How should we define "Christian"?

Trent, so would you say that someone committed to following Christ's teachings, while denying his divinity, counts as a Christian? Or would it be your position that Christ taught he was himself divine, so that committment to follow his teachings somehow involves a committment to his divinity? But how would it involve this? Is it a sufficient condition for S to count as a Christian if it seems to S that Christ did not teach that he was divine, and S was committed to adhering to everything it seems to S Christ taught? I'm wondering whether or not you want to claim that there's some class of Christ's teachings that one must be committed to following in order to count as a Christian, and if so, how you would define that class. It looks as if this would reintroduce the problems you're trying to solve, however.

I think there's some sort of polysemy going on here. I don't think it's indeterminacy. It seems to me to be genuinely different meanings, with usually partially overlapping referents.

There's the broader Christian tradition that includes those who are technically heretics. There's the sense in which someone who is a member of a Christian church is Christian even if that person doesn't even believe in God. Surely Bishop Spong counts as a Christian in some sense simply because he's in a high position in a Christian denomination.

Many evangelicals like to reserve the term for those they think are genuninely in a relationship with God, which most definitely does treat it as a success term. The Reformed version of this in particular would see it in terms of those God has predestined to salvation who have already begun to believe, but the Reformed will also emphasize the visible church sense in which a church member who isn't in the invisible church is a Christian. Then to many Muslims and Jews someone is a Christian merely for celebrating the secular version of Christmas.

I don't see any reason for not treating any of these (except perhaps the last) as a legitimate sense of the word.

Trent,

There could well be indeterminacy with ICD. If we use 'Christ's (complete) teachings' to refer to at least two different sets of propositions (even if none of those propositions is itself vague) then term 'Christ's teachings' could well have borderline cases. Not all vague terms have borderline cases in the typical fuzzy border sense. If we discover that we use 'Christ's teachings' to refer to {P1, P2} and to refer to {P3, P4}, and these sets are different and complete teachings, then {P1,P2} is a borderline case of Christ's teaching (and so is {P3,P4}). Roy Sorenson talks a lot about borderline cases of this sort. If Sorenson is right, there would be an unknowable fact of the matter about which set truly constituted Christ's (complete) teachings. The weirdness of epistemicism. More reasonably(?), you might conclude by ICD that we are all borderline Christians, since we all try to follow some borderline set of Christ's teachings.
Or (and I'm guessing this is the route you'd like to take) you could deny that *we* do use 'Christ's teachings' in this way. You could say that some people use the term to apply to one set and other people use the term to apply to the other set, but no one would be perplexed to discover that he uses the term to apply to two different sets. In this case, there's no vagueness in 'Christ's teachings', but only disagreement over what Christ's teachings actually are. Here's a suggested remedy, replace

ICD. A Christian is one who is committed
to following Christ's teachings.

with,

ICD* A Christian is one who is committed to
following what he justifiably believes are
Christ's teachings.

I'm not sure why we should be concerned that Christ satisfy the predicate "is a Christian" just as I can't see why one would be worried whether the Patriarchs are Christian. Given a Trinitarian doctrine wouldn't it follow that if Christ is a Christian, then God is a Christian, but that seems like an odd bit of grammar.

I also wonder if Christ's teachings are to include the things he said or the things he did? Some would argue that he never explicitly claimed to be divine except by the implication of his actions. I can imagine ways to construe ICD such that you might admit people who, not only deny Christ’s divinity, but deny his very existence. Further ICD would seem to admit people as Christians who intended to follow Christ's teaching, but in fact never do. I like Jeremy's suggestion that there is a broader Christian tradition that includes those who are technically heretics because, while it lets in the Mormons and JW's, it lets me in too. Such a definition though seems like more a matter of sociology than philosophy. If this is the case then "Christian" is something of a family resemblance term.

In connection with resolving the question of Christ teachings is the touchy matter of orthodoxy. I'm not sure that this is a philosophically useful term, but Stump has defended it in "Orthodoxy and Heresy" (F&P 1999). My own inclination is that a useful notion of orthodoxy that is divorced of sociology isn't going to be forthcoming.

Hi Trent and all.

