Episode 141: Grant Kaplan on Faith and Reason

Grant Kaplan has been working on the relationship between Faith and Reason in the Christian tradition (Catholic University Press, 2022). We discuss differing Catholic and Protestant approaches to the question and why many of the ancient doctors of the church have the greatest insights.

Timestamps:

7:21- Catholic and Protestant Approaches to Faith and Reason

20:55- The Pre-Modern Understanding of Rationality

25:18- Dr. Kaplan’s Changed Viewpoint

30:49- Framing the Relationship

Episode Transcript:

Charles Kim 0:01

Hello, and welcome to history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim. This week I'll be talking with Grant Kaplan. Dr. Kaplan is a Professor of Theology at SLU. So we are colleagues at SLU. And so I've gotten to know Dr. Kaplan through several projects over the past several years. But we're going to talk about his book, faith and reason in the Catholic tradition with Catholic University Press. And so in this theological essay, Dr. Kaplan sort of canvases, various attempts at Christians to reconcile their faith with a kind of their own understanding of the world their reasoning. And so we talk a little bit about what grace and faith have to do with intellect and reasoning. We talk about Protestant and Catholic versions of this, we talked about the insights of origin and Anselm, it's a, it's a great conversation, learn a little bit about Dr. Kaplan zone background, and how he came to sort of experience his faith in a new way at a Presbyterian camp. So, thanks to Dr. Kaplan for coming on. I hope you enjoy that episode. And so please rate us review us on iTunes, get in touch with us on Facebook, on Facebook or on Twitter. We have a website. And yeah, just lots of different ways to get in touch with us. And let us know what what you enjoyed or if there's other things you'd like us to address. So thanks for listening. And here's my conversation with Grant Kaplan. All right, well, so today on the history of Christian theology, we have my colleague and friend, Dr. Grant Kaplan, Dr. Kaplan is a Professor of Theology at St. Louis University. And, yeah, we've been able, I was a grad student at St. Louis University. I don't think I ever took a class with you, because I did early Christianity. But we, I have, I was fortunate enough to kind of work with you a little bit on another project. So we've gotten to know each other a little bit over the last couple years. And grant just wrote a new book faith and reason, the CSC faith and reason through Christian history, a theological essay with Catholic University Press. So that's going to kind of be the focus of our conversation. So welcome, Grant.

Grant Kaplan 2:31

Thank you, it's a joy to be with you here. Yeah.

Charles Kim 2:34

Yeah, you'll be one of many. You know, I want to be on your leverage my place at SLU. For a lot of interviews, so glad that this finally came to fruition. I think I actually got your copy of the book in the fall, and then got bogged down with a lot of stuff. And so I'm glad this can finally happen. So the first thing I kind of wanted to start where your book starts, which is, interestingly, you talk about being at a Presbyterian camp, and sort of what that meant for your own faith development. And so that's kind of an interesting place to begin here. Because you're Roman Catholic, I go to a Presbyterian church now. So would you mind saying a little bit about what that story and how that begins? The maybe some of the ideas for this book way back, I guess, was this in high school?

Grant Kaplan 3:36

Yes, I grew up Catholic, but there wasn't actually a youth at my church. And I didn't even know until later that Catholics were allowed to do youth groups. And so in that, in that, you know, I was born in 1972. So in the late 70s, and early 80s, it wasn't really a peak in the history of the Catholic Church and catechetical formation. And so it was just like, oh, well, Protestants that I knew, seem to kind of care about doing these things for kids. And for Catholics, it was just, you know, go along and sift through things and eventually get confirmed, but not have much formation. And so just by happenstance, you know, a neighbor who lived down the street, his dad was Presbyterian minister, went to this camp a few many times, and it was mostly just fun stuff and singing songs and you know, running around, but then later it was there was some of this intellectual encounter and I you know, I hadn't thought about my faith a lot as as a kid. I believed in God I was more of a taking it for granted. And I just remember, you know, the, it was the first time having An intellectual conversation about faith, you know, where I got a sense that it met a sort of existential need. And so it's first time I remember that it could have happened in two different cities, but uh,

Charles Kim 5:14

you sort of see, like, I don't know how you envision sort of your vocation as theologian. But do you sort of see some of the work that you do at SLU? Kind of, I don't know, redressing some of those, maybe gaps that were in kind of your own formation, as like, as a Catholic, like, do you look at theological education as something that you can provide to give a sort of similar? I don't know instigation for faith in the way that you teach and stuff.

