Reason and Research as opposed to Rhetoric on Religious Claims

[2PhiloVoid]

Didn't mean to offend.

Perhaps fideism in not "obviously" false. And I let a rhetorical flourish get the better of me.

If we look at how fideism for a minute:

"Within the sphere of the “intellectual”—e.g., within scientific or historical scholarship—inquiry is conceived in terms of a process of “approximation” to reality. When it comes to religion, however, what matters, according to Kierkegaard, is not the “object to which the knower relates himself” but the relationship itself: the accent falls not on “what is said” but on “how it is said” (1846, 199 and 202). For Kierkegaard, as for the so-called evangelical fideists, faith is characterized by passionate commitment and thus requires a decision or “qualitative leap” (1846, 384). His claim is not simply that having evidence is unnecessary in this context, but that it would, so to speak, destroy the whole endeavor, since it would alter the meaning of the beliefs in question and the spirit in which they could be believed. “If I am able to apprehend God objectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith. If I want to keep myself in faith, I must continually see to it that I hold fast the objective uncertainty, see to it that in the objective uncertainty I am ‘out on 70,000 fathoms of water’ and still have faith” (1846, 204). "

"Any belief that depended on the outcome of historical or scientific approximation—and which could be undermined by its results—would not be genuine faith, and anything whose existence could be established purely on the basis of philosophical argument—and so could be believed in “indifferently,” without this belief making a significant difference in one’s life—would by definition not be God. “Anyone who wants to demonstrate the existence of God…proves something else instead, at times something that perhaps did not even need demonstrating, and in any case never anything better” (1844, 43)."

So it seems that he is making an argument in reaction to Hegelian epistemology here. The idea that we cannot "Prove." And we also recognize the whole Cartesian Modernism project wrongly focuses on certainty of knowledge and its ungrounded skeptical foundation.

However SK is making an argument above our typical way of knowing the world can't possibly be how we know God. But he seems to go further than Jesus who teaches about both God's attributes, God's Kingdom, God's intent, using parables and analogies with things in this world. Teaching truths about God the same way one teaches truths about farming or ranching.

The gospel writers over and over again appeal to eye-witness accounts, not to "just believe and don't even ask for evidence and arguments because you can't prove anything."

Again Paul and Barnabas Acts 13-19:

Argue in the synagogue the historical facts
Argue in the open forums
Argue in the gymnasiums

Paul argues from what can be known using logic and he engages the philosophers in philosophical arguments.

These are the things that seem to me to run opposite of SK.

Do we have the type of Hegelian systematic knowledge, of course not. But do we have to abandon the large portion of the New Testament where by men are persuaded that God has certain attributes and requirements, that mono-theism is true and polytheism is false?

It is certainly reasonable to believe we can't comprehend God. But is it reasonable as the thomist believe, to believe he is so different in his nature as to not be perceivable (possible to apprehend). Only if we reject both testaments as false.

God has taught me much in quiet times. He has shown me things that no human or system could ever have intuited. My relationship of faith is based on thousands of small pieces of evidence, some a posteriori experiences, others a priori arguments such as the KCA.

Hegel is wrong. And SKs hymns and thoughts about God are marvelous, but it seems his epistemology doesn't square with the accounts of the early evangelists. It seems that God has designed a world that can be perceived (although not perfectly) by humans, and that we can have justification for why we believe in God, and that Jesus argued a chain of true premises and sound arguments couple with works of power that were evidential in nature. That fulfilled prophecy seemed to be another evidential area Jesus, the gospel writers, and Paul were focused on.

SK seems to be at odds with the whole early evangelist.

Unless one believes we have no accurate accounts whatsoever in the NT, the method deployed there seems to be a knockdown argument to "choosing to believe."

In brief response, and similar to what @Silmarien as more than once stated, I think that the epistemic indices in the New Testament tell us that there is an additional aesthetic response to "things divine" that God has enables us to develop, appreciate and understand.

If we look at Paul, he seems to indicate that on a lesser level, all humanity should be able to receive "divine" impressions of a mystical and natural sort that incline us to see that all of this world we know has been established by a Creator. And as you know, we usually call that 'General Revelation.'

However, if we look closer, we also find that a specific, focused arrival at a cognitive state wherein we individually say with Peter, "Jesus Is The Son of God!," this human act of faith is usually called 'Special Revelation,' and it's acceptance has to be orchestrated by God Himself. As far as epistemology and metaphysics goes, I think this is Paul's meaning in the book of Colossians where he states that our foundation is Christ. The trick here is to understand what Paul's meaning is, and I don't think he's referring to Christ as the rational foundation of our faith as an entity of reasoned processes coming from Cartesian deductions based upon defined axioms. Rather, I think that Paul saying that our faith is founded not so much upon humanly discerned 'data,' but by the Living Spirit of Christ...whether we fully perceive Him or not.

And that's my take on it, and I follow some like Mary Healy who suppose a similar meaning.

Peace,
2PhiloVoid

 

[bhsmte]

The theological implications only come into play (or not) after assessing the truth of the source of the theology.

