In What God Would Have Known, J.L. Schellenberg offers 20 new arguments against Christian doctrine, attempting to show that Christianity has been an intellectual failure (p. 7). The main idea is that those of us living in the 2020s have learned a great deal about human intellectual and moral development, so we are now in a privileged position to judge the past. Given ‘what we have recently learned’, we now know that God would never have allowed Christianity to go forward and harm the world. (The ‘what we have recently learned’ is a line repeated throughout the book.) Readers are asked to infer from this that Christianity must be false, and if there is a God, this God would most certainly not be standing behind Christianity.

Some readers might find themselves sceptical towards the overall premise of the book. Many years ago, the Cambridge professor C.S. Lewis considered arguments about humanity constantly improving, and how any return to Christianity would be putting the clock back. Lewis found these sorts of arguments to be unpersuasive, and many readers of Schellenberg might find themselves in the same position. Fear not, for Schellenberg seems to have anticipated this.

In chapter 1, Schellenberg wants readers to understand how truly groundbreaking the intellectual and moral advancements of humanity have been, and how these advancements should shake one from the dogmatic slumber of classical Christian doctrine. To help readers begin to feel the force of Schellenberg’s forthcoming arguments against Christianity, he asks us to imagine a young man named Ernest. Ernest is a divinity student at the University of Cambridge in 1820. Schellenberg asks us to imagine Ernest learning all sorts of surprising things, such as the fact that the Bible was written by humans, and that Jesus was a Jew. Ernest also learns that the universe is very old, evolution is occurring, women and black people are equal to the rest of humanity, and gay people exist. From what I gather, Schellenberg thinks that Ernest would find all of this so shocking that he would begin to doubt the truth of Christianity. In turn, modern readers should also find such truths so surprising that one should start to doubt the truth of Christianity. Personally, this did not soften me up to Schellenberg’s forthcoming arguments. Schellenberg basically described my undergraduate education at Atlanta Christian College.

In chapter 2, Schellenberg offers some arguments against the Christian doctrine of sin. He starts by pointing out that Christianity claims Jesus is perfect. However, Schellenberg finds this claim problematic since Jesus called some people Satan, compared different people to dogs, and cursed a tree. Perhaps in Schellenberg’s mind, one is never justified in calling people names like that. Regardless, Schellenberg carries on by saying that Christianity claims that human sin is the worst problem facing humans today. Schellenberg does not provide a nuanced discussion of the biblical notion of sin, nor the differing theological views on the doctrine of original sin. The best we get is some sort of notion that ordinary humans have self-oriented moral dispositions and perform morally bad actions. Schellenberg argues that sin is not the worst problem facing humans, so the Christian doctrine of sin is false. In defence of his claim, Schellenberg says that most humans really are not that bad. There is not some consistent pattern of selfish or bad behaviour among humans. In fact, ‘most human beings exhibit nothing worse than moral mediocrity’ (p. 41). Furthermore, given what we have recently learned from psychology and biology, determinism is true, and there really is not much moral responsibility in the world.

Of course, anyone who has had to confront the ‘moral mediocrity’ of a bureaucratic system will know how quickly moral mediocrity compounds to create very serious systemic failures and moral tragedies. Furthermore, some readers might wonder why there are so many human rights movements still around today if sin is not really that big of a problem.

Chapter 3 focuses on spiritual helplessness. According to Schellenberg, the doctrine claims humans cannot be delivered from sin apart from Christ. Again, readers are not given much of a nuanced treatment of how Christian theologians understand such things. The closest we are given is a statement from Karl Rahner that Schellenberg dismisses as question-begging. I am uncertain how it is question-begging to allow a Christian theologian to state their own doctrines, but I digress. Schellenberg’s argument is that it is possible to be delivered from sin apart from Christ, so the Christian doctrine of spiritual helplessness is false. To justify this claim, Schellenberg points out that there are moral saints in other religious traditions. Also, there are many important movements like feminism and Black Lives Matter. According to Schellenberg, these movements deliver people from sin because they are good and not selfish.

In response, some readers might find themselves confused. In the previous chapter, Schellenberg said that human sin is not the worst problem facing humanity. In this chapter, Schellenberg appeals to movements that state that the biggest problems facing humanity are very particular systemic sins such as sexism, the patriarchy, or racism. To add further confusion, the critical theory within several of these movements affirms that there are certain sins, such as whiteness or the patriarchy, which are so inherent in humanity that they can never truly be defeated. So one might find themselves confused about the kind of deliverance that Schellenberg is claiming can be found apart from Christ. Of course, one might still like to know what exactly the Christian doctrine of spiritual helplessness is, but the show must go on.

Chapter 4 considers the Christian doctrine of salvation. According to Schellenberg, Christianity proclaims that Christians are given all of the necessary and sufficient information needed to establish perfectly harmonious relationships with fellow humans in the here and now. Furthermore, according to Schellenberg, this deposit of information should include statements about the capacities of black people and women, statements about the causes of same-sex attraction, that torture leads to inaccurate confessions, and statements about the causes of epilepsy (p. 83). Since, according to Schellenberg, Christian revelation does not contain such detailed statements about epilepsy and so on, all of the salvific information humans need was not in fact provided through Christ.

