Why Most Objections to Christianity Fail from the Outset

Most people don’t realize it, but the majority of objections leveled at Christianity fail from the outset. This is because of something I call the entailment problem. Basically, it means that the objection does not at all logically entail the falsehood of Christianity’s central premise. The central premise is the identity of Jesus as the Messiah and Lord. What use is an objection to Christianity if the fact that Jesus is the Son of God remains intact?

Furthermore, most of these objections don’t even attack most core doctrines of Christianity. The book of Acts records early Christian preaching of the gospel. Most objections to Christianity do not even attempt to falsify the gospel message. Furthermore, even other core elements, such as the Second Coming of Jesus aren’t falsified either. Most objections to Christianity don’t even attack the Nicene Creed!

William Lane Craig is a Christian philosopher who is known for making similar arguments. When people raise certain objections, he sometimes says things like: “but what does this entail? That Jesus didn’t rise from the dead? That Jesus isn’t the Son of God?” He also uses a web metaphor, where he says core doctrines, such as the existence of God and the resurrection are at the center, and things such as Biblical inerrancy, and a person’s views of controversial theological topics are on the periphery of the web. I want to build on this view and illustrate how true it really is.

A few obviously false logical arguments will illustrate the point that most attacks on Christianity don’t really attack the main message:

Example of Fallacious Syllogisms

Evolution is true.

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Therefore, Jesus is not the Son of God and did not rise from the dead.

It is unjust and unloving for God to send people into eternal punishment.

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Therefore, Jesus is not the Son of God and did not rise from the dead.

Christians are sometimes hypocrites.

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Therefore, Jesus is not the Son of God and did not rise from the dead.

Christians sometimes hate homosexuals.

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Therefore, Jesus is not the Son of God and did not rise from the dead.

There was no actual flood of Noah.

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Therefore, Jesus is not the Son of God and did not rise from the dead.

The cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments for the existence of God are unsuccessful.

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Therefore, Jesus is not the Son of God and did not rise from the dead.

The Bible contains contradictions and mistakes.

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Therefore, Jesus is not the Son of God and did not rise from the dead.

You get my drift……

Granted, I will not even concede the first premise in many instances. But even if the first premise is true, it does nothing to defeat Christianity’s core message. Some of these arguments above are more apparently false than others, but the principle remains true.

Some legitimate concerns have to be addressed here. One may accuse me of picking and choosing which aspects of Christianity to believe in order to win an argument. Both Christians and non-Christians seem not to appreciate this. However, think of it this way. Let’s imagine that the only things I know about Christianity are what is contained in the Nicene Creed. So imagine someone brings up one of these objections to me. It wouldn’t make any sense to me. Let’s say perhaps that I not only just believe the Nicene Creed, but I am familiar with strong arguments for the resurrection of Jesus. Should I abandon Christianity because someone brings up the eternal hell objection, or evolution, or anything else? Certainly not. This was the position many of the first Christians were in, especially the one’s Paul preached to in Athens Greece. All they knew was the main message, nothing else.

It’s not like a person is picking and choosing which core doctrines are most important. It’s that most of these objections don’t even attack the core doctrines at all! If these objections succeed, they just cut branches off of the tree, they don’t cut down the tree itself.

Early Christian Belief

To the early Christians, Christianity is true because of the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah and Lord. This was based on eyewitness testimony of the appearances. This message was understood to be the fulfillment of the Jewish religion. The death and resurrection of the Messiah was the trunk of the tree, and the other doctrines branched out because Jesus taught them or they were big concepts in the Old Testament.

This is not how many American Christians think of it today. For many of us, the fact that the Bible is perfectly true is the trunk of the tree, and all the other beliefs, such as the resurrection of Jesus and his death for sins, hangs on that. Some people even go so far as to say that if there is even one contradiction in the Bible, then the whole thing is false. This is not at all how I see them do it in early Christianity. They held all those other beliefs, like the authority of Scripture, and all those other controversial teachings, they just weren’t the center of their beliefs. Christianity wasn’t true because the Bible was true. It was true because Jesus was raised from the dead and fulfilled Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah.

Biblical Inerrancy

The fact that the Bible may contain many contradictions and errors falls into this category as well. Even if the Bible contained many errors and contradictions, it would certainly not falsify Christianity. However, saying that the Bible contains mistakes is a far cry from saying that certain elements of it, namely the Gospels, aren’t historically reliable. Dr. Gary Habermas has shown that we don’t even have to regard the gospels as reliable historical information to provide good evidence for the resurrection.

For example, the assassination of Julius Caesar only has 2 primary sources (Plutarch and Suetonius), all written over 100 years after the actual events. Neither of these guys could be eyewitnesses, even if they wanted to be. Furthermore, they even contradict one another on the last words of Caesar. Yet people don’t even think twice when believing that Julius Caesar was stabbed to death on the Senate floor in Rome.

The gospels are 4 primary sources (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), some of whom claim to be eyewitnesses or at least claim to have talked to them. In addition, these are all written within 70 years of the events, according to even the most liberal scholars. Just like the Caesar accounts, these could contain many mistakes, but still be a worthwhile source of historical information, especially on the things they all agreed on (such as the resurrection and the feeding of the 5000). So Christianity is not at all dependent on the belief that the Bible contains no contradictions.

Summary

So overall, unless a skeptic challenges a core part of the Nicene Creed, or a core part of original Christian preaching, Christianity hasn’t even been challenged….

The Problem of Evil - SOLVED

Traditional Problem of Evil

One of the most popular positive arguments for atheism is the problem of evil. The traditional form goes something like this. (My logic is not perfect but you get the idea).

1) God is perfectly loving.

2) God is perfectly powerful.

3) A perfectly loving being would stop suffering if he could.

4) A perfectly powerful being would be able to stop suffering if he wanted.

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5) Therefore, there is no suffering in the world.

But 5) is evidently false. Therefore, God does not exist.

There are many logically possible escapes from this problem, so most philosophers don't use it anymore.

Gratuitous Evil

One can argue that given a God we would not see the amount of evil that we see in the world today. If God exists, there would be some evil, but not the amount we see today.

Probabilistic Argument

Another contemporary argument is that while its logically possible that God exists and there be evil in the world, it is an unlikely scenario.

I believe that 4 classic defenses adequately resolve these issues. Once we introduce the first defense, the other 3 seem to build on top of each of the others.

