Is Christianity true? Answering the hardest questions about God, Jesus, and the Bible

Mark Turman: [00:00:02] From Denison Forum, this is Faith and Clarity. I'm Mark Turman, your host. We want to equip you to find hope beyond the headlines and clarity in today's chaos. Our ultimate objective is to help you to be a cultural missionary instead of a cultural warrior, to uh shine brightly for Christ as uh we're encouraged to do throughout the Bible. This week we're talking about some of the hard questions of faith. Faith is uh a challenging subject uh on every level. Uh in many ways, people are wired to believe and to ask big questions like, where did I come from? How did I get here? Why am I here? We also wonder about questions like, is God real? If he is real, then what is he like? What's his character? Who is Jesus? And of course, we have other questions that kind of nag at our souls like suffering, death, uh big questions about is heaven real? What does eternal life look like? What would that be if it's real? Uh we're going to jump into some of those light topics today as we step into summer. So let's roll. Uh my guests today are familiar to you. Ryan Denison is our senior editor for theology at Denison Forum and joining us is the senior Dr. Denison, Dr. Jim Denison, our cultural apologist, chief vision officer and co-founder of Denison Forum. Ryan, glad to have you with us today.

Ryan Denison: [00:01:22] Thanks, it's good to be here.

Mark Turman: [00:01:24] And Jim, always a pleasure to have you back with us.

Jim Denison: [00:01:27] Notice you emphasized the senior part of that uh description a little perhaps more emphatically than was necessary, but thank you.

Mark Turman: [00:01:34] Because I'm the host, you know, I am I am the host of this podcast and so I have certain liberties to be able to.

Jim Denison: [00:01:40] I'm more senior every. I I believe. Thank you.

Mark Turman: [00:01:43] That's right. And that just means we're one breath, one step closer to being face to face with Jesus and that's a goal we ought to all have in our hearts, right? Uh which is a lot of uh around what we're talking about is just this whole journey of faith.

Mark Turman: [00:02:02] Uh Jim, I've heard you uh share bits and pieces of your testimony uh at different places, different times, writing, verbally. Uh you became a Christian in the Houston area at the age of 15 back in the 70s, a bus ministry, so many beautiful things about that story. Uh but I was just wondering as we jump into hard questions, when do you remember starting to think or even to struggle with some of these big issues of faith? Uh was there something that triggered the questions and your now some 50 years later, uh still pondering some of these deep, deep questions of faith. Give us some context for that.

Jim Denison: [00:02:42] Well, thank you, Mark. As far back as I can remember really. I mean, I remember laying out on the lawn and looking up at the sky and wondering what's past that. Is there anything beyond that? And if there is, what's beyond that? And if there is, what's beyond that? If there is a God, what would he be like? All those sorts of things. But then really the catalyst for me as people have heard me tell the story would be my own father's story. How my dad was so active in church, fought in the Second World War, had horrific war experiences, came back and never went to church again. And so our home was a very loving home, a wonderful home in so many ways, but no spiritual life and I just kind of intuited my father's questions. If there's a God, why is there war, innocent suffering? And by this time in school, I'm beginning to wonder about other religions, science and faith, evil and suffering issues and really as far back as I can remember. Uh some uh months ago, I actually discovered in an uh a bag I hadn't seen in years, hadn't opened in years, some typing practice that I was doing in the ninth grade. I didn't become a Christian until the next year. I was invited to uh church the next year, but in ninth grade, I was taking typing from Mrs. Middleton at Sharpstown Junior High School in Houston, Texas. And I found a journal I typed on a manual typewriter in typing practice, a letter addressed to God. Wow. In which I'm asking God if he's real, if he's there and if he is, would he let me know essentially in ways that a ninth grader might ask that question. And so apparently, I've been interested in these sorts of issues a very long time as far back as I can remember.

Mark Turman: [00:04:08] Well, some people are going to be surprised that there was such a thing in high school as a typing class.

Jim Denison: [00:04:14] And a manual typewriter.

Mark Turman: [00:04:15] And a manual, people are like, what do you mean manual typewriter? Uh you and I are both old enough to know what those things mean. Um and that there was correction tape, right? That you would you'd slide the correction tape in there so that you could cover your mistakes.

Jim Denison: [00:04:30] And then eventually white out was a big, you know, a big help and so.

Mark Turman: [00:04:33] Yeah, there's a sermon illustration in both of those things, right?

Jim Denison: [00:04:36] There are, yes, there are.

Mark Turman: [00:04:37] Right.

Jim Denison: [00:04:38] Ryan doesn't know what we're talking about, but that's all right.

Ryan Denison: [00:04:40] I've seen a typewriter.

Mark Turman: [00:04:41] I've seen it.

Ryan Denison: [00:04:43] Yeah.

Mark Turman: [00:04:44] Yeah. Never used it, but I've seen it.

Ryan Denison: [00:04:45] Yeah.

Mark Turman: [00:04:46] Yeah. So.

Mark Turman: [00:04:48] So Jim, I'm just wondering, when you stepped into church, uh about a year later after writing this letter to God, did you have any sense at that point of, ah, here's a place where somebody can deal with my questions or did that come later uh even beyond being in that church for the first year or two?

Jim Denison: [00:05:07] Yeah, it was a place where I hoped that would be the case. And it was a wonderful church on so many levels, Mark. Our pastor was a deeply godly evangelical person and my Sunday school teacher, his wife was one of the sweetest people I've ever known, really my spiritual mother. She's the person who actually led me to faith in Christ. But when I would ask questions in 10th grade Sunday school, I got the impression pretty quickly, we don't do that here. You know, what about the dinosaurs or geology sort of things in school and you know, age of the earth and such as that. I just somehow got, no one ever said that per se, but I got the very clear impression that if you have enough faith, you don't have these questions. If you just have enough faith, you won't have these doubts. They wouldn't have said it like that. My pastor actually had a master's in history from the University of Alabama. He was a deeply intellectual person, but faith was seen in a very pragmatic sort of a way. And if you have enough faith, then that's really what you need. That's really all you need was the impression I got. So I went a long time doubting my salvation. Am I even sure I am a Christian because I still have these questions, still have these issues. Uh not doubts about my salvation really, but doubts about pretty much everything else. How do we know the Bible's true as it was handed down over these years? What about these other religions, all those sorts of things? And I just kind of got the impression there was something wrong with me that I had these questions, these issues. Uh my salvation was C. S. Lewis. It was Mere Christianity that was given to me when I was in high school and for the first time, I found someone asking my questions, dealing with intellectual issues and I still have that copy of Mere Christianity that cost a dollar 95 back in the day. It's got a rubber band around it because I've worn it out. And uh from then till now, Lewis has been my most significant mentor uh in the faith. And he was the first person I encountered who really did ask the kind of questions I was asking and made me feel that they were more legitimate and uh and it wasn't a it wasn't a lack of faith to ask these questions. It's really an expression of faith. It's the atheist who don't ask the questions because they don't believe there's anything to ask a question of. We're not talking about Martians today because we don't believe there's such a thing as Martians. It's really an expression of faith. Uh Frederick Bener said doubts are the ants in the pants of faith that keep it moving. And I I think maybe there's some truth in that.

