Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1399 | Zach Admits His Crisis of Faith—and the Terrifying Question that Crushed Him

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Zach opens up about the crisis of faith that left him questioning whether Christianity was true at all, including the terrifying question that shook him to his core. His awakening to the role of reason in faith leads the guys to put the modern “my truth” mindset to the test and challenge what happens when personal belief becomes more powerful than reality. Al sets the record straight in a decades-old Robertson brotherly squabble about the summer 7-year-old Al was put in charge of his younger brothers while Willie recovered from a serious injury.  In this episode: Romans 1, verse 20; Mark 8, verses 22–26; Job 42, verses 2–6; John 9, verses 1–3; Romans 8, verse 26; John 14, verse 9; Mark 9, verses 14–24; John 20, verse 29; 2 Timothy 3, verse 16 Today’s conversation is about Lesson 6 of Theology 101: The Western Theological Tradition taught by various Hillsdale Professors. Take the 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/ Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. 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 Chapters 00:00 The Robertson Kids Were Basically Feral 07:32 How God Transformed the Robertson Family 15:02 Faith vs. Reason 18:24 Job Finally Sees God Clearly 22:15 Fluffy the Squirrel Takes Over Theology Class 27:12 Can We Really Know God? 31:10 Zach’s Crisis of Faith 35:28 The Debate That Shook Zach’s Beliefs 38:42 Are We Treating God Like a Fan Club? 42:06 Aquinas’ Stunning Encounter With Jesus 47:02 The Secret to Working & Resting Well — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. We are our Friday with Hillsdale episode. We are in Theology 101. You guys can sign up and take this course with us for free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. We are in lecture number six. We are, we're just, we're just going through it. I'm telling you. We're plugging and chugging, Zach. Plugging and chugging. As the kids would say. kids would say, Zach. Is that what the kids say these days? I think so.

We're moving right along. We're making it right on. We had my son Bear speaking to the kids on the podcast last week, so he, Bear made his debut. Wow. I got a lot of good, I got a lot of good feedback from the Bear Cave, I call it now, because we call it, John Lou, we call it reports on the Bear Cave. That's what I'm calling it, our Bear segment. So, because what I love about it is, you know, Bears 18.

and he's very representative of a lot of our audience, you know, young men and young women, but especially young men, like to listen. And so I love getting that insight. And when we have bear on, it makes you guys seem like older guys now. So there you go. From an age standpoint or because of wisdom,

maybe a little bit of bad. He's pretty good. What made me mad about it? The same by the wisdom, just different age. Yeah, just different age. Well, Barry, my kids have all gone out to Camp Chiochua under your leadership, John Luke. So you've got to see them flourish out at camp. And, I mean, what's your assessment on the ones, the older three that have actually been under your tutelage?

I can't say that word. Tuttleage. Tootage. Oh, yeah. Tudelage. There we go. Sorry, tongue twister. Oh, definitely full of wisdom.

Full of wisdom. Yeah. I mean, I've gotten every one of them in trouble. a lot of years. I've made some calls home, but they've grown. They're all growing, and they're all good kids.

That's the thing about your kids, I think that is, like, I have gotten them in trouble, but it's always for doing something that's, like, fun. Yeah. But then they go too far.

And that is way better than doing something bad that is not participating. It's like they're over-participating is the problem. Well, it's fun. But to be fair, John Luke, a dasher quality, which we now have made it into a verb, if you've been dashered, because the dasher way is to have a line and everybody sees it.

And then a dasher looks at that line says, oh, hold my fermented wine and watch this. And then take one step across that line. So it is a DNA thing for them to take that fun and go, one step other. Did you just trend like the hold my beer? Was that you making like a... Yeah, that was me making a little bit more of a biblical. What did you call it? Hold my fermented? My fermented grape drink and watch it.

Yeah, whenever some kids get in trouble, I'm like, are you kidding me? But when the dashers do something, it's like, okay, that was kind of funny, but I still have to get you in trouble. We went to the beach last week, and this is kind of such a... trust me that. So Bear has a football. It's Fred's football. So he's going to be

the big brother and be annoying. So he throws the football to bear and bear just turns around and throws it in this we're at the beach. So they have this area

they planted with these bushes for like erosion control. And it's like, do not touch. So he throws it in these bushes and needless to say, like it's going to be, I mean,

these things are so thick you can't buy. Why would you do that? Like an instant decision. Like it was kind of funny because I made Fred mad But I'm like, kind of like you said, I'm like,

now it just creates a whole other set of issues. But what made me bad about the, well, not mad, but, so he goes duck hunting with Jace. And then Jase, they get to Bible discussion.

