Christ and Nothing

Vicq Ruiz asks a fascinating and hard question:

Mr. Wright:

I would be most interested to have you expand upon (or point me to an expansion upon, by you or by another) one paragraph in your essay which appears to be no more than an assertion…..

The only real alternative of the apparent many options is either Christianity or something leading to Christ, or else is a heresy or perversion whose only good was borrowed from the Church, so that any partial good found in these pagan, Jewish, or heretic thought is perfected in Christianity.

I have always responded to Pascal’s wager and to like arguments with the “many alternatives to Christian belief and to atheism” rejoinder.

My paragraph is unsupported as quoted, but it is quoted from a context discussing a particular question, namely, what makes the atheist model of the universe inferior to the theist, and to the Christian.

Yes, obviously there are many alternatives to Christianity. That is not in dispute. You may find yourself preferring one over the other for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is loyalty to whatever upbringing you happened to have been brought up in. That is also not in dispute.

What is in dispute is my rather bold statement; I say that there is something in theism which anyone fleeing atheism seeks, and that Christianity has more of this something, a better and cleaner and clearer version, than the alternatives.

Hence, there is no argument that other alternatives exist, and no argument that other alternatives may be more appealing on other grounds unrelated to this something than Christianity. The only argument is whether this something is something anyone fleeing atheism seeks, and whether Christianity has more of it.

So what is the something?

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Originally published at John C. Wright's Journal. Please leave any comments there.