Origen, The Resurrection, And Richard Carrier

Chris Price has a good article on Origen's view of the resurrection of Christ and Richard Carrier's claims on the subject. Read the comments section also, since Chris Price and Jason Pratt have some material worth reading there as well.

The Radical Baptist Supremacy

Re: possibly debating Steve Hays.

Secondly, even if I did decide to take him on, on some issue, it would be after White was convinced by his cronies to debate me, as suggested. And that is because most of these leading Internet anti-Catholics know and support each other. It's like a little club…Hays would first need to persuade White that he has to live up to his own triumphalistic rhetoric of supposed unvanquishability. Moreover, he would have to state whether he agreed with White's assessment of me in his letter declining my challenge or not.

—Dave Armstrong

Unfortunately, Armstrong has put me in a real bind. I’m in no position to put the squeeze on my own boss.

You see, after I have a little bit of a falling out with the CIA (pssst! My real name is Jason Bourne), Dr. White hired me to run black bag operations out of Prague.

It’s a counterballast to Opus Dei. Last year alone, my fellow Treadstone alumni and I had several shootouts with Opus Dei militia in Berlin, Vienna, Yonkers, and beautiful downtown Burbank.

It’s all part of Dr. White’s nefarious scheme to take over the Vatican.

The first stage of the plot was a successful attempt to infiltrate the SBC with TR sleeper cells.

After that, Dr. White scored a real coup when he engineered the election of Benedict XVI.

Ben has been on White’s payroll for years. Don’t let that bad German accent fool you—Ben is really a farm boy from the outskirts of Selma, Alabama.

But Dr. White is still encountering stiff resistance from the Curia. So he’s ordered me to perform a mopping up operation.

Major Flaws of George Smith's Book: The Case Against God

Ole' Haus and Slim Tinkens thought they really had some good anti-theistic arguments after being to the George H. Smith memorial dinner in Tupelo, Mississippi. They really wanted to start using them against that mean hyper-Calvinistic Primitive Baptist preacher down the road. However, they lost all hope when they had to escape for their lives after Anthony Flood performed a rear-cross choke on Smith's arguments while Smith was giving his perfunctory after dinner speech. Haus and Slim then used their superb logical reasoning skills to decide that they needed to ride high with their instantaneous, push-button conversion-suspension golf-cart in the "fully-extended" position because the malarky seeping from Smith's arguments grew terribly thick after they were systematically choked out by Flood. Thank Reason (!) that these hillbilly atheists used their newfound skills in inductive logic to infer that they would need a raised suspension to escape the auditorium before they became grossed out, or worse drowned in the cesspool of malarky that was quickly collecting.

Now Haus and Slim have always tried to be faithful to Lord Spaghetti Monster, but they became fearful of their lives when they saw their favorite high priest's arguments being choked out, with malarky profusely oosing out of every orifice. Slim almost wet his shorts when he thought he saw malarky actually squirting out of the jugular vein of the high priest's strongest argument after Flood slammed it to the floor only to proceed to put it in a triangle choke! Thus, they knew they made the right decision for the greater good of the Lord of the Church when they high-tailed it. They knew that malarky was dangerous, stunk really bad, and all of that had much in common with their previous anti-theistic experiences. However, their faith remained.

These boys were glad to be back home with momma Ayn and were looking forward to their next homeschooling lesson taken from the classic novel known as "The Fountainhead." They were also looking forward to their Friday night book study of "The God Delusion" when little did they know that a posse was a' waiting for them from the First Assembly Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. These brethren had heard that ole' Haus and Slim feared for their lives and high-tailed it out of the Tupelo Metro conference center because they thought that they were going to get malarkeyed to death that night. They were easily spotted and identified because they used their unique, home-made, high-altitude capability suspension golf cart to escape the cesspool of malarky. And so, the faithful FSM clan came by to give them a real heiney-whoopin' because they failed to help high-priest George H. Smith's arguments escape from the tractor beam of irrationality.

When Deacon Bubba (guy with the with the mohawk to the left) got in ole' Haus' face, some of his hair fell out and the rest turned bleach blonde from fear. After that, all Haus could do was smile from being frightened like a little school girl (see grin). You can see Slim standing in the background observing intently (like any good scientist) and later he posited to momma Ayn that Haus' hair mostly fell out and then what was left turned mostly blonde because his last name is De'Kameleon, which, according to Slim's geneological studies, means the Chameleon must be a part of his genotype. Slim said these little critters are known for early molting and weird, immediate skin color changes when they are under extreme stress. Thus, Haus' genotypical nature gave rise to his phenotypical appearance, a good demonstration of both neo-Darwinism and the principle of causation.