What process do you use, to assess the credibility of theological claims?

 

[Uber Genius]

In the case where God is a demonstrated thing with defined characteristics, you would have a God demonstrating itself. We don't. And until we do, the idea is vacuous.

All Hieronymous has done is use a deductive argument in which the conclusion is implicit in the premises, waiting to be derived by the logical rules of inference.

All A are B
P is A
Therefore P is B

Modus ponens

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore Socrates is mortal

Causal analysis gets us to the attributes required not circular reasoning as you falsely attest. We've been through this mistake a half-dozen times Variant. You are not trying.

 

[Uber Genius]

In brief response, and similar to what @Silmarien as more than once stated, I think that the epistemic indices in the New Testament alone tell us that there is an additional aesthetic response to "things divine" that God has to enable us to understand and appreciate.

If we look at Paul, he seems to indicate that on a lesser level, all humanity should be able to receive impressions, however mystical they may seem, from the make-up of nature and lean toward the idea that all of this world be know has been established by a Creator. And as you know, we usually call that 'General Revelation.'

However, if we look closer, we also find that a specific, focused arrival at a cognitive state wherein we individually say with Peter, "Jesus Is The Son of God!," this human act of faith is usually called 'Special Revelation,' and it's acceptance has to be orchestrated by God Himself. As far as epistemology and metaphysics goes, I think this is Paul's meaning in the book of Colossians where he states that our foundation is Christ. The trick here is to understand what Paul's meaning is, and I don't think he's referring to Christ as the rational foundation of our faith as an entity of reasoned processes coming from Cartesian deductions based upon defined axioms. Rather, I think that Paul saying that our faith is founded not so much upon humanly discerned 'data,' but by the Living Spirit of Christ...whether we fully perceive Him or not.

And that's my take on it, and I follow some like Mary Healy who suppose a similar meaning.

Peace,
2PhiloVoid

"When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women." Acts 17:1-4

Reasoned

Explaining

Proving

"As was his custom"

"As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men." Acts 17:10-12

Examined the evidence from "The Scriptures."

Again in verse 16ff Paul goes to Athens and reasons in the synagogue.

He then preaches to those around the Areopogus

And some "believe"

But the relationship is always a cause and effect where "belief" is an effect of "reasoning"

Now we can add additional data that suggests that the Holy Spirit empowers someone to hear and understand these arguments and consider fairly the evidence.

BUT WE CAN'T REVERSE THE CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP AND MAKE BELIEF A CAUSE INSTEAD OF AN EFFECT.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

"When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women." Acts 17:1-4

Reasoned

Explaining

Proving

"As was his custom"

"As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men." Acts 17:10-12

Examined the evidence from "The Scriptures."

Again in verse 16ff Paul goes to Athens and reasons in the synagogue.

He then preaches to those around the Areopogus

And some "believe"

But the relationship is always a cause and effect where "belief" is an effect of "reasoning"

Now we can add additional data that suggests that the Holy Spirit empowers someone to hear and understand these arguments and consider fairly the evidence.

BUT WE CAN'T REVERSE THE CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP AND MAKE BELIEF A CAUSE INSTEAD OF AN EFFECT.

I don't think so, because Jesus' statement that "To those who have, more will be given, and to those who don't have, even what they have will be taken away," along with other epistemological bits and pieces strewn throughout the Bible, indicate to us that God is mediating our cognitive processes. He's observing, He's altering, He's interfering all as He sees fit and in some kind of Divine Ration to the response that we have to Him. It's never JUST our saying, "Hey, I heard it! And it makes perfect sense to me, so much so that I can't help but to believe and to place my full faith in God through Christ! Yippeee!!!"

Too often, this is how Evangelicals make it sound like it happens: A (evidence) + B (hearing) = C (faith). But, that isn't what the totality of the Bible, even of the New Testament in particular, is telling us on how it all 'works.'

Christ is the spiritual foundation of our faith. In saying this I mean much more, and something a bit other, than just that Jesus is the foundation for our belief; our faith is other than something simply built up by our consideration of MERE historical evidence (or acceptance of the Bible, even). But again, too often, this is what evangelicals make it sound like.

I'd say the reality of Christian faith, to some extent, will lead us to realize that there is a little bit of Pascal at play here, a little bit of Kierkegaard, and even a little bit of Hegel and WLC, all mixed up in our understanding and approach to Jesus and Paul.

Moreover, when we look at Paul as he stood on Mars Hill, and we read Acts where he states he was "reasoning, explaining, and proving"Christ to the crowed, he wasn't doing this in a Cartesian frame, nor even specifically in an Aristotelian one, but more than likely, a Hillelian type frame, or a similar Jewish one (Gamaliel?). Besides, from what we also see in Acts.....hardly anyone was impressed with Paul's supposed logical presentation of 'the facts of Life in Christ."

