Randal Rauser's Blog, page 107
January 18, 2018
Conversations with Radical Doubt Part 1: How do you refute skepticism?
A few years ago I was contacted by a self-described skeptic seeking counsel. He was in a sorry state, epistemically speaking. Indeed, he doubted that he had any knowledge at all and was seeking aid in terms of a refutation of his skepticism. He was troubled by his deep and abiding doubts and was seeking deliverance.
I began with a diagnosis. I observed that he had begun with a Cartesian assumption that knowledge required certainty. Once there, he had quickly discovered what philosophers call the “Cartesian circle,” a term that refers to the fact that those who begin with Cartesian assumptions can never attain the certain knowledge required to refute skepticism.
So what to do?
Since meeting the demand of certainty was not an option, I suggested a very different course of treatment: the skeptic should begin by turning his skeptical eye back on his initial assumption that knowledge requires Cartesian certainty in the first place. And so, I asked him, “Why are you more convinced that you know knowledge requires certainty than that you have two hands or that 2+2=4?” In short, it seemed like he was granting an undeserved conviction to the assumption that knowledge, by definition, requires certainty. Why believe that?
“Indeed,” I continued, “it seems to me that your analysis is self-refuting. You see if you could be wrong in believing that 2+2=4 then surely you could also be wrong in believing that knowledge requires certainty. Thus, if that possibility is sufficient to suspend belief in 2+2=4, then it is likewise sufficient to suspend belief in the claim that knowledge requires Cartesian certainty. But look at what then happens: once you suspend belief in that certainty demand, you get back your belief in 2+2=4 and that you have two hands, and most of your other mundane beliefs. In short, The Cartesian dragon has been slain!”
So how’d that work? Sadly, not as well as I had hoped. He nodded thoughtfully and we parted ways soon after. But months later I learned that he was still wrestling with that same skepticism. The problem, I suspect, is that he found himself doubting my analysis — and perhaps even that I existed in the first place to give it.
The Cartesian circle, it would seem, had won.
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Secular Statistical Shenanigans? On playing with statistics to sell a secular narrative
Yesterday, I came across this tweet from my favorite British atheist, Richard Dawkins Stephen Law:
0.0% of Icelanders 25 years or younger believe God created the world, new poll reveals | Icelandmag https://t.co/F0bmY00R8f #icelandmag via @icelandmag
— Stephen Law (@stephenlaw60) January 17, 2018
Whoa, I knew Iceland was secular, but geez louise, is it really that bad?
So I read the article. Here’s the key excerpt:
“Less than half of Icelanders claim they are religious and more than 40% of young Icelanders identify as atheist. Remarkably the poll failed to find young Icelanders who accept the creation story of the Bible. 93.9% of Icelanders younger than 25 believed the world was created in the big bang, 6.1% either had no opinion or thought it had come into existence through some other means and 0.0% believed it had been created by God.”
Did you get that? The pollsters set up a false dichotomy between Genesis 1 and contemporary cosmology: either you accept what the Bible says or you accept what the scientists say. There is no third option, no possibility of saying that the Bible, properly interpreted, is not in competition with Big Bang cosmology. Given those options, 93.9% side with Big Bang cosmology.
Gee, what a surprise.
The thing is, I take it as good news that 0% of young Icelanders reject modern cosmology based on a naive fundamentalist biblical hermeneutic. Unfortunately, the article writers at Iceland Magazine have opted to spin this fact into the deeply misleading headline that “0.0% of Icelanders 25 years or younger believe God created the world, new poll reveals.”
The real take home from this new poll is that 40% of young Icelanders are atheists. But that’s hardly earthshaking news in a famously secular country. Beyond that, the poll reveals only that the presumably secular staff at Iceland Magazine is willing to sacrifice statistical integrity on the altar of clickbait.
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January 17, 2018
A Master List of Movies for exploring Theology and Philosophy
We are story-tellers by nature, and so stories speak to us with a unique power. So it should be no surprise that stories can be, among other things, marvelous catalysts for exploring important theological and philosophical concepts. With that in mind, the other day I posted the following tweet:
What is your favorite movie for exploring profound theological and/or philosophical themes?
