Saturday, May 09, 2015

The Wood/Loftus Debate On The Resurrection

David Wood and John Loftus debated the resurrection on April 20. A video of the debate is now available. Wood won the debate by a wide margin, and I won't attempt to summarize the many good points he made. You can watch the debate yourself to get Wood's side of it. Here are several problems I noticed with Loftus' portion of the debate, among a lot of other problems that could be mentioned (the references in parentheses are to minutes within the YouTube video linked above):

- Loftus appeals to radical skepticism on issues like the textual transmission of the New Testament documents, sometimes even suggesting that all we can do is speculate about the text beyond some small fragments (30; 37). He brings up the possibility that Paul was lying about what he reported on issues like the resurrection (1:55), without interacting with the evidence to the contrary, including what Wood had cited earlier in the debate. Loftus sometimes proposes radical skepticism on issues like the text of the New Testament and Paul's honesty. I've only given a couple of examples here, but Loftus resorted to that level of skepticism frequently. As Wood pointed out, skepticism like what Loftus is proposing wouldn't just undermine our knowledge of ancient Christianity, but also our knowledge of ancient history in general, as well as much of what we think we know about more recent history. Yet, Loftus repeatedly made claims about ancient history that seem inconsistent with the skepticism he so selectively applies elsewhere. He cites the number of Jews in the ancient world (44), claims that all of the gospels were written 40 years or more after the events in question (1:26), suggests that he knows the order in which the gospels were written, etc. Think of what Loftus would have to know about ancient history, the reliability of the texts he's depending on, the honesty of the sources he's trusting, etc. to justify such conclusions. Much of the skepticism he applies to Christianity is highly irrational, and he doesn't make much of an effort to apply that skepticism consistently.

- He kept appealing to our experience that people don't rise from the dead, sometimes commenting that we'd need a lot of evidence for Jesus' resurrection to overcome that experience (31, 2:03). But Christians don't claim that Jesus was an ordinary person who rose from the dead by natural means. How would looking at whether people in general rise from the dead give you any significant odds for whether Jesus would rise?

- Loftus approvingly quotes Bart Ehrman's claim that miracles are by definition the least likely explanation of the facts (1:47). He provides no reason to accept that definition. And if he's assuming naturalism in order to justify the definition, then it's only as good as the naturalism he's assuming. He provided no reason to believe in naturalism.

- In response to Wood's point that sources like the Gospel Of Peter and the Gospel Of Judas come from later centuries than the canonical gospels, Loftus mentions that some scholars date Luke and John to the second century (1:01). But that doesn't address the other canonical gospels, and it's a false comparison between the mainstream dating of the non-canonical gospels and a small minority's dating of Luke and John. For some evidence that Luke was written no later than the 60s, see here. For the scholarly consensus regarding Luke's first-century dating, see here.

- Loftus comments that "maybe" one or more of the resurrection witnesses recanted (1:08). He raises the possibility that Paul lied about the resurrection (1:55). On both those subjects, see my series on the death of the apostles here. My article on what ancient non-Christian sources said about these issues would be a good place to start.

- Loftus kept appealing to the alleged evolution of the resurrection accounts, meaning that they gradually grew over time (1:46). But Wood offered counterarguments that Loftus kept ignoring, such as the presence of more resurrection witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15 than in any of the gospel resurrection accounts. The material in 1 Corinthians 15 predates the gospels.

- He appealed to Matt McCormick's argument about Lourdes, regarding the supposed rarity of miracles in Roman Catholic circles (1:34). See my response to McCormick on page 123 of the e-book here.

