Unashamed with the Robertson Family - EP 1374 | The Robertsons Present the Number One Greatest Proof Ever of God’s Existence

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

The greatest proof that God is real may be far simpler than most people expect. Zach recalls dismissing his mom’s uncomplicated answer about seeing God in creation, only to hear one of the world’s leading Christian philosophers give nearly the same response the very next day. Al, Christian, and John Luke join him to examine how nature, Scripture, reason, and faith work together to reveal who God is, why blind faith is not biblical faith, and how believers can keep growing beyond shallow social media theology. The guys laugh about Jase promising a 15-minute sermon when he's famously long-winded and come to the realization that announcing only the winner’s first name could leave multiple Mirandas wondering if they're the winner of the 'Unashamed' studio visit giveaway.   In this episode: 1 John; James 1–2; Genesis 1; John 1; Romans 1:20; Hebrews 11; Ecclesiastes 3:11; Psalm 139 Today’s conversation is about Lesson 1 of Theology 101: The Western Theological Tradition. Take the Hillsdale College online course with us at no cost to you. More about Theology 101: Examine the great questions of Western theology from the ancient Hebrews through today. The gift of speech, or reason, given by God to man, enables us to think about God and to worship Him.  This free online course pursues this purpose by examining the nature of God as revealed in the Bible, exploring the great theological questions and controversies of the early Christian church, studying the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and much more.  We invite you to join us and explore the nature of the relationship between God and man, and how a proper understanding of this relationship can lead to a free and happy life. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Announcing the Studio Visit Winner 07:45 Unashamed’s Audience Is Getting Younger 11:29 Jase Promises a 15-Minute Sermon 16:15 The Four Principles Behind Hillsdale College 20:25 The Biggest Questions We Can Ask About God 24:10 Who Shapes What Christians Believe? 30:15 Divine Nature of God Seen in His Creation 35:55 Faith Is Not a Blind Leap 41:10 Longing for Perfection Points Beyond This World 46:38 Proving God Doesn’t Exist Requires Borrowing from Him — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. We are doing our Friday episode with Hillsdale. I don't know if you guys know, Al and fellas, adjacent fellas, Christian. Where are you coming out of, Christian, by the way? You in New Orleans? We're at Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge. John Luke's in studio. Baton Rouge. That red stick. Well, we do get a big announcement. and I don't know if you guys know about our big announcement.

Do you guys know what we have to announce today? We're waiting on the edge of our seats. We're excited about it. What is it? Very exciting. This is big news, guys. Are we supposed to know? You're supposed to know.

Christian actually doesn't know. He doesn't know. He is a bad raise. It's not a pay raise. What it is. Oh, man. I'm out of here. Yeah, you're out.

It's the winner. It's better than the pay raise. We have the winner of our ancient Christian. Christianity course giveaway trip. Oh, the giveaway. We're there, guys. Somebody's going to come down to West Monroe to hang out with us. You guys are going to get to be a part of the podcast, or at least you get to watch

what we're doing. Right in studio, Al, you're looking at the seats that they're going to be sitting in right now. I am. Yeah, they're just empty, just waiting on them. Yep, so our winners, I would just get the first name. Her name is Miranda. And so we're looking forward to meeting you, Miranda, and your guests in the studio. Maddie was a low-budget drum roll.

We should have had something there. That was just kind of anticlimatic. But congratulations, Miranda. Yep. Congratulations. I hope that we don't disappoint you when you're in the studio. You'll get to see how the sausage is made. And I get a little tour of Duck Commander in the process.

And maybe John Luke will make you some of his famous commander coffee. I don't know. John, are you going to throw some free coffee into the mix as well? Just, yeah, of course. So John Luke will make you a pot of coffee. If I'm here, and I don't know, because sometimes if I'm here, I will personally be the tour guide for the Duck Commander tour. I'll offer that.

And if you're listening to this and your name is Miranda and you did not win, we apologize. There's probably more than one Miranda that listens to this. Odds are. That's what I'm assuming. Yeah, I didn't get the last name. If your name is Miranda, here's what you need. Zach, you have just disappointed like 10 Mirandas around the country. I didn't even think about that.

If you're... Miranda has heard from this. Oh, okay. all you other Miranda's, we're so sorry. If you have not heard, then you're not the right. If your name is Miranda, comment on this video. Yeah, if your name is Miranda, comment. We know how we'd like to hear from you.

Yeah. I'm imagining Miranda's on a run and she stops in her tracks because she's so excited and she realizes that she's not the Miranda. Yeah, wrong Miranda. It's not you, Miranda. It's the Miranda that got the email. So if your name is Miranda and you got the email, you're coming to Westman row.

