We all read books about religion, for or against. Some of these books can be very influential. I’ve been influenced by Hyam Maccoby and Bart Ehrman, for example. But I’m still a “fear and trembling” kind of guy. I’m still eternity-haunted.
Take A.N. Wilson, a self-professed militant atheist who since about 2009 publically said he’s coming back to his Christian faith. Can you imagine letting someone escort you down a road, and then that person abandons the path and finds himself on a road contrary to the one he guided you on? That’s why it’s dangerous to let others make your religious decision for you.
I’m reminded of a quote attributed to Franz Kafka: “You must manufacture the truth inside you or perish.”
I’m impressed by people who make their religious decision with certitude. Take, for example, Richard Carrier, author of “Why I’m Not a Christian,” an essay that demonstrates Carrier’s advanced logic skills to refute C.S. Lewis and the major tenets of Christianity.
Carrier is a good debater. One of the most impressive passages is Carrier’s refutation of the Christian free-will argument that God cannot force us to be saved. He can only offer us salvation, but we must choose it.
Carrier writes:
Even when we might actually credit free will with resisting God's voice--like the occasional irrational atheist, or the stubbornly mistaken theist--the Christian theory is still not compatible with the premise that God would not or could not overcome this resistance. Essential to the Christian hypothesis, as C.S. Lewis says, is the proposition that God is "quite definitely good" and "loves love and hates hatred." Unless these statements are literally meaningless, they entail that God would behave like anyone else who is "quite definitely good" and "loves love and hates hatred." And such people don't give up on someone until their resistance becomes intolerable--until then, they will readily violate someone's free will to save them, because they know darned well it is the right thing to do. God would do the same. He would not let the choice of a fallible, imperfect being thwart his own good will.
I know this for a fact. Back in my days as a flight-deck firefighter, when our ship's helicopter was on rescue missions, we had to stand around in our gear in case of a crash. There was usually very little to do, so we told stories. One I heard was about a rescue swimmer. She had to pull a family out of the water from a capsized boat, but by the time the chopper got there, it appeared everyone had drowned except the mother, who was for that reason shedding her life vest and trying to drown herself. The swimmer dove in to rescue her, but she kicked and screamed and yelled to let her die. She even gave the swimmer a whopping black eye. But the swimmer said to hell with that, I'm bringing you in! And she did, enduring her curses and blows all the way.
Later, it turned out that one of the victim's children, her daughter, had survived. She had drifted pretty far from the wreck, but the rescue team pulled her out, and the woman who had beaten the crap out of her rescuer apologized and thanked her for saving her against her will. Everyone in my group agreed the rescue swimmer had done the right thing, and we all would have done the same--because that is what a loving, caring being does. It follows that if God is a loving being, he will do no less for us. In the real world, kind people don't act like some stubborn, pouting God who abandons the drowning simply because they don't want to be helped. They act like this rescue swimmer. They act like us.
This is an impressive analogy. I’ve always felt this way, but I’ve never stated my disagreement with the talking point free-will argument with this kind of cogency.
Having said that, though, I’m still a “fear and trembling” kind of guy, an eternity-haunted soul. I don’t have Carrier’s certitude.
I keep reading and rereading books in an attempt to take away the “hell bite.” But my struggle and anger do little to solve my crisis. Probably, the struggle and anger show how formidable a reality I’m dealing with when it comes to my biblical struggles. I give the Bible more credence by virtue of my obsession with it.
Probably people find some resolve and grace when they surrender. Maybe I try too hard. Maybe I don't try enough. But I sense I need to take breathers to digest, process, and develop insight into my search and my quest to leave Anhedonia (like hell, a condition of perpetual unhappiness).