Participants:
Series Code: AU
Program Code: AU000007S
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00:01 - You know, I was fortunate enough to grow up in a house
00:03 where books were really valued. 00:04 I mean, they were in piles all over the house. 00:06 And I took to reading at a very early age. 00:09 And as I look back over the years, I could see 00:12 there were always some key books that changed 00:14 how I saw the whole world, moments that changed me. 00:18 And today on Authentic, I'll tell you about one 00:20 that completely revolutionized how I think about God. 00:24 Don't go away, I'll be right back. 00:27 [bright music] 00:48 I was just 17 years old and recovering from the considerable 00:51 sticker shock that comes from buying overpriced 00:54 college textbooks. 00:55 I mean, why does one book have to cost 00:59 more than a hundred bucks? 01:01 And I mean, this is back in the 1980s. 01:05 But one of those new textbooks really grabbed my attention 01:08 one night and I was sitting on my bed, 01:09 reading it in my dorm room. 01:11 Now I know I've got this book somewhere down 01:13 in the basement. 01:15 I kept it because it represents such an important 01:17 moment in my own personal development. 01:19 And I actually went down to the basement 01:21 to try and find it so I could bring it into studio 01:24 and show it to you. 01:25 But unfortunately it's been lost in that mountain of books. 01:28 It's been sitting down there for a lot of years. 01:30 So today, I don't actually have the book in my hands, 01:34 but thanks to the magic of Kindle, 01:37 I can still show you why this moment, all those years ago 01:40 was so important to me. 01:42 At the age of 17, it kind of blew my mind 01:45 that there were very intelligent people 01:47 out there who struggled to believe 01:50 that they actually existed. 01:52 I mean, all you really need to do is slam your hand 01:54 in a car door and you know you exist. 01:57 You know that the physical world is a very real place. 02:01 So as a kid it came as a bit of surprise 02:04 to discover that some really bright people 02:08 actually doubted that they existed. 02:10 And I'd never considered the kinds of questions 02:13 that philosophers have been wrestling with for centuries. 02:18 And maybe some of these questions are the product 02:20 of having too much time on your hands. 02:23 Then again, maybe they're not. 02:26 So the way the problem presents itself as kind of like this, 02:30 you and I experience this world through our senses. 02:34 We see the world, we hear the world, we feel the world 02:39 and so on. 02:40 But how do you know that your senses 02:42 aren't just deceiving you? 02:45 How do you know that your eyes are actually seeing something 02:48 that's really there? 02:50 How do you know it's not just a trick of your mind? 02:53 I mean, when your eyes are damaged and you can no longer see 02:56 the world around you, how do you know that the world 02:59 still exists? 03:01 Even though you're blind, right? 03:02 You can still hear the world, so you know 03:04 there's something out there. 03:05 But, what if you also happen to be deaf like Helen Keller? 03:09 Then you could still feel the world, and the touch 03:12 of another human being would let you know 03:14 that you're not alone. 03:17 But then what if all your senses suddenly failed you? 03:20 What if you had no means whatsoever of detecting 03:23 the outside world? 03:25 Could you still know that the world existed 03:27 and that your existence was real? 03:31 This is a problem that actually goes all the way back 03:33 to ancient Greece, where guys like Parmenides 03:36 and Democritus and [indistinct] tried to grapple 03:39 with the nature of reality. 03:42 And one thing that some of the managed to determine, 03:45 was the fact that you really can't trust the evidence 03:48 of your senses because, while your senses 03:51 aren't a hundred percent reliable. 03:54 So for example, I remember my biology teacher 03:58 in the 11th grade, suddenly stopping his lecture 04:01 mid-sentence and saying, "Hey, did any of you kids hear 04:05 that Just now?" 04:07 Now, we didn't hear anything. 04:09 But out in the hallway, somebody had just dropped a broom 04:12 on the floor and they made a huge racket. 04:16 But surprisingly, most of us didn't hear it happen. 04:20 And what the teacher was doing was pointing out the fact 04:23 that our brains make important decisions 04:25 about our sensory input. 