PWJ: S2E30 – AA – Justin Brierley
Several times on Pints With Jack I have spoken about another podcast, “Unbelievable?”, hosted by Justin Brierley. Earlier in this Season I spoke about reading Justin’s book, remarking on the considerable number of C.S. Lewis quotations found throughout.
Following that episode, Justin and I connected on Twitter and I invited him onto the show to talk about C.S. Lewis, his faith, his podcast and his book.
S2E30: “After Hours” with Justin Brierley (Download)
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Time Stamps
03:20 – Drink-of-the-week and quote-of-the-week.
04:44 – Justin’s faith journey
08:30 – What was the genesis of your show, Unbelievable?
12:08 – Who have been some of your most memorable guests?
13:37 – How do you stay so calm during the debates?!
17:07 – What motivated you to write your book?
19:11 – Why is God the best explanation of human existence?
25:05 – Why is God the best explanation of human value?
30:19 – Why is God the best explanation of human purpose?
35:03 – Why does materialism undermine reason?
39:25 – How can we come to understand who Jesus is through Lewis’ Trilemma?
42:45 – How can you defend the Resurrection with the “Minimal Facts” approach?
52:26 – What does it mean to live in the Christian story?
55:03 – Upcoming “Unbelievable?” Projects
58:55 – Competition Details
Show Notes
• I shared a brief biography of Justin:
After graduating from Ball-i-ol College at Oxford University, Justin Brierley went to work for Premier Christian Radio. He spent several years serving as editor of their magazine, Premier Christianity, but he is probably best known for his radio work. Every Saturday, Justin presents their flagship apologetics & theology debate programme “Unbelievable?”, which brings Christians and non-Christians together for dialogue on a wide range of topics.
Biography of Justin Brierley
Not only is Unbelievable an extremely popular podcast, it has also given rise to various evangelism and apologetics conferences both in England and here in the United States.
He is married to his wife, Lucy, who is a minister of a church in Surrey, and together they have four children. And somehow, among all of that, a couple of years ago Justin found time to write a book! It’s called “Unbelievable?: Why After Ten Years of Talking With Atheists, I’m Still a Christian”
• Drink-of-the-week was a pot of Yorkshire Gold tea.
• The quote-of-the-week was from one Lewis’ essays:
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance,
C.S. Lewis, “Christian Apologetics”, God in the Dock
and if true, of infinite importance.
The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
• Lewis commented that most adult converts to Christianity were influenced by arguments for theism:
“Nearly everyone I know who has embraced Christianity in adult life has been influenced by what seemed to him to be at least a probable argument for theism”
C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock (“Is theism important?”)
• Justin defended his claim that human existence is best explained by God. As we were talking about this, I referenced a video he produced about proving God’s existence with dice…
• When talking about the Moral Law in his book, Justin quotes famous atheist convert to Catholicism, Leah Libresco:
“Morality is something we discover like archaeologists, not something we build like architects. Christianity offered an explanation for it that was compelling”
Leah Libresco
He also mentions Jennifer Fulwiler’s book, Something other than God. The very title of that book is a line from Mere Christianity, where Lewis says that all of human misery throughout history is man’s attempt to find “something other than God” to make him happy.
Justin paraphrased Lewis’ Argument From Desire:
The Christian says, “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
• Justin also comments on the Argument from Reason, drawing on Lewis’ work which argues that materialism undermines reason:
If minds are wholly dependent on brains, and brains on biochemistry, and biochemistry (in the long run) on the meaningless flux of the atoms, I cannot understand how the thought of those minds should have any more significance than the sound of the wind in the trees
C.S. Lewis, Is theology poetry?
• Justin quotes Lewis’ Trilemma:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book II)
• When speaking about the Resurrection, I quoted St. Paul in order to argue that Christianity rises or falls on this event:
“…if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain”
1 Corinthians 15:14
• Justin gave an introduction to the “Minimal Facts” approach to proving the Resurrection, based on the work of Gary Habermas and Mike Licona. This approach makes a few assertions which receive a strong consensus of agreement from among believing and non-believing scholars:
Fact #1: Jesus died by crucifixion
Fact #2: His female followers discovered an empty tomb (Criterion of embarrassment)
Fact #3: People reported meeting a resurrected Jesus
Fact #4: Skeptics such as St. Paul and St. James converted
Fact #5: There was explosive growth in the Early Church
We then consider the various explanations of what happened and see how much explanatory power they have:
Hypothesis #1: The authorities stole the body
Hypothesis #2: The disciples stole the body
Hypothesis #3: The disciples went to the wrong tomb
Hypothesis #4: Jesus didn’t die on the cross
Hypothesis #5: The disciples hallucinated
Hypothesis #6: Jesus is a legend
• I skipped over the chapters on Suffering and Justin’ meeting with Richard Dawkins.
• In the final portion of our discussion, Justin spoke about the need to step into the Christian worldview. He quoted St. Augustine’s maxim “Credo ut intelligam” (“I believe in order to understand”). He also retells a story told by Michael Green about someone viewing a physical church building, but only after stepping inside being able to see the full beauty of the stained glass.
• Justin advertised the upcoming Unbelievable conference in California. He also told us about their plans for a fortnightly C.S. Lewis podcast with Alister McGrath. You can find out more about Premier Christian Radio by going to their website or following them on Twitter.
• Justin’s book, Unbelievable?: Why After Ten Years of Talking With Atheists, I’m Still a Christian, is available on Amazon and at all good bookstores.