Taking a stand against hatred in the public square

Remember that 'art' exhibit of Christ submerged in urine?

If works of art in general are free speech, this is hate speech.

Does God want our worship?

In the often anti-Christian show The Simpsons, there is an episode in which Homer Simpson is tricked into becoming a missionary (Episode "Missionary: Impossible" from Season 11.) The illiterate primitive people at the mission know more about religion than Homer does, in some ways. The show's writers have someone ask Homer a question that many Christians have heard from skeptics, and instead of having Homer give a Christian reply, they have Homer give the standard mockers' reply, with a little Hollywood flair added:

Native: "If the Lord is all-powerful, why does he care whether we worship him or not?"

Homer: "It's because God is powerful, but also insecure. Like Barbra Streisand before James Brolin."

If you were to search the commands in the books of Moses, you would not find a command where God asks for flattery. In the commands of the books of Moses, God shows remarkably little interest in receiving praise. In the Ten Commandments, the well-known command forbidding idol-worship is not, after all, followed by a command insisting on praising God. The Sabbath command does not contain a command to conduct worship services; it contains a command to rest from work. The kind of "worship" which God asks of his people as they live their daily lives is to be ethical: to be morally good. He requires of his people that they live good lives: not lying, not stealing, not murdering, not taking each others' wives and husbands. He asks his people to be holy as God himself is holy. He asks us to follow him in his ways.

The Simpsons doesn't exist to be fair; they exist to entertain. But if they had given a decent answer, it might have gone something like this:

Native: "If the Lord is all-powerful, why does he care whether we worship him or not?"

Could have said: "He cares whether we live good lives. It wouldn't be such a bad idea if we cared about our lives as much as He does."

And even that is before we begin to understand what a blessing it is to know God, and to be his people.

Alternative Explanations for the Resurrection?

This is the final installment of a response to Michael Martin's article, "Why the Resurrection is Initially Improbable," Philo, 1, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1998): 63-73.

Mr. Martin argues that it is not necessary for him to provide an alternative explanation for the historical evidence of the resurrection. But during his writing about other explanations, he placed a precise mathematical figure on the probability of alternative explanations. How is it possible to calculate an exact mathematical probability value for another theory without having any specific alternative theory in mind? How can anyone else assess whether that probability figure is valid? As someone I know has jokingly said, "86.7234% of all statistics are made up on the spot." Without any basis for the figures that Martin quotes, his numbers will inevitably seem to be of this sort. The precise mathematical values seem hollow, if not downright misleading, when there are no supporting details given to show their basis.

It is also necessary that those who reject the resurrection at least look at alternative theories for this simple reason: if someone claims that some alternative explanation for the facts is more likely, that claim depends entirely on there being an alternative explanation for the facts in the first place. For some types of miracles such as a mysterious healing, the facts can be explained in various ways: the fact that first someone was sick, and then someone was well, could be explained by natural causes. Even in cases where no cure is known for a disease, it may yet be possible (in theory) that a naturalistic explanation exists but has not yet been discovered.

In the case of Jesus’ resurrection, the facts include that first he was dead – having been executed in public – and buried, then three days later he was alive again. Naturalistic explanations may be imagined for healing miracles, but at the point of death, nature no longer works to restore health. There is no natural process that restores the dead to life; that’s why naturalists’ insistence on opposing the resurrection is so strong.

There is only one explanation of the facts that he was dead before, then alive after: he was raised from the dead. All the alternative explanations of the facts are not actually alternative explanations of the facts, but selective denial of the facts. Some alternative explanations deny that Jesus died in the first place, such as the swoon theory. Some alternative explanations deny that he was alive afterwards, such as the stolen body theory, or the theory of mass hallucinations by the disciples.

The evidence that Jesus was seen alive again is strong enough to prompt opponents of Christianity to create theories in which Jesus never died; the skeptical community attests to the strength of the evidence for Jesus being alive whenever they argue for the swoon theory. The evidence that the tomb was empty is strong enough to prompt opponents to create a theory of a stolen body to explain it; the skeptical community attests to the strength of the evidence for the empty tomb whenever they argue for the stolen body theory. The evidence that many people did in fact see Jesus alive is strong enough to prompt opponents to create a theory of extended, shared hallucinations to explain it.

All of these alternative theories have something in common: they resort to altering the facts which they are supposed to explain. As such, they do not fully count as alternative explanations of the facts, besides being unlikely themselves. The swoon theory denies Jesus’ death; the stolen body theory denies the post-resurrection appearances; the mass-hallucination theory may explain Jesus' post-resurrection appearances but denies the reality of the empty tomb, something any of Jesus' highly-motivated opponents could have easily checked.

These are examples of the risk discussed earlier: when someone assumes it is always irrational to believe in a miracle, even granted that miracles are possible, then this anti-miracle view will necessarily lead to denial of facts or distortion of reality in the face of an actual miracle. Martin himself stops short of Hume's "always irrational" view of miracles, and stops short of the far-fetched theories which try to provide alternate explanations for the facts. But he does this at a cost: he has no viable alternative explanation, which is required for his assertion that there is a hypothetical alternative explanation that is far more probable than Jesus' resurrection. In how many arguments could someone claim that they have won because their explanation is more probable, but not have to provide that explanation? It would be like playing a poker game, and a person claims to have the winning hand; would anyone believe it if he refuses to show?

Rather than putting any hypothetical alternative explanation to the test so that someone else could evaluate his claim that it is far more probable, he wants that evaluation to be made simply on the fact that the resurrection is a miracle so something else must be considered more probable even if it happened. He wants his readers to follow his argument to deny the resurrection even if it is true, simply because it is a miracle. Granted it is a miracle; but if it is true, would you really want to deny it?

Is it really possible that everyone who claimed Jesus to be dead was mistaken about it, from those who watched him breathe his last, to the executioner who pierced his side to make sure of his death, to those who pried him off the cross, wrapped him in a cloth and laid him in the tomb? No, it is not; we can be certain of his death when he was buried. Is it really possible that everyone who claimed Jesus to be alive on the third day and after was mistaken about it, from the women outside the tomb to the close friends who gave him dinner the first night, the same who saw him come back again to show his wounds as proof to Thomas, those same close friends who cooked broiled fish with him by the lake, to Jesus’ brother who had been skeptical before but afterwards became a leader in the church? No, it is not; we can be certain of his life. There is only one explanation that explains the facts rather than denies them: Jesus rose from the dead.

Conclusion

I appreciate the job that Mr. Martin has done in setting out a number of different lines of thought that bear on peoples’ perceptions of the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. I believe his most valuable contribution to the discussion is actually choosing a relevant topic: he gets to the heart of the matter when he asks whether it is likely, whether we can really believe it, rather than arguing about endless side issues as is sometimes done. He added much to the conversation by acknowledging the importance of God’s purpose, and by his recognition that miracles can have value as a sign.

The omissions of Mr. Martin’s article are not unique to him, and I would not wish to fault specifically him for them. It is typical that non-Christians, assessing the probability of the resurrection, do not take into account the solidness of evidence for earlier miracle claims associated with Jesus and do not consider that when thinking about the resurrection. It is also typical that non-Christians do not take into account how few people have been founders of major religions when considering the probability of Jesus’ resurrection; it is typically assessed no differently than the probability of my next-door-neighbor’s resurrection. Again, it is typical that non-Christians' grasp of atonement is incomplete, and this mainly because it is a large subject with many aspects, where any one given explanation is almost sure to be incomplete by itself.

However, the historical evidence is solid, and God has clear reasons to raise Jesus from the dead as outlined previously. This puts the resurrection of Jesus on solidly trustworthy ground. While disputes against Jesus' resurrection will no doubt continue, it is largely a dispute waged against the evidence, fueled on the one hand by those who oppose the idea of Jesus’ uniqueness in God’s purposes, and on the other hand by those who have not yet ventured to hope that God would truly do what so many have asked all along: give a clear sign that this world is not all there is, that he has not abandoned us to the grave, and that he will raise us up at the last day. I'm concerned whether an amateur like myself has given a good enough account, but I hope I have shown why Christians hold to the certainty of Jesus' resurrection.

No Trustworthy Accounts of Jesus After the Resurrection?

This is the next-to-last installment of a response to Michael Martin's article, "Why the Resurrection is Initially Improbable," Philo, 1, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1998): 63-73.

