What are the essential truths of the Christian faith? How do we know they are true, and how do we live them out in relationships? In this episode, Scott interviews Sean about his recent book 12 Crucial Truths of the Christian Faith. They discuss the core issues of Christianity, how we know they are true, and why they matter for our relationship with God and others.



Episode Transcript

Scott: What are the most important things that a follower of Christ has to believe? What are central? What are peripheral? We'll take this up between Sean and me today around his new book, written with His Dad, Josh McDowell entitled "12 Crucial Truths of the Christian Faith." I'm your host, Scott Rae.

Sean: I'm your co-host, Sean McDowell.

Scott: This is Think Biblically from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Sean, this is a terrific book. I had a chance to read through it in some detail. Super helpful, super accessible. You and your dad have done a great job with this. What makes this book so different? 'Cause there are a lot of books out about Christian doctrine, a lot of books out about the essentials of the Christian faith. What's different about this?

Sean: Yeah, I'm glad you asked, 'cause the heart of this book is something we call relational apologetics or relational theology. So some of our own colleagues have written great theology books, which is about what we believe. Some of our colleagues have written great apologetics books, which is why we believe what we believe, a defense. We also have some colleagues who write some great books on relationships, how we live out our Christian faith. Well, apologetics and theology books tend to be heavy on truth and light on application, or how you live these truths out. That's not necessarily a critique. That's the nature of writing a theology and apologetics book. Relationship books are heavy on relationships, sometimes lighter on theology. In fact, I'm not gonna call any out, but at times, verses are selected to advance a certain relational point.

Scott: Sometimes.

Sean: And the very translation that meets the point that is trying to be made. Fine, what we're trying to do in this book is we're saying, here are certain truths we believe as Christians. Here's how we know that they are true, but here's how they translate to relationships. So relationship with God, relationship with others, relationship with creation, and in a sense, you could say a relationship with ourselves. So instead of just being a relationship book or a theology book, it's both. And frankly, I think that's biblical. I mean, read Romans. Paul gives this sweeping story about God's creation with the world, the nation of Israel, gets to Romans 12, what does he do? Here's what it means to love. So Paul did theology that way. And I think what happened, something my dad would always say growing up, he'd say, “truth is meant to be lived. Theology is meant to be applied.” And it's one thing to know the truth about forgiveness, but when you forgive me and I experience it, I get it viscerally on a deeper level. So we're really doing theology and apologetics, but trying to help people get it viscerally and live it out in their relationships.

Scott: I appreciate that. 'Cause I think you've accomplished that really well. I remember my mentor in seminary, Howard Hendrick used to say that, “theology is not given to us to increase our information, but to change our lives.” And he said, if the only thing that happens as a result of learning theology is that you become a smarter sinner, then we have a real problem. But I appreciate the emphasis on that. So this was written by a father and son. An edition that was updated from an earlier one that was authored by your dad. And then you did a lot of the updating. He was involved too in the updating. But what was this like to have a father-son project? It's not the first one you've had together, but maybe one of the more substantive ones that you've done lately.

Sean: We've done apologetic books together of helping update evidence in "More Than a Carpenter," and 99% of that is focusing on the evidence. So sometimes we might differ on how strong is this evidence? What do we include, et cetera? But when it comes to this book, half of it is like theology and evidence, but we're really distilling stuff down to make it accessible for folks. But then we're applying relational principles how to live this out. So there's a lot of relational examples that have to do with my father and I together. He now, of course, is a grandparent and a parent, and has been a son. So he's got these different perspectives. So I think when you have a father and son writing a book together, have the relationship that we have. I mean, my dad is my hero, you know that. I just hold him in the highest regard. So every project we do together is special on some factor. But when roughly half this book or so is about living out relationships, you better have some practical examples from your own life and your relationship. And that kind of comes through this book.

Scott: And one thing I appreciate about this is your dad was particularly vulnerable about his own background and his upbringing, which was not very pretty. And he's very open about how the gospel changed his life and eventually enabled him to tell his dad that he loved him. So, I mean, that took a lot of courage, I think, to share that kind of vulnerability publicly, which I suspect he doesn't do with every audience.

