Gym Debate: Is there enough evidence to justify belief in the Chrisitan God? (Anon vs. Out-Of-Names)

[Kelp]

Gym Debate Notice:

This debate thread is open to debate the following issue:

There is enough evidence to justify belief in the Christian God.
Anon will be defending the negative and Out-Of-Names will be defending the affirmative. This debate will begin as soon as Anon makes his first post. The debate will last 5 rounds.


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Spectator commentary is welcome here.

If you are up and unable to meet your deadline please contact a moderator ASAP.
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If you are not a participant please feel free to participate in the commentary thread noted in the first post of this debate.

[Anon]

Out-Of-Names and I have just finished a trade of opening statements. I will begin the debate by submitting my (slightly altered) opening statement Wednesday.

[Anon]

I would like to begin by extending a warm welcome to our new TWEB member and my debate opponent, Out-Of-Names, who I will abbreviate as OON whenever brevity is necessitated. A thanks is also in order to Kelp for moderating the debate, and to TWEB for hosting it.

First, it is important for me to both explain my position and illustrate my goals in this debate. The topic of this discourse centers around whether there is enough evidence to justify belief in the Christian God. As the one who denies this, it is important to first note that I am not affirming atheism. Indeed, part of my purpose in participating in this debate is not only to see if more evidence is available than my current experience and study, but if I have thought correctly about the evidence I have encountered already.

In summary, my task in presenting a successful case is to illustrate how relevant evidence to God's existence in general and to the Christian faith in specific fails to establish rational grounds for belief, and to show evidence that tips the scales against a Biblical worldview. Such an epistemological statement is a very brutal one on my part - I consider the question of God's existence the most important one that a human can ask, and I take my study of Christianity very seriously. But, by no means should that imply that I'll stop my search (in fact, it drives the reasoning behind why I am debating the issue). In exploring such a monumental topic, challenging my worldview is critical to my integrity and honesty in study and dedication, and I look forward to OON meeting this challenge.

With that being said, let's move on to the specifics of the debate itself.

My opponent may achieve success in two ways in this debate: he may establish absolute proof, leaving the problems I present here as important but tangential issues that I must resolve in the face of truth, or he may rebut my claims and build a stronger evidential or presuppositional case in its place. I'll leave the evidence for Christianity for my opponent to present, and begin with my case.

I wish to establish my difficulties with Christianity by exploring the testimony of the evidence for three crucial topics: creation, morality, and the study of the natural order. We will begin with the study of the existence of a Creator.

Dr. William Lane Craig's famous Kalam Cosmological Argument is perhaps the strongest evidence in favor of the existence of a Creator God. Although other arguments are needed to link this Creator to Christianity, evidence for a Creator establishes further routes to the Biblical God, while evidence against a Creator tends to take away from the possibility of Christian truth. The argument goes like this:
1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause;
2) The universe began to exist;
3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Since the cause brought the universe into being, it must be immaterial. The only immaterial objects we know are abstractions and minds, and since abstractions depend on minds, a mind must be responsible for creation. The existence of such a mind points to the existence of a personal Creator, or so the case goes.

Although my opponent may not use this argument in particular, exploring this evidence is still critical, as it deals with the act of Creation itself. If we find no need for a Creator, then agnosticism about the issue is justified.

Note that for something to “begin to exist” means that it exists and only exists over a finite span of time. Indeed, the confirmations of Big Bang theory and the mathematical proofs of Alexander Vilenkin have demonstrated clearly that space and time began to exist billions of years ago in a cataclysmic eruption and rapid expansion from seemingly nothing - pointing, quite possibly, to the Creator that Dr. Craig and many others wish to prove.

The question I wish to pose to my opponent is this: why must the cause of the Universe be personal, and if it were, how did He create? If the proof were absolute in demonstrating that a Mind did the creating, then we must infer that it was done mysteriously, but the proof is not absolute. To state that abstract objects are the only other immaterial objects would be committing the fallacy of the Argument from Ignorance - and my main thrust here is that perhaps the initial state-singularity of the Universe itself can be such an object.

As Quantum Mechanics has demonstrated, even the initial singularity cannot be a naked singularity, but the Plank Time is as far as science can travel, so speculation is as far as we can go at this point. As Dr. Quentin Smith points out in his 2003 debate with Dr. Craig, the Bohmian interpretation of Quantum Mechanics can allow for a singularity where an incredible amount if interaction is taking place simultaneously - and if this singularity is not naked, some notion of spacial separation exists even if it is so small that all physical interaction is, at that initial state, simultaneous.

Now it is important to point out that such a state is by definition timeless. For time is a measure of change - one tick of a clock to the next, the rate of decay of an atom, the change in displacement of a planet in relation to a star, and so forth. But in a Universal system where all Universal constituents are simultaneously interacting with every other Universal constituent as we have in this initial singularity, no such marker is available. The logical precedent for time does not exist at that state. There is no “before” - the entire causal system is itself timeless. The necessary result of this massive, simultaneous causal interaction is for the constituents to separate and thus bring space and time into existence - for, the effect of a cause is a change (in this case, the first instance of change in history).