Martin makes a series of interrelated claims about the New Testament records of Jesus’ resurrection. He claims that there were no contemporary eyewitness reports of seeing Jesus after the resurrection other than Paul and that the other "alleged" eyewitnesses who saw Jesus after the resurrection may not have been reliable and trustworthy. From there he continues to multiply layers, that those who heard the eyewitnesses and passed on their reports may not have been reliable and trustworthy, and that those who recorded the accounts (supposedly third-hand) may not have been reliable and trustworthy. How do Mr. Martin's claims hold up against what we know? We will quickly review the history of the four gospels.

John: Its own value and the added value of the appendix

To begin with, there are not so many layers between the resurrection and our most direct account of it as Mr. Martin suggests. No matter your view of which person is "the disciple whom Jesus loved", the main author of the Gospel According to John, this person still claims to have seen the risen Jesus in person on more than one occasion, each time with a number of Jesus’ other disciples also present. The author claims that he himself had eaten with Jesus and spoken with Jesus on a number of occasions after Jesus was raised from the dead.

There is an interesting claim that certain people make about the Gospel of John, which is that John cannot have written it -- or that it had been "tampered with" -- because there is a separate part at the end, apparently an appendix of sorts, and it includes the comment "we know that his (the author’s) testimony is true." From this, the speculation begins about revisions and late dates. But there is an equally interesting history about the Gospel of John and how it was written. According to an ancient list of authoritative Christian writings, the Muratorian canon or Muratorian fragment, the Gospel of John involved a number of Jesus’ surviving disciples:

The same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the apostles, that John in his own name should write down everything and that they should all revise it.

While the date of the Muratorian Canon (like everything else involving Jesus) is disputed, the document makes references to events from the mid-100's C.E. as happening "quite recently, in our own time" -- so the most likely date for the Muratorian Canon will remain in the second half of the 100's C.E. The "mystery appendix" to the Gospel of John is actually part of the known history of the document and not an unknown addition. We have separate confirmation of what the document itself tells us, that it was reviewed by other people. In this light, the book’s comment "we know that his testimony is true" (John 21:24) has support for what it claims to be: the confirmation of other eyewitnesses that it happened just as recorded. Contrary to the common skeptical view that the Gospel of John is to be taken less seriously than the other gospels because of its later date and "appendix", instead we have here, even in the latest of the accounts, a strong and direct claim to first-hand material, with support from more than one source that this material had been reviewed and confirmed by other witnesses.

Mark: Traveling companion to Peter, known to other disciples of Jesus

The Gospel of Mark is often lightly dismissed because Mark himself was not a disciple of Jesus. But Mark was a disciple of Simon Peter, the leader among Jesus’ followers and privileged to be with Jesus on certain special occasions when only a few of the disciples were present. Mark was known to have traveled with Simon Peter – see 1 Peter 5:13, where Simon Peter writes a greeting to his readers from Mark. He also here refers to Mark as "son". It was common to call someone "son" if there was a close relationship such as a spiritual mentorship, and this is the usual understanding of the relationship between Peter and Mark. It is against this background, that Peter and Mark were close, and that Mark traveled with Peter, that we can see the implications of our histories of how the Gospel of Mark came to be written.

But was Mark's gospel ever read by those who had known Jesus? Here the early writer Papias quotes what he learned from one of Jesus' disciples, here called the "elder" or "presbyter":

The presbyter used to say, 'Mark, who had been Peter’s interpreter, wrote down carefully, but not in order, all that he remembered of the Lord’s sayings and doings. For he [Mark] had not heard the Lord or been one of His followers, but later, as I said, one of Peter’s. Peter used to adapt his teachings to the occasion without making a systematic arrangement of the Lord’s sayings, so that Mark was quite justified in writing down some things just as he remembered them. For he had one purpose only – to leave out nothing that he had heard and to make no misstatement about it.' -- Papias, quote preserved in Eusebius' History 3:39

Note that this early quote, preserved in Eusebius' History, records one of Jesus' disciples approving Mark's diligence and the contents (if not the sequence) of Mark's writings. So here the person who has written the accounts is not far-removed from true knowledge, but someone who wants to leave an accurate record of what he heard from his mentor, who in this case was Peter, among the best sources of information available regarding Jesus.

Luke: Diligent researcher who met with eyewitnesses

Of other early Christian records, much is made of the possibility of Luke borrowing from Mark. We have good reason to believe that they met and knew each other; consider verse 24 of Philemon, in which Paul mentions both Luke and Mark among his fellow-workers, probably part of the Christian community in early Rome. But we also have good reason to believe that Luke traveled with Paul. There are sections of the Book of Acts in which the author lists himself as part of the action, saying that "we" did this or that, suggesting that the writer was, at that time, traveling with Paul. Luke had been to Jerusalem with Paul and met some of the key figures of ancient Christianity, including some of the eyewitnesses of the resurrection such as Jesus’ brother Jacob ("James").

When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers received us warmly. The next day Paul and the rest of us went to see James, and all the elders were present" (Luke, in Acts 21:17-18).

So Luke is known to have personally met some of those who knew Jesus directly. His writings explain how he has made every effort to write an orderly and well-researched account of Jesus’ life. Again, we do not have some supposedly untrustworthy and far-removed source, but a conscientious person who knows the value of being accurate and talking to the original sources, as he says, "Since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." (Luke 1:3-4)

Matthew: A complex history but a useful source

Probably the most controversial authorship for the records of Jesus’ life is the authorship of the Gospel of Matthew. The early church records are unanimous that it was written by Matthew (also known as Levi), one of Jesus’ twelve closest disciples, and that it was written in "the Hebrew tongue" for the benefit of Jewish Christians. At some point early in church history, the book underwent at least a translation; the traditional text we follow now is in Greek. The authorship question arises because of textual comparisons: certain sections of Mark’s account and certain sections of Matthew’s are nearly identical.

The different sides of the dispute have made claims ranging from that Matthew had never seen any of the material in Mark (which seems unlikely) to that Matthew "slavishly followed" Mark, which is at least a serious overstatement based on the documents we have before us. Whatever relationship there may be between specific accounts, the majority of material in Matthew is not found in Mark, some of the material in Mark is not found in Matthew either, and a number of the accounts found in both documents are in different order or vary in certain details. There are some instances where the accounts preserved in Matthew appear to be older than the corresponding accounts in Mark, and some vice versa where the accounts in Mark appear to be older than those in Matthew. There is plenty of textual material to occupy the scholars for some time.

While the debate is far from over about the exact relationship between the material in Matthew and Mark, the amount of independent material in Matthew is enough to make it a worthwhile source in its own right regardless of the outcome of that discussion. It seems an overreaction to rule out Matthew’s involvement solely on the basis of shared sections between Matthew and Mark, though of course any particular piece of information would not count as coming from two separate sources in cases where those accounts are shown to share a common source.

Closing words on the accounts in the gospels

What is left of Martin’s general claims about the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection? Not much. We have first-hand accounts from people who themselves saw Jesus after his resurrection. For most documents we have a reasonably clear picture of who wrote them and how the authors got their information. The authors showed themselves to be careful and earnest in what they recorded. We have records showing that the documents were written early enough that a number of eyewitnesses were still on the scene commenting, giving information, or even (in the case of the Gospel of John) adding notes vouching for the reliability of the reports.

Beyond that, there are even more basic reasons why many people, reading the gospels, believe them: writers who are basically honest do not make up things like that. Writers who are basically sane are not wrong on that level for that length of time about what they see. The gospels come across as having been written by people who are, like most people, basically sane and honest. It is difficult to believe that all of these authors were entirely wrong about everything important in their writings. Leaving aside questions of "infallibility", if the authors were merely sane, honest, and reasonably careful, then what they have recorded is of monumental importance.

"No Eyewitnesses to the Resurrection"?

This is a continuation of a response to Michael Martin's article, "Why the Resurrection is Initially Improbable," Philo, 1, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1998): 63-73.

In recent years, I have heard people make the claim that there were "no eyewitnesses to the resurrection". Mr. Martin also makes that claim. This claim is common enough among skeptics, but it is misleading.

The "no eyewitnesses" claim is, if you think about it, spectacularly wrong. One of the earliest written accounts of the events, recorded by Paul in his first letter to the people of Corinth, mentions that there were over 500 eyewitnesses. Later, more detailed accounts mention appearances where Jesus spoke with people -- some of the conversations are recorded for us -- and even ate with people after rising from the dead. Even the latest written account that appears in the New Testament is written by someone who personally claims to have been an eyewitness of Jesus' resurrection himself, to have talked with Jesus on a number of occasions after he rose from the dead.

