God WANTS Me To Be An Unbeliever! | Pastor Reacts

The Challenge of God and Unbelief

It seems to me that God wants me as a non-believer if there is one. Is that a fair thing to conclude from your perspective?

What a question, right? He's looking for God with the wrong worldview lens. He needs to wrestle with the limitations of his worldview that cannot even account for his own rationality. You always end up finding what you're looking for.

If your expectations are such that it removes God, don't be surprised when you look around and you don't see him anywhere. That's not God's fault. Famous skeptic Brett Weinstein challenges Russell Brand, who is a new convert to the Christian faith.

In a recent interview on his podcast, Weinstein says that it's God who keeps him and people like him unbelieving. And he asked Brand to explain why God would do such a thing. That's a fascinating question that actually skeptics have asked in the past before.

But is Brand up for the challenge? How does he respond here? What does the Bible have to say about it? We're going to get into all of that in just a moment. But first, welcome back to Wise Disciple. I'm Nate, and I'm helping you become the effective Christian Jesus wants you to be.

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Russell Brand's Response About Suffering and Mystery

Let me try something out on you. This is something I haven't spoken about publicly, but I've done a lot of thinking about it. My sense is that a proper understanding of religious devotion, especially to an ancient tradition, is explainable in material terms, right?

I think

Of course you do. You think everything is. That's how your mind works.

Right, exactly. But here's the point. I think Darwinism explains religion and not the other way around. The question for me, if I can see that these are adaptive states of being and that there's tremendous utility in them, or at least has been relative to the world in which they evolved, then why do I find myself outside of the state?

And I should also say, there's no part of me that wants a universe that doesn't have somebody who gives a damn about us in charge. I'd prefer a universe in which there was a backup plan because we're in big trouble.

But

That's an interesting admission. I mean, here's Weinstein who, I mean, he's someone who's been a professor of evolutionary biology. He's someone who's been very upfront about his skepticism in the existence of God.

I think he even said at one point that God is simply a hack to make us behave as human beings. And yet he's also been someone who has communicated his discomfort with the consequences of living according to a purely materialistic worldview.

And now he says, I want there to be a God. Interesting.

That said, I do feel, let's say there's a God. That God has given me an analytical mind and an upbringing that cultivated it.

Ditto.

Has given me an almost unbearable amount of evidence of the evolution of creatures and has placed me in history at a position where I can tap into that evidence and I can see what it implies, maybe even beyond where my field can see often.

So here's the question.

Wait a second. That seems to suggest that evolution somehow disproves the existence of God. Even if evolution were true or to be more precise, macro evolution, how specifically would that disprove God?

It seems to me that there is a T-loss to evolution that is always assumed but never identified and investigated. Many Christians have argued that the T-loss of evolution is only there because God put it there.

In other words, many Christians also believe in evolution. As a matter of fact, that's kind of an in-house disagreement going on between Christians on this issue. I point this out simply to say, Weinstein, it seems, implicitly assumes that the evidence for evolution somehow presents a problem to Christians and Christianity.

Many Christians would argue there is no problem.

Wouldn't it be reasonable if you had that perspective? That religion is not a bad thing. In fact, it's been a profoundly good thing frequently. It's done a lot of evil as well. The point is, it is part of an adaptive state, every bit as much as an eye or a wing.

It seems to me that if there is a God, that that God must want me. I don't want to say atheist because again, I don't use that term for myself because I'm angry at other atheists. But it seems to me that God wants me as a non-believer if there is one.

Is that a fair thing to conclude from your perspective in light of the world that he has presented me with?

And there it is. It seems to Weinstein that God wants him to be an unbeliever. By the way, what a question, right? How would you respond if you were face-to-face with someone like Brett Weinstein and they asked you this question?

Maybe we should think about that now while we're amongst friends here on this channel before it actually happens in real life and we fumble for our words in an unprepared manner. Amen? And by the way, we're going to get into my response as well as to what the Bible has to say about this.

So just stick with me here.

I would say that from my perspective that, and this is actually someone called Byron Katie said this,.

God is reality.

And so everything that happens is God's will and all of us are rather weary in juvenile arguments about why the bad things happen. And this is where it's nice to borrow from the post-structuralists and try to analyse, scrutinise and unpack what good and bad might mean and whether or not we can see the entire picture or whether we're in such a position to even make that observation.

Certainly what I'm experiencing is that there is a function to suffering that as Simone Weil says, that Christianity may not be a way out of suffering, but it certainly sanctifies suffering.

Certainly places it in an important context.

Sacralises and...

