ProTheism

This video is jaw dropping. Watch the whole thing, the last thirty seconds will floor you. My only thought is that this cant be real. *wow*

Labels: Belief, Christianity, Faith, Theology

Labels: Christianity, Skepticism

If anyone likes to be trapped in a box, I recommend joining the ranks of postmodernism (post-mo). J.P. Moreland defines post-mo in Truth, Contemporary Philosophy, and the Postmodern Turn as:

“As a philosophical standpoint, postmodernism is primarily a reinterpretation of what knowledge is and what counts as knowledge. More broadly, it represents a form of cultural relativism about such things as reality, truth, reason, value, linguistic meaning, the self and other notions. On a postmodernist view, there is no such thing as objective reality, truth, value, reason and so forth. All these are social constructions, creations of linguistic practices and, as such, are relative not to individuals, but to social groups that share a narrative.”

If anything were to tear down a foundation, post-mo does it like no other. I often hear Christians engage postmodern thinkers in the Church through “dialogues.” However, this seems to have been, at least thus far, unproductive. Postmodernism seems to box a person into their own language construct. All values, concepts and meaning are created through your esoteric community, which you cannot escape. This invisible barrier of social deterministic structure and language confine you from other communities; nothing can be communicated in a meaningful way. What’s interesting though is that the post-mo wants us to understand this, as if there is a secret trap door that only they can crawl through and correct you when you’re wrong. But they do this because people, in reality, don't act as if post-mo is true; it’s just lip service.

J.P Moreland has expressed his strong opposition toward post-mo. He states that “[N]ot only are postmodern views of truth and knowledge confused, but postmodernism is an immoral and cowardly viewpoint such that persons who love truth and knowledge, especially disciples of the Lord Jesus, should do everything they can to heal the plague that postmodernism has and inevitably does leave” (Ibid). Now those are strong words, but I think within the context Christianity, Scripture and meaning, he has warrant for intense concern. Post-mo philosophers and theologians; however, fancy their language penitentiary view enough argue in volumes of books in attempt to persuade people outside their ‘community’. Hence, on its face, post-mos’ in action seems self-referentially incoherent.

I particularly like the way Plantinga articulates post-mo as a position with out any real substance:

As we are often told nowadays, we live in a postmodern era; and postmodernists pride themselves on rejecting the classical foundationalism that we all learned at our mother's knee. Classical foundationalism has enjoyed a hegemony, a near consensus in the West from the Enlightenment to the very recent past. And according to the classical foundationalist, our beliefs, at least when properly founded, are objective in a double sense. The first sense is a Kantian sense; what is objective in this sense is what is not merely subjective, and what is subjective is what is private or peculiar to just some persons. According to classical foundationalism, well-founded belief is objective in this sense; at least in principle, any properly functioning human beings who think together about a disputed question with care and good will, can be expected to come to an agreement. Well-founded belief is objective in another sense as well: it has to do with, is successfully aimed at, objects, things, things in themselves, to borrow a phrase. Well-founded belief is often or unusually adequate to the thing; it has an adequatio ad rem. There are horses, in the world, and my thought of a given horse is indeed a thought of that horse. Furthermore, it is adequate to the horse, in the sense that the properties I take the horse to have are properties it really has. That it has those properties - the ones I take it to have - furthermore, does not depend upon me or upon how I think of it: the horse has those properties on its own account, independent of me or anyone else. My thought and belief is therefore objective in that it is centered upon an object independent of me; it is not directed to something I, as a subject, have construed or in some other way created.

Now what is characteristic of much postmodern thought is the rejection of objectivity in this second sense - often in the name of rejecting objectivity in the first sense. The typical argument for postmodern relativism leaps lightly from the claim that there is no objectivity of the first sort, to the claim that there is none of the second. As you have no doubt noticed, this is a whopping non sequitur; that hasn't curbed its popularity in the least. Classical foundationalism, so the argument runs, has failed: we now see that there is no rational procedure guaranteed to settle all disputes among people of good will; we do not necessarily share starting points for thought, together with forms of argument that are sufficient to settle all differences of opinion. That's the premise. The conclusion is that therefore we can't really think about objects independent of us, but only about something else, perhaps constructs we ourselves have brought into being. Put thus baldly, the argument does not inspire confidence; but even if we put it less baldly, is there really anything of substance here? In any event, by this route too we arrive at the thought that there isn't any such thing as truth that is independent of us and our thoughts. The idea seems to be that objectivity in the first, Kantian sense, necessarily goes with objectivity in the second, external sense, so that if our thought isn't objective in the first sense, then it isn't objective in the second sense either. And what has happened within at least some of so-called postmodernisms is that the quite proper rejection of the one - a rejection that would of course have received the enthusiastic support of Kuyper and Dooyeweerd - has been confused with the rejection, the demise of the other - an idea that Kuyper and Dooyweerd would have utterly rejected.

Alvin Plantinga, "Christian Philosophy at the End of the Twentieth Century," The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader, pp. 332-334

As time passes though, it is my impromptu suspicion that the post-mo pendulum will fade back into the oblivion of ideas that arise on the pendulum, but swing right back away-- or --for the sake of Christians, at least down to the depths outside the veil of value.

Labels: Christianity, Knowledge, Postmodernism, Truth

Apparently, there is a double standard when it comes to justifying ones own assumptions on presuppositional matters. The Christian must give an account of all affirmations of the Christian worldview, or such assertions are deemed unfounded and are rejected as unsupported beliefs or non-rational lines of reasoning. Conversely, some atheists have excluded themselves from the burden they impose. This special pleading effect is evident in the area of foundational beliefs—such as morality, logic, reason and so on. However, when those foundational beliefs are represented as deductive premises in an argument, they should not be surprised when they are challenged on it. In fact, their case hinges on many unspoken assumptions for which they often offer no supporting argument.

I have found that some unbelievers may even become infuriated when one points out that secularism has no principled basis for morality. This is often pointed out when a non-believer, such as a secularist, uses morality (e.g. problems of ‘evil’ and ‘suffering’ etc…) to argue against Christianity. Nevertheless, rather than supporting their premise of “evil”; they assume the challenge as a type of personal affront. Responses vary from statements such as “I m a moral person” and “I don’t need a book or a ‘god’ to be moral.” Thus, rather than address the question, they regress on to an erroneous trail of personal and observational testimony. However, when I challenge an unbeliever about their moral premises, I am not judging their character, or calling into question their moral behavior; rather, I am questioning the referent they use that governs their moral system. In other words, I am questioning their own yardstick they use to determine what is-or-is-not moral.

For instance, when an atheist uses the existence of evil as an argument against Christianity, the Christian has every right to challenge the premise of their argument. Recently, I have heard an atheist state that the challenge of moral substantiation is a dishonest tactic to trap the atheist, because the theist already deduces that the atheist cannot provide a basis for morality; thus, Christianity is true by default. Yet, this is untrue—at least in my own challenges. Though I do think that secularism cannot provide a sufficient basis to support their premises and always will fall short of grounding morality in something other than oneself; the position leads to moral relativism or nihilism. However, I don’t think that qualifies the secular position as *necessarily* false. So the intent of the challenge is not to entrap per se, but to entice one to examine and substantiate their position. Thus, such arguments should be challenged until demonstrated otherwise, or is recognized to be flawed.