When Smith's book came out in 1979, it was hailed as a definitive answer to theism in general and historic Christianity in particular. I remember reading Smith's book several years ago thinking it was non-interesting especially from a philosophical standpoint, but never wanted to prepare a critique of it. In this link, the politically and theologically left-leaning philosopher Anthony Flood did it for me by effectively neutering Smith's worn-out arguments that the unbelieving hillbillies above so desperately wanted to use.

Tales from the Crypt

Gary Habermas on the tomb.

HT: Frank Walton

Number crunching

Interpreting Dr. Feuerverger's 1:600 odds calculation.

Resurrection Scholarship

"Over the past five years, I have tracked well over two thousand scholarly publications on the resurrection. Each source appeared between 1975 and the present, in German, French, or English, written by a wide range of critical scholars....As firmly as ever, most contemporary scholars agree that, after Jesus' death, his early followers had experiences that they at least believed were appearances of their risen Lord. Further, this conviction was the chief motivation behind the early proclamation of the Christian gospel. These basics are rarely questioned, even by more radical scholars. They are among the most widely established details from the entire New Testament....This [the belief that the earliest Christians thought they saw Jesus risen from the dead] has been a mainstay of critical thought since nineteenth-century German theology....More recently, James D.G. Dunn agreed: 'It is almost impossible to dispute that at the historical roots of Christianity lie some visionary experiences of the first Christians, who understood them as appearances of Jesus, raised by God from the dead.'...I have argued elsewhere that, while they still hold a decidedly minority position among the total number of commentators, recent decades have revealed a slight increase in scholars who espouse naturalistic hypotheses to account for Jesus' resurrection....As it was at the end of nineteenth-century German liberalism, as well as at the end of the twentieth century, probably the single most popular alternative to Jesus' resurrection was the hallucination, or subjective vision, theory....After a hiatus of many decades, arguably almost a century, the subjective vision theory has made a comeback....One old standby, the swoon or apparent death theory, has even appeared in a few places recently, although it is seldom espoused by scholars....Each of the naturalistic theories was attacked piece by piece by the liberal scholars in the nineteenth century, as each criticized the others' approaches. In the twentieth century, critical scholarship has largely rejected wholesale the naturalistic approaches to the resurrection....Exhibiting an amazing amount of consensus, most researchers across a very wide conceptual spectrum have rejected naturalistic approaches as explanations for the earliest Christians' belief in the resurrection of Jesus....Accordingly, the path of natural alternative theories is definitely a minority approach....Even before the publication of N.T. Wright's monumental volume The Resurrection of the Son of God in 2003, the tide had begun to turn toward the view that Jesus not only was raised miraculously from the dead but also appeared in a spiritual body. So, the resurrection is an event that happened to Jesus, rather than either an internal experience or a natural occurrence. The risen Jesus featured both bodily continuity, including qualities that could be observed and perhaps even touched, as well as transformed discontinuity. Thus, Jesus appeared as far more than a vision of light from heaven. Further, it was usually held that firm historical evidence accompanied these appearances....While sporting a few new wrinkles as well as some improvements, the view that Jesus was raised bodily is currently the predominant position, if judged in terms of scholarly support. Moreover, some scholars who reject this view still hold that it was at least the New Testament position, including Paul's own teaching. This is a marked change from recent decades when Paul's view was often interpreted far differently....less than one-quarter of critical scholars who addressed the historicity question offered naturalistic theories...The almost three-quarters of remaining scholars hold either of the two views that Jesus was raised from the dead in some sense....[more than three-quarters of these people] take the position that Jesus was resurrected in a real, though still transformed, body...The supernatural view that Jesus rose from the dead in one of two senses is a distinct majority position over the natural option (almost three to one). Very surprisingly, while the supernatural internal category (the old 'objective vision theory') was the most popular among scholars through the middle to late twentieth century, it has been relegated to a minority response in recent years, in favor of bodily appearances of the risen Jesus (more than three to one)." (Gary Habermas, in Robert Stewart, ed., The Resurrection Of Jesus [Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2006], pp. 78-80, 82-84, 86, 88, 90-92)

"Whether Then It Was I Or They, So We Preach" (1 Corinthians 15:11)

Martin Hengel has written:

"The significance of 1 Cor. 15.11, a passage which is all too easily forgotten in New Testament theology (see above, 145ff.), cannot be estimated highly enough. Among other things, despite all the difficulties (which are sometimes great), indeed tensions and fights, it is the basis for the final unity of the primitive Christian proclamation of Christ; one could also say on the basis of 1 Cor. 15.1-11 that it is the basis of the christological unity of the Gospel." (The Four Gospels And The One Gospel Of Jesus Christ [Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2000], p. 156)

If Paul was referring to a physical resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, as I argued in a recent post, then Paul's comments in verse 11 suggest that the other most prominent leaders of the early church agreed with him on the issue. And we do see references to the physical nature of the resurrection in the early non-Pauline sources, in many contexts and in many locations. Craig Keener comments that "All our early Christian sources unanimously affirm the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Jesus" (A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999], p. 711).

