Loading...I’ve devoted my past couple of posts to a review of one of my books that the reviewer (really) didn’t like, and doing so reminded me of the most scathing review that, to my knowledge, I ever received, that at the time (sixteen years ago) I thought was outrageous, and now find rather humorous…. I’m a believer in letting the “other side” have its say, so I thought I’d post it here.
The book under review was God’s Problem: How the Bible Fails to Explain our Most important Question – Why We Suffer. (As is usual, I didn’t give the book its title; usually publishers do that). It was reviewed in the Christian Century (Dec. 30, 2008) (View PDF (christiancentury.org), by Will Willimon, a well-known preacher and a former Bishop of the United Methodist Church and Professor at Duke Divinity School.
No need for me to comment on it. Read it for yourself:
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Bart Ehrman has written another book that is probably destined to be a best seller. God’s Problem is a lively, though thoroughly conventional and utterly predictable, dismissal of Jewish and Christian views of God. It is a real page-turner,
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I remember this one. Willimon was our Bishop and everyone made a big deal about how brilliant he supposedly was. I found him intolerably dismissive.
The bit in his review that really set me off was, “God’s love might be other than what we conceive of as love.”
Really? How is this an argument. If God’s “love” isn’t what we conceive of as “love” then it ain’t “love”. I assumed that scholars believed that words have meaning but perhaps I have that precisely backwards! The practice of redefining words when they don’t support your thesis seems below the standard of an academic from the esteemed halls of Duke.
(As a fellow ACC alum from Georgia Tech, I become sensitive when people heap excessive praise on Duke LOL!)
Well, I suppose love could require torture, e.g….. It’s interesting and probably telling, that he doesn’t explain what he has in mind.
There is a “pop” song by Nick Lowe that includes the lyric
“You gotta be
Cruel to be kind in the right measure
Cruel to be kind it’s a very good sign
Cruel to be kind means that I love you
Baby, you gotta be cruel to be kind”
Yup, I rememeber it well. (Of course I don’t think he’s talking about the kindness of torture…)
IMHO you correctly “assumed that scholars believed that words have meaning.” Apologists OTOH elevate “the practice of redefining words when they don’t support your thesis” to an art form! 😏
> God’s love might be other than what we conceive of as love
> If God’s love isn’t what we conceive of as love then it ain’t love
Having been the parent of teenagers, I say: not so fast. O, the drama! O, the angst! “You don’t love me”, “You’re mean”, “If you loved me you’d (fill in the blank)”
I am NOT meaning to trivialize the horrible suffering in the world. I am merely suggesting that the good bishop may have had a point there, buried as it was under a pile of ad hominem claptrap.
I think the problem is that explanations like this might work well for those of us who are having a hard time on occasoin as uppermiddleclass Americans. But to say that children screaming with pain from horrible and incurable illness or starving to death in agony are problems only because we simply have the wrong concdption of God’s love is, in my honest opinion, heartless on one hand and intentionally mystifying on the other. I’d love to hear a conception of God’s love that embraces that kind of suffering, as opposed, say, to that bout of hepititis I had once or my bitter disappointment at not landing a job. If all suffering was like that, fair enough. God’s love can come through pain. But suffering in extremis? I find it very upsetting, apart from the ad hominem context.
Yes, I also would like to hear a conception of God’s “love” that would account for the horrible extreme suffering. I have no idea what that conception could possibly be, but I try to maintain faith that it’s in there somewhere. Very understandable why someone could decide that it’s not in there at all.
God has a communication problem. & is brutal ref. OT.
We not divine can ever understand his Word since he speaks on his own plain.
#1 God did not tell Eve directly NOT to Eat. Serpant justified to question Eve on what she understood.
#2 God did not REPENT Genesis 6:6. Accordingly his creation is a massive failure.
#3 God promoted Racism for over 8thousand years [Jewish Calendar] with Noah’s condemnation of son [no fuzzy love]
Now skipping over to the NT.
It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what Jesus meant: https://biblehub.com/luke/24-49.htm
Like the USA founding fathers- at best DEISM
& JESUS’ original disciples all died tragically!
Good morning.
The reviewer appears to spend more time attacking you personally than actually reviewing the book. He approached the review with a pre-existing bias, and from the review it is not clear he even read the book.
Did you respond to this?
Yeah, I noticed that. And No, I refrained.
I’ve found out that, as a rule, a reliable standard to gauge the value of a book is to see how much it irritates apologists. I admit I haven’t read “God’s Problem”, but I think I can safely bet it’s going to turn up a really brilliant book.