Thus, it is philosophically feasible for the Universe to never begin to exist. Even though it is certain spacetime began to exist, this does not mean that its cause couldn't be an initial singularity full of such simultaneous internal strife that birthed separation in the spacial and causal sense - the logical predecessors of time itself. The conclusion is that the existence of a Personal Creator is not certain and may have at least as equally good of a nonpersonal replacement, and so agnosticism is justified.

To wrap up this first section, I wish to express another challenge to my opponent, one I hinted upon earlier. If “from nothing, nothing comes,” then how is it possible for even an omnipotent Deity to create ex nihilo? If you restrict God to logic (and not doing so reduces Him to absurdity) then isn't this the same as declaring that God can make a married bachelor? It seems logically impossible, but perhaps my opponent can clarify a way in which this can be resolved.

The second topic of attention is morality. It may be a surprise to my opponent that I do believe morality is not subjective, just as he does. How, though, can we derive what we ought to do from what is the case? And how can these determinations be any more than opinions without God?

The answer lies in the nature shared by all men. Long ago, when Aristotle exposed the problems of a Platonic worldview, he placed essences (a sort of intrinsic source of concepts) into reality from their previously mystical, detached realm where Plato housed them. The idea of such inherent, mysterious metaphysical essences is difficult to maintain today, but perhaps it still has a place in modern philosophy in a sense, if we consider that essences are in the mind - but anchored also in reality.

In this sense, let's look at morals, or the determination of what men ought to do with one's life both on his own and in the presence of other men. Since even in a Christian worldview all we have is what is the case in reality (unless, Christian or not, one embraces Plato, and we can discuss that worldview if OON brings it up), then it must be so that we determine what ought to be done from what is the case. Every situation has an identity, or a specific composition of properties. Likewise, men - all men - share similarities in their individual, unique identities. All of these similarities that men share - using reason, taking action to maintain life, having certain emotions and pleasures and pain and so forth - form a concept that overreaches all men. Additional subcomponents may be used to isolate different conceptions within the concept “men,” like the concept of a child, and so on. When applied to ethical situations, men determine from the nature of the situation and the specified nature of the people involved what the action ought to be.

For instance, take the situation of sex. In one case, say, a husband and wife mutually wish to do that activity alone and in a healthy manner in the privacy of their own home. In another case, a pedophile wishes to do that activity with an unwary child. In the first case, from the identity of a husband and of a wife (subconcepts within the concept of man as a rational animal) in the situation with an identity of private, mutual, healthy sexual situation, a determination that it is in fact good (fruitful!) for the two to do such can be reached. In the second situation, the nature of a rapist (a man who uses force to obtain sex) and the nature of the child (one who has no rational and/or physical capacity for the importance, physical demands, and mental toll of sex), as well as the nature of the situation (the desire of sex from the pedophile) determines that the activity actually ought not be done, i.e. that doing such would be evil on the part of the violent rapist.

The nature of man as a rational animal determines the bulk of what ought to be done in ethical situations. Other parts of a man's nature - his lifespan, the nature of his base feelings, what he can eat, and so forth - determine smaller reaches of morality, but the fact is that morals would be impossible without rationality. So rationality not only outlines what is moral in specific cases, (and is the tool used to derive such morality) but indeed precedes morality's very existence! Since a rational nature itself has an identity, then much of what is moral for men would be moral for any rational creature - meaning that most ethical situations are objective for aliens or different-looking men or men in other ages and so forth. Men respond to the nature of men, whom we all recognize are like ourselves - that is, we do unto them what we would have them do unto us.

It may be that rationality itself is the image of God, or that these moral determinations can be pointed out by my opponent to necessarily flow from a supernatural image of God of another sort. Indeed, perhaps that's what Paul means when he says morals are written on the hearts of every man. But all of that may be unnecessary, for if morals can be determined naturally, the existence of God then must go to another argument, and it must be outside of the field of morals qua morals that my opponent must establish such existence.

Up to this point, I've given two major examples showing that naturalism can explain important ideas just as well as the Christian (or any God-believing!) worldview. But if that is the case, then the balance weighs 50/50 - why not become a Christian, then, since it can explain such questions as the origin of the Universe and morality just as well? It's due to me to present at least one case where atheism seems more plausible than Christianity, since atheism is still on my balance as an agnostic despite its myriad problems.

That case would be to point out that the world is better explained by atheism than by Christianity. Although divisions of atheism (such as Carrier's Metaphysical Naturalism, scientism, atheistic Buddhism, and so forth) have their own problems which my opponent is free to address, there is still the issue of discovering how the world behaves and comparing it to how we expect it to behave given Christianity and given atheism.

Christianity teaches a deep meaning of man in relationship to his divine Creator, the separation caused by man's sin, and the salvation freely offered by the Son to restore the link. The struggle with inner temptation and evil is the centerpiece of the Bible's theological and philosophical offering. It is a clear indictment of each and every person, of his own fault and accord, and in turn a divine peace offering far more than what any of us deserve in our evil. No wonder many skeptics take aim at it - it would be a hard message for anyone with any smidge of pride to accept, including me.

