4:13 Podcast: Can I Know God Is Real? With Lee Strobel [BONUS]

Lee Strobel: We've had a series of scientific discoveries just over the last 50 to 80 years in various areas of science, including cosmology, physics, and biochemistry, that point powerfully toward the existence of a Creator who matches the description of the God of the Bible.

So, for instance, cosmology is the origin of the universe. Where did the universe come from? Well, we know that whatever begins to exist has a cause behind it. We know that virtually every scientist admits that the universe began to exist at some point in the past; therefore, there must be a cause behind the universe. Well, what kind of a cause can bring a universe into existence? It must be transcendent or separate from creation, must be timeless or eternal because it existed before physical time was created, must be immaterial or spirit because it existed before the physical world, must be powerful given the immensity of the creation event, must be smart given the precision of the creation event, must be personal because they had to make the decision to create. And Occam's razor, the scientific principle of Occam's razor would tell us there'd be just one Creator. So you look at that and you go that's a description of the God of the Bible.

Jennifer Rothschild: More than 200 times every second, someone is googling questions about God, like "Is God real?" and Google offers 3.7 billion results in less than one second. Well, wouldn't that be nice if that solved everything? But it doesn't. When life feels overwhelming, we want to know, is God real? And if he is real, does he really care about us?

Well, today, author, investigative journalist, and former atheist Lee Strobel is going to help you know with confidence that God is real. This is for skeptics and for believers. So let's dive into this important question, can we really know God is real? You're going to love this bonus episode.

K.C. Wright: Welcome to the 4:13 Podcast, where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you up to live the "I Can" life, because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

Now, welcome your host, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hey, everybody. Thanks for showing up with us for a bonus episode. It's so fun when we get to pop in during the week when you don't expect us. Well, we've got a really good reason to do that, because Lee Strobel is in the house. And, oh, my goodness, I'm such a Lee Strobel fan. His writing, his -- but really his character, who he is as a man. He's just a -- he's solid, and I'm so thankful. Got to meet him and his wife at a conference last year in North Carolina, and just so impressed by him.

K.C., did you get to see, when it was back in the theaters, "The Case for Christ," the movie?

K.C. Wright: I did. And I watched it more than once.

Jennifer Rothschild: It was good, wasn't it?

K.C. Wright: I'm a big fan of Lee Strobel, big fan of "Case for Christ." I've lost track of how many of those books I've given out to people.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

K.C. Wright: What a gift he is to the body of Christ.

Jennifer Rothschild: Seriously.

K.C. Wright: Seriously.

Jennifer Rothschild: And this book is no exception, because he just takes on the big question is God really real? And if he is, can we really know that for sure? And he deals with the psychology of it, the emotions of it, the science of it. It's really a very compelling conversation. So if you are in Christ, if you believe in God, this is going to affirm so many things and also equip you to share with others who may not. If you're a skeptic, oh, man, am I so glad you tuned in. We love you and we're glad you're here. And we do believe God is real and he's changed us, and we want you to understand that also. And Lee Strobel is going to really present a great case for the reality of God, so let's introduce him and get it moving.

K.C. Wright: Lee Strobel, former award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune is a New York Times best-selling author whose books have sold millions of copies worldwide. Lee earned a journalism degree at the University of Missouri and was awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship to study at Yale Law School, where he received a Master of Studies in Law degree. He was a journalist for 14 years at the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers, winning Illinois' top honors for investigative reporting, which he shared with a team he led, and public service journalism from United Press International.

Jennifer Rothschild: My goodness.

K.C. Wright: I know. Lee also taught First Amendment law at Roosevelt University. A former atheist, he served as a teaching pastor at three of America's largest churches, and today he's Founding Director of the Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism & Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. Lee and his wife, Leslie, have been married for more than 50 years and live in Texas. Their daughter Alison and son Kyle are also authors.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

K.C. Wright: Are we surprised?

Jennifer Rothschild: No.

K.C. Wright: No.

Jennifer Rothschild: Those apples did not fall far from that tree.

K.C. Wright: Yes, Lee, please get a vision for your life. I mean, really. No.

Jennifer Rothschild: Impressive.

K.C. Wright: This man is a legend, and it is such an honor for us to say that today he's an official 4:13er. This is going to be a podcast you'll want to share with your friends and family and want to listen to over and over again. Listen in as Jennifer and Lee talk about is God real?