- Loftus says that Isaiah 53 is "clearly" about Israel and argues for that assertion by telling us to "look at Isaiah chapter 49, verse 3" (38). But Isaiah 53 itself distinguishes between the Suffering Servant and Israel, not only in verse 8, but also in a variety of other ways. Multiple figures in Isaiah are referred to as a servant of the Lord, including Isaiah himself (Isaiah 20:3), so we can't just assume that Israel is in view every time the terminology is used. You have to look at the details involved in a given case, and the details of Isaiah 52:13-53:12 suggest that an individual who's distinct from the nation of Israel is being addressed. See here. As I argue in the post just linked, the alignment of Jesus' life with the Suffering Servant prophecy would be significant evidence for Christianity even if we assumed that the passage is about Israel. Such an unlikely typological fulfillment would be highly evidential. But the passage isn't about Israel.

- Loftus says that there's no Old Testament prophecy of the resurrection, and he says that Wood would agree on that point (38). But the reference to an extension of life in Isaiah 53:10, after the Servant is referred to as having died and in a context in which the soul was believed to survive bodily death, is best explained by a resurrection.

- According to Loftus, the opening of Luke's gospel indicates that Luke would have included an account of guards at Jesus' tomb if Luke believed what Matthew reported about the guards (40). But there's nothing in Luke's opening that suggests an intention of being exhaustive, and the idea that such a short document was an attempt at being exhaustive is ridiculous. See, for example, how Acts 1 includes material about Jesus' resurrection and ascension not mentioned in Luke 24. Acts 20:35 cites a saying of Jesus not recorded in Luke's gospel. Luke's "we" material from Acts 16 onward can't be exhaustive. Luke had to have known far more about his time with Paul than he records in Acts. He was being highly selective.

- Loftus' response to Craig Keener's material on miracles was shameful. He doesn't seem to have read much of Keener's work (1:29), yet he suggests that Keener is dishonest and tells us that "all he [Keener] did" was travel around and listen to stories. Supposedly, Keener's two-volume work on miracles consists of "just people's stories" (1:23). In another context, Loftus suggests that only believers allegedly see things happen like the healing of amputees (1:47). Actually, Keener gives accounts of his own experiences (collecting other people's stories isn't "all he did"), provides a lot of medical documentation (not "just people's stories"), and cites hostile corroboration for some miracles (not just the testimony of believers). You can find many examples in my series on Keener's book here.

- Another scholar whose work Loftus misrepresents is Richard Bauckham. He repeatedly refers to Bauckham as "Richard Bauckman" and gets the title of his book wrong, then misrepresents Bauckham's arguments (1:26).

- Keep in mind that Loftus' poor performance in this debate came after he'd lived so long, with so much of an education and so many books published, and had spent so much time opposing Christianity as such a prominent skeptic whose work has been endorsed by so many other skeptics.

37 comments:

  1. Loftus got spanked. I was a little surprised at his constant suggestions that Luke was written in the second century. I was also astonished that he didn't consider that john's letters are apostolic. Seems to be a very good case for that, and James is strong evidence for an eyewitness of Jesus... Not to mention 1st Peter which is often considered authentic.

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  2. On the issue of Lourdes and the Resurrection:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2014/05/does-lourdes-undercut-resurrection.html

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  3. David was hilarious when he said, "John [Loftus] says he wants to believe...by becoming as skeptical as possible. By becoming more skeptical than any respected scholar on the planet. By becoming so unimaginably skeptical that we have to reject all of history. That's uh, that's 'someone who wants to believe.' "

    Loftus admits he hasn't read Keener's book. He jokingly states he's "read enough about it to know that it exists." Then near the end of the debate joking states he merely touched the cover, smelled the book and put it back on the shelf.

    David could have emphasized more (as W.L. Craig does) the significance of Jesus' alleged resurrection in light of the religious and cultural background and expectation of the the Jews at the time.

    Loftus' parallel of Christianity and Yingianity breaks down because Christianity never died out as he says Yingianity did. Nor was Christianity's central documents lost and later rediscovered in an archaeological dig as in his made up religion of Yingianity. So, this is contrary to his claim that Yingianity "resembles Christianity in EVERY way."