If the resurrection appearances involved hundreds of people and multiple appearances to groups over more than a week of time, as 1 Corinthians 15, the gospels, and Acts suggest, and the people involved were thinking of their experiences as involving a physically resurrected Christ, then it would be highly unlikely that none of the witnesses involved would have sought the sort of physical evidence the gospels and Acts describe. If hundreds of people over more than a week of time (John 20:26, Acts 1:3) thought they were seeing a resurrected man, and some of them saw him more than once, then the common skeptical assertion that the references to concern for physical evidence in the gospels and Acts are unhistorical is dubious. First century Jews would have had the sort of interest in physical evidence that the gospels and Acts suggest. What's unrealistic isn't the suggestion that there was such interest in physical evidence. Rather, what's unrealistic is the suggestion that there wouldn't have been such an interest. Even where no physical evidence is mentioned, such as in the creed of 1 Corinthians 15, where we wouldn't expect such details to be included, the concept that all of the people involved were mistaken is highly implausible on multiple points. Why should anybody believe that Peter, for example, hallucinated at least three different times, twice in coordination with other people who were with him?

As Richard Bauckham's Jesus And The Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006) has recently illustrated, the gospels consist largely of eyewitness testimony. All of the gospels end with the resurrection and the circumstances surrounding it. It was a central event in the eyes of the gospel authors, as it was to Paul and the other leaders of the early church. The concept that eyewitness testimony would have been preserved on other issues, but that all of the resurrection accounts in the gospels and Acts or all of the elements of physical evidence within those accounts were later fabrications, is dubious. Mark's Petrine inclusio, indicating that Peter was his primary source (for an explanation, see here), ends in Mark 16:7, which means that Mark probably is reproducing some of what Peter had said about the resurrection. Similarly, the gospel of John was composed by an eyewitness who includes the resurrection material in that gospel as part of his eyewitness testimony. Richard Bauckham argues that Luke uses the inclusio of eyewitness testimony in his gospel as well, and portions of the resurrection narratives in Luke are included.

The highest-ranking leaders of the early church were required to be eyewitnesses (Luke 1:1-2, John 15:27, Acts 1:21-22, 1 Corinthians 9:1, Hebrews 2:3, 2 Peter 1:16, 1 John 1:1-3), and multiple sources tell us that the resurrection was among the events they had to have eyewitnessed (in addition to the relevant passages just cited, see First Clement 42 and pp. 114-154 in Richard Bauckham's book cited above). The concept that there was such concern for eyewitness testimony, and that the earliest church leaders were chosen on such a basis, yet none of their testimony other than Paul's was preserved in the gospels or other sources (and that Acts is wrong in what it preserves about Paul) is absurd. These eyewitnesses were alive, traveled widely, and were in prominent places of leadership for several decades. The concept that they had as little influence on the early church as critics often suggest is implausible.

1 Corinthians 15 reflects some of the earliest beliefs of the early church. The earliest Christians thought of the physical resurrection of Christ as part of the foundation of their belief system. It would be unlikely that they wouldn't seek physical evidence of the event and preserve eyewitness testimony relevant to that evidence. The concept that such evidence was rarely or never sought, and that it wasn't preserved in the gospels or anywhere else, is more a result of what skeptics want to believe than it is a result of what the evidence suggests.

Did The Apostle Paul Believe In A Physical Resurrection Of Christ?

Does Paul express belief in a physical resurrection of Christ in his writings? Yes, he does. However, even if we were to accept for a moment the common skeptical assertion that the evidence from Paul's letters is unclear, we would still have good reason to think that Paul probably held the physical view. That view was the mainstream Jewish view, it was the view of the Pharisees, a group Paul had been associated with, and it was the view of companions of Paul, like Mark and Luke, and early Pauline churches, as reflected in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, for example.