— Randal Rauser (@RandalRauser) January 14, 2018
There was no shortage of responses. Indeed, I had soon accumulated a list of more than thirty recommended films. And I’m pleased to say I’ve seen twenty-five of them! Nonetheless, I still clearly have some work to do. I’ve included the list below, each with a link to its IMDB page:
The List!
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
The list isn’t quite done. As in the old Sesame Street segment, one of these things is not like the other. And that brings us to our final entry, the 1972 fundamentalist dispensational Christian classic (with a modest 4.9 on IMDB):
Finally, if you’re interested, I have several more options (60+ reviews) listed in the film review segment of my site.
And as a postscript, feel free to share your additional suggestions below.
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January 16, 2018
What Happens to Those Who Have Never Heard the Gospel?
I was recently interviewed by Cameron Bertuzzi of “Capturing Christianity” on the topic of salvation for those who have never heard the Gospel. You can listen to it here:
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January 15, 2018
Is Christian Complementarianism Immoral and Sexist?
For 150 years the Mormon church barred all members of African ethnicity from attaining the priesthood based on the alleged prophecy that dark skin reflected the “mark of Cain”. Then, in 1978 the prophet of the Mormon church received a new revelation that God wanted the ban rescinded.
Good to know!
An outside observer would reasonably conclude that a policy which was retained under the aegis of divine revelation was, in fact, racist. Interestingly, in recent years the LDS church itself appears to have conceded the point. (source)
Which brings us to the Christian church, and in particular the large sections of that church (most notably the Roman Catholic Church) that bar women from the priesthood. The position is today widely called “complementarianism” based on the assertion that women and men are equal but different, and as such particular roles in the church should be limited to men.
This past week on Twitter, I asked the question of whether Christian complementarianism is immoral and sexist. The results were not surprising. Two-thirds insisted that it is, and a mere 8% claimed that it was incorrect but still moral or, as I said, “permissible”:
According to Christian complementarianism, particular leadership roles in the church and home should be reserved for men. This view is _____________.
— Randal Rauser (@RandalRauser) January 11, 2018
Of course, the Christian complementarian will believe the position is a divine mandate and thus cannot be sexist or immoral by definition. But then the same could be said for the traditional Mormon who believed people with dark skin should be excluded from the priesthood. The challenge comes in defending the position to those who do not already hold it.
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January 14, 2018
Are Positive Stereotypes Immoral?
This past week Donald Trump invited universal condemnation (leaders of the GOP excepted) for his blatantly racist and crude remarks about Africa and Haiti. Those comments were presumably borne by pernicious racial and cultural stereotypes.
Trump’s apologists have replied in part by stressing the fact that he is okay with immigrants from Asia. This invites two responses. First, granting the assumption that Trump does not thereby hold racist attitudes toward Asians, it doesn’t follow that he thereby lacks racist attitudes toward Africans and Haitians. Second, Trump’s attitude toward Asian immigration is presumably itself borne by positive stereotypes: for example, Asians are industrious, hard workers, good at math, law-abiding, etc.
This leads to the question that I posed on Twitter two days ago: are positive stereotypes as harmful and wrong as negative ones?
Are allegedly "positive" stereotypes (e.g. "Asians are good at math") as harmful and wrong as negative stereotypes?
— Randal Rauser (@RandalRauser) January 12, 2018
What do you think? Are positive stereotypes as pernicious as negative ones? Compare these two stereotypes:
(1) Maasai people tend to be tall.
(2) Black people tend to be good at sports.
It seems to me that (1) is not problematic but (2) clearly is. So what’s the difference?
First, (1) is not a positive stereotype. All things being equal, variations in height are neutral. In other words, being taller than the average is not intrinsically preferable.
Second, (1) is a fact: Maasai people do tend to be taller than the average height. By contrast, (2) exists somewhere in the hinterland between vagueness and falsity.
Third, and most importantly, an allegedly positive stereotype like (2) has a shadow side. Presumably, the person who endorses (2) is not thinking that black people tend to be good at the sport of chess, for example. Thus, the stereotype includes a subtle but critical social judgment: black people are best when they are limited to a subset of social roles, i.e. those that involve physical rather than mental exertion.
