The Daily Hatch

October 2009

Collision: Christopher Hitchens vs Pastor Douglas Wilson

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Douglas Wilson

Let me begin my final installment with my thanks to you for agreeing to this debate, as well as my

thanks to

Christianity Today for being such an amiable host.

Turning to our discussion, I would like to begin by noting several points of minor agreement.

First, I do enjoy our shared appreciation of Wodehouse—although I have to say I was

disappointed with your failure to pick up the Wodehousian echoes in my “Hallmark” conclusion.

Secondly, I quite agree with you that we ought not to “resist evidence that may at first sight

appear unwelcome or unsettling.” But this is not really a deep agreement, for we immediately go

on to differ over which one of us is failing to honor this quite obvious principle. I have shown

that you refuse to consider evidence for the fact that your assumption of what the universe

actually

is does not allow for valid descriptions of that universe to arise from within it. If one

were to spill milk accidentally on the kitchen floor, and someone else came in and wanted to

know what had happened, the one thing we can be sure of is that such an inquiring mind

wouldn’t ask the milk. The milk wouldn’t know.

It’s the accident.

On the question of morality, you again attempt an answer: “My answer is the same as it was all

along: Our morality evolved.” There are two points to be made about this reply. The first

concerns evolved morality and the

future, and is a variation on my previous questions. If our

morality evolved, then that means our morality

changes. If evolution isn’t done yet (and why

should it be?), then that means our morality is involved in this on-going flux as well. And that

means that everything we consider to be “moral” is really up for grabs. Our “vague yet grand

conception of human rights” might flat disappear just like our gills did.

Our current “morals” are therefore just a way station on the road. No sense getting really

attached to them, right? When I am traveling, I don’t get attached to motel rooms. I don’t weep

when I have to part from them. So, in the future, after every ferocious moral denunciation you

choose to offer your reading public, you really need to add something like, “But this is just a

provisional judgment. Our perspective may evolve to an entirely different one some years hence,”

or “Provisional opinions only. Morality changes over time”—POOMCOT for short. It would

look like this: “The Rev. Snoutworthy is an odious little toad, not to mention a waste of skin, and

his proposal that we prosecute the brassiere editors of the Sears catalog on pornography and

racketeering charges is an outrage against civilized humanity. But . . . POOMCOT.”

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Evangelicals react to Christopher Hitchens’ death plus video clips of Hitchens debate (part 3)

Evangelicals react to Christopher Hitchens’ death plus video clips of Hitchens debate (part 2)

Evangelicals react to Christopher Hitchens’ death plus video clips of Hitchens debate (part 1)