He is attemppting to demonstrate to Christians that they do not alieve that they should do anything God says. I think he is mistaken in this, but it’s not inconsistant or trivially wrong, as some commenters here seem to think.
It seems trivially wrong to me, but maybe that’s just from having some small familiarity with how intellectually serious Christians actually do things (and the non-intellectual hicks are unlikely to be knocked down by Penn’s rhetoric either). It is absolutely standard in Christianity that any apparent divine revelation must be examined for its authenticity. The more momentous the supposed revelation the more closely it must be examined, to the extent that if some Joe Schmoe feels a divine urge to kill his son, there is, practically speaking, nothing that will validate it, and if he consults his local priest, the most important thing for the priest to do is talk him out of it. Abraham—this is the story Penn is implicitly referring to—was one of the greatest figures of the past, and the test that God visited upon him does not come to ordinary people. Joe Schmoe from nowhere might as well go to a venture capitalist, claim to be the next Bill Gates, and ask him to invest $100M in him. Not going to happen.
And Penn has the affrontery to say that anyone who weighs the evidence of an apparent revelation with the other sources of knowledge of God’s will, as any good Christian should do, is an atheist. No, I stand by my characterisation of his remark.
I was going to point out that your comment misrepresents my point, but reading your link I see that I was misrepresenting Penn’s point.
Whoops.
I could argue that my interpretation is better, and the quote should be judged on it’s own merits … but I wont. You were right. I was wrong. I shall retract my comments on this topic forthwith.
It seems trivially wrong to me, but maybe that’s just from having some small familiarity with how intellectually serious Christians actually do things (and the non-intellectual hicks are unlikely to be knocked down by Penn’s rhetoric either). It is absolutely standard in Christianity that any apparent divine revelation must be examined for its authenticity. The more momentous the supposed revelation the more closely it must be examined, to the extent that if some Joe Schmoe feels a divine urge to kill his son, there is, practically speaking, nothing that will validate it, and if he consults his local priest, the most important thing for the priest to do is talk him out of it. Abraham—this is the story Penn is implicitly referring to—was one of the greatest figures of the past, and the test that God visited upon him does not come to ordinary people. Joe Schmoe from nowhere might as well go to a venture capitalist, claim to be the next Bill Gates, and ask him to invest $100M in him. Not going to happen.
And Penn has the affrontery to say that anyone who weighs the evidence of an apparent revelation with the other sources of knowledge of God’s will, as any good Christian should do, is an atheist. No, I stand by my characterisation of his remark.
Having just tracked down something closer to the source, I find it only confirms what I’ve been saying.
I was going to point out that your comment misrepresents my point, but reading your link I see that I was misrepresenting Penn’s point.
Whoops.
I could argue that my interpretation is better, and the quote should be judged on it’s own merits … but I wont. You were right. I was wrong. I shall retract my comments on this topic forthwith.