Sean: You're right. And people need to realize he even shares about severe just abuse he experienced from somebody on the farm, not his parents. And he shared this before it was commonly discussed, long before the Me Too movement, when it was still considered. And I know it is in some ways even shameful to describe that something happened, you had no control over. Long before that, he was very public and vulnerable. And interestingly enough, took some heat for doing so.

Scott: Really?

Sean: Yeah at times, I think most people were appreciative realizing finally somebody speaking up, finally somebody sharing their story. And I actually remember the first time he told us about that was pretty intense. But yeah, he's always been an open book in that regard. And I think he just knows how many hurting people there are out there. And it's one thing to tell people you should share your truth. But if you relationally demonstrate it by the brokenness of your own relationship, then it gives people permission to do so. So this book is not just a book of like, here's all these successes of ways the McDowell's have perfectly done it. We have some of those that worked well, but there's some failures that I think in some ways are even more powerful, how you come out of failure and live that truth.

Scott: Well, it's such a testimony to the transforming power of the gospel in somebody. I mean, that's, for me, that was the big takeaway from him sharing so much of his personal story. Was that there was, and I mean, he dealt with a lot of this before. It was fashionable to go to therapy. I mean, it was the transforming power of the spirit in his life that enabled him to forgive his dad for a lot of the things that happened. I just found that really inspiring and encouraging. And I suspect our viewers and listeners will find that very similar.

Sean: And by the way, before you move on, really the root of this book is when my father first shared about the abuse that happened to him shortly after becoming a Christian, there was a local pastor of a small church who said, "Okay, let's go to the scriptures. Let's read this together. Let's talk about it. Let's pray together." And just relationally walked him through the truths of scriptures where he came to the point where he could even forgive the man who abused him that way. That's the kind of relational theology that we're trying to get to.

Scott: Well, I think that's particularly telling because somebody who is abused like that shortly after they come to faith, I can't think of too many better reasons to walk away from the faith than that. And yet he didn't. The grace of God kept him and the power of the gospel continued to transform him from the inside out.

Sean: Amen.

Scott: So this was first published in 2010 under a different title, "Unshakeable Truth." So tell us in a little bit more detail what changed in this particular update.

Sean: Probably the biggest change is we just made it shorter. Now, you know, 'cause you've updated books and I've updated other books. Books tend to grow bigger. We add material, we expand illustrations. And it's actually painful and difficult to cut material out of a book.

Scott: No, it's terrible to have to do that.

Sean: Cause every example, like I spent time on this means something to me. But in this case, I went through the mindset. I said, okay, we've got to trim out any of the fat. Any examples that are longer than they need to be, let's tighten them up. Any times we repeat an example, let's cut it out. Let's make the chapters even shorter and tighter. And ultimately when it's all said and done, it's a better book because people are just busy today. So one big thing is just trim it up, tighten it up so we don't waste your time. Not that we did in the original book, but we just get right to the heart of issues that matter 'cause people have so many things that are going on. And we also updated some of the evidences, for example, like in the chapter on the existence of God when we talk about DNA, talk about how the average adult human body has 30 trillion cells. And if you took the DNA out of one cell in your body, that would be about two meters in length. So if we lined up all the DNA in your body, it would go from here to the sun and back about 200 times. Now, when we first wrote this, the stat we had was 70. And I confirmed this with a PhD scientist friend of mine. He goes, it's about 200 times. So there's a number of just these facts that we followed up with and updated that make it even more compelling to me and more interesting.

Scott: Are the 12 truths that you say are crucial here, the same 12 in the earlier edition in 2010?

Sean: Yes, that's a great question. It would be a bummer if one of those like, oops, we messed up an essential truth.

Scott: This is not really that important?

Sean: Those 12 are the same.

Scott: They are all the same, okay. Now, I think it's, I like that it's 12 crucial truths, emphasis on truths, because I think it's fair to say the notion of truth is under assault today. How so? What makes there be confusion about the idea of truth and why is it so important to get this right?

