People Converted Through Arguments

"My colleague J.P. Moreland, out at Talbot, has taken to responding to, when people say to him, 'You can't bring anybody to Christ through argument.', J.P. says, 'Oh, yeah, you can. I've done it.' And I can say the same. We constantly get emails and testimonies coming into Reasonable Faith that people who have come to Christ after seeing a debate or a video or have come back to Christ after walking away from Christian faith through Reasonable Faith materials." (William Lane Craig, 8:04 in the audio of his November 13, 2023 Reasonable Faith podcast here)

There are Biblical examples as well (e.g., Acts 17:2-4, 19:8).

Is physical determinism reality?

The lesson of Trump

William Lane Craig:

The case of Donald Trump is an object lesson how a man’s flawed character can lead to his own undoing. Given his considerable accomplishments—such as the appointment of three Supreme Court justices, brokering a Mideast peace agreement, engineering a revival of the US economy, revitalizing the US military, confronting China’s economic and military threat, stemming the tide of illegal immigration, and much more—he could have been a great US president. But he has been his own worst enemy. Like a figure in a Greek tragedy, his nemesis is his own deeply flawed character, which has contributed to his downfall. This should be a lesson to every Christian, but especially to those in leadership positions, to be mindful of our character development, to try to recognize, as best we can, our own sinful proclivities, and to allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in conforming us to the image of Christ, lest we bring disrepute upon His name.

Chad McIntosh:

Craig is right about Trump’s accomplishments, but wrong about the lesson of Trump’s presidency. There have been previous occupants of the Oval Office with worse character. The lesson is that Democrats and their enablers in media, entertainment, education, and even ostensibly non-partisan institutions like the FBI are unquestionably the biggest threat to America as an economically prosperous country of liberty with law and order that puts its own citizens first. There is no backward or unjust law they will not support or moral perversion or mental illness they don’t want to normalize, and they will use any means necessary to get what they want. That is the lesson. Trump was a bigger obstacle to them than previous milquetoast Republicans, so they went harder than ever against him.

But make no mistake: the next Republican candidate for president, no matter how upright or milquetoast, will also be literally Hitler. And so will the one after. And after. It’s not about character at all. It’s about how serious of an obstacle one is to the evils of progressivism.

Craig and Rasmussen on divine aseity and abstract objects

Some might be interested in the following discussion between William Lane Craig and Josh Rasmussen on divine aseity and abstract objects. I haven't watched it yet, and I doubt I'd entirely agree with either Craig or Rasmussen on the topics at hand, but I post it because it might be a thought-provoking discussion on subjects important in philosophical theology.

Jesus seminar renders Lewis' trilemma obsolete! And other tall tales

Esther O'Reilly:

Reminded today of just how awful this William Lane Craig quote from Reasonable Faith is [near the end of chapter 7]:

Often one hears people say, 'I don’t understand all those philosophical arguments for God’s existence and so forth. I prefer historical apologetics.' I suspect that those who say this think that historical apologetics is easy and will enable them to avoid the hard thinking involved in the philosophical arguments. But this section ought to teach us clearly that this is not so. It is naïve and outdated simply to trot out the dilemma 'Liar, Lunatic, or Lord' and adduce several proof texts where Jesus claims to be the Son of God, the Messiah, and so forth. The publicity generated by the Jesus Seminar and The DaVinci Code has rendered that approach forever obsolete. Rather, if an apologetic based on the claims of Christ is to work, we must do the requisite spadework of sorting out those claims of Jesus that can be established as authentic, and then drawing out their implications. This will involve not only mastering Greek but also the methods of modern criticism and the criteria of authenticity. Far from being easy, historical apologetics, if done right, is every bit as difficult as philosophical apologetics. The only reason most people think historical apologetics to be easier is because they do it superficially.

How awful is this passage? Let me count the ways:

1. The Jesus Seminar renders Lewis obsolete? I'll let the self-defeating irony of this particular bit speak for itself.
2. Are we doing sociology or epistemology here? Genuinely can't tell.
3. Is there reasonable doubt that Jesus *did* make such explicit claims to deity as those we find in, say, John? If not, why not use them? Yet, significantly, Craig never does.
4. Why the need for all this "spadework" if we can establish whole-gospel reliability?
5. Yet further irony: In the intro to RF, Craig downplays "saddling" oneself with establishing whole-gospel reliability, then here proceeds to "saddle" his readers with all this "spadework" as...an improvement?
6. "This requires mastering Greek." So much for the "one-dollar apologist," eh?

I'm sorry to say it, but this really is the sort of rhetoric that gives big apologetics a bad name. Massively unhelpful, confusing, and does not reflect the actual state of the argument.

Yes, we really need to get out of this rigid rut where first you need to establish X, Y and Z arguments for general theism, and only then can you "move on" to the historical arguments. Says who? Written where?

Ehrman’s Objections to the Women’s Discovery of the Empty Tomb

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/ehrmans-objections-to-the-womens-discovery-of-the-empty-tomb

Handicapping the Craig/Oppy debate

I already did one brief post on the Craig/Oppy debate:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/05/does-math-point-to-god.html

I subsequently added a sentence to the first part of my two-part response. 

