Tough Questions You Can Answer: Sean McDowell

Sean: What sets Christianity apart is it's not a set of propositions that you just believe, it's a person that you know. And the concern is that there's can be a whole lot of people who grow up in the church, in the faith, who know good theology, but don't know God personally. What does James say? You could even demons have perfect theology, right?

Shelby: Yes, Yes, Yes.

Sean: Yes, so don't be a Pharisee, don't be somebody who just knows all the answers, but doesn't know God personally.

Shelby: Somewhat anxious, always authentic. This is Real Life Loading...

I'm your host, Shelby Abbott, and my guest today is here to help you. A lot of people find themselves scouring the internet to find a resource to go to when they have tough, deep questions about faith, and they don't land on anything solid.

Well, the YouTube channel of Sean McDowell can change all of that. Sean is an apologist, an author, a speaker, and I found that his answers to tough questions are really helpful. But at the same time, they're generous, empathetic, and kind. Today Sean and I are going to talk about why apologetics matter and why we tend to get defensive when people challenge our beliefs.

Then Sean is going to answer some thought provoking questions about God, the Bible, abortion, dinosaurs, evolution, and more. And finally, we'll talk about the importance of knowing Jesus personally, not just knowing things about Him. This is a fantastic conversation with Sean McDowell.

All right, I have been not shy about talking about this at all. I'm a huge sneaker guy, and I've heard that you are a huge sneaker guy times infinity in comparison to me. I'm curious, I know you're probably in your house, are you wearing sneakers right now? And if so, what kind of sneakers are they?
Sean: So, here's my question. Does that make you feel better that I have maybe spent more money on shoes than you have?

Shelby: Yes, it does make me feel a lot better.

Sean: No, I'm not wearing any in my house right now, but there's two, there's three pair in this room I can see in the background. Look around. Yes.

Shelby: I also know that you are a Marvel fan. Is that correct?

Sean: I am a Marvel guy. Yes. With some qualifications now.

Shelby: Yes, I would agree with you. There's been a slight dip in the quality over the last few years. Out of all the Marvel t-shirts that you own, what's your favorite one and why?

Sean: Oh gosh. Probably my favorite Marvel t-shirt would be my Todd McFarland drawn Spider-Man from the nineties. And I think it's because that's when I collected comics in the early nineties.

Todd McFarland, I thought, was an awesome artist. He just exaggerated certain features. It wasn't really realism, but he was the one who first drew Venom in the amazing Spider-Man, 298. I've recently bought two or three Todd McFarland Spider-Man, so they're probably my favorite.

Shelby: Yes, okay, that's cool. I know that there are multiple ways that you communicate good answers to tough questions. So, let's start with this, why does apologetics matter to you?

Sean: That's a great question. Number one, the Bible teaches it. Number two, the Bible models it. We see samples in the Old Testament. Jesus was a kind of apologist.
Paul was an apologist. Some of the first church fathers are actually called apologists defending the faith. It's been a staple of the Christian faith since the beginning.

Now the kinds of questions change, the medium by which this conversation takes place changes. But there are people distinctly with the intent of undermining the Scriptures, undermining the resurrection of Christ, trying to feed a very different narrative and worldview. Part of my motivation is to just speak hopefully, clearly and boldly, what I think is true. So, it matters biblically. I think it matters to our culture. There's people who are seekers who are asking questions and it matters to a lot of Christians. I get daily emails from people who just, either they have doubts and questions and need answers to them, or they write me to say, “Hey, I was teetering on my faith, and I found one of your videos or a book or an argument that you made or maybe heard you speak.” That stuff is just encouraging, and it keeps me going and reminds me that these aren't just views and like these are real people watching this stuff and it really helps.
Shelby: Yes, that's beautiful. Why do you think, kind of dovetailing off that, why are so many, what you might call correct believing Christians or orthodox Christians, the very Christians afraid of others asking questions, why do you think they get angry when they're simply asked probing questions about what they believe?

Sean: Well, so let me take a step back and frame this in a way that hope helps. One of the presentations I do at schools and churches is what I call my atheist encounter.

Okay. I put on glasses, role play an atheist, take questions from the audience, respond as an atheist might. Then after 20, 25 minutes, audiences typically get pretty angry, pretty defensive, and I'll take the glasses off to debrief. And I start by asking a question and I'll simply say, “How do you think you treated your atheist guest?”

