Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I was driving home. I can tell you the exact spot on Pennanthills Road in Sydney where I was driving back. And I just remember saying, outside a BMW car dealership, quite, quite suitably saying, all right, okay, if you're up there, then find me, talk to me, show me. It's a pretty arrogant prayer, isn't it? You know, like, as though it was worth dropping everything for the Almighty to come chasing after me. But apparently, apparently it was to him, so that's pretty nice.
But, yeah, I remember thinking, there's a big hole. There's a big hole in all of this, and maybe it's God.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to X Skeptic, where we share unlikely stories of belief from former skeptics and atheists. This is also a place to learn how to engage wisely with the questions that matter most. I'm your host, Jana Harmonic. Whether you're a curious skeptic sorting through your own questions or a Christian hoping to better understand and walk alongside the skeptics in your life, I'm so glad you're here.
If you're new to Ex Skeptic, there's so much more to explore on our website and YouTube channel. Curated playlists organized around the biggest questions people are asking and a conversational AI that helps you explore those questions through specific stories. We even have opportunities to connect with former guests who have walked through through similar paths.
Today I am speaking with Dr. Grenville Kent from Australia.
Grenville is a theologian, filmmaker, and apologist with an unusually broad academic background. He teaches Old Testament and apologetics, and he loves helping people think deeply and creatively about the Christian worldview. But he didn't always believe it. As a young man, he walked away from the faith that he grew up with, convinced it would restrict rather than enrich his life.
In our conversation, you'll hear how that assumption slowly began to change. How unexpected influences, honest questions, and even atheist thinkers played a surprising role in his journey. And how both his mind and heart were eventually captured by the God he was trying to avoid. I hope you'll listen in wherever you find yourself on the journey.
Welcome to X Skeptic Podcast. Grenville, it's so great to have you with me today.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Thank you, Johnny. Great to be here.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Grenville, you're a man of many talents. You're a creative filmmaker, you're an author, you're an apologist, you're a theologian. You have quite the credentialing as an academic. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are? The kind of education and work that you've been involved in the last few years.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Yeah, sure, Jana. I guess the biggest job role I have is of husband and dad.
That's the most fun. Hey.
But in the professional domain, I guess you've sketched it. Filmmaking. I've done documentary filmmaking about an apologetics documentary series.
I've also taught apologetics and Old Testament studies for. What are we now, 15 years or so. And love that. Absolutely love that. From a literary point of view, it's some of the juiciest literature out there. But also obviously from a spiritual point of view, just being able to watch the gospel impact people and just watch people come in skeptical and leave with faith and hope and all that good stuff, you know. And so, yeah, that's that. I also do sort of weekend training and speaking around the traps a bit.
And so, yeah, that pretty much. I also. I've also supervised a few really good young people coming through, which is also very rewarding.
So, yeah, that's about. That's me in a nutshell.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: So, Grenville, I'd love to know your story, because you're sitting here, you. You actually teach apologetics in the defense of the Christian worldview, but you didn't always contend for the Christian worldview. It was not something that you believed. So.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: That's for sure.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah. So I would love to know the arc and the narrative of your story. So let's start back in your childhood. I'd love to just start at the beginning and talk to us a little bit about the home in which you grew up.
Whether or not religion or the Bible or God was any part of your childhood.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Yeah, sure, look, it was. I probably contended against the faith pretty hard for a while there.
My parents were both committed Christians and they certainly wanted that for me. But from about the age, I guess, of 11, I just decided, no, this is nonsense. It's a bunch of stupid rules. I'm not interested.
It's drab. It's life. Destroying it would spoil my fun. As for this afterlife thing, I don't know, whatever. And I guess I just. I've got absorbed by a very secular culture. This is a very secular country, Australia.
We. Yeah, we have sort of a past where Christianity is associated with our convict days and the punishment of some of our first European inhabitants anyway. And it has.
It's perceived, at least by some Aboriginal Australians, to be pretty oppressive of how they've been treated as, well, sort of part of that sad colonialist picture. And so, yeah, it just. It wasn't a cool thing being A Christian when I was a kid and my mum was a very warm hearted, kind, highly conscientious and intelligent woman. I had the absolute love and respect for her. And if you ask me today who's the person that reminds me most of the personality of Jesus by far, it's my mum.
But I was sort of impervious. I sort of had a bit of a boson layer around my head if you like. That just wasn't penetrable in those years. And dad, he was no dummy. He was a classicist and read the Bible in Hebrew and Greek and just was a lay preacher and stuff like that but it just didn't get through. I was just like no. I guess one of the biggest things was that it was it. I just saw it as irrelevant to a joyful life and not something to, that would, that would boost you.
And one of the, one of the biggest areas I guess was sort of the whole party lifestyle. That was attractive to me as a teenager and Christianity seemed to be against anything that was fun. And then also I guess it was all based on faith. It was all based on fairy floss and a pinch of pixie dust and I just, I didn't heard the evidence for it I guess no fault of those around me, I just wasn't interested as a teenager.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a pretty common tale, isn't it, where it just doesn't sound fun. It sounds like it's just going to dampen your life and your lifestyle and it didn't sound true. But even though you weren't given intellectual reasons for the faith, it didn't sound like you were seeking after those kinds of answers to begin with. It was just a reason to, to kind of dismiss were your friends. I, I would imagine if you were brought up or raised as a Christian you had Christian friends, is that right? So you were surrounded by a Christian community.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I did have one friend who since the last year of primary school, elementary school, who, and he's just been a rock. He, he, he got it from that age. He was a sincere, intelligent Christian and he still is, he's still one of my best mates and he got it, he was always rock solid through it all but I sort of thought he was a bit boring even though I liked the guy and I guess, look, it's, it's, we're sort of, I guess a big part of it was sexuality. I thought that Christianity was pretty boring about that. It was like thou shalt not, you know, that was, that was the message that I received rather than Saying that. That the ethics that shape a Christian worldview of sexuality are what produces least anxiety and depression, most enjoyment, most intimacy, most lifelong enjoyment of that great gift.
