nameandnature | Two ways to live

robhu made a post on the Two Ways to Live presentation, which summarises the important points of evangelical Christianity. That particular posting's intended to be evangelistic without getting de-railed by knowledgeable atheists, so I've move my original comment on it from there to here at Rob's request. This posting remains open for whatever discussion you'd like to have on it (as do most of Rob's), subject to my comment policy. Here's my comment:

Serious points about the video, rather than silly ones, in no particular order:

The video doesn't summarise Christianity, it summarises evangelical Christianity. You won't find many universalists or liberals agreeing with it, and I think the Catholics would at least take a different slant on it. So I think it's a mistake to leave out the "evangelical" qualification when talking about TWTL, unless you really do think those people aren't Christians (which I don't think you do).

TWTL assumes the hearer is prepared to accept that God exists in the first place, and that reading the Bible the evangelical way is a good way to find out what God thinks. This isn't a problem if the intention is to summarise evangelical Christianity, but it is a problem if your intention is to persuade other people to believe it (which is usually what TWTL is for), because you're not presenting any evidence.

There's a difference between creating an inanimate object (like a mug) for a purpose and creating a person. People develop their own ideas about what their purpose is, and we don't accord their creators (parents) the absolute right to determine it. Of course, a Christian could respond that God is supposed to be much greater than human parents, but in that case he stands in relation to us as a parent does to a very young child, or to an animal. In that case, we'd accept his right to bring us up how he wanted, but the way he ignores some children in favour of others and his eventual decision to shove those who aren't his favourites in an oven when he's tired of being patient with them would then become a matter for the NSPCC.

Penal substitutionary atonement doesn't make an awful lot of sense. God is supposed to be so keen on justice that someone must pay for sin, but not so keen on justice that it matters whether he punishes the right person. Furthermore, in the Trinitarian understanding, Jesus is himself God, so the action of punishing himself starts to look like a game of solitaire. As

gjm11 says, sin is so trifling that turning to Jesus can get you off, but so grave that an omnipotent God really has to send people to Hell if they don't turn to Jesus.

The video guy repeats the claim that we shouldn't wish God to deal with evil in case he zaps us right now, making God out to be about as clever as George Bush, with shock and awe the only thing in his toolbox. As we've discussed before, that argument doesn't hold up.

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The god described in the Two Ways to Live presentation is a nasty piece of work. He reminds me of a plantation owner: he looks down upon the slaves working in his cotton fields with proprietorial love so long as they do what he says, but when they rebel he shakes his head and gets out the noose — more in sorrow than in anger, he claims.

The presenters note two problems with that analogy:

1. Creator: created:: plantation owner: slave??

2. What's notable is that God does not, as a rule, get out the noose when the slaves rebel. Even in the Adam and Eve story, God promises them death for disobedience but doesn't actually slay the disobedient - no one dies until one human being sees fit (against God's sage advice) to kill another.

The problem is not that we have to regard a morally dubious God and pretend that He is actually wonderful. The problem is coming to terms with our inevitable ignorance and confusion in the face of a transcendent God (whose morals we are probably obliged to find doubtful at one point or another).

No analogy is perfect in all its details.

The phrase "He made it [the world], and he owns it" appears on page 2 of the presentation. Ownership is not a matter of fact, but one of social and legal convention, and yet surely in the Christian worldview God is not subject to any kind of social or legal constraint? So why does the presentation bring up this idea of ownership? It seems like a rhetorical appeal to people who live in a capitalist society and believe that ownership is a fundamental feature of the moral universe, so that ownership unquestionably justifies a whole panoply of rights by the owner over the possession. The same kind of rhetorical appeal that was used to justify slavery.

Then the presentation goes on to stress the idea of "rebellion", and repeatedly exhort the reader to obey, to be ruled, to submit. I'm sure you can see how the analogy suggests itself.

I'm not saying that my analogy is a fair summary of Christianity. But it's a fair summary of my reaction to the presentation.

Fair enough. And well put.

Two ways to live

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