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