A Point-By-Point Rebuttal of Bryle Suralta’s Tirade Against Joyce Pring in Esquire

By: Omar Rushlive L. Arellano

What we will do in this essay is to make a point-by-point rebuttal to Bryle Suralta’s work in Esquire against Joyce Pring¹. We will put first Suralta’s words, which will be quoted word-for-word and in italics, then we will give our response.

Suralta:

“Here we go again. We have another Christian conservative spouting some backhanded, backwards inflammatory declarations. This time, it’s some influencer-celebrity type speaking for god and salvation. In Adulting With Joyce Pring, host Joyce Pring sat down with Wil Dasovich to unpack, of all things, Christianity. Of course, she just had to say that all non-believers go to hell.”

Response:

Here, Suralta is committing the fallacy of question-begging epithet. Basically what Suralta is doing is that he is using emotional language in a biased way to persuade people of his view, instead of showing substance through logical argumentation. We see that he labeled Joyce as “another Christian conservative spouting some backhanded, backwards inflammatory declarations.” It’s obvious that he is saying “Of course, she just had to say that all non-believers go to hell.” in a tone that makes it seem that Joyce is being bigoted and judgmental, but this is far from the truth, since Joyce is known to have presented herself that people are right in calling her a bad person, because she had done many wrong things in her life, and she used this to say that this is the reason why she needs Jesus. What Joyce is doing is that she is owning up to the things that she did in the past and present, and she is saying that she is not better than them, but that others need Jesus as well.

Suralta:

“On her Instagram, Pring said that she only gave the “honest” answer to an honest question. She invoked the Bible, specifically passages from John 14:6 and 1 Timothy 1:16. Dasovich played it cool and laughed it off because he’s a good dude that way. Pring, on the other hand, doubled down even further.”

Response:

Here are the passages that Suralta cited:

• John 14:6: “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
• 1 Timothy 1:16: “But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.”

In context in John, we can see that Jesus responded to Thomas’ question about how they could know the way if they do not know where Jesus is going. Jesus here is comforting the disciples before the betrayal of Judas and Jesus’ arrest and also the denial of Peter. Jesus is saying that He is the way to the Father. This is a strong affirmation that Jesus views that He is the only way to salvation. Regarding 1 Timothy, Paul is talking about God’s grace to a sinner like him. He acknowledges that he was once a blasphemer and a persecutor of the church, yet God has shown him mercy by the grace that God has given him in Jesus Christ. This is why Paul was able to say that we can trust that Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Paul also affirms that his salvation shows God’s immense patience for sinners like us because He saved Paul.

Now, Suralta commented that Wil Dasovich laughed Joyce’s answer off because he is a good guy. It’s not clear what he is trying to insinuate, but it could give the impression that Wil is just a better person than Joyce, because after laughing off her alleged bigoted remark, instead of thinking of what she said, she doubled down on her affirmations even further. I think instead of making Joyce look bad, this shows that she is a woman of conviction. Because she is really making a stand about the exclusivity of Jesus Christ.

Suralta:

“The gift is, we’re sinners and God is a Holy God. Let’s say, for example, we are in a courtroom and God is the judge, you’re the criminal. Would God be a good judge if he just said, ‘Okay, sige, ‘wag na. Like, you’re free. You killed someone’ and you’re like, ‘Okay, you’re free to go,’” she explained. “…But what Christianity says happens is, Jesus comes in and says, ‘Okay, Wil deserves to be in jail. But instead of Wil going to jail, I’ll be in jail. For his sake.’ That’s what Christ did on the cross.”

What I can’t believe is the fact that Christians still have these outdated and misguided concepts of faith. It’s disappointing, but not at all surprising, to say the least. This is the Philippines, after all. In modern Christians’ crusade of righteousness, they continuously prove how out of touch they are with the diversity of perspective and the relativism that have a right to exist in the real world.”

Response:

I find Suralta’s comment to the truth that Joyce said amusing. This is because of his incredulity to the idea that there are people like Joyce who still believes as she does. He labels the orthodox Christian view as ‘outdated and misguided concepts of faith’. The philosopher A.G. Holdier calls what Suralta committed as chronological snobbery. In his contribution to the book, Bad Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Fallacies in Western Philosophy (2019), he explained that this fallacy was first described by Owen Barfield (1967) in the 1920s and popularized by C.S. Lewis (1955)². He says that it’s grounded on the Enlightenment’s concept of “progress”, which assumes that the increasing knowledge in society will naturally replace all the outdated and disproven ideas with better-justified beliefs, and thus the old views are incorrect and irrelevant because they are old.