In essence, if what I'm saying is correct, faith 'emerges' from within the complex of orchestration that God provides each of us epistemologically, psychologically, and aesthetically. He furthermore helps pull us out of our selves, out of our reliance on brute facts (although our belief includes some 'facts' as they are processed through the act of interpretation), and he helps to reorient our expectation that we should somehow feel that all of our questions have been answered to our satisfaction. No, instead, we should see our faith as a constant process of being pulled, day by day, by God's Spirit, where dynamic psychological tensions move us from faith to faith; all of this is not some Cognitive Destination where we think we've just hit the Plymouth Rock and sing Halleljuh! Of course, for those of us actually being led by the Spirit, it might 'feel' like that at times.

Please keep in mind that in what I've said above, I'm partially referencing considerations from - The Bible and Epistemology (Mary Healy & Robin Parry, eds.), along with some other sources. So, I do have a leg to stand on, even if I have to play hopscotch along the way.

[Addendum: Here's an interesting journal article I found as to the possible nature of Paul's thought -
Chilton, B. D., & Neusner, J. (2004). Paul and Gamaliel. Bulletin for Biblical Research, 14, 1-44.]

 

[Silmarien]

Didn't mean to offend.

Perhaps fideism in not "obviously" false. And I let a rhetorical flourish get the better of me.

If we look at how fideism for a minute:

"Within the sphere of the “intellectual”—e.g., within scientific or historical scholarship—inquiry is conceived in terms of a process of “approximation” to reality. When it comes to religion, however, what matters, according to Kierkegaard, is not the “object to which the knower relates himself” but the relationship itself: the accent falls not on “what is said” but on “how it is said” (1846, 199 and 202). For Kierkegaard, as for the so-called evangelical fideists, faith is characterized by passionate commitment and thus requires a decision or “qualitative leap” (1846, 384). His claim is not simply that having evidence is unnecessary in this context, but that it would, so to speak, destroy the whole endeavor, since it would alter the meaning of the beliefs in question and the spirit in which they could be believed. “If I am able to apprehend God objectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith. If I want to keep myself in faith, I must continually see to it that I hold fast the objective uncertainty, see to it that in the objective uncertainty I am ‘out on 70,000 fathoms of water’ and still have faith” (1846, 204). "

"Any belief that depended on the outcome of historical or scientific approximation—and which could be undermined by its results—would not be genuine faith, and anything whose existence could be established purely on the basis of philosophical argument—and so could be believed in “indifferently,” without this belief making a significant difference in one’s life—would by definition not be God. “Anyone who wants to demonstrate the existence of God…proves something else instead, at times something that perhaps did not even need demonstrating, and in any case never anything better” (1844, 43)."

So it seems that he is making an argument in reaction to Hegelian epistemology here. The idea that we cannot "Prove." And we also recognize the whole Cartesian Modernism project wrongly focuses on certainty of knowledge and its ungrounded skeptical foundation.

However SK is making an argument above our typical way of knowing the world can't possibly be how we know God. But he seems to go further than Jesus who teaches about both God's attributes, God's Kingdom, God's intent, using parables and analogies with things in this world. Teaching truths about God the same way one teaches truths about farming or ranching.

The gospel writers over and over again appeal to eye-witness accounts, not to "just believe and don't even ask for evidence and arguments because you can't prove anything."

Again Paul and Barnabas Acts 13-19:

Argue in the synagogue the historical facts
Argue in the open forums
Argue in the gymnasiums

Paul argues from what can be known using logic and he engages the philosophers in philosophical arguments.

These are the things that seem to me to run opposite of SK.

No worries, no offense taken.

I don't think it's entirely fair to compare Kierkegaard's approach directly to what is portrayed in the New Testament. He was not developing his philosophy in the context of the 1st century Greco-Roman world, but in direct response to 19th century Christianity and modernity more broadly. Kierkegaard himself has philosophical arguments in favor of Christianity, so I would not say that he was opposed to philosophical inquiry into the subject. They're certainly different than what you would expect from a debate with Athenian philosophers, but Copenhagen isn't Athens, so that is to be expected.

Could his approach have been an overcorrection? Certainly, but I don't think he's entirely out of line even with Pauline epistemology as portrayed in 1 Corinthians 13:12. There are even hints of fullblown fideism in passages like John 20:29, so I would hesitate to simplify any of this into a matter of clearly correct or incorrect theology.

It is certainly reasonable to believe we can't comprehend God. But is it reasonable as the thomist believe, to believe he is so different in his nature as to not be perceivable (possible to apprehend). Only if we reject both testaments as false.

Just want to say that this is a misconception of Thomism. I've seen Thomists point out that it was Maimonides, not Aquinas, who really pushed the idea of God being wholely other. Thomists seem to think instead that God's properties are knowable, though only analogously. But that's a different claim.

Ed Feser got a bit cranky at William Lane Craig over this issue a little while back.

God has taught me much in quiet times. He has shown me things that no human or system could ever have intuited. My relationship of faith is based on thousands of small pieces of evidence, some a posteriori experiences, others a priori arguments such as the KCA.

On the other hand, there's that line from Pascal--"God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and savants."