And I just thought it. That was. That was just one example of the ways in which I thought it was repressive of joy.
And I didn't expect it to be useful in my life. And even though some people I loved and respected were Christians, I sort of thought they were good people in spite of that rather than because of it in any way.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: So you were just seeking freedom?
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I was a hedonist, I guess, without knowing the term. I was an epicurean hedonist. It was about make as much money as you can, spend it on pleasure as much as you can. Because then you die or even you get old, and that's sort of already death in a way. Loss of a whole lot of things, and then that's it.
You've had your 75 trips around the sun and you're done. And so you better have packed it full of as much joy.
Don't let anyone tell you what to do. So I guess that's, in a way, the religion of Western hedonism, isn't it, really? And I was a convert from about age 11.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: So you were rejecting this kind of dullard kind of Christian life. You had a negative perception of what it was. Oftentimes, especially, I think, growing up, you have an idea of what you don't want, and that's not what you want, and you have an idea of what you're seeking after.
But sometimes you. You're not really sure the fullness of what you're embracing. So you move. You moved to freedom, you moved to hedonism, to this, you know, eat, drink and be merry until you die kind of philosophy. So did you understand what.
Or even consider, I guess, what a world without God really means?
And at least for your life, maybe not intellectually, you probably weren't going there quite yet, but. But how did that look in your life? Or did you kind of what that means to live a life?
Yes.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question.
No, I didn't look at the implications of it. I guess I was living off the capital of the upbringing of my Christianity and expecting that life would be good and have a happy ending. Because, I mean, I think that's pretty deeply ingrained, that the idea, you know, you can see it in film. You look at most American films, at least until sort of 10, 15 years ago, and they'd almost all have a happy ending. The national narrative Seemed to me to be all about, if you work hard enough and believe in your dreams, you'll get there in the end. Well, that's Judeo Christian. Whereas you look at French film shaped by decades of atheism, and they were quite happy to do despair. And who says there's going to be a happy ending to everything? There's no guarantees of that. What are you stupid? You might just die young and pretty and smoking a gula in the rain.
And that's just as much an expected ending. A lot of film scholars have said it. You can compare American film and French film. American film has that Judeo Christian narrative embedded in it up until the last 15 years, when secularism, I think, has really beaten and you start to see a whole lot of downending American films coming out. And that's, you know, that is in a way, my answer to your question. Had I considered what it really means not to have God in your life? No, I still had a whole lot of those Christian assumptions that Nietzsche would have rebuked. You know, he was merciless in pointing out, if you don't want the Christian God, you can't have ethics, you can't have hope, you can't have any of those things ultimately in life that we all want. And they're the things that really, I think every human heart wants. However, we, however, whatever our religious belief is, we all want the sense of meaning and purpose and hope and right and wrong and fighting for a big cause that's worthy of our attention. And, you know, and sure, I hadn't thought that through as a teen. I just thought it was kick over a few rules and just live as you wish. But that was what really tricked me when I started reading Atheists.
I got sort of a hint. Jana from There's a famous Australian photographer, Max Dupain, and I was a big fan of his work. He was sort of a cultural figure in this country and a little bit globally. And.
And I read an interview with him in the weekend paper when he was old, and he was a known hedonist. You know, he was a real playboy and a real. He was wealthy, of course, and he had all the toys and all that. And they said, how's it going?
And he goes, well, he goes, food, I can't enjoy food anymore. I've got a tricky heart. And, you know, I can't eat the things I love. And wine, I can't do that anymore. I'm a doctor, has forbidden that. And sex, oh, that was a decade ago.
And, you know, and I'M even my eyes are starting to play up and I can't really see. I mean, imagine, you know, this, this noted artist with a lens, he can't see anymore and he can't hear music anymore. And he's basically saying all the things that have brought me joy are being taken away from me. I remember reading that and thinking, oh man. And sort of denial kicks in. You go, no, no, no, that's not me, that's him. He's a poor old geezer. I'm young. It's all good, it's all good, you know, but in a way, as Schaefer would say, it pulled the roof timbers off my atheism and made me go, face the implications. Buddy, that's going to be you one day.
And yeah, that was a bit of a shock. And I sort of get now, thinking back on that, why Paul in Athens starts by talking about Jesus and the resurrection. Because he's interacting with hedonists, right? He's talking to hedonists in the marketplace, sort of stand up philosophers who are going to pop up and busk their views and he challenges them and he talks about resurrection. Well, now I get why. Because if Max Dupain had a belief in resurrection, he'd say, yeah, I've lost those things for now, but I'm going to go to a place where every pleasure, every good and perfect thing is on offer and in his presence, his fullness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore. And he would have been okay with that. It's a bit of a loss for now. It's a bit sad, but it's not that tearing, searing, absolute destruction of everything that atheism offers. Great.
So yeah, I think your question is bang on the money. That's what I wasn't thinking about.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: So you're rejecting God and Christianity and all that. Would you have considered yourself, would you have labeled yourself anyway, an agnostic, an atheist?
What did you consider yourself to be around those times?
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we had a scripture teacher in the Christian high school that I went to and he was a really subtle, playful apologist and he gave us a grid and it was actually a really good exercise. He put this grid up on the screen and it was like from full on atheism right across to a committed believer. And then he put down other worldviews, pantheism, panentheism, you name it. He just put it all up there, explained what it meant to us and said, where are you?