So how do skeptics make so bold as to claim that there were no eyewitnesses to the resurrection? It seems to be a bit of a sleight-of-hand: Are we discussing the event of the resurrection - the precise moment when Jesus became alive again inside the tomb - or the enduring fact of the resurrection: that Jesus was alive again? No one else was in the tomb with Jesus when he rose from the dead, but many people saw him alive afterwards. The fact that they were not in the tomb at the moment when Jesus rose to life again does not invalidate their testimony that Jesus had risen from the dead. They remain eyewitnesses to the fact of the resurrection, if not the event of the exact first moment of the resurrection.

To take the example from the other side, if nobody had seen Lincoln assassinated, but many had seen him later dead, it would be nonsense to claim that there were no eyewitnesses to Lincoln’s death and imply that therefore he might be alive. Lincoln’s death was an event, but also an enduring fact; anyone who saw Lincoln dead was a valid eyewitness of the fact of his death, if not the event of his death. They may not be able to say, "I saw him die," but they can say, "I saw him dead." They are witnesses of the fact of his death.

So with Jesus, the many who saw him alive again are eyewitnesses of the fact of his resurrection, if not the event of his return to life inside the tomb. They may not be able to say, "I saw him begin to breathe again, saw him draw the first breath of his new life and take off the funeral shroud," but they can say, "I saw him alive." They may not be able to say, "I saw him rise," but then can say, "I saw him risen." They are witnesses of the fact of his resurrection, and there were many of them.

I would give Mr. Martin the benefit of the doubt as to whether he was misleading deliberately; it could have been accidental ambiguity. Still, the claim that "there were no eyewitnesses of the resurrection" is misleading, bordering on deceptive; in fact many people saw Jesus alive again and were eyewitnesses of the resurrection in a very real and factual sense.

Atonement and Forgiveness

This is a continuation of a response to Michael Martin's article, "Why the Resurrection is Initially Improbable," Philo, 1, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1998): 63-73.

Here I would like to quickly review the two complaints Mr. Martin specifically mentioned about various views of atonement: "that they either fail to explain why God sacrificed His Son for the salvation of sinners or else make the sacrifice seem arbitrary."

When we look at our own guilt for various things we have done, we know that our simple regret – as genuine and miserable as it may be – neither works to destroy the evil that is in us nor satisfies those we have wronged. While on the surface the idea seems attractive that God might forgive us without any punishment, if that had been the case then we would have concluded that wrongdoing was not really that serious. And we would have concluded that wrongdoing was not very serious based on what (in that case) would have been fact – that God simply shrugged and forgave. Now, shrugging and forgiving may be fine for a small and accidental thing where no real harm was meant and no real harm was done. But there is a lot worse going on in this world than small and accidental things, and a notable percentage of people are involved at least sometimes in these more destructive and more deliberate wrongs.

Given that God has the power to heal all the harm done and restore peace and cleanness to all the souls (both the wrongdoer and the wronged), it would be arbitrary if God chose a line of badness and said "beyond this, I will not forgive." But what if God opens his power for all people who turn to him, not just those who were not that bad in the first place? (I expect that many who read this may not suspect that there is much wrong within their own souls, so I write as to those who consider "the worst of sinners" to be someone else. Those of us who follow the example of Paul should hesitate to think that the worst of sinners is anyone but ourselves, as Paul said of himself.)

If God only forgave those who were not so bad in the first place, then how could we escape the view that he saved those who were good enough? How could we deny that they owed their forgiveness in part to their own goodness – or worse, to their superiority over those who were lost – as much as to God’s mercy? But if God was willing to redeem anyone, no matter how serious the offense, then how would could we keep any idea of justice, that thing had genuinely been wrong? If God chose to merely overlook a sin, no matter how serious, then what about the harm that had been done and the vileness of some of the actions that were forgiven?

So we begin to look at justice rather than merely overlooking the wrong. What is the worst punishment that justice can ask? There is no crime for which justice may ask a worse punishment than death, especially the slow and painful death of the cross. Jesus’ punishment – the extreme punishment of death, reserved for the worst of crimes – is sufficient to satisfy justice for the most serious of offenses. In this way our atonement has left no doubt that the wrongs being atoned are not a slight matter but are in fact dreadful. In this way our fear is quieted as to whether our particular sin is beyond the price that was paid. In this way our atonement increases the disgust for wrongdoing, rather than decreasing it, in those who understand their forgiveness.

The question implied at one point of Martin’s article is, "Why Jesus? Why the Son of God?" First, it would need to be someone sinless; otherwise we could never be certain that this person did not simply pay for his own crimes. Notice also that the atonement would leave us in the unique debt of the one who atoned for us, as much to that one as to God. It is fitting that the payment should be taken on by God himself. If our debt had not been taken by God himself, then we would have had cause to honor another as much as God, and cause to doubt God’s love of us, if he had created us but left it to someone else to redeem us. In providing for all wrongdoers, our atonement makes plain that we are indebted to God’s goodness rather than our own. It demolishes boasting about our own goodness and restores us to humility; all alike are in need of mercy. And in God’s providing atonement himself, our atonement restores our trust in God rather than sending us to look elsewhere for our redemption.

Atonement Theories; What does atonement do?

This continues a response to Michael Martin, previously posted at CADRE Comments in spring of 2005.We have already looked at the resurrection's value as a sign; this value alone is enough reason for the resurrection to have occurred. But the matter of our atonement still needs to be discussed because of the resurrection’s role in it. Martin, oddly enough, discusses in detail only Origen’s primitive ransom theory -- a view that Jesus supposedly paid a ransom due to the devil, a theory which is not fully Scriptural. Martin passes over other theories of atonement just by listing a number of them and giving a blanket statement that he finds "all the historically important theories" do not explain some aspect of the atonement to his satisfaction, referencing his book The Case Against Christianity.

This response will not review every theory of atonement or respond to an entire book. For the moment, let us give Martin the benefit of the doubt and suppose that with every given theory of atonement, he has found some major point that is not addressed by that theory. But in his approach of taking each theory of atonement singly as if it could and should stand alone, it seems likely that Mr. Martin does not appreciate that the different theories of atonement are complementary. That is to say, the different theories do not necessarily compete with each other but instead work together to explain different aspects of our atonement.

On a Christian view, the whole of atonement requires a number of things. Here are some things that atonement involves:

• satisfying both justice and mercy
• causing us to despise evil
• humbling us
• leading us to trust in God by demonstrating God's trustworthiness
• cleansing us from the stain of past sin
• cleansing us from corruption and the desire to sin
• establishing a covenant (binding agreement) between us and God as the basis for becoming God's people
• planting the beginnings of eternal life inside us
• making us children of God

On a Christian view, accomplishing all that involves Jesus’ incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and sending of the Holy Spirit.

There is a lot going on with the atonement. It is not a legitimate complaint to take one theory that explains one thing in particular, and dismiss it because it does not explain something else. It was probably never intended to. For example, Martin mentions the Christus Victor theory – that Jesus has won victory over the adversaries of mankind (for example, death). Given the sign value of the resurrection, the resurrection makes it plain that Jesus has won the victory over death; this is most certainly true. That one theory does not address a number of other points that need to be discussed, but that does not make it untrue. It makes it only one part of the whole picture.

Athanasius, a prominent early Christian writer, wrote a great work on atonement that is still studied today, On the Incarnation of the Word of God. In it, he refers to a number of different theories of atonement and different aspects of atonement; he does not confine himself to an either-or view of atonement theories. Mr. Martin's blanket dismissal of all atonement theories rests on a view that one view of atonement should be the whole picture, and is not allowed to be only a part of a bigger picture. My response here is that the only thing required is a simple change of perspective: the atonement accomplishes more than one theory may discuss, and it's appropriate to discuss them separately.

Why raise Jesus from the dead?

This continues the repost of a response to Michael Martin on Jesus' resurrection.

Mr. Martin's original article gives prominent place to one particular complaint: there is (he states) no plausible reason why the resurrection should have occurred. In the course of this response, I will discuss a number of the reasons for Jesus’ resurrection.