But it is not the only message the Bible offers.

In it, a direct reading shows a young Earth, and one that existed before the sun and moon and stars. In it, men live for hundreds and hundreds of years. At one point, giants - the sons of angels and women - roam the Earth. A global Flood (one for which it is difficult to make into a mere local one, although my opponent may offer a method to do so) covers the entire Earth around four thousand years ago. The Tower of Babylon incident accounts for different languages.

How can a worldview that incorporates these account for the issues they raise? If these stories are fables designed to teach morality or encoded theological meanings, then why did the early Jews and Christians (and perhaps Christ Himself) believe that they were literally true accounts of history?

Miracles are given, but if a God exists then it is plausible that His identity allows Him to exert upon the world in ways that no objects in the world can copy. Even the miracle-work Christ grants the Disciples can fall under this, and under the Preterist view (if I understand it correctly) the Age of Miracles has long been over, apparently accounting for why we don't see faith healers on TV getting any credit today. But other issues are raised: Pharaoh's magicians cast spells. In the new testament, Simon Magus is described as a practicer of black magic. Are their “miracles” over, as well? What about Satan and the demons? Even if you consider Satan bound, there is nowhere that states that the demons are not - yet in today's world they do not appear. The romance may be in our modern tales, and they may have been in the minds of people of long ago who had not yet had the advances in science to account for their experiences as we do now, but I know for sure none of these things has ever made an appearance now. Time and time again, as much as I (truly!) detest it, naturalism has won out.

This is perhaps my biggest barrier to the Christian faith. I have no qualms anymore with believing that a God exists and that I ought to account my sins to Him in the case that He does. Even the biggest miracle of all - the resurrection of Jesus - has quite a case (like Anthony Flew, I call it “the best game in town”), but if naturalism is true - if, like the Deist Flew still says, life after death is completely implausible - if miracles really don't occur, demons don't exist, language differences occurred back then as they occur now (evolving over time), and other things show the historical claims of the Bible counterfactual - then even if your case for a Creator is true, Christianity still may be false. These difficulties must be accounted for.

Job 12:8 commands us to talk to the Earth, and it will show God. If my opponent can demonstrate this third point - that the Earth does in fact show the Christian God and not naturalism - then my biggest barrier to the faith will be removed. I am open to his suggestions and anticipate his reply.

[Out-Of-Names]

I want to first off thank everyone who makes this debate possible. The TWeb staff, Anon my opponent, and of course all of you who take this time to think about life's deepest questions. As Anon has said I too believe the question of God to be the most prevalent and titillating we as human beings can ask.

Let me say a few words about the case I will be presenting here. Rather than arguing for a kind of ambiguous concept of God, our topic of debate is to ask for the specific evidence of the existence of the triune God who has made himself known in the scriptures of the Christianity. Typically in debate I present a cumulative case argument for the existence of nothing more than the Abrahamic view of God which would be compatible with Islam, Christianity, Judaism and certain other forms of religious belief. However for this debate, that has the word Christian right in the title, it seems more appropriate to by pass all of the philosophical arguments and go right to history where the revelation of God took place. And no where was a stronger revelation made than in the person, work and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Therefore I will be presenting historical arguments in defense of three aspects of Jesus' life. First I will try to show that Jesus believed himself to be the unique son of God, Son of Man and Messiah, which is important for the following facts. Next we will examine the miracle accounts of the gospels and see if they give any merit to Jesus self-understanding. Lastly we will look at the biggest miracle of all; the resurrection and whether or not it was the divine vindication of God's son.

In passing please note that my argument does not hang on doctrines like biblical inerrancy or inspiration. Rather I will be using the same rules developed by the skeptics such as the Jesus Seminar and Bart Ehrman to put the New Testament under the flames of historical research and see what passes as reliable.

Now then my first argument will be that Jesus thought of himself as no mere man. or "great moral teacher" as Lewis famously put it. To the contrary Jesus words present a sense of divine authority and uniqueness that no one else has ever held. I will go about defending my position by fist appealing to the gospel story of Jesus entry into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey's colt. This act is an intentional fulfillment of the prophecy of Zacharia 9:9. This fact is both part of the early passion narrative used by Mark as source material in his gospel and is also given as an independent tradition in John's gospel.

We also have messianic sayings preserved in the early Q document which was utilized by Luke and Matthew as source material for their gospels. One example would be Matthew 11:4-5 here Jesus once again shows his belief that he is the messiah by quoting another piece of old testament related to the Messiah. Also the fact that John was doubting Jesus Messiahship grants this passage by embarrassment.

Next, Jesus believed he was God's son in a different way than the kings and prophets were called "sons of God." Such as the parable of the vineyard found in Matthew and Mark. Here Jesus speaks of the vineyard that was rented out to some wicked tenants when it came time to pay rent the owner sent servants. The tenants beat the servants and killed some of them. Next the owner sends his only son thinking they will listen to him. The tenants kill the son. Here Jesus calls Israel the vineyard, the prophets the servants, the Jews the tenants and God the landlord. This would make him the only son of the father distinct from all the messenger sent before him, and even the heir to Israel. We know this passage to be historical for the following reasons; it is independently attested to in the Gospel of Thomas, it fits the background of ancient Palestine well and it even parallels several statements found in Jewish rabbinic writings.

