Credo Ut Intelligam

I like what you've done here as far as it relates to your intended purpose; i.e., demonstrating, by accepting it for the sake of argument, that a particular epistemology is insufficient for criticizing Christianity. As to the greater complexity of my own strategy, it has more to do with an altogether different goal. I am concerned with Moses/JEPD; more specifically, with the connection between Mosaic authorship and Redemptive history. And I wasn't consciously trying to undermine smijer's epistemology. I was, for all intentions, agreeing with the idea of the basic reliability of the senses and of an understandable world. I'm not all that concerned with whether or not his is an internalist epistemology (although mine isn't). It just seems to me that the materialistic project of dismissing an objective supernatural realm on the basis that our natural senses cannot perceive it is just as logically flawed as a blind man dismissing objective nocturnal astronomical phenomena because his senses cannot perceive them. If our natural senses allow us to perceive and know the existence of the natural world, it is not a stretch to suppose that an objective supernatural world can be perceived and known through the gift of faith.

Posted by: Kevin at August 13, 2004 01:36 AM

It seems to me that people who believe in astrology are being irrational. There is no evidence for the claims of astrologers, and those claims are the sorts of claims that you shouldn't believe without evidence. Now, I'm going to try to imagine what it would be like if I thought inerrantist Christianity had the same epistemic status as astrology. From this perspective, arguments about advanced theological issues (such as the connection between Mosaic authorship and Redemptive history) would seem queer, ridiculous, and useless. After all, the whole project of inerrantist theology is one big cognitive blunder to begin with.

That's why I think the first thing to do is to respond to the claim that inerrantist Christianity has the same epistemic status as astrology. (Smijer, is this accurate representation of your claim?)

Smijer has articulated his reason for thinking as he does, and I think it's a bit more subtle than "the materialistic project of dismissing an objective supernatural realm on the basis that our natural senses cannot perceive it." Admittedly, w can't prove that the supernatural doesn't exist, just as we can't prove that stars don't exert some casual influence over everyone born in a given month. The question is not "might the supernatural exist?" the question is "are we justified in believing that the Bible is inspired?" What is our evidence for believing in this particular supernaturalistic hypothesis?

Posted by: chris at August 13, 2004 01:41 PM

And the reason I thought you were trying to undermine smijer's epistemology was that you said:

"You may have pinpointed our fundamental disagreement. You're right; I am, to some degree, conflating axiomatic assumptions, faith assumptions, and scientific knowledge. Quite intentionally, too. Conversely, I think that your separation thereof is unwarranted."

Sounds to me like an attempt to undermine an epistemology

Posted by: chris at August 13, 2004 01:55 PM

I didn't make myself very clear at all. My comments had nothing to do with astrology, but astronomy. I was thinking of a blind man rejecting the very existence of the moon and the stars because he has no direct sensory link to them, the repeated assurances of his sighted friends notwithstanding (I added "nocturnal" because it occurred to me that he might accept the sensory evidence of the sun's heat). I simply meant this as an analogy, not a proof: if we who have five senses can observe the folly of a four-sensed man denying the existence, both of the sense that he is missing and of anything that he might observe thereby, is it not conceivable that people with all of their natural senses are just as wrong to insist that reality cannot extend beyond what they can perceive? This is a claim of philosophical naturalism (which is what I meant by "materialistic"). You are correct that Smijer's reasons are a bit more subtle than this: somewhere in his comments he does state that it is possible that matters of faith may be true. However, this concession is practically nullified by his refusal to accept the testimony of scripture or of faith as evidence until it is shown to be true. The problem seems to be in our respective definitions of "evidence." He is thinking of it in terms of science: the repeatable results of experimentation. I am thinking of evidence in a forensic setting. Evidence, in this case, is anything that a jury is allowed to hear for consideration. The determination of its facticitiy or truth is a matter for their deliberation. Essentially (and he still disagrees with this), I believe that he is doing the same thing with scriptural testimony that he accuses AiG of doing with the evidence against Mosaic authorship. Neither one of them are giving a fair hearing to opposing evidence. [This whole exchange is covered in our last four comments, which you may not have seen because they're hidden without hitting "preview."]

I see where you got the idea about trying to undermine his epistemology; however, epistemology wasn't my conscious intent. The alleged difference between axioms and faith assumptions is an epistemological issue on which he and I disagree. I don't see how an axiomatic assumption is not a faith assumption. But then, that distinction was incidental to my point (I think Josiah goes into greater detail on this one). I only mentioned it because he included it first. My main focus was on his juxtaposition of faith assumptions and scientific knowledge. I was granting his epistemological basis for scientific knowledge (the whole idea of reliable sensory perception, not any internalism that may have been there) and suggesting that, if the supernatural realm is objectively real and pereceivable to faith, then faith itself is not just wishful thinking, but the sensory means whereby God allows us to see beyond the natural. I had in mind Calvin's Institutes IV. 14.9:

"But suppose it is true that what sight does in our eyes for seeing light, and what hearing does in our ears for perceiving a voice, are analogous to the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, which is to conceive, sustain, nourish, and establish faith. Then both of these things follow: the sacraments profit not a whit without the power of the Holy Spirit, and nothing prevents them from strengthening and enlarging faith in hearts already taught by that Schoolmaster. There is only this difference: that our ears and eyes have naturally received the faculty of hearing and seeing; but Christ does the same thing in our hearts by special grace beyond the measure of nature."

For whatever it's worth, my intent was to focus on the idea that I can accept scientific knowledge because I can see it. With this limitation, the epistemological methodology seems to me to be much the same as with objective matters of faith. I was thinking of our differences, not so much in terms of epistemology, but of metaphysics.

Posted by: Kevin at August 13, 2004 04:11 PM

Actually, you made yourself perfectly clear. It was I who made myself unclear. My astrology example had nothing to do with your astronomy example. I should have started out by saying why I was introducing the analogy.

My point was to criticize your goal. I was trying to show that coming to a conclusion about the connection between Mosaic authoriship and Redemptive history is not a sensible goal when your interlocutor thinks about Christianity the way Smijer does. To show this, I wanted to find a way to think about Christianity the way Smijer does. The analogy with astrology was my way of doing that. If you thought about Christianity the way you think about astrology, don't you think you would have little patience with advanced theological arguments? Don't you think that any argument for a conclusion like the one you want to draw would automatically seem unpersuasive? It would to me.

Next point:
remember that in enlightenment & post-enlightenment philosophy, metaphysics (if it's allowed at all) is always posterior to epistemology. You've shown that if a certain metaphysical proposition is true then something else is true. ("if the supernatural realm is objectively real and pereceivable to faith, then faith itself is not just wishful thinking, but the sensory means whereby God allows us to see beyond the natural.") But if Smijer's epistemology is right, the antecedent is unjustified (it's not an axiom and there's no evidence for it). So, given his epistemology, he has every right to reject the consequent. And I presume he puts his epistemology prior to his metaphysics. So unless you undermine his epistemology, I don't see how your argument can succeed. (BTW: I think your argument may succeed inasmuch as you have said some things that might serve to undermine his epistemology, even if that wasn't your intent)

Posted by: chris at August 14, 2004 01:38 PM

Oh, okay, that makes a lot more sense. You're right about the goal when you put it in terms of my interlocutor. But then, that particular goal preceded any idea that he would respond (although, I am quite pleased that he did). My original post, even if written in response to his, assumed a Christian audience. I was going for a positive statement, beyond a mere Biblical say-so, of why Mosaic authorship is important. [Not that a Biblical say-so is unimportant. I'm also interested in why scripture chooses to say what it does.] Had I intended to respond directly to him to begin with, I would have done so on his post, without an allusion to the Redemptive history angle (I can't say, however, that, eventually, I wouldn't have mentioned it as an explanation of my own motivation). Taking that away, I guess I was trying to undermine his epistemology, now that I understand what you meant. I was just conceiving of it more in metaphysical or ontological terms. I wasn't even thinking in terms of epistemological priority. It makes no sense to me. How can there be any knoweldge without first having a knowing subject and a known object?

Posted by: Kevin at August 14, 2004 04:51 PM

Chris & Kevin,

I am in the process of putting together my notes for what will inevitably be my most thoroughly researched blog post ever - tomorrow's "Sunday Sermon". I still intend to try to address not only my own thesis, but the various other takes on it I have encountered from around the chattablogosphere. Still, I do want to discuss some of your questions etc from this post and its comments. Kevin first, since my reply to him is more brief.

Kevin, according to your analogy, it would be as illogical for me to deny the object of your faith as it would an unsighted fellow to deny nocturnal astronomical phenomena. I disagree. The seeing people who speak to the unsighted fellow can use any one of a variety of means to convince him of the phenomena, if he should be skeptical. It may, in fact, take the congenitally blind a while to be convinced of the existence of another type of sense. It can, however, be done - and once done, the blind no longer need be skeptical. This goes back to the epistemology I described to Josiah. Does your story - your theory, if you will - have predictive power? Can you make non-trivial predictions from your system that will allow me to be convinced of it's truth? I do not believe you can. The seeing can defend his theory of visible events in such a way. The blind could, himself, build a machine that detects light in the visible spectrum, converts it to a sound that only he can hear in a small earpiece, and allow a sighted person to make predictions about where to point his instrument to hear the sound at night. Tell me enough about the soul, the Spirit, or the afterlife that you can make meaningful predictions about what I will experience with my regular five senses when I do a test.

Chris,
In your post, you asked me what was desirable about economy in axioms. That is simply Occam's razor in it's purest form. Our entire system depends on the validity of our assumptions. Our assumptions (by definition) cannot be proven or disproven. Assumptions introduce systematic uncertainty. I assume that my senses are generally reliable. If my assumption is wrong, then the brain-in-a-jar which is the real me is wrong about practically everything it thinks. (Descartes found the only real certainty: cognito ergo sum. I think therefore I am, because without existing I could not be thinking.) I have to merely assume that my senses are generally reliable. If I choose more assumptions than necessary, I am exposing myself to more potential for systematic error than necessary. Most of us choose not to, simply because we want the greatest chance of being right. (The branch of the human family tree that didn't care much about being right about things died out long ago ;-) ) If I choose too few, then I won't be wrong about anything, but I will have no chance to understand anything either. That's why I am guided by Occam's razor, but do not consider it an axiom.

On your question about the epistemic status of astrology: in a word, no. From my familiarity with astrology, it is not a faith-based system. It is just a very bad evidence based system that, in effect deceives the gullible. The astrological evangelist may say, "look, I can use this chart to make testable predictions", then use some other method that is available to others who do not even have a chart, and make statistically significant correct guesses about a subject. The subject (and often the practitioner) are unaware of the quite simple methods which produce this illusion of success, and so attribute it to the chart. Were they more careful researchers, they would discover the workings of such methods as cold-reading, hot-reading, and data-mining. I do think that many religious people also do similar things and attribute their seeming success in some walks of life to their religion but, 1) I think (for the most part) they do so unconsciously - without wilfull deception or ignorance, and 2) they are very consciously working from a system of faith: they feel that their beliefs need not be empirically validated. The astrologer believes that his own beliefs should be and are empirically validated.

However, your point is still quite well taken: "The question is not 'might the supernatural exist?' the question is 'are we justified in believing that the Bible is inspired?' What is our evidence for believing in this particular supernaturalistic hypothesis?"

Right. If you are setting Inspiration up as an axiom as Kevin is tempted to do, what value does it provide as an axiom that I should also want to adopt it? Why should I give up the economy of my system to add your axiom? If you are setting Inspiration up as something that can be known by deduction and/or evidence, show me!

If you have only done the former, please do not refer to scripture as "evidence" - please refer to it as "doctrine". If you have done neither the former nor the latter, then please refer to scripture as tradition. Tradition can be evidence, but (as I pointed out in the Sunday Sermon that got all this started) tradition from hundreds or thousands of years after the fact is extremely poor, evidence.

I hope you'll be tuning in tomorrow. It will probably be a late afternoon or evening post.

Posted by: smijer at August 14, 2004 04:59 PM

The point does not depend upon the analogy. Given the limitations of your five senses, the logical course when considering the possibility of objects of faith would be agnosticism. The same thing applies when considering the claim that others may have the ability to perceive these objects. You don't have to believe, but neither can you deny. In order to deny that faith may have an object, which, in the case of the Christian faith is the supernatural realm (God and his dwelling place), you must first assume what you have denied and apply it to yourself. You must invest yourself with the limitless knowledge necessary to prove a negative. Some of us would call that omniscience. Better to simply claim ignorance. But then, what about your critique of the analogy? You claim that "the seeing can defend his theory of visible events in such a way"; i.e, a way that has predicitve power. Oh? It's not like one of the stars is going to fall on anybody. Any predictions concerning such atronomical phenomena can only be verified by the very sense that is lacking. As to the light detecting machine, if the blind man doesn't trust the word of sighted people in the first place, this would do very little to alleviate his scepticism. I, for one, could have an enormous amount of fun with a flashlight.

Posted by: Kevin at August 14, 2004 06:48 PM

Re: the flashlight....
Yes, you could deceive the blind man with one, especially if he did not know of their existence. But even so, the blind man has made progress with his test. If he were clever, he could design a test to detect such deceptions. He could, for instance, calculate the spectrum and intensity of light from both flourescent and incandescent sources, depending on types of power they use, and calculate the same for starlight. He could, without telling his sighted friend, design the machine to make a different sound for starlight, incandescent light, and flourescent light. He might also read a braille book that explains the motions of light, and return without the knowledge of his sighted friend to see if the points that produced light were in the places he would expect.

He could never eliminate all uncertainty, but he could justify his belief - if he is clever, and his sighted friend able, to make a predictive test of the theory of nocturnal astronomical events.

Of course, once his initial skepticism of visual phenomena is overcome, he might be willing to take the word of those around him about the way things look... to whatever degree he trusts their individual ability to communicate the notions to him.

I won't get into the difference between agnosticism, skepticism, and weak or strong atheism at this point. I just want to make clear the distinction between the unsighted man and the unfaith-ed one.

Posted by: smijer at August 15, 2004 12:40 AM

That disitnction between between faith and sight has yet to be clarified. The lesser problem: if the blind man did not know that he was being deceived, thereby thinking that his test had been succesful, what possible motivation could he have for designing something more fool-proof? The greater problem: how does a blind man "calculate the spectrum and intensity of light from both flourescent and incandescent sources"? Without seeing these various sources, how does he know that different kinds of light are responsible for the different sounds? How does he know that the the different kinds of light even exist? Remember that this blind man is sceptical to the point of not trusting the word of anyone else; consequently, he cannot be assisted while making his machines. How exactly does the blind man do it? You seem to think that he could. Tell me, is your confidence in this blind man's abilities axiomatic or is it scientific knowledge? If it's an axiom, then here's to uneconomical complications. Scientific deduction? I'd like to see the experimental data on unassisted blind people building even the most rundimentary of light detecting devices. Maybe then there might grounds for predicting the success of our protagonist. I'm all for the trustworthiness of predictions based on rigorous scientific experiment. I agree that this counts as knowledge. So far, our dispute has been about whether or not knowledge can go beyond the bounds of science. But now, in your zeal to defend the sufficiency of science, you're stepping outside of its bounds. Show me something, anything, within the realm of sensory perception and predictive power that justifies the notion that a blind man can perform meaningful unassisted experiments with light. Barring that, welcome to the world of faith claims.

Posted by: Kevin at August 15, 2004 03:52 AM

Ok. Here's the distinction between faith and "sight" , as you put it. "Sight" - the process of testing ideas against observation - is a confidence building method. It does not yield absolute certainty. In our analogy of the blind man, he can never be absolutely certain of the sighted man's claim to nocturnal astronomical phenomena, but he can take steps to increase his confidence in those claims. Even the simplest test, most prone to the possibility of deception, might add confidence and potentially draw out the truth if the story be untrue. If he is properly skeptical and properly clever (and if, as I do suggest as an axiom, reality is available to us on some level), he will design good tests that will increase his confidence in the hypothesis being tested if it passes. His information on how to build the machine comes from the theory itself. If I suggest that there is starlight, he is going to ask me enough questions about it to give him the ability to form tests to that will increase his confidence in my story over the threshold of acceptance. His job is to find out enough about my story to make deductions about what he should be able to do and sense if my story is true. If I am unable to provide him enough answers for him to make such deductions and to increase his confidence through observational testing, then he is absolutely right to remain unconvinced of my story. However - if I am really seeing those stars - with time, effort, and perhaps a little help from my sighted friends, we should be able to satisfactorily answer his questions. With that information he can check our story and satisfy himself of its veracity. In this case, the skeptical blind man only remains unconvinced if we are not actually seeing the stars we are telling him of, or he is simply not clever enough to find good tests.