P.S.: With regard to why I haven’t read it, I have this thing in my life where I save some stuff I surmise they are going to be amazing experiences for some special circumstance later in my life. That’s why I also haven’t watched the Godfather movies or haven’t read “Great Expectations” or Brian Greene’s latest book yet. (I know it’s a bit weird, but I believe you have to have some exciting experience to expect for in your future).
Hello, Bart!
I have a request.
Would you like making a commentary of the Lord’s prayer in its apocalyptical context? Do Matthew and Luke portray the same message? Was it altered? What about manuscript differences?
This is fascinating.
Thanks.
Good idea.
Even the review is unfavorable, it’s cogent and well written.
Yup, there is that!
My 2 questions on this post:
1) Should a modern version of the Bible go back to the oldest manuscripts from which to make its translation (and hence be the most accurate) and not to some medieval translated version as they have done? If not, why not?
2) What verses clearly indicate that Jesus referred to someome else as Son of Man and not himself?
Thanks,
1. All modern translations except those done by fundamentalists who think the medieval manuscripts on the whole are superior go to the most ancient. So most any modern translation except the New King James use the mss generally thought to be superior. 2. It’s a little more complicated than that. There are verses where he refers to himself in the first person and to the son of man in the third person without giving any indication that he is talking about the same person — for example Mark 8:38. If you didn’t already think Jesus himself was the son of man, you would never think he was identifying himself that way in this verse.
What a hoot!
Reading that, the word “bile” seemed most appropriate.
Fascinating. Almost 1200 words and no explanation whatsoever for the core problem itself.
Yeah, I wondered about that….
The venom in this review reminds me of my own experience as a young Christian. I wasn’t afraid of hell for myself, but I feared a lot for others, Christians included, who believed the wrong things. I’m not saying I was anywhere near as educated as this critic, but I have to wonder if something like my old fear isn’t at the emotional core of this scathing response, even from this bishop who takes pains to put space between himself and the simplistic faith of evangelicals.
Why beat a dead horse? Why beat a live horse to death? Free will?
Well, that’s why you *can* in any case….
Wow! As a former Roman Catholic who as a young man actually thought he was called by “God” to be a priest and was a member of the Society of Jesus for a few years I am really taken aback by this “review “. I found your book when I read it years ago to be very much like a record of my own unfaith journey. As i age and my reading of history and observation of our human condition and place in this cosmos deepened I am at best saddened by the obtuseness of people such as the reviewer. The utter nonsense of a species capable of offending an omnipotent being was the ultimate nail in the coffin for me.
Keep up the good work Professor!!!
Good Lord, what a judgmental and self-righteous screed. To me it probably says more about the author than the purported subject.
Well said!
“the bloodiest century on record”? I suppose if we just use raw numbers and ignore percentages and filter out non-war casualties, that might be accurate. Will Willimon seems to have great difficulty in escaping his Wesleyan echo chambers. The struggle to see things attempt to understand things from many different perspectives seems to be the bigger concern. At least he seems to have actually read your book at some basic level of consciousness. How can we learn to love one another if one is not willing to leave one’s narrow theological comfort zones? We should not strive to become “the most intellectually intolerant century on record.”
Wow! Just wow! Methinks the ex bishop doth protest too much. Just for info I found this book incredibly useful for clarifying my thinking.
It’s hilarious, if a bit long. I give this review one star.
Will Willimon’s scathing review is heavy on sarcasm and personal attack, but offers almost no grappling with the book’s substance.
When making a criticism, it is more persuasive when citing specific examples. Willimon doesn’t do that.
Nothing is new, he claims, so nothing is worth him discussing, even though the issue is new to many readers.
Personal attack is no substitute for identifying a book’s specific weakness and mistakes. Though he accuses Ehrman of having a superiority complex, Willimon should look in the mirror.
I think whoever wrote this missed Bart’s point. We believe in a G-d who is all powerful, all knowing and all love. Why, then does G-d allow young mothers and fathers to die, depriving there children of their love and care. Why are babies born with horrible birth defects that rob them of a normal life, why do innocent children die for lack of clean water or food to eat? Why to people die in natural disasters, earthquakes, floods, volcanos and the like? Why are people killed in wars they did not want or start?
G-d either has no power to stop it, does not know about it or does not care.
I think there is an answer but its not simple, G-d has given us a blueprint to build a just and good society. We fail to follow it and then blame G-d. There is a simple summary: love your neighbor as you love yourself, and every human being is our neighbor. We betray our ideals and our instructions. The fault is in us, not in G-d.