And I remember thinking, I think I'm probably somewhere like a Like a closed agnostic.
But then I thought, whatever, I don't really care. The whole thing's a joke anyway, so whatever. So, yeah, I'd say it was a sometimes open but mainly closed agnostic. I didn't really use that term to describe myself much, but on that one day I thought, yep, yeah, that's where I sit on that grid.
And he was good. He, he just went through and made the arguments for faith. But I remember being the biggest antagonist, sitting up the back row, you know, with the whole body language thing going on and just saying, oh, but what about this and what about that? And he was so cool. He was, he, he. In a playful, fun way, he, he gave me back really good answers, like he played good tennis. He, he would smack the ball back at me and I'd smack it back at him. And, and he was very affectionate. He wasn't, he didn't treat me like the argumentative idiot who, who subverted all these classes. He treated me with respect, as an interlocutor and as someone who, you know, would debate him. He sort of respected what he saw as my intelligence and he just, he didn't, didn't give me any grief about it. He said, I welcome your questions. And he really did.
So that was sort of an impact.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I think you raise a good point here, is in that even in an engaged, respectful conversation, presenting evidence, perhaps you weren't in a posture, whether physically or even emotionally, spiritually, to receive what was on offer.
And I think sometimes that, that is, that needs to be considered. Right. Because even though the Christian may have the answer, someone may not be willing to engage with it or receive it. I wonder if even during that time of where you were sitting back, arms crossed and you were, you were having this meaningful conversation, the things that he were saying, even though you might have been rejecting them at the time, were, were any of those, did any of those things that he was contending for, did they kind of seep, seep in and stay there or resurface after a period of time? So it wasn't like it was in vain.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: It was like, no, exactly. That's again, a very perceptive question. That's exactly what happened. They sort of sat in the back of my head and I tried to walk around them like awkward furnit, ignore them, but they were, they were there.
And yeah, they, in time they sort of started to influence my thinking. Yeah.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: So during that time where you were rejecting Christianity and the faith and thinking that it was maybe just not something you wanted to believe.
What did you think religion was at that time? I mean, if you had to sit back and say, yeah, I'm not that. What was that, that thing that you were rejecting?
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Rules, really. Ethics, a way of doing life.
To quote a song from that time, Billy Joel, Only the Good Die Young, you know that, that song where he says, you know, Catholic girls start much too late. I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners have much more fun. The sinners have much more fun. That's. That just summed it up for me 100%. What's religion? It's a bunch of rules. And they're, you know, they're nice people and they're. But they're a bit too austere and a bit too sincere about their funny little beliefs. And I'd rather laugh with the sinners and then cry with the saints. Yeah, I guess that sums up my view.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Yeah. No, so, so you were, you were going along, living this life where you were laughing with the sinners, I guess. And how was that life for you? I mean, was that fulfilling? Was it, did it bring you what you thought it would
[00:18:43] Speaker A: again?
Yes, on the surface I got all the, I ticked all the boxes, blitzed my exams and got into the course of my dreams and that was the life, you know, away we go. Okay, this is your ticket to hedonism.
I got into a good law school and I was coming in the top few. And, you know, that's a, that's a passport to, to a good income. And from that, yeah, hey, hedonism, here we come. Okay, but, but on the inside, I just knew there was something missing. And my dear old mum, she'd say to me, she, she'd quote the French philosopher Blaise Pascal, mathematician, genius, you know, the guy, and he, you know, he talking about the God shaped gap, right? And I know that Christians say this stuff all the time and I'd heard it and be like, yeah, yeah, Mum, love you. But that's just, that's one of those Patsy cliches that you come out with, you know.
But I started to wonder if she was actually right. And I can remember one night driving home from a friend's party, he's 21st, and everything had gone right. I had an absolute stunner of a girlfriend, I had really good friends, I had a little business going on the side and I was starting to really get some traction and life, all the boxes were ticked except the fact that the satisfaction levels were just weirdly low. And I'm Thinking, what's going on?
I don't suffer with depression, but this feels something like, of course, the French have a word for it, right? Ennui. Ennui. I was in the middle of that, sort of like, what's going to make this better? And I remember thinking, what if mom and Pascal are actually right?
And I remember saying. I was driving home. I can tell you the exact spot on Pennanthills Road in Sydney where I was driving back. And I just remember saying, outside of BMW car dealership, quite, quite suitably saying, all right, okay, if you're up there, then find me, talk to me, show me. It's a pretty arrogant prayer, isn't it? You know, like, as though it was worth dropping everything for the Almighty to come chasing after me. But apparently, apparently it was to him. So that's pretty nice.
But, yeah, I remember thinking, there's a big hole. There's a big hole in all of this, and maybe it's God.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: When you. After you prayed and you said he wasn't too. It wasn't too much for him to respond.
So how did that look? What do you mean by that?
[00:21:04] Speaker A: You know, looking back, a whole lot of things converged at the same time.
One, I started going to some lunchtime lectures run by these American evangelicals. I didn't. I don't even know to this day who they were or whatever, but at Sydney University, they were running lunchtime lectures, and I just sneak in the back, listen and go out because I didn't want to be, you know, sort of socialized into any church stuff, whatever. I wanted to be arm's length with it all, number one. Number two, my favorite uncle writes to me and he says he actually.
Oh, funny story.
He's a really blunt army surgeon.
He's sort of like a scone. I don't know. He's sort of really crusty and baked on the outside, but on the inside, he's warm and soft. And he was one of my favorite people. Blunt, you know, Blunt as they come. Give me the scalpel. You know, that kind of guy. Yeah. He said to me, he said, gren, you're too nice a young guy to burn. I want you to come to Faith. I want you to be in heaven with me because I really like your company. Please don't burn. I mean, who gets a lot of saying that?