The difference between faith and "sight" is that under "sight" - an empirical epistemology - we gain our confidence from a system of checking story against observation until we have become convinced one way or the other. Under a faith epistemology, we skip that step and we choose to believe. Under faith, we have no cleverly designed tests to reveal the predictive power that might convince us of an idea, and we don't have the confidence that comes from knowing that we subjected the ideas to tests that could really tell us if our ideas did not match reality. We admit only the evidence that is consistent with our theory and cast our, explain away, or leave as "God's mysteries" all contrary evidence. We do not demand predictive power, we only ask for palliative psychology.

We don't hold our "faith" ideas up to the same kind of scrutiny that we hold up such simple ideas as the non-interpermeability of solids, because we know that our "faith" lack the same predictive power. We don't require our "faith" to stand up to rigorous attempts at falsification - instead we insulate it against falsification with ad hoc stories and theodices. Why? Because if those doctrines had to stand on their own merit against a real potential falsification, we might be impelled to acknowledge their frailty, and thereby lose our faith. Above all, it is preached, one must not lose faith. Whole books are written about "When God Doesn't Make Sense", and "Disappointed in God", and "Guide to Difficult Scriptures". The item of utmost importance - on pain of losing one's beloved religion, and possibly one's eternal soul - is to continue to believe... no matter what.

Posted by: smijer at August 15, 2004 01:24 PM

you said: "If I choose more assumptions than necessary, I am exposing myself to more potential for systematic error than necessary. Most of us choose not to, simply because we want the greatest chance of being right. If I choose too few, then I won't be wrong about anything, but I will have no chance to understand anything either."

Suppose I only accept the axioms of pure mathematics. I might then argue against your position on the grounds that your additional axioms open you up to more potential for systematic error than is necessary. You might respond: "necessary for what? If all you're interested in understanding is pure mathematics, then you have all the axioms you need. But if you're interested in finding out about the natural world, you're going to need more axioms."

Now, if all you are interested in understanding is the natural world, then you have all the axioms you need. But if you're interested in finding out about the supernatural, you're going to need more axioms. Of course I'm assuming that there is a supernatural world, just as you are assuming there is a natural world. And this is of course the whole point of axioms, as you noted.

More importanly, I think there is a problem with this whole way of treating axioms. We are treating them like hypotheses. As if they were things we "choose" after rational deliberation. If they were such then Occam's razor could apply, but they are not. You seem to be trying to justify your rejection of 3 on the grounds that it's risky. But why shouldn't we be risk-takers? Maybe I value truth so much that I'm willing to risk heaps of systematic error in order to get a little bit of truth about the God who spoke through the prophets (who I presume exists), just as you are willing to risk some systematic error in order to understand some things about the natural world (which you presume exists). You seem to be trying to justify your axioms on the grounds that they let you understand something. But why is that a legitimate project? Surely only because your second axiom is true: the world is understandable on some level. This is circular. All you've shown is that your axioms are the most economical way of getting at the truths made available by your axioms. I could argue the same way for 3. But that kind of argument would be no good for convincing you, just as your argument is no good for convincing a skeptic. Axioms are not things we justify by rational deliberation; they are the things that make rational deliberation possible in the first place. As soon as you accept the skeptic's challenge to justify your axioms you have already lost. Any argument you come up with will either be circular or invalid.

By the way, I think you've got an intuitively correct point---you're on to something when you say that 3 just doesn't look like an axiom. But your epistemology doesn't allow you to use mere intuition to decide this question. My epistemology lets me believe things that seem intuitively plausible to me as long as there's no good reason to think otherwise. So I can believe that 3 couldn't be an axiom because it seems intuitively plausible to me that 3 couldn't be an axiom. But for the same reason, I can believe that 3 is true: it seems intuitively plausible to me that the Bible is the word of God, and I know of no good reason to think otherwise. But we aren't using my epistemology as the frame for this discussion. We're using yours. Your epistemology doesn't let us believe things that seem intuitively plausible without positive evidence (except for axioms), and you can give no positive (non-circular) evidence for your claim that 3 is not an axiom.

Posted by: chris at August 15, 2004 04:14 PM

And Kevin: I'm sorry. I understand now what you were doing over on your blog. Thanks for clearing it up for me.

Posted by: chris at August 15, 2004 04:35 PM

Chris, I object to your additional axiom that there is a "natural world" and a "supernatural world", one of which can be known about inductively through observation, and one of which... just requires extra axioms for us to be able to deduce it.

Yes, it's true that one set of axioms may be needed to understand one particular mathematical system, and that it is a different set of axioms that are needed for philosophical grounding to know about the world we live in. It does not follow that there are other real worlds available to us if we just keep adding axioms.

My chosen standard of sufficiency for an axiomatic set is that gives us a rational foundation for knowledge about the world we live in, rather than some idealized mathematical world. That's what we really want to understand in the first place. It's true that we want to know if that world has God's and ghosts, just as we want to know if it has benzene and Mu mesons. If Gods and ghosts are real, we can be hopeful that they will be discovered through the means by which we learn about everything else. If they cannot, we face a net decrease in our chance of correctly understanding the world by positing them axiomatically. All axioms come at the cost of great systematic uncertainty. If we jury-rig our axiomatic set to include a separate, but still meaningful "supernatural world", then we do not actually increase our ability to know the truth about God. Because we rely on unnecessary axioms, and because axioms introduce systematic uncertainty, we are actually increasing our likelihood of deducing something false about God, because our knowledge is more likely to be founded upon a false axiomatic system. So your "risk-taking" approach is really all about risk, wiht very little to gain.

Posted by: smijer at August 16, 2004 07:56 AM

Smijer, as I understand you, the only absolute certainty is "I think, therefore, I am." Beyond this, you have chosen to assume the reliability of your senses. It isn't that it follows from the original certainty, but that this assumption is the most economical means toward maximum understanding of the world with minimal chance of being wrong. Adding axioms only serves to complicate matters and increase the odds of error. So, for instance, any statements about the supernatural are uneconomical because they require additional axioms. Okay.

Reread your own statement, though: "If my assumption is wrong, then the brain-in-a-jar which is the real me is wrong about practically everything it thinks." Since you have no way of knowing that the natural world is real outside of your natural senses, you can't use them in the intitial decision that they be trusted. Your single asumption has, at best, 50-50 odds of being right. The motivation for belief must be more of a practical matter. Whether it is true or not, it is much more entertaining to think that you're doing stuff in an external environment than to think that you're soaking in a vat. That being the case, then rejecting the supernatural is not a matter of decreased economy, but sufficient stimulation. You've simply found what's right for you.

Assuming, however, that your axiom does allow you to perceive reality, I object to the notion that belief in the supernatural requires the addition of uneconomical axioms. I agree with you that the senses are basically reliable. Consequently, much of our methodolgy will coincide. We could collaborate on science-experiments or avoid stepping in front of the same truck, etc. But my belief in the reliability of my senses is not, for me, an axiom. My original, simple axiom is, "God created me." From this, the reliability of my senses follows. It isn't just wishful thinking for maximal economy. Furthermore, since my original axiom is no more complex than your own, it is not less economical for me to believe in whatever might follow from the existence of God. Even if I believed in the priority of epistomology, then I would have just as much right to my axiom as you do to yours. But I do not. Ontology is prior to epistemology. Nothing can be known unless there is someone to know it and something to be known. I don't even need the axiom in order to know reality (of whatever sort it may be). My senses are reliable because God created them, not because I think that he created them. For that matter, so are yours.

Posted by: Kevin at August 16, 2004 09:00 AM

Kevin,

1) I don't think "my senses are generally reliable" follows from the axiom "God created me". One would need additional axioms like "God is able to create reliable senses" and "God would create reliable senses". So I don't think your system is as economical as mine.
2.) Apart from having a God by default, your system isn't much different from mine. You still have no epistemological foundation for Christianity or other religions (unless you are sneaking in assumptions about God wrote a book, and the book that I am holding is the book God wrote).

So, I just don't see the advantage or the economy of your axiomatic set. It seems to me to be custom tailored to produce a desired result, and nothing else. Mine is designed only to produce the possibility that we might be able to understand the truth on some level. That's not a custom-tailored result - it's an acknoweldgement of the human desire for understanding and truth.

Posted by: smijer at August 16, 2004 12:00 PM

The propositions "God is able to create reliable senses" and "God would create reliable senses" follow from the definition of God as being all-powerful and all-good. No additional axioms are required. The definition of God is found is contained in the original axiom. Your only grounds for disputing it, for assuming a god who, for all intents and purposes is a non-supernatural being, is, consequently, post-systematic. You're going in circles.

On the question of custom tailored axioms, I had already thought of this concerning your own system. The reliability of your system is no greater than the coin toss that started it. It's value as a truth indicator is equally baseless. To the extent that you believe it valuable for understanding truth, this is only whatever truth you are willing to accept. The truthfulness of God's existence cannot be determined by your system. Rather, your system is specifically designed to avoid dealing with undesireable potential realities. The non-existence of God is a matter of wilfull axiomatic default.

If I adopted your epistemological primacy, my own system would be just as much a matter of my own will and just as ad hoc. We would both have internally coherent, economical systems, neither of which could contain any value for determining intra- or extra-systematic truth. However, epistemology is not primary, reality is. The ability of either one of us to understand truth is not based upon his peculiar ad hoc axiom, but upon the reality of the Creator. If God exists, we can know truth; if he does not, your guess is as good as mine.

Posted by: Kevin at August 16, 2004 05:38 PM

The propositions "God is able to create reliable senses" and "God would create reliable senses" follow from the definition of God as being all-powerful and all-good. No additional axioms are required.

So your axiom is that something all-powerful and all-good called God created you, and you deduce from that (and a sense that it wouldn't be all-good for your senses to be generally unreliable) that your senses must be generally reliable... Could you not also deduce that your senses must be perfectly reliable, if God is all good? What is it about God's perfect goodness that requires him to provide generally reliable senses but not allow our senses to sometimes deceive us? Do you believe that God created our senses perfect, and that some later event caused them to become imperfect? If that is possible, is your deduction to reliability still viable? After all, if subsequent events can reduce the reliability of our senses, what principle makes it impossible for the reliability of our senses to be reduced indefinitely?

To the extent that you believe it valuable for understanding truth, this is only whatever truth you are willing to accept. The truthfulness of God's existence cannot be determined by your system.

On the contrary. My system is specifically designed to have some chance at detecting anything that predictably impinges upon our senses. If there exist things outside its ability to detect even in principle, then I would challenge you to find a system that would detect them without assuming them axiomatically. It is precisely because my system does not detect the supernatural that I disbelieve in it. I don't think this is just my system. I think it is the system everyone uses for most of their knowledge. I think the only reason that Gods and Ghosts are so often assigned properties that make them unavailable to our everyday system that works for everything else is precisely because entire cultures desire to believe in those things, but know they do not show up when we use the ordinary rules.

The truthfulness of God's existence cannot be determined by your system. Rather, your system is specifically designed to avoid dealing with undesireable potential realities.

What method, apart from assuming them, do you have for detecting any potential realities that are invisible to my system? Is there any reason to have confidence in those methods? Would your system detect the existence of Allah, or the truth of Nirvana, if such things were true? Mine most likely would not: for precisely the same reasons that it doesnot detect YHWH: the subjects of such theories do not impinge on our senses in a regular and predictable enough way to provide us an avenue for gaining a confident understanding of them.

The ability of either one of us to understand truth is not based upon his peculiar ad hoc axiom, but upon the reality of the Creator. If God exists, we can know truth; if he does not, your guess is as good as mine.

Stated somewhat more succinctly, and in order to remove the artificial necessity of a particular theological construct: if we can know the truth, we can know the truth; if we cannot, your guess is as good as mine.

Personally, I only think that we can know the truth up to a certain point. I don't think the question of "why being instead of non-being" (or in your case "why God instead of non-God") can be answered. I think that we have a pretty good shot at just about every other question that we can stretch our brains out far enough to ask.

Posted by: smijer at August 16, 2004 06:24 PM

Whoa there, Kevin. That doesn't follow. You can't derive, "God would create reliable senses" from "God is all powerful and all good". At least I can't see how to get there. What's more, a God who is not all powerful or all good would not therefore fail to be supernatural. Satan is supernatural.

I agree with you that Smijer's epistemology is custom-taylored. But not custom-taylored to avoid God. Custom-taylored to discover a natural world. Custom-taylored to satisfy his desire to believe not just in abstract mathematical truths, but in a concrete "world we live in". As if this desire were somehow more justified (prior to accepting the axiom itself) than my desire to believe in God.

And why? Because most humans share this desire (excepting Pyrhonnians, Humeans, some Hindus, and most Buddhists) and most humans do not share the desire to believe in my God? First of all, how does the fact that most people share this desire make it the least bit likely that the axiom is justified? Second of all, you don't even know that most people share your desire unless you first assume that your axiom is true. If you can't trust your senses how could ever find out about what other people desire?

Don't you see, Smijer, that any attempt to justify axioms is doomed from the start. Otherwise they wouldn't be axioms. So let's make a deal: I won't ask you to justify your axioms to the skeptic, and you don't insist that I justify my axioms to you.

You need to provide positive reason for thinking my axiom is not an axiom, not just point out that if we don't assume it, it's probably not true. The same goes for any contingent axiom.

Kevin, do you really take "God exists" as an axiom, or were you just pretending to for the sake of argument, the way I'm pretend to take "The Bible is inspired" as an axiom?

Posted by: chris at August 16, 2004 06:52 PM

Don't you see, Smijer, that any attempt to justify axioms is doomed from the start. Otherwise they wouldn't be axioms. So let's make a deal: I won't ask you to justify your axioms to the skeptic, and you don't insist that I justify my axioms to you.

One cannot logically "justify" axioms - you are correct. One can only point out their utility for a purpose, and point out those instances where they assume more than is needed for the purpose. Occam's razor does the rest - if we are truly interested in accomplishing our purpose, and only our purpose.

I think, in that regard, I have justified my axioms. My axioms are not specially designed to rule out the supernatural. (In fact, I think the supernatural is specially designed to be invisible to my system, but that's another argument entirely). I have yet to meet someone who produced an economical system with the exclusive goal of discerning real from non-real, such that one could employ this system rigorously and find a significant level of confidence in religion as a natural result of it. That's the long way of saying that I believe religion to be superfluous to understanding reality.

Obviously we disagree on this point. However I continue to maintain it to be the case. I've offered my system for criticism and defended its components as the minimum necessary to make discovery of the truth possible. You have not shown me where your system derives mainly from a desire to discern truth from non-truth, and that it doesn't overstep the bounds of necessity for that purpose.

Admittedly, there are forms of truth that could conceivably exist, yet be invisible to my system. I have yet to see a system that was designed exclusively to discern truth from non-truth, yet could detect any of those conceivable forms of truth reliably.

Perhaps you, or Kevin, Haze, MrsSmijer, or JosiahQ will be able to succeed in showing me such a system. If you can show me that, you stand a chance of earning a big fat apology from me. If you cannot show me such a system, perhaps that inability might prompt you to consider whether you have unconsciously promoted an attachment to docrine over the pursuit of truth - at least in some innocent and well-meaning way.

Posted by: smijer at August 16, 2004 09:54 PM

Chris, an all powerful and all good God wouldn't necessarily create reliable senses: he would be under no obligation to create anything. But, if I assume that my senses exist, that this God did create them, then their reliability does follow from his goodness and power. Perhaps this assumption-that I do have senses- is an additional axiom, but, if so, Smijer needs to add it on his end, too.

Satan is, indeed, supernatural; however, this is from the perspective of creation. There is nothing from a naturalistic perspective that would rule out the evolution of a highly advanced natural being with similar attributes, if not motivations. We might even hope to develop a devil detecting machine. But, just as there is a difference between the supernatural in general and the natural, there is a distinction to be made between the generally supernatural and God. Naturalistic explanations could never account for a being with all of God's eternal and "omni"-attributes. The question is not whether God, improperly defined is supernatural, but whether he would still be God.

