History’s Greatest Question: Why did God become man?
With all due respect to German philosopher Martin Heidegger, a well-known 20th century philosopher, who said in his famous book, Act and Being, that the greatest question was, “Why does anything exist at all?” I am going to stipulate that we exist. We know we exist, it is answered de facto, that is why we are asking a more important and determinative question. Heidegger needs to know why he capitulated to the Nazis as Rector of the University of Freiburg, why he betrayed his mentor, the Jewish Edmund Husserl, the father of phenomenology, and enthusiastically joined the Nazi party when Hitler was elected—and was its supporter for several years. Maybe Heidegger’s question should have been, “Why the hell did I do that?” Or, “What ‘Gott’[1] into me?” The answer lies in the question, why did God become a man? [2]
For the Proposition: Andrew Klavan, Larry Alex Taunton, Dr. Scot McKnight, Nancy Pearcy, G.K. Chesterton
Against the Proposition: David Mamet, Don Henley, Jordan Peterson, Oprah Winfrey, Hannah Arendt
The Debate:
Imagine a large theater perfectly lit with soft lighting and proper shading, something only the best Hollywood lighting director could achieve. The dais is slightly curved facing an amphitheater room seating nearly a thousand. A room fit for a great opera or a presidential debate. There are nine seats, the middle seat is occupied by me, Bill Hull, your host/moderator for the day. My goal has nothing to do with moderation, in fact, the exact opposite is the goal. To get at the truth, to make the sparks fly, we want winners and losers. This is no peace conference sponsored by the United Nations, this is war, baby, this is for all the marbles. The top row are those who are arguing “Yes” for the proposition, Jesus is God come to earth in human flesh. The bottom row are those who say “No,” Jesus is not God, but only some sort of prophet or even less, a legend, a lunatic, or unimportant. In this matter moderation equals failure. One who couldn’t make it personally for the day, C. S. Lewis, wrote:
“If Christianity is false it is of no importance. If it is true it is of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” Therefore, my role is to get people yelling, pulling their hair out, and even throwing glasses of water, or at least ice cubes, at each other. As Jesus told us, “You’re nobody until somebody hates you.” OK, he didn’t exactly say it that way—I think that was Tom Wolfe. But he did promise “They will hate you on my account.” [3] I will be wearing protective head gear certified by the NFL.
The proposition: Jesus is God come to earth in human flesh. Yes or No?
The participants arguing for the proposition:
Arguing for the proposition is Andrew Klavan. He is an award-winning novelist and Jewish Christian satirist. Movies based on Klavan’s books: Clint Eastwood, (True Crime) and Michael Douglas, (Don’t Say a Word), He is brilliant, he laughs at evil, and at his own jokes. Evil really cracks him up: the author of Empire of Lies—the incorrigible, Andrew Klavan. This guy is the lead debater for his side, he is quicker on his feet than the original AI, Alan Iverson, now a retired NBA legend. If his team needs a quick quip, or a shot across the bow, or even a direct hit, Klavan delivers again and again. It’s always good to have someone on your side who has gone insane and fought back, he is dangerous, tough, and frightening—he won’t quit.
Then we have the Christian answer to travel expert, Rick Steves. Historian, theologian, Cuban cigar smoking—floating down the Nile with his feet up and calling it research, Larry Alex Taunton. Per usual Larry, who doesn’t like to spend his own money, snuck into this debate much like he did at the World Economic Forumcult meeting at Davos, Switzerland. He wasn’t invited, he just showed up. Did I mention he is an expert on Russian history which requires drinking a lot of vodka and eating caviar and explaining Tolstoy’s relationship to Dostoevsky, Chekov, and Putin. His cornerstone book is Around The World In (more than) 80 Days. He has mastered the art of travel paid for by someone else who gets a tax deduction. Small salary, huge expense account. An easy guy to like as long as you don’t mind him trying to sell you something. Larry is a serious man, calling us all into the war of ideas that now threaten to destroy us. He is an Indiana Jones for the 21st century who believes that when Joseph Stalin said, “If you are going to make an omelet, you will need to break a few eggs.” We, my friends, are the unwashed masses, and Taunton would say, we are the eggs!” So just like a frustrated football coach would bark at his bench players, “Get in there and just hit somebody.” I say, “Put me in coach!”