I respected his intelligence so much. We'd had so many discussions because he owned a ski lodge, didn't he? And he would take me down there skiing in the holidays and.
And he would sort of like, just naturally witness to his faith. As we rode up on the chairlift, he'd be chatting about stuff and he. Like, for example, he'd pitch me about biblical prophecy. And he was basically an apologist. I don't think he knew the term, but he was just an intelligent, thoughtful Christian who had reasons why he believed things and he would tell you. And I respected him so much that when he wrote me that letter, it actually had an impact. It actually had a big emotional impact. And I actually started reading the book of Proverbs, thinking, okay, well, that's practical life advice on how to get rich. That's where I'll start. Cool. No problem. And I started reading that. Then I got interested in a particular girl who went to a church and I dragged along with her, and there was a really good, intelligent preacher there. And I just remember that really connected with me. So all these things are going click, click, click, click, click at the same time. I'm not seeing it. The issue of sexuality was a sticking point, right? Like, if I did do this Christianity thing, that would mean just a boring marriage and, you know, like boring pajamas and all that. That whole scene, just. Little did I know, right? But. But that's what that would mean. And I remember I went.
This girlfriend of mine, she was.
She was ushering at the opera house and in Sydney for a job, and I was just waiting around to go out on a date with her afterwards. And there was a film screening downstairs in the Opera House in this little theater down there. And it was about. It was called the Lives of Porn Stars. And I thought, okay, I've got two hours to kill. I'll go down there and watch this film.
And I started. I watched this film and it was showing these women as people and showing the massive impact that working in the sex film industry had on their psychology.
And it was. It was all about how tough it was. I remember thinking, why is it. Why would sex be like, you can play tennis for a living with your body, with someone, and that doesn't have profound psychological toll on. Take a toll on you. So why does sex? And I just started thinking about it, and it just. It really helped my worldview because it basically said, you're not just a body, sunshine, you're a soul as well. And your soul is involved in any contact you have with another person in that way. And it's either going to be good for you or it's going to be profoundly damaging. And I'd never really thought about it like that before. And that that film, secular as it was, had a big impact on the whole way I thought about sexuality and then blow me down. I go to university and this guy I knew there, he was a university chaplain and a pastor, and again, I got dragged along to a lunchtime meeting of his and he did this thing called the Seven Myths of the Sexual Revolution. And he went through and he just unpicked some of the secular nonsense of the secular worldview. And he showed that it just didn't match psychology.
And I remember thinking, okay, and all of these things are happening around the same few months for me. And I'm just thinking, okay, I asked you to show yourself and look at this, look at this.
Yeah, and there's a whole lot of things all just sort of converging on me. It's almost like I'm being targeted with all this truth and love and encouragement and stuff. And it's like I asked, didn't I? And that whole thing of, you know, taste and see and if you seek me, you'll find me. You seek with all your heart. I wasn't seeking with all my heart, but you know, I'd given him the. I'd opened the door this much and it's like God was like, all right, I'll jump through the crack and I'll, I'll talk to you. And I'm like, okay, okay. This is so. So I guess to put it simply, Jannah, there's.
There was the intellectual side of it was starting to stack up, the evidence was starting to build up for me. And also at a personal level, I felt a hunger for meaning and the old God shaped gap and those all started to happen at once. And I thought, okay, yep, there's something going on here.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: So when all of those pieces started to converge on you and they were coming your way, what then did you do to kind of initiate on your own? Did you, you were going to church with your girlfriend or perhaps did you open the Bible? Did you start pursuing or.
You obviously had prayed to God at that initiating point, but what did it look like on your side as you were moving in the direction of God?
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Well, I'm a bit embarrassed to answer that question.
For me, it, it began by me going and reading a bunch of atheist books and trying to poke holes in this faith. Trying to be a bit of a doubting Thomas and see if I could, you know, poke loopholes in it. My uncle invited me to do that.
And so I read Bertrand Russell and I read, I think Philip Adams, a well known Australian atheist, was out by then. His book, Adams vs God. Maybe that was a bit later, I'm not 100% sure, but I was certainly reading these people and to be honest, I was expecting them to just hit me like a bulldozer and knock my sort of budding faith over, you know.
But it was like being hit by a feather. I just remember reading their arguments and going, is that your best punch?
Really?
And I've got to read you the chunk that really got me. It's out of rust. I don't want to mess up the quote. I sort of half know it. But he says that. He says, what do you believe? And he says, I believe that man is the product of causes which had no pre vision of the end they were achieving. That his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave.
And that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion or the inspiration or the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system. And that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.
Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth safely be built. How depressing. I just remember thinking all that we've done, all of human genius, medicine, art, law, science, you know, music, it's all going to go in the bin and no one gives a damn because there's nobody out there anyway. That's so insulting to what being a human being is like. And how do you, how do you live like that? And he says, well, hedonism and free love. Old Bertie Russell was a. Was a big advocate of free love. In fact, I learned that he want. They wanted him to come and teach in New York. And the New York and America just said, no way. We don't want this immoral atheist coming here. This is in the 30s or 20s. He teaches free love and it cost him that posting. But, but he did all that stuff and it's like he left behind a whole lot of suicides of women that he had had affairs with and stuff. And it was just when you look at his life and you read his biography, which I did, depressing. And he says, people said, how do you cope? He says, well, what else is there to make life tolerable? We stand on the shore of an ocean crying to the night. And the emptiness. Sometimes a voice answers out of the darkness, but it's a voice of one drowning. And in a moment, the silence returns. The world seems to me quite dreadful.
The unhappiness of many people is very great, and I wonder how they all endure it. The life of man is a long march through the night, tortured by weariness and pain towards a goal that few can hope to reach and where none may tarry long.