And Jase brings up Acts 17 and gets bare all fired up about this passage in the Bible, which I, it's one of my favorite passages in the Bible. I've talked about it a lot on this podcast, a lot. I mean, that's like kind of one of my top,

five core text that I teach from. It's like, it's like my thing. And then Jason's like, yeah, I mean, I was surprised. You never told your son about Act 17. I'm like, yeah, I've told him Acts 17. Like what? So then Jason is kind of like, it's kind of my base verse. Yeah, he's heard it. I'm like, maybe it penetrated when you talk to him, which is great. I'm happy for that. But don't ever think that I, like, your kid has called me and said stuff, oh, I've never heard that. that I know you've told him. Maybe I was just the guy that said it at that moment. And again, going back to our last podcast,

the Holy Spirit just illuminated his heart to it in that moment. But Jay says the same thing to me, because he'll tell stories. He's like, you know, me and my dad, I mean, we were the only ones in the duck call shop. And we were the only ones in the phone. I said, whoa, whoa, jays, back up a second. I am the original son.

I mean, while you were still in your pamper's, I was doing all these things you're talking about. Well, I mean, I didn't think about that. I guess you did some of it. You were changing the pamper. I was changing the pamper. That's what I told Willie before. He spent a summer in a body cast when he was about three years old.

And back in those days, dad was gone. He was AWOL. When you say body cast, what do you mean? I'm talking about it started at his chest. And one, he broke his, he had a very bad break in his femur. And so he fell off a slide at this lady's house that came. kept him because mom was working and we would come home from school and then mom would go by and get him. We fell off this slide. He broke his legs, a bad break. So he had to be in a body cast for

a summer. Well, there was nobody to keep him. So seven-year-old Al was the babysitter for, you know, two-year-old Willie and Jace was in between there, still running around in his pamphers as well. And I had to clean. The body cast had a hole in the back of it. And that's how we dealt with everything. And we dragged him around, Willie on a little creeper. around the house, which was fun because you get that thing whirling around and throw him off. You know, but, but I mean, like, so I tell Willie, that was like, whatever you've done in my life, which I'm appreciative. I've had opportunities.

I worked for Duncan Manor for a while. You know, I got to do the show with it. I said, whatever I've done, you will never pay me back enough for that summer where. I just had a moment. I just had a moment of compassion for Jason Willie. I mean, that's pretty, I mean, like the, that's pretty, you know, y'all had a, It's a surprise you all made it. It's a miracle.

I was, Zach, I was raised by two teenagers on the college campus. Every day is a walking miracle for my life. I said this Sunday at church when I was preaching. I looked over it. My mom was there and I was at, mom, I just want to say again, thank you because you were 16. You had me. You stuck in there with me and you raised me on the college campus. But every day is a miracle of life for Al, because I never should have made it to this point.

The kid's got a song. I can't remember which one it is, but at their shows, they'll do a thing when they'll say something like, has anybody raised, was there anybody raised like a feral cat? Anybody, any feral cats out there? And quite a few people, yeah, they start cheering, yeah. Y'all, we are all kind of, but we were to, but y'all were really raised as like feral kids. Yeah, we were. Because, I mean, we were, think about it. You got a seven or eight year old in charge.

I mean, just think about it. think about that with your own kids. Y'all got young kids. I kind of passed down. I mean, y'all saw a little compound down there, Christian and John Lick is a, it's a bunch of feral kids running around. I mean,

so that DNA, that does seem to have got passed down. It seems like it's pretty every man for himself around there. Yeah. I cannot imagine Zane parenting, Zander. Like he is the caretaker for Zander. I cannot imagine. there would be like John Shepard being the caretaker of Wells. Yeah.

That's the age. Yeah. Yeah, you just seem a lot more. Like, I feel like you were probably a lot wiser than most seven, eight-year-old's, Al. Well, I think you're right. I think you had to be, you know, in all seriousness, I mean, people, you adapt to your surroundings. And so a lot of families, unfortunately, grow up in what I call guerrilla warfare, which is, where we were. And so you just hope and pray that that oldest kid has something unique and

different. And I think I did. And I think it was enhanced because, you know, God was looking out for us. He knew where we'd all wind up one day. But it's also made me a fantastic pastor and, and helper of people in relationships because of that wisdom from way back then. And Zach can tell you, I mean, my way of going forward is try to help everybody just survive, you know, the moments that they're going through. And so I think all that can feed into that. But it is interesting to segue into our discussion today because the question is, how does that, how is that possible? How is what makes that happen? Because it could be out of bad situations and it could all went downhill and been terrible. I mean, that happens every day too. But somehow there was these commitments and these

desperate cries to God in our family early on that then opened up the spiritual door. for all of us to understand that we didn't want to live like that. You know, and it actually started in our family with Zach's mom, you know, having that imprint into my life, even as a young kid, that gave me some encouragement that I could do what I was doing. And then later, she was there to help point mom and dad to Christ, you know, out of that desperate lifestyle that they were in that was terrible. And so that changed us.

