The Heart of Freedom (July 4, 2008 repost)

This week, the United States will celebrate our annual Independence Day (July 4th--the day in 1776 we declared, a bit preemptorily, our independence from Great Britain).

Freedom and independence are words with great political and cultural meaning for us; and not only for us, but for the numerous nations who (more-or-less following our lead) also declared their independence from sovereign rulers whom they believed were oppressing them, both socially and (not-infrequently) religiously.

Sad to say, Christianity was just-as-not-infrequently the religious oppression the people were revolting against. To some extent this is even true of the United States: even though our own national revolution was grounded on a mixture of orthodox Christianity and nominal deism (such as Franklin’s and Jefferson’s), the history of our country’s settlement in the centuries before the revolution was typically based on fleeing religious (as well as financial) oppression in Europe. And it can hardly be argued that Buddhists or Hindus or Muslims or witches, or atheists or agnostics for that matter, were the perceived (and even the actual) oppressors; not in this case. (Resistance by flight or arms to Muslim religious oppression is an earlier story, of the Middle Ages.)

Consequently, I fully expect that our agnostic and atheistic and otherwise sceptical colleagues have a special fondness in their hearts for Independence Day--because those particular first American Christians-and-nominal-deists made a provision of the principle that a person should be free to responsibly follow his or her conscience and best judgments concerning such issues, the most important issues of all; even if that means rejecting the religious beliefs of the founding fathers themselves--whether or not such a rejection involves substituting something better, including truer, as a set of metaphysical beliefs in their place.

Nor am I writing today’s essay in order to condemn such rejections, in principle. I have always consistently (even religiously!) insisted of ally and opponent alike, that insofar as the person is walking according to what light she can see and is looking for more light thereby, then I consider her my sister, whom I should support with my life (if it comes to that), even if she does not recognize me for her brother.

(The people I have problems with are the ones who, on any side of any aisle, would mire us in fog. That attitude is worse than an attack against me, which I care little for; that is an attack on my sister-in-heart, condemning her to hopelessness. And I am not remotely tolerant of that.)


Having said all this, however: as a metaphysician, I am aware that many people are not aware, that notions such as ‘freedom’ and ‘independence’ are rawly metaphysical claims about reality. They are also claims which, in regard to our relationship to the evident system of Nature in which we live, can only be affirmations not only of supernaturalism (of one or another kind), but of supernaturalistic theism (of one or another kind).


Ontologically speaking, only a self-existent fact can truly be independent. We ourselves, however, are clearly not Independent Facts of that sort: we obviously depend upon the system of Nature for our existence and abilities, to at least some large extent. What can be coherently meant, then, by freedom and independence?

The first answer must be, that since we are not Independent Facts, we are not and can never really be ‘independent’. Whatever worldview we accept, we aren’t going to be escaping from this fact, any more than we are going to be escaping from whatever Independent Fact ultimately grounds all existence. (I am setting aside, for purposes of brevity, the notion that two or some other limited number of IFs exist, independently of each other, upon all of which Facts we are dependent. If readers want to discuss this option in the comments, I will have no complaints, although I will point out first that if the proposition is that we ourselves depend on only one of those IFs, then for all practical purposes we might as well be talking about a single IF anyway. If you wish to propose cosmological dualism, you’ll have to go the distance. I discuss this more directly myself as part of an ongoing series of metaphysical argument here.)


Very well; then what if Nature is the IF? We will recognize, realistically, that we humans will not be independent of Nature in any ontological fashion. But, is there not some kind of meaningful freedom, a derivative independence so to speak, which we can still coherently propose of ourselves in relation to Nature?

To this I answer that such a derivative freedom depends, and must depend for its possibility, on the intrinsic characteristics of the IF. We are fond of using the phrase ‘to make free’. But if by ‘make’ we think in terms of force instigating reaction, then clearly there can be no freedom at all, even derivatively, in such a reality. I somewhat doubt we could even have the illusion of freedom, for the recognition of an illusion as such depends on being able to distinguish between reality and only the appearance of a reality. Such an ability to distinguish, however, depends itself upon the very freedom to act, instead of merely to react, which is now being questioned; or else the consideration has been put back one stage for no gain.

There is a crucial tension which must be resolved in metaphysical accounts of freedom, when discussing derivative creatures such as ourselves: we, our selves, are dependent for our existence and capabilities, on something other than our selves; thus any freedom we have must itself, paradoxically, be dependent on something other than our selves. But how can this be a legitimate paradox, and not an outright contradiction to be rejected?

It should be clear in any case, that if the IF’s intrinsic existence only involves mere power-effect, then only mere power-effect is responsible for our existence and capabilities. We cannot be even derivatively free, if such a reality is true.

Moreover, it should be clear that if the IF is atheistic (aside from questions of naturalism vs. supernaturalism for the moment), then there can be no doubt as to whether the IF’s intrinsic behaviors, upon which we depend, are anything other or more than mere power-effects. By excluding, per hypothesis, the notion that the IF itself has free will, we exclude the notion that the IF may in some way choose both to grant this gift to a derivative entity and also to somehow reduce its own merely direct control over the behaviors of this entity. (The two grantings might be the same grace, looked at from different perspectives.) Nature is not going to make personal sacrifices for our sake, if Nature is not a personal entity. Nor is the problem removed by proposing an atheistic supernature with either an equally non-personal natural system derived from it (in which we live) or else a personally sentient and active natural system derived from it (for that only puts our problem back one stage for no gain.)

If I take my freedom seriously, then--and I do, especially as a necessary presumption I find I must hold in order to be engaging in any argument--then I should conclude from the presumption of my freedom, that the IF must be theistic.


But does this much mend matters? The previous deadly question can be asked just as pertinently: if God is ‘making’ me free, then is my ostensible freedom meaningful in any way? If I answer, as before, that it depends on whether I consider the intrinsic self-existence of God, the final reality, to be about mere power-effect... well, we are talking about the ‘omnipotent’, aren’t we? And if we aren’t, then we’re verging into acknowledging that while we may be talking about some conscious intentional active entity, we aren’t really talking about the IF anymore, but about some subordinate entity instead. (Shades of Mormonism here! Which, incidentally, is why I have insisted that one way or another Mormons are not talking about the final IF of reality; but the IF is what I am interested in, especially as a metaphysician.)

To sceptical criticisms such as these, I am entirely sympathetic, and even ready to agree. (I feature a whole entry agreeing with such criticisms from the particular standpoint of ethical grounding here.) If God, in His own self-existence, is only an active sentience causing power-effects in whatever creations He creates, then my apparent freedom is just as illusory as it must be under atheism. It isn’t even a real-though-derivative freedom. And I am only a puppet; at best a fictional character like the characters in one of my novels.

But then, so much for the relevance of any argument I may be making, including the ones I have been making up to this point! Such a proposal violates the Golden Presumption: that I (and you, my reader) can act--that even if derivative, we still are somehow free.


Yet, didn’t I say near the beginning that the claim of our freedom and independence--a claim we celebrate in the United States every July 4th--is itself a claim not only of supernaturalism but of supernaturalistic theism?!

If I am real and am more than just a knee-jerk automatic reaction in a system of non-rational reactions and counterreactions, then I must be supernatural in some constituent way to that system of non-rational reactions (even if I am also largely constituted by that system and its behaviors). Furthermore, if I am real and more than these things, yet am not myself an Independent Fact (which is obvious), then God must also be real and must be the IF, with Nature (where I agree this exists) being a subordinately created system, along with myself. The argument only breaks down where God’s existence is regarded as being most basically the forcing of effect.

Therefore, insofar as I recognize the presumption of true (if derivative) action ability to be required for making any argument per se (whether the argument is mine or even an opponent's), I conclude that God’s existence must not be most basically the forcing of effect. But how can this be?


Here I find I need to appeal to what I think is a dichomatic option regarding the IF’s self-existence (whether the IF is God or not-God, supernaturalistic or naturalistic, in any combination of those claim-sets.) Either the IF is dependent upon itself for its own self-existence, or else the IF is not even dependent upon itself for its own self-existence. Each of these options, in its own way, resolves the problem of mere force-effect being intrinsic to God’s self-existence; but each option does so in very different fashions.

