Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1418 | Phil Robertson Confronted the Man Pretending to Be His Secret Son

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

Phil once confronted a man who was pretending to be part of the Robertson family for personal gain, and his method of calling him out was pure Phil. John Luke revisits a bizarre faith-healing claim involving a supposedly regrown body part and wrestle with the danger of confusing blind belief with biblical faith. The guys dig into Abraham, Job, David, and Solomon to show why faith and reason are not enemies, and why a life centered on yourself eventually collapses. They conclude with a simple idea: human beings flourish when they begin with God instead of self. In this episode: Jeremiah 20:7; Psalm 139; Psalm 51; Genesis 22; Hebrews 11; Romans 4; Job 1; Ecclesiastes 3:11; Psalm 19; Romans 1; Genesis 1:28; Ecclesiastes 12:12-13 Today’s conversation is about Lesson 10 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/ 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 The Hillsdale Homies  04:47 Randy Travis Takes Notice of Zach 07:44 Phil Confronts the Fake Robertson Son 10:56 Psalm 139 & the God You Can’t Escape 20:13 Everyone Starts With a Presupposition 25:16 The Miracle Toe Story  30:11 Faith & Reason Can Work Together 34:21 Why God Never Gave Job the Answer 42:23 Everyone Worships Something — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. This is our Friday episode. We got the Boys in, the Hillsdale homies. We are unashamed for Hillsdale. You guys can sign up and take the course with us for free. Why are you laughing, Kristen? I just, you introing just makes me smile. And that would just run a chuckle. I was just thinking, the boys are back in town. But I just saw you. We're back. And we are doing the Theology One-on-One course giveaway. So if you take, we're going to pick one listener to come down to Westman Row

and you guys are good to watch a live recording of Unashamed. We're going to pay for travel and lodging for you and the guests at the $1,000 each. All you have to do is take the theology one-on-one course with us. This is the last lecture we're doing number 10.

And it was, it was meaty. So buckle up. Can we announce what we're doing next time yet? Maddie? Do we know what we're doing next? Oh yeah? Oh, we know what we're doing next? You just said it was average.

What is it? The Odyssey. The Odyssey. Oh, no, I didn't say the course. Oh, I did that we did the, yeah, we did the movie. You said the movie was okay. It was okay. We're going to do the course.

The actual course is going to be excellent, but Zach said the movie was just okay. I'm going to see it today, just so all four of us will say. We'll get back to the movie in a second. Buckle up, cowboy. All right, sorry. Buckle up. I got to finish, tell them where they go. You sign up for the course at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com.

Take the course, get your certificate of completion, and upload that at watchunashame.com, and you'll be entered to win the drawing. Now, on The Odyssey, I'm not going to tell you out because you're going to see it. But the only thing I'm going to tell you is bring your own ear protection. It is the loudest movie in the history of all of the... Ear protection. My ears were bleeding when I left. I was like, whoa.

Like, that was insanely loud. The only thing I will say, there is a scene that is a little crazy. So whenever a weird woman starts feeding people, just prepare, just be ready to shield your eyes. I wish somebody would have told me. It's so funny, y'all giving out this advice. And my biggest thing about going to the movie is that how am I going to watch a three-hour movie without going to the bathroom? That's my biggest worry. I thought Zach was going to say, like, bring a cup or something.

I thought he was going to say, bring a big, you're a movie. You're an oil. Is that? Every time they get back on the boat, you can go to the bathroom. Yeah. Okay. When they're on the boat, yeah. Okay.

When you hear this. You know, there's a thing, a website you can go to that tells you when to go to the bathroom. Yeah. In a movie. I went. I did go and I counted it was. I was gone for like 60 seconds. I counted the whole expense because my art theater was right outside the bathroom.

But I'd tell you, it is loud. And there are some things. You want it to be immersive. Yeah, it's immersive. Too much, though. You can't. You can't make it. Too much magic.

The Cyclops. As a filmmaker, I would, as a filmmaker, I would have done it totally different. Oh, yeah. I'm just kidding. It was done very, you are probably better than Christopher Nolan. I would. I think, you know, I'm not going to say that. Like, yeah.

Well, how much was the budget on that thing? 250 million. But, but Zach, what I thought was interested, $250 million budget and $125 million marketing budget. now that's big time that's a little more I don't know yeah it's hard to say I mean if you got a quarter of a billion

dollars to make a movie it ought to be pretty good I tell you it's the highest grossing rated our movie of all time already yeah that's true it's like 1.3 billion yeah

1.4 now 1.4? mm-hmm and that's without your contribution I know and I haven't even plunk down my but I'm going on Tuesday $5 now

my son Max said it was the best movie that he's ever seen well both of these guys gave it the thumbs up because I asked them back. But I really was like, the reason I haven't seen this because the whole bathroom issue, I was just like, and now we're doing the course. Yeah.