1) Free Will Defense for Moral Evil

If God exists and wants to make creatures who love him, it requires that they have the option to not love him. This is the classic free will defense. Furthermore, the option to not love God or to do evil must be a genuine option, or else freedom isn't significant. For example, if God stopped us every time we did something evil, we would give up trying. For example, you know that by jumping off of a bench you cannot fly. So why bother trying? Same with evil. If its physically impossible to punch my classmate, will I even try?

This also applies to the amount of evil a person does. If God wants to let people fully define their own character, that means he has to let them do as much good or as much evil as they want.

2) Aesthetic Disadvantages Necessary for Good

The above scenario is impossible without some sort of lack of good in the world, or limitations on resources or "happy-making" things. If we all had unlimited resources and always had what we always wanted without thinking about it, then there is no real love or sacrifice, and no moral good. So if nothing ever goes wrong in any significant way, there is no way for me to provide any sort of significant sacrifice. Free will is pretty useless in choosing between good and evil if evil has no appeal at all.

Therefore, the existence of major natural evils and minor inconveniences makes sense since it always for that much more moral sacrifice.

3) Afterlife Theodicy

Both of these raise immediate issues which also have to be addressed. If God wants to allow people to fully determine their character, that means he has to let them do whatever harm or good they want. This includes doing harm to completely helpless persons who have never committed any sin at all (such as infants). Furthermore, the existence of natural evil and inconveniences would also affect persons innocent and helpless people.

This brings us to one of God's actual resolutions to the problem of evil, which is found in the resurrection of Jesus. Christian theology maintains that since Jesus died and rose again to eternal life, those who have faith in him will also die and raise again to eternal life at the Second Coming. The Bible also maintains that our current sufferings are mere inconveniences compared to the glory we will experience later on. So, God will compensate innocent persons who suffer (such as infants) over 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 more than the pain they ever experienced. This makes God act justly towards innocent persons who suffer.This is God's primary resolution to the problem of evil: Complete restoration of physical existence for all eternity, which is an incomparable good.

This resolution not only applies to eternal life, but to God's justice at judgment day. After everyone has freely determined their own evil character, or freely allowed God to make them into good persons, there will be a day of judgment. God will finally defeat all evil, restore heaven and earth, and bring justice to the wicked, and vindication to the righteous. Furthermore, God gets justice against all the sins we commit in our lives through the sacrificial death of Jesus for sins. This way, God completely eliminates any pain people would have incurred due to deserving punishment, if they freely accept the gift.

4) The "Butterfly Effect" (Molinism)

The existence of God's resolution to the problem of evil (eternal life), requires that an all loving God would make sure that as many people as possible actually experienced that resolution. This is related to the problem of free will. Although God cannot coerce anyone, he can put them in situations which influence their behavior in a positive way. The same goes for convincing the person to do the highest good possible, which is to choose to worship God.

This is analogous to the refinement of tornado alert systems in the past 60 years. When a tornado comes, a loving government would try to save as many people as possible and get them to heed the warning. They are aware that if they test the siren too much, people will disregard the warning when a tornado actually comes. Furthermore, they have found that sounding the alarm more than 20 minutes before the tornado emergency that it is actually useless in making more people take cover.

This is the situation God is in. He knows what circumstances he has to place people into in order to convince them to "take cover" from incoming judgment and accept the gift of eternal life. However, he knows that its logically impossible to coerce all of his free creatures to do something, since part of the definition of being free is not being coerced into a decision. So God likely created the world so that it would turn out with the highest possible ratio of people who freely believed in Christ.

For example, imagine that God has a huge computer menu of all of the worlds he could possibly make. Obviously, God is going to create the one that saves the most people, ceteris paribus. However, imagine God clicks on world A. A message box pops up and says "Are you sure you want to create this world? All of the people in this world will be relatively happy, but only 1% of them will actually choose to worship you, and the rest will be condemned." Suppose then that God, dissatisfied with this solution, clicks on world B. A message box pops up and says "Are you sure you want to create this world? Hitler will kill 12 million people in this world and 70 million Christians will be martyred. However, the highest possible percentage of people will choose to worship you and will be saved for eternity." Regardless of the temporary agony in this life, the most loving God would select world B, since it saves the most for all eternity.

So, when God chooses the world in which most people are convinced to accept eternal life, there could easily be very agonizing collateral damage, such as Hitlers, Mao's, lots of starving children, etc.. However, it pales in comparison to the good that can be obtained, which is eternal life for the most possible people.

It is likely that this is the actual world in which we live. This website shows how Christianity spread, eventually becoming the dominant religion in most of the globe.

http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/history-of-religion.html

Furthermore, the existence of natural evil in death actually increases the likelihood that we will choose to worship God. Imagine how arrogant we would all be if we all lived until judgment day. We would feel no pressing need for God or salvation. However, in a world where death is a regular and pressing reality, we would be humbled and see how truly helpless we are without God. In fact, countries in poverty and difficult circumstances are most likely to accept Christianity. This does not at all mean that God likes poverty (certainly not!). Nor does it mean that God coerced them into believing in him by virtue of their situation (indeed there are certainly non-believers in poverty!). It merely influences their decision and increases the likelihood they will choose to worship God.

Summary:

I believe this way of forming the resolution to the problem of evil is the most adequate way to solve the problem. If we have a perfectly loving and perfectly powerful God, the situation gets very complicated once we introduce free creatures who get to choose good or evil. If they get to choose good or evil, evil has to be a real option for them, and not something God stops them from doing at the last minute. Furthermore, for loving actions to be significant it would involve a sacrifice of some sort of temporal good. This is impossible without at least some natural evil or inconveniences. Furthermore, the injustice caused by these situations is resolved on judgment day where God punishes the wicked, and over-compensates the innocent with eternal life. Finally, God uses bad circumstances to influence the decisions of people to turn to him and be saved.

Did Jesus Claim to be Yahweh?

Most non-Christian scholars will have you believe that Jesus never thought of himself as having personal identity with the Jewish God. First, though skeptical scholars accept enough information to strongly believe in miracles, they tend to challenge the authenticity of many of Jesus words. It just so happens that the words they like to challenge happen to be bold statements of his deity. However, I will argue that it is in fact extremely likely that Jesus indeed thought of himself as God, and very much intended his disciples think so as well.

Modern Scholarship is Not Particularly Concerning

Before we get to the actual evidence, an important point must be made. It would be very logical for a person in 1st century Judaism to not be too forward about the fact that they think they are actually the incarnation of the Jewish God. (Whether or not Jesus actually was forward about it or not). So if the liberal scholarship is in a habit of using a very strict criteria for the sayings of Jesus, it is no surprise at all that they rule out extremely explicit sayings to his deity, since they might not occur very often anyway.