And here's the good news, though. We're entering into a new course, Theology 101, which I have to say, I have thoroughly enjoyed the first two lectures. I don't know what you thought, man, this is like right in line with kind of what we've been teaching on, On the Shane. Well, what's amazing, Zach, and I said this before, you, like a lot of what we're studying, I've taught before, you know, just through the years as a pastor. but I always learned stuff from these guys at Hillsdale,

and I learned a lot of these first two, so I'm super excited to get into it. And we're doing another giveaway for this. Is that what I understand? Yeah, another giveaway, yeah. So we're going to pick one listener like Miranda, and maybe it's another Miranda will win. I don't know that one listener is going to come down to Westminster

or are going to get to watch a live recording of Unashane, and we're going to pay for travel and lodging for you and a gas up to $1,000 each. All you've got to do is take the theology one-on-one course with us. You've got to finish all. all the quizzes. You have to take the quizzes and pass them. And you've got to send us your certificate of completion. And so you can sign up to take the courses for free. These are free courses, by the way. I know we, I've got away from telling people that. These are free courses. They're very good, very educational. This is kind of the basis of what you need if you're going

to understand, you know, how we arrived here in this particular culture moment in the, in the West. You could take them for free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And then you can upload your certificate at watchunashamed.com. And then you'll be entered in for the drawing. And hopefully you will get to win and get some since time with us down here. John Luke has already volunteered that he will make a handcrafted, a curated pot of coffee. He will select the beans himself. He will roast the beans himself.

This is going to be a very special coffee that will coincide with this experience. And so John, look, I want to thank you for doing that. I just came up with all. He's nodding his hand. For those of you listening, he's notting his head. That's a head nod of yes, of course I will.

Do you roast your own coffee too? Yeah, I used to. I don't roast it now. Okay, so let's scratch the roasting part. He will not hand-roast their coffee, but he will have it roasted

at a particular curated roaster of his choice. I do curate the roast. He does curate the roast. Yes. So maybe this will, be called the theology 101

curation. It will be curated with care and love and with the authority of scripture behind it. I feel like if

you're definitely doing something associated with a college, the way college kids are now with their coffee, that you know,

you definitely got to have coffee featured as part of it. Yeah, we have to. Hillsdale Power. Yeah, we do an ashamed blend.

I mean, I feel like you should do that just for the sheer fact that you, you just got basically a free commercial for your coffee

and all you have to do is make a pot of coffee. Uh-huh. that's a good deal. And we have it all set up here, there's a machine. We have a full coffee shop. Yeah,

it's really nice. And that's John Luke's influence. Zach, a couple of days ago, we had the Faith Family Freedom event that Jason Missy host. And so I met a lot of people,

hundreds of the thousands that came. I got to meet, both at Weiss Ferry Road and out there. And there were many that were really complimentary of our Hillsdale episodes that are listening. that were here, which was great. And they just wanted me to tell you guys they love it.

They love Hillsdale. They love what we're doing. One particular guy was so disappointed because somehow he didn't get his certificate to us. He already didn't get it or something until the day after the thing. And so he was kind of bemoaning that to me. And I was like, well, maybe we'll do another one. So now you got a chance. I'm sorry, I forgot who you were.

Do you remember his name? I don't, but I just remember him telling me. Because when we actually did the drawing, I actually drew out a guy who came in at the last minute and then I looked at the timestamp on it and I was like, oh no, he came in late. So it was probably that guy. Oh, well, that's the worst for him.

I mean, I actually just made that. I actually just made that up. He's kidding. He's kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Because I can't remember. I was about to say, have he read the parable of the wages?

I mean, you just, that's anti-bibble. That's an excellent boy. Yeah. The last hour. is just that's the first. Zach drew out Frank and was like, I can't have a bit too.

I think Frank's gone. I think he left. I mean, I haven't looked at the comments in a while, though, just out of sheer, I've been too busy,

but yeah, I think that's not, or maybe that's not true. I really haven't. I really haven't looked in probably at least a month. Oh, proud of you.

Maybe Frank came on board. You know what I mean? Maybe Frank came on. Maybe he did. Maybe he's just liking the videos now. Yeah. He just likes them. There's a few.

There's one guy. Well, I'm not going to say that story. never mind um but there was uh there's a couple of couple of young guys from bro bridge um that listen and it was so good to hear that they had that strong cajian accents you know but just excited love it um yeah enthusiasm is really really good so we're we're very appreciative that you guys are taking this journey with us because i mean it's more work for you just like it is for us but it's rewarding anytime you take time and invest it into something that makes you better spiritually

and helps your walk with Christ, I think it's worth it. Well, it's interesting, I think that John Luke and Christian have added so much to the podcast. Jason and I were talking about this. You know, Jason, everywhere I go now, I show up.

And he said, the audience, everyone that says they listen to a podcast now is like sub 35. So we actually have a really young audience. And I think maybe y'all have contributed to opening up doors into the younger group. We don't have, it's a young audience now. So that's kind of interesting.

I've had two campers. I camp, so probably 17 years old, who say they watch every episode. Yeah. Which is cool. And I had a lot of people tell me. Yeah, I've met a lot of people in public that watch it. Yeah, there's a lot of people have told me that, you know, they have a church home and their community, but that this is like their primary Bible study is what they're getting through, you know,

Reger Unashamed and Hillsdale, which, I mean, so all of that really encouraged me, because I told everybody that told me that I was like, it helps because like, you know, we're grinding here. We're doing five podcasts a week and for us, for Zach and I. And so it's like,

you know, you're just speaking into the camera and doing your work and kind of having your head down. So you're not really sure what's landing. So to hear those comments and hear what it's doing for folks is, it encourages it. It lifted me up. So I was,

well, these are great. These episodes at Hillsdale are my favorite, mainly just because, I mean, I get to talk and it's fun to, like, share your own thoughts.