God's Purposes and Jesus' Resurrection

When discussing the resurrection and God’s purpose, Mr. Martin limits the discussion to theories of atonement. While I will also respond to Mr. Martin on the atonement, the discussion of God’s purpose will not be limited to atonement alone. We will also consider the resurrection in light of the view that a miracle may also be a sign which communicates a message.

In preparation, we will first recall some known facts -- our background knowledge for assessing the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. The first thing to recall is that Jesus is among a very rare group of people in the history of the world: people who founded a major religion. While this is undisputed and very likely to be relevant, Mr. Martin does not consider it in his assessment. From a simple standpoint of logic, it can easily have a bearing on whether God has any purpose in resurrecting Jesus from the dead. Another thing to recall is that, in the Judaism of Jesus’ day, previous teaching on resurrection was not especially strong, with no explicit support for it in the Torah and no other officially-recognized scriptures besides the Torah. In that day, it was an acceptable Jewish belief that there was no resurrection from the dead, with the party of Sadducees holding that belief. If the teaching of a future resurrection of all people from the dead is true, it is among the most relevant and important teachings in the history of religion. To be sure, some people had taught as if a resurrection would come. But these had not gained full acceptance as of the time of Jesus.

Jesus’ resurrection is a sign that clarifies the answers to many questions:

1. It serves as a final answer as to whether there is life after death. As a sign, it clearly indicates that God raises the dead.
   
2. It serves as a sign validating Jesus' teachings on the resurrection. It indicates that among the various teachings of what happens after death, Jesus’ teaching on resurrection is true. This is a sign of the certainty of Jesus' teaching that there will be a general resurrection in the future.
   
3. It shows God’s faithfulness to his creation. From confirming Jesus' teaching of the future resurrection of all people, it follows that it is also a sign that God has not abandoned humanity to pain, meaninglessness, and death. It confirms Jesus' pledge to us that our own tombs will one day be empty, and we will rise to life again just as he rose. From this we can see the reason for the hope we have in us.
   
4. It foretells the promised renewal of creation to a state of goodness that is no longer subject to death and corruption. Restoring nature to what God intended is one connecting link between Jesus’ healing miracles and his resurrection. Jesus’ work restoring nature is affirmed as God’s own purpose by Jesus’ restoration to life. Together with the background of Jesus’ other miracles restoring the sick, the blind, and the crippled, it shows that any evil, disease, death, or destruction that may confront us still cannot defeat God’s purpose of restoring us and renewing all things.
   
5. The resurrection is a sign indicating the final practical resolution of the problem of evil. It is a sign showing the weak and temporary nature of suffering and death, and the truth of Jesus' promises regarding the world to come.
   
6. It is a vindication of the goodness of God. If suffering, death, and meaningless had in fact been the final result of our lives, it would be problematic to maintain the reality of God's love of mankind. Instead, the resurrection demonstrates death's inability to destroy us and to undo God's purposes for us. As the generation that saw Christ raised from the dead put it, "Death, where is your victory? Grave, where is your sting?" The resurrection, as a sign of the general resurrection to come, provides a clear indication that God does value mankind.
   
7. It confirms the uniqueness of Jesus of Nazareth in God's purposes in the world. Among that very, very small group of people in the history of the world who have founded major religions, Jesus is unique even within that group in rising from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection plainly shows which leader to follow. It renders foolish the argument that God has not made clear which religious leader to follow.

These are clear signs given by Jesus' resurrection that would provide a clear reason for God to have raised Jesus from the dead.

Miracles, Providence, and Natural Knowledge of God

This continues the repost of a response to Michael Martin on Jesus' resurrection.

Mr. Martin makes an interesting side-trip into one possibility: if most natural events were seen as signs from God, then the non-interventionists could claim that miracles should be seen as initially probable. Martin notes that this view -- that most natural events are signs from God -- trivializes the idea of miracles; he also asserts that this view is not held by most noninterventionists.

Here Martin continues to couple the idea of "signs" only with non-interventionist miracles, addressed previously. And while I would not want to over-labor the topic of which views are more typical of non-interventionists, I’d like to mention that Mr. Martin does not address the topic of providence. It is common for Christians to have an understanding of God’s providence in which nature and certain human events are arranged for our benefit and are signs of God’s good will towards humanity. The question becomes how to distinguish miracles from simple providence, or whether there is a need to distinguish. The possibility remains that "providence" simply gets called by the different name of "miracle" when the event in question is rare.

Mr. Martin also does not address the Christian view of the natural knowledge of God. This is a commonly held Christian doctrine about how nature and the laws of nature are themselves a sign of God’s existence and goodness. The common Christian views on providence and natural knowledge stand in disagreement with Mr. Martin’s assertion that most non-interventionists do not understand most events to be arranged by God.

Given how persistent Mr. Martin is in associating "signs" with non-interventionist miracles, it seems odd that his assessment of whether something is a miracle does not include any assessment of its value as a sign. That is to say, if even Mr. Martin agrees that miracles can have value as "signs", then something's value as a "sign" can be one of our criteria for deciding if it qualifies as a miracle. On both views of miracles (the interventionist and non-interventionist), it is not only the rareness of the event but also the sign-value of the event that helps us evaluate whether it is rightly seen as a miracle. The concept of providence – that God arranges certain things for our benefit – will be useful to recall when we discuss some of the reasons for the resurrection.

Summary of discussion on miracles in general (apart from the resurrection in particular)

At the end of discussion of miracles in general, I am in agreement with Mr. Martin on one point: that miracles in general are initially improbable. But in assessing his arguments, there are instances in which Mr. Martin has left aside important aspects of miracles, such as the theme of restoring nature and the sign value of miracles that involve God actively. These omissions of Martin’s greatly affect the upcoming discussion of Jesus’ resurrection in particular. I have also included background knowledge relative to the unique strength of Jesus’ miracle claims -- as Mr. Martin has agreed that background knowledge is required to make an accurate assessment of probability. Even though Martin acknowledges that our background knowledge is essential in a correct evaluation of the probability of miracle claims, he does not address the unique strength of Jesus’ prior miracle claims at any point in discussing background knowledge. These points of difference cause us to come to completely different assessments of Jesus’ resurrection.

Miracles, Signs, and God's Intervention

This continues the repost of a response to Michael Martin on Jesus' resurrection. This responds to Mr. Martin's arguments about types of miracles, and about God's motives for performing (or not performing) miracles.

Non-Interventionist miracles and Sign miracles
In his article, Martin mentions that there may be non-interventionist miracles where God may have set up the world from the beginning in such a way as to produce a certain effect at a certain time, noting as an example the wind that parted the Red Sea in the days of Moses. He notes that such an occurrence might serve as a message or sign.

I think Martin's treatment confuses two separate topics. Whether a miracle requires direct intervention and whether a miracle serves as a sign are two separate questions. A miracle in which God actively works in nature can serve as a sign just as easily as a miracle in which God may have set up the world so that certain events would occur without any (further) intervention. The fact that God is actively working in a miracle does not preclude its value as a sign.

Reasons to perform a miracle and reasons to abstain

Mr. Martin claims that God has good reasons never to perform miracles to achieve his purposes, asserting that miracles are "an impediment to a scientific understanding of the world." This seems an unlikely argument. Miracles are rare, and as such they are not likely to interfere with our understanding the world. In actual fact many of the great scientists of the world have believed in miracles, including Jesus’ resurrection, so the known facts are against the claim that miracles would hinder our scientific understanding of the world.

Particularly, consider that miracles could not be recognized as miracles unless people already had a clear idea of nature’s regular workings. That is to say, a miracle could only be recognized as a miracle if people already had a basic understanding of the natural order. If nobody had ever noticed the natural order, they could not possibly recognize anything as a variation from that order. So on the contrary, recognizing a miracle presumes an understanding of the normal workings of nature.

Martin also asserts that the "difficulties and controversies" in recognizing miracles constitute an argument that God should not perform miracles. That seems to say that God should not do a miracle because it affords argumentative people a chance to argue. But "difficulties" are such a normal part of human experience, and "controversies" such a normal part of human behavior that there does not seem to be a reason why God should exclude miracles in particular of all the things which can be the subject of argument. The difficulties and controversies surrounding miracles may indicate that people are careful and thorough in evaluating miracle claims.