And I just read that and I just went, if that's the best you've got to offer, I'm out. I'm resigning my membership of the Church of Agnostics and I'm just out of here, because that's one of the most intelligent atheists of the 20th century telling me it's all pointless. What an insult. Who wants that to be true? Now, I know that doesn't prove that there is a God, but it does prove that atheism is just an unsatisfying philosophy.
And I thought, if that's what one of the best evangelists of atheism is telling me, thanks for being honest, Bertie. I'm out of here.
It sounds weird to say, but it was. Reading atheist books, it actually really made me think, no way, I don't want that.
[00:30:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's really, I think, a very courageous and intellectually honest thing to do, is actually go look at the literature, go look at the worldview for what it is before you reject it. And so you were willing to do that with atheism and you were being drawn by the God of Christianity, so you're deciding, yes, that's not it. So, but is the God of Christianity Is. Is Jesus Is. Is that it? Is. Is. Is he the one who's going to give you everything that you were.
As you said, the human heart longs for all those things that were coming up empty in your mind and in your soul and in your heart.
You were willing to, I guess, then turn to see again whether or not God and Jesus had to offer what they had to offer. Was that it? I presume you started then making steps in that direction. And what did that look like?
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Yeah, it looked like chatting with the uni chaplain who had. Who had done the talks. It looked like I actually stuck around after some of those meetings and talked to those people and just pushed my questions into the discussion and they, they were comfortable, they just answered them or, or suggested places to read and, you know, they were brilliant apologists, actually.
It also looked like heading along to church with my mum, who was turning cartwheels of happiness. That, yay, my son's back.
She was trying not to show it, right. She was trying to be, but I
[00:32:02] Speaker B: know it so well.
[00:32:03] Speaker A: She was like, woo hoo. So that was, that was really cool.
But only because.
So I was trudging along to church and thank goodness there was a, a preacher there who taught the scriptures faithfully and who every day, every time you went, it wasn't about rules, it was about the love of God for faulty people.
And that just sort of soaked into me, you know, that whole gospel truth of the fact that buffeads and sinners and doubting Thomases and you know, fools can have a friend in Christ. I just thought, oh that's, you know, it's, it's hard to, it's. Who wouldn't like that? Who wouldn't want that, who wouldn't want that level of grace and kindness from, from a big hand in the sky? I mean, that's just. Yeah. So that idea just really started to assume importance in my, in my psychology, I guess, you know, became, became the number one thing. I still, I must have told people about that, I don't know, tens of thousands of times in the decades between then and now. And it never bores me, it never gets old, that one, you know, the grace of God for sinners.
And thankfully I found a preacher who was emphasizing that every single time.
Yeah. And so, and yeah, I did start to read the Bible.
I started to. My uncle started corresponding with me quite a bit and we, you know, he was a big influence and.
Yeah, and it just all started to the point where I just started, I bought this big old camel choking black Bible, King James.
I just started reading the pages off the jolly thing and loving it. And it just started to, I guess, seep into my DNA really.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: So your worldview and, and your personal world, it all started to coalesce. It started to make sense.
[00:33:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: If there, if there's a God, then, you know, life could be joyful, not, not just rules, not just. Yeah, but, but you could have the fullness of life that Christ promises.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: And not, not only the fullness of life, but also satisfaction of the mind that it's true.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: So it sounds like you became convinced heart, mind, soul, that.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I guess once I had intellectual permission that it was true, I allowed myself to become emotional about it. That's, that's how I am. I'm a, I'm a T. Personality. If you believe in, you know, those, those. I'm not an F. I'm not feeling driven so much. Although I do have a deep emotional life, but it's like you convince my brain first and then my heart will come along and I guess that's how God got me.
Yeah, and I think a good apologetic has both. Hey. In it. It has, and it's also, it also has a social side of belonging somewhere.
And that started to come as well.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: So how would you say your life in Christ? Or how was your life transformed? Or what is life in Christ? What does that look like for you?
[00:35:01] Speaker A: Yeah, good question.
For me, I guess it means trying to give that same joy to others. It means if I've just discovered the best thing in the universe, which I believe I have, then I would be a selfish idiot if I didn't want to hand that on to other people, not push it down their throats, but at least offer it as an attractive and convincing alternative to the mainstream, off the rack secularism that is in every university and media outlet, pretty much in the West.
And yeah, it's been about that. I got a big sense of wanting to get better at knowing God and explaining it to others and so trotted off to Bible college. Not that I'm suggesting everyone has to do that. I think there's major value in other people developing an apologetic in their area. You know, if I, I know some, I know some, you know, if I'd stayed in law, I know some lawyers who have made a fantastic. In fact the chief magistrate of the state where I live in a little while ago, he was a well known Christian and when he gets up and talks about evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, people listen because he knows all about evidence.
And you know, I know I've got a friend who's a professor in brain science and when he talks about design of the brain and the cells and the, all of that and how it all wires up, people listen because. So I think it's possible to take any field of learning and make it a ministry. You know, if I'm working with my wife right now, she's a, she's an orchestra conductor and music academic and we're working on unapologetics of music because I think it's all in there.
Like music is based on maths. What the heck is math doing in, in a universe that is completely just random particles buzzing around? Well, it wouldn't make sense. The, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics as, as Vigner put it in a famous paper in the 60s, can be seen really clearly through music.
Great. That's, you know, there's a musician making her apologetic and giving her Reasons for the faith that is in her.
But for me, it was. I just felt a sense of.
I'm cautious with these claims, Janet, but I actually think I heard God say, I want you to go and preach and teach for me. And I was like, okay, all right. My mates from law school, they just said, what the hell are you doing? Like, what's going wrong with you?