But the most shocking display on the part of Jesus to messiahship and divinity comes at his trial before the Jewish high priest in Mark 14. Caiaphas asks, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" (14:61). To which Jesus responds, "I am: and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." (14:62) After this the high priest tears Jesus cloths as a formal sign of blasphemy and delivers him to his fate at the hands of the Romans. This passage is likely historical due to the following notes of Robert Grundry. The high priest would likely have substituted "God" with "the Blessed" which was not characteristic of early Christians but was of Jews. The combination of sitting and coming is found no where in New Testament but in Jesus mouth. The Son of Man is no where else associated with sitting at God's right hand. The saying matches Jesus' other Son of Man claims (Mark 2:10, 28; 8:38; 13:26). Mark is unlikely to have a prophecy made and not have it fulfilled in his gospel. And lastly the use of the term "the power" was most probably used in the official court records to take the place of God's name "YHWH" which we know Jews did in from the Minsha. If Jesus said "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of YHWH", speaking right in front of the official the holy name of God then the charge of blasphemy makes and the tearing of his cloths makes better sense.

Next let us consider the miracle accounts of the gospels and see if Jesus gave us any proof in his life time to back up his claims. First note that the miracle tradition is one of the best attested facts about Jesus life. Not only do we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Q in the Bible which makes five early independent sources, we also have Jewish authors in the Talmud and Josephus who say that Jesus performed "wonderful works" or "sorcery". Pagan author Celsus accused Jesus of having learned his magic tricks in Egypt. Quadratus the first Apologist says that he himself knew some of the people Jesus raised from the dead and healed.

Further more some of the miracle accounts in the gospels create unnecessary problems for the early church – they are embarrass. Because of the problems they create, it is unlikely that the early Church would have invented them. Among these embarrassing stories are: Mark 5:22 which says the Jewish man was favorable. Mark 3:20-30; Matthew 12:22-32 Jesus was accused of getting his powers from Satan. And Jesus couldn’t preform miracles in his home town in Matthew 13:58.

The story such as those the raising of Jairus’ daughter from death (Mark 5:41) and the healing of the deaf man (Mark 7:34), contain Aramaisms. Due to the fact that the gospels were written in Greek, this kind of linguistic evidence speaks highly in favor of an event’s historicity because Aramaic is the language Jesus and the eyewitnesses spoke.

And one miracle in particular has a firm place in the Jesus tradition. The feeding of the 5000 is mentioned not only in all four canonical gospels, but also in apocryphal works and according to E. Bammel the traditions of the Qu’ran and the Sibylline Oracles are independent of the New Testament, and therefore give strong reasons to think that there’s something historical behind the account.


And lastly Jesus resurrection is the foundation upon which we Christians have placed our faith. If Jesus Miracles do lend credence to his claims to be messiah, then his death is the sacrifice which atoned for our sins, and his resurrection was a preview of what is to come for us in the future. So then along the lines of William Lane Craig and Gary Habermas arguments I will present the resurrection hypothesis as the best explanation of several facts. Due to time and word limits I will present a condensed case of the resurrection evidence here and we can discuss it further as my opponent wishes. So then the facts I seek to defend shall be as follows; the discovery of Jesus' tomb empty, the meetings of the disciples with Jesus after his death, and the very origin of the belief in Jesus resurrection.

Jesus empty tomb is attested to in at the very most four independent sources that would be Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The first witnesses to the empty tomb are women who would not have been made up in a later stories. The story as it appears in Mark is simple and shows no signs which we expect in later legends. The first Jewish response presupposes that the tomb was empty, they said "the disciples stole the body" not that "the tomb's over there". The dating of the resurrection to the third day most likely stems from the empty tomb on the third day. And that should sufice in giving us reason to believe the tomb was empty.

The post-rez meetings with Jesus are given to us by Paul in 1 Cor 15 which for many reasons has been isolated as a pre-pauline creed. A summary of Jesus works that dates to about five years of the crucifixion. Here Paul tells us that Jesus appeared to three groups and three individuals. The gosples lend further evidence for these traditions. Such as the attestation of the appearance to the 12 in Matthew, Luke, and John. The appearance to Peter told in Luke (who like Paul transmits a pre-lukan tradition which interrupts the narrative). The appearance to Paul given to us in the words of Paul himself and also found in the book of Acts. The appearance to James the Just and can be seen as an independent string of evidence since Jesus family never be lived in him during his life time (which is given to us via criterion of embarrassment). But James was transformed to the point that Josephus relates his death by stoning for his Christian belief. Or the fact that women are once again the first witnesses to the resurrection which is unlikely to have been made up.


