Hell is locked from the outside

C. S. Lewis said that hell is locked from the inside, meaning that those who are sent to hell are so full of ego and hatred against God that they would (eternally!) never admit that they were wrong in their beliefs, and would never wish to live with God. This matches another C. S. Lewis quote. To paraphrase: Those who are saved say to God "Thy will be done", but "Thy will be done" is what God says to those who are damned. Christian apologists want to make hell sound less like the insane doctrine it is. But those who say hell is locked from the inside are incorrect according to the teachings of Jesus (as recorded by whoever wrote Matthew and Luke) and according to the book of Revelation. Why do Christians so often believe the exact opposite of what Jesus teaches, I have no idea. Abysmal reading comprehension? Motivated reasoning? But have no fear. I have conveniently given you a list of easily copied verses to send to any Christian who repeats the falsehood that hell is locked from the inside.

 

(The eternity of it introduces yet another problem for the belief that hell is locked from the inside. Either the obstinance of the damned is free or not. If it is free, then there is some chance of some people in hell coming to regret their choices and desiring to repent. If God forgives them, then hell is not locked from the inside. If God doesn't forgive them, then God is not perfectly forgiving. If the obstinance is not free, then so much for free will defenses and theodicies for evil and hell. Someone might argue that if the damned have free will, then they are free to self-determine the probability of their repentance to be zero. God sends only those people to hell who would self-determine for an eternity their non-repentance. But what are the chances that someone would self-determine for an eternity their non-repentance? It sounds to me like there's a zero chance of that, or at the very least the chance is extremely small. That would mean only a tiny percentage of people, if any at all, would be damned, which conflicts with verses that indicate that many people are damned, and with the orthodox Christian assumption that all non-Christians, which have always been a large majority of humans, go to hell.)

 

Verses that say (or suggest) that hell is locked from the outside (translations are in NRSVUE):

 

Quick list:

 

Matthew 8:11-12

Matthew 13:40-42

Matthew 22:13-14

Matthew 25:10-13

Matthew 25:41-46

Luke 13:23-28

Luke 16:22-26

Revelation 19:20

Revelation 20:1-3 and 20:10-15

Revelation 21:1-2 and 21:8

Revelation 21:22-27

Revelation 22:18-19

 

Expanded list:

 

Matthew:

 

8:11-12 (Jesus Heals a Centurion’s Servant)

 

[Jesus speaking] "I tell you, many will come from east and west and will take their places at the banquet with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

 

13:40-42 (Jesus Explains the Parable of the Weeds)

 

[Jesus speaking] "Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

 

22:13-14 (The Parable of the Wedding Banquet)

 

[Jesus speaking] "But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen."

 

25:10-13 (The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids)

 

[Jesus speaking] "And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. Later the other young women came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."

 

25:41-46 (The Judgment of the Nations)

 

[Jesus speaking] "Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life."

 

Luke:

 

13:23-28 (The Narrow Door)

 

"Someone asked him, ‘Lord, will only a few be saved?’ He said to them, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. Once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, “Lord, open to us,” then in reply he will say to you, “I do not know where you come from.” Then you will begin to say, “We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.” But he will say to you, “I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!” There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out.’"

 

16:22-26 (The Rich Man and Lazarus)

 

[Jesus speaking] "The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’"

 

Revelation is notoriously difficult to interpret and, moreover, the New Testament in general contains verses that support eternal conscious torment, universalism, and annihilationism. From a theological point of view, it's difficult to know what the right doctrine of hell is (so much for the perspicuity of scripture, and so much for the idea that God is not the author of confusion). From a common sense point of view, the Bible contradicts itself on this and other doctrines because it was written by different authors at different times, inerrancy and inspiration are false, and the right "doctrine" of hell is that hell is a revenge fantasy, and the New Testament is a mishmash of myth and history.

 

Revelation 22:18-19

 

"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book; if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."

 

Apparently God is willing to lock hell from the outside for anyone who takes away from the book of Revelation by taking away that person's share – so even someone who has a share, someone who otherwise would be saved. This hypothetical person starts off as saved, meaning they are expecting to get into heaven and would be shocked, like those described in Matthew 25:41-46, at being kept out. Even if God never makes good on this threat, God's willingness to lock hell from the outside for anyone says enough.

 

[How could someone who is saved and thus indwelt with the Holy Spirit commit a sin so egregious so as to result in their share of the tree of life being taken from them? Shouldn't being regenerated by the Holy Spirit prevent this? And what about assurance of salvation, if God can deem a sin you've committed to be worth taking away your share for? And isn't blasphemy of the Holy Spirit supposed to be the only unforgivable sin?]

 

Revelation 20:10-15

 

"And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
 

Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sat on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire, and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire."

 

Whether 'forever and ever' is a good translation should be checked to make sure the original semantics / intent wasn't something along the lines of: a period of time. But here we have four parties: the devil, the beast, the false prophet, and those whose names were not found written in the book of life. All four share the same destination: the lake of fire. Presumably, the same destination means the same fate. So if the devil, beast, and false prophet are thrown into the lake of fire and the lake of fire is locked from the outside, then it is plausible that it is locked from the outside for the humans who are also in the lake of fire. Though you could argue that if anyone were to be the kind of person who would refuse to admit that they are wrong and would refuse to repent and ask for forgiveness, it would be the devil and anyone sufficiently like him, perhaps the false prophet (whoever that is) and the beast (whoever that is).

 

[Side note: the devil is also called Satan, the ancient serpent, and the dragon. See Revelation 20:2. The beast is said to be a king. See Revelation 17:11.]

 

Curiously, Revelation 19:19-21 contrasts the fates of the beast and the false prophet with those who followed them:

 

"Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to wage war against the rider on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed in its presence the signs by which he deceived those who had received the brand of the beast and those who worshiped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh."

 

In light of Revelation 20:10-15 (and John 5:28-29), this suggests that the followers are killed and temporarily annihilated until they are resurrected unto condemnation.

 

Back to whether hell is locked from the outside:

 

Revelation 21:1-2 sets up the context for 21:8:

 

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

 

Revelation 21:8 says the following about the damned:

 

"But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."