Though I think their argument to be flawed, I do not think it to be meaningless. Interestingly, the meaning within their argument is not recognized by the very person making the argument. In fact, the very argument counters their polemic against Christianity. From the words of C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. ... Of course, I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too--for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist--in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless--I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality--namely my idea of justice--was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

So the moral argument against God and Christianity has meaning, but not with an atheistic worldview (at least not one than I have seen). The atheist must borrow the Christian worldview of morality in order to argue against the Christian worldview. Ironic.

Case In Point

The Reluctant Thinker (A.K.A. the Reluctant Atheist) has become aggravated and eager to avoid grappling with the theistic challenge of a moral framework. I want to look at his post on the subject of morality to demonstrate my point. Before I start though, the Reluctant Atheist is not a reluctant thinker because he does not think, or that he is unintelligent; he is a reluctant thinker because he is reluctant to think about where his position leads and doesn’t lead. I am sure he is an intelligent man, and many intelligent people hold the same position of morality he does—so this not to an affront on him, but an affront on his position and response to the moral challenge. Nevertheless, there are some very intelligent unbelievers who go to desperate lengths to deny the obvious or silence the opposition with backbiting refusal to engage in order to justify their unbelief.

In the beginning of his post, he states:

[S]omewhere, somewhen, there’s some unwritten rule that we atheists are required to explain how it is that we’re moral creatures, without the benefit of having transcendent guidance.

I hate this crap.

I know why this is hated, because every time this challenge is brought up—they cannot substantiate their claims of theodicy. This is basically saying “talk to the hand.” It gets old defending the indefensible I suppose. I have had this discussion with the author before. When pushed against the wall hard enough, he stated, “Truthfully, my position is ad hoc.” Yet, if a position is ad hoc, it loses its deductive power and thus does not provide adequate premises to argue in favor of theodicy.

Secondly, why is it okay for the atheist to avoid justification for their beliefs, while the theist must be substantiate their beliefs?

Continuing…

At some juncture, I just lose interest. Besides which, I think it’s a trap, a pitfall we fall into as a rule. I mean, really, why on earth do I HAVE to explain it? I don’t. I feel that I (and my fellow atheists) best exemplify by example. To wit: the large percentile of crimes committed in this (or for the most part, any other) society is committed by religious folk.

This is a reluctant thinker’s way of plugging his ears to any critique of his position on morality. He says, “why do I HAVE to explain it”; the answer is—you have to explain it when it’s a premises in your argument. If you’re going to go on the offensive, and give Christianity the finger, don’t expect a free pass. Those who state one doesn’t have to answer on this issue are usually indicating that they cannot answer it.

It would be one thing to corner someone to justify morality when they have not given an opinion on the matter; however, the rub comes in when someone uses a moral deduction to argue against Christianity. Thus, one is required (if they want to preserve the argument) to support the premises of the deduction.

Secondly, the author goes to state that “the large percentile of crimes committed in this (or for the most part, any other) society is committed by religious folk.” So what is being said is that atheists have exemplified superior morality than ‘religious folk.’ However, (1) this is an assertion not an argument (2) only gives a descriptive measure of morality (3) begs the question (4) fails to note the center of moral substantiation—that is to substantiate the prescriptive basis of such actions (5) what of the crimes committed by ‘non-religious folks’. The statement means nothing, and solves nothing without giving prescriptive justification for atheists. For if there is no prescriptive justification, then there is no condemnation of not being moral.

Natural Ethics

Continuing, we now explore the paradox of natural ethics:

Thus far, it seems I’m a moral naturalist.

“Moral naturalism is a form of cognitivism derived from applying evolutionary game-theory to ethics. Rather than interpreting morality as the result of negotiations between members of a large group of free moral agents, moral naturalism sees morality as an emergent phenomenon arising as an unintended side-effect of the interaction of those agents in smaller groups. In other words, morality is not to solve a single problem but a number of recurring problems, in the same manner that natural selection adjusts populations of organisms for changing environmental conditions. This puts moral facts in a class with natural facts about the world, which contradicts the assertion of divine command theory that morality is defined by the arbitrary revelation of God.”

I think that covers it very nicely, thanks.

It’s hard to see how giving a definition of moral naturalism provides a substantiation of morality. At best, this is just inches improved over moral relativism as it provided a more cognitive relation to reality than a reconstruction of reality. Ambiguity does not substitute well for rationality. Moral naturalism seems to affirm that moral values are (1) real, (2) an objective property of the natural (or physical) world. Thus (I presume), a moral decision is either “true” or “false”, depending on the facts of the world as it exists. The problem with this view is that the morals are not mere description of human behavior but a prescription for human behavior.

However, moral naturalism is just another way to adopt Christian values without God. With moral naturalism there is a strong emphasis to base morality on ‘facts’. However, moral naturalist still smuggle in a moral premise, namely the principle that it is wrong to do X as a fact without a priori knowledge. To exclusively base morality on descriptive facts is to enter into a never ending circular abyss. To state that X as a fact is wrong and that X is wrong as a fact is a tautology. Having done this, to then say that “pleasure is valuable” would be to affirm a mere vacuous statement, as would “pleasure is good”

Only with moral knowledge already in place does it make sense to say that you can derive a moral conclusion from a set of facts. Hence, you have to have some standard to evaluate the facts themselves. So, moral naturalism does not answer the question of were morals come from in the first place, which is central to supporting their position.

The problem I see with naturalistic principled morality is that it makes morality arbitrary. One wonders, “Why is rape wrong?” The moral naturalist would have to say, “This tendency proved useful in the processes of natural selection.” So, it seems that rape is not *necessarily* morally wrong. I think most people find this entirely odd. Moreover, naturalistic ethics seems to fall prey to a type of genetic fallacy, in that it doesn't give a reason to believe that certain actions or things are right and wrong; rather, it purely tries to elucidate to why we have certain inclinations of morality as we understand it.

Continuing…

I personally believe that morality is an individual choice, and that one’s environment is a huge factor in that choice.

It’s difficult to put your finger on what certain people actually believe, it’s like their trying to derive some theory to explain away their a priori moral knowledge, but end up going all over the map with ‘naturalistic morals’ to ‘personal choices.’ Nevertheless, regarding morality as an individual choice, I presume without any ultimate accountability--that’s true. Considering evolutionary involvement and moral choices, Jeffery has a question for the atheist:

“If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing…’”

~ Jeffrey Dahmer

Continuing…

This isn’t to say I was ‘saintly’: most young boys engage in behavior that would be considered Sociopathic in an adult – it’s a matter of whether it’s a touch, or a wholesale wallowing that makes the distinction. I found the flavor wholly repulsive, and turned my face away from that innate darkness that humans have built into their nature. With no help from religion, I might add.