To my knowledge, Aquinas's life work consisted in demonstrating that the God of Reason and the God of Faith were the ultimately the same God. Whether he succeeded is certainly an interesting question, especially given that even such an influential thinker could have a vision at the end of his life and then declare his writings to be "but straw."

I don't think either statement really means that faith and reason are opposed and going to take you in completely different directions, and take serious issue with any form of fideism that posits as much, but there is an implication there that reason only takes you part of the way. Its role is important, sure, but I think too strong a focus on it just leaves everyone obsessing over certainty.

 

[Silmarien]

The theological implications only come into play (or not) after assessing the truth of the source of the theology.

The problem lies in the fact that we simply cannot fully assess historical claims. Are you familiar with modern debates over whether Nero was truly as terrible as history has made him out to be, or whether he was reviled by the patricians for being a populist? The truth likely lies somewhere in between, but we will never know exactly where, since this is the difficulty inherent in historical analysis.

Assessing something like the New Testament is, of course, infinitely more difficult. I think it historically irresponsible to take a hyper-skeptical view of it and claim that the whole thing is completely unreliable, but there are certainly limits to what we can positively affirm.

 

[bhsmte]

The problem lies in the fact that we simply cannot fully assess historical claims. Are you familiar with modern debates over whether Nero was truly as terrible as history has made him out to be, or whether he was reviled by the patricians for being a populist? The truth likely lies somewhere in between, but we will never know exactly where, since this is the difficulty inherent in historical analysis.

Assessing something like the New Testament is, of course, infinitely more difficult. I think it historically irresponsible to take a hyper-skeptical view of it and claim that the whole thing is completely unreliable, but there are certainly limits to what we can positively affirm.

This where learning what the historical method is all about and how historians are supposed to apply it, helps immensly. Some NT historians apply the method strictly and some play fast and loose with it. If one understands how the method works and then read the work of various NT historians, you can pick up on this.

 

[Silmarien]

So what Larry Hurtado is conflating here is a strawman.

Let me explain why. WLC is not arguing here or in any of his debates for a theological claim.

He is saying the best explanation for the data about the resurrection is that it is an actual historical event.

Larry Hurtado isn't arguing against a strawman; that quote is not about WLC at all. It shows up in a review by Hurtado on a book by Ehrman--a fairly critical review, actually, but they have a similar approach to the question of historicity.

If someone is guilty of strawmanning, it's only Ehrman.

This is where Ehrman lies! Why I think he is dishonest!

He has a PhD. He knows that Craig is stating that, "even the skeptics agree on the base facts."

Ehrman then misrepresents Craig as saying "these scholars agree with my conclusion."

This is not how the minimal facts argument works.

I will need to read through the debate again, then. I would not say that Ehrman is being dishonest--even if WLC's strategy is legitimate, it's perfectly normal to be troubled by hearing people cited to support conclusions they don't share. It looks like he was specifically talking about the Empty Tomb, though, which is usually not included in the Minimal Facts Approach.

It would be interesting to see the Minimal Facts Approach defended here, though. At least for me. Even if I'm not sure how many of the skeptics around here are literate enough with the scholarship to have that sort of debate.

It is a great legal and debating strategy to get your opponent or skeptics like Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossen (who are atheist theologians and historians) to agree with the facts of the theist.

Marcus Borg was never an atheist. He was a panentheist and a pluralist, and while certainly not an orthodox Christian by any stretch of the imagination, not a naturalist either. Let's not make the term "atheist" even more meaningless by classifying actual theists as such too!

 

[Uber Genius]

but I don't think he's entirely out of line even with Pauline epistemology as portrayed in 1 Corinthians 13:12. There are even hints of fullblown fideism in passages like John 20:29, so I would hesitate to simplify any of this into a matter of clearly correct or incorrect theology.

"Alvin Plantinga has noted that fideism can be defined as an “exclusive or basic reliance upon faith alone, accompanied by a consequent disparagement of reason and utilized especially in the pursuit of philosophical or religious truth” (87). Correspondingly, Plantinga writes, a fideist is someone who “urges reliance on faith rather than reason, in matters philosophical and religious” and who “may go on to disparage and denigrate reason” (87). Notice, first, that what the fideist seeks, according to this account, is truth. Fideism claims that truths of a certain kind can be grasped only by foregoing rational inquiry and relying solely on faith."
Fideism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

This seems to require the exclusivity. Not associated with evidence, facts, reason, logic, or argument.

SK seems to use it in this exclusive sense.

Acts 17 clearly rejects that approach.

Now as to 1 Corinthians 13:12.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

The context is the end-times when we are glorified. Paul's face to face reference is telling. In the present Paul knows in part, when he sees "the perfect" then he will know fully.

So Paul is not changing his approach that was his custom and excluding reason. He is saying there is a time when our knowledge of God will be full due to God's completion of his earthly creation and our receiving new bodies.

It doesn't seem to suggest anything more than now we are limited in knowledge, and further the gifts of the spirit should not puff anyone up.
John 20:29 again needs context to be exegeted properly.

