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(upbeat music)
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- This is "Undaunted Life" a man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
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Let's get into it.
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All right guys, today I've got a special one for you.
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So this is a very special guest
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and his name is John Linux.
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So he's a Christian apologist,
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mathematician and bioethicist from Northern Ireland.
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He's the author of many, many books to include
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"Can Science Explain Everything?"
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which is the namesake for today's episode.
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Seven days that divide the world,
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gunning for God and God's undertaker.
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So this is a Christian apologist
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that has done some very, very high profile public debates
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with noted atheist thinkers like Richard Dawkins
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and Michael Shermer and Peter Singer
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and the late Christopher Hitchens.
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But he's also an emeritus professor of mathematics
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at the University of Oxford
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in an emeritus fellow in mathematics and philosophy
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of science at Green Templeton College, Oxford University.
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He's also an associate fellow for the Saeed Business School
1:06
and the senior fellow at the Trinity Forum.
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And this guy's, I mean, I could keep going on his resume
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and all the things that he's done
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and all the things that he's still doing.
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But I just gotta tell you that there are certain times
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whenever I get into an interview where I'm like,
1:17
I'm more excited than I normally am
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'cause I'm always excited to talk to people on the show
1:21
'cause it's like, man, they've got some interesting stuff
1:23
and it's my job to get those nuggets out of their brain
1:26
and through the microphone and into your ears
1:27
and all those types of things.
1:28
But I was so excited to talk to John Linux
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because he is one of the best Christian apologists
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that I can think of.
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But also he's a guy that has done a tremendous amount
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of deep thinking and he's gone into the lines then
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in these debates on multiple occasions
1:45
and he's come out looking great every single time.
1:48
And so I was just so almost reverent
1:50
of being able to talk to him
1:52
and get to spend a little bit of time with him,
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especially guys because maybe you don't know this.
1:55
But John Linux had a stroke not that long ago.
1:57
And so we kind of kept it to a shorter interview
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and all those types of things.
2:01
So he's still in the middle of recovering from a stroke
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and he's like, no, I'm absolutely looking forward
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to talking to you and he really, really enjoyed it.
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But in this interview, we talk about a lot of different things.
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We talk about growing up in Northern Ireland
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during the sectarian violence,
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between the Catholics and the Protestants
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and how that affected his family directly.
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He had an experience very early on at Cambridge
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that kind of led him to the world that he was done
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or he kind of worked his self into.
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So we talk about that.
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We talk about the science side
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and how Christians really get bogged down with science
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and they feel like Christianity and science don't mix
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and kind of where that comes from.
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The problem with Ott versus is in terms of that worldview,
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how he prepares for these high profile debates
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and how he deals with the smugness
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and the arrogance of some of the debaters.
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What do you think the best Christian apologetic argument is?
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So that's very, very important.
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But also we talk about manhood in the church.
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I really enjoyed his answer on that.
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But then we ended today or I almost failed to mention this.
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We did talk about Old Earth and Young Earth
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'cause if you follow the show for especially the last few months,
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I mentioned Young Earth a few weeks ago or months ago
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and like my goodness, it has just been,
3:06
I've been drowning in people's messages
3:08
and all those different things since then.
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He gives a great, great cogent short answer
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to the Old Earth versus Young Earth debate, okay?
3:17
And we talk about a specific book
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but then we wrap up with people that try to worship God
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with their feelings and not with their intellect,
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not with their minds.
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So a really, really fantastic show.
3:28
One thing I did just wanna remind you guys
3:29
before we jump into the interview
3:30
is that we are partnered with Origin Maine.
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Now guys, man, I'm so grateful for this one.
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This is such an amazing thing
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that we were able to put together for you guys.
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I'm so happy about it and I've teeted up enough now,
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but I'm almost kidding myself.
4:42
I'm ready to listen to this just like you guys are.
4:44
So without further ado, let's get into it.
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John Linux, welcome to a Daunted Life of Man's podcast.
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- Thank you very much, glad to be with you today.
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- Now, I just got to tell you,
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you might have the greatest accent in the history of my show.
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We've been around for quite some time,
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but that's part of the reason why I was so excited to talk to you.
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How often do you get that where people are just like,
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"Man, I just, I love hearing you talk."
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- I get it sometimes.
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I'm originally from North Ireland
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and although I've lived in England for most of my life,
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I still haven't lost my accent.
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- Well, I did actually want to talk to you about that
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because you didn't just grow up in Northern Ireland.
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You grew up during all of the sectarian violence
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between the Catholics and the Protestant groups,
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even though that certainly doesn't tell the whole story,
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but that's how it's normally categorized.
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But it's obviously a crazy thing to live through,
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especially during your formative years.
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Talk to us a little bit about that
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because I know that it was a trying time
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specifically for your family.
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- It was a trying time.
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I missed most of it,
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but it left a deep impression on me
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because my parents were very committed Christians
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but they were not sectarian.
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And that was extremely important.
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And that showed itself in one particular way.
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My father ran a small-time store.
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I suppose he had that most 30 employees or so,
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but he tried to employ people
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from both sides of the community,
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both Protestants and Catholics.
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And that was risky because he got bombed a few times
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and my brother was nearly killed
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some time after I left home.