So first off, it makes sense that if he did make such a claim, that he might not necessarily make a lot of noise about it. So if scholars apply ruthless criteria to the text for authenticity, then it shouldn't bother us that they don't come to the conclusion that he claimed he was God, since that is something he may not have explicitly said very much. (Implicitly, it's a whole 'nother ball game!)

All that aside, there is powerful evidence Jesus actually did think of Himself as Israel's God for this main reason:

Why Should the Jews Become Idolaters for No Reason?

The disciples of Jesus and Paul never intended to depart from Judaism, or to stop worshipping Israel's God, or even to stop being monotheists. The apostle Paul, in his letters, is a monotheist. Furthermore, merely being the Jewish Messiah did not automatically mean a person was God. There were a few other people claiming to be the Jewish Messiah in that general time frame, and non of them were worshiped as God, as far as I can tell. (see wikipedia on 1st Century Messiah claimants). Now, in order to say that Jesus didn't want his disciples to think he was God, that means they made it up. But remember...they have no intentions of changing the God they worship. That would mean they would have deliberately risked becoming idolaters for no reason at all. They risk the judgment and the rejection of God himself if they worship other gods. Idolatry is the most serious sin in Judaism. To say the disciples and Paul started worshiping Jesus as God, without him ever saying a word about it, would mean they became idolaters for no reason and without any explanation at all.

Analogy

The disciples believing that Jesus is God without him saying a word about it, would be akin to 12 fundamentalist Christians deciding that their pastor is God, without him saying anything at all of the sort! Keep in mind, Christians think its the worst evil to worship someone besides Jesus. It's absolutely incredible to assume a monotheist in a particular religion would risk idolatry and rejection from God by worshiping someone who never claimed to be God.

Early Worship of Jesus

In case their is any doubt, the Christians worshiped Jesus as God very early on. In the indisputed letters of Paul, he regularly applies deity to Jesus, within the context of monotheism. The earliest books of the New Testament ascribe deity to Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 4-5 - 50's A.D.) (14) Almost every book of the New Testament paints Jesus as God, or "the Lord" of the Old Testament. Philippians (62 A.D.) (14) quotes an early Christian hymn were Jesus is worshiped as God. The earliest Christian creed "Jesus is Lord," (1 Cor 12:3; Rom 10:9) and the earliest Christian prayer "Come, Lord!" (1 Cor. 16:22; see footnote on Biblegateway) also show Jesus as being worshipped early on. (15) Apostle Peter referred to the day God would visit us when referring to the second coming (1 Peter 65 A.D.). (14) James, the brother of Jesus, refers to "the Lord's coming." (48 A.D.) (14) There was no debate among the early apostles regarding who Jesus was supposed to be.

What Did He Say?

Keep in mind, if we don't use the ruthless criteria applied by the scholars for the authenticity of Jesus words, we can very quickly get to the fact that he claimed to be God. These are scattered all over the Gospels, but especially John, most notably. Jesus said "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9) "I and the Father are one." (John 10:33) "Before abraham was born, I am" (John 8:58) "that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father" (John 5:23) Jesus accepted worship (John 9:38). Jesus claims to have glory with the Father before the world began. (John 17:5). To list a few examples just in John, though there are many elsewhere as well.

My Philosophy on Apologetics (Part VI) - Death by a Thousand Unfalsifiable Objections

But again I have been much too generous in my assessment. Perhaps even though the objections to Christianity involve a thousand double standards, even though they don’t even want Christianity to be true, at least we can take comfort in the fact that their objections are at least philosophically defensible, however unlikely they may be?

We will discover that this is not even the case. Many of the primary objections to Christianity are inherently unfalsifiable theories. They are akin to me insisting, as Richard Swinburne suggests, that all of the toys come out of the toy box at night and dance around the room, but all go right back into the box leaving no traces of their activity.

Now a point must be made that an unfalsifiable theory is not the same as a theory that is extremely difficult to falsify. For example, critics of the intelligent design movement say that intelligent design is unscientific because it’s unfalsifiable. The question of what truly denotes science and what does not aside, the idea that intelligent design is unfalsifiable is about as ridiculous as saying that we can never prove that suicide notes have actual authorship because “intelligent design is unfalsifiable.” Critics must keep in mind, as I said before, that unfalsifiability is vastly different than something being so well evidenced that its nearly impossible to falsify.

Christianity is Very Falsifiable
Same with the resurrection of Jesus, or other aspects of the Christian faith. While our critics are right that many of us would keep believing even if the resurrection had virtually no evidence, that is certainly not the case with all of us, and certainly does not mean the resurrection is inherently unfalsifiable. The resurrection is very falsifiable. The moment I learn that all the disciples got rich and famous by proclaiming the resurrection, or the moment I learn that the whole thing is a story invented 500 years after the fact, I will consider the whole story entirely falsified. These aren’t unreasonable demands either, since Islam claims to know information about Jesus 500 years too late, and certain cults have leaders that obtain monetary gain by through their proclamations, making deception a very likely hypothesis. However, as was demonstrated at length above, this is certainly not the case with Christianity.

Group Hallucinations to the Resurrection
The proposal that the disciples of Jesus suffered from hallucinations after his death is an example of an unfalsifiable hypothesis. If we are allowed to postulate group hallucinations for eyewitness testimony that we simply do not like, we may as well reject any eyewitness testimony that we find inconvenient. How would one go about disproving group hallucinations? Well perhaps one could show that there is no evidence that the persons in question are experiencing any of the conditions usually necessary for hallucinations, namely deprivation of food, water or sleep, or drug use. We have no evidence that these applied to the followers of Jesus. However, hallucinations are still regularly proposed as a possibility. If appealing to the lack of evidence for physical and mental disturbances among the disciples is inadequate, then group hallucination is unfalsifiable. If in any situation we find, we can say that eyewitness testimony can be plausibly denied by simply suggesting the mere possibility that a group hallucination occurred, then we should be allowed to use it for anything we want. How could one possibly go about disproving such a hypothesis, even if we wanted to? Imagine if this was admissible in court. Surely the prosecution doesn’t pack up and go home as soon as the defense suggests a group hallucination! Indeed, the defense would never suggest such a thing, because it is so preposterous. If such an argument is applicable to healthy persons, then there is no possible way, even in theory, that group hallucination objection can be invalidated. Therefore it is completely unfalsifiable and as a result, a very bad theory.

Indeed, positing group hallucinations of groups of such great size actually call into question all of reality. Using the logic that is typically employed to suggest the possibility of group hallucination, it is more likely that the very existence of my girlfriend is a total lie. This is because I have a huge vested interest in seeing her, there are far less witnesses, and I actually expect to see her, whereas the disciples didn’t!

