Is Christianity Anti-Calvinist? Theologian Responds to Peter Thiel and Ross Douthat

Summary

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Episode Overview

Title: Is Christianity Anti-Calvinist? Theologian Responds to Peter Thiel and Ross Douthat
Host: Michael Horton
Date: October 14, 2025

This episode of "Know What You Believe" features Michael Horton and Adriel Sanchez exploring a provocative conversation between New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, taken from Douthat's "Interesting Times" podcast. The focus is on Christianity’s relationship to technology, transhumanism, human nature, and—most pointedly—the perennial debate about Calvinism and God's sovereignty. Through thoughtful engagement, the hosts assess the claims of Thiel and Douthat regarding the transformation of humanity, the role of God in history, and the nature of Christian hope.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Transhumanism, Technology & Radical Transformation

• Transhumanism’s Aspirations:
  Thiel describes the transhumanist desire as a “radical transformation where your human natural body gets transformed into an immortal body... We want you to be able to change your heart and change your mind and change your whole body” (03:11).
  He contrasts this with Christianity, suggesting that Christianity is even more radical—requiring not just bodily but also spiritual transformation.

• Christian Response:
  Adriel Sanchez pushes back, underscoring the difference: “It’s actually more beautiful because what happens is the same body that dies and decays will be raised. It’s not that we ever transcend our bodies... Our bodies will be transformed. We are body, soul unities.” (03:14)

• Critique of Transhumanism & Gnosticism:
  Adriel notes: “Transhumanism really comes close to the ancient Gnostic heresy in denying that you…” (03:55), drawing a historical and theological parallel.

2. Human Nature & the Idea of “Transcending Nature”

• Thiel’s Thesis:
  Thiel claims, “I think the word nature does not occur once in the Old Testament. And so it is about transcending nature. It is about overcoming things. And the closest thing you can say to nature is that people are fallen.” (04:53)

• Christian Counterpoint:
  Adriel Sanchez challenges this, stating, “Too often we start with human nature being fallen and not with human nature as good, essentially from the hand of the Creator... God didn’t create us to overcome nature. He created us with a particular nature, to care for nature, to be part of nature, to serve nature, to steward nature.” (05:08)

  Notable quote:

  • Adriel Sanchez: “This pitting of humanity against nature is very much of the transsexual, transgender, transhumanist outlook, it seems. And all of it again, going back to... ancient Gnosticism.” (06:47)

3. Eschatology: Antichrist, Armageddon, and One World Government

• Thiel’s Apocalyptic Framing:
  Thiel frames existential risk through an end-times lens: “The default political solution people have for all these existential risks is one world governance... The atheist philosophical framing is one world or none... The Christian framing... is Antichrist or Armageddon? You have the one world state of the Antichrist or... we’re sleepwalking towards Armageddon.” (08:28)

• Hosts’ Analysis:
  Adriel remarks on the familiarity of this eschatology: “That was a very popular thing, not just in the John Birch Society, but in much of the evangelical dispensationalism I was raised in... Think of Left Behind if you’ve ever seen that movie at a summer camp. That seems to be Peter Thiel’s baseline assumption...” (09:43)

• Thiel’s Critique of Apocalyptic Narratives:
  He points out a “plot hole” in the Antichrist narrative, questioning how global control could occur, and suggesting, “The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop. You talk about existential risk nonstop. And this is what you need to regulate.” (11:08)
  Striking moment:

  • Thiel: “In the 17th century... I can imagine a Dr. Strangelove, Edward Teller type person... In our world, it’s far more likely to be Greta Thunberg.” (12:00)

4. The Sovereignty of God: Calvinism vs. Christian Doctrine

• Thiel’s ‘Anti-Calvinist’ Stance:
  Thiel is cautious about attributing too much causality to God: “Attributing too much causation to God is always a problem... The Christian view is anti-Calvinist. God is not behind history. God is not causing everything. If you say God's causing everything, then...” (13:14)

