Matthew_Green

Apologetics is actually much worse than you make it out to be. There are simply two approaches to the Bible; biblical apologetics and biblical criticism. The former presumes the inerrancy of the Bible, uses the dishonest "grammatico-historical" method of understanding the Bible whereas the latter is the only honest way of understanding the Bible because it doesn't presuppose the inerrancy of the Bible but instead uses the critical-historical approach. Historical criticism is the only intellectual honest way of approaching any historical text, biblical or not. Apologetics abuses reason by assigning it to a "ministerial" role whereas biblical criticism assigns reason a "magisterial" role. The former abuses reason by making reason a means by which faith can only be vindicated, and never allows reason to contradict faith (which is intellectually dishonest- what do you do if you ever encounter an error, contradiction, or failed prophecy? You are stuck with plausibility scenarios despite how far-fetched, ridiculous, or error-ridden they are). Biblical criticism allows reason to be an end in itself and allows reason to either confirm or contradict the Bible which is the only intellectual honest way of treating the Bible.

Matthew

luvluv

Toto:

Let me get this straight: Lowder knows of better arguments for, say, the Ressurection of Jesus than the ones Craig was using? Which ones would those be?

This hardly gets Crossan off the hook for quite a few of the ponderous misteps he made in the book, in my opinion. For instance, it's clearly implied in Crossan's position that God does not exist objectively. Crossan tried to dodge admitting this, but after a couple of pages of Crossan trying to wriggle his way out of earlier statemebnts he had made, Craig's line of questioning eventually pulled this admission out of him. Craig did this to get Crossan to admit what he had been refusing to admit to that point in the argument, that he (Crossan) had naturalistic biases at work in his exegis.

This didn't seem to me like somebody being above the arguments of his opponent. It seemed like somebody cornered by the arguments of their oponent into going back on an earlier claim. (If Crossan doesn't believe that God has an objective existence outside of the mids of believers, then he is predestined to deny the Ressurection, regardless of the textual evidence or lack thereof - which was Craig's point).

Anyway, I still disagree with Lowder. IMO, Crossan got his keister handed to him because his own position on the Ressurection is just bizzare, and Crossan wouldn't defend them. Craig would launch very precise attacks on Crossan's postion, and Crossan would get to the mic and change the subject.

How can somebody not take seriously having their own theories attacked, and attacked competently, in front of a layman audience? You think if somebody attacked Einstein on the subject of relativity in front of a bunch of high school science students that Einstein would have changed the subject? What do you think the students would have thought of Einstein's theory if they saw him back away from legitimate challenges to his position offered by someone who isn't even a scientist?

"Not taking the opponent seriously" is an incredibly lame excuse for not showing up to a debate. I paid like 15 bucks for that book. If Crossan wasn't going to take the debate seriously, he should have stayed his keister home and made room for somebody who would.

And what's Lowder's area of expertise, anyway? Isn't it ethics?

Peter Kirby

Perhaps, unless Crossan or other such person comes to estimate that the evidence or basis for believing in the Resurrection is greater than and overcomes the evidence or basis for believing in the non-existence of God as an independent, objective entity. There is a common assumption that beliefs about God (however defined) are "essentialist" and that they define who a person is, such that they cannot be changed like other beliefs can. However, someone can as easily change their position on the Resurrection as they can on God; or, at least, the opposite (that beliefs about God are much more difficult to change than beliefs about the Resurrection) hasn't been demonstrated.

best,
Peter Kirby

luvluv

It would be pretty hard to come up with such evidence from the material available to us, is the point.

Sure, if Crossan was there and saw it, he'd certainly be more than capable of overriding his naturalistic biases. Craig's point is that given all that we have is textual evidence regarding the event, Crossan's disbelief in the objective existence of a God makes his disbelief in the Ressurection a fait accompli. There's no way such a bias can be overcome given the nature of the available evidence.

If you believe that God exists, and Ressurections are thus on the table, then it's possible that the evidence presented to you could lead you to believe that God rose Jesus from the dead. If you don't believe in God, it would probably take a lot more evidence to convince you of this particular conclusion. In fact, any other conclusion that did not involve a God would seem more probable to you. I think Craig's point was that Crossan could not that Crossan could not acknowledge the Ressurection, but that he would not so long as he remained an atheist. So Craig was insisting that it was important to Crossan's integrity that he inform the audience that he did not, in effect, believe in a God who exists outside of human experience, and that he ineveitably interprets the textual evidence from that standpoint.