So what's your take on this? I have a couple of questions here. First, was Brand ready for this kind of question? Based on his response, do you think that he was ready for that? And second, is he answering the question?

These are important pieces to wrestle with, not because we're trying to put Brand on blast, but because we're trying to prepare ourselves. Amen? I don't think Brand was ready for this question. If I heard this question from Weinstein, I don't think I would have been...

I would have anticipated that he was gonna ask this kind of question either. And so it seems to me that Brand is searching for the answer and he's verbally processing as he gets here. The whole take on suffering is interesting, but that wasn't what Weinstein asked him.

He asked about why, given his analytical mind that presumably God gave him, why doesn't God do more to overcome his atheism? I mean, essentially that's what he's asking. If God doesn't, then it seems like God just wants to keep him stuck in his unbelief.

Let's see if Brand finally lands on a good response.

The Limits of Materialism and the Reality of Mystery

And you don't see, I guess, the last conversation even comparable to this one I've had is with Jordan Peterson. And you know him, of course, and I love him.

And like, you know,.

I've worked out what the collective unconscious is. It's AI.

I'm like, oh God, here we go.

We've been waiting for 10 minutes.

That's a killer Peterson impression. Come on, guys. That's really good.

And, you know, I talk to people. Wow, who was that guy? You probably know him. Dr. Nells, who can tell you how sort of nutrition and toxicity are being used to induce states that are correlatives of sociological forms of conditioning that both our nutritional inputs and toxicity inputs are creating states of compliance that are amenable to and function alongside sociological measures to generate a compliant zombie population is one of these sort of terms.

I was thinking, well, everyone just uses various metrics and nomenclature to analyze the various challenges that confront them. Now, if you are a devout Christian or devout Buddhist or devout Muslim or devout atheist, then you're sort of saying this is my position.

You might be an atheist. I'm a Christian. You might be a Christian. Like it's like I'm taking a definitive position. It's a personal position. And it's in a sense, as I say, it seems to have resourced me.

But I certainly don't feel that there is. I'm not like bemused, baffled, confused or concerned by your well undergirded and researched atheism. I'm just, in a sense, as you speak, thinking about what I've read in sort of C .S. Lewis or Thomas Aquinas or whatever that sort of might be useful in helping us with that.

And in a way, many of what I've felt, Brett, is a kind of, it sounds like a kind of homecoming that's very kind of, gosh, feels kind of folky. But like when it comes to tackling how I would usually oppose atheism, I would say if there are resolute and absolute states that can be determined and diagnosed through the analytical mind, what is it that happens to that mind when you consume ayahuasca or DMT in large doses and planes of reality is suddenly exposed to you that seem to defy our preceding paradigm.

And what I suppose there, and this is sort of very, almost I can't believe that I would lay something so rudimentary before.

So he's starting to get a little animated here. I wonder if he's latched onto a train of thought that he thinks resonates with Weinstein's question. So he's starting to talk about the analytical mind and essentially how it has limitations that apparently can be explored by experimenting with certain kinds of drugs, which is okay.

That's an approach you could take.

Sure.

All you pearls before, not pearls before, some kind of opposite of Dorothy Parker's famous maxim is that, Brett, like everything we're discussing is on the basis of the limitations of our sensory instruments and our knowledge base.

And if you were to assume a set of instruments that could determine subtler vibrations and forms of light and forms of information, then whole new paradigms would immediately open up to us. And I think that's what the religious experience is.

It's the immediate sacralization of the profane and the immediate intervention of a set of data that is not accessible with this set of instruments.

Well, if I'm

Yeah, so he finishes the thought here. In other words, our rational minds are limited and cannot fully perceive the full dimensions of our existence on this earth. And to a certain degree, he has a point, right?

Much of the materialist philosophical worldview and its bosom buddy, scientism, right? It exposes these gaps in knowledge. Ironically, less charitable materialists will blame Christians for these gaps.

When in reality, the Christian worldview has no gaps. The materialist is the one with the gaps. So that's Brand's response. Our rational minds are limited. Now, is that a sufficient response to the challenge?

Honestly, give me your take on this. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. Let's find out how Weinstein responds.

I might.

Of course, of course.

I think it sounds to me almost like you're suffering from a kind of A little bit, from PTSD.

Very happy.

That's a pleasant kind of suffering.

We're gonna jump with an ice cream on it. I'm having the time of my life.

But the materialists are, the arrogance of the materialists is insufferable, right? And so the point is everything you're saying resonates perfectly fine for me. It's not, I'm not even arguing that it's, if the universe is entirely in principle, at least explainable in materialist terms, I'm not arguing that that's a better way to go through life.