04:28 They filter information so that what you see 04:31 and what you hear is just a fraction 04:34 of what's actually going on around you. 04:37 You only perceive the really important stuff. 04:42 Now, that's a really useful mechanism because, 04:44 if you had no filter in your brain, 04:46 if you saw literally everything around you all the time, 04:50 and you heard everything around you all the time, 04:54 well, that would drive you crazy. 04:55 It's just too much sensory input. 04:59 So our brains become selective, but at the same time, 05:04 our brains will also fill in details 05:06 when important information seems to be missing. 05:09 So that it helps us make sense out of what we're looking at. 05:13 Your brain will literally just make something up. 05:17 So for example, 05:19 if I write my name on a sheet of paper, 05:21 or put it on the screen, 05:22 but I only give you the shadow of the letters. 05:27 Most of you are still gonna see my name 05:28 and it reads Shawn, even though the letters 05:32 aren't really there, they're not. 05:35 Your brain fills in the gaps because your brain needs 05:38 to make sense out of what it's looking at. 05:41 It's trying to do a good job for you. 05:45 So we've always known that sensory perception 05:49 is very, very useful. 05:51 And our experience of the world becomes severely impaired 05:54 If we start to lose our senses. 05:58 But at the same time, 05:59 we now know that our senses are not entirely reliable. 06:04 Now, if you doubt that, 06:05 all you need to do is visit a court of law, 06:07 go to a court case, take 10 separate witnesses to a crime, 06:12 put them all on the stand. 06:14 And all 10 of them are going to remember 06:16 the events slightly differently. 06:18 In fact, if all 10 stories match perfectly, 06:23 and all the witnesses remember the very same details 06:27 right down to the letter, 06:29 well, in that case, you're gonna suspect 06:31 they're guilty of collusion. 06:33 Human perception just doesn't work that way. 06:36 So we know that our senses are anything but perfect. 06:40 And if your senses are, well, somewhat unreliable, 06:44 how do you know just how unreliable they are? 06:48 How exactly would you figure that out? 06:50 I mean, we have five basic senses, 06:53 and we can compare the sensory input from each of them. 06:56 But, what if they're just all wrong? 07:01 I mean, what if I see the color red, 07:04 you see the color blue when we're looking 07:06 at the very same thing? 07:08 But both of us just call it blue because, 07:10 well, that's what we learned when we were kids. 07:12 That's how we were raised. 07:14 How in the world would you ever know 07:17 that you and I are not seeing exactly 07:19 the same thing? 07:21 Or what if you and I have a completely 07:23 different set of colors all together? 07:25 We have individual color spectrums, 07:28 and you can see things that I can't possibly 07:31 begin to imagine and vice versa. 07:33 How would you ever know that? 07:37 Again, I know it sounds like I've got way 07:38 too much time on my hands, 07:40 but those are the kinds of questions human beings 07:43 have actually wrestled with now for thousands of years. 07:49 So there I was, 17 years old sitting on my bed 07:52 in my dorm room, reading "The Meditation" of Rene Descartes 07:56 for the very first time. 07:58 And he's agonizing over these kinds of questions. 08:03 And suddenly they did seem important, because the nature 08:07 of the universe and the nature of reality have a lot to say 08:11 about how I'm going to choose to live my life. 08:15 If everything around me is just an illusion. 08:17 If nothing I experienced is actually real, 08:20 then I can just live however I please, 08:22 because why would it even matter? 08:25 But if the universe is real, and it has order and logic too, 08:29 if it follows rock solid principles, 08:32 well, that's gonna determine what it means 08:34 to live an authentic human existence. 08:38 And I don't want to be found recklessly 08:40 contradicting reality. 08:43 Now, to be sure, we can thank the Greeks for casting 08:47 a lot of doubt on whether or not the world is actually real. 08:50 For example, Plato suggested the imperfect world we perceive 08:55 with our senses is nothing but a fuzzy representation 08:59 of a higher greater reality and immutable, immovable 09:04 universe that exists out there somewhere beyond 09:06 the reach of our senses. 