Grant Kaplan 5:54

Certainly, yes, John Tracee, Ellis wrote an influential essay in the 50s. And he was a Catholic priest, he was a church historian. And it was on the, you know, the intellectual life of Catholics. And he said, in the United States, Catholics have made impact and politics and commerce and culture and entertainment. But the place where they made the least impact is the intellectual life. And, and so he talks about the different reasons why. And one of my great mentors, was a Dominican scripture scholar named Benedict Viviano, who was born in 1940. And he entered the Dominicans, and I think 1958. And he read this essay, and he said, you know, he wanted to make a small contribution on this front. And I would understand my vocation as a theologian, as something similar is basically helping students, not just Catholics, but I've taught at Catholic universities for 20 years, so more Catholics than anything else, experience, or a kind of intellectual conversation about their faith life in a way that makes it more intelligible. And possibly true to them.

Charles Kim 7:21

And so this book, faith and reason, I can't I can't remember, I think you probably say it, but it does it emerge from your, your teaching as well, I can't remember if you actually mentioned that. But have you used this in in some of your classes at SLU.

Grant Kaplan 7:37

I did teach a couple of courses on the undergraduate level on the relationship between faith and reason. So I've always been interested in the relationship between faith and reason from the beginning of my studies, but I was asked to write this book. And, and so I, you know, as I began to think about how to write it, I wanted to teach some of the major authors in the Christian church, well, and

Charles Kim 8:05

you do call it so I one of the things that sort of interesting here is, the book is called an essay, I guess we should say, a little bit, maybe, you know, put the emphasis a little bit different, you know, coming more from from the French word for to try, right. So the book points to you say, it's as an essay, the book points to an even claims normativity, for a certain recurring Christian Grammar, about faith and reason, it is a theological essay, meaning that it allows the the grammatical structure of Christian speech about God to guide it through the past 20 centuries. And so you sort of talk about this idea of the kind of possibility or Well, it's not comprehensive, but it is, you know, sort of trying to, you know, work through many different elements are, excuse me many different epochs of sort of Christian grappling with faith and reason. So could you, you know, maybe say a little something about like, why, you know, why have we moved away from this kind of theological writing? And what was it like writing more in this mode than maybe, I don't know, a more systematic or more historic like?

Grant Kaplan 9:25

Yeah, the person who approached me about writing the book originally said that what was lacking in theology, were overviews of main topics in theology, that would do the whole history, but that would be readable. And so you know, different theological topics, Trinity, you know, a guide to the Trinity, what will be a responsible learned guide to the Trinity, that wouldn't be 900 pages long or 800 pages long or something like that? So, I mean, I took the word essay was inspired, you know, in part by new men. And in part by this way of writing, that is more French, I work on a French figure named Rene Girard, and his style of writing has a lot to do with the popularity of his work. And so I wanted specifically to write a more accessible book that would provide an overview. But the danger for a scholar as always to be like, Oh, well, I have to responsibly cover this and responsibly cover that. And there's just a lot of things I leave out in this book, because, right, all right, 600 pages long.

Charles Kim 10:44

Well, and kind of maybe, oh, God, go ahead.

Sticking with this kind of, you know, we've talked about like the the background of this book a little bit. So in in sort of historical terms, like why, what is the difference that makes that you're approaching this from more of a Catholic point of view than, say, a Protestant point of view? Is there is there something about the way that Catholic theologians approach a question like faith and reason that could be at odds with more? I don't know, Presbyterian or Protestant theologian like, like you were talking about in your in your upbringing?