Jennifer Rothschild: All right, Lee. As I already mentioned in the intro, I love having you back. It's really an honor.

Lee Strobel: Thank you.

Jennifer Rothschild: And so I want to start with some gossip. Okay?

Lee Strobel: Uh-oh, uh-oh.

Jennifer Rothschild: A rumor.

Lee Strobel: Now you got me nervous.

Jennifer Rothschild: I know. There you go. Oh, it's really a harmless one.

Okay. I actually heard that this new book of yours, "Is God Real?" came about differently than your earlier books.

Lee Strobel: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: So I'm curious, how was that?

Lee Strobel: Yeah. You know, this is the first time, in all the books I've written, where my publisher came to me and they said, "We've noticed something interesting. Our technical people have noticed that 200 times a second, around the clock, someone on Planet Earth is typing into a computer search engine basically the question, 'Is God real?'" And they said, "Why don't you consider writing a book about that," and I said, "Oh, my gosh, I'd love that, you know, let me do that."

So I wrote this book to really help Christians deepen their own faith, but also prepare them to be able to interact with their children and grandchildren, neighbors and friends, who in our increasingly skeptical culture are getting more and more questions about why we believe what we believe. So that's how this book came about -- it's kind of unusual -- among all my others.

Jennifer Rothschild: You truly were doing your investigative journalism. Like an editor said, "Here's your story, write it." And I love that, because it does equip us, it really does.

And it's timely too, because belief in God is down in America. So Gallup polls say that belief in God right now is down to 81% of Americans, whereas, like, in 1967 it was 98%. So what gives? What do you think is attributing to this decline?

Lee Strobel: Yeah. In fact, if you ask people, "Are you sure that God exists?" it goes down to 64%. So there are these troubling trends where there's an increased amount of skepticism. I think several things are at play here. One of them is the rise of the internet, which has propagated a lot of crazy and outdated and actually already refuted atheistic claims that have become popularized in our culture, even though they've been responded to by Christians for a long time. But people don't know that, and so it's planted a lot of seeds of doubts among people. As Abraham Lincoln said, you can't always trust what you see on the internet, but a lot of people do.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Lee Strobel: So there are these troubling trends, but at the same time I see positive stuff too. Three out of four adults in America say they want to grow spiritually, and 44% -- that's almost half of American adults -- said they're more open to God today than they were before the pandemic. So I think that's a positive thing. Where I think the real problem lies is among Generation Z, the young people born between 1999 and 2015. They're often called the first post-Christian generation, and they are twice as likely to call themselves atheists as older adults. It's up to 13%.

But at the same time, if you look at what's going on among young people -- and the Centers for Disease Control just recently released a report that says that the rates of depression and anxiety are soaring among young people. Almost 60% of female students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the last year, and nearly 25% made a suicide plan. So we're seeing this play out, this skepticism toward God and the implications of that, largely among the younger people, and that's why it's so important that we as parents and grandparents and others prepare ourselves to be able to interact with them about the questions they have.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, to be able to answer them or at least be able to feel comfortable engaging in a conversation.

Lee Strobel: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's what your book does. Because there are so many stumbling blocks with the -- being so inundated with information, sometimes we know nothing, you know --

Lee Strobel: Right.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- and so no wonder this Gen -- you call them Gen Z.

Lee Strobel: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: No wonder they're so unmoored. If there is no God, there is no hope.

Lee Strobel: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: I mean, no matter what you want to call that God, we've got to have something bigger than us. I'd be depressed if I were the biggest thing in the universe so...

Anyway, here's -- let's go through a couple of these stumbling blocks, though, that really trip people up. Okay? So one of them -- it seems like there's this wave of thought that, like, if you are pro-science, like, everything is science, then there is no God, right?

Lee Strobel: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: There's this contradiction between --

Lee Strobel: Right.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- God and science. So how do you answer that argument?

Lee Strobel: Yeah, I think the exact opposite is true. I think you're right, that's a popular perception. And yet we've had a series of scientific discoveries, just over the last 50 to 80 years, in various areas of science, including cosmology, physics, and biochemistry, that point powerfully toward the existence of a Creator who matches the description of the God of the Bible.