I think there is a problem with ICD if you mean it to satisfy your stated desideratum of “making Christ satisfy "Christian".
Again, ICD says that a Christian is one who is committed to following Christ’s teachings. But there are many of Christ’s teachings that Christ would not (could not?) have been committed to following; namely all of those teachings that are directed at sinners and sinners alone.
For instance, Mark 1:23: “The time has come,��? he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.��? This seems to be a rather central teaching of Christ, but one that he would not have been committed to following, since he was without sin and thus could not have repented of sin.
Or, Christ teaches his disciples to pray as follows: “When you pray, say: ‘Father…forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.��? But this isn’t how Christ would pray, i.e. he does not here say, “Pray as I pray.��? In short, it seems to me that since Christ’s teachings were for the sick and not for the healthy, he wouldn’t (or couldn’t) be committed to following (all) of his own teachings.
There are, of course, central teachings of Christ that Christ was committed to following, like “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.��? Though this is perhaps the most important of his teachings, it doesn’t constitute all he taught. I think he taught a lot about what to do when you figure out that you’ve failed to do the above.
Christ doesn’t satisfy ICD, then, because Christ as sinless is not committed to following all of his teachings for sinners. Besides this, it is unclear how Christ himself could have been committed to following his teaching in the “Great Commission��? to preach his name to the ends of the earth. This is a teaching of Christ that is clearly not self-referentially applicable to Christ. The whole point about the Great Commission, it seems to me, is that he is commissioning his disciples to carry out a task in his absence. Christ is not a disciple of himself, and many of his teachings apply only to his disciples. I think, then, that you would at least need to qualify ICD to exclude Christ’s teachings that only apply to sinners and those which, like the Great Commission, are applicable only to his disciples – if you want Christ to satisfy “Christian.��? I’m not sure what this leaves besides the teaching I mentioned above (to love God and love neighbor).
But, like others, I’m not sure why Christ ought to satisfy “Christian��?, and thus can’t see why we’d be motivated to modify ICD or ICD* in the way I just suggested.

Scott,

This is a good question. I think I touch on it when I mention that for me, as a Catholic, the content of the teachings is fairly determinate, but for a Protestant in might be more touchy. I used Mormonism as a prime example. In some way, I think Mormon's are committed to following the teachings of Jesus, though they deny his divinity in the orthodox sense. I'm happy, though, to say that it's clear enough that Jesus taught that he was divine and so being committed to live by his teachings would be committed to believing in his divinity.

Jeremy,

Perhaps terminological pluralism is the best we can do (I hold this in regard to many epistemological terms). However, I do think we can sometimes establish a hierarchy of terms according to our interests. For example, I'm not interested in any notion of the term "Christian" that includes Spong. I don't know what such a term would be useful for. Same for the Christmas-celebrating sense. I think reformed soteriology is false, so that suggestion wont work for me. Also, there's the old saying that "standing in a garage does not make you a car," so I don't find the church-membership version useful. I do, however, need to think about the heretic case more. I also need to think about how to clearly articulate the purpose to which I want to put the term, since my standard methodology with respect to vague or ambiguous term is to treat senses according to interests.

Mike,

I like *all* of your suggestions. 1. It does seem plausible that there are borderline cases of what Christ taught, at least cases where it is not clear whether Christ taught that or not. I think this is an important point. 2. I do think that it is not unreasonable to relativise to a sub-group who stipulates what the teachings of Christ are. This leaves us with debates about what Christ taught, but we've got those anyway. 3. ICD* seems a step in the right direction in particular and to be motivated by a strategy that I like generally. Prior to checking responses I was thinking of rigidifying the reference of "Christ's teachings" but I like you're strategy much better. I confess I'm personally troubled about who that counts as Christian, but that gets us into a discussion of epistemic justification. You've given me a good principle to chew on, thanks.