I did go too far in saying that Smijer's epistemology is designed to avoid God. This attributes a motive to him that I cannot back up, and, for that, I apologize. I do question, however, to what extent his retention of this epistemology might serve the purpose of God-dodging.

Since I don't accept epistemological primacy along with its reliance on axioms, then I am pretending for the sake of argument. The foundation for knowledge is found in the fact of God, not in belief in God. On the other hand (and I'm not sure if this is what you're getting at), I am being deliberately presuppositional. I don't accept the notion that the existence of God can be proven from a neutral starting point. To that extent and from that persepctive, I suppose "God exists," could be axiomatic.

Smijer, perfect reliability would not be a necessary deduction. It is sufficient to have generally reliable senses along with the rational ability for intelligent second-guessing. You seem to make an allusion to the Fall with the comment about a "later event" that causes sensory imperfection. If we accept the idea that Adam and Eve had perfect senses, this is still qualified. Perfect vision, for example, does not entail seeing without light, or around corners without the aid of mirrors. It does not rule out the possibilty of optical illusion. At most, Adam's original condition would assure that he would be aware when these limitations were in effect. Considered in itself, there is no principle to prevent the indefinite reduction of sensory reliability. But, as long as we're operating under axiomatically based epistemological systems, then my axiom is "God loves me." It's just as much a relational statement as "God created me" (either one could take logical priority). Arbitrary? Sure, but no more so than any other epistemological system based on an unjustifiable claim.

The idea of an uncomplicated epistemological system is valid only to the point that your idea of what properly constitutes an epistemological system is valid. I don't actually take "God exists, -created me, -loves me" as epistemological axioms because I reject your conception of epistemology. It inevitabley begs the question. For instance, if my system were based on a theological axiom, then any evidence for the truth of Allah or the existence of Nirvana would be discounted a priori, much the same way that your system discounts a priori any evidence for anything supernatural. However, if epistemology is not based on ad hoc axioms, but on reality, then there will be no valid evidence for that which does not in fact exist. If someone claims to have evidence for Nirvana, I can seriously examine it. I don't need to dismiss it out of hand because my system doesn't allow for it. Instead, I can dismiss it after a fair hearing.

If I am assuming the existence of the supernatural, then you are assuming the non-existence thereof. It is valid for you to assume that whatever impinges on your senses in a regular and predictable way is a viable candidate for reality. It is not valid for you to assume that everything that is real must, of a necessity, impinge upon your senses in a regular and predictable way. It is possible for the supernatural to exist while the natural world is constructed in such a way that this was impossible to perceive, much less, know. Not only possible, but likely if not overcome by initiative from the supernatural side. Belief in the triune God is not a matter of conjecture or epistemological systems, but of revelation. Those who have a saving faith in God possess this, not of their own will, but of God's.

I just noticed your latest comment when I was about to post this, so I'll incorporate a response here. Yes, your axioms have utility to a purpose. The problem is, your purpose is insufficient. I don't think any of us can show you a system "designed exclusively to discern truth from non-truth." The ability to do this is never going to be found in a system, but in the trustworthiness of God. The ultimate issue here is not a matter of economical systems or superior non-circular arguments. It is a matter of faith and surrender. God is the only one who, well, gets to be God. He is not going to allow you to initiate a relationship on your own terms. Believe first, and then God will work all things out to the end of strengthening your faith and assurance.

Posted by: Kevin at August 16, 2004 11:02 PM

I just noticed your latest comment when I was about to post this, so I'll incorporate a response here. Yes, your axioms have utility to a purpose. The problem is, your purpose is insufficient. I don't think any of us can show you a system "designed exclusively to discern truth from non-truth." The ability to do this is never going to be found in a system, but in the trustworthiness of God. The ultimate issue here is not a matter of economical systems or superior non-circular arguments. It is a matter of faith and surrender. God is the only one who, well, gets to be God. He is not going to allow you to initiate a relationship on your own terms. Believe first, and then God will work all things out to the end of strengthening your faith and assurance.

I only have a moment to respond, but we just made the first big loop of a circle. If I ask you how you know the above statements to be true, or why I should believe you, we are back to looking for a means to discern truth from non-truth, and we are comparing systems specifically designed for that purpose against systems that specifically assume religious beliefs simply because "faith" is more important than anything else.

Which, I guess, was my point all along.

By the way, I would dispute one other thing:

He is not going to allow you to initiate a relationship on your own terms.

The sensible alternative to god allowing me to initiate a relationship on my terms would be for him to initiate a relationship on his terms. The alternative you present is for me to initiate a relationship on your terms: specifically, I must do as you say where it concerns using "faith" in your religion as my starting point. I find that approach very disatisfying. I would much prefer a system where God either revealed himself actively, or passively allowed me to seek him out using a system like mine which sorts claims I can have confidence in from claims that do not deserve my confidence. I would prefer not to have to take orders from a religious institution or for a book written in a human hand and of unknown provenance in order to know God. I would think God would not wish me to bow down to humans in this way if the relationship he desired was between Him and me, rather than between me and a priest.

Posted by: smijer at August 17, 2004 09:23 AM

Here I'm pretending to be a skeptic about the external world. Only the logically necessary is real.

My axioms are not specially designed to rule out the external world. (In fact, I think the external world is specially designed to be invisible to my system, but that's another argument entirely). I have yet to meet someone who produced an economical system with the exclusive goal of discerning real from non-real, such that one could employ this system rigorously and find a significant level of confidence in the external world as a natural result of it. That's the long way of saying that I believe the senses to be superfluous to understanding reality.

Obviously we disagree on this point. However I continue to maintain it to be the case. I've offered my system for criticism and defended its components as the minimum necessary to make discovery of the truth possible. You have not shown me where your system derives mainly from a desire to discern truth from non-truth, and that it doesn't overstep the bounds of necessity for that purpose.

Admittedly, there are forms of truth that could conceivably exist, yet be invisible to my system. I have yet to see a system that was designed exclusively to discern truth from non-truth, yet could detect any of those conceivable forms of truth reliably.

Perhaps you will be able to succeed in showing me such a system. If you can show me that, you stand a chance of earning a big fat apology from me. If you cannot show me such a system, perhaps that inability might prompt you to consider whether you have unconsciously promoted an attachment to docrine over the pursuit of truth - at least in some innocent and well-meaning way.

I'll stop pretending now. Show me something wrong with the above argument, and I'll show you something wrong with your argument.

Posted by: chris (as skeptic) at August 17, 2004 03:33 PM

Show me what you hold to be axiomatic. You introduced your argument by saying that "only the logically necessary is real" - Was that an axiom under your system? More generally, what is your system? You say that you have defended its components as the minimum necessary to make discovery of the truth possible, but since this is just pretend, you actually haven't done that yet. (I did so for my system in the discussion with JosiahQ on my blog, and to a certain extent, here. I would ask you to do the same for the system you suggest that would not detect any truths available by use of the senses.

When that is done, you can feel free to use my response as ammunition against my position.

Posted by: smijer at August 17, 2004 04:17 PM

You're stacking the deck. It might be the case that your axioms are not specifically designed to rule out the supernatural, but this what they do by default. You write, "I've offered my system for criticism and defended its components as the minimum necessary to make discovery of the truth possible." This needs to be qualified. Your system is the minimum necessary to make discovery of some truth possible. In a way, you seem to agree with this: "Admittedly, there are forms of truth that could conceivably exist, yet be invisible to my system." Your system only allows for consideration that which can be perceived by the senses; that which is empirically verifiable. [I still think that your intial choice of axioms is rather arbitrary- that you have no way of justifying your belief that the natural world itself is even real. I won't argue the point right now because I happen to agree that the natural world exists.] The system is fine within its intended parameters. Assuming that the natural world is real, we can both use scientific experiment and empirical observation to make predictions and determine what is true within the system. You grant the system power to sort "claims I can have confidence in from claims that do not deserve my confidence." Within the bounds of the system, this is the case. The system, however, is only able to sort likely empirical claims from unlikely empirical claims.

But then, you're not willing to stay put in the system. The complete sentence from which I drew the last quote is, "I would much prefer a system where God either revealed himself actively, or passively allowed me to seek him out using a system like mine which sorts claims I can have confidence in from claims that do not deserve my confidence." How much confidence should I have in this statement? Do you have any established criteria to determine what the active revelation of God would look like? Or is this just a bunch of smoke because you've already decided that the active revelation of God is impossible? What if God passively allows you to seek him out using a system like your own? Would this be the same system as your own? In this case, you will only accept empirically verifiable evidence. And we're back to the question posed of active revelation. Do you have any established criteria to determine what empirical evidence for God would look like? Or are you just saying this because you've already decided that such evidence cannot exist? Perhaps I should read more into "a system like mine." Are you really willing to reformulate your axioms so as to allow reasonable investigation of supernatural truth claims? If so, what's stopping you? Economy? That's a lousy excuse, especially if you really are concerned with separating truth from non-truth.

You've already admitted that there might be some forms of truth invisible to your system. If this is the case, then improve the system. This would not constitute an admission that the supernatural does exist. It would, however, allow into evidence claims for what you have already admitted could be true. It would allow you to investigate whether or not these things actually are true. More importantly, however, what could be true, could very well be truth of some consequence. That is, it would be in your best interest to act upon it. With this in mind, it is the height of irrationality to dismiss this potential truth out of hand because the system, which you hold and which is easily modified, won't accomodate it. You cannot say that there may be truth invisible to your system while at the same time making such dichotomizing statements as "an attachment to doctrine over the pursuit of truth." Under your own system, you have no right to make this distinction. Your system is inherently incapable of judging the potential veracity of doctrine. I, on the other hand, can make observations about people who place doctrine above truth. Why? Because I have no systematic limitations to stop me from investigating the truth claims of various doctrines.

You write, 'The sensible alternative to god allowing me to initiate a relationship on my terms would be for him to initiate a relationship on his terms." I agree completely and this is exactly what I meant by "Believe first." I wasn't asking you to initiate a relationship to God under my terms. I wasn't asking you to initiate anything. Keep the statement "Believe first" in context of what I have already written about the nature of faith. It's source is in its object. This may be the first step for you, but if it ever happens, it will not be the first step made. God initiates, not man. Regeneration precedes faith.

Posted by: Kevin at August 17, 2004 09:37 PM

My axioms are the axioms of logic and pure mathematics. The law of non-contradiction. Modus Ponens. Paeano's postulates. Etc.

Now, To claim that a system is the most economical way of getting at truth is to make two claims: first that it does in fact get at truth, and second, that any other system is less economical.

Since logically necessary truth is truth, I've got the first one. How do I infer these logically necessary truths from my axioms? If you want to see spelled out in detail you can find it in a textbook on mathematical logic.

Now for the second one: Logically contingent truth, while it may be out there, might also not be out there, and it would be taking a big risk to suppose there's some "external world" when we have no logical proof that such a world exists, and no "evidence" that doesn't presuppose what it's supposed to support. Thus it is the most economical way of getting at the truth we know must be there without taking huge risks about putative truths that "might" be there.

These are, mutatis mutandis, your reasons for claiming economy for your own system are they not? You would say your axioms are most economical way of getting at natural truth (truth discoverable by the natural methods of deduction and hypothesis). Other truths, while they may be out there, might also not be out there, and it would be taking a big risk to suppose that the Bible is inspired when we have no natural evidence that this is true, and no reason to believe it that doesn't presuppose what it's supposed to support. Thus your axioms system is the most economical way of getting at the truth we know must be there without taking huge risks about putative truths that "might" be there.

Am I missing anything?

Posted by: chris at August 17, 2004 10:59 PM

Also... I heartily agree with the way Kevin responded to your last comment. God will initiate or else you will not believe. But this doesn't mean you should sit back and not investigate the claims of faith (and a first step is probably looking more carefully at your reasons for rejecting it). For you may not necessarily recognize it right away when God begins to initiate. Indeed, he may already have begun to initiate. That might be why you've been willing to go through such a long and multifaceted discussion on the rationality of Biblical faith as this has been.

Posted by: chris at August 17, 2004 11:09 PM

Chris, to your first reply:
1) You have sensory phenomena. There is, for you, a world of experience. There must, therefore, be statements that can be made about any group of sensory phenomena or any individual sensory phenomenon that have truth values. You know that there exists much truth about the world of exprience, yet that truth is unavailable to your system entirely.
2) My system allows us confidence, but not certainty, on any matter of truth in the world of experience. My system, by substituting confidence for certainty, opens up the possibility of pursuing the truth about sensory phenomena.
3) If you actually adhered to your system, you would not be having this discussion. I think we must acknowledge that we do all share a system very similar to mine, and that religion postulates an unobserved layer of reality on top of it.
4) Religion does not economically reveal any extra truth that may be out there. Even in a system that postulates the existence of Gods and Ghosts, we only know a priori of Gods and Ghosts. It is a matter of sheer accident whether our Faith method brings us to Praise Allah or get Washed in the Blood. In order to get a religious truth, one must practically postulate it. One can not then use that religious truth to open up wide new swaths of knowledge... One is stuck with that postulated truth and one or two trivial deductions from it.

In answer to your second reply and Kevin's reply, I will quote your (Chris's) words. If God is to initiate, as you say, I am waiting. He knows better than you or I do what I will recognize... If you would like to know what would be recognizable to me (as Kevin indicated, asking what would qualify as empirical evidence), I would say the thing itself. An analogy I once heard was this: if I am to believe in a tuna sandwich, bring me the tuna sandwich. Don't bring me an empty plate and a cock & bull story about why I can't see the tuna sandwich. Similar thing with God. I would accept God as empirical evidence of God. If He's busy, he can use his omniscient noggin' to come up with other ways of revealing himself that would be quite satisfactory. Instead of the Assumption, he could have left Jesus down here to show us the holes in his hands and feet as he did with Thomas. Or, he could deal with us as he did with Moses and talk to us from a burning bush. You get the gist. Empirical evidence of God would be pretty straightforward stuff - just God making himself known, or available to be known, some way or another.

Posted by: smijer at August 18, 2004 01:21 PM

1) When pretending to be a skeptic, I don't admit that I have sensory phenomena.
2) Only if you assume the existence of a world of experience. Just as I assume the existence of a world of faith.
3) No, I do not share a system similar to yours. However, I'm pretending to. Given that pretense, why is there something wrong with adding an axiom ('postulate' is ambiguous) on top of your system?
4) Begs the question. The proposed axiom is "The Bible is inspired." If it's true that the Bible is inspired, then that axiom gives us the extra truth that the Bible is inspired. It also allows us to infer that "in the beginning, God created the world." With a little more work we can get such theological truths as "regeneration precedes faith."

Don't wait, seek. God, if he exists, has every right to initiate on his own terms. Not through burning bushes (probably), but by causing you to seek him. What I meant about not recognizing it was this: his initiation will probably at first feel like your own active seeking. And indeed it will be your own active seeking. Only later will you look back and realize that his power was behind your decision to seek. By waiting for him to reveal himself on your terms, you are implicitly saying he doesn't have the right to reveal himself on his terms. Does this not seem a rather foolish way to relate to God, if he exists?