So, for instance, cosmology, it's the origin of the universe. Where did the universe come from? Well, we know that whatever begins to exist has a cause behind it. We know that virtually every scientist admits that the universe began to exist at some point in the past; therefore, there must be a cause behind the universe. Well, what kind of a cause can bring a universe into existence? It must be transcendent or separate from creation, must be timeless or eternal because it existed before physical time was created, must be immaterial or spirit because it existed before the physical world, must be powerful given the immensity of the creation event, must be smart given the precision of the creation event, must be personal because they had to make the decision to create. And Occam's razor, the scientific principle of Occam's razor would tell us there'd be just one creator. So you look at that and you go that's a description of the God of the Bible.

You look at the fine tuning of the universe, it's just staggering. What science now shows is that if you were to go out at night and look up in the sky, and instead of seeing stars, if you saw 100 different giant dials in the sky, each dial with the capacity to be dialed to one of trillions of different settings, that represents a picture of what modern physics tells us about the universe. In other words, the universe -- the numbers that govern the operation of the universe are finely tuned on a razor's edge so that life can exist. If you were to change any of those numbers just a little, life would be impossible.

So I'll give you one example, the force of gravity. If we had a ruler that stretched across the entire known universe, 15 billion light years in width, and it was broken down into one-inch increments, this represents the possible range along which the force of gravity could have been set, and yet it's set at the exact right spot so that life can exist. Now, if we were to change the force of gravity one inch compared to 15 billion light year width of the universe, intelligent life would be impossible anywhere in the universe. And that's just one example.

So we have these examples that defy the explanation that this could be just by chance, and it points toward, again, the existence of a divine Creator who finely tuned the universe so we could have a habitat in which to thrive. So I think science is on our side. I think more than ever in history, it supports the existence of the God of the Bible.

Jennifer Rothschild: And I think what it requires -- what you just explained there clearly required some thought, some processing, some study, and so I think it behooves all of us to recognize, well, we just don't take it all at face value. I mean, we can do the research and the research will affirm the reality of God.

You know, Lee, I remember -- when you were explaining just that minutiae of how if one thing was off, the whole thing falls apart, I remember when our second child was born, our physician that delivered the baby was a Catholic man. And it happened to be on Ash Wednesday. And he delivered the baby and he had tears in his eyes. He was from a Hispanic country. And he said, "I don't think you understand, if just one centimeter, if just one 10th of an inch was off, this baby would not have survived."

Lee Strobel: Wow.

Jennifer Rothschild: Just the way the baby's head comes out -- and, of course, he explained it all, which, of course, with the remains of an epidural I couldn't repeat. But I just remember being so amazed and thought, how can anyone not think there is a designer behind design?

Lee Strobel: That's a great example. You know, we look at Planet Earth, and sometimes you'll see -- in the news you'll see a report about an earth-like planet that's been discovered in another solar system or whatever, and you go, oh, gosh, I wonder if there's life on that planet. Well, when they say they discovered an earth-like planet, what they mean is something about the size of our earth. Now, there are 322 parameters that have to be met, fine tuned, so that life can exist on our planet --

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Lee Strobel: -- which is amazing. We have to have a moon -- the certain size of our moon. We have to be a certain distance from the sun. Even plate tectonics, which drives earthquakes, is necessary so that life can exist. There's all these parameters that have to be met.

And so I was talking to a physicist with a PhD from UCLA, and I said, you know, "Well, golly, there's estimates of maybe there's a billion trillion planets somewhere in the known universe. Maybe one of them will have life other than us." And he said, "You know, even if you accept the fact that there's probably that many potential planets," he said, "when you look at the number of things that have to be just right for that planet to have life," he said, "we scientists have a term for the likelihood of that happening." I said, "What?" He said, "Ain't going to happen."

Jennifer Rothschild: I love it.

Lee Strobel: So you're right, it's -- this fine tuning is remarkable evidence for the existence of a divine Creator.

Jennifer Rothschild: It really is.

Okay. So, though, if you move now the argument from -- let's say that's theoretical or intellectual, to where we live on an emotional level, another thing that I do hear about people grappling with the existence of God is if God is real, then why is there suffering? So how do you respond to that one?

Lee Strobel: Yeah, right. In my book "Is God Real?" I have about six chapters that lay out the case for the existence of the God of Christianity, from science, from history, from philosophy and so forth.