09:08 Now, you don't wanna go away because right 09:11 after this I'm gonna come back and ask, 09:13 why should that matter to you? 09:19 - [Narrator] Here at the Voice Of Prophecy, 09:20 we're committed to creating top quality programming 09:22 for the whole family. 09:24 Like our audio adventure series, Discovery Mountain. 09:27 Discovery Mountain is a Bible based program for kids 09:30 of all ages and backgrounds. 09:32 Your family will enjoy the faith building stories 09:34 from this small mountain summer camp, Penn town. 09:37 With 24 seasonal episodes every year, 09:40 and fresh content every week. 09:42 There's always a new adventure just on the horizon. 09:48 - So here I was 17 years old wrestling 09:51 with all these strange new questions and watching 09:55 this great philosopher, Descartes, agonize over the reality 10:01 and meaning of his own existence. 10:03 Here's what he said, 10:06 "But what then am I? 10:08 A thing that thinks, what is that? 10:11 A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, 10:14 wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses." 10:20 So here's what he's basically saying. 10:21 Strip away all your senses, 10:22 your sight, your hearing, your touch, 10:24 just take it all away. 10:27 Descartes argues that you would still have your thoughts. 10:30 And those thoughts somehow mean that you are real, 10:34 that you exist. 10:36 And that's what gave us, Descartes' famous saying, 10:39 "Cogito, ergo sum," in English. "I think, therefore I am" 10:45 Now, It's certainly not an airtight philosophy, 10:49 and there were lots of people who refuted it, 10:51 including the English philosopher, John Locke, 10:53 who argued that, well, we all come into this world 10:56 with what amounts to a dial tone in our brains. 11:00 That's not how he put it. 11:01 He called it Tabula rasa. 11:03 We have an empty slate, a blank slate when we're born. 11:06 And he argued that none of us actually does any thinking 11:10 until our senses give us something to think about. 11:13 But really that's not the important thing 11:15 for what I wanna get to today. 11:18 What's important is the way that Rene Descartes 11:21 suddenly changed my picture of absolutely everything. 11:25 I remember actually getting some tears in my eyes at 17 11:28 when I finished reading his meditations because, well, 11:31 it was such a beautiful thing to read. 11:34 And it was the first time ever I thought to myself, 11:37 you know something, religious faith really does make sense. 11:43 And again, I know, I've way over simplified his arguments 11:47 And there are lots of counter-arguments 11:49 that blow his thesis apart. 11:52 But it was the first it occurred to me that faith 11:55 might be reasonable. 11:57 Now, I have been raised in a church going family, 12:00 but I'd also gone to a public high school where matters 12:03 of faith were challenged on almost a daily basis. 12:07 And now at the university, I was suddenly hearing voices 12:11 that consistently attacked the worldview 12:13 of all my religious ancestors every single day. 12:18 Even though ironically enough, that old biblical worldview 12:23 was the reason that universities even exist. 12:28 You see way back when, once upon a time 12:31 there was a consistent belief that the universe is orderly. 12:36 And people assume that God must be out there somewhere. 12:40 So, universities were kind of made up 12:42 of different colleges. 12:44 A college to study math, another one to study biology, 12:47 and other one to study astronomy and so on. 12:51 And the idea was, that all of these different disciplines 12:55 would individually shed light on the nature of God's 12:59 universe and teach us something about who God is. 13:06 So theology was said to be the queen of the sciences 13:10 and every new discovery added to this universal 13:13 body of knowledge about God is hence the name University. 13:19 Now, in some places that universal science was actually 13:22 said to be philosophy not theology. 13:25 But it all amounts to pretty much the same thing. 13:30 The universe back then was considered to be orderly. 13:33 And you could learn a lot about the nature of reality 13:37 and the nature of God, simply by studying the natural order. 13:43 So there I was, in an institution that for the most part, 13:47 ironically denied the reason that it existed 13:50 in the first place. 13:51 And I had people telling me on a daily basis 13:54 that faith is nothing but superstition. 