Right Reason

A couple of times in recent history I’ve encountered Christians who have used the sentence “you’re going to be dead a lot longer than you’re going to be alive” as a way of referring to the fact that heaven (or hell) is forever.

Christians have said it when responding to the popular book, “The Secret.”

One of the finest spokespeople for intellectually defensible Christianity has said it when responding to the likes of Sam Harris. This example frankly shocked me.

I just don’t know why Christians say this at all. They cannot possibly believe it. The language suggests a complete rejection of the physical world in our eternal future, beginning with the point of our death. Our experience will be of heaven or hell forever and ever, and we will always – always – be physically dead, living on only in a disembodied afterlife. Hence, we are (physically) alive for a short while until we die, but we will be dead forever after that, and so “we’re going to be dead a lot longer than we will be alive.”

But Christianity has literally never taught this. This denies the resurrection of the dead. If the resurrection of the dead is true, then we will be dead temporarily, but alive forever. Now, I’m not accusing the many Christians who use this careless phraseology of actually denying the resurrection of the dead – but why use language that does precisely this? Why say something so confusing when it reflects the opposite of what all Christians actually affirm? Please stop.

Do believers in a divine designer really believe in a God of the gaps?

Some opponents of intelligent design say that because it draws on what is in their view an inevitably theological explanation, it must be a kind of “god of the gaps” way of reasoning. One such critic says that “A theory such as ID posits what is pejoratively known in philosophy as a ‘God of the gaps’: in short, it slots the concept of a God into any feature of existence which science or reasoning cannot explain (for the moment).” Proponents of intelligent design maintain that this is a mistaken analysis of their position. Which of these two competing claims is correct does not interest me here. The point is that once a person is found guilty of using “god of the gaps” argument, they are at fault and should withdraw their argument. That much at least is accepted by proponents and opponents of Intelligent Design. What does interest me, however, is the way that some (but surely not all) opponents of belief in God may be tempted to read far too much into the objection that someone is using a god of the gaps mentality.

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I’m in the process of writing the next podcast episode on Alvin Plantinga and his arguments around the idea of belief in God as a properly basic belief. In it, I’m clearly on Plantinga’s side, and I think his work in that area represents a crucial contribution to philosophy of religion (and to epistemology).

I thought, therefore, that I should balance that with the following rather less friendly assessment. I’ve mentioned before that I think that Plantinga’s defence of mind-body dualism is his major weakness (maybe his ontological argument for the existence of God is is second major weakness). Here he is briefly defending mind-body dualism in a talk with Robert Kuhn:

Argument: “It seems to me to be perfectly conceivable that I should exist when my body doesn’t.”

Now, it’s clear to me what Plantinga is getting at, and it’s equally clear that Kuhn has trouble understanding it. Most of Plantinga’s critics at Youtube who watched this clip have the same problem that Kuhn does. Kuhn is getting tangled up in the idea that if something is “possible” then everything in discussion is relegated to a possible world, so we don’t even know if the possibility exists in this world. One of the commentors at Youtube who – ironically – felt that he was competent to assess the philosophical quality of the argument rejected it, saying: “Worst goddamn philosopher ever. Because I can imagine it it’s? true…? .” This is (obviously) wrong, and Plantinga’s argument is a lot better than that. Plantinga’s argument is as follows:

1. If I am identical with B (my body), then absolutely every true statement about me will be true of my body as well (since they are the same thing)
2. “This thing can possibly exist without B” is a statement that’s true of me, but it’s clearly not true of B
3. Therefore I am not identical with B (my body)

It’s not the worst argument in the world, granted, but an argument needs more than that going for it in order to be a good one.

The thought experiment derived from the story Metamorphosis has a couple of problems. For one, beetles don’t have eight legs, they have six. But that’s not the elementary error that matters here – it’s a different elementary problem. Is it really conceivable that I might exist when my body doesn’t? Plantinga’s language reveals a degree of question begging when he says that someone in the story woke up and found himself “in the body of a beetle.” In? It sounds like that description just supposed that we exist independent of a body and can be “in” any number of different bodies. If this is what he really means, then of course only a dualist could find this example even remotely plausible. A physicalist will just look at this thought experiment, if this is what Plantinga means, and say “no, this example is no good. That’s just impossible.”