And so, I enjoy it. I enjoy getting like share what I'm thinking. Al, you were busting me on the last episode. He said this is what they're, what you mean is that. What you mean is that Jay's just not on these podcasts. I didn't say that.

I did not say that. But they accuse me of surfing the internet. That's what they're, what they've been saying about me is that like I surf the internet while Jace is talking. But I'm like, this is because I'm not saying. But I'm like, it's hard. Like, you have to force your way in the conversation.

I thought you stopped reading the comments. No, no, no, no. This is my house, excusing me. Yeah. Well, not the eye. I thought you were just like playing, you know, subway surfer. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's like he's there.

And I will say he snaps back in, but I watch him up there when Jason is droning on one of his rabbit hole. And I'm thinking, what is that? Is he listening? Because I know he's not listening to this. I'm listening because I'm an active listener. I can't help it. But Zach, I'm one.

watching. I'm looking up there and I was like, what is he doing? Because there's no way he's listening. And then I'm trying to listen to Jason at the same time. Sometimes I do drift off. I often. Yeah, I do drift off. Well, look, we know we know Jace is definitely not listening to us because you make a whole point is Zach will make this brilliant, you know, thought. And he'll say, yeah, that's good. The point I was trying to make was when somebody says that. Yeah, the point I was trying to make. Yeah, the point I was trying to make. I mean, yeah, yeah, that's good, Zach. But, yeah, yeah, that's good, Zach. But, but But the point out, but we're getting back to now what we're really talking about this.

Thank you for your little interruption. Hey, wait, I've got, I've got a story about Jace from last week that this is a, this is a compliment to it, but it's not going to sound like a compliment. I love it already. Me too. So we had sportsmen's camp last week. So it was all hunting and fishing at Campioka. And Jase was speaking on Friday. So he drove eight hours from Nashville to do this speaking at 7 o'clock.

This is the last thing. All the parents are there. Kids are there. It's the last night. Like, Jace is like the headline speaker, so he's wrapping up the night. So he gets up that morning.

You just explain why it came. Yeah. So he gets up that morning. He drives from Nashville. And for free. He did it for free. We didn't even pay him. And he made sure we knew that.

And so he drove in for Nashville. And, I mean, got there, like didn't even go home, got right to camp. So he walks up on stage at seven from this drive. And we're standing backstage before he goes out.

And he says, he's all right he said be quick with your intro he's like man I'm just exhausted so I'm I'm gonna be pretty fast I was like all right so how much time do I have I said well we got an hour schedule for you just you know but you'll do pictures and sign after too so just however long you want to go you know all right I'll be about 15 minutes and get it come get me about 15 minutes I said he can't clear his throat and 15 that's I said you can even say say his name of 15 what was the damage what was the damage job how long 35 minutes which was Wasn't even that bad?

That's a record for him. 35 minutes. And he was the shortest of Psy and Willie, who both went about an hour. I'm not surprised by that. 35 minutes is fine. An hour's a little. I mean, I did preach one time for 53 minutes. Zach, how did you do it?

I mean, now, I've talked that long before, but it's like it was set aside for, it's teaching, like where you had, you know, I'm going to be teaching three hours, but, you know, over the course of a morning. but 53 minutes is a lot for a sermon. It's a long time, but you think it's like, I mean, like, I preached, in my opinion, one of the best sermons I've ever preached was about two weeks ago, if I might say so myself. Well, did you leave immediately so no one would compliment you as your mentor? No, I stood up there waiting for the compliments.

And I actually invited no. But I thought it was like, I thought it was great. Like sometimes you hit them, you're like, that didn't land. This one I knew landed. I went back and listened to it because I wanted a friend to listen. to it on our way back from Alabama this past week. And it was 37 minutes, which was short for our church. And I will say that listening back to myself, which I never do, I thought, I thought

this should have been wrapped up at about 29 minutes. Like, I could have landed the plane right there, sub 30. But I squeaked out that extra eight minutes and it was just unneeded. It's hard to land the plane sometime. You're great at it now. It's hard for me to land the plane. You know, and it's interesting because last week I was preaching Sunday because we had this event. And so like Jace, I had a lot going on and really should not have agreed to do it.

But because we were having so many people coming and I knew they would be there with an expectation of meeting as many of us as possible, I just wanted to go all out and do it. But it was interesting because we were in a transition. We had just finished first John because we've been studying that on regular unashamed. and we did I try to combine some of that with our church because it helps me on the study and so we had finished so I had the option of either kind of wrapping that up or getting into something new because we're in between and so I went at it I didn't have a lot of time and I went at it kind of double-minded because I had this one thought so I basically wrote out of what would be a sermon to wrap up first time but then I thought man we got all these visitors are going to be here

it's the 250th anniversary of America. We've been talking about freedom and James 1 and 2, and so then I did a whole other sermon. So here I am with the limited time, wrote two sermons, tried to combine them into one. That's never a good idea. And so landed on the freedom aspect. And I have to say, you know, I'm kind of like you, Zach.

