What is the true nature of God? How should we understand monotheism? What about heresy? In today’s interview, I ask Dr. Dale Tuggy about his new book, Monotheism, Heresy, and the Bible, published by Theophilus Press. Our discussion ranges from handling proof-texts that call Jesus “God” to the role of logic in sorting out doctrine to how and when it’s appropriate to call a belief a heresy. We also talk about the tendency of Trinitarians to defend their doctrinal convictions by appealing to mystery.

In case you don’t know him, Tuggy is an analytic philosopher with a BA from Biola, an MA from Claremont, and a PhD from Brown University. He had a career teaching philosophy and adjacent subjects at the State University of New York at Fredonia for 18 years after which he founded the Unitarian Christian Alliance to help unitarian Christians connect with each other, promote scholarship, host conferences, publish books, and participate in debates.

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How do you know God exists? What reasons do atheists have to doubt God’s existence? Can you arrive at certainty? These questions are among the most significant that you can ask. If God exists, there are huge implications for your daily life. If not, then you can more or less choose your own adventure, making up meaning as you go.

My guest today is Andrew Drinkard, the editor and project lead on an interesting book called Debating God’s Existence: Believers and Skeptics in Friendly Conversation, published by Eerdmans. In the interview that follows I ask him about his backstory as well as the story behind the debate this book was based on. We discuss Dan Barker’s argument against God based on the problem of evil as well as Adam Johnson’s argument for God based on objective morality. Then we engage a bit with Drinkard’s own content in the book regarding divine hiddenness.

But before getting to the interview, let me say a couple of words about our guest today. Andrew Drinkard is the director of Inspiring Christianity ministries at inspiringchristianity.com. He holds an MA in theological studies and apologetics from Liberty University and is currently completing an MA in philosophy of religion at Palm Beach Atlantic University. His work has been published in the Journal of Classical Theology.

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Are all your beliefs equally important? If not, how do you rank them? By what standard do you say, “This belief matters” and “This one is less important”? My guest today is Michael Hughes who has been working on these very questions. He’s written a couple of papers addressing levels of evidence. In his more recent work, he’s enumerated a nine-level rating system by which you can judge a belief.

At the top of it is “Level 1: beliefs that are essential to salvation” then comes “Level 2: practices that are related to salvation” then “Level 3: beliefs that are undoubtedly true,” then those that are probably true, then those that are possibly true, and so on. As we move down the levels we move from more importance to less. This is a fascinating and fresh approach to ranking beliefs and practices based on biblical confidence. Are they explicitly taught in Scripture? Are they merely implied? Are there many difficult texts or only a few? You get the picture.

After Hughes explains his rating system, I pepper him with questions, including gay marriage, marijuana use, Torah observance, and wine vs. juice at communion. For each, he explains how he would approach the belief or practice from a “levels of evidence” perspective.

(See below for brief explanations of all nine levels of evidence.)

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Level 1: Beliefs that are Essential to Salvation

Are you looking for a biblically-grounded albeit easy-to-read introduction to theology? Well, look no further, because I’m excited to announce the publication of Pastor Will Barlow’s book, Explore What We Believe. He goes through what the Bible teaches about God, humanity, covenants, the kingdom of God, Jesus, salvation, Israel, the church, the spirit of God, the spiritual realm, death, and immortality. He also includes appendices on foreknowledge, time periods, and baptism.

Although you can certainly read this book on your own and benefit from it, Barlow designed Explore What We Believe as a discipleship tool for two or three people to work through together. This is perfect for helping Christians of other traditions to learn about what WE believe. It’s also ideal for training your teenagers in the faith.

In this interview I ask Barlow about the content of the book and how he sees it being used.

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I have a new book out and I’m excited to tell you all about it. In order to do that, Anna Brown is hosting Restitutio today and putting me in the hot seat. In this interview, she asks me about Read the Bible for Yourself, a book I’ve been working on for the last three years.

In our conversation we talk about whom the book is for and how to use it most effectively. I share about the chapter you won’t want to miss, and I reveal a publishing error that inadvertently promoted marijuana. Wait I thought this book was about reading the Bible. Yes, it is. I guess you’ll just have to listen to the interview to find out the details on that one.