Martin asserts that miracles "impede, mislead, and confuse", but this seems to be the opposite of actual the case. Consider this: one common view of a miracle is as a "sign" -- something that leads, guides, and explains. If a miracle has value as a sign, then by definition it communicates a message and gives understanding. When Mr. Martin acknowledges that a "sign" is a valid view of a miracle, and further argues that the reason or purpose of the resurrection is a factor in deciding whether to believe it occurred, he unintentionally acknowledges that miracles may in fact be significant and purposeful, the opposite of his claim that they impede, mislead, and confuse.

In contrast to Mr. Martin’s views that God has good reasons never to perform miracles to achieve his purposes, it is worth noting this: if God’s purposes include letting people know that there is something beyond the natural law, then he has near-compelling reasons to perform miracles, as the plainest way to show that there is something beyond the natural law. It is difficult to imagine how God would cause us to recognize the reality of something beyond natural law without showing us an example; this example would be seen as a miracle by definition. It is interesting to see the anti-religious claim that God never shows any clear reason to believe that he exists -- but then dismiss the possibility that miracles serve exactly that purpose.

Miracles and Nature

This continues the repost of a response to Michael Martin on Jesus' resurrection. It addresses the question whether miracles are rightly defined as a violation of the laws of nature. It goes beyond whether we want to let the anti-religious define religious terms for the conversation, and continues on to whether that is actually a fair-minded characterization of specifically the miracles of Jesus.

Martin begins his detailed discussion on the improbability of miracles with the assertion that a miracle is "traditionally" defined as a violation of a law of nature. This definition is possibly traditional among the anti-religious, but probably not among the religious and, more specifically, it is not exactly a traditional view among Christians. A fair review of the subject of miracles – especially in an article such as Martin's about Jesus’ resurrection – calls for a look at Christian views as well.

The clear majority of the recorded miracles of Jesus are miracles of healing. A miracle of this type is better classified not as a violation of nature but as a restoration of nature. When we consider blindness, deafness, lameness, or being crippled, these are not in fact the normal state of nature but a problem afflicting nature. When Jesus is recorded to have healed and made whole, the result was a return to the normal and healthy state of nature. Christian writers from Athanasius to C.S. Lewis have noted this.

Hume's Argument Against Miracles - An Irrational Stance?

This continues the repost of a response to Michael Martin on Jesus' resurrection. This section deals with Martin's treatment of David Hume's argument against miracles. The general question under consideration is, "Is it ever rational to believe in a miracle? Aren't alternative explanations always more likely?"

When discussing the probability of miracles, Hume’s argument against miracles is often mentioned. Michael Martin does not subscribe to Hume’s argument, but he does cover it in passing; I will do the same here. Martin mentions different ways of understanding Hume’s argument against miracles, and considers the right understanding of it to be this: for any possibly-miraculous event, some other explanation is always more likely than a miracle; so that while a miracle is not impossible, belief in a miracle is always irrational.

Looking at that view of miracles, is that view itself rational? To say that something is possible, but that belief that it happened is irrational -- that is a misclassification, a serious exercise in bad judgment. Such a view would necessarily result in the non-recognition of the possible whenever it occurs. It necessarily leads to a willful denial of evidence or distortion of facts when what is possible – a miracle – does in fact happen. Someone who cannot see this inconsistency does not have much credibility trying to instruct others on what is rational.

Please note that this comment is not directly about Mr. Martin, who mentions that he does not subscribe to that view himself and goes on to contrast his own view with Hume’s. I am referring only to this interpretation of Hume’s argument, and those who do not see the logical inconsistency -- the irrationality -- of affirming that a thing may happen but denying the rationality of ever believing that it has happened.

I would also disagree whether some other explanation is always more likely than a miracle. An exception would occur when no other explanation of the events is possible without resorting to the distortion of facts. As we noted above, distorting the facts is an inherent risk in this irrational anti-miracle view. If a proposed alternative explanation distorts the facts, it is lacking as an alternative explanation of those facts; it does not merit the same consideration as a view which accounts for the facts without distortion. The view that a miracle occurred is more reasonable than a distortion of the established facts; or, from the other side, when any alternative explanation requires distortion of established facts, that is the point at which it becomes increasingly rational to believe a miracle -- and increasingly irrational to disbelieve it.

How can we assess the likelihood of a miracle?

This is the first part of a response to Michael Martin's article, "Why the Resurrection is Initially Improbable," Philo, 1, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1998): 63-73. At the time this response was written in the spring of 2005, Mr. Martin's article was being reprinted that spring in a book by Prometheus Press. I know that some people in both camps do not like to discuss miracles in terms of probability at all, considering them either as a "given" or as an "impossibility" but not as something to be studied or evaluated. For this series, both of those moves will be viewed as begging the question. Rather than sticking with the usual raw presuppositionalism of the two camps, we will ask, honestly, how we can assess if a miracle was likely.

In his introduction Mr. Martin outlines an argument which begins plausibly enough: that a miracle claim is initially improbable, and in light of this, miracle claims should be disbelieved unless the evidence is strong. I agree that miracles of the kind we're discussing are not events we see every day, and that miracle claims should be evaluated with a fair hearing given to skepticism. But are all miracles equally unlikely? Mr. Martin acknowledges that miracle claims should be assessed relative to our background knowledge and to the probability of alternative explanations. Let's look first at background knowledge.

Probability and Background Knowledge

How likely is it that I could perform a miracle? To stick with our method, we would assess the probability of a miracle claim in light of background knowledge. In my case, some important background knowledge is that I have never done a miracle, never claimed to have done a miracle, and have never had anyone say that anything I did was something supernatural. Everyone who knows me in person would agree with that. It is right to conclude that the probability that I would do a miracle is very, very small. Given the right background knowledge, the probability that I would do a miracle is negligible, really.

But what about another example, such as a leader at any of the various touring ministries that claim to do miracles? If our ideas about probability really have anything to do with our background knowledge -- rather than begging the question by presupposing the answer -- then the first thing we should do is look at that background knowledge. Who can say they actually saw a miracle? Where is their account of what happened, and are they willing to stand behind its truthfulness? If people were healed, then who knew those people beforehand, whether they were really sick or disabled in the first place? Where are they now, and have they really recovered? What are their names and where do they live? Were there any hostile witnesses, and what do they say? Were any of the miracles investigated? If past miracles done by a person could be solidly supported, this would increase the plausibility of the claim of a future miracle associated with the same person.

In the case of Jesus, some of his healings are recorded as taking place in crowd settings or while traveling, so that the people recording the miracles may not have known the exact identities of the people who were healed. But other miracles involved people who were known. One person raised from the dead was the twelve-year old daughter of Jairus the synagogue ruler. One blind man who received his sight was Bartimaeus from Jericho. One of the sick healed was Simon Peter’s mother-in-law. Another person raised from the dead was Lazarus from Bethany. Other healings either took place with hostile witnesses present or prompted an investigation from those hostile to Jesus. A man with a crippled hand was healed in a synagogue on the Sabbath in front of hostile witnesses. One of the blind men healed in Jerusalem was a well-known beggar; his healing on the Sabbath resulted in an investigation on the charge of Sabbath-breaking.

We know the view of those who followed Jesus; the New Testament records that for us. But what did Jesus’ enemies make of all this? The Talmud records that official charges against Jesus included practicing sorcery (Sanhedrin 43a) – that is to say, performing supernatural acts. Even his enemies were not able to dismiss the evidence that these supernatural things had actually occurred even with access to the people involved; yet because of their opposition to Jesus they construed these healings as somehow evil.

What happened to the people who had been healed? The early Christian writer Quadratus mentions their continuing witness value:

Our Savior’s works were always there to see, for they were true – the people who had been cured and those raised from the dead, who had not merely been seen at the moment when they were cured or raised, but were always there to see, not only when the Savior was among us, but for a long time after his departure; in fact some of them survived right up to my own time. (quote preserved in Eusebius’ History 4.3).

When we review the background knowledge for whether a future miracle claim is plausible, we find that Jesus is already surrounded by miracle claims that are far stronger than the average miracle claim. Unless claims of similar strength could be made for "miracles" which did not actually happen, we must consider at least the possibility that the reason for the unique strength of these claims is that they may in fact be true. I will comment more on the relationships between Jesus’ earlier miracle claims and the resurrection when specifically discussing Jesus' resurrection rather than miracles in general.

