tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-207043802024-03-19T00:10:57.967-04:00Extra ThoughtsLydia McGrew's personal, biblical studies, and apologetics blogLydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.comBlogger905125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-10950167841980409532023-06-09T15:36:00.003-04:002023-06-09T16:55:19.048-04:00PJ Media, Dan Philips, Team Pyro, and Google<p> Errr, just thought I would link this story here on my Blogger Blog.</p><p><br /></p><p>https://pjmedia.com/culture/paula-bolyard/2023/06/08/hate-speech-google-owned-blogger-censors-pastors-letter-to-parents-on-how-to-explain-pride-month-n1701614?fbclid=IwAR3BwVzBJ0gFXaTXZRTetUFQcy8DsWJcfh0A1bvv34arQNfQLQyWAfgbKtc</p><p><br /></p><p>Oh, heck, here, while we're at it, here's Dan Philips' letter:</p><p><br /></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Dear CBC parents, </em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">We all wish we could shelter our children from the harmful and corrupt elements of our God-hating culture. Apart from living under a rock, this is becoming increasingly impossible. The homosexual-and-much-more agenda has increasingly intruded itself into every area of American life, from the media to sports to department stores to fast food restaurants and coffee shops.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">I am writing to try to help you talk to your children. I’ll write it as one side of a conversation. Use any part that helps you address matters that arise in your children’s world.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">You asked me what “<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">gay</span>” and “<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">homosexual</span>” and “<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">trans</span>” means, and why you suddenly see the word “<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Pride</span>” everywhere. I’m glad you asked me! Let me try to explain it to you.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">We’ve read Genesis together. You know that God created the world as a perfect, wondrous place. And you know in Genesis 1 He created Adam and Eve without sin, or any of the awful things sin does when it gets inside someone. Adam and Eve loved God and were happy with themselves, with each other, and with their world.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">But then Satan came along in Genesis 3, and he got them to be dissatisfied with what God gave them. He tried to make God look like He didn’t care, and like He didn’t really want what was best for Adam and Eve. Satan tried to convince them that they knew better than God what was right and good, and what was best for them. Now you know, that is pride. Pride blows us up like balloons — all big and impressive looking, but with nothing but air inside. So in their pride, Adam and Eve rebelled against God.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">When they did, they died inside. The happiness and wholeness they had were gone. They weren’t happy with themselves, or each other, or their world — or God. So they had to find ways to try to make themselves feel happy, and to hide the guilt they had inside. They felt guilty, because they were guilty. They had sinned against God, their Maker.</em></p><div class="my-4" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; max-width: 100%;"></div><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">All those words you asked me about come out of this. They are all about people dead and broken by sin, still trying to find happiness by defiantly shaking their fist in God’s face and pretending they’re smarter than God.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">You remember that God made Adam and Eve, a man and a woman. That’s what <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">sex</span> means — it means being a man, or being a woman. People say “gender” today, but gender is really a grammar-term, about words, not people. “Sex” is the better word here. How many sexes did God make? That’s right: two. And when God saw it wasn’t good for the man Adam to be alone, what did God make for him, in Genesis 2? That’s right, a woman, named Eve. So God invented marriage, when a man wants to be with a woman in a special way, and a woman wants to be with a man — only the two of them, with each other.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">But all of us children of Adam are sinners, and sin ruins all our good desires and feelings that God gave us. Sin makes us want what we shouldn’t want, and it makes us not want what we should want.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">So some poor sad men don’t want to have a woman as their wife. They want another man. And some poor sad women don’t want a man, they want another woman. They are ashamed to want these things, they feel guilty. When we feel guilty, we can only do one of two things. We can go to God, confessing our sins and finding His forgiveness and help. Or we can pretend that we’re okay, and just keep holding to our sin. When people want to pretend these broken, wrong desires are okay, they call it being “<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">gay</span>,” pretending to be truly happy. But they don’t have peace with God, and they won’t be happy when God’s patience comes to an end and He judges them.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">And then there are other people so broken by sin that they aren’t willing to be what God made them. God made them a man or a woman — remember, He only made two sexes — but they want to pretend to be something else. Men want to pretend to be women, and women want to pretend to be men. Of course, we are what God made us, and no one can really become the opposite sex. They may try very hard, and even hurt themselves, but it just can’t be done. Still, sometimes we keep pretending, even though it really harms and shames us to do so. And when men or women pretend to be the opposite sex, they call it being “<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">trans</span>.”</em></p><div class="my-4" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; max-width: 100%;"></div><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">So they took the whole month of June to pretend together that all these wrong and harmful things are good, and they call June “Pride” month. Like the Bible says, their “glory is in their shame” (Philippians 3:19).</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">But things are what God calls them, aren’t they? Not what we call them. So men are always just men, women are always just women, and we can only really marry someone of the opposite sex from us. A man marries a woman, a woman marries a man. Anything else can never really be marriage.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Isn’t it sad to think about people so badly wanting things that are bad for them? Isn’t it awful that what people think will be good for them is really bad for them? But that’s what sin does. It does that to all of us! It’s why children want to disobey their parents. It’s why parents sometimes fight each other, or don’t do such a great job being parents. Sin is behind everything bad that we do or feel.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">But remember, God so loved sinful men and women that He sent Jesus to save sinners. Jesus can save any sinner! There is no sin too big for Jesus. He shed His blood so that His people could be forgiven and freed from every last sin of every size! When we turn from our sin and believe in Jesus, we can know that all our sins are forgiven. Isn’t that just the most wonderful news there is?</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Even more, Jesus died so that His people could be given new hearts, and so that God’s Holy Spirit could live in our hearts. So God removes our old heart that wanted awful and bad things and hated God, and He gives us a new heart. That new heart wants to love God, and believe Him, and walk in His ways. So all of us, whatever our sins were, can be made new people, children of God, learning to love what God loves and hate what God hates.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">So we don’t hate people who want bad things. We would be exactly the same if it weren’t for Jesus. We love people who don’t know Jesus, we pray for them, we want to help them, we want to tell them about Jesus. And when they believe, we accept them and love them and help them to learn to walk with Jesus, just like we’re doing.</em></p><div class="my-4" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; margin-top: 1.5rem; max-width: 100%;"></div><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Thank you for asking me. Always feel free to ask me any questions you have!</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">I pray this is helpful to you.</em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bolder;">Pastor Dan</span></em></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"> </p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"> http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2023/06/about-that-missing-blogpost.html</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-51032649180953992022-09-10T16:21:00.002-04:002022-09-10T16:21:21.747-04:00A maximalist use of the conversion of Paul<p>It's well-known that I'm highly critical of the Minimal Facts Argument for Jesus' resurrection. I consider it quite weak and therefore vastly oversold, due to its insistence on relying only on facts that are granted by a wide and diverse scholarly consensus. I've discussed this often and am preparing even as I write these words for a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tKoR8tzQs0">livestream</a> in response to an alleged<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVCiiuvnQlM"> response</a> from Drs. Habermas and Licona. Unfortunately, their "response" video was strikingly non-responsive. Indeed, it was pretty clear that neither of them understood the criticisms I've leveled, and it was unclear whether they were even <i>familiar</i> with those concerns.</p><p>The minimalist approach, whether in its MFA incarnation or in other versions, tends to rely heavily on the Apostle Paul as an alternative to relying on the Gospel accounts. The "creed" in I Corinthians 15 is especially prominent in all minimalist-type arguments. And when arguing for the bodily resurrection, it is quite common for minimalists to emphasize strongly that Paul had a bodily concept of the resurrection and that he stated that he and the Jerusalem apostles were preaching the same message. Hence, the reasoning goes, in all probability the Jerusalem apostles were preaching a bodily resurrection.</p><p>This may be a legitimate inference <i>as far as it goes</i>, but the problem is that it doesn't go very far. People believe all kinds of things, and the mere fact that the Jerusalem apostles and Paul <i>believed</i> that Jesus was raised bodily and had appeared to them bodily doesn't tell us whether they were reasonable to think so. Without further information as to the details of their claims, it is deeply unclear whether they jumped to conclusions, or, to put it in a more jargony form, interpreted some sort of (insufficient) experiences in the light of their theological expectations. (Compare the fact that you wouldn't be very impressed even if you were 100% sure that twelve people sincerely believed that they had conversations with aliens, in the absence of further details about why they believed this.)</p><p>On the other hand, in Tim's and my article on Jesus' resurrection published in 2009, we did give the conversion of Paul independent force for the resurrection of Jesus, by which we meant the bodily resurrection. In fact, we gave it a hefty-ish Bayes factor of 10<sup>3</sup>. While I would note that even that Bayes factor needs to be part of a more robust cumulative case in order to overcome even a modestly low prior probability (in other words, impressive as it sounds, that Bayes factor all by itself isn't going to support strong, justified confidence in a miracle), and while I admit to some ambivalence now as to whether that factor may have been overly optimistic, it is still worth revisiting the conversion of Paul to ask this: Do I still grant the conversion of Paul any significant independent force in favor of the bodily resurrection of Jesus? And if so, how does this differ from the minimalist reliance on Paul?</p><p>The issue of independence is at the heart of my critique of the minimalist use of Paul in favor of Jesus' bodily resurrection. As I've <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHQiIfO_Yag&t=448s">discussed</a>, by using Paul's conversion and concept of resurrection to support the idea that "the disciples believed" that Jesus was physically risen, the minimalist runs into the problem that I've called the bottleneck issue. Briefly, if the probability that Jesus <i>was</i> risen bodily given only that the disciples <i>believed</i> that he was, based on some unspecified experiences, is not very high (or, to put it a little differently, if their mere belief based on largely unspecified experiences provides only a weak Bayes factor in favor of the truth of their belief), then merely piling on more and more evidence <i>that </i>they had this belief cannot possibly rectify the problem, since it provides no independent evidence for the <i>truth</i> of the belief. My criticism has already assumed that we are "given" that they had that belief. I'm arguing that even if we are "given" it, it doesn't provide much evidence (when details of their reasons and experiences are excluded) for the truth. If we're "given" it, we're given it at probability 1, so making its probability approach 1 more and more can't help us to get beyond the criticism. Hence the minimalist use of Paul to support the proposition, "The disciples believed that Jesus was risen bodily from the dead" provides no independent evidence for the truth of their belief aside from that proposition itself.</p><p>A maximalist approach, however, does allow us to make use of Paul's conversion in a different way that doesn't run into this bottleneck problem. The maximalist is prepared to argue for the reliability of the book of Acts. This provides a great many advantages, including access to the serious risks that provided the context in which the disciples made their proclamation and, in the early chapters of Acts, direct evidence that they were preaching the bodily resurrection of Jesus from early on, with no need to infer this indirectly from Paul's letters and his relationship to the Jerusalem apostles as attested in his letters.</p><p>Even more importantly, the defense of the reliability of Acts and of the proposition that it comes from a companion of Paul who didn't mess around with the facts means that we can argue with confidence that Paul claimed what we find in the conversion accounts in Acts 9, 22, and 26. These include several very salient points relevant to the evidential force in favor of Jesus' bodily resurrection. Among others, 1) Paul was wide awake, walking down a road at about midday, when the conversion experience abruptly happened. So this couldn't have been a dream. (Contrast any sort of visionary experience stories that begin, "I was reading my Bible alone in my study..." where the person might have dozed off.) 2) Paul was with other people, who presumably could attest to his abrupt, completely unexpected, odd behavior. 3) These other people allegedly saw the light and would have been able to attest that Paul had to be led afterwards because he was temporarily blind. (In the interests of time and space, I'm not going into detail on the question of what they heard. I take the view that they heard a voice but that it was a voice-like sound to them without comprehensible words. This would be another intersubjective element, but I'm not giving it much weight here because of the alleged contradiction concerning it.) 4) Very important: Paul claimed that Jesus not only identified himself but also <i>explicitly endorsed</i> the teaching of the very sect Paul was persecuting by saying, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." This gives <i>content</i> to Paul's experience which, combined with our independent evidence (e.g., from the Gospels and from the early chapters of Acts) that the Christian sect Paul was persecuting taught that Jesus rose bodily, serves as independent evidence for that content, since the best explanation of Paul's conversion and of his account of what occasioned it is that his experience was veridical. </p><p>The point is a little subtle, but I hope that it is clear. Paul's conversion provides independent, significant evidence for Jesus' bodily resurrection only insofar as it does something more and quite different from providing evidence that the disciples and Paul believed that Jesus was physically risen. In a maximalist use of Paul, we take it that, via the reliability of the Gospels and Acts, we have more than enough evidence already that they were teaching that Jesus was physically risen. Then we take it that the detailed accounts in Acts of the circumstances and content of Paul's abrupt conversion really come from Paul. They weren't embellished by the author of Acts. Then we argue that it is quite difficult to explain this abrupt conversion with these detailed aspects on the basis of a non-veridical category (that is, some category according to which Paul was mistaken and did not actually have communication with Jesus). But if Jesus himself said, in a supernatural communication with Paul, that he was to be identified with the group that was preaching that he was physically risen, then this is evidence that he was, indeed, physically risen.</p><p>Now whether this gives us an independent Bayes factor as high as 10<sup>3 </sup>or not, my point here is that it avoids the bottleneck issue, because it isn't just piling on more and more evidence for what the disciples thought, when a very salient question at issue (in the absence of details of their experiences) is whether they were rational to think that. Moreover, if (given the reliability of Acts) the accounts in Acts really do tell us what Paul claimed, then we understand further why Paul <i>himself</i> was rational in thinking that he had a supernatural communication from Jesus on the road to Damascus. His conviction is quite understandable given the details of the experience.</p><p>In contrast, the minimalist approach even to Paul's conversion is extremely tentative, a point that is especially notable given the great importance of Paul to the minimalist approach itself. In <i>The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach</i>, Michael Licona is quite explicit that he treats the conversion accounts in Acts merely as "possible" sources concerning the nature of Paul's conversion, sources of "limited historical value," and that the reason for this is because there is no scholarly consensus concerning how much liberty Luke felt free to take in writing Acts (pp. 382, 394). (Licona is surely right about this absence of scholarly consensus. Bart Ehrman, for example, absolutely <a href="https://ehrmanblog.org/the-conversion-of-paul/">insists</a> that we evaluate Paul's conversion based only on the epistles, and only on a subset of those, and must exclude the accounts in Acts as likely elaborated by the author. Ehrman then, with unintentional humor, complains about the maddening, frustrating limitation of our information about such a historically important event as Paul's conversion!) </p><p>As I have pointed out before, the presence of a large and diverse scholarly consensus, whatever minimalists at times say to the contrary notwithstanding, is <i>undeniably</i> given epistemological weight in their methodology. They treat it as a limiting factor and a necessary condition for our being historically highly confident (confident "as historians") about specific propositions.</p><p>Cutting oneself off from the details of the Pauline conversion claims found in Acts cuts one off from the very factors that give significant, independent epistemic force to Paul's conversion. At that point we no longer know what exactly Paul claimed that Jesus said to him on that occasion and how clearly it endorsed what the apostles were already preaching. We don't know whether Paul was alone or with others when it happened, whether there was <i>anything</i> intersubjective about his experience, or whether he could possibly have been asleep at the time. We don't know (without Acts) whether his experience at the time of his conversion had (even to him) clear verbal content as opposed to feelings or impressions.</p><p>Another contrast between the maximalist case and the minimalist use of Paul's conversion is worth mentioning: On Paul's own account, unlike the disciples, he had no opportunity to touch Jesus. He wasn't invited to do so. He did not see Jesus eat or have a long conversation with him over a meal, and others were not aware of the various modalities of Jesus' presence in the same way that he was. For example, the others on the road didn't see Jesus. (Unlike in the Gospel accounts, where an entire group is conversing with Jesus at once.) I have found that it is very unpopular for me to say that in very notable respects, Paul's experience was <i>more</i> vision-like (though arguably objective) than the reported experiences in the Gospels. I have received a lot of pushback on this from some fellow believers, but I think it's important. The argument that Paul's experience was veridical and that it confirms Jesus' bodily resurrection is thus different in kind from the argument that the disciples really had bodily experiences of a bodily risen Jesus. Say what you will, Jesus did not seem even to Paul to be standing right there in the dust of the Damascus Road along with everybody else, plainly visible to everyone, plainly tangible, etc. And there is a reason for that: Jesus had, according to Acts, already ascended into heaven. After that the Bible accounts afford no indication that he ever walked around in his body on earth again, and indeed the biblical accounts would lead us to think that he didn't do so (Acts 1:11) and won't do so until his eschatological return. So he probably didn't do so with Paul. </p><p>In contrast, the minimalist approach elides this distinction by referring to Paul as "an eyewitness" of the resurrection and treating him as being like the disciples in this respect, without qualification. This elision is a gift to the skeptic, or to someone like Dale Allison who thinks that the disciples had only visionary-type experiences of the risen Jesus. Evidentially, it is important to emphasize the differences between Paul's experience and the disciples' experiences. <i>They</i> were rational in believing that Jesus was physically risen because they had experiences both individually and in varying groups in which Jesus presented himself in a <i>fully polymodal fashion</i>, just as we present ourselves to one another in ordinary physical meetings. They had every reason to believe (given that they experienced what they reported) that anyone who walked into that room could have seen Jesus, and anyone who bumped into him could have touched him, just as with any other physically present person. </p><p>Paul was rational in believing that Jesus was physically risen for a more indirect reason: He already knew the tenets of the sect he was persecuting and that (per the earlier chapters of Acts) they included the physical resurrection of this man Jesus. Paul then (according to his report, as recounted in Acts) had an experience of being struck down abruptly in the middle of the day, out of nowhere, while accompanied by others, by a light from heaven (which the others saw). He then heard a voice and saw something (perhaps Jesus as a human figure above him), and the voice explicitly stated that it was the voice of Jesus as preached by the group he was persecuting. When their brief dialogue was over and the light receded, he found that he was blind. Given the overwhelming and explicit nature of this experience, its partial intersubjectivity, and its occurrence while he was wide awake (as his companions could attest), it was quite understandable that he concluded that it was veridical and hence that Jesus really had risen from the dead, as preached by the Christians. But this was not because he personally had the opportunity to verify the nature of Jesus' body by interacting with it as the disciples did. The arguments are different. The disanalogy can and must be emphasized, while at the same time we can acknowledge that Paul's detailed claims have independent force in favor of the physical resurrection.</p><p>I hope that this has been a useful fuller explanation of how a maximalist "does" the argument from the conversion of Paul for the resurrection. </p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-26687847231188570682022-08-22T14:32:00.000-04:002022-08-22T14:32:06.622-04:00Old post re-posted: "Does The Evidentialist Have to Endorse Apostasy?"<p> Originally posted at What's Wrong With the World on December 10, 2015.</p><div class="article_body" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><p>Long-time readers know that I call myself an evidentialist in Christian apologetics. (See also <a href="http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2013/09/why_christian_parents_get_nerv.html" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a> and<a href="http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2014/11/what_evidentialism_is_not.html" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;"> here</a>.) This means that I think that Christian faith both should be and can be based solidly on available evidence. I'm eclectic in this regard. I think St. Thomas Aquinas was an evidentialist as well. While my own special area of interest and focus has been on historical arguments for Christianity (e.g., for the reliability of the Gospels and the occurrence of the resurrection), and while I am not convinced by <em>all </em>of the purely philosophical arguments for the existence of God that are sometimes proposed, I am by no means hostile or opposed to <em>a priori</em>, metaphysical arguments. To the extent that they work, they are evidence as well. The more the merrier.</p></div><div class="entry-more" id="more" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><p>But lurking in the background of the evidentialist position is the following consideration: Is there some sense in which a person <em>should not</em> believe something beyond its support by the evidence that he has? Do we say that a person should apportion the strength of his credence to the strength of the evidence?</p><p>Let me hasten to add that a "yes" answer to this does not preclude a) the possession of maximal, foundational evidence for some particular proposition which is not inferred from anything else (such as his own existence) or b) the possession of and reliance on evidence that is, strictly speaking, available only to oneself (such as one's sensory experiences).</p><p>Strictly speaking, stating that in some sense Christian faith "should" be based on evidence does not commit oneself to this more global statement about apportioning one's strength of belief to the strength of the evidence, but they go rather naturally together. In that case, one's opposition to all forms of fideism or belief beyond evidence in the area of religion is an instance of a broader principle.</p><p>It gets tricky to define the precise sense of this "should," and that is partly why I have used the phrase "in some sense." After all, not all belief is voluntary, and even irrational belief sometimes seems morally excusable if it has been deliberately encouraged by one's teachers from one's youth upwards. Not everyone thinks explicitly about whether he is believing things reasonably or unreasonably, and it doesn't seem like everyone ought to do so or is even capable of doing so. But there certainly seems to be <em>something</em> suboptimal about irrational belief.</p><p>Suppose that I water down the "should" here and, at least for now, defend only the following proposition:</p><blockquote style="background: rgb(238, 238, 255); border-color: rgb(183, 184, 194) rgb(167, 168, 178) rgb(167, 168, 178) rgb(183, 184, 194); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; padding: 0.4em;">If you are sufficiently reflective to realize that you have been holding some belief irrationally or arationally, with a strength of conviction beyond what is warranted by any evidence that you actually have, you ought to change your credence level for that belief.</blockquote><p>This immediately raises the following disturbing consideration: Suppose that a person--call him Joe--has been raised in a fideistic form of Christianity. Suppose for the sake of the argument that Joe has been deliberately taught that he should believe in God "just because," that he should trust the Bible "just because it's the Bible," that he should not look for any further argument, and indeed that to do so is to show himself weak in faith. Suppose that Joe has been taught to rely on the fact that he thinks he can feel Jesus living in his heart, rather as Mormons are taught to rely upon the "burning in the bosom." Needless to say, Joe has been given no apologetics teaching whatsoever in his church or by his parents.</p><p>Now suppose that Joe wakes up one fine morning and says to himself, "This is ridiculous. I have no more reason to believe that Christianity is true than any adherent of any religion incompatible with Christianity has to believe his religion. I've been hanging on to my Christianity just because it is part of my individual identity and the identity of the community I am a part of. And I'm even willing to lay down my life for this set of theological beliefs! Why am I thinking this way, when I don't even know if any of this is true?"</p><p>Joe is having a crisis of faith, and he's having it after a lifetime (though perhaps a rather young lifetime) of being entirely unprepared for it. Indeed, one might say that he has been anti-prepared. When he goes to his pastor, let's suppose that he is told that he just needs to accept that the Bible is the Word of God, just needs to cling to Jesus more closely, and that his doubts come from Satan.</p><p>Not only is that unlikely, psychologically, to help Joe in this crisis, it is questionable as to whether it <em>should</em> help Joe in this crisis. His questions are reasonable, given the absence of any defense he has ever been given for belief in his community's holy book and theological commitments.</p><p>But what am I saying? It sounds for a moment here like I'm saying that Joe <em>should</em> apostasize!</p><p>Considering that I am, after all, a Christian, that I want Joe (which is to say, all the real-life people like Joe) to go to heaven, and that I seriously doubt that he's going to go to heaven if he just becomes an agnostic or an atheist and goes through the rest of his life explicitly rejecting belief in the existence of God and/or the tenets of Christianity, that would seem to be a pretty shocking position to take.</p><p>My answer, however, is no. I do not recommend that Joe apostasize, and I certainly don't say that he <em>should</em> do so.</p><p>The first reason for this is that Joe should consider that he may have more reason than he realizes, and upon reflection, I think he will find that he does. The fact that those in his background have taught him to disregard evidence and to believe on subjective grounds does not mean that he does not <em>have</em> evidence. If a man were taught from childhood that he ought to believe that his father is loving and good <em>without</em> evidence, it would not mean that he would have no evidence if he stopped to think about the matter.</p><p>So it is for the existence of God. Joe knows of the existence of the world around him, and probably knows at least something of its appearance of orderliness and design. He knows of the existence of his own mind. To be sure, naturalism has its own attempts to account for the existence of these things, but perhaps Joe can see (even if only dimly as yet) for himself that these are unsatisfactory. He knows of the existence of morality and the appearance of meaning in life, which gives him a reason to think, at least, that there must be more to life than atoms bumping against each other in the void. All of these considerations tend strongly against either atheism or agnosticism concerning the existence of God himself, though they certainly (as I am envisaging it) need to be refined and strengthened in Joe's understanding.</p><p>As for the more specific doctrines of Christianity and of the monotheism of Judaism on which it was founded, the existence of the books of the Bible is, at a minimum, a <em>datum</em>. Without considering them at the outset as holy books, one still can ask where they came from and what the best explanation is for their contents.</p><p>At this point, things become a bit delicate, for Joe's own background, as I imagine it, has taught him nothing about how to evaluate the plausibility of such works.</p><p>But here I want to bring in the second point: Joe should not apostasize even from Christianity (much less from theism), because the evidence for Christianity is available, and Joe himself can find it.</p><p>If Joe were kept locked up on an island without access to the wider world by his pastor and parents, then he might have to pray desperately to a God about whose attributes he is now (perhaps against his own will) uncertain to help him get out and find more information. And, to be clear, I believe that God does send light to those who sincerely seek it and who, God knows, will accept that light if given it. Jeremiah 29:13 applies here, I believe: "You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." Meanwhile, even Joe-locked-on-an-island can keep reading the Bible and can, hopefully, notice for himself some of the internal evidences that give the Gospels, for example, verisimilitude.</p><p>But things are not that dire in the real world. Joe has access to books and, presumably, to the Internet. To be sure, he could just as easily wander onto a "myther" web site on the Internet as onto William Lane Craig's <a href="http://www.reasonablefaith.org/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Reasonable Faith</a> site or <a href="http://www.apologetics315.com/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Apologetics315</a>, but the fact remains that information is out there on questions like, "Why should I believe that the events in the Gospels took place?" and "How is the Bible different from other putatively holy books?"</p><p>Moreover, it's a pretty safe bet that, despite his fideistic upbringing, Joe has <em>some</em> friends or friends-of-friends who will recommend <em>some</em> good evidential material to him (perhaps, e.g., Lee Strobel's popular apologetics books) if he makes his doubts known, not only to his own immediate community but to the Christian community more widely.</p><p>This brings me to the importance of the inquiry. C.S. Lewis argues,</p><blockquote style="background: rgb(238, 238, 255); border-color: rgb(183, 184, 194) rgb(167, 168, 178) rgb(167, 168, 178) rgb(183, 184, 194); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; padding: 0.4em;">Here is a door, behind which, according to some people, the secret of the universe is waiting for you. Either that’s true, or it isn’t. And if it isn’t, then what the door really conceals is simply the greatest fraud, the most colossal “sell” on record. Isn’t it obviously the job of every man to try to find out which, and then to devote his full energies either to serving this tremendous secret or to exposing and destroying this gigantic humbug? (“Man or Rabbit?,” in <em>God in the Dock</em>, 111–112. HT to John DePoe for this reference.)</blockquote><p>Since the question of whether Christianity is true or false is of such great moment, any light abandonment of the claims of Christianity, without doing due diligence, is epistemically irresponsible. The commitment to truth itself (an important part of the evidentialist position) means that we are bound to pursue truth and, indeed, that it can be a test of character for a man to be expected to make such an investigation rather than settling for a shallow and easy agnosticism.</p><p>The evidentialist is (I believe) bound to disagree with the Pascalian recommendation that one induce oneself to <em>believe</em> Christianity purely for reasons of utility. But it is crucially different to say that one should vigorously seek to discover <em>whether</em> there is good evidence for Christianity, and that one should do so because the stakes of missing out on the knowledge of God are so high. And, since I believe that there is such evidence, and that it is not hidden, a person who (like Joe) comes to have doubts upon reflection but who then engages in such a search can be rewarded with a Christian faith that is confidently based on fact.</p><p>In the end, those of us who watch struggles of faith from the other side--that is, from within Christianity--must have independent reason to have confidence in the justice of God. That is true whether or not one is an evidentialist. Indeed, if one is not, one must nonetheless account for the fact that God apparently "gives" some people a non-evidential confidence in Christianity but does not "give" this to others, since atheists and agnostics, after all, do exist. No position on evidence and apologetics offers a "get out of questions free" card concerning divine justice and salvation, since there will always be those who, it <em>appears</em>, never had a "real chance," whether one construes that chance in terms of receiving the best available evidence, the right upbringing, religious experiences, or firm feelings of confidence and assurance induced by the Holy Spirit.</p><p>For the evidentialist Christian, the confidence in the ultimate justice of God comes from the reasons that we do have to believe that God, who is by definition absolutely just and good, exists, loves us, and has revealed himself to us. It is, moreover, useful to see that the position does not create an actual contradiction--for example, it does not mean that a person in Joe's position both should and should not believe in God--and does not lead us to recommend apostasy to those who have been Christians and are now in the throes of mental crisis.</p></div>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-61479888723570829422022-08-16T08:54:00.000-04:002022-08-16T08:54:06.712-04:00The connections between "literary device" views of the Gospels and the Minimal Facts Argument for the resurrection<p>I’ve decided to write something clarifying exactly what
connection I see between the minimal facts argument (along with other broadly minimalist types of
arguments for Jesus’ resurrection) and the literary device views of the Gospels. My plan is to post this content both here and (perhaps in two parts) on Facebook. (If you read this on Facebook, please go to the blog post version to get all the links in their correct place where I say "see here.")</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m not going to say “don’t comment” on this post, but I
will say this: If you and I have already had lengthy back-and-forth arguments
about this very topic elsewhere on social media, or on the value of the minimal
facts argument, please don’t try to start the very same argument again on this
post. I think if you and I have already done that elsewhere it will just cause
frustration for both of us to start making the same arguments yet again on another thread. This
seems like a fair request. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It also seems like a fair request to ask that you read
<i>carefully</i> before commenting, especially in disagreement. For example, if you find yourself saying, “Habermas
can’t be giving epistemological weight to the consensus of scholarship, because
he says the minimal facts <i>also</i> have to have good arguments for them,” you didn’t
read carefully. That comment would be confusing treating consensus as the whole story
with treating it as having some type of important, valuable, positive epistemic weight. Broadly speaking, this is the difference between its being a sufficient
condition and its being a necessary condition for a particular kind of positive
epistemic status. Please, I beseech you of your courtesy, take your time in reading before commenting that I'm just misunderstanding, much less misrepresenting.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><u>An indirect epistemological connection between the MFA and literary device views</u></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There are two types of connections between minimalist
approaches, including the classic MFA, and the literary device approach to the
Gospels. The first type of connection is epistemological and has to do with the
matter of scholarly consensus. Having a high percentage and a broad spectrum (“across
the scholarly spectrum,” or at least across the scholarly <i>label</i> spectrum) of consensus
on a proposition is taken, not only by Dr. Licona but also by Dr. Habermas, to
have positive epistemic weight. The type of positive epistemic weight that it
supposed to have concerns <i>guarding against bias</i>. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Notice here that I am not
<i>just</i> saying that Dr. Habermas has endorsed Dr. Licona’s book on the
resurrection. I’m not even just saying that he’s endorsed a particular statement in
that book. I’m saying that he’s endorsed the idea that broad-spectrum consensus
guards against bias as <i>part of the minimal facts approach</i>. He has explicitly,
closely linked the MFA with the historiographical approach in Licona’s
resurrection book and has explicitly endorsed the epistemological value of consensus as part of that approach. Here are several clear quotations from a <a href="https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=sod_fac_pubs">detailed review essay</a> (not just a brief endorsement) which is actually entitled “The Minimal Facts Approach to the Resurrection of Jesus: The Role
of Methodology as a Crucial Component in Establishing Historicity.” (Link will be in
the first comment of the FB version.) </p><p class="MsoNormal">First, the connection between "historical bedrock" and "minimal facts." Early on, Habermas says, “The heart of Michael Licona’s
astounding and excellent PhD dissertation of some 700 pages is an application
of the Minimal Facts argument to several scholars and their research on the
resurrection of Jesus, in order to ascertain how these authors fare against the
known historical data.” Toward the end, Habermas says, “In this essay, I have
attempted to provide some elucidation of the Minimal Facts approach as a
methodology for studying the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. This
included unpacking several of the relevant aspects, as well as interacting with
Michael Licona’s lengthy and rewarding treatment of <i>this approach</i>.” (Emphasis added)</p><p class="MsoNormal">In other
words, there is <i>not the faintest doubt</i> that Habermas is saying that the “historical
bedrock” methodology described and applied at length in Dr. Licona's book <i>The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach</i>, is the same approach as the minimal facts argument. This
is not to say that he and Licona agree on every point, but Habermas is quite clear
that methodologically he regards the 2010 resurrection book as a further
spelling-out of his own minimal facts approach. I note the title and these
quotations in order to address a recent and very strange attempt to protect the MFA from criticisms that might be leveled against the historical bedrock approach by claiming that they are quite different things and
that references to Licona’s resurrection argument methodology are off limits in any
critique of the “essence” of the MFA.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Second, the special epistemological importance of consensus: Avoiding our own “horizons” (biases) is extremely important
to Licona in his book, and Habermas enthusiastically echoes this concern and
connects it <i>expressly</i> with the minimal facts method: </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">In keeping with the theme of
this essay, Licona’s treatment of these matters surrounding the establishing
and explicating of the Minimal Facts will most occupy us here. Very early in
his discussion of historiography, Licona addresses the absolutely vital matter
of the scholar’s horizons (chapter 1.2.2), the glasses that everyone wears when
we view the world around us, and which can color severely and restrict our
conclusions. And the more central the issues at hand, the more our prejudices
and other views may rear their heads. To use Licona’s very helpful example,
whether or not the runner was safe at second base depends largely on whether
our son is the one stealing the base or the one who tagged him (p. 38)!</p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal">Habermas further quotes a passage from Licona in which L.
says that the heterogeneity of consensus is something that “we desire” because
it “gives us confidence that our horizons will not lead us completely astray.”
