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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Apologetics three fifteen podcast with

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your hosts Brian Auten and Chad Gross. Join us for

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conversations and interviews on the topics of apologetics, evangelism, and

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the Christian worldview. You've give you sent a word? I

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don't think I miss? What do you think of miss?

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Hello and welcome to the podcast. This is Brian Auten

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and I'm Chad Gross.

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Speaker 2: And we've got a special guest for you today, someone

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who's been on the podcast a number of times because

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he's our fave.

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Speaker 1: That is Professor Ken Samples. And today we're talking.

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Speaker 2: About a book that we've been waiting for for a

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long time, the one book that is amazing. Now listen,

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I would tell you the title of this book, but

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we're just gonna wait until the interview because right now

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we're actually re recording our intro from like a week

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and a half ago. Chad Man, there's something going We

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use Riverside to record our podcasts.

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Speaker 1: And they have changed something.

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Speaker 2: We're trying to get to the bottom of what's going on,

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but the audio just was crunching away, So I'm going

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to leave in Chad's We're ditching our previous intro recorded

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because it was so bad recording.

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Speaker 1: It was so bad.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, some of Chad's questions when he asks them, listener,

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just bear with it. It gets better later. But it's

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it's super crunch. It's like distorted and weird. So that's

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totally we knew about that. We left it in because

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we're authentic.

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Speaker 3: Right and and just for my part, we have since

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taken steps to improve said audios, so that should not

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be a problem moving forward. And I think it was

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because I went into my whole Cogan impression and it

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just shook the very core of the audio. That's what

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it was, was.

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Speaker 1: What we were what I was saying.

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Speaker 2: I was telling Chad that, you know, this book is

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this is a book on logic and critical thinking. And

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I said, this is the book I've been waiting for.

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And I said, you know, previously Travis Dickinson had this

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for his logic book, and now it's like there was

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this WWE wrestling belt that has been passed on to

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Ken Samples and now he's the world record holder. And

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then Chad went into this like hulk Mania voice and

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it was insane, and boy, I wanted to leave that

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in there, but I was afraid we would lose listeners

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because they would instantly hear this big crack crackling audio

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like ah, So you know, if you pay our six

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hundred pounds a month Patreon fee, that's available. That's available

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for you to download. And there's also signed poster of

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Chad with the belt.

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Speaker 3: So right anyway, and check our check our store to

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see the Chad Served Disaster t shirt.

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Speaker 2: So yes, now, we really love this interview. We really

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love Ken Samples. We're really appreciative that he was on

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the podcast again, and we do really encourage you to

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if you're looking at looking for a good, really all

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round great book. And you know, I was really singing

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the praises of this book throughout the interview, so get

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ready for that if I don't edit it all out

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because I'm so embarrassed how like fanboying I was for

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this book.

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Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. So enjoyed this interview, and thanks

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for listening. Here we go, let's get ready switch me on.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well, Ken Samples, welcome back to the podcast

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yet again.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's a pleasure to be with you guys. I

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follow you your ministry, admire it, and I appreciate so

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much you having me on once more one more time.

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Speaker 2: Well, I was telling Chad that you've stolen the WWE

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belt for the best logic book. You know, wait, before

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we thought it was you know, Travis Dickinson.

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Speaker 4: And that's a good one, by the way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah it was good.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like a fine dish that has all the

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flavors just balanced.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: His was delicious, but yours was a complete meal, five

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course perfect, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you cracked the code.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for letting us, you know, read this book

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and have a conversation surrounding the themes in it. So

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and for the listener, it's called clear Thinking in a

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Messy World, a Christian guide to logic, reason and cognitive bias.

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And we also have to thank Mark Perez, your co author.

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Certainly you're both bringing out the best of one another.

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And yeah, we were just singing as praises. It was

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something that shifted my thinking in some things, you know.

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Speaker 1: So I appreciate it.

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Speaker 4: Well, we really appreciated your gracious endorsement. And I'm so

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happy that it is out. I've been thinking about this

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book for forty years, so thank you for those kind words.

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And I'm it's such a pleasure when I know that

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it's helping people. That's the big thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Ever since I've known Brian, he's been looking for

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the perfect book.

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Speaker 1: And are not even exaggerating.

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Speaker 3: We were talking before you came on, and he's estimating

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about fifteen years. But he's been looking for the perfect

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blend of like logic and.

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Speaker 1: Christianity, you know.

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Speaker 3: And he said in the introduction that this is this

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is the one, like this is finally the end of

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his quest.

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Speaker 4: So kind words. I appreciate much.

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Speaker 1: But here's the reason, and we'll talk about what you think. Yeah,

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I mean it would.

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Speaker 3: Be nice to hear with ken things.

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Speaker 1: I mean yeah, but here's the thing.

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Speaker 2: You've got sort of a case for the Christian mind,

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and Lay is a perfect foundation for that. And then

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it's like, Okay, we could go really deep on logic,

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we could go really deep on critical thinking, we could

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really go really deep on cognitive biases, but the reader's

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going to get way bogged down, and what they really

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need is to be inspired to take this torchu and run.

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And you've done that in all these three categories, because

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each one gives you enough introduction if you're a learner,

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like a novice to be like, oh, yeah, I see

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where this path can lead me, and you've even given

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me some tools to go down that path. And all

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of these areas if you only have the logic but

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you don't have the understanding of the cognitive biases and

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where you're thinking can go wrong, or you don't understand

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critical thinking and how to be maybe charitable and think

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about how to interact with ideas, you're going to make mistakes.

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With all these tools, you need to know how they

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work together and how to balance them. And it's like, wow,

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you really, you guys struck a great balance of that.

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And like one of the things that inspired me was

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like you've got something in there about learning and developing

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your mind, and it was like you were saying, you know,

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just go. You can learn a language, you can read

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the great books and things. And you know what I

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felt for so long, I can't do so I can't

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read that.

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Speaker 1: That's that's not.

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Speaker 2: That's not productive to read that, it's not you. I've

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had a really very utilitarian idea of what I'm reading,

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and I thought, you know what, it released me to

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read for enjoyment, for read for its intrinsic good. So

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it's been amazing to find the book and I really

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appreciate it, but please tell me what is inspired you

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guys in how you put it together?

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Speaker 4: Well, thank you for all of that. I I wanted

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the book to express our sense of the life of

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the mind to the glory of God. And you know

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there there are lots of people who they love the

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Lord in many ways, but they need a little bit

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of encouragement and coaching on how to love God with

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their mind. I also wanted it to be more than

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just a logic text or a critical thinking tech I

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did want to inspire people, and I tried to use

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as well as Mark. We both tried to use apologetic example,

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so you get a little bit of invitation to Christian

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apologetics and Christian theology. So I definitely wanted to be

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a book that could be used in logic or critical

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thinking courses. But I wanted it to be more than that.

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I wanted it to be a book that you could

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go back to, that you could continue to kind of

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grow through. And I have to admit, I don't think

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that there's another logic text out there that has that

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addresses cognitive bias. So Mark Perez's part is a very

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important part that that's still a field that people are

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working through and developing. So you know, this was written

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for Christians and I Brian I. I think the first

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time I taught logic was nineteen ninety so it's thirty

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five years in the working and this book is in

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many ways kind of the book I wanted to have

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for my students through those years. And I've used a

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number of books and there are some there are some

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solid books out there. You mentioned Dickinson's book. I like

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that very much. I know him and he is a

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gracious and thoughtful person. So this was kind of a

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book I was thinking all along about and writing isn't

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an easy process, but love. I think what I really

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love about writing is afterwards talking about ideas with people

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who are interested. So your interview today is something that

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really makes it enjoyable to be an author.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, one of the.

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Speaker 3: Things that I think is important kind of to start

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out with because it's such I feel like it's overlooked.

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Is any book that I read that highlights the idea

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that Jesus was a logician and how intelligent Jesus was

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is something that I think is incredibly valuable because oddly

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at least in my experience, it's rarely talked about in

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the church, And so can you talk a little bit

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about Jesus as a thinker, as a logician so that

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listeners can kind of who haven't thought about that maybe

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or been introduced to that idea, can begin to process it.

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Speaker 4: Yes, you know, I've recently been reading again through the Gospels,

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and there are many things that oppressed me about Jesus. Obviously,

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the healing ministry is just something that just draws me in.

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And of course I love the I love all of

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the titles that he uses about himself. But I was

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very much struck by the fact that Jesus is not

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only a great storyteller, but he is a very fine

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teacher on the level I think with Socrates and Sidhartha,

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Gautama and Confucius. He is a world class storyteller. But

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then there is that the sage logician where Jesus, I mean,

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he's twelve years old. He's a carpenter, so he probably

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doesn't have the formal training that rabbis would receive. I

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have read at the time of Christ it was largely

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expected that a rabbi would pretty much have the Old

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Testament content down cold, and it was a oral tradition.

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So you know, you've got a lot going on with

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terms of memory and things of that nature. But here's Jesus,

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He's twelve years old. He is talking with the elite

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religious leaders of Second Temple Judaism and they're amazed by him.

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And it just truck me one day when I was

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reading Jesus's interaction with the with the Sadducees and the

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Pharisees and the scribes, Jesus never draws an invalid inference.

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And I mean that, just that just pit me really hard,

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because I make mistakes in reasoning all the time. I

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have to go back and say, now did I I'm not.

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I don't think I got that right. Let me, let

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me rework it. I mean, here Jesus has people coming

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to him and their their intention is to get him

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into serious trouble. They want to catch him on something,

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you know, and and uh, should we pay taxes to Caesar?

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And he looks at them and says, well, give me

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one of those dinarre whose image is on this, and

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they respond he says, well, give to Caesar the things

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that are Caesar, and God the things that are God.