The latter position, which goes by the technical name ‘privative aseity’, essentially denies that even God’s own action is intrinsic to God’s own self-existence. If this sounds rather more like a static atheism than theism--I agree! Nevertheless, it is also, ironically, the position that has been usually taken by theistic philosophers, since the days of Aristotle. (Whether they were misunderstanding what he meant is beside the point; though the debate over whether Aristotle was a theist after all might not be entirely beside the point! But neither is it a debate I intend to engage in here.)

If the IF does not act at all for His (or its) own self-existence, then of course the IF’s existence must not be most basically the forcing of effect. But then again, a host of other problems begins to emerge which, while not immediately inescapable, will eventually resolve into effectively proposing atheism, I believe. Since I already conclude on other grounds (ones logically more prior--and ones that involve positively respecting the existence of even my opponents as responsible persons), that I should believe not-atheism to be true instead, then I am inclined to reject privative aseity and consider the other option of self-existence.

The other option, is that God’s own action is intrinsic to God’s own self-existence. (That the IF is going to be paradoxically self-existent in any case, is something we will be required to logically accept whatever else we believe to be true, once the logical math has been done; so I am passing over this potential difficulty, not without some sympathy, but for sake of relative brevity.)

On the face of it, this proposal should look more immediately theistic: even if I decided (which I would, for a technical reason I will not go into here) that I should accept positive aseity to be true, and yet still tended (which I don't) to believe atheism, I think I would find it more and more difficult to maintain that belief, the longer I consistently held to positive aseity.

But what positive aseity entails, is nothing other than that God is (borrowing biological language for a semi-anology) both self-begetting and self-begotten. We are talking at least, then, about God the Father, and God the Son, as nevertheless being the singular Independent Fact.

Normally I would discuss the option of modalism here. Instead, I will abbreviate to the result I already know (from experience) I will reach if I do: the Persons must be distinctively real as persons, even though they constitute one substance. They cannot be like two of the three or five ‘aspects of the Goddess’ in some popular mythologies; or rather, the Persons are aspects of the singular God but also more than only aspects. The persons are to be regarded as distinctively real as Persons.

What we arrive at, then, is a discovery: even though the Independent Fact does act (and so in that regard exercises power) in order to be eternally self-existent, this intrinsic action of the IF is itself an interpersonal relationship. The Father actively begets the Son, the Son actively concedes to the Father, so that the circuit of self-existence will be complete and completely active in one substantial unity.

If power-effectment then (to coin a term), is an interpersonal relationship at the most foundational level of reality, restricted only in the sense that self-existence chooses to not cease existing and cannot choose to simply exist and also not exist simultaneously (on pain of contradiction of ultimate reality, which is itself), then the first hurdle has been exceeded: my existence as a person does not depend on mere reaction to stimuli, whether atheistically or under mere monotheism. Consequently, neither would any derivative freedom I am given by God: to exist as a real boy, not as only a puppet. (Which is the hidden point to the fable of Pinnochio.)


I do not say that this is the end of the difficulties. I would (and do) need to work out other implications and corollaries from this, as a beginning of understanding the process of creation distinct from self-existence--a creation which I find includes myself (as a not-God entity).

But I can say from here, that insofar as I presuppose my freedom in some meaningful fashion--the same freedom any atheist, agnostic or other sceptic presupposes and indeed insists upon, in standing for what they believe to be correct--then I find I am robustly asserting a reality’s truth that is not only supernaturalistic, and not only theistic, but at least bi-nitarian. (I haven’t discussed a Third Person yet, because as far as the argument has gone here I do not discover such a person. This does not mean I would never reach such a conclusion from inference, however; refer to my section of chapters on "Ethics and the Third Person", especially from this entry onward.)

It is, in fact, only in orthodox Christianity that I find these precise claims also being made by people who, in turn, are drawing inferences from data ostensibly revealed in a historical story: which in fairness should dramatically increase my respect and regard for that general claim of special inspiration!

On the other hand, if (as some Christians prefer to do, though this is not my own preference) I began with the orthodox Christian metaphysical system as a presumption, then personal derivative freedom of the only sort that can be coherently available, even to a proponent of atheism, is provided for as a logical corollary of the worldview. (Actually, such freedom is necessarily presupposed even to presuppose the worldview, which leads to what I regard as major problems of circularity; so I personally do not recommend proceeding by this route. But to the extent that some Christian philosophers insist on doing so, I affirm, somewhat tautologically, that such freedom is in fact specially included in the package!)


Which leads back to the grief of my initial remarks: that Christians, who of all people ought to have known (and know) better, have still insisted on religious oppression throughout our history. Such oppression is not only immoral, it directly contravenes the very doctrines we profess to hold and cherish as truths. Sceptics are entirely correct to account us as hypocrites when we advocate, and have advocated, such things; and I cannot personally find it in my heart to blame them if they turn with loathing from the fruit we have spoiled (a fruit spoiled, I would say, by the persistent technical heresy of gnosticism, insisted upon by us as a safeguard we ourselves ought to have rejected), and reject our attempts at linking freedom--including the freedom cherished and died for by our ancestors, in order to secure the blessings of liberty today in these United States and other nations--with a system they find through simple (if occasionally oversimple) historical polling to have been, with some regularity and in some ways, an enemy and oppressor of freedom.

It is in honor of such sceptics that I am writing today’s entry. Yet it is also precisely in honor of such sceptics that I am, in fact, an orthodox Christian apologist. Against the abuses of our history, I urge now and always: please, do not give up hope.

'Christianity' is not the heart of freedom, whatever some uncautious apologists may have said to you. And you are correct to complain when Christians try to promote it as such (for this is the heresy of gnosticism, among other things.)

But God, the Father and the Son (and the Holy Spirit, too) is Himself the very heart of freedom. And He gives His very life for your freedom, too: cherishing you, yourself, whoever you are--forever.


God’s hope, then, to all our readers, around the world, on this day, and every day.

Jason Pratt

Understanding the Gospel

The most recent installment of CT Direct includes an interesting interview with Pastor Tim Keller entitled Tim Keller Reasons with America. If you are unfamiliar with Tim Keller, CT Direct notes:

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and cofounder of the Gospel Coalition, is behind some of the most ambitious — if not the most radical — efforts to reach urban professionals. Now he's expanding his ministry in book form, with the publication of The Reason for God, which moved its way up to number seven on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.

Pastor Keller responds to a number of questions in the article each one containing interesting insights into his view of apologetics. For example, he is asked, "Are the doubts that believers face the same as the doubts that unbelievers face?" Pastor Keller begins his response by noting that the doubts that people have about Christianity can, in many respects, be the result of the society in which he is raised. Thus, the doubts that people in the Middle East have about Christianity are going to be different than the doubts of an urban professional raised as an atheist in New York City.

It's your society that gives you the doubts. If you go to the Middle East and ask people what makes Christianity implausible, they're not going to say, "Because there can't be one true religion." They're going to say, "Because of how oppressive America has been as a Christian nation, and if you look at their culture, it's lascivious and debauched."

If you ask Americans, "What makes Christianity implausible to you?" they're not going to say, "Your popular culture is filled with sex and violence." They will say, "How could there be one true religion?"

It seems important to stress here that this is not a relativistic view that has been adopted by some atheists. At least one atheist who comments on this blog has tried to make the point that what we believe is almost totally determined by the society in which we have been raised. In other words, the truth that a person holds is fashioned by his or her up-bringing. This post-modernistic view of truth is not what Pastor Keller seems to be advocating. Rather, he is suggesting (as C.S. Lewis suggested about 60 years ago) that the society in which the listener lives will change the place from which apologetics must start. Lewis suggested that he would rather try to evangelize a pagan than an atheist because the pagan begins with the common ground that there is something more than the physical universe. Pastor Keller is simply saying that the doubts that arise about the truth of Christianity will vary depending upon the society in which the doubter lives.