Then we have Dr. Scot McKnight, an actual professional theologian at Northern Seminary in Chicago. Well, until recently when he resigned, wink-wink, over a matter of conscience. Some call it a disagreement. He gets in here because he gets it. Oh, he has written a bunch of books, some of them about reading the Bible backward—kind of quirky. He has an amazing capacity to produce high quality controversial books, and he is not bad on Irish and Israeli tours, as well. Frankly, he knows too much and produces so much high quality product one wonders who is helping him. Regardless, because he played college basketball at Grand Rapids Bible College from 1972-1976 and was the all-time leading scorer in history with 2263, he gets in. Was anyone guarding him?
Oh, by the way, one qualification for taking part in the debate is that you must be alive—if you were wondering why C.S. Lewis was not included. I would need to say that he would be much too smart for our debate and he smoked constantly. Plus, I have it on good authority, an apocryphal rumor, that he and brother, Warnie, cut out of church a bit early each week because the local Pub opened at 11:00 and they wanted to get a good seat. Sounds awfully fleshy to me.
Then we have Nancy Pearcy. You know how hard it is to find a woman who likes to argue? Nancy is a great apologist and wins most of the time, just ask her husband. She has written some great books, kind of risqué, something about a woman’s body: Love Thy Body. Also, Saving Leonardo, that’s da Vinci, not DiCaprio—about art, she claims. Finding Truth is about Christianity and culture, and her magnum opus: Total Truth, Liberating Christianity from its Cultural Captivity. As you can tell, we were just looking for a woman, she isn’t that smart.
Remember what I said about how you must be alive to participate. Forget it, each team gets to use one deceased debater. Speaking for the proposition is G.K. Chesterton. (1874-1936). He is buried in a Catholic church graveyard along the M-40 in Beaconsfield, England. Probably could be buried in Westminster Abbybut, like Churchill, decided to rest from is labors with his family. He was Catholic, not Anglican. Not that it would prohibit him from the Abby. The scoundrel, Charles Darwin, and the actor, Laurence Olivier—not exactly paragons of the Church of England, reside under the floor. Chesterton is one of the greatest apologists in the church’s history. Most thinkers have many of his books, from Heretics:1905, Orthodoxy:1908, The Everlasting Man:1925, and Father Brown mystery books. He was known for his sense of humor, his everchanging weight, his height 6-4, and girth nearly 300 lbs. Sometimes more than 300. Part of his humor was unintended—it was him, his look, his absent mindedness, and general uselessness in so many areas of life, such as hailing a cab to go a hundred yards. The only way we could get him in our debate was posthumously. Otherwise, he could never have found us— his sense of direction was hopeless. I told the grave diggers not to go to Lewis’ Church burial plot in Headington. He is buried next to his brother Warnie. We definitely prefer Chesterton over Lewis and Churchill, for he has a much better stage presence and a God-gifted funny bone.
The participants speaking against the proposition
David Mamet belongs on the Mount Rushmore of playwriters. In fact, he has his own mountain. The acknowledgement among his near peers is that there is Mamet, then there are his admirers. His movies include, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Verdict, The Postman Always Rings Twice, House of Games, Heist, Spartan—need I go on? Mamet believes in God, yet he is primarily secular. Mamet is brilliant at showing how jokes and the Bible have a great deal in common. He has read, memorized, and studied the Torah. He also has written many jokes. Let us begin, “Two octopus’s walk into a laundromat.” And “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” What do these two statements have in common?
Both statements now have our attention. We are hooked. Ok, what’s the story, what’s the punch line? There must be a pay-off. The joke and the Bible ask us to accept that what follows is a fantastic story with a surprise ending. Mamet would say it is two myths that, somehow, we know are true. Both the joke and the Bible tell the truth about life. It might be something like Tolkien telling Lewis on Addison’s Walk [4] that there are really great myths, but the Christian myth is the one that turns out to be true. Expect Mamet to be a blunt instrument as he slams through one sacred barrier after another.
