4 5 9R e l i g i o u s R e a s o n i n gjustification by faith, which has strong support in the Christian scriptures,
leads inevitably to exclusivism, to the idea that all who reject Christian doc-
trine must be damned, no matter how good they may be in other respects.
If God chose the beneficiaries of his grace on the ground of some distinc-
tive merit they possessed, this might not be unfair to those he didn’t choose,
whom we would presume to lack that merit. But that would be contrary to
the idea of grace, which implies a free gift, not something given to someone
who deserves it on account of merit.
So usually it is held that God has no reason for choosing some and not
others. He acts quite arbitrarily. It’s a hard and ugly doctrine, this doctrine of
grace. Of course if you have already accepted Hell and original sin, you may
find this doctrine “full of comfort,” as my church put it. You may be grate-
ful for having this chance at salvation, even if it does seem to be a lottery in
which the odds are not on your side. And if you think you have faith, then
you may also think you have won the lottery. Still even the faithful may not
be able to entirely set aside thoughts about the unlucky losers. Sometimes
they love non-believers and then the doctrine of salvation by faith can cause
them great grief.
So far my objections have been mainly theological; they are objections
to teachings whose basis is primarily scriptural rather than philosophical.
The main exception to that generalization is the doctrine of predestination,
which has philosophical grounds as well as scriptural grounds. I know many
Christians here tonight will not feel that their understanding of Christianity
requires them to accept all these doctrines, either because they do not think
their scriptures clearly require these views, or because they do not regard the
Christian scriptures as absolutely authoritative in determining their beliefs
and conduct. I’ve said I think those Christians who adopt a freer attitude
toward scripture and do not feel that their acceptance of Christianity com-
mits them to predestination, or Hell, or original sin, or justification by faith,
or exclusivism—those Christians have their hearts in the right place. But I
also think their feet may be planted on the slippery slope to heresy, and that
more conservative Christians, who would accord greater authority to scrip-
ture, have a clearer right to consider themselves Christians. How much of
traditional Christianity can you reject and still be entitled to call yourself a
Christian? This was a question I found extremely difficult as I moved gradu-
ally from Christianity to apostasy.
Let’s turn now to objections not so scripturally based. It is common
among Christians to believe that God is a personal being, who created the
universe, and who is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. Indeed, it
is commonly said that God must possess all perfections.
Yet we observe that the world this perfect being created has many im-
perfections: there is much joy in the world; but there is also much suffer-
ing, much of it apparently undeserved; and there is sin. We call these things
evil. How can they exist in a world which owes its origin to a God with the
attributes Christians believe their God to possess?97364_ch21_ptg01_449-464.indd 459 15/11/13 12:22 3M
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