Where We Ought to See Group Hallucinations
An empirical argument can be made against group hallucinations without appealing to science at all. We know that several groups in the past 150 years have deeply and sincerely believed that Jesus Christ would return in power and glory on a certain date. However, they have all been incorrect so far. It is evident that they do not have hallucinations of a glorious second coming of Jesus when the predicted day finally comes. Due to cognitive dissonance, they often retain their apocalyptic beliefs. However, the key here is that their theories are always modified in some way, to account for the lack of a glorious second coming of Jesus. Surely religious fervor, intent expectation, and a strong desire within a community to see some event does not warrant strong hallucinations, even in situations where a very small group is involved. If such conditions did cause hallucinations, we would have very sincere eyewitness reports to Jesus coming back over 20 times in the past 150 years!!!

Evil Twin Hypothesis
This criteria of falsifiability also applies to other theories, such as the “evil twin” hypothesis for the resurrection. The idea goes that Jesus had a twin brother, was separated at birth, came back right around the time of his brothers’ death, heard the rumors that he was supposed to resurrect, and immediately took advantage of the situation and proclaimed himself raised from the dead. This is another hypothesis, which, in principle, cannot be refuted. In this case, no murderers would ever be convicted either, because all they have to do is say their evil twin (for whom there exists no evidence) was separated at birth and suddenly returned to commit the crime.

Impenetrable Agnosticism
Perpetual agnosticism to the whole matter of resurrection is also itself an unfalsifiable hypothesis, regardless of how popular it is with the opposition. We concede that eyewitnesses are capable of observing unexpected phenomena, and we concede there is honest, and very qualified eyewitness testimony for the presence of a certain person after his death. However, if we have both of these situations, but agnosticism endures, how should we go about ever disproving such the hypothesis that the event is inscrutable? If someone doesn’t accept honest and qualified eyewitness testimony, what else do we have to offer them? What evidence, even in principle, could be offered to dislodge their agnosticism? If, after 11 people testify to the existence and nature of my girlfriend, and you concede they aren’t lying, but choose to remain agnostic to the issue, what could evidence could I possibly offer you in favor of her existence? One may say that they would need to see her for themselves. However, in that case, we would need to disbelieve anything anyone ever tells us about anything at all ever, which is clearly not what people do.

Unfalsifiable Objections in Genetics
Unfalsifiable objections continue to manifest themselves in the design argument from genetics as well. The typical responses are that intelligent design “is not science,” an objection, right or wrong, is unhelpful to the skeptic either way, as we have seen above. The skeptic typically asserts one of two things. First, that the design argument is a “god of the gaps” argument. We have already seen this is not the case. To say that something is unexplained, therefore it has a designer, would be a “God of the gaps” argument. However, to say that something seems designed, indeed for both sides to call it “information” and “code” in an unqualified sense, removes the God of the gaps challenge. Furthermore, the lack of the widely accepted naturalistic explanation further verifies our suspicion that it is designed. This leads us to the second way that the skeptics usually respond. They often say that science has always found an explanation in the past, so we can be sure that they will in the future. This “science of the gaps” argument, as John Lennox calls it, is the chief objection and is completely, utterly, and eternally unfalsifiable. This would be like me appealing to the Second Coming of Jesus, a future event, in order to prove Christianity. But the Second Coming of Jesus is itself one of the events I am trying to prove by appealing to it. Furthermore, there is not a single thing a skeptic can do to falsify the Second Coming. In the same vein, to state a naturalistic explanation will surely come about in the future, as a response to the design argument, is to assume naturalism is true from the outset. There is not a single thing anyone can do, even in principle, to falsify this assertion.

Theories that God Can't Even Falsify in Principle
As you may be considering, to some people, there is no feasible way to prove Christianity to them, regardless of how much evidence could be provided. Some may object to this sweeping statement, such as Richard Carrier, who insist that Jesus should appear to everyone. However, this is unlikely to effect the worship of God, for several reasons. First, if 11 people more qualified than us are hallucinating, then if we saw Jesus, we would most certainly be hallucinating Jesus, since there is only one of us, whereas there are 11 witnesses to Jesus. Seeing Jesus ourselves wouldn’t necessarily convince us either, and might prompt us to contact a psychiatrist, as Greg Koukl suggests. How does the skeptic know that he will actually believe his eyes, to use the euphemism? He doesn’t. Furthermore, it is particularly evident that miracles do not compel assent to a religious message. Even the Jesus Seminar concedes that the Pharisees admitted Jesus could cast out demons (a supernatural act in their perception), but still intensified their hatred for him. In addition, I occasionally hear people use aliens as a legitimate justification for agnosticism about the origin of Christ’s miraculous powers.

Even if God wrote in the sky saying “I am God” there would still be room for doubt. We would concede it is information, just like we do with DNA. However, it’s much easier to come up with a naturalistic or human explanation for the words “I am God” in the sky everyday than for the amount of information encoded in human genes. Even if God did something preposterous, like coded genes in English or the C++ programing language, we would still find ways around it. First, the fact that it was English would “prove” to us that it was human in origin. We would actively search for the creator of this hoax, either in our own time period, or in an advanced predecessor society with a lot more technology than ours.

What if God showed up in the sky, in raging fire, and demanded loyalty from everyone? Well he will do this at the Second Coming. Even then, people could easily say: “Wow there is really extraterrestrial life! This is a very dangerous situation! The aliens are even pretending to be God to gain control of us. We have to fight back!” Even if people were convinced it was God, this doesn’t mean they would actually worship Him. Such sudden and strong disconfirmatory evidence would likely cause those who already hated the Christian God to become more staunch in their position, and would entrench them in their hatred. In the words of Dr. William Lane Craig, “We might resent God for such effrontery.”

Unfortunately, this is extremely similar to Christian beliefs about the Second Coming. Christians hold that at Christ’s return, that all armies from many nations will actually attempt a mililtary engagement with him. Furthermore, many Christian theologians believe that the vast majority of people will know God exists and is judging the world, but will refuse to worship him, and ardently worship someone else, the Antichrist. The Bible’s accounts of such behavior is not solely apocalyptic in nature. John 11-12 demonstrates that the Jewish leaders conceded Lazarus’s resurrection from the dead, which was performed by Jesus. However, this did not convert them, but intensified their desire to kill Jesus. Furthermore, it is astonishing that they tried to kill Lazarus as well, whom they knew had been raised from the dead. Though these Biblical stories may not convince a skeptic, they further illustrate the point that some belief is truly incurable, and is absolutely unsolvable from God’s perspective. Some objections are so unfalsifiable even God can’t falsify them.