13:57 They were telling me that reason will always be better 14:00 than faith any day of the week. 14:04 But then I read Descartes, and I realized 14:08 that some of the greatest minds in the universe 14:11 have wrestled with the same things 14:13 that you and I wrestle with. 14:15 And for the most part up until the postmodern philosophers, 14:19 and the Nihilists of the 19th Century, 14:21 most of those brilliant people found that faith 14:26 was utterly compatible with reality. 14:30 The universe they said is orderly and predictable, 14:33 and there's a reason for its existence. 14:36 And if you and I just apply our God-given brains 14:39 in a reasonable manner, there's a lot for us to discover. 14:46 And if you had no senses at all, Descartes argued, 14:49 you would still have your thoughts. 14:51 And where in the world did those thoughts come from? 14:55 Is it possible that apart from your sensory perception, 14:59 God put those thoughts in your brain? 15:03 Now, to my 17 year old mind, 15:05 this was all a very beautiful thing. 15:08 And again, I know that Descartes thinking 15:09 has been challenged. 15:11 I get that thousands of times. 15:13 And like any human philosophy, 15:15 there are plenty of logical flaws to be found. 15:18 But still it demonstrated one really important idea, 15:23 faith does not have to be blind. 15:26 And you and I were brought into existence 15:28 with orderly logical minds. 15:33 And I guess the reason I'm emphasizing this, 15:35 is because of the way that so many people ridicule matters 15:38 of faith in this post-modern world of ours. 15:41 I mean, all you have to do is hop on Twitter 15:44 for a few minutes and you'll find lots of angry atheist, 15:47 mocking Jews and Christians for believing in what they call, 15:51 an imaginary friend in the sky. 15:54 And these people are quite adamant that the only reason 15:57 you and I believe in God is because we read 16:00 about it in an old book of fairytales. 16:05 And what happens to a lot of people of faith, 16:07 is that they find themselves trying to respond 16:09 to that accusation with a bunch of people who have no idea 16:13 what this book is all about. 16:14 They have no idea what it actually says. 16:17 I can assure you, that most of the armchair critics, 16:21 I mean, not all of them, but most, are largely ignorant 16:26 of what the Bible actually says. 16:28 Most of them are just repeating stuff 16:30 they've heard, or they're actually copying 16:32 and pasting the ignorant memes created by people 16:35 who have no real understanding of this topic. 16:40 Now, I wanna be fair because there really 16:42 are some intelligent well-informed critics of faith. 16:45 And I personally have a lot of respect 16:48 for people who have honest questions. 16:52 but at the same time, I've seen that most of the armchair 16:55 critics on social media quickly fall apart, 16:58 or just go out and block you if you ask them a few 17:01 simple questions, or sometimes they double down 17:05 on their mockery because they don't have a logical argument. 17:09 As a preacher friend of mine used to say, 17:11 these people are down on what they're not up on. 17:15 So now let me show you something that the Bible 17:18 actually says. 17:20 And I think you're gonna find this kind of interesting. 17:23 We know historically that the apostle Paul 17:26 was a student of Gamaliel. 17:28 A famous and well-respected teacher of the law. 17:32 So Paul was known for having this razor sharp mind 17:36 capable of producing these irrefutable arguments. 17:41 And at one point, as Paul is writing to the early Christians 17:44 who lived in the city of Rome, 17:47 this is what he says, it's found in Romans 12:1. 17:52 "I beseech you therefore, brethren, 17:54 by the mercies of God, that you present 17:56 your bodies a living sacrifice." 17:59 Now we might have to come back 18:00 to that statement another day, 18:02 cause it's kind of cool. 18:03 "A living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God, 18:06 which is your reasonable service." 18:10 Notice, it's not irrational, it's not blind he says, 18:14 it's reasonable. 18:15 Verse two, "And do not be conformed to this world, 18:20 but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, 18:24 that you may prove what is that good and acceptable 18:27 and perfect will of God." 18:31 Now, that short passage assures me that something 18:34 is wrong with our human minds the way they are right now. 18:37 We have a serious mental deficiency. 