Holdier concedes that certainly, there are indeed many ideas that were popular before that people think are true, but are no longer seen to be so, such as geocentrism and legal theories that deny the rights of people based on race or gender, but he argues that the realization of better views have always come on the basis of evidence or reason, which means that the mere fact of an idea’s age does not necessarily mean that it’s inaccurate. He quotes C.S. Lewis saying about chronological snobbery:

“the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do? If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth and falsehood. (207–208)”³

Holdier explains that it’s not the case that geocentrism is false simply because it’s archaic, but rather that it does not accurately describe reality. It’s obvious then, that Suralta committed the fallacy of chronological snobbery, since he merely just assumed in his statement that the Christian gospel is false because it’s outdated. He did not show us some intellectual heavy lifting to show that it’s false. Furthermore, Suralta also claims that modern Christians are out-of-touch with the diversity of perspective in the real world. I am not sure what he means by relativism should have a right to exist. We are in a country where we have the freedom of religion and conscience. There are relativists that exist in this country, but I don’t think that the right of a person to believe in it means that we have no right to criticize it. Relativism is wrong and self-refuting. We can just say that “everything is relative”, and obviously this proposition could either be objectively true or objectively false. If the statement is correct that everything is relative, then it is objectively true, which makes relativism false. If it is false, then there is such a thing as well as objective truth. Also, there are many writers in the Judeo-Christian tradition that are aware and not out-of-touch with the realities of the diversities of perspective. Obviously, Suralta has not read them. Some of them are: Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age (2007), James K.A. Smith’s How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (2014), and Timothy Keller’s Making Sense of God: Finding God in the Modern World (2018).

Suralta:

“It is cases like this that have led some people to dislike Christians. Some even go as far as saying that the religion has descended into a cult. In many ways, we may argue, with statements like these, it already has.”

Response:

I would understand why people would dislike Christians. The claim that Jesus is the only way to salvation may seem to others as arrogant. But it’s not really a good argument to say that Christianity is false because Christians are arrogant, because that is a classic case of ad hominem fallacy. The reason that you should say that a worldview is false should only be based on its merits and not based on the attitude of its messenger. Though being winsome is important, I don’t think that you would deny the advice of a doctor who can 100% cure your disease just because he is arrogant. With that said, I don’t think that Joyce Pring is being arrogant in her tone with Wil Dasovich. She is saying it as genuinely and as lovingly as she could. Perhaps, the reason that there are others that were offended is because of the spiritual rebellion that people have in their hearts, which is that they do not want to be reminded that they are sinners. It’s said in Romans 1:18–25:

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen.”

For this reason, it’s obvious that the problem is not mere lack of information, but the rebellious heart that sinners have against the truth of God’s Word. And this is the reason that there are people that hated Joyce, even if she was coming from a place of sharing God’s salvation to everyone because she loves them.

In addition, Suralta’s description that Pring’s statement makes Christianity a cult is false. Because a cult, by definition, talks about a religion that is regarded as unorthodox. What Pring mentioned is the basic gospel message of the Christian faith, which is essentially agreed upon by all Christians from different denominations. It’s not something that Christians from all denominations view as heretical, such as the belief that Christ is merely a human being. If someone affirms that, then they could be said to be part of a cult.

Suralta:

“The main talking point that Pring, and a lot of other Christians who defend her, want to say is the idea of salvation through Jesus. Those who believe in Jesus get eternal life or whatever jewels that await them in heaven. Those who don’t, well, they go to the boiler room, deep down. This seems to be the primary draw of this religion. Christians will brand themselves as champions of moral integrity in a world of sin. But this is moral ascendency, really. They use the moral integrity card to exploit people’s fears and insecurities.”

Response:

Here, it seems that Suralta is saying that the Christian religion exploits people’s fears and insecurities by using the moral integrity card, which I think Suralta is saying to refer to the religion pointing out the sins of human beings, that in fact, they are not good people. I think this is a poor argument, because no support from Suralta is given. He just asserted it. The fact is, if we are honest with ourselves, it’s not just the outside world around us that is messed up. Many of us have done many wrong things in our lives. And sometimes, we know deep down that we are the problem. What Christianity is doing is that it is just pointing out the reality of human nature, that we are sinful people.

