Sunday, April 15, 2012

Is The Shroud Of Turin Demonic?

What's below is something I posted on TurretinFan's blog. It's applicable to contexts other than the Shroud of Turin as well. I'm responding to TurretinFan's comments to the effect that the Shroud, if supernaturally produced, could come from some supernatural source other than God:

The Shroud could be attributed to demons or the paranormal abilities of a human, for example. So could answers to our prayers, healings, our sense of how God is guiding us in a particular situation, the miracles recorded in the Bible, etc. We make probability judgments about the source(s) of these phenomena. There are a lot of principles we can apply to make such judgments, and I won't go into those in depth here. (I've done so in other contexts in the past, like when discussing near-death experiences. For anybody interested in the sort of principles I'm referring to above, see my material on near-death experiences here, especially the comments section of the thread here.) For one thing, I don't begin with some sort of default assumption that the Shroud is a deception. Similarly, I don't begin with the premise that other objects are deceptive, that individuals are lying when they tell me something, etc. The burden of proof is on the shoulders of those who would want us to think the Shroud is something other than what it seems to be. Beyond that, the uniqueness of the Shroud, its pro-Christian nature, and the response it's elicited among non-Christians, for example, suggest to me that it probably isn't demonic or the result of human paranormal activity.

The objections that are typically raised against it in some Christian circles, such as an alleged inconsistency with John 19:39-40 or 20:7, are dubious, minor objections that are far outweighed by the pro-Christian nature of the remainder of the Shroud. (More substantial charges of contradiction are often leveled against the Bible itself and the miracles it records, yet we don't conclude that those Biblical books or Biblical miracles are demonic.) I doubt that Satan would reserve such an unusual miracle for leading people astray on such minor issues, a miracle that would simultaneously lead people to so much confidence in other Biblical accounts, including ones of a more significant nature.

And any appeal to Satan's alleged desire to promote the use of images would depend on an argument for the inappropriateness of images. We've been over that ground before. A few of us on the Triablogue staff have argued in depth for our view that images are acceptable, as long as they aren't venerated inappropriately (e.g., the bronze serpent of 2 Kings 18:4 was acceptable, but was abused by some people). Even if we accepted the premise that images of Jesus are inappropriate, which is a premise I actually reject, it would still have to be argued that the Shroud violates that principle. If the image on the Shroud was produced by some sort of normal natural process that occurred while Jesus was in the grave or was produced supernaturally by Jesus' resurrection, for example, neither of those scenarios (or others of a similar nature) would involve humans making an image of Jesus. (Jesus is a human, and He could be said to have produced the image in some sense, but I'm referring here to mere humans.) When Jesus was on earth, He would have left footprints in the sand, sweat marks and fingerprints on objects He touched, etc. We distinguish between those things and the making of images. The premise that we shouldn't make images of Jesus does render it less likely that God would leave us an image in the Shroud, but the two could coexist. I think the Shroud image, if authentic, weakens the argument against images, but doesn't refute it. And, again, we'd have to ask whether Satan would be so interested in weakening the argument against images. Would he be willing to promote so many other aspects of Christianity in the process of adding such minor support to the argument for the permissibility of images?

But why raise something like the demonic theory to begin with? In our earlier discussions, you and Coram Deo kept suggesting that there's no significant doubt that the Shroud is a forgery, that it's easy to dismiss, etc. You went as far as to claim that we have "about as good confirmation that it was a 14th century hoax as one could hope to get". You and Coram Deo kept appealing to the medieval photography theory, pointing to similarities between the Shroud and medieval artwork, referring to how incompetent the hoax supposedly was, etc. You didn't say anything about the involvement of paranormal factors. An appeal to something like demonic deception or human paranormal activity as an explanation of the Shroud would be a radical departure from what people like you and Coram Deo have been arguing. It would be a significant concession.

17 comments:

  1. Even if we grant TFan's Diabolus ex machina for the sake of argument, why would Satan try to deceive people into believing in the Resurrection by supernaturally creating the shroud? Wouldn't that be counterproductive? Isn't Satan normally in the business of deceiving people into disbelieving in the Resurrection?

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  2. If Satan is in that business he is quickly going corporately bankrupt. He better go to the banker and get a fresh infusion of capital cause it appears more and more are coming into the Light of the Resurrection and the Life!

    If the many things we can speculate about the business Satan is in, one thing is sure, he is cowering at the soon coming reality of the lake of fire!

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  3. Entrusting miraculous gifts and relics into the hands of the false church (who often proclaim the resurrection nevertheless) seems right up Satan's alley. People are convinced of the reality of God by Lourdes the Holy Fire and crying Mary statues too. Couldn't the same "business of Satan" objection be leveled against those things?