And so that's why when I go and speak, I love showing a picture of the 2017 Robertson family, the last night of film inducted honesty, which was so powerful. And everybody looks to them and says, oh, man, look at this family. They're amazing. And John Luke, you're in that picture. And, you know, all the little kids and four generations of faith. And then I love popping that 1972 pick-in of just mom and dad and me and Jace during this era. She was pregnant with Willie in the picture that this family had no.

idea the other family was even possible. And it wouldn't have been possible without the work of God through the Holy Spirit. So I do think the discussion we're having about theology. And I'm very appreciative of all those that have gone before. And now we're moving ahead to what is the 13th century today with Thomas Aquinas, that these people held a line through human history of what was most important when some of these other doctrinal ideas or bad theology would try to come in. And we had these kind of early forefathers that sort of towed the line of the truths from the first century that Jesus brought that still bless his lives.

And in our case, I mean, literally physically, emotionally, spiritually transformed a whole family unit that now is, that's why we're here today doing the other shame for hillsdale podcast. I think this is interesting conversation when I would like to just kind of maybe have for a little bit is that we're talking about a lot of early church. fathers, church leaders, Aquinas. We're talking about, you know, Augustine. We're talking about different ones. We don't necessarily, we're not like saying

that we agree with everything that any of these guys wrote. I mean, we're not Catholic, and Aquinas was a Catholic, you know? Yeah. But what we are saying is that these guys did have a contribution to broader theology and to, you know, for some of those

who are, you know, there's one particular person that critiques us on for even having these discussion, but you don't arrive at your theology in a vacuum. Like, we are all, even if you're, so if you're Protestant like we are, we are products of the Reformation movement, but the Reformation movement came out of Catholicism. I mean, this is like, I mean, there is a, you can trace the historical trail. And so to, to, like, dismiss all these writings to act like they don't exist, like, it's, it's just not, we're not, we're not going to do that.

And the reason why is because we, we all are part of the progression of God's kingdom. He has moved through a lot of different thinkers and writers, nobody gets it all right. They're trying to figure it out. So we get to Aquinas, his major work with something called Summa Theologia, which his main contribution, I would argue, and I think this kind of gets brought out of the lecture, is he's trying to talk about and explain the dilemma between faith and reason.

The last podcast was Pelagian versus, you know, Augustine, and it was more about like works versus grace. Now we're kind of, when Aquinas comes on the scene, is it faith or is it reason and are these things opposed to one another? And so what Aquinas was attempting to do is to see if there's a way to kind of merge, you know, merge that together. Can we, and so he, I would argue is probably the father of what we would call natural theology. which is that we can look at the world around us, and we can see that God has revealed himself in creation, which is biblical, by the way, right? I mean, Romans chapter 1 talks about

that the invisible attributes of God have been clearly perceived by what has been made so that men are without excuse. So I don't think it's out of line with the scripture. As we get into this discussion, I will throw some things out there that I would probably push back on Aquinas about that I think are important,

But his contribution to the way we see the world, I mean, you really can't overestimate it. I don't know. What was y'all's initial takeaway? Well, first of all, have y'all read any Aquinas, or did you know anything about Aquinas before this lecture? No. No, I'd studied him in school at some point,

but I don't think I could have named anything specific from him until I took this lecture, which I thought was really good. I thought he had gotten mentioned at a lecture before this, but maybe not. Has he not? I can't remember if we talked about him or not. Has he been brought up before, Al?

Do you remember if we went through any aquinas? I'm sure he has about, you know, somebody, because the name was familiar to me, but I had never studied much about him either. So it was very interesting. And, of course, you know, we advanced a lot of years in terms of just this, you know, study we've been doing because we've been hanging out much more probably in the first four centuries in terms of the application of what we've been studying, both in theology and also in the early church. And so the leap forward in time helped me to realize that, you know, everything is, as you said earlier, it's not in a vacuum.

I mean, all the things that are there, the time and culture and change challenge our faith, you know, all throughout the middle. ages and everything has happened. So I was very encouraged that this guy was there and some of the things that he talked about because participating in the divine life is a very important thing from a biblical perspective, but also for us. And so I just thought it was really good. And so we want you to sign up and take the course with us for free. If you're new to this and you haven't heard us talking about these Hillstale courses before you can go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. You can sign up. Take the courses. It won't cost you. anything, and you'll learn a lot, just like we have, and then be a part of our discussion as well.

I thought one of the things that I wanted to, as we kind of dive in here, he mentioned this idea of being an imitator and a participator in God's life. And one of the things that struck me about this, and I don't know, a lot of this just came to me, and I was just writing notes as I was thinking, it's hard to sometimes you're thinking about the discussion we're going to have, and I'm trying to listen to him at the same time. But this idea, about being able to see clearly. And I thought about some of the past things we've done, Zach. One was in Mark 8, where you have that healing of Jesus,

where we talked about this in a former Hillsdale podcast. I can't remember what series about, remember when the guy, he touches him twice. He touches him the first time and he's like, I'll see people that are around like trees. And then he touches him that second time. And we had talked about that kind of being a picture of Peter and the other disciples kind of having to have a second look because, you know, the idea is that

sometimes it takes more than one touch where you get it and before you see it. And what brought that to mind out of this participation, I preached a sermon this past Sunday about the life of Job. And I shared some of that on the unashamed side. But when you get to the end of the book of Job, Joe says something so profound about this idea of really understanding God and seeing him. A lot of times it comes through something difficult. In his case, something very difficult because he was a good man, blameless, upright, feared God, shunned evil, really was just doing the right things and got treated very poorly by the evil one.