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And I asked him, "Dad, why do you do this?
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"It's so risky."
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He said, "Well, the Bible teaches us in Genesis
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"that all men and women, irrespective of their worldview,
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"are made in the image of God
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"and I intend to treat them like that."
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Now, that was fundamental for me growing up
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and that has lived with me all my life
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that I try to practice that no matter who I meet,
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no matter how difficult I may find them
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or aggressive or disagreeing with me, it doesn't matter.
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Every man and woman is made in the image of God.
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Now, that's hugely important actually
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because in this world where there are all kinds of voices
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trying to get us to listen to them,
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Jordan Peterson, who's very well known,
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particularly over there,
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he came across this statement in the Bible
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and he said, "Man."
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He said, "That's the cornerstone of our civilization."
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And he hadn't realized that.
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And of course it is.
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And one of the reasons I'm a Christian is
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that you will not find that evaluation
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of human beings anywhere else
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that were made in the image of God.
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I mean, I'm an amateur astronomer.
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I love looking at the night sky,
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the heavens declare the glory of God,
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but they weren't made in this image.
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And you, whoever is listening to me now, you are.
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You've got infinite value to start with
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as a creature made in the image of God.
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So that was very important.
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The second thing about my parents growing up
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in that sectarian atmosphere was,
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they didn't try and shove Christianity down my throat.
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They loved me enough to give me space to think
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and they encouraged me to think.
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And so I was left with those two things,
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the value made in the image of God.
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And secondly, you think you make up your own mind.
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They taught me and they opened my eyes
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to the value of scripture, but they didn't force me.
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And that meant that when I left Ireland
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to go to Cambridge in 1962,
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I didn't immediately abandon Christianity.
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In fact, I never did like many others of my age
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because they'd never been allowed to come
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to their own conviction.
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And of course they just threw it over
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when they became men and left home.
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- I think that's an important thing to talk about.
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There's so much wisdom even packed in there.
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But you would think that if somebody were just given
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their religion by their parents
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that as soon as they went to a place like Cambridge
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that it would just absolutely fall to pieces.
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- But you know, did, yes.
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- Yeah, and so, you know, you're a Christian,
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you're a mathematician, you're a bioethicist,
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but it doesn't seem like your faith ever wavered.
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But there's a very interesting story
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that I've heard about your time at Cambridge.
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And this was, you know, a very formative experience
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for you at a formal college dinner
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when you were very young, very new to Cambridge
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where you were actually cornered in that.
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That's probably the best way to describe it
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by some pretty important people
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in a field that you wanted to be in.
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And they kind of cornered you about your faith.
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So can you take us through that story?
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- Well, it wasn't quite in a field that I wanted to be in.
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The situation was that we had rather nice dinners
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from time to time.
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And I found myself sitting next to a Nobel Prize winner.
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So he was a brilliant scientist.
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And I always tried to find out what people did.
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And I asked him a series of questions and I risked asking him.
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I said, but all your research did never occur to you
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that there was a creative mind behind the universe.
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And he said, no, I never thought about it.
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Well, I wasn't sure that that was true,
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but that ended the conversation.
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It wasn't pleased.
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So I thought, but after the needle,
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he said, "Lennox, come to my room."
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And that was not an invitation.
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That was a command.
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I went to his room and I found two or three other
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major figures, no students.
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I was the only student and they put me in a chair,
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at least he did.
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And they remained standing so far as I recall.
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And he said, "Do you want a career in science, Lennox?"
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And I said, "I do, yes.
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I'd like to be a mathematician."
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Well, he said, "If you want to make it,
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give up your naive faith in God
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in front of witnesses right now,
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because if you don't, you will never make it."
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So that was real pressure.
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I found enough courage, I think, from God himself.
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I said, "Sir, what have you got to offer me
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that's better than what I've already got?"
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And he came out with a philosophy that I knew about
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that was very weak, actually.
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And I said, "If that's all you've got,
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I'll take the risk and I'll stick with what I got."
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And I got up and went out.
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It was formative, as you say,
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because it put steel into my heart.
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It made me resolve, firstly,
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that I would never try whatever academic position
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I reached in life.
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And of course, I had none at that time.
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I would never try to browbeat anybody like that.
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And of course, I thought that if he'd been a Christian
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and I'd been an atheist and he'd tried that tactic,
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he would have lost his job the next day.
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I learned that the playing field is not level.
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And it taught me a bit of the dark side
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of the pressure of the atheistic worldview,
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but it was very good for me
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because I suppose it was a preparation
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for facing lesser scientists like Richard Dawkins
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and so on and later on.
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- Well, it's funny you talk about a playing field
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that's not level.
12:25
Some Christians will take that as an excuse to not compete
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when obviously that is not what we're called to do.
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And we'll certainly get more into Dawkins here in a little bit.
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But I do just want to mention as an aside,
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I think it's absolutely incredible
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that you were actually at Cambridge in the early 1960s
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and actually got to see some of the last lectures
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of the one and only C.S. Lewis.
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They're huge fans.
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We are huge fans of C.S. Lewis here.
