When ” Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams, in his last days before dying, announced that he had converted to Christianity, my immediate thought was that it was either a final joke by the “cancelled” wit and iconoclast or a classic deathbed conversion that lowered my opinion of him. It may have been both based on his final tweet, which said in part,
“Many of my Christian friends have asked me to find Jesus before I go. I’m not a believer, but I have to admit the risk-reward calculation… for doing so looks so attractive to me. So here I go. I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and look forward to spending an eternity with Him. The part about me not being a believer should be quite quickly resolved; if I wake up in heaven, I won’t need any more convincing than that. I hope I’m still qualified for entry.”
Ann Althouse, for some strange reason (but she was always a big Scott Adams fan) finds this announcement astute and charming, rating it “an impressive mix of intelligence, respect, humor, and honesty. I have read many Christians cheering for Adams as well.
This is demeaning to God and Christianity, and I say this as a life-time agnostic. What kind of silly religion holds that you will reach paradise for eternity as long as you say the magic words, whether they are true or not, just before shuffling off these mortal coils?
After his film career, Groucho Marx hosted an iconic early TV game show called, appropriately for this post, “You Bet Your Life.” If a contestant said the “secret word” while chatting with the comedian, a marionette duck that resembled Groucho dropped down from the ceiling holding a card with the winning word in its bill, and the lucky contestant won some money, usually $50. In the Christian game show “You Bet Eternity,” it’s a magic phrase that wins the prize: “I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.” And it doesn’t matter if you do or not, as long as you say so. As far as I know, there is no duck, but who can tell? The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Adams has some distinguished company for this cynical attitude. In their famous correspondence when both Founders were in their dotage, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had an exchange in which Adams asked his friend, in effect, “Do you really believe in God?” Jefferson wrote back that, in all honesty, he didn’t but that it seemed prudent to him to formally “believe” if there was the slightest chance that doing so would get him into heaven.
In Jefferson’s case the course was particularly prudent, as Tom continued to be a slave-holder after stating quite eloquently that the practice was a moral outrage, and there was that keeping his dead wife’s half-sister as a concubine problem.
My mother, who was always playing the angles, once said outright that her pretenses of being religious were, like Jefferson’s, a hedge against ending up in Hell. This always seemed wrong to me, but I also realized that probably a majority of so-called Christians embrace the faith out of fear and prudence rather than genuine belief. After all, it’s the canny thing to do in risk-reward terms, as the two Founders agreed.
It is profoundly disturbing to me, as an ethicist, to wonder whether the Supreme Being has no regard for core ethical values like honesty and integrity, or having the courage of one’s convictions.
Ethics Alarms 
It isn’t magic words. The words are just an expression of one’s willingness to accept oneself for who they are (fallen) and God for who He is (our only savior).
Christianity asks for nothing else. Luke 23:40-43
If you don’t mean it and the words still “work,” then they are magic words, like “Presto Chango!”
It’s out of our hands now, but as a Catholic I believe in salvation by faith and works. Faith alone is just noise. Religion also isn’t a joke, although some might think otherwise (and I’d appreciate those folks keeping their thoughts to themselves), and I don’t think God doesn’t see this cynic’s cynicism for what it is. At a bare minimum Adams is due for a LONG stay in purgatory before being admitted to Heaven.
As I said, Jack, it is not the words that work. It is the intention/belief/conviction behind them.
Did you just make an ethical case for Calvanism?
Sounds like Pascal’s Wager.
Jack,
I think the important thing to consider is that, from the Christian perspective, God wants every single one of us with him in Heaven (cf 1 Tim 2:4-7). As some theologians have stated, God is crazy in love with us. He’s so in love with us that the Second Person in the Blessed Trinity became incarnate as a man and suffered and died for us while we were still in enmity with God. God goes to unbelievable, unimaginable lengths to draw us to him. If we are on fire with love for him, perfect. If we simply would prefer to live with him rather than burn in Hell, he’ll accept that. (See what Catholics teach on contrition and attrition for a deeper discussion on that.) What separates us from God, ultimately, is our own unwillingness to spend eternity with him.
Someone who spends a lifetime running away from God and who desires to do everything according to his own principles, will probably have a difficult time finding the willingness, even at death, to submit himself to God. But someone who on his deathbed has a genuine conversion will be saved. If that seems abhorrent, one need look at Jesus parable of the workers who were called at various times during the day. Even the ones called at the very end of the day received a day’s wage in the parable.
There’s no guarantee that Scott Adams will be in paradise because of his deathbed willingness to speak the words, “I accept Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior.” That’s a formula used in some Protestant circles, and some Reformed communities within that umbrella truly believe if you speak those words, you’re done, and nothing you do, no sin you could commit in the future, will separate you from God. But most Christians believe that simply making such a profession is not sufficient, that there does have to be an interior conversion that accompanies such a profession. Most believe that baptism is necessary, either directly or a baptism of desire if direct baptism is truly unavailable before the convert dies. In the case of Scott Adams, I’m not aware of him receiving or even seeking out baptism. That leaves him, at the very end, needing a genuine, perfect desire to know, love, and server God in order to attain salvation. But again, only God knows what is truly in in our hearts, and if there’s a speck of willingness in Scott Adam’s soul to love God, God can work with that.
Personally, I’m hopeful that Adams, being willing to engage in Pascal’s Wager, could be saved, and I’m praying for his soul.
Pascal’s Wager: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager
The History of Philosophy without any gaps podcast coincidentally covered it recently: https://historyofphilosophy.net/pascals-wager
He frequently stated that while he was not a believer, he respected religion and envied those who were. My impression was he said it to comfort his Christian friends who were concerned for him.