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And you can almost hear the silence. I think that

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that is an credible thing. Again, I've read a lot

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of the Socratic dialogues. I've read a good bit about

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Sidhartha Gautama, the Buddha, who was a fine teacher. I

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also admire Confucius as a teacher. And of course Plato

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and Aristotle are two people that I think are some

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of the brightest in the history of Western civilization. I

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don't think any of them have any thing on Jesus

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as a person who's capable of articulating ideas. So now

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you put that with the healings, you put that with

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the fulfillment of prophecy, you put that with Jesus's life, death,

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and resurrection, and I think that's one more powerful argument

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that he really was the son of God. And you know,

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so when Jesus has loved God with your mind, that

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takes on a new element. Hey, here is a first

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rate Christian thinker, a first rate Messiah thinker. And I

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wanted people to to get a touch of that that.

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You know, Okay, maybe none of us are going to

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aspire to be an Aristotle or a Plato, or or

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a William Lane Craig or whomever it may be. But

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God has given us a gift of our mind, and

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we want to be able to use it, and we

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want we want that to express our love for the Lord.

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So I appreciate you bringing that up, Chad, because I

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think that's something a lot of Christians have not given

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some thought. And Uh, I owe that to a few

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different people. Uh. Certain certainly Dickinson brings that out, and

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I thought it was very very helpful. Colleague of mine

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at Reasons to Believe, George Harrakson, who is a philosopher,

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he emphasized that, and Dallas Willard is an other that

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emphasized that, And I thought, wow, I want to I

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really want something like that in the book.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you mentioned Willard. I was thinking while you were talking, Drew,

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it brought to mind something I remembered him saying in

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a lecture. He said something to the effect I'm paraphrasing.

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He said, if you don't believe Jesus is smart, then

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you're not going to go to him to learn how

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to live. And if you're not going to him to

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learn how to live, then how can you be a disciple?

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And that just hit me like a ton of bricks,

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Like how important it is to not only see Jesus

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as holy, as healers, as all those things you talked about,

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but also you should see him as somebody who is intelligent.

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Speaker 4: That's exactly right. And it again, it just kind of

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brings the Gospels on fire. You see, you see all

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of these capacities, and it made me look again even

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at the parables. Wow, what stories these are. And immediately

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I thought, well, this is the reason I love Tolkien

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and lewis this ability to tell a story and draw

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people in. That part of that persuasion is there are

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no doubt logoss is very popular and very important, but

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you also have ethos and pathoss that are involved in

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what Aristotle called that triangle of persuasion.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was a master logician but also a

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master rhetorician.

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Speaker 4: That's right.

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Speaker 1: One thing comes to my mind and thinking about the book.

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Speaker 2: Is you've created a set of tools and a sort

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of a path to continue growing in the use of

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those tools of clear thinking, of helping us be discerning

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as Christians and as thinkers and to love God with

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all our minds.

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Speaker 1: So sometimes I get discouraged.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm excited when it comes to things like AI and.

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Speaker 1: There are resources and information we've got.

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Speaker 2: So when I think think about, oh, anything I need

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to know, I can just google it, or I can

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generate content or like brainstorm with you know, chat, GPT

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or something like that. And at the same time, I'm like, oh,

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this is making me lazy, you know, it making the

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world lazy, certainly because now who's who's gonna.

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Speaker 1: Like be the gatekeeper?

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Speaker 2: Like, hey, why should I trust this, you know, because

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it came from AI thought that somebody could change that. Like,

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so when I'm thinking about the value, one of the

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values of the book is like it right now, you

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don't have to memorize facts anymore. It's it's almost can

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be a waste of time. You need to thorn how

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to think and discern and to filter and to know

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where the information is going wrong. Because there's so much information,

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it's easy to get the info.

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Speaker 1: Now you have to be like.

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Speaker 2: You have to figure out what you can trust, what

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is something that is having this So I think you

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could talk a little bit about what it means to

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have discernment and how that can be developed.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's you know, when I give talks

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at churches about the life of the mind, about thinking

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carefully and critically. I try to take them from the

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word logic to that very word discernment. And so you know,

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John says, in the beginning was the word, and behind

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that is logoths and that is an incredible statement about

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Jesus being the life of God, the mind of God,

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the thoughts of God. And you know, in the New

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Testament we're reminded how important it is to be discerning.

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John says, don't don't believe things too quickly. Many false

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prophets have gone out into the world. Paul says things like,

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you know, put things to the test, hold on to

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the good. When I was growing up, I had a

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bug to learn it. It never really kind of developed

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till a bit later. But I remember when I was

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in elementary and junior high school, and even in high school,

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if I wanted a lot of information had to go

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to the library, and I remember paying fines because I

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turned books in late because I wanted to read them.

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If I could compare that with my son Michael, who

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is twenty seven years old. Michael was born right at

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the time in which the Internet came into being. He

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has had access to information right at his fingertips. He

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can go all over the world. But the challenge that

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I had was getting access. I think the challenge that

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our children have is testing reliability. Is this good content?

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And I think a lot more discernment is needed now.

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It is easy to be influenced by indoctrination, propaganda. It's

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very easy for people to engage in deception. I mean

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you have to at times now even wonder, well is

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that really a photograph? Or is that AI? You know,

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how do I know what it is? So I think

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we're at a stage where we do really have to

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fall back on ways of thinking carefully and discerning. And

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you know, one thing we make in the point, and

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both Mark and I bring this out, and that is

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that you know, logic doesn't teach you to think. The

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Good Lord has given you a good mind and a

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good brain. And I know both of you you're both

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very careful thinkers. What logic can do is to help

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you be careful because it's so easy to be lazy,

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it is so easy to be sloppy. And that's what

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I love about Aristotle's definition. He says logic is ordered fought,

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and that's what I need. I need my thinking to

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be ordered. I can't just take a vacation anytime I want.

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I need to be challenged. And Brian, I think you're

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right on the money with AI and with all of

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the technology that we now have, and take it all

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for granted, we have to be able to have that

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mind that can really go through the material and weigh

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it and make a judgment.

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Speaker 2: So Ken, you're saying that Mark Brez was doing more

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of the stuff in the area of the cognitive biases,

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and maybe he was a higher contributor to that. But

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talk a little bit about this, because I've benefited a

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lot in the past from critical thinking books and more

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like logic books informal logic books and books about fallacies,

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and those are all really helpful in their own way,

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But I haven't read as much, although I've heard like

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podcasts on cognitive biases, and I think these are just

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it's like right up there with knowing all the logical fallacies,

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all the ways you could go wrong in their way

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you structure an argument. You can also don't realize you've

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got your own emotions, your own inclinations tricking you into

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like wanting something to be true, or wanting a certain conclusion,

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or just having wrong slant to your own inclination to

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accept one argument over another or one conclusion over another.

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Talk a little bit about what these are and maybe

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a few examples that are ones that people might see

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commonly but maybe not recognize.

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Speaker 4: Yes, I completely agree. I think this is a kind

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of a new frontier. And again I considered Mark's contribution

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to be so important to the book. Let's talk a

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little bit about this. You know, a cognitive bias is

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that we we have kind of at times an instinct

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or we have a predisposition towards something. So sometimes our

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instincts are correct, sometimes our intuition is correct, but there

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are many times it's not. And I've noticed for a

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long time that my students, when I would give them

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an assignment in ethics or in philosophy, world religions, or

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just in a critical thinking class, they would take a

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topic and I'd say, okay, make your case, but at

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the end of your paper, I want you to tell

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me what the best argument is on the other side

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and how you would respond to it. Well, we have

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what we call the confirmation bias. It is very very

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easy to start thinking where you're looking at evidence, you're

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looking at data, you're evaluating information, and there is this

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tendency the short cut, to take the shortcut and only

401
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look for evidence that supports your position, and that can

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get us into real, real trouble. Your argument is only

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as good as the evidence that supports it, and if

404
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you haven't looked at the evidence against your argument, you

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haven't looked at all the available data. So it's often

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the case, or I should say it's seldom the case

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that an argument is just going to win the day

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and there isn't going to be any objection to it,

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there's not going to be any attempt to refute it.

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I think, you know, having worked with many scientists over

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a period, you can almost find, no matter what topic

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it is in science, a scientist who's going to dispute it,

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and philosophy, it may even be more true where somebody

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will stand up and say, no, I disagree with that.

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So confirmation bias. I mean, God has given us a

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gift to be able to detect information, to kind of

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abductively evaluate it and see how it works together. But

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we have to be very careful that we don't have

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kind of a privileged perspective where we think, I'm only

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you look at the data that supports my theistic worldview.

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I'm only going to look at the data that supports

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my view on abortion, and so confirmation bias lurks there. Now,

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if you add into that that we are fallen people,

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we are both fallen people, and we're finite people. Being finite,

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we have limitations and boundaries. Being fallen, we have certain

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prejudices and biases, and it is very easy to kind

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of fall into a trap. I think Paul quite clearly

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in Romans One says that one of the things that

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makes sin diabolical is it can blind you. And I

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know all of us have had situation with our wives

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where they see our problem and we can't see it

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at all. And that happens all the time, where there's

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this blind spot where we can't make our way through.

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So confirmation bias is one of that gets talked about

435
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a lot, it is very important. Another one is group think.

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It is very easy, particularly on social media, where you

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go online and there's a group of people, and I

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have found that it's it's kind of easy to be

439
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sucked into that where you're no longer thinking as an individual.

440
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You kind of fall into the group think. And again

441
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you have to be very careful because even critical thinking scientists,

442
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critical thinking philosophers, historians, it's easy to fall into a

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group think and not kind of challenge fundamental ideas. So

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you know, if you give, if you give consideration that

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we are falling. Christian thinkers for centuries have talked about

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the noetic effects of the fall. I think sometimes people

447
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exaggerate the negatives of that. I think there are other

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times maybe there's there isn't an appropriate appreciation of that.

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But you also give consideration that we don't remember things

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all the time. Your mind is is a it's a

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powerful and amazing, but it can be tricky where you're

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certain that I saw these things. I was on the

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freeway a couple of years ago and a truck hit

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a car, and then the car hit me, And right

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afterwards we all pulled over and got our phones out

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and exchanged information. Then the highway patrolman came on and

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he said, well, were you rolling when you were hit?

