Two Things

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s conversion. Who is the econ GOAT? Plus: Community Haps.

Coffee this Friday, December 8, at the usual time and place.

(1) Conversion and the transcendent: Some conversions hit like a lightning bolt—think Saul on the road to Damascus. Others mimic a light slowly dawning—like C.S. Lewis’s conversion first to theism then to Christian faith. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s recently announced conversion to Christianity, after her journeys through Islam and atheism, may fit the latter mold. Writing at First Things, Carl Trueman calls it a “fascinating sign of the times,” noting that Ali is “concerned with how the West is dismantling its traditional cultural norms” and has “taken the obvious—and indeed necessary—next step: She sees the necessity of a sacred order and is not afraid to say so.” But caution is in order:

[Ali’s conversion raises] the perennial problem of the connection between the transcendent and the immanent, too often resolved in church history by instrumentalizing the gospel in the service of social activism. This has always been the vulnerability of liberal Protestantism…. Liberal Protestantism is dying, however…. And today, we must also be careful that the truth of the gospel is not instrumentalized in the service of a different cultural campaign—even, for instance, a cause as worthy as that of opposing the leftist culture warriors who seek to overturn everything from parenthood to women’s rights. The most striking omission in Ali’s testimony is the one thing necessary to prevent such: a sense of the transcendent. God does not exist because he is useful for combatting wokeness or any other threat to Western civilization. He is useful because he exists, in holiness and transcendence.

(2) First GPT book: On EconTalk, Russ Roberts recently hosted Tyler Cowen to discuss his new book, GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of All Time and Why Does it Matter? It’s a fascinating exploration into the annals of economic thought. And it’s not your typical economics read. Rather than dry, technical analysis, Cowen takes readers on an engaging journey through nine thrilling chapters, profiling economic giants like Milton Friedman, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, and Adam Smith. He delves into what makes these figures so compelling—their personal stories, their context, and the monumental impact they've had on our world. In essence, the book is a celebration of economic ideas woven through the narrative of its most influential protagonists.

But something else makes the book distinct. Cowen says it’s “the first major work published in GPT-4.” He calls it a “generative book.” From the project’s homepage:

Do you yearn for something more than a book? And yet still love books? How about a book you can query, and it will answer away to your heart’s content? How about a book that will create its own content, on demand, or allow you to rewrite it? A book that will tell you why it is (sometimes) wrong? That is what I have tried to build with my latest work….

This book is not just the text, it’s the text plus what you use AI to do with it. You can think of it as a universal library on the topic of the book—namely the great economists—and of course economics too. Not to mention everything else as well.

Go ahead. Try it out. You can ask the AI to summarize individual chapters or give you an overview of the book. (It helped me write this post, for example!) It will share criticisms of the book. You can even demand the punchline: Who, after all, is the GOAT? You’ll have to ask the AI yourself….

---

Community Haps: I’d like Two Things to start featuring local events of interest to readers, particularly events that enrich our faith and thought lives. I’m not married to the term “Community Haps” and I reserve the right to change it on a whim. Please write or talk to me if you have events to be featured here.

• December 6, 7:30 p.m.: CCU for Israel Prayer Vigil, Lakewood, CO.

• December 7, 4:30-5:30 p.m.: UCCS Center for the Study of Government and the Individual hosts Todd Zywicki for “What is the Rule of Law and Why Does it Matter?”

• December 10, 3:00 p.m.: Chabad Lubavitch of Southern Colorado Hanukkah parade and public menorah lighting at Shops at Briargate.

• December 10, 4:00 p.m.: St. George’s Anglican Church hosts an Advent Lessons and Carols service. (It is also hosting Advent Evensong at 6 pm on Wednesdays, Dec. 6, 13, and 20.)