Because I was going to wait and do it at home when I can stop it. But, you know, then you guys were saying, oh, you got to go see it at the theater. I mean, brilliant move on Hillsdale's part to have a course come out right during the movie. Very smart. These guys are smart. We will be into that next.

On other related news, I don't know if y'all even know this, but I had a viral moment on Instagram. I don't know if you saw that or not where I was seeing it. John Luke, yeah, you commented on it. I saw it. I commented on it. Are you talking about the one

where you were looking at the phone the whole time? Wait, are you going to make fun of me for that? I'm not at, look. Are you not supposed to do that? No, we're talking about a different video. You're talking about the one that was viral.

Yes, you did great. I mean, yeah. Well, let me tell you he did like it, Christian. And then we were singing a Randy Travis song. And Randy Travis himself commented on it. So that's like big, that's big news. And then we did it.

And then another one went viral. My dad was doing his famous, we were sitting around the house of the day. And they were, we were doing the, you know, the thing he, the song he used to sing at White Street Road. They'd only let him sing a song. Awesome God. Yeah. And so Annabel captured it on video.

And we had people over that weren't a part of our family. And so I don't know why we got into this. We got into like acapella singing. And Max literally goes up to, because we have all those hymns that your granddad made like years ago. My mom like saved all those. So we've got like a bunch of them at my house

and for decoration. And then he's like, so he's, we're singing out of hymns. We sang 728 B. You know what song that is? Our God. Yeah.

What's the name of it? Our God. Rains. You're, no. Out and wrote it. Out and wrote it. Yeah, 728B. There is a God.

There is a God. There is a God. He is a life. I guess there is a God. We got to capture some, what somebody called some White's Ferry Road. Our God, he is alive. That's the name of the song.

Our God is alive. Yeah. So, it was fun now. So Zach told us right after this happened on Reger on the shame. And he said, you know, so I, you know, they've invited me to join the back. band because it's dashed of the band and so I may be leaving the podcast and Jay said well bye well he went curly bill yeah well bye it's now dashers yeah a dashers yeah dashers dashers yeah dashers

dashers no they didn't let me in I didn't know they made the cut but uh that's all right though me and dad are but me and dad or like you guys when you post a video with me on it it it does really well and then then you posted one with dad and it weren't really it's we're like they want the family. The people want the family. They don't want, they want the family. So we're trying to weas are our way in there. So in the last podcast, you said something that sparked a thought in my brain, a story, Christian, when you were talking about the prayer and from Jeremiah, which was Jeremiah. Yeah, I said Jeremiah three on the last podcast, but it's actually Jeremiah 20. Do you me to read it? Yeah, read it. Yes. This is Jeremiah 27, 20, verse 7. It says, oh, Lord,

you have deceived me, and I was deceived. You are stronger. than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughing stock all the day. Everyone mocks me. Which, you know, when you said it the other day, I thought about poor Jeremiah is the worst preaching job in the history of preaching, you know, because he never had a convert in all these years. And that's what makes you feel that way. And you mentioned that Matt Chandler said, like, what if the guy shows up in the prayer group? And like, he starts praying that prayer. So it made me think of a story, Zach, I don't know if you've heard this before, but there was a guy that had been deceiving people

saying he was the fifth Robertson's son that the unknown son, which we did find an unknown daughter. So, but this was before that even. But he was telling people that around our community. And he even started coming to church at White's Fair Road and then kind of word got back to us.

Like, he's like a fake Robertson. But he got like some deals and like he got a truck deal. Are you serious? Oh, yeah. Like he was taking advantage of it. And so he was, he started going to dad that dad had a house church dad and your dad uh Zach had a house church and this guy was started coming to the house church with someone tells dad what was going on well the guy's there

so dad doesn't say anything in the moment but then during the prayer they said you know anybody got a prayer request and he does thing so he decides that he's going to use the prayer is the is the moment to confront this young man about his deceit. And so he's like doing his prayer. And then he says, and Father, we got the brother so-and-so. And he says his name over here. He said, he's got a problem with lying and deceit. And, you know, he knows it. He knows it ain't right. And yet he keeps doing it. So we're going to go and pray that he will repent of his sins and leave his lying and quit claiming he's something he's not. But we're going to do it. But we're going to it knowing he's going to do the right thing.

In Jesus' name, amen. And so everybody's kind of looking around because they don't even know what's, you know, they don't know. It's like, he who eats this morsel of bread. Exactly. Everybody's looking at everybody like, is it me? Is it him? Is it her?

And so, but, you know, typical dad, leave it to him. After everybody leaves, the guy comes up, he said, Mr. Phil, you're so right. You know, I've been lying and, you know, I've been claiming I'm something. I'm not. He said, but, you know, I'm ready to change my ways, you know. He said, no problem, son. I knew you'd come to the right. So when you said that the other day, it made me think about it.

That's funny. Sometimes it can actually work. You know, so that's classic. Yeah. Dad confrontation. Because Matt Chandler said, too, when it says, you are stronger than I, it's like, in the original language, it's like, yeah, like you took advantage of me. It's like, again, it's like a child.