Sean: So let me give some context. My father wrote his first book, “Evidence Demands Verdict” in 1972. There was no chapter on what is truth, is truth important, how do we know truth, just launched into the evidences and everybody assumed there's such a thing as truth. We should discover it and truth itself is knowable. In the more recent update, which came out maybe five or six years before this book, we had to include, I think it's two or three chapters on truth itself, because now the very idea of truth is called into question. So I think about six, seven years ago, the word of the year was truthiness. I believe that if something feels right, it's kind of true to you. Well, the word this past year was authentic. Now what's meant by authentic? In one sense, you and I would think if something's authentic, it matches the original, it matches its design. Well, authenticity now doesn't really mean that. It means look within and you do you, you be you, live your truth. So there literally has been an epistemological shift from looking outside for truth and meaning and purpose and conforming ourselves to that truth. Now we look within and are just authentic to ourselves, live out my truth, you'll hear people say. So the idea-

Scott: And we conform the truth to what's inside of us.

Sean: That's exactly right. And your job is to affirm how I view myself and see myself, whether or not that lines up with objective reality. Now, why does this matter? What's interesting is during this subjective turn towards the inside, where we have to find our identities within and proclaim it to the world largely through social media, we've seen a massive increase in just mental health challenges and problems. Now that's not the only factor, but it's a weight that humans cannot bear to define ourselves by looking at our hearts and our feelings and proclaiming that to the world. That's a recipe for disaster. So in part, we're reminding people that there are certain truths built into the world, certain truths that we discover, and we're only free. We're only really content when we conform our lives to that truth. And here's the crucial essential ones that Christians historically affirm.

Scott: So the distinction between subjective and objective truth has been blurred today, correct?

Sean: It has, especially on moral and arguably theological issues, I would argue.

Scott: Yeah, I can see it on, especially on moral issues, particularly issues over which there's some debate, because I think people mistake the debate for thinking that the truth on this is just a matter of somebody's opinion. And then one person's opinion on this counts just as much as the other. So we see that, I think a little differently than we might see truths of physics or mathematics or, well, I think even the postmodern turn has started to affect those fields too.

Sean: I think you're right.

Scott: I remember I had a conversation with a dad of one of my basketball players, who was a physics prophet, UC Irvine. And I told him what I taught. I said, I teach philosophy and ethics. And he said, literally he said, “tell me you're not one of those postmodernists who think that truth is subjective.”

Sean: Oh, good. I thought you were going the other way, to the example of that.

Scott: No, but he was, I mean, he was alarmed at how that our skepticism about truth that infected feels that we once thought were exempt from that. Now, what, I guess maybe the real question that's begged by your title is what makes a truth so crucial?

Sean: Yep.

Scott: How did you pick these? And how did you decide that one truth is more important than another one?

Sean: So 12 is obviously a biblical number, the apostles, 12 tribes of Israel. So there's something behind that. There are additional truths we could have said, like the virgin birth and done a whole chapter on the virgin birth. We include that in the chapter on the incarnation. So it's not necessarily that there's 12 and only 12 essential truths, but I think it's pretty close to that. Now, what would mean by this is we're looking at this historically and creedally. What are the essentials of the Christian faith tied to salvation? So that's what we mean by essential. So you look at the broad scope of the Christian faith, whether it's Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. I mean, a very broad, there's affirmation that God is triune, that God is the creator, that Jesus is God in human flesh. These kind of essential truths, there's consistent agreement on those truths. So we mean more creedally. Now that doesn't mean other truths are not important. I mean, for example, we don't have a chapter in there on marriage. Is marriage an essential crucial truth? Well, that's a huge debate we could have. And I would say scripturally, scripture is very, very clear from the beginning to the end of what God's design for marriage is. Now, the main reason we didn't include that is that's just not a creedal historical truth going back to the Nicene Creed. Doesn't mean it's not important. Doesn't mean it's not an essential part of the Christian story and how God has revealed himself. So we're really referring to salvific issues as in the creed historically held by the Christian church.

Scott: Okay, so let's be really clear about this. So what you're suggesting here, since they are matters of salvation, you would say that all 12 of these truths have to be held by someone in order to be a believer.