It's hard, it's like your kids, you know, it's hard to say, you know, in this moment, who's the best. but it landed really, really well, and it flowed well, but it probably shouldn't have because it just, this is the Holy Spirit thing because I didn't at all get to do the normal prep routine that I would normally do for a sermon, but it did, it did land. And Jason and Missy came in raving about it yesterday,

which says a lot because they don't usually rave a lot about your stuff. And so, I don't know, I may need to go back and listen to it. I don't, I'm kind of like you say, it's hard for me to do that, you know, just to hear yourself because you tend to hear the flaws. Yeah, the flow went pretty good. And it really kind of fit in a little bit into what we're talking about because on the first lecture, Dr. Arn, who is the president of Hillsdale, and apparently a teacher there, I don't know that I really picked that up in other things he's done, that he actually teaches courses there, but he does because he mentioned that several times in this lecture. But he kind of laid out the principles of Hillsdale.

and I don't know that I had heard this information before. Do you all remember that, him talking about like the four pillars of the university? I don't know. I thought this is very clear. And I think it, and I love that it coincided with the course on, like, theology 101, because it really set kind of the foundation for the university is this isn't explicitly Christian university. Now, not everybody, they don't have a statement of faith. You have to sign, as he mentioned in the lecture.

You don't have to, but you do have to at least understand. and respect that this is the premise that they're operating out of, which I appreciated, because I think that what they built is interestingly. Most of the student body has been Christian over the years, although they have different faiths as well. But this is the case they're making, which begins kind of with that Amalgod day, which we get into in the second lecture. But the man's made the image of God.

Yeah, one of those pillars that was Sybil. religious freedom, which is why I think we enjoyed so much the whole colonial series we did with the founding of America, because they did such a nice job with that, and I learned a lot about, I didn't realize that basically the original states were settled by different religious sex. I mean, some member Catholic words of Maryland, and I didn't know that particularly. I knew the Quakers that were in Pennsylvania. And so they kind of mirrored that mindset of that as the founding of the college. Because it was 1844 when Hillsdale was founded.

So, I mean, it was founded pretty soon after the country was founded. I mean, we're talking pre-Civil War. So I did think that was an interesting tenant. And since I was there with this idea that James brought out about the perfect law that brings freedom and the royal law that brings freedom. His whole concept was, you can have. freedom and we encourage freedom on what that's going to look like but then what happens you know when we make an allegiance to something higher and so and i love that too about the university because the other pillars just for those of you listening higher learning was the first concept precept and example

in other words why would we want to know about god civil and religious freedom and the moral character and to me that's it's so in line with the bible because it all comes down to what we're we believe, why we believe it, and then how does that affect us? Like, what do we look like if this is what we're going to do? And so, I don't know, it just made me feel even better and stronger about why we're doing this with Hillsdale. They're track it. And then he also said that, what do you say, half the courses, I mean, half the students take all these courses, including theology, which is really, I mean, you don't see that very often. Right. University said. I thought is interesting. One of the things he brings out at the beginning of the course is really setting a

foundation for theology and probably the two characters that he appeals to the most are, well, one was obviously Aristotle. We've talked a lot about Aristotle, who was a pagan. But Aristotle, they contribute a lot to kind of the Christian thought. And the second person that he mentioned was a Catholic theologian named Thomas Aquinas, and he'd mentioned a couple of his pivotal works, and just talked about this idea of, I don't know if you use the term, but kind of like natural theology, which I've been a big fan of. Yeah, I think it has its limitations, but natural theology meaning that there's a, like, that we can look at nature and we can actually know that God is there from what has been made.

And that was, you know, the whole premise of the university is, is that, well, one, what is knowable about God? And, you know, I, I struggled with that question for a number of years. John, like you mentioned when I was doing the apologetic stuff back in the day that you really enjoyed listening to some of that. And I know you've kind of thought through some of that as well. But those are the big questions of life. It's like, like, okay, one, is there a God?

Two, if there is a God, then how could we ever know? and what could be known about this, God. These are, like, to me, fundamental questions about reality, which is why it's always kind of annoyed me. I hate going into, like, conversations that are relationships where that's totally awful of it. Like, those big questions. And I go, oh, we don't talk about that because I'm like,

what else is it to talk about? I mean, these are kind of the most important things that we could talk about. I don't know. Have y'all, how, I know John, you have, but anybody else kind of struggled with some of these big fundamental questions about reality, about who God is, what's knowable. I thought that high higher learning whole lesson in what Dr. R. was talking about was so good.

It was something I've been thinking about. And when I was teaching the counselors this summer at camp about kind of like different religions, not different religions, different groups of Christianity and also other religions and talking about how we all in our, we'll call it low theology, our low, just practical everyday life, like live kind of very similar life for the most part. Like we, no matter what church you go to, really no matter what faith you kind of have, like if you live in America and you are five to ten years old, like you're experiencing like kind of a similar life. So I talk about that with the campers, with the counselors for the campers of like, just because

they might have like a different background than you, don't think you like you have to like kind of like change your thinking about what you're telling them or what you're talking to them about because like they're living practically speaking basically the same life as you know as each other. And said, but when you go higher into those. into the, into higher theology or higher learning or higher authority or higher leadership or whatever you want to call it, that's where like our lives as people start to like diverge, you know. And specifically, um, on the higher learning aspect, like we as southern evangelicals, like Baptist or, um, you know, like Pentecostals or even like Presbyterian, like,

the majority of people who live in the heartland and are Christians, like we don't have a, our highest authority of scripture. And we don't have like a head of the church who is like dictating these like high theology things. And for the staff, I did this whole like kind of analogy thing as pertains to the campers of these like triangles. And so if you're listening or if you're watching because I'm not drawing it out, like imagine three triangles. And you've got in the middle, in the left side triangle, you've got Catholicism. So at the top, you've got the Pope at the top of the triangle. The bottom, you got just your everyday people live in life, go to kind of like, go to church, you know, every once in a while. And then their

hierarchy would go down. And their hierarchy goes down and goes up. Then you've got something like LDS, Latter-A Saints, and like they've got the top of the hierarchy, which is like the president and the prophet. And then you go down, you know, you go down your list and you, you know, you go down your list and you got your bottom of the triangle, this is your everyday people. And then you've got us, evangelicals, and we also have a triangle. But we don't have like a top.