My Philosophy on Apologetics (Part V) - Death by a Thousand Suppressions

But again, I have been too generous in my assessment of the situation. Not only do critics regularly use a very harsh double standard, and not only do they basically concede enough information to become Christians anyway, many of them actually don’t want it to be true. It’s not just that a small group doesn’t want it to be true. On the contrary a very large segment of the world population doesn’t want it to be true. And it’s not just from one religion or belief system. Persons from all belief systems seem to have a desire for this to be untrue. Not only that, this desire for it to be untrue is found in all places and in all social strata, Finally, this desire for it to be false is found in every level of education about the subject, in persons least familiar with the evidence, all the way up to those opponents familiar with every argument Christian apologetics has to offer. And it’s not just a minor dislike. On the contrary, it’s often a very intense dislike that is very difficult to dislodge, and often involves very heated emotions.

This is not to say that Christians themselves want alternative viewpoints to be true. On the contrary, they most certainly don’t want other viewpoints to be true, and voices become raised and arguments heated. However, I will explain why it is so peculiar that opponents of Christianity have such a strong dislike for it, a dislike that is represented in every social strata.

Winning the Lottery

The message of Christianity rotates around the death for sins and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. The original proclamation states that by believing this message, one has forgiveness of all sins from God, and eternal life as well. This is akin to someone offering me a billion bucks, and all I have to do is sign a paper to get the billion bucks and I’ll receive it. Now at first we may laugh with incredulity at such a wild situation, chalking it up to a get rich quick scheme or something else too good to be true. However, what if we started mounting serious evidence that such a situation was actually true? What if, after the course of our investigation, we came to a percentage that it was true, such as something even as low as 75%? Wouldn’t we do whatever we could to get the million bucks, even if there was a full one in four chance we wouldn’t get it? Wouldn’t we get really excited and perhaps even expend great amounts of time and energy to make sure we got it? (The evidence for Christianity is much higher than 75%, but that just enhances the point even further.)

Apparently not, since many people who hear about Christianity tend to react negatively, even to its core message. They react so negatively that they deeply don’t want it to be true, seek arguments against it, and get frustrated that someone is even trying to spread such a message. This seems incredibly peculiar. And as we shall see, not only do they resist it, but they come up with a thousand alternative theories with no evidence in order to escape what we do in fact have evidence for. Not only do they do that, but as we will see they show no hesitation in their hate for the message itself, going so far as to make fun of it for no good reason at all.

The Un-evangelized
This suppression is evident among all education levels about the evidence.. First, suppression of the truth is evident among the un-evangelized. Romans 1 actually provides a rather sound critique of polytheism and the worship of images. Essentially, many of these un-evangelized groups are aware of the extreme amount of design all around them all in nature. Some of them do in fact postulate a creator deity of some kind to account for the overwhelming evidence of design around them. However, instead of worshiping this creator, they instead create images and build statues of gods of their own making and worship and serve them instead. Instead of worshiping the creator, who gave them everything, they not only refuse to give him thanks, but create these absurd and lifeless images to worship in his place. This may seem normal to us, due to our familiarity with other cultures who do this. Nevertheless, when examined, this behavior can be quickly exposed as particularly perverse.

Willful Ignorance about Jesus on the Popular Level
This suppression is evident among lay people in Western culture as well. Although people challenge the New Testament and the information about Jesus, they are rather quick to embrace wild speculations about Jesus, insofar as they are unfavorable to Christianity. One popular idea is that Jesus was a homosexual. The UK’s “The Guardian” newspaper even posts articles about this immediately prior to Easter, in an unprecedented act of malice against a religious figure. The idea that Jesus was a practicing homosexual has such slim evidence that to apply such a standard to everyone, it would entail all men who have close male friends would be homosexual as well. But, to the popular culture, such an idea isn’t foolish. However, Christians are regarded as ignorant and blind when they regard Jesus as the resurrected Son of God, consistent with the written evidence. All sorts of other beliefs about Jesus are circulated, either as attempts to discredit Christianity, or to make Jesus in our own image. Some people make bold assertions that Jesus was married or even a socialist. Again, such a standard would make all persons with female friends married, and everyone who cares for the poor a socialist. Others concede that Jesus miracles are possible, but posit aliens as an explanation for his ability to do miracles. Still others say that Jesus didn’t die but instead went on international travels. My point is not to refute these specifically at length, but to show the efforts people will go to in order to invent wild and foolish speculations about Jesus, while rejecting the available textual evidence in the New Testament. For surely the “unreliable” New Testament text is more reliable than wild speculations or no textual evidence at all! All this goes to show that, even in popular circles, suppression of the truth is quite evident.

Western Scholarship
The situation doesn’t get a whole lot better when dealing with educated persons or scholarly persons. Once the scholars realize the eyewitness testimony to Jesus after his death, they should come to believe in it themselves, or at least speak favorably of the religion? Apparently not. Those scholars above who concede the death of Jesus and his appearances to his disciples, are often those people who strongly disagree with Christianity. Bart Ehrman writes books and participates in debates opposing the Christian faith, as likeable and friendly he is as a person. The Jesus Seminar aims to overthrow what it calls “fundamentalist Christianity,” their definition of which seems not to be historical American fundamentalism at all, but actually refers to beliefs that all orthodox Christians have. They don’t say “well we don’t believe this, but feel free to do so and we hope you are right.” On the contrary, they oppose the belief system and try to disprove it, regardless of the fact that their own research is used by Christians to prove that the disciples were eyewitnesses to the resurrection.

Islamic Objections
But perhaps this is only evident in skeptical Western historical scholarship? Perhaps people are more favorable to the evidence in other religions, perhaps Islam. This doesn’t seem to be the case either. In fact, the resistance seems to be even more staunch. Historically speaking, Muslims believe that Jesus didn’t really die, but instead God replaced him with Judas last minute on the cross, and took Jesus to heaven. Unfortunately, virtually all Western scholarship rejects the idea that Jesus didn’t really die. However, I must be careful to be too dismissive. Simply because someone holds an unpopular position doesn’t make them incorrect. However, Western scholarship doesn’t seem to be consciously resisting Muslim beliefs, but seems more preoccupied with undermining Christianity, of which the death of Jesus is central. So it would behoove us to trust them, since they are more interested in refuting Christianity than Islam. Furthermore, the sources for Jesus death are all written within 70 years of his death, whereas the Quran’s suggestion that he didn’t really die, is found in a source over 500 years after the events.