Sean: So I would say they have to be true. So could somebody be saved without understanding the nuances of the Trinity? Well, the thief on the cross probably didn't understand that. He understood that he was a sinner. He understood that Jesus was a human being in front of him, he was dying. Also had a sense of his divinity. So I think it's not necessarily that somebody has to grasp the Trinity in the way we lay it out, but the Trinity itself is essentially tied to salvation. So we won't, and we don't go into too much nuance in the book, which of these have to be true, which of these you have to positively affirm, but they all have to be true in a sense for the Christian story to hold.

Scott: Yeah, it sounds like the 12 of them form this seamless garment that if you have a hole in one area of the garment, it's compromised.

Sean: That's right.

Scott: And so I think that's the way I would view that as they all have to fit together in order to be a coherent whole. So each chapter has three primary questions that you address, and you do that consistently throughout the book. What are those three questions? Why are those so important?

Sean: So number one, what is it that Christians believe essentially? This is kind of the theological truth. So God exists, God is the creator. God is triune. Salvation is by faith. What we believe, that's the theology. Second is why we believe it. So this is where the apologetics comes into play. And then third, how do we live this out in relationship? How do we practically apply this truth to a relationship with God, maybe creation, with others, and with ourselves? So this is where you can see the theology, the apologetics, and what you might call the relationships all put together. So that's kind of a grid that we try to apply consistently to these different passages. One of the challenges was actually so many of these truths, there's such a range of way to live them out. God being the creator, you could write an entire book on the theology, the apologetics, and the relationship of that. So it was a problem of too many, so to speak, rather than just trying to come up with one or two example of how these applied to relationships.

Scott: Yeah, I just got one of those books that does that. Our friend Dennis Hollinger, his book on creation, does just that. Now, I think what would be really helpful for our viewers is to see how some of these truths flesh out in real life. 'Cause I think what is so different about this is the application to life. And I think it's fair to say in most of these chapters, the application is what takes up the lion's share of the chapter. And I think that's by design. And I think that's right and helpful. But let's take the first one that God exists. Obviously that's the place to start. But how do you know that that's real? Why does that truth matter for who we are and for our relationships?

Sean: Okay, so let's take those three questions. What is it that we believe? God exists, God is the creator. He's not a creator, he's not a human invention. This story is about God. In the beginning, God, it starts with him. This is a theocentric universe. So God exists, God is the creator. How do we know that's true? Now we walk through some of the evidences. I think we give three or so in here from the beginning of the universe, what's called the Kalam, points towards a cause outside of the universe, namely a beginner. We talk about the fine tuning. Of course, there's the loss of physics that point towards a fine tuner. There's the information in DNA. And by the way, I was interviewing a scientist recently and I said, is there more sophistication in DNA than the most complex nano robots we can make today? And he looked at me like I was crazy. He's like, it's not even close. So the information, you could argue, points towards an information giver. And then we lay out the moral argument. We all know there's a right and wrong, which points towards a moral law, which we argue is best explained by a moral law giver. So God is a creator, beginning points towards a beginner, fine tuning points towards a fine tuner, information in the cell points towards an information giver, moral law points towards a moral law giver, so to speak. And then how do we live this out? Well, that means that this is a purposeful world that we live in. This is not an accident. You and I have not evolved through some purposeless, blind, accidental material process.

Scott: It's not Dawkins, blind, pitiless, indifference.

Sean: It is not blind, pitiless, indifference. You and I are made for a purpose. So what that means is if we really want to be free, we have to discover what is that purpose for marriage? What is the purpose for parenting? What is the purpose for work? Well, when we discover that truth, biblically speaking, and conform our lives to it, then in a sense, we're set free. So if I'm working with students, all our students questions like, like you can work from the top down from God exists to the application, or you can work from the relationship and show that lurking behind it is the truth that we're made in God's image. So sometimes the students always ask questions like, “why is it wrong to bully somebody?” Well, it takes a while to get there, but eventually they realize, oh, because this is a human being made in God's image, and we don't use people. Bullying is using somebody and harming somebody. Rather, we're called to love people. So these are the kinds of applications we try to draw out of it.