It was like, what he was saying was that it sounds worse in the original text than it is. Exactly. Well, it reminded me of the, in the last podcast, we began, he had started in Psalm 139, and, you know, David does the same thing. Like, he has these moments in many Psalms where he's like having these connected moments with God that's so good and the idea of reason. And he's like, but I hate the people that hate you, please destroy them all. You know, he's like, he comes back at the end. He's like, please kill everyone that's around me.

So it's like we're reasoning, but at the same time we're kind of in a warfare thing. I'm understanding why that God wouldn't let it build a temple. What, what did you mention? Psalm, that's it, 139? Yeah. Yeah, that was over our camera. Yeah, at the end of that, he says that. I wanted to, go ahead.

Go ahead, Zend. I was just to say that. I think the Psalm 139 is actually the whole Psalm is the one that I would go to in this whole discussion that we're having on. Is it, how do we know? You know, this, this lecture was 55 minutes long, and it was not easy to get through. So I think that I know a lot of you probably were like, ooh, that was a hard one.

I think if you think of the trajectory of these different thought leaders that were brought up in the discussion, the ones that kind of our resonated with the most was Carl Barth and then what was the last guy's name? Look at my nose. De LaBoc. And because I think that if you think about what's happening here, we mentioned in the last episode that rationalism understood as a philosophy. is that man by beginning with himself tries to make meaning of the world.

So it would be anything like, start with my human experience and then I get to God, or start with my human concern, and then I get to God. That was more telek. I start with, but if you put yourself at the beginning of the equation, then you already missed the whole thing. And what Barth kind of introduces is a more biblical approach that everything begins with God, the God who speaks. God speaks first.

Francis Schaefer is somebody who influenced me early on in my kind of walk but he wrote a book called He is there and he's not silent. And I love the title because he says that God speaks in propositional truths. Like, God speaks to us in a way that, like, he reveals things in a way that, like, there's a propositional truth that is spoken by God. And you can actually look at that and you can examine it. And you can, like, see, and you, and with your rational faculties,

you can now receive that revelation and interpret that. So I think that anchoring, locating God at the beginning of it is the key that he is so necessary for the world. He's a necessary being that you can't escape him. And that's why I love, I mean, Psalm 139 is one of my favorite Psalms because basically that's the point that he's making. He says, this is more at the beginning. He says verse 7, where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I send to heaven, well, you're there.

If I make my bed in shield, you're there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. And if I say, surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me by night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night as bright as day, but the darkness is as light with you. And you just go through this text and you're like, what is the psalmist actually getting at? I think what he's getting at is that, and I think it has everything to with epistemology,

that at the end of the day, no matter how smart you are, no matter how brilliant your philosophy that you've developed is, no matter how it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, here's how necessary God is that you cannot escape his being. You just can't escape him. I don't care where you go, what philosophy you come up with. Here's the moral of the story. You're not escaping the God who is there because he's there and he's not silent. And for me and my faith journey, there was a moment where I really understood that and believed it. And it transformed the way that I understood God in my whole life.

It was transformed because I realized that there's no getting away from him. He is the ultimate reality. And I thought, I don't know, I take a lot of refuge in that. Don't you think, too, when you were reading that, I hadn't thought about it before, because we had talked about in the last podcast our own kind of personal journeys and doubts that we've had. And when you were reading that, I thought, you know, David earlier in Psalm 51, which I'm not exactly sure where this would fit into his life. I'm assuming this one would be later after that because the Psalm 51 saw him,

It was, we know when that was, that was right after the whole Bashiba and all the murder and adultery and cover up. And in that song, you see his transformational process because of coming out of this terrible, sinful situation. And he's like, I need to be recreated. In fact, it's interesting because here he talks about, you knew me in my mother's womb, you formed me, you were there at the very beginning. But in the Psalm 51, he says, surely I was sinful in my mother's womb.

In other words, he was looking at himself through a lens of just despair because of where he had been. But then you're watching him transform because when you get to the end of Psalm 51, he says, you can recreate me, you can renew my spirit. So he's having this reason with God that I'm not so far beyond saving that you wouldn't save me. And then you read this one and you see him obviously in a different place and a better place, but then he's understanding the transcendence of God in even a better way. And so it's a really great picture of kind of how we are. And you see God in clearer ways at times and then sometimes in murkier ways when you look at it through your own failure.

And so I just think that's the beautiful thing about this idea. It's not either or it's both and with this concept of that we can be transformed into understanding God in a deeper, more meaningful way. And sometimes that's through overcoming something. Sometimes that's through revelation that was something we didn't see before, that now we see clearly. And I loved your description to deconstruct faith, but then to reconstruct it and find it in a deeper, more meaningful way.

