Talking with the Philosophical Muser

Join Kirk and Sheldon as they discuss philosophy and spirituality with James Knight.
https://www.youtube.com/@jamesknightphilosophicalmuser 

Creators and Guests

Host

Kirk Durston

Scientist, philosopher, clergyman, outdoorsman, husband to the Queen of Hearts and father to six young adults.

Host

Sheldon Kotyk 🇨🇦

Father and Husband. “Fantastic and terrible in equal measure.” Probably not being serious.

What is Quest with Kirk Durston?

Kirk is a philosopher, scientist, husband, and a legit Christian. His podcast is mostly about exploring assumptions and questions pertaining to God, philosophy, science and life that he ponders about, hence the name Quest with Kirk Durston.

Kirk wants you to join him on that Quest or perhaps you're on your own quest about such matters and you can explore together.

All right.

Good morning, Kirk.

How are you?

Morning, Sheldon.

I'm doing well.

I'm up in Northern Ontario today,

not in my usual little studio back home.

But the weather's gorgeous, blue sky,

the brilliant fall leaves are just

something else.

And I have a coffee here,

as you can see.

So life is good.

Very nice.

Doing good, doing good.

You're at a conference.

Yeah.

A Paul Jennings conference.

And any famous people show up?

Well, actually, Wes Huff was there.

He was one of the speakers.

He spoke twice.

Wes Huff.

Nobody knows who he is, though.

He is.

And I think a lot of the people

at the conference came because they found

out Wes Huff was going to be there.

Excellent, excellent guy.

Former colleague of mine.

And just a really go-to guy when it

comes to ancient biblical manuscripts.

All right.

Well, we have a special guest today.

I'm going to bring James in here.

Welcome, James,

all the way from the little island above

France.

Yeah, I guess that's right.

That's how you guys consider your your

country over there.

We're just like we're the hat on top

of the US.

And so that's the fifty first state,

depending on who you're talking to.

all right so uh yeah so kirk uh

lead the uh way with introductions here

and then we'll get into that uh so

james uh james uh knight has a blog

called the philosophical muser and uh i've

read some of his stuff listened to some

of his stuff and i thought this would

be a good guy to have and especially

some of that perspective that you have

james uh you know from an economics

perspective even

Today, we might talk about left brain,

right brain,

and how it affects different stages of

your spiritual journey.

And so James,

why don't you tell us a little bit,

first of all,

just a little bit about yourself,

so that we get to know you personally.

And then I'd like to find out more

about your own spiritual journey.

But just for right now,

just tell us about yourself.

Yeah, thank you.

It's good to be on the show with

you guys.

So my name is James Knight.

As Kirk said,

I have a blog called The Philosophical

Muser.

I live in a city called Norwich,

which is quite near Cambridge.

And I'm married to my wife, Sasha,

and we go to a local gateway vineyard

church.

I've written eleven books to date,

and they're all in Word documents at the

moment.

I'm about to try to get some of

them published,

and I'm currently building up my profile

online and trying to get some interesting

discussions happening and some making

videos,

and I've been blogging for since twenty

twelve.

So that's that's the most successful

following I've got at the moment on the

Philosophical Muser blog.

I've also written some articles for the

Adam Smith Institute,

which is a think tank in the UK,

economics and politics think tank.

And I also write for a local church

website called Network Norfolk,

which is a shared site for all the

churches in the area.

So, yeah,

that's a brief preview of my journey and

who I am.

Well,

I was going to ask you if you

had any special interests or hobbies,

but by the sounds of things with all

your writing,

that would be your special interest and

hobby there.

You probably wouldn't have room for other

things like fishing or hiking.

No, I enjoy cycling and I weight train.

As you can imagine,

I love reading and I'm interested in

people and I'm in leadership in my church.

So yeah, it's a very busy life,

but a really fulfilling one and it's

always exhilarating.

Yeah.

So we,

I was particularly interested in your

article on the five stages of your,

of a person's spiritual journey.

So I assume there's a context to having

written that and the context,

a good chunk of that would be your

own spiritual journey.

So why don't you just tell us a

little bit about your spiritual journey?

Yeah, thank you.

I've had an interesting life,

and one of the books I've written tries

to document this.

So next year I turn fifty,

and at that point I will have spent

half my life as a non-Christian and half

as a Christian,

and obviously fifty is a very round number

as well.

So I tried to make that a thematic

for one of the books.

So it's part apologetics and part

testimony and my journey.

I've had a lot of experience in life

not believing.

I wasn't an atheist.

I wasn't a Christian.

I had a very traditional upbringing and in

a very good home.

And my main issues with religious faith at

the time was that I...

I thought that they were probably all

man-made constructs.

I was pretty sure that most of them

were.

But for me,

it was clear that it was going to

be unbelief, as in there isn't a God,

or if any religion claimed to have the

best case for an argument for being the

truthful religion,

it seemed to me to be Christianity.

I had a very real fork in the

road moment in nineteen ninety nine where

I joined a local authority and that's

where I met a friend who indirectly ended

up inviting me to church and there I

met some Christians and then the journey

really did take on a different dimensions

and then I became a Christian about two

years after that.

So yeah, it's been a really

really exhilarating journey.

I was very interested in philosophy and

science and, as you mentioned, economics,

which I studied formally before,

and psychology.

I was very interested and I'm interested

in people and how they work,

how the world works.

So I had all of the

all of the keen interest and just didn't

have any encounter with God up until the

point that I finally got to know who

Jesus is.

So yeah, half in each camp.

So it's been an interesting journey and

where I find myself now is on the

cusp of that fifty years.

So I've got good news and bad news.

I just turned fifty this year.

And so it's great.

Like I didn't notice any major differences

between forty nine and fifty other than

ice packs and braces and different things

like that.

So just talk up on those things and

you'll be fine.

Yeah, I, uh,

I could play soccer with my,

the next gen,

the previous or the younger generation up

until about fifty, fifty, one, fifty two.