Grant Kaplan 11:34

Yes, I think the Catholic tradition has a longer history of seen philosophy and theology as compatible with one another. And so there's always these, these different kind of moments or polls, you could almost imagine it like an accordion or something that goes closer and stretches apart. And you see, it's just the movement in history, it's not, at the beginning, everyone just thought faith was all that mattered. And then later on, you know, there was this attempt to make it rational, and that was either improving it or making it worse, you know, it's just not the case. I mean, already you have Jesus identified with the Logos, the word reason, and the Gospel of John. Right. But then you have Paul saying these things like I know nothing but crews of Christ crucified, and Christ is a scandal to the Greeks, and, and, you know, wiser than in any wisdom. And so it's this tension you already see in in the biblical texts, and that carries on throughout the whole history. And that's one of the themes of the book is that push and pull. I would say that because of Luthers experience with a kind of decadent, late medieval scholasticism, he against which he strongly rebelled. Now, there were already rebellions against it or push back against an overly dry intellectualized scholasticism in the 13th century was someone like Bonaventure. So it wasn't that Luthers attempts or complaints were unique, but given his role in the foundation of Protestant Christianity, that became much more part of suspicion of reason, became much more part of the Protestant DNA. But in the book I show already lengthen is walking a lot of Luther stronger comments back, and Luther himself Walk, walk some of those comments back. So I wanted as much as possible to show a kind of tendency within Protestant theology, but also a diversity within Protestant theology about these questions.

Charles Kim 14:10

Yeah, yeah, I'm reminded, you know, a part of my job is to teach at the Catholic seminary here. And, you know, when I'm talking to other Protestants about what I do, I they they're always surprised at how long Catholic priests spend in quote unquote, seminary. Well, of course, for us or for over the at the Catholic seminary, the seminary is actually just the first degree and it's a philosophy degree. And then the second degree is the master of divinity. And so you spend, you know, you spend many years in your training as a priest, but it's very clear that even from that kind of like, way of doing formation, that philosophy is integral to the theological project of, you know, the training and formation of Catholic priests and then therefore, you know, Catholics in general.

Grant Kaplan 15:02

Yeah. And that putting doing philosophy first was something that became part of seminary formation, I think in the 19th century, maybe it's a little bit earlier was actually not the case in the medieval period that you would study philosophy first. I mean, you do the trivium and the quadrivium as a kind of foundation, but yeah, and so, the, that, but that's studying philosophy in the Jesuits that study with us, the Jesuits, scholastics, who are at St. Louis University, they're doing their philosophy after they're novices. So they're novices where they do the spiritual exercises, some kind of volunteer experience. And then they do scholasticism where they have to get the acquire the scholastics, which they have to get the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in philosophy. The reality is that most of them get a master's in philosophy. And then they they teach high school, usually, and after that they study theology and theology is subsequent to philosophy, but the faith experience of the discernment and the 30 day silent retreat where you do the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, that's prior. So it's kind of interesting how it's not just the intellectual part. And then the affective the effective part comes first. But the intellectual formation is one where philosophy precedes theology. And, you know, a lot of a lot of other religious traditions would balk at that.

Charles Kim 16:42

Yeah, well, and the other thing I was just thinking of when you were kind of comparing Luther and kind of the, you, I think, use the word decadent, late medieval scholasticism that he was responding to it is interesting, of course, that the Protestants respond with their kind of, you know, Protestant scholasticism, not long after Luther. So, you know, I guess, to some extent, you know, there, even if you just look within kind of the last 500 years within Protestantism, you also have this accordion style, back and forth between sort of reason, rationality and that kind of thing, and faith. So, you know, to some extent, you know, you could tell a similar story, although, of course, in a way, it's going to be shorter, when we're calling something specifically Protestant, but that same tension.

Grant Kaplan 17:31

Certainly, yes, certainly.

Charles Kim 17:34

So when you're so just going deeper into the book and your survey of the early theologians, I was, you know, interested in how you kind of characterize the Patristics? Obviously, that's something I have great interest in. But you you're in your exposition of origin, you have this quote, Christianity is an historical religion, meaning meaning its deepest truths, rest on historical claims. And it's sort of interesting, you know, right from the beginning, as Christians begin to reflect on their their faith. And as in this case of origin, we're already sort of seeing the that tension of faith and reason, history and faith. So could you say a little bit about why there might be a problem with faith and reason? And how it relates to the question of history?