Matthew,

1. I don't think much rides on whether Christ was a Christian, but I think it's a natural thing to think and was interested in seeing how that would constrain the definition. 2. You raise an interesting question (questions involving the Trinity are usually interesting), but A. I don't see motivation for the inference; B. Even if "God is a Christian" comes out true, I don't see anything wrong with that. After all, Jesus said "I say only what the Father tells me to say." In general, though, it doesn't follow from Christ is an F that God is an F. 3. I did intend for the teachings of Jesus to include his actions since "actions speak louder than words." 4. I don't yet see a problem with the case of those who never actually follow Christ's teachings. Consider two kinds of cases: A. Not much time alive after making commitment; B. Significant time after making commitment. I don't think anybody will worry about the case where someone dies right after resolving to follow Christ's teachings. But the longer someone goes without following through, the more it looks like they weren't really committed in the first place (recall that I stipulated that being committed entailed a disposition). This kind of reminds me of the discussions I had when I moved from a Wesleyan denomination to a Baptist one. 5. I'm pretty much a fan of the Stump piece. 6. Generally, I think that family resemblance is all that holds most related terms together, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's all we can have here. Still, we can stipulate necessary and sufficient conditions for different purposes: census, admissions, etc. I'm beginning to think that there may not be a default general purpose use of the term (it would be in keeping with my philosophy of language if there were not). However, consider this purpose: Determining whether I'm a Christian. I had *something* like this in mind when I posted, for I categorized it in the "Christianity and Life" category, which I took to be broadly devotional. I think the sense that I'm trying to capture might be most useful for such a meditation (I'm pretty sure the other proposed senses are not).

Patrick,

1. You raise a good thought about the sin case, but I think all those teachings can be cast in conditional terms: "Repent, if you've got anything to repent of." 2. But he *does* pray His (the Lord's) Prayer. I don't see any indication that he's doing this *only* as an exemplar and I don't see any reason why Jesus wouldn't pray it (again the sin stuff is naturally read as technically a conditional: "Forgive us any sins we have committed." I think there are people who can go a day without sinning. I don't think it would be wrong for them to pray the Pater Noster on those good days. Furthermore, there's a simple fix which should be understood from the beginning anyway: Being a Christian is being committed to following all Christ's *relevant* teachings. Issues pertaining to relevance are usually set by context and left unexpressed. If Jesus said what Paul in fact said: Father's don't provoke your children, this would not be relevant to those who aren't fathers. I think this handles the Great Commission example, though I don't know why you think Jesus couldn't follow the Great Commission: According to Mormonism He did. I think that story is totally false, but I think it's possible. In fact, I think Jesus *did* fulfill the Great Commission by teaching the Apostles the Gospel.

I don't see why it should matter if Reformed soteriology is true or if it sounds ridiculous to call Spong a Christian. Unless we're going to abandon the standard view within philosophy of language that use determines meaning, I think we have to pay attention to the linguistic facts. People do use the term in those ways. It thus has a semantic range that includes reference sets that we would prefer it doesn't have. I don't think we can just dismiss that simply because as analytic philosophers we would rather our terms satisfy some set of necessary and sufficient conditions. Natural languages simply aren't like that, so if you're really after what the word means then I think you have to pay attention to the data I presented. If you'd rather have a technical term for one specialized use among various uses, that would be different. Then I could make sense of what you're up to. But you would be defining a technical term for your own use (or for use by many in a particular context).

Trent,
1. Christ as a Christian only acts as a constraint on your definition. That said I still find it puzzling as to why you think it is natural to think of Christ as a Christian. Perhaps a subject for another time though.

2. I’m not a Trinitarian because the logic of it is largely lost on me. Baring social trinitarianism, I don’t see how you block it following that if Christ is an F then God is an F. I’ve always understood the Christ/God relationship among traditional Christians to be one of identity. If A and B are identical, and F is a property of A, then F is a property of B. I don’t see how you can restrict this to the humanness because it looks like a property that would supervene on the whole. You might think there isn’t a problem here in claiming that God is a Christian, but I think plenty would find it puzzling. I might have more to say later, but just the fact that it seems like a serious break in the way we normally use these words bothers me. Not to mention that the Jews and Muslims are going to be pissed! :)

4. Your response to my question about never actually acting on the commitment is interesting. It makes me wonder if the notion of Christian that you are attempting to get at can be separated from salvation. There is a sense of the word ‘Christian’ on which I think one needn’t be saved, but this doesn’t seem to be what you’re after. I’d still think that a person who commits to follow the teachings of Christ on their death bed isn’t a Christian.

5. I’ll try to get a post up on the Stump piece and what I think is wrong with it.

6. I’m completely sympathetic to your motivation, especially since I regularly meet people whose definition says that I’m not a Christian.