12:45
And if we had more time, I would want to dig into that,
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but I want to kind of go into the area that you opened up
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with just science versus Christianity in general
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because Christians have a tendency
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to get very, very intimidated by science
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and they just accept that there is a schism
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between science and Christianity,
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even though they believe that God is omniscient,
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omnipresent, omni-everything.
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And yet he's not omnipresent in the study of science,
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which I find to be odd.
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But you summarize the position of the science side
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or the scientism side in your book,
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can science explain everything?
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I'll read the quote here.
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Science is an unstoppable force for human development
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that will deliver answers to our many questions
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about the universe and solve many,
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if not all of our human problems.
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Disease, energy, pollution, poverty.
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At some stage in the future,
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science will be able to explain everything
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and answer all our needs.
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So some people would call that the God of the gaps,
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but the science version to where it's like,
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oh, we don't know the answer now,
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or oh, science is certainly changing.
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We see that with a new space telescope
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that is potentially telling us that things are wildly different
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than ever, whatever we understood
13:46
with the Hubble telescope versus the James Webb.
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So talk to me a little bit about the proposed
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or the perceived rather schism
13:54
between science and Christianity and the eyes of Christians
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and why they just almost accept how scientists would say,
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like, hey, we can't explain it now, but we will later.
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- Well, not all of us do.
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I think the first thing to say is we need to distinguish
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very carefully between science and scientism,
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which is a word that you used.
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The view that you expressed that science
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will eventually answer all questions is scientism,
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and it is false, and it's easy to see it's false,
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because science, if science is the only way
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that leads to truth, then that means
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that history can give us nothing.
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Psychology can give us nothing.
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Literature can give us nothing,
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and that's completely absurd.
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You see, the interesting thing is that the statement,
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science is the only way to truth,
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which is the heart of scientism.
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That's not a statement of science.
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So if it's true, it's false.
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It's logically incoherent,
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and I find it helpful to read another Nobel Prize winner,
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Sir Peter Medawar, who's a genius,
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and he said it's very easy to see
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that science cannot answer every questions.
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In fact, it can't even answer the simple questions
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of a child, where do I come from?
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Where am I going to, and what is the meaning of life?
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And he hit on a very important thing there.
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You see, if science answered everything, eventually,
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potentially, you'd have to close half the faculties
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in all universities around the world tomorrow,
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because the natural sciences are only part.
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And some of the confusion here, Kyle,
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is this that people get bamboozled,
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and they think that science and rationality are co-extensive.
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That's nonsense.
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History is a rational discipline.
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So is philosophy, language, literature, and so on.
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Science is only part of rationality,
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and it's only part of the way,
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or the ways that we have to look at reality.
16:08
Now, our late Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks,
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made a very interesting pity statement
16:16
that puts things very clearly.
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He said science takes things apart to see how they work.
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Religion puts them together to see what they mean.
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And this is the most important thing
16:31
that people today, all of us, were looking for meaning.
16:36
Science doesn't give you that meaning,
16:39
unless you're a scientist and you find your meaning
16:41
in your subject, but then, even then, it's limited.
16:45
And we need a bigger world than what's given to us
16:49
by science.
16:50
I passionate about science, but I'm also passionate
16:54
in pointing out that it doesn't tell us everything.
16:57
Now, you also mentioned the notion of the God of the gaps,
17:02
and I need to explain that.
17:03
That's the idea that if you bring God in
17:08
to explain anything, then if science advances a bit more,
17:13
it will push God out and push him out
17:16
and push him out until he's not needed anymore.
17:20
But that is mistaken thinking, you see.
17:23
God is not the God of the gaps.
17:26
I often say to people, you know,
17:29
read the first statement in the Bible.
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In the beginning, God created the bits of the universe
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we don't yet understand.
17:36
No, it doesn't say that.
17:39
It says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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That is the whole show.
17:43
God isn't the God of the gaps.
17:45
He's God of the whole universe.
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He created what it is that scientists study.
17:52
And it's not any accident that the early pioneers in science,
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the really greats like Galileo, Kepler, Newton,
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Clark Maxwell, Faraday, they were all believers
18:05
and God, most of them Christians.
18:07
And their worship of God, as far as science was concerned,
18:14
was based on what they did understand, not what they didn't.
18:18
Just as if you understand something about engineering,
18:23
you can admire the working of a Boeing turbofan jet
18:28
much more than somebody who doesn't.
18:31
It's what you do understand.
18:34
And when Isaac Newton discovered his famous law of gravitation,
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he didn't say, oh, now I know how it works.
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I've got a law that described that I don't need God.
18:45
No, he said, what a marvelous God who does it this way.
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And we need to change our thinking.
18:54
And one of the big problems is that people do not understand
18:59
very much about the nature of explanation.
19:03
They think that if you've got a scientific explanation,
19:06
that's it.
19:08
But that's nonsense even in science.
19:10
Take the law of gravity, I've just mentioned.
19:12
What does it explain gravity not doesn't?
19:15
Nobody is an idea what gravity is.
19:19
The law of gravity gives us a mathematical way of calculating
19:23
the force between heavy objects.
19:25
And so we can work out the motions of the planets
19:28
and so on and land a person on the moon.
19:30
It doesn't tell us what gravity is.
19:32
And Newton realized that.