And he gets to the end in Job 42, and God has just come out and basically says, I am God through four chapters of, you know, who are you, Job, you know, to question me. Although he didn't mind the question. He just said, let me just tell you who I am. And here's what Job said. And I want to catch this last one because it's so good this idea about participating with God and what this tastes. Because Job had been through all this in questioning, am I really fearing God?

Because, you know, the burden has been put upon me. He says, I know that you can do all things, Joe 42, too. This is Joe back to God. No plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge? surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. So when you read that part, you're like, how could we ever really have the relationship with God?

I mean, we can't really even understand it. And that's this idea of transcendent God that Aquinas talked about. You said, listen now, and I will speak. I will question you and you shall answer me. Here's the money verse. My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore, I despise myself and repent. dust and ashes. And he literally was in dust and ashes. And he didn't sin. The Bible said clearly it

wasn't a question of repenting from sin. It was a question of saying, now I know that I can participate in you because you're all I have. Everything on this earth has been stripped from in his case, but he still had God. And he was still able to participate in the life of God. And so I just love this idea that sometimes the blinders come off like this. Then you understand that clearly. And we tend to make that about sinful behavior or not being righteous of God, but sometimes it's just seeing him more clearly. And it's like in John 9, when you remember the disciples saw the man born blind, they were like, who said that he would be sitting here blind?

You know, was it his parents? Was it him? And then Jesus said, neither this man nor his parents sin. This man is blind to display the works of God. In other words, so others can see. And then he healed him. And so I just, I love that. this concept and idea that our participation in the life of God comes from a submissive mindset

that he's really all we all we can have to elevate us and to get into something better for ourselves. And so I just thought it was a beautiful picture of that. I thought Aquinas, to me, that was the underlying theme of what I got out of, you know, what they were presenting about his life. I think that that's the part that I really appreciate about Aquinas' work is that the emphasis on the participatory life in God and inside the inner life of God. We mentioned it on the last podcast when we talk about, you know, Augustine and the invitation to be participatory members of God's family. And what, you know, Peter said that we actually partake in the divine nature.

So I think that emphasis is clear. So in this lecture, one of the things that gets brought out is how does Aquinas actually show us that that that happens. And which when we started the last podcast and we sat down, Christian, you, you said fuzzy squirrel. What was the? Fluffy squirrel. Fluffy squirrel. Or it could be fuzzy squirrel, whatever floats your boat.

Which was a very, like, obviously was a powerful enough, you know, an analogy that he uses. But he talks about. I'll tell the audience this. We were texting each other as a group text. the Hillsdale homie text we have about fluffy the squirrel. So it definitely stood out, do it not, Christian? It definitely stood out. And I'm still even trying to think about, like, I'm trying to make it make sense in my mind.

But I loved the idea of, yeah, I thought it was a brilliant analogy. He even talked about, you know, how many squirrels are on the campus of Hillsdale and how some are, you know, more plump than others. And, you know, if he took the squirrel home. like, yes, it's living with him. It's like the participation part you just talked about. It's, you know, if the squirrel is sitting on his hands as he's typing or on his shoulder when he's eating, he's there, but he's not necessarily participating in my life.

And so I thought it was a brilliant analogy. Then he went on to talk about, which I'll let someone else explain it. But because I kind of got lost a little bit when he started talking about going in the basement and then doing the augmented, you know, surgery. So the now Zs, he kind of got a little comp. I agree. He got a little calm. Well, there's a, my neighbors.

He could have, he could have said rocket the raccoons from Gardens of the Galaxy because that was kind of a picture of what he was talking about. Yeah, it was a little, it got a little off there. But my neighbors actually have a squirrel. So my, my neighborhood is like, we got a bunch of squirrels. And our yard has like more than most because my kids leave food out in the yard all the time. So it's like, they know there's always going to be food laying around.

like pizzas and hamburgers and they'll give you started on that chick-fil-a sandwiches and so these squirrels they just descend on our yard well our neighbor has a squirrel that's a wild squirrel but they've trained it to eat

out of the palm of their hand and so that's like part of their their like whole little thing they do so that analogy was hitting home with me because I'm like yeah that's squirrel he goes and sits in their lap he eats their food but he's not really participating in their life and so

so then the thing was what if they put on a squirrel suit to identify with the squirrel, then would that be, well, he's still not going to participate. Well, then the mad scientist part, what if somehow they could take the squirrel down in the basement and give it the ability to speak? And then it could communicate.