And now not only are you married and have a wife, but you have children that you're leading in that. And your whole hope is that you know they have to come to it on their own, but you want them to have an easier path than you had. I mean, it's what we all hope that, right, for our kids and grandkids. I had a quick question when you just said reason. What Old Testament character would you guys say reasoned the most with God?

my first thought was Moses, but I was curious if you guys... What do you mean about reason? Yeah, what's... Kind of like what you just said, like David reasoned with God. Like, just dialogue of... Because for me, I would view... Moses is a good one because... I would view David reasoning with God when the child dies,

and he's fasting and pleading on behalf. So he's reasoning with God to save the child. Yeah. You have so many people in the Old Testament... And Abraham, and the Genesis 22 passage that was brought up comes to mine. I think Abraham's a big one. And I love Abraham as a prototype of it because Abraham is considered the father of our faith. So he's like the one that James and Paul both kind of elevate us.

You know, Abraham was a man of faith and, you know, it was credited him as righteousness because he believed God. And so he. So, Zach, did you know, let me mention that. And I'll let you finish. I'm sorry to interrupt. I looked, I did a little dive on that word when it says, Abraham reasoned to the resurrection in Hebrews 11? I looked up that Greek word, and it is all over the book of Romans 19 times Paul uses that word, but it's not used as reason. And one of them

is the word you just said, credited to him as righteous. That's the same Greek word as reasoned. It was reasoned to him as righteous. So all those times you see that you could use that word. Count it as is another way it's used. And so I just found that fascinating. looking in Romans 4, that that was the sort of transaction between he and God and this idea of him trusting in him, that it was reasoned, both by Abraham's reasoning, but also that God would then credit to him. Because we understand the concept there. This is like something's going to happen in the future that's now covering his faith. But the idea is there is reason in that. So to your point, it is very, very strong. And every time you see that,

And this mentioned out of the 19 times, most of them are in Romans 4 with that idea of being credited or kind of poe. Go ahead. I was thinking you got the Psalm 139 passage is so key because it's like an anchors God's being and something that is unescapable. Like you can't get away from it. And this is, I'll give you like an interesting little case study. I'll give you like a demonstration of this in just a second that I found to be very helpful in my life. And it's kind of a formula that I learned. Not a formula. Maybe that's the wrong word, like a rubric through which I interpret reality.

I got this from, I mentioned one of the guys earlier, Francis Schaefer. There's another guy named Cornelius Fantille who was a professor at Westminster Seminary that I started reading some of his books on apologetics. And at first I hated it because I was like, this guy's like reasoning in a circle. And I was like, I hated that because I was really into like the evidences, you know, give me all the evidences for the Christian faith, you know, can we look at science and look at, and what I didn't want to do, I didn't want to start with the Bible because I felt like if I start with the Bible to make my point, then it's going to be like you're going to end up reasoning in a circle. And so I was trying to get out of that.

I was trying to get into what's called natural theology. And then somebody gave me a book by Ventil on something called presuppositional apologetics, big, big term. But basically, this is what he says. He says, you have to start with the father, son, and the Holy Spirit. You start there. And then you make meaning of the world. And I didn't like that at first because I thought, well, you're assuming something before you even start, and you can't do that. And one of his points is, is that everybody assumes something. Everybody. Like, everybody has a presupposition. Like, you can't avoid that. If you were raised in a Southern Baptist church in the middle of Alabama in the 1970s, you're going to have a

particular view of the world different from someone that's raised by imams in Iran. It's just two different oral views. And so we all have a presupposition that's impossible to escape. And so his point is just admit your presupposition. Mine begins with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now let's see how you can make meaning of the world. And so here's an interesting thought experiment going back to our last conversation. about the naturalist.

If, think about this statement. Somebody comes in and they tell you, they say all things, they say this, I've determined that all things are determined by prior states of physical events. This is the naturalistic worldview. This is the materialist. This is the atheist. This is the world they live in. And what they're essentially saying is that I have determined that everything that's,

is determined by just physical happenings. Everything that's happening, kind of like when you take like bacon soda and you pour vinegar in it, it just, what happens? Yeah, just like it fizzes up. But there's no like decision that's happening in there.

This is just a physical reaction. The bacon soda is not like, oh, man, we've got some like tangy substance around us. We need to like fizz up. There's no conversation. There's no decision. it's just a result of physics, right? And so I've determined that all things are determined by physics.

But do you notice what's interesting about that? Is that they're reaching up into the spiritual world. They're in a natural world, and they're saying that all that exists is the natural world. But they're coming up into the spiritual world where thought life exists. And where free will exists and where you can actually determine things, where you have your own abilities to make sense of the world. So they're reaching up into this top category, and then they're bringing it down into their category

to tell us that this category doesn't exist. This is how God is inescapable. To prove that God doesn't exist, you actually have to borrow from God's stuff to prove that he doesn't exist. I mean, it's just like insane. This is how necessary our God is. And so once I kind of learned this methodology of interpreting the world,

And I was like, you can't get away from it. He's not probably there. No, he is 100% there and unavoidable, and you cannot avoid him. Because even in your own ability to prove that he's not there, you end up proving that he is there. And it's just like his being is so necessary that nobody can get away from him because he has revealed himself in every aspect of reality because he is the ultimate reality. Does that make sense? Oh, it does. And so we want you to sign up and take the course with us for free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com.