I remember an old talk I had before entitled, “Is Sin Invented for Social Control?” Basically, I showed there that it is a reality and it’s not something that religion invented to control people. This talk was based from Clay Jones’ entitled, “Killing the Canaanites Was Justified Capital Punishment”.⁴ In that talk, he talked about human depravity based on human history, human depravity based on research, and human depravity concluded on literature. Some examples that were given are the murder in the death camps in the Soviet Union between 1917 to 1929 were estimated conservatively to be 20 to 26 million. And this does not include the 6 million Ukrainian citizens that the Soviets forced to die of starvation in 1932 and 1933. In Nazi Germany, Hitler is said to start calling for the death of the Jews, 20 years prior to the beginning of World War II. The Germans murdered 6 million Jews, and they also murdered an equal number of people with Slavic descent, and many were being ‘experimented on, or tortured, shot, or gassed’. In communist China, a conservative estimate of 26 to 30 million of counterrevolutionaries were killed. Mao Zedong is said to boast in his 1958 speech that the Emperor Shi Huang of the Qin Dynasty had only buried alive 460 scholars, but they were able to bury alive 46,000 scholars. In Japan, Irish Chang was cited to talk about the gruesome deaths of the Chinese in The Rape of Nanking. The description is so disturbing that I will not list it here for the sake of the readers, but it’s something that you are free to research.

Clay Jones also cites the study conducted by Stanley Milgram at Yale University. This study is said to be replicated by David Mantell in Munich, West Germany and was able to get the same trend (85% administered all shocks). Let me quote it in length here:

“Stanley Milgram conducted a now very famous experiment at Yale University in response to a newspaper advertisement. Two people at a time would arrive at a psychology lab to participate in what appeared to be a traditional learning study. One of them was designated the teacher and the other the learner. The learner was told to learn a list of word pairs and was strapped into a chair with electrodes attached to his wrists. When the learner made the “mistake”, the teacher was instructed by the experimenter to give him a shock. The teacher sat before an impressive shock generator with 30 switches ranging from 15 to 450 volts, though they were labeled, “slight shock,” and they kept going all the way up to “danger severe shock,” and then the last three just add “XXX”. We don’t even know what’s going to happen. Before the experiment began by the way, the teacher received a very real 45 volts shock to impress them of the significance of their actions. As the experiment continue, the teacher was told to increase the shock dosages, even though the learner began to beg and scream to be let out. In reality, of course, the learner was just a paid actor, and was hired by the experimenter and received no shocks at all. The experiment actually concerned the teacher who administered the shocks. The object of the experiment was to see how many people would administer dangerous shocks. The result was 65% administered 450 volts of electricity, even though the people were begging and screaming to be released. Milgram concluded that Auschwitz could have been staffed by the average population of New Haven Connecticut. By the way, he found no difference between men and women.” (13:04–14:57)

Let me quote the other things Clay Jones mentioned in literature about Hannah Arendt, Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

“Hannah Arendt, in her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report in the Banality of Evil wrote, “That the main trouble with Auschwitz administrator Adolf Eichmann was that there were so many like him. Neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were and still are terribly and terrifyingly normal.” (17:27)

“Elie Wiesel wrote, “Deep down, man is not only executioner, not only a victim, not only a spectator, he is three all at once.” (18:43)

“Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi wrote, “We must consider that these faithful followers among the diligent executives of human orders were not born torturers, were not with few exceptions monsters, they were ordinary men.” (18:53)

“Alexander Solzhenitsyn who suffered 8 years in a Soviet Gulag asked this question, which I’m going to paraphrase briefly, “Where did this wolf tribe come from among our people? Is it our own flesh, or own blood?” He says, “It is our own. And just so that no one too quickly starts on flaunting the white mantle of the just, let each person ask himself if my life had turned out differently, might I too have become an executioner.” (16:03)

We are not claiming here that human beings would be as evil as they could possibly be. Sin manifests differently and we will not all be like Hitler, but the point is that we are all sinners as the Bible has stated. I think the burden of proof is on those who will insist that we are not sinners, for it runs contrary to our moral experience.

Suralta:

“Much of the basis of this religion, or most other religions for that matter, is blind obedience. Hence, cases of brainwashing, it seems like. This, even if some teachings in the Bible are just plain bad. Christians tend to take the Bible as, well, gospel truth (see the word play?). But there are so many Bible verses they choose to ignore.

In 1 Timothy 2:12, for instance, its new revised standard version says: “Permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.” Meanwhile, Exodus 21:20–21 says that having slaves are okay. “When a slaveowner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property,” the new revised standard version says.

So slaves and women who talk over men go to hell now, too? These are just examples to illustrate why we shouldn’t take everything we read in the Bible as the great truth of the universe. Because, quite frankly, the stuff there isn’t. Some are hypocritical and others are just downright weird (like massacres, rapes, child sacrifices, and more).”