Habermas then comments: </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">Licona makes an insightful comment here regarding
guarding against our own horizons. We must beware of our own imported biases,
as well. When discussing the Minimal Facts, I have always purposely included
notes at each juncture that list representative numbers of skeptics of various
stripes who still affirm the data in question. This is a significant
methodological procedure that serves more than one purpose. Among others, it
assures the readers that they are not being asked to accept something that only
conservatives believe, or that is only recognized by those who believe in the
veracity of the New Testament text, and so on. After all, this sort of
widespread recognition and approval is the very thing that our stated method
requires.</p></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal">Notice that he refers to this search for heterogenous
consensus as important for “our stated method” and says that this has the
effect, among other things, of helping to guard against our own biases.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even when Habermas comments in the article on how he himself goes back and forth on whether or not to include this or that in the minimal facts, and even when he lists "second-order" facts, such as the conversion of Jesus' brother James or the nearness in time of the disciples' proclamation of the resurrection after Jesus' death, these are evaluated and discussed in terms of consensus: How large of a consensus? How many scholars address the matter? And the like. At no point does Habermas ever so much as approach the outer edge of suggesting that it would or could be a good method for arguing for the resurrection to go all-out <i>against</i> scholarly consensus, to say "damn the torpedoes," and to argue for something not granted by any significant scholarly consensus as a crucial part of a resurrection argument. </p><p class="MsoNormal">I anticipate that immediately someone will say, "That's just because it wouldn't work rhetorically." No, that is not the<i> only </i>reason. As the above quotations show, both Licona and Habermas regard it as important to the MFA to have some substantial and heterogenous consensus for the premises <i>for an epistemological reason--namely, to guard against our own biases.</i> Whether we widen our facts in the argument to include the empty tomb (which neither Habermas nor Licona chooses to do) and the conversion of James or other propositions, or whether we stick only to a more minimal set, this is evaluated in terms of a condition that there be some degree of significant scholarly consensus. For example, the empty tomb supposedly had a 75% consensus among scholars, though Habermas and Licona don't think this is enough to treat it as a minimal fact or "historical bedrock." (Even the 75% is questionable, as I argued in<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unfxrRbq6jE"> a recent video</a>.) Again: Yes, I know that these facts are also supposed to have good arguments for them as another necessary condition. (Though I should add that in some discussions of historical bedrock Licona seems a little confused on whether we need independent access to those good arguments or whether we assume that strong arguments must exist simply <i>because of</i> the consensus. See the discussion <a href="http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2021/11/on-minimal-facts-case-for-resurrection_29.html">here </a>on "Historical Bedrock as a Category that is too loose. But waive that, since I'm sticking to what Habermas has endorsed.) There is more than one way to give epistemological weight to consensus. One way is by considering it both sufficient and necessary for some sort of positive epistemic status. Another way is by considering it sufficient but not necessary. And another way is by considering it necessary but not sufficient. Since the minimal facts premises must have a certain degree and kind of consensus, and since this is said to be important for guarding against our own biases, I conclude that for this status (well-justified by publicly available evidence, and something for which we can be highly confident that we aren't being driven by our own biases) consensus is being treated as a necessary condition, though supposedly not sufficient.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Now, what is the connection here to the literary device views about which I've written so much?</p><p class="MsoNormal">In order to reject the idea that the Gospel authors deliberately changed the facts (whether or not you call those "devices"), and in order to be confident in that judgement, you have to be very ready to go up against scholarly consensus. But more: One needs to be ready to do that not just "as a Christian" (a concept used by both Craig Keener and William Lane Craig) but as a thinking person. In other words, you likely won't have enough confidence that the Gospel authors didn't change the facts if you just say, "I reject that idea because I'm a Christian and that wouldn't fit with my view of inspiration." Rather, you should think they didn't change the facts because that's the way the evidence points. You need to be willing to say that the scholars out there who think they did do so are seeing the evidence wrong. </p><p class="MsoNormal">More: Did someone say something about heterogenous agreement? Well, if we're just talking about labels, it is sadly the case nowadays that we have scholars who both have the "mainstream" or "skeptical" label and some who have the "evangelical" or "conservative" label who have capitulated to the idea that the Gospel authors deliberately changed the facts. I emphasize "label" because time was that endorsing such a thing would have meant by definition that you weren't an evangelical! Times change. The actual consensus can get narrower while the so-called spectrum of labels remains wide.</p><p class="MsoNormal">So the proposition, "The Gospel authors never deliberately changed the facts" is not only not granted by a heterogenous majority of NT scholars, it's <i>denied</i> and its <i>contadiction</i> is asserted by a majority of scholars, including some examples across the scholarly spectrum!</p><p class="MsoNormal">And here are you: Likely a Christian, likely a conservative Christian, maybe a devout Catholic, Baptist, or evangelical. And darn it, you may not even have a credential in the field. If you are going to disagree with this consensus, <i>how do you know that you aren't just being driven by your biases?</i></p><p class="MsoNormal">Now my answer to that is robustly anti-bandwagon, anti-credentialist, and evidential. I say that you go into the arguments that are being used by the scholars who are saying these things, whatever their labels, and you find out for yourself (yes, you can tell this even if you aren't a credentialed expert) that the arguments are terrible! And you find out all the great arguments that the Gospel authors were habitually truthful.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But if you accept what Habermas and Licona see as an important epistemological value--the use of consensus to guard against your own biases--it's going to be a lot harder to take this path and a lot harder to justify doing so to yourself. A <i>lot</i> harder. And believe me, I've seen this time and again: There is huge credentialist and consensus-based pressure placed on those who take a supposedly "too conservative" position, which is sometimes labeled as "fundamentalism."</p><p class="MsoNormal">Now, at this point, you may say something like this: "I never knew that Habermas said that about the importance of wide and large consensus for guarding against personal bias, nor that he connected it with the minimal facts method. I disagree with him on that. I use the MFA really, really, really just as a rhetorical way of arguing for the resurrection while using only facts that my non-Christian opponent will be likely to grant because they are so widely granted. I don't buy into that idea of the need for wide consensus to guard against bias, and I don't have to in order to use the MFA in this way. I'm totally willing to go up against consensus if it's wrong." (If you say this, though, please don't try to claim that Habermas didn't say this or that he doesn't connect it with the MFA, because I've documented that clearly.)</p><p class="MsoNormal">You're right, you don't<i> have to </i>agree with that reason for the need for consensus in order to use the MFA. I do not say, and I've never said, that the mere use of the MFA logically <i>requires</i> you to adopt this epistemological view about the value/importance of consensus in NT scholarship concerning the premises of arguments, even though the originators of the method do take that view and do connect it with their method. (And as I've documented here, Dr. William Lane Craig who has a somewhat similar "core facts" approach also conflates sociology and epistemology in his statements about how we know things about Jesus and what arguments are outdated.)</p><p class="MsoNormal">The first thing I would say if you make that response is that in that case you need to move on to something even more important--namely, my argument that the MFA is a weak argument for the resurrection! It actually doesn't provide a strong argument for the resurrection, once you recognize how limited the "appearance experience" fact/premise really is. See <a href="http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2021/11/on-minimal-facts-case-for-resurrection.html">here</a> for more. You need to consider that very carefully. We shouldn't be making weak arguments and implying that they are strong arguments. That's not good, and it certainly is no argument for doing so to say that it "works." We aren't just salesmen. We need to have intellectual integrity.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But hey, if you're <i>really just</i> using the MFA because you think it's easier rhetorically, you should be willing to give that up, right? It shouldn't be<i> too</i> hard for you to reconsider, right? Especially since I've shown again and again that a more "maximalist" type of argument, a Paleyan argument, can be given at various lengths and levels of detail. See <a href="https://youtu.be/JZKmTTQYXyw">here</a> and<a href="https://youtu.be/kyqF_9qPiG4"> here</a> for examples.</p><p class="MsoNormal">That brings me to another point if you insist that you, unlike Habermas and Licona, are not giving epistemological value to consensus: Do a very serious thought experiment. Try to be as honest and self-aware as possible. Ask yourself seriously what you would do if you became convinced that the MFA doesn't provide a good, strong argument for the resurrection. What would you do? Would you regroup and be willing to say, "Oh, well, in that case, the heck with consensus, I'll make the argument in a different way"? Are you even willing <i>right now</i> to listen carefully to the arguments that the MFA isn't very strong? Or are you shying away from that because you're so wedded to it? Because if so, just how sure are you that you're willing to damn the torpedoes and go up against consensus, that you aren't<i> at all</i> dependent on a feeling of epistemological security from the supposed consensus?</p><p class="MsoNormal">Or as an alternative, ask yourself: What would you do if, in your own lifetime, the consensus shifted radically so that even those minimal facts were no longer widely granted? Would you keep harking back to an artificially circumscribed earlier consensus? Would you be in denial? Or would you say, "Okay, I'll stop saying this about consensus in the present tense, and I'll make an argument without that rhetorical motif"? </p><p class="MsoNormal">You see, I hear people all the time absolutely insist, in an almost angry way, that no, no, no this is<i> just</i> rhetorical. They don't even want to admit what I've documented above about what Habermas and Licona have said epistemologically about their methodology. And yet. They also don't want to pay attention to my criticisms of the strength of the argument. Sometimes it isn't even just that they don't agree with them. In many cases they don't even want to hear it! (See <a href="http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2021/11/on-minimal-facts-case-for-resurrection.html">this post</a> for a summary of my criticisms of the strength of the argument.) And to my mind, that casts doubt upon the "it's just rhetorical" claim in the case of that person, even though the epistemological point discussed in this section is <i>in principle</i> separable from the use of the argument. </p><p class="MsoNormal">So, too, does the promotion of literary device theories without due consideration. More about that in the next section.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><u>Sociological/psychological connections between literary device view and the MFA</u></p><p class="MsoNormal">People get offended when I say what I'm going to say in this section. They also mishear it. They hear it as, "Lydia is saying that if you use the MFA you don't think that the Gospels are historically reliable, just because you're not using that in the argument for the resurrection." I'm not saying that. Nothing in this section is saying that. The point I'm making here is more nuanced than that, so again, please read carefully.</p><p class="MsoNormal">It is undeniable that if the MFA or some other argument that doesn't rely on Gospel reliability (like William Lane Craig's "core facts" approach) were a strong argument for the resurrection, this would make the stakes for Gospel reliability <i>comparatively lower</i> than the stakes would be if Gospel reliability were needed to undergird the argument for the resurrection. Thus far, this is just a<i> comparative</i> point. All else being equal, if we need Gospel reliability to have a strong argument for the central miracle of Christianity, the stakes for Gospel reliability are higher than they are if we don't need that for that argument. But in principle the stakes could still be very high, and some given person who uses the MFA could still recognize that they are very high. For example, you might think that you need a good, publicly available argument (not just the "internal witness of the Holy Spirit") for high Gospel reliability to make a good case for Jesus' teaching that he was God. (As an interesting sociological point, however, Dr. Craig <i>doesn't</i> think this. He uses a criteriological, passage-by-passage approach, to argue for Jesus' self-conception, and he doesn't use John 8:58 or John 10:30 in the argument.) Or you might think that you need such a publicly available argument for Gospel reliability in order to have a wide variety of Jesus' teachings for a well-taught personal relationship with God.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Now, <i>if</i> that's your position, and <i>if</i> you recognize further that the notion that the Gospel authors changed facts is incompatible with high Gospel reliability, <i>even if</i> the changes are labeled as "devices," and<i> if</i> you recognize that there are strong arguments against that notion, <i>then</i> you might use the MFA without being susceptible to the literary device views.</p><p class="MsoNormal">There are other possibilities. Maybe you recognize that there are high stakes to Gospel reliability but you have been confused by the obfuscating statements of evangelical literary device theories into thinking that these in no way undermine Gospel reliability. The obfuscation that occurs is highly, highly unfortunate, but if you are still unaware, let me say to pique your interest that when these folks use the term "paraphrase" and soothingly tell you that they aren't saying that the Gospel authors made anything up, this is highly misleading. One view that is spoken of as "paraphrase" is that John the evangelist was, shall we say, inspired by the saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" to make Jesus in his own Gospel say, "I thirst," which Jesus did not historically, recognizably utter. That probably isn't what you thought was going on if you considered these views uncontroversial, am I right? Another idea is that either John invented the scene between Jesus and Mary Magdalene at the tomb, because she really met Jesus under quite different circumstances when she was running from the tomb with joy, or that Matthew deliberately made her meet Jesus in those circumstances, while knowing that she really met him alone as recorded in John. Again, this is a matter of altering facts, but that isn't what the Christian advocates of these views normally bring up (even if they believe it) when assuring fellow Christians that this is all very trivial and there is nothing for them to worry about. So, if you do recognize the high stakes of Gospel reliability, and this is all new to you, I encourage you to get hold of <i>The Mirror or the Mask</i> rather than passing along the ideas uncritically.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">But once again, as with the problems with the cogency of the MFA, it's rather odd to find that folks who supposedly think the stakes are high for Gospel reliability often seem curiously un-curious about whether or not reliability is being undermined by the literary device views. If the stakes really are high, shouldn't you<i> find out more</i> before telling everybody who watches your Youtube channel (or listens to your presentations) that "Scholars like Michael Licona have found that the Gospel authors used special compositional devices and that these explain most of the apparent contradictions in the Gospels"? </p><p class="MsoNormal">Here I think there is a major sociological/psychological effect coming from the combination of the MFA with a certain meme or saying: "If the resurrection happened, then Christianity is true, period." Hmmm. the word "period" there does tend to convey the idea that this is meant to be taken literally, though I know that some people use the saying unwarily while meaning it as hyperbole. But the more you say it, and the more you listen to some high-profile apologists, the more likely you are to mean it literally. Literally, it's false. Plenty of heretics believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Biblical unitarians, Socinians, as far as I know even Mormons. It's entirely possible logically to believe in the resurrection of Jesus and to have non-Christian doctrine.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But the constant urging from the MFA camp is, "Use this, it works. Use this, the resurrection is everything. If it's true, Christianity is true, period. We can work out all those other little details later. Use this, it will bring people to Christ." I'm sorry to say that this sort of rhetoric--the very urging one often hears from people who<i> insist</i> that this has no connection to anything else--encourages carelessness. It encourages intellectual laziness. It encourages putting off indefinitely that nitty-gritty examination of alleged contradictions, which are spoken of over and over and over again as unimportant, irrelevant, something we can grant for the sake of the argument. We can get to them later, always later. Somehow, though, the time never comes. The time for worrying about them or dealing with them is put off indefinitely while their importance is downplayed. How does this <i>not</i> give the impression that the skeptical insistence that the Gospels are full of contradictions and deliberate factual changes is no big deal and wouldn't matter much even if it were true? </p><p class="MsoNormal">Here's another thought experiment: How many presently living, high-profile Christian leaders do you know of who both a) use the MFA regularly in public presentations and b) consciously, unashamedly, and publicly reject the fact-changing literary device views? People who combine all of these characteristics are as rare as hens' teeth. I have encountered a huge amount of behind-the-scenes stonewalling when it comes to these matters. Some don't want to hear. Some don't want to take the time. Some don't want to speak out.</p><p class="MsoNormal">For the most part, the people who have public platforms, are well-known, and make heavy use of the MFA or "core facts" approaches are the very people who don't apparently think the matter of fact-changing literary devices is important enough to be a) investigated carefully and b) publicly and unashamedly rejected after investigation. Some, like (unfortunately) William Lane Craig and Gary Habermas, have decided to <i>endorse</i> the literary device work of Licona, at least in general terms, though without always spelling out in detail which specific examples they endorse.</p><p class="MsoNormal">I do not think that social fact is an accident, though it's not a matter of logical entailment from the MFA. Rather, it's a matter of being so focused in one's thinking and one's ministry for so many years, on "not worrying about" skeptical claims that the Gospels are full of inventions and embellishments (ostensibly granting this just "for the sake of the argument"), in order to make an argument whose premises will be acceptable to the scholarly establishment. The strong psychological temptation is then to think that anything that one has set aside like this isn't really <i>all that important</i>. After all, what does it really matter if John made up "I thirst" and "It is finished"? If the resurrection happened, then Christianity is true, period! What does it really matter if John made up the sub-scene where Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit"? That doesn't change "the gist" for some meanings of "gist." ("The gist" gets broader and broader, doesn't it?) And if the resurrection happened, then Christianity is true, period! What does it really matter if Matthew created a "doublet" of two blind men healed early in Jesus' ministry, plus the two blind men healed near the end? If the resurrection happened, then Christianity is true, period! How much does it matter if the Gospel authors thought that they were licensed to make all kinds of invisible factual changes, due to the "standards of their time"? After all, if the resurrection happened, Christianity is true, period!</p><p class="MsoNormal">The MFA does tell us that we have a strong argument that the resurrection happened that would still work <i>even if</i> the Gospels were unreliable. That much is an undeniable part of the MFA. So, if the literary device views call in that promissory note by hypothesizing that the authors did indeed change things, perhaps we shouldn't worry too much about it.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The issue of inerrancy plays an interesting role here: The stakes if the doctrine of inerrancy is false may be different (I think they are very different) from the stakes if the Gospels are not robustly, literally, historically reliable. But in articles like <a href="https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P110/scriptural-inerrancy-and-the-apologetic-task">this one</a> we see these issues conflated. If you think (rightly, I would say) that we have an excellent case for Christianity even if traditional inerrancy is false, it <i>does not follow</i> that we have an excellent case even if literal Gospel reliability is false. The rhetoric surrounding minimalist approaches unfortunately encourages the conflation between inerrancy and robust, literal reliability, which in turn helps to convey the notion that robust reliability is a fairly low-stakes issue.</p><p class="MsoNormal">This is the sociological/psychological connection between the MFA and acceptance of the literary device views: If you think that robust, unredefined, literal Gospel reliability is a fairly low-stakes issue, you are tempted to accept too readily, without due investigation, theories that undermine it such as the view that the evangelists sometimes deliberately changed facts. And the MFA, especially taken in conjunction with the idea that if the resurrection is true, that's all that is necessary for Christianity, makes it psychologically easy to conclude that literal Gospel reliability is a fairly low-stakes issue, since it is part of the MFA to say that you can have a strong argument for the resurrection using only a small number of premises granted by a large consensus of scholars across the spectrum.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Again, I cannot repeat too often, the point in this section is<i> not </i>a necessary, logical connection. You<i> can</i> consistently be an MFA user and a fierce, intelligent defender of unredefined Gospel reliability. But I wish we saw more of those, and all the more so if they were also willing to listen to concerns about the cogency of the MFA. </p><p class="MsoNormal">But if you're deeply invested in the kind of rhetoric and talk that constantly goes around in certain evangelical apologetic circles, you <i>will find</i> that enthusiastic adoption of the MFA (and even angry defense thereof) tends to go hand-in-hand with downplaying the stakes for robust Gospel reliability and also with very great openness to, if not outright advocacy of, the literary device views. And all of these positions unfortunately tend to be held with a disturbing level of closed-mindedness in which critics such as myself are constantly rebuked for daring to criticize other Christians or other Christians' arguments. "Misrepresentation" is constantly alleged even where it cannot be shown to be true, and the shallow, lazy characterizations of my own criticisms are, ironically, instances of misrepresentation! For my own part, I think it's fairly obvious that both the above epistemic issue (about consensus) and the sociological/psychological issues discussed in this section are at work, along with the sheer popularity of the MFA. Criticizing a popular position has never been popular.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><u>Conclusion</u></p><p class="MsoNormal">So where does that leave us? Especially, where does it leave you if you've been using either the MFA or Dr. Craig's "core facts" approach and the idea of a problem with it is relatively new to you?</p><p class="MsoNormal">I would say that if that's where you're coming from, you should dive into other<a href="http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2021/11/on-minimal-facts-case-for-resurrection.html"> things</a> I've produced on this, especially on the "appearance experience" claim. Consider that what is granted by a huge majority of scholars across the spectrum <i>is not</i> that the disciples had experiences of the kind described in the Gospels but merely that they had experiences of some kind. These could have been vague or ghostly. They could have been vision-like. They needn't have had physical aspects involving touch, or eating, or lengthy conversations. They could have even had experiences that were evidence that they were <i>not</i> seeing a physically risen person--for example, if Jesus appeared transparent. Perhaps they didn't even have a clear sensory experience as a group. Mainstream scholars typically think that the physical details of the Gospel accounts are later embellishments and therefore typically think that the disciples, if they had appearance experiences, had experiences of a type that could be explained in some non-physical manner. Therefore, to include these scholars in a consensus that the disciples really had appearance experiences that are best explained by the literal, physical resurrection is to gerrymander a consensus. Well, I'll leave it there for now, since I've written and talked about it quite a bit in other places. But check it out. If this is just a rhetorical matter for you, if you're really not epistemologically dependent on the comfort of using only premises granted by a large, heterogenous majority of scholars, then you should be willing to change your rhetorical strategy. And if you are epistemologically dependent on consensus, you should reconsider that!</p><p class="MsoNormal">Now, suppose that you do think that Gospel reliability is a high-stakes issue. If you are unaware or only vaguely aware of what the literary device views are that I've been talking about, or (especially) if you've already committed yourself somewhere to the idea that lots of alleged discrepancies in the Gospels are best dealt with by specialized knowledge about "compositional devices of the time," then I would strongly suggest you delve into that. I've dealt with these issues in many places, most especially in<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Mask-Liberating-Gospels-Literary/dp/1947929070"> <i>The Mirror or the Mask</i></a>, in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe1tMOs8ARn0S9CsFG47bKjcYxsnHujhg">video series </a>, and in many other videos and blog posts.</p><p class="MsoNormal">I'd especially suggest this: If you feel unpleasantly surprised or even annoyed by my making any sort of connection (either epistemic or social) between those views and the MFA as discussed in this post, it would be a good thing for you to ask yourself as honestly as possible whether you yourself are a case in point of the too-ready acceptance of the literary device views or apathy about them. Are you spending way more time and energy arguing on social media that there is absolutely nothing wrong in the slightest with the MFA, that it is a strong argument and that its use has no ill effects, that anyone who criticizes it in any way must be misrepresenting it, than you are willing to spend understanding the literary device views and their spreading influence in the evangelical world? Is that a reasonable set of priorities? If you do investigate them, and you realize that the compositional device perspective is problematic, please <i>say so</i>. Please say so <i>publicly.</i> I would say that publicly saying there appears to be a problem is<i> especially</i> incumbent on you if you have previously publicly endorsed the compositional device views, even in broad outline and even without knowing what you were endorsing or giving a positive platform to. Wagon circling and silence when something is seriously wrong do not create a good social dynamic. </p><p class="MsoNormal">In closing, let me say loud and clear that I fully realize that there are lay apologists all over the U.S. and probably all over the world who are sincere Christians, have picked up minimal facts or generally minimalist arguments for the resurrection, and are using them enthusiastically, who have not the slightest intention of saying that the Gospel authors knowingly changed facts. Many laymen using minimalist approaches would be opposed to the literary device views if they knew of them and (<i>sans </i>euphemisms) understood what those views really are. I know that. I get that. I'm not saying that you're being inconsistent if you're one of those laymen. But I also believe that the MFA is oversold as far as what it can do. And I know that some of the same high-profile people promoting generally minimalist arguments are also promoting the constant deferral of questions about robust reliability and alleged contradictions. Some are also promoting downplaying statements about what is at stake in such questions and/or promoting the unqualified slogan, "If the resurrection happened, then Christianity is true, period," or something much like it. Some are also promoting the compositional device views. No doubt the leaders saying these things have the good intention of helping people and winning people to Christ, but I think they've made some serious mistakes. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Even though one of these perspectives doesn't follow logically from another, they fit together quite well in a meta-apologetic worldview. So those lay-level apologists who are innocently using the MFA are often in a social and intellectual position where they are potentially vulnerable to eventually follow a line of thought from minimalism in resurrection arguments to assuming pretty low stakes for robust, literal Gospel reliability to uncritical promotion of literary device views. I want to raise a warning about that.</p><p class="MsoNormal">And if you consider it important to assume good intentions whenever possible, I ask you to assume <i>my</i> good intentions, as well, and my sincere desire to be of help to the church and the world, to the glory of God. </p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-25833954901945117362022-05-05T10:42:00.002-04:002022-05-05T10:42:40.150-04:00The Rascal Flatts response to Divine Hiddenness<p>This is a more explicitly philosophical expansion on some remarks in my <a href="https://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2022/02/pain-and-silence-of-man-or-trust-is-not.html">previous post</a>. This post is intended more for those interested in philosophy of religion. I want to stress that what I say here belongs to the realm of speculative theology, though some aspects of it (such as the proposition that God is not obligated to give the beatific vision to everyone from conception) seem intuitively obvious.</p><p>I had a recent conversation in which I brought out the ideas contained here and was asked if I'd ever written anything on them. I said no, except for the post "Pain and the Silence of Man," which is more "existential" in nature. Asked if anyone else has done so, I said that I'm not aware of any article or book in the philosophy of religion that has done so, though it seems that there must be <i>someone</i> who has written something much like this, since these topics have been written about so much over years and indeed centuries.</p><p>The objection I'm answering here goes approximately like this: </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">If God is perfectly good, then communion and a relationship with him is the highest good for rational creatures. If God is perfectly good, then he would desire that greatest good at all times for such creatures. Yet there are people who would not resist God if he were revealed to them, who live in ignorance of him. And there are people who already know God somewhat who are left without experiences that would draw them still closer to him, at times when they could benefit from those experiences. This absence of further, personal, individualized divine revelation is evidence against the goodness of God.</p></blockquote><p>I am not footnoting this objection, since I don't claim to have researched the literature, but those who are into philosophy of religion will recognize it as a version of the argument against theism (or against the existence of a <i>good </i>God) from divine hiddenness.</p><p>The fact that some people live and die in contexts where they never hear of the true God is an illustration of the issue. The fact that some Christians (me, for example) suffer during "dark nights" when we could be encouraged by some direct experience of God such as an audible voice, but don't receive it, is also an illustration.</p><p>Some version of "soft" inclusivism (without the necessity for universalism) or even Molinism is the beginning of an answer to "what about those who have never heard." If we are otherwise evidentially convinced of the<i> justice</i> of God, we can have reasonable hope that God reveals himself, possibly at death, to those who have had no other access to knowledge of him and who, God knows, will respond positively to that revelation and accept the true God and Jesus Christ. The occurrence of Christian dreams as an apparent <i>praeparatio evangelica</i> is even some evidence for the proposition that God uses extraordinary means to bring salvation to those who have not naturally heard of him.</p><p>But the person pressing the divine hiddenness argument may respond by saying that his concern rather is that God left that person for years <i>without </i>the knowledge of himself, maybe even for the person's whole lifetime, so that the person "missed out" on the good of the knowledge of God during those years, and that this is incompatible with the goodness of God, since he should want a relationship with his creatures at all times. (All of<i> their </i>times, that is, if God himself is outside of time, which I believe to be the case.)</p><p>It seems to me that, taken to its logical conclusion, this objection would require that God not defer in any way to the natural circumstances, the chances and changes, of anyone's life, since these lead to differential levels of knowledge of himself at different stages, but should give everyone the beatific vision from the earliest moment of existence. One might protest that the objection can be qualified so that it concerns only those rational beings at times when they are "capable" of a relationship with God, but that seems a dubious qualification. Suppose that some mentally disabled people lack that capacity through no fault of their own all their lives? If we are saying that a good God "would" give a miraculous revelation of himself to the isolated person who has never heard of him, so that that person could know him and have a relationship with him, and that a good God "would" provide more sensible revelations of himself to non-resistant believers such as myself, then why not demand that a good God work a miracle so that those who are otherwise mentally incapacitated become capable of the knowledge of himself, throughout their earthly lives? Or if one wants to qualify it (though this seems rather arbitrary), the objection would still seem to mean that from, say, age 4 or 5 onward, God should grant everyone immediate knowledge and experience of himself by supernatural means.</p><p>Let us suppose that a specific virtuous pagan who (God knows) will accept a revelation of God does receive that special revelation at death, accepts it, and thus enters into eternal bliss and the beatific vision--perfect sinlessness, knowledge of God, and communion with God. The ultimate "personal relationship." That eternity with God makes the years of that person's life seem very short in comparison. If we nonetheless hold as an objection to God's goodness that he did not make such a revelation sooner, then it seems that we are saying that even this comparatively short mortal life is somehow "too long" for a good God to leave anyone without a strong, experiential relationship with himself.</p><p>In Romans 1 Paul says that even the heathen have <i>some </i>knowledge of God as Creator, but this objection would say that that knowledge is too little to demonstrate divine goodness. And if it is extended to include the <i>absence </i>of personal experience on the part of Christians such as myself (e.g., the lack of a reassuring voice or "sense of presence" in times of pain), then apparently the claim is that a good God would give a great deal of self-revelation to all non-resistant people at any times in their lives when they could benefit from it. It is hard to see how one could consistently stop short of saying that God must give something akin to the beatific vision, at the very least a mystical, even theologically accurate and contentful, sense of his presence, to everyone whom he knows will be non-resistant, from a very early point in their lives.</p><p>Someone pressing the objection might say that this attempted reductio is unsuccessful and that all that he is asking by intuition is something far less than that, though I would say that at that point we are impugning the love of God on the basis of some fairly shaky line-drawing about what God would do if he were truly good. To name some degree of personal relationship that God is obligated to give everyone who won't resist it, in this life, seems to me (to put it mildly) not evidentially strong as an anti-theistic argument.</p><p>(It should go without saying, but I will say it in case it doesn't go without saying: I'm assuming throughout this discussion that there is a crucial difference between God's<i> not</i> intervening, using extraordinary means, to bring about a personal relationship with himself by extraordinary means and his intervening, using extraordinary means, to <i>prevent</i> a relationship with himself. Similarly, there is a crucial difference between God's <i>permitting</i> one man to murder another, and sovereignly bringing some greater good out of that permitted sin, and his <i>forcing</i> one man to murder another, in order to bring about some higher good. I am not claiming or granting that God deliberately, miraculously <i>blocks</i> non-resistant people from being in a relationship with him, nor as far as I know do we have any evidence whatsoever that he does so. Verses in Scripture about God's hardening someone's heart, as in the case of Pharaoh, seem to refer to those who were previously resistant.)</p><p>But let's come at this whole thing from a different angle, suggested in the title of this post. There is a song by Rascal Flatts called<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-vZlrBYLSU"> "Bless the Broken Road."</a> The idea of it is that the speaker is in a sense thankful even for the strange and convoluted ways by which he came to union with his earthly beloved: "God blessed the broken road that led me straight to you."</p><p>The previous post mused on the venerable Christian teaching that suffering is used by God in some mysterious way for the greater good of the one who suffers. I emphasized there the difficulty of expressing what that "greater good" is and the importance of not being glib about it, and I sincerely hope that this more philosophical post is not in any way violating that caution. But in addition to several biblical verses mentioned there asserting the soul-making value of suffering, consider the statement in Ephesians 2:10 that we are God's workmanship.</p><p>To answer to the objection I'm considering here, we should ponder the value of individual diversity in the overall divine economy--the "whole thing" that is all of history and creation, which God is making here in time. (While being, I would argue, outside of time himself.) Each one of us undergoes a certain life, which includes joys and sorrows, our own choices as to how to respond, human interactions, including those by which some of us come to know theological truths and to desire consciously to have a relationship with God. These diverse means include proclamation of the gospel by friends, parents, missionaries, preachers, etc., down to the smallest moments when we are struck, in those things that come our way, with a sense of beauty or the transcendent. Clearly God uses the "chances and changes of this mortal life" to bring souls to himself. In some cases the way is longer than others, and more years of this little life pass before one hears of God. Or perhaps the person is sinfully resistant at first and later softens. There are as many ways of God with man as there are individual men.</p><p>Now suppose just for a moment that the specificity of your own life contributes, if you ultimately accept God, love him, and acquiesce in his sovereignty, to your specific niche in the glory of creation, which you will understand and enjoy as perfectly as it is in your nature to do, in heaven. This specific "way of getting there" includes the panoply of joys and sorrows, the fact that you learned of Christ in this way rather than that way, the years when you wandered in exile, physical suffering and physical bliss, agony and the forgiveness of sins, friendships and betrayals, the specifics of your culture, and more. All of these things that contribute to the "total you," that four-dimensional space-time being, God sees whole, all at once, and he turns them to his own glory and also, if you are saved and not damned, to your joy and glory as a finite being. </p><p>The demand that God be "in personal relationship" fully with everyone at all times in all lives on this earth flattens this diversity and would (arguably) prevent us from becoming those unique beings with whom the various niches of rational creation, praising God, are filled. For our differences are not only differences of essence but also of historical contingency. As the angelic beings say in the long vision scene at the end of<i> Perelandra,</i> each one is<i> in a sense</i> the center--the humans are the center, the Perelandrans are the center, the cherubim are the center. Each one has its infinite worth; let no man say it nay. So the adult convert who wandered long in the land of the prodigals and ate of the husks until he came to himself has his unique place in the heavenly choir, where he continually praises God for what God forgave, as does the little child who loved Jesus early and died young. So too does the pagan, if there be any such, to whom the true God reveals himself in a flash of knowledge after a life groping in the darkness of animism. So does the Christian who begged God for a miraculous sign, or for healing, or for a voice in the night, and did not receive it. That "not receiving," in the wisdom of God, becomes a part of what makes that person who he ultimately is, to the glory of God. </p><p>If we reject that process and are damned, hell (I suspect) is a great leveler. You demanded equality? Be careful what you ask for. Heaven is full of shining differences and special glories. God works individually with each one, through the true story that is history, in which we freely, causally participate, until he closes the book.</p><p>It is possible that I am wrong in some part of what I have said here, but this theodicy, or part of a theodicy, has for a long time seemed to me importantly true as far as it goes. It is, at a minimum, <i>conceivable</i> that it should be true. It is a "greater good" on which we can get some sort of grasp, of which we can catch a glimmer. And that, I tend to think, is quite sufficient to answer the objection in question, especially when combined with the evidence for the Christian metaphysics and the Christian revelation that teaches us, explicitly, that God is the great Potter, the great Author, and that eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, all the things that God is now preparing for those who love him. It seems to me entirely plausible that those who see him face to face live forever to bless the broken road that led them to that end.</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-85442495494998608602022-02-02T09:36:00.000-05:002022-02-02T09:36:15.381-05:00Pain and the silence of man, or Trust is not a skill<p>Several months ago I put up <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1E4H2eiVbQ&t=813s">a video</a> called "Pain and the Silence of God" about my abrupt descent from robust good health into agonizing and apparently incurable bad health. That video has garnered a lot of views, and I hope it's been helpful to someone.</p><p>Not to beat around the bush: I am not getting better, even gradually. Symptom severity simply goes round and round, one day to the next, with no positive trajectory. The medical establishment has no solutions and isn't even very good at managing pain as a symptom. I have recently started taking a new pain medication that is having some slight effect, and I'm grateful for that, but the effects shouldn't be exaggerated. </p><p>In passing, I always swore if I ever were chronically ill I wouldn't be one of those people who tell other people what not to say, but...here we are: When talking with a chronically ill person, it's not the best idea to say, "You're not better<i> yet</i>?" or, a recent favorite, to sign off of a phone call where you were discussing other topics with a chipper, "Glad you're feeling better [click]," leaving the person on the other end saying to himself, "Wait, what? Did I say that?" (Apparently the ability to discuss topics other than one's illness without using an agonized voice means that one is "feeling better.")</p><p>In the course of recent days and nights I've been reflecting on the extreme difficulty of expressing the soul-making theodicy in a way that is going to make sense to a person, perhaps especially a Christian, living with long-term, significant pain. The soul-making theodicy, as readers probably know, is the idea that God allows suffering to make us holier and more spiritually mature than we would be otherwise. It has ample Scriptural warrant. (James 1:2-4, I Peter 1:6-7, I Peter 5:10, Romans 5:1-5, II Corinthians 4:16-18, and more.)</p><p>But that theodicy can be surprisingly difficult to spell out in more detail, and more and more as I live through this (and perhaps I have decades more of it to live through), I begin to think that almost any way of expressing it, though true as far as it goes, will be inadequate. In other words, I'm beginning to think that perhaps there is something incommunicable and mysterious, something that we'll understand only in heaven (if then) about what suffering does for us and to us that is valuable.</p><p>Take any expression that "suffering teaches us that..." A good example would be, "Suffering teaches us that this world is not our home and that we shouldn't be too comfortable and at home here." Let me tell you right now: For any serious Christian who already believed that in theory, it would take only a few weeks <i>at most</i> of severe daily, even hourly physical pain to have him recognizing fully in every pore of his body that heaven is a much better place than this and that he is<i> not at home</i> here on this earth. Indeed, the far greater temptation is to long for death. Yes, certainly--to depart and be with Christ is far better. Amen. I've <i>got that lesson down</i>, Lord!</p><p>Or "God sends suffering to teach us that our blessings shouldn't be taken for granted." Yep, got that one too! When you've suffered significant pain even for a while, you definitely learn to appreciate things you never appreciated fully before. The ability to sit, stand, and walk without discomfort and without thinking about your body, just for starters. The ability to concentrate fully on something other than your own body, and to enjoy concentrating. The ability to lie down in bed and relax all your muscles, to slip from thoughts into dreams, to drift into sleep slowly, deliciously, rather than knocking yourself out abruptly with drugs, going from pain to oblivion. Far too many blessings to list. And there are blessings that I still have: My wonderful husband, for example, whom I appreciate more now than ever before. You promise God, yourself, your spouse, your family, your ancestors, the sky, stars, moon, and sun, the saints, the people on the Internet: If I ever get better, I will never again take x, y, or z, p, d, q, r, or s for granted! I'll be grateful for them all the livelong day! Please give me the chance to prove it!</p><p>Don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying that these statements about what God teaches us through suffering are false. I'm just saying they are inadequate.</p><p>The idea that God sends, or allows, suffering to teach us how to <i>do</i> something (rather than to teach us a propositional truth) is a little less inadequate, but still...</p><p>"God allows suffering to teach us to take one day at a time." Well, yes, that's true. Jesus said it, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." You certainly get plenty of opportunities to practice putting away worries and even not worrying at all about certain things that used to seem big but now seem small next to The Big Thing. (The Big Thing is, will it be like this until I die?) You learn, a <i>little</i> anyway, to look no farther ahead than an hour, perhaps a half hour, perhaps five minutes, just to take from the Lord the grace given, moment by moment. But one is sometimes moved to reflect that the means used seem disproportionate. It feels rather like putting weights on the feet of a toddler who hasn't yet learned to walk and telling concerned strangers, "This is strength training. Just think what a strong walker she'll be if she can walk with those things on her feet!" Hmm, yes, if she ever learns to walk at all. </p><p>Until you've actually lived with severe chronic pain, you have no idea how impossible it seems to put away the obsessive thoughts: "Am I getting better? Is this ever going to go away? Oh, hey, it was better there for about an hour this afternoon. When is it going to come back? Here it comes! What is it going to be like tonight and tomorrow? Lord, please make it stop!" "Take no thought for the morrow" starts to sound like a cruel impossibility, and no matter how often one reminds oneself that strength is given only for now, not for tomorrow, that sounds somewhat academic in the trenches. So in a way you learn to take one day at a time, but in a way you "learn" just the opposite.</p><p>One of the best of the "to teach us to..." explanations is "to teach us to trust." It's just here, though, that language fails. For that formulation makes trust sound like a skill. And I'm here to tell you: When you are suffering, <i>trust is not a skill</i>. Like most apophatic utterances, that statement is a negation that doesn't communicate much. I'm well aware of that. Perhaps I can be a little clearer. Trust is not a skill because when you most need to trust, you have no strength to exercise any skill. So it follows that you have no skill. When you most need to trust you have nothing. "Where then is boasting?" says St. Paul on another topic. "It is excluded." Right. Precisely. To trust in those hours and minutes is not a skill but a mental and spiritual necessity, like breathing, in and out. Only it's like breathing when breathing is hard. "Help me. Hold onto me. Don't let me hate you. Help thou mine unbelief. Help so-and-so. Help that woman, I can't remember her name." And so forth, and so on. Childish prayers, incoherent prayers, weird prayers, trivial prayers, the mind confused at times and just trying to find a place to rest. Not a skill. But you can't say what it is. It's something you do because you have to survive. </p><p>Here's a pretty good "to learn to..." You learn to take one joy at a time. If there is anything good, anything beautiful, anything true or straight or lovely, and for even one endless, timeless minute you are given leave, given the privilege, to focus on that thing, not feeling your pain or discomfort, by God, you do it. You learn to say, "Shut up!" and make it stick (at least briefly) to that internal trivial chatterer that accompanied you almost constantly before The Great Change and that ruined so many moments when your body used to let you contemplate beauty at will. So many hours and days that used to be wasted on nothing at all. So that's something. When you get a respite and there is something good that you are permitted to see, hear, smell, taste, or contemplate, without distraction, you learn, or start to learn, or take a first step to learn, not to waste the opportunity.</p><p>How well can that be expressed? Suppose I'm having a relatively-less-bad Sunday morning, or even five minutes of a Sunday morning, and something leaps out at me from the hymnal. How can I tell you what it was on a recent Sunday about the words, "Doubt and terror are withdrawn" from the hymn "Watchman, tell us of the night" that nearly had me in tears? I can say only that they were good tears, that it is a great gift to tear up in a fashion momentarily untinged by bitterness or self-pity, filled with a faint, imperfect perception of something solid and beautiful beyond the world, beyond the conceiving of man. But what exactly it was in that phrase that brought that sense? That, I cannot tell you. Nor can I communicate to you clearly what I saw or thought I saw, however briefly.</p><p>You might say that I have had such epiphanies before, when I had not suffered this much, and that surely it is not necessary for me to go on suffering so much (or even more) in order to have them. Is it? It can't be, can it? Right, it seems that way to me, too. I don't claim to understand. </p><p>Perhaps the only final answer one can give to the question of what God is doing in each of us (and in a different way in each of us), using both joy and pain, intellect and emotion and will, is that he's making us into something else. (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=709s0O44Ois">See here </a>for a great preacher's approach to that truth, assuring us that none of our suffering is meaningless.) He is making us into citizens of the Country from which that epiphany came. Which is not quite "teaching us that...." nor "teaching us to..." though it has elements of both. It is something else as well. Something we cannot express. </p><p>If one day we find ourselves together in that Country, we will look at each other and point, and we will say, "There! That! <i>That's </i>what it was all about!" And we will laugh.</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-59503714884629255632021-12-02T09:21:00.001-05:002022-06-13T12:21:29.022-04:00On the minimal facts for the resurrection, Part 3: How did we get confused about what scholars grant?<p>My purpose in this post is two-fold. First, for those interested in "McGrew history," I want to explain a timeline of how it came about that, for a time, Tim and I were confused about how much scholars across the spectrum grant about the resurrection. That confusion made it into our 2009 article, which has in turn caused some people to think that we ourselves were doing something significantly like an MFA in that article. (This has sometimes led to a frustrating attempt to play "gotcha" by quoting certain comments about consensus from that article and then claiming that it is very strange, or ironic, or something like that, that we have since then emerged as critics of the MFA.) Even at the time, we were self-consciously not doing an MFA. We knew that our argument was not an MFA and that it was crucially relying on the polymodal details of the disciples' claims. But we<i> were</i> mistaken about how much scholars grant, and we referred to that incorrectly (though with some qualifications) in the article. How did that happen, and how did we get un-confused? Some people may find that history interesting.</p><p>Second, I want to warn about a very real possibility and ask people doing the MFA to be much more careful. People who state the MFA can cause confusion in others about how<i> little </i>the majority of NT scholars really do grant. </p><p>I realize that that part of my post is going to upset some people, so I want to say a couple of things about that right here at the outset, while perhaps I still have readers' attention: When I discuss below some places where I think that Gary Habermas has been unclear on this point, I am <i>not at all</i> saying that he has been intentionally unclear. I think it has been unintentional. I would call it something like getting carried away or getting overenthusiastic in stating the argument, thus describing the disciples' experiences in ways that go <i>beyond </i>what skeptical and liberal scholars grant, and then returning to claim that the argument depends <i>only</i> on what the vast majority of scholars all across the ideological spectrum grant. </p><p>Also, I am not saying that Habermas is <i>always</i> unclear. Sometimes he is <i>very</i> clear about how limited the appearance minimal fact really is. I fully acknowledge this. </p><p>And finally, I am not saying that Habermas <i>explicitly says</i> that skeptical scholars grant more than they really grant. However, I am saying that in some of what he writes, which is influencing apologetics, he does give that impression (no doubt accidentally), especially if what he writes is read by someone who doesn't already know that skeptical scholars and "critical" scholars would never grant that much. In these writings he is supposedly<i> informing</i> the reader of how much is granted by many scholars and how surprising it is. So you shouldn't need to know<i> already</i> what is and isn't granted in order to avoid getting confused!</p><p>Although this may sound harsh, I would like to request that you would refrain from commenting on this post if your only purpose is saying something like, "Habermas is clear over in this<i> other </i>place!" or "<i>Anybody</i> should know that skeptical scholars wouldn't grant that, so you'd really have to have something<i> wrong</i> with you to be confused!" or even, "But I can<i> find</i> some other way to construe this article or this passage, so it isn't unclear, so you're wrong!" The fact that you can find some other way to construe a passage doesn't mean that it isn't unclear and doesn't mean that intelligent people of good will couldn't get confused by reading it. It doesn't prevent my warning from being well-taken.</p><p>Look: I'm saying that intelligent people of good will who don't <i>already</i> know what the consensus does and doesn't contain could pretty easily get confused about this from such passages as those I'll quote, and some <i>have</i> gotten confused. Therefore, MFA users need to be more careful. Is that really such a threatening statement that you have to try to read the passages with a magnifying glass, cherry pick certain sentences, insist that we focus only on this sentence or that sentence, in order to find some way to say I'm being sloppy, misrepresenting, or that we must have been nuts ever to have been confused, etc.? If you think about it, it's kind of a moderate point. I'm not saying that Dr. Habermas <i>was or is or ever has been</i> dishonest about this matter.</p><p>I'm also saying that the context itself is part of what is confusing. You have to look at the flow of the article or passage. You can't legitimately insist on restricting attention only to the <i>briefest</i> statement of the minimal fact, look at <i>nothing else</i>, and say, "See, there, he doesn't say anything more in <i>that list of the minimal facts, </i>so that's all that matters." No, that isn't all that matters, if he then goes on to rely importantly on something<i> more</i> in the exposition of the argument, while<i> claiming </i>that he's only relying on what virtually all scholars grant! </p><p>I'm saying, here are some illustrative passages from Dr. Habermas that are quite understandably confusing to a reader, so please be more careful than this. It's not necessary and not helpful for MFA proponents to oppose such a point to the death. If you have no objection to being clear, just try to make it extremely clear that the majority of scholars don't really grant much of interest about<i> what the disciples' experiences were actually like</i>. </p><p>What's the problem? If the problem is that the MFA won't look very strong if we state openly that most skeptical and liberal scholars don't grant much about the nature of the disciples' appearance experiences, that is not my problem. </p><p>Another thing: It doesn't refute anything I'm saying in this post to point to places where either MFA proponents or skeptics say something like, "That the disciples really had resurrection experiences is widely granted, even though some try to explain these naturalistically." That's not the point. Just saying that (or similar things)<i> isn't enough</i> to clear up the confusion. I'm concerned about the potential (and in some cases actual) confusion people have about <i>what the subjective nature of the experiences was like</i> and how much is and isn't granted on <i>that</i> point. Of course skeptics will try to<i> explain</i> the experiences (whatever they were like) naturalistically. The question is, do virtually all scholars grant that the disciples had highly physical-like <i>experiences</i> <i>like those recorded in the Gospels</i>? Well, no, they don't! Everybody who actually knows the scholarly literature knows that. But unfortunately in statements of the MFA, that is not always well explained. When that is combined with eye-popping statements about the<i> amazing </i>scholarly agreement about the resurrection appearances, that can lead to confusion on that point--what do the "vast majority of scholars" concede about what these experiences were like? </p><p>Onward to personal history.</p><p><u>How the confusion about scholarly consensus got into our 2009 article</u></p><p>In 2007-2008 when Tim and I were writing our article on the resurrection for the <i>Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology</i>, available<a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com/Resurrectionarticlesinglefile.pdf"> here</a>, Tim had read far more of Dr. Habermas's work than I had. Our article (as anyone who has read it knows) was already going to be quite long, due to the generosity of William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland, the editors, in giving us page space. Obviously we weren't going to include in a single article an entire defense of the reliability of the Gospels!</p><p>We knew quite well that we wanted to base our argument in part upon the specifics of the disciples' testimony as given in the Gospels. After all, you can't base an argument on testimony unless you specify the content of the testimony! We knew that we wanted to use the polymodal nature of that testimony--that the disciples claimed that they could touch Jesus, hear him, and see him, that they had long conversations with him, that they ate with him in groups, and so forth. We considered that salient and important. And we therefore knew that we were structuring our argument differently from the MFA. For one thing, we talked about the "testimony of the women" rather than the "empty tomb." I can remember our discussing that specifically. While the testimony of the women of course included their claiming that they found the tomb empty, it included more--their claims of seeing Jesus, talking to an angel, and so forth. Moreover, we decided that instead of saying that the disciples <i>had</i> experiences, as the MFA does, we would instead conditionalize on their <i>testifying</i> to their experiences. Along <i>that</i> axis, we regarded ourselves as (in a sense) being<i> less</i> generous than the MFA in the facts we were conditionalizing on, since the MFA says that they actually had experiences. </p><p>I can remember our discussing the question of what scholars do and don't grant and Tim's being quite definite that, especially given the modestness of our assumption that this was just what the disciples<i> claimed</i>, Habermas's research about the surprising degree of scholarly consensus would support it. He was basing this on his reading of a number of different works by Habermas, such as the older debate with Flew, <i>The Verdict of History</i>, <i>The Historical Jesus</i>, etc. (The latter two of these contain several pages that are identical on this topic.)</p><p>So we proceded to write the article, and we put a sentence in it, in particular, that contained something incorrect:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Indeed, much of our argument could be made without even the
general claim of reliability, since as we shall point out many of the salient facts are agreed upon
by scholars across the spectrum. But we have chosen to frame the argument this way since we
think the general reliability claim is quite defensible and since this allows us to tackle the
philosophically interesting questions regarding evidence for the miraculous on the same plane
where Hume leveled his famous attack.</p></blockquote><p>This is a qualified statement. We don't say that the assumption of reliability is <i>totally</i> unnecessary nor that we are basing our argument <i>only</i> on what is granted. (Why make the assumption if it's totally unnecessary?) But the statement does give the impression that we think that a lot of the things we're going to be using are granted by scholarly consensus. As I recall, I in particular was thinking that our argument was focused upon the resurrection narratives, so even if<i> other</i> narratives in the Gospels were not true, as long as we could take it as given that the <i>resurrection</i> narratives represent what the witnesses claimed, the argument would go through. Of course, lots of scholars certainly don't grant that the resurrection narratives do represent what the disciples claimed, so ... But we didn't know that.</p><p>Another quotation contains some isolated sentences that, taken out of their immediate context, could be regarded as causing confusion about what we, ourselves, were doing, but that one actually (in context) makes it quite clear that we weren't doing an MFA. Here are those sentences in context.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">It is true that this conclusion is conducted under an initial constraint; it is predicated on
the assumption that in matters other than the explicit claims of miracles, the gospels and the book
of Acts are generally reliable – that they may be trusted as much as any ordinary document of
secular history with respect to the secularly describable facts they affirm. And where they do
recount miraculous events, such as Jesus' post-resurrection appearances, we assume that they are
authentic – that is, that they tell us what the disciples claimed. This calculation tells us little
about the evidence for the resurrection if those assumptions are false. We have provided reasons
to accept them, but of course there is much more to be said on the issue.