Mark Turman: [00:07:12] That's a good, good way of thinking about it. But man, I think a lot of people listening to us are going to resonate with that of, hey, I thought there was something wrong with me, with my understanding or grasp or lack of grasp of faith. I think a lot of people are going to identify that. I know I do coming to faith in my teenage years as well and and looking around saying, these people look like they have something, they're grasping something that I don't think I quite grasp yet and having that feeling. One other just quick follow up, Jim.

Mark Turman: [00:07:40] Did your dad ever talk about his trauma and the questions or did you just feel it in the air kind of as you grew up?

Jim Denison: [00:07:47] One time. He told us the story one time about what it was like to be essentially abandoned on that island in the South Pacific. Wow. And to live there for two and a half years with no knowledge that they would ever be rescued. Wow. Yeah. Uh developed a very significant skin fungus there that he struggled with the rest of his life. Um significant health issues that eventually cost him his life. He had his first heart attack when uh he was what would this be? 36 and died 19 years later. Lived on borrowed time, the doctor said for 19 years and died at the age of 55. And I I have no way to understand how traumatic it was, but uh one time he told us the story.

Mark Turman: [00:08:32] Yeah, and so often characteristic, right, of people that have been in wars and in other traumatic situations, they it's just so hard for them to articulate it. Um and so hard for people that love them to be able to hear it and even to be able to grasp the the gravity of what people go through sometimes.

Jim Denison: [00:08:53] And he had survivor guilt as so many did, Mark. He didn't feel himself to be a victim because he survived. You know, he would tell you as so many of them will tell you they're not the heroes, the real heroes are the ones that never came back. The ones that never came home. And so he didn't think of himself as a hero. He didn't think of himself as a victim. Uh he he had this guilt that he had actually survived this in a way that so many people didn't. And that was part of why he just didn't want to talk about it. It was just not a place he was willing to go.

Mark Turman: [00:09:19] Yeah. Well, having just uh a little bit ago come through our own recognition of Memorial Day and moving toward July 4th and the 250th anniversary of our church. I think those stories are so important for us to remember. Um for people that have been uh put through those things and some sympathy, compassion for people around the world, people in Ukraine, uh people in Israel, uh people in Palestine experiencing things like that today. Um that we need to be prayerful about, that we need to be caring for. Uh Ryan, I'm just wondering, growing up in the house of Jim and Janet Denison, um I don't think I like where this is going. I don't think I like where this is going. So I just envision, you know, that when the when the four Denisons sat down in your growing up years over the breakfast or dinner table, I just imagine these incredibly scholarly in-depth conversations about questions of faith. So, uh pull back the curtain a little bit and you know, it's you're old enough now that, you know, I think you're safe. Uh what did you learn about big questions of faith, how to think about them, uh how to not think about them? What was that like growing up in the atmosphere of the Denison home?

Ryan Denison: [01:10:38] Well, they tended to happen more naturally than at the dinner table. The dinner table was always reserved for Wheel of Fortune and it was very clear that if any of the conversations distracted from Wheel of Fortune, they were not welcome at that time. Good to know. Yeah. And so, uh, big picture of Vanna White up on the wall and that kind of thing. Yeah, just always on the TV. That was it. Just always on the TV. Um but I I do think part of part of the reason why they never came up at the dinner table is there was just always this understanding that if you got questions, ask them. It didn't so if they came up over the course of conversation, there was never the thing I loved about growing up in the way the home that my my mom and dad created was that we there was never a sense of you should be afraid of your doubts. There was never a sense of you should be afraid of your questions. They they existed to be answered was sort of the approach that was always there. And I don't know if it was ever articulated in that exact way, but that was very much the impression that was that we grew up with was just it was okay to have questions. It was okay to have doubts. The only way that it's not okay is if you let them fester without addressing it. And so I grew up in a lot of ways, I was the direct beneficiary of my grandfather's doubts and of my dad's doubts because I grew up where they didn't have to sit there in the background. They didn't have to just they didn't have to sit there and you didn't have to wonder if you if you were curious, you asked. And you may not always get the answer, but you could always talk through it. And that was the other thing I appreciated is that it was very rarely was it a lecture style answer. Often times we were invited into the conversation and it was just a and very much felt like just this is the way that you're supposed to handle this stuff. Like it was very natural. And I'm to this day, I'm very grateful for that because the doubts haven't gone away. And that was the other thing that I I do want to emphasize with that is just because you have questions and just because you address the questions, doesn't mean you always get a satisfactory answer. There's certain elements of just trying to understand an infinite God that our finite minds can't handle. And so just because you ask the questions or seek the answers, doesn't mean you always find them. And so that was the other thing is that if those sometimes those discussions ended with, I don't know. Um this is the best we can get and this is and so it also kind of reinforced that sometimes that is the answer that we're supposed to walk away with is this is as close as we can get to the truth, but if we go beyond this, then we're entering into heresy or entering into falsehood. And so that was kind of the line that as I reflect back on that, um those conversations that I I'm very appreciative of is that there was never a sense of you need to push the question until you have an answer even if that leads you down the wrong road.

Mark Turman: [01:13:20] Yeah. Yeah, it's really good advice and really good uh reflection on growing up in a healthy environment. Uh Jim, as we kind of move into this a little bit further, uh I wonder if you could set the context for us, uh a really helpful thought process that I've found in dealing with some of these big questions is the the thought process around the difference between evidence and proof. Um you hear people that struggle with faith or have uh come to a place that there's no such thing as God, say, well, you can't prove it, so therefore it must not be real. Uh help us think through why looking at this from a evidence-based decision-making process as opposed to the way we normally use the idea of proof. How should we think about that?

