My Trial for Heresy

I recently embraced a slightly heretical form of Christianity. I never thought I’d become a Christian, for both head and heart reasons. In terms of the head stuff, I’ve always found the existence of suffering a very compelling argument against the existence of God. In terms of the heart stuff, the idea that we’re saved through Jesus being punished for our sins never made sense to me on spiritual level (or an intellectual level, for that matter). I haven’t changed my mind on either of these things. But I’ve discovered different ways of thinking about Christianity that make more sense to me, both intellectually and spiritually.

I recently had a couple of fiery debates on my non-standard version of Christianity. The first was with William Lane Craig, who is probably the most influential Christian philosopher in the world right now. He’s also a very traditional evangelical Christian who has deep disagreements with the way I think about Christianity. The other was with two leading atheist philosophers – Alex Malpass and Dan Linford – on Phil Halper’s excellent YouTube channel. The debates were spirited but friendly, and in both cases I learnt something from reflecting on these robust challenges.

I’d be curious to know whether readers thought the Christian or the atheists provided a stronger challenge. [Be honest, don’t just go with the team you support!] My view is pretty much exactly in the middle between these two perspectives, so it’s extremely useful to me to learn from both sides.

The debate with Craig was followed by a discussion between the host – Justin Brierly – and his colleague and producer Peter Byrom. I like both of these guys a lot, and they did a great job with this episode, including the discussion afterwards. But I’d like to give a little bit of friendly pushback to some of what they said. There was a repeated theme that I was still on a journey and hadn’t yet arrived. At one point, Justin expressed hope that I one day arrive at a “truly Christ-centred view of God”.

Now, I’m totally happy with this if it’s in the spirit of us all being on a journey. But it seemed clear that their thought was that I, in contrast to other Christians, had not yet arrived. What’s the basis for thinking that? Is it because my Christianity involves the innovation of positing a God who’s not all-powerful?* This would be a strange argument for Justin and Peter to make given that they believe (I think) that Jesus took the punishment for our sins, and this was itself an innovation in Christian thought, one made by the protestant reformers 500 years ago (although there is some precedent in the writings of Anselm 500 years before that). Does that mean Justin and Peter also hasn’t yet arrived, that they also lack a Christ-centred view of God? Or is it just innovations after 1700 that are problematic? For what it’s worth, my contrasting understanding of Christian salvation, rooted in the mystical views of the Eastern Church, is significantly older than that of the protestant reformers.

My view of the resurrection, which holds that the first encounters with the risen Jesus were visionary states rather than a matter of seeing and touching a body, is also non-standard. But many prominent biblical scholars have argued that this view of the resurrection was believed by the first Christians. They might be wrong. But they might be right. What counts as ‘original Christianity’ is a matter of scholarly debate.

Perhaps the worry was not that my view is novel, but rather that it’s too cerebral or philosophical, an issue Justin raised with me towards the end of the debate. But in my opening statement, I described how I moved to Christianity not only because of intellectual arguments but also because mystical forms of Christianity make sense of some of my deepest experiences. I got into this in more detail in this recent discussion with Tim Ferriss. To my mind, the intellectual stuff acts as a kind of gatekeeper. It’s irrational to believe in something ludicrously improbable, so we do need to perform intellectual due diligence to make sure that’s not what’s happening. But once the intellect has been reassured, the gates are opened and the spiritual life begins. From that point on, it’s all about deepening one’s connection to the divine, both as an individual and as part of a community.

Expanding out a little, I think we’re living in an unusual time when religious thought has become somewhat stultified, when anything new is treated with suspicion. We’ve forgotten that the philosophy of Aquinas – now the official viewpoint of the Catholic church – the views of the protestant reformers, the theories of Molina that Craig was defending in our debate, all of these were once radical innovations in Christian thought. If there is a God, then God gave us reason to help us progressively move forward with our understanding of the Divine, and of the meaning and purpose of existence. In most spheres of life, there is a natural and healthy balance between progressives pushing us forward and conservatives urging caution. But with religion in the present moment, it’s all about looking to the past rather than dreaming of the future.

Justin and Peter are passionate about bringing people back to religion, and to Christianity in particular. As Justin has wonderfully articulated, there does indeed seem to be a turn to thinking again about religion and spirituality. But if this is ultimately to be broad and sustained, then it’s going to need to bring in progressives as well as conservatives. And that means not assuming that everyone with a slightly new way of thinking about religion has more journeying to do.

*The view that God is not all-powerful is not wholly original to me, it is defended by process theists such as Tom Oord. But it is a fairly recent innovation, and one I’ve developed in my own way.