Now Thomas), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

25 But he said to them, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.

28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Here we see the other disciple have SEEN Jesus. Evidence through their senses. Thomas had not. And Jesus makes the point that blessed are those that don't need even that evidence. This would include 99.9999999% of all Christians across time.

What we would need Jesus to say is blessed are those who believe without evidence.

No prophecy, no arguments, no natural theology. And yet Jesus says "Put your fingers in my hands and my side." He does deride Thomas but he also provides him and all the disciples evidence.

He then walks them through all the prophecy that he had to fulfill. They in turn use that teaching to go teach at the temple. And later at synagogues, and foreign cities.

Just want to say that this is a misconception of Thomism.

"The Thomist believes that God’s essence is existence – that God’s essence is to be (the act of being). If you find that difficult to understand or unintelligible, in one sense Thomists grant that we can’t understand what that is because our intellects grasp the essences of things (those essential properties that make a thing what it is), but in God’s case the Thomist says in one sense God doesn’t have an essence. Rather God’s essence just is the pure act of being which is not something that can be grasped by the intellect. So there is a deep agnosticism in Thomism about who God is and what he is like. All we really have are negative predications of God that are true. There are no univocal predications of God that are true. At best we can speak of God analogically in the same way that I can say that food is healthy on the analogy of a person’s being healthy. Clearly the food is not healthy in the same sense that a person is healthy.[1] In the same way the Thomist would say we can speak analogically of God being good, loving, holy, and so forth, but these are not univocal concepts when applied to God. We really have no univocal knowledge or concepts of God on Thomism because he doesn’t have an essence that we can grasp. It is just the pure act of being." WLC

He was trained under Norm Geisler, a Thomist.


Read more: Is it Possible God is Not Personal?

Is it Possible God is Not Personal?

Fessor in his book The Last Superstition, says ,
"God is not an object or substance alongside other objects or substances in the world; rather, He is pure being or existence itself, utterly distinct from the world of time, space, and things, underlying and maintaining them in being at every moment, and apart from whose ongoing conserving action they would be instantly annihilated. The world is not an independent object in the sense of something that might carry on if God were to “go away”; it is more like the music produced by a musician, which exists only when he plays and vanishes the moment he stops.

None of the concepts we apply to things in the world, including to ourselves, apply to God in anything but an analogous sense. Hence, for example, we may say that God is “personal” insofar as He is not less than a person, the way an animal is less than a person. But God is not literally “a person” in the sense of being one individual thing among others who reasons, chooses, has moral obligations, etc. Such concepts make no sense when literally applied to God."

https://www.amazon.com/dp/158731452...e=df0&creative=395105&creativeASIN=1587314525

We may need to delve deeper into the semantic range of both WLC and EF's discussion. I'm willing to let the Thomist stake out the meaning as to avoid sweeping generalizations or straw men. I think that Aquinas has such an enormous breadth to his writings as well as change in approach, thinking, and experience that I would not want to represent his writings in support as one is likely to find a later reference that refutes this notion.

I will engage Fesser more fully on this specific issue of what can be known about God. Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[Uber Genius]

Ehrman's position was a lot like Larry Hurtado's here:

"Historical analysis is not able to judge the validity of theological claims. [...] historians cannot really judge the question of whether God raised Jesus from death. All historical analysis can do is to explore when and in what circumstances such claims emerged, what people seem to have meant in making such claims, and what the subsequent effects were."

Larry Hurtado isn't arguing against a strawman; that quote is not about WLC at all. It shows up in a review by Hurtado on a book by Ehrman--a fairly critical review, actually, but they have a similar approach to the question of historicity.

So I am not claiming that Hurtado is responding to WLC.

I am claiming that to use this approach to attack WLCs argument is a strawman.

Why?

1 - WLC is making a claim about an event in history.

2 - The fact that it is about who invented pudding or whether a resurrection happened is moot. A fact is a fact. Craig is not arguing for anything beyond the fact of the empty tomb not trying to give a causal analysis as God did it. Just that this miracle happened.

3 - So Hurtado is wrong to single out facts and exclude others. In fact to the extent that certain things happen in the external world they confirm a lot and disconfirm even a greater lot of theological statements as true and others false.

The scriptures are replete with examples of historical facts. Luke's gospel account was so accurate factually as to be the basis of early archeology.

Why this approach is a straw man is it misses the fact that WLC is claiming facts and corroboration by hostile eye-witnesses is a great method to determine historical accuracy. Further WLC often claims that guys like Dominic Crossen an extreme skeptic, agree with the factual claims just not the conclusion.

So we can say that theological truths are predicated sometimes on a subset of historical truths. If our statements about evidence are historical in nature then Hurtado's and Erhman's points are moot.

If in context Hurtado is actually saying that historical analysis can't go so far as to provide differentiation between say the various inferences on the nature of Christ, then surely that is true, but hardly worth saying.

 

[Dirk1540]

Defeaters are offered against Bart's inference that the gospel accounts are fiction. Or so convoluted by redaction as to be untrustworthy.