Jim Denison: [01:14:06] Well, it's a very important question and I really think it's vital on a number of levels. Just a couple of them that comes to my mind that I would think about first and just kind of maybe creating some context here just a bit. Uh there's a thing called a category mistake that Gilbert Ryle and other philosophers talk about. It's something like asking how much does the color seven weigh? Or uh how round is a square? Uh there are questions you can ask that are nonsense questions where you're asking the wrong question relative to the category that you're addressing. Well, when we're asking for proof of a relationship, we're making a category mistake. And a relationship with God like any other relationship can't be proven, only experienced. I can't prove to you that my wife loves me. I can't prove that I love her. I can show you evidence, but I could be lying, I could be deceiving. Um there could be hallucination, who knows? There could be all sorts of explanations for that. There's no scientific proof of the love that I'm expressing right now or that I'm describing right now because relationships don't fit in test tubes. Relationships can't be proven like a mathematical theorem or like a chemistry experiment or something else that's quantifiable in that sort of sense. That's a category mistake. What we do in relationships is we examine the evidence, but then we step beyond the evidence into a relationship that becomes self-validating. Examine the evidence for sure. It's not the other way around either. It's not as though relationships never require evidence on some level. That would categorically be untrue. Uh in the Bible, the Lord says, come let us reason together, come let us argue it out as the way the Hebrew is literally translated. If you're deciding what school to go to after high school, will you look at the evidence? And then you make a decision beyond that that becomes self-validating once you matriculate at that school. You can't really know if that was the right school until you attend. You can't really know if that was the right job until you take it. You can't really know if you're ready to be married until you're married or be ready to have children until you have children. Those listening to this podcast, Mark, can't really know if it's worth their time until they listen to the podcast. They can examine the evidence, they can look at our credentials, they can look at previous editions, that sort of thing, but you can't really know until you do it because that's just how relationships work. Right. And so to ask for proof of a relationship is a category mistake. It won't work because in uh inherently it's not able to work. It's illogical. It's again trying to make a square circle. It's just something that's a nonsense thing that can't exist in reality.

Mark Turman: [01:16:34] Yeah. Ryan, does that make sense to you?

Ryan Denison: [01:16:37] It 100% does. And um the only the only thing I wanted to add to that too is I think another aspect of this is when you're proving something, you're seeking 100% certainty. And with faith, you can't do that. Um a lot of the faith questions that we're going to talk about today, a lot of the faith questions that people have in general, um boil down to a binary choice. Is this true or is this not? And in those circumstances, you weigh the evidence and you go with in the direction the evidence leans. And I think so many of the faith questions that people have, so many of the the struggles that people have with their faith come from this place of seeking definitive 100% proof and feeling like they don't have the right answer until they get there. When the better approach and I think the approach we take in every other aspect of our lives, like what my dad is talking about is to just look at the evidence, weigh it and see which direction it leans. And if we can learn to take that approach to our faith, then Christianity becomes far and away. Like I there I've never had a faith question where the balance of the evidence didn't point to the truth of scripture. I've had faith questions where I couldn't get to 100%, but I've never had one where when you just examine it logically and rationally and in light of what the Bible says and what experience teaches that it doesn't point to the Bible being true. And if we can get to the point where that's enough, then so many then this conversation gets so much easier and so much more productive.

Jim Denison: [01:18:00] I would only add this Mark that a lot of science works in the same way of probability. A great deal of science is working on the on the basis of probability as opposed to absolute proof. Absolute proof is really tough to do. Even in mathematics, you have to take some axioms on faith as it were in order to use those axioms toward mathematical proofs. Someone asked Einstein once if 2 + 2 always equals four. And he said, yes, when it doesn't equal three or five. It's just the way I sort of look at it, I think, you know. And so I can't prove to you that parallel lines never intersect. I'd have to draw them forever. I can't prove that in the calculation of pi, three consecutive sevens never appear. It's been calculated to billions of places so far, no three consecutive sevens, but I can't prove it. You'd have to do it forever. So even in mathematical precision and proofs, there's there are axioms, there are are things that are assumed to be true as a basis for everything that comes after that. And and so much of what we think of as science really is probability rather than proof in the sense of 100% certitude.

Mark Turman: [01:18:59] Yeah, and we we see this all the time, right? When we're watching a legal drama on TV or even if we, you know, uh get a traffic fine and we have to go to traffic court. Um if if nobody saw the crime, um then all you can do in a court of law is present evidence and based on a preponderance of an of the evidence, you make a decision as a judge or a jury, right? Uh so we do this, we see this all the time. Uh absolute proof is very, very rare in that way. Yeah.

Mark Turman: [01:19:34] Um so let's start at the very foundational question, which is the very existence of God. And uh Ryan, I'll let you just pick up this simple matter. Um but uh I've heard several people talk about this from a theological standpoint, but for much of history uh and probably uh we might be able to say most people that have ever lived, the existence of God or maybe many gods, but the existence of a higher being is simply a given. They didn't really question whether or not that would be a reality. They just assumed it was a reality based on uh their intuitive uh thinking. But we live in a world where materialism, uh what is sometimes called naturalism, sometimes called scientism has become uh pretty popular. There's a significant number of atheists, uh not necessarily a majority, but uh some significant voices in that area. And I sometimes just keep wondering, uh did I happen to land in a season? I'm living in a season where people are just stuck on figures like Darwin and Freud and we can't get over this materialistic mindset. Uh can you help us with that?

Ryan Denison: [02:20:46] Yeah, I mean, I think it's helpful to understand that while these can seem like modern concepts, if you go back and look at even ancient Greek philosophy, 2,000 years ago, more than 2,000 years ago, they were wrestling with a lot of the same questions. And a lot of the what we see today has its origins even as far back as then. And just these thoughts will pop up throughout history. Um what's interesting is often times they pop up most frequently at the periods of history where the more basic needs of survival, like do I have enough food to put on the table today? Am I going to get eaten by a random animal if I step outside my house? Is there a war coming my direction? When those questions don't require us to spend the bulk of our time and energy answering those, then we have the freedom to answer a lot of these deeper questions. And so I think a lot of the times when humanity gets closest to looking for answers that don't involve God are when our day-to-day experiences don't require his existence to understand and don't feel like they do. And I think that's a lot of what we see in modern culture, even going back to the enlightenment and before. Um you start to see this move towards a desire to understand the world around us in a way that doesn't require God. And so much of it started with the rejection of God and then looking to prove how that could be possible rather than looking at the evidence and walking away going, this points to God not existing. And I think that's a really important distinction to keep in mind with a lot of these as well is that very rarely do you find anyone in these fields that support a purely secular, materialistic or humanistic or scientific understanding of the world that doesn't require God that started out with a genuine desire to simply understand. Because if you start with a desire to simply look at the world around you and see what makes the most sense, human history demonstrates that we end up back at God. It's when we start looking for an understanding that requires that does not require us to look beyond ourselves that people begin looking for ways to justify the idea that God may not have to exist. But I going back to what we said before about the the weight of evidence, I I don't think even in that circumstance, you ever get to the point where the weight of evidence points to a conclusion where it's more likely that God doesn't exist than that he does. Um and once you have those that larger discussion of is there a greater being? Is there a divinity of some sort? Um once you settle on that, I think you can get into the specifics of what does that divinity's nature? Like is that a Christian God or a Muslim God or a Buddhist gods or all of that. I think those are kind of those are diving down a little deeper, but a lot of the the basic question of does the world make more sense if God exists? Clearly the answer is yes. And even scientists like that dive into that have to come to that conclusion for the most part.

Mark Turman: [02:23:27] Yeah. So is that a way of saying that the more a culture prospers, the safer it becomes, the more uh convenience and comfort it has, the more it starts thinking, well, maybe there is a God, there is not a God? Is that am I following you in that line of thought?