” It’s just too confusing to imagine that God’s alleged omnipotence might be something other than what we think of as omnipotence or that God’s love might be other than what we conceive of as love.”
Given the evil and suffering that are pervasive in the world, if God is all-loving, then he certainly cannot be omnipotent; if he *is* in fact omnipotent, then he cannot be all-loving because he seemingly arbitrarily allows innocent people to suffer. Willmon’s response to this is: “well, yeah, but it’s because God’s “love” and “omnipotence” are, like, way beyond your understanding, man.” Ok, but if they are, then what’s the point? If we’re supposed to emulate God’s love on earth, but that love is seemingly capricious and cruel — but serving some greater end we just can’t comprehend — what, again, is the point? An ant might as well contemplate the mind of Aristotle. This is essentially the answer Job gets: “Because shut up, that’s why.” I think the author of Job was keenly aware of the implications of that answer. Willmon maybe not so much.
Willimon sounds like a self-righteous jerk. I assume there’s some grain in what he writes, but the predominant chaff disguises whatever substance there might be.
“ dissonance and conflict are the usual way that scripture presents its PECULIAR TRUTH.”
Well, indeed it is very peculiar.
The son of a virgin woman and a holy spirit that was killed two thousand years ago, and three days after he was resurrected, one day would come through the clouds, to save the ones who believe in him, from an apocalyptic destruction ordered by his father,that, by the way, was the one who created our universe, but that ‘father ’ is one and the same with the spirit that fertilized the virgin and the result of this fertilization.
I always wondered if the ancient Egyptians/Greeks would achieve the same technological/knowledge level we have now, would there also be priests defending the ‘peculiar’ truths of their ancient texts?
I am not sure how a critical thinker attacks a person rather than his arguments. Pehaps Willimon isn’t really a critical thinker or maybe he is jealous of Bart’s success ( hence the statement about being destined to be a best seller). Or maybe he was jealous of North Carolinas basketball team at the time😀
That is NOT a book review, however, as grist for the writer’s therapy session, it is invaluable.
I don’t know about you, but I think Will Willimon doesn’t like Bart Ehrman as he only writes about Prof. Ehrman and makes no specific references to the work he was reviewing.
I especially enjoyed that notion that, “[t]here are no new insights or discoveries here. All of this is common knowledge to anyone who has taken a few Bible classes in any first-rate, state-funded, secular department of religion.” By stating this, Mr. Willimon relieves himself of any obligation to address or refute these ideas. Old ideas are assumed to be bad and already proven to be inadequate — after all, Christianity still stands and it wouldn’t otherwise.
It goes to show that not all academics or scholars can actually be scholarly.
Thanks Bert for the post.
Dr. Ehrman what do you think Jesus was talking about when he said “the living will not die” was it 1 Corinthians 15:53? lol.
So, question all of the Gospel of Thomas, it was went for someone to interpret it talking back to Jesus? It is sort of like someone speaking to Jesus is my interpretation. For example, “Jesus, this is what is happening…
(11) Jesus said, “This heaven will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The dead are not alive, and the living will not die. In the days when you consumed what is dead, you made it what is alive. When you come to dwell in the light, what will you do? On the day when you were one you became two. But when you become two, what will you do?”
I am alive after this is.
Jesus,
Heaven away
One will
The not
The not
The you
Is made
Is you
Dwell light
You the
You
You
But become
Will
Will become You
You
The you
Light
Dwell you
Is made
Is you
The not
The not
The will
One away
Heaven,
Jesus
Dr. Ehrman, I have a question about the Gospel of Thomas. Has any one came to the idea it was someone speaking back to Jesus. So Jesus said, then its backwards. Someone speaking to Jesus. Start off like “Jesus, this…. I am just wondering. Basically its someone talking to Jesus, the whole time.
These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.
(1) And he said, “Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death.”
(2) Jesus said, “Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All.”
These secret the spoke Didymos wrote
And whoever interpretation sayings experience
Jesus,
Him continue he
He will
When troubled
Be he
Over
Over
He be troubled
When will
He
He continue him
Jesus
Experience sayings
Interpreation whoever
And
Wrote Didymos
Spoke the secret
To be honest, if Dr Ehrman was searching for a model of how to write without assuming “moral and intellectual superiority”, I don’t think he’d find it in Willimon’s essay.
I’ve read several of your books but not God’s Problem.