In addition, Muslims apologists regularly concede, for sake of debate, that Jesus said “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” They also concede that “Father” refers to God in this point. This is very significant, since they consider Jesus to be a prophet of God. However, as startling as this concession is, they don’t merely disagree, but actually bristle at the idea that Jesus is God, and sometimes think Christians are stupid for thinking so.

"New Atheists"
Perhaps Western atheists and agnostics want Christianity to be true? Perhaps the “New Atheists,” in all their self-congratulatory praise for being so rational, will at least hope we are right, despite making sure to share their skeptical reservations with us, so that we don’t jump to conclusions? On the contrary! The stereotype of the “angry atheist” is known all too well. Many of the New Atheist movement are known for being derisive to Christianity itself, and somewhat abrasive when discussing religion. So not even they, in all their self-proclaimed rationality, even want it to be true. (This certainly doesn’t apply to every atheist, and surely not even most of them in history, and especially not in philosophical circles. I am simply being polemical of the New Atheist movement and the behaviors of its members).

But at least, they are devoid of wild speculations, since they are so rational? On the contrary! If something seems designed, and there is no way out, perhaps we ought to postulate, unobservable, ad hoc, multiverses simply to account for the fact that the universe seems designed. Because if something seems designed or rigged, the number one rule they taught you in school is that you should always postulate a multi-verse, making your situation probable simply by the infinity of other universes. Perhaps this really is the universe where the dog ate my homework and left no traces of it to be shown to the teacher?

One could postulate that these opponents of Christianity do not want to associate themselves with persons responsible for things such as the Inquisition, or to associate themselves with the stereotype of being Catholic, or fundamentalist, or what have you. But why not express your anger from the inside? Why not reform the system, and be the next Martin Luther and be a hero? Furthermore, why not be ashamed of the murders of atheist regimes, which are far worse than any Christian regime? What could possibly be so offensive that God himself became a man, sacrificed himself for our sins, and resurrected from the dead, appearing to many witnesses?

Summary
All of this is not primarily aimed at providing a refutation of certain arguments, though I did summarize a few. My main contention is that despite all of the evidence, people of all social backgrounds, of all education levels, of every ideological system, seem to have an intense and peculiar desire for Christianity to be false. This is akin to someone rather intensely wishing they won’t win the lottery.

My Philosophy on Apologetics (Part IV) - Death by a Thousand Concessions*

In Part 1 I showed how we should use a "practical epistemology" when assessing evidence for a religion. Meaning we shouldn't hold it to a higher standard than standards we use when assessing risky decisions in our lives. Furthermore, in parts II and III, I demonstrate that using a practical epistemology, one is forced to use a double standard to avoid both the resurrection and a personal cause of DNA.

But I’ve been much too generous in my assessment. In fact, as far as scholarship in each relevant field is concerned, they not only apply a double standard, but concede so much that it would be difficult, in principle, to offer more evidence for Christianity than what they already concede.

As far as the evidence for the resurrection of Christ, I didn’t mention this before, but over 95% of New Testament historians agree that Jesus was crucified and didn’t survive the process. Furthermore, over 99% of them agree that the followers of Jesus “had experiences which they believed to be appearances of the risen Jesus.” These statistics apply to most atheist and agnostic New Testament historians, and represent over 2,000 sources on the historical Jesus in French, German and English. (New Testament scholar Dr. Gary Habermas documented this, in a five year process surveying all of the sources.)

Though it is less evident in popular circles, the scholarship in each relevant field realizes the need to avoid the double standard. So in historical Jesus circles in particular, they do believe that it is “historically certain” that Jesus was crucified and died. They also realize the disciples proclaimed the resurrection and claimed appearances. Furthermore, they concede that it is ludicrous to postulate a conspiracy on their part, and consider it absurd to regard them as deliberate liars. This forces them to essentially admit that there is both honest and eyewitness testimony to Jesus after his death. Furthermore this eyewitness testimony is coming from entire groups of people who saw Jesus, not just an individual. As if this wasn’t enough, the eyewitness testimony is coming from groups who have spent every part of three years with the man, so the chances of them making a mistake is practically zero. The concession made by the non-Christian historical scholarship is literally breathtaking at this point. The point they are making is very similar to what Christians want to prove to their friends, namely that their is eyewitness testimony to Jesus after his death. Because if we think about it, what other evidence could we possibly even try to give for any event at all, other than honest eyewitness testimony by a very qualified group? More evidence cannot be offered for any event, even in principle, once honest and qualified testimony has been conceded.

Granted, many of the scholars like to postulate group "visions" to explain the resurrection appearances. However, the disciples claimed that Christ was buried and raised, so it was a physical resurrection. Furthermore, some of the accounts describe the resurrection Jesus eating food and even saying he is not a ghost. But all throughout early Christianity, the disciples seem well aware when they are having visions, versus when it is physical. But it seems the scholars are saying that this is the only vision where they did not think it was visionary, which is quite an odd thing to say. For how am I supposed to know that my friend who eats and drinks with me is not a vision either?

This extremely concessionary behavior can be seen in the field of biology as well, though the emotional intensity of the debate seems to be heightened. Notice, as far as the genetic code is concerned, there is no debate, even among the most passionate atheists, as to whether or not DNA should be called information, or if its processes should be referred to as “transcription” and “translation.” Nor does there seem to be any frustration with the comparison of genetic codons to words, as in done in the discipline of bioinformatics. Nor do atheist scientists constantly qualify these words, painstakingly being careful to say that its merely “analogous” to information or to translation, or transcription. On the contrary, the word “information” is regularly applied to the genetic code without qualification. The same is true with the words “code,” “transcription,” and “translation.” This is rather remarkable that there isn’t any fuss over terminology here, even among the most committed atheist scientists. Furthermore, they concede that DNA is extremely complex. Not only that, they readily concede that there is no widely accepted naturalistic theory for how this could come about. The situation is very similar to what we have with the resurrection. In order to prove that an agent was responsible for the creation, what more could we do other than get our opponents to call it "information" themselves, admit that it is so complex that even they can’t make it, and admit there is no widely accepted naturalistic alternatives? What greater evidence could we possibly even try to provide, even in principle, other than the genetic information itself being written in English, or something ridiculous like that?

*Leading philosophical atheist Antony Flew, in his article “Theology and Falsification,” once charged that those who believed in God nuanced him with so many qualifications that the idea of God was no longer meaningful. He said it died the “death by a thousand qualifications.” His article is very clever, and a helpful critique of the way some people talk about God. However, this present post merely builds on that clever phrase Flew applied to God, by saying opposition to Christianity dies the “Death by a Thousand Concessions.” Nevertheless, this present post is not at all meant to be a response to the Flew article.