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Or had you come to a stop? And I was sure, no,

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I'm I'm sure I was rolling. But then later I

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realized I wasn't rolling. I know I had stopped, and

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I looked in the rear view mirror, hoping she wouldn't

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hit me your mind. I had a lot going on

463
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at that time. It was a tricky circumstance. So that

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amazing memory that God gives us, it can play tricks

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with us. And I think being aware of these basic

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cognitive biases is very, very helpful and meaningful, so that

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if you look at the messy world we've talked about,

468
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you've got informal fallacies, you've got indoctrination, you've got propaganda,

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you've got conspiracy theories, and now you've got cognitive biases

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within yourself that you have to work through. So I

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think what's very helpful, and it's something I've believed in

472
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for a very long time, and that is that you

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need to constantly go back to these things, need to

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be reviewing these kinds of things. And the dangers that

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we make is you know what, I'm tired. I want

476
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to take a weekend off. Our mind is always wanting

477
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to take a weekend off, and we have to drive

478
00:29:14,759 --> 00:29:17,079
it back there and say, nope, you need to work

479
00:29:17,119 --> 00:29:18,079
a little harder. Here.

480
00:29:18,319 --> 00:29:21,599
Speaker 2: You say a couple of times in the book makes

481
00:29:21,599 --> 00:29:24,799
me chuckle, where you're like, yeah, your mind always wants

482
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,559
to have a weekend and it only does the minimum

483
00:29:27,599 --> 00:29:31,920
amount of work. You know, you know, we're not just

484
00:29:32,359 --> 00:29:34,599
lazy and want to sit on the couch, but our

485
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,079
brains want to just chill out and not do the

486
00:29:37,119 --> 00:29:41,519
hard thinking. But you have to realize you could go

487
00:29:41,559 --> 00:29:44,920
off the rails so easily. So that was one mental

488
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:46,559
Now I was like, and the note I took in

489
00:29:46,559 --> 00:29:49,519
my mind was be careful, be careful, be careful.

490
00:29:49,599 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 4: That was the no.

491
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: Is like, you have to be a careful thinker, because

492
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:56,240
just like a minefield you're describing, you know.

493
00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Kain, my mind's kind of reeling here in it,

494
00:29:59,599 --> 00:30:01,839
like two or three directions I want to go of

495
00:30:02,359 --> 00:30:05,400
notes I took while I was reading. So I'm just

496
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:07,880
gonna ask in this kind of piggybacks on what you

497
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:11,559
were saying. There's kind of this prevailing idea, particularly I

498
00:30:11,599 --> 00:30:16,519
see it on social media that somehow, you know, science

499
00:30:17,039 --> 00:30:22,160
gives us objectivity. It's implied that science is almost this cold,

500
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:25,880
almost gives us almost cold mathematical certainty. Now, of course,

501
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:29,519
like scientists would deny that, but in practice they sometimes

502
00:30:29,559 --> 00:30:34,480
act like that, particularly skeptics, Whereas like philosophy, religion, those

503
00:30:34,519 --> 00:30:37,119
things are kind of shunned or people kind of look

504
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:38,720
down their nose and it's almost like.

505
00:30:38,759 --> 00:30:40,799
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's subjectivity.

506
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 3: Or you know, philosophers they just sit around and talk

507
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,799
about things and never accomplish anything, you know, kind of

508
00:30:45,799 --> 00:30:50,079
paraphrasing Lawrence Krauss. So you know, I guess what I'm

509
00:30:50,119 --> 00:30:52,920
asking is is, how would you respond to that idea

510
00:30:53,079 --> 00:30:58,599
that somehow science is the beacon of objectivity and all

511
00:30:58,599 --> 00:31:00,839
other disciplines must kind of the need to that.

512
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:05,839
Speaker 4: I've heard that a great deal. What I find very

513
00:31:05,839 --> 00:31:11,319
interesting is that there are many scientists. Some of them

514
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:17,680
are really fine scientists, outstanding in their field. They're outspoken,

515
00:31:17,799 --> 00:31:21,200
and a lot of times they're reflecting a secular worldview,

516
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:25,880
and Chad, they don't know how science works. They say

517
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:30,960
things Lawrence Krause says, the arbiter of all truth is experiment,

518
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,160
and I'm like, well, where did that? Did that come

519
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:39,160
out of an experiment? I have scientists all the time say,

520
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:45,440
you know, philosophy, history, religion, Yeah, you guys, you know,

521
00:31:45,759 --> 00:31:48,359
that's all kind of it involves a certain amount of

522
00:31:48,359 --> 00:31:54,599
wishful thinking, and they don't realize that science depends upon

523
00:31:54,720 --> 00:32:02,839
assumptions that undergirding science is a cluster of unscientific beliefs,

524
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:05,599
like there's a real world out there. You can trust

525
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:10,880
your cognitive faculties and sensory organs, logic and math work.

526
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:16,799
All of these kind of things are underneath it. Martiner

527
00:32:16,839 --> 00:32:20,440
Adler one of the great educators in twenty Philosophers of

528
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,119
the twentieth century, he made the comment in his book

529
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:27,400
How to Read a Book. He said, scientists are highly specialized,

530
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,839
but not necessarily well educated. And I don't think he

531
00:32:32,039 --> 00:32:35,920
was poking fun or attacking, because that has been my

532
00:32:36,079 --> 00:32:39,720
experience when I talk to my colleagues at Reasons to Believe,

533
00:32:40,599 --> 00:32:47,400
their education is so chocked full of science and data

534
00:32:48,319 --> 00:32:52,359
that there is very little information given about the philosophy

535
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:58,119
of science, the history of science. Many scientists are surprised

536
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:02,240
when they hear that the played a very significant role

537
00:33:02,559 --> 00:33:06,920
Christianity in particular with the birth of science. And again,

538
00:33:07,079 --> 00:33:11,640
these assumptions they I've had them. I've had people say

539
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:15,319
to me, well, science just works, and I say, how

540
00:33:15,359 --> 00:33:18,599
does it work? I debated a scientist it was up

541
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:23,680
in Fresno, and the scientists said, as a scientist, I

542
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:27,160
have no beliefs. So I waited till my turn and

543
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:29,799
I just chalked off all of the beliefs that he

544
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:34,920
had as a scientist. So science is a remarkable way

545
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:40,160
of knowing, but it's very limited, and it needs to

546
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:47,160
be co joined with philosophy, with theology in various fields.

547
00:33:47,319 --> 00:33:51,680
And it's interesting to me that people who gravitate toward

548
00:33:52,039 --> 00:33:55,480
science and away from theism, they kind of want to

549
00:33:55,519 --> 00:33:59,680
pit science against Christianity. And I say that's a strange

550
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:07,640
thing because historically Christianity birth science and the intellectual assumptions

551
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:12,920
that go with science are deeply compatible with theism. So

552
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:19,960
it's also unfortunate when very good scientists start talking philosophy

553
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:24,320
and you begin to realize, wow, you don't know what

554
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:28,880
you're talking about. Yes, so we all have limitations, we

555
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:33,599
all have boundaries, we all need to be counterchecked. And

556
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:39,199
I think this kind of popular scientism has been adopted

557
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:41,719
by people, but we need to challenge it. We need

558
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:44,719
to show them that, look, you're never going to have

559
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:48,880
an experiment that's going to tell you that experimentation is

560
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:51,800
the only way you can know the truth. That's an

561
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:54,239
assumption according to your worldview.

562
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:55,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, and.

563
00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:58,599
Speaker 3: You know one of the things too about that is

564
00:34:58,639 --> 00:35:01,679
the idea that and you bring this out in the book,

565
00:35:01,679 --> 00:35:04,440
I think beautifully is the idea that regardless of what

566
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:09,840
you're doing, whether it's theology, philosophy, science, whatever discipline you're in,

567
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:14,360
these principles, you know, the formal, the informal logical fallacies,

568
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,320
being aware of your biases and all of those things

569
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:19,760
are going to help you be more objective, regardless of

570
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:23,960
what field that you're working in. And so I think

571
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,280
that's a great thing that's brought out in the book subtly.

572
00:35:27,639 --> 00:35:30,079
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I had one scientist say to me,

573
00:35:30,199 --> 00:35:33,519
I don't need to study logic. I studied calculus, and

574
00:35:33,559 --> 00:35:37,679
I said, well, I respect your knowledge of calculus, but

575
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:41,599
calculus is not the formal study of logic. I said,

576
00:35:41,639 --> 00:35:44,920
Logic is going to present things to you that even

577
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:49,119
calculus will not. And so we do need that challenge.

578
00:35:49,159 --> 00:35:52,679
And if I could put my if I could reverse

579
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:56,440
it for a moment. My science colleagues have helped me

580
00:35:56,480 --> 00:35:59,320
a great deal. They've helped me think about things like

581
00:35:59,440 --> 00:36:04,360
quantum mechanics. They've helped me think about things like, you know,

582
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:08,599
what is a cosmic singularity and what is inflation? And

583
00:36:08,679 --> 00:36:12,159
so I don't ever want to convey the idea that

584
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:15,639
they're learning just for me. I've learned so many different

585
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:21,800
things from them, and it's just interesting that science involves

586
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:26,199
such specialization. I mean, I've been in a room with

587
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:31,039
six different types of physicists and they're all specialized in

588
00:36:31,079 --> 00:36:36,639
the different field. And I'm thinking, you know, I love specialization,

589
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:40,679
but we also need a breadth of education where we

590
00:36:41,679 --> 00:36:45,679
draw from that kind of liberal arts, that kind of

591
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:48,119
classical liberal education, if you will.

592
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:49,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.

593
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,519
Speaker 2: Ken just let you know on my kin samples Bingo card,

594
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:58,119
I just got covered one up when you said Mortimer Adler.