And then, uh, then as Sheldon said,

the ice packs and stiffness started to set

in.

now i think um what what we'd like

to maybe dive into a little bit here

is your five stages uh but before we'll

probably look at them one at a time

but why don't you just give us a

just a few sentence summary of a preview

of what these five stages are before we

look at each one individually

And, of course,

I'll warn the audience that we may get

off on another track from time to time,

and that's fine.

But why don't you give us just a

brief preview of what these five stages

are,

and then we can dive into them deeper.

Yeah, sure, I will do.

So this is quite hot off the press,

really, I think,

because it's fairly fresh to me that I

had this idea of these five stages.

I feel like it was...

one of the things where it just,

it seems to come to one in a

sense that it almost feels providential

and I obviously think we should test these

things.

I just had this sense of spiritual stages

and I started to tap into it a

bit and I ended up with five and

I wanted something that could capture

where everybody,

every individual might be

somewhere on one of those stages.

I thought that was quite interesting

because I thought it would be compelling

for people to think of themselves as being

on one of those five stages.

I thought about how many it might be.

So the stage one I've called devoid,

so that's spiritually unaware.

uh it's a kind of spiritual dormancy where

people you know people people can be

intelligent successful they can be kind

they can be all different things in this

stage but their their lives are filtered

entirely through material ego-based

frameworks you know um and where there's

no real engagement with spiritual reality

i doubt there are many people that haven't

heard of

the spiritual realities that people can

explore.

But their lives are basically devoid of

anything actively spiritual or anything

that really matters to them in a spiritual

sense.

And one thing about these stages,

they're going to comprise a broad

range of people in them and we're going

to have to consider i think that at

each stage there are lots of different

elements to that stage you know say for

example if you're in stage one and you're

getting towards stage two you're going to

be in a different place from someone at

the beginning of stage one or the lower

end of stage one so that's something we

can we can talk about too um

And then stage two I've called nascent,

which is spiritually awakened.

So this is what marks the beginning of

spiritual curiosity.

It could come after a crisis,

it could come with a brush of beauty

or some kind of unexpected sense that

there must be more to life than this.

There are a wide range of ways in

which people can become spiritually

awakened and spiritually aware.

And it could be that they read scripture

for the first time.

It could be that they explore another

religion.

It could be something new agey.

There are many,

many ways to be in stage two.

Stage three is what I've called validated.

It's spiritually anchored in Christ.

So stage three is the point at which

one becomes a Christian.

So it's important, I think,

that we do have that demarcation line

where people are either, you know,

recognize Jesus as Lord or not.

So...

it's where revelation leads to

relationship and that can as you can

imagine that can come in so many different

ways and for so many different types of

people um and within stage three there's a

there's this newfound clarity of the

transformative clarity of who of who jesus

is and and that the christian faith is

the is the true christian faith and i

think again it's going to comprise an

awful

an awfully high number of people at all

sorts of stages within that stage three.

So then we get a bit bolder and

we talk about stage four,

which has two categories.

And I've started to discern this from

experience of Christians over the last

twenty-five years.

And so I've used the scientific caricature

of right and left-brained here.

As long as we accept that it is

a caricature and it's got a lot of

truth to it,

but we don't want to have such a

high resolution attachment to it that it

loses its abstraction.

So the right stage of stage four,

this is where

faith moves into a deep a sort of

heart stage you know from from knowing god

to truly encountering him in a in a

more a deeper and intimate way more about

holy spirit led deeper prayer deeper

worship and then just really tapping into

the to the deeper mysteries of divine

presence i suppose you could say you know

that it's

It's deeply relational.

It's often expressed through deep

sensitivity, creativity.

Words like the prophetic will often be

used, the contemplative experience.

Many may, in fact,

will find this interesting.

They find the traditional structured

church life a bit too limiting because

it's less about encounter and more about a

routine and doctrine and stuff.

But there are downsides to that too,

this sort of hyper-spiritual way of being,

I think, in stage four.

It may be slightly less, and often is,

less spiritually reasoned.

So the stage four left, the other extreme,

is...

left brain being the more analytical you

know represents faith in thinking more

deeply the believer builds on their

revelation with from stage three with with

deeper reason with you know deeper

pursuance of theological clarity and

intellectual depth you know i'm sure we

all know

the types of people we're talking about in

both sides of stage four.

I'm sure we all know lots of people

who we might think of in stage three.

You know,

this stage four left brain will be deep

apologetics,

maybe deeper exploration of church

history, the overly cerebral,

all of the kind of things that we

know make up that kind of stage four.

Now, I didn't say at the start,

but one of the

of the things that i did say in

the in the original video which i think

was important was that it's certainly

never our place to try to judge where

any individual is this is this is

something that is an interesting exercise

and uh it's it's good to contemplate it's

good to have something to to drive towards

and pursue i think to realize that it's

a journey of of constant growth and

development

But I'm never making any comment on any

individual's personal stage.

That's not what I'm ever trying to do.

And I couldn't possibly hope to know.

I think only God knows this.

So we've been through the stages up to

three where people are...

encountering Jesus and knowing that He's

Lord.

We've got stages for left brain and right

brain, you know, the deeply emotional,

the deeply intuitive and also the deeply

profound and analytical on the other side.

And stage five is what I've called

integrated.

It's what you might call spiritually

whole,

which I'm sure itself would be a whole

journey of a lifetime too.

once one might get to such a stage.

So this is the stage of spiritual

wholeness, if you like.

It's where the heart of stage four right

and the cognitive side of stage four left

meet in a kind of embrace, an integration.

Believers,

they are likely to embody both sides of

that theology.

And it's a more mature,

integrated faith that reflects the

fullness of Christ in a way that

But I think if anyone ever did get

to stage five,

they would be able to look back or

they would be able to look behind at

stage four, either side,

and realize that it was a stage that

they could progress beyond.