That raises an interesting question: are positive stereotypes immoral and harmful only to the extent that they include negative stereotypes? Or are they intrinsically immoral and harmful (i.e. irrespective of whether they include negative stereotypes)?
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January 6, 2018
Are Angels and Demons Part of an Obsolete Biblical Worldview?
In his book The Biblical Cosmos (which I just reviewed here), Robin Parry points out that the Bible is written against the backdrop of an ancient cosmology which we no longer accept in the modern world. For example, biblical writers assume a flat earth and a three-storied universe with heaven located physically above the earth. They assume that sheol — the place of the dead — is physically located beneath the surface of the earth. And they populate the seas that surround the earth with mythical, dragon-like creatures like Rahab and Behemoth.
One of the clear lessons of Parry’s book is that the Christian today cannot believe in the biblical cosmos as it was once accepted by ancient peoples. To that extent at least, some degree of “demythologization” by the thinking Christian is required. (This is my term rather than Parry’s, and while it has baggage — thanks to Bultmann — it seems to me the best term for what I’m describing.)
But how far does this program go? Consider, for example, one aspect of the biblical worldview that Parry does not discuss: angels and demons. (To be sure, Parry mentions both angels and demons at several points in the book. But he never poses the question of demythologizing these entities in the terms that I present here.)
The topic of spirit beings is particularly important for at least two reasons. First, spiritual agencies appear to provide not simply part of the backdrop of the biblical narrative: on the contrary, they are often actors in the story. Furthermore, while many aspects of the biblical worldview (e.g. three-storied universe) are not typically included in ecclesial professions of faith, belief in angels and demons often is. Consider, for example, the Statement of Belief of the North American Baptists (my denomination). The NAB Statement includes the following paragraph:
3. We believe God created an order of spiritual beings called angels to serve Him and do His will (Psalm 148:1-5; Colossians 1:16). The holy angels are obedient spirits ministering to the heirs of salvation and glorifying God (Hebrews 1:6-7; 13-14). Certain angels, called demons, Satan being their chief, through deliberate choice revolted and fell from their exalted position (Revelation 12:7-9). They now tempt individuals to rebel against God (I Timothy 4:1; I Peter 5:8). Their destiny in hell has been sealed by Christ’s victory over sin and death (Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 20:10). (Source)
The tension arises because there is an undeniable logic to the demythologization spirit agencies along with the three-storied universe and sea monsters. Consider, for example, this description of demon possession in Mark 9:17-18:
“Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”
Countless people have noted the similarity between that account of demon possession and an epileptic grand mal seizure:
With loss of consciousness the patient falls to the ground and goes into a muscularly rigid state (tonic phase, during which the jaws are clenched and breathing creases for a few seconds or usually not more than half a minute.
This is followed by rhythmic contractions of the muscles (clonic phase) during which the patient may bite his tongue, foam at the mouth, and fling his arms and legs out. During this period he may injure himself, but gradually the jerking movements grow weaker and finally cease. He may remain unconscious following the seizure for periods up to half an hour, and on regaining consciousness he may be fatigued and may sleep for several hours. (William H. Gaddes, Learning Disabilities and Brain Function, (2nd ed., Springer, 1985), 118)
So the obvious question arises: if we demythologize the three-storied universe and sea monsters, should we do the same of angels, demons, and (by implication) demon possession? In the present example, that could result in the following interpretation: ancient peoples described the phenomenon in question as demon possession in accord with the categories of their ancient worldview. But today we interpret it as an epileptic seizure in accord with our worldview. Note that whether the malady is demonic or epileptic in nature, Jesus is still healing the individual and that healing is still a sign of God’s kingdom.
However one addresses this issue, it should be emphasized that demythologizing spirit beings entails neither a rejection of plenary inspiration nor of biblical inerrancy. Just as a Christian can affirm that the plenarily inspired, inerrant biblical text accommodates to ancient beliefs in a three-storied universe and sea monsters, so she could affirm that the same text also accommodates to ancient beliefs about angels and demons.
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January 2, 2018
The Biblical Cosmos: A Review
Robin Parry. The Biblical Cosmos: A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Weird and Wonderful World of the Bible. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014.)
