Philosophy

I was pleasantly surprised to find that McCain has chosen Sarah Palin to be his running mate. I reproduce here most of my post from May 10, 2008 in which I applauded Palin’s strong pro-life stance: Al Mohler has a post in which he reflects upon a phenomenon gaining increasing acceptance… eugenic abortion. The impetus [...]

At least according to this study. HT: Tom Gilson.

I suppose a really good study would break it down between soft determinists and hard determinists. Maybe it's just the hard determinists that are skewing the curve.

You can also criticize the argument by maintaining, in a broadly Humean way, that the claim that Jesus is God is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. Hence if you have some evidence that Jesus claimed to be God, and that Jesus possessed the character of a great moral teacher, and that it is highly improbable that Jesus could have had the character of a great moral teacher while at the same time falsely claiming to be God, you still can't get to the conclusion that Jesus was God if the claim that Jesus is God is so antecedently improbable that the evidence for the other propostions can't get the claim anywhere near probability .5. I can lay this all out with Bayes'theorem:

p (h/e) (The consequent probability of the claim Jesus is God after the evidence concerning Jesus' claim to be God and his being a great moral teacher is considered) = P (h) (the antecedent probability that Jesus is God) X P (e/h), (how probable the evidence would be if Jesus were God) over P (e) (how probable the evidence would be whether or not Jesus is God.

Doctor Logic's claim is that the claim "Jesus is God" is so antecedently improbable that the even if historical evidence provides some confirmation of the claim, and if all the naturalistic scenarios have plausibility problems, the argument still fails.

I addressed this issue in my essay replying to Hume on miracles, and C. S. Lewis addressed in in chapter 13 of Miracles. I link to my own essay here.

J. P. Holding says that it does, and that pro-chioce interpretations are unreasonable.

Here's something I expected to see about the time hell freezes over. A Republican commercial extolling one of the Clintons because she "told the truth." Politics makes strange bedfellows!

The Christ on Campus Initiative is a ministry… … created for the purpose of preparing and circulating literature for college and university students, addressing an array of important intellectual and practical issues from an evangelical Christian perspective. Top evangelical scholars are recruited to write articles which are… … intellectually rigorous, culturally relevant, persuasive in argument and faithful [...]

Althought the presidential campaigns have been underway for some time now (it almost seems like they never stop), we are about to enter the homestretch when advertising will intensify. The respective national conventions are coming up in the next two weeks. It is always disheartening and disappointing to see all the negative advertising, [...]

There are two general lines of objection to Lewis's argument. One of them is the Higher Critical objection and the other the Sincere Mistake objection.

Stephen Davis's challenge to the higher critical objection is that even if you go as far with higher criticism as the Jesus Seminar goes, (which means, for example, things like "Before Abraham was, I am (YHWH) would be excluded as products of the early church), there are passages rated at least pink (Jesus probably said something like this) like

"But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you." (Luke 11: 20)

This clearly means that Jesus actually thought he was exercising God's eschatological power in exorcisms.

OR "Listen to me all of you, and understand, there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. (Mk 7: 14-15).

So Jesus claims the authority to say that we are not defiled by eating the wrong foods? And he's telling this to observant Jews? Who does he think he is?

or "The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath." Mk 2: 27-28.,

Lord over the Sabbath?? Is he saying he made the Sabbath the Sabbath, and can set it aside if necessary? Again, who does he think he is?

These sayings are rated as likely to have actually been said by the Jesus Seminar.

It's also important to realize that the Jewish leaders reacted just as we would expect them to react to (to their mind) inappropriate divine claim. In response to Jesus' claim to forgive sins, The Jewish leaders don't say "No one can get their sins forgiven except by going to the temple," they say "No one can forgive sins but God alone." These sayings are rated as likely to have actually been said by the Jesus Seminar.

And notice the other problem. Suppose you think that a purely naturalistic Jesus has to be found. The cartoon image I have in my mind is some kind of first-century hippie guru who teaches peace and love, told good stories, and didn't claim any kind of supernatural prerogatives. It was his followers dragged in all the supernatural stuff and made a religion out of this simple leader's teaching (especially that jerk Paul). So everything is inauthentic that can't be fitted in nicely with philosophical naturalism.

But I have no idea how to peel the onion back so that we can get a historical Jesus who fits nicely with naturalism, and then throw the rest out as a product of the early church. Is there anything in the text that actually supports that kind of reading? Second, if we go that way with respect to Jesus, why would anyone bother to crucify him?