Thanks Trent. I thought you would worry that ICD* is (sort of) too epistemic. For instance, maybe you'd want Christians to be those who are committed to following what they *faithfully* believe are Christ's teachings, even if they do not justifiably believe they are Christ's teachings. I have in mind people who might not be able to give you a lot of evidence that (say) the Sermon on the Mount really is a compilation of Christ's teachings, and have no good response to the evidence to the contrary, but nonetheless have a deep faith that it is.
I honestly don't know what category they're in. Maybe you would want to include them as Christians, despite their epistemic situation.

This problem will come up even for full-blown inerrantists. After all, Jesus probably didn't teach in Greek, but that's all we've got of his teachings. Therefore, what's reported as his teachings aren't his literal words. Inerrantists will insist that the gospel narratives in the original Greek manuscripts accurately report the essence of Jesus' teachings, but inerrancy doesn't assert that these are Jesus' very words.

In addition to the problem (for non-inerrantists) of teachings that are reported as being from Jesus that for whatever reason people might not think Jesus ever taught, there's also the problem of teachings that were never preserved or preserved only in non-canonical writings. Surely at least some of what the Gospel of Thomas reports stems from Jesus (especially because some of it overlaps with the canonical gospels). But isn't it likely that Thomas also preserves some genuine teachings not in the canonicals?

So you don't even need to question any of the teachings in the canonical gospels to get a problem in what counts as Jesus' teachings. But I think there's a problem with ICD's definition of 'Christian' in terms of someone following what they justifiably believe to be Christ's teachings. What if Joe Christian hears some Muslim arguments against Jesus ever having even died on the cross? Now Joe isn't highly intelligent and thus can't think of a good response. He also doesn't seek out any advice from those more in the know. So if Joe stops believing that Jesus died on the cross, he can still be a Christian by ICD. After all, he follows all the teachings that he justifiably believes Christ to have taught.

I think it's vital to consider paragraph 1213 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church if one wants to try to get a handle on what it takes to be a Christian. In part, it says, "through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission..."

So my 18 month old son, who has been baptized, is a member of the Church; a member of Christ and co-heir with him; a partaker of the Divine nature; an adopted son of God; he has been justified. (cf. CCC # 1265) I think it is crystal clear that he is a Christian. What's more, he's a much better Christian than I am--he's never committed a mortal sin, or even a venial sin! And yet, he really doesn't understand a single article of the Creed, nor does he make any conscious attempt to follow what he justifiably believes are Christ's teachings.

Of course, when we're talking about a baptized adult, we might legitimately wonder if his engaging in certain kinds of actions or holding heretical beliefs (I mean materially heretical) can bring it about that this person no longer counts as a Christian. Or we might wonder whether an unbaptized person who accepts all the articles of the Creed and lives a strikingly virtuous life does count as a Christian. These are interesting questions, of course. But it does seem important not to lose sight of the centrality of baptism when we think about such matters. _Any_ proposed "definition" of "Christian" that results in my son not making the cut simply can't be right.

(To digress a little: It seems to me that linking Christian-hood to the possession of presently exercisable congnitive states of one kind or another (e.g. attempting to follow Christ's teaching, or firmly believing the articles of the Creed, or what have you) mirrors the attempt to link _personhood_ with the possession of presently exercisable cognitive states. But I won't pursue this here.)

For what it's worth, I react very strongly against the notion that Jesus himself is a Christian, as long as this is being understood literally. He is, of course, part of the Church (its head), a partaker in the Divine nature, and so forth--all the sorts of things that I've just said baptism does to us. So one might think that therefore he'd have to count as a Christian. But there's a difference in kind between his status and ours: as a Divine person, he was not _made_ to be these things through baptism as we were. What's more, it is impossible for Jesus to have faith. And this is a further distinction in kind between him and us. Even my very young son has faith--the infused virtue of faith--at least in seed. (Baptism is the sacrament of faith--CCC 1253.) It seems to me, then, that Christ has the perfections specific to being a Christian not formally but eminently. As such, I think any talk of Christ being a Christian has to be analogous, not univocal.

Three quick remarks.

1. How about reading "committed to following" as "judges oneself successful if one follows, and judges oneself failing if one does not follow"? That is, of course, a "presently exercisable cognitive state" which p. toner raises good, nay excellent, questions about, the answers to which probably will turn on one's theology of redemption and soteriology.

2. The suggestion that someone is a Xn if they are committed to follow what they justifiably believe to be Jesus' teachings lets in a whole lot of Muslims. That seems wrong.