But then I deal with the two biggest objections to the existence of God. And you've just hit on one of them, which is if God is real, why is there suffering in our world? And I've done studies. I did a study a few years ago and I asked people on a scientific basis, a cross-section of Americans, "If you could ask God any one question and you knew he'd give you an answer, what would you ask him?" and this was the number one question. And it's legitimate. And often when somebody asks me this question, I ask a follow-up question. I ask, "Why are you asking that question?" Because I want to know, is this just an intellectual curiosity thing or are they suffering? And if they say, "Because my wife's just been diagnosed with cancer," or whatever, now I know they don't need me to give them a five point answer to the existence of suffering, they need me to be Jesus to them and to love them and empathize with them and to cry with them and comfort them.

But intellectually, this is an issue that every worldview has to grapple with. And I believe Christians have the most reasonable response, which is basically this: God has existed from eternity past as the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, in a relationship of love, perfect love, which means love is the greatest value in the universe. And so when God decided to create humankind, he wanted to give us the capacity to love each other and to love him. Well, in order for us to have the capacity to love, he had to give us free will, because love always involves free will.

You know, when my daughter was little way back when, they had a doll called Chatty Cathy.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Lee Strobel: Remember Chatty Cathy?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

Lee Strobel: And it had a string on her back, and you would pull the string and let go and the doll would talk with you. So she would pull the string and let go and the doll would say, "I love you." That was about how good it was, right?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes, right.

Lee Strobel: Now, did that doll love my daughter? No, of course not. It was programmed to say that. It had to say that. Love involves a choice. And so God gave us the ability to love or not to love. And what did we do? We turned our back on God, we didn't love each other.

You know, I can take my hand and I can -- using my free will, I can pick up a gun and I can kill an innocent person, or I can take my same hand and I can pick up food and feed a hungry person. But it's a little disingenuous for me to pick up my hand and pick up a gun and kill somebody and then to blame God and say, "Why do you allow suffering in the world?" The problem is us. We're the ones that have actualized the potential for evil and suffering in our world. The good news is -- the Bible says if we follow God, Romans 8:28 says that he can cause good even to emerge from the suffering and difficulties we go through. And in this world or the next, he can do that.

And sometimes I talk to people and they say, "Oh, well, you know, God doesn't know what I've been through." You know, I think of my wife who's got a neuromuscular condition, and she's been in pain every day for 20 years and will be in pain every day for the rest of her life, unless God does a miracle, because it's an incurable condition. And, you know, I imagine someone going through what she goes through and saying, you know, "I don't see how God could possibly draw anything good from this." Well, think about this. God took the worst thing that could ever happen in the universe, which is the death of the Son of God on a cross -- deicide, the death of the Son of God -- and from that he created the best thing that could ever happen in the universe, which is the opening of heaven to all who follow him. So if God can take the worst thing in the universe and turn it into the best thing in the universe, he can take whatever difficulties we go through and draw good from them in this world or the world to come. So I think that's the hope that we have.

Jennifer Rothschild: It sure is. Well put, my brother, well put.

All right, let me deal with one more stumbling block then. Okay? Because you're really -- I appreciate your balance of empathy and theory too, I really do. It's so good.

Lee Strobel: Thanks.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, so here's another one. If God were real, then God would make himself more obvious, like his existence would be more clear to everybody. So how do you respond to that?

Lee Strobel: Yeah. This has become the number two biggest objection. And I interviewed a scholar for my book "Is God Real?" in which he -- I got, I don't know, maybe 30 pages we respond to this and -- because it is a legitimate question. You know, a couple of years ago, a well-known Christian singer, Jon Steingard, who was the lead singer for the group Hawk Nelson, walked away from his faith because he said God was too hidden. And so it's a legitimate question, and probably the number two objection.

A couple of things we have to keep in mind. Is the problem with God or is the problem with us? Biblically it says the problem is really with us. We don't like to acknowledge that, we don't like to admit that, but Romans 1:20 says that we can clearly see from creation that God exists, so much so that we are without excuse. But what do we do? We suppress that. What does that mean? Well, the Greek imagery there is -- it's like a pedal. We see evidence of God in creation and we push down that pedal to suppress it. And then it begins to creep up again and we press it down again. And then it begins to creep up again, we press it down again. That's the imagery in the Greek of how we suppress the evidence of God and his existence.