And there's this moment where you can see a lot of people's eyes of like, shoot, not very well.

Shelby: Blew it. Yes.

Sean: You got me? And the response will be, I'll ask them, give me one word that describes how you treated me. And some people say respectful. Some people say kind, but by far the most common words are disrespectful, angry, hostile, and I'll ask people why. And what I think surfaces is - if we don't really know what we believe and why we believe it, and somebody presses us, it's human nature to feel cornered and get defensive. A lot of the reason we get defensive is we don't really know what we think and why. Some of that is because we're busy. Some of that is because we're supposed to have an opinion on everything today.

Shelby: Yes.

Sean: But these are issues like the Trinity, the problem of evil, big questions. The historicity of Jesus. We should have answers to those as Christians. But the bottom line point is if we don't have an answer to something and someone presses us, we get angry.

The other thing is, so many times our identities are wrapped up in a particular position and we can't separate them. And I'm not just pointing to the LGBTQ community. This can be true for Republicans and for Democrats and for Calvinists and Arminians and Young Earthers and Older Earthers in whatever label we want to give.

Now there is a sense where if somebody's attacking Christianity, that's my faith. That's the heart of what I believe. And there is a time and place to respond firmly and call people out for just foolish arguments and mistreatment. But I don't think we've done a great job of separating this. Where's the core of my identity? Am I threatened because I have been assigned to be a part of some club? When you challenge an idea, I feel like my whole identity is being threatened.

Shelby: Yes, that's good. And I think if we're intentional enough to separate those things and know that even as Christians, that our identity is completely 100% secure all the time. And that even if we don't know the answer to certain questions, we are not threatened in that specific area as our identity. One of the things I tell college students is, “If you don't know the answer to the question, don't try to make something up. It's just going to be a disaster.”

Sean: There you go.

Shelby: Just go, “I don't know. Let's find out together,” if you can do that in the context of friendship, relationship with people. If you don't know and you're pressed in a situation where you're never going to see that person again, say, “I don't know. That's a good question. I'll work harder to try to answer that kind of stuff in the future.” That's actually a good answer. Like most people don't think that though. You know what I mean?

Sean: I actually think people respect that and will listen. Then when you speak, they'll think, oh, you've thought about this. You have an opinion worth listening to. So, it's great advice.

Shelby: You have a number of ways in which you communicate with your audiences. The short reel, the TikTok video, or the YouTube short, you can really pack a punch in 60 seconds. You cover a ton of different topics on those reels. Dare to say you cover nearly every topic in your videos. [Laughter] As I was researching this, I was like, holy cow. Okay. So, if you need, I guess if you're listening and you need a healthy answer to a tough question, Sean is your guy.

Now I've researched some of your most viewed videos, and we're going to talk about a few of those topics and questions here. Feel free to take longer than one minute to answer though, okay.

So, I'm going to, you know, quote unquote rapid fire as much as this can be rapid. Here's the first one that I thought to have you answer, tackle this one: Can a Christian believe in evolution?

Sean: To answer that, we have to define what we mean by evolution. Evolution is an equivocal word that can mean multiple things. Like the word bat can be flying bat, or a baseball bat. Well, the word evolution can mean change over time. We have the evolution of the Corvette. That has changed over time. We have that kind of evolution in Genesis. There's change over time. Someday there's light. Someday there's not. Someday there's a plant. That's a kind of evolution.

Shelby: Right.

Sean: You might say a term, some call micro evolution, which is change within a kind, so to speak, kind of a horizontal change. I think that's also incontestable when you just look around the world and see different changes within humans or within birds, etcetera.

The other would be what's called macro evolution. Change across kinds, that’s the grand story of evolution. Now, this is where you start to ask the question, can a Christian believe in this? But there's still a difference between somebody who's saying, I believe in common descent, and some God guided process of evolution versus a purely blind, materialistic, purposeless kind of evolution.

That last one is clearly out. If by evolution you mean a completely unguided, blind material process, without foresight, that's out.

Shelby: Okay.

Sean: If you mean common descent and change over time, well that's going to raise tough questions for how you interpret Genesis.

Shelby: Yes. Yes.

Sean: I'm not going to say somebody can't be a Christian because they look at those passages and maybe answer those questions differently. So that is not to undermine the importance of death before the fall, how we interpret Genesis. But the question was, can a Christian believe in evolution? Well, yes if that's our bar, then yes. As long as you believe God is the Creator, how He created is secondary. Vitally important for other reasons, but secondary in terms of salvation in a minimalistic way.