Even if you’ve been reading the Bible for years, this book will help you read it better by providing you with key techniques and overviews to make sense of what you read.

Anyhow, if you’d like to get my book, it’s out on Amazon.

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Jesus said, “Make disciples of all nations” (Mat 28:19). How are you doing on this? Are you currently mentoring someone in the faith? Are you under the impression that this work is only for pastors, those in church leadership, or those with the gift of evangelism? You may say to yourself, “I don’t have a Bible-college degree,” or “I don’t know enough to teach someone else,” or “I don’t even know where to start in discipling someone else.” These are totally understandable concerns and doubts.

Victor Gluckin, lead pastor of Living Faith Christian Church in Rhode Island, has written a book called Follow the Way of Jesus to help you. Not only is this book easy to read (and enjoyable), but it’s also designed to enable you to disciple others. The idea is simple. Get the book and invite a friend, coworker, neighbor, or family member to work through it with you. Each of you take turns reading it aloud and answering the questions. It’s that simple.

In what follows I ask Gluckin about this new practical Christianity book, including who he wrote it for and why he laid it out the way he did.

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To whom was God speaking in Genesis 1.26 when he said, “Let us make humanity in our image”? My guest today, Sam Mansfield of Adelaide, South Australia, has found six different answers to this question. In the following interview, I ask him about his recent presentation at the inaugural Australian Unitarian Christian Alliance conference, called “Wrought with Wisdom: How Solomon Understood Genesis 1:26, 3:22 & 11:7.” Mansfield puts forward the deliberative position with a twist.

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Many Bible-believing churches are ridged keepers of tradition. They have a statement of faith, a historic confession, or old creeds that determine what people should and should not believe. There’s very little space for people to genuinely ask questions, investigate competing doctrines, and honestly change their minds over time.

Today I’m speaking with Matt Lovegrove of New Castle, New South Wales. If you listened to the interview from last week with Paul Robson, he talked about Matt a bit, since he was the one that introduced Paul to a biblical unitarian perspective.

Matt is a hardwired restorationist. You’re going to hear about his journey from one exploration to another. Sadly, it seems like each time he shed some falsehood and gained more truth, he ran afoul of church leadership.

I think this episode is going to break your heart and make you angry–not at any one villain in Matt’s story, but at the system that continually crushes restorationists under its weight. Churches need to change. Rather than seeking to preserve the status quo at all costs, we need to seek truth whatever the cost.

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Paul Robson was an upstanding Christian leader in a Bible-believing church when his friend upended his world by revealing that he no longer believed the Trinity was biblically true. Although Robson initially reacted negatively to such a departure from the norm, he eventually came to change his mind based on a thorough study of Scripture. What happened next was both tragic and all too common–he was asked the church where he was serving. Having left he is developing websites about doctrine and now has new Bible study app that can help you spot bias in translation.

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One of the largest and most intriguing blocks of teaching in the Gospel of John is the upper room discourse in chapter 13-17. This block of time begins with the washing of the disciples’ feet (13) and ends with Jesus’s high-priestly prayer (17). In the middle chapters (14-16), we encounter Jesus preparing his followers for his departure. They still didn’t quite understand what was to happen with his arrest, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Even so, Jesus laid out teaching that would make sense for them after he was gone. Much of that teaching centered on the spirit of truth, which was to come after Jesus ascended to the Father.

In what follows we’ll explore three main theories about the holy spirit in John 14-16: (1) the spirit is a person other than Christ; (2) the spirit is a personification; and (3) the spirit is Christ’s alter ego in his heavenly ministry. After considering the first two options, I’ll explain why the last one–that the spirit is a way of talking about Christ’s activity among us while he is in heaven–fits the best.

I originally presented this content in Australia where I had an unfortunate run in with a leech. I had told this story earlier to this audience and mentioned in the talk. I had gone on a “bush walk” and picked up the blood sucker without realizing it. After it had its fill, it released and I continued to bleed for hours, not realizing that leeches inject and anticoagulant. In this presentation, I refer back to this incident, so now you know what I was talking about.

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This talk was originally presented at a Unitarian Christian Alliance (UCA) event held at the Tops Conference Centre in Stanwell Tops, Australia on March 28, 2026. Thanks to the Australian UCA planning committee, especially Matt Bradley, for their hard work in putting on this event.

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