    Like the Shroud, I'm skeptical of the reality of those supposed miracles, but even if they were to be proven to be supernatural I would have little reason to suppose that they were signs from God.

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  4. Another thing while we are at it about demons and their abilities and powers, signs and all false wonders that they do; I can fully embrace with all my heart, full of His Faith, that My God, the Living God, the Creator of all living things, the present heavens and earth, can make Moses' staff into a snake. What I am still having a hard time contemplating is how the magicians of Egypt, those sorcerers, also did the same by their secret arts? With God all things are possible. But the magicians and sorcerers of Egypt, well now, I guess that is why their false powers, signs and wonders are called secret arts!

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  5. Chris Hansen,

    You're not interacting with my arguments. And comparing the Shroud to something like "crying Mary statues" can be misleading, since there are problems with the latter that don't accompany the former. The Shroud is currently in possession of the Roman Catholic Church, but it hasn't always been, and there's nothing inherently Roman Catholic about the object. The Catholic Church and its members have possessed a lot of objects over the years (e.g., Biblical manuscripts), and we don't assume that the objects are all therefore inauthentic, demonic, or some such thing. Similarly, the ark of the covenant was possessed for a while by people who didn't even profess to be believers, as were other objects of Divine origin during the Old Testament era. The nation of Israel itself was sometimes taken captive by foreign powers that didn't believe in the same God. Do you realize how many archeological artifacts, Biblical manuscripts, pieces of information about the historical context of the Bible, etc. have been passed down to you partially through Roman Catholic hands or the hands of atheists, polytheists, Muslims, etc.?

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  6. I wonder whether the Vatican's "Savior of the World" statue has a demonic origin? See: http://freethoughtnation.com/contributing-writers/63-acharya-s/669-the-phallic-savior-of-the-world-hidden-in-the-vatican.html

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  7. Steve:

    Satan is all about leading people into idolatry.

    Whether that is by convincing people that a statue of Diana fell down from heaven, or by convincing people that Jesus left a magic imprint, the result is the same: foolish people worship the image.

    -TurretinFan

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  8. And because some of the Israelites worshipped the bronze serpent we know it was ANE forgery.

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  9. TFan,

    i) You're changing the subject. The devil leading people into idolatry is hardly equivalent to the devil leading people to believe in the Resurrection.

    ii) If Gary Habermas thinks the Shroud is authentic, that doesn't make him an idolater. He doesn't venerate the Shroud. Rather, he just views it as a piece of evidence, like other types of extrabiblical evidence, such as references to Jesus in Tacitus and Josephus.

    iii) No doubt many Catholics idolize the Shroud. By the same token, many Israelites idolized the ark of the covenant by treating the ark like a rabbit's foot. That doesn't make the ark of the covenant a diabolical fraud.

    iv) Why do you use the word "magic"? Do you classify Gospel miracles as "magic"?

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  10. Steve:

    As to (i), you asked the question about why Satan would deceive people ("Even if we grant TFan's Diabolus ex machina for the sake of argument, why would Satan ..."). I'm answering that question. If someone is guilty of changing the subject it's not me.

    As to (ii), that wasn't my allegation, was it?

    As to (iii), your points only confirm mine. If God-made artifacts can lead to idolatry, and if Satan is aware of this, then it follows that Satan has an incentive to create false artifacts to lure people into similar idolatry.

    As to (iv), pick any word you like. There's no Gospel warrant for Jesus leaving miraculous (whether magical or otherwise) images on anything.

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  11. "And because some of the Israelites worshipped the bronze serpent we know it was ANE forgery."

    This confirms my suspicion that it would be a waste of time to engage MSC on these points.

    -TurretinFan

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  12. TurretinFan wrote:

    "If God-made artifacts can lead to idolatry, and if Satan is aware of this, then it follows that Satan has an incentive to create false artifacts to lure people into similar idolatry."

    Satan would also have reasons for not wanting to create an artifact like the Shroud. You have to weigh the balance of the motives rather than just mentioning the motives in one direction while ignoring the motives in the other direction. And Satan's potential motives aren't all that we take into account when weighing the demonic theory.

    You write:

    "There's no Gospel warrant for Jesus leaving miraculous (whether magical or otherwise) images on anything."

    What do you mean by "Gospel warrant", and why would there have to be one? Are you saying that there would have to be a precedent? The resurrection was a unique event, as many other historical events have been. Even if the resurrection wasn't unique, we wouldn't need examples of events highly similar to the production of the Shroud image in order to conclude that Jesus' resurrection produced the image on the Shroud. If scripture doesn't affirm it or deny it, we're free to judge the matter on other grounds.