This limitation, however, is not as severe as might be thought. “General reliability”
admits of degrees, and we have deliberately kept our salient facts minimally stated with the
intention that they should not require reliance at every point on the smallest details of the biblical
texts. The weight placed on our textual assumptions varies from one fact to another and even
from one aspect of a given fact to another. The facts we have designated as W are perhaps the
most vulnerable to a challenge based on textual skepticism. Some aspects of D – for example,
that the disciples made specific claims regarding the physical details of Jesus’ post-resurrection
appearances – depend more heavily on the authenticity of the sources than others – for example,
the witnesses’ willingness to die for their belief in the resurrection, which is supported by extrabiblical sources. </p></blockquote><p>"Minimally stated," "not require reliance at every point on the smallest details"!! See, the McGrews weren't relying on the details of the Gospels! They explicitly said so! Um, no, just read on a <i>little</i> bit further. We <i>immediately</i> <i>illustrate</i> the "at every point" qualifier by<i> explicitly stating</i> that the <i>aspect </i>of D concerning the disciples' "specific claims regarding the physical details of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances"<i> does </i>depend more heavily on the authenticity of the sources. So you'd <i>really</i> have to be quote-mining to get out of that paragraph the idea that we weren't relying on details. </p><p>I hope that no one will do that, at least not after reading this post.</p><p>We also made repeated references to the polymodal nature of the disciples' testimonies and to the <i>crucial role</i> they are playing in setting the Bayes factor for D (the testimony of the disciples):</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Second, to explain the facts the hallucination theory would have to be invoked for more
than a dozen people simultaneously (Luke 24:36-43).26 The plausibility of a collective
hallucination is, for obvious reasons, inversely related to the amount of detail it involves.27 Given
the level of polymodal interactive detail reported in cases like the one in Luke 24, the probability
of coincidence is vanishing. A third factor exacerbates this problem: the hallucinations would
have to be not only parallel but also integrated. According to the gospels, the risen Jesus
interacted with his disciples in numerous ways including eating food they gave him (Luke 24:41-
43) and cooking fish for them (John 21:1-14). In such contexts, the disciples were interacting not
only with Jesus but with one another, physically and verbally. The suggestion that their parallel
polymodal hallucinations were seamlessly integrated is simply a non-starter, an event so
improbable in natural terms that it would itself very nearly demand a supernatural explanation.
Finally, these detailed, parallel, integrated hallucinations must be invoked repeatedly across a
period of more than a month during which the disciples were persuaded that they repeatedly
interacted with their Lord and master here on earth.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">When we consider the fact that at least thirteen men were willing to die for the claim that Jesus
of Nazareth had risen again, it is important to consider what sort of account they gave of what
had happened in order to know what it was that they were willing to die for. First, the accounts of
Jesus’ appearances to the disciples are not vague nor “spiritualized” but rather circumstantial,
empirical, and detailed. Not only do they purport to give a number of his statements, discussed
below, but they state expressly that he deliberately displayed empirical evidence that he was not a
spirit but rather a physical being. It was therefore a physical resurrection claim that the disciples
made: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; touch me, and see; for a spirit does not have
flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” And when they still do not believe, he asks what food is
available and eats a piece of fish and a honeycomb. Later he cooks fish for them and invites them
to breakfast (Luke 24:39-43; cf. John 20:27; John 21:9-13). </p></blockquote><p>So it's very clear that we are relying on DT (stated again below). That much you can see in the article explicitly and emphatically.</p><p>At the same time, there were several references to consensus in the article, and the first quotation above gave an impression that<i> </i><i>some </i>important part of our argument could go through based only on what was granted by consensus, without Gospel reliability. The article thus contained hints (for someone who happened to know that the consensus <i>doesn't</i> grant all that much) that we were somewhat confused about something concerning consensus. As indeed we were: <i>How much</i> did the consensus really grant about the claims made by the disciples and the women?</p><p>Time went by after the publication of that article, and I began in the following years, revving up especially in 2014, delving into New Testament studies. The more I looked into things, the more I realized that it just wasn't the case that a majority of scholars granted what I've more recently dubbed DT. DT, as stated in an earlier post, is this:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">DT: The Gospel accounts and the account in Acts 1 of Jesus' resurrection appearances and of the finding of the empty tomb reliably represent what the disciples/alleged witnesses (both male and female) claimed about their experiences at that time. This includes such matters as that Jesus ate with them more than once, that they were able to touch him, that he appeared to them multiple times and to varied groups, that he had lengthy conversations with them, and so forth.</blockquote><p>Interestingly, the publication of Michael Licona's resurrection book in 2011-2012, fleshing out the MFA, was part of what really raised questions for us about what is granted by scholars. I want to say right here that this is one place where Licona himself is virtually always, perhaps always, clear and consistent--he makes it clear what scholars across the spectrum don't grant. There is a somewhat interesting tradeoff here between Licona and Habermas, the two major architects of the MFA. Habermas, at least in his earlier work, repeatedly states that he's quite willing to defend Gospel reliability, and I believe that he means "reliability" there in its older, unqualified sense, not in any redefined sense. It is even possible that it is his willingness to defend old-fashioned Gospel reliability that leads Habermas to be, sometimes, incautious and unclear (as I'll argue in the second part of this post) about what is and isn't granted by a majority of scholars. Licona, on the other hand, is more inclined than Habermas is (or at least than Habermas was in his earlier writings) to try not to go too far beyond the consensus of scholarship about what historians can know objectively from the Gospels. Anyone who reads my work knows of my many criticisms of Licona's work on Gospel literary devices. At the same time, this greater closeness to scholarly consensus in his own work and greater caution about defying it may be what causes Licona to be clearer than Habermas about what is <i>not</i> granted by scholars.</p><p>In 2014 Tim contributed a debate review to<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315885544-2/debate-william-lane-craig-alex-rosenberg"> this volume </a>on the debate between William Lane Craig and Alex Rosenberg. By that time, he and I were uneasy enough about what was and wasn't in scholarly consensus that Tim thought he needed to issue a caution. Being the tactful fellow that he is, he merely noted that the scholarly consensus, depending on its extent,<i> </i>might not be robust enough to bear the weight being placed on it.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Are a majority of historical scholars agreed that groups of people who were intimately familiar with Jesus’ appearance simultaneously experienced what they believed to be extensive, coordinated, polymodal interactions with him? This claim goes beyond the strict letter of the early creed embedded in 1 Corinthians 15, though it is certainly consonant with it. I am uncertain how far the consensus extends in this direction, and it obviously matters for the evaluation of the hallucination hypothesis. There are ample resources for addressing that hypothesis in the Gospel accounts. But that brings us back to the question of the broader historical trustworthiness of the resurrection narratives in the Gospels. So without knowing more about the details of the scholarly agreement, it is difficult to pass judgment on the explanatory step in Craig’s argument.</blockquote><p>In a footnote, Tim specifically tagged our 2009 article as going farther than minimal facts:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">For a somewhat different approach to the question, not based solely on 'minimal facts,' see Timothy and Lydia McGrew, 'The Argument from Miracles,' in Craig and Moreland, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (2009), 593-662."</blockquote><p>By February, 2015, I was quite convinced that the MFA premise about "the appearances" did not imply that DT was granted by skeptical scholars, and I was particularly bothered about the inclusion of people in the "consensus of scholarship" who quite explicitly <i>deny</i> DT and hold that all that physical stuff is later embellishment. I felt that there was a lot of confusion going on. So I published<a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2015/02/minimal_facts_are_not_enough.html"> this post</a> stating outright what the "appearances" claim <i>didn't</i> include and arguing that this significantly weakens the argument. </p><p>In April, 2018, I put out<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUt3r3dXBr4"> this</a> longer critique of the MFA. In 2018, someone (I forget who it was) pointed out the sentence quoted above from the 2009 article that "much of" our argument could go through without the reliability assumption. Therefore, in May of that year, I put out <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lydia.mcgrew.5/posts/10160311587280640">this explicit retraction</a> of an incorrect implication about the extent of consensus. </p><p>Let me add though that anyone familiar with my criticisms of the MFA from 2015 to the present should automatically know that Tim and I have figured out that consensus doesn't extend to DT! That's at the heart of my critique.</p><p>I hope that all of this history is of some interest to someone. </p><p>Now I want to ask and (in the next section) answer a question: Someone might say, how could you, or Tim, or any intelligent person of good will, possibly get confused about what Habermas was saying he'd found to be included in scholarly consensus? After all, we find Habermas making clear statements like this:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">The nearly unanimous consent of critical scholars is that, in some sense, the early followers of Jesus thought that they had seen the risen Jesus. "Resurrection Research from 1975 to the Present: What Are Critical Scholars Saying?" <i>Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus</i>, 3.2, p. 151.</blockquote><p>Note the careful wording "in some sense." Or this:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">The vast majority of scholars agree that these persons certainly thought that they had visual experiences of the risen Jesus. "Resurrection Research From 1975 to the Present," p. 152.</blockquote><p>Note the emphasis upon <i>visual</i> experiences. Or this, from the later Habermas-Flew debate:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I recently finished a study of about 1,400
sources on the Resurrection, all written in German, French, and Enlish from
1975 to the present, to see where critical scholars are today. By far more
scholars think that something really happened--that the disciples had real
experiences. They believed they saw the risen Jesus. While a majority of
scholars in recent decades admit that Jesus appeared in some sense, they often
avoid talk about bodily resurrection. They sometimes talk as if--these are my words--there
was some kind of shimmering holographic image of Jesus--some manifestation of
light. So that’s probably the typical approach today from critical scholars
that are somewhere in between Tony and me. </span></p></blockquote><p>Obviously, a mere shimmering holographic image or a manifestation of light is not like the polymodal appearance experiences recorded in the Gospels, especially since none of the Gospels say anything about Jesus glowing or shimmering. Replacing an experience of a tangible Jesus with a "manifestation of light" is a pretty big downgrading of the appearance premise. Habermas doesn't apparently realize the epistemic implications, but he states openly here something that pretty clearly<i> implies </i>that the majority of scholars don't grant DT.</p><p>So what was the matter? How could any person of good will be confused? Well, quite simply, because Dr. Habermas sometimes is unclear. I will document below that we are not the only ones to be confused.</p><p><u>Unclear statements that lead to confusion about scholarly consensus </u></p><p>I want to clarify again my purpose here: My purpose is to answer, "How could any intelligent person of good will be confused by the statement of the MFA about the extent of scholarly consensus?" and also to ask advocates of the MFA to be more clear in all their presentations that the scholarly consensus does not extend to saying that the disciples even claimed experiences like those found in the Gospels.</p><p>What I'm going to do is to quote and discuss statements from three different works by Dr. Habermas, going backwards chronologically, that I think could understandably cause confusion on this point in those who read them. This is not intended to be disrespectful to him but to raise this warning and concern about the possibility of unclarity.</p><p>I could discuss more works in more detail but am going to take the space only for longer quotations from three to show that this is something that Habermas does on more than one occasion. Here I mention only briefly his earlier debate with Antony Flew, but there are ways that one could get honestly confused from that. There is also his use of the physical details of the Gospel reports in the<i> <a href="http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/phil_christi/habermas_phil_christi_dale_allisons_res_skept.htm">Philosophia Christi</a></i> response to the work of Dale Allison (2008). He argues in the main text that the Gospel accounts of the resurrection appearances are disanalogous to the apparitional literature: "Jesus appeared many times, to individuals as well as to groups of up to five hundred persons at once, was touched, ate food, and had normal, sometimes rather lengthy, conversations with his followers." At that point he has the a footnote:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Some of these details, especially those in the last half of this sentence, are questioned in the critical literature. But again, as I have said, we are only comparing the various sorts of reported phenomena here, not debating the data on their behalf. After discussion, if certain scholars think that particular items here should be bracketed, that could of course affect their reaction to the conclusions here. But I still maintain that there would be enough remaining that most scholars would still allow various levels of differences between the appearances and the apparitional literature.</blockquote><p>Habermas is right in the main text to call out Allison on allowing so many paranormal accounts to pass muster as what the original alleged witnesses claimed while being so skeptical on this point concerning the Gospels. At the same time, Habermas does an odd back-and-forth here himself: First he uses the details of the Gospel accounts to point out disanalogies to apparitional reports. He then admits in the footnote that the most important of these details are "questioned in the critical literature" but then vaguely says that "there would be enough remaining" to create "various levels of differences" between the appearances and the claims of apparitions. But what does this mean? What "level of difference" from the apparitional literature would remain if we stuck, for example, to what is granted by the large majority of scholars? Habermas doesn't claim in this article to be doing an MFA, but if something more than an MFA is necessary to respond to Allison's bodily resurrection skepticism (or agnosticism), that is a fairly significant apologetic limitation, especially if Allison's paranormal sympathies become more popular. Naturally, in Allison's response, he says that Habermas can't justifiably assume that the Gospel accounts are unembellished accounts of witness claims. This is (I agree with Habermas) a double standard on Allison's part, but it was inevitable that he would make that move, given his own place on the NT scholarly spectrum, and the scholarly consensus certainly isn't going to stop him. Habermas's instinct to move beyond the MFA in his response to Allison, then admit that what he's using is questioned by some scholars, but then say that he thinks enough is agreed upon to do the job, raises the question rather urgently: Just how much<i> is </i>granted by the majority of scholars?</p><p>There are even clearer instances, though, of confusing language, spanning several decades. <a href="https://stream.org/surprising-scholarly-agreement-facts-support-jesus-resurrection/">Here</a> is a particularly strong statement from a 2018 popular post on <i>The Stream</i> about the very topic of surprising scholarly agreeement on the resurrection.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0.3em 0px 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">About 40 years ago, I began writing about what I have called the Minimal Facts Argument. I wouldn’t want you to think it’s a “minimally-sized” argument in any way, or that only a few facts from the day are available. Rather it’s an argument for the resurrection of Jesus based on that small, “minimal” core of facts that all academically credible researchers agree on. Using between three and seven historical events that are recognized by these scholars, it builds on what we may learn from these data.</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0.3em 0px 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;">Not too long ago I listed six of these events in a dialogue with an agnostic New Testament scholar. I used the historical facts that 1) Jesus died by crucifixion, 2) his early followers had experiences a short time later that they thought were appearances of Jesus, 3) and as a result, they were transformed to the point of being willing to die for this message. Further, two former unbelievers 4) James the brother of Jesus and 5) Saul of Tarsus (later the apostle Paul) both similarly thought that they had seen the risen Jesus, as well; and 6) This Gospel message of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ began to be taught very soon after these events. [snip]</p>How Do We Move from the Minimal Historical Facts to Jesus’ Resurrection Appearances?<div><br /></div><div><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0.3em 0px 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;">Using only the six facts about Jesus and his disciples listed above, backed up by the evidences that confirm them, we have a scenario that points very strongly to Jesus’ appearing to his disciples after he died by crucifixion. Actually, we can boil the case down to those two ingredients. Did Jesus actually die on the cross? Then was he seen afterwards, having conversations with friends just like any of us might do? If Jesus was walking around and talking, seen by groups of witnesses (such as reported in the most scholarly-tested text, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15%3A3-7&version=RSV" style="color: #456ca1; outline: none 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;" target="_blank">1 Corinthians 15:3-7</a>), then His appearances are solid!</p></div><div><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0.3em 0px 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;">Some might question whether historians can use the New Testament texts at all. Do critical scholars allow that? Actually, they cite these passages as often as conservative Christians do. The difference is that critical scholars generally only make use of those accredited citations that satisfy their reasons, such as those that we just mentioned.</p></div><div><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0.3em 0px 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;">The result of it all is that we have six solid, agreed facts, backed up with good historical reasoning. Rather incredibly, these six facts are enough to argue strongly against all of the major non-supernatural alternative hypotheses to Jesus’ resurrection. This is the primary reason why only a minority of critical scholars today still even attempt to argue these natural suppositions. Incidentally, they were popular primarily in the Nineteenth Century.</p></div><div><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0.3em 0px 1em; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px;">But these six facts are also the strongest affirmative reasons for believing that Jesus appeared to His followers both individually and in groups after His death. That so many eyewitnesses reported these experiences is admitted by virtually all critical scholars. You would have to look hard to find very many dissenters.</p></div></blockquote><p>I want to talk especially about the latter part of this quotation. After introducing these facts as those that this vast consensus agrees on, Habermas characterizes two of those facts like this:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">Did Jesus actually die on the cross? Then was he seen afterwards, having conversations with friends just like any of us might do?</span></p></blockquote><p>Now, this is just getting carried away. It is definitely <i>not</i> agreed on by any sort of vast scholarly consensus that the disciples even<i> claimed </i>that Jesus had <i>conversations</i> with them just like any of us might do! Yet I think if one is honest, one should admit that this looks like its intended as a restatement of the "appearance" minimal fact! Habermas continues:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">If Jesus was walking around and talking, seen by groups of witnesses (such as reported in the most scholarly-tested text, </span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15%3A3-7&version=RSV" style="color: #456ca1; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px; outline: none 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;" target="_blank">1 Corinthians 15:3-7</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">)...</span></p></blockquote><p>Two points: Perhaps this was just unclear writing, but I must note that I Corinthians 15 says nothing about either walking or talking. But let that go. Maybe Habermas meant "such as reported..." to refer solely to "seen by groups of witnesses." Okay. But what is a reference to "walking around and talking" doing <i>at all in a statement of the minimal facts argument?</i> To be blunt, it simply doesn't belong in the article, period. Neither does the reference to having conversations with friends. These are<i> not</i> granted by the majority of scholars. The majority of scholars don't even grant that the disciples <i>claimed</i> that this was what their experiences were like. </p><p>I'm sorry to have to say this, but this article is radically unclear about what is and isn't granted by a consensus. Making matters worse, since it makes such a big deal about how<i> surprising</i> this consensus is, and since it's intended to<i> inform</i> people about this surprising consensus, someone who wasn't an expert might easily shrug off his own surprise about how much scholars grant!</p><p>Now move backward in time to a <a href="https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1106&context=lts_fac_pubs">more scholarly </a>piece from 2001. This article is about renewed interest among scholars in hallucination theories as alternatives to the resurrection. Early on, Habermas says,</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"> Lastly, I will
present a multifaceted critique of these positions, using only data that can be ascertained by critical means, which
the vast majority of scholars will accept.</p></blockquote><p>But here is one of his criticisms of the hallucination theories:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">What about the natural human tendency to touch? Would not one of them ever discover, even in a single instance,
that his or her best friend, seemingly standing perhaps just a few feet away, was not really there? </p></blockquote><p>Now, it simply is not granted by the vast majority of scholars that Jesus appeared to the disciples to be standing close enough to them to be touched. It isn't even granted by the vast majority of scholars that the disciples claimed this. It isn't even granted by the vast majority of scholars that Jesus appeared to be <i>standing on the ground</i> when he appeared to them. And if someone says that Habermas meant "which the vast majority of scholars will accept" to modify only "critical means," what are the "critical means," which the "vast majority of scholars will accept" by which it is ascertained that Jesus appeared to the disciples to be close enough to touch? In any event, it shouldn't be necessary to get that nitpicky with the sentence to avoid confusion. Here is another criticism of hallucination theories:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The wide variety of times and places that Jesus appeared, along with the differing mindsets of the witnesses, is
another formidable obstacle. The accounts of men and women, hard-headed and soft-hearted alike, all believing that
they saw Jesus, both indoors and outdoors, provide an insurmountable barrier for hallucinations.</p></blockquote><p>The vast majority of scholars<i> do not </i>grant that Jesus appeared both indoors and outdoors. Nor, if we confine ourselves to "critical means," are we going to be able to get this out of the texts by widely allowed "critical means." It isn't even clear that the vast majority of scholars grant a <i>wide</i> variety of times and places. Nor do the vast majority grant that he appeared to both men and women. (Remember that there's a big difference between even granting the empty tomb, discovered by women, and granting that he appeared to a group of women.)</p><p>I submit, again, that someone of good will and intelligence, reading this article, could easily get confused about what the vast majority of scholars grant.</p><p>Last, I'd like to go over some quotations from Habermas's book<i> The Historical Jesus</i>, 1996. Because these cover several pages, I can't quote the pages in their entirety. This means that if someone is determined to say that I must have left something out that prevents these pages from being at all unclear, he can <i>say</i> that. I encourage anyone to read the book for himself. Please, again, remember that all I'm saying is that an intelligent person of good will could be confused by these pages if he didn't already know in some independent way what the consensus of scholars does and doesn't include. It shouldn't be necessary to take a magnifying glass to the pages and find some one-word qualier here or there in order to avoid getting confused. (Note that above, I have owned that someone could be confused by our 2009 statement about scholarly consensus even despite our use of the phrase "much of our argument.")</p><p>Habermas, of course, lists his facts in brief form, giving both a list of twelve "known facts" and a shorter list of four "minimal facts." The appearance claim is included in both and is worded in the usual minimal way that is compatible with either "thick" or "thin" apostolic experiences. He emphasizes, as usual, that these facts are granted by virtually all scholars.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>There are a minimum number of facts agreed upon by practically all critical scholars, whatever their school of thought. (p. 158)</p><p>Earlier, twelve facts were enumerated as knowable history, accepted as such by almost all scholars. It is this writer's conviction that even by using only four of these accepted facts, a sufficient case can be made for the historicity of the resurrection, which will strengthen the earlier apologetic. p. 161</p></blockquote><p>In passing, the phrase "strengthen the earlier apologetic" is just incorrect, taken epistemologically, and is an example of what I called in the last post conflating epistemology and sociology. While it may look more impressive in some rhetorical or sociological sense to use a very small number of premises, it does not actually strengthen the case for the conclusion.</p><p>In any event, Habermas has here staked out, as usual, the claim that he's going to do this with only things granted by virtually all scholars.</p><p>The appearance fact, as usual, is stated in minimal-sounding terms:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus. (p. 158)</p></blockquote><p>However, Habermas confusingly states multiple times that the appearance fact is especially important because it concerns the<i> nature of the appearances</i>:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Of these four core facts, the nature of the disciples' experiences is the most crucial. As historian Michael Grant asserts, historical investigation actually proves that the earliest eyewitnesses were convinced that they had seen the risen Jesus. p. 163</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">One major advantage of these core facts is that, not only are they critically accepted as knowable history, but they directly concern the nature of the disciples' eperiences. As such, these four historical facts are able...to both disprove the naturalistic theories and to provide major positive evidences which relate the probability of Jesus' literal resurrection. p. 164</p></blockquote><p>The statement that the minimal facts "directly concern the nature of the disciples' experiences" simply isn't true in any interesting sense. If one sticks only to the minimal fact as stated, the <i>only</i> thing it tells us about the nature of the appearances is that they convinced the apostles (somehow) that Jesus was literally risen. (By the way, elsewhere at around this same time, Habermas seems to use "literally" to mean "objectively" rather than, necessarily, "physically"--in other words, in such a way that it would be compatible with an objective vision as well as with bodily resurrection. My understanding is that he takes it as a majority-granted but not supermajority-granted fact that the disciples believed Jesus to have been physically risen. It isn't clear whether here by "literally" he means "physically" or just "objectively.")</p><p>The emphatic statement that the minimal fact of the appearance experiences "directly" concerns the <i>nature of the disciples' experiences</i> is highly confusing. If the reader doesn't already know in some other way that Habermas is attempting to state the appearance fact in a vague way in order to garner the largest critical acceptance for it (and why should the reader think that, going into this topic?), he could certainly get the idea that this minimal fact, granted by nearly all scholars, includes the idea that the disciples had experiences of some rather specific<i> nature</i> which strongly supports the resurrection. It would be unfair to ask the reader, who thinks he is <i>learning</i> about scholarly consensus on the matter, to take it that what is granted by scholars is only what is given in what is the briefly-stated list. It definitely appears that the further statements that this core fact "directly concerns the nature of the appearances" is a further spelling-out of what is granted by the scholars.</p><p>This interpretation seems all the more warranted given that Habermas strongly insists that the minimal facts alone can rule out all naturalistic theories and that this is why these were abandoned in the 19th century:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">These known historical facts...answer the various theories which have been proposed in order to account for Jesus' resurrection on naturalistic grounds. These hypotheses, chiefly popularized by liberal scholars in the nineteenth century, are rarely held today by critics, especially since they failed to account for the historical facts surrounding this event (such as those just mentioned above). p. 159</p></blockquote><p>He illustrates this supposed ruling out concerning the hallucination theory in the following way:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">First, using only these four historical facts, the naturalistic theories can be disproven....The disciples' experiences disprove the hallucination and other subjective theories both because such phenomena are not collective or contagious, being observed by one person alone, and because of the wide variety of time and place factors involved, p. 164</p></blockquote><p>Do virtually all scholars grant a <i>wide variety</i> of times and places? Do virtually all scholars even grant group appearances? In a<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DLW3bkZQGM&t=595s"> recent video </a>Michael Licona has related from personal communication with Habermas that Habermas has said that about 75% of scholars grant group appearances. Some group appearance or other. Since we don't have Habermas's underlying survey and literature interpretation data, and since his estimate relies upon his own interpretation of various articles, even this is open to legitimate question. My own suspicion, based on reading Habermas's other work (such as the original debate with Flew), is that the "creed" in I Corinthians 15 is doing much of the work. Could it be that, if a scholar grants that the "creed" there is pre-Pauline and early, Habermas automatically counts that scholar as "granting group appearances" which "rule out" hallucination? That inference contains a couple of jumps in and of itself. </p><p>In any event, it's not even clear that the "creed" in I Corinthians 15 contains a wide variety of times and places, especially not for group appearances. It mentions only two, even if the skeptic grants the (natural but not absolutely necessary) interpretation of the appearance "to the twelve" to mean "to the twelve all at once," which scholars may not grant. I really don't think we should take it that the vast majority of scholars grant a "wide variety of times and places" at which appearances took place. (The reference to places makes one think of "indoors and outdoors" quoted above, which is far too specific to be widely granted.)</p><p>Moreover, the reference to scholars abandoning naturalistic theories in droves after the 19th century does leave one scratching one's head. What did virtually all of the unbelieving scholars in 1996 believe, then? Did most of them believe in ghosts? Did they nearly all adopt an "objective vision" theory? But that requires at least the belief in God. Did they all adopt some paranormal theory? Or is Habermas implying that most of them were so impressed by the minimal facts (which they granted) that they threw their hands up and admitted that they were unable to account for the data and didn't know what happened? This overstatement about the abandonment of naturalistic theories, together with the emphasis upon "the nature" of the disciples' experiences, could certainly lead to unclarity concerning what virtually all scholars grant.</p><p>I note, too, that in 2001 Habermas stated that hallucination theories were making a comeback, even by his estimation, but by 2018 he was once more stating that only a minority of critical scholars believe naturalistic theories. Remember this, from the article in <i>The Stream</i>? "Only a minority of critical scholars today still even attempt to argue these natural suppositions. Incidentally, they were popular primarily in the Nineteenth Century<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Droid Serif", Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">."</span> </p><p>In the course of the discussion earlier in the same chapter in <i>The Historical Jesus</i>, Habermas brings in the sermons in Acts and cites C. H. Dodd in support of the claim that,</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Next to I Corinthians 15:3ff., the most crucial texts for historical purposes are several early passages in the book of Acts (especially Peter's speeches)....Many scholars have argued that in these early texts we have a clear summary of the earliest apostolic kerygma. pp. 148-149</p></blockquote><p>He also cites, on a different page (p. 141), a long list of facts that one could deduce from the sermons in Acts, including that the disciples ate with Jesus (Acts 10:40-41). He lists this same proposition about eating with them on p. 168, again giving this same reference.</p><p>Could it be that Habermas is treating the historicity of the sermons in Acts, taken to be historical declarations of the original witnesses, as included in the evidence he can use to rule out hallucination? I'm strongly in favor of using these passages, but I take a maximalist approach. It should <i>not</i> be included in the evidence relied on in a MFA, when one is emphatically declaring that one is relying <i>only </i>on what is granted by the majority of scholars. Whether Habermas is doing this is left unclear in these pages, though if he is doing so, that would help to explain some of his overstatements. </p><p>In any event, Dodd (whom I have now looked up on the subject, though one shouldn't have to) is moderately positive about the idea that the sermons go back to "the kerygma of the apostolic church," though even that doesn't make for acknowledgement of DT. Dodd is quite definite that the sermons don't represent what Peter himself said on some particular historical occasion. The degree of historicity of the speeches in Acts is <i>extremely</i> controversial among critical scholars. I myself think it is very solid and have argued as much, but I'm considered very conservative, and I'm self-consciously <i>bucking</i> critical consensus. Colin Hemer has an entire appendix on the subject in his wonderful book on Acts, but he<i> certainly</i> makes it clear that by no stretch of the imagination is any strong historical thesis about those speeches granted by a large consensus of scholars across the ideological spectrum! I doubt that you could get even a bare majority to agree that they are substantially historical as some kind of vaguely "apostolic" teaching, and you almost certainly couldn't if you added that they are substantially historical as uttered by Peter on specific occasions.</p><p>Perhaps Habermas would try to say that it is only certain<i> portions</i> of these sermons in Acts that he is treating as the testimony of the apostles. But the nearest one gets to a list of such shorter portions is footnote 31 on p. 149, after the sentence, "The death and resurrection of Jesus are at the center of each sermon." The verses selected are those that assert the death and resurrection of Jesus. But Habermas provides no evidence of large majority or even majority scholarly consensus that the content in these verses (including the statement that Jesus ate and drank with them) was actually attested to by the disciples. The closest he comes is to say this: "Critical research has shown that these texts reflect early, largely undeveloped theology, perhaps from theJerusalem community" (p. 149) and to cite both Dodd and John Drane as stating that the language in these speeches appears to be rougher and earlier than the language of the book of Acts. Again, that's all very interesting, but to claim that these verses are earlier proclamation, much less that disciples literally claimed to have eaten with Jesus in a group (!), is stronger, more contentful, and more controversial than the minimal fact of the appearance claim, and such a stronger statement does <i>not</i> enjoy large scholarly consensus, <i>however</i> it is supported. Merely to say that it has been supported by "critical means" just isn't enough to make it legitimately accessible in an argument allegedly based only one the minimal facts.</p><p>In the earlier debate with Flew, Habermas also states that Dodd holds that</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection appearances (and the earlier reports included in them, in particular) should be utilized as records of what the eyewitnesses actually saw. (<i>Did Jesus Rise from the Dead</i>, p. 24)</p></blockquote><p>The parenthesis here is especially puzzling. Surely it should be "<i>or</i> the earlier reports included in them," should it not? It is quite odd to make a distinction between the Gospel accounts of the resurrection appearances and some hypothetical "earlier reports included in them" and then to state that a critical scholar grants that<i> both</i> of these should be utilized as records of what the eyewitnesses saw. The whole point of making such distinction is to claim that the eye of critical scholarship can discern an underlying, earlier layer within the accounts, which is to be taken as more likely authentic. (In fact that kind of procedure is typical of Dodd's whole approach to NT studies.) If one is going to say that the Gospel accounts <i>and</i> such a hypothetical pre-Gospel layer should be taken as accounts of what the eyewitnesses saw (or even claimed that they saw), why make the distinction? This parenthetical only makes the reference to Dodd more confusing, but a person of good will could certainly come away with the impression that Dodd, at least, acknowledges DT. I've looked up that Dodd paper as well (which, again, one shouldn't have to do to get clear on this), and this is an overly optimistic statement. Dodd is intrigued by the story of Mary Magdalene in John and its freshness, thinking that maybe it goes back to some very early human statement, yet he insists that John is a fabricator of scenes, and he says that the scene with Doubting Thomas is made up. (This use of Dodd also raises the point, yet again, that Habermas's claims about scholarly consensus are based upon Habermas's interpretations of a large number of scholarly papers, which no doubt could be challenged in individual cases, perhaps in many cases. The fact that I've found Habermas to be overly optimistic in his interpretation of Dodd here is reason for caution in this area.)</p><p>In any event, Dodd is generally regarded as a scholarly moderate. A few cautious moves in a conservative direction by C. H. Dodd do <i>not</i> make for a heterogenous consensus of virtually all scholars!</p><p>The inclusion of such supporting evidence from a critical scholar here or there, without clarity as to exactly what role it is playing in the supposedly minimal facts argument, Habermas's repeated insistence that he is relying<i> only</i> on what is granted by the vast<i> majority</i> of scholars, references to the minimal facts as directly concerning the "nature" of the disciples' experiences, and extremely strong statements about ruling out all naturalistic theories, create a situation ripe for confusion about what the majority grants. Habermas summarizes with this very strong statement about what his argument has accomplished and how:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">Since these core historical facts (and the earlier accepted facts in general) have been <i>established by critical and historical procedures</i>, contemporary scholars cannot reject the evidence simply by referring to "discrepancies" in the New Testament texts or to its general "unreliability." Not only are such critical claims refuted by evidence discussed in other chapters, but it has been concluded that the resurrection can be historically demonstrated <i>even when the minimum of historical facts are utilized</i>. Neither can it be concluded merely that “something” occurred which is indescribable due to naturalistic premises or to the character of history or because of the “cloudiness” or legendary character of the New Testament texts. Neither can it be said that Jesus rose spiritually but not literally. These and other such views are refuted in that <i>the facts admitted by virtually all scholars as knowable history are adequate</i> to historically demonstrate the literal resurrection of Jesus according to probability. pp. 165-166 </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">The Historical Jesus </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px;">(emphasis in original)</span></p></blockquote><p>Again, this is only conjecture, but one can't help wondering if Habermas thinks that supporting arguments that he believes have been established by "critical and historical procedures" can be included in the evidence used to rule out alternative theories, <i>even if </i>those supporting propositions are <i>not</i> granted by a majority of scholars. (Hence, for example, might he think that he can assume that the reference to the disciples eating and drinking with Jesus in Acts 10 has been "established by critical procedures" and that he can therefore take it to be an authentic proclamation by the original witnesses, and that he is therefore allowed to rely on it in ruling out hallucination?) That simply will not do if one is going to say that one is using "the minimum of historical facts" and that "the facts admitted by virtually all scholars as knowable history" are sufficient for one's argument. That's not "the facts admitted by virtually all scholars, <i>plus</i> a lot of other material that <i>isn't </i>admitted by virtually all scholars, but that <i>supports</i> the facts admitted by virtually all scholars, and that I think has been established by critical historical procedures, so even non-conservative scholars<i> should</i> agree with this additional material, even if they don't..." Obviously, more specific propositions (such as that the sermons in Acts came from the apostles themselves, that the disciples claimed that they ate and drank with Jesus, or that Jesus appeared to people both indoors and outdoors)<i> support </i>the proposition that the disciples had appearance experiences. (Some of these propositions even entail that they had appearance experiences. Stronger statements often entail weaker statements, but not vice versa.) But even if such a stronger proposition is allegedly mined out of the New Testament by "critical means" and endorsed by some critical scholar or scholars, and even if it <i>supports</i> a "minimal fact," that absolutely<i> does not</i> mean that it is fair game for use in an argument that purports to use <i>only</i> what is granted by a broad, heterogenous, critical consensus of scholars. I hesitate to attribute a mistake on this point to Habermas, but it does occur to me that such a mistake might be the origin of the ambiguity and unclarity that are the topic of this post.</p><p>Now, I've had a number of people say to me, "I've <i>never</i> been confused about what the scholars grant." But just to show that this is not merely a theoretical possibility, nor is it merely a theoretical-possibility-plus-the-weird-McGrews-who-must-have-been-crazy-at-the-time-or-something, here are two examples of popular posts by people who pretty clearly are confused in this way. It doesn't matter who they are. That's not the point. They seem to be thoughtful people, they appear to be people of good will, doing apologetics to the best of their ability, and trying to use the MFA to argue for the resurrection. I've heard verbal presentations of the MFA that show the same confusion.</p><p>First,<a href="https://tentmakingchristianity.com/minimal-facts-5-8-explained/"> this one</a>. This is a post called "Minimal facts 5-8 explained." So it's purporting to, you know, explain the minimal facts. And here's the insistence on scholarly consensus. Notice that the author explicitly says that the scholars don't actually believe that Jesus rose from the dead.</p> <blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Case-Resurrection-Jesus-Gary-Habermas-ebook/dp/B001QOGJY0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548816127&sr=8-1&keywords=the+case+for+the+resurrection+of+jesus+habermas+and+licona">Minimal facts</a> are those facts about the resurrection account that the majority of scholars, even skeptical ones, believe to be true. While these same scholars may not believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead, they do concede these points in the account are accurate.</blockquote><p>The link, btw, is to Licona and Habermas's book on the MFA. Here's the first statement of the appearance fact:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">The disciples had experiences which they believed were actual appearances of the risen Jesus.</blockquote><p>Aaaand, here's the alleged <i>explanation</i> of that "minimal fact," <i>in its entirety</i>:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">The disciples report seeing, eating with, walking with and touching the risen Jesus. They did not mean this to be interpreted as a spiritual resurrection. They saw a bodily risen Jesus. We see this when Thomas physically touches Jesus (John 20:24-29). Jesus also eats fish with his Disciples ( John 21:9-14).</blockquote><p>Need I say more? </p><p><a href="https://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=189201">Here's</a> another example, claiming to present the minimal facts approach to arguing for the resurrection:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span face="verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">The </span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">minimal facts</em><span face="verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> approach to the resurrection was originated by biblical scholar Gary Habermas....</span><span face="verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">It is based on his research of 1,400 in-depth scholarly writings regarding the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Dr. Habermas relies only on those facts supported by multiple sources and accepted by the vast majority of scholars.</span></p></blockquote><p>Please notice that word "only." Here's his statement of the appearance fact, apparently copied verbatim from Habermas:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span face="verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus.</span> </p></blockquote><p>He emphasizes the consensus:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span face="verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">The fact that such a large percentage of scholars accepts these twelve points is quite compelling.</span> </p></blockquote><p>Aaand, here's his refutation of the hallucination theory, in its entirety:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="western" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;">This theory claims the witnesses did not see a resurrected Jesus, they saw a hallucination. The problem with this theory is that Jesus appeared to more than 500 people, in different locations and circumstances (eating, walking, talking) for forty days. Hallucinations do not repeatedly happen to different groups of people for extended periods. The resurrected Jesus even told Thomas to touch him.