Tuesday, May 19, 2009

J. P. Moreland's veridical test for Christianity

"The church should be able to produce people who are moral and spiritual saints who experience full, satisfying lives to a greater extent than they would if they were not Christians and to a greater extent than a random sampling of the population in general. Thus, the closer one gets to living according to mature, New Testament Christianity, the closer one should be toward the goal of uniting in one's self the traits of a morally and spiritually virtuous life and the joy of a satisfying form of living. Authentic Christianity should produce people who exemplify the summum bonum--the harmony of the right and the happy--in their lives."
(Scaling the Secular City, 132 n. 33)

Perhaps I'm becoming too cynical, but I wonder if evangelical Christianity would be able to pass this kind of test.