If it’s any comfort, reading this review has made me determined to read God’s Problem!
From his frothing, over-the-top indictment, dripping with what he sees as his clever sarcasm and his self-righteous impugning of your motives, it’s pretty clear that Will Willimon is SCARED for anyone to read your book. Can’t wait to sit down with it!
Suffering is just part of the natural world. I can’t wrap my mind or heart around the Bible, for example Mark 11:24 – Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Really, so why hasn’t cancer been cured? Why does God of the Bible seem to discriminate against amputees? Not one human has regrown a leg or arm. In my mind the Bible is just wishful thinking.
I am sorry Dr. Willimon reacted this way. I heard him preach many times at Duke Chapel. In his response to your book, he does not seem to address the question of whether all the suffering in the world means that God does not exist because surely God would not allow so much suffering, especially the suffering of small children through no fault of their own. I think Charles Darwin raised the same point about if there were a God then he would not have allowed the creation of a parasite so harmful to so many children.
I tried to read the whole review but I found the author to be petty and childish and hateful.
Dr Ehrman. In John 3:16, Jesus say:” For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
So this saying at least indicate two things: 1. Jesus is the atonement from God; 2. Believing in Jesus brings salvation.(which seems imply you don’t need to love your neighbor)
Do you think this is what Jesus really said in history? I find many Christians like this verse very much, and they usually quote this to prove their points.
Thanks.
No, I don’t. In my book (that I just started writing) I’ll be arguing that Jesus taught that God forgives sins without requiring atonement; after his death, his followers came to think both that God needed atonement and that Jesus provided it.
It seems to me that omnipotence is a class of infinites above all-benevolence, so much so that I would almost forgive an all-powerful god for forgetting he was loving when he has innumerable alternatives.
Dr. Ehrman,
I haven’t read that book in a while, but I remember thoroughly enjoying it. In contrast, I couldn’t get through this review of your book because the guy simply seems like he got his feelings hurt because you don’t believe in his God, so he decides to attack you personally.
Dr.Ehrman, Have you heard about the book《Thiaoouba prophecy》by Michel Desmarquet published in 1993? Basically this book is a kind of message from Extraterrestrials. The Author was abducted by them to an advanced planet for 9 days.
The book said that Jesus comes from a higher-category planet. He is a human, but since he has advanced knowledge and technology , he can do miracles. Finally he was raised from death by other same planet people. His death has no meaning, and the purpose they raised him is to show the immortality of life . And they sent Jesus to preach love and spirituality, that’s all of it.
Moreover, the Jesus born from Mary is a different being . The little Jesus went to Japan. The adult Christ is a human from another planet.(That’s why there is no record between; they are 2 different beings.)
How do you think about it?
I’d say there’s nothing to it as a work of non-fiction (certainly nothing based on any scholarship). It’s all just made up. But it sounds like an interesting read!
Dr.Ehrman, I know I am nobody, but I sincerely recommend you to read it no matter you think it’s true or not （If you have time!）. I love this book, it is very interesting and inspiring. The book is not long, maybe 100000 words. and I’d like to hear your opinions after you have read it. Thank you very much. （I’d say the book is different from any other book I have ever seen.）
“While reading God’s Problem, I kept asking myself, why bother? There are no new insights or discoveries here. All of this is common knowledge to anyone who has taken a few Bible classes in any first-rate, state-funded, secular department of religion.”
You can tell the writer of this hates the hoi polloi getting to learn the facts about Christianity.
The great benefit Dr. Ehrman has done for the world is bringing knowledge about Christianity to people who are not interested in attending college classes on Christianity or are unable to do so. This is what angers most theists so much about his work.
Good point!
I’m very grateful for Bart’s significant contribution. 🙂
“I find it amazing that after the bloodiest century on record there is someone still arguing that humanity just might be able to get organized and straighten out what God almighty has messed up.”
I find it amazing that someone could read the book and come away with this conclusion.
By the way, “God’s Problem” is the book I tend to recommend to people new to deconstructing their indoctrination.
Hello Dr Ehrman,
Your views on suffering and especially evil are very consistent with most humanist non-believers. The non-believer marvels at the amount of suffering and evil and it confirms their justification of a non-belief in God.
Where many believers are surprised that there actually isn’t more suffering and evil, and the suffering and evil that does exist confirms their justification of a non-belief in humanity.
I used to be in the second camp. It’s what maintained my faith from youthful doubts to early middle age. Once I became convinced of the likely non-historicity of the Resurrection, the arguments of the first camp started making more sense.