Response:

Of course, Christians take everything that the Bible says as gospel truth. This is because they believe that the Bible is God’s Word. If God exists, and Christianity is true, it will follow that everything that the Bible says is true, and everything that is contrary to it is false. Now, are Christians who are serious in the Bible ignoring many Bible verses? I think it’s Suralta who is ignoring the Bible passages.

It’s said in 1 Timothy 2:12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”

To answer this, let me quote the New Testament professor, Robert Yarbrough, to shed light on this passage:

“What does 1 Timothy 2:12 encourage the godly woman to avoid? Most directly, in today’s Western setting she should avoid the urge to resent the place certain men have been called and equipped to occupy.

While she should seek to maximize her contribution to the discipleship mandate all Christians share (Matt. 28:19–20), she should avoid assignments in the church where she’d assume duties that amount to pastoral instruction, like biblical exposition and exhortation. She shouldn’t preach sermons to the gathered church. Nor should she be involved in pastoral oversight of men, whatever form that might take in her church structure. Women gifted and called to discipleship ministry (as all believing women are to an extent) will find other women who need their care and influence.

This doesn’t rule out women’s leadership in congregational administration — often whole pastoral staffs are directed, logistically, by the organizational genius of a female administrator. But a church administrator is not the church’s pastoral minister — the roles may intertwine, but they shouldn’t be merged or reversed.”⁵

In context, Yarbrough is proposing in the article that teaching or exercising authority over a man were Paul’s way of summarizing to Timothy the chief responsibilities of a pastor in a local church, which are: “(1) instruction via faithful exposition of Scripture, in ways like Jesus nurtured his disciples, and (2) benevolent oversight and shepherding, in ways like Jesus cared for his followers and like early Christian leaders emulated (e.g., 1 Pet. 5:1–5).”⁶

What this shows us is that the passage is not saying that men are more valuable than women, for the Genesis account shows that they are equal in value and worth. The passage is also not saying that women are not allowed to speak and teach in general, for we can see in 1 Corithians 11 that women pray and speak in the church, and Titus 2 encourages older women to teach younger men. We also do not see any prohibition of women being professional teachers in the workplace. It is also not prohibiting leadership in general for women, for you can be the president of your country as a woman if you are voted by the people.The prohibition here is taking on a role that God has instituted to be only for men, which is being a pastor.

Next, it’s said in Exodus 21:20–21: “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.”

To answer Suralta’s comment about slavery, let me quote myself from a short essay I wrote to answer a meme about the same subject before:

“… it’s clear … that he believes that Christianity approves of slavery, because of laws such as the passage above about slavery. I would add that a possible concern from atheists like him is that certain people are treated as “property” as is mentioned in the passage.

To help us answer this, I’ll rely on Paul Copan’s scholarly work on the issue. The critique against this kind of argument against Christianity, is that first, the skeptic confuses it with the slave from the antebellum prewar slavery in the South, in colonial America, which are people who are treated as property, where the slave owner’s rights are absolute over the slave, and where the slave was stripped of his “racial, familial, social, and marital” identity. The slave mentioned in this context in the Old Testament uses the term 𝑒𝑏𝑒𝑑, which is not considered as something lowly, but something inherently honorable and dignified. They are called indentured servants. You can imagine a situation where you want to survive from poverty, so you contract yourself to work on households, like an apprentice, in order for you to be able to pay your debts. This kind of servanthood is not much different with the employment we experience.

Second, now, how do we explain the passage on Exodus 21? In verse 20, which talks about the master being punished (naqam). This talks about the death penalty or judicial vengeance in the Old Testament. This is reinforced by v. 23–24 that talk about “life on life”. This shows that the servant is treated as a human being with dignity, and not as property that can be easily discarded. We can support this interpretation, since in Genesis 9:5–6 where [sic] it shows that God demands an accounting for the life of another human being, and the murderer will be executed by other humans, because human life is valuable, “…for in the image of God has God made mankind.”

The instrument being mentioned here is a rod, and not a spear or sword. If the servant does not die from the rod beating, then the master was being given the benefit of the doubt that the servant was likely being disciplined and that there was no intent to murder them. If the servant immediately dies, then there is no further proof needed. In v. 26–27, if a permanent injury is caused by the beating, the servant or employee will be released debt free. This is something unprecedented during their time, for in the Ancient Near East, masters could treat their slaves with whatever they please. If we look at the Code of Hammurabi, the law insists payment for the master for injuries that the slave gets. The Code of Hammurabi even permits their master to cut off a disobedient slave’s ear. But here in the Mosaic Law, we see masters being held accountable for what they do with their servants. Servants being treated with dignity in Israel is consistent with other passages in Scripture that shows that they have dignity, such as Genesis 1:26–27 and Job 31:13–15.