Some skeptics try to dismiss the issue of Jesus’ miracles by saying that the people belonged to such an unenlightened time and such a superstitious age that their reports simply cannot be believed. This type of move seeks to place miracles in the dustbin of history, and is meant to shut down an honest look at miracles rather than continue it. Yet no matter the ancient Roman world's lesser state of advancement, they still knew the difference between blind and sighted, crippled and whole, dead and alive. If someone blind from birth received sight without medical intervention, even in our modern age we would likely consider the possibility of a miracle; the state of advancement of society has not changed our evaluation of that.

It is also important to remember that there were people present in that day who were hostile to Jesus and who were motivated to dismiss any evidence which made Jesus appear unique. The opponents of Jesus who were his contemporaries did not manage to refute the miracle claims and ended by conceding that supernatural things had happened, reinterpreting the miracles as evil acts of sorcery (see Sanhedrin 43a); Jesus’ modern opponents lack comparative credibility in trying to claim that such things never happened when their predecessors who lived in Jesus’ day could not do the same.

One factor that causes miracles in general to be considered improbable is that solid claims are in fact so rare; on the other hand, a history of solid claims involving one person changes the probability for that person. If our knowledge of Jesus is part of the background knowledge used to check the probability of the resurrection, then the strength of evidence for Jesus’ earlier miracle claims would form a stronger background when we look at this final and ultimate claim, when we assess the probability of his resurrection. The previous miracle claims had such strength that when people came to see Jesus, they often came expecting a miracle.

Reflection on a funeral - and a perspective-check for militant atheists

This week I went to my aunt's funeral. My uncle lives out of state, so I was glad to see he had a huge group of people who were there for him.

My aunt's health had failed in a long and drawn-out process that so often happens with cancer. At the memorial service I was glad to hear that some of the people there -- people from my aunt and uncle's Bible study group -- had been able to come over and sit with my aunt while my uncle ran errands when she had become too weak to take care of herself. After her death, they had helped to pick the outfit my aunt would wear for the viewing; I was glad my uncle didn't have to do that alone. When all the relatives from out-of-town came for the viewing -- and all the people who loved my aunt came for the viewing -- there was a remarkably large group of people there. At the funeral home on the night of the viewing, their church Bible study group coordinated and brought enough food for everyone to have a meal, which was no small thing given the number of people. The next day after the funeral service, again the church Bible study group coordinated and brought enough food for everyone to have a meal.

The whole time I was impressed by their kindness, their gentleness, their thoughtfulness. They went out of their way to include me and make me feel welcome. They shared one good story after another about my aunt. I never lacked for someone there for me, and neither did my daughter, even though the majority of them had never met us before. And coming back home, I didn't doubt for a minute that they would be there for my uncle -- because they were already there for him, unasked, and had been there for him all along.

And I get back home and the message boards and propaganda publications with the militant atheists are all the same: Christians are dangerous and imbalanced and vicious; raising your children that way is abusive; religious people are a threat to civilization and decency everywhere. And all I could think is, "What the blazes is wrong with you people?" How can you heap that much nastiness and abuse on some of the kindest people on the planet? Or have you seriously never met religious people in real life, and are forming your opinions mainly based on prejudice and propaganda? Make no mistake, the people who behave the way these people did are the real and devoted followers of Jesus Christ. And if someone can look at those good, kind, down-to-earth people who have devoted their lives to going out of their way to help others, and think they're warped and malicious and dangerous, then what the blazes is wrong with this picture?

The Study of Christian Origins

Just a few more weeks until the worst of busy season is past at work. I'm still posting pre-written pieces, but they're things that haven't been posted before.

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How did Christianity become the most widely believed religion in the history of the world? How did it become the most widely spread, cross-cultural religion ever known? What could explain its rise from a despised sect of Judaism to its phenomenal success in the succeeding centuries? What could explain how it grew and thrived even when persecuted by both political and religious opponents?

The study of Christian origins seeks to answer these questions. Specifically, it seeks to answer them through academic study, without making any appeal for the truth of Christianity. It seeks to answer these questions while assuming a secular point of view; that is, while assuming that the truth claims of Christianity are not relevant to the question.

This type of study of early Christianity has made some interesting observations. Women may have enjoyed relatively better status in Christianity. Christianity's insistence that life is sacred meant that children were not exposed to the elements as infants in order to be killed. Jesus' teachings on compassion for the sick -- put into action through his followers -- meant that more people survived diseases and epidemics. In short, part of Christianity's success has been attributed to the fact that Christianity is useful to a culture's survival, a beneficial influence in practical terms.

However, all of this overlooks one vital factor, the one that was excluded from the beginning of the study: the question of Christianity’s truth. It may be that the academics studying the question have already decided in their own minds that nothing supernatural could possibly be true. It may be that, in their care to exclude any personal bias from their studies, the believers have accepted the restriction that the truth or untruth of Christianity must be set aside as a personal view irrelevant to the question before us. So the academic field seems to have concluded that the question of Christianity's truth or untruth must be excluded from the equation of how Christianity grew and succeeded. At any rate, in the interest of objectivity we should not bring our personal points of view into an academic question.

Here I would like to raise one question: was the truth or untruth of Christianity relevant in the perception of the new Christians in the period studied by Christian origins? For the people whose lives comprise this remarkable growth of Christianity, was the perceived truth of Christianity relevant or irrelevant? Would they have said they were Christians because it helped them to survive epidemics, or would they have said they were Christians because they believed Jesus Christ rose from the dead? And if some few were interested in surviving epidemics, does that mean that earlier Christians were already caring for the sick before they knew whether it would be helpful to them or might instead be their own death sentence?

I do not mean to say that the academic study of Christian origins should become another quest for the historical Jesus. I do not mean to say that academics should bring their own assumptions about the truth or untruth of Christianity to the table. I mean to say this: the secularists have already brought their own assumptions about the untruth of Christianity, or of the irrelevance of the truth, to the table and have projected their own unbelief or academic agnosticism back onto the earliest to converts to Christianity. Not only is this an anachronism, it is a complete loss of objectivity to project modern academic dispassion back onto the lives and motives of the earliest Christians.

The proper question for the academic study of Christian origins is why Christianity grew so successfully. If some modern researchers do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead -- or do not believe that they should bring their own beliefs into the study of Christian origins -- that is no reason to suppose the early Christians did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead, or that the early Christians would have found it irrelevant whether or not he did. There is reason to believe they did not consider that to be irrelevant, but may have considered it the most vital question.

It is completely true that I do not want to read a study -- that there is very little value in a study -- in which the researchers cannot set aside their own presuppositions and get a fresh look at the facts. In this sense, the study of Christian origins has made a contribution. The atheists, agnostics, and other secularists must do better than to claim that Christianity spread simply because the ancients were stupid and superstitious, and that no answer is necessary beyond insulting the backwardness of people who came before us. Christians likewise are challenged to see things through a different lens -- to recognize that early Christianity was not perfect and that some people find the supernatural difficult to accept. But the real answer to Christian origins does not lie in the reasons why we do or do not accept Christianity today; it lies in the reasons that the early Christians accepted Christianity in their day. For the study of Christian origins it is not a valid question whether or not we believe it to be true, but it is very much a valid question whether they did. Keeping that question off the table is a disservice to us all. Whenever it is excluded from consideration, the study of Christian origins is a travesty.

A game of theodicy?

This is the second in a reasonably short series of debate/interactions I've had recently where I wanted to keep track of the answers.

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To me, theodicy is not a game. The problem of evil is personal. The right response to evil may be to love your enemies or it may be to oppose the evil some other way. When someone show no signs of being bothered by the evil itself, when they ponder it from a safe distance, it becomes less than a life-and-death struggle, and more of a debating game. Early in March, I ran across one such argument from someone who was pondering evil from a safe distance. Her argument went like this:

So, right now I'm trying to reconcile the goodness of God in relation to the problem of evil, so I had written down some things I thought about this and some other questions. Tell me what you think.

Things I don't understand:
Original sin, morality, and salvation (in relation to each other)

1) Original sin: I think Rand summed this one up nicely. How can I be corrupted before I exist? If that is the case - that I'm born guilty or have "tendencies," then I am not free. If that is determined by outside forces, I am not free. If I am not free, but merely acting under compulsion, how can I just be held responsible for anything I do, good or bad?