As a child I went to church every Sunday. I learned the stories, meanings and purpose of the Bible. It only made a shallow connection with me. The death of my Cousin at 14 months old from Brain Cancer bothered me. I saw what it did to my family and came to hate the phrase “it’s all part of Gods plan.” I could not reconcile God’s love with that and other suffering I saw in the world. I concluded that we have as much hope of understanding ‘god’ (if a God really exists), as an ant has of understanding us. Belief is more a matter who your parents were and where you happened to be born.
Willimon talks a lot of trash about you and the superiority of his intellect without answering the primary question of the review — why suffering exists and to what purpose it serves. As a result his review collapses into the droll common reviews of your books, that of attacking you with no actual answers. You make them nervous.
Thanks for your comments. That must have been a horrible experience. What a world….
The scandalized tone usually represents a real sting to their intellectual pride. They know what they’re in for, just as an Atheist expects a little politics and polemic when he reads Christian perspectives. It’s amusing he is plainly outraged that you would so much as write and publish works that transgress Christian traditions, but couldn’t resist padding the review by seeing how close he can get to calling you an effete infidel. You probably don’t need me to assure you your books are as attentive to Christian sensibilities as you can get while remaining honest and text-critical. It’s not the lack of “tolerance for intellectual ambiguity” or insensitivity to the “perplexing” nature of suffering which rankles them, it’s impiety.
I don’t condemn anybody’s “g*d” for allowing human evil. The evil in this world is created by the free agency of sentient beings. I experience the First Cause Creator (The Unknowable Unknown) by the extraordinary Beauty and Mystery of all that has been Created. I experience a spiritual presence that seeks to do no evil, and desires for me to live a virtuous life. I know nothing of Creation’s ultimate purpose. I cherish gifted humans who create Beautiful Music, Art, Literature, Poetry, Kindness and Compassion. I condemn malicious humans who create unspeakable suffering for others.
as with Dominic Crossan I have found your books very interesting…and informative…and you “guys” historical sense and dedication of years to the study of languages, historical documents, archaeology to get through all the malarkey associated with the modern world’s attempt to put todays stamp on ancient history to be very remarkable…
interesting
have seen you on youtube and you frequently refer to “read it and decide for yourself.”
Greetings Bart,
I’m uncomfortable with some of the conclusions that you reach that the above review touches upon, but I applaud you for your willingness to post the review here! (And despite my personal discomfort, I’m a big fan of yours and think you’re very cool – fyi.) I especially like the part of the review where Willimon quotes Terry Gross saying “Did you try another god?” Very funny.
Maybe you’ve covered this in an interview or book, but how did you feel when your fundamentalist views started to unravel? I’d love to hear about the personal journey behind the scholarship if you’re ever inclined to share, even though I realize that that’s beyond the scope of this blog. And I’d love to know what, if anything, ever causes you to reconsider (even for a little while) your disbelief.
Glad to be an official Silver member of the blog, Bart!
And I’m glad you’re on the blog! I talk about my personal journey a bit in my book God’s Problem. It was emotionally very painful for me, and took me years to deal with the hurt of it all. But I think I came out much stronger, much happier in my skin, more committed to doing good in this world and being a good person, more dedicated to friends and family. For me this life is all there is, and we need to live it to its fullest, and help others, including esp. those in need, to do so as well. I think this frame of mind is much more fulfilling and purpose-drivine than what I had before….
This is interesting to me. Thank you for sharing.
How big of a role did the scholarship play in your change of heart vs the idea that an all-powerful just God is incompatible with the suffering in the world?
Scholarship turned me away from a fundamentalist understanding of the Bible, and eventually from evangelical Christianity altogether. But I remained a committed, active Christian for years, and would have stayed that way if it were not for the issue of suffering.
That settles it. I am officially moving “God’s Problem” up to the top five of books I intend to read next. As a believer myself, it’s embarrassing to see this kind of ad hominem review. My personal way of dealing with the issue is to affirm that God is not really all powerful, and that s/he suffers greatly because of it. Otherwise I’d half to agree with my dad, who said, “I don’t believe in God, and if he exists I don’t want to meet the son-of-a-bitch.” I’ve always believed this is a legitimate theological stance even though I do not agree with it. Don’t let ’em get you down Bart.
I think I would like your dad. I’m curious, if you believe god is not all powerful, what is in control of the things god isn’t, and how that/those things came to exercise their control over their dominion. Really there is no wrong answer, I’m genuinely curious as to how you’ve dealt with that problem.