Don Henley is a real pissant and my favorite singer. Who can forget his social commentary in “Workin it” or his commitment to sue anyone taking photos at his concerts? I think David Geffen is right when he calls Henley a professional malcontent. This member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and founding member of America’s most successful band, Eagles, has a golden voice and a poetic pen. He’s not invited for any formal academic credentials because he is bright, articulate, moody, and highly opinionated. Yes, he will Take It to the Limit, take us to the state of mind that is the Hotel California, (California means “hot as an oven”) where you can get truly stuck. As the last line of said song says, “You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave.” Many are leaving this paradise lost, including Henley, but they take the mind set with them—they can never leave it behind. Expect Henley to take us to Walden’s Woods and channel Henry David Thoreau who claimed that most men live lives of quiet desperation or of a desperado, I can’t remember which. I think the desperado is Henley himself, looking for some meaning in life that rests on the intellectual side. Any reason without dependence on revelation seems to suit Don’s mind set. Welcome Don, you won’t be able to sing your way out of this.
Jordan Peterson is in class by himself. And if Canadian society and the University of Toronto had its way, he would have no class at all. A Clinical Psychologist by profession and a dedicated Jungian, he first came to fame when he refused to bow the knee to the “woke” Canadian political elites who required him to use a student’s preferred pronouns in his classes at the University. Then he became a YouTube star with combative interviews with the press and finally, a leader when he packed out auditoriums teaching the Bible. The crazy thing was he wasn’t even sure he believed in God. But then he became even bigger with the release of his book, 12 RULES FOR LIFE, An Antidote to Chaos. It sold in the millions, created an international tour with all the trimmings, and then he got very sick. [5] He nearly died and during the same period his wife, Tammy, and his daughter were seriously ill. If you didn’t know better, you would think they were under attack from a sinister power. [6] As though that power knew that Jordan and his family would one day bring hope and meaning to millions of lives. Peterson will admit that now he believes in God and his wife goes to church after her healing. It’s just a matter of time, folks. Jordan Peterson is “toast” but in the meantime, he is struggling with this Jesus-being-God thing, so let’s hear what he has to say. But read it now—not long from now he will be switching teams. Jordan is not very funny, but he smiles more and maybe he will get a good laugh out of him.
Oprah Winfrey is a cultural icon. America’s favorite daytime talk show host ever. She is a very sweet woman, and a great actress with extremely good intentions. Unless she disagrees with you—then she is an activist billionaire who will gouge your eyes out or buy you out. She is both loved and feared, connected and powerful. You just say Oprah around the world, everyone knows who you mean. Oprah is famously a “spiritual person,” religious, if you like. She is a truth seeker, as long as that truth doesn’t get too narrow, exclusive, or absolute. With Winfrey all spiritual roads lead to Rome, content isn’t as important as desire—specifically as much as being true to yourself. Oprah loves Jesus, but not the one in the Bible. Jesus claimed he was sent to judge. Oprah wants justice, but she doesn’t want Jesus as her judge. Jesus says for justice to exist you need a judge, but none of us want to meet him. Jesus claimed that all judgment had been given to him. He is both judge and justifier. And truth, justice, and final rendering of that judgment belongs to only him. Oprah disagrees.
Hannah Arendt died in 1975, but we won’t let that stop us. Like the great Golda Meir, she was a chain smoker. Both women’s greatness and careers were shortened by this. Clearly, Arendt was one of the great minds of the 20th century. Born in 1906, she was raised in Germany as a secular Jew. She was a very detached observer of life even as a small girl. She studied with famous philosophers Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers and theologian Rudolph Bultmann. She was Heidegger’s mistress for several years. She received a PhD in philosophy with a minor in Greek and theology. Her dissertation was on love and Saint Augustine. Yet she rejected the academy and philosophy as not important to accomplishment. She fled Germany after the Reichstag Fire in February 27, 1933. The German Government had suspended many human rights including the freedom of the press. She immigrated to the United States with her husband in 1941. She is best known for her coverage of the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Her report was called Eichmann in Jerusalem and the book was The Origins of Totalitarianism. She will argue against the motion, she believes that Jesus was a wonderful and revolutionary teacher- prophet, but not God in human flesh. Prepare for getting a lot of smoke in your eyes. Her brilliance sentenced her to a life of outsmarting herself. Reason without revelation is a dead end. Her words promise to underline the words of Saint Paul, “We now look through a glass darkly.” [7]
Why the Debate?
