Thursday, March 26, 2009
William Lane Craig Discusses His Debate With Richard Carrier
William Lane Craig is in the process of discussing his debate with Richard Carrier on his Reasonable Faith Podcast. Go here and scroll down to the second group of podcasts. The first part of the discussion has been posted. I don't know how many parts there will be.
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I am just curious at what the resurrection of Jesus actually proves. Luke from Common Sense Atheism states (here: http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=30) that even if you prove Jesus rose from the dead, that's all you have proven: Jesus rose from the dead. You havne't proved Jesus was God, that he died for our sins, that Yahweh exists, or anything of the sort.
ReplyDeleteGiven the Easter season could you write or link to an article that explains what exactly the resurrection of Jesus proves? Thanks!
Also if you could respond to Luke's points here where he interviewed Mike Licona (http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=261) :
ReplyDeleteThe interview inevitably turned into a friendly debate. I think our differences are summed up in two points. The first:
Luke: “So, the background knowledge that people don’t generally rise from the dead is not useful in us determining whether or not Jesus rose from the dead?”
Mike: “No, it’s not helpful at all.”
Mike seems to argue that whether I say there is a Buick in my garage or an invisible dragon in my garage, we should require the same level of evidence for each (i.e. very little). Obviously, I disagree, as I think most people will if they consult their own common sense.
The second major difference in our views is that Mike thinks the question for the historian to answer is: “What best explains all the data?” But if so, well, visitation by the angel Gabriel can explain all the data for Joseph Smith! But that doesn’t mean this is what actually happened in history. I think a better question is: “What probably happened in history?” Under this question, it becomes clear that visitation by magical angels is not the most probable event experienced by Joseph Smith.
ROB SAID:
ReplyDeleteAlso if you could respond to Luke's points here where he interviewed Mike Licona (http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=261) :
The interview inevitably turned into a friendly debate. I think our differences are summed up in two points. The first:
Luke: “So, the background knowledge that people don’t generally rise from the dead is not useful in us determining whether or not Jesus rose from the dead?”
Mike: “No, it’s not helpful at all.”
Mike seems to argue that whether I say there is a Buick in my garage or an invisible dragon in my garage, we should require the same level of evidence for each (i.e. very little). Obviously, I disagree, as I think most people will if they consult their own common sense.
The second major difference in our views is that Mike thinks the question for the historian to answer is: “What best explains all the data?” But if so, well, visitation by the angel Gabriel can explain all the data for Joseph Smith! But that doesn’t mean this is what actually happened in history. I think a better question is: “What probably happened in history?” Under this question, it becomes clear that visitation by magical angels is not the most probable event experienced by Joseph Smith.
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We don't evaluate the claims of Joseph Smith in a vacuum. We know quite a bit about Smith. There's plenty of evidence that Smith was a charlatan. He dabbled in fashionable 19C occultism.
Moreover, Smith created a defeater for his own claims when he claimed to translate a document from Egyptian into English. That's a testable claim. He blew the test.
Luke: “So, the background knowledge that people don’t generally rise from the dead is not useful in us determining whether or not Jesus rose from the dead?”
ReplyDeleteThe credibility of the Resurrection isn't based on what generally happens. It's not like a naturally occurring or recurring event, viz. Halley's comet.
That's not the correct framework by which to judge the Resurrection.
Thanks guys. Those are good points.
ReplyDeleteOne of the better christian apologists on YouTube is in it, which is pretty cool:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edUHOMkQsec
Rob said:
ReplyDelete"I am just curious at what the resurrection of Jesus actually proves. Luke from Common Sense Atheism states (here: http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=30) that even if you prove Jesus rose from the dead, that's all you have proven: Jesus rose from the dead. You havne't proved Jesus was God, that he died for our sins, that Yahweh exists, or anything of the sort."
The resurrection would be evidence for the identity of Jesus and the claims He made. We would cite other evidence as well (Jesus' healings, His raising of other individuals, His fulfillment of prophecy, the miracles of the apostles, etc.). If somebody would dispute whether Jesus made particular claims (whether He affirmed the Divine inspiration of the Old Testament, whether He claimed to be God, etc.), then we would address the evidence relevant to whether He made those claims. Gary Habermas and Mike Licona, whose book Luke is reviewing, are aware that the content of Jesus' teaching and His resurrection are different issues involving different argumentation.
We've addressed issues like the ones Luke brings up (whether Jesus claimed to be God, whether the gospels teach the same view of salvation that Paul taught, etc.). You can consult the archives, if you're interested. His mentioning groups like the Gnostics and Marcionites doesn't establish whether such groups had credibility comparable to or better than that of traditional Christianity. His suggestion that there was no concern for evidence among the earliest Christians is ridiculous. His treatment of the martyrdom issue, with a comparison to people who die for "their belief that Yahweh didn’t want them to eat bacon", is problematic. Etc. We've addressed these issues before.
Once we have proven that Jesus rose from the dead, all we need is the very plausible premise:
ReplyDelete(1) If Jesus rose from the dead, it was done by God.
The credibility of the Resurrection isn't based on what generally happens. It's not like a naturally occurring or recurring event, viz. Halley's comet.
ReplyDeleteThat's not the correct framework by which to judge the Resurrection.
That's not true. The type of example he gave is actually very relevant: if he insists he owns a blue buick and it's in a garage in 2009, and you insist it's a supernatural creature - a pink unicorn - my bet is on the buick or something like it (if it's his garage!). And anyone who insists on any supernatural entity has the burden of hard proof. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. It's not up to anyone else to prove that there isn't a pink unicorn there.