Ryan Denison: [02:23:43] I think so. And we even see this in church history. If you look back at the ecumenical councils in the early church period of the 300s, 400s, that time period, almost all the debates around the intricacies and the theological minutia that is important but not essential to the faith happened in the eastern part of the Roman Empire where they had peace, they had stability. In the west where the barbarians were always trying to kill them, they kind of were content with just God exists, we know Jesus is God and that's all we really have time to discuss at this moment. And I do I do think that's kind of like to some extent we see that pattern throughout history where it's it's at the times when God when we kind of experience in a lot of ways the life we'd look we want, the life we strive after, a life where conflict isn't life or death, that we really start to get in the most trouble when it comes to the deeper issues of of of questioning the basics. And I think there there's a lesson to be learned in that that maybe we need to be more cognizant of that temptation, especially if we are going through a period of our lives where there's greater peace and stability.

Jim Denison: [02:24:49] Mark, I remember Moses warning the children of Israel as they were about to go into the promised land. He said, when you conquer this land, not if, but when, and you forget the Lord your God, remember that we made this covenant together. Not if, but when you conquer it and when your prosperity causes you to turn away from the Lord your God. And that's what happened then and what happens today.

Mark Turman: [02:25:12] Yeah, so and so amazing that, you know, it was never God's best will that they would be wandering around in the desert for 40 years. Uh but in some ways, they were much more dependent basically from what you were sharing with us. They were they were forced to be dependent upon God in a way that they would ultimately forget once they became settlers inside the promised land. Well, Ryan, it's it's one thing to posit the idea that God is real. The next question may be even more challenging, uh and I've heard both of you talk about that, which is what is this God like? Uh I heard a pastor recently talk about the distinction in the context of the founding of America and the faith of the founding fathers. You and your dad are doing some special newsletters around some of those characters now. Um what is the difference between deism and theism and how does that relate to, okay, what does the Bible say or what do different religions say about the nature of God? What is he like uh in turn, you know, Christianity says that he is personal, he's relatable, he's knowable. What's the difference between those two ideas of theology?

Ryan Denison: [02:26:23] Yeah, it's it really gets into the heart of when you read the Bible, what is the picture of God you walk away with? For a lot of the deists, especially as we approach the 250th anniversary of America, deism is kind of having a moment again a little bit where we're rediscovering that idea in some ways because so many of the founders took a at least a quasi-deistic view of the world where it imagines God as this sort of clockmaker who created everything, set it in motion, and then just kind of leaves it up to humanity to decide what what we're going to do with the world God gave us. Um but God is not intricately involved in that world still is kind of the deistic understanding. A theistic understanding uh takes puts more emphasis on the idea that God is still involved. God does still care for us. Uh I think it's a much more biblical view of the world. Um I think if you read the Bible and come away with the idea that God doesn't want a personal relationship with us or that God doesn't care what's happening in our lives, I I question how deeply and closely you really read the Bible because I think from Genesis through Revelation, the testimony of scripture is that God desires to have a personal relationship with us and is willing to pay an enormous cost to make that possible. And so I think the testimony of scripture is that God is uh God does love us, God is intricately involved in our world still. Um and so I think that speaks to the nature of God as well that he is willing to sacrifice for us. He is he loves us and what makes what sets Christianity apart from so many of the other religions like in the world today and just throughout history is that idea that God loves us because he loves us, not because he's looking for someone to serve him, not because he wants someone to make his life better, not because he is looking to simply demonstrate his power and authority over the world, but because he wants a personal relationship with us. In a lot of ways, that's what sets Christianity apart and speaks to the nature of the Christian God as opposed to several of the other understandings people have come to.

Mark Turman: [02:28:23] Yeah. Well, yeah, thank you for that because it just is kind of astounding um and and I I would say in some ways, the way I would describe my whole experience of faith since I became a Christian as a teenager is trying to grapple with and understand what does it mean to have a personal relationship with God and the distinctive nature of that in the context of Christianity, which Jim brings me back around to the Bible that uh Ryan is referring to. Uh some people in our world today, perhaps a number of them, dismiss faith because they don't believe that the Bible is God's word, that it is a a book of divine resource or origin. And they don't just believe they they don't just deny that about the Bible, they deny that about anything that claims to be a a sacred God-given book. Um help us with the claims, the evidential claims that the Bible is in fact the truth of God and as you sometimes said, many people consider it simply a diary of human experience. How do we move beyond that argument that it is simply a diary of human experience?