 

And Revelation 21:22-27 says that those whose names are not written in the book of life are excluded from salvation:

 

"I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life."

 

This reinforces that it's not just the devil, the beast, and the false prophet that are thrown into the lake of fire (I suppose 'lake of burning sulfur' and 'lake that burns with fire and sulfur' refer to the same place as the lake of fire), but the damned as well. Again, it's plausible therefore that how the devil, beast, and false prophet are treated, the damned are treated the same. With that in mind, consider:

 

Revelation 20:1-3

 

"Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while."

 

Here we have another place: the pit / the bottomless pit / the abyss / the prison. I suppose this is not the same place as the lake of fire for the following reasons: (1) It is not described by fire or burning sulfur; (2) Satan alone spends 1000 years in this prison, and after being let out is thrown into the lake of fire where the beast and prophet already were as described by Revelation 19:20. So while the bottomless pit is described as literally locked from the outside with a physical key (not that any of Revelation is meant to be taken literally), this doesn't apply directly to the lake of fire. However, if God is willing to lock Satan from the outside when it comes to the bottomless pit, then why wouldn't God be willing to lock the lake of fire from the outside as well? And if the "forever and ever" is an accurate translation that applies to all inhabitants of the lake of fire, and given that there is no "until they repent and ask for forgiveness" exception mentioned, the picture Revelation paints is that of God locking hell from the outside and throwing away the key. And this is exactly the picture painted by the gospel verses quoted above. Indeed, it would make sense to me that the author of Revelation got their ideas from the gospels' Jesus.

Craig Blomberg Misrepresents Naturalistic Morality

Blomburg, Craig. Can We Still Believe in God? Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2020.

 

"Ethicists rightly point out that if a person rejects the existence of an all-powerful, all-loving being, they still have no satisfactory explanation for evil in the universe." (2)

 

No citation for this is given. Which ethicists point this out? I can't think of any. I'm sure Christian philosophers claim this. The use of the term 'ethicists' is suspicious, because it makes it sound like this is a common belief among even secular philosophers who specialize in ethics. But without a citation, I have no reason to believe this, and I suspect that all, or nearly all, secular philosophers who specialize in ethics would disagree with this on multiple levels.

 

Even worse, even if it were the case that ethicists claim this, they wouldn't be rightly pointing anything out. They would be confused and mistaken.

 

Even worse still, I can think of at least one secular philosopher that specializes in ethics, Russ Shafer-Landau, who would argue that it's divine command theory, the common metaethical view of Christians, that fails to give a satisfactory explanation of evil in the universe. (See The Fundamentals of Ethics, Fifth Edition, Chapter 5.)

 

Even worse still, I can think of at least one Christian philosopher who specializes in ethics, Anne Jeffrey, who says that you don't need God for objective morality. See: https://soundcloud.com/capturingchristianity/cc021-if-god-does-not-exist-why-be-a-moral-person

 

At 8:15 she says:

 

"My view turns out might have more in common with an atheistic Kantianism than with a certain form of Orthodox Judaism." 

 

At 12 minutes, she says "It could be wrong to rape and torture even if God didn't exist."

 

(At around 15 minutes she speaks about how divine command theory is a view taken seriously by theistic ethicists, but Catholic theists will gravitate more toward natural law theory.) 

 

She even suggests that sophisticated naturalistic systems of objective morality could show God's concern for our actions. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVsCgf_GmEQ. Timestamp 1:04:45. 

 

She says:  

"I think that there's a lot to be said for how the reason that God has given us to come up with very good explanations for morality. . . . It's actually more evidence that God is good and gracious that God provides us with the sorts of cognitive faculties that can come up with naturalistic arguments for real, objective morality, because objective moral obligations are so important for us to believe in . . . that it's better, for all of us, if more people believe in it. And if belief in certain varieties in theism is waning, all the better that these arguments are available. . . . I think [naturalistic explanations for morality are] impressive stuff and important . . . it's nice to have a sort of backup theory, that your moral beliefs are not so precarious . . . even if God didn't exist, I think I still shouldn't kill innocent people and it doesn't depend on what I care about or what I'm committed to . . ." 

Additionally, Christian philosopher Dustin Crummett has criticized William Lane Craig's moral argument, and instead argues on behalf of theism from moral knowledge.   

 

Even worse still, it's unclear what a "satisfactory explanation for evil" means. Does this mean an explanation of where evil comes from? Or what makes something evil? Or how we can know that there is evil? And are we speaking about axiological evils, or moral evils, or both? It doesn't matter; naturalism has excellent explanations of all of this, even better explanations than Christianity, because the naturalist doesn't have to worry about challenges to divine command theory, to natural law theory, and to Christianity in general.

 

Here's where the author might help us, a few sentences later:  

"But where do the concept of evil and the idea that it is something to be alleviated come from in the first place? If neither revealed religion nor natural theology (ultimate truths that can be inferred from what exists) points to a transcendent God who concerns himself with the affairs of humanity, from where do the ideas of good and evil originate?" (2)

The answer is our experiences: Badness and goodness are phenomenal concepts, as I have explained elsewhere. See: https://benstowell.blogspot.com/2026/02/response-to-lance-bush-on-certainty-of.html

Badness is worth eliminating for its own sake. Though some badness gives rise to greater goodness; that badness is a good deal. Discipline is painful, but that pain is worth the benefits of discipline.

It's not exactly an honest thing to say that God is concerned with the affairs of humanity. I don't see that at all. But even worse, I don't see how it's relevant that there be a transcendent God when it comes to the origins of the ideas of axiological and moral goodness and badness. Even if God existed, it would still be the case that axiological goodness and badness are phenomenal categories that we have direct access to, and that moral goodness and badness can be explained in light of axiological goodness and badness. Adding God doesn't do anything, except make the world far more mysterious given the problem of evil.

This is page two of the book. Given mistakes this egregious right out of the gate, is it worth reading more?