The debate will NOT be adjudicated by a select panel of very bright theologians, or the ship of fools annually gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It is adjudicated every day by the human race. Either people say no, Jesus is not God in the flesh, not the way, the truth, and source of all life. Or yes, he is, and they repent of their sins, believe the good news, and follow Jesus as his apprentice. The debate’s purpose is to invite the reader to engage in a satirical romp through life’s most important question and decision. Why did God become Man? The answer is, because he couldn’t help himself. It was his nature.
Notable participants who couldn’t make it.
Dallas Willard, Eugene Peterson, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Charles Spurgeon, Abraham Lincoln, John Wilks Booth, Mohammad, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Milton, Dante Allegri, Blaise Pascal, Malcolm Muggeridge, William F. Buckley, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Sigmund Freud, Tim Keller, Leslie Newbigin, John Stott, Albert Switzer, Karl Barth, William Shakespeare, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Buddha, Confucius, Wink Martindale, Martin Luther, Paul Lynne, Dracula, Frankenstein, Igor, Mel Brooks, , Red Skelton, Audrey Hepburn, Kathrine Hepburn, Oral Roberts, Billy Graham, Vito Corleone, Sonny, Michael, Fredo, and Saint Augustine. For some reason they did not RSVP. Only Jesus sent regrets saying he had nothing to add.
Serious candidates for participation, but were not chosen
Bono, too cool, demanded a fruit plate. Elon Musk, too rich, wanted to buy the debate. Megyn Kelly, too pretty, wouldn’t agree to no dirty words. Robert Coleman, too Godly. Eric Metaxas, too short, pants too tight, uptight. Os Guinness, too Irish. John Cleese, too tall, can’t be relied on to do something outrageous. Bibi Netanyahu, too busy kicking ass. “Fredo” Corleone, too “smart.” Went fishing instead.
Those who desperately wanted to participate, but, really
Al Sharpton, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, John MacArthur, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Alan Dershowitz, Vladimir Putin, Gavin Newsome, John Kerry, Al Gore, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Jim Biden, Dr. Jill Biden, the entire cast of Morning Joe, K. Harris, Ivanka Trump. The View’s studio audience, Bill Maher, Greg Gutfeld and Jimmy Kimmel in “black face.”
Ok, that’s it. Debate will begin in next week’s column. Each participant gets his or her own session, column, week. I will lead the discussion, interact with the presenters, and just hope for some fireworks. Each person gets his or her own time to make their case—Light the flame, let the games begin—Achtung Baby!
Bill Hull
Spring 2024
About Bill Hull:
Bill Hull is an untroubled writer who refuses to leave his home in downtown Babylon, California.[8] Someone needs to stay. He is pastor to a congregation he has never met, the best kind, his readers. He has held important jobs, has written many books and has been given impressive awards, including the highly coveted Dragon’s Head Trophy, but humility prevents him from naming the others. You know, like book of the year, writer of the year stuff. Even though he has been asked not to mention it, he is a graduate of Oral Roberts University and later, Talbot School of Theology, where he taught for several years before they found out. Bill does have a family. They have chosen to remain anonymous.
[1] German word for God is Gott.
[2] Why God Became Man, not the question, but the de facto assertion first made by Anselm of Canterbury, the first Archbishop of Canterbury (1033-1109), Archbishop from 1093-1109. The Bishop who didn’t want to be Bishop. This is recorded in the excellent work released by Trinity Forum and edited by Mark Labberton.
[3] Matthew 10:22. A promise, if you like.
[4] Addison’s Walk, a circular walking path next to New College at Magdalen College where Lewis waws a fellow. He walked and discussed many important matters with friends that included Hugo Dyson and J.R.R. Tolkien.
[5] https://www.ncregister.com/interview/tammy-peterson-conversion-story
[6] John 10:10 Lucifer has come to steal, kill and destroy.
[7] I Corinthians 13:12
[8] It worth noting that Saint Peter closes his second letter by saying, “You sister church here in Babylon (meaning Rome) sends you greetings, and so does my son Mark.” 2 Peter 5:13 NLT. The Babylon image has been passed down through the ages as places that have insisted, at least the elite who lead it, to commit societal suicide.
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