Posted by: chris at August 18, 2004 05:05 PM

On the matter of what you would accept as empirical evidence for God, I'm not buying it. Leave Jesus here to show us his scars? As if you wouldn't question whether or not it actually was Jesus and come up with all sorts of ways that people can inflict wounds on themselves. Jesus, to anyone's empirical vision, would be nothing more than a Jewish man with scars. There is no empirical means of detecting that he is God incarnate. Talking, burning bush? You'd have a field day with scientific hypotheses. These days, somebody might be able to pull it off. You want God as empirical evidence of God? It's not going to happen. God may be omniopotent, but he cannot become less than what he is. If he did, then whatever you saw wouldn't be God. Yet, God has made himself known or available to be known in one way or another. He has done so empirically and historically. He has revealed himself in the historical preservation of the ancient Jewish nation and in the periodic miracles throughout their history. He has revealed himself in the incarnation. Thomas was able to touch him. John opens his first epistle by proclaiming that which he and the other apostles had heard, seen with their eyes, and touched with their hands. In other words, Jesus Christ. God has manifested himself empirically; he will do so again. I suppose from your viewpoint, though, this doesn't count. I can see that. Distant past, potentially distant future. You're no sooner going to believe in a tuna sanwhich if I claim that it is sitting invisible on the plate in front of you than you are if I had just eaten it before you entered the room. Temporally displaced empirical events and no empirical events can be a distinction without a difference. But this is irrelevant. Say that you had been alive during the time of God's empirical revelation. You still wouldn't have seen it. Most of the first generation of Israelities, who had witnessed the plagues and the Exodus, did not believe. Pharaoh did not believe. When Elijah stopped the rain for three years, when he had the contest on Mt. Carmel with the fire from heaven, when he brought the rain back, Ahab and other eyewitnesses still did not believe. When Jesus healed people of various diseases with a word, the Pharisees did not believe. Instead, they complained about Sabbath violations. Anything that can be done empirically always has an alternative explanation. Miracles, which can be empirically observed, do not prove anything other than that something weird just happened. They will always be interpreted in the light of prior assumptions. Ancient peoples would have looked to their own gods. Modern folk attempt a scientific explanation. Miracles do not prove the existence of God; rather, belief in God provides the framework for interpreting both the miraculous and the mundane. God's revelation is two-fold. 1) He works in and through historical events that are subsequently recorded in scripture for future generations. 2) His Holy Spirit illumines the understanding and removes any moral objections to believing that God has been working. Provided that the Holy Spirit does work, the record of these empirical events is no less sufficient evidence than the event itself. You cannot profess any degree of confidence in secular history and claim that this would not be true. After Thomas had seen the risen Christ with his own eyes, after he had professed his faith, saying, "My Lord and my God!", Jesus said, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have beleived." So I ask you again, why do you insist on holding to a system that excludes from consideration any evidence for that which you admit might be true?

Posted by: Kevin at August 18, 2004 05:06 PM

Chris first.

1.) A skeptic who truly had no sensory perception is in no situation to understand the outside world even if his axiomatic system allowed it. It really would gain him nothing to adopt my system. I gain from it because I do have sensory experience.

2.) If one has sensory experience, one does not have to assume a world of sensory experience. That world may be illusory in nature, yet we must acknowledge that we sense, and some true statement can be made about those sensations: even if the true statement is that the sensations are illusory in nature.

3.) If the system you really have doesn't have certain elements in common with mine, then you would really not be having this conversation. If you admitted no "external world" then you would not be having this conversation, since you would believe that I am illusory. The question remains, without a "world of faith" that impinges directly on our senses, what justification for making room for such a thing?

4.)"The Bible is Inspired" doesn't inexorably lead to any of your conclusions, depsite the fact that "the Bible is Inspired" carries loads of freight with it about the nature of the content of a wide range of ancient literature. One has to choose what model of inspiration to postulate, as well, and then there may still be wiggle-room about your conclusions. Even so, by assuming "inspiration of the Bible," you are pretty much assuming those things that you derive. On the contrary, by making the assumptions that allow empirical knowledge through the scientific process, it isn't merely trivial to predict the orbits of the planets or the activation energy for an oxidation reaction. It isn't quite the same as assuming that our physics book is error-free and deducing Newton's laws from the book.

y waiting for him to reveal himself on your terms, you are implicitly saying he doesn't have the right to reveal himself on his terms.

I'm not waiting for him to reveal himself on my terms. I'm waiting for him to reveal himself on his terms. That's a major difference. If he does reveal himself on his terms, and his terms are designed to make it possible for me to remain unconvinced, then I can only conclude that either he doesn't exist or isn't particularly interested in convincing me of his existence. Either way, my failure to be convinced carries no moral force since it is not a choice, but a natural consequence of my cognitive processes.

However, it does not make sense for me to seek him, since - until he is revealed - seeking him is chasing the end of a rainbow. I have no idea what I am looking for or if it even exists. I could go chasing these human theories, but the sensible thing would be to wait until there is something to seek before doing the seeking. I only have your word to take that God wants me to be seeking him. God hasn't cut me in on the secret yet, and I don't find your say-so credible on this particular point.

Kevin,

The stories you tell me of people seeing but not believing... if you'll pardon me, they do not seem credible. I would certainly be convinced pretty easily by someone who could heal organic disease with a touch, walk on water, or come back from the dead. I don't know what Jesus' scars would look like, but just his continued life on earth would be miracle enough to convince me... provided there was some reliable evidence that this 30-something looking Jewish guy with scars really was 2000 years old. If he actually hung around that long he would have flocks of people to testify to his longevity, and their testimonies could be checked and cross-checked. Photos, portraits, etc. would help. He might even be wearing clothing that could be dated radiometrically to the first century. Wouldn't that be neat?

It's true that any empirical evidence could have an alternat explanation. That is what you were relying on to discount my evidence against Mosaic authorship in the other thread. I don't do it that way, though. The evidence that gives me confidence to sit down in my chair could have alternative explanations - however, the best theory I can construct from the evidence is that the chair will most times hold me. An actual Jesus or burning bush, or God, or whatever would, no doubt, have enough accompanying evidence to convince me. I don't downplay evidence on the basis of "could have" an alternative explanation. I only downplay it on the basis of a) most of the evidence points the other way, or b) there is good reason to believe the "alternative" explanation over the presented explanation.

You asked:

I ask you again, why do you insist on holding to a system that excludes from consideration any evidence for that which you admit might be true?

I do not think that I do this. What evidence do you think I exclude from consideration?

Posted by: smijer at August 18, 2004 07:07 PM

It does not follow from your claim to beleive had you seen such things that everyone else would beleive, too. In each of the examples, there were people that did believe. What exactly would you believe if you saw such things? Would you believe in God, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable? If so, you're awfully imaginative. The only rational thing to believe if you saw someone who could heal organic disease with a touch, etc., is that this person could heal organic disease with a touch, etc. I don't believe that you would be convinced. And it's not that I question your integrity on this point, just your understanding of miracles. Miracles are only understood to be miracles on a prior assumption that a God exists who can do miracles. Miracles do not prove God; God proves miracles. The intent of the miracle is to prove the authenticity of the miracle worker as a messenger from God. The miracle is a divine authentication of his message. In the case of Jesus' miracles, they authenticated his claim that he was God. Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Paul, and Peter also have recorded miracles. It does not follow from the miracles themselves that each of these men was also God. It does follow that whatever they said as messengers of God was true.

You claim that Jesus' continued life on earth would be miracle enough to convince you. Beyond the point that the only thing it could convince anyone of was that Jesus had evaded the aging process, you offer one monster of a qualifier: "provided there was some reliable evidence that this 30-something looking Jewish guy with scars really was 2000 years old." Flocks of people to testify to his longevity? Remember, though, this can only go as far back as the memory of the oldest living witness. Anything beyond that is hearsay, or, what seems worse in your estimation, tradition. Besides that, science tells us that someone my Grandfather claims to have seen as child shouldn't still look 30. Odd how you would be willing to accept this testimony but you're unwilling to accept the testimony of those within the church whose fathers were told by their fathers and so on until the eyewitnesses of the first century. If you don't believe in this continuous oral history back to the source, then neither should you believe in the continuous oral history of testimony to the longevity of a 2000 year old Jew. I'm seeing a possible double-standard here. How would you authenticate the photos and portraits? If you could verify the age, how could know that Jesus was the subject? The most likely explanation would be that they portrayed one of Jesus ancestors, that a family from Nazereth had perpetrated an elaborate hoax. Radiometrically dated clothing? Okay, but I could put on a pair of first century clothing (and please tell me you're not gullible enough to think that the miracle would be found in the clothing). And you would actually beleive if someone came back from the dead? Really. "He said to them, 'If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.' (Luke 16:31)

If you ever could witness a miracle, you would accept an explanation other than, "God did it." Possible explanations must already be possible parts of your epistemological system. God is not a possible part of yours, so anything else is going to be more reasonable. The possible alternative explanations from your safe chair-sitting evidence do not constitute reasonable doubt; therefore, you sit. The evidence I have presented against your anti-Moses thesis is more than just what "could have been." It is plausible and constitutes reasonable doubt.

Your claim not to be excluding evidence is about as circular as an argument gets. You can only think this because you're so firmly entrenched in a system that discounts everything that is not natural. What good will it do me to enumerate this evidence? You'll just call it a faith claim and toss it out. The issue is your arbitrary choice of systems to exclude matters of faith as evidence, not whether faith actually is evidentiary in nature.

Posted by: Kevin at August 18, 2004 10:30 PM

If Jesus walked the earth today, I could find eyewitnesses galore that could trace him back to the previous generation or two, not to mention photographic evidence, etc.. Together with oral tradition back to the first century, this would be very persuasive to me. I think you are being very presumptious to tell me what I would or would not accept or be convinced by. My system allows for all kinds of evidence. Oral religious tradition is very weak evidence and is not nearly compelling enough for the kinds of claims that are presented on its account. You can feel free to present stronger evidence at any time. No evidence is ruled out a priori except that which is unavailable to me (for instance, your subjective experiences).

Posted by: smijer at August 19, 2004 09:47 AM

The eyewitness and photographic evidence would only go back two, maybe three generations. Photographs only go back so far; paintings are even weaker evidence: too subject to the interpretation of the painter. There wouldn't be any witnesses to verify this evidence. To extrapolate from evidence going back maybe a couple of hundred years to saying that it proves a contiunuous event of a couple of thousand years either requires either a good dose of faith or more evidence. You have decided to add oral tradition. But this oral tradition would have to account for close to 1800 years. The photographic evidence is only as valid as it is old. And if you try adding other physical evidence, there's no assurance that it was always associated with Jesus. I'm not sure what to make this rather strong confidence in oral tradition, epsecially in light of your previous dismissal of tradition as very weak evidence. I could conclude that, the situation being hypothetical and most unlikely, you are lowering your own standards for belief. But I don't think that this would be fair. I believe you on this point. Given three generations worth of eyewitnesses and photographs together with oral tradition you would be convinced that a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties was actually two-thousand years old. [I can't say that I would be convinced, but then maybe I'm just too much of a skeptic.]

This does lead me to question your previous downplay of tradition that is also recorded in scripture whether it be the tradition that Moses wrote the Law, or the tradition that Jesus said that Moses wrote the Law. There is nothing in these traditions that would be any less likely than an oral tradition, unaided for 1800 years, of our hypothetical Jesus. I have to admit, though, that you have qualified it. The words of scripture are a matter of faith and, by your own understanding of the concept, faith is a matter of subjective experience and, therefore, unavailable to you. Your real objection is to religious tradition. I believe, though, that you're confusing some categories. It is, to be sure, a matter of my faith, unavailable to you, that Jesus died for my sins. It is not, however, a matter of unavailable faith that Jesus died. Even apart from the Bible, there is a continous tradition, both oral and written, to the effect that this was an historical event. The church has been in continous existence since the first century. Matters of faith and religion aside, it still provides an unbroken link to matters of mundane historical record. At the time the NT was written, there were plenty of eye-witnesses who could have disputed its historicity. The NT may be a matter of religious belief, but it is also a matter of historical record. As long as the church has possessed the NT, there has been an oral tradition to testify that its recorded events actually happened. Any disputations come too late not to be counted as hearsay. The standard for historicity is met.

Then there are the miracles. Many skeptics want to discount them outright. They could raise the standards of historicity. This would mean, however, that any kind of history would be virually unknowable. They could deny that the miracles happened. But this would destroy the fabric of the ordinary history. One would be left wondering how it met the standards of historicity in the first place (which would lead to raising the standards, etc.) So why reject the miracles? The miracles of Jesus would be as verifiable to the senses as his ordinary travel and speech. Miraculous events are, in this sense, no different than any other event. They are just as open to empirical and historical investigation. Miracles, as such, are not a matter of unavailable and subjective faith. Faith enters the piciture at the point of interpretation.

I'd like to strengthen your reasons for believing in the 2000 year old Jesus. I'm not going to add that many more years of photographs, since such a thing could not have happened. But, for the sake of argument, let's add the equivalent of an exra-biblical written tradition. Now your case and my case for the historicity of Jesus' life on earth two thousand years ago are equally strong. It is your testimony that this evidence would be sufficient to convince you of Jesus' age. You would see a man who looked to be about 30. If he claimed to be 2000, there would be little cause to believe him. However, if there were an accompanying oral and written tradition to this effect, you would believe. This tradition would be enough to convince you that something, that to all appearances is ordinary, is actually a miracle. Think it through a bit further. If the sight of a thirty year old looking man accompanied by this tradition would convince you that the man in front of you was actually 2000, then the tradition itself should be able to convince you of the existence of such a man even if you don't know which man. You wouldn't actually have to see him. The empirical verifiability of the older man has nothing to do with the empirical verifiablity of the younger man. As long as the tradition meets your own standards of historicity, and it looks like it does (else you wouldn't claim to believe it), then the tradition itself is sufficient to verify that the younger man actually existed; that, had you been there, you could have seen him. Continual written updates within this tradition would be sufficient to show that the younger man kept living. If this tradition is enough to convince you of the existence of a 2000 year old Jesus, then a record of his death within the tradition should be able to convince you that Jesus died at 1859, or 1612, 950, 345, 152, or even in his early thirties. None of these is any less likely than a 2000 year old Jesus.

You should be able to predict my next move: there is such a tradition. If you're willing to trust a similar but hypothetical tradition to verify the 2000 year old Jesus miracle, then what reason is there for not believing the miracles recorded in the tradition that does exist? Remember that we are not dealing with faith. These are matters of empirical investigation. You can be convinced that the miracles happened without embracing the interpretation of faith. If you won't be, the 2000 year old Jesus shouldn't convince you. You should assume that any man claiming to be the one recorded in the tradition is lying and you need to assume that at some relatively early point in the tradition, the written records of Jesus still being alive turned into a hoax.

If you really would be persuaded by 2000 years of oral tradtion to believe in a 2000 year old Jesus, then prove it. Believe that Jesus lived and performed miracles 2000 years ago. Doing so would not go outside your own system's standards of evidence. And once you've done that, prove something else. Your 2000 year old Jesus example was not given in answer to the question, "What would it take for you to believe in uninterpreted miracles?" It was a response to, "What would it take for you to believe in God?" Either put some action behind your claims, or I will remain convinced that hypothesis is much less scary a thing than history.

Posted by: Kevin at August 20, 2004 04:57 AM

Kevin, I'm afraid that you are just not tuned into the idea of a cumulative case, which is what I described as being convincing to me. The tradition by itself, with or without a 30-year-old looking man, would be insufficient. I would require more evidence. Eyewitnesses (and scads of them) photo evidence and paintings would be enough to prove that the man was more than a life-time old. Then his remarkability already confirmed, tradition stretching back to the first century would be enough.

Traditions do have some important roles in my hermeneutics about ancient events, but they are not the end all. A significant amount of time elapsed between Jesus' life on earth and Paul's writings. Even more time elapsed before gMark was written, which did not contain a birth narrative and only contained a very abbreviated post-ressurection narrative. We don't have any written testimony from an eyewitness to the events of the NT. We have no extrabiblical references to the events of the NT until the second century. Traditions don't stand well on their own weight, especially when they are the only evidence in favor of fantastic claims (such as a resurrection from the dead)...

However, as a cumulative case where there was some persuasive evidence to support the remarkability of a thirty-year-old-looking man with scars and inhuman longevity, I would (I repeat) be convinced.

If you really would be persuaded by 2000 years of oral tradtion to believe in a 2000 year old Jesus, then prove it.

Why did you pick just this one item out of the cumulative case that I suggested would be convincing to me? Do you have any evidence that supports the validity of the oral tradition?

Posted by: smijer at August 20, 2004 06:55 AM

I'm not sure that I can pursue this line of thought and keep up with the rest of the conversation, but, are you serious in saying, "We don't have any written testimony from an eyewitness to the events of the NT"? If you want to add it to the discussion, bring out the evidence. More generally, though, this goes towards your downplaying of tradition as evidence, which I find to be ironic considering your opinion on my "absolutism in dealing with evidence."

I picked out oral tradition because I did not understand you to be bringing in subjective considerations of remarkability. The other pieces of evidence would only be enough to convince you that the particular man you had seen was at least as old as that evidence. This only goes back so far. The tradition would only tell you that a man had been alive all this time. At some point, where the rest of the testimony runs out, the connection between a man and this man would only be viable if the oral tradition has the ability to fill in the gap on its own. But if it has this abiltity, then it has the ability to stand on its own. It should be enough to convince you that a man had lived as long as the tradition, even a man walking around today whom you had yet to meet. All of this, that is, if the other evidence only serves to establish a chronology to a certain point.