Like, the reason I was telling us to the counselors is that at the bottom of the triangle at the base, we're all about the same, but as we go up, we get kind of different, we all go to our peaks. And so I'm thinking, like, what is like the top of our triangle, like who's kind of like leading us as evangelical?

and it's the higher level theologians. Like there's not one guy up there who's like, who's every decision on God or theology and whose opinion like sways the masses. But it's these like, it's the people interpreting scripture and interpreting these highological concepts. And going all the way back to the beginning, it's Thomas Aquinas, it's Augustine, it's C.S. Lewis. In modern times, it's like Wayne Grudom.

or these guys writing like systematic theology textbooks. Like the top of our triangle, the people that are kind of like leading our faith are the people writing books that no one's ever heard of that like the pastors and the speakers and the higher learning professors are reading and teaching and then teaching and reading us. That's a good observation.

Which is I think why like this is so important and kind of what Dr. Arne was talking about and this is like why this high theology is important and for us to know because it's, We think, like, the Bible is the highest authority, and it is, but we're actually, for the most people, are actually practically living out the Bible what we're learning from these other people who are writing books, interpreting it. No, I think that's an excellent observation. I hadn't never really thought about it like that. But, Zach, when you and I were being mentored by men like Bill Smith, who, you know, was one who taught us, I would, for my little small circle here, even though Bill didn't do a lot of writing, he had that mind. Right.

And it's interestingly, because the things he told me that I will never forget are just what you said. He said, never stop studying. You know, never stop studying the scripture. Never let it breathe into you constantly because as you get older and mature, you're going to see and understand things you didn't understand. understand before. In other words, he was challenging me to always reach up. And then that's what he told me. He said, when you're teaching the people always have them reaching up. You know, don't try to make it where they go down for this. You want to go up. You kept using that word up. And I have to admit, when he was telling me that at the time, I didn't really understand what he was talking about. I was like, I didn't get it. But through the years, as I've

continued into my own theological study, I understand exactly what I was talking about. Because there's always people that come in new and come in because it you know and then they've got to then grow and figure this out because they've never thought about how this affects our life right a lot of times to their life is a wreck be sure and sign up and take the course with us for free at unashamed for hillsdale.com i think the teaching down or the learning down is to me is everyone on like ticot or instagram or social media who are like these guys who are like oh i'm going to be a teacher and they started like putting out these clips and they're actually not they don't have the foundational knowledge they're not actually interpreting it themselves they're just repeating stuff and so

then you've got this whole bottom level of the pyramid trying to teach each other and things are just like getting wacky we're not like trying to go up to this higher well i i went to a small group one time here and a part of our church and nobody was really teaching or leading if they just got decided to get together and read the bible which is fine yeah but as i'm sitting there listening to their conversation. It's like, well, this is what it means to me. Well, here's what I think. And they were going, and I was just listening,

I thought, well, you're all wrong about it. You've all missed. And so as one who studies, not that I'm right about everything, but I was like, this is terrible because you're not going to get anywhere here. Right. Unless it's leading you something.

Yeah, I think it's like a, it's a little bit of a tension you hold, right? I mean, more of your Catholic tradition and maybe your Orthodox traditions, is that the church is on the same par with the authority of scripture. And so you'll have the Pope would have this kind of, he would be the top of that pyramid. And I think the Orthodox Church, it's ruled by council,

but it's on par with scripture. What sets Protestants apart is the term Soloscriptoros. We hold scripture as the final authority. But it is a tension because, you know, Like, if I didn't know the history of a text or if I didn't know the context of it or whatever, then I'm greatly limited in my interpretation of that scripture. And so you do, so, yeah, I appeal to authors, like you mentioned Wayne Grudom. I've got this, I'm literally looking at a systematic textbook right there behind that screen.

And the one next to that is by Norm Geisler, who's another author who wrote systematic theology. And I've got like, I've got all those, and I've read all these books and I've learned and hearing different. positions and opinions and you're trying to work your way through it. But I think at the end of the day that the Holy Spirit is the one, I know, he's the one who preserves his church. And so we're kind of like wrestling through that. We're trying to figure out, you know, who is this God? You know, who is he? Is he real?