After a couple of additional comments, Pastor Keller drops this interesting tidbit:

I do think a lot of Christians — because they don't understand the grace narrative — get out into the world and find it very tough to navigate. I think it's because they don't understand the gospel, not because they can't answer all the theological questions.

This is absolutely key. Too many Christians don't understand the Gospel. To paraphrase Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason, too many Christians (think they) can tell you all about the symbolism found in the Revelation of St. John including the identity of the anti-Christ and the whore of Babylon, but they don't understand the work of the cross. But the symbolism of Revelation is irrelevant if the grace of Jesus Christ cannot properly be communicated. It is even less relevant if the grace of Jesus Christ is not understood. Knowing the identity of the Whore of Babylon will not save me. Understanding what Jesus did on the cross for the world and accepting that free gift of grace will save me.

The typical Christian needs to get a whole lot better at the basics of the faith and stop futzing around with details if we are to make a true impact on the world.

A Response to Atheist G.P.

A recent letter written to Dr. Billy Graham and published on Seattlepi.com has me scratching my head. Here is the letter:

DEAR DR. GRAHAM: I want to make myself clear: I have no interest in God or religion, and I don't care who knows it. As far as I'm concerned, God doesn't exist, and this life is all there is. Don't even bother to write me back, because I'm not interested. -- G.P.

G.P. makes several very interesting statements in this short letter. Let's read them again, one at a time:

1. "I have no interest in God or religion" -- Really? Then why are you writing to Dr. Graham to tell him so? Certainly, you have some interest, don't you?

2. "I don't care who knows it" -- But you want Dr. Graham and all of the readers of his column to know it, right? Why is that?

3. "As far as I'm concerned, God doesn't exist, and this life is all there is." -- Did you give this any thought? I mean, if you don't believe he exists or that there is anything beyond this life, that's the result of some level of consideration, isn't it? This seems to show an interest in God or religion -- at least a negative interest -- which you have disclaimed.

4. "Don't even bother to write me back, because I'm not interested." -- So, you were just emoting about something you don't care about?

G.P., if you should stumble across this blog, I did want to respond. I'm not Dr. Graham, but your letter reads like there is something really wrong in your life. If you really didn't care about God or heaven, I cannot imagine why you bothered to write the letter in the first place. Were you simply bored and said, "Gee, I'll write a letter to a famous Evangelist telling him that I don't believe in God just because"? That hardly makes sense.

While I could be wrong, I suspect that you wrote the letter for entirely different reasons. I suspect that you wrote the letter because the God who "as far as you are concerned doesn't exist" is calling out to you. You, for reasons of your own, have chosen to reject Him, but you cannot shake the feeling that He's out there. Thus, like a person who is afraid to admit that he is actually bankrupt, you don't want to check your bank balances. You want to write letters to people saying, "I'm not bankrupt! I've got plenty of money, if I need it", when, in fact, you are greatly overdrawn.

I really would like you to reconsider the truth claims of Christianity. Don't simply reject them without considering much of the work that has gone into the many historic, philosophic and scientific arguments that cry out that God exists. Don't simply accept some friend's rejection of these arguments as good cause to reject them yourself. Many people, such as myself and the writers on this blog, have examined these arguments and found them quite intellectually and emotionally satisfying.

It really is too important of an issue to summarily dismiss, and it certainly is too important to think that firing off a letter to Dr. Graham without concerning yourself with how he might respond would be a satisfactory way to deal with it.

Faith & Reason

I have been reading an apologetics text book, Introducing Apologetics, Cultivating Christian Commitment, by James E. Taylor.

Dr. Taylor, who had been "a committed Christian" most of his life, writes about how in college he began experiencing intense doubts about his faith. Unlike many stories that start like this, he did not find his faith encouraged by the study of philosophy or Christian evidence. In fact, although he "spent must of [his] senior year trying to find arguments for God's existence," he could not find a sure foundation by his investigation.

Obviously, because Dr. Taylor ended up writing an apologetics textbook, he somehow found his faith strengthened. If it was not the study of apologetics, what was it? In his own words,

It was a spring break trip to Mexico with a few hundred fellow students to lead vacation Bible school programs and evangelistic meetings in various neighborhoods around Ensenada. What I found during that trip was that the experience of Christian service, evangelism, worship, and fellowship revived my faith in God. This revival happened because through these experiences I had a strong sense of God's presence and activity.

Because of his experiences, Dr. Taylor rejected evidentialism -- the idea that Christian belief is reasonable only if supported by sufficient proofs -- and embraced fideism. Fideism gives faith pride of place over reason. Dr. Taylor is careful to claim that he is a "responsible fideist" rather than one who rejects rationality altogether.

By "reasonable fideist" Dr. Taylor means that he will steer a middle path between "just having faith" and an overemphasis on reason. "Too much confidence in reason may lead to doubt or unbelief because no combination of arguments and evidence can prove conclusively that God exists or that Christianity is true" on one hand, but that "too much emphasis on faith to the exclusion of reason may also lead to doubt or unbelief because there are legitimate questions of an intellectual sort about Christianity ... that trouble sincere believers and seekers."

I accept Dr. Taylor's point that a Christian's faith is reasonable based on that person's experience of God. William L. Craig calls this the internal witness of the Holy Spirit. In legal jargon, it is self-authenticating. Lest someone object that this is overly convenient, I would point out that it is consistent with the view that God desires relationship with mankind. If God desires a relationship with the poor and the rich, the educated and the ignorant, those with access to the latest scientific research and those consigned to live in illiterate, pre-industrial societies, then He is likely to establish a means of encouraging such relationship that is not dependent solely on the tools of education and reason. In other words, God's love is not limited to those who have the intelligence, time, resources, and education to pursue detailed philosophical arguments or embark on years of historical research.

Nevertheless, I may disagree to an extent with Dr. Taylor's contention that evidences and arguments cannot prove important elements of the Christian faith, such as the existence of God. For example, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. day to day pours forth speech, And night to night reveals knowledge." Psalm 19:1-2. Rather, it seems to me that reasonable faith can rest on one's experience of God and that there are strong evidences and proofs supporting that faith.

I do believe that human reason has suffered from separation from God, but not to the point that rationality itself is suspect. Rather, it is the frailty of the heart, prejudices, and sin that clouds our ability to properly utilize it. Of course, my difference with Dr. Taylor may be one of slight degree. I have not read his analysis of several leading apologetic arguments, such as the Kalam Cosmological Argument or the evidences for the resurrection of Jesus. If I can make the time I will let you know what I find.

Space Aliens and Assumptions

What should be the starting assumption regarding God's existence in discussions about the existence of God? Should the starting assumption be that God doesn't exist? Is the starting assumption that God does exist? Is the starting point that we don't know whether or not God exists?

Apparently, the response to this question was considered the highlight of a debate between atheist Richard Foley of the University of Missouri and theist Grant Sterling of the Eastern Illinois University -- at least, the article in the Journal-Gazette Times-Courier article about a debate begins with Dr. Foley's answer. The article, entitled Debate fails to settle question of God's existence, by Amber Williams, gives Dr. Foley's answer in the form of an analogy quoted from Dr. Foley wherein he claims that the starting point should be that God doesn't exist.

Facing a question from an audience member on why he believes everyone should start out in life thinking like an atheist, Richard Foley offered an analogy.

A professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri, Foley told the audience to imagine they were told of the existence of space aliens on the campus of Eastern Illinois University.

Everyone in attendance would start at the assumption the aliens did not exist until it was proven otherwise, Foley said.

Thinking about God should be the same way, Foley said.

"Agnosticism is not a starting point — it would have to be an achievement," Foley said. "I haven’t been moved that far."

Actually, Dr. Foley's analogy is much farther down the road than he thinks. Let's examine his analogy with a bit more depth, shall we? He is saying that a person should automatically discount the idea that space aliens exist when being told that space aliens can be found on Dr. Sterling's campus. But why should anyone do that? I mean, if you were told of the existence of illegal aliens (as opposed to space aliens) on the campus of Eastern Illinois University, would you automatically discount that until proven otherwise? Why should the first be automatically rejected while the second would be almost universally accepted?