This changes when you assert that the other evidence serves to confirm remarkability, something which is very subjective. Maybe I'm less easy to impress than most, but a man as old as photographic evidence would allow just wouldn't strike me as remarkable. I would be fascinated to listen to him for eyewitness testimony of historical events, but his age, considered in itself, wouldn't be that big a deal. A bit unusual, perhaps, but, after pondering it for a little while, I'd get over it. If I didn't think that oral tradition was strong enough to stand on its own, evidence of this unusually old man would not be enough to convince me that he was the same one in the tradition. But that's just me. I can see how someone would think that such a thing was remarkable and how this remarkability would be enough to overcome a prejudice against simple tradition.

I can see it because this is very much the case with what happens in the Christian faith. I look at the church, at the fellowship of the saints, at the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments; I look at the coherence of biblical doctrine, at the design shown in its structure; I look at the testimony of those martyred for their faith; I look and I am overawed at the sight of something remarkable. And this is enough to make me accept the oral and written tradition that takes me back to the historical source. I see. Therefore, I believe.

I find your account of what it would take for you to believe credible. The subjective judgment that empirical evidence points to something remarkable leads to a willingness to investigate the claims that it is, not only remarkable, but also supernatural. Your rejection of God and of the work of Christ is not a problem with faith claims per se. It is that you do not find the empirical things of Christianity to be remarkable. If you did, you would be open to the claims of written and oral tradition and you would believe.

Posted by: Kevin at August 20, 2004 03:46 PM

Kevin, extraordinary claims, whether from tradition or not, require extraordinary evidence. If I have eye-witness and photographic testimony of a man from 50 and one hundred years ago that say he is the same man, and he looks to be in his thirties today, that is extraordinary evidence for his in-human longevity. Add in portrait evidence from before, the visibility of his scars, and an oral tradition tracing back to the first century, and that anyone would be convinced that this was Jesus of the New Testament. And no, I don't find the evidence for Christianity to be extraordinary.

As to the eyewitness written testimony of the events of Jesus' life, I do not include Gospel testimony because it is of unknown provenance. Only the Gospel of John, IIRC even makes a tenuous claim to being or including an eye-witness account, however I doubt the status of that claim. I refer you to The Anchor Bible Dictionary v.3 pp. 919-920, as cited on earlychristianwritings.com:

The supposition that the author was one and the same with the beloved disciple is often advanced as a means of insuring that the evangelist did witness Jesus' ministry. Two other passages are advanced as evidence of the same - 19:35 and 21:24. But both falter under close scrutiny. 19:35 does not claim that the author was the one who witnessed the scene but only that the scene is related on the sound basis of eyewitness. 21:24 is part of the appendix of the gospel and should not be assumed to have come from the same hand as that responsible for the body of the gospel. Neither of these passages, therefore, persuades many Johannine scholars that the author claims eyewitness status.

The synpotics, IIRC, do not even claim eye-witness status. Paul was not even converted until after the crucifixion. So that leaves a questionable John for the actual events of Jesus' life. Apart from that Flavius probably attested to the existence of a Jesus (and nothing more that is not better attributed to Eusebius), and Tacitus testified to the existence of followers of Christ.

Your rejection of God and of the work of Christ is not a problem with faith claims per se. It is that you do not find the empirical things of Christianity to be remarkable. If you did, you would be open to the claims of written and oral tradition and you would believe.

Just a note: if we are even talking about the empirical evidence, then we are no longer talking about taking the claim on faith. So yes, I do have a problem with claims that I am asked to accept on faith. No, I don't always have a problem accepting claims that have to do with religion: that is the matter for which the empirical evidence has to be compelling. Posted by: smijer at August 20, 2004 07:41 PM

I have no dispute with the notion that the evidence must be sufficient to the claim. Eyewitness testimony and photographic evidence would be enough to convince any but the harshest skeptics that a particular man was much older than normally thought possible. But it would only be sufficient within its own limitations. Say that the earliest photographs were taken 200 years ago (insert a more precise date if you know it)- the only thing that this evidence would prove is that the mid-thrities looking man sitting in front of me is at least 230 years old. If I were not willing to accept the evidentiary merits of tradition on its own, there is nothing about the photographic evidence that would change its objective status as evidence. It is conceivable, however, that my subjective judgment that the existence of a 230 year old man is remarkable would cause my subjective judgment of the evidentiary value of tradition to change. The actual value has not changed, only my willingness to consider it. To the extent that faith claims are subjective (and this does not negate my earlier contention that faith is objective- both aspects can be true), the new willingness to accept the evidence of tradition based upon the perceived remarkability of the man is a matter of faith. For those who do not consider a 230 year old man remarkable, there is no demonstrable reason why the standards of evidence should change.

I will stipulate to the claim that the Gospels are of unkown provenance (although it is my opinion that the traditional authorship is correct, I can't prove it). I agree that Paul was converted after the crucifixion. And, why not, I'll even throw in the beloved disciple. The question remains whether the history recorded in the NT is supported by eyewitness accounts or whether it is tradition removed from the events. You write that John is the only Gospel that makes even "a tenuous claim to being or including an eye-witness account." Not true. The author of Luke, whoever you think he was, opens his account with the claim that it is based on eyewitness testimony. The book of Acts, written by the same author, identifies this author himself as an eyewitness to many of its events through the use of the "we" passages. Paul personally knew Peter, if not more of Jesus' disciples. He records in I Corinthians 15 that most of 500 witnesses to Jesus resurrection are alive at the time of the writing. The author of I John claims eyewitness status to the person of Christ. The epistles of Peter, James, and Jude are all written by eyewitnesses, a disciple and two brothers (unless you want to make them pseudonymous). The author of Hebrews claims that he heard of salvation from those who had heard the Lord, that is, Christ. He also knows Timothy, who at least knows friends of eyewitnesses to Jesus' life and is an eyewitness himself to some events recorded in Acts. There is sufficient internal evidence to suggest that the history contained in the NT, even if not written by eyewitnesses, was told by eyewitnesses or subject to their scrutiny. Any attempt to ignore this internal evidence in order to question the historicity of the NT is not founded on fair procedures of historical analysis, but upon a doctrinally based prejudice against the possibility or the potential significance of the events themselves.

I, too, have a problem with claims that I am asked to accept on faith. I will not, for instance, accept the Hindu doctrine of reincarnation, the Mormon doctrine of "As God once was, we are and as God is, we will become", the Catholic doctrine of the Assumption of Mary, the Seventh Day Adventist doctrine of the Investigative Judgment, the Eastern Orthodox doctrine that it's okay to pray to dead people. I will accept none of these on faith because there is no scriptural reason to believe that they are true. Every matter of faith must be explicitly stated in Scripture or derived from it as a matter of necessary logical consequence. The authority of Scripture, in turn, is based on its status as the record of God's revelation in history. It does take the initiative on God's part for anyone to assume that the events recorded in history constitute the revelation of God. It takes nothing extraordinary to believe that this history is basically reliable. The extraordinary activity is found in all of the attempts to prove that it is not.

Posted by: Kevin at August 20, 2004 10:43 PM

I want to be clear. A 230 year old man, whether he looks 230 or looks 30, is not only objectively remarkable; he is objectively unique. No such thing has been recorded since the beginning of medical science. Not only that, but the absence of the universal process of visible aging is also objectively remarkable. On top of that, two hundred and thirty years is over one-tenth of the time that would be claimed by other traditions. The traditions themselves will have grown, meaning we will find traditional sources who witnessed his life one thousand years ago as well as two thousand years ago. The scars correlate the current man with the man of one-thousand year old tradition and two-thousand year old tradition. What we would have is extraordinary evidence for an extraordinary claim. What a fit!
What we ever get is hearsay and tradition as evidence for extraordinary claims.

I will concede the issue of New Testament claims of eyewitness with one caveat: that all of the instances where you listed "based on", and "knew personally", and "spoke of" eye-witnesses be relegated to hearsay. I absolutely cannot get into a debate on New Testament authorship with you at this time. I've overextended myself to do the discussions we are already doing.

Posted by: smijer at August 21, 2004 09:31 AM

I could poke holes in this scenario ad infinitum, but the conversation needs to move forward. It is apparent from what you have claimed that, with enough evidence, you would believe. Consequently, you have no objections, in principle, to faith. You will allow for faith, provided there is enough empirical evidence. That is, with enough that is seen and in the right combination, it is your contention that you would accept the unseen. Your system can no longer be understood to make an a priori exclusion of non-empirical matters. On further examination, nothing of any practical nature has changed. You're still insulated from belief. The problem is not that the offered criteria for belief are hypothetical and, therefore didn't happen. It is that they wouldn't happen. Take the whole thing about Jesus remaining on the earth so we could eventually have photographic evidence. While a nice theory, it conveniently eliminates the Ascension. This wasn't a mere matter of going away for awhile. It is an essential aspect of the salvific work of Christ. It is a part of the application of the salvation that he had earned on the cross. In Christian theology, Jesus is the one who sends the Holy Spirit from heaven at Pentecost, and he is the one who continually intercedes before the Father on our behalf, based upon his his atoning death. A 2000 year old Jesus might be sufficient for belief, but the object believed would have been substantially depleted. What would be the point?

Also, the tradition that you are assuming within this scenario goes beyond anything that exists in reality. You write, "The traditions themselves will have grown, meaning we will find traditional sources who witnessed his life one thousand years ago as well as two thousand years ago." This kind of growth involves an increase in eyewitness testimony. By definition, this growth in evidence would not be available in Christianity as it actually exists. The eyewitness testimony is limited to the time that Christ actually lived. The tradition for a 2000 year old Jesus would have a definite evidentiary advantage over that for a Jesus who lived thirty plus years 2000 years ago. The first could very easily have the strength of a chain of custody. At best, the second would have a limited amont of eyewitness testimony with all other written tradition being a record that people kept believing what they were told. If your standard for believing tradition is that of the first, then there's not much that the actual record can do. But maybe it isn't that high. The tradition for the claims of Christianity does have an advantage over oral tradition. The various written testimonies of what people believed over the years show that the historical claims have remained essentially unchanged. With oral tradition there's no way of knowing how many mutations have taken place.

The question concerning Christianity is whether the historical claims that made their way into the traditional record are factual. The traditional record includes and agrees with the NT. [My original purpose upon first seeing your response was to agree not to debate NT authorship, and I will try not to make it a separate issue. However, I can't dismiss it altogether because I need it to respond to your statement, "What we ever get is hearsay and tradition as evidence for extraordinary claims."] You make a caveat to NT claims of eyewitnesses that relegates most of it to hearsay. I believe that this leaves as the only credible eyewitness to historical events the author of Acts. But then, Acts is not an historical account of the life of Christ. It records what happened afterward. So we're still left with the implication that the events upon which the Christian faith is based didn't happen. On the issue of relegating these eyewitness claims to hearsay, there's more to it. It isn't so much the listed eyewitnesses the could have confirmed the events, but the number of their contemporaries who could have disputed the events and did not (at least, not in any extant record). We're left with the same situation as with the OT historical books: either they are factual or they are, to an important extent, fabrications. The latter is an accepted liberal doctrine. There is no usually no debate that someone named Jesus actually existed. Instead, a wedge is inserted between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith. The more popular theory is that the Apostles, especially Paul in his epistles, invented Christianity based on hearsay and conjecture. To the extent the historical record of the Gospels agrees with what would be necesarry for Christ as opposed to what would have actually happened with Jesus, these claims were added after the fact, either by simple redaction or under the more elaborate Q hypothesis. The whole idea strains credibility. Especially since the alleged time of historical fabrication is still within the lieftime of eyewitnesses to the historic Jesus. If such a fabrication happened, we would expect a counter-tradition. It never materialized.

The recorded traditional witness for the historical foundations of the Christian faith are strong enough under any other standard for history. It is not a simple matter of religious faith in the Bible along with a mutable oral tradition. The problem is not with the strength of the witness, but that contained within the fabric of the history witnessed are events too extraordinary to believe. You have set up the requirement of extraordinary evidence for an extraordinary claim. This is reasonable. But this evidence should not be found in raising the standards of recorded traditional witness. The most imporatant extraoridinary claim here is the resurrection of Jesus. In itself, this is an empirical event like any other. If an historical record is sufficient to determine the mundane it is sufficient to determine the extraordinary. If one is to question the facticity of the resurrection, this cannot be done on the basis of unreliable tradition. Instead, try removing it from the historical record and see what happens. Can it be excised without alternating much of the contemporary but ordinary history? Are you willing to believe that an historical fabrication this close to the time of the alleged events went uncontested and entered the historical record as fact? If so, then the standards for belief in general history are too high. It isn't a matter of subjective and unavailable faith or of unreliable tradition; consequently, I don't thnk that your objections to the historical foundations of the Christian faith stand.

Posted by: Kevin at August 21, 2004 10:07 PM

I could poke holes in this scenario ad infinitum, but the conversation needs to move forward. It is apparent from what you have claimed that, with enough evidence, you would believe. Consequently, you have no objections, in principle, to faith. You will allow for faith, provided there is enough empirical evidence.

No. My epistemology treats faith as a hindrance. If there is a complete lack of useful evidence, even if immediate action is required, my rule is to adopt the negative position and act on it.

If there were sufficient evidence, then I would accept the claims of Christianity. Using the word "faith" to describe that acceptance is akin to using the word "disrobing" to describe the putting on of clothes.

In Christian theology, Jesus is the one who sends the Holy Spirit from heaven at Pentecost, and he is the one who continually intercedes before the Father on our behalf, based upon his his atoning death. A 2000 year old Jesus might be sufficient for belief, but the object believed would have been substantially depleted. What would be the point?

We have some Christians who believe that intercession can be done from Earth. Nevertheless, granting your proposition, there could easily exist evidence that would convince me and be compatible with the view that the Ascension was a necessary part of the soteriology. For instance, the Holy Spirit could have incarnated and He could have been the 2000 year old man. Barring that, devout believers might have powers unavailable to members of other religions or unbelievers. Such a scheme would bolseter confidence in the idea of the Christian God (though, I can hear you say it now, it would not "rule out" the usefulness of a particular brand of magic shared by those believers... which is not a big problem for me at all).

I'm sorry, but I'm just not following you on your arguemnt for the resurrection. Perhaps if you knew my own viewpoint on New Testament authorship (not as argument, but as background), you could better mold your argument.

I believe that Paul was the earliest new testament writer. I do not know if Peter was one of "the Twelve" or was simply a surviving friend or follower of the historical Jesus, and I do not know if the tradition of Peter's involvment with Jesus was independent of, or derived from Paul's mention of having met him. I do believe that Paul catapulted the Jesus of Christianity to prominence with the Gentiles. I believe that it was mainly gentiles working from the Paulan tradition who assembled the Gospels and Acts, inspired by gMark. I'm not sure of the intention behind gMark (I cannot help but give some credence to the theory that aMark was self-consiously re-inventing the Homeric epics around the figure of Jesus, who he sought to contrast favorably against the Homeric heroes). For whatever reason, aMark wrote the first biography or pseudo-biography of Jesus, incorporating the Pauline doctrine of the resurrection, and the historical elements' of Jewish life, including his Jewishness, and his home in Galillee. I believe that aMatthew wrote next, using gMark as an apologist for Jewish critics (I also believe aMatthew was Jewish). I am not sure whether aMatthew or aMark tied the Pauline resurrection to a historical and physical event. I do not know which introduced the eschatalogy of Christ's return. If aMark did the latter, then aMatthew built upon that with the introduction of a more thorough post-resurrection narrative. I believe aLuke was aware of gMatthew, but was embarrassed by it, and sought to improve it in various ways (I have problems with the Q hypothesis). I think aLuke also wrote the Acts, as an effort to tie the Gospel apostles to the ministry of Paul. I am inclined toward the view that he borrowed from Josephus and possibly other sources, and am not certain that he was an eyewitness to the events of Acts even though he purports to be. I think his occasional first person plural references may reflect literary dependence on another narrative. I do not have any strong ideas about how gJohn figures in, but I am not opposed to the notion that it was began as a proto-gnostic work, and was adapted by a later redactor to reflect orthodox views.

