Thursday, November 29, 2018

more about John Wright's conversion

A philosopher goes where the truth leads, and has no patience with mere emotion.
But it was impossible, logically impossible, that I should ever believe in such nonsense as to believe in the supernatural. It would be a miracle to get me to believe in miracles.
So I prayed. "Dear God, I know (because I can prove it with the certainty that a geometer can prove opposite angles are equal) that you do not exist. Nonetheless, as a scholar, I am forced to entertain the hypothetical possibility that I am mistaken. So just in case I am mistaken, please reveal yourself to me in some fashion that will prove your case. If you do not answer, I can safely assume that either you do not care whether I believe in you, or that you have no power to produce evidence to persuade me. The former argues you not beneficent, the latter not omnipotent: in either case unworthy of worship. If you do not exist, this prayer is merely words in the air, and I lose nothing but a bit of my dignity. Thanking you in advance for your kind cooperation in this matter, John Wright."

Supernatural conversions interest me, and as the great Golden Eagle Peter Kreeft would call these "part of the argument from religious experience", always interesting to read. The natural part of John Wright's conversion is almost as interesting. It has very familiar parts to it in the intelligentsia of 2018: 1) an ardent atheist who for presuppositions or other (like love of a particular sin, anger towards God for life's hurts, etc) refuse to even entertain the belief in God; 2) an eventual unquenching thirst for truth and 3) someone in their life that is meaningful whom is a Christian on the outside and inside.

I highly recommend reading about it, in John Wright's words at

https://strangenotions.com/wright-conversion/