Ignatius was bishop of a church that had recently been in contact with Paul, and he wrote to multiple other churches that had recently been in contact with the apostle. He seems to have thought highly of Paul, as did the churches he wrote to:

"His [Ignatius'] letters are replete with Pauline ideas and letter structure. The most obvious example of this may be found in a comparison of the bishop's letter to the Ephesians with the Pauline letter of Ephesians, which I assume to be a product of the Pauline school and not of Paul himself. The elaborate greeting that Ignatius offers to the Ephesians, which is typical of his other letters as well, undoubtedly has been modeled upon similar Pauline forms. Numerous terms and phrases that Ignatius has employed in this greeting bear striking similarity to those that appear in the Pauline salutation (Eph 1:3-14). The themes and movement of ideas that follow throughout the bishop's letter show further parallels....we discover here a certain acknowledgment by the bishop that the church at Ephesus knew and revered Paul as well....The fact that Ignatius had modeled his own letter to the Ephesians so closely upon the pseudo-Pauline letter to Ephesus suggests that this form would have gained a happy reception by the Christians there....To some extent, he [Ignatius] specifically patterned his letter [to Rome] upon Paul's own letter to Rome....Ignatius borrows constantly from Pauline literary style....Ignatius makes special mention of Paul as a faith link between his own journey and that of the apostle (Ign. Eph. 12.2)." (Clayton N. Jefford, The Apostolic Fathers And The New Testament [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006], pp. 41-42, 138-139)

Ignatius refers to Jesus' resurrection as physical (Letter To The Smyrnaeans, 3), and he seems to expect the Pauline churches to which he's writing to accept the same view. He repeatedly draws material from documents that refer to the resurrection as physical, such as the gospels of Matthew and John, and many other early sources do the same:

"[Matthew was] widely recognized among the numerous churches of the early second century...A careful reading of the Ignatian correspondence reveals that the bishop is very familiar with this particular gospel in comparison with remaining texts. Though he makes only rare reference to passages from the text of Matthew itself, he uses the work as the springboard for a variety of comments, thus to reveal a close familiarity with Matthean concerns and the ideas that are characteristic of the Matthean mindset. We can easily find a number of these usages....Ignatius makes use of phrases that appear to be unique to the text of Matthew...The potential parallels between Ignatius and the Gospel of Matthew would seem to be endless....it is clear that the Gospel of Matthew, both as a literary source and as a foundation for faith, gained an early status as the most widely known and utilized of our gospel texts through the churches of the early Christian world. The apostolic fathers attest to this fact on a wide scale. Connections to Matthew are evident in the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, throughout the letters of Ignatius, in 1-2 Clement, and in the Martyrdom of Polycarp. This suggests that the text of Matthew circulated quickly around the Mediterranean and gained an authoritative status quite readily among disparate churches in different locations." (ibid., pp. 110, 140-143)

Bruce Metzger, whose book on the canon Bart Ehrman calls "the standard authoritative scholarly account" (Misquoting Jesus [San Francisco, California: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005], n. 10 on p. 220), comments that "It is probable that he [Ignatius] knew the Gospels according to Matthew and John, and perhaps also Luke." (The Canon Of The New Testament [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], p. 49)

Clement of Rome probably was a disciple of Paul, and he was part of a Pauline church that had recently been in contact with Paul. Near the end of the first century, he wrote a letter to another Pauline church that had recently been in contact with the apostle, and in that letter he affirms the physicality of the resurrection (First Clement, 26, 50). Much the same can be said of other early sources close to Paul.

If critics want to claim that it's unclear whether Paul expresses belief in a physical resurrection in his writings, they should be willing to acknowledge that Paul's Jewish and Pharisaic background and the beliefs of his companions and churches are clear on the subject. They're clear in the opposite direction than what critics would like.

Stephen Jay Gould's Consilience Argument

I posted this a while back on my personal blog, but Steve Hays mentioned something to me which then caused me to think of another point I could add to it (as well as giving me the opportunity to correct some of the typos), so I figure I'll repost it here.

Stephen Jay Gould, when dealing of consilience, said this:

Any honorable creationist, after suffering such a combination of blows, all implicating a history of evolution as the only sensible coordinating explanation, should throw in the towel and, like a beaten prizefighter, acknowledge Darwin as the Muhammad Ali of biology.

(Gould, Stephen Jay (2002). The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. (p. 111))

These are strong words. Especially after you consider the "combination of blows" that supposedly fells creationism. Let us look at them, in the same order that Darwin presented them (replicated by Gould, (ibid, p. 109-111)):

(1) The general paucity of endemic species on islands, contrasted with comprabale areas of continents; why should God put fewer species on islands?

The problem with this illustration is that it relies on a false understanding of Creationism (which will be echoed in later points). Darwinists believe that Creationists believe God created all animals exactly where they live now. But this is obviously absurd, as any example will demonstrate. People, for instance, were not created in the New World; they were created in Eden (which is indicated as being in the Middle East). There is no reason to think that God created species on every single island. They could have all come from a central point, just as man did.