Liz Jackson on Romans 1

Liz Jackson writes ("Permissivism About Religious Belief", https://philpapers.org/rec/JACPAR-11):

 

In Romans 1:20, St. Paul writes, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—God’s eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Given passages like this one, those in the Christian tradition might argue that theism is not a permissive case. Paul seems to be arguing God is clearly seen from creation (and in a later passage, the moral law). From this, some conclude that theistic belief is rationally required of most or all of us, given the evidence.

 

In reply, my arguments in this chapter are consistent with a relatively straightforward reading of Paul in this passage (and similar passages). In Paul’s time, people had drastically different evidence that more clearly pointed toward theism. When Paul was writing, belief in God and/or the supernatural was extremely common and widespread (perhaps the divine hiddenness problem wouldn’t have gained much traction in the first century!) People spent much more time in nature, staring at starry skies and breathtaking sunsets; today, much more time is spent walking around concrete jungles and staring at computer screens. Furthermore, as Charles Taylor (2017) argues, the Reformation, Enlightenment, and Romanticism involved deep cultural and intellectual transformations that gave rise to a much more secular society. My arguments in this chapter regard our current evidential situation, and while I maintain that permissivism about theism is supported by the widespread historical disagreement about God’s existence, I don’t claim that permissivism about theistic belief extends to all historical periods, places, and times.

 

I see a few issues with this response to Romans 1. First, Christians usually believe in some form of inerrancy and inspiration: Because the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit, anything it teaches to be true is true. (I acknowledge Randal Rauser's thesis of providential errantism and set that aside.) Combine this with the interpretation that Paul is teaching us that those with non-belief are without excuse and you arrive at the interpretation that this is an inspired and therefore inerrant teaching of the Bible.

 

Even if Paul is saying something from the point of view of his time and place, the Holy Spirit can inspire teachings that are applicable well into the future, and modern Christians usually see themselves as reading something that was in a sense meant for them. Very few Christians, in fact this is probably a heresy, see the Bible as a fossil or snapshot of a particular time and place—this would basically be a rejection of inspiration.

 

There's two aspects of the Holy Spirit view of scripture: The Holy Spirit guides the authors of the Bible to write from their own perspective in a way that includes layers of meaning and timeless truths applicable to future generations, and the Holy Spirit guides the modern Christian to the knowledge that a particular interpretation of a passage applies to the modern Christian and their life despite the gap in time and culture. Viewing the Bible as a fossil would mean to jettison both aspects of the Holy Spirit view of scripture. So a very natural and Christian way of interpreting Romans 1 is that its teaching applies for all time.

 

Second, Paul says since the creation of the world . . . from what has been made . . . This kind of language has a universality to it. We look at the time interval from the creation of the world to Paul's time; Paul says God's attributes have been obvious in that interval. It would be strange for God's attributes to be obvious for such a long interval, but suddenly change in the comparatively negligible interval of Paul's time to ours. (And sure, Paul's phrasing of "since creation" need not be literal, but this applies even if we think of it as "since human civilization" or "since humans began believing in gods".)

 

Plus, if God's attributes are made obvious by "what has been made", then there is no relevant difference from Paul's time to ours. Paul is surely citing objects of creation like the starry sky, the planets, the trees, the animals, the sun and moon, and humanity. We have all these today, but it's not at all obvious that any of this were made by a perfectly loving God. For some of us, it's painfully obvious that a perfectly loving God almost certainly does not exist because of what has been made: death, war, disease, murder, poverty, and so on. While Christians view these as accidents of sin, for some of us it's apparent that the systems of our world systematically produce these evils. This is perhaps most apparent with the evils of evolution, and the predation, starvation, parasitism, and mass amounts of death it took to create us.

 

If anything, because we have more rigorous philosophical arguments for God from fine-tuning, the inference from "what has been made" to God's existence should be more powerful than ever, and so all the more are modern humans without excuse in their non-belief in God. And yet we also have more rigorous philosophical arguments from evil, and for some of us the problem of evil trumps the argument from fine-tuning, and it's not a remotely close contest.

 

Third, what Paul says is arguably false even in his own time. For much of human history, humans believed in multiple gods, and didn't necessarily believe in a singular all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good creator. So it's just not true that most groups of people have clearly seen the workings of a singular God; many, maybe most, interpret creation as the workings of multiple gods.

 

Plus, even for Jewish people and Christians, who both believe in a singular God, they strongly disagree who this God is. Christians believe Jesus is God incarnate, while Jewish people strongly disagree. God's invisible qualities have been clearly seen – including the invisible qualities of begetting the Second Person of the Trinity or "spirating" the Third Person of the Trinity? Not at all.

 

Even Christians disagree among themselves, with some viewing the Holy Spirit as a person in some sense separate from the Father and Son, and others viewing the Holy Spirit as something more like a force or essence that is not separate from the Father or Son; or some viewing Jesus as purely man while others view Jesus as both man and divine. How many heresies were there in the first few centuries leading up to the Councils and Creeds?

 

Even if you extend the idea of God to the Greeks like Plato and Aristotle, it's obvious from the Greek texts that this conception of God is radically different from the God that Christians believe. So it's very misleading to say everyone in antiquity believed in God or gods as if there were anything resembling a consensus as to what that means.

 

If the conception of God or gods is radically different between cultures, and Christians are the only ones who got it right, then it's not true that since the creation of the world God's attributes have been known. It's only thanks to the events of the Old Testament and the recent events of the Gospels that we now know the most important attributes of God, namely that God incarnated and died for our sins and you must have faith in Jesus, the incarnation of the Father (if you are a binitarian) or the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity (if you are a trinitarian) or a man who is somehow special enough to die for our sins but whose righteousness only imputes to us if we have faith in him? (if you are a unitarian?). God's attributes are related to our salvation, and so the lack of consensus among Christians as to how salvation works means even Christians haven't seen God's attributes. Invisible qualities indeed. Besides, many Christians emphasize God's ineffability; no one has a mind great enough to grasp God to any serious degree, which just is to say that God's invisible qualities have not been clearly seen at all.