• Ross Douthat’s Intervention:
  Douthat responds: “That’s not Calvinism, though. That's just Christianity.” (13:29)

• Adriel’s Clarification:
  Adriel clarifies: “There are just these doctrines that Christianity, Christians have historically believed. It's called Calvinism, now dismissed as Calvinism, like it's some weird branch... This is just Christianity. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. God wouldn’t leave the world to destruction. Humans don’t have that kind of sovereignty, that kind of power to destroy themselves. God loves the world too much to let us do that.” (13:33)

5. Human Freedom, Hope, and Christian Agency

• Room for Human Freedom:
  Thiel maintains: “There’s a great deal of scope for human action, for human freedom. If I thought these things were deterministic... You should just have some yoga and prayerful meditation and wait while the lions eat you up. And I don’t think that's what you're supposed to do.” (14:28)

• Hopeful Action:
  Douthat: “In trying to resist the Antichrist, using your human freedom, you should have hope that you'll succeed. Right.” (14:53)

• Adriel’s Theological Synthesis:
  Adriel sums up: “The fact that these are our two choices actually shows what human beings are capable of by their own free will. But the cross of Christ represents what is possible when God rolls up his sleeves.” (15:11)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• Peter Thiel on Transhumanism vs. Christianity:
  “Transhumanism is just changing your body, but you also need to transform your Soul.” (03:14)

• Adriel Sanchez on Resurrection:
  “It’s actually more beautiful because what happens is the same body that dies and decays will be raised. It’s not that we ever transcend our bodies... Our bodies will be transformed.” (03:14)

• Peter Thiel on Human Nature and Fallenness:
  “I think the word nature does not occur once in the Old Testament. And so it is about transcending nature... The closest thing you can say to nature is that people are fallen.” (04:53)

• Adriel Sanchez on Creation:
  “God didn’t create us to overcome nature. He created us with a particular nature, to care for nature, to be part of nature, to serve nature, to steward nature.” (05:08)

• Peter Thiel’s End Times Binary:
  “The Christian framing, which in some ways is the same question, is Antichrist or Armageddon? You have the one world state of the Antichrist or... Armageddon.” (09:43)

• Adriel Sanchez on Calvinism and Christianity:
  “Calvinism, now dismissed... like it’s some weird branch... This is just Christianity. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” (13:33)

• Thiel on Human Agency:
  “If I thought these things were deterministic, you might as well, you know... just have some yoga and prayerful meditation and wait while the lions eat you up.” (14:28)

• Adriel Sanchez on Redemptive Possibility:
  “But the cross of Christ represents what is possible when God rolls up his sleeves.” (15:11)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:19] Introduction to Douthat-Thiel dialogue
• [02:40–03:58] Thiel & Sanchez on transhumanism, resurrection, and Gnosticism
• [05:08–06:47] Human nature, creation, and critique of contemporary anthropologies
• [08:21–09:43] Thiel on Antichrist, Armageddon, and world government
• [13:11–14:19] “Anti-Calvinist” vs. historic Christianity on the sovereignty of God
• [14:28–15:11] Discussion of human agency, freedom, hope, and divine intervention

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Tone & Language

The episode strikes a thoughtful, sometimes spirited tone, engaging ideas at the intersection of theology, culture, and technology. The hosts aim for clarity and generosity—even when disagreeing with Thiel’s characterizations—always steering the discussion back to the historical Christian faith anchored in scriptural and confessional convictions.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode offers a robust theological response to provocative cultural and philosophical challenges posed by prominent public intellectuals. It clarifies the nature and scope of Christian hope, resurrection, and agency, and defends historic Christian doctrines—often caricatured as Calvinist—as the heartbeat of Christianity itself. Through careful analysis, the hosts equip Christian listeners to engage thoughtfully with contemporary debates on technology, progress, and faith.