</p><p class="western" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><em>Then He </em>(Jesus)<em> said to Thomas,</em> <em>“Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.</em> <em>Do not disbelieve, but believe” </em>(<a class="lbsBibleRef" data-reference="John 20.27" data-version="esv" href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/John%2020.27" target="_blank">John 20:27</a>, emphasis added).</p><p class="western" style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px;"><em>Not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who</em> <em>ate and drank with him</em> <em>after he rose from the dead </em>(<a class="lbsBibleRef" data-reference="Acts 10.41" data-version="esv" href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Acts%2010.41" target="_blank">Acts 10:41</a>, emphasis added).</p><p><em style="font-family: verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">And He </em><span face="verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">(Jesus)</span><em style="font-family: verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.</em><span face="verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> </span><em style="font-family: verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Touch me, and see.</em><span face="verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> </span><em style="font-family: verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" </em><span face="verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">(</span><a class="lbsBibleRef" data-reference="Luke 24.28-39" data-version="esv" href="http://biblia.com/bible/esv/Luke%2024.28-39" style="font-family: verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" target="_blank">Luke 24:28-39</a><span face="verdana, "trebuchet MS", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">, emphasis added).</span> </p></blockquote><p>I wonder how in the world he could have gotten confused into thinking that this refutation of the hallucination theory is fair game to use in the minimal facts argument? </p><p>The fact that these aren't scholarly presentations only underscores the problem. Who, if not non-specialists, needs clarity most? It is <i>precisely</i> those who are <i>not</i> NT scholars themselves who are going to look to apologists and scholars to tell them what the argument is, what the majority of scholars grant, and so forth. Obviously, the MFA is not meant to be presented only from NT scholars to NT scholars! </p><p>Imagine what could happen if a non-Christian non-specialist converts to Christianity on the basis of the MFA, being especially impressed by (what he thinks is) the vast consensus of scholarship on the nature of the disciples' appearance experiences, and then finds out later that he misunderstood and that much less was granted by critical scholars. How is that going to play out?</p><p>Once again, I'm <i>not</i> saying Habermas is in any way trying to mislead anyone. But I think it's undeniable that for some reason he sometimes gets carried away when he states his case and makes important use of propositions that he's not entitled to lean on in this type of argument, and that this <i>does </i>cause confusion. </p><p>I'm going to say something rather strong, in conclusion: If you read this post, and you go away, and you present the MFA, and you do<i> not</i> make a self-conscious attempt to make it clear just <i>how little</i> is granted by the scholarly consensus about the subjective content of the disciples' experience claim, then you <i>will</i> be to blame. Because whoever you are, even if you're not anybody famous, you <i>are</i> reading this post. </p><p>And if you're worried that, if you clarify that the vast, heterogenous, scholarly consensus contains very little about the <i>nature</i> of the disciples' experience claims, that will cause the argument not to sound impressive, then I have a suggestion: I suggest you go back to that "outdated" Paley-style approach and consider using it. </p><p>If you do, I'll be here, more than happy to help!</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-9276839747172023862021-11-29T09:18:00.001-05:002022-06-13T12:22:20.647-04:00On the minimal facts case for the resurrection, Part 2: Confusing sociology and epistemology<p> I have frequently said that those who advocate the minimal facts argument for the resurrection (MFA) confuse sociology with epistemology. Here I'm thinking first of all the statements you hear such as, "Nothing else will work" or "We have to do this," which are ambiguous as between, "This is objectively the strongest way to argue" and "This is sociologically the way to argue that is most likely to get a hearing in today's world." I think that if people are honestly and astutely observing the evangelical apologetic landscape they will recognize this ambiguity in many statements. </p><p>This is related to what I call the "Yugo" model of apologetics--the idea that the best (in some ambiguous sense of "best") vehicle for our endeavors is the one that is the most stripped down. Of course, no reasonable person ever thought that the Yugo was an especially <i>powerful</i> car. </p><p>As I'll note in the next post in this series, on p. 161 in <i>The Historical Jesus</i>, Gary Habermas actually states that using only four minimal facts (rather than twelve) "will strengthen the earlier apologetic." In a footnote he explains that what he means by this is two-fold: Using a smaller number of facts will gain recognition by an even larger number of critical scholars, and doing so will <i>reveal</i> how strong the case is. The latter is sort of a "half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair" motive. But in point of objective fact, reducing the evidence base does not <i>strengthen</i> the argument <i>at all, </i>even if it allows you to say that more scholars are on board. Interestingly, both of these explications of "strengthen" are sociological. Yet the phrase "strengthen the earlier apologetic" sounds like an epistemic evaluation. Such a usage is a good example of this kind of ambiguous language. </p><p>Apparently my saying that MFA advocates conflate sociology and epistemology is considered by some people to be offensive or even a misrepresentation. I'm not likely to let that stop me, since if something like this is going on, it's better for it to be stated and faced than to be avoided on the grounds of not causing offense. And I explain carefully what I mean by saying this and document it, so you can decide for yourself whether it is a misrepresentation. But I will admit that the conflation takes various forms. I've just illustrated one popular form--the ambiguous use of words like "have to," "better," "strengthen," etc.</p><p>We find some rather striking illustrations of similarly ambiguous statements in the book <i>Reasonable Faith</i> by William Lane Craig.</p><p><u>Language in <i>Reasonable Faith </i>that conflates epistemology and sociology</u></p><p>In <i>Reasonable Faith</i>, William Lane Craig lays out the history of the argument for the resurrection. He discusses the way that William Paley did it, but the purpose of this history is to say that we can't do that anymore. Since the rise of higher criticism, Craig believes, we must argue for the resurrection (and also for Jesus' self-understanding of his own deity) in a very different way. We must use various "criteria of authenticity" to show which facts about Jesus, sayings of Jesus, and facts about the events after his death can be supported, preferably by two or more such criteria, and use those to make our arguments. It's a minimalist approach, though Craig prefers that it not be confused with Habermas's MFA, since Habermas's most limited set of facts is smaller in number and since Craig relies more on the criteria of authenticity. </p><p>In <i>The Eye of the Beholder</i>, I discuss the interesting way in which Craig first warns against a negative use of the criteria of authenticity but then, apparently unconsciously, seems to agree tacitly that a saying or event that cannot be thus verified is open to special historical doubt, at least if we're only using objective historical evidence. I argue there that this is a <i>kind of</i> negative use of the criteria, though not the one that Craig discusses and rejects. (Craig says that we should not conclude that something <i>didn't</i> happen if it cannot be specifically supported by "the criteria." But he doesn't reject the idea that historical Jesus scholars <i>qua</i> historians should be <i>agnostic</i> about something if it cannot be thus supported, and in fact, in practice this seems to be what he does.)</p><p>In these chapters, Craig has several very odd statements about the older form of argument for the resurrection. These statements sit precisely in that in-between zone--neither entirely epistemological nor entirely sociological. One of the strangest of these is the place where he refers to the trilemma argument for Jesus' deity, relying upon "prooftexts" for Jesus' claims to deity, as "forever obsolete."</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">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 <i>The DaVinci Code</i>
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. (<i>Reasonable Faith</i>, p. 328)f</span></p></blockquote><p>There are several highly problematic phrases here. One is "naive and outdated." Really? Did Jesus or didn't he assert his own deity in verses like John 8:58 and John 10:30? If he did, what is wrong with "trotting out" the trilemma and adducing these prooftexts? I note here that Craig does not use either of these texts in his chapter on Jesus' self-understanding, and this lecture on how <i>hard</i> it is to do historical apologetics, especially with respect to the sayings of Jesus, raises the troubling question of why those verses are not adduced. </p><p>Perhaps the phrase "do the requisite spadework of sorting out those claims of Jesus that can be established as authentic" provides a clue, since the obvious implication is that there are things ostensibly recorded in the Gospels that<i> cannot </i>be established as authentic. This seems to involve internalizing, as epistemically binding, the notion that each saying reported must be separately "authenticated," rather than arguing for the reliability of a Gospel (say, the Gospel of John!) and considering that<i> that</i> "establishes as authentic" the sayings of Jesus recorded therein. The notion of "sorting out" those claims of Jesus that "can be established as authentic" can hardly be understood in anything other than an epistemological way. But that is a restrictive, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrXVbvGGmZQ">passage-by-passage </a>method. I've argued that this is not a good method and that we should not give it normative force.</p><p>The phrase "forever obsolete" is also highly problematic. Obviously neither the <i>Da Vinci Code</i> (a reference to which sounds rather outdated in 2021!) nor higher criticism renders anything "forever obsolete." If all that Craig means is "out of fashion," why say "forever"? Fashion is changeable as the wind. Nor should we care very much about mere fashion.</p><p>This is not the only language in <i>Reasonable Faith</i> conflating epistemology and sociology. In the chapter on the resurrection there is this:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The historical apolgetic for the resurrection played a central role in the case of the Christian apologists during the Deist controversy....Too often today Christians employ an apologetic for the resurrection that was suitable for use against eighteenth-century opponents but is today ineffective in dealing with the objections raised by modern biblical criticism. p. 333</p></blockquote><p>Speaking as someone who is self-consciously reviving a Paley-style argument, I find this a problematic lead-in to a chapter on the history of resurrection apologetics. The fact is that Paley and his 19th-century followers (some of whom, living later, had even heard of D. F. Strauss!) would have been quite unimpressed by higher criticism. They would have had no real trouble "dealing with the objections raised by modern biblical criticism." It's not like such objections are all that strong. </p><p>I cannot resist pointing out that the minimalist approach that Craig favors <i>doesn't</i> "deal with" these objections but instead concedes things to them in handfuls for the sake of the argument. <a href="https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P110/scriptural-inerrancy-and-the-apologetic-task">Elsewhere</a> Craig has said that his approach is to concede for the sake of the argument virtually all that the skeptic wants to allege in the way of contradictions and discrepancies in the Gospels and then to argue that we still have enough evidence left to make our case. In his introduction to this very edition of <i>Reasonable Faith</i>, Craig emphasizes that it is not actually necessary to argue that the Gospels are reliable, because true propositions can be mined out of even <i>unreliable</i> documents. So apparently the new, updated, non-obsolete way of "dealing with the objections of modern biblical criticism" involves a large amount of pre-emptive concession for the sake of the argument, which hardly sounds like an "effective" way of "dealing with" the objections that became popular in the 19th century! I think I would rather take my place with people who, confronted with the poorly-supported objections of the higher critics and "modern biblical criticism," would <i>actually</i> have "dealt with" them in the sense of<i> answering</i> them, followed by continuing to use the traditional historical apologetic that Craig is telling us is "ineffective."</p><p>But notice, again, the conflation of the purely social fact that a Paley-style argument will be<i> considered</i> outdated (by modern critical scholars) with an epistemological claim (or what looks like one) that it is <i>actually</i> not effective. This is even stranger when one reads on in the chapter and finds Craig merely laying out the bare fact that Strauss & co. claimed that the Gospels are riddled with legend and religious imagination. It is not as though Craig claims to show that these assertions have merit to them or strong arguments undergirding them. Presumably he thinks that they don't. But in that case, why not stand up to them? </p><p>One more quote will illustrate the conflation of sociology and epistemology:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">William Paley's <i>View of the Evidences</i> (1794) constituted the high-water mark of the historical apologetic for the resurrection. During the nineteenth century this approach dramatically receded. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a significant and influential thinker defending the Christian faith on the basis of the evidence for the resurrection. It seems to me that there were two factors that served to undermine the traditional apologetic. p. 342</p></blockquote><p>The "two factors" are the rise of higher criticism and what Craig calls "the tide of subjectivism." The phrase "served to undermine" is another of those ambiguous phrases. Nothing that Craig says over the next few pages shows (nor even seems intended to show) that the "traditional apologetic" was objectively "undermined" by argument. Rather, what Craig chronicles is a series of beliefs that took over much of European thought, so that many people came to<i> think of</i> the Gospels as highly unreliable. But once again, why not point out that these trends were unsupported by anything like good arguments? Why not point out that they haven't actually "undermined" anything? Why introduce the historical survey by saying that the historical apologetic of previous centuries was "undermined"?</p><p>I also feel the need to make an historical point. I take that statement about how it would be difficult to find a significant and influential thinker, etc., to mean "in the nineteenth century," or perhaps "after Paley," and it sounded dubious to me, especially since Tim and I have revived various 19th-century thinkers like T. R. Birks and J. J. Blunt. These gentlemen apparently didn't get the memo about how the Paleyan approach was obsolete and undermined. And, though he spent most of his career focused on topics like authorship and patristics, I'd be rather surprised if J. B. Lightfoot would agree that the traditional apologetic was obsolete. Esteemed Husband sent me the following list (and this is only a partial list) of thinkers in the 19th and early 20th century who did defend Christianity on the basis of the evidence for the resurrection. (One of these was a Unitarian, and is noted as such.) You can argue about how "significant and influential" they were, but it's not like they were nobodies. Chalmers, for one, was undeniably influential.</p><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"></div><blockquote><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Thomas Chalmers, Scottish minister, theologian, social reformer, and leader of the Free Church of Scotland. See his <i>Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation</i>, 4th ed., (1822) and his Lectures on Paley's <i>Evidences</i>.</div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Andrews Norton, Harvard professor and unitarian theologian. See his <i>Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels</i> (1846). </div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Henry Rogers, English nonconformist minister, man of letters, and president of Lancashire Independent College, notably in his <i>Eclipse of Faith</i> (1852) and <i>A Defence of the Eclipse of Faith</i> (1854).<br /><br />Richard Whately, Oxford professor, logician, and Anglican Archbishop of Dublin. See his annotations to his edition of Paley's <i>Evidences</i> (1859).<div><div><br /></div><div>Charles Pettit McIlvaine, Episcopal Bishop, professor, and chaplain to the United States Senate. See his <i>Evidences of Christianity in their External, or Historical Division</i> (1859).</div><div><br /></div><div>Charles Aiken, Princeton Seminary professor, in his lectures on <i>Christian Apologetics</i> (1879).</div><div><br /></div><div>James Orr, Scottish minister, theologian, and professor. See <i>The Resurrection of Jesus</i> (1908)</div></div></div></blockquote><p>The above examples of language from <i>Reasonable Faith</i> show an important part of what I mean by confusing sociology and epistemology, and I think just bringing out such language can serve to warn people. When someone tells you that an approach or an idea is obsolete or outdated, ask him if it's false, and what his argument is that it's false. If the Paleyan approach to arguing for the resurrection is said "not to work" or to be "ineffective," ask him to define what he means by that. If all we are talking about is sociology, we can go there, and we can discuss that, because there are actually sociological reasons why I would argue that the MFA itself "doesn't work" socially. But it's more important to know whether something is a <i>good argument</i>. We shouldn't make it sound like something is "ineffective" in the sense of not being a cogent argument, merely on the grounds that other people (even influential ones) have made silly ideas highly popular! D. F. Strauss and all his followers from his own time to the present have unfortunately made silly ideas popular, but that doesn't objectively undermine anything.</p><p>But some may think that all this time spent on WLC is unfortunate, since Habermas and Licona are the bigger advocates and architects of the <i>real </i>MFA. So now I turn my attention to them.</p><p><u>"Historical bedrock"--using sociological considerations too restrictively </u></p><p>I want to say right at the outset that I am <i>well aware </i>that Habermas and Licona have said that they require <i>both</i> good evidence and a certain type of varied, broad scholarly consensus as requirements for placing a fact in the category of "historical bedrock" or "minimal fact." It is an odd thing, but it seems that when one states that MFA advocates confuse sociology and epistemology, one is likely to be told indignantly that Habermas requires good arguments as well as consensus, so there, end of discussion, such a criticism is a misrepresentation, and there's nothing more to say. Well, no, there's still a lot more to be said. For one thing, the kind of rhetoric quoted from Dr. Craig in the last section is fully compatible with a method in which one requires good arguments for the premises of one's <i>own</i> MFA argument. One could still say of the Paley-style method that it is outdated, was undermined by higher criticism, is "ineffective," and other such ambiguous phrases.</p><p>But there is more still to say about the epistemological problems with the historical bedrock approach of Habermas and Licona. So I want to request that if you read this post and if you want to reply to it from a pro-MFA position, please <i>do not</i> bring forward quotations (there are several) in which Licona or Habermas says that their method requires both good evidence and broad consensus for inclusion in historical bedrock. I am fully aware of those and acknowledge those. But I'm raising problems nonetheless, problems that are not answered by that. Read on if you're interested.</p><p>In the final section of this post (see below) I will have something rather controversial to say about whether, in Licona's case, these two requirements are collapsing into one another in practice. Perhaps I should provide a "trigger warning" about that. But even there, it is not that I am unaware of the <i>claim</i> that "good evidence" is a separate requirement for inclusion in "historical bedrock."</p><p>In this section, I'm going to consider the mixed status of the "historical bedrock" category and even the somewhat larger category that Habermas refers to as "known historical facts." That mixed status is admitted by Habermas and Licona and is a central part of their method. What I mean by "mixed status" is that these categories are defined both by the arguments for the propositions in question and by the presence of a consensus of living scholars (or recently living scholars?) in favor of them. This approach unproductively mixes epistemology and sociology.</p><p>A term like "known facts" or "historical bedrock" appears to be a term of epistemic approval. It is natural to think of these propositions as those that have, on the basis of publicly available evidence, a very high probability. They are rock solid. There is so much evidence for them that they should be in no doubt to anyone in possession of the publicly available data. But in that case, why not make <i>that </i>the definition? Even if one wanted to have various levels, one could do that in terms of what the data support. The "bedrock" could be those propositions that, on the basis of presently-known historical information, are very, very probable, while the "next-level" facts (however one wants to label those) could be those that are at least "quite" probable. And so forth.</p><p>Habermas and Licona do not do this. For any of the categories that they treat as data to be explained, they require a certain consensus of scholarship--either extremely high, such as 90-95%, or at least a majority, perhaps 2/3 or 75%. This consensus, moreover, must be among scholars within a particular time period (a point I will return to below). They also want this consensus to consist of scholars across the scholarly spectrum--Jews, Christians, liberals, conservatives, skeptics, etc. </p><p>As Bob Stewart has pointed out in a recent article on the MFA (his contribution to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Raised-Third-Day-Historicity-Resurrection/dp/1683594320/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=raised+on+the+third+day&qid=1636817068&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzTjdFMVpZSkFONzFKJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNzQxNjgyQkRSR1paVllGOTFLJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA2MTAyMDIxODBSWlI2UTEwRVVEJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==" style="font-style: italic;">Raised on the Third Day</a>, a festschrift for Gary Habermas), there are various problems with restricting the facts to be explained in this way. For one thing, the most significant facts (historically speaking) aren't always those that happen to command the highest scholarly consensus. Stewart also rightly points out that propositions are or aren't justified by a certain set of data even if<i> no one </i>believes them--a salutary and important reminder. For another thing, Stewart warns, consensus could change. It's at least in principle possible that consensus would swing so far "to the left" (that's my terminology, not Stewart's) that there would be <i>no</i> propositions anymore that would meet the consensus cut-off that Habermas and Licona are looking for. I would note that this could, in principle, happen even with a lower consensus cut-off. What then? </p><p>And I would add "what then" epistemologically: Would we, as individuals, not be able to be justifiably <i>extremely confident</i> that, say, Jesus was buried if a time came within our own lifetime that this fact no longer commanded a large and ideologically broad scholarly consensus? Just <i>what sort of </i>influence upon our <i>own</i> epistemic confidence is it supposed to have if some proposition doesn't command this sort of consensus? This is left unclear, to say the least, in the historical bedrock methodology.</p><p>This question is especially urgent when we consider the stated<i> reason</i> for the inclusion of the consensus requirement in the MFA methodology--namely, to guard against personal bias. Licona spends a great deal of space in <i>The Resurrection of Jesus </i>talking about "horizons" and the need for consensus to guard against individual "horizons"--i.e., personal biases. In Habermas's review of Licona's book, <a href="https://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/southeastern_theological_review/minimal-facts-methodology_08-02-2012.htm">here</a>, Habermas singles out this rationale and praises it:</p><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><div><div></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal">When establishing a consensus of views, it is important to
show that such a near-unanimity is “composed of scholars from all interested
camps” (p. 64). We are not guessing about where researchers stand, and neither
are we basing the case on a small, sectarian element within the academic
community. Rather, the scholars should hold a variety of religious and
philosophical positions (p. 65). Later, Licona reported that: </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">These scholars span a very wide
range of theological and philosophical convictions and include atheists,
agnostics, Jews and Christians who make their abode at both ends of the
theological spectrum and everywhere in between. We therefore have the
heterogeneity we desire in a consensus, and this gives us confidence that our
horizons will not lead us completely astray (p. 280).</p><p class="MsoNormal">Licona makes an insightful comment here regarding guarding
against our own horizons. We must beware of our own imported biases, as
well. When discussing the Minimal Facts, I have always purposely included
notes at each juncture that list representative numbers of skeptics of various
stripes who still affirm the data in question. This is a significant
methodological procedure that serves more than one purpose. Among others, it
assures the readers that they are not being asked to accept something that only
conservatives believe, or that is only recognized by those who believe in the
veracity of the New Testament text, and so on. After all, this sort of
widespread recognition and approval is the very thing that our stated method
requires.</p></blockquote><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>A</o:p>pparently the answer to the question of why we don't bestow such terms on the basis of the strength of the evidence alone is this: "Doing so isn't guarding enough against our own biases." If that is a correct way to approach things, shouldn't you then be afraid that, if you think the arguments for something are very strong, but the "heterogenous consensus" doesn't support it, you are being too moved by your own biases and should therefore correct your "too high" confidence in this proposition? This is one of the things I mean by conflating sociology and epistemology. I am referring to giving what I consider to be gravely undue weight to purely sociological considerations. The bestowal of a term of apparent epistemic approbation (such as "known historical facts" or "historical bedrock") is being held hostage to a purely contingent sociological fact--whether or not a certain varied consensus obtains concerning that fact. And that's being done on the grounds that otherwise we'd be too likely to be personally biased. </p><p class="MsoNormal">In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DLW3bkZQGM">recent video</a> on the topic of historical bedrock, Licona says that a proposition does not need to have the very high degree of consensus required for "historical bedrock" status in order for him to use it in arguing for the resurrection. For example, he says that he sometimes uses the proposition that the disciples believed and proclaimed that Jesus was physically raised from the dead or the proposition that the disciples had group experiences even though these are (he thinks) affirmed only by 75 or 80 percent (or thereabouts) of scholars rather than by a consensus of nearly 100%. This might be brought up to counter my claim here that the use of these concepts is not too restrictive. </p><p class="MsoNormal">I would answer: 1) Even these additional propositions allegedly have a fairly high consensus of scholarship. It remains a question whether, on this methodology, an individual would be considered reckless in some way if he had a very high probability for a proposition when it lacked this degree of majority consensus within the discipline. 2) The concern about "horizons" and the worry about guarding against "horizons" would definitely seem to caution against believing strongly<i> against </i>consensus. I will return to this point in the next section. While Licona has occasionally (in <i>The Resurrection of Jesus</i>) made a comment about how it can sometimes be okay to buck consensus, he far more often warns about the dangers of doing so and how dubious research is that goes against contemporary scholarly consensus. So the "horizons" concern does indicate, at least in Licona's case, a reluctance to go against consensus, and Habermas appears (see above) to endorse this concern as insightful. 3) I have repeatedly referred here both to the term "historical bedrock" and to the term "known historical facts" because it doesn't really matter where you put the cutoff. The problem lies in withholding terms of apparent epistemic approbation on the grounds of the absence of social approval of those propositions. This point lies at the heart of the "too restrictive" concern that I am raising here and at the heart of my saying that this is a conflation of sociology with epistemology. At the barest minimum, this use of terminology is creating a "mixed" category that combines an epistemic criterion (being well-evidenced) with a sociological criterion (being accepted by some level of consensus or other) and then bestows what sounds like an <i>epistemic</i> compliment. This is just not a good idea at all, even if one has various levels of such terms.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>Making things even stranger and more concerning, the consensus required is (as far as I can tell) supposed to be a consensus of modern scholars, even very modern scholars, not of the "democracy of the dead." Yet C.S. Lewis noted explicitly long ago that reading old books can serve exactly the supposedly desired purpose of correcting for our own bias, since living at a certain time period can induce bias. That sort of time-bound bias is especially likely within a given scholarly guild, where careers are at stake and even people from across the "ideological spectrum" influence one another. </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>This issue arose recently in a relevant social media exchange. Someone asked Dr. Licona for his opinion on the "democracy of the dead" in the field of New Testament studies. The questioner was interested particularly in the differences between my work and that of Licona and Craig Evans, where I'm agreeing more with older scholars. The question about the democracy of the dead is quite relevant to the issue of consensus. For example, the consensus landscape would look very different on the question of whether or not the Gospel authors deliberately made changes to the facts if we were to include those who intensively studied the Gospels in the past than if we were only to consider modern New Testament scholars. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DrMikeLicona/posts/413048380201253?comment_id=413061220199969&reply_comment_id=413111316861626">Licona's answer</a> was revealing:</o:p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">I don't think modern scholarship is "much superior" to previous scholarship. However, our knowledge base builds. Method is pondered on further and fine-tuned. And I'm of the opinion that these things assist us in furthering our knowledge. For example, in the discipline of astronomy, Hugh Ross may not be a smarter and more careful scientist than Galileo. However, he understands a lot more about our universe because his knowledge base is vastly greater than that which Galileo had.</blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>So here we have an argument that we don't (apparently) need to include these older scholars in our consensus-seeking. Why not? Because of some sort of science-like discoveries that have been made in the meanwhile, analogous to discoveries in astronomy, that add to our "knowledge base" and render those scholars simply less-informed than those living in our own time. Such a claim leaves me shaking my head. I really doubt that the older scholars listed above would agree, upon being informed of the work of Strauss or of the supposed "discovery" of fact-changing literary devices in the Gospels, that this is on a par with the discovery of a new planet or scientific law. Suffice it to say that, despite Licona's oft-repeated concerns about "guarding against horizons" and seeking consensus "across the ideological spectrum," apparently he isn't at all seeking to guard against horizons by looking seriously at older, conservative scholars writing before the era of biblical higher criticism or at dead scholars who, during that area, bucked its trends. </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>(Also indicative of the use of modern consensus in a way that is too restrictive is something from<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DLW3bkZQGM"> this video</a>, starting at about minute 9. I will be discussing this video more below. Licona says here, as I have heard him say elsewhere, that "classicists" don't establish the reliability of whole documents. He bases this on the authority of something that allegedly classicist John Ramsey said to him in personal communication. Licona says that Ramsey said that "classicists" don't establish holistic document reliability but rather just ask if certain specific events or passages are correct. Regardless of what Ramsey said, it's certainly easily possible to find classicists talking about the reliability of a given ancient <i>author.</i> Which would, of course, translate into expectations--more positive or more negative or mixed--about the historical reliability of their writings. I expect, however, that this means that Licona will now be citing an alleged consensus of modern "classicists" against the holistic method of supporting whole-Gospel reliability as opposed to the passage-by-passage approach.)</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>The modern limitation in the consensus sought by MFA architects has the potential both to withhold consensus from propositions which would otherwise receive it (based on a less time-bound measure of consensus) and to bestow apparent consensus upon propositions that otherwise (in the larger context of the generations) would not receive it. This is only one concern, but it is one worth bearing in mind.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>So, to begin with, Licona and Habermas are (I argue) conflating sociology and epistemology because, by their own account, they are restricting epistemic accolades by requiring a certain kind of scholarly consensus for their bestowal.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p>But that's not all.</o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><u>"Historical bedrock" as a category that is too loose</u></p><p class="MsoNormal">Right here I want to say that it isn't really true that agnosticism is cautious. I emphasis this in <i>The Eye of the Beholder</i>. There is nothing particularly "responsible," "careful," or "cautious" about agnosticism. If the evidence available to a reasoner justifies a high probability for proposition P and he gives P only a mediocre probability and hence remains agnostic about P, he's not thereby being "cautious." Instead, he's being too optimistic about not-P! </p><p class="MsoNormal">But it can be hard for some people to shake the idea that, by being hesitant and agnostic about more and more things, we're being more and more careful. To these people, it might seem that the too-restrictive definition of "historical bedrock" and "known historical facts" discussed in the last section is no biggie, because at the worst it would mean that a person was made hesitant about something or didn't use something in his argument when it really was highly justified by the evidence. Now, I actually think that is a pretty big deal. Once again, what if that kind of consensus is withheld from something really important that is really well-supported by the facts? What if that proposition affects some important practical matter? In that case, being overly diffident about it, due to lack of consensus, could have significant negative effects. Not to mention the fact that someone who is epistemically diffident in that case would be misevaluating the actual force of the evidence, which some of us think is a big deal in itself.</p><p class="MsoNormal">But if you still think it's no biggie, I want to raise yet another question: What do the MFA architects propose as the <i>means of knowing</i> how strong the evidence is, independently of scholarly consensus? Here's why I'm asking that: I've heard repeatedly that it would be a terrible misunderstanding of Habermas and Licona to say that they are placing too much weight on consensus because, after all, they insist that things that belong in these favored categories must have <i>both</i> consensus and good arguments. Well, the previous section has shown that even then, even granting that, they can be placing too much weight on sociology. But here's another problem: This way of stating matters assumes that "the evidence" or "the strength of the argument" is significantly accessible in some way that is quite independent of the mere presence or absence of consensus. In that way, the hope is, we won't include something in "historical bedrock" or some other favored category merely on the basis of heterogenous consensus when the arguments and evidence for it are poor. So at least we're supposedly being somewhat cautious about our acceptance of things on the basis of consensus, right? This is the ground for the indignation: "Haven't you noticed? Habermas and Licona are very clear that evidence and consensus are both required."</p><p class="MsoNormal">Suppose, then, that we lacked independent access to the strength of the argument. Suppose that our very access to the strength of the argument was to say, "Oh, look, a large, diverse consensus thinks this is true." Or suppose that we were so diffident about our own ability to evaluate the strength of the argument while going against consensus or working without consensus that we were scarcely ever willing to buck consensus or to go ahead and have very high confidence in something lacking that consensus. In that case, the two requirements would functionally collapse or nearly collapse into one. Hence, it wouldn't really matter if one kept insisting, "I'm taking this consensus to indicate that the arguments are really strong." If you aren't separately<i> evaluating</i> the arguments for yourself, you <i>might as well </i>just say that you're going to take the proposition to be<i> probably</i> true if it has this kind of diverse, modern consensus, and you're highly reluctant to go against that. The supposed requirement that it also be "well-evidenced" would not then be playing a significant, independent, <i>epistemic</i> role. Such a collapse would make it entirely possible for propositions to be treated as highly probable solely on the basis of the appearance of diverse consensus (and the fact that the scholars themselves<i> say </i>that the evidence is good), even if, to put it bluntly, the arguments in question really stink.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Even in <i>The Resurrection of Jesus</i>, there is a passage that disturbingly hints at this sort of collapse in Licona's own approach. (I do not know of anywhere that Habermas has endorsed this apparent collapse.)</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">When we investigate matters such as the resurrection of Jesus, historians in every camp operate with their own biases, agendas and hopes, all of which serve as unseen advisors. By requiring hypotheses to account for the historical bedrock, a check is placed on the explanatory narratives that are constructed. Any narrative unable to account for the historical bedrock should be returned to the drawing board or be relegated to the trash bin. Of course, this is a guideline rather than a law, since the majority of scholars have been mistaken on numerous occasions in the past. Accordingly there is a risk involved in requiring hypotheses to account for the historical bedrock before their serious consideration by other historians, since this may result in excluding a hypothesis that denies one or more of the facts belonging to the bedrock but [that?] may later turn out to be mistaken in light of new information. This risk notwithstanding, minimizing the impact of biases and agendas is a serious matter, and historians must weigh the possibility of a mistaken consensus on strongly evidenced facts against the certain presence of horizons. Guidelines are not to be enforced in a wooden manner. <i>The Resurrection of Jesus</i>, p. 58</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">If the evaluation of strong evidence is really operating as a <i>separate and independent</i> requirement for the bestowal of an accolade like "historical bedrock," this passage is very odd indeed. Licona is considering the concern that a false proposition might make its way into the category dubbed "historical bedrock" and might, from that position of influence, cause historians to exclude (wrongly) some hypothesis that involved denying or "failing to account for" that proposition. A very interesting and real possibility. Licona's response is weak sauce, especially given the resources his own position <i>ought</i> to give him for a better answer. He says that we really need to worry more about being overly influenced by individual agendas but that we must vaguely try not to be "too wooden" in trashing maverick hypotheses that swim upstream against scholarly consensus. Well, <i>that's</i> reassuring. That sounds like a <i>great</i> way to guard against including things in "historical bedrock" that are falsely believed by a majority of our contemporaries!</p><p class="MsoNormal">I myself could use Licona's and Habermas's own statements to construct a much more reassuring-sounding response. <i>Supposedly</i>, or so we are repeatedly assured, no proposition makes it into the coveted category of historical bedrock solely on the basis of any consensus, however broad or diverse. No, no, we are told, it must also have strong evidence for it. Well, if that "also" is to have any practical meaning whatsoever, then it must mean that the individual investigator looks at the evidence <i>for himself</i>, independent (as much as he can bring himself to be) of the knowledge of what all the other people think, and decides whether or not it is strong. Why doesn't Licona say<i> that</i>, then? In response to this concern, he could have said something like this: </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">But it must be remembered that our method requires very strong evidence as well as heterogenous consensus. If a historian is confronted with a theory that denies something he has previously regarded as bedrock, he can re-evaluate the evidence for himself, taking into account whatever arguments the maverick theorist brings, and consider whether the evidence is as strong as he previously regarded it to be. If he changes his mind, he should no longer regard that proposition as part of historical bedrock, leaving him more open to the new theory. In this way, the requirement of good evidence, and the possibility of evaluating that evidence for ourselves, can act as a check upon scholarly consensus, just as we hope that seeking heterogenous consensus can act as a check upon individual bias.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">See? That would have been a lot more helpful than vague talk about "not being wooden" combined with further fretting about the "certainty of [individual] horizons." It is difficult to read Licona's statement of this problem, and his answer to it, in any way other than as a tacit admission (though it probably did not occur to him that it was any sort of an admission) that he has no really robust notion of <i>independently</i> evaluating the arguments for a position that runs contrary to consensus. Rather, the idea seems to be that a major way that we <i>decide that </i>something has good arguments going for it is by noticing that it has a large, heterogenous, and (at least in the field of biblical studies) modern consensus going for it. But practically speaking, this comes close to collapsing the requirement for strong evidence into the requirement for heterogenous contemporary consensus!</p><p class="MsoNormal">Some comments that he has made in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DLW3bkZQGM">recent video</a> support this concern. Here (starting around minute 3) he insists, per script, that it would be a terrible misunderstanding to think that he and/or Habermas is saying that something is true merely due to consensus. No, no, it's that it has such great arguments for it, and this is <i>why</i> it commands such a high consensus. But just a few moments later he endorses the proposition that if the Republicans and Democrats agree on the origin of the Covid virus, since they hardly agree on anything, why then, that proposition is "probably true"!</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="normal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 133%;">Some people have misunderstood <st1:city w:st="on">Gary</st1:city>
on this about the minimal facts, thinking that we should accept these facts
because the majority of scholars grant them, and that's never what <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Gary</st1:place></st1:city> said. …It's just a
matter of here are 12 facts for which the supporting data is so strong
that a majority of scholars, including sceptical ones, grant them as facts. So
the importance of that, of course, is if you have a sceptic, a non-believer who
grants those facts, you know, they may have biases, but they're not the same
bias as a Christian would have. So it's kind of like, look, <i>if both Republicans and Democrats were in
agreement let's say that the Covid virus came from the Wuhan lab in China,
well, then we could have a pretty good degree of confidence that's the case</i>,
because…they don't get along with one another, the Republicans and Democrats,
they agree on hardly anything. <i>If
they agree on this, well, then it's probably true</i>.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="normal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 133%;">[Notice that there is no mention here of diving in and evaluating
for oneself the evidence about the origin of the Covid virus. Rather, the
agreement between the Republicans and Democrats is being treated here as
sufficient grounds for believing that the conclusion is “probably true,” due to
their usual disagreement. LM]</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p class="normal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 133%;">So if you're looking at both sceptic and believer alike who
are willing to grant certain things based on the data because the data is
strong, <i>they think the data strong</i>,
well, that gives you some more confidence that that probably is correct. (emphasis added)</span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">Hmmm. So how are we <i>accessing</i>, "There is strong evidence for the claim that the Covid virus came from a lab in China"? Apparently by noticing the consensus between people who often otherwise disagree and noticing that the people we're counting in the consensus think that the data for their position is strong. That's just not very encouraging as far as the permissiveness of the dependence on consensus. It's not very encouraging about the power of the "strongly evidenced" criterion to do any real epistemic work in <i>correcting</i> for a wrong consensus. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Elsewhere in the video (around minute 9:50) Licona does refer to doing both: evaluating the arguments for the claim that Jesus died by crucifixion, finding them to be strong, and also noting that the consensus agrees with us. But what if we evaluate the arguments for ourselves and find that our independent evaluation of the evidence for some claim strongly differs from a "heterogenous consensus"? What happens then? And is it really <i>necessary</i> to do an independent evaluation if, as in the Wuhan virus example, the proposition is "probably true" if a heterogenous majority of people agree on it?</p><p class="MsoNormal">Licona's tendency to place far too much evidential weight upon consensus is also evident in his treatment of my own work, when he has referred again and again to an alleged majority of scholars "including evangelicals" that (he claims) agree with his views and disagree with mine. Repeatedly in his response videos in 2020, he would make a fairly blatant scholarly bandwagon argument. Sometimes he would undeniably exaggerate the alleged consensus (though no doubt sincerely), giving listeners the impression that my views are so bizarre that virtually nobody else agrees with them and that virtually all even among living conservatives agree with his literary device views. This is wildly untrue, and I must resist the temptation to take the time to point out the various occasions in that series when Licona simply gave a factually false impression (one he no doubt believes himself, but should know better about) concerning the scope and nature of the alleged scholarly consensus. But that is not my point here. My point here is that he could barely restrain himself from making an argument from consensus repeatedly. Then he would pull himself up, make some brief gesture in the direction of saying, "Well, that consensus doesn't automatically mean McGrew is wrong" followed by, well, but, man, wow, she is <i>so</i> out of touch with the consensus of scholars, and the consensus shouldn't be dismissed too lightly. Lather, rinse, repeat. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Here are just a couple of examples. Licona <a href="https://www.risenjesus.com/wp-content/uploads/response-to-lydia-mcgrew.pdf">preemptively sneered</a> at<i> The Eye of the Beholder</i>, which had not yet come out at that time and has now been released to scholarly <a href="http://lydiamcgrew.com/EOBEndorsements.pdf">critical acclaim </a>.(This at least refutes the implication that my work is so crazy and fringy that no real scholar in the field takes it seriously.) </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">The point I’m making is there is so much more going on behind John’s Gospel that