You know, he mentioned in the lecture about atheists and agnostics and what's the difference from the atheist and agnostic? I don't know. Don't know if there's a God. And atheist is atheist. is there is no God. I believe there is no God. How do we know if there's a God? And that's why he brings in the kind of the Thomas Aquinas. What he was able to really do, and I think it was heavily probably influenced by Aristotle, was to look at the way the world is and that we can actually know something about God literally just by what's been revealed in creation. And that's biblical, too,

by the way. I'm thinking about Romans chapter one that says the invisible attributes of God have been clearly perceived by what has been made, submit or without excuse. So you can actually walk outside and you can look around and you can be like I think there's a God. You could

actually see that in creation and when he was talking about some of the stuff in the text, I mean in the lecture, I thought about this when I was into apologetics. And I may have told this on here before but my mom who was not into apologetics, but she was definitely in the Bible.

Would you say she was into the Bible, Al? Oh, man. She did work. She did a crostic for everything in the Bible. Oh, my gosh. I mean, she's like, I mean, disciples me in the scriptures, like from the early age. And when I got into apologetics,

which is the defense of the Christian faith, which really is what Thomas Aquinas was, Thomas Aquinas was a Christian apologist. just one of the greatest Christian apologist in history. Don't agree with everything he wrote and everything he said, but certainly added a huge just theological undergirding to the Christian faith that we still now appeal to. But anyways,

I was going through this lecture series, and there was an article written by, I think the guy may be actually Catholic, because he teaches at Notre Dame named Alvin Plantinga. And so at the time when I was going through this lecture series, one of the things that they mentioned was that he had written a very famous paper that had been circulating in the apologetics world. And it was called two dozen or so arguments for the existence of God.

So about 24, two dozen or so, 24 arguments. And he'd written these are the arguments of how you can know that God is real and he's there, the God of the Bible. And so I was studying through all of those different arguments. And a lot of them kind of originated in Aquinas and Aristotle, causation arguments, teleological arguments, ontological arguments. And so I go to my mom who's never, she was not into high theology. And I was like, mom, how do you know what's the best argument that you have that God exists? And you know what she told me?

She was living down there in that house that your dad, Willie, down there on the river by Kay and Phil's. She was living there. And she said, I don't know. I just walk outside and I see the river flowing by my house. I hear the birds chirping. I feel the wind blow through the trees and it just kind of makes sense. And when she said that, I don't know why that offended me, but I was like, that's the dumbest thing.

No. I was just like totally dismissive of it. Like, no, that's not, that can't know. Mom, have you read these other arguments? Like that's, that is so unsophistic. and so trivial and so just elementary, there's got to be something greater. And so I kind of

dismissed her, blew her off, and she said, well, that's what it is for me. And I kid you not, the very next day, I was driving in my car out to West Texas, out to Texas, and I saw this this thing pop up on my YouTube or whatever I was listening to at the time, and

it was an interview with that same guy, Dr. Alvin Plank to get from University of Notre Dame, who had written that article, or that whole series on the two dozen or so arguments for the existence of God. And the title was, Alvin Pantiga gives the greatest argument for the existence of God. And I was like, this is what I'm talking about.

This is what I'm looking for. And so I start listening to the episode of this interview. And the guys asking, what's the great? What's the one argument that you know? Like, how do you know? And he literally said something to the effect of, I don't know, I walk outside. I see the river in front of my house, the wind blowing through the trees and the bird's

chirping, that just kind of makes sense. He almost verbatim echoed exactly what my mom said. I was just like, but the point is, is that you can know, one thing that you can know about God is you can know his divine nature by what has been made. And a lot of that was what Thomas Aquinas was getting at with his natural theology. And that's kind of why Dr. Arns kind of sets that as kind of the undergirding of what they're exploring in the university. And it makes perfect sense, too, is that?

Because if you, and you quoted, you mentioned Romans 120 earlier. I mean, Paul said it clearly that that was part of the revelation, which would make sense because we haven't always had scripture. I mean, that has come periodically over a long period of time and then came together much later. So you had a lot of people that all they had were the qualities of what they saw. But in that you still see God, which I thought Dr. Arnd did. a nice job of illustrating that with the idea of animals and their inability to aspire to this higher thing. I mean, they can do a little bit. They can do a little bit of training. You know,

he mentions his dogs and all that. But then we see the, we see it diverge whenever we see a child, then take off and do all these things that an animal can't do. So obviously, there's something different even about us. And we've talked about it so many times, Stevenson, Gary Stevens, used to do it such a great job of showing the vast bigness of God and the creation and looking out at these dwarf stars and all these amazing things that the telescopes show us. But then you can also go to micro level and see organization that you can't even see with your naked eye. And in all that, which God created, how does that happen?

Where does it come from? It's interesting, is that that you said that about your mom? because toward the end, a few years before she crossed over, but she was already showing some signs of her dementia in Alzheimer's, but she still would have moments, you know, and she and your dad took an Alaskan cruise with us. We did a marriage cruise, and they went with us, and it was kind of our gift to her, you know,

because we knew this, she was, we were losing her mind. And we were standing there on the deck one day, and we're looking out, They were just on this ship going by the glaciers and all this beauty in Alaska. And I look over and tears are just rolling down her cheeks, which made me tear up. Because she's such a big influence on my life. And I said, what are you thinking about, Jen? And she said, I'm just thinking about what God created.