Of course, the word “metamorphosis” does not at all suggest what Plantinga suggests here. Metamorphosis involves physical change, so what we have here is not Plantinga existing when his body does not. Instead, Plantinga’s form has changed from an upright two legged type form to a black, shiny six legged form. It’s deceptively easy to imagine this scenario just because it’s easy to imagine yourself looking like a beetle. This ease of thought distracts us from the rather significant metaphysical question that we are overlooking, namely that of whether it’s possible to exist apart from our body.

Perhaps an example from the classic horror movie The Wolf Man will suffice to make the point. In the movie, Larry Talbot is the wolf man. He has the curse of the werewolf, and in the full moon he transforms into the terrifying beast that feeds on human flesh. But nobody would take a transformation like this as evidence that Larry Talbot isn’t even a physical being! For Larry, B still exists. It just happens to be a lot hairier than usual.

For Plantinga’s thought experiment to work, therefore, it has to be construed as a case where 1) B is destroyed, 2) there is no causal relationship between B and the beetle body, and 3) There is no truthful sense in which B is the beetle body. But given these constraints, what will the physicalist make of Plantinga’s claim that this scenario is perfectly conceivable? The physicalist will be well with her rights reply, “no, it isn’t conceivable at all.” Verbalising a scenario is not at all the same of really conceiving of it in all of its details. All that Plantinga is really conceiving of, the physicalist will say, is waking up and looking like a beetle.

Greetings dear readers.

It has been really encouraging of late to see the number of visitors to the site continuing to grow. The last few blog entries on the question of historical evidence outside the New Testament for the existence of Jesus in particular have generated a lot of interest – the site stats show that the interest was far greater than is indicated by the comments alone. If you’re  a regular reader/listener, or if you’re a newcomer who likes what’s here, please make sure you spread the word. Also make sure you tell people that you can access the podcast via the iTunes store. Under the podcast category, just search for the title “Say Hello to my Little Friend,” or search Glenn Peoples in the author category.

Here’s an update on what’s going on at the moment. The podcast has been quiet for a moment, but it’s about to roar into life again. As some of you will know, Alvin Plantinga recently retired from his position as the John O’ Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Prompted by this turn of events, the next  episode will introduce listeners who have not yet had the pleasure to one of Plantinga’s most important contributions to philosophy of religion and epistemology – and to philosophy in general, actually, namely the concept of properly basic beliefs and the way that at least some religious beliefs may function as properly basic beliefs. If that sounds dull, trust me – it’s not. I’ll start putting that episode together tonight. I’ve been a little distracted from this over the last couple of days as my wife has been in hospital, but fortunately it looks like all will be well.

As I mention from time to time, I’m also preparing for my approaching trip to the UK to speak in Oxford. For more about this (if you haven’t seen it before), details are here, and if you want to get involved and help me get there, that would be greatly appreciated!

I’m trying to seek out other possible speaking opportunities while I’m in the area too. I’m making contact with the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics to see if they’re interested in a visiting speaker. It would be great if that could take place, so here’s hoping. Here in New Zealand too I’m open to speaking opportunities on a whole range of subject areas.

Also, as I mentioned not too long ago, I’m venturing into starting up an online peer reviewed philosophy journal called The Philosopher’s Stone. Right now I’m assembling an editorial board for this journal. The role of that board is simply to peer reviewed articles that are submitted for publication, or locate someone who would peer review the article. If you’re suitably qualified and think you might be interested, please get in touch.

And that’s all I can tell you for now without having to kill you. Take care out there, kids!

Glenn Peoples

This is the third and final instalment in a short series of blog entries on the discredited but “popular on the internet” belief that not only is Christianity false, but Jesus of Nazareth never even existed at all. In the first part, I looked briefly at the unacceptable and controlling bias when demanding that only sources from outside the New Testament be regarded as historical evidence. In part two I looked at some historical sources that give further credibility to the historicity of the person behind the Christian faith, namely Jesus himself. Those sources, while clearly useful and such that they cannot simply be dismissed, were arguably of minor significance, often due to questions of when they were written.