So, yeah, you can expect that if you...

If you met somebody in stage five,

it would probably be someone who closely

mirrors the character and the mind of

Christ in a profoundly human and divine

reflection, I think, of who he is.

So that's a brief digest, really,

of the five that I've put together.

Yeah, well, thank you, James.

There's probably different ways to

classify the stages of spiritual growth

within the scope of Christianity,

but

I think you provided one

well-thought-through way of doing that.

I find it interesting that you spoke about

stage five as if possibly you've not yet

arrived to stage five.

Nevertheless,

I think you still understand stage five.

You still foresee that.

Could it be that are you...

there's probably maybe a no hard boundary

between stage four and stage five,

but one finds oneself at the edge of

the boundary of between four and five and

moving into five.

Would you say you're experiencing maybe

the shadow lands between four and five at

this stage in life?

I don't know,

because I find it hard to comment on

myself.

I mean,

you wouldn't want to be the sort of

person that said, hey,

I'm at stage five and I can see

that people need to catch up.

No one would want to do that.

I certainly wouldn't do that for myself.

I think I'm always mindful of St.

Paul's journey as he

as he became wiser and wiser and more

experienced and mature in Christ.

You'll notice that his humility increased.

He starts by saying,

I'm one of the worst of all sinners.

And by the end of his life,

when he's at his most mature and

experienced and been through all that

growth, he says,

I'm the very worst of all sinners.

So I think there's something in that,

that perhaps one might sense that if one

did get closer to five years,

then one might become a much more humble

person.

Maybe even a self-referential problem that

one wouldn't like to proclaim oneself in

stage five if one ever got close to

it.

That might be something that's true.

I don't know.

I suppose I recognise myself certainly as

a more cerebral person in the stage four

category.

And I think having married my wife,

whose family are much more...

intuitively hyper-spiritual,

I was brought up in an Anglican

environment.

I think meeting a lot more people like

that has been really useful to me to

help me to formulate what might be the

different stages and also to see how that

plays out in people's lives.

So I don't know.

I would like to say that it's something

we should all aspire to try to

achieve.

And achieve is even a loaded term,

isn't it?

Because it's all grace and favour from the

Lord and revelation.

But I think

There's a sense in which to know a

limit is to be aware that one can

be beyond.

I think that was what Habermas said,

wasn't it?

So, yeah,

it's good to be aware that it may

be something that we could grasp,

but I would be reluctant to put myself

How do you look to the arbitration of

others perhaps?

I think we have a preview.

I mean,

I think we see that in the New

Testament.

We do.

It's not as if we're just starting with

a complete ignorance of different stages

of spiritual growth.

But as we study the scriptures, we'll see,

oh, yeah, there does seem to be,

it seems to, in the words of C.S.

Lewis,

there are relationships that goes ever

higher up and further in.

And even if we're not there yet,

we still know that there is a higher

up and there still is a further in.

that we can, um,

that we're moving towards.

And yet at the same time,

we're aware we're not,

we're not there yet.

Or even there is a bit of a

loaded term because it implies there's a

point somewhere up ahead that you reach,

but I don't see it as a point.

I see it as a road that ever

keeps going further and closer into God.

Uh, let's go back to, uh,

now let's go back and dive in to

maybe a little more, um, in detail,

slightly more detail.

in the five stages.

Now,

I really like your description or your

word or your name as devoid for the

first stage.

The reason I like that is that I

think it actually describes a person's

state.

There's a lot that's missing there.

It's not just devoid in their first pass,

they might think devoid of what.

But once you've crossed into the next

stages, you realize, wow,

there was a lot not there in the

devoid stage.

uh and i think that's probably the stage

a lot of the average people could identify

with because it's oh yeah for sure there's

no real role for the spiritual life uh

in spirituality i might not even believe

in it um i question all that and

they would identify more clearly with that

but they might not realize the term devoid

doesn't just mean um what i what this

guy thinks i'm missing

but it actually is a very real state

devoid of real life.

By real life,

I'm talking about the life that Christ

offered,

not just the life that a fungus has

as he sits on a log.

Anybody can make it.

Even a fungus can make it through life.

but there's something a whole nother level

so it's devoid of that it's devoid of

the joy another whole level of

appreciating beauty of nature um even

music can speak to a person in a

whole new way uh once they're no longer

in that devoid stage is there anything

else you'd like to say we probably don't

need to spend a lot of time on

a devoid stage

before we move into the second stage.

Can I also get a clarification?

My understanding is that these stages are

Christianity spiritual, not spiritual in,

oh, I'm Buddhist, therefore I'm poor.

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Yeah, so that's right.

We are working under the proposition that

Christianity is the truth,

that Jesus is the true God through whom

we can have a relationship with God,

the Father and the Holy Spirit.

So yeah,

this is entirely laid out to say that

everyone will be somewhere on that journey

at one of those stages.

Absolutely, yes, that's right.

To say anything else about devoid, yeah,

I suppose I would say that I was

probably devoid myself when I grew up.

I didn't have anything in my home or

in my upbringing that was remotely

interested in any kind of

supernatural, spiritual,

religious tenets or precepts at all.

So I think for me,

it was first learning that Jesus loves me.

And I've said before in other videos that

nobody actually told me just how loved I

was.

I remember sitting in the car with the

friend I talked about earlier who

introduced me to church.

And the idea that God might exist has

always been very attractive to me,

but we just had this very honest

conversation where he said that

imagine a god that created the entire

universe and then was willing to come down

and live amongst us live as we live

suffer the things that we suffer and

reveal himself through that grace and

humility and i and i remember just having

this really eureka moment thinking wow

yeah if there's a god that's that's i

think that's the only god that i could

possibly

relate to a god that would do that

it just it ticked the boxes and it

made me realize that that's that's what we

do have on often it still took some

time to to give my life to him

but yeah i would say i've been through

the biblical stage and the getting to

stage two was very exhilarating but yeah i

it's as you say it's it's it's what

you don't let in and what you don't

consider and if you live your life

without any spiritual awareness at all and

not allowing anything in.