595
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 3: Wouldn't you put Tolkien and Lewis on that card?

596
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 2: To no, Well, you know, is like the one you're

597
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:14,639
always going to mention more Radler and it's I'm and

598
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:19,199
rightly so it's such great stuff that they've he's Adler

599
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:22,119
and oh try to read a book and how to speak,

600
00:37:22,159 --> 00:37:22,719
how to listen?

601
00:37:23,079 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, right. So Chad's talking about logic being a force

602
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:30,960
multiplier basically when and that's like, yeah, that's why you know,

603
00:37:31,119 --> 00:37:35,039
the logic and the critical thinking. Just to piggyback, Chad

604
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:37,400
Bingo character is saying the word piggyback.

605
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 3: That's true, it's you know why because in elementary school,

606
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:46,840
it's like teachers they say that all the time. Let

607
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:49,280
me piggyback on that, let me piggyback on that. So

608
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:52,159
that's where I picked that up at. Yeah, so I've

609
00:37:52,199 --> 00:37:52,840
been so.

610
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:56,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's as you're saying.

611
00:37:56,639 --> 00:37:59,519
Speaker 2: It just seems to me you guys are both describing

612
00:37:59,599 --> 00:38:03,119
this idea of like logic and critical think critical thinking.

613
00:38:03,159 --> 00:38:06,079
It's not like, oh, this is better than other stuff.

614
00:38:06,119 --> 00:38:11,079
This is just something that makes you less likely to

615
00:38:11,119 --> 00:38:14,039
make mistakes in whatever area you're in, and it's going

616
00:38:14,119 --> 00:38:16,480
to help you think clearer and do better work in

617
00:38:16,559 --> 00:38:18,880
whatever area. So it's a force multiplier in that regard.

618
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:20,360
It doesn't matter what you're doing. You could be an

619
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,400
artist and you know, or writer or whatever, and it's

620
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:27,920
going to help you. One thing that you seem to be,

621
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,000
to my mind a model of many things. And so

622
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:34,199
we love you so much for being a guest again

623
00:38:35,079 --> 00:38:37,199
in that regard, in all your contributions. But one of

624
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:39,559
the things is this idea of a principle of charity

625
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,960
you mentioned just a moment ago where oh, by the way,

626
00:38:44,119 --> 00:38:45,880
you know, they've taught me so much and I'm like,

627
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:48,079
's see there it is. This is this principle of

628
00:38:48,119 --> 00:38:51,440
charity where you're you're always so gracious and appreciate that.

629
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:54,400
Speaker 3: It's like an interrupt real quick too, Brian. I mean

630
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:56,119
I would say that too. I picked that up. When

631
00:38:56,159 --> 00:38:58,039
did you notice when he was talking about when he

632
00:38:58,039 --> 00:39:02,239
was comparing Jesus to other things. You know, sometimes when

633
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:06,360
you have that comparison, a lot of times you almost

634
00:39:07,159 --> 00:39:09,599
the way that people talk about other ancient thinkers. It

635
00:39:09,639 --> 00:39:13,039
almost degrades them a bit. Whereas whereas Ken went out

636
00:39:13,039 --> 00:39:15,119
of his way to say, this person was very good

637
00:39:15,159 --> 00:39:17,239
at this, I thought this person was very good at this,

638
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:19,519
and this person was very good at this. It's just

639
00:39:19,639 --> 00:39:24,280
that Jesus is, you know, the superior, you know. So

640
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:26,480
even there, I picked up on it.

641
00:39:26,639 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 1: Yeah.

642
00:39:28,079 --> 00:39:31,519
Speaker 2: So the reason I go there is because I wanted

643
00:39:31,559 --> 00:39:34,320
to talk about logical fallacies, something that I think can

644
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:37,920
be really fun. But also someone who's new to them

645
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:40,360
can run around and you acknowledge it in the book.

646
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:41,199
They can run around and.

647
00:39:41,159 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: Be like, yeah, I'm there's one, there's one, and.

648
00:39:44,559 --> 00:39:49,119
Speaker 2: You become like the Palacy police, and then you know

649
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:54,159
you probably haven't learned yet. It's just really like, oh uh,

650
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:57,519
these are everywhere, you know. So talk a little bit

651
00:39:57,519 --> 00:40:01,840
about your approach to logical fallacies and maybe how in

652
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:04,480
the course of learning about them we need to be

653
00:40:04,599 --> 00:40:05,719
charitable and.

654
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 1: Things like that.

655
00:40:08,119 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 4: One of the reasons that I wrote this book was

656
00:40:12,199 --> 00:40:18,360
years ago teaching introduction to Logic to students, and it

657
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:21,119
was at a community college. So these were not students

658
00:40:21,159 --> 00:40:23,800
who necessarily had all of their ducks in a row.

659
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:27,159
They were, you know, they were trying to take introductory

660
00:40:27,199 --> 00:40:31,119
courses to maybe transfer to a university or get involved

661
00:40:31,159 --> 00:40:35,679
in some type of employment. And I had a collection

662
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:39,639
of these students who after the semester, they came to

663
00:40:39,679 --> 00:40:44,159
me and they said, Professor Sample's logic has done something

664
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:49,280
different from me for me that other classes have not done.

665
00:40:49,519 --> 00:40:53,320
They said, I feel empowered for the first time. I

666
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:57,800
know what an argument is, and I even know how

667
00:40:58,119 --> 00:41:01,400
arguments often break down into fallies, and I can even

668
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:04,239
I even know the Latin for this name and that name.

669
00:41:04,639 --> 00:41:08,840
And they thought, and they expressed the idea that, wow,

670
00:41:09,079 --> 00:41:14,320
I never knew that education could do that, and that's

671
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:19,159
something that really turned me on. I wanted to help

672
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:23,800
students to develop skills that would help them discern truth,

673
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:28,679
build confidence. You know, they didn't have to be MIT

674
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:33,719
students or students going on to elite universities. They could

675
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:38,559
be everyday persons, and so that was important to me.

676
00:41:39,119 --> 00:41:42,239
Of course, what happens when I start teaching them fallacies

677
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:44,599
and I would give them a task and they would

678
00:41:44,599 --> 00:41:48,159
have to pick out and of course initially they thought

679
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:52,239
everything's a fallacy, and I said, no, you need to

680
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:55,159
pull that back in. Not everything is a fallacy, so

681
00:41:55,199 --> 00:41:58,559
you want to look at it very carefully. And then

682
00:41:58,639 --> 00:42:01,079
they would kind of get to the position where they

683
00:42:01,079 --> 00:42:04,920
would want to poke a person in the eye with

684
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:08,239
the fallacy, you know. And I told him, look, I

685
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:13,719
don't go home at night after class and identify my

686
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:18,719
wife's fallacies. I'm much smarter than that, much more discerning

687
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:22,199
than that. I'm very careful about what I say to

688
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:23,280
missus samples.

689
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:27,159
Speaker 1: Did you learn that from a book or from direct experience?

690
00:42:27,599 --> 00:42:29,800
Speaker 4: I follow a little bit of both.

691
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, or you don't.

692
00:42:32,199 --> 00:42:34,639
Speaker 3: You don't reagreg Cochel's tactics and then go home and

693
00:42:34,679 --> 00:42:35,880
colombo your wife.

694
00:42:37,119 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: Right, right, Yeah, what do you mean by that?

695
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:45,000
Speaker 3: No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean interrupt, but yeah.

696
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 4: That's exactly right. And I would say, now, look, you know,

697
00:42:48,599 --> 00:42:53,559
we want As a Christian, I love truth and I'm

698
00:42:53,599 --> 00:42:56,280
willing to fight for the truth. I'm willing to stand

699
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,960
up for the truth. But I care a great deal

700
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:04,599
about unity, and I care about charity. And I remember

701
00:43:05,679 --> 00:43:08,679
reading through First Corinthians thirteen and there were times where

702
00:43:08,679 --> 00:43:14,320
I thought, Wow, can my life be evaluated in terms

703
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:18,280
of what kind of loving influence has it had? So

704
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:23,239
I think it's very important to be able to recognize

705
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:27,320
that these are skills to be learned. There are tools

706
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:32,599
in your toolbox, but our goal is to persuade people,

707
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:36,719
and people are persuaded first of all, and I think

708
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:40,880
Aristotle is right here. He talks about ethos, which is

709
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:46,480
a character persuasion. He then talks about pathos, where we

710
00:43:46,599 --> 00:43:51,159
get words like empathy and sympathy connecting to the emotion,

711
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:56,800
and then finally logofs. It's fascinating Aristotle doesn't mention logic

712
00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:02,440
until third So that really struck me that if we

713
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:05,079
want to be able to persuade people, if we want

714
00:44:05,119 --> 00:44:08,760
to be able to communicate the Christian worldview, and that

715
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:13,480
is I can vigorously disagree with you and still value

716
00:44:13,519 --> 00:44:17,800
you and still respect you, and we can develop a

717
00:44:18,039 --> 00:44:20,519
friendship even if we, at the end of the day

718
00:44:21,079 --> 00:44:28,519
come away disagreeing with one another. And to me, I

719
00:44:28,599 --> 00:44:34,599
came away from apologetic experiences that were characterized by smack

720
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:40,320
talk and sarcasm and ridicule. I just did not find

721
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:45,039
that to be personally fulfilling. And I didn't think other

722
00:44:45,119 --> 00:44:49,079
people did all that well either. And you know, I

723
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,639
was trained by Walter Martin, and boy, Walter Martin was

724
00:44:53,679 --> 00:44:59,480
an amazing apologist. But I had to realize that I'm

725
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:02,559
not Walter Martin. I don't have the same skill set,

726
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:07,199
the same personality, and I needed to be ken samples.