That way you get to enjoy the lectures and hear us talk about it. No, it was like that. We mentioned this in the last podcast. Remember the term was during COVID was believed the science. But I mean, saying about the contradiction even in that, in the term of that. Because science is theoretical and then the testing of theories. I mean, that's what the whole thing is. And so that's great.

We've got established science until that theory then becomes something different because someone else comes in and proves something that hasn't been proven before. We see it happen all the time. And so that's the whole idea. It's the borrowing of God to then make your own application to what is the concrete now. And in that moment, it's like believe the science. I used to just chuckle that because I thought, well, sounds like you're saying, I'd rather have faith than put the person in the blank, vouchee, whoever.

Well, I think it's, I think this is the tricky part is that it's not the science. It's the interpretation of the science. Like, there's facts that are true facts. And that's what science gives us is, you know, what are the facts. But then the interpretation of their facts is where things get messed up. Or there's bad actors. And I think the same thing happens in the church. And this is kind of what led me more towards naturalism and is why I also still today tend to, towards naturalism more than spiritualism because I've seen so many bad actors like attribute things to God that I don't think we're of God. Yeah. And one of the things is like I think miracles is just a easy example to talk about. There was, uh, there was this, it was several years ago. I saw a circle on it and I like looked into it and everything. So it was just church. I think it was in Missouri somewhere and, um, big like faith healing church. And, and, um, it was a faith healing church. And, you know, heavily believed in that. Pastor talked about all the time.

So there was a woman, and she, earlier in her life, had, like, shot her toe off. She, like, lost her toe. And she goes to this faith healing service, and then she says her toe grew back. And it was a miraculous healing. And the pastor did this whole thing of, like, this is, like, a miraculous healing. God restored this woman's toe. It, like, grew back. It was this whole thing.

and so then naturally people are like oh awesome show us the toe post a picture of it and they're like no we're not doing that you've got to believe in faith and the pastor like doubles down and it's like this was a true miracle we're not going to post a picture because we don't want you to like come to god through the miracle of the toe and the signs the signs yeah and then this is like whole thing and then she like deletes all her social media like goes off and there's like these petitions and people show them to the church just like show us the toe like just post it before and after just show me the toe like that's it like if it's a miracle show your toe show well it is clearly not a miracle well then she amputated her foot so

she yeah so clearly she really or is that a joke no this is joking sorry clearly they're just like that was supposed to be a joke but I guess it whenever everyone No, so clearly it wasn't. But what I'm saying is, I believe in miracles and I believe God can grow someone's towback, but when you have people saying, this is a miracle,

and it's not a miracle, or, you know, and I think this happens all the time I hear us a lot of like, you know, I was walking down the street and, you know, I saw a dollar bill and I picked it up and that was like God giving me that dollar because I needed it to buy a pack of gum. It's like, okay,

like we're over spiritualizing it. Like we're attributing things to God that I don't think are of God, which I think is, I want to be very cautious of, and I think it's just as can lead people away from faith just as bad as attributing things to science or nature, not science, attributing things to nature that are of God. I think it goes both ways, and that's, I think, what pushed me away from my faith.

So that's why I was like, when we're talking about naturalism, like I tend to say, okay, what's the natural explanation of this? this. And if I can't find one, then I'm like, oh, this is obviously, you know, something spiritual. Well, her response is interesting. So that is the postmodern view of, and the church has adopted this. I mean, this is, I mean, this is the sad truth. Schaefer calls it faith in faith. So the idea is, well, no, if I show you the evidence for it, then that eradicates the whole need for faith, right? So that's kind of what was her argument. And so inherent in our understanding of what faith is, faith is a leap when there's no reason to believe it's true,

but that is not how the Hebrew writer talks about faith, which interestingly enough, Al, when we talk about Abraham and we talk about how he reasoned that God could raise Isaac from the dead, that's in the same chapter as the follow-up to what the Hebrew writer says what faith is. He says, I get my Bible, says, faith is the substance of things that's unseen. Let me read it. I don't want to butcher it. When you learn the NIV as a kid and then you start with the ESV later on in life, I always like take my scriptures.

That's why we couldn't make the thing. The NIV is faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. And the ESV is now faith is the assurance of things that are hoped for and the conviction of the things that is not seen. Does you say substance in there? certain. I think the 80, yeah, I think the 84 version may have said substance. But the idea of it is that faith is not a leap into the unknown.

It's not even the hope itself. It's the assurance of the things that are hoped for. It's the conviction of the things that are not seen. So faith is actually very tangible. And we know that because when he, when the Hebrew writer gives us this definition of faith, Then he goes into the hall of faith, all the people who are like, he goes into like all these different people. And when he brings Abraham into it, he's actually explaining to us how Abraham had faith. And what you see in that text, particularly when you go back to Genesis 22, you see that faith and reason were not in contradiction to one another.