3. I think "Christian" in the sense we're trying to define means something like "follower of Christ", and that would mean that Christ was not himself a Christian, or only in a very degenerate sense.

Jeremy,

I'm not sure how widespread acceptance the slogan "use determines meaning is." I'm a heavy use guy, so I might know what it meant if I knew how you were using it! Seriously though I'm not that interested in the loose and popular sense of most terms. As I said above, I'm a methodological pluralist about language. Most terms are vague or ambiguous and admit of many senses or precisifications. Some senses are more useful than others for various purposes. It was made clear to me above that I hadn't been clear about the purpose I had in mind. I tried to clarify that a bit above, but pledged there to think about it a bit more. If I take your comment right, this strategy is amenable to you.

Matthew,

1. Like I said, my main goal was logical cartography, but I suppose it just seems obviously natural to me. I suppose we'd just have to take a survey. I hasten to add that I don't think Christ *should* count as a Christian etymologically. As a classics major originally and a fan of Medieval philology I tend to lend a lot of weight to etymologies. If we do that then it doesn't make sense to call Christ a Christian, since "Christian" would mean "belonging to Christ". I suspect a lot of people would find it more natural to count Christ as a Christian than that the etymology of the word should settle the issue. That's just a guess from my anecdotal experience though. If you want my own personal view, Christ was not a Christian.

2. re: the Trinity, I'd just suggest you read those Early Father's your Dad found for you yesterday! ;-)> But seriously, for me that settles it. You might be interested in PVI's work on the trinity in God, Knowledge, and Mystery or there's a nice anthology recently edited by Stephen T. Davis out from OUP. Like you said though, probably a topic for another post.

3. Um, you skipped three dude. (Hopefully not some kind of anti-trinitariansim again! ;-)>

4. You're right, my notion of "is a Christian" entails "is saved". I don't see the problem with deathbed conversions. It seems like the thief on the cross was a case of deathbed conversion essentially. And I'm ecumenical, but I am Catholic in the end, so though I warmly embrace my brothers in the Abrahamic religions, I don't mind letting them know I think Jesus was the Christ.

5. I look forward to it.

6. "Thanks" and "bummer". :-)>

Mike,

Good point. I'd like to say that in most cases faithful belief is justified belief. However, they are likely to come apart in at least some situations and I'd like to have something to say there. I think I might want to stay with justified (or maybe just "reasonable") so long as it's specified that we're not necessarily talking about the kind of justification required for knowledge. Since I'm a phenomenal conservative, such reasonableness is going to be very easy to come by. However, I thought of another issue while thinking about this: motivation. I have in mind the kind of person who's committed to following the teachings of Jesus because they want a mansion in Heaven. I think the sort of devotional purposes I had in mind would put those people outside the pale of Christiantiy.

Jeremy,

I think most reasonable people will interpret "teachings" charitably enough to count translations and even official summaries. I think it is not likely that the so-called Gospel of Thomas preserves any genuine teaching not in the canon. I'm not so sure I agree that the person in the example you give has justified belief, but you raise a good issue nonetheless. I suppose I think it reasonable to count people deceived at no fault of their own as Christians. I know from my years as an Episcopalian that Marcus Borg has deceived a *lot* of good people into thinking Jesus didn't teach some of the things he did teach, but many of those people were definitely Christians. Here's where the motivation part might come in, for these people believed that Jesus was, in some sense, the savior, even in some sense unique in that regard and they wanted to follow his teachings whatever those were, they were just deceived about just what that was. Very nice issue you raise though.

P. Toner,

I agree completely that your son is a Christian (though I don't know about the "better" part). I think this is a general problem with definitions involving intentional states or propositional attitudes. For example if you give Jon a definition of knowledge he's going to immediately ask about dogs and small Children. I'm somewhat tempted to put them in the "honorary Christian" category. However, this would not give the Sacrament of Baptism it's due. At this point, the best way I can think of to handle the excellent issue you raise is a disjunctive account: add a disjunct to capture people grafted into Christ via non-intentional means.