727
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:12,000
And for me, I try when I talk with Christians truth, unity,

728
00:45:12,039 --> 00:45:15,519
and charity. I'm happy to talk with Catholics about the

729
00:45:15,559 --> 00:45:19,920
differences I have or Orthodox but I also want to

730
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:22,239
talk about unity, and I also want to be able

731
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:27,440
to communicate that these ideas are not just ideas, their

732
00:45:27,559 --> 00:45:32,719
ideas that shape our lives. And so you know, Paul

733
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:36,519
talks about a lot about love. And at the end

734
00:45:36,519 --> 00:45:38,639
of the day, I think I would be a failure

735
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:42,960
even if I mastered logic and critical thinking and history

736
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:48,480
and philosophy and science. If I were a jerk, if

737
00:45:48,519 --> 00:45:58,440
I were insensitive, intrusive, and majored in sarcasm and ridicule, Brian,

738
00:45:58,559 --> 00:46:00,360
I think a good part of my life have been

739
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:06,000
a failure. And you know, the reality is we're all

740
00:46:06,039 --> 00:46:09,360
in the biggest room of the world, the room for improvement,

741
00:46:10,199 --> 00:46:13,000
and I try to see myself as part of that.

742
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:16,679
And I'm sure there are people who think at times

743
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:19,639
I wish ken we're a little more challenging or a

744
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:23,440
little more confrontive about issues. And there may have been

745
00:46:23,480 --> 00:46:27,079
times maybe I should have been, but I don't think

746
00:46:27,159 --> 00:46:31,280
sarcasm and ridicule necessarily get you very far in the conversation.

747
00:46:32,119 --> 00:46:34,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's so important because I'm thinking right now

748
00:46:35,039 --> 00:46:39,119
in our current culture, I think more than ever, with

749
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:45,159
the onset of social media, it's so tempting to, you know,

750
00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:47,920
throw out one hundred and forty characters of a quippie

751
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:51,119
comeback or and it's also easier to do it when

752
00:46:51,159 --> 00:46:55,239
you're hiding behind a keyboard versus you know, face to face.

753
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,960
And so I think what you're saying is super important.

754
00:46:58,199 --> 00:47:01,000
I love what you said about when you learn logical fallacies.

755
00:47:01,119 --> 00:47:04,280
For some reason, what came to mind was in the

756
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:08,719
first Karate Kid film, Johnny Lawrence, right, he's trained by

757
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:13,440
the very aggressive, obnoxious son say, and he's not taught

758
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:15,679
any kind of restraint, so he just goes out and

759
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:20,599
beats people up. Whereas Daniel, you know, trained by mister Miaugi,

760
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:24,039
understands the power of what he's being taught and the

761
00:47:24,079 --> 00:47:27,719
proper use of it. And so I think unfortunately sometimes

762
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:31,360
people do kind of go Johnny Lawrence with the logical fallacies, right,

763
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:34,199
They kind of come out and you know, they're calling

764
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:36,119
them out on their friends and their wives and their

765
00:47:36,159 --> 00:47:38,440
family members and social media, and it gets to the

766
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:42,119
point where it's like, oh, man, take a break, you know.

767
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:44,960
So so yeah, I think that's a great point of

768
00:47:45,199 --> 00:47:46,039
using restraint.

769
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:49,639
Speaker 4: As I have studied some of the great educators, what

770
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:53,320
I have been aware of is that a very central

771
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:58,280
part of education is not just knowing, It is developing character,

772
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:04,719
developing kind of person that you are. And I think

773
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:10,639
that that's just very very important. And you know, I

774
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:14,880
love your your your illusion there, because that's exactly right.

775
00:48:15,960 --> 00:48:18,719
I wanted students to be able to feel like I

776
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:21,880
can go to Professor Samples. He will help me, he

777
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:25,719
will correct me, but he'll never embarrass me. He will

778
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:28,480
want me to continue to grow.

779
00:48:28,639 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 1: And so.

780
00:48:31,079 --> 00:48:34,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think that moral character is an

781
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:36,679
important element. Hm.

782
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,920
Speaker 1: Well, let me shift gears slightly, and I'm going to

783
00:48:41,039 --> 00:48:46,559
go off script from the book specifically, although I'll use

784
00:48:46,599 --> 00:48:49,840
the diving board of something in the book and in

785
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:53,920
the first second chapter. I don't see it in my head.

786
00:48:54,199 --> 00:48:56,719
But you talk about like a list of great books

787
00:48:56,760 --> 00:48:59,199
and things where you know you can develop your mind.

788
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 2: I want to know what is Ken samples on his

789
00:49:03,559 --> 00:49:07,960
list for books that you would maybe go back and

790
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:11,079
read every year. Do you have anything that you go

791
00:49:11,119 --> 00:49:13,199
back and be like, Hey, you know what, I don't

792
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:14,880
need to read this once, I need to read this

793
00:49:15,559 --> 00:49:20,840
over and over on a psycle rotation here, because I'm

794
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:24,159
really interested in what books would be on that list

795
00:49:24,159 --> 00:49:24,440
for you.

796
00:49:25,519 --> 00:49:28,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would define a great book is a book

797
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:32,840
that you can never exhaust fully exhaust. It's a book

798
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:37,199
you can never fully own, and thus it's a book

799
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:40,360
you can read it when you're twenty, and what you

800
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:43,800
would get from at thirty and forty and fifty may

801
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:47,440
be very different. And of course the best example of

802
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:50,960
that is Scripture. Scripture is the greatest of the great

803
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:55,800
books that obviously has inspiration in the Holy Spirit, but

804
00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:59,400
you know, in nineteen seventy eight, the first Christian book

805
00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:03,559
I ever read, Mere Christianity. I've since read it, I

806
00:50:03,599 --> 00:50:08,079
think about fifteen times, and every time I read it

807
00:50:08,079 --> 00:50:16,119
it still challenges me. It convicts me, It shows me

808
00:50:16,679 --> 00:50:21,239
my sin. It teaches me a little more about the

809
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:25,159
Trinity that I didn't know. And so I have gone

810
00:50:25,199 --> 00:50:28,119
back to it, and I've had students say, Ken, why

811
00:50:28,119 --> 00:50:30,920
would you read Mere Christianity fifteen times?

812
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:31,880
Speaker 1: Couldn't you be.

813
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:36,239
Speaker 4: Reading other books? I said, Well. C. S. Lewis is

814
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:42,039
this individual who can take substantive issues and make them accessible.

815
00:50:42,599 --> 00:50:45,760
And I know how he did that. In World War

816
00:50:45,840 --> 00:50:50,840
Two he was trying to encourage the war effort. He

817
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:54,880
would go to the Rif basis and talk to these

818
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,719
young men and many of them weren't coming home. I

819
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:03,079
mean they a casualty rate among the ermine is just

820
00:51:03,199 --> 00:51:08,679
sky high. Sorry for the pun. But Lewis began going

821
00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:11,199
out and he realized, you know, these are just common,

822
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:16,159
everyday young men. They're not Oxford Cambridge types. So he said,

823
00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:19,880
I need to think about how can I communicate my

824
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:25,039
ideas in what he called uneducated words? And Lewis is

825
00:51:25,079 --> 00:51:28,719
a master at that. And so the last time I

826
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:31,519
read it, I thought about He made me think about

827
00:51:31,559 --> 00:51:35,159
the Trinity a new he made me think about morality,

828
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:38,039
and he motivated me to want to go and read

829
00:51:38,079 --> 00:51:44,199
other books by him. Saint Augustine is, of course, a

830
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:50,079
great example of this. I remember R. C. Sproull saying

831
00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:53,840
in a comedic way, he said, if you've been a

832
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:56,000
Christian for more than two years, and if you haven't

833
00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:02,519
read Saint Augustine's Confessions, you're sinning. I want that. I

834
00:52:02,599 --> 00:52:08,440
have read the Confessions, probably twenty times, I don't know.

835
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:12,360
The last time I read it. I decided I'm going

836
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:15,800
to I'm going to have my pencil and paper, and

837
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:21,400
I'm going to note every time Augustine cites Scripture or

838
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:26,960
alludes to Scripture. And it was six hundred times, six

839
00:52:27,119 --> 00:52:32,280
hundred times. People like Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, they

840
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:38,679
largely had the Bible down. And these were unique individuals.

841
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:41,920
And I share with people, I say, look, you know,

842
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:47,039
Augustine wasn't an Apostolic author, and nor was Aquinas, nor

843
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:52,599
was Athanacious or en Zome. But these were shapers of Orthodoxy,

844
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:57,280
that is, they took the biblical data. They articulated the Trinity.

845
00:52:57,719 --> 00:53:02,639
They defended it, they shaped it, and it's very important

846
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:07,639
fundamentally to be a student of the Bible. But don't

847
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:11,920
downgrade these other individuals in light of scripture. They were

848
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:16,440
the ones who had to take the respond to Arianism

849
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:21,039
and respond to Pelagianism. So I love the Confessions. That

850
00:53:21,079 --> 00:53:25,639
would be another book that I returned to frequently and

851
00:53:25,679 --> 00:53:30,000
in large measure, because I'm always learning from Augustine. But

852
00:53:30,199 --> 00:53:32,760
I often when I read that book, I think of myself,

853
00:53:33,079 --> 00:53:37,599
I because I think Augustine was so forward thinking that

854
00:53:37,679 --> 00:53:40,519
he wasn't just writing about hisself. He was writing about

855
00:53:40,599 --> 00:53:44,920
humanity's pursuit of God. And I see me in there,

856
00:53:45,559 --> 00:53:51,199
and that kind of draws me in others. Every Christmas

857
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:55,320
I try to return to On the Incarnation, which I

858
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:59,559
think is a masterpiece of theology. There's even a inn

859
00:53:59,599 --> 00:54:04,280
addition you can get where Lewis writes the uh the

860
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:10,159
introduction and it's and it's, it's, it's terrific. So these

861
00:54:10,199 --> 00:54:13,480
are some of the books I returned to. Let me

862
00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:21,719
mention one more. Blaise Pascal's ponseis I am just I

863
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:27,519
don't know how to compliment Pascal. He was a great physicist,

864
00:54:27,679 --> 00:54:34,719
he was a logician, developed probability theory. He was a mathematician.