 

Because Christians made up a tiny minority in Paul's time, Paul must have had a broader understanding of God when orating what became Romans 1. But if that's right, then Paul is not speaking from this local perspective, but is speaking universally; God's eternal power and divine nature have been seen by everyone, so that everyone is without excuse. Why assume that Paul is making an exception for future generations? And if you're not assuming this, then you grant that Paul could be, for all you know, applying what he's saying to future generations too, and so you should at least be agnostic with respect to whether Romans 1 is committing Christians to impermissivism.

 

Regardless, because of the problem of evil, God's eternal power and divine nature, even in some broad sense, haven't been seen by everyone. If anything, what has been seen by everyone is either God's non-existence or God's permitting of evils that for the life of us we cannot figure out why he'd permit. And when Christians, or even ex-Christians like me, try to come up with plausible theodical goods, we fail, and in my case I'm more convinced than ever that there are evils—unbearable suffering—for which there could not possibly be justifying theodical goods.

 

But putting Paul's mistakes aside, the question is whether Romans 1 commits Christians for all time to an impermissivistic attitude about the rationality of belief in God, and there's an interpretation where yes, it does, and this interpretation appears at least as solid as any other.

The Nietzschean critique goes both ways

The Nietzschean critique of Christian values goes like this: Christians find themselves poor, oppressed, and, basically, losers in this world. Christianity is an attractive worldview for losers because with Christian belief you get forgiveness for your sins and you get the promise of a good afterlife. So if you're miserable in this life, you have the next one to look forward to.

 

In other words, the values of Christians are suspiciously convenient. In the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the rich man gets to have his fun in this life but then is tortured in punishment in the next life. It's a power fantasy for the oppressed. Actually, it's the rich and powerful who are losers! They are evil, greedy, selfish, blind to the spiritual truths we have access to, concerned about silly worldly things like material goods. Christians, following the teachings of Jesus, flip the script: power, money, and material happiness are bad while weakness, poverty, and spiritual happiness are good. The rich and powerful are at once happy, but too easily, demonstrating their shallowness and impoverished spirituality and virtue (C.S. Lewis' notes in The Weight of Glory come to mind when he mentions how too easily satisfied we are by boring things like worldly success), and yet at the same time the rich and powerful are secretly miserable because true happiness comes from closeness to God. Christians get to delight in their perceived moral superiority and superior happiness.

 

The critique is an accusation of dishonesty. If Christians were honest about how pathetic their lives are, about how awful it is to be poor and oppressed, then Christians would be miserable. To avoid that misery, Christians choose values that place them on top in some way, allowing them to feel good about themselves when otherwise they would feel bad about themselves.

 

The Rick and Morty moment comes to mind when Hologram Rick gets the opportunity to become real. When Morty says, "I thought you were proud to be a hologram?", Hologram Rick says "That's because I had to be one!"

 

Right. If Christians were to suddenly come into money, says the critique, they would stop lying to themselves, radically change their behavior and language, and would be honest about their true values, because now they have the option to be honest when they didn't before – not without incurring great pain.

 

Problem 1: Not universal

 

The first problem with this critique is that it won't apply to every Christian. There are wealthy, successful Christians who don't shed their "intellectually dishonest values" and adopt their true secular values. Rather, they use their wealth and influence to support churches, missionaries, Christian programs, and Christian politics. Their Christian values are not held out of convenience, but conviction.

 

Problem 2: Undergenerating reasons

 

The second problem with this critique is that it assumes there are no good reasons to hold Christian values, and thus the only explanation for why Christians do hold their values is because it protects their egos and avoids the pain of facing up to difficult truths.

 

But there are good reasons to hold to various Christian values, and these explain why these values are held. Greed is evil. Oppressing others is wrong. The "conqueror's mentality" of the rich and powerful is a stupid mentality. The way the rich and powerful do great evils and get away with it is not something to be admired, but abhorred. The beliefs and behaviors of the rich and powerful are failures of understanding of the goodness and badness of things, failures to maximize flourishing. This leads into Problem 3.

 

Problem 3: The critique goes both ways

 

The rich and powerful don't believe that greed is evil. Or if they do, they don't believe that their particular excess counts as greed. The rich and powerful conveniently rationalize their own greed and entitlement and refusal to help others. If the rich and powerful took a step back and viewed their exploitation of others, their Darwinian cynicism of "the poors", their insatiable greed, their cruel delighting in their domination of others, their egotistical competitiveness, their psychopathic lack of empathy for those in need, their hateful "I got mine" and "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" attitudes toward those less fortunate, and their lack of contentment with anything less than absurd gluttonous excess, then maybe they would feel something vaguely resembling guilt or a desire to put away the embarrassing ego-driven nonsense and instead do the right thing and help others. But that doesn't happen. The rich and powerful are just as guilty, if not more so, of arriving at suspiciously convenient beliefs and values that allow them to feel good about themselves when otherwise they would feel bad about themselves were they to look at things more honestly and objectively.

 

The critique is completely right that if your values are suspiciously convenient, then you should introspect and ask yourself why you hold the values you do. If you discover that you hold onto them purely to protect your own ego, then you will have discovered that your values are nonsense. If you discover that you hold onto them for reasons that have nothing to do with protecting your own ego, but are grounded in facts outside of yourself, then the Nietzschean critique does not apply to you, and someone who tries to apply such a critique against you is making the mistake of undergenerating reasons leading to a mistaken psychoanalysis.

 

This applies to the topic of virtuous despair as well. The idea is that despair can be virtuous if the despair is caused by virtues such as the virtues relating to the refusal to conveniently dismiss or ignore difficult truths. The Nietzschean critique says that for the person who views their despair as virtuous, this is a convenient belief; you want your despair to be virtuous so you can feel good about yourself. If you were given a position of success, your despair would disappear, showing that your despair wasn't caused by your virtue.

 

But the first and second responses to the critique apply here as well: This psychoanalysis will prove false for those whose despair sticks even with success, and someone can introspect and see their despair sticking because the despair is attached to permanent factors beyond the self, such as cynicism about human nature, pessimism about the fate of the world, and the fact that the foundation of the world is imperfect, and so the rampant injustice and tragedy we see in the world is baked into the very fabric of the universe.