My Philosophy on Apologetics (Part III) - More Double Standards

Last post I discussed how critics of the resurrection are forced into a double standard of evidence at almost every point in order to escape the resurrection. However, the double standard is also used in design arguments as well, especially in the area of genetics.

If someone tells me something is information, I immediately infer a personal cause without showing any thought whatsoever. This applies to codes that are analogous to information I’ve seen, and stuff that is not quite analogous.

The genetic code is the equivalent to several encyclopedias of information. It’s so complicated scientists can’t even code it themselves. Even if they did, it would just prove my point. However, all of this information can’t have been explained by evolution, since evolution only explains differentiation in life forms, not its origin.

Furthermore, when scientists speak of DNA, they regularly use words like “code,” “information,” “transcription,” and “translation.” It may be analogous to a bookshelf full of books, but it is not at all analogous to information….because it IS information. Even the most atheistic of scientists regularly speak of it as information without any qualms or back-pedaling at all.

Furthermore, there is no widely accepted naturalistic explanation for the origin of life. This does not prove design in and of itself at all. (Indeed, ball lightning has no widely accepted scientific explanation, but that doesn’t mean it has a personal cause.) Nevertheless, saying that science will surely come up with an explanation in the future for DNA is a “science of the gaps argument” according to John Lennox. Appealing to a future, unproven event to prove a current state of affairs is entirely unfalsifiable. It would be like if I appealed to the second coming of Christ to prove Christianity. Clearly, this would not work.

It’s also of no help to the skeptic to say that intelligent design is not science. Even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t make any difference since science is not the only route by which we become absolutely certain of knowledge. Furthermore, it’s of no help to say “intelligent design is unfalsifiable” because it is falsifiable. Is the fact that this blog post has some sort of personal authorship a falsifiable hypothesis? Well certainly! All one has to do is come up with a naturalistic explanation for the words on this page, and it’s all well and good. Same with DNA. All they have to do is prove that it is not what we usually consider to have a personal cause (i.e. information), and come up with a viable naturalistic explanation. Well obviously this is nearly an impossible task. Critics must keep in mind there is a big difference between an unfalsifiable hypothesis in principle and a hypothesis that has so much evidence that it is really hard to falsify.

It also won’t help to postulate a multiverse to raise the probability of DNA naturally occurring, nor is it helpful to say that the universe is so old DNA was bound to happen eventually. Those same objections can be applied to books and even this blog post. For why should we say that all books written in English happened that way by design? Some of them may have been products of time and chance, due to the age and size of the universe. The universe is 20 billion years old and there might be a multiverse. Surely that is enough time for a book written in English to naturally occur. After all, it is much less complicated than DNA. Surely, the sheer number of multiverses increases the chances that this blog post had no author.

It also won’t help to say that we see people write books in English, so we can rightly infer a personal cause in this situation, but not with DNA. This would rule out paleontologists ever discovering languages they have never seen before. Surely the first people to find hieroglyphics or cuneiform inferred a personal cause of that information?

The double standard is most evident in this respect, and has become a sort of classic argument from people in the intelligent design camp. Renowned atheist and scientist Carl Sagan in his novel (and subsequent movie) "Contact" said that a series of prime numbers signaled from space was supposed to be absolute proof of extraterrestrial life. But what about DNA, which has more information than several encyclopedias? If Sagan will accept a series of prime numbers as proof, then what will it possibly take for him to accept DNA as proof of "extraterrestrial" intelligence?

We shall soon see that with both the resurrection of Jesus and the personal cause of DNA, that the scholarship is aware of the double standard and tries to alleviate the issue. However, in their efforts to be true to history and science, they end up conceding so much that one could almost not, even in principle, offer more evidence for either the resurrection or DNA. This is the "death by a thousand concessions" which is the next post.

My Philosophy on Apologetics (Part II) - The Emergent Double Standard

Once we use a "practical epistemology" as described in Part I, critics of Christianity will almost be immediately forced into a double standard. This may sound bold, but I don't mean this in a mean-spirited way. Here is what I mean. At every point we adjust the evidence for the resurrection, we run into a double standard. Granted, critics should rejoice that they have to use double standards to escape the resurrection, since it means that Christianity's offer of eternal life to them and everyone else is very probably true.

1) The existence and crucifixion of Jesus

It is popular in our culture to challenge certain aspects of Jesus life, such as his very existence, and major events, such as the crucifixion. However, the crucifixion is vastly more evidenced than the death of Julius Caesar.The assassination of Julius Caesar only has 2 primary sources, neither of whom even claim to be an eyewitness. Yet we believe this without even thinking about it. However, the crucifixion of Jesus has 4 biographical sources, some of whom DO claim to be an eyewitness. Other early sources who knew Jesus closest friends (Paul) report he was crucified. Peter also attests to this. So to avoid the crucifixion of Jesus we must employ a double standard.

2) The actual death of Jesus

We assume most historical figures who are deliberately executed usually die. Furthermore, most dead persons who have any friends or family at all are usually buried. We usually don't even consider the fact that an executed and buried person survived, let alone convince anyone that they are raised. Though this theory has initial plausibility because of the resurrection appearances, upon closer examination it becomes a very difficult position to hold. Further information from the Journal of American Medical Association shows that crucifixion is a death by a lack of oxygen. So if the person does not pull up to breathe for an extended period of time, then we can be certain they are dead.

3) The proclamation of the resurrection and appearances by the disciples

We have multiple sources stating that the disciples claimed that Jesus was raised from the dead and that he had appeared to them (from Gary Habermas "The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus")

-Gospel of Matthew:

-Gospel of Luke

-Gospel of John

-Paul

-1 Corinthians 15:3-8 (Creed describing resurrection appearances)

-Sermon summaries in Acts (many of which by Peter)

-Clement (friend of an eyewitness)

-Polycarp (friend of an eyewitness)

If we don't want to believe this, then we shouldn't believe in the core beliefs of the founders of any other religion. There are 8 separate sources above testifying to this. Most of us will risk our lives on testimony that we merely assume is honest testimony. For example, if 5 of my neighbors tell me they heard on the radio that the tornado warning is over, then I can believe them, even though they didn't die to prove the sincerity of their beliefs. So if 8 ancient sources tell me that someone proclaimed something, then I ought to believe it, unless I can find a better explanation for the rise of the religion. On top of all of this, if we disbelieve these sources about the disciples early beliefs, then as we saw before, we may as well give up on believing in Julius Caesar's assassination. Luckily, almost everyone agrees that the disciples proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus.