In this third part, continuing to draw on the excellent work of Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd cited in the previous part, I’ll move on and briefly look at some early but extra-biblical sources on the historical Jesus that are more significant than those already mentioned, and which make a fairly compelling case that Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of Christianity, was known by many as an historical figure. Of course, our expectations need to be realistic. During Jesus’ actual lifetime, Jesus was virtually unknown apart from in the communities in which he lived and taught (and even then, many would not have known who he was). This fact makes the sources that do refer to him even more significant. Let’s take a look at three important such references now.

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Recently I posted a blog entry on the rather radical outlook, held by a fairly slim minority, that not only rejects the truth of Christianity but goes a step further and says that there literally was no such person as Jesus of Nazareth. One of the lines of reasoning that is used to defend this view of history is the claim that we have no early historical references to Jesus. Now of course, and as I pointed out in the last blog entry, a number of very early sources were gathered together into what we call the New Testament. However, the fact that these are Christian documents, written by people who identify as followers of Jesus, causes some people to dismiss them without further question. After all, a person who believes in a historical Jesus of Nazareth who rose from the dead cannot be trusted, right? And so, the most important sources that do refer to the life of Christ that Christians believe in are rejected, not because they are late or otherwise unreliable, but because they present a version of history that many sceptics are unwilling to even contemplate, falling into a dogmatism and partisanship that is completely unacceptable in serious historical study. My first post on this subject, then, briefly explained what is wrong with the methodology of those who insist that the only kind of useful historical evidence that we could have must come from writings that never made it into the New Testament.

Secondly, however, even once we adopt this strange and biased methodology, the claim about the historical Jesus is still highly dubious at best when it comes to the historical existence of Jesus. Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory A. Boyd address this question of historical evidence (among other things) in their magisterial work, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition.

Eddy and Boyd are realistic about sources: some simply aren’t as useful or important as others. In fact some are frankly useless, such as those written centuries later and quite clearly as a theological polemic against a very well developed Christian tradition examples of this type would include rabbinical writings against Jesus or the Qur’an. But beyond sources like these, there are still further grades into which sources fit: sources of minimal value, and then important sources. I’m not going to try to reproduce the diligent work of these two writers here (who are in turn drawing on a wide range of careful and weighty scholarship, for example the work of Craig Evans), so I’ll just offer an overview. If you’d like something more in depth, follow the link above and get yourself a copy of this excellent work. Bear in mind as you read this that there is one and only one question before us: Was there even such a historical person as Jesus of Nazareth upon whom the Christian movement was based? Let’s proceed with this in mind.

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I like people who cite my work (for the right reasons, that is). People like Joel Watts over at The Church of Jesus Christ.

Joel links to my material on the well and truly debunked copy cat theories surrounding the origin of Christianity. According to those theories, Christianity is founded on myth, and the person that Christians refer to as Jesus of Nazareth is a fictional re-writing of any one of – or perhaps a mixture of – saviour hero figures from various other ancient religions. I’ve commented at length on such creative revisionism before and may do so again, but won’t be doing so today.

What prompted me to blog today was the very first comment that appeared on Joel’s blog entry, made by one Robert Wilson.

There’s no such thing as an “historical Jesus”, since there are no non-Biblical records supporting the existence of the Jesus character.

Thanks to the internet, a number of people believe this. They don’t necessarily believe it because they’ve looked in the direction that any of the relevant evidence might lay, although some of them may, in all fairness, have looked at someone’s presentation of the evidence (that is, the alleged evidence that there are no non-biblical records supporting the existence of the Jesus character. Among ancient historians, the thesis that there literally was no historical Jesus on which the early Christian movement was based is like belief in a flat earth. It’s silly, not taken seriously, and there’s really no need to so much as acknowledge the fact that such a theory even exists. But the internet is another story. In order to get online, nothing has to pass peer review. There are no expertise-based prerequisites to post something at a blog (and yes, that applies to my blog as much as to any other). Stories – the wilder, the more damning of people with whom you disagree, and the more scandalous the better – spread online. This story is one of them, leaping like a virus from one message board to another, from one blog to the next. There is no evidence, we are told, none of any sort – and certainly not from ancient historical records – that there even existed a first century person who we now refer to as Jesus of Nazareth. And by “historical,” we naturally mean “outside of the Bible.” Of course.

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