 

The third response also applies: It's impossible to participate in this world or to be happy in this world without in some sense accepting this world and celebrating it. But how can someone accept or celebrate this world knowing the injustice and suffering that makes up its bricks and mortar? You are not happy because you are a winner, but because you are too small-minded to see the big picture, because you care more about protecting your own happiness than about believing what's true, and because you have thrown empathy out the window and have refused to acknowledge and empathize with the sheer suffering of our world. When a great deal of empathy leads to despair, it's predictable that there would not be a great deal of empathy.

 

Both psychoanalyses look ridiculous to me, and the truth is in the middle: Some of your despair comes from your virtue, and some of it comes from your failure in life; some of your happiness comes from your failure to contend with difficult truths, and some of your happiness comes from your success. You must introspect, throw away any self-deception, and with brutal self-honesty see for yourself to what extent the Nietzschean critique truly applies to you. How suspiciously convenient are your beliefs and values?

Do children have special theological insights?

Matthew 11:25 (NRSVUE) says: 

At that time Jesus said, “I thank[h] you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants;

Problem 1: Many translations of this verse use the term 'children' instead of infants. But νηπίοις is arguably better translated as 'infants' or 'babies', which is presumably why we find that translation here in NRSVUE. But why would other translations use 'children'? Maybe because while it's hard enough to believe that children have special theological insights, it's even harder to believe that infants have special theological insights.

 

But maybe 'infant' is a metaphor for a new believer? New believers have insights from the Holy Spirit. 

 

Problem 2: Revealed what to infants? What does 'these things' refer to? The text doesn't say, and none of the surrounding verses are helpful.

 

Problem 3:  

 

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:11 (NRSVUE):

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.

Children are poor at truthseeking because, as Paul says, thinking and reasoning like a child is something to be cast off.

Jesus does not merely say that we ought to be child-like for the sake of innocence, humility, and dependence – or, what I get from Paul's  verse, accepting the Kingdom of God with the kind of giddy joy that children have – but that things have been revealed to children. But as far as I'm aware, this just isn't true. There's no reason to believe that children have special insights or an enhanced sensus divinitatis.

Problem 4: 

 

Christians will happily say that their views on God changed dramatically from when they were children. Philosopher Josh Rasmussen, for example, says in the beginning of his book How Reason Can Lead to God that he is grateful that his childhood views of God were destroyed, because they were too simple. Many Christians report maturing in their spiritual understanding over time, and don't report having any special insights as a child, only dreadful ignorance.

 

Problem 5: 

Maybe if there were many reports of angels visiting children, but not adults, and having conversations with them, then there would be evidence of this claim. Or if there were reports of children who knew things they shouldn't be able to know, and when asked how they knew these things they would said "God told me", then that could be evidence. But there are no reports of these kinds.

 

Problem 6:

You could try to give the following kind of argument: Because of the noetic effects of sin, and because children haven't had the time to sin all that much, children are more likely to have a stronger sensus divinitatis and thus believe in God.

I don't know of the empirical research on children's belief in God. For all I know, there are more children than not that don't believe in God, or maybe it's 50/50. That would discredit the idea that children are specially positioned to "know" that God exists.

Even if research showed that children do disproportionately believe in God, there could be naturalistic explanations for this. Children raised by parents who believe in God will disproportionately believe in God not because of an enhanced sensus divinitatis, but because humans are wired to believe testimony, especially testimony in trusted individuals such as your parents.

There is much disbelief in the Christian God in China, Japan, India, southeast Asia, northeastern Europe, and the Middle East. If children in those countries had a tendency to believe in the Christian God despite their social environment, then that would be powerful evidence that yes, God reveals Himself to children. But as far as I know, children in these countries tend to believe what their parents believe, exactly as naturalism predicts.

 

Problem 7:

Another confounding variable could be that children struggle to delineate imaginary figures with real life. So even if humans tend to lose belief in God as they age, this might not be due to the noetic effects of sin but rather to the adult ability to sort imagination from reality, and, more generally, due to the adult ability to examine one's beliefs and scrutinize them.

The meek shall not inherit the earth

One of the fastest ways to know that Christianity is false is to point out things Jesus said that are undeniably false. Here's an example of something Jesus says that is undeniably false:

 

Matthew 5:5 - "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." (NRSVUE)

 

It is obvious that the meek do not, now, inherit this earth. This seems to be acknowledged in the quote (assuming the translation accurately captures this), as Jesus says the meek will inherit the earth, implying that Jesus is aware that the meek do not, now, in Jesus' time, inherit the earth.

 

So I guess no one can say that this is undeniably false. For all I know, in the future AI will take over and turn all power over to the meek. But I highly doubt this. It's way more likely that the non-meek will control AI forever and use it to dominate others, just as how tyrants have always used technologies to dominate others. And even if AI did somehow wrest control from tech tyrants, AI is more likely to deem the meek too unsure and indecisive to be worthy of that power. Not to mention that there may be many contradicting philosophies within the so-called meeks, so AI couldn't hand over power to the meeks without creating conflict.

 

But maybe inheriting the earth doesn't mean having authority over everyone on earth, but just that you get whatever you want on earth, and AI will grant the meek whatever they want knowing that the meek will want good things. But reading AI into Jesus' teachings here feels so silly and anachronistic.

 

If we interpret Revelation to be about future events yet to pass, there's nothing in there about the meek inheriting the earth. You have Christ's reign of 1,000 years, but that's Christ inheriting the earth. The meek are not shown to have any special place of authority.

 

Also, does 'the meek' include non-believers who are meek? Or do only Christian meek people count?

 

How far into the future are we talking? Isn't it a bit cruel to give people a promise that the meek will inherit the earth as if it's right around the corner, when really it's like thousands and thousands of years from now? Effectively it's like a false promise for that duration. It's strange to give an irrelevant teaching to your immediate audience, and stranger still to give an irrelevant teaching to basically all audiences ever.

 

If it's too far into the future to the point of Christ's second return, then again it's Christ, and all followers of Christ, who inherit the earth in some sense. The meek again have no special status. Christ is certainly not depicted as meek when he's judging earth.