But why would it be? I mean, of course it would be.

Yeah, no it wouldn't be.

Well, he really hasn't though. He really has suggested in the past that living as if the materialist worldview is correct is actually a bit of a disaster for human beings. Weinstein has said this. And that religion has a benefit to those who ascribe to it.

He's even gone so far as to say that religion may not be literally true, but it is metaphorically true. In other words, he suggests that to live as if Christianity is true is to kind of set yourself up for all kinds of evolutionary benefit from his perspective.

And not just you, but your descendants. And then of course the people around you as well. Which is interesting because I've heard Jordan Peterson pressed on whether or not he believes in God. And he's said basically the same thing.

That he lives as if God exists and Christianity is true. But wait a second. Is that enough for God? Is it enough to act as if it's true? Metaphorically maybe? Or is more required? I mean, that's probably another video for another time, I'm sure.

But the point I'm making here is Weinstein is not trying to sharpshoe brand at all. I mean, this is a friend talking to another friend and asking the question, why doesn't God overcome my atheism?

But of course it would be in terms of even if God is like a sort of a personal anthropomorphic God and shazammed us into being with a sort of like a pop goes the weasel. It would, in its implementation, pass through material reality.

And like if you are an atemporal and aspatial being, the fact that these things take place over time and have a cellular lineage, that doesn't defy it. That's just how it happened. How did Van Gogh render those paintings?

How did Tchaikovsky write those symphonies? Just sort of going, he wrote it down on that page. Doesn't explain the mystery of what, how the f*** did you come up with that?

Well, I mean.

And what is it that the beauty is? Why beauty?

Right.

Not symmetry, Brett, beauty.

Well played.

Boy, thank you so much for watching this video. Did you know that the majority of people who do watch are not subscribed to the channel? If this video is blessing you, would you do me a favor and like and subscribe to the channel?

It just really helps me to get the word out about this ministry. I greatly appreciate it. Okay, so give him a minute. Now he starts to get cooking, right? Brand has realized, it seems, that God is the explanation for the limits of the materialist worldview.

Why?

Because God is the source of the material world in the first place. And these kinds of responses, ironically, can only be delineated on a philosophical level. This is not a scientific conversation that you can have with someone like Weinstein here, you know, and the specific question that he's asking.

This must be a conversation that forces Weinstein to confront the limitations of his own rational logic. You know, recently I sat with Dr. Peter Boghossian and I had a conversation along these exact same lines.

And he told me that in order for him to change his mind about the existence of God, it would have to trade on reason and logical argumentation, which, great, okay, I'm tracking that. So some of the questions that I asked him was, what is logic and where does it come from?

In other words, is logic a transcendent feature of the world around us or is logic a subjective feature of our own minds? And if it is transcendent, in other words, it is a feature that is discovered outside of ourselves and applies to all of us objectively, then what is the explanation for this transcendent feature?

Boghossian, who is a materialist, he struggled to answer the question, in my opinion. And for good reason, it's because materialism has no explanation for this. But you know what? God can explain this.

And so for someone like Weinstein, who values his rational logical mind, he needs to wrestle with the limitations of his worldview that cannot even account for his own rationality. That I think is an interesting approach to take.

In terms of a response. I mean, it's not the only one, right? But definitely one worth pursuing for a Christian. So in a minute, we're gonna see what the Bible has to say about all of this, but we're gonna let this play out for just a little bit longer.

Jesus Reveals Truth to the Humble

But if I can maybe over-interpret what you've just said, you could, the quantity of mystery is effectively conserved and you can drive it all the way to the initial moment, right? The universe came into being and all of this other material stuff happened.

That's all of that mystery concentrated in one place. Or you can distribute it and you can say things, frankly, I disagree with them, but I think it's a useful belief. I hear from many of my favorite people about how consciousness pre-exists and is somehow inside of matter or something like this.

Panpsychism, my feeling is, well, I don't think literally that can be true, but I think it's a cheat code to access some important stuff. But basic point is, it doesn't really matter whether from the point of view of how you should live your life, it doesn't really matter whether the universe is perfectly explicable in materialist terms with no gaps, or there are jumps, what would be called a strong emergence where there are gaps between this level and that level in which there isn't anything continuous.

I don't believe, but it could be.

This is where I'm a little confused. I mean, I was tracking this and then I heard it doesn't really matter. I thought that originally Weinstein said that he wanted there to be a God. And he just wonders why God won't overcome his rational skepticism.