19:34
So even in science, science doesn't explain everything.
19:39
And perhaps one of the most helpful ways to help people
19:44
is that there are different kinds of explanation.
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If I ask the question, why is the water boiling?
19:51
It's an illustration I use in my book,
19:54
can science explain everything?
19:56
Well, you can say it's boiling because the heat energy
19:59
of a gas flame is agitating the molecules of water.
20:02
They're moving faster and faster
20:04
and so the water is boiling.
20:06
Yes, it's also boiling because I want a cup of tea.
20:11
Now, there are two explanations.
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Do they conflict?
20:14
No, do they compete?
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No, but there are different kinds of explanation.
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And I wish some of my scientific colleagues
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could realize that this is true at the level of the universe.
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And the fact is, no matter how much we understand how it works,
20:34
that doesn't tell us either what it means
20:37
or how it originated.
20:39
And therefore, God isn't the God of the gaps, not at all.
20:44
Now, I could say a lot more about gaps
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and good gaps and bad gaps.
20:49
But I think that's enough to get across to people.
20:52
The idea that there are some explanations that are scientific
20:57
and they're mostly just useful in science.
21:00
But for example, my cup of tea illustration,
21:03
people have been drinking tea for thousands of years
21:07
before they understood any of the science behind it.
21:09
That's a personal explanation.
21:12
And it's the same with the universe.
21:14
God is the explanation why there's a universe
21:18
for scientists to study.
21:20
And I think whenever you get into the world of scienceism
21:23
or all of that, you have to understand
21:25
that there's a big difference between ought and is.
21:28
And the reality then, that's the issue there
21:33
is a very different issue, but it's an important one.
21:36
Just as I find the most credible explanation
21:40
of the existence of the universe is that God created it.
21:45
That's the explanation that is the most explanatory power.
21:49
So we have a big question when we're thinking about
21:52
where does morality come from?
21:55
Where does that feeling of oughtness come from?
21:58
And David Hume, the Enlightenment philosopher
22:01
with whom I disagree on many things.
22:04
He was right when he observed that people just slide over
22:08
from is to ought, that is they see what a situation is
22:11
and they think you can deduce ought from it.
22:14
I don't believe you can.
22:15
And many philosophers don't believe you can.
22:18
In other words, the existence of the universe
22:23
and its obvious design is evidence for God.
22:27
But so is that moral sense within us.
22:31
The great philosopher Emmanuel Kant was so impressed
22:35
with this that on his tombstone in Königsberg,
22:39
he says something like this.
22:41
I don't get the quote accurately,
22:43
but he says the things that continue to move him
22:46
are the starry sky above and the moral law within.
22:51
Both of those are evidences of God.
22:53
And that resonates with what the Christian Apostle Paul
22:57
says in his book of Romans.
22:59
- I think additionally to that, John,
23:02
another apologist has said something this way
23:04
that every worldview has to answer origin
23:07
meaning morality destiny.
23:08
Origin where do we come from?
23:10
Meaning why are we here?
23:12
Origin meaning morality.
23:13
So what's the difference between good and evil
23:14
and destiny, where do we go when we die?
23:16
And again, yeah, you're left wanting.
23:19
Whenever you only look at those questions philosophically
23:22
or only look at those questions scientifically,
23:25
you need something outside of that, something greater than that.
23:28
And I know you get into that
23:29
in some of your high profile debates.
23:30
You mentioned Richard Dawkins earlier,
23:33
but you've debated Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens,
23:35
Michael Shermer, Lawrence Krauss, Peter Atkins, Peter Singer,
23:38
Michael Tulie and others that I won't mention.
23:40
And it's obvious that you go through a great deal of prep.
23:43
You obviously spend some time with those people's books
23:45
and their articles and their other interviews and debates.
23:48
But one thing that I really wanted to ask you is,
23:51
it's almost hard for me to finish some of the debates
23:53
that you have because I find it incredibly off-putting.
23:57
I find these people to be very, very off-putting
23:59
in these debates because there's a detestable level
24:02
of smugness and arrogance of the people that you're debating.
24:06
And that's very specific to Richard Dawkins
24:08
and the late Christopher Hitchens.
24:10
But this dismissive point of view where all they have to do
24:13
is say something in their British accent
24:14
and get a smile or a laugh from the crowd.
24:17
And then they don't have to actually dig in
24:19
to the subject matter that you're bringing up.
24:20
So for a guy like me, it's,
24:23
I usually have to be very, very cognizant of my attitude
24:26
and my anger and all those different things
24:28
when I'm entering into a discussion
24:29
just to make sure like don't raise your voice,
24:31
just be a good example here.
24:33
But for you, how do you do that in these high profile circumstances
24:37
when these people are just so unbelievably smug?
24:40
- Well, I do it on the basis of what my father taught me
24:44
that of course, sometimes I'd like to ring their necks
24:48
and I'm not impressed by their argument.
24:51
But you know, when they get angry and lose their temper
24:55
and argue ad hominem, to my mind intellectually,
24:59
they've lost the plot already.
25:01
And therefore, I don't find that difficult to deal with.
25:05
I simply let it happen.