18:41 And that really shouldn't come as a surprise 18:43 because the misery of living in this world 18:46 with 7 billion other people should tell us something 18:49 is wrong with the way that we're running this planet. 18:53 So what Paul is saying is that our will, 18:57 our minds have fallen out of harmony 19:00 with the will of God, and our minds need 19:03 to be renewed or renovated, 19:06 But still, I want you to notice that he doesn't say, 19:09 please shelve your intellect and empty your mind 19:12 and just blindly accept whatever I tell you. 19:14 Hmm, on the contrary, he saying that discovering God 19:20 and following God is a reasonable act. 19:25 In other words, there is order to this universe. 19:29 And if there are big problems with the way that my life 19:31 presents itself in this world, then the problem 19:34 lies with faulty reasoning on the part of human beings. 19:40 The problem with this world boils down 19:42 to a flaw with humanity. 19:44 Not with the God who established the world 19:47 in the first place. 19:48 So we're gonna take another quick break, and I'm gonna come 19:52 right back, and you don't wanna miss where we're going next. 19:57 - [Narrator] Life can throw a lot at us. 19:59 Sometimes we don't have all the answers, 20:02 but that's where the Bible comes in. 20:05 It's our guide to a more fulfilling life. 20:08 Here at the voice of prophecy. 20:09 We've created the discover Bible guides to be your guide 20:12 to the Bible. 20:14 They're designed to be simple, easy to use and provide 20:16 answers to many of life's toughest questions. 20:19 And they're absolutely free. 20:21 So jump online now, or give us a call 20:23 and start your journey of discovery. 20:26 - The real problem in this world 20:28 is that you and I are fatally flawed. 20:31 There's something wrong with us. 20:33 But it's a flaw that you can actually fare it out. 20:36 You can discover it, and you can correct it by allowing God 20:40 to renew your mind. 20:43 Now, I wanna be careful that I don't now reduce the words 20:46 of Bible to some kind of cosmic philosophy proof book. 20:50 Because much to the chagrin of the ancient Greeks, 20:54 this book is not really a list of logical proofs. 20:58 I mean, you can draw lots of logical arguments 21:00 out of the material in this book, but that's not what it is. 21:04 That was actually something that early Christians 21:07 excelled at. 21:09 They tried to make this a list of proofs because, 21:11 after Jews and Christians had established 21:14 themselves in North Africa and in the city of Alexandria, 21:18 believers took pagan philosophy and they tried 21:20 to harmonize it with a biblical point of view. 21:23 They were trying to prove that the Bible 21:25 is also a book of logic. 21:28 But it's important to remember that this book 21:31 is more than that. 21:32 It's not just a list of logical options, 21:35 this is a relational book. 21:38 It's the story of a creator, God and his relationship 21:41 with the human race. 21:42 An account of how God has been interacting with a planet 21:46 that has essentially turned its back on him. 21:49 This is the story of a real thinking, feeling personal God, 21:54 who interacts with real thinking, feeling people, 21:58 no matter how flawed we happen to be. 22:01 Now like any story that doesn't necessarily 22:04 lend itself well to just making lists 22:06 of philosophical logical proof. 22:08 So I wanna be careful here. 22:11 And yet the Bible does emphasize 22:14 that we can have reasonable thought, 22:17 while it teaches us that God's ways are too high 22:20 for me to fully grasp. 22:22 It also teaches me that I can understand God 22:25 more than I might first suspect. 22:28 Let me show you an interesting statement 22:30 from the book of Jeremiah, because this is really 22:33 kind of profound. 22:34 This is from Jeremiah chapter nine. 22:37 "Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man glory 22:40 in his wisdom. 22:42 Let not the mighty man glory in his might, 22:44 nor let the rich man glory in his riches." 22:48 So here you have a caution toward humility. 22:50 And I suspect that a lot of Greek philosophers 22:52 would agree with this. 22:53 When it says, do not glory in your wisdom, 22:56 you can almost hear Socrates saying, 22:58 "I know that I know nothing." 23:01 Because the beginning of wisdom is to admit that, 23:03 well, you don't have any. 23:06 But the Bible teaches that wisdom is possible. 