McGrew fails to appreciate. Despite the fact that Johannine specialists find John’s Gospel to be a
challenging conundrum, including evangelical scholars who have spent years focused on John
and have published commentaries on it, McGrew apparently thinks the matter is grossly
overblown and has announced that she is presently working on her book on John’s Gospel. One
wonders what she will find that has gone totally unrecognized by those who’ve spent lifetimes
studying the Fourth Gospel. </p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">Please remember that the supposedly radical, fringe idea that I'm promoting, that Licona is dismissing here, is that John's Gospel is robust reportage and that John never made anything up or changed any facts. It is not even inerrancy! It is not the idea that John recorded every word of Jesus verbatim, like a tape recorder. "So much more going on behind John's Gospel that McGrew fails to appreciate" is code for the idea that John invisibly changed things, reporting things in ways that made it look like they were true (in his narrative) when he knew that they weren't, for theological or literary motives. And<i> that </i>is being treated here as something so strongly supported by scholarly consensus that <i>I'm </i>obviously out to lunch for rejecting it. Of course, the consensus is wildly exaggerated as well. My views on John's Gospel are very close to those of living scholars like Peter J. Williams and D.A. Carson, recently dead scholars like Leon Morris, and older scholars like J. B. Lightfoot. What I'm noting here though is the extremely heavy-handed use of alleged consensus against a view deemed too conservative, even though it is a view that would have been deemed "the" evangelical view up until very recently.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Here's another:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="normal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 133%;">Now McGrew does not think the Gospels belong to the genre of
Greco-Roman biography and asks the following question: “Do the Gospels belong
to or resemble the genre of GrecoRoman Βίοs in the informative sense that the
authors were probably influenced by the conventions of this genre and chose to
write their Gospels according to the conventions of this genre?” She answers
“no” for 2 reasons: First, she says “Burridge’s arguments are utterly
unconvincing.” However, a very large and heterogenous majority of New
Testament scholars have found the arguments of Burridge and others quite
convincing. Of course, this does not make them right. But such a large and
heterogenous majority should not be dismissed too quickly. So, let’s look at McGrew’s second reason.</span></p></blockquote><p>Here's that back and forth movement. I don't simply<i> say</i> that Burridge's arguments are utterly convincing. I <i>go into why they are unconvincing </i>in some detail. Licona apparently thinks he can move on from my "first reason" (that Burridge's arguments are too weak to support so strong a substantive position) merely by stating that "a very large and heterogenous majority of New Testament scholars have found the arguments convincing"! Then he stops, says that that doesn't make Burridge right, then he goes back to saying the consensus "should not be dismissed too quickly." Then he doesn't examine why I say that Burridge's arguments are unconvincing and moves on to a different argument I give against Burridge's thesis! This is typical of the use of "large and heterogenous consensus" as a way to brush off doubts about the sufficiency of argument. How dare someone say that the positive arguments offered for the position are weak? A large, heterogenous majority of scholars thinks they are strong. They can't be all that weak! Next! </p><p>(And again, Licona himself takes this genre identification to mean that it's quite probable that the Gospel authors used a certain type of "literary devices" that involved changing what happened. By no means do all of the scholars who have adopted the idea of "Greco-Roman bioi" agree with <i>that</i> conclusion. Indeed, one often sees the "Greco-Roman bioi" idea touted as supporting Gospel historicity. So even the invocation of the large consensus is being stated in soft focus and then pushed for more content than it really supports.)</p><p>You can search the transcript to see how often Licona refers to a majority or a large majority consensus to imply that I'm wrong. While he will try to say that he isn't assuming that this majority is correct, his continual use of the claim of majority as grounds for dismissing a more conservative view says otherwise.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The mention of a "heterogenous" consensus and phrases like "including evangelical scholars" is particularly noteworthy. 1) "Heterogenous consensus" is what Licona has given so much weight to in the definition of "historical bedrock." So are we now supposed to act like it's something at least akin to "historical bedrock" that the Gospels are specifically "Greco-Roman bioi" and that they make use of Licona's suggested "compositional devices"?! 2) As already mentioned, this includes only contemporary scholars, due to a faulty, pseudo-scientific notion of modern progress in biblical studies. This means that modern biases influencing a large number of scholars in various camps are getting a free pass. 3) The views in question, which he is trying to bolster in this way, are the sort of things that just a very few decades ago would have been considered "liberal" scholarly views by definition.</p><p class="MsoNormal">This last point deserves emphasis and will be the final point I make in this post: When Licona, Habermas, and anyone else talks about a "heterogenous majority" of scholars "across the ideological spectrum," they will often list labels that are taken to indicate real diversity of underlying approaches. These include terms like "skeptic," "liberal," "conservative," "evangelical," "Jewish," or "Muslim." The only assumption that could make such a consensus even a <i>weak</i> indicator of truth is that these terms indicate stable, independent, definitional commitments by such scholars that really would tend to lead to diverging opinions in the area of interest. That, in turn, is what makes it seem like a remarkable thing to find that they all agree. By golly, if an evangelical and a liberal both agree with this proposition about the Gospels, then it must have something going for it. Again and again, in a number of things I have read, Licona will make use of this idea: If (some) <i>evangelical</i> scholars agree that John moved the Temple cleansing, moved the day of Jesus' crucifixion, elaborated Jesus' discourses, and more, then who are you, you non-expert, to disagree with them? The arguments <i>must</i> be good, right?</p><p class="MsoNormal">But it was just approximately yesterday (in the larger sweep of history) that accepting the idea that the Gospel authors changed such facts would have been considered to exclude one, <i>by definition</i>, from being an "evangelical" at all! So the very concept of what counts as an "evangelical" has shifted, and the "scholarly spectrum" has, effectively, narrowed. That is part of what I mean by the biases inherent in all living at the same time. While the "evangelical" label has remained, the commitments involved in that label have not remained stable. We certainly should not assume that just because someone whom someone else <i>labels</i> "evangelical" holds a certain conclusion, when that conclusion might sound "liberal" to the ears of the uninitiated, it must be well-evidenced. And it has been a major part of my mission in writing my last two books to show<i> in detail</i> that such propositions are not well-evidenced. The arguments leading some "evangelicals" to embrace these conclusions are the same tired, old, poor arguments that cause those previously labeled "liberals" to embrace them. Indeed, on occasion the "evangelicals" have even out-liberaled the "liberals" in coming up with a farfetched view supported by Byzantine literary arguments. (I'm thinking here of Daniel Wallace's theory that John changed "My God, why have you forsaken me?" into "I thirst.") The labels therefore mean <i>nothing</i> as far as how strong the argument is for the conclusion. </p><p class="MsoNormal">It turns out that it just isn't true that people labeled "evangelicals" are moved in a more "liberal" direction only because of the sheer force of overwhelming evidence. Far from it. Indeed, witnessing the way that Licona and others have used the notion of scholarly consensus, one can see that younger evangelical scholars, seminarians, apologists, pastors, etc., are more likely to be bludgeoned into reluctantly accepting more liberal views by the sheer force of peer pressure. Thus the claim of "heterogenous consensus" becomes self-perpetuating. In the contemporary milieu, the very concept of "heterogenous majority," applied to people who are all part of the guild and seeking a place at the table during our own time, is often a misleading concept. It is an illusion of diversity, in a field where truly original thought in a too-conservative direction is laughed off the stage by the charge of hyper-conservatism or even (gasp) fundamentalism.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Taken together, what all this means is clear: We really need to stop worrying about consensus in biblical studies. We need to stop assigning it any significant, <i>independent</i> epistemic force. We need to make our investigation all about the evidence and arguments, as best we can evaluate them. We need to stop pretending that the consensus of modern scholarship, diversity of labels notwithstanding, indicates real, interesting diversity of viewpoints.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In terms of the argument for the resurrection, this also means that we shouldn't really make a big deal about sheer scholarly support for any premise we want to use, even if it is a conservative-sounding premise that does have overwhelming evidence going for it. If you want to mention scholarly consensus on, say, the fact that Jesus existed, <i>be sure</i> to make it clear that you've investigated the evidence for yourself and that that is where your real emphasis lies.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Next up, in Part 3: A discussion of confusion in the statements of the MFA about what is really granted by a large consensus of scholarship.</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-64743665960183234762021-11-22T11:43:00.007-05:002023-01-29T14:57:02.732-05:00On the Minimal Facts Case for the Resurrection: Part I--A statement of my central objections<p>This is part 1.</p><p><br /></p><p>Part 2 is <a href="http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2021/11/on-minimal-facts-case-for-resurrection_29.html">here</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>Part 3 is <a href="http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2021/12/on-minimal-facts-for-resurrection-part.html">here</a>.</p><p> </p><p>In light of some recent events, I've decided that it would be a good idea for me to do a new, three-part, written series on my objections to the minimal facts argument (hereafter the MFA) and related cases like the "core facts" case of William Lane Craig. I have written on this before. Here are several of my older posts. (<a href="http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2020/08/when-minimal-is-minimizing-updated.html">Here</a>, <a href="http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2020/08/minimal-facts-vs-maximal-data.html">here</a>, <a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2021/01/an_irony_of_minimalism_in_defe.html">here</a>.) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUt3r3dXBr4">Here</a> is a longer treatment of the issues in the form of a webinar. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe1tMOs8ARn0sWTtdaXPg8oMRqmYnhU6M">Here</a> is my Youtube playlist. If interested in more details beyond those in this post, please see these other resources.</p><p>The three parts currently planned will be as follows.. In this post, Part I, I will state what I take to be the most salient epistemological problems with minimalist approaches to arguing for the resurrection. These are approaches that attempt to rely only on a small number of facts widely granted by scholars and to eschew reliance on the proposition below labeled DT. I will also reply to some attempted responses to my criticisms that I've encountered over the last several years. </p><p>In Part II, I plan to talk about another problem with minimalism, which is what I call the confusion between epistemology and sociology. I am deferring this to the second post, because the objections in this post stand on their own even if someone finds the concern in Part II to be offensive and/or thinks that the scholars in question are neither confused themselves about this nor fostering such confusion in others. </p><p>In Part III, I plan to provide and discuss quotations from Dr. Gary Habermas and possibly from others and to explain how these caused confusion initially for Tim and me concerning what is or is not granted by the wide consensus of scholars. That confusion led to some incorrect statements in our 2009 Blackwell article about the scope of scholarly consensus (statements that we have since publicly repudiated). Some have now tried to use these earlier quotations against us, with the unsubtle implication that what we were doing there was at least quite close to or<i> a lot like</i> an MFA (in fact, it was not, despite our mistaken idea about the scope of consensus) and also that we should have known better than to be at all confused about how much scholars do and don't grant. I would contend instead that such a mix-up is at least somewhat understandable on the part of those who don't expect confusion on the part of prominent, admired apologists (which might seem uncharitable). I think that this is why so many other laymen and even philosophers and apologists have also been confused about the appearance experiences claim in the MFA. I'll be discussing this more in Part III.</p><p>Since there has been some surprising confusion in a recent social media exchange about the terms "use" and "rely on" in the context of argument, I want to state<i> for the record at the outset</i> that I intend those terms to be interchangeable in this series, and the same for "depend on."</p><p>Throughout this post I will be talking about a proposition that I will label DT (for "details of testimony").</p><p>DT: The Gospel accounts and the account in Acts 1 of Jesus' resurrection appearances and of the finding of the empty tomb reliably represent what the disciples/alleged witnesses (both male and female)<i> claimed</i> about their experiences at that time. This includes such matters as that Jesus ate with them more than once, that they were able to touch him, that he appeared to them multiple times and to varied groups, that he had lengthy conversations with them, and so forth.</p><p>Readers of our 2009 article on the resurrection will hopefully recognize that DT is included as an aspect of both what we call W there (the testimony of the women) and what we call D (the testimony of the [male] disciples). Our 2009 article crucially relied on DT in order to set the Bayes factor (a measure of the force of an item of evidence) for these facts, something we emphasize repeatedly in the article. I will not argue here for the claim that our 2009 article crucially relied on DT, though I could bring multiple quotations to show it. I believe that the article speaks for itself and that most people who read it can see this, despite some very surprising statements that I have recently encountered to the contrary. I also note that DT is not question-begging, since it is a statement about what the alleged witnesses <i>claimed</i>; their testimony, with this content, must then be explained. We argued that the resurrection was the best explanation.</p><p>When I speak of minimalist approaches to arguing for the resurrection in this post, I particularly have in mind those that try to avoid using DT, relying instead on more minimal claims about appearance experiences that are granted by a wide variety of scholars. Such approaches sometimes include the statement that the Gospel accounts "present Jesus' resurrection as physical," but this is different from relying on DT, since the premise instead is merely the very broad fact that the accounts present the resurrection as physical. This is meant to support the conclusion that the apostles claimed that Jesus' resurrection <i>was physical. </i>It does <i>not</i> amount to relying on the claim that the disciples actually testified to the specific experiences<i> that are told in the Gospels</i>. (This is an important distinction.)</p><p>A classic and fairly typical statement of the "minimal fact" about the appearance experience claims is found in Michael Licona's book, <i>The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach</i>. Licona, along with Gary Habermas, is one of the major proponents of the MFA. Here (with some surrounding context) is how Licona words that.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">In a similar manner, historians
may conclude that, subsequent to Jesus’ death by crucifixion, a number of his
followers had experiences in individual and group settings that convinced them
Jesus had risen from the dead and had appeared to them. We may affirm with
great confidence that Peter had such an experience in an individual setting,
and we will see that the same may be said of an adversary of the church named
Paul. We may likewise affirm that there was at least one occasion when a group
of Jesus’ followers including “the Twelve” had such an experience. Did other
experiences reported by the Gospels occur as well, such as the appearances to
the women, Thomas, the Emmaus disciples, and the multiple group appearances
reported by the tradition in I Corinthians 15:3-7 and John? Where did these
experiences occur? Historians may be going beyond what the data warrants in
assigning a verdict with much confidence to these questions. <span style="font-size: 12pt;">I reiterate that historicans may conclude that
subsequent to Jesus’ execution, a number of his followers had experiences, in
individual and group settings, that convinced them Jesus had risen from the
dead and had appeared to them in some manner. This conclusion is granted by a
nearly unaniumous consensus of modern scholars and may therefore be added to
our “historical bedrock.” <i>The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach</i>, p. 372</span></p><p>Similar quotations about the disciples having had experiences that "in some sense" seemed to them to be experiences of the risen Jesus can be documented from Habermas. This appearance fact definitely does not include DT. Indeed, I have recently been told that it is <i>so obvious</i> that the MFA doesn't rely on the details of the Gospel accounts, not even on taking them to be what the original witnesses claimed to have experienced (the premise we used in the 2009 article), that everyone should know this and that Tim and I should never have been confused about whether or not a wide consensus of scholars grants DT. (In other contexts, laymen who advocate the MFA have tried to tell me that the MFA and/or William Lane Craig's cousin "core facts" approach <i>does </i>include DT among its premises and that it is uncharitable for me to think otherwise. This understandably makes me feel that I'm in a no-win situation. When I try to clarify what the MFA doesn't include, I'm told by one set of MFA defenders that it does include that. When I admit openly that we were originally confused ourselves about what Habermas's research shows and the fact that DT is not included, I'm told that we should have known better all along.) I will not take the time here to argue further that the MFA and other minimalist approaches do not rely on DT. While I could bring multiple quotations to support this, I will take it that the prominent, scholarly advocates of those approaches are well aware that they are not relying on DT and are quite willing to admit it, so hopefully I won't be accused of misrepresentation for simply stating this: The MFA doesn't rely on DT as a premise. DT is not meant to be included in the MFA premise stating that the disciples had "experiences" that they believed were appearances of the risen Jesus. Moreover, the original advocate of the MFA (Habermas) apparently did not intend to say that a large consensus of scholars grants DT, even though DT merely states that this is what the alleged witnesses claimed.</p><p>Therein, I believe, lies a crucial problem with the MFA and other minimalist approaches. <span style="text-indent: -24px;">It is my firm contention that it is not possible to provide a strong argument for the bodily resurrection of Jesus without being prepared to defend the proposition that the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are unembellished, reliable accounts of at least what the initial putative witnesses <i>claimed</i>. By “strong argument” I mean (roughly) an argument that would require a good bit of evidence to defeat it, an argument that is sufficient to overcome even a moderately low prior probability for the event and to leave one with a high posterior. (To put this in the terms of our Blackwell article, a "strong argument" here refers to an argument that provides a significantly top-heavy Bayes factor.) I'm reluctant to quantify these statements further, but for reasons of concreteness I will tentatively say that I do not think that evidential arguments for the resurrection that do not rely on DT can take a prior probability of, say, .1 or lower to a posterior probability of, say, .9 or higher.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">A major reason for my contention about the need for DT is this: A strong argument for the resurrection needs to contain good evidence that the disciples were<i> rational</i> in believing that Jesus was physically raised (not merely that they <i>did</i> believe this). Many people irrationally believe religious propositions, and the skeptic is not going to grant (and perhaps shouldn’t grant) that, since the disciples believed Jesus was physically raised, they must have had very good reasons for believing this. Any skeptic quite reasonably wants to know more specifically what they said they experienced and whether or not that would have been good reason to accept that Jesus was physically alive. </span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">The MFA states that the disciples had experiences shortly after Jesus’ death that convinced them that Jesus had risen. But the “appearance experiences” referred to in the MFA have to be left vaguely specified in order to obtain the high consensus of scholarship required by the MFA method. Vaguely-defined appearance experiences are insufficient to show with a high degree of confidence that the disciples were rational in believing that Jesus was physically raised. The appearance experiences allowable could include everything from the kinds of empirical, polymodal, sustained, intersubjective group experiences described in the Gospels to some sort of experience of light and sound, a vision at a distance, or a spiritual ecstasy. </span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Consider: Atheist scholar Gerd Ludemann is included in the "scholarly consensus" surrounding the experiences claim in the MFA. Habermas and William Lane Craig have quoted the following statement from Ludemann as showing how much support this minimal fact has, and one will often see lay apologists quote it on social media as though it's a big deal. (I just saw someone do this within the past week.)</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;"></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><h1 class="quoteText" style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ. (<i>What Really Happened to Jesus?</i> p. 80)</h1></blockquote><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">But Habermas and Licona have elsewhere made it clear that Ludemann's concession here really doesn't amount to much. Indeed, in the same book, he says that the "objectification" of the Gospel resurrection accounts is the result of later embellishments. By objectifying he means the physical details such as Jesus' eating and being tangible. He insists that "the original seeing...was a seeing in the spirit" (p. 69)--some sort of religious ecstasy and, in some cases, an individual hallucination. One wonders very much in that case why we should quote Ludemann's statement with such enthusiasm, unless perhaps merely to argue (from Ludemann's authority) that that the disciples were not the merest fraudsters, making the whole thing up from literally nothing.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">What is often not well-understood is that the details of evidence matter. It is a crucial principle of probabilistic reasoning that we must always use the most specific version of a piece of evidence that is relevant to the conclusion in question. Otherwise, merely by cherry-picking a degree of "focus" for the evidence, we can make it sound like it supports a conclusion that, if fully understood, it either doesn't support at all, supports far less than we think, or even disconfirms!</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Here is a well-known example in epistemology: Suppose that you are arguing that John is Roman Catholic. Suppose that you have as a piece of evidence the specific proposition that John is from a city in Ireland that is almost entirely Protestant. But instead of describing the evidence in that way, you describe it as, "John is from Ireland." You then argue that, since most Irishmen are Roman Catholic, probably John is Roman Catholic. This is obviously illicit. By deliberately giving the evidence in a "fuzzy" form and leaving something out, you make it sound like you have a strong premise for the desired conclusion, when in fact stating the evidence in the specific form in which you really have it would show that the evidence points in exactly the opposite direction.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Similarly, to say that Ludemann and others grant that the disciples had some sort of appearance experiences that led them to think that Jesus was risen, while including in that "consensus" widely different views about what<i> kind</i> of experiences we are talking about, we are basing our conclusion on supposed expert opinions that might or might not support the desired conclusion--that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. In fact, some such opinions might even tend to support the opposite conclusion. For example, if Ludemann is right that the disciples merely had a "seeing in the spirit" experience, it isn't at all clear that this proposition supports the proposition that Jesus was literally risen from the dead. Or suppose that a scholar thinks that the disciples had an experience as of Jesus up in the sky, seen at a distance--something that Bart Ehrman has suggested might be the <i>most</i> that a group of disciples experienced. (Ehrman doesn't grant even this, but he thinks at most this would have been the type of "group experience" that they had.) An experience like that might be well explained by the theory that Jesus did<i> not </i>physically rise from the dead but instead was dead while his spirit was in heaven, communicating with his disciples from there.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Here is another example of the "specificity of evidence" problem: Suppose that I for some reason want to argue that a number in a box is the number 99. I know ahead of time that it must be some number between 1 and 1000. Suppose that I have never looked in the box and that ten people come and look into the box briefly and then make statements to me about the number in the box. Two of them tell me that the number that they saw was 200. One of them tells me that the number was 99. Four of them tell me that the number was 42. And the remaining three state that the number was 800. It would be completely illegitimate for me to combine the four votes for 42, the one vote for 99, and the two votes for 200 and state, "70% of those surveyed agree that the number in the box is less than 250. Thus this survey supports the proposition that the number is 99, by reducing thee possibilities to numbers less than 250." In point of fact, 9 out of 10 of those surveyed stated a number <i>other than</i> 99! There is nothing about being "less than 250" that unifies all of these claims so as to make them all support the conclusion that the number is 99. It is obviously false to say that the survey supports the conclusion that the number is 99.</span><span style="text-indent: -24px;"> The "consensus" is gerrymandered by combining specific claims, most of which point away from the desired conclusion, describing them in a vague fashion, and thus making it sound like seven of the speakers asserted something that supported the conclusion that the number is 99.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Similarly, Ludemann's belief that the disciples experienced a "seeing in the spirit" and Ehrman's suggestion that (at most) perhaps they experienced a "seeing at a distance" really have nothing much in common with the belief of an evangelical scholar included in Habermas's survey who thinks that the disciples really had experiences like those contained in the Gospel accounts. These do not form an epistemic "natural kind" supporting a literal resurrection, except in the very tenuous sense that they all involve some notion that the disciples were not <i>mere</i> religious frauds.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">The issue of the disciples' rationality and trying to do without DT is exacerbated when one is arguing (as of course a Christian should be) for Jesus' true bodily resurrection and bodily appearances rather than a vision by the disciples. For it is the bodily details that are included in DT as elements of the disciples' testimony. These elements were crucial to Tim's and my argument in 2009 because they helped to rule out various religious, secular, or paranormal explanations of the disciples' testimony other than physical resurrection. As I often put it in presentations, whether or not you and your friends spent a lot of time in conversation with another mutual, well-known friend is not the kind of thing you can be easily mistaken about. All the less so if all of you agree that you had meals and long conversations with him in varying groups over a period of weeks. These are the kinds of robust details of testimony included in DT that make honest mistake, grief hallucination, ghostly apparition, and religious ecstasy non-starters as explanations of the testimony. And this is why trying to do without DT is such a problem.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">I would say that a skeptic confronted with the MFA would have reason to think that something-or-other happened after Jesus' death that was odd and intriguing, but he need not have too much concern (on the basis of the MFA alone) that it was something supernatural, much less that it was specifically the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. If there is a lot of evidence for "the paranormal" (I'm not convinced that there is, but I bring this up for the sake of completeness), this would provide even more categories for some sort of odd "spiritual" event at that time, after the death of Jesus, sufficient to account for the minimal facts, without strongly supporting the Christian explanation. A non-Christian like Dale Allison will be inclined to give a lot of weight to this latter possibility.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Several responses have emerged over the years as I have laid out these problems. I'll deal first with the most recent--a new one on me, and quickly answered. In a recent presentation at the ETS, the audio of which I possess, one presenter attempted to say that Habermas has already addressed the kind of criticism I am leveling here. Here is the quote from Habermas that supposedly addresses it:</span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">[I]t has been concluded that the resurrection
can be historically demonstrated even when the minimum of historical facts are
utilized. Neither can it be concluded merely that “something” occurred which is
indescribable due to naturalistic premises or to the character of history or because
of the “cloudiness” or legendary character of the New Testament texts. Neither
can it be said that Jesus rose spiritually but not literally. These and other
such views are refuted in that the facts admitted by virtually all scholars as
knowable history are adequate to historically demonstrate the literal
resurrection of Jesus according to probability. pp. 165-166 <i>The Historical
Jesus</i></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">I am rather astonished that anyone would think that that quote addresses my concern about the appearances. This is Habermas's assertion of what he believes his argument supports. Of course he believes that his argument supports a stronger conclusion than I think it supports! It is not surprising at all that Habermas asserts that we can indeed conclude something stronger than merely that "something" occurred or that a spiritual resurrection occurred. This is not </span><i style="text-indent: -24px;">addressing </i><span style="text-indent: -24px;">my arguments that the MFA doesn't provide enough grounds for thinking that the disciples were rational in their belief. I am well aware that Habermas and Licona and other MFA advocates think that they have a good argument for the bodily resurrection of Jesus. That is not news! I never claimed that those who use the MFA do not believe that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. The question is whether they </span><i style="text-indent: -24px;">do</i><span style="text-indent: -24px;"> have a strong argument for that conclusion, using only premises granted by a wide consensus of living scholars. I've argued that they don't, as summarized here. It doesn't "address" that argument to quote Habermas <i>asserting</i> something about how strong his own argument is.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">In fact, if anything, providing this quotation saves me the trouble of searching to document the fact that Habermas has claimed that he has a really strong argument for the resurrection! Suppose that someone wants to retreat to saying merely that the MFA provides <i>some</i> reason (not a strong reason) for the resurrection, or that it's better than nothing or "might get someone thinking," etc. The above quotation from Habermas shows that he thinks he can "historically demonstrate the literal resurrection of Jesus by probability," using only propositions granted by "virtually all" scholars! So any such retrenchment by MFA advocates would amount to a very significant retreat from the founder's ambitions.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">A more popular attempted answer to my concerns has been to supplement the barest minimal facts with a slightly larger set of facts, including those designated by Habermas as "known facts" and by Licona as "second-order facts." The most salient of these for purposes of trying to answer my concerns is the proposition that the disciples themselves believed that Jesus was raised bodily. Note that this is somewhat stronger than the fact that they had some sort of experiences that convinced them that Jesus was risen, since it includes more specifically that they really believed that he was risen <i>bodily</i>. (By the way, DT doesn't even make it into this larger list of facts used by Habermas.)</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">This response to my criticisms--slightly supplementing the barest MFA with the disciples' belief in bodily resurrection--usually involves saying that they would not have believed so firmly in bodily resurrection if they did not have experiences like those contained in the Gospels. It thus reverses the order of dependence from that which I am suggesting. Instead of arguing that the disciples<i> did</i> claim the things found in the Gospels, and hence that (if they were not lying) their belief that Jesus was raised from the dead in bodily form was rational (since such experiences would provide good reason to think Jesus was raised bodily), this proposal is to argue that they probably experienced something-or-other like what is found in the Gospels, since they probably believed rationally.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">This, however, is a gravely inferior way to argue. For it requires us to assume without the support of DT that the disciples were rational and then to argue that something akin to DT is true as a<i> conclusion</i>. To use DT both as a premise and as a conclusion would be circular. So the apologist trying to do without DT as a premise is forced to use only evidence that the disciples really <i>believed</i> in Jesus' bodily resurrection, hoping that the skeptic will grant him that they were probably rational in doing so. But that "something akin to DT" is not independently supported by documentary evidence (namely, the Gospel accounts). Rather, it is simply supported by the reasoning that they must have experienced something like that or else they <i>wouldn't have </i>believed and therefore, probably, that their corporate belief was not only rational but true. This is much weaker than arguing for the bodily resurrection of Jesus as an inference to the best explanation, using the records in the Gospels as unembellished, varied testimony from different individuals and groups who were in a position to know. (See <a href="http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2020/08/independence-conspiracy-and-resurrection.html">this post</a> on the conspiracy hypothesis, which also is relevant to hypotheses of hallucination. Note, too, that the approach I am criticizing here does not allow us to multiply Bayes factors at all, since it treats "the disciples" merely as a group with a particular bare belief, without looking at even partially independent, varied, unembellished, specific accounts.)</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Now, I am not going to say that the disciples' sincere belief that Jesus was raised bodily would not be <i>some</i> evidence that they had good reason for believing this, and thereby <i>some</i> evidence that Jesus was really raised, but if I really know very little independently about why they believed this, the argument is quite weak.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Compare: Suppose that I don't know Alice very well. She doesn't seem wildly irrational to me, but I don't have much to go on. I then find out that Alice believes that she has seen a ghost, due to some experience or other that she had last week. But I'm unable to find out about the details of her claims in any way that I am confident is not embellished. So I don't really know in detail what she claims happened to her. Does the bare fact that a person who isn't certifiably insane thinks that she saw a ghost provide<i> some</i> reason for believing 1) that she believed this for good reason and hence 2) that there are really ghosts? Yes, some. But not much. It is not a strong argument.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">It makes a big difference which of the following I am saying:</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">1) Alice </span><span style="text-indent: -24px;">does firmly believe that she has seen a ghost. Therefore, she </span><span style="text-indent: -24px;">probably experienced detailed interactions with a person she knows to be dead (though I have no access to her actual accounts which I can trust to be unembellished by others). Therefore, probably, she really did see a ghost.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">2) Alice has described in detail a series of interactions with a person she knows to be dead, and I have access to these descriptions and reason to think that they are her own, actual claims, unembellished by others. I can<i> see for myself</i> that these would be good reason to believe in ghosts. Since I have other reasons to think that Alice is not a liar, it is probable that she has really seen a ghost.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">I can't help thinking that people who make the argument, "They sincerely believed it, so they must have had experiences like those in the Gospels, so Jesus was probably really physically risen" do not appreciate the magnitude of the difference between these. But structurally they are completely different.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">This is also why it is not enough simply to argue that the Gospels <i>portray</i> Jesus' resurrection as physical, while carefully saying that we don't know if those portrayals are embellished, not (specifically) what the putative witnesses claimed. There one is using the general fact of the portrayal only to argue that the disciples preached a message of Jesus' physical resurrection, while not using the claim that these stories are what the witnesses claimed. (Licona, <i>The Resurrection of Jesus</i>, pp. 329-330, 338-339)</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Arguing from the disciples' belief in Jesus' bodily resurrection (while eschewing reliance on DT) only postpones the need to press the skeptic to accept something he is highly unlikely to accept--i.e., that if the disciples sincerely thought Jesus was physically raised, they were probably rational in thinking so. Worse, the deliberate attempt to do without DT as independently supported (due to a desire not to confront squarely skeptical claims that the Gospel resurrection accounts are embellished) leaves the claim that they believed rationally as a bare posit. That is, it leaves one without the resources to say <i>why</i> we should think that they believed rationally. Surely we cannot rely on a generalization to the effect that most people who firmly believe that they have witnessed supernatural or paranormal events are rational in drawing that conclusion!</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Here we are up against what I have called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xwbT3JEntM&list=PLe1tMOs8ARn0sWTtdaXPg8oMRqmYnhU6M&index=5&t=498s">elsewhere</a> the problem of the bottleneck. The capacity of evidence for "the disciples firmly believed that Jesus rose bodily" to support "Jesus rose bodily" has a hard upper limit: That upper limit is the probability of "Jesus rose bodily" given that "The disciples firmly believed that Jesus rose bodily"--given it, that is, at probability 1. I am saying here that even if the skeptic<i> fully grants</i> that the disciples firmly believed this, that has fairly limited force to support the conclusion that it really happened, absent more information about why they believed it. You cannot make up the deficiency there simply by providing more and more and more evidence<i> that </i>they believed it. For some reason it is difficult to get people to understand this, but it's very important. (Erik Manning of the Youtube channel Testify has done a nice job<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgBeTLXQgvc&t=2s"> here</a> of restating this issue.)</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Bringing the Apostle Paul into the picture really does nothing to alleviate the bottleneck problem about whether or not the disciples were rational. Suppose that we argue that Paul believed and taught that Jesus was raised bodily. This is certainly true, and arguments to that effect (e.g., from N.T. Wright) serve to rebut the rather silly (but previously popular) skeptical attempt to pit Paul <i>against</i> the Gospels' physical accounts, based on his use of the phrase "spiritual body" in I Cor. 15. It's good to rebut that skeptical move, but in itself that is not <i>positive </i>evidence that the disciples rationally believed that Jesus was raised. </span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">All the talk one hears about the disciples offering Paul the right hand of fellowship (Gal. 2:9), hence he was teaching the same Gospel they were teaching, hence the disciples were teaching Jesus' bodily resurrection, runs smack into the same bottleneck problem that I just discussed. When all is said and done, what does this support? Once again, that the disciples sincerely believed and taught that Jesus was physically raised! And how, again, does more and more support just for that proposition independently support the proposition that they believed this reasonably, on the basis of good and sufficient evidence? It doesn't, at all.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Finally, it is of very limited value to argue (again, using Wright) that Jewish expectations of resurrection pointed to a large, apocalyptic resurrection of the righteous rather than individual resurrections in the disciples' own time. While this is no doubt true, it provides only a little evidence that the disciples "would have" required some overwhelming evidence before accepting that Jesus was individually risen. We should remember that this Jewish theology did not prevent the superstitious belief both by Herod and by some unspecified number of Jewish people in the surrounding population that Jesus was John the Baptist risen from the dead (Mark 6:14-16). So generally accepted theology did not preclude human superstition in particular cases, causing a false belief in an individual resurrection.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">Compare: Suppose that we argued that members of Alice's religious group tend not to believe in ghosts. Just how far would that go in the absence of more specific evidence about Alice and Alice's claims to convince us that her belief in ghosts must have been rational? Not very far. All the less so if we have a specific record of other people who are part of Alice's religious group, in the same time period, who <i>did</i> believe (falsely) in a ghost.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">So none of the popular attempts to use a minimalist account addresses the problem that is induced by trying to do without DT. I suggest instead that we should rely on DT and be prepared to defend it, if and when it is challenged, using the plethora of evidence for Gospel reliability.</span></p><p><span style="text-indent: -24px;">I hope that this post is useful as a go-to for my current statement of my central objections to the MFA. Next up: Confusing epistemology with sociology.</span></p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-2429623158124219572021-05-12T13:13:00.002-04:002021-05-12T13:13:34.721-04:00The small vine: Life over death<p>Many-a year ago, I went on a sci-fi reading binge in my spare time. It was mostly a flop. Turns out I'm not really into reading sci-fi. One of the authors I tried unsuccessfully to enjoy was Fred Saberhagen. I read quite a number of short stories set in his Berserker universe. The Berserkers are demoniacally clever, life-destroying robots. They specialize in torture as a mode of forcing humans to do their will (they have no emotions) as they try to eradicate life from the galaxy. I'm a sensitive soul. This series wasn't for me. Plus, like so many sci-fi authors, Saberhagen just didn't seem to me to have the gift of making you see landscape or get really involved with characters. Everything was just plot sketches on board spaceships. </p><p>There was one short story, the title of which I don't remember. I'll just let some enterprising reader do the googling to try to find its title and perhaps correct my memory of its plot. But the plot, and the ending (spoilers coming) have always stuck with me for conceptual reasons, even though I can scarcely remember if the protagonist was male or female, let alone his name. I'm pretty sure it was a man. The Berserkers had taken over the spaceship. The main character was being left alive for a while because they had some nefarious use for him. The Berserkers would sometimes force humans to act as spies or lures for other humans. I remember that from other stories. So maybe that was it. Anyway, they were going to make some bad use of the spaceship as well. Meanwhile, they had to let the few humans they were keeping continue to grow food, so there was a garden on the ship.</p><p>The climax (and ending) of the story came when the protagonist realized that one of the melons or gourds in the garden had sent its vines (roots?) down into the side of the ship and pried apart a seam of some kind. This meant that he was going to die pretty soon. It would also destroy the ship. Normally a disaster. But now that the ship was taken over by the Berserkers, he perceived it as a triumph. The story ends with him ready to die happy when the ship is depressurized, realizing that now it can't be used by the Berserkers to destroy more life.</p><p>The symbolism has always stuck with me. Saberhagen managed to make it vivid--the picture of the vine bursting through the metal. Life growing, springing forth, and sacrificing itself blindly, in the service of life, paradoxically overcoming death by destroying the ship and itself. Despite the fact that I have no desire ever again to enter the Berserker universe, I've never forgotten that image of the vine growing irrepressibly and thus quietly triumphing over the death monsters who seem so much more powerful.