The reason, quite obviously, is because we have additional information that goes into our acceptance and rejection of facts that are already part of our thinking before ever hearing about the aliens. We know that illegal aliens exist. We know this to be true either because we personally know one or more illegal aliens, or because we have seen hundreds of news stories that talk about the number of illegal aliens (aka undocumented workers) in the United States. We also know that (the arguments of UFOlogists notwithstanding) there is no compelling evidence to conclude that space aliens actually exist -- or, at least, there is insufficient evidence to believe that space aliens would come to Earth and hang out at Eastern Illinois University. (After all, everyone knows that if the aliens ever did come to Earth, they'd go to New Mexico -- the Best Place in the Universe.)


We know that space aliens are almost certainly not on the campus of Eastern Illinois University because we have seen insufficient evidence that aliens exist or, at least, we have insufficient evidence that space aliens have been coming to visit any part of the Earth -- including Eastern Illinois University.

This is the problem with Dr. Foley's analogy: the only reason that the analogy is facially compelling is that we're being told that something that people generally believe doesn't exist (space aliens which visit Earth) exists! It is the fact that we have come to the conclusion that space aliens either don't exist or don't visit the Earth prior to and independent from being told that they exist on the campus of Eastern Illinois University that leads us to reject the idea out of hand. But if we hadn't already made up our minds that space aliens didn't exist, or if we accepted the UFOlogists' evidence that is used to support claims that space aliens actually regularly visit the Earth, then it wouldn't be unreasonable to look at this claim in a completely different way than Dr. Foley wants, i.e., to see it as a possibility that needs to be investigated as opposed to something that should be dismissed out of hand as impossible.

In other words, for Dr. Foley's analogy to work, we already have to have been taught and to have accepted the idea that God doesn't exist or that His existence is highly unlikely. Without the prior acceptance of that position, there is no reason to treat the claim that God exists or did something on the same level as the claim that space aliens are hanging out on campus.

So, his underlying claim must be that if someone claims that God is somewhere or did something we should know implicitly that such claims are highly suspect and deserving of strong skepticism. Note that this is not a skepticism that is based on "we don't know if God exists, so show me." He has rejected this idea by saying that agnosticism is "an achievement." Rather, he is saying that when someone makes a claim it should be rejected unless sufficient evidence is presented to overcome this gut-based mental rejection. In other words, he is almost certainly saying that one should start cemented to the belief that God doesn't exist and only be moved from that position . . . well, one shouldn't be moved from that position.

This is not a way to arrive at truth. This is the way to become an a-religious zealot.

The Impact of Christianity

At the tail end of the book, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success, by Rodney Stark, there is a very interesting quote that I wanted to share. Mr. Stark attributes the quote to a book by David Aikman entitled Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming the Global Balance of Power.

Introducing the quote, Mr. Stark reiterates the major thesis of his book, i.e., that a significant factor in the acknowledged pre-eminence of Western Civilization over any other civilization in history--a rise that found its foundation in the many advances in technology, science, culture, economics and government in the period of time incorrectly called the "Dark Ages"--is "inseparably linked" to Christianity. Mr. Stark then uses the quote from Mr. Aikman's book which initially comes from one of China's leading scholars, who says:

One of the things we wre asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world. We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don't have any doubt about this.

Now, one might say that Mr. Stark holds to the thesis of his book because he is a Christian. (I don't know that to be the case, but I suspect that it's true.) But what about this Chinese scholar? What was his motivation to make such a claim?

I think that this quote ought to cause any thinking person to reconsider the bombastic statements by such non-luminaries as Christopher Hitchens who make the audacious claim that religion (usually focusing on Christianity) ruins everything. The simple fact is this: but for Christianity, there is a significant likelihood that many of the advances we take for granted--and which atheists assume would be in place if the Greek and Roman cultures had never fallen--would not ever have occurred.

Christianity has not retarded progress--it is the foundation of much of the progress in culture, economics, science, technology and politics that allows people like Hitchens to make his ridiculous claims and have them actually heard outside of the hovel he might otherwise be living in.

We're All Atheists? -- Flight 236 From Xenia

A few days ago, I wrote a brief post about the use of the phrase "we're all atheists" by atheists who want to try to say that the belief in less than the full pantheon of gods that have ever been invented by the fertile minds of man is simply one step short of the belief in no gods or God. As I lay in bed last night, my own fevered imagination thought of the following analogy to further illustrate the problem with this mindset.

Imagine two air traffic controllers alone in a tower of a little used airfield late at night somewhere in the Rocky Mountain states. No flights are expected for the evening, and the two air traffic controllers are there mainly to communicate with flights heading towards busier destinations and to handle any potential emergency situations. Bored, the two like to pass the time by playing cards. This particular evening, something unusual happens: the radar picks up an object in range. Imagine the following conversation.

"Hmmm," the first air traffic controller murmurs as he looks at the radar screen. "Looks like the radar is picking up a plane in the area."

"Don't be ridiculous," the other says shuffling the deck for another hand of Rummy. "There aren't any planes out there."

"But there's something out there; the radar's showing it."

"Probably just a bird, or perhaps a weather balloon. After all, people are always mistaking those for UFOs -- so why can't our radar pick it up as a plane."

"What are you talking about?" the first air traffic controller said with more than a hint of agitation. "There's something showing up. Why are you so convinced it isn't a plane?"

"Because," the second responded dealing the cards, "there aren't any planes out there at this time of night. There aren't any scheduled until morning and none of the other airports are close enough that we would be picking up one of their planes."

"But the signal on the radar . . . ."

The second air traffic controller picked up his cards and began organizing them in his hand. "Okay, let's see if I can't make this clearer for you. Do you think that's flight 236 from Xenia?"

"Flight 236 from where?"

"Xenia."

"Xenia, Ohio?"

"Yeah, Xenia, Ohio."

"Of course not."

"Well, why not?"

"Uh . . . to start with, we don't have any flights travel to this airport from Ohio. Second, unless they've built one recently, Xenia doesn't even have an airport."

"Exactly. So, if you can understand why I don't think that's flight 236 from Xenia, you can understand why I don't believe that's there's any airplane out there at all. Hence, you don't believe there's any airplane out there either."

The logic is the same. There is no logical justification to say that because I don't believe that a particular doesn't exist, it means that I am close to believing that none of the set of things of which the particular was a member doesn't exist. In fact, there is a huge difference between the belief that a particular thing doesn't exist and the belief that none of a thing exist. I can believe that Sherlock Holmes doesn't exist, but still believe that detectives exist, can't I?

No, this line of reasoning is simply silly. I would like to say that I'm surprised that so many atheists seem to adopt this saying as if it is somehow profound, but I'm not.

The Story of Jesus: A Game of Telephone

Today's Los Angeles Times has a book review entitled, How Jesus' story was writ, reviewing a book entitled 'What the Gospels Meant' by Garry Wills. The review starts with the old canard -- the story of how the Gospels came is much like the child's game of telephone.

REMEMBER playing "telephone" as a kid? You'd whisper a sentence in a friend's ear, and he or she would whisper it to the next person, and so on, until the last one reported a message so distorted from the original that everyone would convulse with laughter.

Biblical scholars sometimes refer to this game to explain how the Gospels evolved, presumably with less comedic results. After Jesus died, traditions about him circulated by word of mouth throughout the Mediterranean world.

Lest anyone think that this is actually true, I just want to point out a couple of good resources that answer that spurious claim quite easily.

First and foremost (scratching our own collective backs), CADRE Member Chris Price has written a blog entry on the topic entitled Was the Gospel Tradition Like a Game of Telephone? This brief article was based, in large part, on an article written by Dr. Mark D. Roberts entitled Can We Trust the Accuracy of the Oral Traditions About Jesus? The answer is, of course, that the game of telephone does not present a good analogy for the creation of the Gospel accounts.