    Loftus dismisses modern testimonies of miracles as if all of them are from superstitious folk when they include medical professionals trained in the modern scientific method and in critical thinking skills. To say that the Chinese culture is generally superstitious doesn't say anything even if true. Superstition can also lead to a fear or disincentive to leave one's traditional beliefs. Loftus doesn't take into consideration what it would take psychologically to convert someone OUT of their firmly held beliefs to Christianity which can be seen as a foreign or Western Imperialistic religion, and so a betrayal of one's heritage. Also, some superstitions might be based in real supernatural activity (e.g. demonic miracles). Some people become Christians because they conclude the power of the Christian God is stronger than their traditional gods/superstitions. They sometimes leave even when their former gods threaten them for leaving using audible voices, poltergeist-like activity and physical harm (etc). Loftus begs the question in assuming no superstitions are based on reality, and therefore it shouldn't be surprising that superstitious people exchange their superstitious beliefs for other ones. Whereas if they were real, then Power Encounters where the Christian God demonstrates superior power would be positive evidence for the plausibility of Christianity.

    Loftus uses a strawman characterization of the evidence for Christianity as if we believe ONLY because of documents from the 4th century. In fact, David presented a HISTORICAL argument that cites historians who go beyond the New Testament texts to other historical facts and documents. The evidence for the existence of Jesus extends outside the NT documents. Nor do the NT documents exist in a historical vacuum. Also, textual criticism gets us further back beyond the writing of particular manuscripts to the composition of the documents as literary works themselves. His strawman also leaves out the evidence for Christianity based on contemporary signs and wonders.

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    1. For years Loftus has been harping on why W.L. Craig refuses to debate him. But he can't even win a debate against David Wood. He should be grateful that Craig doesn't debate him because he'd be completely embarrassed by it. I've never watched it, but many claim Loftus lost his debate against Dinesh D'Souza even though (IMO) Dinesh is not a very good debater. Neither Craig, nor David (in this debate) hangs the truth of Christianity on Biblical Inerrancy, yet so much of Loftus' arguments to undermine Christianity hangs on that assumption.

      Among other things, Loftus is apparently ignorant of 1. how Christians defend Jesus' fufillment of OT Messianic prophecies. See HERE; 2. OT teaching on the multipersonal and Trinitarian aspect of God or the incarnation. See HERE.

      Loftus throws out the possibility that Paul may have been lying about everything. But what possible motive would Paul have to do that when preaching the Christian message only made his life more difficult. Even endangered it (via persecution, shipwreck, starvation etc.).

      Loftus admits he's a radical doubter (1:24:35). Yet, isn't self-critical enough to question his own empiricism, naturalism, sincerity, and other various presuppositions and worldview.

      I enjoy these types of debates, but I wish more apologists emphasize more three other areas. The role of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit in conversion. The intentional balance of evidence for Christianity so that it normally isn't rationally coercive. And the greater use of signs and wonders. Though, this last issue could be regarded as part of evangelism, rather than apologetics. Nevertheless, I think Van Til is right in pointing out that the two can never be separated. Apologetics must be evangelistic. And Evangelism must be apologetic.

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    2. I wrote above, "Loftus uses a strawman characterization of the evidence for Christianity as if we believe ONLY because of documents from the 4th century." I have no problem with people believing Scripture's teaching merely because Scripture teaches it. Since, I believe Scripture is the inspired Word of God and is self-attesting. That it's ultimately authenticated by the self-authenticating testimony of the Holy Spirit. What I was addressing is Loftus' insinuation that Scripture is the ONLY basis on which Christians COULD believe what they do. I believe it's a sufficient basis for belief. But I deny that it's the only available line of evidence for the truth of Christianity, as Loftus implied when he dismissively referred to the New Testament merely as "4th century documents."

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    3. Except for small pockets of Nestorianism and Catholicism (which often faded away in a few generations), Christianity never really took root in China. Yet, Christianity is now exploding as one of the faster growing religions there because of alleged miracles. Are we supposed to believe that Christianity has presently grown in popular there because the Chinese are MORE superstitious NOW than they were in the past 2000 years? Really? These miracles are being reported BOTH in the rural areas least affected by Western thought (& education, empirical science, scientific method, critical thinking, skepticism etc.) AS WELL AS urban areas that are affected by Western thought. In every station of life. It seems to me that by His inscrutable wise providence and sovereignty, God is more willing to perform signs and wonders now than ever before in China.