Ironically, in assuming that Creationists believe God created all species in situ, Darwin (and by extention, Gould) simultaneously undercuts one of the major arguments against the Flood: namely, how did all the Postdeluvian animals disperse to isolated, far-flung habitats? After all, Creation occured before the Flood, and ceased on Day 7. Therefore, God did not create any new animals after the Flood (which is why the ark was needed in the first place). As such, the animals occupying islands could not possibly have been created there by God but must have minimally migrated there after the Flood.

So, in order to maintain the argument that God created all animals in situ against Creationism, Darwinists must jettison the attack of Postdeluvian animal migrations against the theory of the Flood. Both arguments cannot be valid since they undercut each other. If one is valid, the other cannot be.

(2) The frequent displacement of endemic island biotas by continental species introduced by human transport. If God created species for islands, why should species designed for continents so often prove superior in competition[?]

Again, this relies on the fallacy that God "created species for islands." Furthermore, I would think this indicates a strike against Darwinism. After all, this is an admission that organisms in the specific island environment are not as well adapted to that environment as continental organisms (in other words: the organism that is not in the environment is more adapted to that environment than the organism that supposedly evolved to fit that environment!). That local organisms are not as well off as continental species can easily be understood by the problem of dilution that comes from inbreeding. (2) therefore does not hit against Creationism either.

(3) Taxonomic disparity of endemic species within groups records ease of access, not created fit to oceanic environments. "Thus in the Galapogas Islands, nearly every land bird, but only two out of the eleven marine birds, are peculiar; and it is obvious that marine birds could arrive at these islands more easily than land birds" ([Darwin's Origin] pp. 390-391).

Again, this doesn't speak anything against Creationism since Creationism doesn't require species created on each island. They are allowed to travel there. Likewise, animals that were able to travel to and from the continents would not suffer from the same inbreeding problems as other species that could not get "fresh" DNA. This would result in fewer "peculiar" species by the fact that inbreeding is diminished between them.

(4) Biotas of oceanic islands often lack the characteristic groups of similar habitats on continents. On these islands, endemic members of other groups often assume the ecological roles almost always occupied by more appropriate or more competitive taxa in the richer faunas of continents--for example, reptiles on the Galapagos, or wingless birds on New Zealand, acting as surrogates for mammals.

Firstly, this assumes that certain types of animals are supposed to act in a certain way. But why should these roles be required in the first place? At this point, Darwin is slipping into an argument from design without realizing it. In order for this argument to succeed, there must be roles that species ought to perform.

Secondly, why should it be odd that different animals do things differently when there is no competition? How would this violate Creationism? In fact, it seems to fit the concept of a top-down design. That is, nature was designed to function a certain way (by God), and when certain things are lacking other oganisms "take up the slack" so the overall system stays on track. There is nothing anti-Creationist in this concept.

(5) In endemic island species, features operating as adaptations in related species on continents often lose utility when their island residences do not feature the same environment.

Again, that is something that could also be explained by the concept of inbreeding--the devolution of a species.

(6) Peculiar morphological consequences often ensue when creatures seize places usually inhabited by other forms that could not reach an island. Many plants, herbaceous in habitat on continents, become arboraceous on islands otherwise devoid of trees.

Again, this can be explained by the top-down design view of nature. On the other hand, I wonder how Darwinism can explain this. What is it that would require the island to evolve tree-like plants, when trees are lacking? Why is it that nature would select for such plants in the absense of trees? Would that not rather indicate that trees are a necessary pattern of nature, something that is required by the over-all design? (And, by the way, while this fits with the chaos theorist's ideas of spontaneous order from disorder, it doesn't fit with Darwinism at all.)

(7) Suitable organisms frequently fail to gain access to islands. Why do so many oceanic islands lack frogs, toads, and newts that seem so admirably adapted for such an environment?

Again, because to get to the island is difficult and God did not create them on the island during Creation.

(8) Correlation of biota with distance. Darwin could find no report of terrestrial mammals on islands more than 300 miles from a continent.

Obviously they can't swim that far. This isn't an argument against Creationism.

(9) Correlation with ease of access. Creatures often manage to cross shallow water barriers between a continent and island, but fail to negotiate deep-water gaps of the same distance.

See answers to (1), (7) and (8).

(10) Taxonomic affinity of island endemics--perhaps the most obvious point of all: why are the closest relatives of island endemics nearly always found on the nearest continent or on other adjacent islands?

See (1), (7), and (8) [and (9)].

The only thing Darwin has been boxing here has been the mythical Darwinist view of Creationism. In reality, all Darwin did by the above was demonstrate that God didn't create all animals in situ...which is something that isn't even claimed.