Like many conservative Christians of my generation, I was raised as a young earth creationist (YEC). We prided ourselves on taking what we believed to be the most faithful and commonsense reading of the Bible. Other Christians bowed to the idol of “science,” (note the scare quotes). But we prided ourselves in the belief that real science could, in fact, be discerned by reading the whole counsel of God, and that meant a firm commitment to a creation that unfolded in six 24 hour days approximately 6000 years ago.
As Robin Parry demonstrates in his delightful book The Biblical Cosmos, my YEC understanding of things could hardly have been further from the reality. YEC is far indeed from a faithful or commonsense reading of the Bible. And those who are truly consistent in reading the whole counsel of God will soon find themselves grappling with an alien world far stranger than they ever dreamed.
But how does one come to grapple with the strange world described in the Bible? What we need is a tour that takes us through the many ways this ancient world differs from our own. Think of Dante’s journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven in the Divine Comedy. Now replace that eschatological destination with a tour of the worldview of the biblical writers and switch out Dante’s venerable tour-guides Virgil and Beatrice with Dr. Parry. And with that, we’re ready to embark on our tour of the strange, three-storied cosmos within the Bible.
Taking the Tour
Parry begins in Part I by surveying the flat earth and that mysterious underworld that lies beneath. The tour starts in chapter 1 on the surface of the earth as Parry cites multiple biblical texts that assume the earth is flat and immobile and that it rests on pillars for stability. It stands at the center of creation and every day the sun and moon literally pass above it in the vault of the heavens.
In chapter 2 Parry turns to the sea, a foreboding, chaotic realm inhabited by strange, mythical creatures that would be at home in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Consider, for example, Yahweh’s defeat of the terrifying chaos monsters Rahab and Leviathan (32-37). But the seas are not just out there. They are also above and below the earth. It turns out that in the Noahic deluge, the earth is flooded by two vast seas, one that is usually held safely behind a hard firmament far above the earth, and the other a subterranean sea. When the firmament above and the ground below open up, these raging flood waters break through and threaten to return the earth to something approximating the chaotic state prior to creation (38-39).
In chapter 3 the tour returns to the land as Parry points out the special significance the Hebrews attributed to several aspects of the world including mountains, wilderness, rivers, and springs, as well as to the concept of an Edenic promised land.
Things begin to get even stranger in chapter 4 as we again leave the surface of the flat earth behind for the shadowy underworld of sheol which is located quite literally beneath our feet. This is the realm of the dead, and Parry points out that it is explicitly referenced in a passage like Numbers 16:23-34 which describes an earthquake opening up the earth to consume people. Parry reflects:
“I used to read this story in the light of my modern worldview; I thought that this was simply an earthquake that split the ground under the rebels causing them to fall to their deaths in the crack. But it is clearly more than that. The earth split open and the rebels went down into [sic] alive into sheol, the dead zone. Clearly sheol was thought to be literally under the ground.” (79)
What a strange world! A flat earth with a sea in the sky held up by a hard dome and another sea under the earth, and a dark cavern populated by the dead below that subterranean sea!
As incredible as the journey is thus far, it becomes even stranger in Part II as Parry takes us in the other direction way up into the sky and to the starry firmament beyond. On our first stop, in chapter 5, we journey above the aforementioned sky sea to the vault of astral bodies that lies beyond, including the sun, moon, visible planets, and stars. To the contemporary reader, these are understood to be natural objects composed of rock, dust, and gas. But to ancient peoples, they were divine beings, and for many, proper objects of worship. While the Bible eschews worship of all but Yahweh, nonetheless, biblical writers still appear to ascribe a subordinate divine status to astral bodies: for example, they are recognized as members of Yahweh’s divine council (100; 107); furthermore, they can act on Yahweh’s behalf, as in the case of Judges 5:19-20 where we read of the stars fighting for Yahweh (108).
In chapter 6 we continue our journey upwards as we leave the skies behind altogether and enter into the realm of heaven itself. Yes indeed, the biblical writers understood heaven quite literally to exist above the earth. Heaven consisted of God’s temple (his dwelling place relative to creation), though God was always understood to transcend heaven (1 Kings 8:27). Heaven also is the residence of the divine council — the sons of God (127) — as well as human-like angels and still other strange human/animal hybrid creatures including the cherubim and seraphim (130-32).