Shelby: Yes. That's super helpful. That's great. Okay, tell me why you said that you experiment with this when you speak? You put on a pair of glasses, pretend to be an atheist. Tell me why you're not an atheist.

Sean: I'm not an atheist because I don't think atheism is true.

Shelby: Okay, why?

Sean: Of course, this is going to depend upon how we define atheism. An atheist will define it differently. Some will simply say atheism is a lack of belief in God. Classically, and some of the new atheists would say, it's the belief that God doesn't exist. I'm going to use that definition of atheism, really referring to naturalism in my response.

Shelby: Okay. All right.

Sean: Is that I'm not an atheist because I don't think atheism in that sense can answer any of the big questions about reality that any adequate worldview that you should answer. Why is there something rather than nothing?
Why is the world fine tuned? The laws of physics and cosmology; where the origin of life came from; the origin of consciousness; the origin of morality; near death experiences. I think other evidences for the supernatural and namely the person and claims and evidence of Jesus.

I don't think there's a good naturalistic explanation for any of those. Yet, I think those positively point towards a mind and namely a God who has specifically revealed Himself in the person of Jesus. So bottom line is we should believe anything because we think it's true.

Now, of course, my atheist friends are going to disagree with me and say, “Sean, that's why I'm not a Christian. I don't believe it.” And I say, “Fine, at least we agree that you should follow what is true and evidence matters.”

Shelby: Now it's time for a Shelby Sidebar on Real Life Loading...

You know, an older friend of mine once explained something to me that really helped me understand more clearly what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. He said something like this, an average person has no expertise on the subject of fruit trees, but how do you know an apple tree is an apple tree? And I responded with by seeing that there are actually apples on the tree.

And he said, right. What I've found over the years is that when it comes to Christians, things are similar. You know the genuine article by the spiritual fruit, generally speaking, where there is no fruit. There is no root. That's what he said, stuck with me. Of course, he unpacked what that meant by explaining that some people can get stuck in cycles of sin or struggling with holiness, and that doesn't mean that they aren't authentic Christians. But in general, he said, if you look at the consistency of a person's relationship with God, the evidence for their authenticity as a believer is spiritual fruit in their lives.

I'm reminded here of the end of James chapter one, when it says that we must be doers of the Word and not hearers only. So in other words, we can't nod our heads during a theologically rich sermon and pay lip service to a thriving spiritual life without actually living a life of spiritual vibrancy. Merely to agree with accurate theology, but not let it shape and mold your life into something that looks different from the world. It's not pleasing to God. I mean, Jesus Himself says in Luke 6:46, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I tell you?” Christ is saying here that to agree with Him and His message, but not live in obedience to Him means He's not truly the ruler of your life. The authentic Christian life is a life of submission to Jesus and His rule, where spiritual fruit is produced in you through loving obedience and worship. Is your life characterized by genuine spiritual fruit? Does it look any different from the other people in your life who don't know God? And if not, why not?

Ask the Lord right now to produce fruit in your life by His grace. Ask Him to transform the head knowledge you might have into real change that you and others can literally see. Ask Him to produce in you a life of fruitfulness that reflects the authenticity of what it means to be a true Christian. It's by grace you have been saved and by grace you live out that salvation, so your life will look different from who you used to be.

We may agree and resonate with good theology. Yes, of course. But if our lives aren't really any different, as a result, we've deceived ourselves about what the Christian life really is. This has been a Shelby Sidebar on Real Life Loading... Now back to my time with Sean McDowell.

Okay, Sean, let's get back into some more rapid fire questions. So how can we know that there is life after death?

Sean: There was a movie in the early nineties called Flat Liners. The point was they were trying to figure out if there's life after death, and they're medical students, so they flatline one another's hearts and they bring them back and say, “Hey, what'd you see on the other side?” Well, it's obviously a morbid experiment, but in principle it makes sense. If you want to know what's on the other side after death, talk to someone who's been there and who can come back and tell us about it.

Now I think there's two ways we can point to this. Number one are near death experiences. I don't mean just any near death experience. I mean, the kind of near death experience where people come back and say, “I saw this. I heard this.” The kind of information they could not have known in that state, and then it checks out. That minimally tells us that consciousness continues after death. That's one route.