In short, my view of it is that Paul introduced the resurrection idea, tying together Hellenistic traditions with the Jewish tradition of an end-times resurrection to produce a resurrected Christ, though he left it unclear whether the resurrection was to be bodily or spiritual. I think gMark anchored the resurrection as bodily. I don't think any efforts to challenge gMark's accounts by eyewitnesses from twenty years before would have made much impact, as those witnesses may never have even become aware of the bodily resurrection idea, and if they had, they may not have cared to dispute it. They may have actually relished the idea that their leader had come back to life.

So, how would actual history be different if it turned out that I had guessed right on those matters? If I was wrong, how would actual history be different if the historical Jesus was a 2nd century BCE Jewish rebel leader who was crucified long before the first century CE, and whose story was later embellished and associated with Pilate and Herod by people contemporaneous with Pilate and Herod?

How can we reliably predict how history would be different if there had been no Christ or no resurrection? What method allows us to do this?

Posted by: smijer at August 22, 2004 09:17 AM

Hasn't that been the point? Your epistemology treats faith as a hindrance. It will only accept that for which there is sufficient empirical evidence. The problem is, in your initial decision for what qualify as the most economical and, thereofore, only legitimate truth gathering mechanisms, you completely dismissed the possibility of another category of truth. Well, no, you did admit that other truth could exist. You have, however, dismissed the possibility that this truth might be important. I continue to maintain that this is an irrational decision based on the arbitrary choice of "economy" as the best means of choosing your intial axioms.

You're still back to the proposition that empirical evidence is the only legitimate link to anything worth knowing. You state, "If there were sufficient evidence, then I would accept the claims of Christianity." This, along with your assertion that doing so would not constitute faith, leads me to one of two conclusions. 1) You're convinced that there could never be enough evidence. The claims of Christianity are outside of your economical system. I have to consider, when reading such preposterous suggestions as an incarnate Holy Spirit, that you might not be serious. Essentially, you're saying that you would believe the claims of Chirstianity if and only if these claims were to change. A non-ascended Christ or an incarnate Spirit would nullify the other claims.

2) You have misunderstood the nature of the truth to which the evidence would lead. The idea now is that all of the claims of Christianity lie within the realm of empirical investigation. The reason that people believe them on faith has nothing to do with the objective veracity of the claim itself, but with the current lack of evidence. When you question faith-claims, you're not denying the reality of the thing believed, just the basis on which it is beleived. And so, your rule is to adopt the negative position. If there were enough evidence, you would believe. But this is not the way it is. Other than specific historical events, the claims of Christianity are not subject to an accumulation of evidence. You're still left with an irrationally designed system that dismisses them, even though they might be true. As it is, there is nothing in empirical evidence itself that could possibly cause anyone to believe in the non-visible claims of the faith. It's a matter of the nature of the evidence vs. the nature of the thing to be believed. God is not the highest member on a continuum. He is altogether different.

Your definition of faith is flawed. You're thinking of it as the mere will to believe, as a stop-gap measure for lack of evidence. This misunderstanding is exacerbated by the fact that many people do believe something simply because they want to. And they call it "faith." This includes Christians who think that their own faith works this way. But it does not. True faith is not found in the will of the subject, but in the will of the object. The evidence will always be insufficient to make the leap to believing in the transcendent God. No matter what it may seem like from the perspective of the individual who has true faith, that faith was not the result of his decision to believe in God. Rather, it is the result of God's decision to have another believer. If you continue to remain unshaken in your atheism, I'm not going to argue about it, neither with you nor with God.

On the other hand, there is merit in continuing a discussion on those claims of the faith that are subject to historical verifiability. The questions of Biblical provenance and of a reliable Biblical history that includes miracles both lie within the purview of your epistemological system. They are not questions of positive faith, but of sufficient evidence. Speaking of which, where in the world did you get your view on NT authorship? If that paragraph isn't an example of a credo, then I've never seen one. The important thing I get out of it is this: the authors of NT history are lying. They made up the details and they made up the claims to eyewitness testimony. Yours is just another form of the classic liberal wedge between Jesus and Christ. You provided this information so that I could better mold my argument on the resurrection. Thank you. I need a little bit more, though. Would you please insert a range of dates for each of the documents mentioned? I need to know if you're suggesting that the history was written too late to get any serious objection from eyewitnesses.

Posted by: Kevin at August 24, 2004 10:52 PM

True faith is not found in the will of the subject, but in the will of the object.

That's an interesting suggestion. I've often told believers that God must not be interested in my belief, since he hasn't found it in his will to convince me. This suggestion would concur: my belief seems to be subject to his will, not my own.

If that is the case, then it is not fruitful to discuss the "claims of faith that are subject to historical verifiability." Certainly, if something can be verfied historically, I would be interested to know of it, but I would not call it a claim of faith for two reasons: I would believe it on the evidence, and under your view, faith would be an action of God's not one of my own. I will answer your questions on this score at the end of this comment, though.

I was going to remind you that the only reason my system doesn't accomodate any kind of truth that cannot be learned of and verified empirically (or included trivially in a logical system) is that no one has ever offerred a reliable method of getting to other types of truth. If not through empirical evidence, how? I guess there is no point in asking that now. Your theory seems to imply that the belief is planted in our head by God. If that is the case, no effort of our own is needed, so there is no longer a need to establish a reliable method for discerning objective truth without the aid of our senses.

Back to the time frames of the documents, I am not a New Testament scholar, so bear in mind that these are merely guesses:
Pauline epistles: ~50-60 CE
Gospel of Mark: ~60-70 CE
Gospel of Matthew: ~70 CE
Gospel of Luke, Acts: ~75-80 CE
Gospel of John, 1st John: ~90-100 CE

I don't know how much this will help you with your argument, though. I don't think that the eyewitnesses to Jesus' life would necessarily have been aware of these works or familiar with them even if they had been contemporaries.

I also would point out that my guesses about the origins of the NT come from some fair amount of lay study, not just pure faith. I understand that they are not firmly rooted in the evidence, and that's why I express them as "leanings" or sometimes merely speculation. Same with the dating of the Gospels.

Lastly, I don't like to accuse anyone of consciously lying, even if they have been dead 2000 years. I think Paul was seriously convinced by his religious experiences in the truth of some form of Christianity, and that Mark and the others molded the story to fit their own views because it made more sense to them that way. I don't think that we can safely assume about any particular part of the New Testament that it was an authentic eyewitness account of the events of Jesus' life.

Posted by: smijer at August 25, 2004 01:44 PM

I agree with the words. But what you say with irony, I say with conviction. I am unabashedly a Calvinist, especially when it comes to the doctrines of grace. I would change your conclusion a bit. It's not that God isn't interested in your belief, but that he's chiefly interested in his own glory. He will finally acheive this whether or not you believe. God receives just as much glory in reprobation as he does in regeneration. It is not required of God that he be nice and loving towards everyone. He's God, he gets to make the rules. As I read of God's treatment of Pharaoh in the Exodus, of his command to obliterate the Canaanites; when I read the imprecatory Psalms, the prophecies against God's enemies, and Paul's exposition of election in Romans 9, I am compelled to believe what scripture actually says. I can reconcile a God who loves his own people with these passages; I cannot reconcile them with a God who loves everybody. Those places in the OT where Israel is commanded to destroy unbelieving nations is an example of what is called "the intrusion of the eschatological ethic." That is, at various times throughout redemptive history, the ethical standards of heaven have been applied to the earth. Aside from the Conquest, the flood is another example of this. The Second Advent of Christ will be yet another. This ethic does not apply between the advents of Christ. Those within the church are commanded to love not only their neighbors, but their enemies. The church is commanded to proclaim the Gospel to all nations. That being said, it is a mistake to determine God's eternal perspective in accordance with a temporal reprieve.

Too often, churches and well-meaning Christians get it wrong. The gospel gets an anthropocentric spin. "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." "Jesus is knocking at the door of your heart. Please don't leave him outside." "God is voting for you, Satan is voting against you, and you get to cast the deciding vote." "You wouldn't want Jesus to have gone to the cross for nothing, would you?" If this is just the dressing around the presentation of the historical facts of the gospel - the death and resurrection of the Son of God in payment for sin- then the gospel stands a chance of getting through. For some churches, however, this is not just dressing, it is the message. This is fatal. The undiluted gospel has nothing to do with a God who is sitting on the edge of his seat just waiting to see if someone will make his day and believe. It's not a soul contest between God and Satan. It is not whatever it takes to bring God down to our level so that he is easier and more palatable to believe. It is the proclamation of the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to the glory of God and for the salvation of his people. It does not accompany a request to agree with God, but a command to believe. It is the rebellious will of man that causes him to disobey this command. It is the grace of God towards his elect that regenerates them, thereby changing their will and causing them to obey. Either way, the will of man is free to do whatever it pleases and God is justified in the results. The presentation of the gospel should not be biased toward a positive reception. This will only serve to distort it and make it ineffectual for anyone. The gospel is the means whereby God is made known and, thereby, the means wherein he is glorified.

I would not conclude, though, that it is fruitless to discuss historically verifiable claims. And you missed a word in the quote. I said, "those claims of the faith that are subject to historical verifiability." My apologies if it slipped by, but I meant "the faith" as shorthand for the Christian religion. We also claim the existence of pastors, something which anyone can verify empirically. Belief in the events of the NT thought to be miraculous does not need to be a matter of faith. If the historical record is strong enough evidence of the ordinary, it is strong enough evidence of the extraordinary. And if not strong enough evidence to believe right away, at least strong enough to warrant further investigation. Faith is required to believe in these events as miracles. To believe in these recorded miracles is to believe in them as authentications of a divine message. Faith is the gift of God, but it is not given in a vacuum. It accompanies the Word of God. God does not grant the supernatural gift of faith in the absence of a natural ignorance of the historical facts. Faith must believe in something. The will to believe is planted in our head by God. The content of that belief is not. This must be heard and is subject to empirical-historical investigation. The Christian faith stands alone among all others in that it is falsifiable. It is not a matter of subjective faith despite the evidence. If Christ died and rose from the dead, then it still remains a matter of God implanted faith that this death was a vicarious atonement for sin. The historical event can never be enough evidence of the spiritual reality behind it. On the other hand, spiritual reality and historical event are inseparably tied. If there is no historical death and resurrection, there can be no salvation.

This is why I do not understand your claim that "Paul was seriously convinced by his religious experiences in the truth of some form of Christianity," when you also do not want to accuse him of consciously lying. This would work for a religion in which faith was subjective, in which it involved nothing more than an abstract moral system or belief in deities who never had meaningful and public interaction with this world. But Christianity, especially as described by Paul, is not at all like that. Paul grounded the Christian faith in the historical facts of the bodily death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Read his defense of the resurrection of the dead in I Corinthians 15. He says in vs. 16,17, "For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." Paul was subjecting the Christian religion to historical falsification. He was saying, "If it didn't actually happen this way, then there is no faith." Paul claims to have heard of Christ's resurrection from eyewitnesses. Read vs. 3-8. Among these, he lists Cephas (Peter) and James, both of whom , if he did not already know them, he would have met at the Jerusalem council of Acts 15. Paul claims to know them personally in Galatians 2. Either Paul is lying about the eyewitnesses, or the eyewitnesses have been lying to Paul.

But suppose you still want to claim a time gap or a question of geography. Look at Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2. He is not preaching to people who wouldn't know better. His audience includes the very people who had demanded Jesus death. vs23, 24. "this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it." 32,"This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses." 36,"Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." There was no time gap in which the Jesus of history faded far enough into memory so that the Christ of Christianity could emerge. It could not have been the case that few people knew what really happened and those who did would not have objected. Within two months of Jesus death and resurrection, the historic claims of Christianity had exploded across the very city in which the events took place. It was not done in secret. The author of Luke-Acts claims access to eyewitness testimony for the first account and claims to be an eyewitness for much of the second. He was a contemporary to the events in question. We are again left with the choice that he is either lying or he is truthfully recording extraordinary claims that went virtually unchallenged among those who would know.

Thanks for the dates on the books. I'd leave Paul and John where they are, move Matthew and Mark a decade earlier, and Luke-Acts two decades earlier. I'll accept them though, as long as the date of Luke-Acts is not meant to negate his claim to be a contemporary to the events. Even with these relatively late dates, there is no valid argument that the eyewitnesses would have been too old or distant to notice any change in the telling of the facts. The spread of Christianity across the Middle-East and southern Europe preceded the writing of the NT. Not only is it unlikely for the gospel story to remain unchallenged by the eyetwitnesses if it were false, but it is unlikely for the written NT to remain unchallenged by those who had first heard the gospel story. Not to mention that there would still have been living eyewitnesses at the time the NT was written. Between the events themselves, the proclamation of these events, and the written record both of the proclamation and of the events, there is little room for changing these events without any substantive objections from those who either saw or heard. Unless it can be established that these records were written at a considerably later date by people who either lied or naively guessed wrong; unless it can be established that Christianity began, not within weeks of the events, but within decades beyond the reach of witnesseses, then the historical claims of the NT warrant serious investigation. They cannot be dismissed as traditionally based and otherwise unsubstantiated faith claims. They deserve the benifit of the doubt, not for blind acceptance, but for sincere consideration. If Jesus Christ did not actually rise from the dead, then it is beyond belief that so many people so close to the time and place it was claimed to have happened got away with saying that he did.

The historical witness to the events of the NT is about as reliable as it gets. As long as we aren't dismissing other events of the general time period, such as who Caesar was and what he was doing at the time, we have no reason to dismiss the events in Palestine. Complete historical agnosticism is the only option. The problem is not found in a lack of evidence, but in an unwillingness to believe the evidence. More precisely, in an unwillingness to believe the message purported to be behind the evidence. The gift of faith is absolutely needed to overcome the gap between acknowledging the evidence and believing in the God behind the evidence. More often than not, it is also needed to overcome the moral objections to accepting the evidence.

Posted by: Kevin at August 25, 2004 11:10 PM

I have always admired Calvinists for their willingness to stick with the plain meaning of the Bible, and to form their doctrines, no matter how embarrasing, therefrom. Stubbornness of this kind is one of my own traits. I won't accept truth D if it is not compatible with truths A, B, and C that I know to be true. Likewise with Calvinists.

You leave us little to discuss however. Just a couple of minor and incidental points.

You've left me no choice but to point out that many people believe that Paul's resurrection of Christ was not bodily, but spiritual. This isn't to say that I can read Paul's mind on the matter, or that I am familiar enough with the various arguments to hold a firm position. Nevertheless, you may be reading into Paul if you are convinced that his ressurection was bodily. That doctrine at least could have been a later introduction.

Another point is this:

If the historical record is strong enough evidence of the ordinary, it is strong enough evidence of the extraordinary.

Maybe, but we are not just judging the evidence from the "historical record", we are also judging whether the Biblical record and the "historical record" are one and the same. When we read of the miracles of Vespasian, for instance, we do not assume that the records are historical evidence of his miraculous power. We first consider whether enough evidence exists to confirm the accounts of the miraculous. Unfortunately for miracle-believers, in neither case does the evidence support miraculous events. We must therefore consider the possibility that such accounts are religious, rather than historical, stories.

I noticed that you made your contention in opposition to my contention that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you truly use a system that doesn't use this standard, then you should believe equally well in both of the following statements of mine:

I am a thirty two year old man.

I can, without mechanical assistance, fly as high above the earth as I wish.

If your level of confidence in both of the above statements is the same, then you are consistent in holding that extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence. However, you would find yourself believing equally well in one true statement and one false one. I won't tell you which is which.

Posted by: smijer at August 26, 2004 09:11 PM

There isn't that little to discuss. Now it's just a matter of reevaluating A, B, and C, especially whichever one it is that constitutes that irrational and arbitrary epistemological axiom you like so much. I am aware of what people think about Paul's conception of Christ's resurrection. I'm even more aware of the plain meaning of the Biblical text. Scripture does not support the thesis that Paul did not believe in a bodily resurrection. His testimony, both in his epistles and in his sermons recorded in the book of Acts won't allow for it, the belief of some notwithstanding. When I can, I'd like to post a fuller treatment of the subject. For now, suffice it to say that I am not reading into the text. The idea of a bodily resurrection is only a later idea if someone is forging Paul's letters and Luke is lying.

