Discussion Grounds

Tom,

You’re not alone; most Christians who read my deconversion story have (tentatively) concluded that my loss of faith was a moral issue, not an intellectual one – despite my pains to emphasize the opposite. Perhaps your theology requires such a conclusion about infidels.

I am sure that many unconscious motives played a role in my deconversion. And personality certainly matters. If I was a less independent person, perhaps I would not have had the guts to sever such a central connection to my friends and family, even after learning what I learned. But as I tried to emphasize in my deconversion story, my deconversion was a thoroughly intellectual one. At least, that was my conscious experience of it.

I did experience a lot of needless guilty during my Christian years, though that was mostly before reading Dallas Willard. You seem to advocate a different path to spiritual health than Willard does, but trust me – a different theology or Christian practice would not have kept me in the fold. In fact I tried many different theologies because I did not want to leave. The problem was not that Christianity was difficult or guilt-inducing, or that one particular theology didn’t make sense. The problem was that I had no good reasons to think even Mere Christianity or theism were true, and lots of reasons to think they were false.

You’re concerned that the Christianity I reject is not the same as the Christianity you’re defending. But no, it’s the same. Earlier, you wrote that:

My views regarding Christ are summed up in the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds, and in historic Protestantism. I believe in the Triune God: the Father; the Son, Jesus Christ as God’s fullest revelation, who lived, died, and rose again for the redemption of our sins; and the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin, draws us to God through Christ, and guides and empowers believers in following Christ. I believe that God created the world and all of life, and that history is moving toward a consummation at the return of Jesus Christ. I believe that eternal life is a gift of God offered through Christ, and that to reject it is to choose instead eternity apart from God’s goodness and love.

…My position regarding the Bible is that it is the authoritative and trustworthy word of God, accurate in all that it affirms, and life-giving in the sense that to understand and walk in its truth is to walk in a living relationship with God.

My view on evolution is that science is still working out how life and the various species originated on earth, and various views of Genesis leave room for science to determine much of the facts; but the clear testimony of Scripture is that however life happened, it was God’s creative hand that made it happen…

…I think Plantinga is right that knowledge of God can be properly basic…

Yes, that is precisely the Christianity I reject.

So I think we’re back where we were before. Our next step seems to be to argue over our earliest point of divergence: whether or not Christian belief can be properly basic.

Oh, and I live in Los Angeles now. Minnesota is too cold! But I do miss the lakes, and the color green.

Cheers,

Luke