Jim Denison: [02:29:35] Well, first there's a why in the road. Uh Ernst Troeltsch and a number of others uh popularized some time ago a way of seeing history which says, if something can't happen today, it couldn't have happened then. If I'm not experiencing miracles, miracles couldn't have occurred. If we don't walk on water today, Jesus couldn't have walked on water then. They apply that to the writing of history, whatever the history is, in any context. That's just a basic principle of historiography that's become very, very popular. It's a naturalistic, materialistic view of the world that says miracles don't happen. Categorically. And so if I come to your question with that as my presupposition, well then I'm not going to get very far. And if if that's your position, what I'm about to say by way of arguments for scripture won't really matter because you've already decided that supernatural truth can't exist by definition. And therefore a book that records supernatural events and supernatural truth is by definition untrustworthy. That's just a position that someone's going to come to. I don't believe Martians exist. And so you can go on and on about a diary, we we'll call it or a journal of some sort of people's interactions with Martians and nothing you can tell me about the veracity of that book is going to be helpful because I already have a preconception that Martians can't and don't exist to begin with. That's the bias that so many people bring into your question to begin with. So the first thing we have to do is is disabuse ourselves of that notion. We have to say, look, that's a faith presupposition just as fully as a faith presupposition that the Bible could record supernatural truth is. Both of them are statements taken beyond evidence. I can't prove to you that there that there can't be the supernatural anymore than you can prove to me that there can. I can't prove to you that Jesus couldn't have walked on water anymore than you can prove to me that he did. And so if we'll get past that why in the road that just dismisses out of turn even the possibility of the supernatural, then we can take the second step, which is to say, all right, if I'm not going to dismiss the supernatural just um just by definition, then I want to ask, all right now, how can I know if this particular book that claims to record supernatural events and supernatural truth is trustworthy as opposed to that book? What can I say about the Bible as opposed to the Quran or the Bhagavad Gita or the Book of Mormon or any other religious book? What can we do at that point? Well, there are basically four tests. The first things relative to an ancient book you want to know are the manuscripts. Are what we have today trustworthy relative to what was originally written? The ancient manuscripts, we could go into much more detail than we have time for here, of course, but the ancient manuscripts were written on materials that no longer exist. That's just the case. We don't have the things that Aristotle wrote on. We don't have the manuscripts that Plato wrote on or that Julius Caesar wrote on. The kind of materials they used just went away over time. That's just the nature of the papyrus, the kind of writing materials that existed in the ancient world. All we have are copies, typically copies of copies. So what you want to ask is how close to the originals are the copies? How many are there and how trustworthy do we believe they are? There's a whole science called textual criticism, textual scholarship, which asks that very question. And the long story short, there's a lot about this. I've I've written a lot of papers on this. They're in our website. You could Google under my name, why believe the Bible and you'd see a great deal of data about this. Our book wrestling with God has chapters dealing specifically with this. But the bottom line is, the Bible is by far the best attested ancient book in history, by far, hands down relative to the manuscripts. Can we trust that what we have reflects what they wrote? Second question is fulfilled prophecy. If the book makes prophetic statements, are they fulfilled? Again, long story short, the Bible hands down passes that test as no other ancient book does. Quick example, by some measures, Jesus made or there are 48 prophecies made regarding the Messiah in the Old Testament, all of which Jesus fulfilled. So a mathematician named Peter Stoner picked eight of those, calculated the odds of one man fulfilling those eight as one in 10 to the 17th power, a one followed by 17 zeros. To illustrate that, fill the state of Texas two feet deep with silver dollars. Put a red dot on one. Blindfold me, lead me around all day. At the end of the day, I reach down and pick up one silver dollar. The odds I picked up the one you marked are the odds of Jesus fulfilling eight of the 48 prophecies. The odds of fulfilling all 48 is one in 10 to the 157th power. That number is larger than the number of electrons in the universe. So, second test, fulfilled prophecy. Third test, internal consistency. Again, a long conversation we could have here, but the Bible passes that test in remarkable ways and in ways that other materials don't. And the last is archaeological evidence. Bottom line, there is currently not a single archaeological discovery that convolutes or in some way contradicts the teachings of scripture. The archaeological evidence is overwhelming for the historicity of scripture. Now, there are a number of those that we can talk about relative to ways of interpreting passages, but there's not a single one that categorically, clearly, beyond dispute proves the Bible to be false in its historical narratives. So, if I'll make the first decision that I'm willing to consider supernatural claims, then I want to ask these questions of ancient books, the Bible wins in a way no other book does. Hands down. That's a statement that textual critics make whether they are Christians themselves or not. That's what the science of textual criticism and these other apologetic materials teaches us. So, abundant evidence to believe the Bible is true in what it says and that what it says changes lives. But at the end of the day, I'll go back to what I said before, faith is a relationship. The way to know for sure if the Bible is true is to trust it for yourself. The way to know for sure is to experience its truth claims and then you will validate personally what the Bible claims empirically and objectively. And that's the invitation of scripture. These things were written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing in him have life in his name. That's why John wrote his gospel. That's why the Bible exists.

Mark Turman: [03:35:52] Yeah, so so helpful to think about it in those terms and and it's such a All of us that have had you in seminary classes are really appreciative that you could bring it down to that really small uh presentation. And no tests. I love giving tests. Yeah, just the test of eternity, just the test of eternity. And I want to just um I just want to alert our audience if they've stayed with us this long, I appreciate you bringing up Martians because we do have that question for Ryan uh in just a few minutes. But we're going to take a break right now, catch our breath after uh some of these foundational questions and we'll be right back.

Mark Turman: [03:36:37] If you've been listening to Faith and Clarity, you already know the headlines aren't just telling us what's happening, they're shaping how we think. That's why conversations like these matter because in a culture full of noise, Christians need more than quick reactions. We need biblical clarity and the wisdom to live out our faith in real time. That's the mission behind Faith and Clarity and the work of Denison Forum. And right now, there's an opportunity to expand that impact. A $65,000 matching grant has been released. So your gift will be doubled to help more people think biblically about the issues shaping our world. Give at supportdf.org. That's supportdf.org. Find a link in today's episode notes because when believers are equipped with truth, they don't just understand the culture, they engage it with clarity, compassion, and conviction.

Mark Turman: [03:37:48] All right, we're back talking about big questions with Dr. Ryan and Jim Denison, the the doctors Denison as I like to refer to them. Uh so we're talking about some foundational things and now getting into a little bit more of the unique claims of Christianity as opposed to religion broadly. So Ryan, Christianity uniquely teaches that God became a person. He became one of us in Christ. Uh I remember years ago, my first trip to Israel, I stepped off the bus uh as we were touring Jerusalem and our tour guide, who was not a Christian, he was a non-practicing Jew, but an incredibly gifted person, was having a discussion with some people about why he was not a Christian and he adamantly made it clear that he didn't believe that God, even if he could, would never become one of us. He would never stoop to enter into our world, our brokenness, uh our depravity. Uh God would was too pure, too good to ever do that. Uh talk about this idea that Jesus is God and that he had a miraculous birth. Uh how does that how does the evidence stack up around that? How is that unique to Christianity?

Ryan Denison: [03:39:09] It really is interesting because Jesus is one of the only figures that it seems like every modern religion has to find something to do with. Um with whether it's Islam or many of the Eastern religions or even within some sects of Judaism, there's this idea that Jesus was at the very least a prophet or someone to respect because you can't look at his teachings and not walk away impressed. You can't read the sermon on the Mount and not walk away thinking this guy understood humanity. This would be amazing if people could live like this. And so there's always something there's something to Jesus that requires him to be taken seriously. But if you actually read what he said about himself in the gospels, uh one of my favorite he doesn't really give us that choice. One of my favorite passages to that effect is um where C.S. Lewis talks about how you can you can basically call him liar, a liar, a lunatic or Lord, but he doesn't give you the option of doing of of having a fourth option. Like not one does not exist. When you look at the Jesus of scripture, the while he doesn't come out and in plain English for us today say, hey, I am God. The response of the Jews of the day, the way that he phrased things within the Judaism of his day makes it abundantly clear that's what he was saying. You don't the Jews wouldn't have tried to stone someone for saying I'm special. They tried to stone Jesus because he said and I am, I am the I am. I am God. And um that's something that he makes very clear. And because he makes that clear, we are he forces us to wrestle with this idea of do are you willing to accept me for who I am or are you going to just look for a way to give respect to my teachings and the truth of what I've said and ignore the rest? And I think so many in our world today, even so many who call themselves Christians today want to do the latter of those where we want there's this temptation to try and make Jesus into just a profound teacher or a moral guide and and kind of minimize the fact that he is God incarnate. And while it may while other religions find that unbelievable, they do so because it is. Like it's incredible that God would choose to take that step. But like my dad was saying earlier with the miracles, just because it's incredible and hard to believe doesn't mean it's not true. And I think if you look at the testimony of scripture, if you look at what so many of the disciples, the truth they died for and it becomes abundantly clear that they believed Jesus was God. That from a very early time, they believed he was God incarnate, that he was special, that he was the Messiah, he was more than just a teacher. And if the people that walked around with Jesus, the people that knew Jesus didn't were able to get to that point, I don't think they really leave us the option of thinking otherwise. And so to be intellectually honest with the gospels, to be intellectually honest with the teachings of scripture and the teachings of Jesus, I think we have to conclude that he is either, as C.S. Lewis said, either a great deceiver, which means you're kind of invalidating a lot of the truths he spoke, that he was that he was just crazy, which doesn't seem to stack up with again, kind of leads you to question a lot of the truths that we want to accept or that he is Lord. In which case, you accept the truths because they come from God and because he came from God, because he is God. And because I think that if you are again, if you're open to the possibility that God could become human, that God could become man as as the Bible says, then it becomes the most logical choice of those three. And so that's kind of where I've I've come down on it. It's helped me think through that over the years is just at the end of the day, again, do I still have questions? Absolutely. But does the evidence point in the direction and does the weight of the evidence point in the direction that Jesus is who the Bible says he is? Absolutely. And that's enough.