Now I'm going to comment on the rest of the debate. A few preliminary observations:

1. For a 70-year-old, Craig is remarkably quick on his feet, especially considering the highly abstract, technical subject-matter of the debate.

2. Oppy is a superior mind wasted on atheism. Even if atheism were true–especially if atheism were true–what's the point of mounting such a sophisticated defense of atheism? What's the point of defending atheism at all? What's the point of anything? If atheism is true, then human life is worthless, so why devote so much effort and intelligence to defending a position that renders human life worthless? Maybe Oppy doesn't view it that way, but a number of candid atheists do.

Consider defending a worldview in which it's okay to take a butcher knife and carve your mother up alive. Consider developing sophisticated arguments to defend that proposition. 

3. Moving to the meat of the debate, I think there was some miscommunication regarding Craig's statement that atheists have no explanation for the phenomena he adduces in his argument. I'm sure that's shorthand for the claim, not that atheists have no naturalistic explanations to offer, but that their naturalistic alternatives are explanatory failures. 

4. Due to time-constraints, the debate didn't have a clear-cut winner or loser, because both sides had insufficient time to expound their positions and respond to objections. Sometimes Craig had the better of the exchange, sometimes Oppy had the better of the exchange, but in some cases that's because of how the exchange abruptly ended. If each side had more time to explain their position and develop their replies, they might have a better comeback. That said, I think Craig did better overall. 

5. In the first round they got bogged down on the question of what motivates mathematicians. Here I think Craig commits an unforced error in how he formulates the first premise of his argument. That's because his formulation is overly-realiant at this point on Wigner's essay. But his argument doesn't require him to take a position on what motivates mathematicians. The issues is what's been discovered as a result of their work, regardless of their motivations. Pure math with practical applications they've developed as a result of their work, regardless of their motivations. Craig's fundamental argument is the unreasonable effectiveness of math, however mathematicians were motivated to stumble upon that insight. So Craig could rehabilitate his argument by reformulating the first premise. 

6. Initially, Craig's argument seems to hinge on scientific realism. Oppy gave examples which might support scientific anti-realism. I think Oppy had the better of that exchange. Craig needs to be able to do one of two things: (i) defend scientific realism or (ii) reformulate his argument so that it works on scientific realism and antirealism alike. 

Later in the debate Craig says the argument is about how the world appears to us. The mathematical equations allow us to describe with amazing accuracy in an uncanny number of cases the physical phenomena. Yet that seems inconsistent with earlier argument Craig and Oppy were having. But perhaps we can treat this as a clarification of the argument. 

7. On a related note, Oppy appealed to many failed theories, where the math didn't prove to be uncannily effective. Craig responded by saying the realm of math infinite while the physical world finite, so it's to be expected that in many cases the math fails to match up. I think Craig had the better of that exchange.

8. Apropos (7), I'd make an additional point. The failures that Oppy cited don't disprove the unexpected effectiveness of math (unexpected if atheism is true). Rather, they simply illustrate the fallibility of physicists. 

9. Craig appealed to the causal inertness of mathematic objects. I think Craig had the better of that exchange. 

10. Because Craig's argument appeals to laws of nature, Oppy challenged his argument on that score inasmuch as the concept or status of such laws is contested in the philosophy of science. However, when outlining his alternative to Craig's position, Oppy posting the necessity of the laws of nature. So he's faulting Craig's theistic position for a commitment which his own naturalistic alternative shares in common. Indeed, he stakes out a more ambitious claim than Craig since he regards the laws of nature as necessary whereas Craig regards the laws of nature as contingent. So that objection seems to be contradictory and self-defeating on Oppy's part. 

11. Apropos (10), while Oppy's objection was inconsistent, the lingering issue remains of whether Craig's argument is committed to some version of the laws of nature. If so, that makes his argument vulnerable at that point to disputes in the philosophy of science regarding the concept and status of such laws. It would be better if Craig could reformulate his argument so that it's not dependent on that assumption. 

Offhand, I don't see that it requires that commitment. The basic argument is that pure math has surprising empirical applications. That makes sense if the universe was "constructed on God's mathematical blueprint" (as Craig put it). It doesn't make sense if atheism is true. This might also be a way for Craig to sidestep the scientific realist/antirealist debate.

12. Oppy outlined his alternative:

A theory of modality. Every possible world shares some initial history with the actual world. Diverges from it only because chances play out differently. Those are the only possibilities that there are. The laws are necessary, the boundary conditions are necessary. Doesn't matter if you're thinking about one universe or many universe model. Where contingency comes in is the outplaying of chances. Couldn't possibly have failed not to be the case. No explaining why something is necessary. 

i) It's hard to evaluate his alternative since his presentation was so sketchy. But an acute failing of his alternative (at least as stated in the debate) is the failure to explain where the math comes from. What is Oppy's ontology of mathematics? 

ii) His commitment to nomological necessity shoulders a high burden of proof. 

iii) While it's true that once we reach necessity, that terminates further explanation, that doesn't sidestep the question of whether we rightly identified what's necessary, or what makes it necessary–in contrast to what's contingent. 

iv) What does he mean by chance? Is he alluding to quantum indeterminism? If so, there are deterministic versions of quantum theory, so he must defend his particular interpretation. 

v) Then there's his concept of the possible world. However, as commonly understood, the actual world used to be a possible world. So possible worlds don't derive from the actual world. 

