Recently the Christian apologist known as "The Messianic Drew" made this blog post about his journey from a secular Jew, to a Messianic Jew, and now ultimately to a Pluralist. This is my open response:
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Hello Drew,
We don't know each other, but I have been a fan of your past work and needless to say am rather disappointed by this development.
In light of that, your closing argument can be rejected on a few grounds:
It is essentially the “Problem of Evil Revisited”. That is, you’re claiming, “How could a good God do ___?” while failing to recognize that God, being omniscient, is always justified in the choices He makes, even if they seem outside our scope of reason (e.g. issuing the slaughter of the Canaanites, etc).
As WLC has said, God is *the* moral ultimate, meaning that all moral values and duties derive their value from God’s very nature. It is “Answer C” to the Euthyphro Dilemma. If God were to impose a soteriology based on a “theology exam”, then so be it! God doesn’t follow the moral bar we set for Him, He *is* the bar.
On the note of salvation by “theology exam”, a philosophy professor I know had these words to say about your post:
“God doesn't give theology exams! He supplies revelation, and then judges us on whether we accept it and base our lives upon it. If God judges Arius, it is because Arius refused to accept the revealed truth about Jesus. "The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness God has borne concerning His Son" (I John 5:10).”
You yourself also eluded to a “salvation” by divine revelation: “So are you living your life in an honorable or a shameful way? Will you feel honored for having responded to divine revelation, or ashamed of having ignored it?” So it is a little ambiguous what you mean by failing a “theology exam”: not responding to divine revelation, or being honestly mistaken?
I would also like to point out that if God shames the wicked in judgment that He alone is permitted to make, that is not only exclusivist (God *only* accepts the righteous), but it is also a “theology exam” (God *expects us to know* that only the righteous will be accepted).
On a personal note, if you accept JPH’s view of heaven and hell as states of varying honor and shame, I’m surprised that you take such issue with the idea of God shaming people for not answering the “exam” correctly. The honor/shame paradigm truly does remove the “moral monster” aspect of God’s judgment against those who are honestly mistaken:
For example (as JPH has given), someone like Anne Frank would be separated with the "goats" because she didn't believe in Jesus, but because she lived an honorable life she would receive an honorable resurrection, albeit outside of God's presence (he even theorized that in her resurrection, it would not be beyond plausibility that she would be eternally catered to by her Nazi executioners). Contrast that with a murderer who converts on their death bed with no works to show for it: they would be with the "sheep", but receive a shameful resurrection, albeit within God's presence.
In closing I'd like to share with you a wager I have formulated against pluralism (and yes, I use the term "wager" to strike familiarity). I'm curious to know what you will think:
1. If God is all-inclusive, He will accept everyone regardless of their beliefs.
2. If God is exclusive, He will only accept those who respond and conform to His revelation.
3. Therefore, it is more beneficial to worship an exclusive God.
Regardless of how you feel about the idea of an exclusive God (or even what that exclusive God requires), at the end of the day it is the better investment in regards to your eternal destiny. Something to consider.
It’s obvious though that you’ve had a lot of repressed feelings over the years, and (I say this with love) I believe this post is more of an emotional eruption than a rational one. And because you love the ways of logic, you’ve attempted to curb your emotional outpouring with a philosophical argument.
In a way this is a great message to all Christian apologists though, that as much study as we try and do, doubt can be very deeply seeded, and we need to be honest about our intellectual and emotional doubts (and knowing the difference between the two) and deal with them properly. It is my prayer that you will soon see all this for what it is and come back around.
Blessings,
Darrell