 

Maybe Jesus meant to say that the meek shall inherit the second earth. After this earth is destroyed and a new earth is made, maybe "the meek" (however deemed by God) will somehow, collectively, be... in charge? Of second earth?

 

There are problems with this. First, it's misleading of Jesus to say the meek will inherit the earth knowing that the plain interpretation of that is this earth. He should have specified to prevent confusion.

 

Second, what does it even mean for a group of people to "inherit the earth"? Are the meek politicians in charge of writing laws? The meek in contrast to whom? Is it introverts versus extroverts? Does God hate extroverts? And what if the meek don't want to be leaders or authorities? They are meek, after all. Do they have their personalities forcefully changed?

 

Third, if by 'inherit' we really just mean 'receive' like in the sense of 'inheritance', then it's simply false that the meek shall uniquely inherit eternal life. Both the meek and non-meek will be saved.

 

Maybe Jesus is emphasizing the fact that while the meek are oppressed in this life, they will be glorified in the next when they inherit (receive) life on the second earth. Okay, well, in that case, say that instead. As such, the text doesn't say this.

 

Does the Greek give us any clues as to what Jesus really means (according to Matthew)?

 

According to Greek Bible, it says the following (https://www.greekbible.com/matthew/5/5):

 

"μακάριοι οἱ πραεῖς, ὅτι αὐτοὶ κληρονομήσουσιν τὴν γῆν."

 

Alternative translation: "Happy [are] the meek, because they obtain the land."

 

Funnily enough, no translation is given by Greek Bible for our keyword meek, or πραΰς.

 

According to Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Search?go=Go&search=%CF%80%CF%81%CE%B1%CE%B0%CF%82&ns0=1), πραΰς means: gentle, mild, amiable, soft, kind, tender, pleasant. Meek sounds like a good translation.

 

So... gentle, mild, amiable, soft, kind, tender, pleasant people obtain land? What? Actually, it's warmongers, genociders, expansionists, imperialists, colonizers, lucky inheritors, and the ultra wealthy who obtain land.

 

Psalm 37:11 says: 

 

"But the meek shall inherit the land
    and delight themselves in abundant prosperity."

 

So we can see where Jesus got it from. Considering all the plain falsehoods contained in Psalm 37, I'm not sure you want to evoke it. Consider 37:32-33:

 
"The wicked watch for the righteous
    and seek to kill them.

 The Lord will not abandon them to their power
    or let them be condemned when they are brought to trial."

 

I'm sorry, how many Christians have been abandoned to anti-Christian powers? How many have been condemned when brought to trial? And if we allow 'righteous' to include non-believers who are nonetheless well-doers, then all the more is the passage false. You might try to once again retreat to the afterlife: The Lord will not abandon the righteous to the power of the unrighteous (in the afterlife), or let them be condemned when they are brought to (the ultimate trial before God). But that requires a convoluted interpretation that the author is deliberately shifting from speaking about earthly things to heavenly things despite not saying as much. Sounds like eisegesis again. I'm not even sure there's any good reason for thinking that the author of the Psalms believes in an ultimate judgment and afterlife. (Then again, if it's really the Holy Spirit who teaches through inspiration, then I could see a Christian saying that the Holy Spirit allows for authors to write teachings that would be false under the author's intended meaning, but are true under a reinterpretation that the Holy Spirit guides believers toward. But Christians often come to opposing interpretations anyway.)

 

Maybe Jesus really said blessed are the geek, prophesying the rise of tech billionaires! (There's gotta be a pastor out there that has made that joke already.)

Evan Fales on problems with the Bible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_6b8bRUdds 

 

1 hr 14 - Creation Ex-Nihilo

 

Evan Fales mentions that Creation Ex-Nihilo, a doctrine of classical theism, is not as supported by Genesis 1:1 as Christians have historically thought. It's arguable that the more accurate translation is not that God created the heavens and earth, but that God is creating the heavens and earth (or as I've heard it, fashioning, implying pre-existing material).

 

1 hr 16 - Imago Dei

 

Fales claims that Paul says that the image of God is something humans lost, except Jesus, due to original sin. (If this is accurate, then doesn't that mean Paul repudiates the immaculate conception? If Mary is without original sin, then Paul should say Jesus and Mary are the only humans who've kept the image of God.) Fales claims that Paul says that while man is made in the image of God, women are made in the image of man. I'm not sure that's the correct interpretation of 1 Cor. 11:7. If that verse does imply that the Imago Dei doesn't apply to women, but only to men, then that sounds strange and misogynistic. But Paul has egalitarian verses elsewhere (assuming the authorship is indeed Paul in those cases).

 

"These are not clear and perspicuous. The Bible itself is a defeater of many aspects of Christian faith in which people presume that they know what God's Word is, and there's good reason, from the Bible itself, to believe that they do not." 

 

1 hr 27

 

Evan Fales suggests that if we give a skeptical theism response—like that of Stephen Wykstra—then that leaves us clueless as to the balance of goods and evils that God aims for. If God can allow massacres, genocides, mass deception, disease, starvation, and so on, then all bets are off. God can allow basically anything. For all we know, God could allow Christianity to develop as an enormous hoax. But if I have to admit that this is possible, then this provides an internal defeater for Christian belief, says Fales.

 

Fales suggests that Ezekiel 20 and Isaiah 55 suggest that God would be capable of this. I'm not exactly sure what Fales has in mind, but my guess is the following:

 

Isaiah 55 says (NRSVUE):

"so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it." 

 

When someone speaks the truth, they don't know how people will respond. Speaking the truth is good for its own sake, meaning that even if people respond poorly, it still makes sense to speak the truth.

 

But when someone speaks for the purpose of generating an effect, then they don't care about the truth of what they are saying as long as it generates the desired effect. It appears that God is saying here that God speaks power, not truth, in this way.

 

Since God knows for sure that speaking the truth will not convince everyone, in what way will the words of God accomplish God's purpose?

 

So these are some ways the Bible provides defeaters for Christian belief. 

Glen Scrivener points us toward arguments against Christianity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3UfZ8WGwWY

 

Ironically, this points to a powerful argument against Christian belief in a number of ways.