The focus of Part III is the relationship between heaven and earth. In chapter 7 Parry examines the role of the temple as a model or “microcosm” of the cosmos with the outer court representing the land and sea, the holy place the sky, and the Holy of Holies heaven itself. And in chapter 8 he summarizes Jesus’ journey through this biblical cosmos, beginning at the right hand of the Father far above in heaven, coming physically down to earth in the incarnation, descending into sheol/hades at his death, and then resurrecting and ascending back to the right hand of the Father. Parry concludes by addressing the difficult topics of Jesus’ present physical place and his future return.
What do we do with this strange world?
I began this review by noting the failure of YEC to take the biblical text seriously. Parry makes the point as follows:
“as we have seen, this [YEC literalism] does not go nearly far enough. If fundamentalists really were to have the courage of their convictions then we would see membership of the Flat Earth Society boosted significantly. What happens instead is that this is a bridge too far, even for hard-line fundamentalists, and biblical texts are thus reinterpreted to fit with modern cosmology.” (165-66)
Needless to say, the proper response is not to become more fundamentalist than the fundamentalists: a return to the three-tiered universe is not possible for those of us who are familiar with modern science. But then what is the alternative? How should we interpret this bizarre biblical world? Answering that question is the task of Part IV.
As Parry notes, many theologians account for the strangeness of the biblical world by appealing to the concept of accommodation (166-67). Every good teacher accommodates instruction to their students’ level of understanding and that’s what God does as well: he accommodated his message to their ancient near eastern understanding of the world. Once we recognize the three-story universe as an accommodation, we can extricate the enduring message from those ancient trappings.
While Parry agrees that God accommodates, he believes there is more to be learned from the biblical cosmos on its own terms. And so, in chapter 9 he proposes a “third way” to think about the matter, one according to which God reveals “his truth not merely in spite of the ‘wrong science’ but in and through it.” (167) In other words, Parry proposes that aspects of this putatively “obsolete” biblical cosmos may very well retain enduring insights for the contemporary reader.
Over the final three chapters, Parry explores various possible ways that the biblical cosmos may provide revelatory insights into the structure of reality even now. For example, in chapter 10 Parry focuses on insights from the cosmic temple, noting in particular how the temple may ground a renewed Christian Platonic participation. And when he considers the biblical heavens in chapter 11, Parry explores how the spiritual and material may relate to one another by way of the model of stars as having a dual nature both as natural objects in the firmament and divine beings in heaven.
The book concludes in chapter 12 with a survey of suggestive insights based on the biblical earth. For example, Parry begins with the suggestion that the centrality of creation in the Bible may provide a symbolic rebuttal to deflationary secular “pale blue dot” understandings of planet earth and our place within the cosmos. And he concludes the chapter with a rebuttal to reductionism by returning to Platonic participation as a way to envision all creation relating to God.
Debriefing the Tour
So what’s the verdict on this grand tour of the biblical cosmos? Let me begin by getting some criticisms out of the way.
To begin with, while the attempt in Part IV to glean revelatory insights from the biblical cosmos rather than despite it may be the richest and most original part of Parry’s book, I nonetheless thought that he gave short shrift (i.e. 1 page) to the important concept of accommodation. Indeed, I think the book would have been stronger had Parry devoted a chapter to accommodation before turning to developing his third way in the final chapters. (For a much more fulsome treatment of accommodation see Kent Sparks, God’s Word in Human Words (Baker, 2008).)
Second, while Parry offers a relatively comprehensive tour of the biblical cosmos and the points at which it contrasts with our own cosmos, I thought he also should have devoted a chapter in the tour to contrasting biblical and post-Enlightenment concepts of nature, divine action, and miracle. To be sure, he does address these topics later in Part IV (see pp. 172-77). But it seems to me that this material is of sufficient import that it would have been preferable to place it earlier during the tour itself.
Finally, while Parry’s attempt in Part IV to develop a third way that finds revelation in the biblical cosmos is arguably the richest and most original part of the book, it is also likely to be the most controversial. On this score, I’ll note one point of personal skepticism.