And yet, when he's faced with a logical argument for the existence of God, now he's saying, oh, well, it doesn't matter. Did you notice that? Now, maybe I cut him off too soon, okay? So maybe he's gonna make a different point, but it seems like he's saying conflicting things in this discussion.

So anyway, none of these things matter in terms of how we should be treating each other.

Can I just ask you a little question then?

Sure.

You see how there are epistemological apexes, don't know how you pluralize apex.

I'm gonna say apices, but it's not a thing,.

I'm pretty sure.

Like where it's like, right, okay, you know, the earth is the center and everything goes right. Oh, no, sorry. Is that the smallest thing is this? No, the smallest thing is that. You're sort of doing another version of that, of like, now we do know, except for the mystery of how all reality rushes out of that sort of moment of the finite.

I would like to think that I'm more sophisticated in the following way. I believe there are elements of our scientific materialist story that are so close to right, that they might as well be. And there are other elements where, for example, in my field, in biology, we are so new to understanding anything about truly complex systems, that most of what we do understand, we understand approximately, it's metaphorical in many cases.

And so the point is

I mean, if it's a metaphor.

Right.

So when I look at the biology that I think I know, if I think about how the immune system functions, what I learned about how the immune system functions, right? I know that a lot of that is a story that if humanity survives, we will one day understand how crude that story I learned actually is.

But that story is good enough to extrapolate from in certain ways, right?

So the point is,.

I know that what I believe is not a map. You know, the map is not the territory. I have a map of the truth and it's pretty crude, right? There'll be dragons is all over that map. So if I know that, you know, that the best I can do is a crude approximation of that world, and that my worldview involves trying to understand more, but knowing that that's a slog and there's only a small distance you can go in a lifetime.

And I hope to live to see important changes. But nonetheless, you know, I am the descendant of chimp-like ancestors trying to make sense of the universe. And that's kind of a heavy lift, you know? So I don't feel like when we discover that we've got it wrong, there's no part of me that's indignant about that, right?

It's like, oh, that's good. That's evidence we're doing the job right.

We're learning.

So now it sounds like Weinstein is comfortable acknowledging the things he doesn't know, given his materialism, which is great, by the way. That is really great. That kind of humility sets the stage for pursuing the truth wherever it leads, as long as you really let that pursuit lead you, right?

And that's key. I think what's happening is a lot of folks, so I'll just, let's set Weinstein aside for a moment, and let me just zoom out and generalize here. I think a lot of folks like to say that they're reasonable and they're rational and they're not led by their emotions, but they don't really have an objective view of themselves.

By the way, has that been your experience? Have you met someone who is truly inconsiderate, disrespectful, arrogant, but they swear that they're the sweetest, kindest, most humble person you know, right?

Have you ever met this person? We know this is true about people. Can't that be the explanation here for at least some, if not all of these types of individuals like Weinstein, who will say, oh, I want there to be a God.

I just don't see any evidence for him. And then you start to go down the path of pointing out what counts as good evidence and what counts as good rational pathways to understanding that there is a God.

And all of a sudden these folks, they're no longer interested. You bring them to a point where they cannot answer given their particular worldview, and then they just shrug their shoulders and they say, oh, well.

Instead of pursuing where these conversations truly lead, which is to the existence of God. So what does the Bible have to say about all this, right? A lot, I think, you know? But interestingly, Jesus struggled with the same problem in Matthew chapter 11 that Weinstein is wrestling with right now.

So in Matthew chapter 11, Jesus had just finished preparing his disciples to go out and teach and preach in their cities when John the Baptist's disciples approached and asked an interesting question.

And this was on behalf of John. So they're basically asking John's question to Jesus. And the question is, are you the Messiah or not? Essentially, okay? So already we're dealing with people who are looking directly at God in human flesh, but they don't see it.

Why?

Well, Jesus defends himself by pointing to his miracles and sort of connecting them to Old Testament prophecy, you know? And he doesn't condemn John at all, by the way, you know, that John would come and ask him this question.

He actually turns to the crowd and he defends John, you know? And in a sense, Jesus also kind of uses this as an opportunity to engage the crowd with their own views about him. You know, he's kind of putting his finger on their own response to his miracles.

He gives a parable that he likens this generation to children who they get upset with their playmates for not going along with their childish games. And what he's really doing with this parable is he's saying that these people are getting upset at not only Jesus, but John too, because Jesus refuses to go along with their expectations, with the social norms that they think are important and that they take for granted.

And then Jesus denounces the cities where he has performed his miracles. Why? Well, because they did not repent. All of these things are connected, okay? It's a lead up to this prayer that Jesus says, verse 25.

I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. So at this point, he's referring to his disciples.