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  13. TURRETINFAN SAID:

    “As to (i), you asked the question about why Satan would deceive people (‘Even if we grant TFan's Diabolus ex machina for the sake of argument, why would Satan ...’). I'm answering that question. If someone is guilty of changing the subject it's not me.”

    No, you’re not answering my question, and you’re reply is less than candid. In the parenthesis, you have a mangled quote, but your ellipsis leaves out the key qualification. My question was: “Even if we grant TFan's Diabolus ex machina for the sake of argument, why would Satan try to deceive people into believing in the Resurrection by supernaturally creating the shroud?”

    You responded by saying: “Satan is all about leading people into idolatry.”

    But, of course, I didn’t ask why Satan would try to deceive people into committing idolatry.” Rather, I said, “…why would Satan try to deceive people into believing in the Resurrection by supernaturally creating the shroud?”

    So, yes, you did indeed change the subject.

    Wouldn’t we expect Satan to deceive people into disbelieving the Resurrection rather than believing the Resurrection?

    “As to (ii), that wasn't my allegation, was it?”

    Actually it was. You insinuated a connection between believing in the Shroud and idolatry. I cited Habermas as a counterexample.

    “As to (iii), your points only confirm mine. If God-made artifacts can lead to idolatry, and if Satan is aware of this, then it follows that Satan has an incentive to create false artifacts to lure people into similar idolatry.”

    That piggybacks on a premise you have yet to establish. Why would Satan create a Shroud that attests the Resurrection? That doesn’t automatically foster idolatry. Rather, that fosters faith in the Resurrection.

    “As to (iv), pick any word you like. There's no Gospel warrant for Jesus leaving miraculous (whether magical or otherwise) images on anything.”

    There’s no Gospel warrant for archaeological corroboration of the Bible. Do you therefore think archaeological evidence for the Bible is idolatrous and possibly Satanic?

    Assuming (ex hypothesi) that the Shroud is authentic, that’s archeological evidence for a Biblical event.

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  14. "No, you’re not answering my question, and you’re reply is less than candid."

    It seems that you think your question can only be answered by adopting the premise behind it. I reject that view.

    In any event, I didn't argue that Satan is attempting to deceive people into believing the resurrection. The shroud appeared in a culture where belief in the resurrection was the norm.

    "Actually it was. You insinuated a connection between believing in the Shroud and idolatry. I cited Habermas as a counterexample."

    Insinuating a connection is easily distinguishable from asserting that Habermas is an idolater. You have the capability to make that distinction.

    "That piggybacks on a premise you have yet to establish. Why would Satan create a Shroud that attests the Resurrection? That doesn’t automatically foster idolatry. Rather, that fosters faith in the Resurrection."

    The shroud appeared in a culture that already accepted the Resurrection. Your question is rather like asking why Satan invited Eve to trust that God really had forbidden them to eat the fruit. He took Eve where he found her.

    "There’s no Gospel warrant for archaeological corroboration of the Bible. Do you therefore think archaeological evidence for the Bible is idolatrous and possibly Satanic?"

    a) There's a gigantic non sequitur.
    b) And there are mountains of examples of hoax "archaeological evidence" for Biblical events.

    "Assuming (ex hypothesi) that the Shroud is authentic, that’s archeological evidence for a Biblical event."

    :shrugs:

    That hypothesis, however, cannot be demonstrated to be true and has already been demonstrated to be false.

    -TurretinFan

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  15. "Satan would also have reasons for not wanting to create an artifact like the Shroud. You have to weigh the balance of the motives rather than just mentioning the motives in one direction while ignoring the motives in the other direction. And Satan's potential motives aren't all that we take into account when weighing the demonic theory."

    So what? Steve's question seemed to suggest that there was no reason why Satan might be interested in providing a fact artifact.

    All we are balancing when it comes to this issue is speculation. But I will add that Faith in Christ comes ordinarily from the hearing of the preached word - not from images. That's one point that is not based on speculation but on revelation.

    I wrote:

    "There's no Gospel warrant for Jesus leaving miraculous (whether magical or otherwise) images on anything."

    You asked: "What do you mean by "Gospel warrant","

    I means, we're not told that was what happened. Ever. In any case, much less in the case of some burial shroud. We have no reason to suppose that this is even in the category of things that Jesus did, much less a particular instance of something Jesus did.

    "and why would there have to be one?"

    There doesn't have to be one. Speculation does not require any precedent. But speculation should acknowledge itself for what it is, not parade itself as a supported conclusion.

    "Are you saying that there would have to be a precedent?"

    No.

    "The resurrection was a unique event, as many other historical events have been."