      Similarly, for centuries upon centuries Muslim communities have been the most difficult to penetrate with the Gospel of Christ. Yet, in these modern times God seems to be giving unprecedented numbers of visions and dreams to Muslims around the world encouraging them to believe the Christian message. This marked increase in the AMOUNT and DEGREE of alleged supernatural encounters in the context of Christianity cannot be explained by Loftus' simplistic appeal to the gullibility of superstitious peoples.

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    4. Let me add a word to that last sentence.

      This marked increase in the AMOUNT, DEGREE [and DISTRIBUTION] of alleged supernatural encounters in the context of Christianity cannot be explained by Loftus' simplistic appeal to the gullibility of superstitious peoples.

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  4. How would looking at whether people in general don't rise from the dead give you any significant odds for whether Jesus would?

    In the same way that looking at whether people in general don't fly on broomsticks gives you good reason to believe that Harry Potter never did it. Our experience is simply that people don't rise from the dead--naturally, or in any other way. A claim that Jesus wasn't a muggle is no reason to ignore knowledge and experience

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    1. VinnyJH57:

      

"In the same way that looking at whether people in general don't fly on broomsticks gives you good reason to believe that Harry Potter never did it. Our experience is simply that people don't rise from the dead--naturally, or in any other way. A claim that Jesus wasn't a muggle is no reason to ignore knowledge and experience."

      That's a typically clueless village atheist objection. The statistical probability of people naturally rising from the dead is utterly irrelevant to the resurrection of Christ. The Resurrection was never in the class of regularly (or even rarely) recurrent natural events. To the contrary, it's predicated on God bypassing natural processes and reversing the natural outcome.

      You can try to deny the Resurrection, but you need to deny the actual nature of the claim.

      In addition, to assert that in our experience people don't rise from the dead–naturally or "in any other way" simply begs the question. There's testimonial evidence to the contrary. Your appeal to "experience" is selective, tendentious, and counterproductive. Like Hume, you appeal to uniform experience while preemptively discounting all the exceptions to your sweeping appeal.

      Rather that witches on broomsticks, a better analogy would be the odds of a royal flush. The *natural* odds, given a randomly shuffled deck, are very low. If, however, the deck is stacked, then that may up the odds to certainty.

      If an agent intervenes to deflect or redirect the ordinary course of nature, then you have a different outcome. That's true even in human affairs. We routinely manipulate nature to produce a naturally improbable or impossible result. Since you brought up the issue of flight, take aviation.

      In addition, the Harry Potter series is intentionally fictional. So your comparison is confused.

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    2. Harry Potter's flying is also predicated on a mysterious power that bypasses natural processes. Of course I recognize it as fiction, just as I recognize the resurrection as myth.

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    3. You're in for a really unpleasant awakening at the general resurrection.

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    4. VinnyJH57

      "Harry Potter's flying is also predicated on a mysterious power that bypasses natural processes. Of course I recognize it as fiction, just as I recognize the resurrection as myth."

      Why don't you actually try to respond to the points Steve Hays made above rather than attempting to make unintelligent quips? All this does is evidence your irrationality.

      Anyway, if you want quips, Guillaume Bignon has said: "Atheists arguing against the resurrection of Jesus do a great job at proving that if Jesus rose from the dead it would have to be a miracle."

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    5. VinnyJH57

      "Harry Potter's flying is also predicated on a mysterious power that bypasses natural processes. Of course I recognize it as fiction, just as I recognize the resurrection as myth."

      I'm not sure why you're so insistent on attempting to draw analogies between reality and fantasy, between history and Harry. Your profile indicates you're an older adult, not a teenager. It's just weird for someone like you to be so obsessed with Harry Potter.