In addition, from a Christian perspective, both possible worlds and the actual world derive from God. God stands behind both as their common source.

Does math point to God?

Today there was a brainiac debate between Graham Oppy and William Lane Craig:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WE1y00bwCU

I may or may not comment on other parts of the debate in a future post, but of now I'd like to zero in on a dilemma posed by Oppy:

Could God have freely chosen to make a physical world in which it was not the case that mathematical theories apply to the physical world because the structure of the physical world is an instantiation of mathematical structures described by those mathematical theories? There are two options: if not, then it seems that what you're going to end up saying is that it's necessary, that if there's a physical world, mathematical theories apply–which means you just end up with what the naturalist says. That will be the explanation. On the other hand, if it's as though it's just a brute contingency that mathematical theories apply to the physical world…because it's brutally contingent that God chose to make this world rather that other worlds that he could have made instead. When you get to free choice and you think why this rather than that, there's no explanation to be given why you ended up with one rather than the other. So it looks as though either you're going to accept the necessity or you're going to end up with ultimately it's a brute contingency. 

The answer depends on how we answer either either one of two prior questions:

i) Are mathematical structures grounded in the structure/substructure of God's mind? Does the existence of mathematical structures depend on God's existence?

ii) Is there a naturalistic mechanism to explain how the physical structure of the universe is an instantiation of mathematical structures?

Craig on eternal sonship

A sequel to this post:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/05/is-god-son-begotten-in-his-divine-nature.html

Craig seems to think that in order to reject eternal generation, he must reject ontological sonship. If so, that's confused. These are theological metaphors. Metaphors are open-textured. Metaphors have multiple connotations. As such, most authors don't intend for every connotation of a metaphor to be in play. So the interpretive question is to identify the intended connotation.

Consider some of the connotations of fatherhood and sonship: fathers preexist sons, fathers age, fathers die, fathers and sons are embodied agents, sons undergo a maturation process, sons result from sex between a father and a mother.

When the NT uses father/son language for two persons of the Trinity, these connotations are clearly off the table. They reflect sheerly human things incompatible with deity. So the intended connotation(s) of the father/son terminology in NT Trinitarian usage is narrow. 

One connotation of the metaphor is derivation. Since that's incompatible with his position (I agree), he demotes the father/son terminology to the economic Trinity. It doesn't seem to occur to him that another connotation of the father/son metaphor is representation. A son resembles his father (like father/like son) and a son is especially qualified to act on behalf of his father, as his father's agent. Both are grounded in ontological sonship. 

Is God the Son Begotten in His Divine Nature?

Regarding this article:

https://ojs.uclouvain.be/index.php/theologica/article/view/16583/15603

1. I agree with Craig's critique of eternal generation.

2. I'm not going to comment on his general alternative (pp25-26). I don't care to get into the weeds of exegeting and assessing it. 

I've articulated my own model of the Trinity on numerous occasions. I'll stick with that.

3. However, a basic problem with Craig's position in this article is reducing the Father/Son distinction to the economic Trinity. That's mistaken because, on occasion, the NT clearly uses "Son of God" (or "Son" for short) as a divine title. His identity as the ontological Son of God figures in his deity. If he's the Son of God, then by implication he's divine. Reducing the Father/Son distinction to the economic Trinity can't explain that entailment in NT usage. And it's not a minor point. 

Theism As A Rival To Christianity

William Lane Craig recently concluded a podcast with the following comments:

It really surprises me, honestly, that here's a fellow who is willing to admit that the arguments for theism are stronger than the evidences for Jesus and for the resurrection! He thinks that's the weak link. Well, he's really put himself in a difficult position because if you argue for theism successfully, you're more than halfway there to getting Christianity. If you've got theism then your choices are going to be Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or maybe deism of some sort. And of those I think Christianity is clearly the most plausible. I think the arguments for the resurrection of Jesus and the historical reliability of the Gospels are such that Christianity is very defensible against this fellow’s sort of skeptical attacks. So he has really adopted a losing strategy, I think, here. You give up on theism – yield on theism – then just try to fight the remaining parapets to prevent Christianity from being established. The problem is it is going to be much, much easier to establish Christianity if you’ve already got theism in place.

It's true that Christianity is easier to argue for with theism in place. But he doesn't mention one of the major rivals to Christianity.

The Plasticity and Flexibility of ANE Myths

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-3/excursus-on-creation-of-life-and-biological-diversity/excursus-on-creation-of-life-and-biological-diversity-part-19/

Resurrection conspiracy theory

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/shall-we-resurrect-the-conspiracy-theory

Theistic conceptual realism update

For those of you who take an interest in modal metaphysics:

Philosophia Christi

Vol 21 Num. 2 - Winter 2019

The Winter 2019 issue features a lead discussion centered on William Lane Craig's argument in God Over All, with contributions from Greg Welty, Peter van Inwagen, and a response by Craig. The discussion addresses issues of "divine conceptualism" and abstract objects and their implications for the nominalism-realism debate.