Dr. Robert's article mentions his appearance on Greg Koukl's Stand to Reason program. Greg Koukl has written his own refutation of this simplistic argument entitled Is the New Testament Text Reliable? Greg notes:

Usually the complaint is raised by people who have little understanding of the real issues. In cases like this, an appeal to common knowledge is more often than not an appeal to common ignorance. Like many questions about Christianity, this objection is voiced by people who haven't been given reliable information.

Dr. William Lane Craig also notes the "telephone" analogy in his fine on-line article The Evidence for Jesus. Dr. Craig notes:

Rather ever since the time of D. F. Strauss, sceptical scholars have explained away the gospels as legends. Like the child’s game of telephone, as the stories about Jesus were passed on over the decades, they got muddled and exaggerated and mythologized until the original facts were all but lost. The Jewish peasant sage was transformed into the divine Son of God.

One of the major problems with the legend hypothesis, however, which is almost never addressed by sceptical critics, is that the time between Jesus’s death and the writing of the gospels is just too short for this to happen. This point has been well-explained by A. N. Sherwin-White in his book Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament.{2} Professor Sherwin-White is not a theologian; he is a professional historian of times prior to and contemporaneous with Jesus. According to Sherwin-White, the sources for Roman and Greek history are usually biased and removed one or two generations or even centuries from the events they record. Yet, he says, historians reconstruct with confidence the course of Roman and Greek history. For example, the two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than 400 years after Alexander’s death, and yet classical historians still consider them to be trustworthy. The fabulous legends about Alexander the Great did not develop until during the centuries after these two writers. According to Sherwin-White, the writings of Herodotus enable us to determine the rate at which legend accumulates, and the tests show that even two generations is too short a time span to allow legendary tendencies to wipe out the hard core of historical facts. When Professor Sherwin-White turns to the gospels, he states that for the gospels to be legends, the rate of legendary accumulation would have to be "unbelievable." More generations would be needed.

As Chris Price noted in the summary to his article on the game of telephone the differences are significant:

• Unlike Telephone players, the first Christians lived in an oral culture that had trained them to be proficient at passing on stories and sayings.

• Unlike Telephone secrecy, the passing on of the traditions about Jesus occurred primarily in public settings that ensured the basic integrity of the transmission.

• Unlike Telephone sentences, the sayings of Jesus were believed by those who passed them on to be the most important words ever spoken, essential for salvation and for abundant living. Thus the early Christians had strong reason to remember and to repeat the sayings (and stories) of Jesus accurately.

Baseball and Bias: an Excellent Parody

First, sorry for not being around much lately. Life has gotten crazy around work and the household. I have several ideas that I want to blog on, but can't say when I'll have the time.

However, in the meantime, Euangelion has posted an absolutely great parody on an issue that has been batted around this blog for a few weeks now entitled The Society of Baseball Literature (A Parody). I certainly think that everyone should take a moment to read and consider its point.

Skepticism -- No Longer a Process; Now a Conclusion

In the course of discussing Christianity with non-believers, I often come across the assertion that the Biblical texts ought to be viewed “skeptically.” After all, it is argued, you wouldn’t take such claims as are made in the Bible at face value if they were made about people other than Jesus. Thus, these skeptics continue, if the ancient authors attributed miracles to some ancient leader from the same period of time – Caesar Augustus, for example – you’d be skeptical about such claims, wouldn’t you?

Naturally, I agree. There is no question that claims made in ancient literature about a person taking any action whatsoever ought to be viewed with a certain degree of skepticism. Moreover, I agree generally that the nature of the claim should, in some circumstances, cause certain claims to be viewed more skeptically than other claims. A thing that is more likely to occur or that is common should be viewed with less skepticism than the claims of actions that are either very likely to occur or which are extremely less common. Thus, a claim that Caesar Augustus commissioned a certain building to be built rightly ought to be viewed less skeptically than the claim that Caesar Augustus snapped his fingers and the building miraculously rose out of the ground completely intact. The first is a common occurrence that most (if not all) ancient rulers would regularly have done. The latter requires that Caesar Augustus have a power or powers that go beyond what we would normally expect of a mere mortal. One ought to be skeptical of such claims.

I would hope that we would be on common ground in agreeing that skepticism is both appropriate and the best approach. But it has become quite apparent to me that what the skeptic (at least, the skeptic of the Internet variety) means when he calls for skepticism is vastly different that I am talking about when I talk about skepticism. You see, when I talk about skepticism, I mean it in the ordinary sense of the word – I will doubt the truth of the claim being made without sufficient evidence to believe it to be truthful. In other words, I remain open to the idea that the claim that may seem miraculous to us is actually miraculous. Meanwhile, today’s skeptic does not seem to believe that skepticism is merely a step in the process, and that such skepticism can, in fact, be overcome based on evidence. She simply rejects any possibility that the miraculous occurrence could have actually occurred. Skepticism is not the process by which claims are examined – it is the conclusion that can only be overcome by . . . uh, . . . actually, it can’t be overcome. Skepticism turns off legitimate inquiry in the name of a preconceived conclusion based on the unlikelihood of the claim itself.

I believe it to be beyond reasonable doubt that skepticism was originally (and remains today) part of an appropriate process of evaluating claims. When I hear or read a claim that something incredible happened, e.g., the Bush administration was responsible for destroying the World Trade Center on 9/11 using explosives planted in the buildings prior to the airplanes crashing into the two towers, my first reaction is to be skeptical. (Actually, my first reaction is “how can anyone believe such nonsense,” but that’s another story.) I find it very difficult to believe such a claim. Now, if I were to see evidence that supported the claim (so far, I haven’t), then my skepticism would lessen because I remain open (even if initially skeptical) to the idea that the Bush administration really engaged in such pointless acts.

The skeptics that I have run into when discussing the Bible don’t use skepticism in that way. The skeptics’ initial judgment of the situation cannot be overcome by any amount of evidence because the skepticism is no longer part of the process of determining the truth – it is the truth that the evidence will necessarily determine. Evidence presented to the contrary – e.g., detonation caps being found amidst the rubble (not saying that such things have been discovered) – are dismissed under one guise or another as inconsistent with the conclusion that skepticism presents as the correct answer.

When a skeptic uses the tired cliché of “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” they are merely covering this promotion of skepticism to a conclusion behind rhetoric. What exactly is an “extraordinary claim”? What constitutes “extraordinary evidence”? The answer to the first is “anything that involves the idea that God actually exists and involves Himself in human affairs.” The answer to the second is “whatever is presented by the Christian to support the idea that God actually exists and involves Himself in human affairs is not sufficient.”

This is not skepticism; this is simply rejection of the possibility of the miraculous based upon preconceived notions. Hence, it seems to me that skeptics shouldn’t call themselves skeptics. They are using a word that has traditionally meant one thing to stand for something completely different. (But then, that is consistent with their history. The term “free-thinkers” should mean that people who claim that title think for themselves, but anyone who has ever debated these self-proclaimed free-thinkers and witnessed the way so many of them merely mimic the same tired arguments that they read in some atheist manifesto knows that these so-called free-thinkers are anything but.) I think that in the interest of truth in advertising, they should call themselves something more accurate like “rejecters” since that is really what they are doing while claiming to be merely skeptical.

The Argument from Irony

As I pointed out in an earlier post, a few days ago I was thumbing through the The Empty Tomb, by Robert M. Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder which is a book which (according to the inside cover) "scrutinizes the claims of leading Christian apologists . . . and critiques their efforts to provide the best historical explanation for the resurrection."

In a rather rambling prologue, Robert M. Price tries to point out what he sees as an irony of Christian apologetics: that Christians believe in a God who really was resurrected and that Christians seek certainty of that resurrection. He does so visiting a wide array of subjects making claims that are, in my view, silly. But he finally gets to the point:

And thus apologists love to make the claim (a claim that will be exploded many times in the course of this book) that the resurrection is the best attested event of history. The irony here is that the claim is always made amid a plethora of probabilistic arguments the very existence of which demonstrates that the resurrection is anything but an open-and-shut case. If apologists themselves did not realize the difficulty of their case they would waste no more time with skeptical objections to the resurrection than they do refuting, say, beliefs that Jesus was a space alien.