Grant Kaplan 18:29

Yes, so the historical truths are, they can't be demonstrated in the way that logical or mathematical or scientific truths can be demonstrated. So, you know, you take an ancient historical truth, like Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and whatever a year he did, or the year we think he did. And now there's a certain amount of evidence that we might have, you know, reference to Caesar and multiple manuscripts, you know, to reference an author's that were, you know, not friendly to the Roman Empire, you know, corresponding archaeological evidence and there's name might be on a coin or something like this. But you can't reproduce the truth, the way you can reproduce like the Pythagorean Theorem, or, you know, whatever objects fall at 30 feet 32 feet per second per second, that can't be like reproduced in a lab. So we could you know, the normal way we refer to these kinds of truths is contingent truths. And so, Christianity rests on certain contingent truths. Crucified by punches, Pilate rose again on the third day born Virgin Mary, like the creed of Christians, the main creed of Christians. References belief in historical truths, as well as metaphysical truths, you know, one and being with the Father God, from God, Light from Light, these are things that are seen, as you know, metaphysical claims that don't rest on a historical record. And so, yeah, and history is, you know, at different times seen as, you know, a very exalted reliable science, and at other times is a very unreliable science. I mean, right now. Yeah, we're with but for a long time historians have been in a kind of crisis of, you know, how subjective in light of postmodern thought is history? And then how do we need to think how can you kind of separate the historical event from the teller of the historical event?

Charles Kim 20:55

Yeah, yeah, it's, I remember, when I first got to SLU, we had to take a class with Ken Parker, on historical method. And I found that to be maybe one of the most challenging classes I probably took in, in the doctoral program, but also one of the most helpful for trying to wrap my mind around some of these problems. And we didn't, you know, we didn't necessarily try to solve them metaphysically or something, but it was just encountering this conversation. And it just made me think of the, you know, lessons ditch, which I had never heard that that problem, you know, how do we get sort of the metaphysical immortal truths given to us in sort of a contingent historical fashion, and, you know, being introduced to this kind of problem puts so, so starkly. And it's interesting, that origin was already thinking about it. And it's sort of recurs as you say, where you have kind of different eras of kind of historical certainty.

Grant Kaplan 21:57

Yes, yeah. I mean, Dr. Parker can park was a great friend. And that was a legendary class and very valuable class for introducing students into the discipline of historical theology. And so, I mean, you know, the, when you have a religion based on events, like, basically Western monotheistic religions, this, then you're going to get a, you know, a relationship to these events in a sort of style of thinking, that's different from a religion based on like, speculation, you know, or contemplation. And so that speculative idea, now you get a lot of what we would call speculation and Christian, it's certainly true, but it's, it's always rooted in these events that took place, and that the human being is in a way kind of responding to events, rather than or experiences rather than just speculating about what what the truth is.

Charles Kim 23:07

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's helpful. So just kind of, you know, moving forward a little bit in history, and maybe there's a kind of a hint at some rapprochement between these sort of poles of, of that we've kind of been talking about the push and pull. And and some, when your discussion of and some, you write the the understanding arrived at through the rational cogitate of activity takes place on the same grace continuum as faith, understanding intellectuals does not mean the rational pursuit that humans undertake on their own pre modern authors on maths did not think about reason this way. So could you say a little bit some of something about the the nature of sort of pre modern understanding of rationality? And how kind of maybe we had a more unified view of these things that weren't always so antagonistic?

Grant Kaplan 24:02

Yeah, I mean, this is something that when you you know, we're our instinct, or our natural tendency is modern readers, is to think of reason or intellect as like a an autonomous human activity that takes place on a purely natural plane. And then faith is like the top story or a higher level or something, and it comes down to sort of requires grace or something. And I don't think that's the case with pre modern authors, and especially Anselm I think there's enough Hansen evidence that he thought of reason is already on a scale, so to speak of participation in the mind of God of it. You know, needing some kind of grace of not purely you know, even when they say natural reason, they don't imagine nature as the kind of shut off boxed in autonomous system that runs on its own without God. So once you understand this, then it's easier to kind of put together faith and reason. And when the modern authors and I talked about Spinoza and Descartes when they come along they're they're much more interested in bracketing anything supernatural are graced outside outside of this connotative reasoning faculty. And so that that, in a way, then creates the split or the schism or kind of unbridgeable gulf between faith and reason in the modern period.