The second one, of course, is the resurrection of Jesus. When He says in His final speech in John 14 to 16, I'm going to prepare a place for you to the disciples [and] comes back three days later. If that story really happened, we know there's life after death. So that's two ways that we could point towards confidence in life after the grave.

Shelby: Yes, that’s good. How could biblical figures live for over 900 years?

Sean: Well, there's two basic ways that Christians are going to respond to this. There's in-house debates amongst Christians. One is if God created the world and made us, He could have made us live a million years. He's the one who gave us life and breath, and so it's not like it's hard work for God to do this.

Shelby: Right, yes.

Sean: Right, I mean, from where we sit now and we look back, it seems crazy. No could live to 900 years. Well, I get that. But if God made the world, then people could live that long and if He decided to cut it back, God can clearly do such a thing. That's one response.

Shelby: Okay.

Sean: The other response is to say that those numbers are not meant to be taken in a literalistic fashion and they're symbolic. So, things like Joseph living 110 years, same with Joshua, I believe, is the number of perfection in Egypt. It's saying that Joseph lived what's considered a perfect life by the number of years. Some scholars would point towards these other kings outside of the Bible that live thousands of years and say, “this is not what the Bible's trying to communicate.”

Now, of course, some people would say, “We are not taking the Bible literally.” And that's a whole other conversation, right? Yes. That needs to be had. But I think those who defend that position would say, “If the numbers are not meant to be taken in a wooden fashion and we don't interpret them, then we are actually taking the Bible the way it's meant to be taken and it doesn't threaten inerrancy.” We don't have to flesh that out right now, but that's where that debate would rest.

Shelby: Okay, cool. This is one question I've got a few times. I've been on staff with Cru®. I was doing their campus ministry for 23 years, and I've gotten this question a few times, every now and then, as I'm going out and sharing the gospel, talking to people on different college campuses. How do dinosaurs fit into the Bible?

Sean: Well, you're going to find different answers from Young Earthers and from Old Earthers.

Shelby: Okay.

Sean: You'll notice in a lot of my answers, I just try to give people categories for making sense of this, rather than telling them definitively what they should believe about it. So, clearly Young Earthers who believe the Earth is 10 to 12,000 years old, and they make their case for this, are going to say that dinosaurs lived alongside human beings. They'll point to, for example, it's probably been I don't know a decade plus, where some marrow was found of dinosaurs, that they make the argument, there's no way this could have lasted 65 million years old. And that's an interesting find.

Shelby: Yes.

Sean: So, they would say dinosaurs probably died out in the flood or went extinct as most animals do. Old Earthers would say one to two things, either Genesis, the days are longer periods of time, and so the dinosaurs were created in a day, which could be thousands or millions of years. Or they would look at the Genesis account and say, it's not even giving us a scientific account. It's not telling us how creation happened within itself. This is written a thousand years plus before the time of Christ. We shouldn't read any science into it whatsoever, and so they wouldn't feel a need to reconcile dinosaurs living 65 million years ago; wouldn't take issue with modern dating because Genesis has a different point.

There's more ways to look at this, but that's how Old Earthers and Young Earthers would typically make sense of dinosaurs, broadly speaking.

Shelby: Okay, yes. If there's an age of accountability for children to believe the gospel, if there is, wouldn't it be more, I thought this is a very compelling video that you posted,
wouldn't it be more merciful to kill the unborn if they're just going to go to heaven anyway?

Sean: The Bible doesn't explicitly teach an age of accountability. I think it makes sense and it's reasonable from passages such as, when they're wandering in the desert for forty years, those who are above twenty could not enter the promised land. Those below, like there's certain ways you can piece this together given God's justice and God's mercy. But the Bible doesn't say there is an age of accountability. There's some debate about this. I think it's more reasonable than not and likely, if we're going to go have an abortion based upon a doctrine not explicitly taught, that takes it to a whole other level, number one.

Shelby: Right.

Sean: Number two is the main reason this is wrong is because the ends don't justify the means. This is a utilitarian, Thanos type thinking to be honest. It says we can end certain lives for the result that we want.

Well, humans are not to be used. They are to be valued and loved and living life and having the choice to choose to be with God or not is a good in itself. That we don't have the right, the moral right to take away directly from somebody else.

Shelby: We've done a bit of a rapid fire here. You've got a lot of answers to a lot of questions, but can you explain why it's important to know Jesus personally, for the young person who's listening and not just answers to questions about Him? Why is it important to know Him?