These statements sound an awful lot like the doctrine of original sin. Yet, while recognizing the “innate darkness” humans have, they venomously deny original sin. Secondly, if humans have “darkness built into their nature”, what makes that darkness wrong? Isn’t that what evolutions has brought? If we have evolved to be natural rapists what does it matter? Moreover, how does one turn their face away from something said to be “innate in humans?”

At least Richard Dawkins is honest about his worldview when he says:

There is at the bottom of it all no good, no evil, no purpose, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music.

So if were honest about atheism, aren’t human beings just what natural selection made us to be? Aren’t we just a higher form of animal; perhaps we are some form of killer apes manufactured by evolution?

So, in short, I’m a morally upright individual – I don’t steal, I rarely lie, I’m excruciatingly honest (to my own detriment, I might add), I understand what the word no means (I feel that rape – the ultimate conscious violation – is perhaps the most disgusting crime one being can commit on another), children absolutely adore me, domestic pets as a rule gravitate to me, I’m about as friendly as another human being can be in person, and I won’t strike another person without due provocation. I also haven’t seen the inside of a cell in approximately thirty years (one time was enough: in some things, I’m a fast learner).

Another thing we see here is the “I am a good person defense”; as if that answers the question of moral foundations. Due to natural revelation, the Image of God imprinted on people, and common grace by God, unbelievers retain a remnant of common decency. This classic response gets old, because the question is not, in the first instance, whether an unbeliever can exhibit common decency, but whether moral absolutes are consistent with, or inherent in, an atheist worldview. Saying you’re a moral person doesn’t cut the cheese.

In fact, this quote explains my sentiments well:

In America, however, most of our atheists are actually thinly disguised Christians, or sometimes thinly disguised Jews, who want to retain the humanism taught by the Creator, without believing in the Creator. They believe in the image of God, without believing in God. They want the Kingdom of God; --- compassion, justice, peace, love, integrity, honesty, and commitment; without God, the King.
-- Michael Novak

Following to the end of this post, we see that evolution is now the source of morality:

Which begs the question (for the theists): from whence came morality?

So I’ll paraphrase myself (I’m entitled to), and add to an earlier quotation of mine:

‘From the womb of evolution sprang religion. From that womb also came morality.’

Because, let’s face facts, folks: any individual of a species that behaves in a manner contrary to the well being of the herd, is cast out. I won’t trot out any scholarship in this regard: I leave it to my readers to investigate for themselves.

If humans are merely complex material, molecules without purpose, if no one piece of matter is any more valuable than any other piece of matter, if we are self-governing (without God), if the circumstances warrants it, and if we can advance our own selfish interests by doing so, could we not lie, steal, maim, or murder at will? If not, why not?

Labels: Apologetics, Atheism, Atheology, Belief, Christianity, Epistemology, Morality, Nihilism, Skepticism

We often get side tracked when discussing issues with someone that holds a view contrary to our own. At the center of confusion is the lack of understanding toward the other person’s position and the failure to define our terms. More frustrating; however, is when the opposing viewpoint completely refuses to acknowledge ANY validly of your position because they either disagree or are “not convinced” by the case. In fact, they may even equate your position to believing in santa clause or fairies (a definite intellectual slap in the face).

In one of the more insulting factions of atheism, Brian Fleming, from Beyond Belief Media has come up with a ‘Statement of Belief’ that Christians must sign before they would even consider having a discussion with a believer. [Thanks to BK at Christian CADRE for bringing this to my attention.] Allegedly, Beyond Belief Media has provided the statement, in hopes that skeptics would require the signature of ‘Christians’ before a rational discussion can occur. Their “Statement of Belief” reduces the Christian worldview to mere irrationalism and blind, unsupported belief.

STATEMENT OF BELIEF
By agreeing to the following statements, you are not agreeing that they settle any additional questions. You are only acknowledging that you understand the difference between evidence and faith. If you cannot sign this statement, you do not deserve to be taken seriously.

I acknowledge that the Bible is not infallible. It was created entirely by humans and may contain significant flaws.

I acknowledge that a claim can be part of Christian tradition and also be false.

I acknowledge that there is no known evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ that dates to the period of his alleged life.

I acknowledge that the names of the Gospels were most likely added well after their composition, and there is insufficient evidence to believe that these names correspond to the original writers.

I acknowledge that there is insufficient evidence to believe that any of the Gospels were written by disciples of Jesus Christ.

I acknowledge that it is common for religious cults to make things up.

I acknowledge that it is common for religions to influence each other, and for young religions to be derived from older religions.

I acknowledge that no figures such as "God" or "The Holy Spirit" or "Satan" performed any supernatural actions that had any effect upon the formation of early Christianity.

I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the foregoing is true and correct.

A Christian should never even consider signing this document (though I doubt any level headed Christian would). If a skeptic requires the statement to be signed—the “privilege” of there discussion is not worth it. However, I doubt that they really expect anyone sign it. Rather, it just a backhand and mockery toward believers.

Though, the idea of agreement on certain matters before engagement is not entirely absurd. In fact, on a more serious note, discussions could be much more fruitful if there were a common agreement bearing on the discussion. I know atheists can get frustrated with the fallacious methodology of some Christians and vise versa.

Accordingly, in light of Beyond Belief Media’s “Statement of Belief” contract, I have come up with ProTheism’s parody of the contract called “Preconditions of Engagement”(though some statements are tongue in cheek, this not the condescending material they have offered):

PRECONDITIONS OF ENGAGEMENT:

By agreeing to the following statements, you are not agreeing that they settle any additional questions. You are only acknowledging that you understand the difference between stating there is no evidence for God’s existence and not being convinced by the evidence for God’s existence. If you cannot sign this statement, you do not deserve to be taken seriously.

I acknowledge that Atheism isn’t a “lack of belief,” but the belief that God or gods do not exist. Moreover, I am not excluded from a burden of proof for “non-belief” since there is a basis for my position.

I acknowledge that science has not and cannot disprove the existence of God. Moreover, science has not proven atheism.

I acknowledge that theism is not the same as believing in fairies, santa clause, and pink unicorns.

I acknowledge that religion is not the major cause of war. I know that when it comes to the causes of war, religion comes after politics, economics, territory, natural resources and greed.

I acknowledge that because some alleged Christians committed heinous acts in the past that it doesn’t follow that it is what Christianity teaches, or that it invalidates Christianity.

I acknowledge that atheism itself can become fanatical and destructive. I know the Soviet Union was run by Brights. Stalin was an atheist, as were Mao Zedong and the Red Guards in China, and Pol Pot in Cambodia.

I acknowledge that atheistic regimes have killed more people in the past century than religion has killed in its entire history. So bringing up the crusades and witch hunts are counter productive to my case.

I acknowledge that the existence of evil is not proof that an all-good and all-powerful God does not exist.