I will need to read through the debate again, then. I would not say that Ehrman is being dishonest--

The trouble that I have with Bart's claim that they are fictional is that they run into the problem of being on par with the different, yet similar, stories that a cop or a courtroom gets when they interview independent witnesses. A fictional New Testament would certainly be an odd & disjointed work of fiction. One problem with the New Testament is that I can't interview separate authors because they are dead. If I tell one person that I drank with their brother at the bar on Sunday in my Dallas Cowboys jersey, then told another person that a fight broke out in the bar that day and my GAP sweater got torn & ruined, we have a very poor work of fiction on our hands...now in reality that gets cleared up after I explain to you that I spilled my beer on my jersey and only live a block away, so I went home to change. I can't get a similar type of clarification from dead authors...so it would be very odd for a work of fiction to lack clarification details like that. A story of fiction doesn't tend to leave you hanging with unclarified explanations, especially because they aren't even real details at all they are made up.

The problem that I see with Bart when he says 'Redaction' is that he hopes that I draw the wrong conclusion. If redaction is meant to imply that the gospel writers record the events of Jesus' ministry in a way that compliments their audience, and in a way that puts focus on certain aspects, then yes there was certainly redaction...no different than an author redacting an American history book through the eyes of a different culture but doing so with the same events & facts.

But Bart wants you to hear 'Redaction' and assume that it means additions, deletions, and harmonizations to the story of Jesus' ministry. I find this to be a tactical contradiction. How much sense does it make to imply this type of redaction, but for him to turn around and also make argument after argument about gospel contradicts, errors, misquotes of the Old Testament, etc?? IMO it's a contradiction in terms of angle of attack, these 2 angles of attack would be mutually exclusive not complimentary.

Bart's certainly not the first critic in 2,000 years to attack the gospels for being foolishly chock full of contradictions & errors. What would be needed to avoid centuries & centuries worth of these popular objections would be to practice the redation techniques of additions, deletions and harmonizations...the techniques that Bart tells us WERE practiced. Boy is it impressive, and strange, that the same group that was responsible for the most influential & successful religion in human history (which the atheist would simply refer to as smooth brainwashing), are also the most absent minded bone headed redactors in human history.

 

[Uber Genius]

Jesus' statement that "To those who have, more will be given, and to those who don't have, even what they have will be taken away," along with other epistemological bits and pieces strewn throughout the Bible, indicate to us that God is mediating our cognitive processes.

I never took the parable of the talents to be related to how we know God. I took it to be related to the fact that we have various abilities and contexts and callings (Talents 1, 5, 10) and we have free will as to how to invest those abilities. If we invest in the Kingdom of God, then we get reward, else we suffer loss.

1 Cor. 3:12-15
12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done he will receive a reward but only as through fire.

 

[Silmarien]

"Alvin Plantinga has noted that fideism can be defined as an “exclusive or basic reliance upon faith alone, accompanied by a consequent disparagement of reason and utilized especially in the pursuit of philosophical or religious truth” (87). Correspondingly, Plantinga writes, a fideist is someone who “urges reliance on faith rather than reason, in matters philosophical and religious” and who “may go on to disparage and denigrate reason” (87). Notice, first, that what the fideist seeks, according to this account, is truth. Fideism claims that truths of a certain kind can be grasped only by foregoing rational inquiry and relying solely on faith."
Fideism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

This seems to require the exclusivity. Not associated with evidence, facts, reason, logic, or argument.

The problem is that some of the major figures associated with fideism did not actually take that approach. Pascal believed it reasonable to acknowledge the limits of reason, and Kierkegaard seemed to characterize faith as transcending reason, but not being incompatible with it. So we have a definition of fideism that may or may not apply to the biggest names normally associated with the school of thought, which then gets tossed as a smear at anyone who suggests that reason might not take us as far as we would like.

SK seems to use it in this exclusive sense.

Did you read this paragraph in the article on fideism?

"Although he relentlessly criticized what he perceived as the overweening ambitions of academic philosophy and an unwarranted reliance on foundationalist tendencies in theology, Kierkegaard held that faith and reason are not mutually incompatible, and that philosophy—when practiced with respect for the “conditions of existence” within which human beings necessarily do their thinking—can ultimately help to clarify the nature of Christian commitment. For Kierkegaard, faith is incomprehensible, in the sense that it demands a willingness to venture beyond the purview of philosophical reason, but it is not unreasonable or irrational. Thus, although he describes faith as “believing against the understanding,” he is careful to distinguish the content of religious belief from mere “nonsense.” The believer “cannot believe nonsense against the understanding, which one might fear, because the understanding will penetratingly perceive that it is nonsense and hinder him in believing it”; however, the believer “uses the understanding so much that through it he becomes aware of the incomprehensible”—i.e., of the logical limits of speculative thought—“and now, believing, he relates himself to it against the understanding” (1992, 568). By discriminating between those cases in which it is competent to judge and those in which it is not, philosophy thus plays a self-critical role: mindful of its own limits, it allows religion to be itself."