4) The sincerity of the disciples proclamation.

The disciples underwent serious persecution and risked their lives several times to preach the gospel message. If we deny their sincerity with the resurrection appearances, we have to deny the sincerity of other situations. A necessary condition of being deliberately deceptive includes not believing what you are telling another person. So in order for the disciples to be liars, then they didn't even believe in the resurrection at all.

-do our own Christian friends believe in Christianity? After all they didn't even die for it.

-does the author of this blog post believe in the resurrection? or is he just bluffing?

-do missionaries who sneak into closed countries do it for the women and beer?

-do people who regularly risk their lives and lose their social position become serious candidates for deception?

On this standard, Martin Luther very plausibly didn't even believe in justification by faith, but was only bluffing. After all, he didn't die for his beliefs now did he?

5) The ability of the disciples to accurately assess whether or not they spent time with their friend in an unexpected situation.

If even one of our friends said they ate lunch with their best friend, it ends the discussion as to whether or not they actually did (assuming they are honest). Once you have honest and qualified testimony, the buck stops there. Unless we use a double standard, we have to say that the disciples were both honest eyewitnesses (they suffered for their proclamation) and qualified eyewitnesses (they had known Jesus 3 years). If we want to say that it wasn't really Jesus, we have to apply this standard to situations where friends meeting up is extremely low. For example, if I tell you that I saw and talked with my roommate of 3 years in Northern Russia, as long as I am being honest, you will believe my testimony. However, rejecting the disciples competence in assessing whether or not they actually hung out with their friend Jesus (after his death) would require us to challenge competence of many other persons, especially if there are less witnesses. After all, if even one person sees their friend in an unexpected situation, we ought to challenge their very experiences of their own friends.

6) Hume's Probabilistic Argument

Perhaps all of these are good arguments. Still, one can raise an argument based on probability. It may be horribly and egregiously unlikely that the disciples lied, or that Jesus didn't die, but perhaps any of these are greatly more likely than the ludicrous notion that he rose from the dead. This sounds nice on the surface, but is highly problematic.

David Hume's original argument said that our experiences of the laws of nature are much more reliable than human testimony (where people lie, embellish stories, go insane, etc.). Since miracles are a violation of the laws of nature, according to Hume, we should always believe that its more likely that the testimony was mistaken, than our experiences of the laws of nature.

This solution has numerous practical problems:

-Hume admits that using his methodology, a man from the tropics should not believe in frost the first time he encounters it, since it is contrary to his experience!

-Tornadoes, ball lightning, Northern lights, and black holes are currently or were at one time inconsistent with existing laws of nature and scientific theory. It is fair to say we can anticipate a scientific explanation where it doesn't bear the marks of a personal cause. However, using Hume's principle, no one should believe in these things until science allows for them.

-Miracles are not violations of the laws of nature. They are just evidence that an extremely intelligent and powerful being is present. For example, if aliens came to earth and raised someone from the dead, that would just mean they had the technology to do so, not that they violated a law of nature.

-The biggest problem with Hume's argument is that it's circular. To assume that experience is more reliable than testimony, he has to rely on the testimony of other people when they talk about their experiences. This means Hume is attempting to refute testimony with testimony, which is circular.

7) Argument from Sufficient Ambiguity

Perhaps we say that all of these are good arguments, but if we stack probability upon probability of each one occurring, we can say that the resurrection is sufficiently ambiguous. Reformed epistemologist and Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga attempted this strategy when discussing the historical argument. He argued that if you multiply the chances of each event in the necessary series together, it always comes out with a low probability. (i.e: Jesus was crucified x Jesus actually died x disciples really claimed resurrection x they didn't lie = lower probability than desired).

The problem with this is that it makes other historical events, such as the assassination of Caesar, highly ambiguous as well. Christian philosophers in response to Plantinga note that the truth of supporting pieces of evidence is not dependent on the previous one in the series, but each one has multiple sources evidencing each one. So even Plantinga has backed down from this argument after criticism.

Summary

It's easy to see that double standards have to be regularly used to escape the resurrection. However, the resurrection of Jesus is not the only place a double standard is used. Such a double standard is remarkably evident in the field of biology and genetics as well.

My Philosophy on Apologetics (Part I) - Using Practical Epistemology

When assessing matters of evidence, it is important that we use a realistic standard to judge whether or not something is true. I propose a standard of evidence similar to one that we use in our daily lives to assess risky situations. It is obviously the case that most things we come to firmly believe in our daily lives are merely probabilistic in the academic sense. Furthermore, we even put ourselves at great personal risk believing things that are merely probabilistic. A few examples will illustrate this point. First, I am confident enough that Julius Caesar or Tiberius Caesar existed, that I am willing to take a class on either of them. No one refuses to take a class on ancient history because they fear that the money spent on the course may be a waste, due to the fear that certain individuals may not have existed. On the contrary, we regularly risk large amounts of money depending on the truth of historical figures and the things they did. Second, I am absolutely confident that I have a girlfriend and that she is not a hallucination constructed in my mind. It is very true, that I have an extremely biased opinion about this and a very strong vested interest in her existence. Regardless of this, I believe she is real even though being wrong about her existence would be both humiliating and emotionally painful. Third, if I ask a friend to pick me up from work, and he is a trustworthy person who rarely lets me down, I can risk my reputation of punctuality at work based on his testimony. Fourth, I am confident enough that I will survive a long drive to work, even though there is a chance I may crash and die. Nevertheless, the probability I will survive is so strong that I will risk my life to do it. Furthermore, if I run into something highly complex that everyone calls information, I am perfectly justified in believing it has a personal cause, and I would take a risk based on the fact that it has an author.

This principle is the essence of a “practical epistemology.” In philosophy of religion, we can and should talk about all sorts of different possibilities. However, as far as making decisions as to what we should believe, it behooves us to not use an unnecessarily strict standard on the evidence. As far as coming to information which we should come to believe, we ought not multiply skepticism upon skepticism, when in any other field or situation the evidence regularly provides enough information for us to take a substantial risk. For example, my survival on the way to work is “merely” probabilistic in nature, but has such a high probability that I’m willing to risk my life on it. Likewise, some information in favor of Christianity is “merely” probabilistic, and people feel this is ground for an enduring skepticism. However, as important as methodological skepticism is to obtaining knowledge, there comes a point which it is no longer responsible to continue in skepticism. This is the situation many people have come to in regards to the evidence for Christianity.

Next time we will discuss the implications for "practical epistemology" and assess how the evidence for the resurrection stacks up....