betty: One statement of his that I found particularly troubling was his attribution to all “theists” (he never says “Christians,” but this is likely who he is talking about) of the belief that “God is responsible for everything.”
Spirit: I believe you hit a bullseye when you argued that Nagel is avoiding the question of origins...and all that follows thereon: the devil, fall, sin, hell, man’s desperate need for a Savior.
It may well be that Nagel knows very well that he is playing Russian Roulette, meaning that underlying his sophisticated equivocations is dread that he may be ‘dead’ wrong about God. And if he is wrong, then he’ll be forever “cast out” by the Lord Who sees into and knows our most secret thoughts and intentions:
“And thou my son Solomon, know the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart, and a willing mind: “for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and under- standeth all the thoughts of minds. If thou seek him, thou shalt find him: but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.
1 Chron. 28:9
Everything that has been thought, said and done will be revealed. There is nothing “covered that shall not be revealed; nor hidden that shall not be known” (Luke 12:2) and just as it is “...appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27) so there will be eternal life in Paradise for those who love God and have kept His commandments but for those whose “hardness and impenitent heart has treasured up wrath against the day of the righteous judgment of God...for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.” (Rom. 2:5)
With respect to paragraph two of my previous post I should have said if he is wrong, then he must repent lest he be forever “cast out” by the Lord Who sees into and knows our most secret thoughts and intentions. If however, Nagel allows his pride to be a stumbling block, eternity in outer darkness will be by his own choice.