</p><p>Things are pretty bad in the West and in the whole world right now. In the West, it's the fact that things are getting worse that particularly draws the attention of anyone who loves the things being destroyed. Whether it's pastors being arrested in Canada for holding "illegal gatherings" (did you ever think you'd hear of that happening in the "free world"?), Christians suggesting we should use "pronoun hospitality" for mentally confused, reality-denying men who think they are women, people losing their livelihoods for stating that homosexual acts are wrong, two-year-olds being forced to wear masks to daycare, people dying alone in nursing homes, because their families aren't allowed to see them, Christians seriously arguing that "going to church" can be entirely a matter of "meeting" on-line, wicked destroyers rioting, and Christians defending rioting because of something-something to do with racism, or...Well, really, I'd run out of room if I tried to list everything. Sometimes in the last year I've just said, "The world is coming to an end." It really does seem like that.</p><p>Death seems to be winning. And I keep wanting to say something really encouraging to the many people who I know are going through it right now (for one reason or another) and facing darkness, many facing serious hardship and pain, and I keep feeling stymied. There are dangers in so many directions. To wit: If I just start talking about the beautiful flowers and the intensely green leaves I saw today on a walk in the woods, I could easily sound like those people on Facebook who say, "Here's a random puppy for your day to cheer you up." Shallow sentimentalism isn't terribly helpful. At best it's a drug that swiftly loses its effectiveness for countering existential angst. If I talk about the pastors standing up to tyranny in Canada (and that really is encouraging, I must say), I risk sounding like the people who say, "This persecution is really good for the church, because it will separate those who really believe in something from those who are merely nominal. It will strengthen us." Well, it ain't necessarily so. This persecution confuses and disheartens at least as many as it strengthens, it separates Christians physically from one another, and it creates ideological division. All opportunities for the Enemy. If I say, "Tighten your belts, folks, and grab your sword of the Spirit and your shield of faith, because it's gonna get worse before it gets better" I could just sound grim and not really encouraging. If I write an agonized elegy for all the things being destroyed, I'm likely to make depressed people, and maybe myself, more depressed. (Pro-tip: Catharsis doesn't always work, either for writers or for readers, unless you happen to be, or be reading, a genius writer on a roll.)</p><p>So let's try it this way. What does the Devil want? Yes, I mean the real Devil, Lucifer, the fallen angel. I really believe in him. And I think he's trying to have a field day, and to some extent having a field day, with the state of the world right now. What does he want to get out of this for my soul and yours?</p><p>Well, yes, ultimately, to take us to hell, which you might or might not think is possible if you believe in eternal security of the believer. But what about right now?</p><p>C.S. Lewis has a lot to say on this, and it's very insightful. The Devil wants us to believe that evil, meaninglessness, and death are the ultimate Reality in the universe. Here is something Screwtape has to say about the matter. (The whole passage is gold, but I'll only type out part of it. Go get your copy of <i>The Screwtape Letters</i> and read it all.) Speaking of the human "patient" who is an air raid warden during the Blitz, Uncle Screwtape advises,</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Probably the scenes he is now witnessing will not provide material for an<i> intellectual </i>attack on his faith...But there is a sort of attack on the emotions which can still be tried. It turns on making him feel, when first he sees human remains plastered on a wall, that this is "what the world is <i>really</i> like" and that all his religion has been a fantasy. You will notice that we have got them completely fogged about the meaning of the world "real." They tell each other, of some great spiritual experience, "All that <i>really</i> happened was that you heard some music in a lighted building";...The general rule which we have now pretty well established among them is that in all experiences which can make them happier or better only the physical facts are "real," while the spiritual elements are "subjective". In all experiences which can discourage or corrupt them the spiritual elements are the main reality, and to ignore them is to be an escapist. Thus in birth the blood and pain are "real," the rejoicing a mere subjective point of view; in death, the terror and ugliness reveal what death "really means."...Wars and poverty are "really" horrible; peace and plenty are mere physical facts about which men happen to have certain sentiments....Your patient, properly handled, will have no difficulty in regarding his emotion at the sight of human entrails as a revelation of reality and his emotion at the sight of happy children or fair weather as mere sentiment.<i> The Screwtape Letters</i>, pp. 142-144 (from Letter XXX)</p></blockquote><p>Precisely. Uncle Screwtape has nailed it. And so, if you see something beautiful and are in danger of being encouraged by it, your own personal Screwtape or Wormwood will be quick to remind you that all is just as wrong with the world as it was before and that you are merely experiencing a shot of dopamine occasioned by the nice weather. On the other hand, if you hear some tragic news of a friend of a friend who is dying alone, your personal Screwtape or Wormwood will tell you that that is what reality is really like and will ask you, pointedly, why God allows such things if He really exists. See how that works? It's a game the Devil delights to play.</p><p>Lewis made this devilish view of the world even more vivid in<i> Perelandra</i>. Ransom, the protagonist, has fought and (seemingly) defeated the demon-possessed Unman (formerly Dr. Weston) and has been cast up on the shores of an underground country where he wanders for some time. Unfortunately, the Unman is only partly dead. He follows Ransom through the underworld in a zombie-like state and has to be finally killed in one last fight and his body burned in a subterranean lake of fire before he stops pursuing Ransom. Just before the Unman emerges for the last time, he pours into Ransom's mind the demonic view of things:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Suddenly and irresistibly, like an attack by tanks, that whole view of the universe which Weston...had so lately preached to him took all but complete possession of his mind. He seemed to see that he had been living all his life in a world of illusions....The beauty of Perelandra, the innocence of the Lady, the sufferings of saints and the kindly affections of men, were all only an appearance and outward show. What he had called the worlds were but the skins of the worlds: a quarter of a mile beneath the surface, and from thence through thousands of miles of dark and silence and infernal fire, to the very heart of each, Reality lived--the meaningless, the un-made, the omnipotent idiocy to which all spirits were irrelevant and before which all efforts were vain. (<i>Perelandra</i>, p. 180)</p></blockquote><p>That's what the Devil wants you to think. Frankly, shallow sentimentalism about a daily puppy picture would be truer. But better still the realization that the puppy, the friend, the green leaves, the sufferings of saints, and the kindly affections of men are the garment in which Reality clothes itself--that vast, meaningful, and ultimately powerful Reality that, at the last, will (for those who belong to the Lord, and hence are in touch with Reality) redeem all our losses. It will win because it must, because omnipotence and goodness are ultimately linked in some mysterious way that the Thomists claim to understand (and maybe they're right) and that I don't claim to understand. God's power and His goodness flow from his very being in two mighty streams. His creative acts flow from both, and one day He will make a new heaven and a new earth.</p><p>It may seem to us now that only goodness is eternally being lost and that only evil and meaninglessness will remain, but when we see from the side of eternity, we will see that that was only what the Enemy wanted us to think.</p><p>Christians believe that I'm right about this. Thinking Christians <i>know</i> that I'm right. The problem is one of holding on, isn't it? </p><p>Another thing that can sap our will to hold on is our own sense of ridiculousness. Who am I, pontificating about Meaning and Suffering when others are<i> really </i>suffering? We can be tempted to be harsh with ourselves in a way that is not good, ridiculing our own attempts to cling to the unchanging hand of God on the grounds that, after all, we are so privileged, so pampered, that we shouldn't need such reflections in the first place. The Devil wants you to think that, too. Better to be humble, to take your share of the Cross, however ludicrously small it might seem in comparison with others', with due seriousness but not with self-aggrandizement, to accept with gratitude the present grace, and to go on.</p><p>If there is one thing that 2020 and now 2021 have shown me, it is that the Devil is astoundingly quick to take advantage of anything and everything that he can turn to his own uses. Since these days I have an increasingly large electronic correspondence, I get a small chance to see that there are an awful lot of people out there going along quietly bearing an increasing sense of darkness and doom but not wanting to say much about it. It may be something concrete like the loss of a job or physical pain or illness, or it may be a sense of psychological or spiritual oppression, or both, but it's there, and I think it's there more and more now.</p><p>The vine in the Saberhagen story was just a symbol. It would mean nothing to say that life triumphs over death if we didn't have reason to believe that, really, life<i> does</i> triumph over death. Who cares if forests grow back over the ruins of human civilizations? Who cares if a gourd destroys a spaceship and messes up some wicked plans? No doubt the Berserkers will find another way to move forward. The glory of Christianity is that it tells us that the good message is true. We feel, when we see spring come after winter, that life springs up ever and anew and that death is not the final answer. Is that just a feeling? That's what we want to know. After all, when the deadly snows fall again and, in these northern latitudes, the long dark days come back, we feel the opposite--that darkness is the ultimate fate of man. Is that true? Both can seem like insights. </p><p>This is why we need the propositional content and the empirical evidence to give stability to our feelings and to help us to distinguish the true from the false. Thank God, he has not left us to puzzle out that riddle alone.</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-32420768033937578702021-03-07T09:09:00.005-05:002022-05-05T09:24:11.812-04:00The disjunctions of risk in an old-fashioned world<p> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">In a recent</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/bret.laird/posts/10160996785650031" style="background-color: white; color: #0000aa; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">Facebook post</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">set to public, Bret Laird, a pastor here in the Kalamazoo area, makes an excellent point: All the talk about the alleged Christian duty to curtail our meetings due to Covid ignores the very nature of risk in the world in which Christianity was born and spread--the whole world, in fact, up to the early 1900s at least. Pastor Laird uses the discovery of penicillin and antibiotics early in the 20th century as a starting point for his discussion.</span></p><div class="article_body" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><p>I would like to jump off from Pastor Laird's comments and make similar comments of my own, without using his specific numbers. Just to be "generous", let's take <a href="https://fullfact.org/health/covid-ifr-more-01/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">this piece's </a>estimate from September of about 1% infection fatality rate for Covid, noting that this is in an article that is trying to debunk an overly rosy view of the virus's harmfulness. As the piece notes, some estimates of IFR have been lower, but let's take the higher one. Of course, that rate varies greatly from one group to another. Well and good. The case fatality ratio (which involves only detected cases and hence will be higher, since it involves more symptomatic people) has been wildly differently estimated from one country to another. The WHO more or less <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Sci-Brief-Mortality-2020.1" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">throws up its hands </a>and suggests trying to avoid one's biases, noting that estimates of this ratio have ranged from .1 to 25%!</p><p>Now, let's consider a world with no antibiotics and no vaccines. The world, in fact, in which Christianity came into existence. The world in which the Jewish people came into existence. The world in which God commanded multiple feasts per year (in the Old Testament) and many sacrifices, which had to be carried out <em>in Jerusalem</em> once Solomon built the Temple. The world in which Christians were commanded not to forsake the assembling of themselves together. The world in which 3,000 people were baptized into the new Christian faith on the day of Pentecost. The world of pilgrimages, evangelistic meetings, huge numbers receiving Communion together, the world of "greet one another with a holy kiss."</p></div><div class="entry-more" id="more" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><p>And let's think about disjunctions. When you have no antibiotics, pneumonia (an infectious disease) is a real scourge. <a href="https://dm5migu4zj3pb.cloudfront.net/manuscripts/29000/29920/cache/29920.1-20140626150434-covered-e0fd13ba177f913fd3156f593ead4cfd.pdf" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">One estimate</a> of its case fatality pre-antibiotics is a whopping 30%. That's case fatality rather than infection fatality, because it's very difficult to know who is technically infected with the pneumococcus, if they present no symptoms. But there's also <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox#long-run-smallpox-deaths-in-europe" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">smallpox</a>, which was a separate real scourge, also with an estimate CFR (in an older world) around 30%.</p><p>You begin to get the picture. I'm not going to go look all of these up to get estimates of the probability of your dying of them, back when there was not very good medical care, no antibiotics (where relevant), and no vaccines to prevent them or make you have much milder symptoms. But let's just list a few more infectious diseases to keep the interest going--tuberculosis, typhoid fever, German measles (not very deadly in itself to the one showing symptoms but quite dangerous to the unborn child of a pregnant woman), etc. Oh, did you say something about long-term effects? Well, there was the scarring from smallpox, even if you recovered. There's the possibility of permanent sterility from mumps. Even seasonal influenza was deadlier in 1900 than it is in 2020, probably deadlier still in AD 100, and there were no flu shots to prevent it.</p><p>Now, consider: For any given church meeting, Israelite feast, or other religious gathering throughout the history of the people of God prior to the wonders of modern medicine, it is absolutely obvious that the probability that<em> someone or other</em>, as a result of that gathering, would catch <em>one or the other</em> of these infectious diseases and either die or have permanent, serious health consequences was<em> far higher</em> than the probability, in 2020, that that will happen from Covid as a result of a meeting of comparable size.</p><p>But (you might say), "they" didn't know that "back then." Well, actually, there have been plenty of centuries when people were able by sheer observation to get the idea that you could catch a disease by gathering together, even prior to knowing about germs. But waive that. God knew. God commanded that His people gather together, even en masse (pun intended), despite knowing, beyond all shadow of a doubt, with perfect foreknowledge, that people would die physically of infectious diseases as an indirect result of obeying those commands. Evidently God had other priorities. Whaddaya know?</p><p>If the church had ceased to gather or even had significantly curtailed gathering as a result of a danger of a death from infectious disease as a result of gathering, equal to that risk from Covid, now, then the church would scarcely have gathered throughout all those earlier centuries, and Christianity as we know it, and Judaism as it was before the Fall of Jerusalem, would never have existed. And, if you care about that kind of thing, a lot fewer people would ever have heard of the true God or known him, been discipled into his Church, and gone out to reach others. And also, while I'm at it, if everybody had tried to cover half of their faces in all of these gatherings for all that time, a lot of other good things would have been lost as well. But I'll leave that part as an "exercise for the reader" rather than saying more about it here.</p><p>This consideration about the multiplicity of infectious diseases that used to be stalking around this world should strike down at a single blow the idea that "this time it's different," that we are in some unprecedented and "temporary" situation (where the word "temporary," at a year and counting, with no clear end in sight, has become a kind of sickening joke) in which we should just submit "for now" to significant curtailment of normal life and religious practice, because we are "in a pandemic" and all the usual notions of normal life simply don't apply. And it should reveal for the utter falsehood that it is the claim that the Judeo-Christian God is pleased with us if we cease to meet in person, to evangelize, to gather, and <em>disapproves</em> of us if we, like Pastor Coates in Canada, carry on with such nefarious religious activities. Indeed, the more one thinks about it the more such a claim comes to seem like something nigh to blasphemy. Perhaps a well-intentioned blasphemy, but then, the Bible knows about well-intentioned blasphemy. Just ask <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzzah#:~:text=Uzzah%20was%20the%20son%20of,bring%20it%20up%20to%20Jerusalem." style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Uzzah</a>. I'd say that those fellow believers who are out there lecturing Pastor Coates and those who agree with GraceLife Church about their (alleged) duty to obey God by cutting way back on the services of Christ should think again.</p><p>For when one thinks of God's beloved servants, whose beautiful feet upon the mountains have for thousands of years brought glad tidings of peace, one should start suspecting that that is what God wants. Maybe we should be worried about displeasing him quite seriously by bringing all of that to a crashing stop. Maybe God has priorities other than avoiding a virus or an infectious bacterium. Any one of them, or all of them put together.</p></div>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-63792545923289147222021-03-05T10:25:00.003-05:002021-03-05T10:25:23.658-05:00Updates on Lisa Miller and Philip Zodhiates<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Philip Zodhiates' release date is supposed to be March 26, 2021. It looks like the civil suit against him and all the others will get going full-bore in June. I wonder whether Lisa Miller's criminal case will delay this at all.</span></p><div class="article_body" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><p>I get updates on some of these things because I get e-mails from the 419 Fund. I'm not exactly sure how one gets on their e-mail list, though I'm happy that I got on it somehow, but <a href="https://419fund.com/contact/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a> is their contact form. Otherwise it can be hard to learn much. Sometimes additional entries that (I think) should be posted on Philip's<a href="https://www.romanseight28.com/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;"> prison blog</a> are posted to the 419 Fund blog. This happened recently. Check out the February 12 entry, <a href="https://419fund.com/blog/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>. (There doesn't seem to be a way to link individual entries.)</p><p>On Lisa Miller, besides on the 419 Fund, one can find updates on this blog that I found called Ain't Complicated, <a href="http://www.eaf.net/mvp/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>. After voluntarily turning herself in, she<a href="https://www.eaf.net/mvp/2021/lisa-miller-arraigned-and-remains-in-custody/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;"> has been arraigned </a>on charges of conspiracy and international parental kidnapping. She is currently in Buffalo, New York.</p><p>Her daughter, Isabella (now going on 19 years old), apparently remains in Nicaragua and has <a href="https://419fund.com/donations/new-donation-2/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">emphatically stated</a> that she has no intention of testifying against Lisa or any of those who helped them. As an adult Isabella is hopefully safe from being forcibly (at least legally forcibly) brought to the United States. She has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/vermont-civil-unions-lawsuits-burlington-nicaragua-dfcdab013ca4a363d087546c9365d010" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">apparently successfully petitioned</a> to have her name removed from the lawsuit against her mother by stating emphatically that anyone purporting to represent her in that suit is acting against her wishes.</p><p>Meanwhile, Janet Jenkins has issued <a href="https://dallasvoice.com/lisa-miller-mother-in-lesbian-custody-case-arrested-after-12-years-on-the-run/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">the following</a> utterly creepy and ridiculous statement via her lawyer:</p><blockquote style="background: rgb(238, 238, 255); border-color: rgb(183, 184, 194) rgb(167, 168, 178) rgb(167, 168, 178) rgb(183, 184, 194); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; padding: 0.4em;">The Jenkins family wants Isabella to know that they have always kept prayer lists going for her, and she has never been out of their thoughts. The family longs for Isabella’s safe return and want her to know that they still celebrate her birthday and that her childhood bedroom is ready and waiting for her.</blockquote><p>What? I mean, come on! The couple separated when Isabella was eighteen months old. She was only back there to visit Jenkins for occasional times thereafter until she was about seven years old and has lived in Nicaragua ever since. She is now eighteen years old. Why in the world would anyone mention her "childhood bedroom" in such a message? Even if one believes that Jenkins is in the right in this whole vendetta, you'd have to know that Isabella has not the remotest interest in her "childhood bedroom" back in Vermont. Such a sympathizer (with Jenkins) would doubtless say that Isabella has been brainwashed. But even on that premise, there can be no possible point to sending<em> her</em> a message that her childhood bedroom is waiting for her! That is bound to disgust her and make her feel stalked. What is wrong with you people? Obviously this statement was issued for the sympathizers who are so blindly partisan that they will think it is touching. Good grief.</p></div><div class="entry-more" id="more" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><p>But Lisa, sustained by God, appears to be keeping up her spirits. It's really quite incredible, and I myself have been encouraged in the Lord by seeing her courage and that of Philip and of Ken Miller (no relation) when in prison. Here are some excerpts from the most recent letter that I received via the 419 Fund e-mail list. The letter was written on February 16 while she was still in Miami.</p><blockquote style="background: rgb(238, 238, 255); border-color: rgb(183, 184, 194) rgb(167, 168, 178) rgb(167, 168, 178) rgb(183, 184, 194); border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; padding: 0.4em;">Greetings from the Florida Detention Center in Miami in the name of our Savior WHO is able to do above and beyond all that we can even imagine! Thank you for all the letters, which I have received while in quarantine and thank you for your prayers. It is such a blessing to read your encouragements while in a place such as this. Thank you! As I’m writing this update, I am sitting on the top bunk amidst a stack of books (classics, biographies and “Christian” prison stories) and gifts from some of the inmates. I was released from quarantine with cheering from the ladies of the SHU (solitary), their smiling faces pressed against the small narrow windows of their locked doors. As soon as I arrived on the floor, I was snatched up as a roommate (later she told me that I looked “calm.” I felt that it was “the peace that passeth all understanding” – thanks be to God). Once I made my bed (w/two flat sheets 😊) my cell neighbor greeted me with a cup of hot coffee in a large clear plastic mug, which was her gift to me (we must buy our own eating and drinking implements as well as soap, shampoo and other daily hygiene items). Next a gaggle of women, masked and w/bright sparkling eyes, showed up at my door with not one, but three bags of supplies and goodies – from a pair of sweatpants (there are no dresses in here) to mac-n-cheese. Then they announced that there would be a Bible study starting on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think I’ll check it out. It’s TRUE – “My God shall supply my every need.” As I am writing this, more ladies keep popping in to give me needed items, a brush, a toothbrush (I never thought I’d be excited to get a gift of a full-size toothbrush, but I am!) and other such items. One woman even gave me her in progress word search and a full-size pencil with eraser (goodbye 2” putt putt gold pencil and plastic shower “eraser” – try it, it really works). God’s provisions keep coming! I have a new appreciation for the little items in life – such as a hairbrush (it’s been 21 days since I either combed or brushed my hair)<p>[snip]</p><p>I’ll close with the words written on the two yellow stickies that were attached with the gifts received from those bright-eyed fellow inmates:<br /><br />(Sticky 1): “God loves you SO MUCH. James 5:16: ‘The prayers of a righteous person has great power as it is working.’ Deuteronomy 30:29 [29:29]: ‘The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever that he may follow all the words of this law.’”<br /><br />(Sticky 2): “Psalm 23, 91, 103, 110”<br /><br />Please pray that I will be a worth servant of the Lord as “I travel through this Pilgrim land.”<br /><br />Serving Him,<br />Lisa Miller</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Next time I feel like complaining I think I'd better remember Lisa Miller, who is thankful for getting a way to comb her hair and has to buy her own soap and personal care items while in a U.S. federal prison.</p><p>By the way, it never ceases to amaze me how these harmless Christians who are unjustly imprisoned manage to find favor with the criminals with whom they are imprisoned. Of course, they wouldn't necessarily share it, but as far as I know neither Philip Zodhiates nor Kenneth Miller was subjected to violence from fellow prisoners during their imprisonments, and Philip's is nearly over. "He shall give his angels charge over thee" indeed. And now Lisa seems to be being treated well by the other prisoners also, some of whom at least must be imprisoned for actual crimes, some serious. It's quite astonishing, and I'm grateful to the Lord for His protection over them.</p><p>Lisa, we hear, appreciates and is encouraged by <a href="https://www.eaf.net/mvp/2021/lisa-miller-arraigned-and-remains-in-custody/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">her mail</a>, so even we respectable citizens might consider writing to her, even if that means our names are read by Those In Charge.</p><p>If this whole blog post seems to you mysterious, see my earlier-but-still-relatively-recent recall of the case <a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2021/01/philip_zodhiates_is_still_in_p.html" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>.</p></div>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-19582418033305738672021-03-04T21:59:00.002-05:002021-03-04T21:59:57.194-05:00The Eye of the Beholder: Available now!<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">I've been working like a beaver recently on the release of</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> </span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">The Eye of the Beholder: The Gospel of John as Historical Reportage</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">. That is to say, I've been doing interviews and posting about it, checking to see if it's available in Australia and the UK (it wasn't for a couple of days when I expected it to be), sharing content about it to social media, making videos, and so forth, while keeping life going otherwise.</span></p><div class="article_body" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><p>I owe a lot to What's Wrong With the World for the space to publish a lot of related material in an earlier form over the past few years. <a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/mt/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?tag=Gospel+of+John&blog_id=3" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Here </a>is the Gospel of John tag there, if you want to read some of this for free in its beta version, as it were. I believe that all of that material up through May of 2020 or so has also been copied over to this blog (Extra Thoughts), as part of the archiving project last year, but it hasn't always been tagged. At least it is archived here, though.</p><p><em>The Eye of the Beholder </em>was released on March 1, 2021, just this past Monday. For those of you who get info. about this from one of my blogs and/or aren't on Facebook, here are some relevant links, with apologies for making this post mostly a link dump. But believe me: There's <em>tons</em> of content at the links. First, how can you get the book itself? <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1947929151?pf_rd_r=8VMQ2J4APGM502W47712&pf_rd_p=5ae2c7f8-e0c6-4f35-9071-dc3240e894a8&pd_rd_r=fd2052fd-a260-40a1-984d-db517ba19c57&pd_rd_w=91HT1&pd_rd_wg=YCg3d&ref_=pd_gw_unk" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Here's</a> the link at Amazon and<a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-eye-of-the-beholder-lydia-mcgrew/1138856063?ean=9781947929159" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;"> here </a>it is at Barnes & Noble. It makes no difference to my royalties or to my publisher's profits which site you buy it from. If you are in the UK, you can search Amazon, UK, for it, and the same (now) in both Australia and Canada. This is fitting, since I have endorsements from prominent scholars in all of those countries!</p><p>Of course, high-profile endorsers don't have to mean that I'm right, but at least they should mean that the book is worth a place at the table. I'm really humbly grateful to the Lord, and the endorsers, and my publisher, Nathan Ward, for the star-studded roster we got this time, including Stanley Porter, Thomas Schreiner, philosopher Bob Larmer, Paul N. Anderson, Alan Thompson, and more. <a href="http://lydiamcgrew.com/EOBEndorsements.pdf" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Here </a>are the endorsements in PDF. This should lay to rest various claims to the effect that my work is unworthy of attention due to my lack of such-and-such specific credentials. Nathan went out and asked for endorsements from Johannine and New Testament scholars whom I did not think of, or whom I would have expected to ignore the request due to their eminence or busyness, and he got them. (I'm reminded of a collect about "those things which for our unworthiness we dare not and for our blindness we cannot ask.") Some scholars also contacted me spontaneously after the publication of <em>The Mirror or the Mask</em> expressing interest in supporting my work. And in a couple of cases scholars' names were suggested to me by their former students: "You should contact professor so-and-so. I think he might be interested in your work."</p><p>One thing that we can't seem to get to work for love or money at Amazon is the "see inside" function. (At least not until it comes out in Kindle, perhaps in a year, at which point you will be able to see inside the Kindle version.) Perhaps one has to have a rich uncle who is good friends with Bezos to get See Inside The Book to work, but that's okay, because I anticipated that, and I have free samples, with publisher permission, available elsewhere. <a href="http://lydiamcgrew.com/EOBChapter1.pdf" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Here</a> is Chapter I.<a href="http://lydiamcgrew.com/EOBConclusion.pdf" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;"> Here</a> is the Conclusion. <a href="http://lydiamcgrew.com/EOBTableofContents" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Here</a> is the Table of contents.</p></div><div class="entry-more" id="more" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><p>If you want to get a sense of the book in just three minutes, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0SmeHZjaH0&t=43s" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here </a>is a trailer, for which I thank my eldest daughter, Bethel McGrew. Feel free to tweet or share that trailer everywhere, as it's the sort of thing that is intended for precisely that context.</p><p>If you want a meatier discussion of the contents of the book,<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znEjGLqxlfU" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;"> here</a> is a content tour of about twenty-five minutes.</p><p>And if you are<em> really</em> into long-form discussion, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cuyZn6aNEg&t=9s" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a> is a two-hour interview I recorded with Thaddeus of the Youtube channel Reasoned Answers just a couple of days ago. This is the first long interview I have done on this book since its release, so thanks to Thaddeus for that opportunity.</p><p>I now have a separate <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lydiamcgrewauthor" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">author page</a> on Facebook if you are on there and want to follow me that way. (And hey, if you're annoyed by my Covid posts and just want to see stuff about the New Testament and my books, this is a great way to separate those!) Note that Facebook is a little odd: Just clicking "like" or even "follow" on my Lydia McGrew, Author, page won't automatically make my new posts from that page pop up in your newsfeed unless you interact quite a bit. So if you really want to be sure to see everything, be sure to toggle your "follow" options to "subscribe" to get notifications when I post something new.</p><p><em>The Eye of the Beholder </em>has something for everyone--pastor, layman, and scholar. So if you're interested in the question of the historicity of John, be sure to get a copy. I should also mention that my publisher is offering desk copies at a reduced rate (for physical, within the continental US) and free for e-copies (not to be promiscuously shared) to professors at Bible colleges and seminaries who teach relevant courses and are considering the book for a course. E-mail info@deward.com if you fall into that category.</p><p>In the words of the late Leon Morris, God has chosen to reveal himself in history, and it is there that we must find him. And that, I would add, is why these books needed to be written, and why St. John the evangelist wrote his book, too.</p></div>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-64105858038295523152021-02-22T09:19:00.003-05:002021-02-22T09:19:42.899-05:00We must obey God rather than men<p> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">I don't know who has or has not heard about this already, but Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is in jail for holding church meetings contrary to the current Covid regulations there.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/feb/19/james-coates-canadian-pastor-jailed-for-holding-ch/" style="background-color: white; color: #0000aa; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">Here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">is just one MSM story about it.</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/gracelife-church-defies-closure-order-yet-again-holds-service-in-violation-of-covid-19-rules" style="background-color: white; color: #0000aa; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">Here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">is a story about the shocking fact that the church met again this morning in defiance of the orders and in support of its jailed pastor. Good for them!</span></p><div class="article_body" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><p>Pastor Coates will not be released pending trial because he isn't willing to agree to the extreme restrictions. More on just how extreme in a moment. Also, because he has been "caught" (by Mounties attending his suspicious church to check up on them several Sundays in a row), he himself wouldn't be allowed to go to the church at all until his trial, even if he were to grovel and submit, which he won't do. I'm going to link several Tweets here showing screen-capped statements by his wife, Erin Coates, about the nature of the restrictions and the conditions put upon him for release. <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisHuff/status/1362102625311817736/photo/1" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">Here</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisHuff/status/1362102625311817736/photo/2" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisHuff/status/1363199716176125971/photo/2" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/thebereanmillen/status/1362545363572424707/photo/1" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/thebereanmillen/status/1362545363572424707/photo/2" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>.</p></div><div class="entry-more" id="more" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><p>One of the most distressing aspects for those of us who aren't actually in jail or related to anyone in jail (they have more distressing aspects to contend with) is hearing all the mealy-mouthed Christians talking about how now, now, this isn't really religious persecution, it's not really so bad. Some of these Twitter scolds appear to think that's the most important thing to say--It's not really persecution--while trying to pretend that they are sympathetic to Pastor Coates in jail. No you're not. Stop pretending while you race to distance yourself! If that's what you think is most important to say, you really think he's a pretty bad guy, risking blah-blah.</p><p>So here's the first point I want to make: Yes, this really is religious persecution. No, it <em>absolutely is not necessary</em> for the jailing of a pastor to result from a specifically anti-religious animus in order for it to be an instance of persecution.</p><p>This shouldn't be necessary to spell out. I would like to think that two years ago, pre-Covid, anyone would have understood this. But now it is necessary to spell out: When core religious activities such as meeting as the physical Body of Christ, talking to one another about deeply personal matters in person, in groups, and singing (and I could name more) are prohibited by the government, on pain of fines and/or jail, then that is religious persecution, regardless of the motive.</p><p>All we need to see this is to ask this: What if it were permanent? What if we had a government so germophobic that it banned all clubs as well as all church gatherings, all in-person group meetings where people talk to one another, all children's ministry, Sunday School, youth group, <em>forever</em>, but did this <em>because</em> of a fear of germs, not because of a hatred of religious meetings more than, say, knitting clubs? Then would we admit that the newly-jailed pastors who defy this are suffering from religious persecution?</p><p>I dunno. Maybe not. Having staked out the ridiculous, untenable position that the government can literally ban public gatherings to worship God and jail pastors but that this doesn't count as persecution as long as the powers that be are also banning public gatherings to worship Satan or football, perhaps these scolds would bite the bullet and say this even if the bans were made permanent--you know, just in case another virus that kills people should enter the world, or get passed around. Someone who holds such a position would not recognize religious persecution if it bit him in the posterior. And I hope that all the brave Baptists who went to the Gulags for holding Sunday School or meeting as church bodies in the Russian woods are rolling in their graves at such statements.</p><p>Oh, by the way, Russia bans churches from meeting as an anti-terrorist measure, if they don't have government sanction. That's a "secular" motive, so I guess that isn't religious persecution either. Also by the way, the recent <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/02/prohibiting-prayer-in-australia?fbclid=IwAR2ePkzTRjBAWZdUjl-Eyg-i83r5BR6rYFPIOp3mn6lxhiUljVdFns3f6NM" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">ban</a> on praying for people to help them change their sexual orientation, enacted in Victoria, Australia, is presumably motivated by a desire to curtail all activities designed to change a sexual orientation. The prayer ban is just an example of what is banned. Secular "conversion therapy" is also banned. So I guess if someone goes to jail there for trying to help someone spiritually with his unwanted same-sex desires, that won't be religious persecution either, right? I may write more about that law in another post if I have time, but we need to be aware that it's going on and that almost any ban on religious activities has some wider motive.</p><p>So the real question is whether these rules ban any truly essential religious activities, which of course takes us to the substantive question of what counts as the essence of Christianity and what activities are core. Those who think that all "church" can be "done on-line" will think that Pastor Coates is making a martyr of himself for nothing.</p><p>At this point I should probably discuss what the regulations in question actually are. All churches are required to limit attendance to 15% of fire capacity in the building, which Erin Coates says is about 1/5 to 1/6 of their congregation. She continues, "This would mean no visitors, no out-reach, no being a light to this city. Mandatory masks, social distancing, no singing…no conversing with anyone outside your home…Livestream is available but you are not allowed to have anyone into your home. These restrictions hinder James from being able to converse with the people on GLC on a Sunday as they immediately have to leave the service. We are prohibited from practising the one another’s in the gathering. Or in person at all. These have been in place since early December. Alberta has had 2 extreme lockdowns but has had restrictions on the gathering for almost [a] year. He could not sign these conditions."</p><p>No kidding. Pastor Coates has my full support.</p><p>What kind of a vision of church gathering does Alberta's government have? It's a vision in which the "gathering" part is pretty much nothing. Each little family unit arrives in the building (nobody knows why they are bothering to come into the same building at all, given what follows), just a few of them. They all sit apart. They all stare at the masked guy standing up front. He says some stuff. They pray and sing silently in their hearts. They act like a bunch of strangers coming to a movie. Maybe they wave at each other or say a few words at the outset, like, "Hi, so-and-so," but not for very long. We can't have any of that dangerous socializing or mutual support going around. They do some religious ritual-y stuff that doesn't involve touching anybody or getting within six feet of anybody for a while (<em>not</em> including singing), then they all must leave immediately, without stopping to converse, and go off to their separate homes, separately. If you want pastoral counsel, by golly, do it by Zoom or telephone. Same-same for if you need to talk with a friend. And above all, you can't see anybody else's face while you're in the same physical space.</p><p>In that type of "church," the entire enterprise is almost by definition members-only. How you're supposed to get new members is left unstated. You sign up for a place to make sure "too many" people don't show up. You certainly don't engage in anything like outreach or evangelistic services, sermons, or gatherings. Nobody comes spontaneously. Everything has to be carefully planned so that the people who were already, for some reason or other, members of these strange little clubs can be in the same room with each other a few at a time occasionally and exchange a wave or a few hastily-shouted words and sit and watch the same little lecture together.</p><p>If you think this is sufficient for carrying out the core mission of the Christian church for a year, or even for a couple of months, much less indefinitely (as is now the case), I cannot help you. You are beyond help. If you don't claim to be a Christian, perhaps I can suggest to you that you should permit Pastor Coates and the members of GraceLife Church to disagree with you on the embodied nature of their own religion. If you do claim to be a Christian, you are a living, breathing (through a mask) frustration to Christians like me. Just please know that. Because we have a pretty shrewd idea of what the Apostle Paul, the author of Hebrews, and a plethora of saints and martyrs through the centuries, right up through 2019, would have had to say to that. It probably starts with, "What the heck is the matter with you people?"</p><p>Mrs. Coates gets it. She's still living in a world that is<em> so </em>2019, in which churches actually<em> wanted </em>people to come, <em>wanted</em> to evangelize, wanted to be there for people, wanted to be a light to their community, and believed that they met so that people could connect with each other and share their hearts.</p><p>The question of the Sacraments (or as Pastor Coates would probably call them, the Ordinances) is an interesting one. Here we have need of some harmonization. Erin Coates<a href="https://twitter.com/thebereanmillen/status/1362545363572424707/photo/1" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;"> says </a>that they have been forbidden to hold Communion. Wyatt Graham, the author of this notably <a href="https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/detrinitate/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-arrest-of-pastor-james-coates/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">tepid </a>"support" (sort of?) post about Pastor Coates, says that they are allowed to carry out both Communion and baptism. I'll get to baptism in a minute.</p><p>Harmonization is my jam, so here goes: Anybody who has lived through the past year and paid attention knows that enforcement varies tremendously from case to case and locale to locale. Even from sheriff to sheriff, in the U.S. It's entirely possible that Wyatt Graham is privy to some situation where some sort of Communion is allowed, while Mrs. Coates knows full-well that it isn't being allowed at GraceLife Church. That is not even remotely implausible.</p><p>But there's also the possibility that the government is arrogating to itself the right to decide what does or doesn't count as Communion, and that Pastor Coates and GraceLife Church disagree on that. I can well imagine Roman Catholics who would not agree that the little individually-vacuum-sealed packets of juice or wine and wafers, which you pick up from some separate location rather than taking from a human being, and which you then carry away and consume when you're "socially distanced" from everybody else, count as valid Communion. While Pastor Coates doubtless wouldn't use either the term "valid" or the concept as Catholics do, I can remember plenty of Baptists from my youth who would probably have been dubious about this as well. Communion is a communal activity. So perhaps it's that GraceLife insists (gasp!) on carrying out Communion in the way they did before, which (if my Baptist background is any guide) would have involved passing around plates with broken cracker bits and plates with individual tiny cups of grape juice (already more hygienic than a common cup, for that matter) and then eating them all at the same time. Or who knows? Maybe they actually do come up to a rail. Either way, I fully believe Mrs. Coates that their Communion is not being allowed.</p><p>Mrs. Coates doesn't mention baptism one way or another, but here Wyatt Graham is on <em>prima facie </em>shaky ground. I seriously doubt that he or anyone else is literally carrying out baptism by using a long-distance water gun (super soaker?), and it literally is not possible to baptize another individual (adult or child, by sprinkling or immersion) from a distance of six feet. So I can only guess this: Perhaps churches that bow the neck to Caesar and agree to engage in all the <em>other</em> restrictions and security theater (see above) are graciously permitted to have the pastor come within six feet of <em>one single individual</em>, perhaps wearing some elaborate PPE, and sprinkle a little water on him very quickly, and then back off again. As long as everyone is made sufficiently uncomfortable and the operation is carried out in a way sufficiently<em> different</em> from the way it was done pre-pandemic, this will doubtless scare away the Covid germs. Or if it doesn't, the Government will have to rescind that permission, too.</p><p>It was, after all, the glorious health ministry of British Columbia that advised its citizens to make sexual contact with each other through holes in barriers, such as walls (yes, walls) that "allow for sexual contact but prevent close face-to-face contact" in order to have "safer sex" during Covid. (You think I'm making this up, don't you? Don't Google it to verify, you'll regret it. I believe health officials in New York City made the same suggestion.) So, as with sex-through-a-wall in British Columbia, perhaps the health ministers of Alberta are suggesting/allowing baptism-through-a-wall. You never know. Anyway, Graham assures us that baptism of some sort is allowed along with having 15% of your congregation come to church, so I guess we can all breathe a sigh of relief and allow ourselves to feel a tad impatient with Pastor Coates for being in jail.