Thanks
I had never heard of Willimon, so I looked him up. Impressive credentials. It’s a shame his review is so transparently biased and angry that he fails to make even one convincing point in what can only be characterized as a diatribe against you.
Not badly written though especially for a bishop. In short what he says is that dr. Ehrman does not get that the whole thing is not for real – its a faith. The question of literary value and valorisation of Bible I find very interesting. Was Jesus at least one of the great writers-philosophers not to mention amazing strenghth of Old Testament. But those who dont believe do not realy study it and those who believe can not appreciate it as literature. Thats the book I am waiting for ….
This reviewer is very worried about the threat you pose to a potential reader’s faith. However, your work (Misquoting…) saved mine.
The apologist most often writes for believers, to provide space for belief and to quiet any doubts that what they believe might not be true.
I’m so thankful for the way you have brought scholarship to life in an accessible and engaging way.
As a former catholic I might have said the same thing years ago. It’s quite ironic that his main argument is “it’s complicated” and “it’s a catholic thing so you simple minded evangelical taught people wouldn’t understand “. Cognitive dissonance is a strong thing. He defends his opinion by saying there is no innovation in the book. Well, maybe it takes a simple explanation to explain the obvious. Applying Occam’s Razor to this simply results in the inevitable conclusion.
I spent 50 years guarding my eyes and mind from thoughtful scholars who have the courage, credentials and training to point out the obvious problems with diverse, liberal and conservative theistic perspectives . I have a shelf in my home and considerable cloud space preserving your books and a growing library of other scholars and former evangelicals who have allowed me to regain a defendable, ethical, rational and scientifically supported world view. Existing in a haunted universe governed by a deity who is evidentially unconcerned with suffering is no way to live, love or worship.
Thank You Dr. Ehrman
I must disagree, professor. This isn’t a “scathing review” of your book. It is ad hominem speculations and personal aspersions on the author. That hardly qualifies as “letting the “other side” have its say.”
The only glimmer of relevant insight in that obloquy was the question: “Did you try another god?” (and that not from him, but NPR interviewer, Terry Gross.) It is also in essence a question I raised during the Q&A portion of your “New Insights into the New Testament” webinar.
The jealous, vindictive Yahweh makes an obvious and convenient strawman. But how does the “God” of a primitive, animal-sacrifice cult extrapolate to more sophisticated conceptions of a transcendent deity?
Science cannot — nor likely ever will — account for the “breath of life.” Clearly, *something* imbues animating life force into what (science *does* inform) would otherwise remain inert matter.
The Enlightenment Era theology of Deism, for instance, acknowledges the existence of a spiritual counterpart to the physical realm. Requiring scientific evidence of ineffable truth is a misapplication of the means appropriate for one to the other. Would we ask Beethoven to compose “Starry Night” in B♭-major, or Van Gogh to paint “Für Elise” in oils on canvas?
“No need for me to comment on it. Read it for yourself”
Wow, so right!
There are many problems with Mr. Willimon’s article, but one I would like to highlight: I have often thought that when someone goes ad hominem it’s probably because they lost the argument.
In other words: they got nothing else.
(And I hate you for making me read Mr. Willimon’s writing, I need a good strong bourbon now)
…(After good strong bourbon) Okay, I really don’t hate you
My latest preference is Angels Envy….
Your dismissal of Deism (to which I, frankly, incline) as essentially irrelevant because it postulates a God who “isn’t present in your life or in the world” is IMHO an objection founded on an incorrect premise.
The existence of a transcendent (as apposed to personal) God is evidenced in every living thing on earth — and surely on countless other planets, as well. It’s a very big universe. As Ellie Arroway observed in Carl Sagan’s “Contact”: “If we’re the only ones here, it seems like an awful waste of space!” 😏
But being “actively present” is not the same as actively *interfering* in the natural order. Doing so would contravene both science *and* the divine purpose, and is the very reason Jefferson actually did what Marcion was accused of doing, i.e. “interpreting scripture with a penknife.”
In any case, your objection does support agnosticism.
While it may be inherently impossible for Mozart to convey the enigmatic smile of the Mona Lisa on a piano, or DaVinci the emotional power of the Requiem in D minor on a chapel ceiling, such absence of evidence merely amounts to an unpersuasive “Argument from Silence.”
But how does this extrapolate to the affirmative assertion of atheism?
I just don’t see the active presence. I see nature, started with the big bang, and those of us who have been fortunate enough to have evolved enough to appreciate it. I’m not arguing *against* a Deistic view. I’m saying I don’t see any reason to accept it.