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    6. i am not drawing an analogy between fantasy and reality. I am drawing an an analogy between fantastic stories which are unsupported by knowledge and experience. I could have used any number of fantastic stories which some believe to be true such as Moroni and the Golden Plates or the aliens at Roswell without changing the point.

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    7. VinnyJH57

      "i am not drawing an analogy between fantasy and reality. I am drawing an an analogy between fantastic stories which are unsupported by knowledge and experience."

      If so, then why don't you respond to Steve Hays' points, which dealt with this? Why ignore perfectly reasonable counter-arguments to your position? That's hardly fair or objective. It's a hallmark of close-mindedness to refuse to deal with reasonable counter-arguments.

      "I could have used any number of fantastic stories which some believe to be true such as Moroni and the Golden Plates or the aliens at Roswell without changing the point."

      Of course, you didn't. Rather, you used Harry Potter.

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    8. VinnyJH57

      "I could have used any number of fantastic stories which some believe to be true such as Moroni and the Golden Plates or the aliens at Roswell without changing the point."

      I'll note even here you don't bother to argue why these are analogous to NT events (e.g. Jesus' resurrection). You have a bad and irrational habit of making arguments from analogy without the argument. But an argument from analogy without the argument is just a bare assertion.

      Anyone can make bare assertions. A theist could simply "assert" (without argument) that atheism is false. Would that be reasonable? Would that convince the atheist to become a theist? No. Likewise with your bare assertions. All your bare assertions prove is you can't or don't make reasoned arguments. I guess you just have (smug) opinions.

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    9. It's a category error and fallacious reasoning any way you slice it.

      Unlike HP, and all other merely human literature, the Bible actually claims to be God’s Word, and no one has ever proven its claim to be false, therefore it is completely reasonable to believe that the Bible is God’s Word. In fact Christian theism is the only worldview that makes rational, logical, coherent sense of the human experience and the universe in which we live.

      Discounting the Bible as a source of knowledge is foolhardy, and simply demonstrates the reader's bias.

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    10. Vinny:

      "Harry Potter's flying is also predicated on a mysterious power that bypasses natural processes. Of course I recognize it as fiction, just as I recognize the resurrection as myth."

      Actually, levitation is a well-attested paranormal phenomenon, so your comparison backfires.

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    11. VinnyJH57, just doesn't (can't?) understand (or refuses to acknowledge) the difference and distinction between a story universally understood and acknowledged to be fiction (since the author admits it!) and a story claimed (rightly or wrongly) to be true.

      VinnyJH57 begs the question by making an analogy between the two stories as if such a difference or distinction doesn't exist or matter in his "argument" (or lack thereof). That's why he can't grasp or feel the weight of Steve's counter-arguments. That's why I've "dummified" it for VinnyJH57 in this post (from one dummy to another likely dummy).

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    12. Richard Carrier said his friend Eddie Tabash (another famous atheist promoter and debater) claims to have had a group hallucination of a guru that levitated. But how does he know he and the other people in the group merely hallucinated? Mass hallucinations are very rare. It's possible he's interpreting his experience through the filter of his naturalism and the levitation was real. As a Christian, I believe some instances of genuine levitation are demonically aided.

      Here's the video where Carrier says it: http://youtu.be/Q43HzpzY04o?t=44m41s.

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    13. It is quite true that the Harry Potter series is universally acknowledged to be a work of fantasy while many would maintain that the Bible is a work of history; in that way, the situations are different. However, criticizing an analogy merely on the grounds that the two situations are different is like criticizing a hypothetical on the grounds that it is hypothetical; it misses the point. Analogies always compare two different situations; that’s what makes them analogies. The relevant question is whether there are similarities that the analogy illustrates or illuminates.
      What I was responding to was Jason’s claim that experience of what happens generally is irrelevant in evaluating the historicity of the resurrection because the resurrection is claimed to be a supernatural event. Were this the case, we could not use experience to evaluate any event that was alleged to have resulted from powers that transcend natural law, e.g., Harry Potter flying on a broomstick. That we can reject the historicity of the Harry Potter stories on other grounds as well does not change this. Steve’s claim that the resurrection is predicated on God’s intervention does not counter my argument that we can and do use experience to evaluate claims that are predicated on powers that bypass natural processes.