</p><p>This brings me to my second point: You can't avoid substantive issues here. Graham tries pretty hard to walk a tightrope of feeling or expressing some sort of sympathy toward Coates and some sort of alarm about his imprisonment, but I'm going to say right up front: It gives me a chill. The tone of the article is odd and constrained, and this is one of the more supportive pieces. I gather a lot more pastors aren't even willing to go this far. The<a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeizisCBYHFeAguJPbAArX-BOOmZCr1nu2lE0EmjdXyhxlLdQ/viewform" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;"> letter</a> to the premier of the province that he suggests that pastors sign is more strongly worded, thankfully.</p><p>But here's what I mean by saying that you cannot avoid substantive issues: There are cases where we all would <em>not </em>support a pastor for breaking some rule. It depends on the rule. (Compare freedom of speech. How many of us can get really enthusiastic about making sure that there is full freedom of speech for a group advocating the legalization of pedophilia? We're just not going to be that concerned, and understandably so.) So generally appeals to those who “disagree” with Coates to “support” him nonetheless require that the people hearing the appeals, who do disagree, see that disagreement as falling into a highly specific range--something like, "I disagree with Pastor Coates, but I don't disagree with him <em>so far</em> that I have lost sympathy for him. In general I think the authorities/cancelers/persecutors are overreacting because what he did fell into a range that should be allowed, even if I wouldn't have done it."</p><p>What we are finding in 2021 is that far fewer things fall into that highly specific range than we might have thought. Hence our appeals might as well be nakedly and openly to substance, stating outright in this case that what Pastor Coates did <em>does not merit punishment</em>, that it lies in the area where differences of action<em> should be permitted</em>. But most people who “disagree” with him are by no means sure of that. After all, the provincial officials gave him and his congregation lots of warnings, and the Mounties showed up again and again to see if they could induce him and his congregation to change their ways. The church was even fined. If you believe wholeheartedly in the wisdom of the regulations, at some point you are going to say, “What else could they do? They have to do something to try to enforce this.” In other words, if you support Pastor Coates at all, you should face it: In your heart you don't really think that these draconian, 15%, no-talking-after-the-service guidelines should be in place! Because you don't think they should be enforced. Without penalty there is no law. You think people should be allowed to flout them.</p><p>How many people who disagree with Pastor Coates sincerely think <em>that</em>? Admit it: Not a whole lot.</p><p>I was brought up against this rather sharply when a good friend of mine on social media, who fully supports Pastor Coates's actions, shared an open letter from a Canadian calling for people to support Pastor Coates even if they disagree with him. One of<em> her </em>friends then showed up in the thread and asked, all ingenuous curiosity, what is really being asked of him? How, he asked, can he go about supporting Pastor Coates while disagreeing with him? He asked, suavely, whether it would count as "support" if he were to suggest to the government that they fine Pastor Coates rather than imprisoning him.</p><p>Well, no. No, that wouldn't count. But it strikingly illustrates the point: At some point, pretty much all procedural disagreements, especially about matters of policy, end up being disagreements about substance. You can't avoid it, so we might as well not try. Pure neutrality is not possible in policy, and often not even desirable. (<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/religious-liberty-isnt-enough-11612125595?fbclid=IwAR0sClRe9Sxzmkc-b6o718OSbX4iOJjwO3hkC2n18e2o1vwT0qzefaqpV8o" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">This</a> looks like a really good article along these lines by Ryan Anderson, tho' unfortunately I'm able to read only the opening, because I'm not a subscriber.)</p><p>I'm really glad that GraceLife chose to meet today. That may show that the attempt to crack down and enforce these regulations is not entirely working out as intended. In fact, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7653712/faiview-baptist-church-gracelife-covid-19/" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">another church</a> is also standing up. God bless Pastor Tim Stephens. We should admit the sobering fact, however, that probably the intent is to terrify others into complying, and that may be working to a large extent. Even if GraceLife isn't shut down, many other churches may be shutting down because their pastors, priests, or bishops don't have the courage of Pastor Coates.</p><p>(And where are the Catholics, by the way, in these locations? I don't mean to be un-ecumenical, and I love my Catholic friends, but it's a crying shame that the official non-sacramentalists are taking Catholic bishops to school on the importance of Incarnation and physical Presence in worship. From what I'm hearing, most Catholic bishops seem to be out there telling their flocks to stay at home, watch a livestream, and have "spiritual Communion" and forbidding their priests to visit even the dying, while Baptists are going to jail for the right to have Communion in person.)</p><p>May God richly bless Pastor Coates, his wife, and his children, Pastor Stephens, and all the other pastors, priests, and Christian ministers throughout the world who are keeping the flame of Christianity, which is by definition in-person Christianity, alive through this very dark time.</p><p><a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2021/02/we_must_obey_god_rather_than_m.html#more">Cross-posted </a>at W4</p></div>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-5586283607394865622021-01-30T20:05:00.001-05:002021-01-30T20:05:02.055-05:00Lisa Miller voluntarily returns to the U.S.!<p> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">STOP PRESS: Literally just a couple of hours after posting the post below, I checked a different blog that seems "plugged in" to the Mennonite community. Lisa Miller has surrendered herself to U.S. authorities and has been sent to Miami to be quarantined and to await trial for "kidnapping" her own daughter! Isabella was issued a temporary U.S. visa. I don't know if she is returning to the U.S. yet, though she is now eighteen years of age and free from the threat of being made to have a relationship with Janet Jenkins. I think based on the wording that she has returned.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">I'm not sure this was a good idea on Lisa's part. I hope that Isabella has a support network here in the U.S. to come to, since she will no longer have her mother. 18-year-old girls need their mothers, too! And no doubt they are very close after all of these years. I think that Lisa must have felt it was her duty to return to the U.S. and stand trial after what the men who helped her have endured--to stand with them. </span><a href="https://whitemail.blogspot.com/2021/01/lisa-millers-legal-battle-resumes.html" style="background-color: white; color: #0000aa; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">Here </a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">and </span><a href="https://whitemail.blogspot.com/2021/01/breaking-news.html" style="background-color: white; color: #0000aa; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> are posts about this.</span></p><p>I wonder if Isabella can be forced to testify against her mother.</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-20998397500496273312021-01-30T16:02:00.003-05:002021-01-30T20:03:48.560-05:00Philip Zodhiates is still in prison<p><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">[See update in the next post.]</span></p><p><span face=""Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">I have been wanting to say something about Philip Zodhiates for some time, because he is still in federal prison, a true prisoner of conscience, and because I now have more readers of my work who are probably completely unaware of the case. People are often shocked when I describe it.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">Check out the tag, <a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/mt/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?tag=Lisa%20Miller%20case&blog_id=3" style="color: #3f658c;">here</a>, for more posts. But briefly, here is a summary:</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">More than eighteen years ago, Lisa Miller entered into a civil union with Janet Jenkins in Vermont. (Please remember this story next time someone advocates civil unions as not as "bad" from a conservative p.o.v. as gay "marriage." They're legally identical.)</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">During this civil union, Miller conceived and bore a child by using a sperm donor. The little girl, Isabella, was only eighteen months old when Miller left the relationship and formally broke it up legally. Miller converted to Christianity, left the homosexual lifestyle behind her, and fled to Virginia to keep her child away from Jenkins, who represented all that she had repented of and was now leaving behind. Jenkins, let us bear in mind, is not<em> in any way</em> related to Isabella and has not lived with her since she was eighteen months old.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">Vermont courts, to whom the custody decision was ultimately given, treated the unrelated lesbian Jenkins as Isabella's "other mother" and insisted on unsupervised visitation, even though Jenkins was, from Isabella's perspective, a stranger. Isabella made some of these visits but was so upset by them (and alleged that Jenkins had bathed with her naked) that Miller refused to allow any more such visits with Jenkins, who had neither any natural claim on Isabella whatsoever nor any relationship with her. Miller became so concerned by Isabella's statements and by her bizarre behaviors at such a young age (including the sudden onset of open masturbation and saying she wanted to kill herself) that she eventually refused to allow unsupervised visits. The Vermont judge and Jenkins refused to compromise (e.g., to limit Jenkins only to supervised, non-overnight visits). Miller exhausted all her legal options. Eventually the judge was poised to order full custoy to Jenkins to punish Miller for denying Jenkins unsupervised "parental" visits (even though she was not in any sense at all the child's parent).</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">At that point, Miller fled the country with her little girl. (My understanding is that at the time of her flight she still had official legal custody of Isabella.) She apparently fled successfully to Nicaragua. In doing so she had help to drive across state lines from Philip Zodhiates and help with arranging her flight from Mennonite Pastor Kenneth Miller (no relation). Mennonite missionary Timothy Miller (also no relation) helped her in Nicaragua.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">Many years have passed now. Isabella has recently turned eighteen, wherever she is. Lisa is still technically a fugitive from "justice." You see, the U.S. federal government declared this an international kidnapping, and it set out to punish Lisa and everyone who had helped her.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">Kenneth Miller has served a several-year federal prison sentence. Philip Zodhiates is currently serving a three-year prison sentence. Timothy Miller was extradited from Nicaragua (even though Nicaragua technically has no extradition agreement with the U.S.) and before being shipped back was literally kept in a Nicaraguan dungeon in very rough conditions. He has since had his sentence commuted to probation but must stay in the U.S. and as far as I know is still in that situation.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">Nor will these men's ordeal be over after they are done serving prison time. Not only is Zodhiates at least (and possibly Kenneth Miller?) many thousands of dollars in debt for legal fees, but Janet Jenkins, like some bizarre Inspector Javert, is attempting to ruin them yet furtehr and anyone who was Lisa's lawyer back at the time via a civil lawsuit for depriving her of Isabella's company. That lawsuit is moving at the speed of molasses, which I suppose is a good thing in a way, but it is supposed to gear back up this spring some time.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">Zodhiates sought a compassionate release as a non-violent prisoner during Covid (that did happen for various people even in federal prison), but since "international kidnapping" is deemed a violent crime by definition, he was denied. Naturally, when The Orange One was issuing pardons and clemencies all over the place in his last days, these folks were not among those pardoned. This could also have been done earlier in his term. In fairness, it's possible that no one had his ear to bring the cases before him.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">Philip Zodhiates keeps his spirits up via his faith in God. He and all of these men, to my mind, exemplify to an astonishing extent the injunction to be "blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world" (Philippians 2:15).</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">Zodhiates has a prison blog that is mostly musings about Scripture and faith. It's <a href="https://www.romanseight28.com/" style="color: #3f658c;">found here</a>. For a long time it wasn't being updated, even though (via an e-mail list) I knew that he was writing entries. I made some inquiries, and since then a few of his entries since August, 2020, have been posted. <a href="https://419fund.com/donations/philip/" style="color: #3f658c;">Here</a> is the crowdfunding site for him. <a href="https://419fund.com/donations/philip/" style="color: #3f658c;">Here</a> was Pastor Ken Miller's blog during his imprisonment, which has stopped being updated since he was released. I find that one is likely to get e-mail updates if one joins the crowdfunding effort for Zodhiates.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">It is interesting to me that things are getting so much worse now in America, in terms of censorship. (Focus on the Family was <a href="https://jimdaly.focusonthefamily.com/twitter-censors-focus-on-the-familys-the-daily-citizen/" style="color: #3f658c;">just bumped </a>from Twitter for saying that a man cannot turn into a woman. Hate speech, y'know.) And yet this case goes back ten years!</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">I find that many people are shocked to learn that men have served and one is still serving time in federal prison for the "crime" of helping an ex-lesbian who repented escape with her daughter so that her young daughter would not be turned over to her former lesbian lover. The case is not much talked about or known, even among those who continue to be conservative or remotely sane on these issues.</p><p style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.3px; margin: 10px 0px;">I am grateful that it seems that these men have been protected physically in prison. Pray for Philip Zodhiates and also for the others who will be targeted by the civil lawsuit. Also, pray that Zodhiates will be able to find new lawyers. His previous lawyers were apparently offended when he made an appeal for his sentence to be vacated on the grounds that his lawyers refused at his trial to bring up the concerns that he had about sexual abuse which were a part of his motivation for driving Lisa to New York as part of her escape. So now he needs new lawyers, not to mention needing money to hire them. I have a feeling he's going to find a lot of his fellow Christians shockingly weak-willed when he gets out of prison, having been through the fire and having been involved in prison ministry from the inside.</p><p></p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-6891261544630568672021-01-29T10:38:00.002-05:002022-05-05T16:16:52.247-04:00Mourning and misdirected anger<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a real problem with people's grief being swept up into anger that confuses natural evil into moral evil. There is no gross recklessness involved per se if someone dies of a community-spread respiratory virus. And it is a very, very bad thing when we normalize anger about that so as to turn the duty to care, touch, connect, and live normal life into a duty <i>not</i> to do these things, because so-and-so (my friend, my loved one, my mentor) died of a virus. It must be said: That is a tragedy, not a moral evil. </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In contrast, if your friend, family member, loved one was locked away from human contact and only allowed to have his loved ones hold his hand for a few minutes at the end of his life, while dressed up looking like aliens, due to specific, draconian rules passed by specific, named, horribly misguided (if well-intentioned) people in power who wouldn't listen to the counter-arguments, that is something that it is legitimate to be angry about. These stories are happening all around us, every day. See<a href="https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-health-watch/amid-isolation-covid-michigan-alzheimers-deaths-soar"> here </a>for example.</span></p>If I die of a community-spread virus when I'm elderly, and if you admire me or love me, you'd <i>better not</i> use my death to foment anger because someone was in contact with me, or went about his normal life without wearing a mask, or touched something, or talked to me or to other people, as if these perfectly good activities are actually bad activities and supposedly caused me to die.<div> <br />Instead, try to make sure that I in my old age and all of the elderly people you know have smiling, kind faces around them, human touch, and normal, frequent, in-person contact with those they love and who love them. You have my permission to be angry if I've been locked up and denied that, which as things are looking now is terrifyingly probable for all of us. But <i>not</i> if I've been given human love and contact, not if other people have lived their lives, and I have died as a result of living life myself or as a result of others' living life. <br /><br /></div><div>Everyone dies of living life, life is not without risk, and life is good.</div>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-10494459773687895442021-01-21T13:15:00.001-05:002021-01-22T09:46:39.960-05:00An irony concerning the minimal facts approach<p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">For some time I've been writing and speaking about the problems with a certain minimalistic approach to arguing for Christianity that has become popular in evangelical circles in the last several decades. (See, e.g.,</span><a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2018/03/when_minimal_is_minimizing.html" style="color: #0000aa; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;"> here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUt3r3dXBr4&fbclid=IwAR3f8n05mb0qVWBxE37VLSIPN3aneKGbQVEznKN9MymKLfksPWATNFavjoU" style="color: #0000aa; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">, and</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> </span><a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2018/05/response_to_dr_craigs_podcast.html" style="color: #0000aa; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">.) Sometimes it goes by the name of the "minimal facts" approach. But not always. The apologetics giant William Lane Craig refers to the facts in question as "core facts" rather than "minimal facts" and includes the empty tomb among them, whereas the father of the minimal facts approach, Gary Habermas, does not include the empty tomb among his set of minimal facts. But as I have pointed out, the difference there is far more terminological than substantive, since in both cases the core fact or minimal fact that the disciples had appearance experiences is kept vague in order to be able to rope in a lot of scholars and say that they accept it. This causes a lot of epistemic trouble when one tries to argue for the physical resurrection of Jesus, since it's precisely the physical details that give us reason to think that Jesus was physically raised. It shouldn't need saying, but the reason Christians think he was physically raised is because we think he appeared physically to his disciples. (Obviously.) The mainstream scholar Wolfhart Pannenberg, who thought the resurrection accounts in the Gospels were heavily embellished, apparently thought that Jesus' body really disappeared and that in that sense he was "physically raised," but that he went immediately to heaven and that the appearances to the disciples were visions sent by God to the disciples and bore little resemblance to the appearances recounted in the Gospels. I'd say that at that point the meaning of "physically raised" has been changed almost beyond recognition and also that the epistemic support for believing in anything objective at all is gravely undermined.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">This point was brought home to me recently by watching a series of video discussions between Michael Licona and Dale Allison. (Videos <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqpkzRnaC1c&t=303s" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHxl1vk4vwg&t=1558s" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13_0oaCNQu4&t=410s" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_7oDZeAthk&t=2s" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>.) Allison is a little hard to characterize. He speaks of himself as a Christian (PCUSA), and Licona calls him a "fellow believer." He talks in the interviews about his prayer practices, which involve a yoga mat and icons. He's obviously a theist of some sort. That much I think can be said definitely. But Allison is and always has been profoundly ambivalent about the physical resurrection of Jesus and treats it very much as up in the air, and he obviously thinks it quite plausible that the resurrection narratives in the Gospels are highly embellished and that the details of those narratives, such as Jesus' eating with his disciples, were added for apologetic purposes. Licona is a strong advocate of the minimal approach and tries to do everything "through Paul," and in the interaction with Allison, it cuts no ice. Mind you, Allison is a naturally somewhat skeptical fellow. As he rather charmingly explains, there are four of him inwardly. They all get along with one another, though they disagree. What is interesting to notice is that none of these four "Dale Allisons" believes that robust, orthodox Christianity, including fully physical appearances, is historically justified by the objective evidence. So it is entirely plausible as a sociological and psychological matter that a discussion with someone who takes a more maximal approach to the resurrection would<em> also</em> cut no ice with Allison. But I consider Licona's attempts to counter him, most of them going "through Paul" (e.g., trying to treat Paul as our main or or even only eyewitness of the resurrection whose account has come down to us) to be objectively far weaker than the available arguments really are and hence consider it somewhat understandable that Allison bats them aside.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">In reflecting on their interaction, I thought of an irony concerning the minimalist approach and the way that it bills itself, and I posted this <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lydia.mcgrew.5/posts/10164587276705640?__cft__[0]=AZV3oGokT9Jna_Hfq5bF_a9jB3ea6GaNpUInMOO0FxzfeH_0_Si46VCaOOL3QKh-zBoHA8NDb35cT0why4kgjZ10oHGVQFfycfps11CAUgeQrjTpPGBKOJSAkxAPEMIob9Y&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">on Facebook</a>.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">It is especially ironic that advocates of the minimal facts approach to defending Jesus' resurrection argue that they are appealing only to premises granted by a skeptical audience. Often this is portrayed as especially successful, because it appeals to common ground. I have argued in my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUt3r3dXBr4&fbclid=IwAR3f8n05mb0qVWBxE37VLSIPN3aneKGbQVEznKN9MymKLfksPWATNFavjoU" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">"Minimal Facts vs. Maximal Data" webinar</a> that this gravely weakens the case by watering down the notion of Jesus' "appearances" to something that a wide variety of scholars will accept.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">But there is a more specific irony, which must be followed carefully to understand it: Due to the watering down of the "appearances," the physicality of Jesus' resurrection is cast into doubt, because the minimalist is not willing to argue that the highly physical details in the Gospel narratives (such as Jesus' eating) are really what the witnesses claimed. After all, the minimalist knows that<em> that</em> is not granted by a majority of scholars. How, then, to argue for the physical resurrection?</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Generally the minimalist will at that point spend a fair bit of time arguing indirectly that the disciples <em>believed</em> the resurrection was physical. Per the minimalist's preference, this often goes "through" Paul. (There is a huge preference for doing everything "with" or "through" Paul.) E.g. Paul probably believed the resurrection was physical. Paul said that his gospel that he was preaching was approved by the other apostles. Therefore, the other apostles probably believed that the resurrection was physical. Or: The Gospel of Luke portrays the resurrection as physical. Luke was a companion of Paul and spoke to other apostles. Therefore, the apostles probably <em>believed</em> that the resurrection was physical. Note: This means that even if Luke invented the physical details in his narrative, this somehow doesn't matter because he invented them in order to convey what the apostles believed!</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">The minimalist will then try to insist that the apostles wouldn't have believed the resurrection was physical if they didn't have good evidence thereof. So, therefore, they probably had good evidence thereof. Again, this argument is supposed to circumvent concerns about the Gospels' embellishment. The idea, then, is to argue that even if those particular details were invented, something else was probably what they experienced that made them rational in believing in a physical resurrection!</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">So this round-the-barn approach eschews an attempt to defend the proposition that the only actual accounts we have tell us what the original witnesses claimed! It then attempts to bolster the now-weak argument for the physical resurrection by pouring energy into arguing that they probably believed it and that something-or-other convincing had to be what they experienced or they wouldn't have believed it.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Would <em>that </em>proposition be granted by the skeptic? Obviously not! Any skeptic or even ambivalent scholar (such as Dale Allison) is going to reject the proposition, "If the disciples believed that Jesus was physically raised, they were rational in doing so." Of course not! Such a person will point to various apparitions and visionary experiences as an analogy to the resurrection experiences (both Allison and Bart Ehrman expressly do this) and will then say that people believe a lot of things and that the apostles appear to have believed in a physical resurrection of Jesus for some other reason--e.g., because they were conditioned to so by their Jewish background, etc.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">The point I am making is that at this incredibly crucial juncture the minimalist is forced to abandon his much-touted method of relying only on premises "granted by a majority of scholars" or even granted by a specific skeptical interlocutor. So even the supposed rhetorical and strategic advantage is suddenly lost.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">But in that case, why not take a forward position sooner, make an actually stronger argument, and argue that the Gospels are reliable and that we have good reason to believe that the Gospel resurrection accounts tell us what the original witnesses actually claimed?</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Here comes an interesting question: How many minimalists think you can do that? To what extent has the decades-long reliance on this supposed "mere strategy" given rise to a genuine loss of nerve, to an apologetics community full of people who don't think that they <em>can</em> argue that way, who don't think that the evidence actually supports that premise? Unfortunately, I fear that this is too true, and that this isn't really *just* a "strategy." (Indeed, I have provided quotations in the webinar that indicate as much.) That would mean that we are forced to argue in this roundabout fashion and only take a stand at the point of insisting that the disciples' belief must have been rational. But in that case, you might as well admit that that is what you're doing very openly. Just say it: "No, this isn't really a strategy that relies only on premises that the skeptic will grant. But I don't think the robust reliability of the Gospels and the unembellished nature of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection is defensible, so, I'm sorry, but this is the best we can do."</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Isn't it a great thing that we have a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyqF_9qPiG4&t=2s" style="color: #0000aa; text-decoration-line: none;">better way</a>?</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">In a comment to the Facebook post I was asked if a minimalist approach to arguing for the resurrection is/was just an excuse to bring higher criticism into evangelicalism. As I point out in my response, giving a bit of sociological history, the reality is more complicated than that. Here is what I said (very lightly edited):</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">I don't think it was intended to be that initially. I truly think that initially, e.g., as formulated by Dr. Gary Habermas, the minimal facts approach was meant to be a strategy for jumping off from what Habermas found to be an encouraging softening of the liberal scholarly stance, in order to to press for more. The idea was that perhaps after, say, the 1970s, the liberal scholars were admitting enough that we could grab that and use it as a set of premises and actually argue for the resurrection as an explanatory inference just from those premises. This was seen as a big advantage, a convenience, and also excellent for the popular use of debates to answer skeptics, because saying, "This is granted by so many liberal scholars" was seen as a knock-down debate tactic.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Unfortunately, a lot of things then happened. For one thing, Habermas did not consult enough epistemologists about the way he was writing and the rationale for his approach, and he confused epistemology with sociology. One finds this in several of his statements of the minimal facts case--he will speak as though a high percentage of scholars' agreeing is in and of itself helpful to strong epistemic status, which of course is not the case.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Second, the strategy took on, as it were, a life of its own so that the "muscles" that would otherwise be used for defending the more robust case tended to atrophy because Christians arguing for the resurrection were not using those muscles.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Third, Michael Licona wrote a book that was a lengthy historiographical expansion of the minimalist account, with Habermas's approval (though I don't really think Habermas fully realized what was going on) in which Licona used the phrase "historical bedrock" for a very limited set of sources. In that book he put big question marks over the resurrection accounts in the Gospels. At this point the embrace of something like "higher criticism" really did enter the "minimalist" approach, as Licona made, as it were, a virtue out of necessity (or a necessity out of an alleged virtue?): Such-and-such isn't "historical bedrock," such-and-such is unsure because we don't know how much of it goes back to the original disciples and we don't know how much liberty the evangelists felt free to take. Therefore we <em>should</em> try to use other methods. This approach was embraced to a disturbing extent around the same time by William Lane Craig, who in the 2008 edition of his book<em> Reasonable Faith</em> actually states that the more forward approach of William Paley and company has been rendered "forever obsolete" by the work of higher critics. Note that this involves, once again, confusing sociology with epistemology.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Since then, Licona's 2017 book and his many presentations have further pressed the idea that the evangelists felt free to "take liberties," and his views have been endorsed by high-level people in the apologetics world, cementing still further the unhappy union between minimalist apologetics and these higher-critical approaches, even though that wasn't the original reason for the introduction of the approach or even for its earlier popularity.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Meanwhile, lay apologetics took off as a cottage industry, and many lay apologists are simply confused about the "appearances" used in the premises of minimal facts. Indeed, sometimes the articles, etc., written by advocates of the approach are confusing at precisely this point. For example, again and again people supposedly presenting the "minimal facts" will bring into popular presentations things that are <em>not</em> granted by a majority of scholars, such as Jesus' appearances indoors and outdoors, to skeptics, etc. This has caused many people to embrace the minimal facts model on the mistaken assumption that a majority of scholars admit far more than they actually do admit. And they are then very reluctant to let go of this assumption. It's too much of a shock for them to absorb, because they are so sure that minimal facts or minimalism is the best way to argue. The prominence of the debate format is part of the issue, too, since people assume that you must use something like this to have a punchy debate presentation.</p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">The demonizing of anyone who points out these issues (aka me) as doing something invidious for criticizing other Christians' work certainly doesn't help in promoting clarity and getting the word out about what the minimal facts approach is and isn't able to support. It also doesn't promote a healthy discussion of the best way to proceed. This is part of why I'm not going to stop pointing these things out, especially since I'm one of the only voices with a following who is doing so.</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-64806006599858344462021-01-11T09:00:00.002-05:002022-05-05T16:17:38.338-04:00Miracle reports, independence, and mutual support<p>This is the somewhat technical post to go along with <a href="https://youtu.be/SqkNJ497VJo">my recent video</a> on miracles and mutual support. It's been fun for me to revisit these topics mentally in the last week or so as I've been planning the video. Since 2008 when Tim and I published our mutual support paper in <i>Erkenntnis</i>, I've published individually a lot more work on independence and testimony. I'm going to include below a list of some relevant publications, some of them (alas) probably available only through institutional subscriptions. But some of them may be available to independent scholars through a free JSTOR account, so do give that a try. </p><p>First, here is the diagram that I used in the talk. (Hat tip to Esteemed Husband for making it look nice.)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY9K6fjlvguZvMyt4YXoEoLfh7w58ER-cVqUUnbD3vCq9ODo7N5MuKF_pgGkl0jKRggdFT6cs4gpwTis4B3qS3h3cfLchIqnnIEvEgzzAEQkDmO8oTQ93MXH9gBjUzsqr4EJwd/s1178/Routing+diagram+picture+mutual+support.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="1178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY9K6fjlvguZvMyt4YXoEoLfh7w58ER-cVqUUnbD3vCq9ODo7N5MuKF_pgGkl0jKRggdFT6cs4gpwTis4B3qS3h3cfLchIqnnIEvEgzzAEQkDmO8oTQ93MXH9gBjUzsqr4EJwd/s320/Routing+diagram+picture+mutual+support.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>As I emphasized in the video, no line of support contains a loop. The discussion is necessarily simplified, especially as regards the role of background evidence concerning the reliability of a source (such as a single Gospel) that reports both the resurrection and the other miracle. Let me say a little more about that.</p><p>First, whether you have evidence that two reports are true or false, if they truly support one another in some way, this is always one-directional, even if you think that the people involved are lying or mistaken. The possibility of fabricated reports doesn't in any way mean that you have a loop. Let me make this concrete: Suppose that Joe tells you two different stories. In both of these stories, Joe is set upon by an enemy or by enemies who try to beat him up, and he wins the fist fight. You may suspect that Joe is lying in both cases. This would mean that you think he is a braggart who is trying to make himself look tough. Even so, there would be no loops of support. Call one story Report A and the other Report B. Call their contents Fight A and Fight B. Suppose that you, based on your other information about Joe (e.g., that he's a puny little guy) decide that neither Fight A nor Fight B happened. In that case, the <i>reports</i> still support each other, in the sense that receiving Report A gives you some additional reason to expect Report B, since Report A supports the umbrella hypothesis that Joe is a braggart who wants to look tough by telling fight stories. Hence, you have somewhat of an expectation that he will tell another story of the same general kind. By the same token Report B gives you some reason to think you may receive Report A, via the same route in the other direction. (Here it is somewhat helpful to imagine receiving the reports at different times and imagining that you receive them in one order and then imagining that you receive them in the other order, but this is just to help keep things clear.) So the <i>reports</i> are mutually supporting (each raises the probability of the other) via the proposition that Joe is a particular kind of liar, and that mutual support is non-circular. </p><p>On the other hand, if you have, or gain, information that leads you to think of Joe as truthful and humble, as a person who tells things that are embarrassing to himself and doesn't make things up, if you learn independently that Joe has studied martial arts, and the like, this will decrease the probability that he is lying. In that case, Report A will have more force for Fight A (that that fight actually occurred). By the same token, you will have support from Report A (given your other background evidence about Joe's truthfulness) for a different umbrella hypothesis concerning character and circumstances--e.g., that Joe has (or tends to attract) enemies who try to beat him up, and that when that happens he is a good fighter. This "truthful" or "positive" unifying hypothesis will give you some additional reason to expect another<i> actual </i>fight in the real world, won by Joe. In this way, Report A supports Fight A; Fight A supports the hypothesis that Joe is a fellow who tends to get into fights and win them, which in turn raises the prior probability of Fight B. That also increases at least somewhat the prior probability that you will receive Report B, since Joe seems to tell you about these things. In turn, if you receive from Joe the input Report B, that provides some evidence via the opposite (non-looped) route that raises the prior probability of Fight A.</p><p>This means that in these kinds of scenarios, other background evidence that supports the truthfulness of a source that tells both stories tends to focus the evidential force of each report in such a way as to support the <i>content </i>of the other story. To apply this to a Gospel: The more separate reason we have to believe that John the evangelist is truthful and does not make up stories that promote a theological agenda, the more reason we have to believe (all else being equal) that his story about the healing of the man born blind is true. That, in turn, helps to support the hypothesis that there is something very special about Jesus (that he is <i>at least</i> a prophet, if not God himself), which increases at least somewhat the prior probability of the resurrection. And vice versa. The reports can be thought of as inputs. (Technically, as a strong foundationalist, I'm going to take the inputs at any given time to be things like your apparent memories at time t of reading the reports at time t - 1 and so forth--things to which you have direct access.) The force of each input in favor both of its own content and of the content reported by the<i> other</i> input is increased by other evidence that supports the truthfulness of a source that contains both reports.</p><p>On the other hand, if we were to have independent evidence that John the evangelist makes up marvellous stories about Jesus, the story about the man born blind would have little force to support the resurrection of Jesus, not only because it would probably be false (would have little force for its own content), but also because it wouldn't support a positive "unifying hypothesis" (such as Jesus' deity or the idea that there is something special and supernatural about Jesus) that would in turn increase the probability that Jesus would <i>really</i> rise from the dead. A negative "unifying hypothesis" (that John makes up theological stories) could still unify the<i> reports</i>--the report of the man born blind in John might give us some additional reason to think that John would also report the resurrection--but not by way of allowing each report to support the truth of its own content and thereby to support the other event.</p><p class="MsoNormal">To put it briefly, as we come to have more and more justified confidence that this person/author doesn’t make stuff up, we get closer and
closer to an uncomplicated situation in which we can reasonably say, “Well, since <i>that </i>event happened, that makes it more likely that this<i> other</i> event happened, too.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Another point: While the testimony of an otherwise highly reliable source is itself good evidence that the next thing he tells us is true, it is of course especially helpful if the story in question contains specific marks of realism. That makes the report even stronger evidence for what it attests, and this comes on a quasi-continuum. We should not be agnostic about each report on a passage-by-passage basis. That is something I have always spoken out against and will have much more to say about in <i>The Eye of the Beholder</i>. On the other hand, a brief, undetailed report will in the nature of the case carry less weight that a longer report in which we can point to specific marks of truth. In the accompanying video I draw a contrast in this regard between the account in John 9 of the healing of the man born blind and Mark's account of Jesus' healing of a blind man in Mark 8:22-26. Even the latter is not a bare statement, "Jesus healed a blind man near Bethsaida" and nothing more. It contains the oddity of Jesus spitting on the man's eyes (similar to his creating a paste from saliva and mud in John 9). It contains the bit of dialogue in which the man says he sees people walking like trees and Jesus touches his eyes again, which could potentially be embarrassing to a person wanting to make Jesus look more powerful. (Yes, I know that one can make up theological meanings for this, but those are subjective and unconvincing.) And there is Jesus' attempt to get him not to tell others about the miracle, which fits with other cases in the Gospels. So even here there are indicators of truth. An example of an even more spare account would be John 2:23, which just says that Jesus performed "signs," unspecified, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover. The healing of the man born blind in John 9, being longer and more detailed, provides more opportunity for markers of truth to come up. </p><p class="MsoNormal">The discussion of general reliability above concerns<i> one</i> source that tells <i>both</i> stories. If you have additional evidence from another document, another person, etc., for one or both of the events or for details mentioned in the story, all the better. That, too, would be included in the direct evidence for that story as modeled in the diagram. In the video, I included a bundle of different things in E1. In the case of the resurrection, we have several different Gospel accounts, evidence for the reliability of those other Gospels, as well as other evidence (e.g., in Acts) for the disciples' early attestation of the physical resurrection under conditions of great personal danger. Undesigned coincidences between accounts help to show independence as well as truth--a twofer. Apparent contradictions help to show independence.</p><p>As I say, it's been a lot of fun to return to this material, and believe it or not, there are still more complexities that I haven't discussed here. I've been making some additional notes in a document of some other thoughts on the probabilistic issues that I'm not including here.</p><p>Below is a small bibliography, ordered from most recent on top to oldest on the bottom, of some of my professional publications on these topics, including a more recent individual publication in <i>Erkenntnis</i> on undesigned coincidences. At a minimum, the combination of the video and this post shows that it is possible to "keep accounts" so that we are not using loops of support when there really is mutual support between miracle accounts (or between any accounts). Evidence for Gospel reliability is highly relevant to all of these issues, though "keeping accounts" is somewhat complex.</p><p>************************************</p><p><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Undesigned Coincidences and Coherence for an Hypothesis,” </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">Erkenntnis</i><span style="font-size: 16px;">, 85 (4) (August 15, 2020), pp. 801-828. On-Line First, August 6, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-018-0050-4 Author’s accepted manuscript version archived </span><a href="http://lydiamcgrew.com/UndesignedCoincidencesErkenntnis.pdf" style="color: purple; font-size: 16px;">here</a><span style="font-size: 16px;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Finessing Independent Attestation: A Study in Interdisciplinary Biblical Criticism,” </span><a href="http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/article/finessing-independent-attestation-interdisciplinary-biblical-criticism" style="color: purple; font-size: 16px;"><i>Themelios</i> 44.1, pp. 89-102</a><span style="font-size: 16px;"> (April, 2019)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Accounting for Dependence: Relative Consilience as a Correction Factor in Cumulative Case Arguments,” </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">Australasian Journal of Philosophy</i><span style="font-size: 16px;">. 95:3 (2017), 560-572, DOI 10.1080/00048402.2016.1219753. Abstract <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00048402.2016.1219753">here</a>. Does not include whole article.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Evidential Diversity and the Negation of H: A Probabilistic Account of the Value of Varied Evidence,</span><span class="GramE" style="font-size: 16px;">” <i>Ergo</i></span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> 3:10 (2016), available </span><a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ergo/12405314.0003.010?view=text;rgn=main" style="color: purple; font-size: 16px;">here</a><span style="font-size: 16px;">.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 16px;">“Foundationalism, Probability, and Mutual Support,” With Timothy McGrew, </span><i style="font-size: 16px;">Erkenntnis</i><span style="font-size: 16px;"> 68 (2008):55-77. JSTOR entry<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40267466?seq=1"> here</a> (does not include whole article).</span></p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-19559496809716522682021-01-07T19:01:00.002-05:002021-01-07T20:19:47.933-05:00Pain is the price of patriotism<p>The events of the last few days here in the U.S. could almost have been calculated to break the heart of anyone who loves this country. First I'm referring to the loss of the Senate to the Democrats. And here I solidly blame none other than our feckless man-child of a President, Donald Trump. In a distant alternative possible universe, had Trump been less narcissistic, had he thought that something mattered besides himself, he would have taken the spotlight off the presidential election shortly after November 3 (<i>whatever</i> he thought about the fairness of the results) and focused solidly on using his considerable influence with his base to rally the voters for the Georgia runoffs. Well, we all know how that went, including Lin Wood's insane recommendation to Republican voters to stay home. The elections were close. Had Trump barnstormed Georgia on behalf of those candidates, the Democrats might not have won the Senate. I don't usually indulge in such what-ifs, and there are plenty of places where I think Trump gets blamed that are far more complicated than they are made to appear in Punditland, but this one is just too darned obvious. </p><p>And then, of course, the Capitol-storming yesterday, deadly for at least four people, deadly for any remaining shred of American dignity. (The news media seem to be notably coy about three of these--who they were and what exactly happened--but about Ashli Babbitt, the woman whom the police shot, there seems to be little doubt about what happened.) This ridiculous attempt at insurrection (seriously?) will be treated as iconic of conservatism for decades to come (at least) and used as a stick with which to beat everyone who supports conservative ideals and ideas. Don't like gay "marriage"? Well, you're just like those terrifying insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol building. Maybe you're planning terrorism, even. Don't think a man can turn into a woman? The same. Support the lives of the unborn--man, you're a scary person. And on, ad infinitum. </p><p>If that hasn't upset some readers already ("How terrible that<i> that</i> is why she's upset!" "She didn't say what I wanted her to say!"), here follows my<i> really</i> upsetting paragraph, so feel free to skip, especially if you lean a bit left or are wanting me to say some predetermined thing you have in mind to prove my non-partisanship. I basically like <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/07/the-consequences-of-the-capitol-assault/">this take </a>by Ben Domenech, with a caveat or two. More about the caveats below. He is so right about the demonization of the<i> really</i> peaceful Tea Partiers not so long ago, the boy who cried wolf phenomenon, and so forth. The most I can say to prove my non-partisanship is that, while I think it tragic, I don't have a<i> huge</i> amount of sympathy for Ashli Babbitt, whom the police shot. She paid high for her mad folly, for her anarchic action; death in that context could have been foreseen as a not-implausible result. This is horrible. If she was motivated by malice, her death would be less tragic, but I don't at all know that she was motivated by malice and suspect (call me naive) that she was incurably muddle-headed by ideology. But everybody who invaded that building forcibly certainly deserves arrest. What I'd really like to see at this point is for the same spirit of get-tough-on-rioters to travel to Portland and other cities so that the truly malicious evildoers who burn down innocent people's businesses would<i> also</i> have a credible deterrent thought to think: "Hey, maybe the police will shoot me if I try to do that." Supported (in my fantasy world) by the eager tough-mindedness of the media that stridently reported yesterday's invasion of the Capitol. But no, <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2021/01/05/portland-protests-enforcement-civil-rights/">"Civil Rights Groups Raise Alarms About Mayor's Harsher Stance on Protesters,"</a> as the anarchy in Portland goes on without apparent end and peaceful businessmen have no credible hope of living their peaceful lives. That is shameful. And those who are saying diametrically opposite things now about the rioters yesterday from what they were saying this summer are nothing but despicable partisan hacks whom I will never try to satisfy. (I'm looking at you, Sally Kohn: 5/30 on Twitter, "I don't like violent protests, but I understand them. And those wagging their fingers against them need to read up on their American history." Yesterday, "The mobs storming the Capitol right now are neither patriots nor revolutionaries. They are traitors and cowards, trying to upend our democracy by force." I'm looking at Nancy I-don't-know-why-there-aren't-uprisings-all-over-the-country Pelosi. And more.) Yes, this paragraph probably means that I don't evaluate these two types of mobs exactly as some reading this would like me to. But I do condemn them both, believe both are shameful and both should be arrested and stopped, violently if there is no other way, and that's the most you're going to get out of me.