Greg Welty is slated to publish an updated version of  “The Conceptualist Argument,” in Colin Ruloff (ed.), Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology (Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming). 

He had to cut it down to meet the word count, so he will publish the outtakes in journal articles. 

Craig on random mutations

Here's William Lane Craig's most recent Q&A "#-671 Do 'Random' Mutations Occur by 'Chance'?".

As explained, too many people on both sides of the creation/evolution debate think that “random,” when used by evolutionary biologists to characterize mutations, means purposeless or without direction or by chance. But that’s not at all what they mean. Rather they mean that the mutations occur regardless of their benefit to the organism in which they occur. Such an understanding of “random” is not at all contrary to God’s having a purpose for the mutations that occur or even Himself causing the mutations to occur.

1. If we want a strict biology textbook definition, sure, mutations are "random" in the sense that the mutation that occurs is unpredictable in relation to what is useful to the organism. The mutation that occurs is unrelated to the usefulness of the mutation to the organism.

2. However, that's not always what we're talking about when we talk about random mutations. It depends on the context. Surely (surely!) Craig knows when people debate creation/evolution/ID, they're not always or solely talking about the strict biology textbook definition of random mutations. Rather creation/evolution/ID debates likewise involve questions over more fundamental issues. Such as the existence of God as well as the nature and scope of God's intervention in nature. So the use of both kinds of definitions for random mutations aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

3. To be more specific, in the context of naturalistic evolution (e.g. Dawkins, Coyne), it's legitimate to argue that these mutations are ultimately purposeless or unguided. Given naturalistic evolution, what is the ultimate source of these "random" mutations?

We come to see that evolutionary theory does not assert that the mutations which lie at the root of evolutionary development and, hence, evolution itself occur purposelessly or by chance, as popularizers and even careless scientists often claim. By properly understanding the meaning of “random” in evolutionary theory, we come to see that evolution is wholly compatible with God’s providentially directing the evolutionary process.

However, this doesn't depend on evolutionary theory (neo-Darwinism) in and of itself. Rather, as I've just said, it depends on whether we're talking about (say) theistic evolution or atheistic evolution. The textbook definition of random mutations is consistent with either theistic evolution or atheistic evolution.

I’m implying that the theory of evolution is not incompatible with Christian theism because it does not assert that the mutations which advance evolutionary change occur by chance or without purpose...What I’m implying is that God, while quite able to create fully functional biological organisms de novo, may have instead chosen to create them indirectly by deliberately causing the mutations that drove evolutionary advance.

1. Now, it could be Craig is simply answering this question or objection without offering his personal beliefs about the matter. Perhaps that's the case.

2. However, maybe I'm mistaken, but my impression is Craig has been becoming more sympathetic to theistic evolution as well as more skeptical about the historical Adam and Eve over the years. Again, that's not to suggest Craig currently accepts theistic evolution or denies the historical Adam and Eve. But it seems to me he is at least intellectually sympathetic to both positions, even if that's not his personal conviction.

Take the historical Adam and Eve. It seems to me Craig might be sympathetic in believing either there may not have been a historical Adam and Eve (e.g. Y-chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve lived thousands of years apart from one another), or if there was, then they were "chosen" by God out of a pool of other hominids and "made into" the historical Adam and Eve.

3. If it's true Craig is becoming more sympathetic to accepting theistic evolution and/or denying the historical Adam and Eve, then I presume his main influence is the Christian physician-scientist Joshua Swamidass at Peaceful Science. I think Swamidass is in essence a theistic evolutionist, but he often seems circumspect about saying so explicitly. The latest two Reasonable Faith podcasts involve Swamidass (here, here).

Is divine agency inexplicable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52XsW6jD4eg&t=61s

I thought Craig gave a perfectly good answer. But I'd go about it somewhat differently.

i) It's true that the atheist questioner overstated his case about universal negatives. There are situations in which it's possible to prove a universal negative. We don't have to search every square inch of Jupiter to know there are no giraffes on Jupiter. We only have to know the kind of environment an animal like a giraffe requires for survival, and know that Jupiter's environment is inimical to giraffes. 

Likewise, we can know that no Tibetan monk has ever been president of the United States. And so on.

ii) That said, there are other situations in which it's not possible in principle to prove a universal negative. In addition, there are situations in which it's possible in principle but not in practice. Finally, there are situations in which it's technical possible, but very difficult. 

iii) And this goes to the burden of proof, which is quite germane in some Christian/atheist debates. The questioner is right about that. Are we holding both sides to a reasonable standard? Is the burden of proof the same for each? 