They were not in contradiction at all. In fact, Abraham, as he's going up the mountain to sacrifice Isaac, two things happened. if you go back and read Genesis 22. The first thing is, he says, me and the boy are going up to make a sacrifice. We will worship and we will come back. He says, we're coming back. So Abraham knew something, right?

Like, there's something like, and Genesis 22 doesn't tell you all the story. You have to get to Hebrews 11 to get the rest of the story. But he's like, he's fully convinced that I'm going up this mountain and I'm going to sacrifice Isaac, and then we're going to come back now. which anybody in the right mind would think that doesn't make any sense. Then the other thing he says is he's going up and Isaac says,

Hey, Dad, I see that you have the wood for the burnt offering, but what about the sacrifice? And Abraham could have said jokes on you. You are the sacrifice, but he said, the Lord will provide. So this is why I love that story, because what's happening in this explanation of faith is he said, what reason would Abraham have to think that he's going to come back down on that mountain with the son he's about to kill.

That doesn't make any sense. Why would he think that? And here's why I thought that, because God made him a promise. And God said, through Isaac, your offspring shall be wrecked. And you're going to have a bunch of grandkids through Isaac. And Abraham's looking around.

He's saying, I don't have any grandkids yet. Isaac hasn't produced any grandkids. I know that if he stays dead, I'm not going to get any grandkids. God said, I'm going to have grandkids through him. I believe God. And so I'm going to kill him. So I guess what God's going to do.

is he's going to raise him from the dead. He reasoned that. And so his reasoning was actually very logical. It was a very logical thing. Then you say, well, why would he believe God in the first place? Why would you not just say, God, you lied to me about that? Because God had already showed up in a way that was so powerful. He said, you know, you're so old.

You and your wife are so old, but I'm going to actually give you a son. In your old age, when it's physically impossible, I'm going to make sure that it happens. And Abraham had already tried it the other way. He had already got Hagar pregnant, already tried it his way, ended in a miserable failure. So Abraham has failed by starting with himself to make meaning of the world. He yields to God. God produces the child. And from that point on, Abraham's like, I believe. But it's very reasonable and rational for him to believe. It's not like he's just like, oh, I think this is going to happen. I hope it's going to happen. He had a clear reason to believe it. Does that make sense? It's not separate from it.

I'll add a caveat to that, Zach, that I discovered when I was preaching a sermon recently in Job that when Satan and God are having the conversation and God says, have you considered my servant, Job? Have you considered that phrase? The same Hebrew word for that is the same thing Zach just mentioned. It's mentioned in Genesis 21, when Abraham put the burden of the food and provisions. on Hagar and sent her out into the desert. And the same one that put, he put the wood on Isaac, and he put Isaac on the offer.

Same Hebrew word. So it's interesting that idea of putting a burden on someone. You know, we were talking about in the last podcast about Job, having this bearing, this burden of all these things that happened to him and trying to reason as to why it happened. Same word that was used in those two Genesis, and many more. The idea that sometimes the burden is put on, us to then understand and reason. And that's hard for us to grasp because like when you're going

through it, you're like, oh, God, why, why is this happening? But until you get through that, part of that is a reasoning thing that goes on in our own transformation, we can't see that. So that's that same idea. So I found that fascinating is that that the same concept was there in both of those contexts. That's good. What I think is interesting about Job, too, is that God never, like, gives him the answer. Like he doesn't say, it doesn't, in the end, God doesn't say, oh, this was like about, this was like this whole thing with Satan's whole. He doesn't tell him the conversation. He doesn't tell any of that. He doesn't know any of that. That's right. He just leaves it. He basically says, well, I'm God and you're not, you know, at the end. That's what he said in the whole speech.

Yeah, that was, yeah, that was the end. And the same thing, the same thing with Jonah is, it gets to the end. And Jonah is basically like, why. And God just doesn't answer. It just ends with the question. That's exactly right. Why did this happen? just is. That's exactly right. It was really good. In fact, I think, I think if you look at the, like this lecture, there's basically, I got five, I got five philosophers here, or thinkers or theologians that were kind of talked about, the primary ones at least. Schlemmaker, Tillick, Ronner, Barth, and the Lubach. And so I think the first three, like what separates them from the last two, the devils and the details. And here,

it's just, it's, where did they begin? Like, the, if you begin with yourself or, or your experience or the human, like that, I think this is, this is like the, the whole dilemma of the whole thing. Abraham and Job, these guys didn't begin with themselves. The fathers of our faith, the heroes of the faith, they didn't begin with their own interpretation. They, they began by just receiving that revelation from God. And so the last two that were mentioned in the lecture, like, you know, Bar,

was basically like, no, it begins with God's revelation. God has to say something to you in order for you to have faith. But to De La Box's point, we are, we're built with a capacity to receive revelation. And so these things don't work. They're not like these separated things that are out there. You know, Aristotle is another prime example. Like, you know, this guy has no understanding of the Judeo-Christian God. But he does understand logic.