I acknowledge that dogmatically asserting “there is no God” is a philosophically naïve statement that affirms a universal negative.

I acknowledge that micro-evolution is not proof of macro-evolution and that macro evolution is not a fact but a theory. Also, I know that the theory of evolution does not disprove the existence of God.

I acknowledge that God cannot create a rock that is too heavy for Him to move.

I acknowledge that I have no answer to the origin of life, or how the universe came into existence.

I acknowledge that saying “were just here”, or “it just is,” is not an argument.

I acknowledge that the statement that “it’s irrational to believe in things that can’t be tested scientifically with the five senses,” can’t be tested scientifically with the five senses and is a self refuting.

I acknowledge that Benny Hinn or other affiliates of the tele-evangelizing industry is not a representative of all Christianity.

I acknowledge that just because God has not appeared before my eyes, and justified His existence to my empirical satisfaction; it doesn’t mean He does not exist.

I acknowledge that if I can’t acquire God residue for my test tube, it doesn’t follow that God does not exist.

I acknowledge that skepticism does not equate to intellectualism. I know that it is not necessarily more rational to doubt something than it is to believe in something.

I acknowledge that geographic probability of a certain religion tells you nothing of the truth claims of the religion.

I acknowledge that just because most Christians I have spoke with cannot defend their faith and answer my questions, or that you cannot answer my questions, it doesn’t follow that my questions cannot be answered, or that my questions refute Christianity.

I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the foregoing is true and correct.

Labels: Apologetics, Atheism, Belief, Christianity, Skepticism

Labels: Christianity, Humor

Do you see the trilemma? I will let you decide. This has always been a fascinating subject for me. I remember hearing about it, but finally reading it in Mere Christianity—Lewis states the following:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon and you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

The Lord-Liar-Lunatic trilemma has been attacked viciously by skeptics. But what most people don’t know is that he discussed and expanded on this issue in God in the Dock. The Mere Christianity version is not quite as developed and in addressing the “legend” aspect (though it is an excellent primer). This is not overly surprising likely because much of it is from a radio show. More readily available though (after much digging), is a section of chapter 19 of the book called “What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ?” Though there are still some problems to be worked out (as in it’s not air tight), here is a more complete version of it:

What are we to make of Jesus Christ? This is a question which has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real question is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us? The picture of a fly sitting deciding what it is going to make of an elephant has comic elements about it. But perhaps the questioner meant what are we to make of Him in the sense of 'How are we to solve the historical problem set us by the recorded sayings and acts of this Man?' This problem is to reconcile two things. On the one hand you have got the almost generally admitted depth and sanity of His moral teaching, which is not very seriously questioned, even by those who are opposed to Christianity. In fact, I find when I am arguing with very anti-God people that they rather make a point of saying, 'I am entirely in favour of the moral teaching of Christianity'——and there seems to be a general agreement that in the teaching of this Man and of his immediate followers, moral truth is exhibited at its purest and best. It is not sloppy idealism, it is full of wisdom and shrewdness. The whole thing is realistic, fresh to the highest degree, the product of a sane mind. That is one phenomenon.

The other phenomenon is quite the appalling nature of this Man's theological remarks. You all know what I mean, and I want rather to stress the point that the appalling claim which this Man seems to be making is not merely made at one moment of His career. There is, of course, the one moment which led to His execution. The moment at which the High Priest said to Him, 'Who are you?' 'I am the Anointed, the Son of the uncreated God, and you shall see Me appearing at the end of all history as the judge of the Universe.' But that claim, in fact, does not rest on this one dramatic moment. When you look into His conversation you will find this sort of claim running through the whole thing. For instance, He went about saying to people, 'I forgive your sins.' Now it is quite natural for a man to forgive something you do to him. Thus if somebody cheats me out of ££5 it is quite possible and reasonable for me to say, 'Well, I forgive him, we will say no more about it.' What on earth would you say if somebody had done you out of ££5 and I said, 'That is all right, I forgive him'? Then there is curious thing which seems to slip out almost by accident. On one occasion this Man is sitting looking down on Jerusalem from the hill above it and suddenly in comes an extraordinary remark——'I keep on sending you prophets and wise men.' Nobody comments on it. And yet, quite suddenly, almost incidentally, He is claiming to be the power that all through the centuries is sending wise men and leaders into the world. Here is another curious remark: in almost every religion there are unpleasant observances like fasting. This Man suddenly remarks one day, 'No one need fast while I am here.' Who is this Man who remarks that His mere presence suspends all normal rules? Who is the person who can suddenly tell the School they can have a half-holiday? Sometimes the statements put forward the assumption that He, the Speaker, is completely without sin or fault. This is always the attitude. 'You, to whom I am talking, are all sinners.' and He never remotely suggests that this same reproach can be brought against Him. He says again, 'I am begotten of the One God, before braham was, I am,' and remember what the words 'I am' were in Hebrew. They were the name of God, which must not be spoken by any human being, the name which it was death to utter.

Well, that is the other side. On the one side clear, definite moral teaching. On the other, claims which, if not true, are those of a megalomaniac, compared with whom Hitler was the most sane and humble of men. There is no half-way house and there is no parallel in other religions. If you had gone to Buddha and asked him 'Are you the son of Bramah?' he would have said, 'My son you are still in the vale of illusion.' If you had gone to Socrates and asked, 'Are you Zeus?' he would have laughed at you. If you would have gone to Mohammed and asked, 'Are you Allah?' he would first have rent his clothes and then cut your head off. If you had asked Confucius, 'Are you Heaven?', I think he would have probably replied, 'Remarks which are not in accordance with nature are in bad taste.' The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man. If you think you are a poached egg, when you are looking for a piece of toast to suit you, you may be sane, but if you think you are God, there is no chance for you. We may note in passing that He was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. He did not produce that effect on any of the people who actually met Him. He produced mainly three effects——Hatred ——Terror——Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.

What are we to do about reconciling the two contradictory phenomena? One attempt consists in saying that the Man did not really say these things, but that His followers exaggerated the story, and so the legend grew up that He had said them. This is difficult because His followers were all Jews; that is, they belonged to that Nation which of all others was most convinced that there was only one God——that there could not possibly be another. It is very odd that this horrible invention about a religious leader should grow up among the one people in the whole earth least likely to make such a mistake. On the contrary we get the impression that none of His immediate followers or even the New Testament writers embraced the doctrine at all easily.

Another point is that on that view you would have to regard the accounts of the Man as being legends. Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don't work up to things properly. Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us, as is the life of anyone else who lived at that time, and no people building up a legend would allow that to be so. Apart from bits of the Platonic dialogues, there are no conversations that I know of in ancient literature like the Fourth Gospel. There is nothing, even in modern literature, until about a hundred years ago when the realistic novel came into existence. In the story of the woman taken in adultery we are told Christ bent down and scribbled in the dust with His finger. Nothing comes of this. No one has ever based any doctrine on it. And the art of inventing little irrelevant details to make an imaginary scene more convincing is a purely modern art. Surely the only explanation of this passage is that the thing really happened? The author put it simply because he had seen it.