Ironically, the questioner's observation backfires. As I've often remarked, when it comes to the subject of miracles the burden of proof is radically asymmetrical. On the one hand an atheist must eliminate every reported miracle from consideration. On the other hand, a Christian only needs a few good examples to establish their reality. So the atheist must assume a self-imposed burden of proof that's completely unrealistic. He can't justifiably rule out every reported miracle in advance of examining the evidence. 

iv) The questioner then asserts that invoking divine agency is an appeal to something inherently inexplicable, so it doesn't solve the problem but compounds the problem. Appealing to something even more incomprehensible to explain something we don't understand.

v) Unfortunately, he fails to just what he means or defend his claim. Does he mean the very concept of God is inexplicable? If so, there are detailed philosophical explications and models of the divine attributes. So on the face of it, God is not inexplicable in that sense. 

Indeed, it's something of a dilemma for an atheist to say God is unintelligible. For what is the atheist denying?

vi) Then there's the God of biblical narratives. Does he mean that representation of God is inexplicable? But far from being inexplicable, biblical representations of God are often anthropomorphic. The Bible God acts like a recognizable agent. Intelligent. Having intentions. Analogous in some ways to human agents. 

vii) Perhaps his objection is not to the concept of God but the concept of divine agency. If so, what's inherently inexplicable about the concept of divine agency? It's a variation on personal agency. We're certainly very familiar with that concept.

viii) Maybe his objection isn't to personal agency in general but mental causation in particular. Yet humans have direct experience with mental causation. And there's strong evidence that minds are immaterial, yet able to act on the physical. 

ix) Maybe he means the concept of an agent who subsists outside of space and time is inexplicable. But we do have a concept of things that exist outside of space and time. Abstract objects are the paradigm example. Even if you're a physicalist or nominalist, abstract objects are not conceptually unintelligible. 

x) But perhaps he means to say it's inexplicable how a timeless spaceless agent causes things to happen in space and time. If so, one problem with that objection is that the concept of causation is someway mysterious and resistant to final analysis. 

For instance, we normally think of a medium that transmits the cause to the effect. But if we insist on that as a necessary condition for cause and effect, it leads to infinite regress or infinite divisibility. Must there always be some intervening medium to bridge the gap, or must it bottom out at direct causation to avoid an infinite regress or infinite divisibility?

xi) It can't be inexplicable because atheists lack a concept of the supernatural. Atheists reject certain reported phenomena because they regard them as naturally impossible. But that demands a point of contrast. Naturalism is typically defined in terms of the world as a closed system of matter and energy. That's all there is. So the concept of the supernatural involves concepts to the contrary.  

The no-true apostate fallacy

Moreover, we must differentiate from permanent apostates people who never had genuine saving faith in the first place but merely a counterfeit faith (like Judas). In cases of counterfeit faith apostasy does not truly enter the picture. So on this view, although it is possible to apostatize and forfeit salvation, no one ever actually does so. 

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/why-doesnt-god-terminate-would-be-apostates

An all-too-typical specimen of the desperate lengths that Calvinists will go to to salvage their a priori theological system. The No-True-Scotsman fallacy!

Wait, this wasn't written by a Calvinist, but by a high-profile freewill theist who denounces Calvinism. Fancy that! 

Color-coded Bible

My post

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/11/faith-without-floor.html

provoked a conversation in the combox which I'm posting separately because it offers a high-level comparison and contrast between the respective positions:

Lydia McGrew

I would say that evidentialism per se doesn't tell us anything about any of those specific things. If we imagine an evidentialist who is convinced of the most conservative position on all of those specific things, and thinks he has extremely strong evidence for them, then there is no reason to talk about a "floor" at all anymore, unless we assume that he's just missing some significant piece of evidence right now.

I would put the marriage analogy a little differently: Suppose that I say that I believe that my husband exists based upon evidence, not as a presupposition.

And suppose someone says, "Well, then, you could in theory become convinced that your husband doesn't exist? So it could go that low, there's no floor?"

How would one answer this? Presumably one would say, "Well, that's a crazy scenario. Are we imagining that I get some almost unimaginably bizarre influx of new evidence in which I become rationally convinced that my husband is really a robot inserted into our country by space aliens, or what?"

In other words, there are tons of things that we are so over-justified in believing by evidence that we can only envisage becoming convinced that they are false if we make up the wildest of future evidential scenarios, which we'd have to be crazy to lose sleep over.

Does that mean that we are "presuppositionalists" about those things? No, of course not. It means that our evidence is so mountainous and overwhelming that we have, by evidential means, a kind of "practical certainty" about them so that we would have to rip up huge amounts of our other justified beliefs (in this case, our justified confidence that space alien robots are not successfully impersonating humans over many decades, etc.) in order to change our minds about them.

In that trivial sense one can say that there is "no floor" on whether, in principle, one could abandon such a belief, as long as it isn't something known a priori. 1 + 1 = 2 is more justified than "I have a hand" or "My husband is not a robot." But that's not an argument against being an evidentialist about such propositions.

steve

A problem I have with that response is that while I used some picturesque metaphors to illustrate the principle, my primary examples aren't hypothetical, much less farfetched hypotheticals, but real-life examples, and not exceptional but commonplace. Lots of folks who used to be conservative Christians but over time the content of their faith atrophies along the pattern I describe. It's not so much that the bottom fell out of their faith, but that their faith had no bottom to begin with.