Lastly where did the belief in the resurrection come from if not a literal historical fact? Jewish influences cannot explain the belief in the resurrection because the Jewish idea of resurrection was so different from that of the Christians. First off the Jewish resurrection was always of the entire population of the world, and second it was always at the end of time. Third resurrection was left as a side belief of little importance to the main religion as opposed to the fact that the Christians hung everything on this belief. Fourth the description of the resurrection body was left in mystery, where as the Christians had come to say that it would be a transformed renewed physical body. It's just too hard to explain how Jewish resurrection could cause the Christian belief. Christian influcence cannot be the cause because there was no Christianity yet, the very focal point of the faith as I have said is the resurrection. And lastly the pagan parallels theory or the zeitgeist hypothesis cannot accurately account for belief in the resurrection because the causal mechanism which would lead from a story to belief that a friend had come back to life cannot be accounted for.

In summary, it is because of the character, wisdom, miracles and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which I believe can be supported via the tools of historical studies that I believe that Christianity is rendered the most likely to be the case, and until I find evidence to the contrary I am a proud Christian.


Than you.

[Anon]

To begin, I would like to apologize to Out-Of-Names for letting my reply time go on too long. I've had a few difficulties in my life, including work, a recent move, and my grandmother passing away, and I've also realized that the case he's presented requires of me a study which a debate's time limit cannot provide enough span for me to investigate properly. I will fulfill my undertaking, however, and do what I can.

If you recall in my opening statement, I presented some cases which would lend support to the supposition that God could possibly not exist. Now, instead of addressing these arguments, OON takes the position that God may be proven through the Resurrection.

Notice, first and foremost, that OON needs a God to provide the Resurrection. Other possible nontheistic explanations, such as spontaneous regeneration, an alien intervention, and so forth, have no substantiation; indeed, the only evidence that OON can give relies on documents and testimony of a like theistic background. It is this theistic background - the existence of a Divine Creator interested in the Earth - that then must be shown by OON. In his opening statement, OON does not provide any such evidence or philosophical argumentation beyond the Resurrection.

This means that the Resurrection must be conclusive. Unless OON provides evidence against my general objections to God as such, even a strong case for the Resurrection leaves plenty of room for doubt, for the Resurrection and the existence of the Deity go along hand in hand.

That being said, I will provide some commentary against OON's case. Let it be known, however, that I must honestly concede my weakness in historical argumentation surrounding this case, as my investigation into Christianity has not yet led me to an adequate assessment of these particular claims. Perhaps OON will be patient and lead me down this path!

... tenants kill the son. Here Jesus calls Israel the vineyard, the prophets the servants, the Jews the tenants and God the landlord. This would make him the only son of the father distinct from all the messenger sent before him, and even the heir to Israel. We know this passage to be historical for the following reasons; it is independently attested to in the Gospel of Thomas, it fits the background of ancient Palestine well and it even parallels several statements found in Jewish rabbinic writings.

I agree with OON that Jesus is not to be considered a moral teacher if the reports are taken as non-legendary. After all, one who preaches that faith in Him - NOT Works - is what ultimately leads to salvation since all fail by morals alone cannot be a great moral teacher and ONLY a moral teacher!

... "the power was most probably used in the official court records to take the place of God's name "YHWH" which we know Jews did in from the Minsha. If Jesus said "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of YHWH", speaking right in front of the official the holy name of God then the charge of blasphemy makes and the tearing of his cloths makes better sense."

I am not entirely sure what OON means with this. All I take it to mean is that Jesus is claiming to be the Son of Man as spoken, IIRC, in Ezekiel (I cannot find the reference, unfortunately, but hopefully OON and the spectators will know that to which I refer). I would like to see some more substantiation of Christ's self-identity from OON.

Next let us consider the miracle accounts of the gospels and see if Jesus gave us any proof in his life time to back up his claims. First note that the miracle tradition is one of the best attested facts about Jesus life. Not only do we have Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Q in the Bible which makes five early independent sources, we also have Jewish authors in the Talmud and Josephus who say that Jesus performed "wonderful works" or "sorcery". Pagan author Celsus accused Jesus of having learned his magic tricks in Egypt. Quadratus the first Apologist says that he himself knew some of the people Jesus raised from the dead and healed.

Apart from the Gospels themselves, Quadratus seems to be the only substantial person here - Josephus and Celsus may just be reporting what they heard, which may have been the information present in the oral traditions at the time. I do find Quadratus' testimony interesting, but I would ask OON for a source that gives his quote and the proper context of his quote.

Further more some of the miracle accounts in the gospels create unnecessary problems for the early church – they are embarrass. Because of the problems they create, it is unlikely that the early Church would have invented them. Among these embarrassing stories are: Mark 5:22 which says the Jewish man was favorable.

If Mark was written for Jews, however, this may have been representative of the perspective Mark took in writing for the information of the converted Jews. It was John - rather unkind to Jews in comparison, by my reading - that was spread to the Gentiles. If I recall correctly, John was an evangelical Gospel meant to convert, and was not for substantiating beliefs that were already there amongst a Jewish community, as Matthew, Mark, and Luke were.

Mark 3:20-30; Matthew 12:22-32 Jesus was accused of getting his powers from Satan. And Jesus couldn’t preform miracles in his home town in Matthew 13:58.