That's what I'd say the void is, yeah.

You're muted, Kirk.

Yeah,

it's pretty hard to know what you're

missing if you've never experienced what

you're missing.

This next stage of awareness,

it kind of relates to the topic of

divine hiddenness.

I was having a conversation with somebody

yesterday

And I argue that there,

the call of God is actually out there

that every person actually experiences the

call of God,

but may not be at first aware of

it.

Or there may be expecting the,

if there is a God,

this is how he would let us all

know.

He'd put a big sign on the moon

or something, but, uh,

because we look for the call of God

in the wrong places,

we may miss the real call of God,

but.

And by call of God, I mean,

could God actually be interested in me?

Is he actually maybe speaking to me or

drawing me to himself?

And how do I respond type of thing?

But the awareness is when you begin to

perceive maybe God is calling me.

And I've experienced the call of God.

i've spoken about in public places like

for example nature like the invisible

attributes eternal power and divine nature

of god can be seen in what he

has created in this in the material world

there's something supernatural woven into

it and have you ever felt a sense

of awe or reverence and often they'll say

well yeah i do but

don't know exactly what that is what would

you like to say uh james about the

about the second stage yeah just to

clarify that or highlight specific things

about the second stage yeah well the

second stage is going to have a a

really diverse range of people in it as

you can imagine um and i've i've been

very involved in the discussions with

people who uh are

atheists attacking Christianity,

people trying to explore the faith and

genuinely, as you mentioned,

divine hiddenness,

can't understand why it isn't more obvious

to them.

And I think it's really interesting.

What I learned, I think,

from a lot of these discussions,

I was very active on some of the

Richard Dawkins forums and stuff in the

I had a lot of conversations with

unbelievers and what I suspect is going on

if we had some kind of algorithmic to

say, you know,

when people say all these different kinds

of reasons that they don't believe,

and criticisms of the faith and sometimes

other religions and all the different

things,

it's become quite apparent to me that by

and large,

people believe what they want to believe

and there are many driving forces behind

and this this is true in politics and

in economics in in all sorts of tribal

beliefs that people wed themselves to um

that doesn't mean that

Obviously,

they can acquire new information and they

can change what they want to believe,

but there are an awful lot of things

that are driving what they want to

believe.

And I think it's one of the most

liberating things for anybody to discover

that

what they believe is being driven by what

they want to believe and how that feeds

into their...

It could be anything from the social

status they're trying to acquire to the

in-group mentality,

the sense of belonging they're looking

for,

how it's convenient for their lives in

numerous ways.

And I think I started to also observe

that most of the...

most of the prominent,

what you might call new wave atheists,

or the people who had the biggest beef

with Christianity, almost always,

in my experience,

were brought up

as either they would call themselves

Christians or they were brought up in a

church environment.

It's that kind of what Jung called an

antiodromia, the tension of opposites,

you know,

the people who are angriest with the

Christian faith, the people who are on,

you know, online,

wanting to bash religion and say that

anyone who believes is just stupid and

foolish.

You know,

there's a real animus to what they're

trying to reject, I think.

So Stage Two comprises so many different

types of people.

It's a really intriguing stage to try to

delve into, I think.

And, yeah,

there are probably as many different types

of people in Stage Two as there are...

people people in it really you know it's

uh but it's yeah it's i i think

the most fruitful conversations in stage

two tends to tend to be the ones

where people you know are giving giving

christianity enough respect and i wrote

this in one of my books that you

know if you don't if you don't come

into the subject of christianity

with the utmost respect for the scriptures

you're dealing with, the propositions,

the level of theological discourse that's

been offered by believing Christians.

If you're not doing that,

then you're holding something back,

I think,

because the subject itself is utterly

enthralling.

And for people who want to explore that,

it's one heck of an adventure.

Sorry, go ahead.

Go ahead, Sean.

I have two things.

One,

I'm in that space in my Bible in

a year devotions where I've just gone

through that journey with the disciples a

little bit.

Why do you speak in parables?

And even in this second stage,

I can sort of see the disciples sitting

there, and they want to know,

but they don't get it yet.

And so there's a lot of that, like,

okay, I know there's something more.

All my preconceived, like,

even in the midst of walking with Jesus,

they're expecting Jesus to be doing

something different than he's doing.

And so there's a lot of that in

stage two.

Well,

why are we struggling with suffering?

Why do Christians still struggle with

suffering?

And why is this happening in the world?

Okay,

those kind of questions need answers.

And then there's also those feelings like,

well, I'm also struggling with this.

So I can see there's a little of

that in stage two.

And then the other piece I can also

see a lot of,

and this is just years of ministry where

we're working through things with people.

I can see people going between one and

two,

even in the midst of like a single

day where they're,

they're go from one to two and then

they don't get the right answer.

And it's like, well,

and they get hardened for a little while,

and then they might go back to two.

And I can see people jumping those stages

quite often in those conversations that

I've had with people.

One thing you know is...

James,

I was really insightful is that people

believe what they want to believe.

And I have done a lot of formal

debates on universities.

And I would,

I began to just simply in my opening

remarks, just as I stood up there,

I just informed them that I have learned

that people believe what they want to

believe.

So just sit back, enjoy the conversation.

And all I'm going to do is stir

the pot.

But in doing that,

what happens is that people have a

psychological resistance to being told

what is true and what to believe.

They come to a debate saying, okay,

this guy's gonna say some stuff and I'm

committed to not believing it, almost,

though maybe not consciously.

But when you put it on the table

that people believe what you wanna

believe, and I'm here to stir the pot,

then the i i find they're a lot

more open okay well i'm just going to

enjoy it but in enjoying what they hear

they actually become enter a state where

they can digest what you're saying

But another important thing I think in the

awareness stage is dealing with the

reasons why they're believing what they

believe.