The resurrection would be evidence for the identity of Jesus and the claims He made.
True. IF the whole body was buried , and IF there was direct evidence that he truly rose from the dead, that would be evidence.
SImilarly ..... if there is no evidence to believe either of those points, and good reason to believe either probably didn't happen, then that would contradict the resurrection. (Hard to resurrect bodily if the whole body was never buried - the latter being Roman custom for crucified criminals). I disagree with both Carrier and Evans here: there is not general historical consensus at all that a whole body was buried. (Theological consensus, maybe; but that's almost by definition).
Gnostics and Marcionites doesn't establish whether such groups had credibility comparable to or better than that of traditional Christianity.
I'd be careful here. Let's realize one thing: what you're calling 'traditional Christianity' is only 'traditional' because it won the battle between different 'sects'. And the victors wrote the 'history', so to speak. While this has been basically known since Bauer, Bart Ehrman's latest book, Jesus: Interrupted (which just came out), goes over it (again) very well in summary form.
"Traditional Christiaity' - which, in the three centuries efore it 'won' Ehrman refers to as proto-orthodox Christianity - was not the one, main,
majority religion in the Mediterranean area in any significant way before circa 300 CE. In fact, there were areas where it was the clear minority. A combination of at least 3 major factors changed all that over time:
1. the fact that the dominant Christian sect in the imperial capital, Rome, was proto-Orthodox (which obviously ended up having more sway than the forms, say, in rural Anatolia; or in any other place, for that matter).
2. The first 'History of the Church' - which, of course, portrayed his Christian sect (proto-orthodox) as the only true one - was written by Eusebius. (If there had been somehow a democratic vote among all Christians in the Med as to whether that book was a true 'history', he may not have won that vote. But, there wasn't, of course, and his book got read in places like Alexandria - and, Rome).
3. Some guy named Constantine decriminalized and legalized Christianity - the Christianity that was in Rome, of course.
and, add a 4th: The Roman Empire legally adopts Christianity decades later. And of course, the re-writing of history had already begun some time before, showing that not only had the proto-orthodox sect in Rome 'won' and become universal (i.e., 'catholic'), it had always been that way. And folks who said otherwise were treated very, very badly.
His suggestion that there was no concern for evidence among the earliest Christians is ridiculous.
Again, caution is called for. All the different sects generally did not try to do honest history, and anything which disagreed with each's (is that a word??) own interpretation of 'faith' was generally ignored.
Dave Huntsman,
ReplyDeleteYou've made a lot of assertions without sufficient documentation or argumentation. Steve Hays has reviewed Bart Ehrman's book on this blog, and we've responded to Ehrman at length in other contexts. Walter Bauer's work has been widely criticized.
You write:
"In fact, there were areas where it [traditional Christianity] was the clear minority."
I don't have to maintain that traditional Christianity was the majority everywhere in order to maintain that it's more credible than its competition.
You write:
"The first 'History of the Church' - which, of course, portrayed his Christian sect (proto-orthodox) as the only true one - was written by Eusebius."
A document doesn't have to be what we today would classify as a church history in order to convey a view of early Christian history. Documents like the letters of Paul, the gospels, and Acts convey historical information supportive of traditional Christianity long before Eusebius wrote his church history. Standards of orthodoxy are advocated in the earliest documents, along with assertions of widespread unity accompanied by some disunity, as we see in 1 Corinthians 15 and Galatians 2, for example. In later generations, but still prior to Eusebius, we find something similar to what your refer to in Eusebius in book 3 of Irenaeus' Against Heresies and Origen's response to Celsus, for example, where he often discusses Christian unity while acknowledging some measure of disunity.
You write:
"Some guy named Constantine decriminalized and legalized Christianity - the Christianity that was in Rome, of course.
and, add a 4th: The Roman Empire legally adopts Christianity decades later. And of course, the re-writing of history had already begun some time before, showing that not only had the proto-orthodox sect in Rome 'won' and become universal (i.e., 'catholic'), it had always been that way. And folks who said otherwise were treated very, very badly."
Eusebius acknowledges the existence of many groups claiming to be Christian, which he considered unorthodox, in the earliest centuries. He also acknowledges some of his disagreements with Papias, Irenaeus, and other influential figures of earlier generations. Documents predating Eusebius refer to the Gnostics, the Marcionites, and other such groups and discuss them at length. Polycarp argues with Anicetus. Tertullian becomes a Montanist. Origen criticizes some of the bishops of his day. Cyprian argues against Stephen. Such disputes are mentioned explicitly and often in the earliest centuries. We can trace changes in church government, eschatology, soteriology, etc. The same sources refer to an underlying unity that accompanied that disunity. If Eusebius and others in such positions of influence wanted to "rewrite history" to the extent you're suggesting, why did they include so many references to heretical groups and disagreements among the orthodox? Why would a church with the ability and willingness to radically rewrite history leave so many references to the early absence of a monarchical episcopate, the early popularity of premillennialism, early disagreements over the canon, etc.? How do individuals living in the fourth century go about controlling the dissemination of information, the copying of documents, etc. after a religion has had a few hundred years to spread out over many hundreds of miles?
Tell us why the "folks who said otherwise" supposedly are more credible than the orthodox. And tell us how you attained such information if the orthodox had as much ability and willingness to rewrite history as you're suggesting.