      On the other hand, Steve also argued against it being universal experience that people do not arise from the dead. That is not directly responsive to my argument that experience can be used to evaluate the resurrection since my argument was not predicated on universality. (Indeed, Steve’s argument would seem to concede that experience is relevant.) Since I was addressing the relevance of experience rather than its content, I chose not to go into Steve’s point.

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    14. "That is not directly responsive to my argument that experience can be used to evaluate the resurrection since my argument was not predicated on universality."

      i) You're backpedaling. You originally said: "Our experience is simply that people don't rise from the dead--naturally, or in any other way."

      So your argument was predicated on a universal negative.

      ii) Moreover, your argument is artificially narrow. We don't need to have precedent for resurrections. At most, we need to have precedent for miracles. A resurrection is a special case of miracles in general. So long as human experience includes that *kind* of event, it needn't include that specific event.

      iii) Indeed, you equivocate when you say "we can and do use experience to evaluate claims that are predicated on powers that bypass natural processes."

      But that involves a certain *kind* of experience (i.e. events that bypass natural processes) rather than a particular experience (i.e. resurrection events).

      iv) Furthermore, there's a first time for everything. If you think we must experience multiple instances of something for that to be believable, then we could never believe anything inasmuch as we'd always dismiss our first experience. There could be no cumulative experience, because we could never get started.

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    15. i) You are taking my original statement out of context Steve. You need to look at the argument to which I was responding; Jason spoke of experience "in general" and I referred to what happens "in general" in the preceding sentence. The fact that I didn't specifically repeat "in general" in the sentence you quoted doesn't warrant the conclusion that I suddenly switched to making a claim about the universality of any experience. There is no backpedaling going on.

      ii-iv) You are arguing against positions that I have not taken in this discussion.

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    16. So you're driving a wedge between general experience and universal experience. That, however, is irrelevant to miracles, since many natural events are not a matter of *general* experience. For instance, I assume you believe in dinosaurs, but when was the last time you or any other human experienced a living dinosaur?

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    17. VinnyJH57

      "It is quite true that the Harry Potter series is universally acknowledged to be a work of fantasy while many would maintain that the Bible is a work of history; in that way, the situations are different. However, criticizing an analogy merely on the grounds that the two situations are different is like criticizing a hypothetical on the grounds that it is hypothetical; it misses the point. Analogies always compare two different situations; that’s what makes them analogies. The relevant question is whether there are similarities that the analogy illustrates or illuminates."

      This misses my point. My point is you've asserted an analogy, but you didn't bother to argue for it.

      "What I was responding to was Jason’s claim that experience of what happens generally is irrelevant in evaluating the historicity of the resurrection because the resurrection is claimed to be a supernatural event. Were this the case, we could not use experience to evaluate any event that was alleged to have resulted from powers that transcend natural law, e.g., Harry Potter flying on a broomstick. That we can reject the historicity of the Harry Potter stories on other grounds as well does not change this. Steve’s claim that the resurrection is predicated on God’s intervention does not counter my argument that we can and do use experience to evaluate claims that are predicated on powers that bypass natural processes. On the other hand, Steve also argued against it being universal experience that people do not arise from the dead. That is not directly responsive to my argument that experience can be used to evaluate the resurrection since my argument was not predicated on universality. (Indeed, Steve’s argument would seem to concede that experience is relevant.) Since I was addressing the relevance of experience rather than its content, I chose not to go into Steve’s point."

      In addition to Steve's responses, there's a difference between arguing, "This is our experience, it has always been our experience, and it will always be our experience, for there are never exceptions to our experience" vs. "Our experience tells us this normally occurs, but there may be exceptions to our experience."