Scott: Yeah, one of the things I think that strikes me about, as I was reading that chapter on the very first crucial truth, is that, and it sort of bleeds into the next chapter on the Trinity, is that God did not have to create the world. He had relationship among the three persons of the Trinity, and which was completely satisfying, but the reason he created the world, I think amplifies his love for us, and how important it is that human beings live out the purpose for which he created us. And the satisfaction that God gets out of seeing human beings live according to that purpose. I think that's part of what Zephaniah means when he says that God, he delights over us, delights in spending time with us, delights in seeing us live according to the ends that he has created for us. It's really, it's the point that I remember a friend, Christopher Watkin, brought out when we interviewed him that, God did not have to create the world. He chose to do so out of love and care and kindness for the human beings that were the object of his creation.

Sean: Not only do I agree with your point, but you get kudos for being the first person on this show to quote Zephaniah.

Scott: How about that?

Sean: So well done, good job.

Scott: How about that?

Sean: Keep the surprises coming.

Scott: It's actually my favorite passage in all the scripture.

Sean: Really? I didn't know that.

Scott: It is, Zephaniah 3:17.

Now we go from sort of the good news to the bad news in truth number three. And that is that that's the all have sin part, which I think there's probably no more truth that you lay out in the book that is more self evident than that. But that was a big, that was a lot of big changes to that chapter from the original. What is updated? Why did you change things so dramatically in this chapter?

Sean: So you're right. Biblically it goes from God creates Genesis 1 and 2 to sin in Genesis 3. So we have God creates and very quickly moved towards human sinfulness, kind of following the biblical storyline. I'm gonna assume this is true for you, but every book that I've written at some point, usually it's pretty quick afterwards. I think, oh, I should have included this. I wish I could update that. It's the nature of putting something into print. Early on in this book, as I went back and I read it, once it came out, this is the original book, “The Unshakeable Truth”. I started to feel like our chapter on human sinfulness was not as robust as it could be. It was fine. It portrayed biblical truths. And some of this came from an article I read from Clay Jones who taught here, I think 15 or 20 years in the apologetics program, was one of my colleagues. And he wrote an article, it's online, people can read it. We cite it in the chapter. It's something effective. We don't take human evil seriously enough. And what Clay Jones did is he wrote a book on the problem of evil, why does God allow evil? And he just studied the 20th century. And he said, if we look at human nature in the 20th century, what does this tell us about human beings? He said the perception is that we think, well, Pol Pot and Stalin and Hitler and a few of their henchmen were bad and twisted. The rest of us are good. But he walks through country after country, including the United States, by the way, in different ways. And says basically, the amount of people that allowed this evil to go on and didn't stop it or contributed in some fashion is revealing about human nature being profoundly fallen. And I think he's right about that. So he chronicles what happened in the Soviet Union, what happened in Russia, what happened in communist China. And at the end, he goes, this was not inhumane. Humans did this. I mean, even to starve out in Ukraine, the thousands of people, they had to starve out of country and do nothing, seeing the horrors that happened there. He said when the opportunity is ripe and there's pressure, he goes, human beings take it because as a whole, this is our nature. And I remember when I was a kid, I was watching some news program. I don't remember, maybe it was about some murder. And I remember going, gosh, that's so inhumane. And my dad stopped me, he goes, son, that's not inhumane. Inhumane means not human. He goes, that's what humans do. Every worldview says there's something wrong in the world. Marxism says there's economic inequality. New Age says we've lost connection with our inner divinity. Islam said, doesn't believe in original sin, but just says we're not submitted and obedient to Allah. Jesus said it is the human heart that is profoundly corrupted and out of the heart comes greed and sloth and idolatry and lust and pride. So I felt like in this chapter, if we don't have a robust sense of human sinfulness, really the rest of the Christian story doesn't make sense. If I think I'm pretty good and I've just done a few bad things, then why do I need God's grace and hell is total overkill. But if we have a Romans 3, Mark 7 understanding of human sinfulness, then we're like Peter, when he really understands who Jesus is, he's like, well, I am a sinful man stay away from me. So we made that case, I think even more robustly.