Third, why does the passage say that the servant is his money or property? The suggestion here is not that they were chattel. In their context, the servant came to their employer or master’s house to pay for their debt, so the employer will lose money if he mistreated his or her employee. Harry Hoffner, a Hittologist, says that the better rendering of the passage should be translated as “the fee is his money”. In context, if the servant is injured, it’s at the master’s expense, to pay the medical bills for the servant that is wounded. According to Hoffner, this is a significant factor when judges respond to the charge of an intentional homicide.

Of course, this does not mean that the laws of Israel on servitude are the moral ideal. But Paul Copan comments that they show “far greater moral sensitivity than other ancient Near Eastern texts. He also says that we come across “improved legislation for Israelite society in contrast to surrounding Ancient Near Eastern cultures.” As Jewish scholar Nahum Sarna observes, “This law–the protection of slaves from maltreatment by their masters–is found nowhere else in the entire existing corpus of Ancient Near Eastern legislation.” And the best part is that we can see that the Bible makes us not warranted in trafficking people, and also in treating them as farm equipment, because God’s Word points us to God’s ideal, that we are all image bearers of God.”⁷

For this reason, I think that it’s Suralta that is not really doing the heavy lifting needed to understand the said passages. If the Bible is God’s Word, then everything we read in the Bible should be taken as “the great truth of the universe”. And if there seems to be a contradiction, it’s good policy to check first whether it’s truly a contradiction, since God’s Word could not contradict itself. And since we are creatures, we know that it’s possible that we could be in the wrong. Now, regarding the other hypocritical and weird stuff that Suralta enumerated, such as massacres, rapes, child sacrifices, etc., we need to understand in general that just because we read something in the Bible, that it doesn’t mean that God encourages us to do it or that He condones it. It could also be that the reason we read something in the Bible is because in narratives, the author just writes faithfully what had happened. That’s why we can read many evil things that have happened, and that’s perfectly consistent with God being against it if we read about God’s character in other passages. This is the reason why we need to be aware of the specific literary genre of the book or passage we are reading, so that we can be sure how to read it properly literary-wise and in context.

Suralta:

“Circling back to Pring’s “honest” answer, I see that a lot of people in the comments section, mostly Christians, were quick to support her on this. They say that this is the “cold truth” that most people don’t want to hear. No, it’s not. That’s some high and mighty crap right there.

This school of thought reeks of 12th-century Anglo-Saxon-imperialist-colonizer vibes. Being an atheist doesn’t mean one is immoral or impure. People are entitled to believe or not believe in a god. We all have varying concepts of the afterlife, as well. Each is welcome and valid. Christians need to move from a place of tolerance to acceptance. Being an atheist doesn’t automatically mean that someone is bad. God, I’d like to think, would understand that.

As for the subject of goodness, these comments are not something a good Christian would say. Goodness is supposed to be universal. We should know a good deed when we see it, no matter if it comes from a believer or non-believer. If you’re the kind of person who only does good for the promise of whatever is up in the sky, you’re part of the problem. We must do good because it is the social contract that binds humanity together. Good deeds are the lifeblood of collective and personal empowerment, both in intentions and in actions. We don’t need a god for this. We need each other.”

Response:

To proclaim and defend the truth is not being high and mighty, in a sense that Joyce is saying that she is more important than other people. If proclaiming the truth and defending it makes you high and mighty, then all of us will be high and mighty, because even those who say that ‘everything is relative’ shares their view as if it’s the truth because they want you to think like them. If relativists are not being high and mighty by merely sharing their view, then Joyce and the Christians who defended her are not being high and mighty by merely sharing their view. There are other factors that we need to consider if we want to say that someone is being high and mighty, and Suralta just labeled Pring and her supporters without evidence.

In addition, when he mentioned that the gospel is a school of thought that “reeks of 12th-century Anglo-Saxon-imperialist colonizer vibes”, he is again confusing rhetoric from sound argument. Merely labeling a view and using words that have the connotation of something evil to discredit it without argument is also the fallacy of the question-begging epithet. Name calling should have no place in a rational discussion. We should raise the bar of the quality of our discourse.