Is this a new logical salvo that shows Christianity is false? Is the Christian position really "ironic" and if it is, does that somehow demonstrate that it is false?

As a preliminary matter, it's clear that Price's argument from irony -- even if the apologists' position is truly ironic -- doesn't show that Christianity is wrong. To note that something is ironic is merely to note that something happened that could be described as out-of-sync with what should be expected. Thus, it is ironic when a person who spends his life fighting against drunk driving is killed by a drunk driver. It is ironic when someone complains that they hate noisy places while listening to their own stereo at a very loud volume while at home. Each of these situations are ironic, i.e., they present "an incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs." (Dictionary.com) But simply because it was ironic that the person who fights against drunk driving was killed by a drunk driver does not mean the person is any less dead. Just because the person who hates loud places listens to the music loudly at home doesn't reduce the volume.

But is the Christian apologists' position truly ironic? Certainly, if the Christian claim were that it was obvious on its face that the resurrection occurred, then I would agree that the need to resort to probabilistic arguments would be quite ironic, indeed -- in fact, it would absolutely defeat the argument. After all, if the truth of the resurrection were so apparent that a five-year-old couldn't miss it, then the need to resort to probabilities to establish the fact would seem to be inconsistent with that claim. However, that is not the argument the apologists are actually making.

The argument (using what I understand the apologists to be actually stating and not how Price re-words it) is that the resurrection is among the most well-attested events in ancient history, and given Jesus' stature and location coupled with the nature of the resurrection, the attestation to the resurrection is extremely strong. Coupling the time, place and stature of Jesus as a non-political leader, and looking to the copies of the Biblical accounts that can be found (both in terms of time following the resurrection and in terms of copies and partial copies of ancient texts that can be compared to confirm what the original writings said) it very well may be the best attested event in history. Is it ironic that the proof of this point is difficult to establish? Hardly.

What makes the resurrection even more difficult to establish is that it is subjected to additional scrutiny than many other ancient writings because of what it claims. In fact, Christians argue, these other historical documents would not be nearly so universally accepted if put through the ringer the way the New Testament writings are deconstructed -- with ever single point about them being subjected to intense scrutiny. Yet, the New Testament books have managed to survive these attacks quite well. Despite claims by certain scholars that have the New Testament books being written one hundred or more years after the death of Jesus by people who had never met Jesus, the arguments supporting the early dates and authorship of the books have never been shown to be demonstrably wrong.

Given the nature of the New Testament documents and the arguments that surround them, how does one establish their veracity? One effective means is by probabilistic arguments based on the likelihood that the documents would read as they do under other circumstances. Hence, the situation that Price calls irony. But simply because he finds it ironic doesn't mean that it is really ironic or that the arguments are somehow untrue.

But let's assume that the argument is exactly what Price contends and that Christians are claiming that the "resurrection is the best attested event of [ancient] history" but then (ironically) they have to resort to probabilistic arguments to prove that point: does that make their case wrong? Does that mean that it isn't the best attested event in ancient history? Not necessarily. It could still be the best attested event because all ancient history relies on probabilistic arguments to establish the likelihood of their occurrences. After all, one still has to demonstrate that Hannibal crossed the Alps and do so using ancient writings for support. What is the probability that those ancient writings (given the time that the event actually occurred, the date of the recording of the events, and the reliability of the copies we have of the original recording of the event) supporting Hannibal's crossing of the Alps are truthful and recorded accurately? One needs to go through the same process that Christian apologists follow in supporting the truth and accuracy of the Biblical texts.

But let's assume that it is obvious that there are other ancient historical events that are better attested both in terms of being certain that the events were recorded by eyewitnesses, the events were recorded within a few decades of the occurrence of the actual events, and we have enough copies of the original writing both in terms of actual numbers and nearness to the original writing to give us a higher degree of confidence that the copies we have are accurate renditions of the original writings. In other words, let's assume that the apologists are demonstrably dead wrong in their arguments that the resurrection is the best attested event in ancient history. Does that mean that the resurrection didn't happen? If you said yes, you really need to think this through again. At best, Price's argument from irony is that the apologists are making a mistake in claiming too much about the evidence for the resurrection vis-a-vis other ancient historical events (or, at least, one other ancient historical event). That does not mean that the resurrection did not happen exactly the way the New Testament writers describe or that the New Testament writings are untrustworthy. The New Testament writings are still, in any case, extremely well-attested for their time, place and circumstance. Price's argument from irony merely points out that the attestation of the resurrection may not be as good as the attestation for another historical event, but really says nothing about whether the documents, in fact, support the Christian contention.

I am aware that the rest of The Empty Tomb supposedly puts to rest the idea that Jesus actually resurrected from the dead (at least, that's what the authors believe). The CADRE has assembled a very nice page answering a number of their arguments (and more articles responding to this book are coming) which can be found here. That debate is on-going and I don't intend to settle that argument in this one post. However, I hope that this post somehow puts to rest the idea that the resurrection is false because of some irony that Price sees when looking at the arguments from Christian apologists. That is simply absurd at heart -- which, in my mind, matches the arguments made in much of the rest of the book.

The Best Attested Event in History?

A few days ago I was thumbing through the The Empty Tomb, by Robert M. Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder which is a book which (according to the inside cover) "scrutinizes the claims of leading Christian apologists . . . and critiques their efforts to provide the best historical explanation for the resurrection."

In a rather rambling prologue, Robert M. Price tries to point out what he sees as an irony of Christian apologetics: that Christians believe in a God who really was resurrected and that Christians seek certainty of that resurrection. He does so visiting a wide array of subjects making claims that are, in my view, silly. But he finally gets to the point:

And thus apologists love to make the claim (a claim that will be exploded many times in the course of this book) that the resurrection is the best attested event of history. The irony here is that the claim is always made amid a plethora of probabilistic arguments the very existence of which demonstrates that the resurrection is anything but an open-and-shut case. If apologists themselves did not realize the difficulty of their case they would waste no more time with skeptical objections to the resurrection than they do refuting, say, beliefs that Jesus was a space alien.

Now, I personally find this entire excerpt to be absurd. I intend to deal with his claim that the position taken by apologists is ironic in a future post. However, I first wanted to deal with his statement that "apologists love to make the claim . . . that the resurrection is the best attested event of history." What may come as a surprise to some people who have read this blog, I agree with Price that an apologist should not make such a claim because the resurrection is not the best attested event in history.

However, merely because I agree with Price on that single point is hardly cause for anyone to conclude that I think the resurrection is either not well-attested or that it is a myth.

Assuming that Price is correct that Christians are asserting that the resurrection is the best attested event of history, then I agree that they are mistaken. I am positive without checking that there is more evidence of the actions taken by Bill Clinton during his presidency than there is for the events that occurred in the life of Jesus Christ. But, of course, no one is asserting to the contrary.

Christians who make claims similar to the one asserted by Price are referring to "ancient history" -- roughly speaking, events that would have taken place more than 1000 years ago. While I am not an historian, it seems obvious that events that occurred in the last 100 years are generally better attested than the events that occurred more than 100 years ago. Likewise, events that occurred within the past 200 years are generally better attested than events that occurred more than 200 years ago. In measuring the attestation about Jesus' resurrection, the claim is necessarily made in the context of other events that happened in that same time period. So, let's start by amending the claim to read that the resurrection is the best attested event in ancient history.

But even that modified claim is, in my view, an overstatement.