Scott: Well, I think you can also make the point that if we're just basically okay or blank slates, then the cross is overkill too.

Sean: Totally overkill. That's right.

Scott: And if that's the case, then maybe Christopher Hitchens might be right. How could God do that to his son? But if sin is the way it is, and I think one of the things that I'm a little bit more encouraged about with some of the response to the, some of the latest things going on in the Middle East, is I think even though there are people who are unwilling to call out what's going on as evil, there are lots of people who are. And they're pointing out the evil of anti-Semitism. And I think they're pointing it out sort of on both sides. Some of the things that's being done to the Palestinians too, constitute evil. And I think, but I think that the reluctance to call that out culturally in general, I think is really alarming. And I think that's why Clay's project is so helpful, is that if you're not willing to take an honest look at the things that went on in the 20th century, not to mention the centuries before.

Sean: Oh, my goodness, yeah.

Scott: I mean, Thomas Hobbes was right. And the 20th century is just as much an illustration of that as the previous. Life is nasty, brutish and short, as a result of human sin. So what's the impact, the application that you made of that relationally?

Sean: Well, I think we have a robust understanding of human sinfulness. It literally affects everything. It affects the way I look at politics, and it affects the way I vote in a range of different ways. It affects the way I parent my kids. It affects my relationship with others, such as my spouse. Not that I'm aware of her sinfulness, but my own sinfulness. This is actually one of those truths that doesn't just have to be applied to A and B. It literally applies to A and Z. But more than anything, it's this truth that should profoundly and deeply humble us. I mean, the older I get, the more I just cringe at certain things in my heart. I'm like, "Oh, man, I thought I would have been rid of this, by my age, but I'm more aware of it, and I grieve it more, and I hope by God's grace that it humbles me." And so this crucial truth literally affects the way we interact with our environment, interact with human relationships, interact with God, and understand ourselves. But I actually, I don't know that I'm convinced. Probably if you asked me which truth do we need to emphasize more than anything else. Christians at Jesus, God, got it. Salvation by faith, they would at least say it, even though our lives probably reflect more of works. But human sinfulness, I'm more and more convinced that it's so painful to admit our brokenness, that I think we kind of hold it at bay a little bit. So if there's one chapter I tell even Christians to just read and think about that would just humble us, it'd be this chapter. And by the way, think about Matthew 18, the unmerciful servant, what's the purpose of that? If we don't understand our forgiveness from God, which is rooted in our own recognition of our own sinfulness and acceptance of His grace and mercy, we're not gonna be able to live that out in relationship with other people.

Scott: And that's not just a one-time thing, because remember Paul described himself as the chief of sinners. Remember when he said that? At the end of his life. He's written the theology of sanctification and he calls himself the chief of sinners. And I think this is, I think this chapter is so profound. 'Cause I think this is what Jesus meant when He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Said blessed are the, I paraphrase that, blessed are those who recognize their sense of spiritual poverty. And I'm not sure that ever changes. I think, yeah, you get a handle on certain things, but I suspect that it's the more we grow, the more we realize how far we have to go. Because the more we get a look at how deep and dark the intrusion of sin is into our hearts. And I think it's only by grace that keeps that from being a point of despair. 'Cause if I can't ever shake that sense of spiritual poverty, then it's only by grace that I can go on. So that, I mean, I think you're right. That is a really profound chapter and the application of that is humbling, not just at the point someone comes to faith, but throughout our spiritual lives.

Sean: Amen.

Scott: Now, there's a really radical claim in here. We take this as sort of matter of fact, having followed Christ for as long as we have. But the idea that God became human in the first century was just this incredibly radical claim. So what made it so radical? How do we know that Jesus is God and what difference does that make?