He does understand mathematics, which mathematics and logic are, that is revelation from God. How in the world is 2 plus 2 a revelation from God? How is logic a revelation from God? Because God generally reveals himself through what has been made. That's the Romans 1 passage. And so Aristotle, as he's looking at the math, mathematics of it all, he determines that, man, you know what, there's an object that doesn't move at all that just is and initiates all movement in the universe. I mean, think about, he gets to the necessary,

but he didn't know who it is, didn't know it's a personal force, but he got to the bottom, at least mathematically, that there has to be something that doesn't start with us. There has to be like some type of something that doesn't have to, that's non-contingent and that can initiate everything else. And this is like where I think all this gets to. And then as the scriptures kind of are given to us as that special revelation from God, now the sudden we have a real framework to make sense of the world. And I think all of these humanistic philosophers, that their, their only problem, their main problem

was this. They were humanists, that they began with themselves. And that's why that all of these philosophies end in just complete incoherencies and absurdity, all of them. They all end in that. And it's only the one that begins with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where you actually see life and vibrant life in the universe. That's so good. What was the brief part in the lecture where I think he was talking about the two different camps, and I can't remember exactly what he said, but he was talking about how it was, like, wrong to think of the idea of, like, like, in your heart, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, could fill that void in your heart. Um, do you remember that part of the lecture at all?

I don't. I was confused about it because, because basically they were talking, it's kind of like what you talked about the man's revelation of God versus, you know, versus, um, man starting with himself. And basically the idea of like it was, it's almost offensive to think that God could fill or, or I can't remember exactly what you're saying. Oh, I remember what you're talking about. It was a, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, a gut of a whole that somehow we make God sized for him to feel. Yeah. As if we can then create the space. Yeah, that was what it was. It was like, we create the space for God to fill. But I was thinking about it from the standpoint of, you know, in ecclesiasiasis, where it talks about, you know, God has placed eternally in the hearts of man.

And that, that was kind of my counter argument to that point. of like there is a void in all of us that only God can fill. And I don't think that's us creating this hole that and forming God into it. So I thought that, I thought that part was kind of interesting how they were talking about that. In fact, I would agree. And the idea is that the holes that we form to fill as human beings tend to be things that we suffer loss from or kind of like we're talking about earlier with David or me or, you know, like in other words, something is created in us out of some bad situation, our own sinful behavior, and then we try to fill it with something, and it doesn't work. You know, like some people will turn to drugs or alcohol or pornography or, you know, whatever to fill that.

There's just a void. And you see in people's life, a lot of people that get into addictive behavior, especially, they're trying to fill that with something to make them either numb or feel better or feel whatever. And it never seems to satisfy. Yeah. And what they're missing is the idea that God has something bigger for it. I thought that was weird that they thought that we were like, or that those people are diminishing God. Right.

Like taking this and then putting it in this like small space. Yeah, right. I was like that. I don't think that's correct. Yeah, I think one of the things that is kind of, wasn't mentioned in any of these lectures that I would, that I would probably push against is I think all of these guys were kind of operating the Reformation guys and the Enlightenment folks.

So the reformers are kind of, like the rebuttal to like David Hume, for example. And so the reformers are coming in with kind of a, where they're trying to lead people back to Christ and the truth of the gospel. But there is another thing in all of this I think is key to understand is that there is something even more primary to all of this than our rational faculties. And I do think that James K.A. Smith read a book called Desiring the Kingdom. He wrote another version called You Are What You Love.

And he makes a really good point that, primarily what it means to be human. It just means you're a worshiper. I mean, John Cooper brought this up on the podcast about rock and roll music. He's like, you're going to worship one way or the other. It's not a matter if you'll worship. It's a matter of what or who you're going to worship. And so I think even more fundamental to all of this is that the hole that's actually

in us, it's a worship vacuum. It's what we're doing is we're actually worshiping. We index our worship to the wrong thing. And that's why the psalmist in Psalm 19 says something very interesting at the end of it. He actually says that he kind of categorizes idolatry and sin in this framework. He says that sin is ultimately to give over to the creation the dominion that you were given in Genesis 128. The man was given to have dominion over the creation. He says idolatry, sin is essentially giving the creation dominion over you.

And that's such an interesting way of looking at it. Because you know that Psalm Al is all about enjoying like God's the taste of honey. He's like your decrees are like the taste of wild honey. Oh, they taste so good. Your laws are so good. So it's all about delighting in the Lord. Then he gets to the end. He says, keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.

Let them not have dominion over me. And I love the way that it frames that. up because it actually shows us the picture in Romans 1. Again, what was their sin in Romans 1? That they actually worshipped and served the creation rather than the creator. What were we created to do? We weren't created to worship creation. We were created to have dominion over creation.