The broken body of Antichrist

Keep in mind while reading this that atheists are not committed to accepting whatever answers I give here. There are plenty of atheists who would disagree with me on my answer to every single question of the CS list. So what I’m offering is merely my own take, as only one individual non-theist, and I don’t pretend to represent anyone else when I answer the CS questions. For an alternative list of answers that differs somewhat from mine, you can check out Jim Lippard’s response here.

http://consolatione.blogspot.com/2007/03/answering-16-questions-for-atheists.html

And this is what is wrong with Antichristendom today. You see, James Lazarus is a classic Protinfidel.

And the problem with Protinfidelity is that its rule of faithlessness results in chaos. Utter chaos. For there’s no Pope of infidelity. Who speaks for atheism?

This is why the only respectable form of free thought is Romatheism.

Our separated nullifidians need to return to Mother Babylon, in direct, apostatical succession from Serpens I, the first bishop of Pandemonium.

Explosions Rock Colo. Spgs.; James Cameron in Hiding

March 2, 2007; Colorado Springs, CO -- Explosions were heard throughout Colorado Springs this morning as angry Christians took to the streets protesting James Cameron's documentary, Something We Made Up While Inhaling Fumes From An Ancient Tomb.

"This mockumentary is an attack on our religious beliefs," said one masked man toting an AK47. "This insult to Christianity will not go unchallenged."

Another man, carrying an RPG, shot at a police barricade near Acacia Park before police shot him dead. There has been no word on the number of police deaths, but experts fear Colorado Springs could be decending into sectarian violence (although thus far officials have stopped short of calling it a civil war).

Colorado Springs, known to many as the Mecca of Evangelicalism, is home to nearly 100 Christian organizations. James Cameron, the producer of the documentary, has been in hiding since early this morning when he came out of his home and saw his shadow, thus discovering six more weeks of Global Warming.

Reworked Hallucination Theories And The Appeal To Vague Parallels

Several years ago, Gary Habermas wrote an article discussing some historical problems with the hallucination theory. Modern skeptics who are aware of such problems sometimes try to argue for the same sort of theory under different terminology and with some minor adjustments. Sometimes they'll use the term "vision" rather than "hallucination" and will claim that their proposal of visions can't be dismissed on the basis of problems with a hallucination theory, since they distinguish between visions and hallucinations. But is the distinction sufficient to overcome the relevant problems?

I've come across skeptics who will argue against the resurrection largely by citing alleged historical parallels to the resurrection claims of the early Christians. They'll suggest that those alleged parallel accounts should be rejected, and that we therefore should reject the Christian claims. But three questions need to be asked, questions that skeptics often ignore when they draw these parallels:

1. What reason do we have to think that the alleged parallel incidents are historical in the sense that historical individuals experienced historical visions of some sort? If Christians have to make a case for the historicity of the resurrection appearances experienced by Peter, Paul, and the other early Christian sources, then skeptics have to make a case for the historicity of the supposed parallels they're citing.

2. What reason do we have to conclude that the incident in question was naturalistic? Skeptics can't just assume that an incident was naturalistic in order to have a naturalistic parallel to offer.

3. Are the reasons we have for viewing the incident as naturalistic applicable to the incidents in early Christianity? For example, nobody denies that people can have naturalistic visions, hallucinations, or whatever we want to call them under the influence of drugs. But if it's unlikely that people such as Peter and Paul had drug-induced experiences, then citing a drug-induced vision as a parallel to the resurrection experiences of the early Christians wouldn't make sense.

Skeptics can't just cite a reported occurrence of a visionary experience, assume without evidence that some sort of visionary experience did occur, assume without evidence that the experience was naturalistic, and assume without evidence that the circumstances surrounding that experience are comparable to those surrounding the resurrection appearances in early Christianity.

The Incredible Shrinking "Tomb of Jesus"

The Smoking Gun: Tenth Talpiot Ossuary Proved to be Blank by Ben Witherington

"Jesus Tomb" hits an iceberg

Problems Multiply for Jesus Tomb Theory by Ben Witherington

Easter Resources

Easter is coming soon, and some related issues are prominent in the news because of the claims being made about the discovery of Jesus' tomb, so I thought I'd post some recommended resources on Easter-related issues. If anybody wants to add any recommendations to mine, you can do so in the comments section of this thread.

Steve Hays' e-book This Joyful Eastertide has been updated since the original edition. It has hundreds of pages of searchable text and covers a large variety of topics related to the resurrection. There's a lot of material in the archives of this blog as well, especially during the Easter seasons of previous years. Glenn Miller and J.P. Holding have a lot of relevant material at their web sites, such as articles on the physical nature of the resurrection in the New Testament documents, the subjective visions hypothesis, and harmonization of the resurrection narratives (here and here). Christian CADRE has a lot of good material as well. See, also, David Wood's web site, Gary Habermas', Michael Licona's, and William Craig's.