Sean: Okay, so let's take these three questions. What do we mean that God became human? We mean that the self-existent, eternal, all-knowing God took on human flesh and was born as a human being. Now we've heard this so much as Christians like, we know, we celebrate Christmas. If we'd stop and just reflect upon that, that is a radical claim that sets Christianity apart from any other religion in the history of the world. Now, some religions might have incarnations of a God, but the one eternal self-existent creator in a sense limits himself and is born of a woman. That is a radical claim. So we believe that God took on human flesh. Why do we believe that? Well, ultimately as what's revealed in scriptures. Jesus did things that only God could do. He did miracles by his own power and authority. In Mark two, he forgives sins by his own authority. He walks on water, which was God's stead. He judges ultimately. And then I think it's most clear in John eight where he says, "I am who I am." And Jesus compares himself to Yahweh who revealed himself to Moses in Exodus chapter three. And of course they want to stone him.

Scott: In exactly that same language.

Sean: In exactly that same language. Of course, on trial Jesus says, refers to himself as the Son of Man, a divine figure from Daniel chapter seven. Bottom line, we believe that God took on human flesh and that in the person of Jesus, we see revealed in scripture that he said things and did things that only God can do. Why does this matter? Well, it matters in a few ways. It means that Jesus isn't just fire insurance, but he's actually the model of what it means to be human and to be obedient, that we are to strive to follow after. No other prophet and no other human being throughout history has lived a perfect sinless life like Jesus. So back to our point before about sinfulness. I can feel pretty good about myself if I compare myself to others, right? And maybe I've stolen some of my life or said something that's not true, but I haven't hurt anybody. Someone who hurts anybody says, well, I haven't killed anybody. Somebody kills somebody says, well, at least I didn't kill a lot of people. And that person says, at least he's not Hitler. Like there's always somebody you can compare yourself to.

Scott: Somebody who's worse.

Sean: Always somebody who's worse. That's human nature. And if you just compare yourself with the person of Jesus, we are all condemned and it creates a sense of humility within us. But I would argue it goes even more practical than that. Every worldview has to answer the problem of evil. I would argue, in fact, I teach a class on this in our Apologetics program. This is the question for non-believers and for Christians 'cause it's emotional and it's intellectual. A lot can be said, but one of the things that separates Christianity from every other religion in the world is that God didn't just send a prophet, he didn't just send a book, he didn't just reveal himself in nature, he took on human flesh and entered into our suffering and understands from within what it's like to suffer and thus has empathy for us. That's why in Hebrews 2 and in Hebrews 4 says, we have a high priest who's been tempted in every way and yet without sin, we have a high priest who you might say, to use the common phrase, gets us. So that means God models for us how to empathize with people when they are hurting is to step into their pain. That doesn't tell us why God allows evil and suffering, but God models for us how to respond to the pain and the hurt in the world. That has a lot of implications, including how we parent our kids when our kids fail and when our kids are hurting.

Scott: Now, we got time for one more. So I thought we might leave the most complicated one till the end. Truth number nine is about the triune God. We worship one God in three distinct persons. What do you mean when you say that God is triune? And why is that truth so important?

Sean: This is the second chapter after "Sinfulness" that I looked back at and was like, oh, this needs to be more robust and more clear. So we pretty radically updated that chapter. Here's what we're referring to. The word trinity comes from tri-threeness. In-ity comes from unity. Of course, the word is not in the Bible, which is irrelevant. The question is, is the concept and the idea taught within the Bible? Well, if you just look at Scripture, what does it tell us? There is one God. This is in the Old Testament. Of course, Jesus affirms this in Mark 12 when he cites the Shema. There's one God. But the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each divine. Now we go through that in the book, but there's examples, even just simply the baptism. Be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You wouldn't say the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Moses. That'd be heretical. They're put on the same level. And so there's one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each divine, but the Father is distinct from the Son. The Son is distinct from the Holy Spirit. And we see them conversing with one another, praying with one another. And so the early church fathers are looking at this, saying, how do we make sense of this? There's a three-ness in terms of persons, but there's a oneness in terms of substance and essence. And you might say, deity. So it's not one God and three gods. It's not one person and three person. It's one God, three persons. There's no logical contradiction in that. Now we don't fully understand it, of course, but we're talking about God's character. Should we be expected to fully understand God's character? And of course, I think the answer is no. Now, why does this matter? You hinted at this before. So we are made in God's image. So God obviously is knowledge. God has power. We have certain things that reflect God's character in that sense. But God also is relationship. God is relational. In fact, John tells us in 1 John, God is love. Well, for there to be love, there needs to be a lover and a beloved. There needs to be a distinction to express that love. The Islamic view of God, who's a unity, Unitarian, cannot actually love until he has created a being to express that love. So the Islamic understanding of Allah is not intrinsically a relational being. But the scriptures reveal that God is relationship in his very being. So we start to ask, how does this affect the way that we live? Well, we are made for relationship to know God and to know others. And so we are only fulfilled when we're actually in meaningful relationships with the divine and meaningful relationships with other people. That's the root purpose of life. Now, obviously a ton more can be said about the Trinity, but as we start to talk about it and unpack it, as Greg Kochels often says, the Trinity is not a problem. It's actually a solution. And I think he's right about that.