1) Evolution and Christian failure. I grew up believing in creationism because that is what I was taught, according to the beginning of Genesis. But nowadays even Christians cannot deny the certainty of aspects of evolutionary theory, and Christian scholars like William Lane Craig even go so far as to say that Genesis 1-11 is "mytho history."

Why does this matter? Because Christians (in my tradition at least) were confidently wrong about evolution! If they were confidently wrong about evolution, then what else are they confidently wrong about? Christians and churches are not an infallible source of truth. The Holy Spirit is supposed to be a guide in truth, right? So what gives? Why are Christians, endowed with the Holy Spirit, so bad at reliably arriving at true beliefs?

This points to the more general point—one I credit to Graham Oppy—that Christians aren’t products of an evolutionary process designed by God to generate highly reliably true religious beliefs. How can we tell? Because of all the religious disagreement within Christianity! If God guided evolution so that humans would arrive with a strong sensus divinitatis, then why is there so little belief in the right God? Why is there so much disagreement over what God is? And at the very least, among Christians who are supposed to be products of a guided evolution aimed for truth AND endowed with the Holy Spirit who is meant to guide believers in truth, wouldn’t we expect to see a convergence onto a single denomination? Instead we find schisms, schisms, and more schisms—exactly what you would expect if naturalism were true.

2) If Christians admit that it’s likely we descended from ancestral species a hundred or so thousand years ago as a product of millions of years of evolution, then Christians admit that millions of years’ worth of starvation, predation, parasitism, and all manner of horrors were used by God to create us. Why? Why not create us in a better way?

3) Evolutionarily convenient beliefs (ECBs) are a problem for Christians too if evolution is true. If Christians admit that evolution is true, then they admit that they may believe in Christianity not because it’s true, but because religious belief is selected for. It is correct that we ought to be suspicious of ECBs, and that includes religious beliefs!

Indeed, thanks to evolution, naturalism has access to a beautifully simple theory that unites all religious belief under one explanation. Humans are religious for reasons such as the following:

a) Humans are fundamentally biological;

b) So humans are fundamentally sexual;

c) So humans are fundamentally social;

d) Humans need resources to survive and obtaining those resources alone is difficult if not impossible in most cases, so for this reason too humans are fundamentally social;

e) So social success is a massively valuable commodity;
 

f) Religions provide social success in a number of ways, including:

f1) A common worldview,
f2) A common way of speaking and thinking,
f3) Common rituals and social activities,
f4) A way to congregate and meet spouses and for one’s children to find future spouses,
f5) Motivations for helping the less fortunate,
f6) A favorable view of those less fortunate (this doesn’t always apply, as Christians will look down on those they view to be recipients of God’s judgment),
f7) A favorable view of human nature (Imago Dei, salvation, love of God for the world), warding off misanthropy,
f8) Emphasis on forgiveness, empathy, love, and other attitudes that help interpersonal relationships;

 

g) Confidence leads to reproduction. So anything that threatens our confidence will be selected against. Ways religious belief wards off a loss of confidence in oneself and one’s future:

g1) God loves me, so I’m pretty great,
g2) God loves the world, so the world is worth fighting for,
g3) Great Commission — I have a higher purpose, smoothing over the common frustrations of life,
g4) Death is not the end — hope for the future prevents despair, depression, and pessimism,
g5) There is ultimate justice — God will judge and set the record straight. If this weren’t the case, then it might be overwhelming how unjust our world is, promoting misanthropy and pessimism,
g6) There are spiritual rewards for your struggling and perseverance. Without that promise, the pains of life might not seem worth it.
g7) God is watching over you and protecting you supernaturally — you will be successful. If instead you believe you could die at any moment for no reason, then you might feel anxious, paranoid, and dread the future.
g8) Giving up on life is not an option, as that would mean facing God’s wrath.

Not only is this theory plausible in its own right (and I’d say undeniably true at least in some respects), it explains all religions in a unified way.

If Christians go for this explanation to explain the existence of competing religions, but not their own, then they risk committing special pleading.

So Christians are motivated to reject this theory of religion and lose out on all its theoretical advantages to opt for something far more crude and ad hoc, like that other religions are caused by demons or by Molinism and God’s providence.

In my own personal journey, waking up to the fact that Christian beliefs were evolutionarily convenient was a major moment leading up to my loss of faith.

4) The argument from reason says that the naturalist has no reason for thinking that his beliefs aim toward truth, only survival. 

The alleged advantage of the Christian view is that if God guided evolution then he could aim our beliefs toward survival and truth. But naturalists do not have access to this divine guidance, and so naturalists have no reason to think that their beliefs are formed by a reliable truth-preserving mechanism.

First, there is no such advantage of Christian belief for reasons mentioned. Second, evolution does NOT provide any tension with naturalism in this way.

Why not? Because 

 

1) Accurate beliefs are selected for on a basic level (credit again to Graham Oppy for this point). If we didn’t have highly accurate beliefs about what is food and what is not, what is a predator and what is not, how to obtain the necessities of food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and so on, then we would have died off. Intelligence is required for these basically accurate beliefs, and so intelligence is selected for (and you could argue that humans in particular, due to their extreme dependence on socialization for survival, adapted a higher intelligence for language). Then, as the theory goes, once intelligence reaches a certain point, abstract thinking and critical thinking skills are unlocked.

 

So 2) with this comes self-evident beliefs. Because of my self-evident beliefs, I have certainty—direct sight—that my belief-forming processes are somewhat reliable at arriving at the truth, even abstract truths of logic, argument, and math. If they weren’t, then self-evident beliefs like that there are no married bachelors wouldn’t be possible.

But God and the resurrection of Jesus are not among those self-evident beliefs. So the starting point does not lie—cannot lie—with God and the heavy metaphysical commitments of any religion. A better starting point is with these self-evident beliefs, like: "The belief that none of our beliefs are reliably true cannot itself be reliably true." More basic principles of critical thinking—that’s where we start, and so trying to start with God and other religious commitments and from there build these basic building blocks of critical thinking is backwards. 