Julius Caesar's life, for example, is the subject of a great deal of attestation. We find in the historical record documents that appear to have originally been written by Julius Caesar (such as the Commentarii de Bello Gallico). A contemporary historian, Sallust, also wrote favorably about Julius Caesar (of course, applying the same rules as many skeptics seem to apply to the books of the New Testament, the fact that he favored Caesar means that his writings should be thrown out as utterly worthless). Julius Caesar also has mentions made of him in the writings of Cicero and Catulus, both contemporaries. In addition, I am betting that you can find references to Caesar in other writings of the period from outside Rome because Julius Caesar, being the most powerful man in the world's only dominant superpower of the time, should certainly be mentioned since what he did impacted countries that Rome didn't even control. (Of course, if Julius Caesar isn't mentioned in other countries' writings, should we use that as evidence that Caesar didn't exist? Since skeptics argue -- at least on Internet message boards -- that the failure of people outside of the New Testament to mention Jesus is evidence that He didn't exist, I think that would be a fair conclusion to reach.)

Does the attestation for Jesus reach that level? My subjective viewpoint (even as a Christian) is that it doesn't. But that doesn't mean that the skeptics have won the battle.

When Christians make claims to the effect that the resurrection of Jesus is the best attested event of ancient history, that claim is based on the fact that there are multiple sources to the event (the four Gospel accounts plus the stripped down account from Josephus) two of which were allegedly written by eyewitnesses to the event, one of which was written by a man who claims to have personally investigated the facts, and the final of which was the writings of the recollection of another eyewitness. Three of the four major accounts (perhaps all four) were written within 40 years after the event and were able to be checked against the oral histories (common at the time) that were shared among the communities by others who also were eyewitnesses to the events or who had learned the accounts from eyewitnesses. The people who wrote these accounts and followed them were willing to die in support of these accounts when faced with persecution, and to contend (as skeptics must do) that they were willing to die for something which they would have known to be a lie is not very convincing. Moreover, we have many copies and portions of copies of manuscripts (numbering in the thousands) of these books that can be traced back to older copies in different areas that gives assurance that the copies of these books that we have today or extremely close to what was written into the original. The fact that the books make reference to people and places that actually existed (despite doubts raised from time to time by various scholars) that are remarkably accurate confirms that the writers knew the people and places involved and took care to be accurate in their descriptions. The fact that many of the places where the events described in these accounts are said to have occurred have been venerated from ancient times also adds credence to the events themselves.

Certainly, there are other events that may have more substantial evidence for attestation. For example, the fact that the Colosseum was built is attested to by the fact that the Colosseum is still standing. But Jesus' acts were not acts that would necessarily or even probably leave an archaeological artifact. Jesus didn't build buildings. Jesus didn't move vast armies. Among other things, Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, walked on water and self-volitionally resurrected from the dead. These types of things don't leave archaeological remains. Does anyone really expect to find remants of the breadcrumbs from the miraculous feeding of the 5,000? Do we expect to find footprints left behind from when Jesus walked on water? Of course not.

Moreover, Jesus' position in life did not lend itself to great biographies being written about Him. The fact that Julius Caesar served as Caesar is attested to by many individual writings, but that would be expected for the most powerful man in charge of the most powerful empire on Earth. Jesus, being born a poor non-Roman Jew in a backwater part of the Roman Empire who was neither a military figure nor a political figure, would not be expected to attract the attention of the Roman biographers. There was no CNN-Jerusalem in 31 A.D. to report on the curious events happening there -- and even if there were, the press would certainly only have reported on events that would be expected to effect the Empire. Jesus, being who He was, appeared to pose no threat to Rome -- even Pilate thought that. Yet, the information we have on Jesus under those circumstances is really quite astounding.

So, overall, I think that the claim that the attestation to the life of Jesus is "the best attested event of history" is definitely wrong, and the claim that it is "the best attested event of ancient history" is also an overstatement -- but not by much. Certainly, given the circumstances of the time, the amount of information available about Jesus from the contemporaneous biographies is (to my knowledge) unprecedented.

"Why Defend Christianity?"

The title of this essay asks a good question. Does Christianity need to be defended? If Christianity is so readily believable, as Christians maintain, why defend it? As we will establish, it is not for our sakes or even for Christianity's sake that we defend our faith in Christ. The ministry of apologetics is a service to the unbeliever and not an actual defence of that which truly needs no defense. See also, If Christianity is true, why does it need so much defending? at Christian-Thinktank.com. This same site also provides a good essay giving eight reasons for apologetics. And a really good essay about the Church's failure to realize the importance of apologetics can be found here at Tektonics.org.

First, what is apologetics?

The short answer is: It's the branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines. A much more detailed answer is here at Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry ; a very fine site.

Do we need to defend Christianity?

C. S. Lewis writes:

"We who defend Christianity find ourselves constantly opposed not by the irreligion of our hearers but by their real religion. Speak about beauty, truth and goodness, or about a God who is simply the indwelling principle of these three, speak about a great spiritual force pervading all things, a common mind of which we are all parts, a pool of generalized spirituality to which we can all flow, and you command friendly interest.

But the temperature drops as soon as you mention a God who has purposes and performs particular actions, who does one thing and not another, a concrete, choosing, commanding, prohibiting God with a determinate character. People become embarrassed or angry. Such a conception seems to them primitive and crude and even irreverent. The popular ‘religion’ excludes miracles because it excludes the ‘living God’ of Christianity and believes instead in a kind of God who obviously would not do miracles, or indeed anything else." [1]

When we get to the heart of most skeptics' stubborness, we find they aren't necessarily opposed to belief in God per se. They actually oppose what they suspect He stands for. Specifically, they oppose His authority over mankind. And, in many cases, they oppose their personal, twisted caricature of what Christianity truly is.

Ask the average skeptic or anti-theist to tell you of the god he/she doesn't believe in and you will most likely not believe in that god either. The heart of their problem is the problem with their heart. They are so set on not being ruled by God, they haven't bothered to truly find out who the God of the Bible is. I posit that, whether it's disbelief or misbelief we find, it's a worthwhile ministry to help people to understand the truth about Jehovah God!

An atheist's heart is exposed

I was once asked a question. The questioner was a particularly profane and blasphemous atheist, who didn't really want an answer, but sought only to heckle a defender of Christianity. He asked me why I bothered to defend Christianity. He went on to state that Christianity wouldn't need defenders if it weren't such an evil institution.

I found this question quite engaging. It did not engage me in the way our atheist friend meant for it to, but it did provoke reflection. I reflected upon why he ‘felt' that Christianity was an evil institution. Subsequent colloquy revealed his fractured reasoning. He cut loose with the usual profane venting about the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, and the allegations that Hitler was a Christian. See articles here and here for answers to that allegation.

What did this exchange produce? Well, it led to our atheist friend answering his own question. As I see it, all his snarling accusations demonstrated precisely why Christianity should be defended. It must defended for the sake of those who disbelieve and misbelieve. In essence, Christian apologists are defending unbelievers from themselves.

In Hebrews 5:1,2 we read: "For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins: Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity."

Verses like these should be reflected upon by any apologist who is considering hanging up his/her arguments. A minister/servant of God is called to intercede on behalf of those who sin and try to draw them to Christ. This is the reason I don't like to engage in heated, petty debates where personal attacks are launched. This activity is not Christ-like and it doesn't win anyone to Him.

So, how are we to approach this problem?

The greater weight born in Christian apologetics is not carried by the scholarly defense of Biblical text. And it's also not carried by the efforts of those who present scientific data to support theism's assertions that we don't live in an accidental universe or that Earth's life forms didn't create and develop themselves.

Neither does successful Christian apologetics ride upon the back of the complex philosophical wrestling matches between us and proponents of other religions. The heart and soul of Christian apologetics exists in getting people to see their need for a Savior. I posit that, if you can get a stiff necked unbeliever to see their lostness, you have all but won the battle.

Unbelievers hide from God behind their criticisms of Christianity

There is a satanic smoke screen used by those who don't want to see the truth about right and wrong. Secular Humanism, Moral Relativism, and plain liberal licentiousness are at the heart of this soul damning problem. Non-Christians are either grossly misinformed or deliberately ignorant regarding the things of God. Just like our aforementioned friend, so many deliberately define Christianity by its abuses and its abusers.