25:07
And by not reacting angrily,
25:11
but with a smile and just pursuing the questions
25:14
and trying to keep objective and factual,
25:17
I find many of them do my work for me.
25:21
They convince the audience that their case is very weak,
25:24
which is exactly what I'm trying gently to point out.
25:28
- So with that, in addition to that,
25:30
there are certainly arguments that you've heard in.
25:33
And you at this point in your career
25:34
and having done all these public debates,
25:36
you've basically heard all the arguments there are.
25:38
There's not like an argument hiding out there
25:40
that's going to stump you.
25:41
But I'm curious, John, like, has there been a debate
25:44
that you were doing with another scientist
25:47
or some philosopher or just an atheist that can read
25:49
where you were like in the moment stumped,
25:53
where you're like, oh, no, maybe I'm a little bit outmatched here.
25:56
I think I may have brought a squirt gun
25:58
to a nuclear bomb fight.
26:00
Like, has a situation like that ever shown up?
26:05
- Not really, I mean, you feel a great deal of pressure.
26:09
But as you say, I've heard most of the arguments before.
26:14
I've taken people seriously
26:16
and I know what they're likely to say.
26:19
It's more that sometimes,
26:23
especially if there's not careful moderation,
26:28
there are certain things that are difficult to do.
26:31
And one or two of the debates this has happened
26:33
where I have discovered that I have to both moderate
26:37
and be involved, that's very difficult.
26:39
But in general, since I've heard most of the objections before,
26:44
and I'm willing to listen to new ideas
26:48
and to think them through even on my feet,
26:52
in that sense, they don't frighten me or threaten me
26:56
because I've learned over the years
26:59
and I've been thinking about these things since my teenage
27:03
that given a bit of time,
27:06
Christianity has proved itself to be true
27:10
in my experience, both intellectually
27:13
and morally and spiritually,
27:15
that ultimately I feel there's gonna be a way through this.
27:20
But the things that are hard, rather than stumping you,
27:26
but the things that are hard are existential questions,
27:31
particularly concerning the problem of evil and suffering.
27:35
And more so when the person that you're discussing with
27:40
has been through a very rough time,
27:43
there you have to be very sympathetic and understanding.
27:46
And also make it clear that we don't have any simplistic answers
27:51
in that case, but we can bring to bear some kind of concept
27:58
of the love of God and so on, explain to them
28:01
where we find a possibility for an understanding
28:06
that can take you through.
28:08
And it's those big issues where you have to not only
28:12
have an intellectual concern, but a real pastoral concern.
28:15
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- I think beyond that, you also have a certain point
28:49
in certainly these debates, but also in dyadic communication
28:53
with friends or family members, where it's pearls before swine,
28:56
you're literally debating with a person
28:58
that refuses to even try to see your points.
29:00
I've seen prominent atheists in debates,
29:03
basically be asked, is there anything that would convince you
29:05
and they say, well, if I was convinced that there was a God,
29:08
then that means I will have lost my mind.
29:10
And it's like, okay, in addition to being circular,
29:12
you're creating a non-falsifiable claim.
29:15
And it's like, what are we doing here?
29:16
This isn't a debate.
29:17
This is merely a description of your point of view
29:19
and my point of view and you won't even engage.
29:21
But I guess for you, if there were an ace of spades argument
29:26
that you could use,
29:27
so like if you could leave one Christian apologetics argument
29:31
for the rest of humanity, what would it be?
29:33
I mean, for me, it would be fine-tuning
29:35
because the fine-tuning of the universe,
29:37
'cause I feel like a lot of atheists,
29:38
kind of if they're intellectually honest, have to admit
29:41
that, yeah, that one's got me.
29:43
That one's really got me stumped.
29:44
But what's kind of that one argument
29:46
that's just maybe above the others in your mind?
29:49
- Well, the hardest question to ask
29:51
is what you just asked, and that is a generic argument
29:54
because they're all kinds of different people.
29:57
And what convinces one will not convince another.
30:01
That's the first point.
30:02
So I have no knockdown argument in that sense,
30:06
but I was interested that the one you picked is fine-tuning.
30:11
I was once asked to, well, someone I debated publicly,
30:15
a very eminent professor of philosophy at Oxford,
30:18
who invited me to speak to students
30:21
about why I don't accept atheism.
30:25
And then he said, "I hope you use the best argument
30:29
"against atheism."
30:31
Well, I said, "If you tell me, I'll use it."
30:34
And he responded like you.
30:37
He said, "You know, from the scientific perspective,
30:40
"if I were ever to become a Christian,
30:42
"it would be because of fine-tuning."
30:44
I think there's something there.
30:45
And I think that's important underlying
30:48
because fine-tuning is apart from very few scientists
30:52
is mainstream, it's accepted.
30:55
So it demands an explanation.
30:57
The late Stephen Hawking said so,
30:59
"Our astronomer royal lord, Rhys said so,
31:03
"neither of whom are theists."
31:05
And therefore, it is something
31:07
that you can bring to the attention of people.
31:11
I think that's right.
31:12
I think it is a personal, it is a powerful argument
31:16
for the existence of an intelligence behind the universe.
31:20
It of course doesn't bring you as far as Christianity,
31:23
but it's a stepping stone.
31:25
- It certainly is.