Lydia McGrew

Sure, but presumably presupps don't have particular positions on all of those things as part of their "floor." At least I wouldn't imagine that they do. There's nothing about being a presupp per se that means you have to have one particular position on the ages of the patriarchs or Noah's flood. I can easily imagine presupps disagreeing among themselves about those issues.

Nor is there anything especially friendly to "myth or legend" in the evidentialist position.

I can easily imagine a presupp who takes a more "liberal" position on those particular issues than an evidentialist. Or I can imagine a presupp. and an evidentialist having exactly the same set of things where they draw a line and say, "No, I'm not going to change my mind on that."

The meta-level positions don't really tell us where someone's "floor" is going to fall. I have a really strong position on the historical Adam. I can easily imagine a presupp. who would be more friendly than I am to theistic evolution for the body of man.

In practice, I suspect that both presupps and evidentialists have as their practical "floor" those things that they tacitly or explicitly believe are extremely strongly justified by the data, including the data of Scripture. The reason that a particular position on the deity of Christ is a non-negotiable is (in no small measure) because we all recognize that it is over-justified by the Scriptural data as a tenet of Christianity. But that's not the case on, e.g., a local vs. a universal flood.

I would instance here Paul Moser as a guy who is a sort of rabid neo-Barthian and hates evidentialism with the passion of a thousand burning suns. I'd be willing to bet a sum of money that his positions are far more liberal on all of those issues than mine and that he has a lower "floor" than mine on other issues as well.

steve

To generalize, presuppers have a more theological orientation whereas evidentialists have a more historical orientation. By that I mean, evidentialists approach the Bible as historians–in contrast to presuppers who approach the Bible as a religious document (as well as a historical document), so that, as a matter of principle, presuppers treat Christian theology and Bible narratives as a unit–rather than an assemblage of separable parts, to be individually reaffirmed or discarded. (Which doesn't mean presuppers, or at least the most intelligent representatives, are unconcerned with the value of corroborative evidence, where available.)

As long as we're toying with hypotheticals, here's another hypothetical way to frame the difference between presuppers and evidentialists:

i) Suppose the Book of Esther made demonstrably false historical claims. An evidentialist might say that just means we should dispense with inerrancy. The Book of Esther might still be a historically useful witness to an especially trying time in Jewish history, but it's not infallible. It's comparable to 1 Maccabees.

By contrast, a presupper might say in that case it's not that Scripture is fallible, but that Esther isn't Scripture. Scripture wasn't mistaken; rather, the canonization of Esther was mistaken. We don't dispense with inerrancy but with errant books. 

ii) Put another way, presuppers accept or reject books as a unit rather than accepting or rejecting parts of (the same) books. 

iii) That's because presuppers regard Scripture as a religious document (as well as a historical document). A supernatural rather than naturalistic product.

iv) BTW, this isn't a uniquely presuppositional approach to the Bible. I also approach the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and the Arcana Cœlestia (to cite three representatives examples) as religious documents. They purportedly originate in supernatural encounters, and that's how I evaluate them (although historical analysis is certainly pertinent, where possible). As such, I accept or reject them as a unit. I don't affirm parts of them while discarding other parts. Rather, I accept or reject them in toto.

Of course, the Koran does have some incidental historical and autobiographical value regarding the life and times of Muhammad. It's worthless on Bible history, but does shed light on a particular period in Middle Eastern history.

To illustrate the contrast from different, but related examples, here are some more comparisons:

i) As I presupper, I don't approach the Koran the same way I approach the Jewish Wars by Josephus. Josephus wrote a historical account, not a religious document. It doesn't claim to be Scripture or divine revelation. 

I can accept or reject parts of the Jewish Wars, if some parts are of dubious historicity. 

By contrast, the Koran is first and foremost a revelatory claimant. Considered on those terms, it reject it in toto. 

ii) Considered as a canonical candidate, I reject 1 Maccabees in toto. That's if I judge it on Catholic grounds.

iii) However, 1 Maccabees isn't a Catholic document. It was appropriated by the Catholic church, but it didn't originate in Catholicism. It's a pre-Catholic, pre-Christian document. A historical document about the Maccabean revolt. It doesn't claim to be Scripture. So at that level, I can accept parts of it and reject parts of it, if some parts are of dubious historicity. 

iv) Consider the scribal/apocryphal additions to Daniel, Mark, and John. I don't accept some parts of Daniel, Mark, and John while rejecting other parts. Rather, I don't regard the apocryphal additions to Daniel, or the scribal interpolations to Mark and John (the Long Ending of Mark, the Pericope Adulterae) to be parts of those books in the first place. They're not original to Daniel, Mark, and John. 

v) This is not to deny that the same document can be both historical and religious. But if a document puts itself forward as a candidate for Scripture, then I'll assess the status of the document on religious terms rather than historical terms. Of course, if the revelatory claimant makes blatantly false historical claims, that doesn't help its case!