They don't care to hear about or acknowledge the many charitable efforts that Christians are engaged in worldwide. No, and they are even less interested in the boundless testimonial evidence of lives saved from the brink of destruction by Christ's love and power.

They callously ignore stories of Christians' loving attendance when disaster strikes in the lives of individuals or even entire nations. Again, they'd rather focus upon only those instances where Christendom received the proverbial ‘black eye' because of the failures of one or more persons who are only ostensibly Christian.

Are we saying here that no genuine Christian ever fails? No. The fact that all men still possess a certain propensity for failure only shows how much we all need Christ's oversight. Besides this, what sense does it make to throw out a baby with the bath water? Why turn your back on Christ because of the intermittent failures of His people?

Why is it seemingly impossible to get skeptics to divorce bad human behavior from perfectly good theology? Apologists and evangelists try ardently to get unbelievers to look at Christ and not fallen mankind. However, their efforts are often in vain. One hates to leave people to their own destruction, but we have no alternative once we've done all we can do. Even God Himself doesn't "make" anyone accept the truth of the Gospel.

Many are those who follow the broad path to perdition. They look prejudicially at world history and ferret out instances where villains have done horrible things under a malevolent banner of some twisted form of pseudo-Christianity. Though one may try time and again to point out that these characters were actually motivated by money and political power, unbelieving critics won't hear of it. Their minds are made up and they adamantly refuse to give credit where it's due.

They launch screaming invectives and mordant mumbles at every one who dares to name the name of Christ. Look at any internet discussion forum and you will see "reasonably" intelligent people acting as if they live to punish people for their beliefs. This is the type of stereotyping that our modern, politically correct society allegedly abhors.

Yet, the same multi-cultural secularists, who preach about acceptance, callously deride believers and seek to eradicate all mention of Christ from the world. Where is the politically correct openness and acceptance in this? And to think that it's Christians who are called intolerant bigots.

Why doth the heathen rage?

If unbelievers truly think Christianity is some fantasy religion, why does the mention of Christ's name anger unbelievers so? One may try and dissuade a person from believing that the moon is made of green cheese, but it doesn't make sense to hate them for believing it. So, why would any "intelligent" person fight against others simply because they believe in Jehovah God? The reason lies in the injurious realm of carnal thinking. The moral and ethical precepts of true Christianity are hateful and binding to the secular mind.

Rom. 8:7 says, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." This, in a nutshell, explains the innate, anti-Christian hostility of atheistic and liberal thinkers. As long as people of God proliferate the world, they know that their secular political agendas are going to be opposed. Are there any anti-theists who will admit this? Yes.

Aldous Huxley, son of Thomas Huxley, writes:

"I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; and consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. For myself, as no doubt for most of my friends, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. The supporters of this system claimed that it embodied the meaning - the Christian meaning, they insisted - of the world. There was one admirably simple method of confuting these people and justifying ourselves in our erotic revolt: we would deny that the world had any meaning whatever." [2]

Here, Huxley openly admits that his aversion to Christianity was part of a particular agenda. It was not that he couldn't believe in Christ, but that he didn't want to. He openly states that he saw Christian morality as an impediment to erotic whimsy. So, Huxley remained deliberately ignorant of what serving Christ would do to change his life. Having said that, isn't it ironic that he also made the following statement?

"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence... No philosophy is completely disinterested. The pure love of truth is always mingled to some extent with the need, conciously or unconciously felt by even the noblest and the most intelligent philosophers" [3]

-- Aldous Huxley

Ironically, Huxley speaks of willful ignorance when his own thinking epitomized what it meant to be willfully ignorant. By the way, Huxley is wrong here. Willful ignorance is the most in-vincible ignorance of all! People who don't want to know something will not know it. There are none so blind . . .

I humbly adjure all skeptics and atheists alike to consider the following point closely. No matter what you've experienced in your life, no matter what you've seen other humans do, never stop looking for the truth. Don't let outrage and disillusionment dissuade you from finding what true Christians have already found. A true Christian isn't out to gather people to himself, but to Christ. We seek to gather people to Christ for Christ's sake and theirs.

In fact, let the following scripture speak for us regarding pure intentions. In 2 Corinthians 4:3-5 we read, "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake."

C. David Ragland, Jr.


Footnotes:

[1] C. S. Lewis, "Miracles: A preliminary study"
[2] Aldous Huxley, "Ends and Means, 1937"
[3] Aldous Huxley, "Ends and Means, 1937 pg. 270-272"

David Marshall Interview, Oct. 2007 (Part 2 of 2, "The New Atheism")

This is the second of two parts of an interview for the Cadre Journal, with Christian apologist David Marshall, who has released two books this year (through Harvest Home publishers); one on the topic of the promotion of alternate Gospel texts, and one on the topic of the New Atheism. (Please see Part One for more biographical information, and for the portion about “The Lost Gospels”.)

Most recently this year, David published The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Chellenges to God and Christianity. David had left for Oxford on a speaking tour and research project by the time we did this portion of the interview.


JP: Where did the term "New Atheism" come from anyway? Do the usual suspects gladly make use of it themselves? And if so, what do they see this as positively meaning in their favor?

DM: Most "New Atheists" seem to think the term is somehow derogatory, and foisted on them by a cabal at Wheaton College or somewhere. Such is the way of things: Christians were named by some of our first enemies, "Mohammedans" had no say over that title, the Chinese are still referred to by the name of their most ruthless emperor, and the Makah Indians (as I recall) are called "those guys over there" or something like that, which was the answer a member of the next tribe gave when the first white man asked who they were.

I invented the term "New Atheism", then found everyone already using it before my book came to press. Someone bugged my office, I guess.

JP: So, why would they be called the "New Atheists"? What are they doing new? Or does the term even make any sense applied to them?

DM: This new cohort of atheist writers tends to have several things in common. They are trying generally to apply the theory of evolution in new ways to social science, including religion and morality. (Drawing on people like Pascal Boyer and some other new theorists, even Dawkins' meme theory, along with earlier writers.) Secondly, they draw on new "Jesus spin" -- what I call neo-Gnosticism, along with the Jesus Seminar stuff and some even more hoary "Jesus was a mirage" theories. Third, the New Atheism arises in a new context -- after 9/11, when many skeptics want to see a symmetry between radical Islam and home-grown "Christian fundamentalism." Some people did this during the Cold War, too, trying to make out that Christianity was "just as dangerous" as communism.


JP: People, even among other atheists, have been criticizing the NA group for overstating claims about the American political system and American society being ready to topple into a Talibanesque oppressive theocracy or even being already in such a state already. How accurate are those critiques? Are the NAs really saying such things, or are they just speculating cautiously, or do they not even care about the topic?

DM: Richard Dawkins calls American Christians "the American Taliban." Other critics have written books with titles like "American Theocracy" and "Kingdom Coming," painting American Christianity in equally apocalyptic tones. It is certainly a major part of Dawkins' argument, and of many who agree with him, to make American Christians appear fools, lunatics, proto-terrorists (the serious ones, anyway) and an imminent threat to the republic.

I argue to the contrary. While we Christians often criticize ourselves, and no one denies that the Church is less than it ought to be, the Gospel does, I show, do a great deal of good for America, and through America for the world. The New Atheist case against Christianity is like a snap shot from a satellite. But serious, systematic, long-term, and ground-level study of what Christians are doing for others in America, shows that it's quite a bit. And far from despising democracy, conservative Christians tend to be quite zealous and proprietary about it. Rightfully so -- as serious historians understand, Western freedom was a child of two parents, Greek and Hebrew traditions, nurtured and taught by the Gospel over centuries of slow maturation.


JP: On Richard Dawkins' official website (www.richarddawkins.net) the subtitle or motto is "A Clear-Thinking Oasis", and a prominent link will bring the reader to "The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science". At the popular long-running Secular Web (www.infidel.org), which frequently markets and promotes NA work, the subtitle or motto is "A Drop of Reason in a Pool of Confusion". This sort of thing can be commonly found among all atheistic promoters. And not unreasonably so!--everyone wants reason to be on their side.

The question here is, how consistent are they about