Sean: Well, what sets Christianity apart is it's not a set of propositions that you just believe.

Shelby: Right, yes.

Sean: It's a Person that you know. The heart of Christianity, like in John 17, Jesus says, “This is eternal life that they may know You, the one true God.” At the heart of Christianity, it, broadly speaking, is a religion. But it's a religion in which we can actually know God personally. The concern is that there's can be a whole lot of people who grow up in the church, in the faith, who know good theology but don't know God personally.
What does James say? You could - even, demons have perfect theology. Right?

Shelby: Yes, Yes, Yes.

Sean: It's important to know God, because I think that's what brings contentment in life. There's a sense of peace that comes with that. But it's also what leads to eternal life which begins now, and that's the message of Jesus that He came to save sinners.

So, don't be a Pharisee. Don't be somebody who just knows all the answers but doesn't know God personally. That can happen to a lot of people who grow up in the Christian home, and frankly, probably happened to me for a long time in the faith until I really realized the depth of my own sin and need for a Savior.

Shelby: Yes, and it's important too. We had John Marriott on Real Life Loading and talked to him about deconstruction.

Sean: Oh, cool.

Shelby: We talked about a relative of mine, who from what we could see was a believer raised in a Christian home and in an environment where he knew all the right answers, did all the right things, said all the right things, and then all of a sudden a couple things happened. Then he went on this five year journey of kind of walking away from the faith amidst conversations and love and being in that environment.

I think I settled on the most important question being, what did you think Christianity was at the beginning? What does it mean to have a per, what did the gospel mean to you personally?

Let's go way back to the beginning, as opposed to checking a bunch of boxes that said I was a Christian, [not an] activity. It's personal obviously, and it gets complicated when you're dealing with someone who you know personally. I think it's really important for young people to understand that what it actually means to be a Christian, not just by the things that you do or the things that you say, or the things that you know. But who you are in relation to the living God? What does it mean to be in relationship with the living God, through the person of Jesus Christ? I like that you take it there. I think it's really important.

So this podcast is called Real Life Loading…, which kind of communicates that we're in process. We haven't arrived. We're very much in a state of loading. I want to ask you the question, where is your life currently in a state of loading? Where have you not settled?

Sean: Oh gosh. I've got three kids. My life is just full and ongoing and trying to juggle work and like so many things. I feel like I'm right in the middle of that. So, it's always, how can I find just some peace and some calm and keep focused on what I do and why I do it amidst that?

And if students you feel like, if I just get out of college or just get a job, my life will settle - no chance. It's only going to wrap up. Ramp up.

Shelby: So that's ramp up, not wrap up. [Laughter]

Sean: Exactly, good correction. That is why it's important to build in certain disciplines into your life.

Shelby: Yes. Yes.

Sean: So for me, I like to get up early and I make breakfast and typically listen to some podcasts. What I regularly listen to is on the Scriptures. And I like to just sit there and read the Scriptures in the morning. Now does that always happen? No, it didn't happen this morning because I had to do my daughter's dishes and there's interruptions, blah, blah, blah. But try to build in some disciplines like that amidst the craziness and loading.

Shelby: Mm-hmm.

Sean: Because it's tempting to think, oh, one more project, one more book, one more thing, and then my life will settle. Yes, that's never going to happen. It's like a hamster running on a wheel. So the question is today, how do I build in certain things? That's really the most important question for students to ask, and myself too.

Shelby: Yes, healthy perspective in a number of different ways. Really grateful for you. Thanks so much.

Sean: Thanks for having me really enjoyed the conversation.

Shelby: I love Sean's honesty and willingness to engage in pretty much any topic that's out there. If we're intentional about having a mindset where we're looking to be loving as a first foot forward, instead of being right as the first foot forward, we'll start to see more and more healthy conversations with others who are spiritually curious, and God will use that for sure.

If you liked this episode of Real Life Loading… or thought it was helpful, I'd love for you to share today's podcast with any friend you might have. And wherever you get your podcast, it can really advance what we're doing with Real Life Loading, if you'd rate and review us. It's categorically easy to find us on our social channels, just search for Real Life Loading, or look for our link tree in the show notes.

I want to thank everyone on the Real Life Loading team. You guys make it happen. I'm Shelby Abbott, and I'll. See you back next time on Real Life Loading…

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