That doesn't seem exclusive. Complicated, yes. Exclusive, no.

So Paul is not changing his approach that was his custom and excluding reason. He is saying there is a time when our knowledge of God will be full due to God's completion of his earthly creation and our receiving new bodies.

It doesn't seem to suggest anything more than now we are limited in knowledge, and further the gifts of the spirit should not puff anyone up.

Which is something that a lot of people on both sides of this question, including those who build complex systemic theologies out of natural theology Scholastic-style, seem to have forgotten. Fideism didn't arise in a vacuum!

I don't think Paul was changing his approach, though. As far as I can tell, his approach seems to have always been equally based in reason and apophatic mysticism. It's the latter which has been largely discarded. (1 Timothy 6:16 for another example.)

"The Thomist believes that God’s essence is existence – that God’s essence is to be (the act of being). If you find that difficult to understand or unintelligible, in one sense Thomists grant that we can’t understand what that is because our intellects grasp the essences of things (those essential properties that make a thing what it is), but in God’s case the Thomist says in one sense God doesn’t have an essence. Rather God’s essence just is the pure act of being which is not something that can be grasped by the intellect. So there is a deep agnosticism in Thomism about who God is and what he is like. All we really have are negative predications of God that are true. There are no univocal predications of God that are true. At best we can speak of God analogically in the same way that I can say that food is healthy on the analogy of a person’s being healthy. Clearly the food is not healthy in the same sense that a person is healthy.[1] In the same way the Thomist would say we can speak analogically of God being good, loving, holy, and so forth, but these are not univocal concepts when applied to God. We really have no univocal knowledge or concepts of God on Thomism because he doesn’t have an essence that we can grasp. It is just the pure act of being." WLC

He was trained under Norm Geisler, a Thomist.


Read more: Is it Possible God is Not Personal?

Is it Possible God is Not Personal?

Which is why the Thomists are so unhappy about his statements. They think he should know better. And I agree.

I'm a classical theist. Not a Thomist, since they've built their philosophical house of cards a bit higher than I'm comfortable with, but the idea that classical theists do not believe in a personal God is bizarre.

 

[Uber Genius]

Marcus Borg was never an atheist. He was a panentheist and a pluralist, and while certainly not an orthodox Christian by any stretch of the imagination, not a naturalist either. Let's not make the term "atheist" even more meaningless by classifying actual theists as such too!

Fair criticism.

I recall his remarks in the 1980s about the absurdity of the existence of a being like that described in the Bible. He had complete rejected it. But to your point a quick review confirms your correction. Panentheist is Not an Atheist. Thanks.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

This speaks volumes.


Dawkins is panned by his fellow atheist as fallacious.

Atheist philosophers praise WLC since oh the late 1970s.

If you were familiar with Dawkins you would not have questioned my characterization one bit.

As to the reason that Dawkins skipped out. Look at who he generally debates. Rarely does he tackle a philosophically trained theist. He picks local pastors who do not even have an undergrad in phil.

So your statement, "Dawkins has an established history of willingness to engage in debate with prominent Christians," is just false and in fact is central to Dawkins own reply.

You seem to be word-for-word in line with the Dawkins defense.

Yet you claim to not be a fan.

And you are on an Christian apologetics forum and don't know the number one Christian apologist for the last 30 years? Here is a partial list of 36 debates with the top atheists over the last 25 years. It doesn't any from the previous 15 years where he debated people like Antony Flew and JL Mackey.

Debate Transcripts | Reasonable Faith

Have you heard of Ravi Zacharias per chance?

How about Alvin Plantinga?

*Shrugs*

Perhaps my lack of familiarity of William Lane Craig speaks bloviating volumes to you, but it elicited no surprise from my professor, a Biblical scholar, or my classmates, several of whom are pursuing their PhDs in Christianity, when I brought this line of discussion up in my religious studies class this morning. You've declared that he's the number one Christian apologist for the last 30 years, but others do not place him in that vaulted position, or anywhere within proximity to it.

What I stated about Dawkins having debated with prominent Christians was factual, not fangirlish. Both prior to and in the years since he declined to debate with WLC he has engaged in debates with other Christians.

 

[Uber Genius]

Christ is the spiritual foundation of our faith. In saying this I mean much more, and something a bit other, than just that Jesus is the foundation for our belief; our faith is other than something simply built up by our consideration of MERE historical evidence (or acceptance of the Bible, even). But again, too often, this is what evangelicals make it sound like.

Absolutely true.

But remember fideism is exclusive of reason and evidence and argument.

So I think SK et. al. have some marvelous insights as to how to mature in Christ. How to put off the old man, how to listen and hear from God, and practice his presence. These are all spiritual practices for the Believer.

However, if we focus the lens on "How does one gain and understanding of their position before God, need for same, and why the Christian worldview is true, then

Fideism - excluding evidence and argument and reason,

can't possibly be true.

That certainly doesn't mean that these authors don't have value to add in how we mature in Christ.