Then we come to the strangest story of all, the story of the Resurrection. It is very necessary to get the story clear. I heard a man say, 'The importance of the Resurrection is that it gives evidence of survival, evidence that the human personality survives death.' On that view what happened to Christ would be what had always happened to all men, the difference being that in Christ's case we were privileged to see it happening. This is certainly not what the earliest Christian writers thought. Something perfectly new in the history of the Universe had happened. Christ had defeated death. The door which had always been locked had for the very first time been forced open. This is something quite distinct from mere ghost-survival. I don't mean that they disbelieved in ghost-survival. On the contrary, they believed in it so firmly that, on more than one occasion, Christ had to assure them that he was not a ghost. That point is that while believing in survival they yet regarded the Resurrection as something totally different and new. The Resurrection narratives are not a picture of survival after death; they record how a totally new mode of being has arisen in the Universe. Something new had appeared in the Universe: as new as the first coming of organic life. This Man, after death, does not get divided into 'ghost' and 'corpse'. A new mode of being has arisen. That is the story. What are we going to make of it?

The question is, I suppose, whether any hypothesis covers the facts so well as the Christian hypothesis. That hypothesis is that God has come down into the created universe, down to manhood——and come up again, pulling it up with Him. The alternative hypothesis is not legend, nor exaggeration, nor the apparitions of a ghost. It is either lunacy or lies. Unless one can take the second alternative (and I can't) one turns to the Christian theory.

'What are we to make of Christ?' There is no question of what we can make of Him, it is entirely a question of what He intends to make of us. You must accept or reject the story.

The things He says are very different from what any other teacher has said. Others say, 'This is the truth about the Universe. This is the way you ought to go,' but He says, 'I am the way the Truth, and the Way, and the Life.' He says, 'No man can reach absolute reality, except through Me. Try to retain your own life and you will be inevitably ruined. Give yourself away and you will be saved.' He says, 'If you are ashamed of Me, if, when you hear this call, you turn the other way, I also will look the other way when I come again as God without disguise. If anything whatever is keeping you from God and from Me, whatever it is, throw it away. If it is your eye, pull it out. If it is your hand, cut it off. If you put yourself first you will be last. Come to Me everyone who is carrying a heavy load, I will set that right. Your sins, all of them, are wiped out, I can do that. I am Re-birth, I am Life. Eat Me, drink Me, I am your Food. And finally, do not be afraid, I have overcome the whole Universe.' That is the issue.

I thoroughly enjoy Lewis writings; yet, I would treat them as basic instructions for starting to open the mind. The most problematic issue I see with the trilemma is that it is possible to come up with different options. So, the horns don’t seem to stick you if there are alternatives. The most common objection I see is that Jesus didn’t state any of those things regarding His divinity in the Bible and that early Christians added those things to the text and put them on his lips.

I don’t plan to make a case against the “legend” in this post; but as a primer, I would preliminarily field the objections with the following points: i) it’s odd that early church writings do not dispute regarding additions or changes to the text. ii) Secondly, no matter how many verses are striped from the text (take the Jesus seminar for example), you will not find a Jesus without supernatural or divine attributes. Essentially, Jesus’ divine nature is at the core of all His teachings. Hence, the entire thing would have to be fabrication (I can hear this tune already!) iii) Another widely accepted historical fact is the radical change in the disciples after Jesus’ death. They were willing to die and many did. This would seem highly unlikely for someone who had direct knowledge of a fabricate of “Jesus, the God Man”. It also seems irrational to suppose that they would make Jesus God after being humiliatingly beaten and crucified as a criminal. iv) Lastly, as I already demonstrated in my last post, Jesus’ high Christology was already established in the first century.

The trilemma is helpful to key in on the specific issues of the New Testament. I do think it can and has been development more by able Christian scholars; yet, I wouldn’t write it or C.S. Lewis off as easily as many skeptics and Christians do today.

In The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, the professor offered three options: Lucy was either telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. I don’t think the “legend” was an option entertained at the time. However, as it turns out, Lucy was telling the truth and in Jesus’ case—He was also telling the truth; which, makes Him Lord. The question of Jesus being either Lord, Liar, Lunatic or Legend is the most important question anyone could ever ask.

Labels: Apologetics, Christianity, Skepticism

Labels: Apologetics, Atheology, Christianity, Epistemology, Skepticism

There’s a lot of credence given to the Jesus Myth lately. However, the attack on the historicity of Jesus is no surprise. What better way to debunk Christianity that to take away Jesus? Christianity is built upon the person of Jesus. Christianity is not like any other religion in that it rests not on teachings, but rather, Christ Himself.

Though there is plenty of hype given to the Jesus myth; it’s mostly just conspiracy theory. One needs a lot of imagination to come to the conclusion that Jesus never existed. The Jesus myth seems more of hypercritical skepticism—skepticism about everything except skepticism. Nevertheless, since the Jesus myth has taken such a welcome acceptance, I thought I might address some of the issue (though not comprehensively).

From searching the net, an often sited or referenced article on the subject of the Jesus Myth (pro skeptic) was Marshall J. Gauvin’s article called, "Did Jesus Christ really live?." I read Gauvin’s article looking for a solid argument for his case. It was very interesting; however, flawed. Below, I will comment on some of the things of Gauvin’s article I disagree with. There are parts that I left out because they did not warrant response (see link for entire article):

In the beginning of Gauvin’s article he states:

Not only has the divinity of Christ been given up, but his existence as a man is being more and more seriously questioned. Some of the ablest scholars of the world deny that he ever lived at all. A commanding literature dealing with the inquiry, intense in its seriousness and profound and thorough in its research, is growing up in all countries, and spreading the conviction that Christ is a myth.

Gauvin is completely incorrect about historical scholarship. Though admittedly much of scholarship has given up the divinity of Christ; to the contrary, “scholars of the world” have reached the opposite of Gauvin’s conclusion. In fact, the issue seems quit dead. Perhaps, if the proponents of the myth theory consisted of competent scholarly historians, then the realm of historical scholarship might be more persuaded.

Christopher Price has already done the research for me and outlined all persuasions of scholarship with supporting quotes in “Scholarly opinions on the Jesus Myth.” In addition to the already devastating outline, Price also provides A “History of Scholarly Refutations of the Jesus Myth,” just incase one had some restrained doubts.

Gauvin’s motive becomes evident abruptly after his first statements. He obviously has no respect for any intellectual foundation for Christianity. He states:

[Christianity] has stayed the march of civilization, and made martyrs of some of the noblest men and women of the race: and it is to-day the greatest enemy of knowledge, of freedom, of social and industrial improvement, and of the genuine brotherhood of mankind. The progressive forces of the world are at war with this Asiatic superstition, and this war will continue until the triumph of truth and freedom is complete. The question, "Did Jesus Christ Really Live?" goes to the very root of the conflict between reason and faith; and upon its determination depends, to some degree, the decision as to whether religion or humanity shall rule the world.