Heath,

1. I like that suggestion in that it seems to get the right kind of attitude without implying actual success.

2. Yes, as I said in response to Jeremy's essentially the same comment, that is a very tough issue. I think this shows why the investigation is interesting even though I personally don't accept the assumption--that Christ should count as a Christian. I, at least, did not foresee that the commitment gambit would lead to this inclusiveness problem via a reasonableness caveat. It makes me want to go back and see if I can avoid that, but I don't see a way to at this point. I suppose the wisest thing to do is to speak the way the Fathers of Vatican II talk: concentric circles of communion. In this sense--which I take to include Karl Rhaner's "anonymous" Christiaons--even some atheists are Christians, they are just further from the center than almost all other Christians.

3. I think you are right. I started out thinking that the a conception of "Christian" which included Christ--which I've found to be a fairly common assumption--would be interesting to investigate--which it has--and that it would be coherent and not too troublesome. I'm now sure that it *is* fairly troublesome and it's coherence has been called into question in my mind.

All,

Thanks for treating this with me, I personally have found it very enlightening. I definitely have come to the conclusion that the pitfalls of counting Christ as a Christian are not worth the benefits of doing so. Perhaps the most useful concrete conclusion was the realization that I think the notion of Christian delineation which I actually use most often--the concentric circles notion used heavily in the documents of Vatican II--is probably the most useful notion there is. I should not be surprised.

One puzzle remains for me though. I'm pretty committed to there being no Christians in Hell. This is to reaffirm my commitment to the idea that the concept Christian entails the concept saved from perdition. But it seems that I'm also committed to a conception of being a Christian which is vague and could admit of borderline cases. This reminds me of Ted Sider's paper on Hell and vagueness (to which Ted and I have a nearly completed MS of a reply). One response we offer is that God can see to it than none of the possible borderline cases actually is exemplified. This present discussion gives me renewed interest in finishing that paper.

Trent,

Thanks for your response. I'm not sure I see the virtues of the disjunctive definition. It seems to me that the best way to define 'Christian' is along lines hinted at in my initial post: namely, anyone who belongs to the Body of Christ is a Christian.

This isn't especially informative, of course, since it simply raises the question of who, exactly, belongs to the Body of Christ (and that looks very much like the original question phrased somewhat differently). To me, that's fine. I like such non-reductive definitions. And it seems to me that there ought to be a kind of veil here. I understand that the Orthodox have a saying: "we know where the Church _is_, but we don't know where she isn't." I take it that they mean we can pick out sufficient conditions for being part of the Church (i.e. for being a Christian), but we can't pick out (all of) the necessary conditions. Does this seem wrong to you?

If I may change gears a little bit, I was interested in your comments on Hell and Vagueness. Like you, I've thought a little bit about Sider's paper, and I considered writing a reply, too, although I don't think I'll ever get around to it. It seemed to me that Sider's survey of possible non-vague criteria for damnability was much too quick. He passed right over the most obvious one--namely, mortal sin. The Church teaches that anyone who dies in a state of mortal sin is damned. (And there has at least been a strong tendency towards teaching that anyone who dies in a state of original sin is likewise damned. I'm not sure if this is de fide, though. I should check my Ott. Anyway, bracket this issue for now.) As long as it's not vague whether a person is in a state of mortal sin when she dies, there's no continuum. There's the stark dichotomy: either one is in a state of grace, or one is in a state of mortal sin. And it seems plausible to think that this really isn't vague. I mean, mortal sin isn't a small thing. The Church teaches that in committing a mortal sin one deliberately rejects God. So this might be the non-vague criterion that Sider thinks can't exist.

The obvious reply is that mortal sin actually _is_ a vague critierion. An act has to meet three conditions to count as mortally sinful, as you probably know: grave matter (or matter that is believed to be grave), full knowledge of the act's sinfulness and full consent. Maybe there is a continuum on the "consent" condition, for example. If so, it might be vague whether the sin was mortal. If this reply is right, then the mortal sin move doesn't help much. You'd wind up having to use the move you're already using--the point about God's not allowing the borderline cases to actually be instantiated.

Another problem is the point about original sin that I mentioned above. Consider (1) the difficulty of finding necessary conditions for belonging to the Church, and (2) the supposition that those who belong to the Church are cleansed of original sin while those who do not belong to the Church are not. If those two points are right, then maybe it's sometimes vague whether a person is in a state of original sin. Maybe there are borderline cases of people belonging to the Church? I don't know what to say about this.

Anyway, this is all to say that I'm very interested in reading your paper, if you're willing to send it to me. You can reach me at tonerpj@hotmail.com. Thanks!