And looking at all this beauty just shows me how great he is. And she just gave me one of our little sermons, you know, it was one of the last, like, really lucid, you know, conversations we had. And so, you know, her point was well taken, you know, that you can see the invisible quality in what he made visibly, which is a strength and which is a power, which helps us know. And you were talking about not struggling or struggling with sometimes doubt about that. And I think I always kind of came up in her vein where I just had the same mindset. I don't know it's because of my exposure to the Bible in an early age, even though my parents weren't Christian. because by providence I got to go and hear stories about what we're talking about the next podcast, which are those Old Testament guys in the Covenants.

But I just have always known he's there. And I always knew that I had some role in doing what I'm doing now. I never saw it as playing out the way it did. But I've always known he was going to use me. That's a spiritual gift. I mean, you've got to remember, faith is a spiritual gift. Yeah. So not everybody has the spiritual.

I mean, I have faith. but some people have a spiritual gifting of faith. And I think you and mom just had that, y'all had that spiritual gift. I mean, I had the spiritual gifting of skepticism, which is more of a curse. I mean, I had that curse. I was a skeptic. And so for me, I had to push through this. And that's what I used to bug me.

Like, I needed the higher learning. I did. I needed people who'd wrestled with these ideas and who would get in a room and debate them out fiercely. And I love the way that, you know, Dr. Barnes paint the picture of Hillsdale, like there's, there is a diversity inside this community. I mean, I can tell you right now, even politically, I've talked to people inside the system. There's, there's a very diverse view of thought about things and there's different religions and

different, but man, to me, they get in that room and to be able to throw these ideas out and test them out in battle is I had to have that. This is my personality. There's a lot of people like me that you have, like, well, you've got to like work through these discussions and think these things through because I didn't have that spiritual gifting of faith. But I think that what's key about this whole lecture and what Dr. Arns is doing is he's laying a foundation for theology. And the foundation is a word called epistemology, which is how do I know what I know? How can you know anything? And I think

the Bible would say it this way that you can know what has been, you can know what's been revealed. And one of those is called general revelation that God has revealed his self through nature. That was more kind of the Aquinas contribution. And then he has revealed himself like specifically through scripture. So we can read things about God in scripture. We can read that he had a son named Jesus that incarnated, that the son of God incarnated into a historical figure named Jesus Christ, that he was. was crucified on the cross in a body. He came in a body that he was buried in a tomb, resurrected from the dead. You're not going to know that. You're not going to walk outside and look at the mountains and be like, I think there was a guy named Jesus who existed. But you can know that through the scripture. And so he's just laying the foundation for, how can we know anything about God? And this is our foundation right here. It's revelation that God speaks. He's not silent. And when God speaks and he says something, then we can receive that. And then these are the things we can know about God. And these are the things we can know about God.

but he also makes something a very important distinction. We can't know God exhaustively. I thought that was a great point. There's a whole lot more that we can know. And we'll never get to the end of what's knowable, but we can know about him if that makes sense. Yeah, that's good, Zach. Be sure and sign up to take the course with us for free at unashamed for Hillsdale.com.

So, you know, I thought it was interesting, Zach, that Dr. Arne did the same thing that we did when we were, were studying John at the very beginning with the idea of the logos, which, you know, theology was, you know, the combination of Greek words, right? The God and then the, the word of God, you know, the study of God, which is the Logos idea from John 1. He did the same thing we did. He immediately linked it back to Genesis 1, and that idea that it's the word spoken is what then brings things into existence. But I love the illustration. idea that which I never really thought about about perfection the idea of could there be perfection

and by recognizing imperfection there's the possibility of perfection so it's just like that striving of what if which I thought was really really rich I thought I thought that was a really good way to look at it well I think when you like there was a lot that happened in the last 300 years where I think the church, this way I grew up with this idea of how do we know God, how do we know he exists, how can we know things about him. I was, I just heard that word faith thrown out there. You know what I mean? It was almost, well, you just got to have faith. And I grew up, like, thinking that faith was divorced from reason. Like, I thought those were two separate. I actually thought, if you'd ask me 20 years ago, what's the definition of faith? You don't know how to

that's when you believe something that you have no reason to believe is true. I would have had some type of definition like that. That's the thing you do when you jump out. It's blind. You take the leap of faith. And so the way that that would comfort me is that I would say when I would back up against like an issue in my theology or my understanding of God and it was like, man, this does not seem like it's true.

I would say, well, that's where faith comes in. and the greater the greater like the trust meaning like the when you had no reason to trust but then you trust anyways like that was like the greater the faith it was like like that that was the thing you're proving your your loyalty by the the more of an unreasonable leap that you make then that's actually a greater faith and and that understanding of faith number one is not biblical number two that's what almost destroyed me because I got to the end of that. And I was like, this is complete insanity. Like, what am I doing? It wasn't until I really had a crisis of faith that I started to understand what faith really is. And the Hebrew writer is very

clear in Hebrews 11 that faith is not divorced for reason. It's not, it's not the opposite of reason. Faith is the substance of things that are, the evidence of the things that are hoped for. You know, it's the assurance. It has texture to it. It's knowable. And so that was one of the great contributions of the late Francis Schaefer was he actually wrote this book called Escape from Reason. And he shows historically how we arrived at this is, we divorced faith from reason.