One of the best resources I'm aware of in book format is Gary Habermas and Michael Licona's The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2004). Anything by Gary Habermas, Michael Licona, or William Craig is likely to be good, and N.T. Wright's The Resurrection Of The Son Of God (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2003) is useful.

Chaos, Weather, and the Problem of Evil

In comments on my previous post (The God Wouldn’t Do X Fallacy), I made reference to a point I wish to develop further here. As another tool to help understand the points I’m making, you might want to familiarize yourself with Time and Again, a short story I originally wrote in 2003. (That story will function as an analogy of the argument I will present here; it is not necessary to read it to understand the argument though.)

The Chaos Theory was popularized in the late 1980s and early 1990s by non-fiction authors such as James Gleick (Chaos: Making A New Science, 1988), as well as fictional works like Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park. We’ve also seen the concepts in various movies, like The Butterfly Effect, named for a concept straight out of meteorologist Edward Lorenz’s computer weather models. Although exaggerated, the concept is that if a butterfly flaps its wings in China, in six months the weather in New York will be different from what it would have been (the exaggeration is merely on the length of time, not on the fact that there would be a difference).

In reality, this echoes back to a concept that humans have known for some time. For instance, in the parable that most school children know, we’re told: “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for what of a horse, the rider was lost; for want of a rider, the battle was lost; for want of a battle, the war was lost; for want of a war, the kingdom was lost.” Ultimately, losing the nail caused the loss of the kingdom.

In essence, therefore, the chaos theory is built on the fact that small variations in the initial conditions of a complex system will cause, over time, extreme variations. For the purposes of this argument, we will look strictly at the nature of weather as applied to history.

Since weather is a complex system, then it is true that a butterfly flapping its wings will alter weather over time. This is due to the fact that certain air molecules will collide with other air molecules that would not have been touched without the movement of the butterfly’s wings. Over time, these small changes build up, until the end result is vastly different from what it would have been. Thus, we know that if we sneeze, we have changed the weather at some point in the future from what it would have been. Unfortunately, we do not know how the weather is changed. In essence, it’s like shuffling a deck of already shuffled cards. We know that the outcome is changed by the extra shuffle, but we do not know how it has changed.

When dealing with time, specifically in the aspect of time travel, we often run into paradoxes. For instance, most of us have heard the problem of a man going back in time and accidentally killing his grandfather before his father was born. Since his father was never born, it means that the original man was never born either. But if the original man was never born, then he never existed to go back in time to kill his grandfather. Which means that his father was born, and the man did exist to go back in time to kill his grandfather, etc.

But the aspect that is overlooked is the fact that one does not need to go back in time and actively kill one’s grandfather for this to happen. If someone went back in time, the very fact that he existed in that time changes the very weather from what would have happened, just as surely as a butterfly’s wings changes the weather. The difference now, however, is that those in the future can see the effects. That is, it’s like someone who has been dealt a hand of cards going back in time and shuffling the deck before it’s dealt. He now can see that the cards handed are different. And those differences not only can add up to various extreme differences, but invariably must.

Weather can often be fatal. We just had fatal tornadoes in the news, and a fatal cold snap. Frosts and draughts are responsible for great quantities of lost food, which can lead to famines. Even if these changes do not occur immediately, simply “popping” into existence in a previous time will cause those events to be different. Famines that occurred before now don’t, whereas times that had no famines now receive famines.

Couple this with the idea of people meeting and falling in love, and you can see where the paradox can come back into play. Suppose that you go back in time a sufficient distance such that your popping into existence has sufficient time to alter the weather globally in minute ways. If your grandfather is killed by a draught before your father was born, you have the same problem as if you actively killed him. In the same way, if someone else did not die in a famine, becomes a love rival to your grandfather, and your grandmother marries him instead of your grandfather, you are left with the same dilemma. (Indeed, it is actually even more of a dilemma that that, since the individual sperm cell containing your father’s DNA requires a very narrow time frame in which sexual activity could have occurred.)

Now, the purpose of this argument is not to show problems with time travel! It is to demonstrate the vast, complex intricacies of our climate. All of these things had to have happened exactly as they did happen in order for us to be where we are today. And that is where the problem of evil comes into play in this argument.

If Adam and Eve had not sinned, we would not be here today. None of us would. Theoretically, other people may be here in our place; but one thing we know of for sure is that none of us would be. Likewise, if Cain had not murdered Abel, then Abel would have existed in order to change the weather just as surely as a butterfly's wings. All these little “insignificant” details add up over time.