865
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:39,679
He was an experimental scientist, developed a calculating machine in

866
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:45,519
the in the seventeen hundreds. When I when Peter Kraft

867
00:54:45,639 --> 00:54:51,039
is a Catholic philosopher, I like very much, very broadly educated.

868
00:54:51,199 --> 00:54:55,840
And and Craf said the other day he said, my

869
00:54:56,039 --> 00:55:03,239
favorite philosopher is Pascal, and I thought, wow, Craf knows

870
00:55:03,280 --> 00:55:06,719
a lot and he has dug into the ponce. So

871
00:55:07,239 --> 00:55:12,599
those are a few Brian that you know. I feel

872
00:55:12,599 --> 00:55:16,840
connected to them. I feel like when they write, I

873
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:23,760
can identify myself in their writings. I feel like they're friends.

874
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:28,519
You know, they're part of the Kingdom of God. They're

875
00:55:28,599 --> 00:55:33,239
part of the Church, and it's not always easy to

876
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:36,800
find people in the Church who enjoy the same things

877
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:41,000
I do, and so when I read them, I feel

878
00:55:41,039 --> 00:55:43,800
like I'm being encouraged by them.

879
00:55:44,639 --> 00:55:46,760
Speaker 3: You mentioned something you said They're right at the end,

880
00:55:46,880 --> 00:55:49,559
leads perfectly into what I wanted to ask about. You

881
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:52,719
mentioned how it's not always easy to find people in

882
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:55,159
the church that are interested in the things that you're

883
00:55:55,199 --> 00:55:57,440
interested in. And of course that's in the context of

884
00:55:57,559 --> 00:56:01,079
kind of the intellectual life, right but one of the

885
00:56:01,079 --> 00:56:03,559
themes that you touch on near the beginning of the book,

886
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:06,039
I can't remember off him what the chapter was, but

887
00:56:06,199 --> 00:56:10,079
the idea the church is a school, right, and the

888
00:56:10,199 --> 00:56:13,599
church shouldn't just be a school, but it should at

889
00:56:13,679 --> 00:56:18,280
least be a school, right. Yes, So I think a

890
00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:21,519
lot of Christians that I've talked to don't experience that

891
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:24,760
in their churches. And again, this isn't like beat up

892
00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:27,559
on the church, because I think it's I think it's

893
00:56:27,559 --> 00:56:30,320
better than it used to be, to be honest, So

894
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:33,679
I do want to highlight that. But if someone's listening

895
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:37,719
or and they're thinking, you know, I kind of feel

896
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:40,440
what Ken said there that you know, I feel alone

897
00:56:40,719 --> 00:56:43,440
a bit in this regard, and I'd like to see

898
00:56:43,519 --> 00:56:46,199
my church become a bit more of a school, if

899
00:56:46,239 --> 00:56:48,960
you will. What would be some kind of practical steps

900
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:51,920
you'd give them to move in that direction, other than

901
00:56:52,079 --> 00:56:55,360
beginning to educate themselves, of course, but beyond that.

902
00:56:56,039 --> 00:57:00,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love the Pelican quote the church is always

903
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:03,159
more than a school, but it cannot be less than

904
00:57:03,159 --> 00:57:03,719
a school.

905
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:07,320
Speaker 3: I knew I read that that was in the book, right, Yes, yes, yeah,

906
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:10,280
I didn't want anybody think I thought of that no way.

907
00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 4: I'm sorry I outed you there.

908
00:57:14,440 --> 00:57:15,039
Speaker 1: No, No, I'm.

909
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:17,440
Speaker 3: Glad you did, because I was pretty sure I read

910
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:19,360
it in the book. But then my mind's like did

911
00:57:19,519 --> 00:57:20,679
it was it in the book or did I read

912
00:57:20,719 --> 00:57:23,840
that somewhere else? But anyway, go ahead, Sorry.

913
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:24,239
Speaker 1: It's you know.

914
00:57:24,480 --> 00:57:30,840
Speaker 4: I appreciate your comment, though, Chad. You know, I visit

915
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:35,119
lots of churches and they don't do things exactly necessarily

916
00:57:35,199 --> 00:57:39,800
the way I would. I have attended the Catholic Church

917
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:45,400
in my life, I've attended a Lutheran, Reformed in Presbyterian,

918
00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:48,920
and now I attended Anglican Church. And so, you know,

919
00:57:49,159 --> 00:57:54,679
I don't want to be negative and criticizing what I

920
00:57:54,760 --> 00:57:58,679
see people do. I want to draw them in. I

921
00:57:58,719 --> 00:58:00,599
want to help them. I want to build done what

922
00:58:00,639 --> 00:58:03,760
they're doing. Well. Yes, and there are there are a

923
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:08,360
lot of lovely Christian people who are very sincere in

924
00:58:08,400 --> 00:58:11,000
the way that they are living their life for Christ.

925
00:58:11,519 --> 00:58:16,119
But we do have intellectual people and it is easy

926
00:58:16,239 --> 00:58:21,079
to feel kind of out of place, you know, if

927
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:25,079
you want to talk about issues of science or philosophy

928
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:29,280
or history, and a lot of times people you know,

929
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:34,239
they're not used to that kind of thing. I offer

930
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:39,320
some recommendations. One recommendation is to start a book club.

931
00:58:41,039 --> 00:58:45,559
You can maybe locate people in your church that hold

932
00:58:45,639 --> 00:58:51,280
similar views and say, hey, what if we took one book.

933
00:58:52,199 --> 00:58:54,480
Doesn't necessarily have to be a classic book, but we

934
00:58:54,559 --> 00:58:57,639
might We might want to move in that direction where

935
00:58:57,719 --> 00:59:00,159
you could read it and you could have a leader

936
00:59:00,679 --> 00:59:04,400
who would interact and talk about those kinds of things.

937
00:59:04,400 --> 00:59:07,199
So you're you're building a little bit of community. You

938
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:12,000
realize you're not really just the only person. I also

939
00:59:12,119 --> 00:59:19,400
encourage pastors to from the pulpit acknowledge that that learning

940
00:59:19,519 --> 00:59:23,000
is important, that loving God with your mind is important,

941
00:59:23,800 --> 00:59:27,360
that we need intellectual people. There are lots of young

942
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:32,719
people leaving the church. Part of bringing those people back

943
00:59:32,800 --> 00:59:35,920
and keeping them at the church, I think is exposing

944
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:39,639
them to thoughtful people can help them grow. So it's

945
00:59:39,719 --> 00:59:42,800
kind of ironic that we're losing people out of the church,

946
00:59:43,760 --> 00:59:46,280
but it's the people that can help them that are

947
00:59:46,480 --> 00:59:51,360
that are sometimes isolated. And I say, why couldn't we

948
00:59:51,519 --> 00:59:55,840
bring people into the church. Uh, bring a bring a

949
00:59:55,920 --> 01:00:01,679
scientist in, bring a philosopher, a historian, bring a literary

950
01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:05,840
scholar in, and have that as part of the outreach.

951
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:10,119
You know, we talk about children's ministry, we talk about marriage,

952
01:00:10,719 --> 01:00:15,119
why don't we talk about the people who are intellectuals?

953
01:00:15,159 --> 01:00:19,599
How do we navigate that area? And I think a

954
01:00:19,599 --> 01:00:22,480
lot of times the churches are kind of oblivious to that.

955
01:00:24,039 --> 01:00:26,920
And I wrote an article a number of years ago

956
01:00:27,039 --> 01:00:30,800
about trying to find your place in an evangelical church,

957
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:34,199
and it just blew up on social media. People were

958
01:00:34,239 --> 01:00:37,679
coming out and saying, Oh, it's exactly my experience. You know,

959
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:41,960
I feel kind of alone in that kind of context.

960
01:00:42,000 --> 01:00:46,159
But Chad and Brian, there are a lot of people

961
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:52,559
that may not be able to appreciate how important learning is,

962
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:58,000
how significant it is. It's not the be all, it's

963
01:00:58,039 --> 01:01:02,880
not everything. But you know, for me to be around

964
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:05,440
the two of you and talk about ideas and talk

965
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:09,800
about a book I've written, I find that so enjoyable.

966
01:01:09,880 --> 01:01:15,000
I find it so encouraging. I'm interacting with people who

967
01:01:15,039 --> 01:01:18,960
care about things that I care about, So I'm always

968
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:23,920
trying to convey to people pastors that look don't there

969
01:01:24,039 --> 01:01:28,599
is an area of the ministry that's ignored, and it's

970
01:01:28,639 --> 01:01:32,880
often the intellectual people, and you want to be able

971
01:01:32,920 --> 01:01:36,480
to bring things up with them and not feel intimidated

972
01:01:36,519 --> 01:01:41,559
you know, some pastors feel intimidated when they have, you know,

973
01:01:41,679 --> 01:01:45,760
thinkers come into their church. But I think if they

974
01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:51,280
can be humble, they can begin to make some changes

975
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:56,960
in the church that can really help individuals. And you

976
01:01:57,000 --> 01:02:02,679
know what's interesting, it seems like there's a new appeal

977
01:02:03,000 --> 01:02:07,920
to book clubs. Almost everywhere I go, people are reading

978
01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:11,960
books and they're having book clubs, and that's their kind

979
01:02:11,960 --> 01:02:17,000
of social connection with each other. And I say, amen,

980
01:02:17,239 --> 01:02:20,400
I love that kind of thing. I can imagine, you know,

981
01:02:20,480 --> 01:02:24,719
sitting around drinking tea or coffee, having a snack and

982
01:02:24,840 --> 01:02:27,760
talking with people about a great book you've been reading.