As can be seen, Gauvin has mad some degrading remarks toward Christianity. It appears that his motives go beyond some inquiry into history, and for whatever reason, into some personal agenda contra Christianity. I find his aforementioned statements a deciding factor in his conclusion regarding the Jesus Myth rather than any historical inquiry.

Gauvin’s first attack is on the gospels themselves:

What, then, is the evidence that Jesus Christ lived in this world as a man? The authorities relied upon to prove the reality of Christ are the four Gospels of the New Testament -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John… the Gospels themselves do not claim to have been written by these men. They are not called "The Gospel of Matthew," or "The Gospel of Mark," but "The Gospel According to Matthew," "The Gospel According to Mark," "The Gospel According to Luke," and "The Gospel According to John." No human being knows who wrote a single line in one of these Gospels. No human being knows when they were written, or where.

The trick here is that Gauvin has automatically presupposed that there is no objective basis for determining if the Gospels are a reliable source of history. There are methods of dating and using textual analysis of contemporaneous vernacular, recorded events or omission of events, forensic analysis, corroborating patristic writings etc. Gauvin is overstating his case, which becomes a palpable motif of his. The fact that there is no signature or photograph attached to the Gospels doesn’t make them unreliable.

Biblical scholarship has established the fact that the Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the four. The chief reasons for this conclusion are that this Gospel is shorter, simpler, and more natural, than any of the other three. It is shown that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were enlarged from the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark knows nothing of the virgin birth, of the Sermon on the Mount, of the Lord's prayer, or of other important facts of the supposed life of Christ. These features were added by Matthew and Luke.

The dating of Mark prior to the other Gospels is a theory based of similarity rather than an established fact as Gauvin asserts. Scholars infer that Mark is used as a reference or source since much of the material is contained in Mathew and Luke. In fact, many scholars infer a document called “Q” as a secondary source for material not in Mark, but found in both Mathew and Luke (however, that’s another trail). Though there are many similarities, there are numerous differences. I don’t particularly take the position that Mark is later than the other Gospels though.

The Gospel of John is admitted by Christian scholars to be an unhistorical document. They acknowledge that it is not a life of Christ, but an interpretation of him; that it gives us an idealized and spiritualized picture of what Christ is supposed to have been, and that it is largely composed of the speculations of Greek philosophy.

Scholars may have differing opinions about the specifics of the Gospel of John; however, Gauvin makes it sound like a complete consensus is contra historical. The Gospel of John is far from unhistorical. His criticism erroneously dismisses the entire corpus of the text based on alleged tampering by early Christians. The dispute within the majority of scholarly circles revolves around theological implications, rather than centering on complete fabrication of the entire text.

There is not the smallest fragment of trustworthy evidence to show that any of the Gospels were in existence, in their present form, earlier than a hundred years after the time at which Christ is supposed to have died.

Though we don’t have any original manuscripts; we do have copies. Papyrus tends to decay after so long; nonetheless, we do have a papyrus fragment called P52 with portions of Johns Gospel. Since it’s is the general consensus that John is the latest Gospel; it can be inferred that there were earlier manuscript of the other Gospels (Mathew, Mark, Luke). This would date the earlier Gospels in time period contra Gauvin’s thesis.

We are told that Mark was written some time after the year 70, Luke about 110, Matthew about 130, and John not earlier than 140 A.D. Let me impress upon you that these dates are conjectural, and that they are made as early as possible.

Gauvin’s dates are highly conjectural. He states that the dating is “as early as possible” for the Gospels. However, I believe he is being disingenuous to other scholarly dating here. Again, with the P52 papyrus fragment, this would push the dates of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John much earlier than he prescribes.

Every leading Christian scholar since Erasmus, four hundred years ago, has maintained that [the Gospels] were originally written in Greek. This proves that they were not written by Christ's disciples, or by any of the early Christians

Gauvin assumes that contemporary Palestinians did not speak or write Greek at the time Jesus was alive, or shortly after. However, this alleged proof is given without any benefit of argument.

In the fifth chapter of J.P. Moreland’s book “Scaling the Secular City” he offers six arguments for the earlier dating of the Gospels. Below is the excerpt:

Six arguments, taken together, provide a powerful case for dating Acts at 62 to 64. First, Acts has no mention of the fall of Jerusalem in 70, and this is quite odd since much of the activity recorded in Luke-Acts centers around Jerusalem. A large section unique to Luke focuses on Jesus' last movement to the Holy city the resurrection appearances occur around Jerusalem (see Luke 24:13), and Jerusalem plays a key role in the structure of Acts. The omission of any mention of the fall of Jerusalem makes sense if Luke-Acts was written prior to the event itself.

Second, no mention is made of Nero's persecutions in the mid-60s and the general tone of Acts toward the Roman government is irenic. This fits the pre-65 situation well. Neither the tone of Acts nor the omission of an account of Nero's persecutions can be adequately explained by saying it was an attempt to appease the Roman government. It was not the nature of the early church to appease anyone-witness conflicts with Judaism and the Pharisees which are recorded in Luke's writings.

Third, the martyrdoms of James (61), Paul (64), and Peter (65) are not mentioned in Acts. This is also surprising since Acts is quick to record the deaths of Stephen and James the brother of John, leaders in the early church. These omissions are even more surprising when one realizes that James, Peter, and Paul are the three key figures in Acts. The silence in Acts about these deaths makes most sense if, again, we assume that Acts was written before they occurred.

Fourth, the subject matter of Acts deals with issues of importance prior to the fall of Jerusalem in 70. The falling of the Holy Spirit on different people groups (Jewish, Samaritan, Gentile), the divisions between Palestinian Jews and Hellenistic Jews, Jewish-Gentile relations centering on circumcision and the law of Moses, and other themes make sense prior to 70. At that time Jewish Christianity was wiped out and the importance of a record of how Gentile pagan converts are to relate to Jews in the church would be much lower than the importance of such a record prior to 70.

Fifth, several of the expressions in Acts are very early and primitive. More will be said about this later. But the phrases the Son of man, the Servant of God (applied to Jesus), the first day of the week (the resurrection), and the people (the Jews) are all phrases that readers would understand without explanation prior to 70. After 70, they would need to be explained. These phrases, therefore, indicate that Acts was intended for an audience which would remember these terms and their usage.

Sixth, the Jewish war against the Romans (from 66 onward) is not mentioned in Acts. As Hugo Staudinger argues, "The Jewish war is an important part of the history of the early Church. The original followers in Jerusalem lose their significance through the war. With the destruction of Jerusalem Jesus' prophecy is moreover fulfilled. If Luke had been writing after 70, it would be incomprehensible that he should break off his narrative shortly before the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy, and not indicate the fate of the followers in Jerusalem."

So a strong case can be made for dating Acts at 62 to 64. But this means that Luke should be dated just prior to that. Further, Matthew and Mark should be dated even earlier, perhaps from the mid-40s to mid-50s. The picture of Jesus presented in the Synoptics is one that is only twelve to twenty-nine years removed from the events themselves. And they incorporate sources which are even earlier.