Thus, in order for the world to be at this exact point in history that it current occupies, everything that preceded today cannot have been otherwise.

One final thing to note: the world as it currently exists is not final. It is still moving forward toward an ultimate goal: the goal that God has in place. Logically speaking, if that ultimate goal is the supreme good, then our current world of evil is a necessary step to gaining that goal. As such, in order for God to achieve His highest good, this would be the only means by which He could attain that goal. If this is true, then the atheist arguments against Christianity ring even more hollow than before.

The Dawkins Confusion: Naturalism ad absurdum

The Dawkins Confusion: Naturalism ad absurdum by Alvin Platinga

HT: James Anderson

The God Wouldn't Do X Fallacy

In recent comments, John Loftus has assured us that unlike his bird-man argument, he is indeed serious about his dog argument. Loftus's dog argument is simple: Loftus really loves his dog and wouldn't treat a dog the way that God treats man.

Naturally, there are several problems with Loftus's argument. Firstly, men are not dogs (even including atheists in the mix). The intellectual capacity of a man is vastly different from the intellectual capacity of a dog. Dogs are not human, no matter how much Loftus would anthropomorphize.

Secondly, Loftus's treatment of dogs can be summarized here:

We didn't hit him, spank him, or pluck out his eyes. We didn't burn him, bust his jaw, or break his leg. We taught him gently (for the most part), and we punished him within reason just to let him know we were not pleased. That was enough.

There is a child rearing method known as Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T.) that has been around for a few decades. Children are not to be spanked, but loved. Discipline is done by taking away priviledges alone. Again, no spanking (which stands in stark contrast to the Biblical injunction "spare the rod, spoil the child")! If this method is done consistently and in love these children are well adjusted youths and adults. [Just read the reviews of the revised editon of this book if you don't believe me].

Now apparently, Loftus is claiming that God hits, spanks, plucks out eyes, burns, breaks jaws, breaks legs, and otherwise behaves "brutally" toward people. I would imagine he thinks of these things in the context of hell--but hell is not something that occurs on Earth. It's not like God is behaving that way toward anyone in this moment; in point of fact, Christians would argue God's behaving quite mercifully to everyone.

Ironically, Loftus writes this about God:

While I reject the Garden of Eden story as myth, even if it happened, just compare how God teaches humans and compare that to how my wife taught Franky, or how parents could raise heathy children. The punishments do not have to be so draconian in scope, especially if the goal is to teach us to do better. Just God's displeasure alone could be enough. Just taking away priviledges could be enough.

But what was God's punishment of Adam and Eve if not "taking away priviledges"? Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden. They were removed from the presence of God. Indeed, God apparently did exactly what Loftus demanded God do. In short, God's temporal punishments for disobedience seem to be exactly what Loftus would demand of God. It is only God's threat of hell that gets Loftus's ire here.

Let us, for the sake of argument, pretend that Loftus's concept of hell is Biblical. (John, note I said "for the sake of argument"; I did not say you were right.)

This brings me to the third point. Loftus engages in what I call The God Wouldn't Do X Fallacy. Here's how that fallacy works.

Loftus said:

I cannot fathom having to send my kids to hell for anything, and I cannot fathom having to pluck out Franky's eyes for anything he would do wrong to teach him to obey. But that's what we see in the Bible. So the Bible provides me a reason to reject it along with the God described in its pages.

Thus, we see Loftus arguing:

GIVEN: X is "people get sent to hell."

(1) God does X.

(2) John Loftus cannot fathom doing X.

(3) Therefore, God does not exist.

But (3) is an obvious non sequitur. In reality, all this proves is that God doesn't do what Loftus would do (or more specifically, God does what Loftus would not do). It says nothing as to the existence of God.

This is, in reality, nothing more than what Paul pointed out in the blog post Loftus admitted to not reading: "At any rate, I don't know why a *subjective* reason would allow for the atheist not to bother with the *objective* existence of something. My son doesn't like vegetables, but I don't think that should be 'another reason not to bother with belief in [vegetables] at all.'"

Loftus's dog argument is nothing more than the same God Doesn't Do X Fallacy. God doesn't do what Loftus wants God to do, therefore God doesn't exist. Loftus doesn't like God, therefore Loftus will decide not to believe in God.

This is not an intellectual argument; this is a post facto rationalization.

Hollywood Hype

Check out these two articles on the recent Tomb-exchange.

HT: Jeff Downs

Ben Witherington: "Talpiot Tomb" theory sunk from the start

See Ben Witherington taking apart the latest fiction from the director of Titanic -- oh, I mean "the latest sensational find a la The Da Vinci Code" -- here.