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Transcript

[Michael Horton]

At Sola Media, we're committed to helping Christians deepen their faith through clear, Christ centered teaching rooted in the riches of the Reformation. Every podcast, article and resource we produce is offered free of charge, and it's only possible because of generous monthly supporters. When you become a partner Today, you'll receive two remarkable books as our Rediscovering the Holy Spirit by Dr. Michael Horton and Praying with Jesus by Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We believe these books can guide you into a clearer understanding of the Spirit's work and a richer prayer life. To become a partner and receive these two books, visit solamedia.org partner.

[Adriel Sanchez]

Earlier this year, we had New York Times columnist Ross Doubt on the program and we had a great conversation with him, but we wanted to take a look at a conversation he had with Peter Thiel on his podcast, Interesting Times. Oddly enough, the things that Peter Thiel thinks about are the Bible, orthodoxy, the Antichrist, and as we'll see, even Calvinism. Let's see what he has to say.

[Ross Doubt]

The world of AI is clearly filled with people who at the very least seem to have a more utopian, transformative, whatever word you want to call it, view of the technology than you're expressing here. Right. And you were mentioned earlier, the idea that, that the modern world used to promise radical life extension and doesn't anymore. It seems very clear to me that a number of people deeply involved in artificial intelligence see it as a kind of mechanism for transhumanism, for transcendence of our mortal flesh and either some kind of creation of a successor species or some kind of merger of mind and machine. Is it hype? Is it delusion? Is it something you worry about? You. I think you, you would prefer the human race to endure. Right? You're hesitating.

[Peter Thiel]

Well, I.

[Ross Doubt]

Yes.

[Peter Thiel]

I don't know. I would, I would.

[Ross Doubt]

This is a long hesitation, long hesitation.

[Peter Thiel]

There's so many questions.

[Ross Doubt]

And plus, should the human race survive?

[Peter Thiel]

Yes.

[Ross Doubt]

Okay.

[Peter Thiel]

But I also would like us to radically solve these problems. And so, you know, it's always, I don't know.

[Adriel Sanchez]

Yeah.

[Peter Thiel]

Transhumanism is this, you know, the ideal was this radical transformation where your human natural body gets transformed into an immortal body. We want more than cross dressing or changing your sex organs. We want you to be able to change your heart and change your mind and change your whole body. And then orthodox Christianity, by the way, the critique orthodox Christianity has of this is these things don't go far enough like that. Transhumanism is just changing your body, but you also need to transform your Soul.

[Adriel Sanchez]

Well, actually Christianity, not that that it's more radical in this transformation than transhumanism. It's actually more beautiful because what happens is the same body that dies and decays will be raised. It's not that we ever transcend our bodies. We have transhumanists wanting to transcend our bodies and Christians wanting to transform our souls. Our bodies will be transformed. We are body, soul, unities. And transhumanism really comes close to the ancient Gnostic heresy in denying that you.

[Peter Thiel]

Need to transform your whole self. And so. Right.

[Ross Doubt]

But the other. Wait, wait, sorry. I generally agree with what I think is your belief that religion should be a friend to science and ideas of scientific progress. I think any idea of divine providence has to encompass the fact that we have progressed and achieved and done things that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors. But it still also seems like, yeah, the promise of Christianity in the end is you get the perfected body and the perfected soul through God's grace. And the person who tries to do it on their own with a bunch of machines is likely to end up as a dystopian character.

[Peter Thiel]

Well, uh, it's, let's, let's articulate this.

[Ross Doubt]

And you can have a heretical form of Christianity. Right. That says something else.

[Peter Thiel]

I, I don't know. I, I, I think the word nature does not occur once in the Old Testament. And so it is about transcending nature. It is about overcoming things. And the closest thing you can say to nature is that people are fallen.