This leads into the next question, which will lead to the last one:

2) Morality: certain moral issues arise when considering the idea of creation. If God is all-knowing, he would know what we would do, whether he determines it or not, through that knowledge he could (should?) select certain people to exist or not exist. In this sense, God would have to be not omniscient (can he be God w/o omniscience?) or evil, not merely by "omission" but by actively creating people he knows will do evil. For instance, inventors of weapons. If the latter, there is no reason to worship him except maybe fear. If the former, why is he God? Though, the lack of omniscience could be a product of pure freedom, in which case, I suppose that could work or it could work depending on whether or not the future exists.

Mildly unrelated: Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God want relationships with people? This seems to be some sort of desperately lonely God or people who decided to raise themselves up to be friends of God. The first seems illogical, the second, petty. However, this only deals with God's morality, what of that of the people? In many cases, it would seem to be irrelevant: God picked them to do certain things [Leibniz: best possible world] and therefore they deserve no credit or blame.

3) Salvation: how can a moral, just, omniscient God create people who will reject his truth? Isn't that the best definition of evil - rejection of truth? Furthermore, how can he punish them if he created them to do just that? It doesn't make sense. How would he pick those who would go with him, those he would call?

Possible resolutions:
1) Determinism is true and God is evil
2) We are free and God is not omniscient
3) We are free/physically determined and there is no God

So, that's what I was thinking about earlier. If there are other resolutions, do tell, but I haven't been able to think of them.

It had been awhile since I'd read someone who was viewing theodicy from that angle. This particular argument hinges on two premises:

1) God is omniscient; AND
2) The speaker is more knowledgeable than God.

Most arguments from God's omniscience to atheism hinge on the premise (usually unstated) that the arguer is more knowledgeable than the omniscient God. This debater just has that a little closer to the surface than most. And I don't mean to bash her for that; the idea that we know better than God -- that for all his omniscience he isn't to be trusted -- goes at least as far back as whoever penned the story of Adam and Eve. It strikes a chord with all of us at times. So here's what I suggested for an answer:

Bless her. Once she works through her questions, may she be closer to God than ever before. Her questions will take her awhile, if she decides to pursue the truth fully.

I hope you don't mind too much if I put her questions in an order more suited to explaining the answers.

Her tangent is where I'd want to start: "Mildly unrelated: Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God want relationships with people? This seems to be some sort of desperately lonely God or people who decided to raise themselves up to be friends of God."

I think she has reasoned from the characteristics "all-powerful, all-knowing" to the idea that God is -- or even should be -- snooty and arrogant. She overlooks the possibility that God is by nature humble and by nature loving. When God determined himself to be creator, he determined that He would love the world. Love is a joyful thing, and in creation he multiplied the goodness that existed by creating. I suspect the ultimate reason for creation is that creation is good, and life is worth living. Genesis implies that God created humanity in order to bless us: it's the first thing he does after he creates us.

On original sin: I hope to start with common ground: I have never met anyone who did not have (as she says) "tendencies" to sin. I sure have my "tendencies". "To err is human" -- so I'm sure she does too. Most of us recognize that struggle inside ourselves. Some people struggle with pride and arrogance and vanity (whether it's about beauty or intellect or any other thing in which we are gifted), some struggle with the assumption of superiority over others, some struggle against coldness and do not recognize the value of love, some struggle with the greed for recognition and admiration. Some use what gifts they have to dominate others rather than help others. The list goes on.

I think it's a little bit of a red herring to say if we have "tendencies" we're acting under compulsion. Do we always act on our tendencies? It seems not, so it's not quite compulsion. There's a lot to say on this, but I'll start here: to reason from "tendencies" to "compulsion" is oversimplifying.

The real question of original sin is: Am I basically good? And the follow-up question she asks is: Is God basically good? Because of Christ, I believe that God is good and that we are created to be like him, good; for this reason Christ came into this world to restore us and transform us to be like God again. We've already talked about our "tendencies" for various kinds of evil; Christ intends to save us from that so that we can cling tight to God and answer truthfully that, thanks be to God, we are again becoming good.

As far as God picking certain people not to exist, I'm going to tell you a true story that I'm not proud of: just a few generations back in my family, one of my ancestors was a murderer. Should God have arranged things so that he never existed? But then my great-grandmother would never have been born, and my grandfather would never have been born, and my aunt and mother would never have been born, and my brother and I would never have been born, and so on for all the generations that will come after us. When it comes to her suggestion to pick people who should never have existed, I'm not saying "separating good from evil isn't simple" -- I'm saying "separating good from evil isn't always possible" -- because good and evil can be inside the same person. It is with me; I've done things I regret. Most people have. So it may be that God, if omniscient, knows more than us about the interplay between good and evil, and whether or not a person should have ever been born. If she's a sci-fi fan at all, she may have thought about the complexities of changing things, and how there may be unintended consequences of what she suggests as a solution for God.

On salvation -- on whether God should have created people who will reject him (and truth), remember my great-great grandfather the murderer, without whom several generations of my family would not exist. On salvation itself: it is the blessing of God through Christ Jesus because of his love for us. God created us for good not for evil; he calls all of us.

Her possible resolutions are missing something:
4) She takes at least a beginner's course (Theology 101, however it's called where she is) before deciding she has considered all the possibilities.
5) If she's not quite ready to pursue her answers that far, then maybe she could read Thomas Aquinas. Now, I offer this last with some hesitation because Aquinas shares some of the same assumptions (possibly mistaken assumptions) that she does, and in that sense there are areas where Aquinas cannot help her. But on the other hand, it may be helpful to her to have someone who shares some of those assumptions from the outset. And there's the advantage that Summa Theologica is available online ...

A game of "the sinner and the saint"

Back in January I had a little free time and was on the CARM discussion boards. One of the non-Christians there wanted to play a popular game for skeptics: a game of "the sinner and the saint". I've played before. Basically, the anti-Christian asks the Christian how in the world it is defensible that a good non-Christian might be lost and a bad Christian might be saved. One variant is "Gandhi and Hitler". I wanted to keep a few notes for next time I play, so I thought I'd pass along my answer here. The game was laid out like this:

So a guy kills a bunch of people, burns their house down, robs a bank, all on Friday. And then Saturday repents and becomes a Christian. Will this fella go to Heaven? Will Jesus save him?

What about an old Buddhist lady who has lived a pious life without committing any crime or serious offense, and was otherwise a kind and caring person. Someone who was familiar with Christianity but didn't care for it. Will she go to Hell?

My answer:

You know Christianity is one of the most diverse religions -- if you have 10 Christians in the room, you'll have 12 opinions among us.

As far as your murderer -- he's not beyond the reach of God's love. There's always hope. There's always redemption. There's always a way back. Even if he realized his soul was messed up. Maybe that's why he became a Christian.

As far as the pious lady, I'm glad I'm not her judge but I have a couple of questions:

Why isn't she fond of Christianity?

1. Does she not think "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is part of the right path?
2. Does she not think "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who persecute you" is part of the right path?
3. Does she take offense at Jesus' claim to *be* the right path, to *be* the source of light she seeks in Enlightenment? ("I am the way ... I am the light.")
4. Did she hear some sort of form of Christianity that had nothing to do with the Christ of the New Testament, so she had a false idea of Christianity?

What kind of "pious" was she?

1. Did she fast twice a week, pray/meditate regularly, give 10% of all she had to the poor, and thank God / the gods that she was better than people like guy #1?
2. Did she do her good works in public to be seen and admired, or did she help people in secret that God alone might have the praise?
3. Did she see someone hungry and feed him, thirsty and give him a drink? Did she see someone a stranger and welcome him, or without clothes and clothe him? Did she see someone sick and in prison, and visit him? If so, she may have already met Christ, and believed in him, and loved him, without recognizing him. Jesus says there will be a lot of that going around on the last day.

The original questioner replied:

You can personally define pious however you like. In this hypothetical scenario, the lady is aware of Christianity but has no want or desire to convert and is perfectly happy the way she is. She has never committed a crime, been arrested, murdered someone etc, and is a caring person.

The scum bag who murders and steals, however, is just that... a scumbag. However he "finds Jesus" after committing his crimes.

My next round went like this:

The scumbag who murders and steals, who is just a scumbag, is exactly the kind of person Jesus would have had dinner with. "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." He was fond of outcasts and sinners. Not so fond of the people who told him he was wrong to love them. Does it offend you that, in Christianity, an absolute scumbag has hope of redemption?