</p><p>All that said, the last few days have been dark, in more senses than one. <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2021/01/07/the-consequences-of-the-capitol-assault/">The take</a> from Domenech doesn't give us a whole lot to hope for. If, as he says, the anarchic spirit is now running loose on the American right and is not going away, how in the world can principled conservatives speak credibly to the legitimate concerns of that political element while firmly refusing to become like them? That's the million-dollar question, and I don't have a good answer. Neither, apparently, does Domenech. If he does, he's not revealing it. What has just happened is, like so much of the last four years, a mix of tragedy and farce and turns the country into a mix of tragedy and farce. Yesterday is in some ways the unkindest cut of all. Who could have imagined four years ago the image of "Buffalo horns guy" posing in the Senate chamber with some people (on both sides) actually believing that he is a representative of "the right" in the U.S.? </p><p>And in response we have the President, apparently really shocked (is it possible?) at what his incessant, narcissistic drum-beating of the past few weeks and days has raised, calling for non-violence after it's too late. Can he<i> really</i> be that stupid? I suppose he can. And<i> that</i> is the best we can say for him! Dear Lord, I can remember being a child and being told quite solemnly all about respecting the "office of the President" no matter who was in office. There was still some vestige then of respect for the processes of our governance--respect owed, perhaps, to history, to the vision of the Founders, and to that partly-abstract, partly-concrete entity that we called "our country." The land of the free and the home of the brave, remember? The land of Presidents we could be really proud to get behind, or who could (to put it no higher) at least pretend to behave themselves. Are we now either free or brave? <a href="https://dennisprager.com/column/when-2-year-olds-are-thrown-off-airplanes-you-know-america-has-changed/">I wonder</a>.</p><p>Cynicism is a luxury we cannot afford. And that is my main caveat about Ben Domenech's otherwise insightful piece. He says he wasn't as depressed as others were (presumably conservatives) about yesterday's events. I have to say it: Maybe he should be more depressed. Being hurt by the slow, painful death of ideals in our society is what we pay for being human. Pain is the price of patriotism. If we are to rebuild anything from the ruins of conservatism, if we are even to survive the current and growing totalitarianism of leftism, we have to continue to hurt and to have ideals. This is something that my recent re-reading of <i>Witness</i> by Whittaker Chambers has taught me. Chambers regained his humanity when he learned to love--first his wife, then their unborn child, then his farm and his country--and thus learned again to suffer, but to suffer creatively, to suffer as a witness. That painful process of learning to love was what made him give up the Communist idea that the ends justify the means. We cannot travel the opposite road now. Clear-eyed we must be, and being clear-eyed will undoubtedly lead to pessimism. But hardened we cannot be.</p><p>I could close there, but since I'm not blogging a whole lot these days and was only moved by these recent events to blog now, I want to add this: The future of this country and of Western civilization lies, I now firmly believe, with those who are willing to share constructive ideals and truths<i> in person</i> as well as virtually. To do that, we must be both brave and free--free in heart, at least, and claiming our freedom with our actions as much as we are able. While I'm quite willing and even grateful to use the blessings of technology, and while I hope to continue to have the opportunity to do so and to reach more people that way, we can't convey everything that needs to be conveyed that way. The John MacArthurs of the world, <a href="https://notthebee.com/article/canada-arrests-six-elders-of-ontario-church-for-holding-services-in-defiance-of-government-orders?fbclid=IwAR0W8hHkGPRQuWQ101bQgqM_UCyPvYXJp50hKwWbSfLKmmOb1zB--wyZpzM">these</a> <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/legal-defense-support-for-rev-dr-aaron-rock?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=p_cp%20share-sheet&fbclid=IwAR184LLZAnYgejjYI4rVLlVlXxGUzpvKeqfcn0XsOUb9w7QP-WUviNUZ0s8">courageous</a> Canadian pastors and elders, and many others quietly "breaking" the insane lockdown "rules" to meet in their churches, to meet with their friends and neighbors and loved ones, to fall in love without masks and get married, to baptize (which you can't do six feet apart), to hug the grieving, to teach children (yea, even children outside their own households) by standing at their elbows while tutor and student see each others' faces, the builders of incarnate community and interpersonal love are the future of mankind. Does that sound over-the-top to you? So be it. </p><p>I hear people speak of our hope in Jesus and of their hope for revival in the U.S. or in the West. That's all well and good. But the high probability is that revival will bear fruit in the dark, lonely spaces of individual hearts and souls only insofar as those souls become strongly connected to in-person communities of saints and brethren. So pastors: Open up your doors and invite them to come in. And sing. And pray together. And speak the truth about unpopular social subjects, and encourage your people by word and example to be willing to lose everything for the truth. It's the only way. It will hurt. But pain is the price not only of patriotism but also of discipleship.</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-20737038128604275522020-12-24T09:27:00.001-05:002020-12-24T09:27:20.601-05:00The weary world rejoices<p>I don't need to tell you that the world is weary. And anybody who has been reading my posts here and on Facebook can figure out some of the reasons why I think the world is weary. There are, of course, plenty more. I don't need to start listing all the evils of the world, some of which you can agree with me about even if we disagree about others.</p><p>Those of us who are Christians and also "literary types" know of a certain kind of literature in which the characters have big epiphanies about the eternal import of their smallest actions. You might call this the Charles Williams trope. Williams has a scene where a woman is being annoying and a guard announcing the trains at a train station is entirely polite to her. Williams goes into rather purple rhapsodies about the eternal value of his two words, "Yes, lady." Similarly, in C.S. Lewis's <i>That Hideous Strength</i>, Mark Studdock is ordered to desecrate a crucifix. He's an agnostic, so the symbol means nothing to him, and he can't figure out why he's being told to do it. His wicked employer Frost tells him that they have found this to be necessary to the training of people in their organization. Studdock finally says, "It's all nonsense, and I'm damned if I'll do any such thing." Lewis, of course, means the reader to realize that Studdock's words have far more literal meaning than he intends. Like Caiaphas, we all sometimes speak prophecy without knowing it, and everything means more than we can possibly realize.</p><p>But this creates a bit of a problem in its own right for imaginative types.</p><div><div>For if all the good things and all the bad things have vast, eternal meaning, what happens if there are more bad things going on in the world than good things? What right have I to comfort myself with the thought of that one smile exchanged between neighbors on the street (and perhaps now more than ever when it is almost a subversive act to let one's smile show when passing one's neighbor), that one eternal flower that blooms forever in the mind of God, the one evergreen act of courage, while not offsetting it with the thought of many acts of torture and destruction, the vast amounts of filth on the Internet, the souls hunted down, corrupted, and devoured, the suicides, the insane, the injustice? If they are also of infinite importance (and surely in one sense they are), who is to say which outweighs which in the eternal scales? What is the weight of my one little act of charity when there is so much bad in the world? And on this thought, the mind bows down, crushed with the weight of too much knowledge, the thought of too much darkness.</div><div><br /></div><div>But then I remember St. Paul's statement that the sufferings of this present world are not to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. And I remember, too, that evil is a privation. And I remember that God is glorious beyond all the evil that man can do.</div><div><br /></div><div>C.S. Lewis seems to have wrestled with this notion of "too much darkness" in his fiction. In <i>Perelandra</i> the Un-man tries to tell Ransom that the "real world" is the world of filth and darkness and that the courage of the saints and the innocence of children is as nothing in comparison. The scene is creepy, and one can tell that Lewis has really confronted this possibility. But the whole point is that the Un-man is a damned soul and is uttering the falsehoods of Satan. Why? Because ultimately, it just isn't true that that is a "greater reality." It's not, of course, that our sense of something wrong is an illusion. Rather, it's that the "something wrong" is a twisting of what is good, and what is good, the Good Himself, is over and above all the evil. This is true no matter how much evil rational creatures do and suffer. So in <i>The Great Divorce</i>, George McDonald tells Lewis (as a character in his own book) that one glorious, redeemed soul could not fit into Hell:</div><div><br /></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div style="text-align: left;">All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of <i>this </i>world<i>, </i>the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swalled all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste....All loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies and itchings that it contains, if rolled into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good. If all Hell's miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace, as if one drop of ink had been dropped into that Great Ocean to which your terrestrial Pacific itself is only a molecule.</div></div></blockquote><div><div><br /></div><div>Now there's a man who has truly rejected the dualism of two equal and opposite Powers (good and evil), ever-contending. But he has not rejected it without feeling its pull and the despair to which it leads. If God is just the "light side of the Force," we're all doomed. Thank God He isn't.</div><div><br /></div><div>And so at the tag end of this dark year, I offer you a thrill of hope. No, it's not a vaccine. No, it's not anything of earth at all. And yet it affirms the flesh and promises a new heaven and a new earth. He makes all things new. There we shall see him, and each other, face to face. This is possible because the Word was made flesh, and the Virgin bore to men a Savior when half-spent was the night.</div><div><br /></div><div>Merry Christmas!</div></div><div><br /></div><div>(Cross-posted at What's Wrong With the World)</div><div><br /></div>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-44457069493031303202020-12-20T11:59:00.000-05:002022-05-05T16:17:58.391-04:00Some more notes on the census in Luke<p>The census in Luke 2 is a gigantic topic on which much ink has been spilled. I certainly had to deal with it in my series on the Virgin Birth, but I'm trying not to write a treatise! This post contains some extra notes on the subject that I didn't include in <a href="https://youtu.be/ZIpi5-pQSVk">my recent video</a>, in the interests of keeping the video streamlined and digestible. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PloRcUHBMU">Here</a> also is my recent debate with atheist Jonathan Pearce on the Unbelievable show.</p><p>In my Youtube <a href="https://youtu.be/ZIpi5-pQSVk"> video</a> about the census I make the following points:</p><p>1) Luke is an historical source in himself, at least as credible (based on track record) as Josephus. The fact that we have no other source for a census in Judea at this time is thus the merest argument from silence, and an especially poor one. Luke is giving us information. There is nothing about Luke's being a Christian author that makes him likely to be unreliable about a boring historical matter like a census. This point goes beyond saying that we should "give Luke the benefit of the doubt" based on his track record elsewhere, though that's true as well. The mere absence of a census in this time and place in the relatively meager set of non-biblical historical literature that we have for that time period does not constitute a strike of any significance against Luke. We can learn about this census from Luke.</p><p>2) It's outright false that Luke and Matthew contradict each other about when Jesus' birth took place, with only Matthew placing his birth at the time of Herod the Great. Luke says the same thing. (Luke 1:5)</p><p>3) Skeptics will say that Luke's census is improbable to the point of being historically impossible, even on its own terms. They are wrong about that, and they get there by insisting on an overly wooden reading of Luke and an exaggerated idea of what the census would have involved.</p><p>4) Skeptics will say that there is only one possible meaning of Luke's reference to Quirinius in connection with the census and that all other suggested translations are attempts by Christian apologists to wriggle out of admitting that Luke was wrong. They're wrong about that, too. What Luke says about Quirinius and "the first census" is genuinely difficult to translate and interpret, which is why there is legitimate scholarly debate about it.</p><p>Here I want to add a couple of points to #3 and #4.</p><p>Concerning #3, one claim that you will here is that Rome would <i>never</i> order a census (either for purposes of counting or for purposes of taxation) under a client king such as Herod the Great. This is a really strong claim, and there is little to back it up. It's mostly just an assertion, based on the fact that client kingdoms did have some measure of independence. But it's not as though we have a contemporary statement anywhere that the Romans would never meddle in taxation in a client kingdom or would never order a tally of the people in a client kingdom.</p><p>On the contrary, here is some evidence that Rome would sometimes do so: In the 30s A.D., as Tacitus tells us (<a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Annals/6B*.html#ref42"><i>Annals</i>, Book VI, 41.1</a>), a rather war-like tribe (the Cietae) residing in the Roman client kingdom of Cilicia was "pressed to conform with Roman usage by making a return of their property and submitting to a tribute." They were originally from the mountainous region of Cappadocia, and they retreated there and fought. The client king, named Archelaus, required the help of the Roman legions to defeat them. </p><p>As it turns out, there were several rulers about in the 1st century B.C. and 1st century A.D. named "Archelaus." This one (whom Tacitus calls "Archelaus of Cappadocia") was not the same person as the Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great, whom I've mentioned elsewhere (see Matt. 2:22). Making things more confusing, the Archelaus ruling the client kingdom of Cilicia, mentioned by Tacitus, was also not the "Archelaus of Cappadocia" who had died about 17 years previously. That was his father, who actually did rule Cappadocia. (Are you confused yet?) I bring all this up because the atheist blogger Jonathan Pearce (who debated me on the Nativity) has<a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2020/12/14/my-nativity-debate-with-lydia-mcgrew-post-match-analysis/"> claimed</a> that the<a href="https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/12/13/caesar-augustus-an-archaeological-biography/"> Biblical Archaeology Report </a>has blundered horribly by mentioning this tribute/census of the Cietae as evidence that you could have Roman censuses in client kingdoms. Pearce assumes that they are referring to a census made in Cappadocia after it was no longer a client kingdom, when Archelaus of Cappadocia had already been dead for years. But he's mistaken. The requirement to "conform to Roman usage" was indeed made within a client kingdom, in the year A.D. 36, when that client kingdom was ruled over by a <i>different </i>"Archelaus of Cappadocia," the son of the one Pearce is thinking of, and (to make matters more confusing) the client kingdom in question was actually Cilicia rather than Cappadocia! The confusion over this obscure fact partly arose because the Biblical Archaeology Report cited a secondary source rather than citing Tacitus directly. I was lucky enough to find the Tacitus reference in<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/642500?seq=1"> this </a>really fascinating article about the census by John Thorley (hat tip to Jason Engwer for recommending it), and I chased it down from there. (Note: You can get a free on-line account with JSTOR for independent scholars that lets you read up to 100 articles per month.)</p><p>This is a cautionary tale in a lot of ways: It illustrates the complexity of historical reality (always something skeptics and some Christian biblical scholars need to be reminded of). It illustrates the plausibility of theories that there were multiple people by the same name. (This comes up in discussing other supposed Gospel "errors.") In this case, Wikipedia <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archelaus_of_Cilicia">even calls</a> the Cietae a "Cappadocian tribe," which is confusing and interesting. How could there be a Cappadocian tribe in Cilicia? Well, you know, history is complicated! Anyway, all of this also illustrates the value of tracing things back to original sources.</p><p>And bringing us back to the argumentative point: We absolutely should not be doing <i>a priori </i>history about what "wouldn't ever happen" in a client kingdom. We should <i>discover</i> what it meant to be a "client kingdom" in regards to tribute, census, taxation, etc., by reading historical sources (including Luke). The phrase "client kingdom" isn't some kind of talisman that automatically entails the conclusion the skeptic is going for. That's not how history is done. So...yes, Rome under Augustus could<i> certainly</i> have ordered that a client kingdom (or maybe even several of them) must count their people, or their property-owning people. Herod would have had to agree to <a href="https://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2004/12/could-there-have-been-earlier-census.html?fbclid=IwAR1Yz1xU_T__t8QQrQScV_XfY7FwxnNyM3ZW0ln7bWKCyhKIYcYi_xHNHYY">carry this out </a>or to allow a designated Roman authority to carry it out. As <a href="https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/12/13/caesar-augustus-an-archaeological-biography/">Biblical Archaeology Report</a> notes, Augustus ordered after Herod's death that Samaria didn't have to pay as much tax to Archelaus, Herod's son, because they hadn't joined in a revolt. Even though Archelaus was confirmed as a ruler under Rome and was supposed to have the tribute from the Samaritans himself, Caesar altered the amount. This is indirectly relevant in that it shows how Rome tweaked taxation under client rulers.</p><p>In fact, Thorley suggests that that is what Luke is saying when he says that "in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed [registered]." Thorley's idea is that this means that at that general time period Augustus decided to tell the various provinces on the edge of the Roman empire to register/count their inhabitants, this extension of census-taking to all parts of the Roman world being a new practice. Of course, there could be plenty of reasons for this. It would be useful for taxation, for one thing, even if some part of the tax went to the local client king. (Miller, link below, mentions the suggestion that Rome might have wanted to assess the region when a client king was getting older.) The story of the Cietae in Cilicia shows that this is not merely theoretical. A tribe in a client kingdom <i>was</i> required to make a tribute of a portion of their property according to Roman usage, which would have required that the property be counted, and the client ruler had to attempt to carry out this order. While Tacitus doesn't say whose idea this census was (it could in theory have been the idea of Archelaus II himself), he certainly doesn't say that it was <i>not </i>Rome's own idea, and the fact that the legions helped to enforce it certainly shows their involvement. For more on this tribe see Glenn Miller's extensive discussion<a href="http://christian-thinktank.com/tax4kings1.html?fbclid=IwAR2fYC4Y7f5LO7_kzmq1pL4wZJRe_OG5uS398kA8TuUU0nYcOSMLv6m6b8s"> here</a>. I haven't even had time to read it all and therefore am not endorsing everything he says, but it contains a lot of information. (HT to Jason Engwer for the link.)</p><p>It's also worth pointing out that Herod's relationship with Augustus as a client king was not always strewn with hearts and flowers. Some time between 12 and 9 B.C., Herod fell into significant disgrace with Augustus over his treatment of the Nabateans. While he was supposedly reconciled to Augustus, such a reconciliation wouldn't have meant that they both forgot the recent unpleasantness, even if they were formally friends again by the time of Jesus' birth, Augustus had made it quite clear recently that he considered himself fully empowered to interfere in Herod's management of his affairs.</p><p>Rome had a passion for counting people, not to mention taxing them. Augustus proudly talks about several lustrum censuses he did, including one beginning in 8 B.C., and how many Roman citizens he counted in those censuses. I should clarify here something that I was not clear enough about in my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PloRcUHBMU">debate</a> with Pearce: In itself, a lustrum census was for purposes of counting Roman citizens, not all inhabitants <i>per se</i>. There doubtless were Roman citizens in Judea, but if the census at the time of Jesus' birth was related to the 8 B.C. lustrum as it came around to Syria, that would be an extension of its independently known purpose, since Joseph was probably not a Roman citizen. But as Thorley points out, that isn't in itself implausible.</p><p>Concerning #4, here are a couple more points (which may or may not have been covered in the video):</p><p>Skeptics insist that Luke must be saying that this census took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria and that, moreover, he is saying that it was the 6 A. D. census. So there you go! Luke was wrong! Because Jesus wasn't born in 6 A.D.!</p><p>But that claim has all sorts of problems of its own. It runs afoul of Luke's clear assertion that John the Baptist was conceived during the time of Herod the Great (Luke 1:5). It runs afoul of Luke's clear knowledge of the 6 A.D. census at its own time period (Acts 5:37). It runs afoul of the fact that Luke has all kinds of definite indicators of the time of the beginning of John the Baptist's ministry and hence Jesus' ministry (Luke 3:1, 3:23), and that on these indicators Jesus would be much too young if Luke thought he was born in 6 A.D. In other words, it just doesn't make sense within Luke's own corpus as an interpretation of what Luke is saying about Quirinius and the census in 2:2. Whatever else is going on, that isn't what's going on. Even if one thinks Luke is incorrect here in some way, that isn't what he's saying just as a matter of interpretation of Luke.</p><p>Moreover, the skeptical interpretation leaves out the meaning of the word "first" in Luke 2:2. If all that Luke meant to say was that this was<i> the</i> census taken under Quirinius, the one and only, why didn't he just say, "This was the census made when Quirinius was governor of Syria," full stop? Why include that pesky word "first" (or whatever it should be translated as)? The skeptics apparently think it means "the first census in Judea," but that is far from being the only reasonable interpretation, even if we take "first" to be just an ordinary adjective modifying "census."</p><p>Let me also add: In order for us to be justified in thinking that Luke is accurate about the census (in particular), it isn't necessary for any one specific possibility to be probable. What is needed is for the <i>disjunction</i> to be probable--A or B or C. And given that each of these ideas does have some real plausibility (it isn't just barely logically possible), the probability of that disjunction is reasonably high. If one allows for Luke to be right that Jesus was born during a census or registration but wrong about the specific Roman governor/hegemon, through confusing two Roman names (see below), a minor error, then the probability of the disjunction is higher still. So when I mention in the video that this or that is possible, I am not saying either a) that being possible means being probable or b) that these are individually just barely possible. In fact, common sense shows us that many of these ideas that I've suggested about the nativity (such as Joseph's having a connection to Bethlehem stronger than just being descended from David) are entirely plausible, and they are the kind of thing that we invoke in ordinary life all the time to explain what someone says when we have incomplete information. Jonathan Pearce, my atheist opponent in my recent debate, repeatedly states that "apologists" invoke the idea that to be possible is to be probable. This misunderstands the entire point. Moreover, it's particularly ironic that he should repeat this criticism so often, since he himself invokes, and treats as highly probable, extremely <i>implausible</i> theories, such as the idea that Luke 1-2 were added to the Gospel later on or the idea that Luke is secretly trying to make a reference to Psalm 87:6 by making up/moving the census.</p><p>Thorley's suggestion, which I'm inclined to endorse as my "first line" of translation, is that Luke is saying that this was the first census (of two) made when Quirinius was "hegemon" of Syria. Again, that "first" has to mean something. We can't just leave it untranslated. Luke is trying to communicate <i>something</i>. I add, which Thorley doesn't talk about, that "hegemon" doesn't have to mean "governor" in the technical sense and that Quirinius could have been in charge of a census in Syria without being governor in the sense that Josephus talks about when he lists the governors. But Thorley, (refreshingly) taking Luke to be an historical source, also says that for all we know Luke is more accurate than Josephus here and knew of a short, earlier governorship of Quirinius wedged between those listed by Josephus, which is also possible.</p><p>There is some controversy over the suggested translation, "This census was made<i> before </i>Quirinius was governor of Syria," though it would certainly be a simple way to fit all the data together (always a good thing in an historical hypothesis). I find its simplicity attractive. That translation, by the way, would mean that Luke is particularly <i>accurate</i> here. <a href="https://bible.org/article/problem-luke-22-ithis-was-first-census-taken-when-quirinius-was-governor-syriai">Here</a> is Daniel Wallace making a case against it. But N. T. Wright endorses it (<i>Who Was Jesus?</i> p. 89). (So did a whole roster of other scholars who were no slouches in Greek, including T.R. Birks. I owe this reference to Tim McGrew.) Maybe we should let Wallace and Wright duke it out on this one. In any event, the contemptuous skeptical dismissal of the "before" translation as a desperate apologetic expedient is unwarranted. It deserves consideration.</p><p>Another worthy contender is, "This enrollment was first completed (i.e., used) when Quirinius was governor of Syria." This is Calvin’s suggestion, endorsed by Beard, Rawlinson, Edersheim, and numerous other scholars.<span face="arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small;"> </span>As Paul Maier <a href="https://inchristus.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/maier-date-of-the-nativity.pdf">points out</a>, it took forty years to complete a census in Gaul around this time, so it could well be that a count was made or begun in Judea before the death of Herod and that Quirinius only made use of it to collect tax in A.D. 6 when he came to clean up the mess after the death of Herod the Great's son, the tetrarch Archelaus. Luke 11:28, referring to a famine that at that time was merely predicted, uses the same Greek term (egeneto). Agabus predicts the famine, and Luke comments that it happened, came to pass, etc., under Claudius, in a future time. Similarly, Luke could be saying that this census came fully to fruition when Quirinius was governor of Syria, later on. (I owe information about this option to Tim McGrew.) It occurs to me that this could explain why there was a revolt later in A.D. 6 but not at this time, if this was the count and that was the taxation based on the count. This is just a conjecture but is worth throwing into the mix.</p><p>Thorley suggests that Luke may have been mistaken, but only in a narrow sense. Luke may indeed have said, "This was the first [of two] censuses made when Quirinius was governor of Syria," thinking that Quirinius was hegemon of Syria twice, based upon a mistaken memory or reading of the name Quinctilius, since the hapless<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Quinctilius_Varus"> P. Quinctilius Varus</a> was, according to Josephus, governor of Syria around this time. That would indeed be an error on Luke's part, but a very limited and to some extent understandable one, and it certainly wouldn't at all mean that Luke invented the census. Indeed, Luke's very attempt to nail down the relationship of this census to the one that he knows about later under Quirinius shows an extremely Lukan concern for literal history.</p><p>In fact, the whole idea that Luke made up the census (or moved Jesus' birth to much later), as I point out in the video, is fairly absurd. It is using a steamroller to crack a nut. All that Luke had to do, if he wanted to "make" Jesus be born in Bethlehem contrary to fact, was to have Mary and Joseph start out in Bethlehem and later travel to Nazareth. There was no need for him to invent the idea that Mary was from Nazareth and that they had to travel from there, while she was pregnant, down to Bethlehem and then back to Nazareth. And to invent a Roman census for such a purpose would be a wildly exaggerated plot device. Luke's deliberately connecting it falsely with Quirinius and placing it at a date that is in great tension with all of Luke's own other date indicators is overwhelmingly implausible. Why do a thing like that? Luke didn't have to mention Quirinius at all if he was inventing a census out of thin air.</p><p>Luke shows not the slightest awareness of any Old Testament passage that is fulfilled by Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. He may or may not have known of Micah 5:2. I think it's a good principle not to attribute theological motives to the evangelists that they say nothing about. They generally aren't shy about mentioning OT parallels or fulfillments of prophecy, so why invent private intentions for which we have no textual evidence?</p><p>All of our evidence points to the conclusion that Luke sincerely believed what he said in Luke 2:1-2. And there are plenty of reasons to think that, as a reliable historian, Luke is telling us about a real census that really took place in Judea at the time, whether or not Quirinius was in charge of it. To say that we wouldn't think there had been such a census if it weren't for Luke is no real criticism. There are plenty of historical events that we wouldn't think happened if it weren't for the historical document (sometimes a single document) that mentions them! That's how history works.</p><p>Have a look at the <a href="https://youtu.be/ZIpi5-pQSVk">video</a>, and be sure to subscribe to my Youtube channel if you haven't already!</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-56545757724242124422020-12-14T10:01:00.005-05:002020-12-14T10:01:36.819-05:00Aphorism for the day<p> The legitimacy of historical harmonization rests on the observed complexity of reality.</p><p><br /></p><p>Apropos of which, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi9e9O4FlaA">here's a Youtube video </a>on reconcilable variation in the nativity stories.</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-52203884906425568472020-12-05T11:40:00.004-05:002020-12-05T11:44:39.504-05:00What I'm up to this Advent<p> Sorry that there haven't been new posts here recently. I've begun occasionally posting again at What's Wrong With the World. Also, if you follow my public content on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lydia.mcgrew.5">Facebook</a>, you will see more of my links and thoughts. The one annoying thing is that Facebook now seems to be changing its algorithms, so even "following" may not be enough to see everything. You may need to "favorite" me as well to be sure not to miss anything.</p><p>I've gotten pulled into quite a bit of conversation about the Virgin Birth this Advent season. I've just started a Youtube series about the Virgin Birth, and the first video of that is out, <a href="https://youtu.be/CdsrlQz_R04">here</a>. Please consider subscribing to my Youtube channel and hitting the bell so that you get notifications. </p><p>Recording on it may be somewhat slow, though, because I've agreed to a debate on the Virgin Birth and infancy narratives (I usually refuse debates), which will be recorded on December 11. Plus I'm indexing <i>The Eye of the Beholder</i>--a huge and rather boring task. I did an interview yesterday about some objections to the birth narratives. That link is <a href="https://anchor.fm/evan-minton/episodes/Episode-94-Are-The-Birth-Narratives-Of-Jesus-Historically-Reliable----With-Lydia-McGrew-enarfd?fbclid=IwAR2k2WUGNnsuzYUAqmv9JYsaeh9arXAaJXXDELaHjqFJ3dH42b17ObRK_PQ">here</a>.</p><p>Triablogue has a roundup of some great resources on the veracity of the infancy accounts and the Virgin Birth. See that link roundup <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2020/11/christmas-resources-2020.html#more">here</a>. Jason Engwer has done some stalwart work there. Theological blogger Steve Hays of Triablogue passed away from cancer during 2020. He was a great soldier for the faith and is missed.</p><p>So a blessed Advent to everyone, and if you don't hear from me again for a while, a Merry Christmas.</p><p>By the way, I heard a new Gospel Christmas song on the radio yesterday that Mr. Google does not seem to know about. It was mostly about the lost sheep. Here, from memory, are a few fragments of the words:</p><p>"Mary gave birth to light." "...the darkness we mistook for the light." </p><p>Chorus</p><p>O what love the Good Shepherd has shown</p><p>To leave the ninety and nine</p><p>To go back for that one sheep, lost and alone.</p><p>I'm the one he came back to find.</p>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00423567323116960820noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20704380.post-52832352885746870112020-09-12T15:35:00.000-04:002022-05-05T16:18:50.022-04:00Undesigned coincidences vs. Literary Devices (archived from May, 2018)<p> (Originally posted at What's Wrong With the World. Link to original post at "permalink" below.)</p><div class="archive-title" style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(199, 200, 210); border-left: 4px solid rgb(199, 200, 210); font-family: "trebuchet ms", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin: 4px 30px 0px 4px; padding-left: 0.5em;"><h2 id="archive-title" style="font-family: "bookman old style", "times new roman", serif; font-size: 1.4em; font-variant-caps: small-caps; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0px;">Undesigned coincidences vs. Literary Devices on Bellator Christi [Updated]</h2><div class="iea_posted_by" style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; position: relative;">by <a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/author.php?author_id=0&nic=Lydia%20McGrew" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">Lydia McGrew</a></div></div><div class="article" id="entry-3046" style="background-color: white; font-family: "trebuchet ms", verdana, tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 30px;"><div class="entry-content"><div class="article_body" style="text-align: justify;"><p>[Update: I've decided to put into this post itself a list of some counterexamples to Licona's misleading claims about his, and others' positions. See below. These are also in the podcast on Bellator Christi.]</p><p>I had the privilege today to be on the Bellator Christi podcast with Brian Chilton discussing the contrast between the view of the Gospels supported by undesigned coincidences and that of the "literary device" theorists.</p><p>The link to the podcast <a href="https://bellatorchristi.com/2018/05/04/podcast-5-4-18-undesigned-coincidences-in-the-gospels-and-acts-w-dr-lydia-mcgrew/" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">is here</a>. It was great fun being on the show and bringing these various strands together. These really are very different views of what kind of documents the Gospels are. I say this not because I start from an unargued assumption that the Gospels are artless, historical reportage but rather because this is what I find the Gospels to be upon investigation. Undesigned coincidences are just one portion of that argument. Brian was an excellent host, and we had a great conversation.</p><p>The podcast is a good introduction generally to undesigned coincidences, and the first good-sized segment of the show is devoted to that positive argument.</p></div><div class="entry-more" id="more" style="text-align: justify;"><p>Brian introduced the discussion by mentioning the fact that the apologetics community is divided concerning the merit of the literary device theories. Brian mentioned that Tim Stratton has recently hosted a series of conversations with Michael Licona about his (Dr. Licona's) views and suggested that listeners give both sides a hearing.</p><p>Naturally, this doesn't mean that I was giving a point-by-point response to what Dr. Licona said in those interviews. For my detailed response to Dr. Licona's actual views, which he has not rebutted or confronted, please see the wrap-up post<a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2017/12/licona_wrapup.html" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;"> here </a>of my series and browse from there to posts as your interest and time allow.</p><p>One point that I did want to reply to, though, is a completely incorrect characterization that Dr. Licona has made of the views that I (and Esteemed Husband, see <a href="http://projectthreesixty.org/index.php/2018/04/23/why-are-there-differences-in-the-gospels/" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>) are criticizing--those of himself, Craig Evans, and Dan Wallace, for example. At minute 23 and following <a href="http://freethinkingministries.com/bonus-ep-14-mike-licona-answers-your-questions-on-the-gospels/" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>, in one of the interviews with Tim Stratton, Dr. Licona states that <em>none</em> of these evangelical scholars "who have become targets" (as he puts it) are saying that Jesus <em>did not say </em>the things reported in the Gospels but rather only suggesting that Jesus may not have used those words. They are, he says, saying that some of the reports in the Gospels might be a "loose paraphrase."</p><p>This is just false, and even a quick look at my <a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2017/12/licona_wrapup.html" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">wrap-up post</a> will give examples to the contrary. I do reply to <em>that</em> point in this interview with Rev. Chilton. Please listen to the entire podcast, but that portion begins at about minute 31 in the podcast,<a href="https://bellatorchristi.com/2018/05/04/podcast-5-4-18-undesigned-coincidences-in-the-gospels-and-acts-w-dr-lydia-mcgrew/" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;"> here</a>. Here are the counterexamples I give there:</p><p>--One idea promoted by scholars Dan Wallace and Mike Licona is that Jesus did not historically, at all, say, “I thirst” while he was on the cross. This isn’t just saying that he really said, “Please give me some water” instead but that there was nothing like that at all. Instead, he said, “My God, why have you forsaken me” and John changed that into “I thirst.” "I thirst" is not even a "loose paraphrase" of "My God, why have you forsaken me."</p><p>--Licona has argued (most recently in a debate with Bart Ehrman) that Jesus did not appear first to his male disciples in Jerusalem at all but rather first in Galilee and that Luke “moved” the first appearance to Jerusalem in his gospel for literary reasons. This is not just a matter of our not having Jesus' exact words, nor is it a loose paraphrase of something else. Indeed, this claim of "moving" itself calls into question the historicity of the entire Doubting Thomas scene, since John makes it quite clear that that occurred in Jerusalem before they went to Galilee, and Thomas would have been very unlikely to travel to Galilee if he hadn’t yet seen Jesus at all. This is part and parcel of Licona's theory that Luke "made" all of the resurrection appearances occur on one day rather than forty days.</p><p>--One theory, promoted by Craig Evans, is that Jesus never historically said “I am the light of the world” or “I am the bread of life.” Not because he used somewhat different words and said, “I am the lamp of the world” or something instead, but because these sayings didn’t occur historically at all. They were just dramatic portrayals by the “Johannine community” of their theological reflections on Jesus’ other teachings. See video for several minutes <a href="https://youtu.be/ueRIdrlZsvs?t=2h2m46s" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>. This is not just a matter of a loose paraphrase, much less of our not having Jesus' very words.</p><p>--Another idea, which Dr. Licona attributes to “many Johannine scholars,” is that Jesus <em>would not</em> have been as explicit about his deity as we find him being in John, and saying things like, “Before Abraham was, I am” or “I and the Father are one.” Instead, he just presented himself as God as we find him doing in Mark, by claiming to be able to forgive sins and do these other deeds, and John wrote up these other scenes, which didn’t really occur, in which Jesus makes these “more explicit” claims to deity for himself. See the argument Licona presents for that view <a href="https://www.risenjesus.com/reading-adapted-form-jesus-teachings-johns-gospel" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>, particularly this statement: "Now, if Jesus was hesitant to announce publicly that He is the Messiah, we would not expect for Him to be claiming to be God publicly and in such a clear manner as we find John reporting." Obviously, this is not just a matter of John's making a "loose paraphrase" of Jesus' historical words and deeds as we find them in Mark but rather of his inventing whole sayings and scenes in which Jesus claims to be God publicly and in such a relatively clear manner as reported in John.</p><p>I would like to emphasize again, in addition to what I said in the podcast with Brian, that these examples are <em>not even</em> "loose paraphrases." Jesus' saying, "I thirst" is not even a "loose paraphrase" of "My God, why have you forsaken me." And so forth.</p><p>One example I didn't mention in the podcast (but again, there are so many) to the contrary is Dr. Licona's own suggestion on pp. 180-181 of his <em>Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?</em> that John may have invented the scene in which Jesus breathes on his disciples and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Allegedly he did so in order to "weave mention" of Pentecost into his own Gospel, since he would not be writing about that event directly. (Were the many references to the coming of the Comforter in Jesus' words in John 14-16 not enough of a mention?) Obviously, if that event didn't happen at all, this is a great deal more than merely saying that Jesus may not have used those words! Nor is it even to say that we have a "loose paraphrase" of an historical teaching of Jesus in that real, historical context, where Jesus engaged in a real action (breathing on the disciples). It's an invention of an entire incident.</p><p>If we are going to discuss these matters intelligently and with care, it's very important that we be clear about what we're discussing. It is extremely unhelpful for Dr. Licona or anyone else to suggest that these are mere matters of verbal changes or paraphrase or even "loose" paraphrase. When entire sayings of Jesus or events in Jesus' life are said <em>not to have occurred historically at all</em>, these do not turn into "paraphrases" of something else merely because we say that these invented events are true to the general meaning or spirit of Jesus' completely different teaching or self-presentation in other events. That is simply not what is meant by any sort of "paraphrase." And that is aside from all of the alleged literary devices in which other factual matters besides Jesus' words are changed.</p><p>Those considering these matters, both scholars and laymen, should not be chivvied by way of a false dilemma. The false dilemma is the insinuation that either you are opposed to reasonable paraphrase such as what can occur in real, literal historical reportage or else you must adopt the theories of Licona, Evans, et. al., including those "many Johannine scholars" that Dr. Licona keeps talking about who think that the real Jesus would not have claimed to be God in such a clear and public manner as we find John reporting. (See Dr. Licona's own characterization of that argument in those terms to the effect that Jesus <em>would not</em> have claimed to be God in such a clear and public manner, <a href="https://www.risenjesus.com/reading-adapted-form-jesus-teachings-johns-gospel" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">here</a>.) That is not a paraphrase view. That is an outright dehistoricization of Jesus' unique Johannine claims to deity.</p><p>We must be clear, and I think that once we are clear, it will become evident that these questions are worth looking into. They are not just trivial differences of opinion. Do the results of scholarship really force us to believe that the Gospels are like bio-pics, including made-up dialogue, made-up scenes, and factually altered events? I have <a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2017/12/licona_wrapup.html" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">argued</a>, in detail, that there is no such evidence--not from Plutarch and not from the Gospels themselves. And there is much evidence to the contrary. That argument has not been answered. Again, I strongly urge those who are interested to look into these matters for themselves.</p></div></div><div class="article_footer" style="border-top: 1px solid rgb(191, 190, 255); clear: left; font-size: 1em;"><span class="post-footers">Posted by <a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/author.php?author_id=0&nic=Lydia%20McGrew" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">Lydia McGrew</a> on May 4, 2018 4:56 PM | <a class="delicious_link" href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2018/05/undesigned_coincidences_vs_lit.html#" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">Del.icio.us</a> </span><span class="separator">|</span> <a class="permalink" href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2018/05/undesigned_coincidences_vs_lit.html" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">Permalink</a></div><div class="entry-tags"><span class="entry-tags-header">Tags: </span><span class="entry-tags-list"><span class="entry-tag">(<a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/mt/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?tag=Licona&blog_id=3" rel="tag" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">Licona</a>) </span><span class="entry-tag">(<a href="http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/mt/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?tag=New%20Testament&blog_id=3" rel="tag" style="color: #000088; text-decoration-line: none;">New Testament</a>)</span></span></div></div>Lydia McGrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10031909688551681394noreply@blogger.com0