When considering the location of Jesus’ resurrection body between ascension and second-coming, Parry offers a speculative suggestion based on the fact that Jesus’ resurrection body is eschatological (i.e. the first fruits of our resurrection):
“Perhaps we can think of Jesus ‘ascending’ into the future, the new age. We could still speak of this in terms of ascending into heaven, in that the new age is one in which heaven and earth are unified, and that environment is precisely the one that Jesus’ resurrection body is fitted for.” (187)
While Jesus’ ascension “into the future” would certainly address the embarrassing detail of needing to locate a physical resurrection body relative to the present cosmos, I simply do not believe that this is a coherent proposal. Parry would need to say much more here to convince me that his highly speculative suggestion is both coherent and orthodox.
I have questions and concerns about several other points that Parry explores in this final section. That said, I agree fully with the validity of his primary goal to find in the biblical cosmos something more than simply accommodation to an ancient people. And many of his specific suggestions are very promising.
To sum up, as I noted at the beginning of this review, I found The Biblical Cosmos to be a delightful book. It is easy to read, biblically and theologically sophisticated, framed by a creative tour motif, and punctuated by the occasional bad pun. The book also includes several handsome illustrations by Hannah Parry that complement the text nicely. In short, The Biblical Cosmos would make a great textbook for a Bible or worldview course. More generally, it would be an invaluable addition to the library of any thinking Christian.
Thanks to Cascade for a review copy of The Biblical Cosmos.
You can purchase a copy of The Biblical Cosmos here.
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December 30, 2017
Can an atheistic worldview support the concept of the holy or sacred?
That’s the question I posed in a recent Twitter poll. And here are the results:
Can an atheistic worldview support the concept of the holy or sacred?
— Randal Rauser (@RandalRauser) December 29, 2017
Of course, the answers people provide depend on how they define the terms in question. So as I prepare to offer my own answer, I’ll begin there.
Defining Atheism and God
To begin with, what do we mean by “atheism”? I understand atheism to be the denial of God’s existence and thus it requires one accept the belief God does not exist. This contrasts with the agnostic who either lacks belief in God’s existence (weak agnosticism) or who believes that no person can know whether God does or does not exist (strong agnosticism).
And how do I define God? For this discussion, I will define “God” as a personal being who is the ultimate explanation for everything else that exists. Thus we get the following:
Theism: the belief that a personal being is the ultimate explanation for everything else that exists.
Atheism: the belief that a personal being is not the ultimate explanation for everything else that exists.
Now for the second part: defining the sacred.
Defining the Sacred
For the purposes of this discussion, I’ll treat the terms “holy” and “sacred” as synonyms. Further, to streamline the discussion, I’ll refer only to sacredness.
By one common definition, sacred is defined as relating to God. Obviously, if one accepts that definition, then the claim that an atheistic worldview cannot support a concept of the sacred would be an analytic truth no different from a bachelor cannot be married. But should one accept that definition?
I would say no. After all, there are various religions that have a concept of the sacred but which lack belief in God as defined.
This brings us to a second common definition of the sacred as that which is religious or transcendent in contrast to the secular or mundane. This is a more general interpretation of the concept, one which allows for expressions that are theistic and others that are non-theistic.
Atheism and the Sacred
At this point the question becomes this: can an atheistic worldview accept a concept of the religious or transcendent? And the answer is yes.
As Exhibit A, I would commend Ronald Dworkin’s 2011 Einstein Lectures which were published in 2013 as the book Religion without God. Dworkin argues as follows:
“religion is deeper than God. Religion is a deep, distinct, and comprehensive worldview: it holds that inherent, objective value permeates everything, that the universe and its creatures are awe-inspiring, that human life has purpose and the universe order.” (1)
Dworkin’s views are not as idiosyncratic as you might think. See also Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists: A Non-believers’ Guide to the Uses of Religion (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012) and Andre Comte-Sponville, The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, trans. Nancy Huston (New York: Viking, 2007).
So it is clear that at least some atheists endorse a concept of the religious, the transcendent, and the sacred. And since actuality entails possibility, it follows that an atheistic worldview can sustain a concept of the sacred.