Scott: Yeah, the relational part is so important 'cause I think we tend to view God as this omniscient, transcendent being that is not intrinsically relational. We don't often see him like that. But I think that is well said, that there's something about the triune God being intrinsically relational that can only happen in a Trinity. And I think you're right, the Islamic God can't do that. The other gods of other worldviews can't do that because they're not intrinsic. That's not intrinsic to them. So one last thing. I suspect people will find this book really useful. How do you hope that they'll use it?

Sean: So we saw the first version used in three main ways. One was for individual study, people who just said, "I wanna shore up my theology. I want some principles for relationships." Second, probably more than any other was in church small groups. A lot of pastors say, "We wanna do an introduction to theology, 12 weeks." Or maybe they do four or six weeks and just take a few of them and read it through together and talk about it. The other would be in a classroom. There's a lot of intro to theology or upper division high school classes that are on theology and Bible where they'll just go chapter by chapter through. I guess the other one, out of fourths, we've also had some parents get this and just read sections with their kids, which is something we do with our kids all the time. We're always talking theology. We're talking culture, apologetics. It's really in that relationship and that conversation that truth sinks in. So either families, individuals, classrooms, or church small groups. Probably ideal for a book like that. It's not written for skeptics. That would be more a book like "More Than a Carpenter." If a skeptic wants to read it, there's some evidence in there, but that's not the primary audience, it's to build up and equip Christians to understand what we believe, why we believe it, and ultimately how to live that out in relationship.

Scott: I see it as especially useful among people who are new to Christian faith, or even people I think who are not skeptical, but they're just, they may be on the outside looking in and are considering Christian faith and just wanna know what is this about? How's it relevant? And I think you've done a really good job, not only being clear and explaining it, but showing how it makes a difference in people's lives. That's a major contribution. And I think for people who have just come to faith, or maybe a year or two into Christian faith, this will be really helpful in grounding them theologically, but also showing them that it's not abstract stuff. It makes a big difference in how they live.

Sean: Amen.

Scott: So I wanna commend this to our viewers and our listeners. “12 crucial truths of the Christian faith”, Josh and Sean McDowell, great stuff. It's super insightful. It's very accessible, but it is rigorous. It's thorough. It covers a lot of ground and it covers a lot of application ground that you might not see coming. So I wanna commend this in all the ways that Sean, that you talked about, it is I think gonna be particularly useful and maybe one of your better contributions.

Sean: Oh, wow, very cool to hear you say that.

Scott: So yeah, we hope you've enjoyed this opportunity just to talk about this new book. We wanna commend to you if you wanna take this and go a lot further with it. Our programs in theology and apologetics here at Talbot are ideal for that. If you wanna learn more about the apologetic side to this, our MA in Christian apologetics, that's what it's designed to do. You wanna learn more about the theological depth, some of our programs, certificate and master's programs in systematic theology are ideal for that. If you wanna look at the application of this, our programs in spiritual formation. I think uptake some of these central truths and apply them really well to the depths of who you are in your spiritual life. Visit talbot.edu in order to learn more about it. You have a question or a comment or a guest or a topic that you'd like us to consider, you can email us at thinkbiblically@talbot.edu. No, thinkbiblically@biola.edu. Sorry, lost my head there for a minute. That's thinkbiblically@biola.edu. We hope you enjoyed this conversation. We'll see you next time.