      This in turn is usually based on the assumption that nature is absolutely uniform. However, how can you prove the uniformity of nature (i.e. the problem of induction)?

      Indeed, as atheist philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell said in The Problems of Philosophy: "All arguments, which, on the basis of experience, argue as to the future or the unexperienced parts of the past or present, assume the inductive principle; hence we can never use experience to prove the inductive principle without begging the question."

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    18. In addition to Steve's responses, there's a difference between arguing, "This is our experience, it has always been our experience, and it will always be our experience, for there are never exceptions to our experience" vs. "Our experience tells us this normally occurs, but there may be exceptions to our experience."

      Of course there is a difference, but I haven't argued the former.

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    19. So you're driving a wedge between general experience and universal experience.

      How does acknowledging that these are two different concepts constitute "driving a wedge" between them?

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    20. VinnyJH57 wrote:

      "What I was responding to was Jason’s claim that experience of what happens generally is irrelevant in evaluating the historicity of the resurrection because the resurrection is claimed to be a supernatural event."

      No, what I did was ask, "How would looking at whether people in general rise from the dead give you any significant odds for whether Jesus would rise?" I was getting at a point I've made many times before. A lot of factors go into determining a prior probability for Jesus' resurrection, and John Loftus was neglecting most of what's involved.

      If you want to calculate the prior probability that person X gave person Y a car, pointing out that the man didn't give a car to billions of other people won't accomplish much. You also have to take into account that Y is X's son, that X has a history of giving expensive gifts to that son, that the car is reported to have been given on the son's sixteenth birthday, etc. To keep saying, "Look at all those billions of people he never gave a car to!", ad nauseum, doesn't get you far. There's not much value in saying something that's not in dispute and has been said many times before, while leaving most of the relevant factors unaddressed. What's even worse is to act as if making the ad nauseum point establishes that there's some tremendously large prior improbability that only an even larger amount of evidence can overcome, as if the ad nauseum point is all or almost all that determines the prior probability. It isn't.

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    21. VinnyJH57:

      "How does acknowledging that these are two different concepts constitute 'driving a wedge' between them?"

      How does your conceptual distinction salvage your original argument?

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    22. In short VinnyJH57 on the one hand has misunderstood what he was objecting to in the first place, and on the other hand when his objection is pressed it's shown to be vacuous.

      Not a good showing I'm afraid, which is highly ironic given the nature of the OP.

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    23. Sweet newsboy though, that gets props.

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    24. VinnyJH57

      "You are arguing against positions that I have not taken in this discussion."

      "Of course there is a difference, but I haven't argued the former."

      You keep saying you haven't argued this or that. At this rate, you may not have left much that you have argued for!

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    25. I didn't get that from the paragraph to which I was responding Jason, but OK.

      It seems to me that the issue is what experience we should include in our estimation of the prior. We have considerable experience concerning people giving expensive gifts to one another, including gifts of automobiles. We have experience of the types of relationships in which such gifts are most common as well as the occasions on which such gifts are most likely to be given. These considerations could easily outweigh the general propensity of people not to give one another cars.

      I don't see how we have any comparable experience concerning resurrections. Our experience with them occurring at all is negligible, making it extremely difficult to identify any circumstances that would increase the likelihood of one occurring.

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    26. Vinny,

      See Steve's comments above regarding a first time for everything, comparing entities that are similar rather than the same, etc. We've already addressed issues like the ones you're raising.

      In the car analogy, you allow vague comparisons, such as "people" (rather than the man in question) and "expensive gifts" (rather than cars in particular, the specific type of car the man in question gave, or that one car within the type) or "gifts of automobiles". But when it comes to Jesus' resurrection, you're asking about resurrections specifically. Why not broaden it to miracles in general, high-level miracles, or some other such category?