I find Moreland’s six points persuasive. For me, the omissions of certain historical facts give credibility to an earlier dates since many of them would have been profitable to add to the text had it been written later.

Gauvin actually makes some valid points about textual transmission. However, again, he ignores scholarship of textual critics on the transmission of biblical texts.

The oldest Gospels that we have are supposed to be copies of copies of copies that were made from those Gospels. We do not know who made these copies; we do not know when they were made; nor do we know whether they were honestly made. Between the earliest Gospels and the oldest existing manuscripts of the New Testament, there is a blank gulf of three hundred years. It is, therefore, impossible to say what the original Gospels contained.

Gauvin is piggybacking on the optimism that his late dating is accurate. However, the content of the Gospels clearly shows contemporaneous eye witness data, culture, geography and so forth that provide ample reasons why they are historically valid. It’s the way they are written that’s gives historical validity. In addition, the papyri fragments we have corroborate with later manuscripts available. Moreover, the amount of manuscript we have (over 5,000) helps to distinguish what was in the original manuscript. The fact is that manuscripts copied from different individuals or groups spread over diverse parts of the Middle East and Mediterranean regions actually concur remarkably with each other.

If there were significant allowances of autonomy to add to or take away considerable writings from previous manuscripts, there ought to be a vast amount of departure in later or geographically distant tests. However, what we find is the complete opposite.

If Gauvin or other Jesus Myth proponents applied their hypercritical skepticism to other historical texts, we would have to discard Homer (Iliad), Sophocles, Aristotle, Caesar’s (Gallic Wars) etc. The NT text fair far better (with flying colors) than much of what we would consider history.

If Christ was an historical character, why was it necessary to forge documents to prove his existence? Did anybody ever think of forging documents to prove the existence of any person who was really known to have lived? The early Christian forgeries are a tremendous testimony to the weakness of the Christian cause.

Again, Gauvin overstates his case. Gnostic writings were not written to “prove the existence of Jesus.” Rather, they were heretical spin offs of the original Gospels. These Gnostic gospels and writings were countered heavily. Why would such objection arise if Jesus never existed? For example Origen, in Contra Celsius (Chap. LXI) wrote the following :

And let it be admitted further, that there are some who give themselves out as Gnostics, in the same way as those Epicureans who call themselves philosophers: yet neither will they who annihilate the doctrine of providence be deemed true philosophers, nor those true Christians who introduce monstrous inventions, which are disapproved of by those who are the disciples of Jesus…and these are the twofold sect of Ebionites, who either acknowledge with us that Jesus was born of a virgin, or deny this, and maintain that He was begotten like other human beings

Gauvin moves on to an alleged geographical error regarding Nazareth.

His home was Nazareth. He was called "Jesus of Nazareth"; and there he is said to have lived until the closing years of his life. Now comes the question -- Was there a city of Nazareth in that age? The Encyclopaedia Biblica, a work written by theologians, the greatest biblical reference work in the English language, says: "We cannot perhaps venture to assert positively that there was a city of Nazareth in Jesus' time."

This seems to be Gauvin’s most powerful argument—an obvious argument from silence and an overstatement. Nazareth was no New York, or Los Angeles city. In fact, it was a small and insignificant geographical location. Event in the NT it states, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:47). One should not expect compilations of references to Nazareth by early century historians. Historians tend not to write about rat holes, but significant places. Nevertheless, Metacrock, from Christian CADRE (A historian and Ph.D candidate) dismantles this theory in his article “The History of Nazareth.”

Moreover, Richard Carrier, who is a prominent skeptic and sympathetic to the Jesus Myth writes the following in thread on the infidel’s website begging here:

[A]rchaeology has confirmed a stone building in Nazareth of the size and type to be a synagogue, and it dates from the time of Christ. See the entry in the Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land...

The evidence is insurmountable that there were numerous permanent structures--most of Nazareth's buildings even before the 1st century were partially carved from the rock of the hill, in a manner similar to Pella...

I was able to track down on my own the most extensive report, that of Bagatti (Excavations in Nazareth, vol. 1, 1969), and I looked through all the subsequent reports on Nazareth from Excavations and Surveys in Israel, and this is what I found:

(a) Very little of Nazareth has been excavated, and therefore no argument can be advanced regarding what "wasn't" there in the 1st century.

(b) Archaeological reports confirm that stones and bricks used in earlier buildings in Nazareth were reused in later structures, thus erasing a lot of the evidence. Therefore, it is faulty reasoning to argue that there were no brick or stone structures simply because we have not recovered them from the relevant strata (i.e. one of Hoffman's sources assumed that the absence of this evidence entailed mud-and-thatch housing, but that is fallacious reasoning--especially since no clear evidence of mud-and-thatch housing has been found, either).

(c) One example of the above includes four calcite column bases, which were reused in a later structure, but are themselves dated before the War by their stylistic similarity to synagogues and Roman structures throughout 1st century Judaea, and by the fact that they contain Nabataean lettering (which suggests construction before Jewish priests migrated to Nazareth after the war). This is not iron clad proof of a 1st century synagogue (since the pieces had been moved and thus could not be dated by strata), but it does demonstrate a very high probability--especially since calcite bases are cheap material compared to the more expensive marble of structures archaeologists confirmed started appearing there around a century later, i.e. by the end of the 1st century AD (or early 2nd century at the latest, since marble fragments have been found inscribed in Aramaic that is paleographically dated to this period), and more extensively again in the 3rd century (when a very impressive Jewish synagogue was built there, this time using marble, which was later converted to Christian use).

(d) I confirmed beyond any doubt that Nazareth was built on a hill--more specifically, down the slope of a hill, with a convenient "brow" roughly one city block away from the edge of the ancient town as so-far determined archaeologically. Because the town was built down the slope of a hill, we have found numerous examples of houses, tombs, and storage rooms half cut into the rock of the hill, leaving a diagonal slope for structures to be built up around them to complete the chambers (as I described above). Since these structural elements were so completely removed and apparently reused by later builders, no evidence remains of what they were composed of (whether mud, brick, or stone).

The bottom line: there is absolutely no doubt that Nazareth existed in the time of Jesus.

Following, Gauvin becomes overly generous regarding the nobility of the Roman government:

Nothing could be more improbable than the story of Christ's crucifixion. The civilization of Rome was the highest in the world. The Romans were the greatest lawyers the world had ever known. Their courts were models of order and fairness. A man was not condemned without a trial; he was not handed to the executioner before being found guilty… Is it thinkable that the master of a Roman court in the days of Tiberius Caesar, having found a man innocent and declared him so, and having made efforts to save his life, tortured him of his own accord, and then handed him over to a howling mob to be nailed to a cross? A Roman court finding a man innocent and then crucifying him? Is that a picture of civilized Rome? Is that the Rome to which the world owes its laws? In reading the story of the Crucifixion, are we reading history or religious fiction? Surely not history.

