Well, I have to say that I am pretty pleased about this. Here is a brief itinerary for a short book tour and debate that I will be conducting along with Christopher Hitchens. This is still pretty general, and I will follow it up with more details as I get them. On October 29, we …
Just a Little Favor?
Starting tomorrow, my debate with Christopher Hitchens is supposed to be placed in the front of all the Barnes & Noble stores around the country. I think there are about 700 hundred locations. So if you are out and about tomorrow, running errands or whatnot, could you please do me a favor? Could you just …
Narratival Hooey
So check this out. Emergent Christians and pomothinkers like to emphasize that the faith is a story with a storyline, and want to deemphasize the rigid creedal and doctrinal aspects of the faith. Let’s just leave that last bit aside for a moment, and take a closer look at these “story Christians.” The most striking …
Seeming Not to Care
I would like to move one of the comments from my last post on Hart to the top of this post. “The reason I think I have more ground to stand on in rejecting an evil God for a seemingly “weak” one, is that I think this the more scriptural route. God will show us …
In It Together
These posts of mine on Hart’s book Doors of the Sea have generated a goodly amount of comments. So before considering his next section, allow me a quick comment on one point that has surfaced in those comments, I believe more than once. An attempt has been made to distinguish between a logical mystery (how …
To the Law and to the Testimony
In the next section, we come to the hinge of Hart’s objections. And it provides us with a textbook case of what happens when very intelligent people go beyond what it is written. Certain indisputable truths provide the premises for them, and then they reason from those premises until they come to a conclusion that …
The Breakers of Jehovah
Yesterday’s message was on Psalm 42. The title comes from verse 7 — “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” This is just one of many passages that has direct relevance to our on-going discussions in the “Doors of the Sea” thread.
Hands in Pockets, Whistling
Hart’s second section in the second half of his book depends almost entirely on good writing, a goodly dose of mysticism and lots of handwaving. Here is how that section concludes: “It is impossible for the infinite God of love directly or positively to will evil (physical or moral), even in a provisional or transitory …
Despite an Occasional Verbal Flourish
The second part of Hart’s book is his positive statement of “Divine Victory.” The first section of this second half sets the pieces on the board for us. “To behave or live according to nature is for some of us the very definition of sagacity, sanity, or even virtue” (p. 45). This is what the …
Eucatastrophe at the Eschaton
The fifth section of The Doors of the Sea contains Hart’s central concerns with inadequate Christian theodicies (as he considers them), and is the section where he showcases Ivan Karamazov’s rebellion against God. “This is the splendid perversity and genius of Ivan’s (or Dostoyevsky’s) argument, which makes it indeed the argument of a rebel rather …