Charles Kim 26:02

Yeah, yeah, it kind of reminds me, oh, and Barfield, in saving the appearances talks a little bit about, you know, sort of, he has the like, the it's almost like the scientific method assumes a view from nowhere while view from nowhere, I guess is Rawls is phrase but like a sort of assumes that you could be outside the system, and just sort of independently reason outside the system and look at it sort of like you look under a microscope, and sort of the mentality that arises in a kind of scientific age is that you can abstract yourself enough from from investigation, that it's sort of purely rational, purely reasonable, and it's not affected, right. It's not like it doesn't participate in the system, because if it does, it would ruin the experiment, right? Like, you could never totally control all the variables. And it sort of seems like, you know, the, the pre modern authors or, you know, Anselm, and, you know, I think I'd put Augustine in this to certain extent as well, they already understand that their reasoning within a system at work, a system moving a system going in any direction, and you can't, you know, have the god like distance at all. So reasoning is like, as you say, is already rooted in, in a kind of grace activity.

Grant Kaplan 27:23

Yes, definitely agree there. There's a very, you know, good and accurate summary. And that, you know, I mean, plenty of philosophers of science have talked about this problem of, you know, the objective view of the scientists not really being the case. And, yeah, I mean, that's well, well trod and documented.

Charles Kim 27:45

Yeah. Well, one thing that I like to ask my guests to kind of, you know, kind of different question that can relate to your research for this book. But it could also just be like, sort of getting to know, a scholar and an author, I like to ask, what is one thing that you once thought true, and now think is false? Or the other way around you once thought was false? And now think is true? So just a kind of an open, open question. You can whatever, whatever comes to mind, about some kind of major change in your thinking, and then maybe a little bit like, what what change what caused you to make this change?

Grant Kaplan 28:27

Yeah, that's a that's a good question. I, you know, I was as a as a Catholic, I was very influenced by Carl Bart, the story he told about the 19th century, and specifically, when he wrote a book called The history of Protestant thought and the 19th century as a kind of downhill all the way leading to, you know, Protestant ministers and theologians been complicit in the First World War and what he called cultural Protestantism. And it all sort of started with Friedrich Schleiermacher. And I, I've done a lot of work recently on FC Bower fared nonferrous John Bower, like talk about briefly in the book, but I, you know, he's kind of seen as like, the worst sort of Protestant liberal theologian and, you know, from a Catholic perspective, it's like, well, you know, guys are all Protestant. So your differences don't matter that much to me. Right. But I mean, that's a sort of slight tongue in cheek way of putting it but I, you know, I was quite convinced by Carl Bart and, and, yeah, and increasingly, I think some of the more interesting conversations that are going to happen ecumenically between Protestant and Catholic theologians, are already happening are already contained in the writings of Schleiermacher and also Bauer, you know, and so when I was in graduate school, a lot of Catholics were like, we don't really and a lot of Protestants, I mean, my, my roommate had come from Duke Divinity School, and he was very much kind of Barty. And Howard was tight. And so that was very much of the mentality among Catholics was well, Bart's good. But, you know, Schleiermacher and power and these 19th century German liberal Protestants, they're, they're not really worth your time, and they were all wrong. And Karl Barth showed exactly how, and that that I just simply don't believe anymore. And I think, in some ways, fair, non Christian Bowers, probably the most interesting Protestant theologian of the past 200 years.

Charles Kim 30:49

Huh, yeah, well, that will, that would go against, or at least complicate the story. I just recorded an interview, it hasn't aired yet, with Paul hin lucky. And he's a Lutheran theologian lived in Slovakia for many years, and tells the story of Samuel Saul of Su ski. And this guy basically tells he basically comes to a similar conclusion about German liberal theology. And it's sort of I don't know, what's the right word sort of the the way it laid the groundwork for and even sort of Blessed World War One and ultimately, World War Two. And so him lucky tells a story sort of like, through OSU ski, sort of like Bart. And I think you mentioned how are Watson there as well. But But anyway, that'll be it'll be, it'd be interesting to get his response to that. But yeah, so anyway, listeners can can look out for that conversation.