Well, then maybe the squirrel could participate in, but it would only be in the terms of the mad scientist, giving it this ability to communicate. So I think what he was kind of getting at is essentially, what, like, how do we actually participate in the life of God? And his point is, is that you actually can only participate in the life of God. One, on his terms, because he's the author of reality. So whatever it's going to be, it's going to be on his terms. And two, we're going to have to have some way of communicating with the divine. We're going to have to have some way of

communicating with what's called the transcendent because it's so, he's so far above. us that we can't, like we can't ascend up into his realm, you know, his, wherever he exists at, we can't ascend up there and communicate with him. He has to condescend and come down. So the concept of revelation is that. It's that God speaks down to humans and he communicates, he condescends and he has a communication with, with the humans. And now we can know him on his terms, based on what has been revealed. And so this is where the Aquinas, I think a lot of the controversy comes in with Aquinas,

which really wasn't mentioned as much in the podcast, but I think we should talk about it, is that how would we possibly know anything about God if he doesn't speak to us? It goes back to the last podcast when we were talking about the nature of faith, right? That faith is that the Holy Spirit reveals reality to us. What is the ultimate reality?

It's God himself. It's his inner life. Spirit reveals that to us. We can reject that. That's called sin, leads to death. We can accept that and submit to it. That's called faith. It leads to life. So what Aquinas is getting at is the way that you accept the revelation of God. One of the primary ways is through our rational faculties, our ability to reason. And so he tries to merge faith and reason instead of keeping them separate. So if the last podcast was the dilemma between works and grace, this one would, you know, Aquinas' contribution mainly is the dilemma between faith and reason. Because typically, and this is how I always understood faith, is faith is what you believe when you have no reason to believe it's true. That's how I historically understood faith as a Christian. And so, which is not, by the way, not biblical. I grew up when I had questions about the truth, the truth claims of Christianity, I would ask those questions about, hey, this doesn't make sense to me.

How can this possibly be true? Example, how can God flood the earth, the entire earth, and then you give all the reasons why they can't happen? How can a dead man raise from the dead? How can, yeah, all these questions, you have all these, and then the pastor would say, well, that's where faith comes in. In other words, you don't have a reason. There's no, faith is the opposite of reason. These are not, like faith is when there is no reason, that's what, faith is. And so that's how I lived my Christian life up until the age of 26. And then I had a

major faith crisis at 26 years old where I didn't even know if this whole thing was true anymore. And I will tell you that had I continue to see these two things as separate, that would have wrecked me. I don't think I would have stayed a Christian. The reason why I stayed a Christian and honestly would tell you that I'm extremely intellectually satisfied in my Christian faith now is that I do not see faith as opposed to reason. And Aquinas, unfortunately, I do think he paved the way for some of that separation of faith and reasons. One of the critiques of Francis Schaefer about Aquinas is that he actually kind of paved

the way for that. But part of, I don't think Aquinas necessarily did that, but I think those that came after him based on his work there. But what Aquinas is essentially getting at in his theology is that you can know parts about God from what's been revealed. It's the Romans 120 passage. I mean, you can see things in creation and that God can speak and you can actually find God through reason. I think you can only find God through revelation, but our reason does play a role in it. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I thought just the whole first part about Aquinas and the way that he was discouraged is the teacher and had just like, teacher theology. I thought it was really good and just different than like Augustine who kind of wrote in a more like narrative style and brought in like a lot of philosophy. Quinez was more like let's question

these things. Let's ask this question like what does it mean to rest versus work? And the way that he kind of explored the ideas was not like a this is it mentality, but let's discuss it. Let's have the student discuss it. Let's have the teacher kind of give a response,

and it's like an ongoing conversation about what these things mean, which I just thought was a really good, just a different take on theology than what we've been talking about in the podcast. Yeah, it talks about like scholastic. Yeah, the scholastic. Yeah, the scholastic, yeah.

Zach, there's actually a school in South Florida named St. Thomas Aquinas. Yeah. Speaking of Catholic school. Yeah, yeah. You've St. Augustine, the city. Well, you got all that Catholic influence coming in early on. So thinking about like the relationship of, so the way that Aquinas, well, the way, when this is Schaefer's whole work was on this dividing of reason from faith.

And he calls it, I think it is books, he calls it existentialism. We would know it as postmodernity or postmodernism. The way that you would kind of see that in like today's world is, you hear this language all the time. This is my truth. You know, I just saw, what's the girl? She was in Wicked, the movie. She used to be, she was like a singer. Are we on a Grenada?

Yeah, yeah. I just read an article. The headline was that she says that no. is going to change her reality. So there's like a reality that's hers and it's private. What is that language? That's postmodernism. I have my truth.

This is my truth. You have your truth. I have my. So truth is not something that's objective. It's a subjective thing. So how do we arrive in a place where like that's part of the American or Western psyche? it's a result of post-modernity. It's a result of all these things.

This Aquinas kind of played a role in it, I think. I mean, maybe Schaefer's wrong in this. I mean, I know I've read a lot of critiques on it, but he divided the field of knowledge, and he kind of made a distinction between what he calls nature and grace. So, like, nature is that it's like natural theology. We can acquire things about God from what has been made, which is in scripture, so I can't argue with that.