      And we wouldn't have to know the circumstances surrounding previous resurrections in order to know of circumstances that would make a resurrection more likely. What I wrote above about the Suffering Servant prophecy is an example. If Jesus' life aligns with the prophecy in other contexts, then an alignment with the apparent resurrection referred to in the passage becomes more likely. You wouldn't have to know of the circumstances surrounding previous resurrections in order to know that the fulfillment of so many other portions of a prophecy makes the fulfillment of another portion of it more likely to occur. And if Jesus predicted that he'd rise from the dead, that prediction makes a resurrection more likely if you have reason to trust him on other grounds (e.g., other miracles). If Jesus was living in a context in which resurrection was part of the accepted belief system and had a prominent role in that belief system, then God's performing a resurrection becomes more likely accordingly. The more evidence we have that Jesus claimed a unique relationship with God, the more reason we have to expect God to do something unique in his life if he actually has that unique relationship. And so on. We can make a lot of judgments about how much sense a resurrection would make in Jesus' context even if we didn't know of any previous circumstances surrounding previous resurrections.

      We frequently apply the same sort of reasoning in other areas of life. If we hear that a person committed suicide in an unprecedented way, we don't isolate the unprecedented aspects of the event and judge the prior probability by those aspects. For example, if we know of a book that was read by the person who committed suicide, and that book describes the type of suicide in question (even though nobody had ever carried out such a suicide before), his reading of that book makes it more likely that he committed suicide in that manner. If we add in other factors, such as knowing that he thought highly of that book and knowing that he sometimes talked to friends about considering committing suicide in that way, then the probability goes up even further. We wouldn't need to know about the circumstances surrounding previous suicides of the same type.

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    27. VinnyJH57

      "I don't see how we have any comparable experience concerning resurrections. Our experience with them occurring at all is negligible, making it extremely difficult to identify any circumstances that would increase the likelihood of one occurring."

      Since you're framing "experience" in terms of "likelihood":

      1. Philosopher Tim and Lydia McGrew's paper "The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth" is a Bayesian analysis of the very topic in question. You should check it out if this is your genuine concern.

      2. Why should the experience of 21st century Americans or Westerners like you and I be the standard for the "likelihood" of miracles including the resurrection?

      3. Why frame the argument in terms of "likelihood" in the first place?

      For instance, Christians and atheists can agree Jesus' resurrection is an "unlikely" event. Christians and atheists can agree Jesus' resurrection is like drawing the king of hearts on the very first try in a deck of cards - or, indeed, scores of decks of cards - with only a single king of hearts in the entire deck(s).

      So, sure, it would contradict the normal "experience" of card players to expect the king of hearts on the very first draw. But why assume this card game is normal? As Steve has pointed out on other occasions, what if the deck of cards has been tampered with from the beginning? What if the deck of cards has been stacked? What if there is a card sharp who has so arranged the decks that he knows without a shadow of doubt the very first card will be the king of hearts?

      In this respect, it was never an "unlikely" event to draw the king of hearts on the very first try. Rather, it was predetermined by the card sharp. It was a foregone conclusion.

      Similarly, if God exists, then he could have arranged the resurrection of Jesus to have occurred at the exact moment in history in the exact way he had planned all along.

      Thus, it's not a matter of "likelihood" at all, but a matter of (divine) agency. Who's behind the miracle?

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    28. Coming late to this debate but many years ago the still small voice of God spoke to me and directed me to my estranged mother who hadnt talked to me and the rest of the family for 6 years.How this was done was nothing short of a miracle to long to go into here.But the outcome was reconciliation for all of us.God does still speak to us at least He spoke to me.

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  5. It's a plank of Christianity that Jesus Christ was and is the unique, one of a kind Son of God. Other instances of the dead being raised are attested to by Scripture, but there's only been one resurrected never to die again, which only makes sense because Christ is the only man ever to be in a position to make atonement for others. No one else fits the job description, so experience isn't the issue, revealed truth is the issue. Presumably you believe in the big bang, but you have no experience of it, nor does anyone else, it's believed based on the authority of "the experts", that's to say it's taken on faith.

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