And sometimes the way to deal with that

seems to be asking the right questions,

asking them how,

why do you find yourself resistant to this

or what, what is, and,

and that will vary from person to person,

but Socrates is, um, in Plato,

Socrates is dialogue with some of the

other people like youth of pro,

for example.

he developed the art of asking the right

questions.

And so from a Christian perspective,

let's say we're in stage three or four

or five that we wanna reach out to

the people in the awareness stage,

or even in the unaware.

The unaware stage can be awakened by

asking the right questions as well.

So I like this,

and I like this idea that you're

presenting that there's an aware stage and

we can't,

We can't necessarily make a person move

ahead in that.

It's gotta be, I think,

the Holy Spirit or God working within that

person's heart.

Definitely.

Yeah, that's right.

Definitely.

That's one of the things that a lot

of people who are exploring,

they do get a bit frustrated with it,

but it's also, I think,

something that's necessary to keep telling

them is that, you know, Paul says,

only those who have the Spirit can see

Jesus as Lord.

And it's a supernatural transformation.

It happens at the time when God chooses.

It happened to me.

It's happened to all Christians today.

in some way,

shape or form throughout their life.

I happened to have one of those eureka

moments where the Spirit just came upon me

and it was a night and day difference

within a few seconds.

Other people have had very different

experiences,

many have had a similar experience.

But yeah, the unbeliever,

it's not actually possible for them to

know the truth of Jesus Christ

without the Holy Spirit.

And Pascal had a really good point,

I think, in his Ponses.

He said that,

and I think we're learning more and more

about this sort of thing now with the

way that people,

the works of people like Jonathan Haidt

and the idea of the elephant and the

rider, that people are actually, you know,

driven by stronger emotional needs than

their rational self would care to,

as he says,

reason is the slave to passion, you know.

And we're learning more and more that

actually when you try to convince people

through an argument or a proposition,

they're much more likely,

even if they have a good argument,

to feel more convinced by what they

already believe.

And we know this.

We've seen this particularly in the

political sphere,

which is often more financially and

emotionally charged even than religion.

But yeah,

so I think Pascal had a really good

point,

which is that

Often the best way to help people come

to that place where they can receive

revelation and then reach stage three is

you have to help them to believe,

and in some cases actually that this does

happen,

that they feel like they've got there

themselves.

You're not trying to convince them to

change their mind necessarily,

or if it's your argument that changes

their mind.

Because let's be honest,

no Christian came to Christ with...

proposition one, proposition two,

conclusion three.

That almost never happens, does it?

The reason we believe is because we've had

that personal encounter.

And I think all of the discussions and

the debates and the arguments for and

against God are really interesting,

but they're not as compelling as being

able to have that relationship with

somebody and to listen to their doubts,

listen to their concerns,

and help them to arrive at the place

that we know they need to be at

to receive the revelation,

which is a supernatural encounter,

isn't it?

Yeah.

Okay, so the question is, as an apologist,

then of what use are intellectual

arguments or evidence or whatever?

I think there's a mistake that I made

a lot when I was young and naive

was that

With the right set of arguments,

it was a matter of just simply showing

them this and then they do that.

It was like fixing a car.

You've got the right wrenches,

you go to the right place,

you tweak that, and the car is ready.

It's not that way, as you pointed out.

However,

there is a point I find in a

person's life, in certain people,

and as you might put it,

depending on their left brain or right,

there is a point where they actually want

to have maybe a little more rational

they're looking for they're looking for

some rational justification maybe

something just a little bit more solid or

more intellectual to put their to to

justify putting their faith in here and

that's where i find the arguments are are

useful but the arguments are not useful if

they're not at that stage i think it's

probably more important in general after

years as an apologist to speak to the

heart of a person

rather than to their mind.

It's not a dichotomy, mind you,

but I will find that I will accomplish

much more in general by speaking to

people's hearts.

The emotion.

If I could...

Someday I would love to play,

I don't play the violin,

but if I could play the violin,

a particular song that would speak so

powerfully to a person's soul that they'd

all put their faith in Jesus Christ,

I actually think...

that in some ways is pa i think

god has used even a song to bring

people to christ

for certain people.

It just touched their soul in a certain

way, and suddenly, as Jesus says,

no one comes to the Son unless the

Father draws that person.

But sometimes the Father draws that person

through music, through nature,

through intellectual,

but it'll always draw them to Christ,

not to some ambiguous,

nebulous kind of pantheism or something,

but it has to come to Christ.

So let's say a person has put their

faith in Christ,

and they're now in the next stage.

Uh, what would you say about that?

And, and do you,

would you bring left right brain into the

third stage or you you'd prefer to wait

to the fourth or what would you have

to say about that?

James?

Yeah, I mean,

I would bring it into the third stage.

I think Sheldon makes a very good point,

which I also made in the video,

the original video, which is, it's not,

we mustn't think of it as an exact

linear process,

a creep from stage one all the way

to stage five.

You know,

I think there are times when we will

have particular strengths and expertise,

which will tap us into certain areas of

left and right brain,

of the more intellectual,

the more spiritual,

There'll be places when we dip in and

out,

there'll be places when we're perhaps on

the cusp of another stage and we're

bouncing around.

Life's a continual journey of exploration.

I quite like the idea of the

circumambulation,

the idea that Jung talks about where

There's a centre point,

but we keep circling round it because our

experience just keeps...

There's nothing new under the sun,

let's face it.

So we're going to keep going back and

round and encountering the same things to

do with philosophical propositions,

to do with suffering,

to do with life challenges,

to do with our own changes in status

and stature.

So, yeah, I think stage three is...

It's the place where we've had the

encounter,

but I think as per the parable of

the talents,

I think it's not a place to stay

around longer than one needs to.

I think, I said in the video,

and it's maybe a bold proposition,

but I suspect actually the most...

The majority of Christians are probably in

stage three and haven't moved beyond that.

