Thanks, Bart, for a further characteristic (and as you say forceful) response and fresh statement. You’ve taken a few more words this time (I’m delighted to see) and I will happily do the same.

Let me begin by trying to clarify the first two matters which you picked up. I’ll take them in reverse order for a reason which may become clear.

Tom,

Thanks so much for your most recent post, which clarifies your view considerably. It is a forceful, and I would even say elegant, statement.

Before responding, let me address two minor points that you make in passing, one about my argument and the other about me.

Thanks, Bart, for your response and further statement. I suspect we are both going to find that we start hares running in one another’s minds which there won’t be time to chase. I think the question of the definition and description of apocalyptic had better be one of those; we could talk another time perhaps . ..

But I want to begin where you end, which is the key question of your book.

Thanks, Tom, for a thoughtful and interesting response. I think we both must feel how difficult it is to interact in this kind of forum, where what we want is sustained debate but have chosen to limit ourselves to brief responses. But we – you and I – must muddle along as best we can….

You are right that my goal is not to make agnostics out of people, either in my book or in my postings in this forum. This is because I am not so arrogant as to think that intelligent people should always agree with me! But I wonder if you are willing to take a similar stand, that is, whether you too would be willing to say that you also are not interested in converting people to your way of thinking or believing?

Thanks, Bart, for the clear and actually moving account of your former faith, your questionings, and your eventual abandonment of Christian belief. I was glad to hear you say that you wrote the book not to encourage others to follow you into agnosticism (though I guess that is how the book may well work rhetorically for some), but to encourage all of us to think. That is something I constantly tell people: I believe in the authority of scripture, and in Christian tradition as the community of discourse within which Christians hear that scripture – but also, importantly, in the proper use of reason. Our culture has fallen prey to emotivism, leading people to say ‘I feel’ when they mean ‘I think’, and then – an easy shift – to allow feeling to trump thinking, and then to replace it altogether. That way, I think we agree, lie chaos and folly.

There are two large, general elements of your book, and your blog post, which I want to chew over in this first response.