The God of Deism is, to be sure, of an entirely different order from the jealous, vindictive deity of a primitive, animal-sacrifice cult that is at the foundation of Abrahamic theology.
But how does the more sophisticated conception of God as the ineffable, transcendent, spiritual force breathing life into the (otherwise, inert) physical universe, require His also manifesting an “active presence” in it? You seem to be posting that the words “active” and “intervening” are synonymous and, therefore, interchangeable.
What if the throne of the God of Deism simply doesn’t rest on a Theodicy tripod? Suppose Judaism and its progeny err in supposing omnipotence to be a divine attribute? Must a perfectly loving and fully omniscient God also perforce be omnipotent?
Indeed, Christian apologists already recognize that they must carve out exceptions to *all* powerful for both logical contradictions and incompatibility with the divine nature. It seems to me that these same limitations also obtain for any interfering with either the laws of nature or human free will.
Is there no difference between a God who does not (and cannot be importuned to) intervene in temporal affairs and no God at all?
There is a huge difference. The question is why one decides to believe there is any God of any sort. For me just because it makes sense that there *could* be a god like that is not a compelling reason to think that there *is* one.
Same. Years ago, when I was still mentally Christian, I concluded that the only humanly knowable evidence for a God was the historical Resurrection of Jesus from otherwise irreversible death. Once I no longer found the resurrection evidence convincing, I finally let go of the necessity of a God. Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. But barring a clear revelation of a God’s existence, I simply don’t know and have no problem with inclining towards non-theism. I personally find philosophical proofs of a God’s existence to be word games with no basis in observed reality and therefore a waste of my time.
Wierbe: Heb 11:1
the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Amplified Bible
Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses].
Your own “Intro to the New Testament” class makes for an excellent, microcosmic analogy here —and an anecdote you related as a postscript to one of your presentations, a nice illustration of divine limitations.
Despite the pleading of the anxious mother of one of your students that you give her failing daughter a passing grade to keep the girl’s university career alive, you declined to do so.
Why?
You are the de facto “god” of your classroom. You certainly had the power to come to the rescue of this distraught mother and her struggling daughter with a single keystroke in a UNC database.
Nevertheless, though clearly not unsympathetic, you refused to answer this mom’s prayers that you use your (in this context, omnipotent) power to come to their rescue. Indeed, your compassion inspired you to recheck the girl’s work for any possible miscalculations, thus, discovering and correcting an error that led to a passing grade! 🤗
All’s well that ends well.
But surely it would have been easier for you to just disregard the standards — ones *you* created in the first place! — and simply alter her grade.
Might it be that exercising “divine power” is not as clearcut as we’d like to think?
The primary goal of university students is to get a work permit in their chosen field — as effortlessly and inexpensively as possible.
But university life is also (in the words of the estimable Lou Reed) “the beginning of a great adventure.” It’s the transition from dependence to personal autonomy.
Having finally escaped parental control, young adults are eager to establish their own political and philosophical identities. Not to mention revel in the opportunity for unsupervised socializing with their peers.
While that beckons, you make them sit through innumerable, tedious lectures, spend many of these precious hours researching and writing detailed term papers on arcane minutia, and many more studying just to prepare for the joy of taking daunting and nerve-wracking exams.
Given that you have the absolute power to enter any grade you wish into the university database, they may understandably ask of student life: “Why is there suffering?”
Might it be that the sufferers simply aren’t in a position to see “the Big Picture”?
Much as you might wish to spare them the rigors of obtaining an advanced education in their chosen discipline, you OTOH *can* see that the knowledge they suffer to acquire will ultimately prove essential to their success. 😌
I’m not sure that’s always the primary goal, or even normally. It certainly is not among lot of my students, who as a whole throw themselves into learning wiht some gusto, even in classes that have no bearing on their future career.
Nice deflection attempt, professor. But you’re not the only one who has done debates. 😏 While it’s gratifying to hear that students have become less mercenary, that’s hardly the point.
The issue is whether a God who is omnipotent (a questionable premise IMHO, but one I will, arguendo, not contest), yet doesn’t appear to be “active in the world” — by which I take you to mean “fails to intervene” — perforce either does not, or may as well not, exist.
Could a knowing and loving God who has the power to protect one from, say, a deadly tsunami, a murderous assault, or any other calamity, natural or manmade, nevertheless, turn a deaf ear to desperate pleas for His divine protection?