Several replies to Schellenberg came immediately to mind upon reading this. Given my Bible college education, I seem to recall some human authors of the New Testament stating that gender, race, and class ought not to divide us since we are all one in Christ. Furthermore, I do not recall ever thinking that Christianity proclaims that humans will find perfect harmony in this life. The New Testament contains far too many warnings of sinners and snakes creeping in, false prophets will always be among us, and that there will be wars and rumours of wars until Christ comes again. The human authors keep cautioning us to be aware of the sin in our lives, how we need to undergo a daily renewal of our minds, and how we must keep trying to run the good race until Christ returns. These sorts of biblical teachings suggest that humans will most certainly not be rid of sin and will not find perfect harmony in this life. So the salvific expectations of the Bible seem to be quite different from Schellenberg’s expectations.

In chapter 5, Schellenberg argues that Jesus is not divine. Why? Jesus promotes the Big Narrative, which is ‘deeply problematic’ (p. 98). No good God would become human and endorse the Big Narrative because a good God would know the great harm that the Big Narrative would cause to future generations. What is the Big Narrative? According to Schellenberg, the Big Narrative says that God chose Israel to be a special group of people. The Big Narrative says that bad people do bad things, and God must punish them. The Big Narrative says that it is very easy to identify the bad people and the good people. The bad people are entirely to blame for their wrongdoings, and they should have just tried harder. According to Schellenberg, as we now know, this Big Narrative is overly simple and problematic. Furthermore, according to Schellenberg, the Big Narrative has an unsavoury depiction of God as jealous. As Schellenberg argues, given what we know now, God would never endorse the Big Narrative. So God did not endorse the Big Narrative by becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ.

A Christian reader might wonder if Schellenberg’s Big Narrative is an overly simple and problematic summary of the Bible. There is a sense in which the biblical teachings think it is easy to identify bad people – other than Jesus, all have sinned and need forgiveness. Yet there is another sense in which the biblical teachings think it is difficult to spot the bad people – we must always be on the lookout for wolves in sheep’s clothing. A Christian might go further and point out that theologians have always looked at the violent punishments of God in the Bible in nuanced ways. So-called spiritual readings of the Old Testament were quite popular among the early Church fathers, so there is nothing new here. Though most do seem to endorse the harsh things that Jesus says about those who harm children. Of course, Schellenberg has already made it clear that he does not like it when Jesus says harsh things. Another issue is that Jesus himself seems to call out portions of the Big Narrative. The hallmark formula of Jesus is, ‘You have heard it said…yet truly, truly I say unto you…’ Yet Schellenberg writes as if the loving non-violence promoted by Jesus is an odd quirk of the Christian story, and not a defining feature.

Chapter 6 is on the Holy Spirit. According to Schellenberg, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit claims that God gives you all truths and sanctifies you. One gets the impression that Schellenberg thinks this should be an immediate dump of all knowledge into a believer’s head. This is a constant impression throughout the book, as Schellenberg often seems to think that God should have provided humans with a very detailed ethics manual designed to tell us exactly what to do in every situation. In this chapter, Schellenberg argues that the Holy Spirit should have informed believers that ‘gay sex’ is morally permissible. The Holy Spirit did not do that, so the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is false.

Chapters 7 and 8 argue that the Christian doctrine of revelation is false because God would never have revealed Himself in ways that would harm future generations. Nor would God reveal Himself in ways that would possibly lead future generations to doubt the revelation. God would have known how harmful it would be to reveal metaphysical doctrines like the Trinity and Incarnation, so God most certainly would not have offered a revelation like that. Also, God would never allow a revelatory process to be influenced by the patriarchy. Why? The influence of the patriarchy might cause later generations to doubt the revelatory process.

Throughout this discussion on the evils of male-dominated revelatory processes, a few thoughts might come to mind. First, one might wonder what happened to the opening claims of the book that humans really are not that bad, and there is not really that much moral responsibility in the world. By the time one reaches these later chapters, there appears to be a great deal of evil and suffering in the world, and a lot of blame is being cast about. Second, one might find it curious that Schellenberg relies so heavily on male theological voices all while ignoring the many female voices that claim to have found liberation in Christ. Surely Schellenberg would have known in advance that people might find this problematic, and thus doubt the argumentative process of his book. So surely Schellenberg would not have allowed such a thing to happen.

In chapter 9, Schellenberg offers a revamp of his hiddenness argument, but this time it is aimed specifically at Christian non-belief. Part of the claim is that Christianity says there can be no one who understands the Christian message and fails to believe unless they are resisting God. According to Schellenberg, there can be people who understand the Christian message, who are not resisting God, and who fail to believe. Some Christian readers may doubt that Schellenberg understands the Christian message on this point.

Chapter 10 closes the book by summarizing 18 propositions that we now know to be true, and that God surely would have known 2,000 years ago. From there, Schellenberg argues that God would never allow false salvation plans to enter into the world. Especially false salvation plans that are claimed to have God endorsing them. Since false salvation plans do exist in the world, Schellenberg infers that God does not exist. Oddly enough, the Christian scriptures explicitly and repeatedly state that there will be false prophets claiming to speak for God. So Schellenberg seems to have very different expectations from Christianity about what God would or would not allow.