Regarding people being entitled to believe or not believe in a god, as a country that values freedom of religion and conscience, we are really entitled to believe what we want to believe. But that doesn’t mean that we are entitled to our own facts. Truth is not something that we can pick and choose. Since truth is objective, it is not dependent whether people believe in it or not. Even if no one believes the truth, the truth will remain to be true. Though everything is welcomed and allowed, let’s not pretend that everything is valid. Though we value all human beings equally, let’s stop pretending that all ideas are equally valid and true. Many of our beliefs contradict each other, and they can’t all be true. The beauty of our freedom of religion and conscience is that we will not be scared to freely debate, and our debates can expose faulty reasoning, which will lead us to see that certain views are logically invalid and false. We get closer to the truth in this process if we really are fair and honest in our assessments. And I think that Christianity is true, and this is what I encourage everyone to explore.

Regarding being an atheist does not automatically make someone bad, I agree. The Christian theist claim is not that we can be good without believing in God. It’s that we cannot be good without God (Him not existing). The Christian philosopher William Lane Craig explains it better:

“The question is not: Must we believe in God in order to live moral lives? There’s no reason to think that nonbelievers cannot live what we’d normally call good and decent lives.

Again, the question is not: Can we recognize objective moral values and duties without believing in God? There’s no reason to think that you have to believe in God in order to recognize that, for example, we ought to love our children.

Or again, the question is not: Can we formulate a system of ethics without referring to God? If the nonbeliever recognizes the intrinsic value of human beings, there’s no reason to think he can’t work out an ethical code of conduct that the believer will generally agree with. (Of course, he won’t take into account any moral obligations we have toward God.)

Rather the question is: If God does not exist, do objective moral values and duties exist? The question is not about the necessity of belief in God for objective morality but about the necessity of the existence of God for objective morality.”⁸

Based on this quote, we see that there’s a distinction between epistemology and ontology. Regarding epistemology, we see that even if a person does not believe in God’s existence, that person is still capable of doing good things. In fact, atheists could even live lives that put Christians to shame. And they are able to do this because human beings are able to make moral decisions as beings made in God’s image. So going back to Suralta’s remark, indeed, we can agree with him that goodness is universal, regardless whether we are a believer or an unbeliever, we can know that a good deed is good when we see it in our moral experience, in the same way that we know that a ball is round in our sense experience. Regarding ontology, we see that the Christian theist claim is that we have no ground to say that morality is objective if God does not exist. With that said, the affirmation that atheists could do good things does not mean that they are not sinners that deserve God’s judgment. Though we are all not murderers, we have done many other sins in our lives. We can take an honest look in the mirror, and we can see that we have done an astronomical amount of sins. And though doing good helps us collectively as having a better society as citizens, it is not enough for us to ever meet God’s standard to be merited for salvation. So if you think you do not need Jesus Christ, can you do the perfection that Jesus did? God does not take anything less than perfection as His standard. Matthew 5:45 says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:20 says, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Also, we can see that God requires not only outward obedience, but also inward obedience. For example, Matthew 5:27–28 says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

With this in mind, if you will insist that you are sinless, I think it’s an obvious denial of reality.

Suralta:

“Salvation, as the Church’s official stance, is for everybody. It does not discriminate. As long as good is done and the truth is said and evil is fought, people have a shot at it. For the record, even Pope Francis, in a letter written to the founder of La Repubblica newspaper, said that non-believers can go to heaven.

“You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying — and this is the fundamental thing — that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to Him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience… Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience.”

There’s also the case of Catholic atheism. This is a belief system that has followers who accept culture, traditions, and rituals of the faith, but choose to reject the existence of God. But that’s another conversation. Although for Pring, and for her fellow Christian apologists, they’re probably going to hell, too.”

Response:

Regarding Suralta’s quotation of Pope Francis’ letter to Dr. Scalfari, I checked it to be sure of its context, and the letter is a response to Dr. Scalfari’s question about the attitude of the church towards unbelievers. Pope Francis said:

“As for the three questions you asked me in the article of August 7th. It would seem to me that in the first two, what you are most interested in is understanding the Church’s attitude towards those who do not share faith in Jesus. First of all, you ask if the God of the Christians forgives those who do not believe and do not seek faith. Given that — and this is fundamental — God’s mercy has no limits if he who asks for mercy does so in contrition and with a sincere heart, the issue for those who do not believe in God is in obeying their own conscience. In fact, listening and obeying it, means deciding about what is perceived to be good or to be evil. The goodness or the wickedness of our behavior depends on this decision.”⁹