Perhaps having a God’s-eye view, imperceptible from a temporal perspective, reveals a larger purpose. One that precludes interfering with either the natural order or mortal decision-making for coping with it (and/or one another.)
Is “Divine Hiddenness” sufficient justification for concluding that non-existence or callous indifference are the only possible reasons for earnest prayers going unanswered?
Would this excluded middle also obtain for a being with more delimited — yet clearly *sufficient* — power to rescue someone’s daughter from flunking out of UNC?
This really got me.
“I find it amazing that after the bloodiest century on record there is someone still arguing that humanity just might be able to get organized and straighten out what God almighty has messed up. This book seems an awful lot of fuss to reach so banal a destination.”
Let’s think for a moment about how much of the blood was spilled in the cause of religions, or quasi-religions like nationalism. In this (or any other) of humanity’s many bloody centuries, religion seems to have been a major mortality factor.
Most scathing? I’m surprised you’d rate this as more scathing than Richard Carrier’s review of your book. 🙂 As I recall, Carrier was practically frothing at the mouth because you’d expressed a citation of an ancient reference slightly wrong and because you’d dared to get his degree wrong!
Yeah, I remember. Oh boy do I remember. I was referring to a review in an actual journal.
Some reviews say much more about the reviewer than the thing being reviewed.
He would have got his point over better if he had not been so excoriating. The bishop doth protest too much methinks.
IF Jesus was God, in his death, the Universe would cease if the divine “died”
Again, interview some of those youth that commented after your televised debates maybe 20 years ago. how they see their relationship with God, especially after the Pandemic.
Bart,
To the question of how to reconcile evil with the idea of a benevolent (or at least acceptable) God there is one answer surprisingly I haven’t seen offered, perhaps as it has a more “Eastern” flavor than Judeo-Christian theodicy comfortably accepts. (difficult in 200 words!)
While unverifiable other than (perhaps) through personal experience, it seems to me both logical, or at least more palatable than “God works in mysterious ways”, or we have “free will”.
I wonder if it does to you as well: why/why not?
Suppose “God” is just fully enlightened consciousness that experiences everything through us each, from the profoundest pain to greatest joy, of which the unenlightened don’t yet realize:
1.their true (non-dualistic) nature.
2. we are each an individualized stage of God’s consciousness
3. with which we are, after so many lifetimes, reunited as rivers are to an ocean.
Without night, we cannot understand day; enlightenment means seeing both as two sides of a unity, perhaps the karmic destination of many lifetimes.
An imperfect analogy is dreaming. Our ‘dream-identities/histories’ may not be the ones we wake up to, but while dreaming, our experiences are no less real. Nonetheless, recognizing their fleeting and interdependent nature brings relief (to nightmares) and understanding.
I would say there are lots of explanations of suffering that work if taken on faith, espeically ones that don’t rely on strict montheism with a personal God who is all powerful and loving. For me the question is always why I should think any view like that is actually true?
Bart,
Have you seen the movie “Bruce Almighty”? A silly comedy, but it does offer a perspective on theodicy: If God was more hands-on, tinkering with human behavior & geologic processes on a regular basis as we think he should, all of these interventions would have downstream ripple effects, natural consequences, that would be worse in the long run.
Gravity is a good thing. Without it we’d all float off into space. But it also causes people to fall off ladders, bridges & buildings to collapse, airplanes to crash, etc. What would it be like if God intervened every time? I dunno.
I’m afraid I haven’t.
If he intervened every time I guess we’d have a lot of unemployed ER nurses and doctors….
The movie is a comedy, but it does bring up a serious point worth thinking through. I think I might be on the same wavelength as previous poster TimOBrien.
I suggest that its a false dichotomy to have to choose between “callous indifference” and “impotence” to account for the fact that God does not intervene in natural processes as we think he should. What *would* it be like if God intervened every time someone was about to be injured by gravity, or fire, or flood? Should he intervene to save a group of 1000, or 100, or just one? Where to draw the line, or any line at all? ER would be a lot less busy. The whole natural order would unravel. In fact there would no longer be any natural order.
I’m not saying that I have the answers, I’m just saying that we shouldn’t be too quick to be dismissive of God.
Great blog BTW. I otherwise hate social media. Your blog is an oasis of intelligence & decorum in the proverbial vast wasteland of foolishness.
Thanks! And oh boy is the wasteland vast….
An “all-powerful god” could have created a natural order in which human beings did not get injured, fire, or flood. You know, what “heaven” is supposed to be.