983
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:31,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Oh, I got another question, and this

984
01:02:31,239 --> 01:02:38,079
is another off the beaten path, But all right. I

985
01:02:38,119 --> 01:02:40,639
asked this question because you're into the life of the

986
01:02:40,719 --> 01:02:45,239
mind and lifelong learning. So let's say someone says, hey,

987
01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:49,360
I really want to master a particular topic. I have

988
01:02:49,679 --> 01:02:52,800
a good understanding of a particular topic, or they're they're

989
01:02:52,800 --> 01:02:55,880
engaging with a book or something like that, like, Hey,

990
01:02:56,039 --> 01:02:59,079
what's the best way for me to really absorb this

991
01:03:00,119 --> 01:03:04,840
train myself to see this from all angles. If you're

992
01:03:04,920 --> 01:03:08,480
approaching a new topic, can how do you think about

993
01:03:08,480 --> 01:03:09,199
that in your head.

994
01:03:09,639 --> 01:03:14,280
Speaker 4: Yeah. Many years ago, I began to see how important

995
01:03:14,320 --> 01:03:17,880
it was for me and others to think in a

996
01:03:17,920 --> 01:03:22,679
worldview fashion. And so I approached the group at RTB

997
01:03:22,920 --> 01:03:24,639
and I said, look, I think I'd like to write

998
01:03:24,639 --> 01:03:30,920
a book about worldviews. I think that this is very important.

999
01:03:31,400 --> 01:03:35,159
We can't know everything about what other people believe, but

1000
01:03:35,239 --> 01:03:38,719
we can develop the Christian worldview. We can compare it

1001
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:42,440
and contrast it with competing world views, and I can

1002
01:03:42,480 --> 01:03:54,000
expose people to the kind of the fundamentals of worldview thinking, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, esthetics, logic,

1003
01:03:54,079 --> 01:03:59,199
et cetera. And I began thinking to myself, Okay, how

1004
01:03:59,239 --> 01:04:02,880
can I how can I pull in people who are

1005
01:04:02,880 --> 01:04:08,679
evangelicals who don't have a deep background. How can I

1006
01:04:08,719 --> 01:04:15,280
write about substantive issues? Because if you don't address substantive issues,

1007
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:20,280
then very thoughtful, reflective people will say that's not what

1008
01:04:20,360 --> 01:04:25,239
I need. But if you don't make it accessible, you'll

1009
01:04:25,239 --> 01:04:30,440
have very limited areas. And I have always taught a

1010
01:04:30,480 --> 01:04:35,920
Bible class, and I would frequently have very thoughtful, well

1011
01:04:36,079 --> 01:04:41,280
educated people in my class with graduate degrees, but I

1012
01:04:41,320 --> 01:04:45,559
would also have young young men and women who would

1013
01:04:45,559 --> 01:04:50,119
be coming in. They were you know, they were now

1014
01:04:50,199 --> 01:04:52,719
out of the Sunday school phase and they were into

1015
01:04:52,800 --> 01:04:56,440
something deeper. So I would be asking myself, how can

1016
01:04:56,480 --> 01:05:01,239
I address these topics in a way that I can

1017
01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:05,159
raise the substantive issues, but I can also make them

1018
01:05:05,199 --> 01:05:09,159
as accessible accessible as I can. Again, this is that

1019
01:05:09,320 --> 01:05:15,519
CS lewis element. So I started thinking about worldviews. I

1020
01:05:15,599 --> 01:05:21,000
began asking myself, okay, need to I need to come

1021
01:05:21,039 --> 01:05:26,239
up with a list of the critical worldview books, and

1022
01:05:26,320 --> 01:05:29,199
I need to think about that, not not just christianly,

1023
01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:33,679
I need to think about worldview because worldview thinking also

1024
01:05:33,840 --> 01:05:41,639
involves other It's very much built upon philosophy. So I

1025
01:05:41,679 --> 01:05:46,800
needed to think about the topic of worldview philosophically theologically.

1026
01:05:47,480 --> 01:05:52,239
Then I began making a collection of books, reading through them,

1027
01:05:52,719 --> 01:05:56,840
and I began asking myself, is there something that I

1028
01:05:56,960 --> 01:06:02,599
can contribute, not just you know, not just a repeat

1029
01:06:02,639 --> 01:06:05,719
of all of these things. Is there something that I

1030
01:06:05,800 --> 01:06:10,360
can add that I think can improve, can help make

1031
01:06:10,440 --> 01:06:14,599
a contribution. And again I often think of that idea

1032
01:06:15,519 --> 01:06:20,920
that if I can say something simply, not simplistically, if

1033
01:06:20,960 --> 01:06:24,840
I can say something clearly. I love the word clear

1034
01:06:24,880 --> 01:06:28,199
and I'm glad it got in as the title because

1035
01:06:29,239 --> 01:06:33,519
clarity has a force all its own. When you present

1036
01:06:33,599 --> 01:06:37,679
an argument with crystal clarity, it just has an impact

1037
01:06:37,760 --> 01:06:42,360
on people. So I think, Brian, the way of going

1038
01:06:42,519 --> 01:06:44,760
about something like that is you're going to have to

1039
01:06:44,840 --> 01:06:49,760
expose yourself to the good literature. You're going to have

1040
01:06:49,800 --> 01:06:52,960
to do a series of checks to see what kind

1041
01:06:53,039 --> 01:06:56,719
of literature comes down. I think you also need to

1042
01:06:56,760 --> 01:07:01,039
think very seriously about what is going to be the focus.

1043
01:07:01,360 --> 01:07:04,760
What is going to be the contribution of a book

1044
01:07:04,880 --> 01:07:06,639
like that. Let's say you were going to write it,

1045
01:07:07,199 --> 01:07:10,159
but if you are just going to to be developing,

1046
01:07:10,360 --> 01:07:12,880
I think you would do something very similar to that.

1047
01:07:14,920 --> 01:07:23,159
I'm often looking for people who are well educated on

1048
01:07:23,440 --> 01:07:31,880
a given topic, but yet are people that have the

1049
01:07:31,880 --> 01:07:35,840
they have a respect for ideas. I stay away from

1050
01:07:35,920 --> 01:07:40,159
people that you know they they're always wanting to They're

1051
01:07:40,199 --> 01:07:44,079
always wanting to criticize. I want to say, Okay, I

1052
01:07:44,119 --> 01:07:46,559
know what you're against, but what are you for? Tell

1053
01:07:46,599 --> 01:07:50,159
me what you're for in that kind of context. So

1054
01:07:50,440 --> 01:07:53,480
I will I will go to basic books that kind

1055
01:07:53,519 --> 01:07:57,119
of just introduce ideas to me, and then I would

1056
01:07:57,159 --> 01:08:00,480
ask myself, can I if somebody were to ask me,

1057
01:08:01,079 --> 01:08:03,519
what are the better books on the topic, What are

1058
01:08:03,559 --> 01:08:07,840
the major categories of that field, and how would a

1059
01:08:07,960 --> 01:08:11,880
Christian approach those kinds of things. So those are some

1060
01:08:12,000 --> 01:08:14,800
of the things that I work on. Like right now,

1061
01:08:14,840 --> 01:08:17,239
I'm working on a new book, and there's going to

1062
01:08:17,239 --> 01:08:20,119
be a few topics in the book I've never addressed before,

1063
01:08:20,760 --> 01:08:24,359
so I'm already thinking, Okay, I want to expose myself

1064
01:08:24,399 --> 01:08:29,600
to the best material. One topic is the hiddenness of

1065
01:08:29,680 --> 01:08:33,760
God that I'm planned to address, So I'm exposing myself

1066
01:08:33,800 --> 01:08:38,439
to differing points of view. I'm reading Schellenberg, but I'm

1067
01:08:38,439 --> 01:08:40,840
also reading other people who kind of come at it

1068
01:08:40,880 --> 01:08:42,239
from different points of view.

1069
01:08:43,119 --> 01:08:44,319
Speaker 1: A lot of good insights there.

1070
01:08:44,680 --> 01:08:47,439
Speaker 2: So one more question before where you start to wrap up, Ken,

1071
01:08:47,439 --> 01:08:49,600
and that is, like, I like how your book is

1072
01:08:49,640 --> 01:08:56,079
formatted in a way where from my perspective it's it's

1073
01:08:56,279 --> 01:08:58,520
really well balanced. But at the end of every chapter

1074
01:08:58,600 --> 01:09:01,119
the service summary sort of questions.

1075
01:09:01,359 --> 01:09:02,720
Speaker 1: You've mentioned having a book club.

1076
01:09:02,880 --> 01:09:05,399
Speaker 2: This might be one that people could work through, or

1077
01:09:05,439 --> 01:09:07,279
you could use it in a class or something if

1078
01:09:07,279 --> 01:09:08,960
you were teaching, because there.

1079
01:09:08,840 --> 01:09:09,720
Speaker 1: Are sort of.

1080
01:09:11,359 --> 01:09:15,359
Speaker 2: The star structure is there to guide you in your

1081
01:09:15,399 --> 01:09:18,479
own review and your own sort of study, But also

1082
01:09:18,760 --> 01:09:23,199
it could be helping to facilitate classes and things like that.

1083
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:26,560
What's how would you envision someone utilizing this book in

1084
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:30,119
the best way to sort of develop for themselves or

1085
01:09:30,239 --> 01:09:31,720
use in classes and things.

1086
01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:36,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you for that question. Well, I certainly think

1087
01:09:38,159 --> 01:09:41,640
that this is a book that could be used in

1088
01:09:41,920 --> 01:09:46,000
a number of logic courses. Maybe an introduction to logic.

1089
01:09:47,079 --> 01:09:51,000
Sometimes you have intro to logic and critical thinking. There

1090
01:09:51,079 --> 01:09:55,960
are other times where you might look at logic and worldview.

1091
01:09:57,319 --> 01:10:00,640
And so I think that this book, and again Mark's

1092
01:10:01,039 --> 01:10:04,800
very valuable contribution, and the last third of the book

1093
01:10:05,239 --> 01:10:09,880
with cognitive biases, it could work in all of those areas.