And then grace is what God imparts to us, like, specially. Like, this is like a special thing. So by making that distinction, it paved the way later on for us to be able to think that, yeah, maybe we can acquire knowledge outside of, like, special revelation from God that requires the grace of God to give that to us. So Shaver was just pointing out that anytime you make any type of knowledge as an autonomous thing, that we kind of figure out on our own, that you're actually creating an avenue for us to change faith into something that's unknowable. And that's the thing that almost wrecked my faith, is that I actually thought it was unknowable. I didn't think that I could actually know that Jesus rose from the dead. I thought that I had to just hope that Jesus rose from the dead.

And the more irrational the hope was, well, then that was just proven my faith even more. The problem is, is that over time, if you're honest and you keep kind of pursuing that trajectory, if you're honest, you're going to be very dissatisfied. Or in my case, I woke up in the middle of the night, and it was like 2 a.m. And I'm looking at my wife. And I think we had Max and Laylor, we were two babies at the time. And I just bought a new house. I had a great job. And I was just so depressed because I'm like, I don't know if this is true.

this whole thing I built my life on. I don't even know if it's true. And if it's not true, then nothing really matters. And I was just having this existential crisis. And so I went into my office and I pulled out a piece of paper and I wrote down this prayer. And it said, God, if you're there, which I doubt, I said, I need to know because I'm drowning. And I'm just like crying, tears are hitting the paper or the ink spreading. And I take this thing, simple prayer.

God, if you're there, which I doubt, and if you answer prayers, which I also doubt, I need to know because I'm drowning. I fold that paper up. I put it into the drawer of my desk, and five years later, I pulled it out, and I was, and I wept again because I was like, wow, God has saved me. God has revealed himself to me in a way that I never imagined possible. And my evolution of understanding the correlation between faith and reason actually happened in that moment. Because soon after that, my dad debated this guy on the campus of ULM. Guy's name was Joseph.

I can't remember his last name. Super smart guy. He was an atheist and he was a student. And Al, did you go to that debate? Do you all remember that? Yeah, I remember when it happened. I wasn't there. But yeah, I remember.

Because they were debating back and forth in the paper, the ULM campus. his paper. They were debating back and forth. And so then this guy challenges my dad to a debate. And so they had this debate and it was on, is God a moral monster? And it was looking at passages like the extermination of the Canaanites. Did God command genocide? The problem of evil, all these things. And so it was like, is God a moral monster or authoritarian monster? I can't remember the actual debate name. But they get in this debate, packed house, everybody's there. All our church is there, like 500 people in this little debate. And they debate.

And I thought dad did a great job. He held his own rhetorically. But logically, I thought, I left that. And I was just, I mean, is it happening right? I've said this prayer. I was just like, oh, so, like, devastated by it. Because I just thought, man, that guy made a lot of sense. And so I started to debate this guy on Facebook.

And we were having exchanges back and forth. That's what you do back then. And he says, and everything I would say, he would say, that's a circumstantial ad hominem fallacy. And I would respond, that's not a fallacy. And here's my source. That's a red herring fallacy. That's not a fallacy. Here's my source.

That's a, you know, he just kept naming these different fallacies. And then finally he said, I don't think you would know a fallacy if they were crawled out of your butt and made you breakfast. Except he didn't say the word, but. And so I thought, I don't think a good line. That's a good line. So, yeah, so you know what I did, right? I'm like, well, I don't, I don't, maybe I don't know what this fallacy is. So this is before chat, GPT.

So I, but now AI, you could have actually made that happen. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we, I did, we would, we would have had an endless debate, right? But I googled what is a fallacy. And so this page pops up. And it says, I still remember the title. I remember what it looked like. It said 42 Aristotelian logical fallacies, Aristotle,

that categorized these, which Aquinas was a student of Aristotle. So I read these fallacies, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is like my whole, this is how I argue. Like, this is my stuff. Like, this guy, Aquinas, I mean, this got Aristotle figured out, this is how I argue. And all it was was just errors in reasoning. It was like, how do we reason in a circle? How do we, it's all this, how do you, and it like shook me to the core. And I know this is a long winded, but I want to get this out.

That was when I decided, I'm going to, I am going to search the truth. And I went on just a spiral of about 10 years of studying atheism and studying philosophy and studying. And then by God's grace got introduced to apologetics. I found this guy on YouTube named William Lane Craig. And then that just, that started this cascade of just, diving in. And so five years after I wrote that letter, what was revealed to me through the spirit is that faith and reason are not in conflict with one another at all. And that God has revealed himself in such a way that he is knowable. I don't have to jump off the building and

close my eyes and call it blind faith and hope that God's going to catch me. God has revealed himself in such a way that we can know that God is there in a bar for and that he is not silent. And so for me, I think Aquinas played a role in both kind of the good and the bad. I mean, he mad a massive role in showing us how reason can lead us to know who God is. Probably some people later that came along after him took some of this stuff and maybe twisted it a little bit. But, I mean, he had a massive role in our understanding of that.