    The resurrection was a unique event because of who Jesus was. It wasn't the only resurrection from the dead - there were several in the same dead - and in fact it wasn't the only resurrection after three days among those. Lazarus comes to mind. It was unique in that it was by Jesus' own power as God that he rose.

    But it is in the same category with Jesus' other miracles, in that the raising the dead to life is one of his categories of miracles.

    "Even if the resurrection wasn't unique, we wouldn't need examples of events highly similar to the production of the Shroud image in order to conclude that Jesus' resurrection produced the image on the Shroud."

    If you are allowed to draft up speculation, you don't need anything to support it. The only problem is when you try to suggest that your speculation has any merit. Then you need something to support it.

    "If scripture doesn't affirm it or deny it, we're free to judge the matter on other grounds."

    a) What other grounds could you possibly have for knowing what miracles Jesus worked?

    b) What other grounds could you possibly have for knowing what the effects of resurrection are on linen?

    But of course, if you just mean that you can speculate, obviously you can. It's just that this speculation needs to be acknowledged as being nothing more than speculation - as opposed to having any sort of probability attached to it in its favor.

    -TurretinFan

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  16. TurretinFan wrote:

    "Steve's question seemed to suggest that there was no reason why Satan might be interested in providing a fact artifact."

    No, Steve mentioned a motive Satan would have for not wanting to produce something like the Shroud. And he did so after I had discussed potential motives in more depth. It doesn't follow that he was denying that any other potential motives are involved. Besides, he explained in his later response to you that he didn't intend to say what you're attributing to him.

    And I'm not Steve. Even if Steve had made the false suggestion you're attributing to him, I would be free to take a different position.

    You write:

    "All we are balancing when it comes to this issue is speculation."

    We're addressing potential motives for agents, which is also done in many other contexts in life (e.g., courts of law). In my initial post in this thread, I gave examples of other contexts in which we do this sort of thing in the Christian life, such as when judging an apparent answer to prayer. More than speculation is involved.

    You write:

    "It wasn't the only resurrection from the dead - there were several in the same dead - and in fact it wasn't the only resurrection after three days among those. Lazarus comes to mind."

    No, a resuscitation isn't the same as a resurrection. The same or similar terminology is sometimes applied to both, but they're distinct.

    You write:

    "If you are allowed to draft up speculation, you don't need anything to support it. The only problem is when you try to suggest that your speculation has any merit. Then you need something to support it."

    The merit in any theory about potential motives comes from considering what we know about the agent and the surrounding circumstances. I've explained why I think Satan would be likely to act one way rather than another. We use similar reasoning in other contexts in life. I've given some examples.

    (continued below)

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  17. (continued from above)

    You write:

    "What other grounds could you possibly have for knowing what the effects of resurrection are on linen?"

    One of the problems in our exchanges is that you keep ignoring so much of what's already been said. I don't have to "know what the effects of resurrection are on linen" in order to argue that the resurrection best explains the image on the Shroud. In some of my comments at your blog that you haven't yet interacted with, I addressed some of the relevant evidence, like the state of the body at the time when the image formed and how the image on the Shroud far exceeds anything we know to be producible by older or modern technology.

    You write:

    "The shroud appeared in a culture that already accepted the Resurrection."

    They already accepted many other images (of Jesus and other entities) as well. If Satan was focused on deceiving medieval professing Christians, why would he make the Shroud image so unclear to the naked eye, make it so inconsistent with medieval standards (I've given you examples of that), and include so many details in it that would only be discernable with modern inventions like photography and microscopes? If you're going to argue that Satan also had the modern world in mind, then Steve's point about the resurrection comes up again. And even in medieval times, only a minority of the world professed to be Christian.

    There are other problems with your demonic theory, and you haven't made much of an effort to address those problems. Anybody who's interested can go back to my first post in this thread and see the other considerations I discussed there. You've also been ignoring some of the evidence for a pre-medieval dating of the Shroud, which is relevant to your characterization of what culture the Shroud appeared in.

    You haven't demonstrated that the Shroud promotes a false message in any way. As I explained in my initial post in this thread, the Shroud doesn't involve the human production of an image of Jesus, nor does it suggest that people should give the image improper veneration. If Satan wanted to lead people to a false view of images, why didn't he supernaturally produce something like a painting or statue of Jesus that could then be attributed to one of the apostles, for example? If making images of Jesus is sinful (a position I don't actually hold), then something like the Shroud would only be a distant, indirect way of leading people to such a sin. Are we to believe that Satan would produce such significant corroboration of the Biblical accounts of Jesus' death, His resurrection, etc. in order to lead a minority of the world's population into a false view of images that the Shroud itself doesn't imply, but instead has to be assumed by those who are using the Shroud to that end?

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