You're going off to some weird Bible college. I was like, yeah, I am. And they would come and they'd visit me there, and they'd meet the people I was hanging out with, and they'd be like, they're so weird, but good weird. And I'd be like, yeah, well, that's it. Good weird. I'll take that.
Because they have a completely different view. I remember one of them, he said, yeah, they're weird, but they're good weird.
Well, yeah.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: Yeah, that's not such a bad thing now.
Yeah. I love the way you're framing this here. And is that it seems that so many different aspects of reality point to the reality of God.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: And you have written a book called God Walks into a Bar.
And.
And in that book, you. You discuss different aspects of reality that. That are grounding this. This belief in a God who is actually there.
Can. Can you just for a minute talk about what you say in that book, the kinds of things that you cover for people who are interested and are curious about this concept of different aspects of reality pointing to the reality of God.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: If God indeed made the world in some sense, then you'd expect it to have some kind of hints and fingerprints of his creatorship. And one of them would be that it would be well designed. And it sort of hits me, you know, here we are, we're on this planet, okay? Gravity is just exactly right for us. If gravity were three times, four times bigger, we couldn't live. If it was smaller, we'd float off. Our atmosphere wouldn't stick on this planet. We wouldn't have anything to breathe. And that wouldn't last long. And we. We happen to be on a planet that just happens to have an iron core, a lot of iron down there in its core.
And that just happens to have a magnetic field. And without that, we would have died. Our ancestors would have died long ago because of the bombardment from heavy particles from the. The big nuclear bomb, that is the sun, which, by the way, happens to be just the right distance away from our planet. And if it was one degree closer, we'd fry.
One degree further, 1% rather further away, we would freeze and we don't cop this heavy nuclear radiation from the sun. The particles don't hit us because our magnetic field just bats them away. Unless you go up to the northern lights, the aurora borealis, and then you see those particles whizzing by and it's sort of like a reminder of how close we came. And there's dozens of examples of how the planet is really fine tuned for human life.
So that's one of the chapters in the book. So I sort of COVID that and go, well, okay, given that it is fine tuned, you can explain that two ways. You can say, yeah, well, of course it is, because otherwise we wouldn't be here.
And that's sort of the atheist counter where they go, well, of course everything went right for life on this planet, you idiot, otherwise we wouldn't have life on this planet. There's nothing remarkable about that. But you go, hang on a minute. If, for example, if you went and faced a firing squad and there were 12 soldiers with guns shooting at you and bang. And then you discover that you've survived, would you say, oh, of course I've survived. If I hadn't survived, I wouldn't have survived. There's nothing remarkable about that. No, you'd say, what the heck just happened? How is it that I'm alive?
And I think we should be saying that to ourselves every day on this planet. Like we should be surprised that things are going so well, because the odds of it happening, one in something like all the number is one in the number of atoms in the universe times 100 million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion.
That a lot of those. Someone worked it out. I've got it in the book there. So the odds of that going right on its own are just astronomically tiny.
So that should be a clue. Does that prove there is a God? No, but it certainly is a big hint towards intelligence. Does it say which God?
No, but it certainly points towards one that is brilliant and powerful and obviously kind. Otherwise, you know, why would they bother?
So I think you can get a lot of clues from nature. And that's one of the things that, that I get into also cosmology. The other thing is like, why is there anything at all? Why? Why did what and what started the universe? I know the standard answer, the Big Bang. Cool. All right, if we take that model, what caused that to happen? Where did all the energy and all the stuff, all the matter come from?
If there ever was nothing in the universe, then there would always be nothing.
Unless somebody made something appear. It's Pretty simple.
And I'm not just like I've interviewed, I think probably the best atheist there is on that topic, Lawrence Krauss. He's written a book, A Universe from Nothing, as you would know.
And yeah, he sort of magics when he says there was nothing. Oh well, there was a whole lot of quantum fluctuations and there are all these laws of physics and all those things that means nothing. It's like, no, that's not nothing.
Those things deserve an explanation as well. So I sort of try to make the case from cosmology that there is a God.
Then I put a couple of chapters in on the argument from consciousness and that's. I love that one. It's so hard to, to express it.
But when you click on the fact that here's a physical table, it's never going to be conscious. And yet somehow the physical stuff, the hundred billion little gray cells inside my noggin here, actually have this ability to know and to feel and to experience and to have qualia and to know the joy of being in love, or the sadness of losing a friend, or the feeling of surfing down the face of a wave and getting, or whatever it is we have experience.
And my phone, however smart it might be, is not smart enough to do that.
It can give me the football score and show me that my team has lost again, but it doesn't know the feeling of that. It doesn't know the experience.
And yet somehow we have this magic power.
And science has been promising to explain that for decades, but still we're nowhere nearer. In fact, we probably realize that we're even further away from any explanation for that. And there's a whole bunch of evidence, I think, that a human being is more than just a physical thing. There's a lot more to us. We have a non physical part. We have a.
Call it a spirit, call it breath, call it a soul.
Different religions, different philosophies see it differently, but I think they're all saying, hey, there's more to us than just cells.
And if that's true, well then there are non physical realities out there. And if that's true, well, maybe there's a God. And that would seem to point in that direction. So I love that argument. I give that one two chapters and things like on that there's a Mayo Clinic study I found that says or article that says it's possible by choosing humor to make yourself more physically healthy. You go, okay, that's nice, but hang on, just think about what we just said there.
If you're a Materialist, all you've got is a physical self. You're just a bunch of particles whizzing around by the laws of physics and a lot of them have congealed up in your brain and they're doing what they're doing, buzzing around by their laws. Now, I don't know how that produces any kind of logical thought. And C.S. lewis, as you would very well know, his spilt milk jug analogy, I think makes that point really powerfully. Why would you expect random brain cells following a random process to generate anything like logic or thought or experience?