Majority doesn't mean almost all.

It just means there are more people in

this context, I think,

in stage three than the other stages.

Because I think, you know,

and this taps into why people don't make

that transition from two to three,

you know.

What Christianity is asking of people to

commit their lives to Christ, you know,

it's life-changing.

To take it to its full potential,

requires an awful lot of courage.

I don't think we talk enough about that

as Christians.

The courage to be transformed,

the adventure of truth-seeking.

Everybody is a unique individual,

and that means that they have a potential

for their own journey that nobody else

has.

God has especially created that person for

a particular journey,

and

there is no greater adventure for that

person, for that individual, to say,

I am going to believe what's true in

terms of whatever the proposition could be

in front of me, whether that's philosophy,

politics, science, whatever it might be,

economics.

I just want to know what's true about

the world that's being created,

the world I'm in,

and wherever that leads me,

will be my adventure.

Now,

I don't I think that is a that

is quite an unnerving proposition for

people because people like their safe

spaces,

they obviously have all sorts of

personality profiles in terms of the big

five they have, we have, you know,

different strengths and weaknesses,

we have different levels of anxiety and

It's a big ask.

And I think, yes,

there will be lots of different elements

of stage three,

but I don't think it's a place that

we're invited to stay any longer than we

ought to.

I think it's a necessary stage and we

should pass through it as soon as we

can.

And that's obviously a very complex set of

challenges.

ways that we should do that.

But it's certainly about tapping into our

own potential.

And I think if we allow,

as Jesus would say,

allow the truth to set you free,

we become liberated from worldly things as

best as we can.

we want to be moving on as fast

as we can, I think.

Well,

you had said in the video that it's

sort of like going from that milk to

the meat when you,

when you're starting to, okay,

you were a child.

Now you're,

Now you're going to that next or you're

a baby.

Now you're going to the next step of

starting to renew the mind and stuff like

that.

So I like that.

Like, OK,

this is an area where you can start

to see some.

Oh, you now have some teeth.

Let's use them.

I also think what you just said there

also reminds me of the analogy of marriage

that God uses throughout the scriptures.

And you said something about in stage

three,

you want to move into the point where

I'm willing to go with the truth.

I want to go with the truth.

I'll be totally committed wherever it

takes me.

And this is very closely related to what

a good marriage is.

So a good marriage is

which is what I think when God's using

the analogy of marriage, it's all in.

I've known marriages where they are

married,

but they still might burn a candle in

the window for an old flame they had

in the younger days.

That doesn't work.

And in the Christian analogy,

they're willing they like the idea of

eternal life they like the idea of

confessing their sins but at the same time

there's certain things they're holding on

to that aren't very healthy at all say

a moral thing or an attitude thing and

so that's going to hold them back and

it's going to keep them in stage three

they'll never move on until they're ready

to just uh to really be using the

analogy of marriage it's it's a hundred

percent in and you don't know

where that's going to go down the road

as far how deep it is,

how far it's going to take you.

But that analogy of marriage, I think,

is important.

I've seen a lot of people just stay

in stage three, as you said.

Yeah, that's really good.

Just to add to that,

I think sometimes I think Christians are

quite uncomfortable talking about the need

to progress because it can sound a bit

like judgment.

But I think if we were to...

If we were to construct a five-stage model

of anything that's worth pursuing,

whether it be, I don't know, say,

team management or, as you say, marriage,

you wouldn't want to see people staying in

stage three of anything else that's

perhaps more concrete and specific,

as you say, like a marriage.

If people were just happy to sort of

dwell in the realm of stage three,

not put each other first as much as

they could,

not try and

help the other one grow as much as

possible in Christ,

have relaxed attitudes towards certain

values that marriage at its best upholds,

as I said, with team management.

So, yeah, I think absolutely.

Why would we want to,

if we got a hint or got a

sense that there are stages beyond which

we are currently residing,

why on earth would we want to stay

in them?

We've got about ten minutes here before

the top of the hour.

We can stay a little bit longer,

but James, do you have a cutoff?

No, absolutely.

Carry on.

There's so much to unpack, isn't there?

Kirk does have an eight-hour drive ahead

of him, but that's okay.

There's often a tailwind in the area that

can help him get home sooner.

The...

So, yeah, let's move on to the four.

I'm very interested in the left brain,

right brain aspect of things because I

think that's what is new compared to,

like,

angle scale and the different things that

we've talked about in the past.

Yeah,

if you can drill into that a little

bit, that would be great.

Yeah,

I think what's interesting about the

divergences in stage four is

Well, two things really.

Firstly,

it doesn't seem to me often that that's

a particular path people consciously

choose.

I think when they start to get into

the realms of stage four,

often either because of family influence,

their church denomination,

They're different, varying backgrounds.

They tend to naturally fall, I think,

into one of the two camps.

I mean, they're the extremes, of course.

They will be people in stage four who

can bounce somewhere between the two,

but haven't fully got to the integrated

part of stage five.

Again, I'll give you a quote from Pascal,

which I really like.

He says,

a man doesn't find greatness by being at

one extreme or the other,

but by touching both extremes and filling

all that lies between.

I think that's a really profound

observation because

And I'd say the same with politics and

all of the different things that people

tend to be divisive about.

You ought to be able to understand the

extreme position of your opponent.

It's very useful in apologetics to

understand where the unbeliever's coming

from.

But for someone who's in stage four,

I find a lot of the people in

either side of stage four,

they tend to be a bit dismissive,

actually, of the other side.

Some of the hyper-intellectuals might

think that the super-spiritual right-brain

people, well,

they may have strange beliefs that don't

accord with scientific empiricism.

They may have things that make a good

conceptual lever for atheists to want to

bring down the faith and undermine it,

you know.

if they have certain beliefs that might

not fall within the purlieus of empirical

science.

And I think the people on the other

side, the hyper-spiritual, they tend to...

perhaps not focus enough on some of the

deeper analytical elements too.