31:26
And I think for a lot of people,
31:27
it's like, okay, well, let's use your language,
31:29
let's use your field of study.
31:31
Like explain to me why all these things
31:33
seem to be so finely tuned because it goes beyond mathematics.
31:37
It goes beyond any of your worldview
31:39
to where you can't make a lot of the arguments
31:41
that you normally would because of the specificity
31:44
of some of the things that you can actually control for
31:46
and solve for.
31:48
Another subject matter that you actually spend a lot of time
31:50
with kind of coming out of the debate world
31:52
and you dealt with this a lot in your book,
31:53
Seven Days That Will Divide the World
31:55
is Old Earth versus Young Earth.
31:58
And I made the mistake, John,
31:59
of a few months ago on my podcast,
32:01
just mentioning Old Earth and Young Earth.
32:04
And then I just got drowned with emails
32:06
from people that are on this side
32:07
or on that side mainly from Young Earth people.
32:10
And like, I was like, oh no.
32:11
Because for me personally, the subject is interesting,
32:15
but it's not so interesting that I'm like,
32:17
okay, I'm gonna dedicate the next 10 years of my life
32:19
to figuring out what my worldview is
32:21
because it's like, we can't know exactly.
32:24
Like we can't just know.
32:25
And I'm like, I hope this is just something where one day
32:28
we all just clink our glasses together and heaven
32:30
and go, ah, John was right.
32:31
Row Tim was right or whoever was right.
32:33
But if you could just give us an idea,
32:35
like you don't have to get into what each side believes.
32:38
But for you personally, in all your time
32:41
thinking about this and writing about this
32:42
and speaking about this, where have you landed
32:45
on the debate for Old Earth and Young Earth
32:46
for those in the audience that are aware already?
32:49
- Well, it's sad that Christians make themselves
32:54
look ridiculous to the world that's not really interested
32:59
in this stuff by fighting about it.
33:02
And the sadness is because my response to it
33:07
has not so much to do with science.
33:09
The law it has tangentially.
33:12
It has to do with scripture.
33:14
I take scripture very seriously.
33:17
And it all has to do, of course, with Genesis one.
33:22
If we didn't have the statement in Genesis one,
33:25
nobody would ever have thought of it, but they do.
33:30
And what clinches it for me is a very simple matter
33:34
of Hebrew grammar.
33:35
And I checked this carefully.
33:37
I've written a book, as you know, seven days
33:40
that divide the world.
33:41
People want to know in detail.
33:42
But the basic thing is in the beginning,
33:45
God created the heavens and the earth.
33:47
Well, and then there follows a sequence
33:51
and God said day one, day two, and so on.
33:55
Now, the interesting thing is there are two past tenses
34:00
in verbs in Hebrew.
34:03
And one is used for the initial statement
34:06
and another is used for the sequence of days.
34:09
And I quote one of the translators of the ESV
34:15
who also is training as a scientist beforehand.
34:20
And he says the difference between those tenses is
34:24
that the introduction is talking about an events
34:29
that took place at an indefinite time
34:33
before the sequence of days.
34:36
So what does the Bible say about the age of the earth?
34:39
Nothing whatsoever.
34:41
So I'm happy with that.
34:44
You know, that's the bottom line.
34:46
And it's such a sadness when people fight
34:51
and it's fear.
34:53
And I've dealt with that in my book.
34:55
It would take a long time to go into the details.
34:59
But it's a sad thing to me
35:01
that sometimes very bright young Christians
35:05
are put off doing science
35:06
because their pastors and teachers insist
35:10
that they take a particular viewpoint.
35:13
And often the dogmatism is an inverse proportion
35:18
to their understanding both of scripture and science.
35:21
I take both seriously.
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35:51
- Dogmatism, those are the perfect words to describe this
35:54
because it's like you figure out which team is yours
35:57
and then you vehemently, you know,
35:59
place your heels on the ground on that team's pitch
36:02
and you're like, okay, this is how we're going to operate
36:04
moving forward.
36:05
And again, you need to have a little bit
36:07
of intellectual flexibility
36:09
to at least understand what other people think.
36:11
So whether you're an old-earth person or a younger person,
36:14
this is a, this is your commercial.
36:16
Make sure you go and grab seven days
36:17
that divide the world.
36:18
It will be in the show notes.
36:19
You guys can check it out.
36:20
But one thing that I would love to discuss with you
36:22
is something that I'm not really sure
36:24
I've heard you talk about publicly or write about.
36:26
And that's the concept of manhood or masculinity
36:29
in the modern church.
36:31
And obviously the church in the UK versus the church in,
36:34
in the US is a little different,
36:35
even though you can look at it, you know,
36:36
colloquially as the western church.
36:39
But we focus on that a lot here at Ungon to the Life
36:41
because whenever I was,
36:43
when I became a Christian,
36:44
I was also learning what it meant to become a man, right?
36:46
'Cause I was a teenager.
36:47
And I felt like godly men and manly men were separated, right?
36:51
The godly men were inside the church doing godly stuff
36:53
and the manly men were outside the church doing man stuff.
36:56
And I feel like culturally we bought into some
36:58
of the caricature narratives of, you know,
37:00
men or have big muscles and drive trucks
37:02
and you know, beef jerky and all those different things.