They are the little children. Verse 26. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

Okay.

This totally applies to Weinstein. Remember, he wonders why God just does not reveal himself in a manner that overcomes his rational logical mind. Well, the answer is, it's because the problem is not rationality.

In this prayer, Jesus contrasts two types of people. The wise and understanding, that's the first type. And little children, that's the second type. The father only reveals these things, i .e. the meaning of Jesus' miracles, and I suppose by extension, the identity of who Jesus is.

He only reveals that to little children. So who does Jesus have in mind when he talks about the wise and understanding? Now, remember, the issue was that the people would not repent, right? Even when Jesus performed miracles in front of them.

But this is all connected to the parable that Jesus gave, because the people don't even understand his true identity. You know, they see him commiserating with sinners and they call him a glutton, right?

They call him a drunkard and a friend of tax collectors. You know, that was back up here. The wise and understanding are the folks that refuse to follow him. And why do they refuse to follow him? The clue is in what he calls them.

It's because they think they are wise. They think they have understanding. And because of this, they have placed their trust in themselves and their own wisdom and understanding. Now, here's a pop quiz.

Didn't know that you were gonna have a pop quiz today. Okay, right. What kind of a word can we use to describe someone who thinks they know what's going on? They think they've got all these things figured out to the point where they don't even recognize what's happening right in front of them.

What do we call this kind of person? Arrogant, right? Prideful, maybe is another word, right? Jesus contrasts this type of person to little children. Prideful to a child. And why is that? It's because little children are the opposite.

They're the opposite of prideful. Little children are humble. And when they are corrected, they receive correction. You know who does not receive correction? Adults, grownups, amen, right? Little children, they are, as D .A. Carson points out, dependent on authority.

They love to be taught. Little children, okay? I'm not talking about middle schoolers, come on. So here's the lesson. The reason people rejected Jesus, even in the face of his miracles, is because they trusted their own conclusions and their own expectations about what the Messiah would do.

They trusted their own understanding of what God's word actually teaches. And this blinded them to recognize what God was doing right in front of them. Now, let me say the same thing using different words because I'm gonna make the connection now to Weinstein.

These people rejected Jesus because they were too prideful to let go of their own worldview. And if you think about that, that's what is ultimately required in order to recognize the existence of God and the truthfulness of Christianity, to recognize that the evidence for Christianity is all around us.

We have to let go of our worldview. And I suspect that is exactly what Weinstein is unwilling to do. He's unwilling to let go of materialism and the materialist framework that he uses to understand the world.

I could be wrong, but that's my guess, right? And then he says, well, you know, I don't see how God can exist, right? Of course not. I mean, he's looking for God with the wrong worldview lens. If instead as a truth seeker, right?

As somebody who is truly genuinely seeking truth, Weinstein and folks like him would let go of the materialist framework and they would try on the Christian's worldview. In other words, to truly step into the Christian's framework and just look around, right?

I think that he would see that the evidence that he's looking for has always been there. Psalm 19 one says, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. That's why God says in Jeremiah 29, 13, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

But you know what's required in order for a person to seek in this way, to seek with all the heart, it requires them to remain humble. As Jesus pointed out in Matthew 11, because revelation begins in humility and that requires all of us to let go of our worldviews and to hold them with open hands and to say four magic words that apparently are super tough to say in today's culture.

I could be wrong. I could be wrong about my materialist worldview. I could be wrong about the materialist conclusions that I've drawn about the world around me. And not just to say it is like some kind of a magic phrase, but to truly mean it in your innermost being.

But that is precisely what is required according to the scripture in order for God's revelation to be revealed. Which by the way, I mean, it's, that is the most ironic part about all this whole thing to me, in my opinion, because Weinstein wants there to be a God.

He wants there to be someone who cares about us. I mean, that's what he said right at the outset, right? But where did he get this idea that there could be a God who controls the universe and actually does care about us?

Doesn't he get that from the Bible? I mean, I would imagine that's where he's getting it from. Now, what is the Bible? According to Christians, it's God's special revelation to mankind. So just wrap your mind around this for a split second because this is truly ironic.

Weinstein is using God's special revelation to ask why God does not reveal himself. There's an ancient Jewish saying, and I always mess it up, but it amounts to something like this. You always end up finding what you're looking for.

If your expectations are such that it removes God, don't be surprised when you look around and you don't see him anywhere. That's not God's fault, by the way. All right, those are my thoughts. But hey, now it's your turn.

What do you think? How would you have responded to Weinstein's challenge? How did Russell Brand do? Let me know in the comments below there. If you made it this far, man, you got to join the Patreon community.

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