But equally the people on the

hyper-analytical side,

sometimes they hold back or they don't

understand just how much of the Holy

Spirit-driven life that we can have to

by being able to empty ourselves more and

more into hearing his word and his

presence and maybe having more time in

solitary contemplation and listening to

God.

So I think, yeah,

that people naturally tend to...

divergent to one of those.

And I think they can look at each

other with a bit of suspicion because that

really explains, I think,

why the need for stage five to try

to integrate those two and to see that

both extremes have really valuable

elements to them,

but they're not the whole potential that

we have or can have.

I've been looking at deconversion for the

last five years and listening to a lot

of testimonials on why people who were

pastors, missionaries, seminary graduates,

why they abandoned their faith.

And as I listened to their testimonial,

one thing that was strikingly absent from

their description of what their Christian

life had been like prior to abandoning

their faith

What was strikingly absent,

now it might have been there,

it's just that I didn't mention it,

was experiencing the presence of God.

And I think a lot of people might,

on the left brain side,

might see this as, well,

and they would list all the things they

believe, the statements of faith,

at various points.

They would even discuss arguments for and

against the existence of God.

But they never talked about God as if

they had any relationship with him.

It would be like a man divorcing his

wife and citing a number of, let's say,

logistical reasons for doing so,

but never talking about the personal,

emotional experience of that person that

they once experienced.

and so this is where when you're talking

about the left and the right brain it

seems to me that it's not it shouldn't

as we progress through stage four maybe

towards stage five there should be a

bridging of those two or more often there

a person might always be predisposed to

maybe being cerebral another person

predisposed to say an artist who's amazing

amazing at conveying emotion or paintings

But nevertheless, at the same time,

both of them need to have a certain

amount of the other aspects of things.

After all,

there are Christian fundamental truths

that need to be embraced by both sides.

And speaking of truth,

I started to look at it as more,

this came out in political discussions.

People say, here's the left,

here's the right.

And I was not satisfied with left or

right because I could see problems on both

ends.

But as a scientist,

I recall back in physics,

sometimes we would use polar coordinates

where you have a center point.

That's the that's the origin that would be

analogous to truth.

This is truth here.

And you could go off too far in

any direction.

And how far you went off could be

cited as far as a distance and polar

coordinates and the angle as to in which

direction did you really stray from the

truth.

But I think in stage four,

we're actually converging closer and

closer to the truth.

And philosophically,

I find it fascinating that Jesus said he

is the truth.

That is the one who defines objective

reality, moral reality, spiritual reality,

reality of beauty and everything else.

And that's maybe where we start moving

into stage five.

And of course,

what would you like to say about stage

five, James?

Well, if I ever get there,

I'll say more.

As you say,

if we remember that we're going up through

Stage Four,

so by the time one might get nearer

to Stage Five,

there'll be already a stronger sense of

the integration of potentially...

two extremes.

In a strange way,

although stage five seems to be the big

aspiration,

it's almost the one I feel least qualified

to comment on, really.

I don't know.

It would just be such...

an astounding thing, I think,

to encounter people in stage five.

And of course,

stage five would perhaps have a continual

journey of progression in itself as we get

ever closer to Christ.

to reach a stage where the heart, mind,

spirit, intellect, worship, doctrine,

to be so woven together in a kind

of a seamless tapestry of life experience

would be quite a thing to encounter.

And I think, yeah, just...

If the video could do one thing,

this discussion on the original video,

if it could do one thing for people,

I would hope that it...

that it gives them pause for thought to

think about the potential that we all have

and that where we could try to get

to if we sought truth in the way

that we're encouraged to by Christ.

And the other thing would be, of course,

the awareness of the people in stages one

and two,

that there are other places to go.

And I think one of the things we

perhaps should say as well is,

We talked earlier about the way that we

can see some of the most profound truths

about Christianity by its absence in other

things.

And I think, you know,

it's like the C.S.

Lewis line where he says, you know,

I believe in Jesus not just by looking

at the sun,

but by all the things that the sun

illuminates.

And I think when we look at the...

powerful light in this world,

we also see its absence in the dark

things in this world.

And I think that's a really potentially

inspiring thing for people,

is to realize that the things that are

absent are also great indicators of the

power and the utility of Christ's truth.

Because, you know,

I'm sure you're tapping into this too in

America,

and we certainly do this in the UK.

the the identity crises of people the the

you know when when nietzsche as i'm sure

you know when nietzsche said god is dead

you know he wasn't celebrating the demise

of christianity he was he was saying be

careful what you wish for and what will

come in to replace the death of god

because it will be something

It will be something that has its own

demons and problems.

And we're seeing this in abundance in the

world right now.

And that's why I hope that something like

the Five Spiritual Stages will help people

to reconnect with some of the,

not just the truths,

but the aspirations and the places that

they can aspire to.

when they can escape many of the things

that are causing so much anxiety and so

many identity problems and so much

disconsolation with not having God at the

heart of their life and not having a

kind of a spiritual emphasis and awareness

too.

So I'm hopeful that people can see it,

not just in the positives,

but in what may be lacking in society

too.

It's not in a very healthy place,

is it?

I was thinking about stage five as being

when Jesus would often talk about the

kingdom and how it is.

He's frozen.

Is he frozen for James?

Yeah, he didn't have frozen.

I indeed thought, yeah.

Okay, well, while he's freezing there,

I'll just say one thing.

When you mentioned the importance of this

video and your original one,

I was in stage three around the recent

point in my life,

when I was about seventeen,

eighteen years old, where I was, say,

the president of my youth group at church.

I was president of the InterVarsity at my

school.

But yet, oh man, I could just see,

is this it?

Is this it for me?

And it was discouraging.

And if I had listened,

if I had listened to a video of

this discussion, such as we had today,

or I'd seen your video,

it would have actually been very helpful

to me.

So I think in one sense,

it can be.