From my readings, Jesus' town wasn't exactly favorable, and besides, Matthew may have simply been reporting facts already known to the audience. Also, recall who accused Jesus of getting his powers from Satan - the very people whom He spent his ministry repudiating! It is also an important fact to point out to Jewish believers, who may have heard this same thing from orthodox Jews trying to dissuade them from believing.

The story such as those the raising of Jairus’ daughter from death (Mark 5:41) and the healing of the deaf man (Mark 7:34), contain Aramaisms. Due to the fact that the gospels were written in Greek, this kind of linguistic evidence speaks highly in favor of an event’s historicity because Aramaic is the language Jesus and the eyewitnesses spoke.

I am not sure how this proves their historicity - only that it was not made up and inserted at a far later time. And to early believers who may not have yet heard the story, getting this "new" miracle would have been as easy to believe as what they had already believed prior to receiving the full Gospel. I'm not saying the Gospel writers (or holders of the Oral Tradition before the Gospels were penned) made it up, but in their fervor, unintentional "tall tales" may have been inserted upon the history. If this was not a tendency of ANE Jews (at least those capable of breaking from orthodoxy) then I stand corrected, but I will leave it up to OON to demonstrate this.

And one miracle in particular has a firm place in the Jesus tradition. The feeding of the 5000 is mentioned not only in all four canonical gospels, but also in apocryphal works and according to E. Bammel the traditions of the Qu’ran and the Sibylline Oracles are independent of the New Testament, and therefore give strong reasons to think that there’s something historical behind the account.

As the tradition of many of the extra-Biblical documents (such as the Qu'ran) were written well-past the gospels, it could be supposed they got their information from the gospels. The fact that it is mentioned in so many early sources is nonetheless interesting, but it may mean that it was no more than one of the earliest circulating tales of Christ, as the Resurrection itself was.

The first Jewish response presupposes that the tomb was empty, they said "the disciples stole the body" not that "the tomb's over there".

Although I find the story of the bribed guards in Matthew difficult to follow, the Jewish response is consistent with, say, a "whoops! where's his tomb?" scenario, substantiated (unless you're Eastern Catholic) by the fact that Christ's tomb's location was not preserved. Accounts of the guards are not given by the other sources when it would have been beneficial for them to do so, especially the other two Synoptics as they were likewise addressed to Jews facing the same strong objection.



The post-rez meetings with Jesus are given to us by Paul in 1 Cor 15 which for many reasons has been isolated as a pre-pauline creed. A summary of Jesus works that dates to about five years of the crucifixion. Here Paul tells us that Jesus appeared to three groups and three individuals. The gosples lend further evidence for these traditions. Such as the attestation of the appearance to the 12 in Matthew, Luke, and John. The appearance to Peter told in Luke (who like Paul transmits a pre-lukan tradition which interrupts the narrative).

The appearance to Paul given to us in the words of Paul himself and also found in the book of Acts.

Paul indicates in his letters that Christ's appearance is a revelation, a very spiritual type of experience - very consistent with the experiences given in Acts, where folks see lights, hear voices, etc., in extremely "knock you on your butt" spiritual circumstances, rather than the physical types of experiences given by the Gospels pre-Rez.

As for the other post-resurrection appearances, I will need to study those particular instances in greater detail to do them justice. I would like to discuss these further with OON, particularly the important appearance to the 500, mentioned only once by Paul and in a way guarding against the possibility of folks checking out his sources (some have already passed on, Paul says).

The appearance to James the Just and can be seen as an independent string of evidence since Jesus family never be lived in him during his life time (which is given to us via criterion of embarrassment). But James was transformed to the point that Josephus relates his death by stoning for his Christian belief. Or the fact that women are once again the first witnesses to the resurrection which is unlikely to have been made up

.

The women are indeed the first to witness, but that embarrassment is alleviated somewhat due to their experience being substantiated by Peter in the text.

I find the James the Just story new and interesting - I must have missed that during my readings of the NT. When does this appearance occur? Is it very spiritual-like, like Paul's experience?

Lastly where did the belief in the resurrection come from if not a literal historical fact? Jewish influences cannot explain the belief in the resurrection because the Jewish idea of resurrection was so different from that of the Christians. First off the Jewish resurrection was always of the entire population of the world, and second it was always at the end of time. Third resurrection was left as a side belief of little importance to the main religion as opposed to the fact that the Christians hung everything on this belief. Fourth the description of the resurrection body was left in mystery, where as the Christians had come to say that it would be a transformed renewed physical body. It's just too hard to explain how Jewish resurrection could cause the Christian belief. Christian influcence cannot be the cause because there was no Christianity yet, the very focal point of the faith as I have said is the resurrection. And lastly the pagan parallels theory or the zeitgeist hypothesis cannot accurately account for belief in the resurrection because the causal mechanism which would lead from a story to belief that a friend had come back to life cannot be accounted for.

The departing from the Jewish resurrection was not all that huge - Christ just got in as firstfruits; the General Rez still otherwise happens at the end of time. Was that single instance of Christ itself the unbelievable revolutionary statement, however? Hmm ...