[Adriel Sanchez]

See, this is a problem that we've addressed before on this program, that too often we start with human nature being fallen and not with human nature as good, essentially from the hand of the Creator. When Peter Thiel says that the Old Testament, the word nature doesn't appear in the Old Testament. The idea of God naturing, creating particular beings with particular natures is assumed throughout the scriptures right back to the creation narrative itself. You know, we're bounded, we're finite. There's a utopian worldview here in the tech world that assumes we can become infinite, like God. We can become not creatures, but in a sense, creators and overcome nature. God didn't create us to overcome nature. He created us with a particular nature, to care for nature, to be part of nature, to serve nature, to steward nature. And this pitting of humanity against nature is very much of the transsexual, transgender, transhumanist outlook, it seems. And all of it again, going back to, with familiar echoes of ancient Gnosticism.

[Peter Thiel]

That that's the natural thing in a Christian sense is that you're messed up. And that's true. But, you know, there's some, some ways that, you know, with God's help, you are supposed to transcend that and overcome that. And. But then if you just.

[Ross Doubt]

Present company accepted. Present company accepted. Most of the people working to build the hypothetical machine God don't think that they're cooperating with Yahweh, Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts. They think that they're building immortality on their own.

[Peter Thiel]

We're jumping around a lot of things. So again, the, the critique I was saying is they're not ambitious enough. From a Christian point of view. These people are not ambitious enough. Now then we get into this question. Well, are they still.

[Ross Doubt]

But they're not morally and spiritually ambitious.

[Peter Thiel]

Enough, and are they still physically ambitious enough and are they even still really transhumanists? And this is where, okay, maybe it's about uploading, which. Okay, well, that's not quite. I'd rather have my body. I don't want just a computer program that simulates me. So that uploading seemed like a step down from cryonics.

[Ross Doubt]

There's also a very macroscopic question that you're interested in that, you know, will pull on the religion thread a little bit here. You have been giving talks recently about the concept of the Antichrist, which is a Christian concept, an apocalyptic concept. What does that mean to you? What is the Antichrist?

[Peter Thiel]

How much time do we have?

[Ross Doubt]

We've got as much time as you have to talk about the Antichrist.

[Peter Thiel]

All right, well, I could talk about. But no, I think the default political solution people have for all these existential risks is one world governance. You know, what do you do about nuclear weapons? We have a United nations with real teeth. And it's, it's. They're controlled by an international political order. It's, you know, what do we do about AI? And we need global compute governance. We need, you know, a one world government to control all the computers, log every single keystroke to make sure people don't program, you know, a dangerous AI. And so the atheist philosophical framing is one world or none. That was a short film that was put out by the Federation of American Scientists in the late 40s, stars the nuclear bomb blowing up the world. And obviously you need a one world government to stop it. One world or none. And the Christian framing, which in some ways is the same question, is Antichrist or Armageddon? You have the one world state of the Antichrist or, or we're sleepwalking towards Armageddon.

[Adriel Sanchez]

It's interesting that the eschatology that is being represented here is very close to kind of end times scenario that I grew up with, frankly, connecting the coming Antichrist with a one world government and the United nations sort of being the target of that. That was a very popular thing, not just in the John Birch Society, but in much of the evangelical dispensationalism I was raised in. It would be a one world government. Think of Left behind if you've ever seen that movie at a summer camp. That seems to be Peter Thiel's baseline assumption of the end times. He seems to follow that idea that the Antichrist is a figure who is.

[Peter Thiel]

For.

[Adriel Sanchez]

An internationalist kind of order. And it's interesting how this plays out politically in our current climate.

[Peter Thiel]

One world or none. Antichrist or Armageddon on one level are the same question. And this was a plot hole in all these Antichrist books people wrote. How does the Antichrist take over the world? He gives these demonic hypnotic speeches and people just fall for it. And so it's this plot hole, demonium, exile.

[Ross Doubt]

It's totally. It's implausible.

[Peter Thiel]

It's a very implausible plot hole.

[Ross Doubt]

Right.