About what it means to be pious: Bingo! We can all personally define pious however we like; so that makes it fairly meaningless to say someone is "pious", if each person can tailor the word to mean what they want and it could just mean the person says "I approve of myself". Jesus said that not all kinds of piety are alike. The "holier than thou" piety was actually obnoxious to him. The piety that saw the face of God in the outcast stranger was precious to him; he said he himself was the outcast stranger. So the question was: when our undefined "pious" lady saw Jesus, the outcast stranger, how did she react? Love? Hatred? Indifference? Did she define "piety" as recognizing God in the face of the stranger (i.e., being loving), or did she define "piety" as improving herself and being impressed with her progress (i.e. spiritual narcissism)?

And we haven't quite determined how someone can be "pious" and have no interest in Jesus, whose most distinctive teaching is the primacy of love. It becomes a very pressing question how she defines "pious" if "love" does not seem like a good path to her. Remember, it was the "pious" people who were lining up to kill him, because they didn't like the picture of God he was painting ... the kind that would be interested in the fate of scumbags, and in second chances.

That one didn't get a reply, unfortunately.

The historical Jesus is Jewish: Gauging a gospel's historical view of Jesus

It has become increasingly common for skeptics to say that there is no real difference of quality between the canonical gospels -- the ones in the New Testament -- and the non-canonical gospels. The claim is increasingly made that equally viable gospels were "suppressed" by political means as an exercise in the winners writing the history books.

When I first decided to see whether there was anything to this, I set out to read the non-canonical gospels. I was forcefully struck by an impression that these were very different in general quality from the New Testament gospels. But I wanted to be sure, and I asked myself, "Is it simply a matter of my familiarity with the canonical gospels, or is there something objectively, measurably different about the non-canonical gospels?" I set about seeing if there was a way to actually measure differences in a way that anybody could fact-check for themselves.

In this post, I'll cover one of the first things I noticed: the non-canonical gospels, by and large, have a Jesus who is not particularly Jewish, and disciples who are not particularly Jewish. I've done a more thorough write-up previously; for now I want to mention that I'm hardly the only one to have noticed this.

As a case in point, I'd like to introduce a book to you that demonstrates this fairly well. It's a Jewish book on the history of the liturgy. My regular readers will know I'm very fond of liturgical prayer. In my research on the history of the liturgy, I came across a book described by its dust jacket as "the most complete scholarly study of Jewish liturgy in existence today." Naturally, I couldn't resist getting a copy. The book is Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History by Ismar Elbogen. The original edition (1913) was in German. At the time of the 1993 English translation, it was noted (again, from the dust jacket), "Eighty years after its first appearance, Elbogen's magisterial work remains the most thorough academic study of the Jewish liturgy ever written." His primary sources are many and varied, including the Talmud, Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, a host of Jewish writers through the ages, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Paul's letter to the Galatians, the Didache, Justin Martyr, and the Apostolic Constitutions, among others. Curiously (or not so curiously), I have not been able to find any references in this book to the Gospel of Mary, or the Gospel of Philip, or any of the non-canonical gospels.

Before we look at why this might happen, I should mention why this work takes so much notice of certain Christian writings: it uses them to establish historical facts about Jewish liturgy and worship, especially as it is practiced in the synagogue. The canonical gospels contain first-century evidence of what Jewish worship was like. There is a record of Hanukkah being celebrated in Jerusalem under the name the Feast of Dedication; it is applicable to the discussion of the history of Hanukkah. The book considers parallels between traditional Jewish prayers and other prayers recorded in the canonical gospels, and uses that to show how far traditional Jewish prayers were already developed at that point in time. The canonical gospels were referenced for peoples' reactions to the practice of giving scholars preferred seats in the synagogues, for whether the Jewish synagogue worship already included readings from the prophets and sermons on those readings, for whether the twice-weekly fast was already in place before the fall of the Temple. There is evidence on the development of the role of the synagogue leader in speaking to people who were out of order; when Jesus heals on the Sabbath, the fellow who objects has the proper title for the person who was supposed to maintain order in the synagogue. There is even evidence in the New Testament for some very detailed aspects of the Jewish liturgy: that the person who gave the sermon was first called to read, that the reading occurred while standing, that the sermon occurred while sitting. The gospels are used as evidence for the location of certain particular synagogues, and for the practice (also known elsewhere) that non-Jews might contribute to building a synagogue. All these very Jewish facts in the New Testament are placed alongside a continuum of Jewish writings to form a coherent whole of which they are an integral piece. Here I have focused only on the gospels, but the book takes the same approach to the book of Acts and Paul's letter to the Galatians.

So this author's interest in the New Testament comes down to this: how much historical information can you learn about first-century Jewish worship in general, and in particular the liturgical worship common in synagogues? The Jesus in the canonical gospels is a regular at the synagogue.

As for the non-canonical gospels, I have looked through the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of the Savior, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and the Protoevangelium of James; I have found on-line electronic editions of these to double-check my searches. I have not found a reference to a "synagogue" in any of them. Exactly how Jewish is a Jesus who never goes to a synagogue?

If the historical Jesus is a Jewish figure of interest in the area of religion, that's a huge point, that some gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) can be used by historians of Jewish liturgy and provide useful data on first-century Jewish worship, while other gospels do not even mention a synagogue, much less provide detailed information on first-century Jewish worship practices. That is a measurable difference in the quality of the works. The works that are measurably better in telling us about first-century Jewish religious life just happen to be the ones that the early Christian church found to be better sources in general. Large numbers of non-canonical gospels have a Jesus who never goes to a synagogue; the works are of no historical interest for scholars of first-century Judaism. Their Jesus seems ... out of context for a first-century Jew. If we grant that the historical Jesus is Jewish, then here is one objectively measurable point in favor of the canonical gospels having more to say about the historical Jesus.

Did any of the gospels claim to have been written by an eyewitness?

Many of the Christians I know are aware that the fourth gospel contains an explicit claim to be written by an eyewitness: "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down" (John 21:24). This is common knowledge among Christians who discuss the Bible with non-Christians; it is basic "Apologetics 101" level material. Yet the charge has been circulating that no gospels claim to have been written by an eyewitness. This charge bears the marks of someone who is simply not that familiar with the material.

This claim has been made by Bart Ehrman. In his book Lost Christianities he asserts that none of the canonical gospels "claims to be written by an eyewitness or a companion to an eyewitness" (p. 135 of the 2003 Oxford U. printing available at my library).

It is unfortunate that his book contains a misstatement of fact that could have been easily avoided by a more thorough knowledge of the subject. Sometimes, when meeting claims against Christianity, it helps to remember that the level of Biblical literacy in our society is at very low levels, and some patience is called for as we seek to inject some more knowledge of the texts into the current discussions about them.

Is the NT reliable? Stock arguments against that I find unconvincing, and why

There are a number of stock arguments circulating among skeptics that target the reliability of the New Testament. I would not ask a skeptic to assume divine inspiration; I simply intend to point out some historical realities in the early Christian church that may not be widely known among skeptics, and how these verifiable historical situations tend to make certain arguments non-starters. These selected arguments are ones that I find glaringly at odds with facts that anyone who took the trouble can easily verify. The remainder of this discussion won't assume anything about the New Testament documents beyond this: that they were in circulation in the early Christian community, that the early Christian community believed them to be honest. That is a fairly minimalist starting point and should allow us to start out on common ground on which both parties agree.

Here are some of the arguments that I intend to review and show why I think they are non-starters.

• The early Christian church was gullible and superstitious; they would have accepted anything.
• The early Christian church was an easy mark for forgeries; all it took to gain acceptance for a document was to tack on the name of an apostle.
• Forgery -- or pseudonymity -- was a widespread and acceptable practice; the early Christian church would not have cared if someone had adopted a disciple's name as a pen-name.
• The Gospel of Luke had to have been written decades after the Gospel of Mark because it would have taken that long for copies of the Gospel of Mark to become widely circulated.
• The appendix to the Gospel of John disproves the traditional authorship of the Gospel of John.
• None of the gospels claims to have been written by an eyewitness.
• The early church lacked our concept of critical scholarship for considering the authorship of a text.
• The early church lacked our concept of critical scholarship for the actual content of the text. They had no way to deal with discrepancies among hand-copied manuscripts.
• The use of prophecies in the New Testament shows that the prophecies were retroactively invented to fit events after they occurred.
• The four gospels now considered canonical were no more viable than the alternative gospel suppressed by the church.

In upcoming posts, I will go into the basic background on each and show why I think that, given the known facts, these arguments are non-starters.