I would argue, Zach, that was your job moment. You had heard things about God, but now you see him. and that was your breakthrough for you. And many times, for many of us, it comes in different ways. Want you to sign up and take the course with us for free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and take these courses. I think you're going to really like them. I wanted to bring up, before you went into Fluffy the Squirrel, he asked a great question.

I wrote it down. He said, is discipleship a fan club, in quotes, fan club, for God to become what we hope or wish he is, instead of who he really is, which is kind of what you just describes that, the idea of God's nature being revealed to you in the way that it is, as he is. And I like the way he did that with the fan club, because he's right,

it was a great illustration because it reminded me of, you know, because I grew up to Star Trek fam, and anybody that's kind of like science fiction and Star Trek, you know, you kind of like believe it's real, even though you know it's a movie, but you just imagine so heavily that there's people up here running around.

And some people obviously take that to an extreme. And there was a back in the, I think it was early 80s, William Shatner, in the, in the rise and success of now the movie versions of this TV show from the 60s, did an S&L skip. And because he was the host of Saturday Night Live. And in it, there's like one of these Star Trek conventions on the, on the SNL skit. And so all these like, so the people from the show are like the nerdy people out in the audience. And they're like, Captain Kirk, Captain Kirk, do you remember the time when this happened? And then, you know, and he's like looking at him.

It's after about the third question of like these show themed questions from these like nerdy guys who want him, who want William Shatner to be Captain Kirk. I mean, like they're looking at the moment. And finally he says, can you people just get a life? And it was really funny. It was also very controversial at the time because it was almost like he's making fun of his own fan base.

Yeah. And he wrote a. book called Get a Life, which is interesting, not too long after that. But it was a funny, it was him, you know, doing a parody about how people were holding these actors up with a concept that they were really these people who were swashbuckling through space. And because, you know, there was a very humanistic show. And so everybody was like wanting something better. And so it was almost like a search for Star Trek was a search for something better in humanity. We would rise above and go through the galaxies and spreading our humanistic.

ideas. And I thought the whole thing was interesting, but it really is what he's describing how a lot of people approach God, that we want to make him in our image instead of the other way around. But to his point, to Aquinas, and then he goes into the fluff of the squirrel, is we have to realize that the divine nature is above us, but we can participate in it, you know, only by his pathway in. And so when you're talking about that. On his terms. On his terms. And I think that's why the power of the incarnation is so powerful for not only us, but the world, that you could actually look and see a human being who became human flesh for a purpose and a reason, who said, if you've seen me, you've seen the father, that would begin to then show us even in a human form what it would look like for us to have this God of infinite wisdom and love and all the things that he could participate in.

And then, of course, when he goes back to the right hand of the Father, he imparts on us the divine nature now to live in us, which when you get to Romans 8, 26, you realize even in our communication, the Holy Spirit is able to articulate things beyond even our understanding, but still there's a connection and there's a conversation. And so it's just, it's a really beautiful picture of how we now participate in what Aquinas would call the happy life. Well, what's funny is there's Aquinas at the end of writing his Magnus Opus book. This is probably my favorite thing about Aquinas. I don't think this was mentioned in the episode. But this right here, when I heard this, that just brought me to tears the first time I heard the story about him. Because if you've tried to read any of these guys like Aquinas or, you know, if you try to read City of God or particularly, I mean, his, I mean, Aquinas is where it is, like, it's difficult. It is like super dense, in my opinion. Maybe I'm not smart enough to grasp it,

but I find his work to be super dense. So he writes this Magnus Opus work, and the story goes to that hit the end of it, he has this encounter with Christ. And the way I've heard of phrase is that he had this beautific vision of Christ. He had this vision, some kind of encounter with Jesus that he found to be so beautiful that he stops the work of his book.

This is his life's work. And he goes into the guy that he was dictating the book to that was doing all of his writing. And he says, he says, I'm done. I can't write another word. He said, I just had an encounter with Jesus that made everything I've written seem like straw. And to me,

that's such a powerful admission that he saw the beauty of Christ in some moment. I don't think he was diminishing his doctrine or anything. like that. I just think it's all subservient to the power and the beauty of a God who would incarnate and make himself known to us in that way. I don't know what that vision was or what man, but I pray, God, give me that. That's what I want. To me, that's the power. That's the participatory life. I think we're, that is what we're all like seeking. We want the thing that like connects us with the divine that we feel that participation. We are in that participation. And it's hard because we end up we're in a fallen state. We want his truth to be to be our

truth. Any last thoughts, Christian and John Luke? Because we're getting at the end of our podcast. Zach, I think what you just said is, I think that's so true. I think that's so great. You know, last podcast we talked about, you know, that idea of striving to live. striving to live a sinless and blameless life, which I do think, yes, that is good. But I think, like what you just said, it's like striving for our life to have that, to have that revelation of the beauty of Christ and who he is. I love the, there's a couple of verses in the New Testament that I love. Well, obviously, there's so many verses in the New Testament I love.