We're judging whether the Biblical record is a trustworthy part of the historical record, not whether they're "one and the same." The narrative sections of scripture do present themselves as historical records. I'm afraid we're talking past each other on the idea of extraordinary evidence. I'm understanding you to mean that such evidence, by definition, stands outside of the historical record. When I say that the historical record is enough to believe the extraordinary, I'm not talking about the mere mention of an event. So, no, I wouldn't believe that you can fly as high above the earth as you wished. I would want records of eyewitnesses, but even that wouldn't be enough. I would want records of a powerful group of people who had a vested interest in you not being able to fly. I would want to know that they were unable to provide any evidence against your claim. I would want to know that when some of them tried, they too came to believe in your abilities. I would want to know that when the eyewitnesses were imprisoned or threatened with death for sticking to their story that the vast majority of them did not recant. If all of that were in the record, you would, at least, have my attention. This would bring the record of your abilities closer in line with the Biblical record.

As it is, you're just a shade behind Tacitus' account of Vespasian's healing of the lame man and the blind man in Egypt. He claims to have heard about it from eyewitnesses, "They who were present, relate both these cures, even at this time, when there is nothing to be gained by lying." Having nothing to gain by lying does nothing to bolster my confidence in their veracity. Add to this that the miracles happened in a relatively distant country from Tacitus' intended audience, a number of years in the past, and that the witnesses are not identified (at least that I've found). The record in Acts is presented by an eyewitness himself, standing among other eyewitnesses, before a crowd containing even more eyewitnesses, within two months from the time it occured, in the very city in which it occured. What's more, the more vocal of the eyewitnesses, far from having nothing to gain by lying, have plenty to lose by not keeping their mouths shut. The comparison is hardly adequate.

Posted by: Kevin at August 27, 2004 03:14 PM

On Paul's idea of ressurection: are you able to provide anything from the non-pseudepigraphical epistles that shows decisevly that Paul believed in a bodily resurrection? I can't count the witness of Acts, because the author of Acts may have recounted Paul's testimony in such a way as to make the resurrection bodily because the author of Acts understood the resurrection to be bodily. If that were the case, he wouldn't have necessarily been lying: he might have been recalling the ideas of Paul inaccurately due to his own cognitive bias.

On the matter of eyewitnesses, let me proceed this way. Not only can I fly, but I have several eyewitnesses to my flight. Frank saw me fly on numerous occasions, and Todd was there the very first time I flew from the top of Elder Mountain. Reuben and Sam were both killed for believing in my flight. They could have been spared if they had just claimed that I never flew. Of the two of them, Reuben was an eyewitness, and Sam was not.

The Chattanooga Skeptic Society spent several thousand dollars trying to disprove my claim, but they were unable to come up with any evidence that I cannot fly. They have disbanded due to bankrupcy stemming from their efforts.

Now do you believe?

All the evidence I have for my age, by the way, is a copy of my birth certificate... but if you send me your fax number I can fax it to you.

Posted by: smijer at August 27, 2004 08:14 PM

The epistles upon which I would argue for Paul's understanding of a bodily resurrection are non-pseudonymous (not that I wouldn't put them all in this category); namely, Romans, I Corinthians, and I Thessalonians. [Incidentally, among the first justifications for postulating pseudonymous writings in NT scripture is the presence of such writings in the OT. First on the list is, you guessed it, the Pentateuch.] If, by some remote chance I could buy your allegation concerning Luke's inaccurate memory of Paul's sermons, I cannot do the same regarding his memory of Peter's sermons. Aside from the record of eyewitness testimony for Peter's subject matter, there is the record of the sizeable audience that heard him. Such an event would not have gone unnoticed. Had the sermon at Pentecost never occured, or had the content been substantially different, there should have been objections. The record is silent. There's also the problem of explaining how Christianity would have gained such a rapid foothold if initial events were less than what is recorded. Much less if the apostles waited the requisite amount of time for the actual events to fade into unverifiable tradition. The extra-biblical record of an orthodox Christianity subtantially the same in its core beliefs as it as always been is too old to allow for such a gap. On the idea that Paul's conception of the resurrection was spiritual, this is uncommon even among Liberals. To be sure, they believe it was spiritual (to whatever extent they will give Christianity any credence at all). But their favorite argument about Paul inventing Christianity depends upon him rewriting actual history. Whether he actually believed in the bodily resurrection or invented a myth to suit a new religion is another debate.

If the only evidence that I have of your alleged flight is what you have just written down, then I'm still not impressed. As it stands, this is no different than Tacitus' claim to eyewitness testimony. I get the impression that you're assuming that the biblical record stands in isolation. If that is the case, then your newly updated flight scenario is closer to that record. In both cases, all I have is what I read. But they are not the same. Somehow, we have to account for the fact of Christianity. To make the flight record a more appropriate analogy, consider what would have been the case if the biblical record is accurate. Now we can change some things. First, I still live in the Chattanooga area. There is no question about who your eyewitnesses are and I have easy access to them (assuming they aren't dead yet). The event is not just word of mouth: the media has picked up on it (both legitimate and tabloid). Reuben and Sam were not simply killed by an unidentified vigilante. The opposition was more widespread and open. The Chattanooga Skeptic Society consists of both city and county authorities along with all of the major religious organizations in the area. Far from disbanding, they expand their efforts getting the state governments of both Tennessee and Georgia and, eventually, the federal government to join their cause. Everyone admits that it looks as though you're flying unaided. The skeptics just insist that there must be some sort of mechanical assistence. So it's not as though they're trying to prove a negative. At this point, I could not dismiss the idea of your unaided flight without some serious investigation.

But there's still a difference between this scenario and that of scripture. I'm in the middle of this one, scripture is an historical record. So let's move into the future. You're no longer flying and any mechanical evidence against your unaided flight would be long gone. The Skeptic Society has continued to exist in a greater of lesser form and has sometimes continued to kill those who believe in your now historical flight. Other times, there is an uneasy toleration. The incident is not a distant memory of Chattanooga folklore; instead, it has reshaped the culture of the South and is even making inroads into other parts of America despite the continued oppostition. If all of this were true, then I would consider it a strong historical case in favor of your flight. All of which is hypothetical. As it stands, the Bible's theology of miracles, which requires that they cease with the end of the Apostolic age and the close of the Canon, will not allow for this to happen.

More to the point though, your objections to the argument for an accurate historical record of the origins of Christianity are, so far, erratic. Paul may have believed this; Luke might have misunderstood him. All of which makes me believe that you have little idea of what the biblical record actually says. You're not even arguing in line with generally accepted Liberal thought. So far, you have shown no real defense against the idea that Christianity might be true. Nor have you shown enough familiarity with the Bible's contents to succesfully counter the idea that it was understood among eyewitnesses to be an historical record of events. The best way to dismantle an argument or a belief is to try to understand it from the perspective of its proponents. Give it the benefit of the doubt and enable yourself to play a convincing devil's advocate. Then, if it really is wrong, you can undermine it at its foundations. I'd like to have a more challenging response than, "not necessarily." Please, less doctrine, more truth.

Posted by: Kevin at August 28, 2004 03:43 AM

More to the point though, your objections to the argument for an accurate historical record of the origins of Christianity are, so far, erratic. Paul may have believed this; Luke might have misunderstood him. All of which makes me believe that you have little idea of what the biblical record actually says.

I was just trying to press home the point that noboby really knows what Paul thought, or why Luke wrote as he did, or Mark, or anyone else for that matter. All we have is a set of religious documents and a precious little contemporary secular history to supplement the info. We don't know much about the religious documents, how they were composed, why, when, or by whom. We have guesses and precious little evidence.

Now, you are asking me to accept these texts as historically accurate representations of Jesus' life and times. I say the burden is on you in that case.

These texts tell of faith healings, walking on water, and revivification after days in the grave. Those are extraordinary claims. Yet, for evidence, all you have are the religious texts themselves and some very muddy subsequent history.

I'm not seminaried, but I grew up Southern Baptist. You guess wrong when you say that I have no idea what the biblical record actually says. I'm pretty familiar with it, and I can open it back up for review any time. You claim certainty about what Paul believed concerning Jesus' resurrection, and claim to be able to produce scriptural testimony from the non-pseudepigraphical epistles to demonstrate it. I wish you would provide just one clear case from I Corinthians, Romans or I Thessalonians. I would only ask that you not include those portions of I Thessalonians suspected of being later interpolations: 2:14-16 and 5:1-11.

I understand that it isn't usual for Liberal scholars to interpret Paul's view of the resurrection that way: I merely point out that it is a possible interpretation - because you didn't put any qualifiers on your version of what Paul believed. I did it to remind you that your certainty about what Paul believes comes from your doctrine that the author of Acts was accurately portraying his viewpoints, and not coloring them at all. Of course, there is also the question of wheter the author of Acts was really present with Paul on the sea voyages, or whether he was borrowing language from another account. There cannot be certain either way, and perhaps we should give him the benefit of the doubt. The main point is there is no certainty on many of the most important points. And when there cannot be certainty about the accuracy of the religious texts in their portrayals of historical narrative, then they do not make strong evidence for miracles.

I would go further and say that traditions of early Christians being martyred, and the later rise of Christianity to prominence under Constatine are poor evidence of miracle claims as well. Who knows if people who actually knew Jesus on earth were truly among those martyred, and if so whether they believed in the resurrection because they had heard from a missionary that "the twelve" had witnessed it, or because they had witnessed it themselves?

Who knows how long Jewish Christianity struggled on with a few adherents until it eventually died out, or why gentiles were so attracted to the religion? Who knows whether Christianity would survive to the present had Constantine not endorsed it? Is a bodily resurrection the only explation for the facts we find? Or is it the other way around: maybe we should expect to see massive conversions of Jews and Roman soldiers in Jerusalem and Galillee beginning around 30 CE, if Jesus really walked on water and rose from the dead? Maybe we should see Philo and Josephus telling the story from the Jewish perspective, if it were true. There are so many questions, and so little evidence. At some point, the only answer is to remind you that your version of events is "not necessarily" correct, and therefore represents poor evidence for the miraculous.

Please, less doctrine, more truth.

Please, look to thine own eye.

Posted by: smijer at August 28, 2004 06:04 PM

It is possible to know what the text says. Furthermore, once it is established who wrote the text, it is possible to know what the author thought concerning the subject of the text. This is the case with I Corinthians 15. Paul is arguing for the general bodily resurrection of the dead. He is assuming that his audience already believes in the bodily resurrection of Christ. His argument is since you believe in Christ's resurrection, then you must believe in the resurrection of the dead. They are both the same kind of resurrection. I am still planning on writing a separate post on the subject. However, this much is evident from simply reading the chapter. The idea of a spiritual resurrection is not a possible interpretation of this text. That you would even think so means you've never taken the time to study it. Your Southern Baptist defense for knowing scripture is harldy convincing. I grew up Baptist myself and have very little confidence in their ability to teach scripture. Moralistic Sunday School lessons do not count. I'm not satisfied with being "pretty familiar" with the text. If you can open it back up any time, then do it. It's too easy to tell me what a text may not say. Instead, give me your own interpretation of it.

Until you can show me why Luke shouldn't be trusted to portray an accurate history or why I can't think that Paul wrote everything ascribed to him, then I cannot take your objections seriously. Your objections to basing any kind of an historical argument on Acts stand or fall with your ability to show that this narrative is undependable. The Liberals think that they've done it, but this has been a result of studying what Luke actually wrote. They draw conclusions for why Luke said what he did or what he was thinking. All of the questions about pseudonymous epistles and whether Luke accurately represented the viewpoint of Paul ultimately come from a study of the theology represented in the text. They compare Paul from his own epistles and Paul as portrayed in Luke and see differences. Paul's own account must be more trustworthy as far as his own opinions go. They compare ideas within the epistles claiming Pauline authorship and see irregularities. Interpolations are suspected in I Thessalonians because these passages don't match up with the theology that they have derived from other Pauline texts. I think they're wrong, but, at least, the Liberals are reading the text. All I've seen you do is lift their conclusions without demonstrating any understanding for why they adopted them. If you don't mind, though, I'd rather argue with you. You need to understand the content of the text before you can argue provenance or reliabiltity.

"The main point is there is no certainty on many of the most important points. And when there cannot be certainty about the accuracy of the religious texts in their portrayals of historical narrative, then they do not make strong evidence for miracles."

Compare this with your comment on 8/18, "My system allows us confidence, but not certainty, on any matter of truth in the world of experience. My system, by substituting confidence for certainty, opens up the possibility of pursuing the truth about sensory phenomena."

Why the double standard? And don't say that the extraordinary evidence for miracles needs to be certain evidence. Right now, I'm not asking you to consider the gospel accounts along with their record of miracles. I'm asking you to consider Peter's sermon at Pentecost in which he claimed that a miracle occured and that it had eyewitnesses. The question of whether or not the sermon was ever preached only requires confidence in the text, not certainty. A sermon is a fairly ordinary thing. I'm asking for the common sense recognition that, if such a sermon was ever preached, then what else would you expect the historical record to say? That Acts is a religious text is no reason to suppose that it cannot also be an historical text. It is unreasonable to throw it out. Even with all of the objections you've thrown at Acts (which still need to be substantiated on your part), there is enough reason to have confidence that this sermon was actually preached. Not certainty, but it does rate a "more than likely." Beyond this, the subsequent history is not "muddy." The extra-biblical records of Christianity go back into the first century. I'm not making a leap from Peter to Constantine. Nor am I using any church history as evidence of miracles. I am saying that a sermon such as Peter preached at Pentecost and the subsequent journeys of Paul as recorded in Acts are reasonable explanations for the spread of Christianity. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Luke did color the theology: that both Peter and Paul were actually talking about a spiritual resurrection. That Christianity was about moral issues and did not rest on historical events. If this were the case, then by the standards of any other historical event, there would be no objection to having confidence in this account.

But there's one little problem. Luke has Peter preaching to the very same people who had Jesus crucified and he has Peter saying that this same Jesus has risen from the dead. He sets the whole scene up in terms of eyewitnesses. There can be no eyewitnesses to a spiritual resurrection. The intent is clear. We're supposed to believe that Peter preached the bodily resurrection of Christ to a bunch of people who were in a prime position to prove him wrong. Now we consider the possibility of a miracle. Confidence in the historicity of the sermon does not prove the miracle. That would require certainty about the sermon. In fact, the idea of a miracle might even lower our confidence that the sermon was ever preached. If it causes us to deny the sermon altogether, this can only be the result of the a priori assumption that miracles cannot happen. We'd then be left wondering how exactly Christianity did spread. We'd have to wonder when the account of Peter's sermon was written. If sooner, then why are there no recorded objections from people who lived in Jerusalem at the time? If late enough for there to be no objection, it's too late to account for the belief.

None of this is proof. It is, however, sufficient to show that Christianity is a reasonable religion. Your underlying assumption, from the post that started everything, is that the logical conclusion of your rational and unencumbered thought is atheism. Faith, on the other hand, is subjective and irrational. It goes contrary to the evidence. You are neutral in your assumptions while those of faith operate from a particular bias that colors their perspective. You have failed to prove this. Atheism is not the logical end of your thought, it's very close to the logical beginning. It may be unintentional, but as a practical matter, it happens soon after you choose the set of axioms whereby you have decided to know truth. Under your epistemological system, only the natural is knowable. I choose to believe that God does exist and that, if he wanted to, he could reveal himself. When I read scripture and find the claims that God has chosen to reveal himself by means of historical events culminating in the incarnation, this makes sense. I live in history and I learn things through my empirical senses. I find the record of a God who communicates to me in a way that I can understand. I find that this communication is not a matter of subjective belief. If any of the major events are disproven, then the communication is disproven. [God is not disproven, just the fact that the Bible is his word.]

If I start with the assumption of a God who can communicate objectively, and if the historical points of that communication are not disproven, then it is reasonable to assume that the communication has taken place. On the other hand, if someone starts with the assumption that there is no God, then, even if the historical claims of scripture are proven to his satisfaction, it is reasonable to assume that no communication ever took place. He could still argue naturalistic explanations for everything. As I've said before, God proves miracles, miracles do not prove God. The existence of God cannot be determined as the result of a rational argument. I am not going to make you sit through the ontological, cosmological, or teleological proofs. For me, the existence of God is a core belief, or, if you will, an axiom, a first premise. And that premise colors my perspective of everything. As long as scripture is not disproven, it is perfectly rational for me to believe it. Your own atheism colors your perspective of many things. But, in your case, that atheism is not a premise. It follows from your choice of epistemological axioms in order to achieve the greatest economy for knowing truth. You admit that any number of things that you don't know could be true. But you will only accept as true that which can be perceived by the senses. Which might be fine in itself. But you take it a step further. You will deny as true that which cannot be perceived by the senses. This is irrational. It might be reasonable to deny the claims of scripture from the premise of atheism, but any claim to rationality vanishes when the atheism itself is the result of a fallacious argument. As long as you're considering things that actually follow from the knowledge gained by sense perception, then welcome to the world of rational thought. On the other hand...