“What kind of silly religion holds that you will reach paradise for eternity as long as you say the magic words, whether they are true or not, just before shuffling off these mortal coils?”
Not Christianity. Faith comes from believing and not seeing. If Scott Adams didn’t believe in Christ prior to his death, saying the words didn’t make a difference. If he’d been baptized, he would have only gotten wet.
God is not a petty Greek or Roman deity, a mythical reward elf like Santa Claus or a mercurial Star Trek alien messing around with us because He can. He is the only omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being in the entire universe (What about Satan, you ask? Satan is not omnipotent, omniscient or omnipresent. He is not God’s opposite because that would make him God’s equal. God has no equal).
God knows if you mean it or not. It’s as simple as that. There is no such thing as gaming the system with Him.
The problem is, of course, that we humans do not know what is in the mind of a dying person. American Christians tend to generally try to give the benefit of the doubt to someone who says he or she has become a Christian. This sometimes backfires because we are not always “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16). A large number of people who call themselves Christians in this country are theologically ignorant. Instead, in our celebrity-driven culture, we tend to put well-known people on pedestals when they announce a conversion to Christianity, immediately adding them to speaking rosters as if these new believers have the wisdom of those who’ve followed Christ for decades. It’s no different from granting expertise on Climate Change or other issues to a celebrity with no particular education in such an area. We don’t appraise the new believer to determine if the conversion is genuine or if he or she has sufficient understanding to lead or teach others. This has happened again and again to the point that there are articles and commentaries in Christian publications urging believers to trust but verify when a celebrity proclaims Christ as Savior.
Scott Adams knows the truth now. For his sake, I hope he really did believe. The flippancy of his statement doesn’t bode well.
If he’d been baptized, he would have only gotten wet.
Great line, AM.
Well said!
It is profoundly disturbing to me, as an ethicist, to wonder whether the Supreme Being has no regard for core ethical values like honesty and integrity, or having the courage of one’s convictions.
I think the idea would be God knows if you mean it or not.
Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
It is faith in the Almighty that leads to salvation. Faith is more than a belief, but a conviction. James even argues that demons believe. As a minister, I am skeptical of deathbed confessions. Part of it doesn’t seem fair, but Jesus demonstrates that it shouldn’t matter in the parable of the Labors of the Vineyard. The other part is argued here. As a Christian, I would take his confession and baptize him, but there are no things I can do to save him. Without faith, they are just words spoken, and the body gets wet.
Theologians would argue how much faith you need (Jesus himself would criticize his disciples for having “little faith”), but at least for me, I would say hedging your bets isn’t faith at all. I’m glad I don’t have to be the one to make that decision.
I would say hedging your bets isn’t faith at all.
Exactly.
It is admirable that you have the bravery to broach a controversial topic like this. Given that numerous or many of your contributors are ‘believers’. Defining our metaphysical reality, defining what ‘soul’ is and what ‘spirit’ is and indeed what ‘God’ is — are topics of perennial confusion.
From an Evangelical (Protestant) position his decision will be a very good one for him. From a traditional Catholic position he would likely have to spend a good deal of time in a purgatorial space, but then there is the issue of just how ‘transactional’ was his (so-called) ‘conversion’. Didn’t sound very convincing to me.
But then you never know what goes on inside someone. And then you never know what goes on in a person when they begin to transition out of ‘material existence’ and into a different type of awareness. Like perhaps in the liminal state between awoken consciousness and sleep all sorts of things can happen.
If the life we have here is understood, as it is by some, to be God’s dream in which we participate (more often than not as dreamers), and yet if the soul is eternal (as most mystery schools assert and agree), then in a sense there is no need for such ‘conversions’. You are what you are and what you are does not change in one moment. The dreamer continues the dream but no longer within the frame of the dream that is Earth existence.
“From a traditional Catholic position he would likely have to spend a good deal of time in a purgatorial space, but then there is the issue of just how ‘transactional’ was his (so-called) ‘conversion’. “
I’m not a Catholic. I don’t know enough about the Catholic belief in purgatory. As an evangelical Christian, I don’t think there’s a place between death and Heaven. It reminds me of an episode of “Benson” I saw once when Jessica Tate – Benson’s former employer from “Soap” (I was 12 and easily impressed) – showed up as a ghost, spirit, apparition or something – and told Benson how she’d been killed and ended up in Heaven.
Jessica: “Actually, I was in a waiting area outside of Heaven.”
Benson: “You were in Heaven’s lobby?”
Consider the similarity.
Adams: “…I’m not a believer… and I look forward to spending an eternity with him. The part about me not being a believer should be quickly resolved if I wake up in heaven…'”
Mark 9:24: Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
Salvation doesn’t come from chanting magic words, payment of alms, subjecting yourself to suffering, becoming a famous historic figure, baptism, or anything else.
Christianity, at least some forms of it, define salvation from John 3:16–coming from acknowledging what Jesus has already done for you.
It’s not up to us to decide for Scott and God if he’s attained salvation, I think that’s what he conveyed in one of his last tweets–it’s between him and Jesus.
“…I’m not a believer… and I look forward to spending an eternity with him.”
There is another perspective: You are part-and-parcel of eternity, and everyone is spending eternity (with God). There is no other place to go. There is simply no way around this. That does not save you from consequences however, yet the notion of ‘eternal hell-realms’ cannot, when examined (ethically!) be true.
That’s Good News!