But this has not been the historical position of the church. And Thomas Aquinas and others and the who have gone before us, they've done such a good work, although ironically Francis Schaefer was very hard on Thomas Aquinas, probably unfairly. But these guys that have gone before us, what they've done is they've actually showed that faith and reason actually work together. Faith is not anti-reason. God is knowable, and he has spoken in a way that he speaks in propositional truths such that you can like, it's a proposition, so you can actually look at it and say that, you can test it. Like the Bible is testable. and it actually makes sense.

And if faith is knowable like that, then what that means is that God is noble. And God has revealed himself in a way that he's accessible for us to know him. Yeah, just a quick question before we kind of wrap up here, because he made the point. I thought it was really interesting, but I probably would not be able to expound on it because the higher learning and the higher thinking is not really my strong suit.

But the point he was making about the perfect, about the perfect and the imperfect and how, you know, when you realize the imperfect, it gives you the perspective that something actually could be perfect and correlating that to the idea of a belief in God. I thought that, I think you talked about everyone has a mastery of something. So I thought his correlation to that for proof of that and evidence of God was really interesting, was really interesting. But I never thought about it like that from the standpoint of like, this is a,

like this can be a tenet of how I can believe that there is a God because of that idea of perfect and imperfect. So I didn't know what you guys thought about that. No, that's really good. And I thought the same thing, Christian. And because like you, I mean, some of this, I had to like, I had to rewind and listen to that again. I did a lot of rewinding. When he read the first sentence from Thomas Aquinas's book, I was like, yeah, and then he started talking about queries. I was like, yeah, I don't know if this book is for me. But I want to, I love the idea of it. But when he, he read the, the first sentence of Thomas Aquinas' book, I was like, yeah, you lost me at the first sentence. Well, even when he called it, the summa contra and then what looked like to me, Gentiles,

he said Gentiles. And I was like, all right, I know now, this is going to be, we are reaching high. I thought about you, Christian. I said, you're not here to fist bump, but that was a fist bump moment. You know, at the same one. Well, I mean, Aquinas was not easy to read. He's not easy to read. in modern tongue, but, uh, but his contribution is important. And what he was getting at is, uh,

there's actually a framework called the ontological argument for God's existence. And, and that's a, it's kind of like in that vein that if you can imagine this maximally good, powerful being that he must exist. And, um,

it is, it's, that was one that for me, it was the hardest, like, maybe argument to get my mind around. But, um,

C.S. Lewis wrote about this. I think in mere Christianity, um, he talks about how, how that we have, we don't have longings for things that don't exist. And so, like, I think he uses the example of like a fish, you know, like a fish longs to live in water because water exists.

And, and we, so we have the, like, if there's a longing for something, then that thing must exist. And so if we have a longing for perfection, then there must be some perfection that exists. And so you can back into God's existence this way by looking at that longing that we have. Lewis says something to the effect of that if you find yourself longing for more than this world can provide, then you should consider that you perhaps are made for another world. So that God has put eternity in the hearts of men, ecclesiasiasis, he's 311.

So there's that longing for eternity. What does mean? That means eternity must exist. And it's a very simple argument, but we've got to back into it. And another one that's been helpful for me is, and I got this from Schaefer and another guy, named Van Til. But they would talk about like the presupposition and how when they talk about like how the field of faith was divided, the field of knowledge was divided in an upper story and a lower story. Francis Schaefer talked about this and he pictured like this house, a two-story house.

And in the upper story, you have things like faith and your values and these are like private truths that are personal to me. They're true for me, but they're not true for everybody. And then in the bottom story, you have things like mathematical, mathematical facts, scientific equations. These are universally true for everybody. And the point that Schaefer makes is that this is not how the world is always operated in this two-story dichotomy. And so one of the points he makes is, and this has been so helpful for me, is that think about a thought like your thoughts, your thought life. Like, what is that? Right. Like, what is my human will? Right. And so, So if I start thinking about that, one of the things I realize that there's no God,

then everything that exists is just material. And all that exists is matter. Just chemical events, just physical reactions, everything is chemistry, everything is physics. There's no like freedom of the will or thought. And in that world, think about this, if I come to you and say, I have determined that there is no God, I figured it out. Well, I had to reach up into God's world to use his stuff, which is be figuring stuff out, free will, thought, bring it back down into my world to prove that this world doesn't exist. It's almost like saying, I've determined that all things are determined by physics.

But even think about that statement. If I've determined that all things are determined by physics, and what about the thing that I just determined that all things are determined by physics? That was determined by me. See, I'm borrowing from the spiritual world. I'm borrowing from what is God's, and then I'm trying to bring it back down to this naturalistic framework to prove that the spiritual framework isn't there.

And I think that that's what Psalm 139 is getting at, is that you can't hide from God. Like, you can try to prove he doesn't, he's not there, you can try to prove he doesn't exist. But in order to do so, you have to borrow from what is his. You cannot hide from him. And so as we end here, I think that's the foundation of what Dr. Arn, aren't just bringing in here for Theology 101 is that that we can actually know,

we can actually know God by what he, by what has been revealed. And there's not really a place that you can escape him. Yeah. And he did mention that. And that's why their core curriculum about fundamental knowledge includes all the things you mentioned from Schaefer alongside theology. You have to have them both.

And that was his point. We're out of time. We'll dive in some really rich stuff on the next podcast, which begins to shape some of this idea and Western civilization as well. Sign up, take the course with us for free at Unashamedforhillsdale.com, and we'll see you next time on this podcast. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up.

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