Now, I am trying to read this exegetically in the best way that I could, and I am not sure if I am just wrong, but it seems that I could not see in any words that Pope Francis said here that he is saying that non-believers can go to heaven. The Pope asks if the God of the Christians forgive those who do not believe and do not seek faith, and he says that God’s mercy has no limits if they will ask for mercy, or do so in a contrite heart. So it’s not clear here whether he is really saying that nonbelievers could go to heaven, since the words could be interpreted as: those who do not believe and do not seek faith, because God is merciful, if they ask for mercy, then they will also receive mercy. But why would they ask mercy if they do not believe right? It seems to presuppose that the person has already trusted God’s mercy. Also, about the issue of those who do not believe in God in obeying their conscience, the Pope seems to say that it means to listen and obey the conscience is to decide about what is perceived to be good or evil. I don’t see this as a statement about nonbelievers, even atheists, going to heaven apart from Christ. I am just basing it on what I could read explicitly from the Pope’s statement.

Now, I might be wrong here and Suralta may be right in his interpretation of the Pope’s letter, nevertheless, even if we take that for granted for the sake of argument, it seems to be contrary to what other Catholics are teaching. For example, Catholic Answers made the answer to the question about those who die and do not believe:

“It depends. If you mean, “What happens to those who die rejecting Christ?” the Church’s answer is uncompromising: They will go to hell. But no one goes to hell by accident. If someone is simply ignorant of the name of Christ through no fault of his own, there is no sin in that. He has not rejected Christ. Moreover, we know Christ is not constrained by our knowledge. He can work in a heart even when that heart is only dimly aware of it.”¹⁰

Joe Magee in Catholic 365 also cites the Lumen Gentium and the Unam Sanctam, and it seems to be consistent with what Catholic Answers have mentioned:

“And for some Catholics, on the one hand, there is Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium 16, which says that non-Catholics “who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace … to do His will as it is known to them,” can be saved.

And for other Catholics there is the 1302 bull of Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, which says that outside of the Church there is no salvation. Also, Jesus says that unless you are baptized (John 3:5; Mark 16:16), repent (Luke 13:3) and eat his body and drink his blood (John 6) you cannot be saved or attain to the fulness [sic] of life. He thus says that these sacraments, and so the Church, are necessary for salvation, not mere faith in Jesus alone.”¹¹

With that said, it’s clear that the Lumen Gentium is talking about people who sincerely seek God, and this seems to not fit Suralta’s notion of an unbeliever, like atheists who do not really seek God. The Unam Sanctam also shows that there is no salvation if you are outside the body of Christ. And what this communicates to me is contrary to Suralta’s claim that you can be an unbeliever and be saved.

Nevertheless, regardless of where the Catholic church stands, the Bible is clear that Jesus is the only way to salvation (John 14:6), and we could only be saved through His person and work. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we can know with mathematical precision those who are saved and those who are not. After all, we do not have access to people’s hearts. And since our knowledge is limited, there’s a possibility that we may not know if a particular Christian is faking his faith or not, or whether a non-Christian had put their faith in Christ before their dying breath. All we can say when we are asked if a particular unbeliever will go to hell, is that we do not know. All that we know is that the Bible teaches that all who put their trust in Christ will be saved, and regarding the destiny of those that we assume to be an unbeliever, we can just affirm that the judge of this world will do right, that whatever decision that God will do to this supposed unbeliever, we know that He is not violating this person, but He is doing it according to the highest standard of righteousness.

Suralta:

“All this is not to say that being a Christian is a bad thing. It can be, after all, an instrument for actualization, much like other religions and practices. We should respect that, too. But it should never be used as a tool for terror or misplaced angst. That’s propaganda. It should be used as a method for understanding, caring, and exemplifying the best of what humanity can be. No person of any religion should look down on their fellow man or their beliefs system. That’s just not cool.

In a macro-sense, if Christianity hopes to find a way to survive in the modern world, its followers shouldn’t say stuff like this. Conservatives often spew half-baked dogma and seek to divide. With a seemingly small “honest” issue such as this, Pring isn’t converting anybody. This just shows why more people are turning away from Christianity and entering more spiritual realms.

Did she say this because she actually believes this or is it simply for the clout? Who knows. It’s a disservice to Christianity to say that. Pring is not practicing radical honesty here. She’s just hella wrong. Nobody gets to gatekeep heaven, not even some annoying Christians.”