And I think at that point,

what broke me out of that stage three

was something we already discussed,

was this concept of daily, total,

surrendering myself into the hands of

Jesus Christ on a daily basis,

looking for the guidance of his Holy

Spirit throughout the day.

And that broke the barrier between,

I didn't even know about stage four or

five.

I didn't know it existed.

It was just stage three,

and it was frustrating.

So I think Sheldon's reading.

Oh, there he is.

Hi, Sheldon.

My internet.

What do you know?

So I don't know what you guys have

said for the last minute.

I don't know what I was saying when

I left.

Where was that?

Okay,

so I was thinking of stage five as

sort of like the kingdom that Jesus talked

about and how it was totally different

than what anybody ever expected it would

be.

And so when you think of the Beatitudes,

when you think of all those areas where

he'd say the kingdom is like this...

And in stage four,

you expect where you want to be is

that, oh, I'm just like Jesus.

I got to be the perfect that we

strive to be.

Then at the end, you're like a worm.

And it's not that you've finally unleashed

humility or you've reached peak humility.

No,

you've just actually experienced who you

are in the light of sin and in

the light of what?

um what it would actually be to be

living in that space of the kingdom and

so uh that's what i think that stage

five would be is like okay you're now

there and it's not like enlightenment but

it has that aspect of it's like you're

not going to see this until that that

time when um

when you've actually entered that space.

And so I was just thinking of that

and I'm throwing it out there.

I don't know if that's what you were

thinking at all, but yeah.

Yeah, I think that's right.

And I think we...

When we talk about the extremes of left

and right,

which pervade society and all sorts of

subjects,

I think on this adventure with Christ,

we've talked a lot about the relationship,

the heart-based element.

There is a head-based element.

There is a heart-based element.

Both are important.

We're called to be able to defend our

faith.

We're called to be able to explain why

we believe and what are the rational

justifications for that.

We're also called to simulate the

qualities of

a marriage, a relationship,

and grow in Christ in that way too.

So stage five has to inevitably

encapsulate both of those qualities at

their best,

because one is incomplete without both

elements.

You're likely to stay in a stage three

or four unless you can integrate the two.

And that's the other thing as well,

when people talk about,

when people want to

to pin us down on why we believe

and they're looking sometimes looking for

arguments for why they should believe

sometimes they're just wanting to to

criticize why why we believe that they

might say that there's a lot of evidence

for god in their opinion and things like

that um but

I think it's important for a Christian to

acknowledge that what we believe is all of

the things that we've discussed and more.

It's a supernatural relationship with the

Holy Spirit inside us.

It's a lot of reasons that we have

for belief.

It's a lot of experience.

And I guess the best term I can

come up with for it would be worldview.

It's a worldview based on so many

different elements of our experience and

our growth

the best defense we can have is to

try to break down that worldview and

explain to people as best we can the

many, many reasons why.

I couldn't possibly hope to provide

the evidence that people are looking for

just with a couple of succinct arguments

or if I had a half an hour

conversation with someone in a cafe or

something, you know, and in doing that,

it's about understanding the person,

their experience and their journey and

how,

It speaks the truth.

And if we try to oversimplify and just

ask for quick sound bites as to why

we might believe,

then it's going to be inadequate to the

task, I think,

of coming up with a convincing reason for

people to believe.

It's a journey and it's a worldview.

Well,

I'm getting a bit antsy here at the

thought of my eight-hour drive looming

ahead of me.

But I want to thank you, James.

It's been a good conversation.

And as I mentioned, when Sheldon was gone,

just for the sake of Sheldon,

it was something that I think a lot

of people and myself back when I was

in stage three and thinking,

is this all there is?

I think this video here hopefully will

give people a taste or a preview or

a hope that there's a lot more to

authentic Christianity than just sitting

around in stage three for the rest of

their lives.

Yeah, let's hope so.

Yeah, thank you.

It's been really good to meet and talk

with you guys.

And I really appreciate the opportunity to

talk with you.

So thank you for having me on.

Our pleasure.

And people can find you at

philosophicalmuser.blogspot.com.

And I know there's some other links in

the sidebar to your YouTube.

I've posted your YouTube link in the

description on this video.

So people go check that out there.

And, yeah, you're in the writing process.

You're interested in the publishing

process.

And so, obviously,

if people subscribe to your stuff,

that makes you look good.

And so I recommend everybody go and do

that.

did that this morning and uh yeah so

those of you who are interested in uh

asking questions uh to kirk or myself or

even james uh feel free to dump those

in the comments or head over to

kirkdurston.com and you can leave a

message there for kirk and uh yeah head

over to james's stuff and uh take a

look at it it's uh very interesting uh

how you've brought economics into writing

and

different things like that.

And so I've been pursuing,

perusing your stuff today and enjoying it.

All right, everyone.

We will be back.

I don't know, in a couple of weeks,

probably.

I'm out of internet access next week,

so I won't be around,

but I know Kirk,

you're dropping some other videos and

stuff as we go here too.

So, and you just dropped one last week.

Yeah.

I think, or the week before?

Yeah, there's been a couple of

videos that are,

I'd say they were interesting,

but I have a,

a really big one coming up.

It's on free will and what sciences

sciences default position should be on

free will.

There'll be an article.

I hope to finish it by sometime this

week.

So it'll be up by next week.

And then immediately I want to make a

YouTube video on that as well.

So keep,

keep your eye on for free will and

what sciences default position should be,

what their starting point should be on

this issue.

But really can science actually determine

that because it wasn't already

predetermined?

We'll see.

But I will say this, that science uses,

makes decisions all the time and how they

set up their experiments.

And they certainly operate as if they have

it, even if it is,

if they deny that it is.

So I want to dive into that.

I dive into that article because we have

to address what the objections are and

what the most rational position to take in

that area.

And this will be more appealing to the

left brain

awesome awesome all right well we'll see

you guys later and uh here's the video