represents to move from where we are now and the way we were living to having this kind of question or this kind of desire indicates a direction of thought. Yeah. Even though I get called a liberal for these kinds of issues, which is not fair that, you know, historically, as both Rhett and Alex talk about,

the historic Christian posture wasn't like that, that only the liberals embrace something like evolution. But even though I sometimes feel these reactions against me, I just am going to keep urging triage on this issue of how God created. I do think there's some parameters to that. Nonetheless, I think a lack of triaging this issue, which is recognizing not everything hangs or falls on this one question of evolution, causes many people to stumble in their faith. Now, I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to accept evolution or have any one particular opinion about it. You know, I've been thinking about this issue for about 22 years now.

I've been deep dive studying it. It's maybe one of my, it's actually more so than Protestantism or anything else. This has been the thing in my own journey that I've thought about the most. And I've written on it and thought about it and so forth. And it's complicated. You know, for all these years, I'm like, man, this is really, there's so many questions I don't know the answer to in terms of these. fine-grained discussions between the intelligent design folks and the evolutionary creationist

folks and so on and so forth. I'm not saying you have to have an opinion. I'm saying let's not hang Christianity on this issue. Let's have the debate rumble forward, but recognize, you know, this is not a reason to accept or reject Christianity as such, and let's have more humility in the discussion. If I may say, if you trust me enough to receive this, to think about this, my Christian audience to say, there is real damage that happens when Christians speak with arrogance and unwarranted confidence outside of their expertise. And they just repeat something that maybe they haven't studied. And maybe an appeal I can make is to say, let's just go back to St. Augustine and read what his mentality was about science, faith issues. I know we have

evangelicals, we have our guard up in these conversations, but we trust Augustine. So he's someone you might be able to learn from. I have a creation playlist you could work through, I'll put up on the screen, some examples of these kinds of videos that may be of interest, because I talk a lot about Augustine, how his approach can help us on the science, faith conversations today. I also just more recently put up this video on the Galileo affair, which may be of interest. And a lot of this comes out of my book on Augustine, which may be helpful to some if they want to look into this more. but just saying this whole area, we need to be careful. We can really damage people when we're not careful, something we've got to keep working at. Let me finish by articulating the question that

watching this video left me with. It's less of a, I guess it's less of a question for, Rhett, and more just the question that watching this sort of leaves me with. And that is, what do you do if you submit yourself to this open-minded pursuit of truth as best you can? You know, you take this criticism, that sometimes we can be under curious and too dogmatic, all the other things we've talked about here. You take that fully, you incorporate that criticism fully. And you say, okay, yeah, I want to seek the truth. That's how I feel. I swear, I want to seek the truth. You know, if I ever start thinking that things are different, if my beliefs ever change, I will be honest. Okay. One thing I'm never going to do is be a liar. I can promise you that.

So what do you do if you incorporate this concern? You're open-mindedly considering the alternatives and you're looking at the truth, but you ultimately just think, yeah, I still think Christianity is true. Because the conversation that Rhett and Alex were having gives the impression at times that the result of an open-mindedness will be a loss of Christian commitment. That's what Rett experienced, but my experience has been the opposite. I went through deconstruction to the best of my conscious awareness, seeking the truth, wanting to follow the truth and nothing but the truth. And I still find Jesus compelling. This is where, so, you know, after they talked through evolution, they talk about Jesus and the resurrection.

Again, watch their whole discussion. It was really interesting. And that's where I would get off the train, so to speak, with Rett's thought process, because I think Jesus and the story of his resurrection is so compelling. And there's more to work through with that than can be done in this video. but suffice to say, I think you can leave off the fundamentalist mindset about Genesis 1 through 11. Those chapters were never intended to function like a modern science book, even though they are telling us true history, I think, in their own way. But retain the core beliefs of Christianity

because they make so much sense. I would summarize it as simply as to say the idea of God explains so much about the world and the idea of, not the idea of, and the life of Jesus and a Christian account of who Jesus was explains so much about the human story and human history. The very, you know, we get stuck on these debates about creation versus evolution, but the very category of createdness explains so much, both intellectually and existentially. So while in this video, I guess I'm not making an argument right now. I'm making, I'm sort of stating where I'm left with at the end of this thought process, and there's more.

I mean, you can read my books on my book, why God makes sense in the world that doesn't, if you really want my case for this. But what I'm just saying now is I think we can receive some of these concerns as totally valid about how Christian apologetics is done. But ultimately, I'm going to keep doing Christian apologetics. I'll just try to do it better. And the reason I want to keep doing it is because I believe Christianity is both true and good, just in the same way that someone who believes in democracy might want to defend that.

Just to name one issue as an example of that to sign off with here. Take the issue. Let's take this phrase from the Declaration of Independence. I'll have Zef and I put on the screen here, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. You could take a whole year to just think through all that's packed into that little phrase. I'll be candid. I am absolutely horrified at the thought of a universe where you don't have the endowing. Because it seems to me if you lose a creator who is endowing, then you lose the inalienable rights.

And I say that because I study history. I know how the ancient world worked. and I worry that a lot of people leave off Christianity naively thinking they can keep certain fruits of Christianity like the idea of in in a inalienable human rights even after they've cut off the root. Now some people think, no, no, no, that's not the fruits of Christianity. Let me show, it's not just me who says this. This is a fascinating passage from Yvall Harari, who writes these awesome books about human evolution and human history and so on and so forth. The book Sapiens, A Brief History of Mankind is fascinating.

Here's what he says. today most legal systems are based on a belief in human rights, but human rights are a fiction, just like God and heaven. In reality, humans have no rights, just as chimps or wolves have no rights. Cut open a human and you won't find there any rights. The only place where human rights exist is in the stories we invent and tell one another. Human rights may be a very attractive story, but it is only a story. Now, all of us can feel what's at stake when you say that if you really think through, if you study history and you know the ancient world and you know what human beings are capable of and how we treat each other, you know how

valuable this story is and how important it turns out to be whether it is true. And what he's saying there, God, heaven, and human rights. He's saying they're all bundled together. I think he's right. But what if they are more than just a story? What if there literally is a heaven and human rights and God? If so, then that's a story that is worth defending, just like you might want to defend democracy. So I'm going to keep doing Christian apologetics, but I hope, I hope. First of all, I'll say, I'm sorry when I don't do it well. And second of all, I'll say, I hope I do it like Christ himself. Because he actually, at one point they said Jesus didn't do apologetics.

I know what they meant. But actually, he did sort of challenge people to an existential commitment to certain truth claims. and I basically have to take my whole life on, I think he actually was the genuine revelation of the true Creator God. But I say more about that in other videos. Hope these brief reflections are helpful on this. Let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks for watching, everybody.