It just makes no sense.
But this, this study, it says if I choose happiness and you know, choose, choose humor, I can affect my physical health. Hang on a minute. So what we've got there is my non physical choice is affecting my physical body.
That's a big one.
They've just opened a big crack in the, in the materialist worldview there, because that shouldn't be the case. It should be that the body drives everything that goes on in the brain and that the mind is just sort of some kind of emergence from that. But no choices that I make in my thinking can actually react positive towards my physical self. That's a big insight. And so some of those things that I unpack.
What else?
We look at the question of suffering. I find that the biggest blocker, of course, to faith. And as you would well know, Jana, it not only smashes people emotionally, but it also and sort of rips the joy out of their life, but it also sort of gives them a big intellectual question of why would a kind God allow that to happen? And I try, you know, I try to hear both sides of that and give a Christian answer based around the concept that Plantinga gave us of God wanting there to be love in the universe. Love requires freedom. So God gave us freedom and, and the rest was a result from that, but he has a plan to fix it through the cross, et cetera, et cetera. So I make that one predictably. Then we get into the morality argument. Put very simply, you know this better than I do. But to put it really simply, I just argue, okay, is there something that is always wrong? And I choose, without wishing to be insensitive or controversial, I choose rape as an example because that's never, ever, ever, ever going to be right. Okay, we just found something that is always wrong. Okay, well what do we base that on?
Well, we can't base it on nature because sadly, rape is very common. Forced copulation is very common in biology. It gives the male an advantage in handing on his DNA that who cares about the woman from his point of view.
So we can't invoke biology there. Oh, okay, maybe societies. No, there are plenty of societies that have rape as part of their.
Sadly part of their ordinary behavior.
Even in the judicial system, they use it as a punishment. So you go, well, you can't base morality on society.
What else? Maybe I could base it on my own personal views. Yeah, but what if I have absorbed a whole lot of rape myths? What if I've watched a lot of porn and absorbed the rape myths that all women always wanted, even if they say they don't, et cetera, et cetera. And then I can't trust individual, the individual's conscience as a source for morality. Therefore, that leaves us one option, and that is God.
A good God who cares about all his children would be a logical basis for that kind of morality.
And if you say there's no morality, well, you go down a slippery slide where you could say you can't actually make the statement rape is never right.
And so, yeah, it seems to me that you sort of have to. I love that argument. It's just, to me, very convincing. And Lewis, as you know, deploys it really well in mere Christianity and places like that where he just goes, we know there are things right and wrong, we can't find any other source for them other than a good God. So there's a good God.
And then, and then the last chapters look at the evidence for Jesus and we sort of finish with, with the, with the best part of the meal, which is first of all that, that he appears in non Christian history. There's a surprising number of Roman and Jewish historians who say, yeah, he died.
Yep. At the time the Bible says, and people said that he rose again.
And the whole thing is sort of repeated in secular history.
Secondly, we look at the predictions. One, that's the one my uncle started me on. I was telling you about that before. We look at the evidence for messianic prophecy and just go, what are the odds that people could sit down hundreds of years before and predict all these details about a figure of history that then come true? There's gotta be something going on there that's more than human.
Then we look at Jesus and afterlife, the four agreed facts about that.
And then finally we sort of say, okay, how do we interpret those four facts?
That was a long answer. Sorry, but that's the book in a nutshell.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: No, no, that's wonderful. I think there are probably a lot of people listening who may not be familiar with a lot of those arguments. And it's just, it's fascinating like even for your wife to have an apologetic through music or from music, you know, is, or that it's maths grounded. And then you, you can just go down the rabbit hole and go, okay, how do you know that? And how, how is math so elegantly formed? And how does it match with reality? And you know, it's everywhere you turn. I think sometimes you, there has to be an explanation and it seems like the best explanation that you can find as well. There has to be a transcendent source that provides, you know, what we need. And, but there are those certainly who are, who are curious and who are thinking, you know, I, whether intellectually things I, they want things to make sense in their lives or existentially, they want things to have meaning. They want things to, to feel satisfying.
That the hedonistic life or the, a pleasure seeking life or like you say, whether, or whether it's Nietzsche or Russell, there is nothing there for you. If you look deeply in a worldview without God, there is, there's not anything there except for despair. If you go to the end of the road there and if someone was listening and they, they can hear the joy in you and your passion for your faith and they would love to take a step forward for you it was a prayer of okay, if you're there, you know, show me. But you, you were willing to take that step.
How would you encourage someone who is at least, the least bit curious as to, to what they should do in, in terms of how to investigate or if they're curious enough to look a little bit farther?
[00:51:34] Speaker A: What a great question. I guess I'd say try the devotional experiment.
Try in your way, if you want to say to the sky, okay, if you're out there, I'm sort of open as much as I can be, so please show me. And then I'd say put the time in. Like don't just dismiss it as some sort of Disney ified pixie dust sort of hahaha sort of thing that people believe when they're about to die just to make themselves feel better. Look for the intellectual underpinnings. If you're a nerdy kind of person and I use that term with great love, then, then read like dig a bit and really read a bit around some of these issues or, or get on YouTube and look at some of the great Christian apologists. I'd list. People like William Lane, Craig, John Lennox, you know, there's, there's there's dozens of those guys out there who, and obviously you know your network as well, the stuff you do. There's plenty of evidence in there. You've got interviews, I only watched a few of them. But you've got interviews with people who make the case very, very well. They don't have to go far from your channel to find evidence for this.
And I just say it's worth it, have a look at it. And also don't be afraid to look at the competitive product of atheism and go, how's this going to go for me?