37:04
And that's, that's fine.
37:06
But for me, I don't care if you're into that stuff
37:08
or if you're into classical music and painting
37:10
and cooking gourmet meals,
37:12
I care about whether you cultivate spiritual mental
37:15
and physical resilience on a daily basis.
37:17
You know, all tethered to the creator god
37:19
like the perfect man Jesus did.
37:21
But for you specifically having been in the church
37:24
and been in this world for decades and decades and decades,
37:26
what would you say is the state of manhood
37:30
or masculinity inside the greater Christian church?
37:33
- Well, that's impossible for me to answer
37:36
because I just don't know enough.
37:39
I think your emphasis is the better way to go
37:42
that God has made us in his image, both male and female.
37:47
And we've got distinctive roles.
37:50
And the most important thing is not how big my muscles are.
37:55
They're not very big,
37:57
but how big my character is, my morality,
38:00
the way in which I respect my wife
38:03
and love my children and all this kind of thing.
38:07
And sometimes people who think that's not very masculine
38:12
need to think again because it's much harder
38:16
to keep your temper than to work out and build big muscles.
38:22
There's a tendency to focus on the visual.
38:27
And that's what the children of Israel did.
38:33
If you remember historically, they wanted a king
38:36
so they chose the biggest man they could possibly find.
38:39
And he was brought to nothing by David, the shepherd boy.
38:44
And I think it's in terms of character, being a man,
38:48
what is expected of me to live as a man in the world,
38:52
to lead my family and so on, to treat my wife
38:56
as a joint heir of the grace of life
38:58
that were equally in the eyes of God.
39:02
Those are very important things to me.
39:05
But general comments on the state of this in the church
39:10
as on anything that's a general state of the church,
39:13
I'm not qualified to comment on that at all.
39:17
- You say you're not qualified
39:18
and yet you're dropping all kinds of knowledge on us.
39:20
So don't be so shy and humble
39:22
because the size of one's-- - Yes, but I'm speaking,
39:24
I'm speaking simply from a biblical perspective.
39:27
I'm not speaking from observation or statistics
39:31
or surveys of concepts of manhood
39:34
and all this around the world, that's all I mean.
39:37
But scripture gives us enough.
39:40
And if we were obeying it,
39:43
there'd be less one thing that really strikes me
39:49
that the late Rabbi Sacks pointed out
39:52
that men abandoning their wives and children
39:56
has led to a huge moral, wasteland, deprivation, crime,
40:01
everything else, that's one glaringly obvious thing.
40:05
That sense of lack of commitment.
40:09
Our orders are bond and when you take a marriage vow,
40:13
for example, not to keep it
40:16
and just exchange your wife for the latest model,
40:19
that kind of stuff.
40:20
That's not manly, that's cowardice.
40:23
- It's cowardice and it's something
40:25
that helps to break down society.
40:27
It breaks down things that-- - Oh, it runs the family,
40:30
that's right.
40:31
- But I mean, your wisdom with the word character,
40:34
'cause I know a lot of guys that are concerned
40:35
with the size of their muscles
40:36
and not necessarily the relationship with their spouse,
40:38
certainly not their relationship with God.
40:40
And I encourage Christians to exercise
40:42
and to take care of the one body that God gave them
40:44
as a gift and obviously no one would say
40:46
that that's a bad idea, but it's like,
40:48
we don't focus as much on our character,
40:49
'cause you're right, the work of character
40:51
is much more difficult than bench press or squat,
40:53
even though those things are terrible
40:54
and they're not any fun.
40:56
But John, we'll make this the last question of the day.
40:58
We'll go and wrap up with this.
41:00
There's one thing that's concerning to me
41:01
whenever I talk with Christians,
41:03
but even people that are maybe on the fence
41:05
about the whole Christianity thing
41:07
is some people love to define their Christianity
41:10
by a feeling that they have or feeling that they had, right?
41:14
Maybe at church camp or maybe at some, you know,
41:16
a revival type experience and they don't feel
41:19
the same way now and they have this attack
41:21
of conscience and salvation and all these things.
41:24
And then you have people that are outside the church
41:26
that are looking at all the feelings going on
41:27
inside the church, all the worship services
41:30
and all the crazy stuff.
41:30
And they're like, where's the intellectual heft
41:33
of what you're saying?
41:34
And so you find a lot of Christians
41:36
that are worshiping God with their feelings
41:38
and not worshiping God with our minds.
41:40
And you've done, your entire life's work
41:42
could potentially be summed up in helping us
41:44
to worship God with our minds.
41:45
But if you wouldn't mind speak to that a little bit
41:47
about Christians that are maybe concerned about,
41:50
well, I want to feel a certain way.
41:52
I don't necessarily want to study these books.
41:54
- This is a crucially important question
41:58
because we have moved into a touchy-feely kind of generation
42:03
and feelings are very difficult to reproduce.
42:09
And once you have them, then you have to have a bigger high.
42:13
You see this reflected in drug abuse
42:16
that people start with a weaker drug
42:19
and then they need a bigger high and a bigger high.
42:22
For me, from the very beginning,
42:24
the basic conviction is that Christianity is true.