There are many secular ECBs. Racism, tribalism, emotionally convenient beliefs, the ignoring of uncomfortable truths that might erode one’s confidence, and delusional levels of confidence are all selected for by evolution. All ECBs absolutely should be subjected to scrutiny, regardless if they are religious or not. ECBs can be rational, but only after subjecting them to appropriate scrutiny and discovering independent reasons to believe in their truth.

To be an atheist, you don’t have to believe all atheists are right about all things all the time. Quite the contrary: an atheist can believe most atheists are dreadfully mistaken about a great many things! Christians are in the same boat. Catholics and Protestants believe the other’s side is mistaken despite being Christian. 

Seven Questions for Christians

1) Are you certain that Christianity is true?

2) If not, why not?

3) Do you believe that if someone has anything less than certainty in Christianity, then that implies they are not regenerate / born again / saved / baptized in the Holy Spirit (or whatever your description of a "true Christian" is)? Why or why not?

4) If you are certain Christianity is true, then do you feel intellectually satisfied with your answers to questions pertaining to the following doctrines:

a) The Doctrine of Divine Revelation and God's Covenants

b) The Doctrines of the Inerrancy, Infallibility, and Historicity of Scripture

c) The Doctrines of Biblical Canon, Sola Scriptura, and Hermeneutics

d) The Doctrines of Faith, Truth, the Rationality of Faith, Christian Epistemology, and Christian Methods for Discerning Truth

e) Doctrines surrounding God and God's attributes, including

i) God's existence and natural theology (arguments for God's existence),
ii) God's relationship to perfection,
iii) goodness (especially, God's goodness in light of the problems of evil, suffering, and divine hiddenness),
iv) transcendence vs immanence,
v) incorporeality,
vi) aseity,
vii) necessity,
viii) omnipotence,
ix) omniscience,
x) omnipresence,
xi) simplicity,
xii) impassibility,
xiii) immutability,
xiv) and time.

f) The Doctrines of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit

g) The Doctrines of the Incarnation and Christology

h) The Doctrine of Creation and Soli Deo Gloria

i) The Doctrine of Angels, Demons, Satan, and the Divine Council

j) The Doctrine of Man, the Imago Dei, and the Historical Adam

k) The Doctrine of Divine Providence and Free Will

l) The Doctrine of Sin, the Fall, and Original Sin

m) The Doctrine of Salvation and Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, Solus Christus

n) The Doctrine of the Atonement

o) The Doctrine of Eschatology ("The Last Things", including judgment, heaven, and hell)

p) The Doctrine of Ecclesiology (the authority and nature of the church, denominations, and church creeds)

q) The Doctrine of Sanctification, the Christian Life, and the Sacraments

5) If you are intellectually satisfied with your answers to all reasonable questions that could be asked about the above doctrines, then: 

 

5a) How could this be possible? How could you possibly be satisfied with your answers to all reasonable questions that could be asked about the above doctrines given the sheer complexity – the breadth and depth – of these questions? Have you comprehensively surveyed all alternative answers to yours and do you have principled reasons for preferring your answers to these alternatives? Have you had space in your life and the training, access to books, and time needed to think, read, and write enough to accomplish this?

 

5b) Where are these answers of yours? Have you written them down?

 

5c) Do others trained in philosophy or theology also find your answers to be satisfying? Do they have any critiques of your answers or penetrating questions about your answers? Have you addressed these critiques or questions?

 

6) On the other hand, if you are not intellectually satisfied with your answers to all reasonable questions that could be asked about the above doctrines, and indeed if you feel unsure about your position on some or all of these doctrines, then why are you certain that Christianity is true, or that Christianity makes sense or that Christianity is a coherent worldview?

 

Scratch that—why have the slightest bit of confidence at all that Christianity is true or that Christianity makes sense or that Christianity is a coherent worldview if you don't know that your best attempt to make sense of each of the above doctrines—and of how they coherently fit together—would result in success? For all you know, attempting to make sense of each of the above doctrines—and of how they coherently fit together—would result in your concluding that Christianity does not make sense – or even that Christianity is likely false. So until you have completed an investigation with such success, why not adopt a more cautious, agnostic, and open-minded mentality?

 

7) If you are certain that Christianity is true, are you willing to change your mind and have that certainty overturned?

 

Let's say there's a Muslim who is certain that Islam is true. You preach the Gospel to them, but they respond, "I'm certain that Islam is true; I have no need to read the Bible." In your mind, the Muslim is stuck in their false beliefs because of their certainty. Are you worried that you could be stuck in your false beliefs in the same way? What should the Muslim do to guarantee that they are not stuck in their false beliefs in this way? Perhaps they should adopt an open-minded way of thinking and be willing to change their mind, even their deepest beliefs about their own identity, heritage, and community—even their most cherished beliefs that they want more than anything to be true.

 

If you think the Muslim should adopt this radically open-minded attitude, do you adopt this same attitude? Have you read the Quran, or Hadith, or Sira? Have you read books written by naturalists defending naturalism (i.e. the view that there are no supernatural things) or challenging theism or Christianity? Wouldn't it be hypocritical to hold others to a standard of open-mindedness, investigative rigor, and internal scrutiny that you don't hold to yourself?

 

Christians always misunderstand my point here, so I'll try to spell it out: The question is not about the evidence for Islam versus the evidence for Christianity. The question is not "Why are you not a Muslim?" 

 

The point is about the mentality that the Muslim (who is certain that Islam is true) adopts. The Muslim adopts a mentality of certainty. Therefore, from the Christian point of view, the Muslim is stuck in their false beliefs because of their mentality. But if you are a Christian and you have the same mentality, then you are making the same mistake of being epistemically stuck that the Muslim is making. The Christian would recommend the Muslim—so that the Muslim does not get epistemically stuck—to adopt a mentality of radical open-mindedness. But the Christian who is certain that Christianity is true fails to adopt that same mentality of radical open-mindedness. And so the Christian who is certain that Christianity is true is guilty of epistemic hypocrisy—they expect Muslims (and atheists, etc.) to adopt a mentality that they refuse to adopt themselves.