23:09 You and I can have a real understanding of the world, 23:13 and at the same time 23:14 we shouldn't let that fluff up our egos. 23:16 Here's what it says, "Let not the wise man glory 23:19 in his wisdom. 23:20 Let not the mighty man glory in his might, 23:22 nor let the rich man glory in his riches. 23:25 But let him who glories glory in this." 23:28 Now, don't miss what this is about to say, 23:31 "That he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, 23:37 exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness 23:40 in the earth." 23:42 Now, I hope that made sense. 23:45 The of the Bible is a reasonable faith. 23:47 In fact, faith lives right up here in your God-given mind. 23:51 And there is order to the universe because an orderly God 23:56 created it for a purpose. 23:58 And by exercising your God-given reasonable mind, 24:02 you are meant to discover who God is. 24:06 And that's the reason you were born 24:09 with this insatiable sense of curiosity. 24:12 Now, to know God is not just a matter of knowing stuff 24:16 about him, it's not just a list of facts. 24:19 To know God is to actually know him as a friend, 24:22 to experience of relationship with him. 24:27 Which takes me back to the very beginning of the Bible 24:30 where God creates the world in the first place. 24:32 And then he steps back and says, that is very good. 24:36 And that thought takes me back to the eighth song, 24:39 where the poet looks up into the night sky 24:41 and he's blown away by what he sees. 24:43 He has this sense of awe when he sees the universe. 24:47 And it's a sense of awe for the one who made it all. 24:52 Listen, I know that you've been told 24:54 that the world just came into being all by itself. 24:56 Even though we know that's a scientific impossibility. 25:00 And I know that you've been told that the Bible 25:02 is nothing but magical thinking that this book 25:05 doesn't make sense. 25:06 And I also know that, some of you have been told 25:10 that if God does exist, 25:11 he is so far beyond comprehension, 25:14 that He exists in this strange realm of mystery 25:17 and a place that you're feeble human mind simply can't go. 25:21 But that is not what this book says. 25:24 There is order to the universe, 25:26 and there is something solid there for you to discover, 25:30 maybe the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides, 25:34 said it best when he confronted the people 25:35 who argued that God's interactions with humanity 25:38 were beyond comprehension. 25:40 That can't be true, he said. 25:43 His argument was that we were created in the image of God. 25:46 And if human beings do what they do for logical reasons, 25:50 are we really going to say that God acts irrationally? 25:53 Are we really going to say that God 25:55 doesn't have a reasonable purpose for his actions? 25:59 That just doesn't make sense. 26:02 So it stands to reason that if God exists, 26:07 and if he is infinite, the way 26:08 that people who have interacted 26:10 with him in history have described, 26:12 then there's just no way you're gonna understand 26:14 everything about him. 26:16 But to suggest that God is irrational, 26:18 or that you can't understand anything about him, 26:21 that's not true, and it's not what this book teaches, 26:24 not even clips. 26:27 This ancient record teaches that God is good. 26:30 And this book teaches that the world he made 26:33 was originally good. 26:34 And this book teaches that you and I were made in his image 26:38 to fulfill a purpose. 26:40 A purpose that you can understand, and least enough 26:44 to start living an authentic human existence. 26:48 I'll be right back 26:51 - [Narrator] Dragons, beasts, Cryptic statues. 26:55 Bible prophecy can be incredibly vivid and confusing. 27:00 If you've ever read Daniel or revelation 27:02 and come away scratching your head, you're not alone. 27:05 Our free focus on prophecy guides are designed 27:08 to help you unlock the mysteries of the Bible 27:10 and deepen your understanding of God's plan 27:13 for you and our world. 27:14 Study online or request them by mail, 27:17 and start bringing prophecy into focus today. 27:21 - Hey, take it from me, a recovering heathen, 27:23 a guy whose first year college textbook suddenly 27:26 showed me that the existence of God 27:28 is a reasonable proposition. 27:31 And you really don't have to put your brain 27:33 on a shelf to experience him. 27:36 I'm Shawn Boonstra, and this has been Authentic, 27:39 thanks for joining me. 27:42 [upbeat music] |
Revised 2021-03-22