Presumably, a theist could believe that God raised Jesus from the dead or not. An atheist, so long as he remains an atheist, really doesn't have a choice. I think Craig just wanted the audience to know that Crossan remains, essentially, an atheist.

(And incidentally, I don't think the simple belief that Jesus rose from the dead is sufficient to cause belief in The Ressurection of Christian doctrine. IIRC, one of the liberal scholars made this point, that proving that Jesus rose from the dead could as easily be construed as a work of quantum mechanics as a work of the Christian God. Thus I don't think that even sufficient evidence that Jesus rose from the dead would necessarily be sufficient to cause Crossan or any other theological liberal to embrace the Christian claim that God rose Jesus from the dead in confirmation of His ministry.)

Family Man

luvluv,

Unless I became I hermit, I don't think I could completely cut my self off from Christian apologetics.

And, actually, I do enjoy an intelligent debate where the points are considered charitably, the participants are willing to explain what they mean clearly, and claims that one is ignorant if they haven't read exactly what the other has are non-existent. What I don't enjoy are pompous claims that someone else has a lock on the truth and anyone that doesn't accept that is hopelessly deluded -- which is what much of apologetics boils down to.

Now, this digression on Crossan and Craig is interesting, but not particularly relevant to the point of the thread, so let me ask you a couple of question:

1. Do you think the apologetics described in the OP is reasonable.
2. If so, on what basis do you make the claim that it is reasonable? Can you demonstrate similar analyses by respectable scholars in fields other than religion?
3. If not, what exactly then is the point you want to make about my OP?

Peter Kirby

Since I spoke of the relative difficulty of changing a belief regarding God vis a vis changing a belief concerning the existence of God, the above statement's truth depends entirely on how strong one considers the evidence against the existence of God (whatever that may be).

The words "naturalistic" and "bias" are often put together in this way, but they need not be. For a person who is actually a metaphysical naturalist, it would be proper to speak of a "naturalistic belief" or a "naturalistic position," which then may or may not be said to be a "biased belief in naturalism" generally, or, in a particular case, "disbelief in a supernatural event that is biased." However, metaphysical naturalism, or any particular naturalistic conclusion, is not necessarily "biased" in a strong use of that word.

Perhaps I can agree to the point you are making if expressed, roughly, in terms of probability theory--and then ask if that is what you are saying.

"God rose Jesus from the dead" can be decomposed into "Jesus rose [or was raised] from the dead," (event R) "there was/is a God," (being G) and "the being causing event R was being G," which is c(R, G). The truth of c(R, G) presupposes the truth of R (Jesus rose) and G (God exists). The probability of this is what one would want to evaluate in a debate like this.

W. L. Craig, who does classical apologetics for theism, may assign G a value of 1 or of a number around 0.9, depending on which argument for theism he is using. A so-called weak atheist may assign G a value of 0.5. A strong atheist, a value of 0.1. For either atheist, even if they give the same value to the historical arguments for R (Jesus rose), the statement [an abductive/explanatory conclusion] c(R, G) would be given a lower value, simply because of the background probability assigned to G. To be succinct, the less likely it is that God exists, the less likely it is that God rose Jesus from the dead.

I would grant this point. The point that I was making is that, so long as the person does not believe in the impossibility of theism (a probability value of 0), the discussion does not "stop before it starts," as it were. If a strong case could be made for R as well as for the explanation of R that has God as the cause, the conclusion c(R, G) could be made more probable than not, even if the prior probability of G was low.

Is this what you are saying? Or, at least, can the above be used to clarify what you are saying?

This is why a classical apologete needs to focuse her efforts also on the argument for P( c(R, G) | R ), that is, the probability of God as the cause given the Resurrection.

For my part, if "Q" stands for "Quantum Happenstance," I would give P( C(R, G) | R ) a higher value than P( C(R, Q) | R).

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

Lowder knows of better arguments against the Resurrection of Jesus than the ones that Crossan was using.

I'm not sure how you got confused on that.