Because I can't find one atheist who says that they're really happy they're an atheist. They just say yes, it's pretty tough, but well, it's the truth and we have to man up and woman up and just face it. And you go, well, okay. But I'm not sure it is the truth. It makes these big intellectual claims. I guess I'd say too, don't be afraid to be different just because the majority of people in my country are skeptical and cynical about religion.
With some good reason, I must admit, I'd still say don't be afraid to think for yourself.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: Yeah, you certainly were not afraid to go your own way out of law school towards Bible college, you know, because for you it was obviously the right path.
That, that's good advice, good advice. And when I'm, I'm, you're also speaking to an audience of people.
They're Christians, they're believers and they have skeptics in their life and they may be resistant, they may be open, they may be anywhere in between.
And when I think about the influence of Christians in your story, of course there, you're, you're wonderful. Obviously you're blessed with incredible parents who loved you, who prayed for you, who wanted, who wanted Christ for you. I also think of those really excellent examples of apologists in your life, whether it was your, your teacher there or those who were putting on the, the forums at your college and were willing to engage in meaningful and intellectual ways and respectful ways that they were prepared and they were articulate, they knew what they believed and why they believed it and, and were bold about it. For, for those of us who are Christians and, and want to engage meaningfully like that, do you have any words of advice or wisdom for us?
[00:54:36] Speaker A: Well, certainly not from any platform of, of superiority. But I just, you know, one of the biggest things to me is just that I just try to take the apostles advice where he says be always ready, do your homework, think it through, and I don't find that hard. I find it mostly enjoyable to dig into the evidence. Don't be afraid to let the evidence go either way. Look at the arguments against, with just as much fairness of mind and try to say, okay, these are not stupid people. These are not bad people. These are just people who haven't found God yet and often for good reason.
So I think respect is due to the young or old person who has the counter arguments against, against faith. And I think they're worth listening to and taking seriously.
I think the more we listen to those, look, it's, it's not going to rock us. It's not going to shatter our foundations. If, if it's true, if Christianity is true, it won't, it won't wobble us off.
I'd have to say too, I'd probably say oftentimes my uncle used to say to me, he said, disguise it however you want. The main cause of doubt is love of sin. This is my blunt surgeon uncle, you know, who had a tongue like a scalpel at times. He could really cut through the issue. But he sort of, when I looked at it, that was true with me. I wanted the hedonism, right? So I didn't want God getting in the way of my hedonism.
But he said, disguise it however you want. The main cause of doubt is love of sin. And I was just going, darn it, he's right.
I think that's often the case and people are sort of addicted to their favorite little sins, hoping that that will bring happiness. Ultimately. I think God's trying to reveal to us that, no, I know because I made you, that's not going to work for you. That's not going to make you happy and satisfied and those around you as well. It's going to have a bad effect on them. So there's reasons for all the rules, if you want to put it that way, and I think to moral apologetics, especially this day and age. Janet, we are in this country and I know in Britain and the US and Canada, we've got a major issue in the area of sexuality, where we're seen as bigots and haters and we don't care about the welfare, particularly rainbow people.
The God I know and love does care about all his children. And I think his advice is timeless and brilliant. We've just got to do a better job in terms of explaining why and not just giving the reasons, but doing it with gentleness and respect. I think that's a real challenge for the church generally.
And to do it consistently. I mean, that Peter text, he's saying, if they want to knock you for your bad behavior, no, live a life where they just can't reproach you.
And you show the kindness and the integrity of Jesus to people, that will make your case even stronger. So I'm not dishing out advice to anyone who am I? But that's what I try to live by. That's what I try to look at and do and be.
And I think that's a real hotspot for the church at the moment.
[00:57:50] Speaker B: I think you're very, very right about that.
I've loved our conversation, Grenville. I just enjoy your humor. I love the Australian nuances that you bring, the little phrases. But most of all, I love that you obviously have had a life where you have pursued truth, you've pursued the person of Christ in an intellectual way, but you've also obviously been satisfied in an existential way. You are, again, a wonderful example of what it looks like to live a life in Christ, satisfied in every way through what he is offering. And I think that's what I keep hearing from you too, is that there's, there's so much that God offers that Christ offers, that life is really full in him, no matter how much we try to avoid or we are pursuing other things.
It really is. It's. Christ is who our heart is really longing for and our mind can be satisfied by and can give us that eternity of hope, no matter what's going on in our life.
I, I just love that, that you have presented even a fully orbed apologetic just in so many different ways. Thank you so much for coming on Grindel and sharing with us. I just, I know so many people are going to enjoy, not only enjoy listening to your story, but really hopefully you've put a lot of seeds in their mind of things that are going to ruminate, that they're going to think about and be inspired by and even move towards God because of.
So thank you so much for coming on.
[00:59:43] Speaker A: Absolute pleasure. And thanks for what you do, Jana. I think it's really important.
I've watched a lot of you and read, you know, not all, but a lot of what you do. And yeah, just want to say good on you, as we say in Australia, and good on you, mate, and, and keep going. Yeah, thank you.
[00:59:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. Thanks so much, Grenville, for sure.
Thanks so much for joining us for this conversation with Dr. Grenville Kent. His honesty about trying to avoid God and discovering that God was already moving in his direction may resonate with you or someone you love. For some, avoiding God feels safer than facing the questions. For others, it comes from past hurt or or simple indifference.
Wherever you or the people in your life find yourselves, I hope today's story offered both clarity and hope.
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If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate, review and share the podcast. Your support helps these stories reach others who may be seeking or questioning. X Skeptic is a podcast of the C.S. lewis Institute and as always, special thanks to our producer Ashley Kelfer for her faithful work behind the scenes. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time when we'll hear another unlikely story of relief.