If the Jews ran into the Messiah, wouldn't all the now-related, works-related philosophy yield to the Christ? Wouldn't the Jewish Faith necessarily change once the Messiah is revealed?

I am not familiar with the beliefs of the ANE Jews regarding the Resurrection, but if I recall correctly, the Jews didn't believe in the kind of harp-playing soul silhouette present in popular culture today (or Greek culture back then). They believed in a sort of unity of the physical body, and it would be therefore no surprise to them if doctrine arose containing a discourse on the nature of the general resurrection in fact surrounding the physical body itself, would it not?

Interesting points overall, and I look forward to discussing this with OON - but I would also like to hear his case substantiating the existence of God. For without any evidence in that direction, it may be possible He does not exist, and if that's the case I must conclude (no matter how well-supported in history and testimony that the Rez may be) that - to paraphrase Holmes - once we rule out the impossible, whatever simplest explanation, however improbable, must be the case.

[Out-Of-Names]

I want to say first off in all my time of debating this topic and it's counterparts, never have I met an agnostic, atheist or skeptic in general who has met me with the kind of respect and honest that Anon has. I'm honored to be debating you.

Now about your arguments...



Let me first start off by letting you all know that I am an avid opponent of all Cosmological arguments in general and the Kalam in particular. I actually don't disagree with the argument as my friends may be surprised to find out. I just find that it gets far too much attention in the philosophical world and therefore has far too many micro points to deal with. I therefore have focused my study in other areas such as history and ontology. So you'll have to forgive me if I'm a not as informed with this section of Anon's argument.





With regards to the state of the universe not being a naked singularity. I will not argue from ignorance rather I will simply say that I'm skeptical of any argument that rests of quantum theory. This is a highly speculative field of study. Apart form the Bohmian interpretation that Anon mentions there are at least nine other interpretations all of which are as consistence with what data we do have as the Bohmian. Also there is an argument from quantum theory to the existence of God that I could likewise use. This argument is based on "Conscious Wave Theory" but I don't use it because like I said I would not rest my hat on the rack of quantium theory. Apart from all this, let us not forget that Quantum theory is incomparable with Einstein's theory of relativity, meaning if one is true, the other can't possibly be true.



How did God create the universe? It becomes important here to distinguish between sufficient causes and material causes. A material cause would be an antecedent set of necessary or sufficient conditions or mechanically operating set of principals which would lead to an events causation. While God is not a cause in this sense, he is a sufficient cause in the scene that the potentiality of the universe's existence lays in God's omnipotence. Bearing this distinction in mind I can only say that I do not know how omnipotence works and how God could produce something from nothing. Actually between me and my philosophy buddies there has been an in house debate over whether or not God created ex nihilo or ex deo. And I think that both positions are feasible. To sum up my answer to Anon's question I will simply say, I have no idea. But I don't believe that I have to know how to know that. For example I know that if I step on the clutch and turn the key in my car I know that it will start even if I don't know how it starts.

As for morality...
Anon argues that objective moral values could be embedded in human reason rather than in God's nature and naturalism therefore gives us as good or better grounds for objective morals. While I do not necessarily agree that morality and reason are the same thing, I will grant his point for sake of argument and like to argue that even if it is so, the naturalistic universe is not such that reason could arise in it. Therefore reason itself serves as a defeater of naturalism. I will also give a brief argument from the normativity of rational and moral facts which seems to indicate theism over other non-naturalistic worldviews.

Philosopher Victor Reppert states the following when explaining the argument from reason: "You take all the physical descriptions and put them in the left-hand side of the equation. On that side, there can be no intentionality, normativity, subjectivity, or teleology. Add them together, and it looks as if they can't entail anything on the right hand side, the "mental" side of the equation, where we do find intentionality, normativity, subjectivity, and teleology. There is always room for indeterminacy, or, for that matter, room for zombies. The physical works just fine, but there's just no there there.

Yet the naturalist cannot deny that there is determinate reference. The arguments of the philosophers, the observational reports of the sciences, and the equations of the mathematicians must have determinate meanings. Otherwise, science is impossible, and the case for naturalism collapses.

Therefore, if naturalism is true, the very things that are supposed to support it, such as argument and reason, aren't real. Only in a universe where the marks of the mental are metaphysically fundamental are these things possible."

Reppert's point is that if the universe is such that all our mental states are reducible to chemical reactions and atoms fizzing, then reason and other mental things we experience on a daily basis would not exist in the way which we believe them to.

Else where Reppert gives the argument in the this form.
1) No belief can be rationally inferred if it can be explained in terms of non-rational causes.
2) If naturalism is true then no belief is rationally inferred.
3) Any hypothesis which entails that rational inference does not exist ought to be rejected and it's denial accepted.
4) Therefore naturalism ought to be rejected and it's denial accepted.