Philo ((20 BC- 40 AD), has somewhat of a dissimilar opinion. In fact, he states Pontius Pilate was very hostile and unfair. Moreover, it appears that Pilate feared that the Jewish people would cause uproar resulting in his dismissal by Tiberius. Philo States [Source]:

"But when [Pilate] steadfastly refused this petition (for he was a man of a very inflexible disposition, and very merciless as well as very obstinate), they cried out: 'Do not cause a sedition; do not make war upon us; do not destroy the peace which exists. The honour of the emperor is not identical with dishonour to the ancient laws; let it not be to you a pretence for heaping insult on our nation…But this last sentence exasperated him in the greatest possible degree, as he feared least they might in reality go on an embassy to the emperor, and might impeach him with respect to other particulars of his government, in respect of his corruption, and his acts of insolence, and his rapine, and his habit of insulting people, and his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity. (303)

Therefore, being exceedingly angry, and being at all times a man of most ferocious passions, he was in great perplexity, neither venturing to take down what he had once set up, nor wishing to do any thing which could be acceptable to his subjects, and at the same time being sufficiently acquainted with the firmness of Tiberius on these points.

So we get a different picture of the practice of Roman law and Pilate’s supposed civility. As I stated earlier, Gauvin likes to overstate his case and at times presents things in a manner that distort the historical record that we have available to us.

Gauvin not only stretches things, he is completely ignorant of Christian theology. He even goes so far as suggesting that Christian art of a lamb on a cross suggests the mythical figure of Jesus emerging out of that caricature. Moreover, he completely disregards the scriptural references on why Jesus is crucified when he states the following:

And let us ask, if Christ performed the miracles the New Testament describes, if he gave sight to blind men's eyes, if his magic touch brought youthful vigor to the palsied frame, if the putrefying dead at his command returned to life and love again -- why did the people want him crucified? Is it not amazing that a civilized people -- for the Jews of that age were civilized -- were so filled with murderous hate towards a kind and loving man who went about doing good, who preached forgiveness, cleansed the leprous, and raised the dead -- that they could not be appeased until they had crucified the noblest benefactor of mankind? Again I ask -- is this history, or is it fiction?

Jews were civilized, but take their religion seriously. Has Gauvin never heard of a Pharisees? They were the religious cream of the crop and were outraged to think that Jesus who accused them of being “hypocritical”, “brood vipers” “blind leaders of the blind” and who threw them out of their own temple, would also claim to forgive sins, and say that God was His Father, and even go as far as saying He was one with God. The Pharisees tried to stone Jesus more than once and kill him saying, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God" (John 10:33). What does Gauvin think Paul (as formerly Saul) did before he became a Christian? Is the whole persecution of early Christians by the Jewish leadership fables? No, if there is any fiction, it’s in the mind of Gauvin to explain away history.

Some of the further exaggeration that Gauvin’s supposes, like Paul knowing nothing of Jesus sayings are too nauseating to address. He even goes so far as to suggest that the “very existence of Paul is questionable”. Though he only allows Paul as a historical figure to accommodate his argument. Moreover, he completely discredits the entire corpus of the Gospels because they contain miracles. Prima facie evidence is unnecessary to qualify as history. Every single statement need not be proved with corroborating evidence to support it. What’s even more interesting is that Gauvin relies heavily (again) on the argument of silence—mentioning things that Paul never stated about Jesus in his writings and assuming he never mentioned it in his travels.

If Christ lived, if he was a reformer, if he performed wonderful works that attracted the attention of the multitude, if he came in conflict with the authorities and was crucified -- how shall we explain the fact that history has not even recorded his name? The age in which he is said to have lived was an age of scholars and thinkers. In Greece, Rome and Palestine, there were philosophers, historians, poets, orators, jurists and statesmen. Every fact of importance was noted by interested and inquiring minds. Some of the greatest writers the Jewish race has produced lived in that age.

There are references to Jesus outside of the Gospels, such as Thallus and Josephus. But of course Gauvin is going to disregard any reference to Jesus by Josephus do to some later tampering insertions by some Christians. However, Christopher Price has done a review of Josephus’ reference to Jesus and irrefutably demonstrates that though there were some additions to the text, Josephus did make an original reference to the historical person of Jesus. For anyone who doubts this, they must read “A Thorough Review of the Testimonium Flavianum.” Regardless of Gauvin’s assertions, scholarship is in the majority that there was an original reference to the person of Jesus of Nazareth by Josephus (apparently reverse when the article was written). Also see “Extra Biblical Witness to Jesus before 200 AD” and “The Reliability of the Secular References to Jesus” For further extra biblical references to Jesus.

Gauvin leaves his article in arrogant confidence over his alleged case against the historicity of Jesus. In his closing statement he says:

The Jesus Christ of the Gospels could not possibly have been a real person. He is a combination of impossible elements. There may have lived in Palestine, nineteen centuries ago, a man whose name was Jesus, who went about doing good, who was followed by admiring associates, and who in the end met a violent death. But of this possible person, not a line was written when he lived, and of his life and character the world of to-day knows absolutely nothing. This Jesus, if he lived, was a man; and if he was a reformer, he was but one of many that have lived and died in every age of the world. When the world shall have learned that the Christ of the Gospels is a myth, that Christianity is untrue, it will turn its attention from the religious fictions of the past to the vital problems of to-day, and endeavor to solve them for the improvement of the well-being of the real men and women whom we know, and whom we ought to help and love.

Gauvin hasn’t nearly made his case. He begs the question the entire course of his article. Unfortunately, he must ignore or come up with creative diversionary tactics to explain away history. There are too many issues to write off with the wand of hypercritical skepticism. Gauvin cannot explain to the satisfaction of historians why, Christians would invent Jesus Christ sometime after 100 and have no pagans and Jews who historically have opposed Christianity denied the existence of Jesus. In fact, it’s never even questioned.

Gauvin has artfully tried to claim the alleged theological development (which is an issue that has been disputed) qualifies the entire corpus of the NT as a wholesale invention. More perceptibly, Gauvin has quote mined critical sources and taken his conclusions beyond anything that the critics would have concluded.

Gauvin has misrepresented the apostle Paul claiming he preached a different Jesus than the Gospels. He late dated the Gospels to his convenience. Conveniently, the late dating of the Gospels is the crux of his entire position. He obviously over did it. With the wave of the skeptical wand, Gauvin completely dismissed non-Christian evidences of the historicity of Jesus. His conspiracy theory fails to give a better explanation than acknowledging that Jesus was a real person. I don’t know if any one can—it appears more to be an insurmountable obstacle.

Gauvin reminds me of Holocaust deniers, who deny despite the vast evidence to the contrary. One major problem to deal with is if the Church created Jesus, who created the Church? The fact is, Gauvin and other Jesus myth advocates have to have a lot more imagination than anyone who believes in his existence.

Labels: Apologetics, Atheism, Atheology, Christianity, Skepticism