Sometimes -- we don't do this sometimes out of maliciousness. Sometimes we're not even aware of it. To give you an example, if you go to every famous atheist in history, Camus, Sartre, Nietzsche, Freud, Voltaire, Wells, Feuerbach, O'Hair, every single one of them had a father who died when they were young, divorced their mother when they were young, or with whom they had a terrible relationship. And the implication is -- even though you don't realize it, the implication is you may not want to really know or meet a heavenly father if your earthly father has disappointed or abused you, because you think this is only going to be worse. He's going to just be a magnified version of my earthly father and hurt me even more. And so psychologically, even without realizing it, sometimes we hold God at arm's length and we refuse to acknowledge the evidence for God because we don't really want to know him.

I think this, frankly, was a factor in me becoming an atheist. I had a very difficult relationship with my father. He looked at me on the eve of my high school graduation and said, "I don't have enough love for you to fill my little finger." So we had a difficult relationship. And did that encourage me to go down the road into atheism? I think it did. But back then I was unaware of it. So because of our pride, because of sins that we don't want to let go of, because of hidden psychological things like that that we're not even aware of, we tend to suppress the evidence of God's existence, and that's why I think God seems hidden from us sometimes.

Now, the Old Testament in Jeremiah, the New Testament in Hebrews both say if you wholeheartedly seek God, you will find him. You may not have found him yet, but if you keep seeking him, if you keep opening your heart and your life to him, you will encounter him. So does that mean he's going to appear to you physically and hold your hand? No, probably not. But it means he's given us an 800,000-page book about him and his relationship with humankind that can help guide us through life. It means that 38% of Americans have had a supernatural experience of God that they can only attribute to the existence of God.

But, you know, God -- think of this. There have been times in history where God has made himself more apparent. For instance, when the Israelites were going through the desert and, you know, he had the pillar of fire and the smoke and so forth and then he parted the Red Sea, he made himself -- his identity, his existence more clear then than perhaps ever before. But what happened? The Israelites fell back into apostasy. So what makes us think that if God put a neon sign in the sky and said, "I'm here, I exist," that we wouldn't follow the same path, you know?

Jennifer Rothschild: Right. Well, I mean, and you think about it, when Jesus walked the earth and claimed to be fully God, he was crucified, because everybody was like, no, no way, Jose, that can't be.

Lee Strobel: Exactly. Exactly.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. It is our human malady, it really is.

Lee Strobel: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: But I appreciate you pointing out, too, that sometimes there's roots. Instead of just assuming that it's sour fruit, we need to go down and check the roots, what is it that's really fueling this thought process.

Lee Strobel: Yes, yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: And I love what the Lord has done in your life, Lee, because it has ministered to so many of us. So I'm so very thankful.

Lee Strobel: Well, one thing I learned from C. S. Lewis is that if you have that father wound that is keeping you from God, do this. Imagine what the perfect father would be like. Imagine. We can all imagine that. Oh goodness, he would be kind and gentle and loving and pull you up into his lap and give you a hug. He'd be your biggest cheerleader. That is a picture of your Heavenly Father. Our Heavenly Father is not just a magnified version of our earthly Father; he is other worldly. He is fundamentally different. He is the perfect father. And when we imagine the perfect father and say, oh, that's my Heavenly Father, we can get past that father wound that often keeps us from wanting to know him.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, and then the Lord heals that father wound because he replaces it know, you know, father wholeness again.

Lee Strobel: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: I'm a big C. S. Lewis fan. And, yeah, C. S. Lewis, being an atheist at one point too, he had some major father issues. I could barely read "Surprised by Joy" without wanting to jump in the pages and, you know, just get on to his dad for being a knucklehead.

Lee Strobel: Yes. Right, right. True.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, so good.

All right. Something else you do in your book that I want you to talk about, you include an apologetics pyramid. Okay?

Lee Strobel: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: So tell us what that is, and how does that affirm the truth of Christianity?

Lee Strobel: Yeah. Many years ago, there was a guy named Chad Meister who was a volunteer at the church where I was a teaching pastor. And Chad had a penchant for philosophy, so he ran our apologetics ministry as a volunteer.