Grant Kaplan 31:50

Sure, bring us both back on. No, I mean, I think that there's plenty of things that that tradition gets wrong, and I wouldn't follow them all the way. But I think in a lot of ways, there was a profound engagement, animated by very deep faith. And they see a lot of interesting things. And and so, you know, it's just something that I hadn't expected to change my mind, because I found Bart, very convincing. But

Charles Kim 32:19

yeah, well, I did, I didn't necessarily mean to challenge you, per se. I was just sort of it just like I just recorded that interview. So it was sort of fresh on my mind.

Grant Kaplan 32:29

Oh, great, great. No, I mean, the important thing is people are talking about, you know, the these things. That's, that's the main thing. Yeah,

Charles Kim 32:41

I'm at sort of towards the end of your book, you talk about what it means to receive faith. And so I thought I may ask you to sort of expand on why, what is why this is an important way to frame the relationship between faith and reason, the quote that I sort of had in mind was, you say, in our late capitalist culture, faith, perhaps comes to the believer, in spite of her parents, and religious leaders, and in defiance of what respectable people believe the task in these circumstances is to show the reasonability of the ascent, since its gifted, not obligatory quality is on full display.

Grant Kaplan 33:23

Yeah, so you've got someone like Kierkegaard, you know, when he talks about Christendom, and he talks about this problem of, you know, if you read the biblical account, or the early Christianity, Christianity is still sort of turning away from the world. But in the Denmark of his time, when I think, you know, every Danish citizen was like, automatically a Christian, it's just, you, you associate Christianity, the acceptance of Christianity, with the world, you know, with whatever is, you know, Normie. And, and that is still the case in certain parts of, you know, more rural parts, I would say, of the United States, or, you know, I guess, the Midwest in the south, there's a kind of normative assumption of Christian exteriority, you could say, and, but that's, it's changing. It's changed everywhere, very quickly. I just got back from Ireland. And, you know, there's a lot of discussion about just the bottom falling out of the Irish church for a variety of reasons, but going from what had been a kind of people thought of Ireland as a pious Catholic place to just intensely secular place, you know, closer to Spain and France than to you know, the Ireland of Joe Biden's memory or something. So yeah, and and that, so the possibility of risk recovering faith as this graced experience. I I think, you know, it says in the Bible that you, you have nothing that you haven't received. And there's a receptive quality of faith. And so you can imagine it, or compare it as something like falling in love. So, when the first time you remember falling in love with someone, or something, you remember it almost as something happening to you. So, outside of the normal romantic context, it may be that, you know, the first time you picked up Dostoyevsky, or whatever, and you just around page 42, or 142, you suddenly felt like, oh, my gosh, this person is writing novels in a way that speaks to me, you know, like the apostles on the road to a mass, I feel my heart is burning inside, you know. And so this can be an intellectual thing, it can be, you know, a romantic, erotic it can be and friendship. But that falling in love, when we experience it, we experience it fundamentally as something that happens to us. Right? And, and that is the nature of faith is something that happens to us. And since it happens to us, like I can go outside and garden and get the weeds off of my grass, and the weeds are there now, and I can pull them all out. And solely by my own labor, I will have unweighted the grass, and it's my accomplishment, right? And so a lot of intellectual things that happen to us, you know, we get the sense of having earned or, you know, different in different experiences, you get the sense of having earned it having climbed up to it? Well, this is the momentum kind of goes the other way, instead of us climbing at something coming into us. And so that experience is, whether it's a, you know, totally secular experience or not, there's an analogy between it and the experience of receiving faith. And I think in this era, in which for so, you know, a decreasing number of people, increasingly decreasing number of people, Faith is not something that just almost naturally acquired in context of a thick religious community than that the likelihood for people recognizing this grace quality is much higher, because it is like an aha, wow, I didn't expect this experience.

Charles Kim 37:56

Yeah, I think that I mean, that my first thought is, one, it reminds me of kind of how I teach. You know, when Augustine talks about in book, one of the confessions, you know, the idea of a rebirth, right? It's not something you choose, it's something you receive, right? So it's almost like the, the fundamental Augustinian posture, if you like, is reception. And and that seems to be for him. The beginning and you know, why does it take until book eight? Or why does it take until his 30s? Before this totally ledge a moment? Well, it's not something that you can make happen in the strictest sense. It has to be received, and, and you can never, you can never know when that moment is going to happen. You can't and you can't control it, you can't make it happen. But when it does, it's sort of undeniable. As it was for him.

