The Reasonableness of Christianity Blog

Ok, so I will admit that I followed the link at Marginal Revolution to the ChatGPT AI language model and played around for a few minutes. It seems like the model has a hard-coded relativistic philosophy of truth - or at least of religion - and it is also hard-coded to deny that it could be biased toward any philosophy at all, which is obviously absurd. I use the word “hard-coded” incorrectly, I’m sure, having no knowledge of how the model actually works. I suppose there aren’t any larger lessons to be learned from this, other than the fact that it is useful to be aware of the philosophies that subconsciously influence our way of thinking. And it helps to be aware of one’s own biases. These feats are obviously not possible for this language model. We started with some conversation about baseball and then I turned to religion.  Me:  Do all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints go to Heaven when they die? ChatGPT:  Members of the Church of Jesus Christ...

One of the doctrines that differentiates my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from mainstream Christianity is the doctrine of eternal progression, or becoming like God. I think all Christians accept that through Christ’s grace He can make us more like Him, although the nature of that gift can be understood in different ways.  For example, John 14:20 says "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." In John 10:34 Christ says "Ye are Gods," quoting Psalms. Paul teaches in Romans 8:16-17 "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." These scriptures are moving and powerful, but of course can be interpreted in different ways. The teachings of modern prophets guide us to take these doctrines more literally than is typical...

Last week the online journal VoegelinView published an article I submitted about John Locke’s religious views. My post here on Leo Strauss’s reading of Locke is a sort of companion piece to what I wrote for the VV. Suffice it to say there is a huge misunderstanding about John Locke, with both political and religious implications. Thanks to columnist Lee Trepanier for suggesting that might submit my thoughts, and to editor Paul Krause.  Paul published my article despite being of a very different opinion personally, which shows a commitment to intellectual openness.  There is an LDS angle in the article, in that I feel Locke came to a lot of views that are very close to the LDS theological positions. I find that intriguing. I am also interested in Locke’s Christian rationalism. I would like to elaborate more on this topic at some point. Here is a paragraph from my article: In partial defense of Leo Strauss, Christian rationalism in the style of John Locke is all but dead today ...

Leo Strauss It is no secret that I am a fan of John Locke. I stole this blog’s name from the title of one of his books, after all. I am very impressed and inspired by his unique and refreshing combination of clear-headed reason and reliance on faith and scripture. I have to say I was a little dismayed and surprised when I saw that many or most political commentators today see John Locke as an atheist / deist / secularist, following the “Straussian” reading of Locke. This so strongly contradicted everything that I saw in my reading of Locke that it was quite baffling, and I felt a need to figure out what was going on. The Reasonableness of Christianity was the first of John Locke’s works that I came across (see my thoughts here ), as my interests (outside of my day job) are essentially Christian and religious. I found in Locke a scholar who taught that Christian revelation is not just reasonable, but that Christian religion is the best and only foundation for true reason. Locke wrot...