Lydia McGrew

What I'm pushing back against here is the to my mind mistaken view that evidentialism says, "Never come to a strong conclusion about anything" or "always hold a lower-than-really-high probability for all religious propositions." There is nothing about evidentialism that says that. That's maybe a caricature that arises understandably from statements like, "Always follow the evidence," but my point is that you can follow the evidence and thereby come to an extremely high confidence in a proposition such that you don't envisage changing your mind on it ever. It's not like evidentialism puts some kind of artificial "ceiling" on the degree of confidence you can have in any religious proposition, like you have to hang around in a state of semi-uncertainty about the deity of Christ (or whatever) all your life so that you can prove to yourself that you're open-minded and ready to follow the evidence. I forget if it's GK Chesterton who has that famous quotation about how open-mindedness is fine so long as it doesn't prevent us from closing our minds upon the truth when we find it. An evidentialist can say "amen" to that at least as loudly as a presuppositionalist.

steve

There's the question of what motivates a reinterpretation. For instance, the reason people question or outright deny the longevity of the antediluvians is because they think that's unrealistic. Whereas a presupper would say it's realistic because that's attested in Scripture. 

Now, I agree with you that one can postulate hypothetical scenarios which create untenable dilemmas for presuppers. But like hypothetical moral dilemmas, that ultimately becomes a question of divine providence in real life. Will God allow believers to be confronted with untenable intellectual dilemmas? That also depends on how much control we think God has over world history. So the debate spills over into other theological commitments.

Lydia McGrew

Is it your position that presuppositionalism per se contains a position on the meaning of the ages of the antediluvians? Because I would bet there are presuppers who would disagree with you on that.

I was under the impression that presuppositionalism had various issues where various interpretations of Scripture's literalness was allowed in a generally evidential manner just as it is for evidentialists, not that presuppositionalism per se is committed to a more literal hermeneutic.

For example, I think there are presupp OECs as well as presupp YECs.

(I'm inclined to take the ages of the antediluvians as literal, btw.)

Maybe we should distinguish presuppers from "people who take some non-evidentialist approach to apologetics." Perhaps one wouldn't say William Lane Craig is a presupper. See my comment below. He's not an evidentialist, though. But evidently the "internal witness of the Holy Spirit" isn't telling him that Genesis 1-11 are not "mytho-history," even though the IWHS is telling him that the Bible as a whole is true!

So it's not just hypothetical but actual for someone to have a commitment, even what that person characterizes as a whole-book, non-evidentialist commitment, to the truth of the Bible as Scripture, and to reinterpret segments as non-historical in fairly radical ways just as you are bringing up here, even more so than a given evidentialist (like me) does. Again, this isn't just a hypothetical scenario.

steve

i) When I contrast presuppers with evidentialists, that doesn't mean I'm exempting classical apologists (e.g. Craig) from the contrast. I'm just using evidentialism as a representative point of contrast.

ii) Especially among the laity, some Christians appeal to the IWHS as a hermeneutical shortcut. The Holy Spirit gives Spirit-filled Christians the correct interpretation of Scripture.

However, that's just folk theology. The Bible itself never makes that promise. It's convenient for lay Christians who don't have access to academic Bible commentaries or the aptitude to process them. But the appeal is misguided. 

iii) In terms of historical theology, the IWHS wasn't used as a hermeneutical shortcut but to undergird the assurance of salvation and/or conviction that the Bible is the word of God.

On the one hand, the principle has some value, possibly indispensable, because most Christians lack the aptitude to justify their faith through rigorous argumentation, so they must have an alternate mode of access to ground their faith. For a fairly sophisticated formulation of the IWHS:

https://www.proginosko.com/2017/01/the-internal-testimony-of-the-holy-spirit/

iv) However, the IWHS, if valid as a general principle, is too coarse-grained to function as a criterion for the canonical candidates (or textual criticism). 

We might compare it to the argument from miracles, which eliminates conventional naturalism, and creates a presumption in favor of Christianity compared to non-Christian religions (because miracles cluster around Christianity), but is too indiscriminate to eliminate intra-Christian rivals. 

v) In principle, the IWHS isn't the only epistemological paradigm that could perform the role assigned to it. An alternative might be a providential paradigm where God instils Christian faith by arranging for people to be exposed to good religious conditioning, as well as miracles, special providences, or answered prayers.

vi) The IWHS could be expanded into the argument from religious experience.

vii) As you know, "reinterpreting" the Bible is sometimes a euphemism for "the Bible got it wrong", but it would be controversial to say that, so a reinterpretation is more politic. 

viii) As I said before, the primary issue isn't reinterpretation per se, but what motivates reinterpretation. If I question or reject a traditional interpretation, I didn't personally change my mind. That interpretation was around long before I was born. Every new Christian generation must assess traditional interpretations. Christians in different times and places may find themselves in different epistemic situations. A cliche example is geocentrism. 

ix) Moreover, it's not always a case of revising the interpretation under pressure from factual challenges. For instance, biblical archeology may provide new evidence that invites an alternative interpretation. 

x) My primary target is an approach to Scripture like the Jesus Seminar. A color-coded Bible in which we go through the Bible rating various statement as probably true, probably false, definitely false. 