1094
01:10:10,279 --> 01:10:13,399
But we also thought very carefully we didn't want this

1095
01:10:13,439 --> 01:10:17,000
book to be pigeonholed as a textbook. We wanted it

1096
01:10:17,039 --> 01:10:20,039
to be a book that people could pick up, that

1097
01:10:20,159 --> 01:10:24,119
Christians could pick up. And again, a lot of times

1098
01:10:24,960 --> 01:10:29,199
I recommend books to people and they will read twenty

1099
01:10:29,199 --> 01:10:31,800
five percent of the book and then they'll stop and

1100
01:10:32,560 --> 01:10:36,119
they have a collection of books higher than the table

1101
01:10:36,239 --> 01:10:39,319
that where they've write about twenty five percent. They slow

1102
01:10:39,399 --> 01:10:42,439
down and they asked me, can well, you know, am

1103
01:10:42,479 --> 01:10:44,840
I just a bad guy? Have I got a bad brain,

1104
01:10:44,920 --> 01:10:48,319
and I say no, it's good to read books that

1105
01:10:48,359 --> 01:10:50,640
are over your head. It's good to read books that

1106
01:10:50,680 --> 01:10:55,359
are challenging you. You need that. I think our book

1107
01:10:55,520 --> 01:10:59,039
is a book that can continue to challenge you over

1108
01:10:59,119 --> 01:11:02,000
a period of time. Maybe you know, maybe you've got

1109
01:11:02,039 --> 01:11:05,560
the fallacies down. That would be great. Now think about

1110
01:11:05,800 --> 01:11:10,920
how can I address propaganda, education in doctrination, or maybe

1111
01:11:10,920 --> 01:11:14,319
you want to look again at cognitive biases. So it

1112
01:11:14,359 --> 01:11:18,079
can be used in that way. But it's also a book,

1113
01:11:18,640 --> 01:11:21,319
and I try to encourage people in this context. Brian.

1114
01:11:22,800 --> 01:11:25,520
A lot of times people do not pre read what

1115
01:11:25,560 --> 01:11:29,760
we call skimming. You can't read every single book you

1116
01:11:29,920 --> 01:11:34,119
want with a limited number of years you have. You

1117
01:11:34,199 --> 01:11:36,720
need to be thinking about how much time am I

1118
01:11:36,760 --> 01:11:39,800
going to devote myself to the very best books? So

1119
01:11:39,880 --> 01:11:44,079
skimming you could even skim clear thinking in a messy world.

1120
01:11:44,279 --> 01:11:49,520
You'll notice that there are very clear three parts. We

1121
01:11:49,720 --> 01:11:55,439
have summaries, we define key terms. I have a number

1122
01:11:55,479 --> 01:11:59,239
of tables that you can look at. I have written

1123
01:11:59,279 --> 01:12:01,560
it as a book that could be used by a

1124
01:12:01,600 --> 01:12:05,000
teacher who says, hey, look, I'm going to assign this,

1125
01:12:05,119 --> 01:12:10,359
but I'm going to sign sections one in three. But

1126
01:12:10,600 --> 01:12:14,159
I think that I wrote this book that hoping that

1127
01:12:14,279 --> 01:12:17,479
any Christian could pick it up, and even if it

1128
01:12:17,560 --> 01:12:21,079
felt a little bit heavy at first, they can make

1129
01:12:21,159 --> 01:12:24,560
their way through. And certainly when you read about Jesus

1130
01:12:24,640 --> 01:12:28,159
right at the beginning, that kind of helps you see that,

1131
01:12:28,359 --> 01:12:31,680
you know, hey, our Lord cared about thinking and reasoning,

1132
01:12:32,239 --> 01:12:34,760
and maybe you can make your way through various parts

1133
01:12:34,760 --> 01:12:39,800
of it. So I am just very pleased by it.

1134
01:12:41,199 --> 01:12:43,880
A couple of years ago, I had a health series

1135
01:12:43,920 --> 01:12:48,079
of events and it was pretty serious. I had to

1136
01:12:48,079 --> 01:12:53,399
take three months off work and I it was a

1137
01:12:53,439 --> 01:12:57,479
really tough time, and I remember thinking, I said, Lord,

1138
01:12:57,600 --> 01:12:59,880
what's going to happen to my Logic book? You know,

1139
01:13:00,079 --> 01:13:02,640
if I can't, if I can't recover from all this

1140
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:06,239
and get back on the track. And the Lord, through

1141
01:13:06,239 --> 01:13:11,359
good medicine and prayer and and all these wonderful things,

1142
01:13:11,399 --> 01:13:15,960
I was able to retain my health, and Mark and

1143
01:13:15,960 --> 01:13:18,239
I were able to see it through to the end.

1144
01:13:18,800 --> 01:13:21,760
And so I'm asking the Lord to bless it because

1145
01:13:22,319 --> 01:13:25,359
he tends to do that when I go through tough times,

1146
01:13:25,760 --> 01:13:28,479
it always seems like his grace is more than enough.

1147
01:13:29,920 --> 01:13:30,520
Speaker 1: Wonderful.

1148
01:13:30,840 --> 01:13:32,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just want to say before we wrap up.

1149
01:13:33,239 --> 01:13:35,600
A lot of times when I've read books that do

1150
01:13:36,560 --> 01:13:40,640
address logic and fallacies and things like that, when it

1151
01:13:40,680 --> 01:13:43,439
gets to that section of the book, sometimes they get

1152
01:13:43,920 --> 01:13:46,640
that section, those sections can get very bogged down and

1153
01:13:46,680 --> 01:13:53,479
feel very like dry and textbooky. This treatment in this

1154
01:13:53,520 --> 01:13:57,479
book of those topics was easily the clearest and the

1155
01:13:57,520 --> 01:14:00,680
best I've read in the sense that there's a explanation,

1156
01:14:01,119 --> 01:14:03,439
whether you know, let's say we're talking about a fallacy, Okay,

1157
01:14:03,520 --> 01:14:06,840
here's an explanation. Here are some examples. I love how

1158
01:14:06,920 --> 01:14:11,479
you used examples that were both Christian non Christian, from

1159
01:14:11,520 --> 01:14:15,600
the left from the right, illustrating what you're trying to

1160
01:14:15,600 --> 01:14:18,520
get people to do right, which I loved. And then

1161
01:14:18,680 --> 01:14:21,479
you know, some possible like pitfalls are things to watch

1162
01:14:21,520 --> 01:14:24,560
out for when you're assessing it. And I loved how

1163
01:14:24,640 --> 01:14:27,159
it was long enough for me to understand it, but

1164
01:14:27,279 --> 01:14:30,399
it wasn't so long that I felt like, Okay, this

1165
01:14:30,479 --> 01:14:33,079
is getting very dry, this is getting you know, So

1166
01:14:33,239 --> 01:14:37,279
I thought that was just excellent. And then secondly, while

1167
01:14:37,319 --> 01:14:38,880
I have you on here, I wanted to make sure

1168
01:14:38,920 --> 01:14:41,920
that I just personally thank you for not only your

1169
01:14:42,079 --> 01:14:45,720
intellectual example but also just your example in the way

1170
01:14:45,760 --> 01:14:49,439
that you live your life. And I was telling Brian that,

1171
01:14:50,000 --> 01:14:53,159
you know, if we could multiply, you know, and have

1172
01:14:53,279 --> 01:14:56,520
more thinkers Christian thinkers out there like you, you would

1173
01:14:56,520 --> 01:14:59,479
probably be the one that I would multiply. So just

1174
01:14:59,479 --> 01:15:02,359
just thank you for your example and and just for

1175
01:15:02,399 --> 01:15:03,079
all that you do.

1176
01:15:04,359 --> 01:15:09,680
Speaker 4: Well. I have real appreciation for both of you. You

1177
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:15,159
guys are bright, and you're thoughtful, and you're fun to

1178
01:15:15,199 --> 01:15:17,800
be with. I just write books so I can get

1179
01:15:17,800 --> 01:15:18,760
back on your show.

1180
01:15:19,479 --> 01:15:24,319
Speaker 3: Right, all right, Well we'll keep inviting you then, all right, because.

1181
01:15:24,079 --> 01:15:25,039
Speaker 1: We love your books.

1182
01:15:25,399 --> 01:15:27,600
Speaker 2: I just want to remind the readers of Ken's list

1183
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here of the books that you should read once a year,

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The Bible, Mere Christianity, Confessions by Saint Augustine, on the

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Incarnation by Athanasius Ponce maybe and then of course Clear

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Thinking and.

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Speaker 1: A Mess Up World. So I just use that as

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a lead in to remind people of the book.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, a lot of great books and worldview books

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01:15:52,680 --> 01:15:56,199
as well, so we'll point all our listeners to those things.

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01:15:56,439 --> 01:15:59,000
Thank you so much, Ken for joining us for yet

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01:15:59,039 --> 01:16:02,560
another great conversation, and look forward to the next one.

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01:16:02,880 --> 01:16:06,960
Speaker 1: Yes, thank you, thanks for listening. To the podcast.

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01:16:07,159 --> 01:16:09,119
Speaker 2: If you have a question you'd like us to address,

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or just a message for us feedback good or bad,

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01:16:11,720 --> 01:16:15,079
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using speak Pipe. Just go to speakpipe dot com slash

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apologetics three fifteen to leave us a message. And remember,

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guarantee that we'll read it on the podcast. We also

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you can find lots of apologetics resources at apologeticspree fifteen

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Chad's apologetic stuff over at truthbomb apologetics that's truthbomb dot

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01:16:55,920 --> 01:16:57,399
blogspot dot com.

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01:16:57,600 --> 01:16:58,359
Speaker 1: This has been Brian

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01:16:58,439 --> 01:17:01,600
Speaker 2: Auten and Chad Gross for the Apogetics three fifteen podcast,

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01:17:01,680 --> 01:17:02,640
and thanks for listening.