[Peter Thiel]

But I think we have an answer to this plot hole. The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon non stop. You talk about existential risk nonstop. And this is what you need to regulate. It's the opposite of the picture of Baconian science from the 17th, 18th century where, you know, the Antichrist is like some evil tech genius, evil scientist who invents this machine to take over the world. People are way too scared for that. In our world, the thing that has political resonance is the opposite. We need to stop science. We need to just say stop to this. And this is where, yeah, I don't know, in the 17th century, I can imagine a Dr. Strangelove, Edward Teller type person taking over the world. In our world, it's far more likely to be Greta Thunberg.

[Ross Doubt]

In a sense, we're already living under a moderate rule of the Antichrist. In that telling, do you think God is in control of history?

[Peter Thiel]

I think there's always room for human freedom and human choice. These things are not absolutely predetermined one way or another.

[Ross Doubt]

But God wouldn't leave us forever under the rule of a mild, moderate, stagnationist Antichrist. Right? That can't be how the story ends, right?

[Peter Thiel]

Attributing too much causation to God is always a problem. You know, I know there are different Bible verses I can give you, but I'll give you John 15:25, where Christ says, they hated me without cause. And so it's all these people that are persecuting Christ have no reason, no cause for why they're persecuting Christ. And if we interpret this as a ultimate causation verse, they want to say, I'm persecuting because God caused me to do this. God is causing everything. And the Christian view is anti Calvinist. God is not behind history. God is not causing everything. If you say God's causing everything, then.

[Ross Doubt]

God is behind Jesus Christ entering history because God was not going to leave us in a stagnationist, decadent Roman Empire. At some point, at some point, God is going to step in.

[Peter Thiel]

I am not. I am not that Calvinist.

[Ross Doubt]

And that's not Calvinism, though. That's just Christianity.

[Adriel Sanchez]

That is. I'm so glad, Ross, as a Roman Catholic, when it comes to God being behind history, or it comes to substitutionary atonement, or it comes to original sin, they're just these doctrines that Christianity, Christians have historically believed. It's called Calvinism, now dismissed as Calvinism, like it's some weird branch of something, an aberrant sort of theology. Ross is exactly right. This is just Christianity. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. God wouldn't leave the world to destruction. Humans don't have that kind of sovereignty, that kind of power to destroy themselves. God loves the world world too much to let us do that.

[Ross Doubt]

God will not leave us eternally staring into screens and being lectured by Greta Thunberg. Right. He will not abandon us to that fate.

[Peter Thiel]

For better and for worse. I think there's a great deal of scope for human action, for human freedom. If I thought these things were deterministic, you might as well, you know, maybe just accept it. The lines are coming. You should just have some yoga and prayerful meditation and wait while the lines eat you up. And I don't think that's what you're supposed to do.

[Ross Doubt]

I agree with that. And I think on that note, I'm just trying to be hopeful and suggesting that, you know, in trying to resist the Antichrist, using your human freedom, you should have hope that you'll succeed. Right.

[Peter Thiel]

We can agree on that.

[Ross Doubt]

Good. Peter Thiel, thank you for joining me.

[Adriel Sanchez]

I do find Peter Thiel's juxtaposition of Antichrist and Armageddon really fascinating and that the fear of one can lead to the other. But it's interesting to me too that human beings are responsible for both. Only God is responsible for redemption. Human beings are so corrupt, our hearts are so twisted that we can create totalitarian Antichrist on one hand and on the other hand simultaneously create Armageddon. The fact that these are our two choices actually shows what human beings are capable of by their own free will. But the cross of Christ represents what is possible when God rolls up his sleeves.

[Michael Horton]

Is God the author of sin and evil? Do we actually have free will? Did Jesus die for everyone or just some? In For Calvinism, Michael Horton provides a deep and thoughtful response to some of the most common misconceptions of Calvinism. He explores the historical roots of Reformed thought, unpacks doctrines like election and perseverance, and encourages faith and practice in today's world. This month, when you support our work with a gift of any amount, we'll send you a copy of this book for Calvinism. Get your copy today with a gift of any [e-mail] offers.