Grant Kaplan 38:49

Yeah, not for him this this key tension between, you know, pride and humility. And so he's not he's not humble enough to receive this and was too proud. And that, you know, a lot of times that affective disposition has more to do with us understanding the intelligibility of faith and reason.

Charles Kim 39:12

And it almost it also sort of connects back to kind of go full circle, we were talking a little bit about your experience at this Presbyterian camp, you know, there like that's not something that you sort of did on your own. But it did occasion kind of question about the the sort of an existential question of your own faith. And so there's a sense in which, you know, that was part of it seems like if I, if maybe I'm projecting, but it seems like there's some sort of a, an uncontrollable quality to that it wasn't just the pure kind of intellect working on its own. But responding to the circumstances in which you were when when would you were placed?

Grant Kaplan 39:51

Yeah, I mean, one way you could say it is, you know, I mean, you and I are both theologians, and I think we both have a theological vocation. And one way of thinking about it is not, you know, wasn't like, Does God exist or not? But it was more like, Well, God clearly exists because this other person is speaking to me. And, and so, therefore, since this is the case, how do you work out the rest of life? You know, given that this is so, you know, it's almost like, you know, not to put too dark thing on it, but it's almost like, you know, if you get like a death, definitely diagnosis, or, you know, you woke up one day and you had wings, and you could fly or something's like, Well, now that I can fly, how am I going to organize the rest of my life, you know, I don't need a car anymore. You know, I got to figure out some way to put these wings or whatever. And so, you know, it's, it's a way of, you know, or if you, you know, to realize you have five years to live, then, you know, everything is like, Well, now, how do I want to I want to do if I'm only gonna be alive for five more years, and what's really important to me, and it's just something that kind of reorganizes everything. And so for me, believing in God, or having an experience of Christ in my heart, made me what NANOG said, given that this is the case, now, how am I going to, you know, figure out the rest of what I believe about the world and the person and you know, whether there's meaning and goodness in life.

Charles Kim 41:35

Yeah, yeah, it's almost I mean, you know, it's hard not to think about phenomenology here a little bit, but, but either way, I, you know, I, I was listening to another podcast where someone was trying to give, you know, kind of an apologetics in defense of historical claims. And I, you know, we're not, we used to hear that a lot growing up, like, oh, you know, you need to, you know, you need to investigate your faith, so you can defend it to those who might disagree with you, and you can prove the historical resurrection. And I use, you know, I was very interested in doing that sort of thing. But it was, eventually I realized, I was like, Well, I'm not asking these questions, because someone else might ask them, ultimately, I'm asking them myself. But really, that's not the heart of the matter. Like there is, as you say, there's this, there's this experience, there's this thing that you can't control. So like, even if I could give a perfect logical syllogism that would prove that Christ resurrected that the tomb was empty. It's a different thing, though, to say, Okay, well, if that's the case, then also Jesus is Lord. You know, it making that move. You know, you can't just do with apologetics. So I'm, I'm gonna, I'm a little suspicious of apologetics generally. But But yeah, that that moment of existential encounter is just you know, that that's the that's the thing that you can't just make happen for someone.

Grant Kaplan 43:00

Yeah. And what the dilemma you're describing, as what you know, Maurice Blundell, talks about when he talks about extremes, the system and blend has been very important to me. And it's very important that the book is kind of someone who gets the 20th century discussion going. So he's a very important figure. And I'm excited like you to welcome our new Danforth chair and carpenter who works on blonde Tao, among other things.

Charles Kim 43:32

Yeah, well, we're getting close to basically that's about as much time as I have, and I don't want to take more of your time. But it's been great talking with you and getting to read through this book a little bit. And, yeah, just thank you for your encouragement in my own career, and as well as putting out this very helpful and thoughtful book on a very, you know, integral question to the life of faith.

Grant Kaplan 44:05

You're welcome. Chad is a joy and a pleasure to be on and I am very thankful for the work that you do both on this podcast and in the classroom.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai