0:00

I showed you this when you were here, but in my right

0:02

hand, I am holding my favorite

0:05

coin that I've ever had, ever.

0:07

Do you remember which one that is? Yes.

0:10

No.

0:18

I tell you a lot about it. I tell

0:21

you about a lot of coins, man. I can't believe you.

0:23

It's really old. That'd be like you asking

0:25

me, what do you think my favorite rocket is? I'd

0:27

be like, oh no, oh no, oh no. Did you just fake a Southern

0:29

accent by saying my, instead of my?

0:32

My favorite rocket. Stig

0:35

of it. I didn't mean to. What's your favorite

0:37

coin, Matt? I got this plop of

0:39

silver that was made by Alexander the Great.

0:41

Oh, the plop of silver, that's a good one. Yeah,

0:44

the plop of silvers. How many plop

0:46

of silvers does a loaf of bread cost? Oh,

0:49

wow. I can figure that out. Tell

0:51

me how much the plop of silver is. We can get it

0:53

done.

0:54

This one is, it's just awesome.

0:57

It's got Alexander the Great's face on it. This

0:59

is the coolest thing. I think probably

1:01

Aristotle, his tutor, helped him think through

1:04

what his currency ought to look like. Looks

1:06

like there's a goddess or something on the back of this.

1:09

And what I want to do is

1:10

I'm going to flip this coin. And

1:12

if it comes up heads, then

1:15

I think we should probably talk about

1:17

coin flips in this conversation. But

1:19

if it comes up tails, I think we

1:21

should just turn off the microphones and let

1:24

everybody wonder if we're actually as committed

1:26

as we are to saying we were gonna do what we were gonna do. That

1:28

sounds great. And we just don't have the episode at all. That sounds

1:30

great. Cool.

1:32

Yeah. I'm gonna flip this now. I kind of feel

1:34

like this is predetermined. Do you

1:36

feel like that has already, I mean,

1:39

is that how fate works? I almost feel like we've

1:41

already recorded the episode

1:43

and we're going back and we're like time

1:45

travelers coming back and re-recording this

1:47

coin flip to give us a good intro is what I feel

1:50

like. Crazy.

1:51

Here's what I happen to know about this coin. Every

1:54

time I flip it ever, it

1:56

comes up the exact same way. It's something,

1:59

it's not an even weight.

1:59

So I kind

2:02

of know what's gonna happen. Oh, okay,

2:04

yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was heads. Oh, great, okay,

2:06

yeah. Well, let's do an episode. I spent a lot of heads. I've

2:08

just been sitting here doing that. I think we probably ought

2:10

to do it. How about I flip this thing,

2:12

and if it's heads again, we'll have Tina play

2:14

that little banjo sound of music we

2:17

do all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the mandolin,

2:19

yeah, let's do it. It was heads, I guess we

2:21

could play the music. Kale, huda thunk.

2:24

Oh, I know where

2:26

this is going.

2:31

Do you ever use coin flips,

2:33

paper rock scissors, anything like

2:35

that to make decisions? I know where this

2:37

is going. Are you gonna talk about casting lots?

2:40

What? Casting lots?

2:42

What do you mean by that? Yeah,

2:45

so yeah, because we had talked about this

2:47

a while back. In the Bible, when people

2:50

don't know what to do, they did this thing called casting

2:52

lots.

2:53

And I have no idea how you

2:55

do that. I always imagined, I don't

2:58

know, you have these things in your mind's eye. And

3:00

I've always imagined somebody with a bag

3:03

full of sticks or something, like the

3:05

game Pickup Sticks, do you remember that game? Yeah.

3:08

I always imagined somebody had a bunch of sticks and they

3:10

threw them on the ground and somehow they read the sticks

3:12

and they're like, oh, it says we should

3:15

sail to Carthage or

3:17

something, I don't know. And so I've

3:19

always wondered what that meant, what

3:22

casting lots meant. And we had talked about this

3:24

a little bit. And so when you flip the coin, I thought about that.

3:26

I was like, oh, okay, it doesn't matter which one we do, but

3:29

we're just gonna leave it up to chance because it doesn't

3:31

really matter. We just need to make a decision. I

3:33

am wildly interested in this topic

3:36

and I would like to know what your research

3:38

has told you.

3:39

Oh, bummer, it didn't make you mad at all. No,

3:41

no, it's interesting. I thought it would make you like uncomfortable or something, I'd be

3:44

like, why don't I just seriously want to talk about it? Okay,

3:46

no, that's awesome. What my research

3:48

has told me is that, first of all,

3:50

there are a ton of different ways

3:53

that people across all cultures

3:56

for all of time have tried to get unstuck

3:59

in a decision. or figure out what they ought

4:01

to do. For some people,

4:04

that is a matter of, well, I've narrowed it

4:06

down to a couple of good options, and

4:10

I just cannot decide. They both work. The

4:12

only decision that doesn't work is inaction.

4:15

So we're just gonna all agree to operate

4:18

with whatever the outcome is, and we're gonna flip

4:20

this Alexander the Great coin, and this

4:22

time it's the goddess on the back, which I guess

4:25

we're calling Tails. So there we go. We're

4:27

moving forward. Now we are unstuck. There's

4:29

no appeal to deity

4:32

or a higher power in the situation

4:34

that I just described.

4:36

It's just, I don't know, you're just getting unstuck,

4:38

right? It's just you're trying to access something that's

4:41

chancy, that's random.

4:43

But then there are other times where people throughout

4:45

history have gone for

4:48

something more complex, almost something

4:50

sacrificial to try to tap into

4:53

some higher power of the deity

4:56

or some personal notion of fate

4:59

or the cosmos or whatever. And

5:02

that's where you get into divining,

5:04

like taking a bunch of chicken guts and

5:07

all the guts sort of maybe mean something different

5:10

and some kind of soothsayer or diviner

5:12

can scoop through that in a bowl

5:15

and be like, we are to go and fight

5:17

the

5:17

Persians and it sends that kind

5:19

of message. Or the pickup

5:22

sticks, I think comes a little closer to that because that's

5:24

a very multifaceted

5:26

scenario you were throwing out there. That

5:29

would be more like, I got no idea what to

5:31

do next. I haven't really narrowed down the choices.

5:34

Let's just start doing this. In a way, maybe a Ouija

5:36

board falls into that category as well.

5:39

Theoretically, I don't believe that

5:41

Ouija boards work or do anything, but

5:43

the idea of that sort of practice of spiritism

5:46

is you ask it a question, very open-ended

5:48

ones are fine and it can even spell out

5:51

an answer for you. So that would be a version

5:53

of divining as well. Well, here's what's

5:56

interesting.

5:57

The Bible strictly

5:59

forbids. God's chosen

6:01

people, the people who come up in the Bible, the Old

6:03

Testament especially, from doing

6:06

any kind of divination.

6:08

They're not supposed to consult the spirits

6:10

to make decisions or figure things out, but

6:13

they are allowed to cast lots. I

6:17

mean, it happens all over the Bible. There's tons of casting

6:19

lots and it's never condemned. At

6:22

worst, it's treated as value neutral. At

6:24

best, it's treated as having yielded a good

6:26

result. My question for you would

6:28

be,

6:29

what would be the difference in your level

6:31

of comfort with a

6:33

Ouija board or consulting

6:36

the guts of a bird versus

6:38

flipping a coin or rolling a dice?

6:40

Oh wow, that's a great question.

6:43

A Ouija board spelled

6:45

O-U-J-I, how do you spell that?

6:48

Ouija board, I don't know how to spell it. Dang

6:50

it. Oh, wait, yeah, there's a weird

6:52

U in there and an A and an I and a J, a weird J. It's like

6:54

a placemat, right? And there's a bunch of letters

6:57

on the placemat and a bunch of people put their hands

6:59

on this thing, this little

7:01

shuttle that moves around

7:03

and it goes and selects different words

7:06

or letters. And so

7:08

I've always looked at that and thought I could totally

7:10

manipulate that.

7:11

If my hands are on that, I could totally

7:14

be like, oh,

7:15

I want it to say a certain thing. I've

7:18

often wondered what was going on with that. Also,

7:20

I don't think that's real casting of

7:23

lots, so to speak, where you

7:25

use a statistically even

7:28

probability thing like

7:30

turbulence. So turbulence is

7:32

very, very susceptible to its first

7:35

boundary conditions.

7:36

So think about this, a coin, you

7:39

flip it, in theory, if it's a perfectly weighted

7:42

coin, it's 50-50, one way or the

7:44

other. That's a beautiful decision-making

7:46

thing.

7:47

But the amount of effort

7:49

that you put into the thumb flip and

7:52

which side it's on when you

7:54

start thumping it, so to speak, or flipping

7:56

it, all those things will

7:58

affect the ultimate And even the bounce

8:00

at the bottom, that'll affect it. But

8:02

that first thump, and then it flies

8:04

in the air,

8:05

when it hits and starts bouncing around there's a lot

8:07

of chaos there. So that

8:10

chaos kind of evens out

8:12

the statistical probability of a head or a tail,

8:14

which I think is fascinating.

8:16

Much like turbulence, turbulence is, I'm

8:19

imagining an experiment by the guy

8:22

that came up with the Reynolds number.

8:24

It's like a tube of glass and he has a little

8:26

ink that he's putting into a very slow

8:28

flowing liquid and it'll be smooth at first

8:31

and then it'll go chaotic and it'll start whipping like

8:33

a tail.

8:34

Those first inputs,

8:36

like maybe even the pulse of the guy holding

8:38

the tube,

8:39

those little bitty inputs can have huge

8:41

ramifications downstream. And

8:44

so with something like a Ouija board, I feel

8:46

like people have control over the

8:48

outcome. But

8:49

with something like a coin flip, I feel like

8:51

you have less control over the

8:53

outcome. Did you guys, in junior high,

8:55

did you ever flip dollars? Did you ever have

8:58

the bad kids in the bathroom flipping dollars? Do

9:01

you know what that is? No, I have no

9:03

idea what that means. Okay, so when

9:05

I was in junior high, there

9:06

were these kids, they would be, hey man, you want to go drop

9:08

dollars or flip dollars? I forget what they called it. And

9:11

the two guys, just imagine two seventh

9:13

graders and they would spread out

9:15

and then there'd be like a big space

9:17

in between them and they'd each be holding a dollar.

9:21

And then they would say, all right, man, you call

9:23

it. And he'd go, Evens.

9:25

And then they would both drop their dollars.

9:28

And then if they both came up heads,

9:31

then it was Evens. But if one

9:33

was a head- This is not a silver dollar, this is a

9:35

dollar bill. A paper

9:37

piece of currency.

9:39

Okay. So they would drop it and if

9:41

he said Evens

9:42

and one came up with George Washington's

9:44

head and whatever's on the back, what

9:47

is on the back of a dollar bill, do you know?

9:49

It doesn't have like pyramids and

9:51

eagles and stuff. Yeah. So

9:53

if the one eyed pyramid comes up on

9:55

the bottom side or whatever, then

9:58

that would be

9:59

odds and so if the guy called

10:02

Evens and they came up odds, then

10:04

the other kid wins and he gets

10:06

to keep the dollar.

10:08

They would have like 10 $1 bills and they'd go

10:10

drop dollars in the bathroom, which was like

10:12

a form of gambling.

10:13

However,

10:14

the really bad kids knew

10:17

how to drop their dollars.

10:19

I can still remember this one kid,

10:21

I can't see his face but I can see his hands,

10:24

he would curl the dollar in

10:26

a certain way so that when it fell,

10:28

it would flip, it would spin

10:30

but it would more often than not land concave

10:33

up. Does

10:34

that make sense? Yes. Yeah?

10:38

So he would increase, even if he could tilt the probability

10:40

of the outcome by 10%, that

10:42

would be good for him. So he'd be 64. Well,

10:45

over a long period of time, that's going to get it done. Yeah,

10:47

exactly. And so when you're talking about casting

10:50

lots or making decisions and things like this,

10:52

anything that's truly chaotic and

10:55

you can't predict if it's a one

10:57

or a zero, so to speak, I think that

10:59

is a good way to make a decision.

11:02

So for example, if you and I

11:04

had to do something, like who gets the front seat, who

11:06

has to sit in the back seat? I could see

11:08

us doing paper rock scissors. I could see

11:10

that. Another form of casting lots. Yeah,

11:12

paper rock scissors is just lots. What

11:15

does it mean? When we say casting lots, is

11:17

that a noun, lots or

11:20

what is that? It's the root word that we get lottery

11:22

from. Really? Or to say his lot in

11:25

life. That's all from the same

11:27

term.

11:28

I think it refers to a whole variety of

11:31

techniques and practices that

11:33

involve an attempt at randomization,

11:35

that turbulence, that chaos that you're talking

11:38

about. To me,

11:39

that is how you would separate what's called

11:42

claromancy from the ancient

11:44

Greek word claros, which is also

11:46

interestingly where we get the term cleric.

11:48

And

11:49

so it's kind of crazy that this

11:51

attempt to determine the will of the divine or

11:53

of fate using chance is

11:56

what ultimately ended up lending itself to

11:58

the clergy kind of wild.

12:00

Things that would count as claremancy,

12:03

I think are all an attempt to tap in

12:05

to that turbulence,

12:07

ironically, in a way to find

12:10

order.

12:11

If you're doing something that

12:13

does not have a specific outcome

12:15

from a turbulent event,

12:17

but one that it requires interpretation,

12:20

well,

12:20

at that point you're getting into divination, which

12:22

I think is another category, because 10

12:25

different people could theoretically split

12:27

open a chicken and look at the exact same 10 sets

12:30

of guts and arrive at 10 completely

12:33

random conclusions that aren't binding in any

12:36

way. At that point, you're not really putting your

12:38

hope in fate that you're gonna get an answer

12:40

that is reliable. You're putting your

12:42

hope in the interpretation of that priest,

12:45

that person who goes through guts.

12:47

So to me, that would be the two different categories. That makes sense?

12:49

Yeah, that does make sense. But like

12:52

looking at the entrails of a chicken, is

12:54

that a thing that people would do to get answers?

12:56

Yeah, oh, absolutely. And

12:59

as I understand it, that is forbidden.

13:02

I don't know, is it specific or not? I do

13:04

a Bible thing every day, so I, even

13:07

when we're recording, I still have a Bible

13:09

sitting right here.

13:10

Leviticus 19, is

13:12

it actually Leviticus 19? I

13:14

think it is, that is a very dangerous

13:17

chapter of the Bible for me to go poking

13:20

around at with a microphone. Why is

13:22

that? Really, you wanna know?

13:25

Did it talk about? Okay, it has a, I'm pretty,

13:29

no, say it, what do you got? Does it talk about

13:31

sexual misconduct or something like that? Yeah,

13:34

it does. All of this chunk of Leviticus

13:36

does. It's all about, Leviticus 18 and 19 are

13:39

real spicy.

13:40

It's all about life for

13:43

this group of slaves who had just

13:45

been set free under very miraculous

13:47

looking circumstances. And now they're

13:50

wandering around in a desert. So it's like one big

13:52

Burning Man tour for 40 years. And

13:56

I can't imagine the amount of disease and

13:58

gonorrhea, the gonorrhea.

13:59

It's passed around at Burning Man in

14:02

just like a week. You just went there. 40 years

14:04

of that. You just- Things are gonna get bad if you don't have a lot of rules.

14:06

So they had a lot of rules. You just straight went there.

14:08

You just- How to live in the camp. Didn't- What's that?

14:11

You didn't prepare anybody. You just said it. Okay. Okay.

14:14

Yeah, well, hey, there it is. So phrases

14:17

like clean and unclean discharges

14:20

appear a lot here in Leviticus 18. That's

14:23

gross. And 19, that's why I kind of giggled as I was turning over here.

14:25

But Leviticus 19, 20, I'm almost

14:28

there. Do

14:31

not practice divination

14:34

or sorcery. That's it. Yeah,

14:36

that's it. Everything else around it. It doesn't

14:38

give you specifications. Don't

14:41

degrade your daughter by making her a prostitute.

14:44

Don't cut your bodies for

14:46

the dead. Okay.

14:48

Yeah, there's a- Do not turn to mediums

14:51

or seek out spiritus for you will

14:53

be defiled by them. That's Leviticus 19, 31. Rise

14:57

in the presence of the aged. Show respect

15:00

for the elderly and revere your God.

15:02

I am the Lord. Does this kind of feel like the Barnacles

15:04

and Testicles bit that we did about the 12 tables

15:06

of Roman law? It does. Yeah, it absolutely

15:09

does. Yeah,

15:10

absolutely. Yeah. When the alien

15:12

lives with you in your land, do not mistreat

15:15

him. The alien living with you

15:17

must be treated as one of your native born.

15:19

Love him as you love yourself. For

15:21

you are aliens in Egypt. Don't

15:24

use dishonored standards for weight and

15:26

measures.

15:27

Yeah, it looks like the stuff I read you is

15:30

most of what deals with that. Oh,

15:32

I will set my face against the person who

15:34

turns to mediums and spiritus

15:37

to prostitute himself by following them

15:40

and I will cut him off from the people. So

15:42

it really is kind of a rapid fire thing dealing

15:44

with seriously, like adolescent

15:47

nighttime emissions, stuff ranging

15:49

from that to cutting your body in pagan

15:51

practices to try to connect with the dead

15:54

to casting of lots and

15:56

spiritism and things like that. So it seems

15:59

that in the...

15:59

Bible, the division is that if

16:02

you're going to someone who does the interpreting

16:04

and they're not a prophet of God or

16:06

anything like that,

16:07

you are on really shaky

16:10

ground according to

16:12

the instructions God gives there in Leviticus.

16:14

But then there's a ton of other stuff where,

16:17

I know, we just need to cast lots, we got to

16:19

get unstuck, we got to figure this thing out. And then

16:21

they do it and

16:22

it looks like that was a good idea.

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the little microphone.

18:05

What is a situation where you would want to make a decision

18:07

on the fly and you don't know which

18:09

one to do? I guess you only do this if

18:12

it doesn't matter. I think of gambling

18:14

as you're putting up something and you're

18:17

at risk of losing or gaining something.

18:19

But I think of just casting lots as, well,

18:22

these are two options and it doesn't matter which

18:24

one we do. The opportunity cost is

18:26

the same either way. Yeah. I think that's the

18:28

line between gambling and just leaving

18:30

something to chance. That's my definition,

18:32

I would say.

18:33

Yeah. Okay. And of course, some

18:36

sort of casting of lots or

18:38

even claromancy could be

18:40

used in the service of gambling and you

18:43

could easily use dice to determine, you know,

18:45

to figure out who fate decided would get that $10

18:48

bill sitting on the table. Yeah. You know, one, two,

18:50

three, shoot. Aha, scissors wins.

18:53

I get the 10 bucks. So

18:55

you're using casting of lots to

18:57

determine gambling outcomes, but those are separate

18:59

categories. And then it looks like divination,

19:02

the pagan practice of trying to connect with the deity

19:05

or with fate through an interpretive means, it looks

19:07

like that's another very different category. So

19:09

what I'm hearing is

19:10

you're not going to do divination. That hasn't been

19:12

a part of your life. That doesn't seem like a great way

19:14

to make decisions. Is that fair? That

19:16

is fair. Yeah. I don't, I don't often,

19:19

uh, divine spirits when trying to

19:21

figure, can you imagine living

19:23

your life like,

19:25

Oh man, do I want, you know, waiter,

19:28

um, you're right, the pecan

19:30

crusted tilapia does sound great,

19:33

but that man, that beef tartare, man,

19:35

that sounds interesting as well. You know what? One second. Uh,

19:38

he just turned around. He's

19:44

usually looking for, you know, I've

19:46

decided to go with the tilapia. So,

19:50

uh,

19:50

that would be rough. Yeah, that would

19:53

also be stupid. So something's

19:55

just inconsequential. They don't matter. And

19:57

I think it's okay. One thing that's interesting to me

19:59

in the Bible is. is when Jonah,

20:01

are we talking about the Bible too much? I don't know. I

20:04

don't think so because it's one of the most robust

20:06

records of how people did this in the ancient world

20:09

that people are likely to have a point of reference

20:11

for. And then I think it's okay. It's a fair game example.

20:13

One of the things I think is interesting is when Jonah was

20:16

on the boat and the storm

20:18

came up and everybody's freaking out

20:20

and they like cast lots to figure out who

20:22

was the baddie.

20:24

Am I remembering this correctly? And then they were

20:26

like, it's Jonah. And

20:29

you're like, what?

20:30

So that kind of indicates that

20:32

God- He wasn't like what? He was like, yeah.

20:35

You got me. I knew it was gonna be me. So that

20:37

indicates that God had

20:39

something to do with the outcome of

20:42

the casting of lots. Right.

20:44

So that was almost divination, however

20:47

you say it, of Israel's God. But

20:49

not really, because divination would have involved

20:51

a different means of consulting God.

20:54

It would have required a certain degree of

20:56

interpretation, but where things in

20:58

the Bible seem to be put to, is it this

21:00

way

21:01

or is it that? Should we do this or should

21:03

we do that? That seems to be treated

21:05

differently than rifling through the

21:07

guts or using some sort of spiritual

21:10

medium to get the answers. But how do you physically

21:12

cast lots?

21:14

Is it like pickup sticks? And you drop

21:17

the lots and they're pointing

21:19

in a certain direction or something?

21:21

Yeah.

21:22

Yes, that is one of the ways. But my understanding

21:24

is if you do that pickup sticks technique,

21:27

which I think is one of the techniques that

21:29

the Norse used for casting

21:31

lots, I picture it being popular there, that there

21:33

being sticks that correspond with certain

21:35

runes etched on a mat or

21:38

in the dirt. So you wouldn't just throw the sticks

21:40

for no reason. The sticks would have certain

21:42

markings that mean certain things.

21:44

And then you would have certain runes that

21:47

would mean certain things. So for me, that's

21:49

getting right to the edge

21:51

of claremancy, the casting of lots,

21:54

and getting right up toward divination.

21:57

Depending on the level of specificity of the question that you're

21:59

asking.

22:00

a simpler version of the pickup sticks version

22:02

would be just drawing straws, right? I mean, that's Claro

22:04

Mancy. Have you ever done that? So Claro

22:07

Mancy is, okay, it

22:09

is what now? Straws? So

22:11

you do something with straws?

22:13

Yeah, it's, I mean, Claro Mancy

22:15

is your turbulent chaos

22:18

randomizer. Claro Mancy is using

22:20

a dice, it's casting lots,

22:23

it's anything where you are coming with a specific

22:25

question and you are letting fate

22:27

determine between pre-existing

22:30

options that you're putting forward. Okay.

22:33

Divination could be completely open-ended. What

22:36

would be interesting is to go

22:38

on a road trip. I just went on a, we

22:41

called it the dad venture. I just went

22:43

on a big trip with basically me

22:45

versus 13 kids.

22:46

And

22:47

we went and I let them decide what we're gonna do

22:49

that day. All right, here we are. What are we gonna do? You

22:52

have to all unanimously decide.

22:54

You can't just all shout what you want. You

22:56

have to decide together. And the point of the trip was

22:58

to get the kids to solidify

23:00

their friend group from childhood. That's what

23:02

I'm trying to do. I want them to

23:05

have an experience together where they're all together.

23:07

They remember that time that so-and-so

23:09

did this and just building memories.

23:12

And one of the things I did is I said, okay,

23:15

we're here. What are we going to do?

23:17

And I made them decide and sometimes

23:19

they couldn't decide. And so they were trying to figure out

23:21

what to do and ultimately they were able to figure

23:24

it out. But I could see how

23:26

the more influential vocal

23:28

people could outweigh the other ones

23:31

easily and make the decisions.

23:33

And so if you were to bake in something like

23:35

this on a road trip where you say, hey,

23:38

we're gonna go to a road trip and at every major

23:40

interstate interchange, we're going to

23:43

cast lots and we're gonna

23:45

just see where it takes us. That would be fun, wouldn't it?

23:47

That would be fun. I did something like that once.

23:50

Really? I had a group of college

23:52

students. I was going to travel with leaving

23:55

from Las Vegas. We were friends, we hung

23:57

out church context and we were going on

23:59

a trip.

24:00

And we brought all of

24:02

our stuff, backpacks and everything. And

24:05

on the hood of the car, when we were ready to

24:07

leave,

24:08

we spread out a map. And I didn't

24:10

know that this is what we were doing at the time, but

24:13

we cast lots to determine where

24:15

we would go through a series of narrowing

24:17

it down and, you know, me holding up fingers

24:19

behind my back. All right, even or odd. And somebody's

24:22

back there looking to know if it's even or odd. And somebody

24:24

guesses and that narrows it down and this narrows it down.

24:26

We flip a coin and that narrows it down. And

24:28

ultimately, we ended up building an entire road

24:31

trip route using just, I

24:33

mean, I guess, clairmancy, the drawing of lots.

24:36

Again, I didn't think about what we were doing when we did it. We

24:38

were just having fun and trying to mix it up

24:40

and randomize it. But there were things that happened

24:42

on that trip that wouldn't have happened if we

24:45

had thrown the dice and gone the other way. So

24:48

fate did kind of intervene then,

24:50

right? That's interesting. We

24:53

had a joke

24:54

on the trip about there was

24:56

this one day where I could speak anything into existence.

25:00

It was the most bizarre thing. Okay.

25:02

We're in North Carolina and we're coming up on the,

25:05

we're coming up on, I

25:07

think it was North Carolina. Yeah, we're coming up on the Great Smoky

25:09

Mountain National Park. And I proclaimed

25:12

to the bus, I heard

25:14

that they released a herd of elk here.

25:16

And like,

25:18

wouldn't it be cool if we just saw

25:20

elk? That'd be amazing. And we

25:22

rounded a corner and there were a bunch of cars

25:24

stopped, there was a huge herd of elk. We're

25:28

like, what? And our minds were blown, you know? You

25:30

just said it. And then I was like, I know, right? We

25:33

drove an hour and a half later. Called the

25:35

elk into existence. Yeah, it's pretty

25:37

fun. And so we kept driving and

25:41

we're leaving Great Smoky Mountain National Park. This

25:43

is not long before we got into Gatlinburg. I don't remember

25:46

exactly when or where it happened, but we were on our way

25:48

to Cherokee, North Carolina. And

25:50

I said, all right, kids, we're heading to Cherokee, North

25:52

Carolina. And it's a very interesting

25:54

place. There's a lot of culture here.

25:57

But one thing that happens is there's

25:59

these little.

25:59

tourist shops that pop up and they sell

26:02

just awful trinkets.

26:04

What I want to do is I want you guys

26:07

to,

26:07

basically what I wanted is to pull into the town and I wanted

26:10

them to just kind of disperse as

26:12

groups and just have interactions

26:14

in this little town together. I'm building memories,

26:17

right?

26:18

That's what I wanted to do. I said, okay, so

26:20

what I want you to do is go find the most

26:22

expensive

26:24

trinket that these people are trying

26:26

to sell just to get money out of tourists that

26:28

you think they could actually get away with.

26:30

In terms of bang for the buck, find me

26:32

the worst possible tourist trinket

26:35

that exists. A little souvenir stuff that's dumb.

26:37

Go find that. From the back of the bus,

26:39

I said, Mr. Destin, are you going

26:41

to get a dream catcher? I

26:43

was like, no, no, dream catcher.

26:45

That's stupid. No, I'm not going to get a dream catcher unless

26:47

it

26:48

was like a really cool dream catcher that

26:50

had like an eagle painted on

26:52

it with like lightning bolts behind the eagle. I

26:55

would consider that dream catcher, but

26:57

no, I'm not going to get a dream catcher.

26:59

You know where this is going? I

27:02

know where this is going. We pull up

27:04

into the first little awful

27:06

tourist thing and we walk in

27:09

and the first thing you see

27:11

is this giant like two

27:14

foot across dream catcher

27:16

with this bald eagle. You

27:19

know this like lightning bolt behind it. It's like

27:21

a shirt Napoleon Dynamite would wear. And

27:24

I said, you are, you've got to be

27:26

kidding me. And they're like, no way, Mr.

27:30

Destin, you

27:32

can speak things into existence. It

27:34

sent me back nothing because dream

27:37

catchers. Wait, how did it set you back? Nothing.

27:39

You bought it. You made a covenant. I did not buy

27:41

it. They bought it for me. Oh, how

27:43

much did it set them back? It said $99

27:46

on the dream catcher, but it had been marked down

27:48

to $59, $59.99.

27:50

And I was like, okay, this is an amazing deal. I was

27:53

like, this is an incredible amount of money for

27:55

a. That's like putting $40 back in your

27:57

pocket. What are you talking about? These savings are incredible.

27:59

an incredible amount of money for a stupid thing. So I'm

28:02

like, okay, I got it. And they're all like, Mr.

28:04

Destin, you know. Okay,

28:06

I'll go ask him. So I was like, hey man, will you

28:08

take 20 bucks for this? And

28:10

he's like, oh no,

28:12

look at it. I looked at it, I

28:14

looked back at the guy, I was like, okay, I looked at

28:16

it. Do we take 20 bucks for this? He's like,

28:19

no, it's hand painted. I looked at it, it's

28:21

clearly silk screened. I was like,

28:23

okay, yeah, but will you take 20? No,

28:25

it was $99 is what he said, appealing

28:30

to just nothing. It's $60,

28:33

I've already marked it down $40. Faith's

28:36

ordained its value at $99, that's what it was. It's

28:40

so dumb, I was like, okay, cool. And so I- I'm taking

28:42

a bath on this thing already, man. I was like, all right,

28:44

kids, let's load up. And they're like trying on all these

28:47

leather jackets and hats and they're just having

28:49

a hoot of a time. And then I said, all right, kids,

28:51

we're going across the street to the actual

28:54

art museum. And so we went across the street

28:56

to the actual art museum. And while I was there

28:58

too, the kids snuck out. They all

29:00

pulled their money together and they

29:03

bought me that dream catcher and it was hilarious.

29:05

Where is it now? It's over a TV

29:07

where the kids play video

29:10

games. So,

29:12

pretty funny. That's gonna be there for a long

29:14

time. Oh, it is. And the funny part is we

29:16

went back and asked for the sign that said $99

29:18

marked down to $60.

29:21

And they're like, can we have the sign that he's like, no, I

29:24

need to use it. Like, no, come on, man.

29:26

And one of the kids actually was able to talk him out of the

29:28

sign by just staring at him until

29:30

he started laughing because he knew what he was doing

29:32

to us. It was pretty funny. But anyway. This

29:35

negotiating skills have come a long way since

29:37

trying to sell crabs to people on a beach

29:39

in Costa Rica. I know, right?

29:41

I don't know where I was going with that story other than

29:43

it was a blast. Well, I know where it takes me.

29:46

Dream catchers. I have a follow

29:48

up question for you. Go ahead. Do you believe

29:50

in, do you believe in fate?

29:52

What does that mean? F-A-T-E, fate.

29:55

Do I believe in fate? F-A-T-E,

29:57

do you believe in fate? Okay.

29:59

So the depth of your question

30:02

is unbelievable. There's

30:04

this discussion about predestination

30:08

versus unconditional election. Those

30:10

are the same thing, right? Huh?

30:12

Predestination and election.

30:15

Roughly, those are the same thing. Or, excuse me,

30:17

yeah, free will and unconditional

30:19

election. Free will versus predestination

30:23

and unconditional election. Forgive me,

30:25

I'm sorry. All right, what do those two things mean?

30:27

So basically, free will is the idea

30:29

that you get to choose your own story.

30:32

You get to choose what happens

30:34

in your life story. And what

30:37

happens is a function of the choices you make.

30:40

Predestination or unconditional election

30:42

is the idea that everything's already determined

30:44

for you.

30:45

It's going to happen the way it's going to happen. You

30:48

think you have a choice, but you don't actually have

30:50

a choice.

30:51

It's already gonna happen.

30:52

The naturalist would say, well, this

30:54

is just a function of the physics of the universe,

30:57

like the chemicals in your brain are gonna decide something

30:59

a certain way.

31:00

The spiritual person would say, God knows

31:03

infinite amounts of things. He transcends

31:05

time and space, and he's already determined

31:08

where things are going to end up.

31:09

It's a very interesting discussion.

31:12

And I don't know, where are you at on the

31:15

issue? What do you think? On that issue

31:17

or the question of do I believe in fate?

31:19

Well, I mean, let's start with do you believe in fate? I mean,

31:21

I don't really know what you mean by the word fate.

31:23

So.

31:24

Yeah, that's kind of the rub of the question,

31:27

right? Normally that's the kind of question that

31:29

gets asked in a romantic comedy when

31:32

people are trying to figure out whether or not they're destined

31:34

to be together or something like that.

31:37

I think that's a pretty surfacey view of

31:39

the question, kind of an astrology

31:42

level question. But I mean something,

31:44

you're right, a lot deeper by it.

31:46

And that is, yeah, do you think things

31:49

are determined? Do you think what percentage

31:51

of things are determined? Who does

31:54

the determining? Or I mean, I guess

31:56

what I'm asking is,

31:57

is there laminar flow in the

31:59

flow? of time and choices and

32:02

forks in the road, or is it all

32:04

turbulent? Well, okay.

32:11

I think there's a God, obviously. I'm

32:13

not shy about acknowledging that. I

32:15

think that God is not like

32:18

Thor or Odin or

32:20

something like that, where it's a God with a lot of flaws,

32:23

but one that is much more powerful than

32:25

people.

32:26

I think when you say the word God, what

32:30

you are invoking is the notion

32:32

of the first cause,

32:33

the ultimate thing, the

32:35

thing that happened before

32:37

time,

32:38

and the thing that initiated existence

32:41

as we understand existence. So

32:44

the thing that came before all the other stuff and

32:46

put all the things in motion, the thing

32:49

that made the Big Bang happen if the

32:51

Big Bang is what started motion

32:53

as we think of motion. So we're

32:55

outside Newtonian physics when we're talking about

32:57

God, as I conceive of God

33:00

to be.

33:01

We're talking about a being that is entirely

33:03

other and the

33:05

Bible conception of God, I think even the philosophical

33:08

conception of God is this is a being who

33:10

never learned anything, doesn't change,

33:13

always knew all the things, everything

33:16

that has been made was made by this God.

33:19

So of course humans, we're

33:22

gonna try to visualize this God

33:25

like a person,

33:26

but this God also must necessarily

33:29

have characteristics that we just can't calculate

33:31

at all if a truly infinite

33:34

God actually exists. I think

33:36

one and only one does. And

33:39

so then where that gets tricky for me is on the

33:41

question of that deity's infinitude.

33:44

The greatest being that can be imagined

33:46

would be one who's infinite and unlimited

33:49

in every way,

33:50

which means that that deity

33:52

would not only know everything

33:55

that as we perceive it has happened, is

33:57

happening and will happen,

33:59

would also know everything that could have happened,

34:02

might be happening now or could happen

34:05

later,

34:06

that God in their infinite

34:08

mind would know every

34:10

possible permutation of

34:13

everything,

34:14

and at least as best as we can tell,

34:16

he at least actualized the version

34:19

of reality that we participate in,

34:21

that we're a part of. Takes you to some mind

34:23

bending places.

34:25

So the thing that has really made me think hard,

34:28

as I've been thinking about this whole dice thing and

34:30

fate thing and clairmancy thing here for the last

34:32

couple of weeks, is if God

34:35

exists and God knows everything,

34:37

it means that God knew every outcome

34:40

of every dice roll that has ever happened

34:42

or ever will happen.

34:44

Would mean that such a deity was not surprised

34:46

by any of it.

34:47

Is that the same thing

34:49

as the deity moving his hand over

34:51

the dice like Qui-Gon Jinn did

34:53

in the negotiation for whatever,

34:56

not tattooing, or

34:58

does that mean that we're just simply talking

35:01

about such unlimited knowledge that

35:03

it sort of transcends the question of did he

35:05

make it happen or not, because he doesn't need

35:07

to make it happen because he just knows

35:10

and he's other and he's outside of time

35:12

in Newtonian physics. So we just don't

35:14

even have the ability to frame up the question

35:16

the right way to think about how such

35:18

a being would relate to the reality

35:21

that he has made.

35:22

So does it just happen?

35:24

And God's like,

35:25

I knew that was gonna happen. No surprises

35:28

for me. Or surely by

35:30

the act of knowing it was going to happen,

35:32

does that make it happen?

35:34

So when I think about fate, that's kind

35:36

of the question I'm grappling with. Does any of that make

35:38

any sense? Yeah, it does.

35:42

My brain's on fire right now. And

35:44

much like the idea of turbulence where

35:46

a first little flickering of

35:49

the wrist can change this in one

35:51

direction or the other, this conversation's kind of at a point

35:53

where it can go anywhere. So

35:56

the conversation can, oh man, we

35:58

could go into...

35:59

Unconditional election, we could go into,

36:02

I don't know, I've heard a quote often by Einstein,

36:05

God doesn't play dice with the universe. I don't even understand

36:07

that quote because he's talking about quantum mechanics. What an

36:09

interesting quote though because it's directly antithetical.

36:12

Well, not directly, but it doesn't square neatly

36:14

with Proverbs 1633, which says, the

36:17

lot is cast into the

36:19

lap,

36:20

but it's every decision is from God.

36:22

I don't know that. Yeah. I'm

36:25

not familiar with the context of that verse and context

36:27

is king whenever you're looking at stuff

36:29

like that. I know Proverbs is a little different because

36:31

it'll just give you a bunch of nice one liners at

36:33

times. So, yeah, Proverbs is just

36:35

a one off. It just happens. Yeah.

36:38

Yeah.

36:39

I don't know. There you go. That's

36:42

the thought. Yeah. God's not surprised by

36:44

your dice roll. He's in control of everything. God

36:46

doesn't play dice. Maybe that could be interpreted

36:49

to mean that Einstein is saying God

36:51

isn't leaving anything to chance. God

36:54

is fully in control of and aware

36:57

of outcomes and nothing happens

36:59

where God is like, oh, wow, didn't

37:01

see that coming. Okay. Plan B, we can

37:03

still make this work, guys. We can still make this work.

37:05

It's all anticipated. I dug in on

37:07

this specific point in

37:09

my faith journey for many, many years because

37:12

of the following. If God has the ability

37:14

to know everything and he influences

37:17

whatever happens, then he could change

37:19

that initial condition, which would create the

37:21

effect. Therefore, he allows

37:24

evil. Getting

37:26

back to why we asked Amy and

37:28

Dalen and Lee a long time ago

37:31

as a joke, why is there suffering? Why is there

37:33

evil in the world? I actually

37:35

had a ... When I was forming

37:37

my brain, and I hope

37:39

I'm still doing that, I

37:40

got hung up on that exact question for a

37:42

really, really long time.

37:43

Then I navigated those waters

37:46

over time

37:48

and I arrived at what

37:50

is the problem of pain?

37:52

It feels like I'm being refined.

37:55

I feel like humanity is being refined and

37:57

the pain is a part of that refinement process.

38:00

We were given pain so that we can struggle against

38:03

something so that we may be made better. I eventually

38:05

ended up somewhere around there. Another

38:07

thing that I had a hard time with for a long time is

38:10

that unconditional election versus free

38:12

will thing. I had a really hard time with

38:14

that for a long time. My wife thought about that for a long time

38:16

as well. We had many, many discussions.

38:19

There was actually a verse that kind

38:21

of broke me out of that cycle. It's, I just pulled up real

38:23

quick. It's make your

38:25

calling and election sure. Let me see.

38:28

2 Peter 1, 10. Are you familiar

38:31

with this verse? Therefore

38:34

brothers, be all the more diligent to

38:36

confirm your calling and election,

38:38

for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall.

38:41

I mean, and you're the pastor, you know, stuff like

38:43

that, but

38:44

make your calling and election sure.

38:47

Or confirm your calling and election. I

38:49

don't know the original Greek. I can't read

38:51

Greek. I don't either. But

38:53

that right there struck me. Make

38:56

your calling and election sure.

38:57

Because unconditional election goes like

38:59

this. If God is all knowing

39:01

and he transcends time and space, then

39:04

he knows who is going to

39:07

accept salvation and he knows who's

39:09

going to become a Christian who's not.

39:11

Therefore, he is actively choosing

39:13

that some people do not come to the

39:16

saving knowledge of Jesus. That's the whole

39:18

idea behind unconditional election. I

39:20

am

39:21

way over my head, Matt. Way, way,

39:23

way over my head. You're doing pretty well, man.

39:25

So what you described there is a position

39:28

called double predestination, whereby

39:31

God not only in this

39:34

particular theological philosophical position, whereby

39:36

God not only determines in

39:38

advance and then makes it happen that

39:41

some people will be objects

39:43

of redemption, but

39:44

he also chooses in advance

39:47

and then makes it happen that some people

39:49

will not be.

39:51

No, that's not the universal Christian

39:53

position.

39:54

There are people with Protestant traditions

39:56

and Catholic positions who hold that, people

39:59

within Protestant traditions. and Catholic traditions who

40:01

do not hold to that. It's obviously a point

40:03

of debate because it gets to the heart

40:05

of a really big question, maybe even a problem

40:08

for the person who thinks there's a God and believes

40:10

that that is the God of Abraham, the God of Christianity,

40:12

that is, is that God good? Or

40:15

is that God part good,

40:16

but then also responsible somehow

40:19

for evil?

40:20

That's a big question.

40:22

Oh, it's huge. Steve Bateman has a really

40:24

good way to run through this. And maybe we should

40:27

just have him on and ask him about this sometime. That'd

40:29

be interesting. Yeah, that would be fun.

40:31

That would- And the reason I think it's fun and works

40:33

for even the fact that we have a very diverse

40:35

audience of very different opinions.

40:37

I know there are people in the third chair who are like, no,

40:39

I'm absolutely just as sure as I am

40:42

of the pen and the paper in front of

40:44

me that there is not a God in the universe.

40:46

I know there are other people in the third chair listening to this who

40:48

would say as sure as I am that I am

40:51

sitting here, there is a God in the universe.

40:53

But then even within that, you've got a whole bunch of

40:55

different conceptions of the power,

40:57

the limitations or lack thereof of

41:01

that God. But what brings everybody together on this question

41:03

is that feeling that there's some

41:05

purpose or point to life. Maybe it feels

41:08

like it,

41:09

even if there's not, man, it sure feels

41:11

like there's a point to this. It sure feels

41:13

like people are special. And

41:15

it sure feels like fate

41:18

or forks in the road of our timeline

41:20

is a real thing.

41:22

And it's a really big deal.

41:24

And that feeling of there's order and there's

41:26

meaning that there's fate, there are forks in the road

41:29

becomes even more pronounced as you age and you

41:31

look back at history, the history

41:33

of your own life, fateful decisions

41:35

that you made. And so this is one of those conversations

41:38

that gets into stuff I really care about

41:41

where I feel like it's very, very inviting to everybody

41:43

because everybody thinks about chance

41:46

and fate and history and decisions

41:48

and how that plays out over time. And

41:51

so yeah, I'd be up for having Steve on. He's

41:53

a philosopher and a scholar and he would have good ideas

41:55

on it.

42:03

But the question of having Steve on a side,

42:05

you were in the middle of talking about your journey

42:07

of wrestling through a difficult question. Where did you

42:09

land on that?

42:10

Basically I got paralyzed for

42:13

a long time. Okay. And

42:16

then that verse broke me out. You can

42:18

be paralyzed by the thought of why can't

42:20

control anything here?

42:22

It says make your calling and election sure,

42:24

meaning you have agency in the

42:26

decision making process, make, verb,

42:29

active verb. And

42:31

then I realized, yeah, an infinite

42:34

being would understand everything far beyond

42:36

me, but I certainly seem to

42:38

have free will in this moment right now.

42:40

At the very least, it feels like it. Yeah,

42:42

exactly. And so I saw a

42:45

thing, it was a meme kind of thing the other

42:47

day. I have no idea

42:49

where this deep philosophical

42:51

argument came from, but I thought it would be pretty interesting

42:54

to discuss.

42:55

Somebody in the time travel movies

42:57

are always concerned about going back in time

43:00

and messing with things and changing

43:02

the future. They're always like, oh man, if I do the

43:04

slightest thing, if I move that cup from

43:07

there to there, I'm worried about

43:09

the ripple effect that will have through time

43:11

and it'll change everything.

43:14

In the time travel movies, you always think about that, but

43:17

I

43:18

don't think about that right now. Like

43:21

man, if I would just go work out

43:23

today, that could change

43:25

everything about my future. In

43:30

the time travel movies, the ability to influence

43:32

the future is so concerning,

43:35

but we have that ability right now.

43:37

Right now, I have the ability

43:40

to choose the kind word over

43:42

the angry word. I have the ability to

43:44

choose happiness

43:45

or at least a positive

43:48

spirit in the moment.

43:50

That may be too heady because I mean chemical

43:53

depression is a thing, but I think I

43:55

have the ability to influence my surroundings

43:58

right now and that will have the

43:59

same ripple effect through the future

44:02

in front of me,

44:03

why am I not thinking about that with the same

44:05

level of gravity as Marty

44:07

McFly? It's

44:10

an interesting concept and I think it's fun

44:12

to think about. Yeah, it's a very interesting

44:15

concept. And what you're expressing there

44:17

though, is a moral understanding

44:19

or a motivated understanding of the unfolding

44:22

of time.

44:23

You believe that there's a redemptive

44:25

thing happening. Your narrative, I know

44:27

this of you, your understanding of the world

44:30

is that stuff got broken

44:32

and entropy and calamity got introduced

44:35

into the system,

44:36

but that the one who introduced it is

44:38

in some big redemptive process.

44:41

And you have the opportunity to play a role, even

44:43

if it's a very small one, in that

44:45

process.

44:46

I think the pure fatalist would hear what you just

44:48

said and be like, well, yeah, making

44:50

the kind decision right now, yeah,

44:53

that determines fate, but making an angry decision

44:55

right now could yield good outcomes too in

44:57

the random unfolding of fate

44:59

and time. But the fatalist

45:02

isn't really shooting for anything other than,

45:04

well, what will be will be, whereas

45:06

you're trying to nudge

45:08

the timeline in a certain direction

45:10

with your energy and your lifetime.

45:13

You want to be a part of pulling

45:15

the whole story of existence, even

45:18

if it's one tiny little pull and not

45:20

the most consequential one,

45:22

towards something that is redemptive.

