Of course I would reject Christianity if I thought it necessarily entailed a morally irrational and evil belief. Because that would mean that Christianity was manifestly false. In fact, that may be the case. I have no emotional investment in Christianity in the abstract, but only in a certain vision of God’s dealing with humanity in and through a crucified slave who, impossibly enough, is the center of all human history and the very form of God. If I decided that this story has no coherent version, however, I would walk away from it without a second thought. Temperamentally, I’m more drawn to Asian religions anyway, and metaphysically I’m already a Vedantist (which is to say a neoplatonist), so intellectually it would be a breeze. It’s only the figure of Christ–the peasant agitator and radical lover of the poor, murdered by the state and the interests of the enfranchised, but still a boundless source of love and forgiveness, the good shepherd who never abandons even one of his sheep–that holds me in place. On what basis do you assume that Christianity is in any sense “true”? What makes you trust anyone’s word on the matter, or believe that you can tell the truly holy from the charlatans, or the truly wise from the deceivers? Surely you must employ your reason at some point. Can you really give a logical and coherent and compelling account of your faith that is not reducible to personal preference, based on some personal need, abetted by some private act of judgment? Of course you can’t. You believe because you want to, because you choose to, because it brings you something you need whether it’s true or not. Well, I know what I believe, and why I believe what I believe, and what would disabuse me of that belief. The notion that a God of love condemns (or permits the condemnation of) rational creatures to eternal torment is a self-evident contradiction. It has always been a lie, and a cruel and sadistic one at that. Everyone else in the world might believe it, but I would still regard it as a vicious nonsense. As you should too. Don’t be brainwashed by people whose authority consists in a) repeating the same nonsense they were taught by rote and b) wearing strange clothes. Use your reason. And I will not apologize in describing an evil belief in terms proportionate to the scandal it causes my conscience. Universalists have been apologetic and hesitant too damned long.
David Bentley Hart