Thus, both theists and atheists may share that sense of intrinsic value and mystical wonder which is characteristic of the sacred, though they will obviously differ in how they define its nature. Though Dworkin does not adopt the terminology, what he describes looks very much like the classic transcendentals, the Good, the True and the Beautiful. The theist explains these transcendentals in terms of a transcending mind, whilst the atheist appeals to non-personal explanations. But they can at least join hands across the aisle in recognizing the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. And to that extent, at least, they may share something of the common sense of the sacred.
Conclusion
So what follows from this analysis, practically speaking? I’ll conclude by noting one important point. If atheism is consistent with the concept of the sacred, then the theist-in-dialogue should not try to argue otherwise. He should not focus on arguing that atheism obliges one to deny the sacred. He should not argue that atheism entails nihilism, for example.
Instead, the theist should attempt to discern whether the atheist with whom he is in conversation is open to the concept of the sacred. And if so, the theist may then argue that this shared concept of the sacred is best understood in personal terms.
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December 28, 2017
Hellrazed? A Review
Kevin Miller, ed. Hellrazed? (Kimberley, BC: Kevin Miller XI Productions, 2017).
In 2012, filmmaker Kevin Miller released his documentary Hellbound?, a provocative and thought-provoking exploration of the doctrine of hell and how it impacts our understanding of Christian faith.
Like most documentarians, Miller had a point of view on the subject of his film. Hellbound? was concerned not only to challenge eternal conscious torment but to offer an alternative doctrine in its place: universalism. (In the film, universalism is understood to be the view that ultimately all people will be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ whether in this life or following a period of posthumous judgment in the next.)
While I am not a universalist by conviction, I quickly saw Hellbound? as an excellent catalyst for conversation on an important topic. So I was delighted when, in October 2012, Miller invited me to moderate a Q&A at a special screening of the film at the Cineplex in Edmonton. (You can read my review of the film here.)
Five years have passed since Hellbound? came out and in recognition of that anniversary, Miller has published a new edited volume of essays by an impressive list of contributors, some of whom appeared in the film and others who supported the film and/or have contributed to the ongoing conversation on hell. The list of contributors includes Frank Schaeffer, Brian Zahnd, Sharon Putt (nee Baker), Derek Flood, Michael Hardin, Robin Parry, and many more. (The book also includes a short essay by yours truly titled “Hell at Ground Zero.”) Miller asked the contributors to offer their reflections on Hellbound? and/or the way the conversation on hell as unfolded over the last five years.
The result is a diverse collection. For example, Archbishop Lazar Puhalo contributes a pithy two-page reflection titled “The True Gift of ‘Hellbound?'” while Andrew Klager offers a relatively dense and extensively footnoted thirty-page exploration of the doctrine of Apokatastasis in the Patristics. Eric Reitan’s essay argues that God’s infinite resourcefulness strongly supports the truth of universalism. Jackson Baer’s essay is a painful recounting of how he was fired from his job as a pastor because he came to accept universalism: “It felt like I was living through hell for not believing in hell.” (188) And in his delightful essay “Layering the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus,” Brad Jersak offers an intriguing reading of the famous parable of Luke 16.
I was particularly intrigued to read Kevin Miller’s introduction in which he reflects on the tendency we all have to balkanize into hostile in-group/out-group factions. And those who defend universalism are not exempt from this tendency. Miller candidly recalls that over time he became increasingly strident in defense of his views until some good friends “helped me see how my anger was manifesting itself, particularly online, turning me into the mirror image of the very things I was railing against.” (11) It is certainly ironic that one might end up cultivating bitter division while attempting to defend universal reconciliation! Surely there is a lesson here for us all.
The foreword to the book is written by the producer of Hellbound?, multi-millionaire Dave Krysko. He recalls of the film,
What it has done is contribute to a conversation about why we believe some ideas and not others, and it got people talking about faith and truth in a way that, hopefully, will make us better people.” (8)
The same can be said of this collection of essays. For anybody who benefited from Hellbound? and anybody who is simply interested in the ongoing debate on the nature of hell, Hellrazed? is a must-read.
You can purchase Hellrazed at Amazon.com.
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