One day I gave a sermon on the resurrection of Jesus, and afterwards an atheist came up to me and said, "Hey, that was really interesting. Could we get together and talk about it?" And I said, "I'd love to, but I'm leaving for Europe tomorrow, I'm going to be gone three weeks, but my friend Chad would be glad to talk with you." And Chad said, "Oh, yeah, I'll meet with you." So they made an appointment for this atheist to meet with Chad at Chad's apartment. So Chad's thinking, how do I present the case for Christianity to this guy, this atheist? And he invented what's called the apologetics pyramid, this way of starting at the broadest issue and narrowing it to the Gospel. And so he went through this pyramid with this atheist who came over to his house. They ate at 7:00, they began to go through the pyramid, and by 11:00 that atheist was a Christian.

Jennifer Rothschild: Wow.

Lee Strobel: So I interviewed Chad for my book "Is God Real?" and he goes through this pyramid. I'll go through it really quickly. But what it does, it starts out with the broadest issue, what is truth? What is truth? Is all truth relative and equally true? No. Truth is whatever corresponds with reality. And so our task ought to be to discover what reality is. Well, there are only three -- and then you go to the next level of the pyramid, worldviews. There's only three possible worldviews to account for reality: theism, there is a God; atheism, there is no God; or pantheism, everything's God.

And so in the book, we go through those three options and demonstrate that when you look at livability and logic, pantheism and atheism fall apart. The only thing that survives is theism, the belief that there's a God. Then you go to the next level of the pyramid, which is revelation, has God spoken to humankind. And we look at the reliability of the Bible and establish that it can be trusted.

And then we go up to the next revelation from that, which is -- the next level, which is the resurrection of Jesus. What is the evidence that Jesus claimed to be the Son of God and backed up that claim by returning from the dead. And then finally the top of the pyramid, which is the Gospel, that Jesus died for our sins so that we can receive forgiveness and eternal life as a free gift of his grace.

So you go up this pyramid. And through my interview with Chad, it just eliminates all these other possibilities until you get to one possibility, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jennifer Rothschild: And it does, it all hinges on the Gospel. Okay. Okay, that's so practical. And I'm glad to know that's in the pages of your book. Because, 4:13ers, we're going to have a link to the book, of course, and also we're giving one away. So this is going to be a real resource. I'm so thankful you've done this.

Lee Strobel: Well, thank you. Yeah, it was great to be able to interview -- you know, one of the things I love, I don't have to be the world's smartest guy or the world's most educated guy. I'm a journalist. I track down the smartest guys and gals and I sit them in a chair and I pepper them with the tough questions I've got as a former atheist, and my friends have, and doubters and skeptics have, and then I just present their wisdom. And I just love doing it.

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, I love it too. And got to say, it makes you look smart, Lee. Surround yourself with smart people and you look smart.

Lee Strobel: I'm just basking in their glow, you know.

Jennifer Rothschild: I'm with you. I'm with you. Why do you think I have you on the podcast? My street cred goes up anyway. Anyway...

All right, let's move -- this is going to be our last question, Lee. Okay?

Lee Strobel: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: So people who know you, know you as a defender of the faith, an apologist, former atheist, all that. Okay. And you've written so many books on the evidence for Christianity. So this will be a twofold last question. Do you -- personally, Lee Strobel, do you ever doubt? And what would you say to the person who does struggle with doubt?

Lee Strobel: Oh, yeah. Do I doubt? Not -- I don't doubt in the sense of a doubt that is threatening to erode my faith. I do have questions. I do have unresolved issues that I wonder about, and someday I'll raise my hand in heaven and say, "Hey, Jesus, how does this Calvinism and Armenian thing fit together?" You know what I mean?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Lee Strobel: I'll ask all these questions when I get to heaven. But, yeah, there are things I wonder about.

But, you know, these days, Jennifer, unlike when I was an atheist and began to investigate Christianity many years ago, there wasn't a lot of resources out there back then. You know, I'm in museums and libraries with microfilm and trying to find information. These days there's a proliferation of wonderful resources out there to help us get resolution of questions that come up. So we're in a better position as a culture to be able to find answers to satisfy our heart and souls.

And so what I would say to someone who has questions or doubts is that's okay. God's not surprised that you have a question. He's not shocked that you have a doubt. You know, I think of the story of John the Baptist. If anybody should have been absolutely certain about the identity of Jesus being the Son of God, it was John the Baptist. But he gets arrested. And he's in prison and now he starts to have hesitations and questions, and even doubts. But what does he do? Does he wallow in that? No. He says to his friends, Look, go track down Jesus and just ask him once and for all, "Are you the one we've been waiting for or are we to wait for somebody else?"

So they track down Jesus and they say, Hey, Jesus, you know, John's freaking out. He's in prison. He got busted. Are you the one we've been waiting for or are we to wait for somebody else? Now, how does Jesus react? Does Jesus get angry at John? Does he say, How dare John, of all people, have the temerity to express a hesitation about my identity? No. He says to those followers of John, quote, "Go back to John and tell him about what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk. Those who have leprosy are cured. The deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the Good News is preached to the poor." In other words, go back to John. Tell him about the evidence you've seen with your own eyes that convinces you that I am the one I claim to be. So they go back and they tell John. But here's the deal. Has this disqualified John from any role in the Kingdom of God because he dared to ask a question? No. It's after this incident that Jesus gets up and says, "Among those born of women, there's no one greater than John." John, the guy that dared to ask a question.

So Christians and non-Christians alike need to understand it's okay to have questions. But the key thing is to do what John the Baptist did, which is pursue answers. Because it's like -- the analogy I use is like when you're a little kid and you have a nightmare and, you know, you wake up in the middle of night and it's dark and you're sweating and your heart's pounding, you had this horrible nightmare and you're scared to death. What do you do? You run into your parents' bedroom and jump into bed. And you're crying and your parents say, "What's wrong? What's wrong?" and you say, "I had a terrible dream." And they say, "Well, what happened in your dream? Tell us about your dream." "Oh. Well, there was a monster, and he had three eyes and five arms, and he lived under my bed." And then you start to laugh because it sounds so stupid when you describe this nightmare, and then you end up laughing.

Well, that's the same thing about doubts. If you don't talk about them, if you keep them in, like keeping in the dream, the nightmare, it can begin to erode your faith. But when you talk about it, when you're honest about it, when you pursue answers, you'll find answers to satisfy your heart and soul.

That's why churches and student ministries and Christian homes need to be safe places for people to ask tough questions and to say, you know what, it's okay to have questions. Don't feel embarrassed. Sometimes we feel embarrassed, like, oh, I don't want people at church to think I'm not as spiritual as they are, so I'm not going to let on that I've got doubts or questions. No. Sit down with a pastor, read a book, check out a video. Pursue answers and God will guide you to answers that satisfy your soul.

K.C. Wright: If you don't talk about doubts, your faith erodes. But when you talk, when you're honest, you will find answers. So let's be safe places for people to, you know, come kick the tires of faith and ask questions.

Jennifer Rothschild: I agree with that. You know, I think a little bit like Thomas in the Bible. He's often called Doubting Thomas. He gets a -- I just think that's not fair. I don't think he should be called Doubting Thomas. I think he could be called Seeking Thomas, you know, or Questioning Thomas. Because it's okay to ask these questions -- God is not surprised -- and we need to be super comfortable and accepting of these questions and of other people's questions.

K.C. Wright: You know, I was thinking, Jen, that this is just another reason why I love the 4:13 Podcast, because these conversations are now archived to build faith, to encourage for years and years to come, you know? And this book is another great resource, so let's give one away.

Jennifer Rothschild: I like it.

K.C. Wright: You can enter to win one at Jennifer's Insta @jennrothschild, or you can go straight to the Show Notes right now to try to win one of these books at 413podcast.com/IsGodReal. There you can purchase a book or find anything else, of course, that will help you or the people you love on this journey we call life.

All right. So until our next episode, remember that no matter how you feel or what you face even this day, even in this moment, you can do all things through Christ who gives you supernatural strength. I can.

Jennifer Rothschild: I can.

Jennifer and K.C.: And you can.

Jennifer Rothschild: Ooh, good stuff. I think if I lived with Lee Strobel, my brain would hurt.

K.C. Wright: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: I think it would cramp up. Because he's so smart.

K.C. Wright: Well, so are you, Jen. And, you know, I was thinking -- I know you don't like to talk about yourself, but let me -- that's what I'm here for. You know, I was thinking -- you know, it's so cool to hear these people's stories and then see the story on the big screen?

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

K.C. Wright: How cool to have a movie about your life. And I'm thinking it's time for yours.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, my goodness.

K.C. Wright: I'm serious. I've thought about this before. If they can do a movie on the life of Lee Strobel --

Jennifer Rothschild: Well, that's true.

K.C. Wright: -- I think it's time for us to have a movie on your life.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay. Well, then can Julia Roberts please play me? We can just shrink her down a little bit.