Ep 1399 | Zach Admits His Crisis of Faith—and the Terrifying Question that Crushed Him
August 14, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readA Crisis of Faith and the Question That Nearly Crushed Him
Zach Robertson was 26 years old, lying awake at 2 AM, staring at his wife and newborn children in a house he had just bought with a job he was proud of. And he was drowning. "I don't know if this is true," he recalls thinking. "This whole thing I built my life on. I don't even know if it's true, and if it's not true, then nothing really matters."
He went into his office, pulled out a piece of paper, and wrote a prayer: "God, if you're there, which I doubt, and if you answer prayers, which I also doubt, I need to know because I'm drowning." He folded it, put it in a drawer, and five years later pulled it out and wept again—because God had revealed Himself in a way Zach never imagined possible.
That crisis, he explains, was the direct result of a toxic understanding of faith that had been drilled into him his entire Christian life.
The False War Between Faith and Reason
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:01) **Opening & Family Banter** - The Robertsons gather for another Hillsdale theology episode, trading stories about their wild childhoods and the "Dasher" DNA that leads their kids to push every boundary.
- 2 (11:04) **Introducing Thomas Aquinas: Faith vs. Reason** - The episode moves into Lecture 6 on Thomas Aquinas, whose central contribution was reconciling the apparent dilemma between faith and reason.
- 3 (16:29) **Participating in the Divine Life** - Al connects Aquinas’s concept of "participation" in God’s life to a sermon on Job, where Job’s suffering stripped everything away so he could finally see God clearly.
- 4 (21:05) **The "Fluffy the Squirrel" Analogy** - The lecture’s memorable analogy is dissected: a squirrel can live with a human but not truly participate in their life unless it is given the ability to communicate.
- 5 (25:50) **Aquinas on Faith and Reason** - Zach explains that Aquinas tried to merge faith and reason, arguing that God can be known through rational faculties, which challenges the common view that faith is belief without reason.
- 6 (27:24) **Zach’s Crisis of Faith** - Zach describes the terrifying existential moment when he realized he didn’t know if Christianity was true, writing a desperate prayer: "God, if you’re there, which I doubt… I need to know because I’m drowning."
- 7 (33:48) **The Debate That Changed Everything** - Soon after his crisis, Zach’s dad debated an atheist student on campus, and Zach was devastated because the atheist’s arguments seemed logically sound.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Zach opens up about the crisis of faith that left him questioning whether Christianity was true at all, including the terrifying question that shook him to his core. His awakening to the role of reason in faith leads the guys to put the modern “my truth” mindset to the test and challenge what happens when personal belief becomes more powerful than reality. Al sets the record straight in a decades-old Robertson brotherly squabble about the summer 7-year-old Al was put in charge of his younger brothers while Willie recovered from a serious injury.
In this episode: Romans 1, verse 20; Mark 8, verses 22–26; Job 42, verses 2–6; John 9, verses 1–3; Romans 8, verse 26; John 14, verse 9; Mark 9, verses 14–24; John 20, verse 29; 2 Timothy 3, verse 16
Today’s conversation is about Lesson 6 of Theology 101: The Western Theological Tradition taught by various Hillsdale Professors. Take the course with us at no cost to you!
More about Theology 101:
Examine the great questions of Western theology from the ancient Hebrews through today. The gift of speech, or reason, given by God to man, enables us to think about God and to worship Him.
This free online course pursues this purpose by examining the nature of God as revealed in the Bible, exploring the great theological questions and controversies of the early Christian church, studying the history of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and much more.
We invite you to join us and explore the nature of the relationship between God and man, and how a proper understanding of this relationship can lead to a free and happy life.
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Chapters
00:00 The Robertson Kids Were Basically Feral
07:32 How God Transformed the Robertson Family
15:02 Faith vs. Reason
18:24 Job Finally Sees God Clearly
22:15 Fluffy the Squirrel Takes Over Theology Class
27:12 Can We Really Know God?
31:10 Zach’s Crisis of Faith
35:28 The Debate That Shook Zach’s Beliefs
38:42 Are We Treating God Like a Fan Club?
42:06 Aquinas’ Stunning Encounter With Jesus
47:02 The Secret to Working & Resting Well
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