Beversluis's effort is a creditable one from the critical side. But Davis's essay from the Oxford Press anthology on the Incarnation, is an extremely important one, and although Beversluis responds Davis at one point in the essay, he doesn't deal at all with Davis's argument against the Higher Critical objection, which I have given only a small part of here.

I'm linking to the book where Davis's essay appears.

John Beverslius, of course, has more than one paragraph devoted to Lewis's trilemma in his book. This is his entire chapter, which appears on Debunking Christianity. It's a good challenge for supporters of the argument, and a substantial improvement over his previous discussion.

Christian Audio continues their generosity to the Christian reading public by providing this months free audiobook, The Confessions of Saint Augustine. There are no strings attached. The Confessions are considered to be the first Western autobiography written (around 397-398 A.D.) and has been very influential throughout church history. Augustine tells the story [...]

While reading Ronald H. Nash’s The Gospel and the Greeks, I came across the following quote of A. H. Arrstrong which came from his An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy. These comments, according to Nash, illustrate Plato’s relevance for Christian thought. I found them worthy of consideration. Everyone who believes in an objective and unchanging [...]

I did a course on Mere Christianity a couple of years back, and blogged my notes. I am transferring those notes to a separate blog, in hopes they will provide a study guide resource for MC.

Rachel Motte has a post at Scriptorium called “The Candidate and the President: Rachel Motte Reports from Saddleback.” The following two parapraghs from her post provide a concise summary of the impressions made by the two participants: Mr. Obama has talked at length in previous forums about his ability to bring people together. In reality [...]

A redated post.

Here's what I wrote about the LLL argument in my book. pp. 13-14.

Perhaps Lewis's most famous argument is what is known as the Lewis trilemma. It is unreasonable, Lewis says, to say that Christ is a great moral teacher but not God, because he claimed, both implicitly and explicitly, to be God. If he wasn't God, he either had to be lying, which would make him wicked, or he had to be deluded, which would make him insane. Since these two alternatives are implausible, Lewis says he must be telling the truth and really be God.

Many others have repeated this argument in their own apologetics. The argument makes four assumptions, however, and critics of the argument have challenged all these assumptions.

1. Jesus' claims in Scripture are best interpreted as not merely as claims to be the Jewish Messiah, but as claims to be God.

2. The Gospels are a reliable historical record of what Jesus said and did.

3. No sane person can form the false belief that he himself is God.

4. The claim "Jesus is God" is more antecedently probable than the admittedly antecedently improbable claiim that Jewus was a great moral teacher but and either a liar or a madman.

Lewis supplies some argumentation in defense of all of these claims in various parts of his writings, and it seems to me that there is a good deal to be said on both sides of each of these claiims before a final assessment can be reached. If all these assumptions are defensible, then the argument is a good one. But rather than debating these assumptions, apologists have simply repeated the mantra "liar, lunatic or Lord," while opponents have cried in response "false dilemma." Neither of these responses, in my estimation, does justice to the complex issues the trilemma raises.

John Mark Reynolds has a three-part discussion on what evangelicals want in regard to the coming election. In Part 1, he lays out some major issues of concern to most evangelicals. In Part 2, he presents a letter, in its entirety, from an Obama supporter who is also evangelical. In Part 3, [...]

I was unable to watch the civil forum which took place at Saddleback church on Saturday evening, so I recorded it and watched last evening. It was one of the most enjoyable political debates/discussions I have ever viewed. I feel like I know both men better now. It was clear that both [...]

William F. Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, provided an exercise for his readers in which the goal is to explain why the syllogism is invalid. There are formal rules of logic which must be followed to arrive at a valid conclusion. Inversely, there are also formal fallacies which, when committed, lead to an invalid conclusion. [...]

First of all, Al Mohler (here) examines the question of whether marital infidelity and sexual immorality should have any bearing on America’s judgment of the fitness of political candidates for public office. Mohler comes down on the side of unfitness: The American people are incredibly forgiving, but John Edwards violated a basic sense of public [...]

Solzhenitsyn, one of the most important men of the 20th century died a few days ago on August 3, 2008. Robert Kraynak, of First Things, has written a piece in his honor, Solzhenitsyn and the Battle for the Human Soul. Solzhenitsyn was a Russian writer and historian who helped bring down the totalitarian [...]