If the argument from reason holds up we are therefore left with the problem of where to go now that naturalism is defeated. And I would like to suggest that theism is the most natural choice for the reason of normative facts. Rationality and morality have a funny type of fact to them, that being normative facts. While a fact would be something that IS a normative fact is something that OUGHT to be. Such as Jack the ripper is a killer vs. Jack the ripper ought not be a killer. Now then this funny fact of normativity is best accounted for by there being an intelligent designer who created the world to function in such a what that when it deviates from that that path we can truthfully say, "the world is not the way it ought to be." Because as JP Moreland has stated "what does it mean if my breaks are not functioning the way they ought to? It means they are not functioning the way they were... designed!" Mere existence or a formed concept of what is the case cannot lead to what what ought or ought not be the case.



All alleged issues Anon mentions here take place within the first 12 chapters of the Bible, which most Christians themselves also have issue believing as literal history. I am one of them. I hold to a theistic evolutionary view and I believe that a deeper reading of the creation story clearly shows itself as poetry rather than an exact scientific account. As for the flood many find reason within the text to suggest it was a local flood rather than a globe. I don't have any clue what it means in Genesis 5 when the sons of God came to the daughters of men (even though the Book of Enoch is a great story). I can offer no response to the ages of people in those days or the Tower of Babylon.


What of miracles, magic and demons. First of all let me say that I have witnessed at least two of these categories first hand. For nine months of my life I was trapped by demons I saw them, spoke with them and found myself with new kinds of abilities I believe they granted to me. I have seen dozens of these spirits and have had amazing confirmations of their existence. One spirit in particular was observed by me, a deliverance minister in Iowa and a close friend of mine who lives in Alabama. The demon presented himself in the same manner to all three of us, caused the same feelings of depression and darkness and other things. Over all I find the cohesiveness of the story striking. I can offer no physical evidence of my experiences (though I do believe scientific evidence for demons does exist). The only proof I have is my own testimony and a clean bill of health from a psychologist (though I do suffer from stress issues). The reason for sharing my experience is to point out the fact that these stories are all over the world and by presupposing the falsity Anon is also presupposing his conclusion. Does this not reduce his reasoning to a question-begging fallacy?


Anon seems to agree with me on the point that Jesus believed himself to be the Son of God in a uniquely divine sense of and doesn't take mush issue with my defense of the authenticity of several of the biblical quotes on the matter. He does attempt to down play the Mark 14 passage. But this is the most signifigant passage in one swoop Jesus says that he is messiah, Son of God and Son of Man, at the same time he claims to have the authority to sit at the right hand of God in heaven. A truly blasphemous and controversial issue in the ancient world only four Jewish texts ever make a pronouncement as to whether a man can sit at God's right hand, and it comes out as two for and two against.

My only point in quoting Celsus and Josephus was to demonstrate that the miracle tradition was in place fairly early and was attested to by enemies rather than denied, they said he did the works of the devil. Anon has asked me for the proper context of Quadratus' quote, unfortunately I cannot give it because the citation I quoted is the only fragment of Quadratus' apology that we have surviving today. Though myself and other find reason to believe that the apology and the work know as Epistle to Diognetus are one and the same work, in which case the fragment quoted above would fit into the gap between 7.6 and 7.7 in Diognetus.


Anon claims that the Gospel of Mark may have been written for Jews and if so criterion of embarassment in 5:22 would disappear. However Mark was written for a Christian audience in Rome (as suggested by the presence of Latinisms), and the Gospel as a whole preserves the same hostility towards the Jews as the rest of the NT

I did not understand Anon's response to Mark 3:20-30; Matthew 12:22-32 and Matthew 13:58.

About Mark 5:41 and Mark 7:34 which I argue contain aramaisms anon argues that my case is not proven and I agree with him, the presnese of aramaisms is only counts in favor of an event's historicity and must be taken in the context of the rest of the evidence for the miracles.

With regard to the outside attestation of the feeding of the 5000 anon complains about the date, however the date isn't important here, what is important is the fact that there is an independent tradition at all.

The appearence to the 500 is indeed only given by Paul, this could possibly be the appearance from Matthew 28:16-17 on the mountain top. An appearance to this many people would most likely have taken place out doors. And it was in the city where crowds of people had gathered to hear Jesus preach. It is interesting that of all the recorded appearances this is the only one that is by appointment, all other times Jesus just showed up at random unexpected times. Note here that Paul himself knows these people and far from Anon's claims of him trying to cover his tracks is actually offering the chance for the Corinthian church to go and look in to it for themselves.

So what if Peter was the second witness to the empty tomb? Why was he no the first if the story is indeed purely fictional?

Sadly the appearance to James the brother of Jesus is given to us only by Paul. But we can reason that such an event occured because paul was never a believer in Jesus during his life time, and this can be established via embarrassment. Yet the James the Just we have in the writings of paul and Josephus is totally transformed in his conviction that his brother is God incarnate he is the first bishop of the church, he is one of the four pillars and he is even stoned to death for this belief in Jesus.

[Anon]

Because of my changing studies (and, subsequently, status), I have concluded that this debate is no longer appropriate given my conclusions.

Since I have a different view than I did when I began this debate, I can no longer honestly continue with the arguments presented. I offer Out-Of-Names a challenge, then, to prove that God is the Christian God, but I can no longer offer a debate position from the one I previously had at the beginning of this debate.

I look forward to communicating with Out-of-Names in the future regarding this substantial topic.