Chapter 5: Reason Driven - My View is God's View

The first point Price makes in rebuttal is that knowing what god supposedly wants us to do is a matter of interpreting the bible, and there are many interpretations. Warren assumes that his interpretation is the correct one. "Well friend, there's your view, and then there's God's view," because God is smart enough to agree with me.

Price refers to the metaphors given as helpful in some sense, but not when they have been mangled by Warren's fundamentalist viewpoint. He points out that life should be it's own reward, and to require more for passing tests given by the almighty is really asking more than necessary.

Warren claimed that by showing yourself trustworthy in managing material things during life, you will be given more responsibility in the afterlife. Price rightly points out that Warren has already stated we can't know what the afterlife is like, so you have to start making wild assumptions about what in heaven there is for you to be responsible for.

One point I would like to make is that life certainly can be seen as a test, but who gives it, and who evaluates the results? Warren says both are his god. I would say the giver is chance, others, and yourself. The evaluators are really others and yourself. To thine own self be true.

Price points out that Warren's view makes tragedy an event which god created purposefully to teach someone a lesson or test them in some way. So when someone's child dies as a result of a horrible accident, Warren's interpretation is that god make it so purposefully, perhaps to teach the parents some gruesome lesson. If that is god's idea of morality, he can have it.

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