Posted by: Kevin at August 29, 2004 10:03 AM

This is the case with I Corinthians 15. ... The idea of a spiritual resurrection is not a possible interpretation of this text.

Perhaps our disagreement is merely semantic. My insistence that a spiritual resurrection is compatible with Paul's statements was phrased poorly. I should have been saying "physical" rather than "bodily" resurrection in contradistinction with the "spiritual" view.

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

Verse 44, above, is the only thing that gives any hint on the controversy over spiritual versus physical: it is the only portion of chapter 15 that makes reference to the physical flesh and blood body at all.

If you insist that Chapter 15 must only mean the resurrection of a physical body, then you are arguing from your theology, not the text.

Until you can show me why Luke shouldn't be trusted to portray an accurate history or why I can't think that Paul wrote everything ascribed to him, then I cannot take your objections seriously. Your objections to basing any kind of an historical argument on Acts stand or fall with your ability to show that this narrative is undependable.

You are trying to reverse the burden of proof. You are the one that claims Luke's witness is evidence of miracles. Therefore it is up to you to show that Luke's witness is historically accurate.

I'm not a liberal theologian. I'm an atheist. My interest in the text is the interest of a curious dilletante, and as a former believer. As such, I have fair familiarity with what the text says, and the diversity of opinions on its provenance and reliability. I am keenly aware that there is no secular record of the events described in the text against which to check its accuracy and that no one has ever found a means by which to establish its accuracy scientifically.

"The main point is there is no certainty on many of the most important points. And when there cannot be certainty about the accuracy of the religious texts in their portrayals of historical narrative, then they do not make strong evidence for miracles."

Compare this with your comment on 8/18, "My system allows us confidence, but not certainty, on any matter of truth in the world of experience. My system, by substituting confidence for certainty, opens up the possibility of pursuing the truth about sensory phenomena." Why the double standard?

In my later statement, my phrase "no certainty" was poorly chosen. I did not mean to imply that the text had to be known accurate with absolute certainty. I meant that there was not enough evidence to provide much confidence. In other words the evidence does not only fail to produce "absolute certainty"; it produces "no certainty at all..." in the literalist interpretation of first century history.

The question of whether or not the sermon was ever preached only requires confidence in the text, not certainty.

That's true, and we can have a fair amount of confidence in the simple claim that a sermon was preached. However, this boat can only support so much propositional weight. You wish to pile much more onto the testimony of Luke's narrative:

A sermon is a fairly ordinary thing. I'm asking for the common sense recognition that, if such a sermon was ever preached, then what else would you expect the historical record to say? That Acts is a religious text is no reason to suppose that it cannot also be an historical text. It is unreasonable to throw it out. Even with all of the objections you've thrown at Acts (which still need to be substantiated on your part), there is enough reason to have confidence that this sermon was actually preached. Not certainty, but it does rate a "more than likely." Beyond this, the subsequent history is not "muddy." The extra-biblical records of Christianity go back into the first century. I'm not making a leap from Peter to Constantine. Nor am I using any church history as evidence of miracles. I am saying that a sermon such as Peter preached at Pentecost and the subsequent journeys of Paul as recorded in Acts are reasonable explanations for the spread of Christianity. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Luke did color the theology: that both Peter and Paul were actually talking about a spiritual resurrection. That Christianity was about moral issues and did not rest on historical events. If this were the case, then by the standards of any other historical event, there would be no objection to having confidence in this account.

But there's one little problem. Luke has Peter preaching to the very same people who had Jesus crucified and he has Peter saying that this same Jesus has risen from the dead. He sets the whole scene up in terms of eyewitnesses. There can be no eyewitnesses to a spiritual resurrection. The intent is clear. We're supposed to believe that Peter preached the bodily resurrection of Christ to a bunch of people who were in a prime position to prove him wrong. Now we consider the possibility of a miracle. Confidence in the historicity of the sermon does not prove the miracle. That would require certainty about the sermon. In fact, the idea of a miracle might even lower our confidence that the sermon was ever preached. If it causes us to deny the sermon altogether, this can only be the result of the a priori assumption that miracles cannot happen. We'd then be left wondering how exactly Christianity did spread. We'd have to wonder when the account of Peter's sermon was written. If sooner, then why are there no recorded objections from people who lived in Jerusalem at the time? If late enough for there to be no objection, it's too late to account for the belief.

I have so many points to make. First, Paul may have believed in a spiritual resurrection, yet he believed he was an eyewitness to the resurrected Christ. In his Damascus road experience, there is neither Acts nor Paul's own letters to tell us that he saw the physical body of Christ, yet he counts himself an eyewitness. Peter could have easily done the same, if Peter's sermon was accurately recounted.

Next, I'd like to know how Peter's audience could have proved him wrong about the resurrection even if there was no room for doubt that Peter preached a physical one. What evidence could have been brought to bear against his account, unless he named the eyewitnesses and they happened to be available for cross-examination?

Next, I'd like to point out that, prior to Constantine, Christianity didn't spread much, that Paul, not Peter, was the missionary most visible in the New Testament record, and that, from the second to fourth centuries, Christianity was doctrinally diverse. So, if we are to attempt to account for its spread with no more evidence than is provided by the New Testament, then we are quite at a loss. I will say it outright: I cannot account for the early spread of Christianity any more than I can account for the early spread of Mormonism. Mormonism sprang up in a time from which historical records survive that show Joseph Smith was proven wrong to many potential belivers, yet it spread, and it is impossible to account for the reasons that it did.

Under your epistemological system, only the natural is knowable.

This isn't entirely true. My epistemological system recognizes that only one system has proven itself useful for making sense of the world of sensation: what we call the "objective world". In a sense, only one system has been invented for knowing about objective reality in a way that is a reliable predictor of future experience. Possibly other things could be known, that are unavailable to the senses. However, no one has presented any system for actually knowing them apart from assuming the largest chunks of their conclusions at the outset. I would be willing to amend my epistemology to include another way of knowing if one could be presented that did not assume its conclusions, and that provided a mechanism for revealing spurious results.

On the other hand, if someone starts with the assumption that there is no God, then, even if the historical claims of scripture are proven to his satisfaction, it is reasonable to assume that no communication ever took place. He could still argue naturalistic explanations for everything. As I've said before, God proves miracles, miracles do not prove God. The existence of God cannot be determined as the result of a rational argument. I am not going to make you sit through the ontological, cosmological, or teleological proofs. For me, the existence of God is a core belief, or, if you will, an axiom, a first premise. And that premise colors my perspective of everything. As long as scripture is not disproven, it is perfectly rational for me to believe it. Your own atheism colors your perspective of many things. But, in your case, that atheism is not a premise. It follows from your choice of epistemological axioms in order to achieve the greatest economy for knowing truth. You admit that any number of things that you don't know could be true. But you will only accept as true that which can be perceived by the senses. Which might be fine in itself. But you take it a step further. You will deny as true that which cannot be perceived by the senses. This is irrational. It might be reasonable to deny the claims of scripture from the premise of atheism, but any claim to rationality vanishes when the atheism itself is the result of a fallacious argument. As long as you're considering things that actually follow from the knowledge gained by sense perception, then welcome to the world of rational thought. On the other hand...

I am sorely misrepresented here. I do not assume, as you claim, that there is no God. Nor do I dismiss claims about scripture on the basis of my disbelief in God. I find many claims you make about scripture to be merely unsupported in their own right.

I do think it unlikely that a God who wished to communicate with me would take the ungainly approach of using ancient literature for the purpose, but that's another story for another day. The simple fact is that there are all manner of people and literature claiming to speak for God. Such claims have a very high burden of proof if they are going to convince me. This has nothing to do with an a priori dismissal of God. It has much more to do with some unpleasant facts of human nature.

Posted by: smijer at August 29, 2004 05:30 PM

"I'm an atheist." vs. "I do not assume, as you claim, that there is no God." I love it.

I am not reversing the burden of proof by asking you to show why your objections are the case. Nor am I attempting to use Luke's witness to prove miracles to you. This can't be done until you first believe in God. I am defending the reasonableness, for those who do believe in a God who can work miracles, of accepting the historical reliability of Luke's witness as long as it has not been falsified. Your objections, while they may look like those of liberal theologinas, do not carry the same weight. They are all ad hoc. You state what might be without offering any reason for why it might be. If, as you state, your "interest in the text is the interest of a curious dilettante," you have just admitted to being superficial. I fail to see why I, or anyone for that matter, should continue to take you seriously.

The distinction in I Corinthians 15:44 is not between material substance and ethereal spirit. The key word is "body." Both natural and spiritual adjectives describing the pre and post resurrection bodies respectively. the verse is in the section that answers the question in vs. 35- "what kind of body?" Paul opens the discussion talking about seeds. What is put in changes somehow before it comes out. In the next section, Paul talks about that final generation of believers who will be changed without dying. The resurrection entails both change and continuity. The phrase "spiritual resurrection" can work as long as it does not imply a body remaining in the tomb.

Your own epistemological system assumes much more than you're willing to admit. It assumes that there even is an objective world. All you really are able to do is say that if your senses tell you a few things now, you can predict what they will tell you later. You have no way of knowing whether or not these images correspond to any kind of external reality. In your system, "reality" is a function of epistemology. Because the God who created both of them has revealed them, I believe that there is a natural world and a spiritual world. If, for the sake of argument, I were to take on your own system before the initial choice of axioms, we are both assuming an awful lot of stuff. Neither set of assumptions under this system allows us to know anything outside of the logical relationships within those assumptions. But let's get past that and agree that our mutual assumtion that the natural world exists is true. I am also assuming that the supernatural world exists. I can see your objection when it relates to most forms of faith. Their claims are not related to what happens in the natural world. However, biblical revelation is specifically designed around historical events; it is tied to things that happen in the natural world. The problem is not that of a faith not subject to reliable future prediction. It is more a matter of fundamental distrust and impatience. God has revealed himself in the past and has recorded it. He has recorded that he will reveal himself in the future. When this happens, there will be no arguments over inaccessible faith claims.

I, too, would think that revelation through ancient literature might be somewhat "ungainly;" that is, if this were all that is happening. But the Bible, although recorded in literary form, is not mere literature. It is history. It is the record of God revealing himslef to his people in real actions and events. The events are recorded and explained and, as history progresses, more and more is known about God. Revelation is progressive and culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Once Christ has come, there is no further need for direct revelation in actual events. The Word of God is sufficient to all but those who refuse to believe.

Posted by: Kevin at August 30, 2004 01:20 PM

"I'm an atheist." vs. "I do not assume, as you claim, that there is no God." I love it.

I hope you understand both the nature of a logical assumption, and the nature of atheism. I do not assume in my reasoning that there is no God.
In fact, I do not believe the positive claim "there is no God" on any but a certain subset of definitions of God. On other definitions of God,
I am a weak atheist "I do not believe the proposition that there is a God". It is conceivable, in fact, to define God in such a way that I believe It's existence (though it might be absurd to define God so liberally). You seem to accuse me of arguing from the assumption that there is no God, but one does not have to assume that in order to follow my reasoning. All one must do is refrain from building God's existence into one's own assumptions.

I am not reversing the burden of proof by asking you to show why your objections are the case.

My objections are simply that you haven't met a reasonable burden of proof for the view you support. The points I make about uncertainty on
authorship, eyewitness or hearsay status, and the intended meaning of the authors is merely to show that there are quite a lot of possible views of the text that you have not ruled out and cannot rule out before making your assumptions about its historical accuracy.

Nor am I attempting to use Luke's witness to prove miracles to you. This can't be done until you first believe in God. I am defending the reasonableness, for those who do believe in a God who can work miracles, of accepting the historical reliability of Luke's witness as long as it has not been falsified.

What is your argument? Even if we already believe (for whatever reason!?) that there is a God who can work miracles, that doesn't mean that God should, would, or did in any particular case. Even most Christians believe that something very close to 100% of ancient literature that reports miracles is historically inaccurate.

Normally, ancient literature centered on religious beliefs are not assumed to be historically accurate "as long as it has not been falsified": particularly when your apologetic system holds an incredibly high standard of what constitutes falsification, and particularly when there are very few details of narrative that are even subject to falsification by outside evidence. On what evidence should your Theist supernaturalists believe that Luke's witness is historically accurate?

Your objections, while they may look like those of liberal theologinas, do not carry the same weight. They are all ad hoc. You state what might be without offering any reason for why it might be. If, as you state, your "interest in the text is the interest of a curious dilettante," you have just admitted to being superficial. I fail to see why I, or anyone for that matter, should continue to take you seriously.

It is I that has little motivation to take you seriously: you are making the claims of historicity, yet you give no evidence. I at least admit that there does not exist enough evidence, and particularly not enough available to someone who hasn't been extensively trained in ancient
middle eastern culture, language, and archaeology, to support more than a superficial interest in the literature handed down from that time.
Unless I was a lover of great literature, I could be justified in giving no interest to such literature. Unfortunately, since so many of my peers are trained from childhood to approach that literature as historical truth, I do have some interest in chasing down a few claims on your territory (as I mentioned at the beginning of this post).

The distinction in I Corinthians 15:44 is not between material substance and ethereal spirit. The key word is "body." Both natural and spiritual adjectives describing the pre and post
resurrection bodies respectively. The verse is in the section that answers the question in vs. 35- "what kind of body?" Paul opens the discussion talking about seeds. What is put in changes somehow before it comes out. In the next section, Paul talks about that final generation of believers who will be changed without dying. The resurrection entails both change and continuity. The phrase "spiritual resurrection" can work as long as it does not imply a body remaining in the tomb.

It can work in the text itself without your theological prejudice, even if Paul was preaching from the tomb and staring at the body that was still there. We simply cannot know for sure what Paul thought of the status of Jesus' natural body, or if he even considered the matter.

Because the God who created both of them has revealed them, I believe that there is a natural world and a spiritual world.

Realistically, everyone believes in the world that we can perceive with our senses because we perceive it with our senses - not because they
think a supernatural entity has revealed it to them. I don't know if you believe that God has revealed a spiritual "world" to you that coexists
with everything we can perceive directly, or if you were just trained to believe in a religion that teaches this from scripture. However, without
the assumption of a spirit world, you and I really would be on the same footing.

I can see your objection when it relates to most forms of faith. Their claims are not related to what happens in the natural world. However, biblical revelation is specifically designed around historical events; it is tied to things that happen in the natural world. The problem is not that of a faith not subject to reliable future prediction. It is more a matter of fundamental distrust and impatience. God has revealed himself in the past and has recorded it.

The claim that Biblical revelation is specifically tied to things that happened in the natural world is a claim - a story. Your theory of Biblical revelation is specifically designed around that story. There is no good evidence that the story is true. It is true that I have a degree of distrust and impatience, but it is not with God. It is with people who pass along stories about Him, or claim in to speak for Him either in literature or in references to His relationship to literary works.

I, too, would think that revelation through ancient literature might be somewhat ungainly;" that is, if this were all that is happening. But the Bible, although recorded in literary form, is not mere literature. It is history. It is the record of God revealing himslef to his people in real actions and events. The events are recorded and explained and, as history progresses, more and more is known about God. Revelation is progressive and culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Once Christ has come, there is no further need for direct revelation in actual events.

Apart from the fact that you haven't presented any evidence that this is really the case, I can't help but point out that it is still a rather ungainly seeming process. I remember playing a game as a child that used a series of riddles whose solutions were clues to the location of the next object in a scavenger hunt and the next riddle. The riddles are different, but the Bible, when looked at with the thought in mind that it is a communication from God, reminds me a lot of that game.

The Word of God is sufficient to all but those who refuse to believe.

It is my contention that belief isn't a choice. We believe because we are persuaded by the evidence of our senses. I can no more choose to believe in God than I can choose to believe in Santa. In much the same way, I cannot refuse to believe. I think the biggest downfall of Western religion is the deception that belief can be a chosen or refused in any meaningful way.

Posted by: smijer at September 2, 2004 08:16 PM

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