Jobar

In xeren's thread, DMB made this comment:

Many theists come here and argue for the existence of a god based on non-biblical evidence that they claim is available to all who take an unbiased look at the world. This sort of thing has been going on for hundreds of years. The reasons for setting up these arguments in the first place may be because many people have always found the bible somewhat underwhelming as evidence for god(s). So the theists, while totally convinced themselves either by the bible or by church doctrine, try to promote a secular argument for believing in god(s). The same basic arguments have been batted around by philosophers, theologians and laypeople for ever. I am sure we are all well aware of them.

What never seems to be addressed, however, is how one gets from supposing that a creator god (or gods) might be possible to the supposition that this entity must be identical to the Jewish god or the xian god or the muslim god or any other particular one.

This seems to me well worth a thread of its own, as it is a problem I don't recall seeing deeply explored. We have various theistic posters here who argue for God on philosophical grounds; I have often seen people object that even if the logic of their argument was sound, the God so proven certainly need not be the Christian one. So, how do theists attempting to prove the Abrahamic God (or any other for that matter) make this leap?

Ojuice5001

Hi Jobar,

It is a rational to assume that the unknown is consistent with the known. Take polytheism vs. monotheism. When we look at the world around us, the entities we see have a vast diversity of identity and purpose. Thus, it makes more sense to believe that the cause of the world, the supernatural realm, also has such a diversity. Polytheism is superior to Christianity, which allows for no more than two overarching forces (God and Satan).

So while polytheism is better, that still doesn't narrow things down to a specific deity (e.g., Apollo or Postverta). To get an idea of a specific deity, you need to look at one small section of the world, and ask, Which deity appears to be active in this section?

What everyone knows best is their own life, so that's what you should use--the methodology gets personal at this point. For instance, an examination of my life led me to the conclusion that the deity in charge of it had a distinct affinity for a clinging to the past and present, basic emotion and thought patterns, and isolation; from this I realized that the deity was a deity of the past. Upon learning that one Roman goddess is the goddess of the past, I decided that this goddess was the one that had made herself known in my life.

So that's my answer. The end result can only be one of many gods; this methodology can only yield knowlege about an alleged Supreme God if the entire universe is well-known. But there are good reasons to think that even if the Supreme God exists, he is indifferent and unknowable anyway.

Kenny

Hello Jobar,

First, let me point out that I myself am somewhat skeptical of the degree of value to which many contemporary Christian apologists attribute to many classical theistic arguments as well as various historical arguments for the Christian faith. I do not think that such arguments are completely devoid of merit, but their value is limited. Thus, my purposes in this post are primarily informative rather than argumentative.

That being said, there are two different approaches often taken within Christian apologetics with respect to your question.

The first approach often goes under the name “classical apologetics.” The idea here is that arguing for the truth of the Christian faith proceeds in three stages. The first stage involves demonstrating through logical argument that a transcendent personal God, like that described in the Bible, exists. The second stage relies on the supposition that if such a God exists, there is a reasonably high antecedent probability (but, still, perhaps, far below .5) that this God may have somehow acted in human history to reveal Himself and His purposes to us. Thus, we should look to history and see if there is any evidence that such revelation, in fact, took place. At this point, historical arguments, such as arguments for the resurrection of Jesus come into play. The final step in such an argument is to argue that the most probable explanation of something like Jesus resurrecting from the dead (established through historical arguments) is that God (established to exist through logical argument) acted uniquely in human History to reveal Himself as Christianity maintains.

The second approach is known as “historical apologetics.” This approach basically says that the first stage of classical apologetics is unnecessary. According to this approach, all that matters is that there be a reasonably high antecedent probability (but, perhaps, still relatively low) that God exists and may have acted in human history through something like the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. As long as this is true, argues the historical apologist, there is a sufficiently high antecedent probability that something like the resurrection of Jesus occurred to leave the claim that Jesus rose from the dead open to possible historical confirmation on the basis of evidence. The argument then proceeds to demonstrate that the evidence does, in fact, warrant the claim that Jesus rose from the dead and that inference to the best explanation results in the conclusion that “God raised Jesus from the dead in the manner Christianity proclaims.” Of course, the existence of God follows as a matter of logical entailment from the previous conclusion. The historical apologist often does not reject classical theistic arguments, however, for they assist the historical argument by means of strengthening the antecedent probabilities; she merely does not see them as necessary.