45:24

A restoration, if you will, of something

45:27

that was greater and more beautiful and lasting

45:29

before it was touched by entropy, calamity,

45:32

whatever that might be.

45:33

And so to hear you say that is super

45:36

interesting to me because you're not content

45:38

to just say what will be will be,

45:40

but you're actually thinking in terms of what

45:42

decisions could I make now or regrettably

45:45

could I have made in the past that would

45:47

have more accomplished good outcomes,

45:49

redemptive outcomes

45:51

with the unfolding of time and existence.

45:55

Yes, and I know you do

45:57

the same thing, but like for example, right now.

45:59

If I could reach my hand into the future,

46:02

which I'm doing as I give the if

46:04

then statement. If I could reach

46:07

my hand into the future by way of

46:09

a recorded file being placed on a server

46:11

somewhere and someone downloads it,

46:13

and I could say to that person, hey,

46:16

you're

46:16

going to be presented with a choice today,

46:19

and it's going to be a hard choice.

46:21

I think you should do maybe

46:23

the more difficult solution that

46:26

builds up the people around you and

46:29

prepares you for your future more. You

46:32

might want to lay in bed, but I think you should get

46:34

up and go do that thing.

46:36

If I could project that forward,

46:39

I want to be the guy that does that.

46:41

That's one of the cool things about being

46:43

able to do this podcast with you

46:45

is I do think to some weird level

46:48

we have influence with

46:50

people's thoughts and decision

46:52

making processes. I do

46:55

want to put my finger on the scale of

46:57

good, on the right side of the scale or

46:59

left side scale, wherever good is versus bad. I

47:01

want to push down a little bit on that, and I want

47:03

to

47:04

encourage people to also do the

47:07

same. If I could nudge people in the direction

47:09

of serving others and edifying

47:11

others and building up others, even if they

47:14

don't share my faith, I want to do that. Furthermore,

47:17

I want those people to do it as well

47:19

whenever they have that opportunity.

47:21

This is deep, man. I want to read some chicken

47:24

entrails at the beginning of this to figure out tilapia

47:26

or whatever.

47:28

Yes. Where are you at with all this? I don't even know where we are in

47:30

the conversation right now. This is so deep. This

47:33

gets to the deep groanings

47:35

of the soul, what people end

47:37

up thinking about this. I mean, I

47:40

was in a tailspin for years, no joke, trying

47:42

to figure out this stuff. It took that

47:44

particular verse to pop me out of it.

47:47

Yeah. Things will get us unstuck

47:50

from different places in our thought journey, philosophy,

47:53

ethics,

47:53

theology journey, whatever it is. I could

47:56

see how that one would do it because it seems to indicate

47:58

some sort of cooperation.

47:59

I mean,

48:00

the way that sounds is like maybe

48:02

God moves first,

48:04

but then there's the ability to cooperate.

48:07

And maybe that's enough to get you to a place

48:09

of saying,

48:10

okay, I can't fully understand the balance of

48:13

how that works and the unfolding of fate and decisions

48:15

of God and me, but I

48:17

have something to do. So there

48:19

we go. Maybe that gets it done for somebody. But

48:22

yeah, you were mentioned a second ago that the idea

48:24

that everything is determined could be paralyzing.

48:27

And you're

48:27

right. I've talked with a ton of people

48:30

who've expressed something very similar.

48:32

Like, why would I do anything? Why would I take any

48:34

action if it's all determined? But I've also

48:36

talked with a bunch of people who experienced

48:39

the opposite problem.

48:40

You mean I could do anything or be anything?

48:43

That's paralyzing. Catherine Bigelow in

48:46

her movie, The Hurt Locker, the one that introduced

48:48

Jeremy Renner to the world. This

48:50

guy goes around in a juggernaut suit disarming bombs

48:53

in Iraq, and then he, you can handle all of it. The

48:55

pressure is no problem. There's just a simple outcome. Either

48:57

the bomb gets disarmed or it doesn't. It's

49:00

a one or a zero. Go do your job. Then

49:02

he comes home and he has to pick out cereal

49:04

from the cereal aisle at the grocery store and it's

49:06

just too dang many

49:09

choices. He breaks

49:10

down and that's when finally it all catches

49:12

up with him. It was too much free

49:14

will that broke him. So I think it's really

49:17

possible

49:18

to get stuck in either pole

49:20

or anywhere in between with this question

49:22

of what typically we call fate

49:25

or the unfolding of things. I think people

49:27

like you and me who think there's a God behind all of it would

49:30

maybe use terms like the sovereignty of God

49:32

or the unfolding of God's

49:35

creation.

49:36

But either way, when you really stop

49:39

and think about that,

49:40

the decisions have consequences that

49:43

time is, as we perceive it, is always

49:45

moving forward. It gets pretty

49:47

weighty

49:48

and I could understand why somebody would

49:51

get to that place, why I would get to

49:53

that place and be like, I don't know what to do

49:56

because it is weighty.

49:57

And so I'm going to take this Alexander the Great coin.

50:00

And I'm going to flip it and

50:02

I am just going to try to somehow tap

50:05

into what will be, get

50:07

unstuck

50:08

and move forward. That's not what you described.

50:11

You went through a very complex wrestling,

50:13

grappling, spiritual, theological

50:16

process to get unstuck. But

50:18

I can think of situations where I just wanted to get

50:20

unstuck. And so flipping a coin

50:22

for the level of consequences of what I'm dealing with,

50:25

that was plenty.

50:26

And I suppose I could even imagine a scenario where I

50:28

might make a huge decision flipping a coin.

50:32

If I'd done all the work already and felt like I'd

50:34

narrowed it to two really great

50:36

choices and I just

50:39

can't find a way to tip the scales one way or the other. Either

50:42

of these should be great outcomes,

50:44

but I can't pick both. So let's pick one. It's

50:47

interesting to me the way we intuit

50:49

all of these things as we roll along through

50:51

life. But when we really stop and think about

50:54

it,

50:54

us as finite beings,

50:56

God or the cosmos, if that's how somebody

50:58

conceives of it being not really

51:00

finite and so much bigger than us

51:03

and time rolling forward, how does

51:05

all of that stuff fit together? How does it interact?

51:07

How does it mesh? It's just so difficult to calculate. And

51:11

I think there's a reason that every people group in

51:13

the history of time has invented coin flips

51:15

or dice to try to grapple

51:18

that through, I suppose.

51:19

Yeah, man. Interesting question. I appreciate

51:22

you bringing that up. Thank you. Oh,

51:24

good stuff. Thanks for going all the way down the rabbit hole with me,

51:26

buddy. I appreciate it. Yeah, man. I appreciate

51:28

it. No, thanks. I'm going to

51:31

go stare off into nothingness

51:33

now and think about all this.

51:51

Thank you. you