Mark Turman: [03:43:01] Yeah, and it's and I think it's helpful. It's been helpful for me to stand back and say, you know, on its face, this is an astounding, staggering thing that we do not have currently the ability to fully understand how God could become a human being and you go back and study again church history for the first two or 300 years particularly and even beyond that, but particularly the first two or 300 years, this was a big issue. They were trying to understand and trying to come up with a way of explaining to themselves and to each and to others, how could God be a human being? How could Jesus be both man and God at the same time? Uh and there was a lot of effort, a lot of thought and a lot of conversation that went in to trying to put some language around what that really means. And even at that best, even at those efforts, still everyone has to step back and say, we're not going to understand this until God wants us to understand this uh in eternity uh and even maybe never. But that's a part of the reality. Uh which leads me, Jim, to the next part of this, which is again, the astounding claim that Christianity makes that Jesus was not only God, but he became a sacrifice for us. Now, our audience will be taking encouragement here that you explained the credibility of the Bible a moment ago in four minutes flat, okay? So, now all we need you to do is about, you know, four, four and a half minutes, explain to us uh in a way that will help that Jesus is a ransom for us, that uh this astounding claim that we can actually be forgiven, that we can be made new, that we can have the promise of everlasting life with a good and perfect and relatable God simply by believing that Jesus is his son, that he died in our place, not for anything that he did and that he was validated in his resurrection. Uh I used to tell my church when I was preaching to them, this is one of those statements that is too good to be true and it would be too good to be true if it came from anybody but God. Um help us put some handles around this astounding claim if you can.

Jim Denison: [03:45:37] Well, thank you. First of all, it does sound too good to be true because in one sense it absolutely is. Uh relative to our part of all of this, right? There's the sense that people have that if I pray a salvation prayer, if I ask Jesus to forgive my sins and be my savior and Lord, I'm done now. I now get to go to heaven. I get a get out of hell free card as it were and we're done here. And that's all that God asks of me and that's categorically untrue. Jesus said, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. Salvation costs me nothing because it costs God everything. But once I trust Christ as savior and Lord, the rest of my life is to be devoted to following him, not so he will love me, but because he loves me. Not to earn salvation, but out of gratitude for salvation and to experience the fullness of salvation. We have been saved, we're being saved, we will be saved. There's the sense in which we're continuing to be saved as we're being sanctified by the Holy Spirit in our lives. And so there's this clear sense in scripture, this bipolarity here that says, in the one sense, there's nothing I can do to earn salvation, but in the other, as as Calvin said, uh works don't save, but the saved do work. There's a sense in which once I'm born again, once I become the child of God, I'm going to live as a child of God. That's going to make a difference in my life. I'm going to be a different person and I'm going to be living and following Jesus in a way I wouldn't have before because of my salvation. So in one sense, it's what Dietrich Bonhofer said when he talked about cheap grace. He made he made that warning to us that grace costs us everything once we accept it, not to earn it, but to live it out in gratitude for grace. That's the best way to live your life. It's not that you're doing this to pay God back. It's not that you're doing this to earn what can only be given, but it's because this changes your life in a way that wants others to see what what you've done so that they can come to Christ as well. And so, first of all, there's the sense that yes, it is free, but the fact that it's free doesn't mean that it doesn't cost us everything as we follow this truth in our lives. But another way to look at this is to understand that the problem is not on our side, it's on God's side. The Bible says that God is love. Not just that he loves, but he is love. He can do nothing except love. That's just who he is. It also says he is holy, holy, holy. And it says he is a consuming fire. How can God be holy and love at the same time? If he is holy, he must judge our sin. If he is love, he must forgive our sin. How can he do both of those at the same time? Sin separates us from God. That's why the Bible says the wages of sin are death. Uh God is the is the source of life. Sin separates us from the source of life like cutting a flower off at the roots. Once you cut it off from the roots, it's inevitably going to die. Sin cuts us off at the roots. And so the payment for that, the wage of that is death. Well, I can't pay for your sin because I owe my own sin. I can die for my sin, but I can't die for your sin. The only person that could die for our sin is someone who's never committed sin. And that's why Jesus as the sinless son of God can be our savior in a way Muhammad could not, Buddha could not, Confucius could not, another Jewish rabbi could not because he alone in all of human history was sinless. So by being sinless, he could pay my debt since he did not owe his own debt. When I trust Jesus' death to pay the debt that I otherwise would have to pay, then the Lord is able in mercy to save me, but in justice to have my sin atoned for. The debt is paid, God's justice is met while God's love is expressed at the cross. It's at the cross that holiness and love come together. So, again, to summarize a 16 week seminar on atonement theology and Christology and all that would go into that, I I would want to just summarize that by saying, because of what Jesus did on the cross to pay the debt we would otherwise have to pay ourselves, we can receive that gift, open that present, have it change our lives as we invite the Holy Spirit into our lives at salvation and spend the rest of our lives in gratitude for that grace, growing in that grace, sharing that grace. And that's the essence of the Christian faith.

Mark Turman: [03:49:45] Yeah, and and not just the rest of our earthly life, but the rest of our eternal life discovering the wonder and the the majesty, the the incredible glory of all that you've just described. Um and when you talk about the flower being cut off, I thought about what it says in Romans about being grafted back in that through Christ, God has made a way for us to be grafted back into him as the source of life. Uh and again, uh in some ways, you just step back and you go, this is just mindboggling and it is. Um but if it was something that we could grasp, then it would not be as majestic as it is. Uh and we we have to if we step back and say, well, if if we were a perfect God, both just and holy and loving, how what would we do? How would we do it? Uh and you start to see the beauty of the gospel start to reveal itself in fresh and new ways. All right, we have time for a couple of more questions. Uh one of them uh came up in my world uh just a few days ago. Several years ago, I had one of my uh members in a church I pastored say, gave me a book, asked me to read it and said, I need I need some understanding about dinosaurs. Uh Ryan, uh we we've we had this conversation before. God invented dinosaurs, some people say, simply so that eight-year-olds will have something to play with. Okay? Um but I had another question come up just a few days ago in which somebody said, I need you to give me some understanding uh from a faith perspective about aliens because I was talking to another friend who said, you know what? If they prove that aliens exist, it will completely undo my faith. Okay? That's a pretty big statement. Uh my first question was why? But why do you think uh so many people, some focused on dinosaurs way in the past, others thinking forward about aliens somewhere out in space. Why are we so concerned about this and how does it relate to our faith?

Ryan Denison: [03:51:51] Yeah, it's a honestly, it's a great question and I think it's uh so much of it goes back to this idea of anytime something comes up that scripture doesn't address, it seems like our natural inclination is to think that must contradict scripture. And just because the Bible doesn't talk about dinosaurs, doesn't mean dinosaurs can't exist. It doesn't mean that um maybe placing them in the timeline of creation gets a little difficult and I think there's a lot of options there's several options there we could go with. Uh probably take more time to run those down than we have with for today, but I do think it like there's nothing inherent to the idea that dinosaurs were around that um doesn't necessarily contradict the truth of scripture and make should make us question the authority of scripture. It's the same with aliens. Just because there's nothing in the Bible that says extraterrestrial life exists, doesn't mean that um if we found that it does, that it would somehow invalidate scripture. It it would mean they need a savior just as much as us. And presumably, I'd be very curious to see if they have had their own encounters with Christ or in some sort like if they had a similar story to the gospel in their world, that would even further validate the truth of scripture in some ways. Um but I do think with extraterrestrial life, so much of it goes back to this idea of people looking at the universe, seeing how big it is and saying, there's no way we're the only ones here. Like we couldn't possibly be alone. And I think that's starting from a place that is not necessarily biblical in the sense that God spoke everything into into existence. So much of that impulse goes back to the idea of there's so much out there for that if it's just empty, that seems like a waste. When when we're talking about God, he could speak all of that into existence and it's not like it was hard for him. He's God. It's simply just it's an extension of what he did here. And so if he desired to create infinite space, even an expanding sense of space for the purpose of helping us just be awed by his power and majesty, then that was worth it. And he is well within his rights to do so. And so I do think it's helpful to when we have these questions about dinosaurs, aliens or any of these other things that God that the Bible doesn't speak to, to ask why we're curious and to make sure that the reason why is not something that's going to lead us further from the faith rather than closer to God. Um and so that's kind of the short answer I would give there is that just because the Bible doesn't talk about it, doesn't mean it can't exist. Um but also it doesn't mean that if aliens do show up tomorrow or something, like I'll have questions, definitely have questions, but it's not going to make me question my faith. Like that's going to that's not going to be one of the things where a place of doubt.

Mark Turman: [03:54:32] Yeah, you know, I've heard one theologian describe it this way, you know, he's a creative God and a good God and in a completely non-egotistical way, he just shows off uh because he can and because he loves to create and to create things of beauty and majesty and wonder. Uh so sometimes he just uh is showing off uh in a beautiful way. A lot more we could talk about there and we'll come back and pick that topic up. In the last few minutes that we have, Jim, this big, big idea of uh dealing with suffering. Uh you've written a number of things about that. When this podcast uh publishes, we will just be a few days away from the one-year anniversary of last year's Hill Country flood here in Texas. Uh where many, many people lost their lives including uh young campers at a camp that the three of us are familiar with called Camp Mystic. Uh that has been in the news. Uh a few weeks ago uh in April, one of your daily articles dealt with this topic uh in a way that was just profound uh when I read it and I've come back to it a number of times. Part of what you said there, let me remind our audience. Uh you said in that daily article, of all the kinds of and categories of human suffering there are, the death of a child must rank as the worst. I think everyone would say amen to that. Uh and then you listed the common biblically grounded uh ways that we uh sometimes try to think through uh terrible suffering. Uh let me just list these seven very quickly. Uh we suffer sometimes because of the misuse of our freedom and the consequences are not God's fault but ours. Number two, we experience disease and disasters because we are a part of a fallen world uh and that is not God's fault. Uh we know the Bible teaches that Satan is a real enemy, a roaring lion who comes to steal, kill and destroy. Another reason, suffering often leads us to rely on God more fully uh and grows us spiritually. We understand in the future, we cannot uh or we will understand in the future what we cannot understand right now. Another reason, God walks with us through floods and fires. Uh an all-knowing, all powerful, all loving God redeems all that he allows for his glory and for our good. But then this paragraph, I think is perhaps the most poignant for me, uh as a grandfather like you, it says, if my granddaughter had perished at Camp Mystic and her body was never recovered, I can assure you that none of these explanations would explain her death or be sufficient for my grief. Uh I could decide to be like Job's wife who said, curse God and die. I could be like C.S. Lewis who feared after his wife died, the conclusion I dread is this, there is not that there is no God, but this is what God is really like. Do not deceive yourself any longer. My question today, Jim, uh just thinking through uh this anniversary, the upcoming anniversary of 9/11, uh and so much other suffering uh that we could describe and talk about either personally or on a larger scale. I'm wondering uh as you continue to chart your own journey of faith, uh you and Ryan both, uh how has the rational biblical logical approach to suffering? How's it help you? Has it helped you and how has it left you feeling uh unsatisfied?

Jim Denison: [03:58:12] Well, it's a great question, Mark. It really is. On the how it helps me, I guess the thing I would have to say is that the various approaches to the issue of evil and suffering and the logic inherent in them causes me to understand that this question does not render our faith illogical. There are rational approaches to this. There are logical ways of understanding this. Evil and suffering is not a single category anymore than cancer is a single category. There's pancreatic cancer very different from liver cancer, very different from skin cancer. You'd have a different approach to each of those specific genomic issues. All cancer is a genetic mutation and each cancer is unique in its own genome. And so you'd you'd treat some cancers very differently than others. Well, you treat some kinds of suffering very differently than others. And that's why there's a variety of different approaches here because there are a variety of different kinds of evil and suffering. But exploring those as I have over all these decades, I I walk away at least grateful that there's an inherent logic in my faith, an inherent reasonableness to my faith. I don't agree with Bertrand Russell or with Sam Harris that the existence of innocent suffering rules out of court the possibility of an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God by definition. I just don't agree that that's true from a logical, rational point of view. And there's comfort in that. There's encouragement for me in that. I'm rationally wired anyway, but I think for all of us, we can be grateful to know that great theologians have wrestled with this and and give us reason to believe that there's reasonableness to our faith even in the face of the greatest challenge it faces, which is innocent suffering and evil and suffering. But on the other side, the head and the heart are not always connected. And it's just the fact that if Jesus from the cross could cry, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? When he obviously understood the theological answer to the question, when he obviously knew why in that moment as the sin of humanity was placed on his sinless soul and the father had to turn from his now sinful son for the only time in all of eternity. Jesus understood that. Jesus knew that in his mind, surely. He understood that, but in his heart, he felt it. And the feeling and the knowing are not connected at that moment. Well, we can all be like that. There are just going to be times in our lives where we face a kind of depth of suffering that rationality can't touch, that isn't enough. And it's in those places, at least in my experience, it's the presence of God who suffers with us, who grieves with us, who hurts as we hurt, that is the deepest, most rich resource of the Christian faith. It's what Jurgen Moltmann spoke of when he wrote a book entitled The Crucified God. In a sense, our friend in Israel that you were mentioning otherwise is right. It's illogical that the God of the universe would ever condescend to become a human. The fact he did shows us the depth of his love for us, the depth of his compassion, the depth of his empathy. He literally feels what we feel in a way no one else ever could. In a seminary class years ago, I was warned never to tell someone I know how you feel because I can't. God can. He does. He he lives in us by his Holy Spirit. He literally feels all that we feel. Jesus said you're in the we're in his hand and nothing can take us from his hand. Well, if something's in my hand, you have to go through my hand to get to it. Nothing can come to me that doesn't come through Jesus. And so there's this sense that doesn't explain suffering, but it carries me through the suffering to know that even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I need fear no evil for thou art with me. That at the end of the day is the uniqueness of the Christian faith and the hope that it offers us all.