Response:

Indeed, being a Christian is not a bad thing. We should respect all people that come from various religions. After all, whether they believe in Jesus or not, all humans are made in God’s image. Suralta is also right that religion should not be used as a tool for terror or misplaced angst. And here, we distinguish between religion being used as a terror, which is human manipulation, and the terror created by biblical truth. Of course, it’s understandable that when we share God’s holiness and Him punishing sinners to people who do not ever want to follow Him, even in a friendly and loving tone, it could offend people and cause terror in their hearts. But this offense and terror should be the result of the accuracy of the message and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and not due to our own offensive manner and also not human manipulation in order to get a certain kind of response. I agree that Christianity should be used for understanding, caring, and exemplifying the best of what humanity can be. I also agree that no person should look down on their fellow man. This is because all human beings deserve being treated with value and respect. But I don’t see that with beliefs. Though humans are equal, our beliefs are not equal. I also think that just because I disagree with you, it doesn’t mean that I am looking down on you. The opposite could even be said, that because a person respects you, cares for you, and loves you, they will say that your worldview is wrong and point you to the truth.

Christianity will survive because Jesus promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. It will not survive if we heed Suralta’s advice which is contrary to Scripture. Christians should have the moral spine to stand in our world where we are forced to agree with progessive relativist dogma. It is not true that Conservatives often spew half-baked dogma and are just being divisive. This is just an assertion that is said without evidence. Though truth divides, in a sense that it helps us distinguish between the wheat and the chaff, I don’t see that Joyce’s manner is something that is being divisive. It’s very warm and friendly to Wil Dasovich. When Suralta said that people are turning away from Christianity (assuming that it is true), I think it’s not really because of Pring’s podcast. This is because Pring was really winsome in her tone and manner. It’s true that we do not convert anybody, because it is God Himself who does the converting. Our part is that we only do the initiative to share God’s truth to everyone. With that said, the real reason that people will turn away Christianity is because people love darkness rather than light. John 3:16–21 said:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

It’s also distasteful to insinuate the possibility that Pring did what she did for the clout. Suralta is right that we do not know the answer, because it’s really hard to prove the motivations of people. Though the clout accusation is possible, the evidence seems to point that Pring said those things because she really believes the gospel. Many people know the backlash that we will experience if we try to go against the woke mob, and she still did it despite the risks of her being canceled or hated by people. Lastly, Pring and Christians are not gatekeeping heaven. Suralta is right that nobody gets to gatekeep heaven. What Pring is saying is simply what the Bible says. It’s said in Acts 4:12, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” And if Suralta has a problem with the “gatekeeping”, then he has to contend with God Himself.

References:

1. Bryle Suralta, “Joyce Pring Says All Non-Believers Are Going to Hell. What a Way to Speak for God’s Love,” Esquire, October 14, 2022, https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/notes-and-essays/joyce-pring-podcast-comments-non-believers-go-to-hell-a2765-20221013-lfrm?utm_source=Facebook-Esquire&utm_medium=Ownshare-Photo&utm_campaign=20221013-fbnp-long-reads-joyce-pring-podcast-comments-non-believers-go-to-hell-a2765-20221013-lfrm-fbnew&fbclid=IwAR2VaOydo1FqmBRdXqWntP2zEInZgaL3ieTRmwT-2VAA3HPUB0zjMk_pJ9Y.

2. Robert Arp, ed., Steven Barbone, ed., and Michael Bruce, ed., Bad Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Fallacies in Western Philosophy (New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 2019), 311–312.

3. Arp, Barbone, and Bruce, Bad Arguments, 312.

4. Clay Jones, “Clay B Jones: Killing the Canaanites Was Justified Capital Punishment”. September 15, 2013, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4fv8apO3_4&t=335s.

5. Robert Yarbrough, “What Exactly Does 1 Timothy 2:12 Teach?,” The Gospel Coalition, April 6, 2022, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/1-timothy-2-12-teach/.

6. Yarbrough, “1 Timothy 2:12.”

7. Omar Rushlive Arellano, “On Slavery,” Facebook, February 13, 2021, https://www.facebook.com/ReasonableFaithPH/posts/pfbid024nmAV8yaapBB3P2QZmRXdcrLUqdRvp41W7ftFPuTLJekioQpBRMjFHYFzNjwiHHRl.

8. William Lane Craig, On Guard (Colorado: David Cook, 2010), 134.

9. “Pope Francisco writes to La Repubblica: “An open dialogue with non-believers,” la Repubblica, September 11, 2013, https://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2013/09/11/news/the_pope_s_letter-66336961/.

10. “What happens to those who die and do not believe?,” Catholic Answers, n.d., https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-happens-to-those-who-die-and-do-not-believe.

11. Joe Magee, “Can non-believers go to heaven?,” Catholic 365, March 12, 2022, https://www.catholic365.com/article/16004/can-non-believers-go-to-heaven.html.