So idolatry turns out to be that I just turn, I'm just going to give my God-given dominion. I'm going to hand that to the creation and let it dominate. let it have dominion over me. And you see that with sexual sin. You see that with all kind of things. Greed, you know, all these sins, that that's what it is. And so I think reorienting the discussion, too, that there is a deeper thing going on here than just epistemology, how we know what we know. There's also a bigger thing about, you know what, like, I'm longing to worship.

God has put eternity into the hearts of men. Like, that is real Christian. That's a great one. I always go back, Zach, to Genesis 128. We do so often the idea that God created us in his image, and it's ironic that he's a triad God and Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, and he made us with three components, which we're here talking about the material versus the spiritual.

But when you combine them together, which is kind of what that synthesis he talked about, or syntheses of taking those and combining them, it's kind of what God did in us, because we have a body, you have a spirit, but then we have that soulish, that third nature that seems to long for God. And one of the illustrations that Dr. Wells used that I understood in this lecture, one of the few things I understood was the idea of an infant that instinctively knows. That was a great illustration.

But not even understanding what a breast is, that it has milk in it, but knows instinctively and intrinsically that he's supposed, or she, supposed to suckle that breast. And that's the idea it is with us. I mean, I love the biblical picture of us being reborn and we're infants, and we're seeking that with God. And we're so, you know, we're born, you know, in the image of God. But then we're reborn to understand that, man, I don't know it all yet, but God, I know you're going to show me. And that's where the transformation comes from. Yeah, I thought the illustration was so good, too. I thought was good. I wanted to... You got to be a little careful

with the synthesis stuff. I mean, because like that is... He didn't bring up this philosopher where there's a philosopher whose name was Frederick Hegel. And this particular philosopher, again, it's funny that the same course, came up with what...

He did mention the term dialectical in the lecture. So he really was instrumental in forming what's called this dialectical model. And what that... It's called Gellian's dialect. And what it means is this. He basically said that there's like a what's called a thesis and then that every thesis has an antithesis. And these are like things that are like,

like the antithesis of, of, um, of A is non-A or the antithesis of this cup in my hand is that this cup is not in my hand. And these, these two things are like, they're contradictory. And so he says that what happens is you form the higher truth out of that. that called synthesis. But when you have a synthesis that forms, it creates a new thesis that has an antithesis. And then that forms a higher synthesis. And then this just goes on forever. And Hagell was very influential in Western thought. And so he would argue that this is how God comes into being through this struggle. Well, it's interestingly enough. You know what another philosopher came along the scene later, whose name was Carl Marx.

and Karl Marx studied Frederick Hegel. And so Marxism is essentially Hegel turned into a materialism. So how do these worldviews get here? How do they get here through philosophy? They get here through these guys who come up with these ideas.

But at the core of all of it is that we don't bring God into being. Like Hegel is wrong. We don't bring God into being through some eternal struggle. You know, and you see the consequences. And you know that's true from the fruit of what you just said,

because communism had no room for God. No room. And so what communism leads to then is a hundred million people have been murdered under communist regimes. So when man becomes the determiner of all things, you've got to be careful because it's not just any man that gets to determine it. It's always going to be the one that has the most power, which ends up being the state. And then you have communism morphs into the critical theories of the Frankfurt School with all the whole 2020 movement, you know, critical race theory. critical queer theory, all the critical theories, but what do they all have in common? All of them.

What they have in common is that truth is not receive from God. And then truth is determined through the lens of however oppressed you are, how many intersections you have, intersectionality, and all these lofty philosophies. Here's what they all have in common, every one of them. All the philosophies that set themselves up against the knowledge of God, they have this one thing in common. They all begin with me. And you cannot live that way.

The only way a human being can actually live and flourish is if they begin with the God who is there. You have to begin with him. And what did he say? The biblical example of everything you just said, the humanness that we have in the Bible that changes mine was Solomon. And it's basically what he did in Ecclesiastes is say, I'm doing, I'm starting with myself and I'm doing anything that pleases me in the moment. and he builds stuff and works and just palaces and has women and anything that he can think of

that he thought would be pleasurable he did and it led him to versus like meaningless meaningless everything is meaningless and he just goes down this rabbit hole of like depression from just too much pleasure of himself and then he gets to the very end which is first I think about all the time when he says, Be warned my son of anything in addition, of making many books, there is no end and much study wearies the body. Now that all has been heard, here is the conclusion of the matter.

Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the full duty of man. That's just think that's so like, out of, for someone who put his philosophy to work, he actually did the humanist objective to the fullest, and he came to the end of saying, It's not about study. It's not about what you know. It's not about what you do. It's just about fearing God, keeping us commandments. That's good. That's a perfect way to end this course.

Way to bring it home, John Luke. We enjoyed it. It was great. So we're headed for the Odyssey next. We want you to take the courses with us. Unashamed for Hillsdale.com is where you do that. And we'll see you next time. And the course won't take us 20 years. We hope. join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to Unashamedforhillsdale.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. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.