Mark Turman: [04:01:54] Yeah, and I think that's why so many people resonate with that story of Lazarus dying and that simple two-word uh verse in scripture, Jesus wept. Just that that sense of resonant uh that he is with us in it. Uh Ryan, let me turn this question around just for a moment before we finish and that is that both in a good and in a suffering way, life seems so random. It just seems so incredibly random. Uh and that stretches my faith and the faith of many. Uh I was wondering if you would give us a comment or two about uh whether it's in the Bible or in our own experience, how we should think about those times when God has or does intervene um compared to when he doesn't. Uh we often find ourselves really on the the struggle of faith when something bad has happened like uh the Hill Country flood and we struggle to make any sense out of it. Uh as my friend likes to remind me, you're you're trying to make sense out of the nonsensical. Um but we we don't seem to ask the same kind of questions when we are in experiences where God does heal us or he heals somebody that we love or the evidence seems to point in the direction, God intervened in this moment uh and brought, you know, uh some kind of very beautiful outcome. Um how do we put those two things together?

Ryan Denison: [04:03:29] It's a great question and so much of it, I think we can only really identify in retrospect. I mean, part of why we can we know God was active and intervening in scripture is that we're reading about it 2,000 years later or even beyond that. And I think part of why this question gets so difficult in the moment is that we want to understand where God is in our present circumstances at a time when maybe even if he showed up and told us how he was working, we couldn't understand it. Or if we could, the answer wouldn't be enough to really make a difference. And so I think sometimes why God doesn't make himself more why God's presence is not more abundantly clear to us is that maybe in those moments what we need most is just to learn to be to learn to depend on just the idea that he's there, to learn to depend on him in a personal way, not for answers, but just for his presence. And that doesn't make it easier in the moment, but there are so many times where if God fully revealed his plans or why he allowed bad things to happen, why he didn't step in to prevent them from happening and we left with a complete God-sized understanding of the circumstances, it would not take away the pain and it would not be the answer we needed because there are times where God's best for us doesn't feel like what's best because it's not what we would choose if we were God. And a lot of it goes back to that idea of so much of the pain and the hardest moments in life, we look at from the perspective of if I was omnipotent, if I had the power that God does, if I was omniscient and knew how to fix this, there's no chance it would have turned out the way that it did. And those are really hard things to work through. Um they require a level of faith that very few things in our lives do. And I think part of why God allows us to go through them is to build on top of that so where we can experience those low valleys and then come on the other side of it, look back at it and see how God was at work. And maybe the next time we go through something hard, it'll be a little bit easier because we'll be able to remember how he showed up before. We'll be able to have a bit more faith that even if we can't understand in the moment that maybe we will on the other side. But again, none of that is meant to say that it's wrong to it's wrong to have questions, that it's wrong to hurt, that it's wrong to be angry. I remember when I had cancer, um the I remember just one night, I remember waking up just venting to God because it did not seem fair. I did not understand why it was happening. It it made no sense how this could possibly be his will. And to this day, I'm not 100% sure that it was his 100% divine will. I don't think God gave me cancer necessarily. Like maybe I'll get up to heaven and he'll be like, no, that was me. But as I'm sitting right now, I I don't think he gave me cancer. I 100% know he used it. But in that moment, kind of the prayer I kept going back to was in Mark 9 where the father of a child with a demon is causing seizures, praise to Jesus, I believe, help my unbelief. And Jesus answers that. That that became kind of my life verse. Looking back on it, it's been my life verse for far longer than just the cancer stuff, but it hit home during the cancer in a way that it it wouldn't like it it hadn't before. And I think learning to pray that prayer at the times where whether it's our suffering or someone else's just makes it hard to believe that God could possibly be good. Um just learning to pray that prayer and then trust that he will answer it. Just like that prayer was enough for Jesus to heal the man's son. It's enough for Jesus to step in and heal us, whether that's physical healing, whether that's just the strength to get through a really, really hard time. Um we don't get to choose how God shows up, but we can trust that he will. Um it's just often times we can't fully understand how until we're looking back on it or on the other side.

Mark Turman: [04:07:18] Yeah, such a good word, such a good word. Uh it just reminds me um reminds me of the tension that we all have to live in in this mystery of faith until we see Jesus face to face. Um you know, the atheist says, uh one child's suffering is an indication that there is no God. One theologian's perspective is the birth of any baby is a is God's testimony that life should go on and that life is good. And we live between those two things. We we live between those two perspectives. Uh gentlemen, thank you. Uh fascinating conversation. We could talk for several more hours, maybe even 16 weeks. Um but we don't have 16 weeks today. Can I give a test at the end? And give a test. people in suffering personally. That's all I was trying to do is give people an opportunity to have their faith built, to have their, you know, uh their their faith strengthened through very fair tests. Right. Always, always very fair. Yeah. I'm going to start twitching here from my previous experiences with you. Uh but thank you both. Thank you to our audience for being a part of this conversation. Uh we mentioned earlier a great resource that might be helpful to you uh that you can find at Denisonforum.org. It is called wrestling with God, one of our newest revised uh resources that uh Dr. Denison wrote and then we uh refreshed that recently with Dr. Ryan Denison's help. You can find that at uh Denisonforum.org. We'd love for you to check that out. It might be helpful to you to wrestle with your own questions in that way. I want to also give a shout out to our production team that helped put this podcast together, Aubrey Kerr, Connor Jones, our technical producers at Sound of a Rose. Uh we want to just say thank you to all of them and we want to say thank you to you for following our podcast, supporting us with your prayers as well as with your resources. We're grateful to you. Your donations help resources like faith and clarity to continue. And we'll see you next time on faith and clarity. God bless you.