But, you know, the Father in the New Testament who wants his son to be healed, and he says, I believe but help my unbelief. And I think that's such a beautiful thing. And I find myself praying that today of I believe these things, but Lord, when there's any unbelief of my heart, please help me there. And you have the verse where Jesus says, Blessed are you for you believe because you have seen, but blessed are those more who believe but have not yet seen.

And I love that verse because it's the foreshadowing of us to an extent, right? It's like Jesus is saying, you see because you believe, but blessed are those who, you know, who have not seen, but yet still believe. And I think that's such a core, you know, just a beautiful example for kind of the day that we live in is that, you know, yes, we've seen revelations, but we haven't physically seen Jesus, you know, like how they did 2,000 years ago. And that idea of Jesus is acknowledging, you know, that it is going to be difficult. You know, blessed are those more who haven't seen yet still believe. And I love that we fall in that camp of, you know, we haven't physically seen the things that, you know, maybe that the apostles and the disciples did.

But Jesus is, Jesus is acknowledging that, you know, you will be blessed because you have not seen be yet you still believed. Yeah, that story is Christians from Mark 9, 14 through 24, where he's, you know, his son is possessed by an evil spirit. And so in that he's saying, I mean, he's like watched this kid for a lifetime of all these things that he sees there. And so, you know, it's very difficult for him to just embrace the idea that Jesus can do something about it, which, I mean, and we really relate to that as a parent, right? When something's wrong with one of our kids. And so in that, he's just being so honest and pure he's like, I want to believe you can do something about it. But you're going to have to help me because, I mean, I've grown up, you know, this kid's growing up with this. So that's a very powerful illustration.

John Luke, in the last word? Yeah, my last thought, it's a little off topic from what we've been talking about, but it's from the episode. The idea of work and rest and how in God's Hevelry Kingdom, it's one of both.

And that thought just really hit me that one thing that God wants from us is to work well and to rest well. And when we are in God and believers in God and working, doing his will, We are working for him and serving and doing things he wants us to, but we're also resting and have this time that we can just exist and be loved and be known and be good.

And that's all he's asking from us. And I thought that is just a great reminder for me. Yeah, it's a beautiful picture, huh? Yeah, it is. And I think where Aquinas was so helpful is, I think he is pushing. us into the, like, by having the center of the, of our pursuit being participants in the life of God, that is where the rest is at. That is where you find the rest. And so, you know, his contribution, I think, is super important to, you know, the Christian faith, obviously, the

theology 101, which is what we're in now. And so I understand what he wanted to do with kind of is nature of grace dichotomy. I used to want to, like, say, give me, like, give me evidence for the Bible outside the Bible. Because I felt like if I had to look for evidence for the claims of Christianity, I felt like if I was looking in the Bible for that, then it was like, how do you know the Bible's true? Because the Bible says it's God's Word. Well, how do you know that that's God's Word? Because all scriptures God breathed.

And you're just like reasoning in a circle. And so I was always trying to get out of that. But one of the things that helped me is once you kind of locate the centerpiece, is being in the life of God is the centerpiece. It's not just rational arguments. You start to, it kind of like liberates you to have a certain degree of honesty to say, you know what, I'm not really going to escape my presuppositions. And I have some thoughts about the way the world is.

I can't really escape it. And so the way that I approach all that now is just to say, I just presuppose Father, Son, Holy Spirit. I start there. He said, well, you can't start. I'm starting there. And you start wherever you want to start. And then we can put those on the table, and then this is what we can do.

We can say, you bring your worldview to the table, Buddhism, postmodernism, atheism, Mormonism, bring all these different worldviews to the table. Islam, I'm coming in with a father, son, and Holy Spirit. That's my presupposition. We all have it. We can't escape. And let's be honest, here's our presuppositions. I'm starting with what's been revealed in the scriptures.

I'm starting there. And then I'm asking this question. what can I live out and what can what what is actually achievable and where can I find peace and rest and I'd make the case that that that and I would debate anybody on this it's only if you start with the Trinity that you can actually make sense of the world and live life without contradiction live in your tell us the way you're designed to live and also before we leave don't forget you guys know what I'm going to say yes giveaway winner Giveaway winner, we have another contest for the Theology 101 course.

We're going to pick one listener to come down to West Monroe to watch a live recording of the Unashamed podcast. We're going to pay for travel and lodging for you and a guest up to $1,000 each. That's each. All you have to do is take the Theology 101 course with us because we're all taking it. I've got to finish the quizzes. Have you guys taken the quizzes yet? You are taking quizzes, right? Oh, yeah.

Okay. You know, Al's background is about to be all of his certificates that he has gotten from the quizzes. You can sign up for the courses at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. It's free. Then you can upload your certificate at watchunashamed.com and you'll be entered in for the drawing. So thanks for joining us on the Unashamed for Hillsdale podcast. Great to have you guys back. We'll see you next time. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up. It's no calls to you. That's Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And don't miss an episode of the Unashamed podcast by subscribing on YouTube.

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