Hope that helps.

God Bless,
Kenny

Jayhawker Soule

"Thus"? What pretentious bullpuckie!

Once you presume "the cause of the world, the supernatural realm", your argument forfeits all claim to "sense" or integrity.

Ojuice5001

ConsequentAtheist,

First of all, Jobar's question looked to me as if it ignores the question of whether the theist's reasons for believing in god(s) are good ones, in favor of focusing on how you get from this general concept to a specific god. If the question says "even if the logic of [a theist's] argument was sound," then the person who answers can assume that the logic of the theist's argument is sound.

Second, your post used name-calling to the exclusion of argument in dealing with the question of whether supernatural theism is true. Why should I believe that supernaturalism is inherently nonsensical?

DMB

Kenny: I have some objections to your post but am running out of time for my session here today, so I won't go into them this time. However, I'd like to know how your arguments don't lead to problems when you consider god's revelations to Muhammad, which postdate the supposed ministry and death of Jesus.

Jayhawker Soule

Valid point. I stand corrected and apologize.

tommyc

I think Ed would have some interesting* input into this subject. Check out Rimstalkers epic First Cause thread from last year to see quite a big debate about this. Ed is trying to prove that the creator has to be the Christian God because it is the only personal God, or something along those lines. Also that there is diversity and complexity from a single God, blah blah, and how that is detailed in the bible. Come on Ed, throw in your 2 cents!

* by interesting, I of course mean "arse"

Kenny

Well, keep in mind that I’m not really making specific historical arguments here, nor am I interested in doing so at the moment. There are other Christians on this board who are more qualified than I am to make the historical arguments, so I am content to leave that to them if they so choose. I’m more interested in (and more qualified to speak about) the meta-discussion involving the overall methodologies and epistemological presuppositions involved in different argumentative strategies. Furthermore, keep in mind my own expressed skepticism of the value of both of the approaches I described. I think they both have some merit, but their merits are limited, and I personally do not usually appropriate them into my own apologetic methods.

Those disclaimers having been made, neither the classical nor the historical method of apologetics would claim that any purported revelation from God is a genuine revelation from God. Both would merely claim that there is a reasonably high antecedent probability that such a revelation might have taken place to warrant an historical investigation into the possibility and to leave open the possibility of historical confirmation. Consequently, on these approaches, each purported revelation from God would have to be taken on a case by case basis and evaluated in light of the historical evidence. The arguments from both of these schools of apologetics, with respect to the question of Islam, would be that there really is strong historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, but there is virtually no historical evidence (or even evidence to the contrary) that Muhammad’s claims to have received revelation from God are correct. Keep in mind also that Islam typically denies both that Jesus died and that Jesus rose from the dead. So, if the evidence does, in fact, warrant the claim that Jesus rose from the dead then the evidence also warrants the conclusion that Islam is mistaken in these respects.

God Bless,
Kenny

DMB

I now have time to comment on the two approaches described by Kenny. Thank you for this, Kenny. I appreciate that you do not necessarily subscribe to them yourself.

With respect to the second approach, this seems to dodge the issue to which I am referring. It supposes that Jesus probably did rise form the dead and that this is somehow sufficient to make it likely that the xian god exists. So it is not filling the chasm between the arguments for the existence of a creative principle and the existence of the highly specific xian god. It is simply saying that you don’t need to argue in that direction at all. This is an approach that is hardly likely to convince those who do not already subscribe to the xian faith.

The first approach at least gives a semblance of dealing with the problem I raised. However, if you have stated it correctly, we immediately see a difficulty
Now I talked about the gap between conceding the possibility of a creator of the universe and the acceptance of specific gods, like the xian god. You refer to “a transcendent personal God”, which is certainly not implied by the possible existence of a creator of the universe. Thus the gap looms as big as ever. That is the gap that we need to fill.

The historical authenticity of Jesus, his resurrection and other evidence of the hand of god have been frequently rehearsed in this forum, and many of us are sceptical of the value of any of this as historical evidence to authenticate a xian god. Even less can I discern any intrinsic difference between the revelations ascribed to the xian god and to the muslim god. In both cases, it looks to me as though you need to see these things through the eye of faith in the first place before they become convincing. Perhaps that is why religious leaders place so much stress on the merits of faith.