And that also happens under the guise of "reinterpretation," where reinterpreting a passage of Scripture is functionally equivalent to saying it's wrong. The revised interpretation is face-saving device. 

This dovetails with your criticism of token inerrancy, where lip-service is paid to inerrancy but the affirmation is vacuous because it strips historicity out of inerrancy. Inerrancy becomes an empty suit.

Lydia McGrew

Just thought of this: Bill Craig has critiqued evidentialism and doesn't consider himself an evidentialist, and he's out there saying that Gen. 1-11 is "mytho-history." I don't know if you just think WLC is an outlier or something, but he really is an example of someone who both a) has distanced himself explicitly from evidentialism (I guess he'd be more of a Plantingian in certain ways) and b) has engaged in reinterpretation in exactly the way you are talking about and, I would say, for the same motives, though perhaps he would dispute the motive claim.

I don't really think he's all that unusual among non-evidentialists and anti-evidentialists. But perhaps you're just making generalizations about presuppositionalists more narrowly conceived and saying that those in that group are more inclined to stick with a more literal hermeneutic and not to engage in reinterpretation based on outside evidence or judgements of probability than self-styled evidentialists. 

Theistic conceptual realism

Recently, Greg Welty debated Peter van Inwagen and William Lane Craig on abstract objects. That will be published in the Winter issue of Philosophia Christi. Here is Welty's title and abstract:

Title: “Do Divine Conceptualist Accounts Fail? A Response to Chapter 5 of God Over All”.

Abstract: "William Lane Craig’s God Over All argues against the kind of ‘divine conceptualism’ about abstract objects which I defend. In this conference presentation I note several points of agreement with and appreciation for Craig’s important work. I then turn to five points of critique and response pertaining to: the sovereignty-aseity intuition, the reality of false propositions, God’s having ‘inappropriate’ thoughts, propositions being purely private and incommunicable, and a consistent view of God’s own ontological commitments. I conclude by summarizing our two key differences, indicating that we may have much more in common than first appears (both theologically and metaphysically)."

In the final footnote, Welty mentions five more criticisms that weren't read out. 

In addition, Dr. Welty will be updating his arguments in Colin Ruloff (ed.), Contemporary Arguments in Natural Theology (Bloomsbury Press, forthcoming).

Jews and Jesus

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/was-god-deceiving-his-people-by-raising-jesus

I think it is far more plausible to think that God has the sovereign freedom to do something new and unexpected in Jesus than to think that He has the character of a Deceiver such as you describe. How confident are you that you’ve got it all sewed up so nice and neat that you know that God would not bring along a Messiah like Jesus? Maybe you’re mistaken about that. How can you be so sure? 

That's a variation on the same bad argument Craig used in his dialogue with Ben Shapiro. But the messiah is supposed to correspond to OT paradigms. The messiah might do some new and unexpected things in addition to OT paradigms, but not as a substitute. 

Part of the difficulty here is that I don’t think we have any good reason to think that the God of the Hebrew Bible exists apart from Jesus and his resurrection. It’s because I believe in Jesus that I believe in the Jewish God. For that reason, it’s not correct to equate Jesus with a false prophet who says “Let us follow and worship another god” (Deuteronomy 13.1), for the God worshipped and proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth was the God of the Hebrew Bible! It’s because of Jesus that I believe in the Jewish God. But take away Jesus and his resurrection, and what’s left? Then we must ask, why believe that the God of the Old Testament exists? There just aren’t many proofs of Judaism apart from Jesus. So it’s hard to see why, if Jesus was a deceiver or a fanatic, one should be Jewish.

i) Now that's a marked improvement over what he told Shapiro. That's a powerful argument. Pity he didn't challenge Shapiro with that argument. 

ii) At the same time, we'd need to distinguish between the epistemic situation of pre-Christian Jews and post-Christian Jews. Surely Jews during the OT period and Inter-testamental period had good reason to believe in Yahweh's existence.  

On the other hand, to admit that God, the God of the Hebrew Bible, actually raised Jesus from the dead but was just testing people strikes me as rather desperate. It reminds me of saying that God placed the alleged fossil remains of prehistoric life in the rocks in order to test our faith in a 6,000 year old creation. Neither the God of the Bible nor of natural theology is that kind of Deceiver. Think of what you’re implying about the character of God! Would God mislead billions of the world’s people to believe in Jesus by raising him from the dead, knowing that they thereby be alienated from the life of God and His covenant? 

i) It would be better to argue that Deut 13 can't be used to subvert OT theism. That would be self-defeating. That's the opposite of what was intended. 

ii) So one issue is whether, even if billions are deceived by a false religion, it's possible to discern the true religion. Has God left evidence sufficient to make that discrimination? The issue is not confined to Judaism. What about Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mormonism (or Catholicism)? 

iii) Another issue is whether those who adhere to a false religion because they were in some sense divinely deceived (it might be indirect) are still culpable? We might distinguish between those who were already blameworthy on other grounds, so that religious delusion is punitive for their prior culpability.