42:29
Not that it gives you good feelings.
42:31
If God gives you good feelings, that's wonderful.
42:33
But sometimes he'll give you rotten feelings,
42:36
especially if you're misbehaving.
42:38
But the important thing is the truth question.
42:42
And the moral question,
42:44
we can search for feelings and bypass morality.
42:48
So long as I feel good, then that's fine.
42:51
I must be a good Christian.
42:53
But what about your moral obligations?
42:55
What about your duties to your family?
42:58
What about all those kinds of things?
43:01
And to my mind, the conviction
43:05
that people want to see from outside is,
43:08
okay, you believe this stuff, but why?
43:10
What is the evidence that it's true?
43:12
Now, you expect evidence of different kinds.
43:17
And here's the way I would step back from your question
43:21
and say, there are two kinds of evidence.
43:24
There's the objective evidence.
43:27
There's the truths of history,
43:29
evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.
43:31
But then there's our subjective evidence.
43:35
God wants us to have real experience of him.
43:39
But we can easily replace God
43:41
by a kind of Santa Claus fantasy
43:44
that God loves me and not sentimental
43:46
in the proofs of everything I do and so on.
43:49
But you don't find that in scripture.
43:51
So what we need to do is to realize
43:54
that what Christ calls us to is to commitment
43:58
and to righteousness, to live morally, uprightly.
44:02
That is the supreme challenge in this situation.
44:07
Now, that can make you feel pretty rough
44:09
or it can make you have a sense of satisfaction.
44:13
The point is this, if what we do following Christ
44:18
gives us a good emotional sense, that's wonderful.
44:22
But once we replace that emotion that he gives
44:27
with the emotion that we try to generate ourselves
44:30
in our own heads, then we're lost
44:32
because that's the sure way to almost to going mad
44:36
because you're never satisfied with that.
44:38
So it's very important that our feelings may go up and down.
44:43
They'll go up and down if we eat a rotten egg
44:45
or bad food or something like this,
44:47
is that suppose I was to say to someone,
44:52
do you feel married?
44:55
And it's a very interesting question to ask
44:58
because well, most of the time you're not thinking
45:01
you are feeling it at all.
45:02
But the fact is, if you're married,
45:04
then you are, it is a fact.
45:07
And when feelings go astray,
45:10
then it's very important to remind ourselves
45:13
of the basic facts that God's love is independent
45:17
of our feelings, that Christ's death for me
45:20
is independent of my feelings and so on.
45:24
That's hugely important.
45:26
And we need to inject that factual side
45:29
and intellectual side into our generation
45:34
that is looking for wellbeing without much facts around it.
45:39
- I think it's very important to realize
45:41
that if you depend on feelings,
45:44
it is as if you have your feet planted firmly in mid-air.
45:47
And you know, certainly other people have talked about that,
45:49
but we need to bring those feet down to the ground
45:52
and make sure that they are attached to
45:54
and grounded in something real.
45:56
So John, this was an absolute treat.
45:58
I feel so blessed and privileged
46:00
that we were able to make this happen.
46:01
But that's all for me.
46:02
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
46:04
- No, that's fine.
46:05
Thank you very much.
46:06
A very interesting conversation.
46:09
- John Linux, thank you for coming on
46:10
Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
46:12
There you go guys.
46:13
I hope you enjoyed my time with the great John Linux.
46:15
But before we let you go,
46:16
we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
46:18
At Undaunted Life, our mission is equipping men
46:19
to push back darkness with content
46:21
that forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
46:23
So here are the links I've got for you today.
46:24
I've got a link to John's website
46:26
so you can check them out there.
46:27
But then I've got a link to four of his books.
46:28
He's got way more before of his book.
46:30
So can science explain everything?
46:31
And then the other book that we mentioned in this episode,
46:33
Seven Days That Divide the World.
46:35
And then a couple that we didn't have time
46:36
to get to Gunning for God,
46:37
why the new atheists are missing the target
46:39
and God's undertaker has science buried God.
46:42
All right guys, thanks so much for listening to the show.
46:44
We do appreciate it.
46:45
Wherever you're listening to this,
46:46
please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five star
46:48
of you.
46:49
If you want me to come speak live at your event
46:50
or on your podcast,
46:51
just shoot me an email to info@undaunted.life.
46:53
That's INFO@undaunted.life.
46:56
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook
46:57
and check out our website for everything else,
46:59
including how to donate to keep more content
47:00
like this coming your way.
47:02
Just go to www.undaunted.life and as always,
47:05
we want to thank the band, August Burns Red,
47:06
for allowing us to use their music for our content.
47:08
The music on this podcast is a song "Cutting the Tides"
47:11
which is off their 10th anniversary re-recording
47:13
of their album, "Leveler."
47:14
The links are in the description.
47:16
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
47:17
Remember, keep pushing back darkness,
47:20
keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience,
47:24
keep seeking the lion of Judah.
47:27
(upbeat rock music)
47:30
♪ I know thy left is a heart attack ♪
47:34
♪ I know you want is a side-based act ♪
47:39
♪ And I'll find you ♪
47:42
♪ You will be revived ♪
47:57
[BLANK_AUDIO]