And certainly there are mysteries in the work of the HS qua salvation.

But the exclusionary claims make fideism untenable as it decries the NT evangelists as fools.

 

[Uber Genius]

*Shrugs*

Perhaps my lack of familiarity of William Lane Craig speaks bloviating volumes to you, but it elicited no surprise from my professor, a Biblical scholar, or my classmates, several of whom are pursuing their PhDs in Christianity, when I brought this line of discussion up in my religious studies class this morning. You've declared that he's the number one Christian apologist for the last 30 years, but others do not place him in that vaulted position, or anywhere within proximity to it.

What I stated about Dawkins having debated with prominent Christians was factual, not fangirlish. Both prior to and in the years since he declined to debate with WLC he has engaged in debates with other Christians.

Your claims have softened it seems. But now you would have us believe that PhDs are equally unfamiliar with one of the top apologist of their entire lives. Wow, that just goes to the fact they haven't spent 5 minutes on the subject. Which is fine. Strange but fine.

The question remains, if you have no interest in apologetics then why post about apologetics?

If you do have interest, then why not spend 5 minutes reading about the best apologists? Instead you parroted Dawkins. Again strange.

 

[Silmarien]

1 - WLC is making a claim about an event in history.

2 - The fact that it is about who invented pudding or whether a resurrection happened is moot. A fact is a fact. Craig is not arguing for anything beyond the fact of the empty tomb not trying to give a causal analysis as God did it. Just that this miracle happened.

3 - So Hurtado is wrong to single out facts and exclude others. In fact to the extent that certain things happen in the external world they confirm a lot and disconfirm even a greater lot of theological statements as true and others false.

Larry Hurtado is a historian, not an apologist, so I imagine he is just pointing out that scholarship and apologetics have entirely different aims. I am not sure that he excludes facts--he is one of the scholars who pioneered early High Christology, after all--but determining whether miracles occurred or not is not a historian's job. Looking at the context of the claim is.

Though come to think of it, I suppose this is somewhat different from what Ehrman said in the debate with WLC. He was specifically talking about naturalistic assumptions taking precedence over supernatural ones, which... also not really a historian's job.

At the end of the day, this sort of behavior leaves me unwilling to trust either of them.

The trouble that I have with Bart's claim that they are fictional is that they run into the problem of being on par with the different, yet similar, stories that a cop or a courtroom gets when they interview independent witnesses. A fictional New Testament would certainly be an odd & disjointed work of fiction. One problem with the New Testament is that I can't interview separate authors because they are dead. If I tell one person that I drank with their brother at the bar on Sunday in my Dallas Cowboys jersey, then told another person that a fight broke out in the bar that day and my GAP sweater got torn & ruined, we have a very poor work of fiction on our hands...now in reality that gets cleared up after I explain to you that I spilled my beer on my jersey and only live a block away, so I went home to change. I can't get a similar type of clarification from dead authors...so it would be very odd for a work of fiction to lack clarification details like that. A story of fiction doesn't tend to leave you hanging with unclarified explanations, especially because they aren't even real details at all they are made up.

The problem that I see with Bart when he says 'Redaction' is that he hopes that I draw the wrong conclusion. If redaction is meant to imply that the gospel writers record the events of Jesus' ministry in a way that compliments their audience, and in a way that puts focus on certain aspects, then yes there was certainly redaction...no different than an author redacting an American history book through the eyes of a different culture but doing so with the same events & facts.

But Bart wants you to hear 'Redaction' and assume that it means additions, deletions, and harmonizations to the story of Jesus' ministry. I find this to be a tactical contradiction. How much sense does it make to imply this type of redaction, but for him to turn around and also make argument after argument about gospel contradicts, errors, misquotes of the Old Testament, etc?? IMO it's a contradiction in terms of angle of attack, these 2 angles of attack would be mutually exclusive not complimentary.

Bart's certainly not the first critic in 2,000 years to attack the gospels for being foolishly chock full of contradictions & errors. What would be needed to avoid centuries & centuries worth of these popular objections would be to practice the redation techniques of additions, deletions and harmonizations...the techniques that Bart tells us WERE practiced. Boy is it impressive, and strange, that the same group that was responsible for the most influential & successful religion in human history (which the atheist would simply refer to as smooth brainwashing), are also the most absent minded bone headed redactors in human history.

Oh, I actually disagree with Bart Ehrman on... well, probably not "almost everything," but plenty.

I think he's mistreated, though. I visit his blog occasionally to see him poke holes in the mythicists' pet theory, and he definitely takes fire from all directions because of his views. And he also changes his views when he thinks he was wrong. So regardless of whether or not his personal beliefs cloud his scholarship (and I think they do), he's clearly not trying to undermine Christianity at every possible opportunity. Professional criticism is certainly warranted, but personal attacks are not. And he gets a lot of them.

Of course, the same could and probably should be said of William Lane Craig in the other direction.

 

[Dirk1540]

Oh, I actually disagree with Bart Ehrman on... well, probably not "almost everything," but plenty.

Oh I'm sorry. In that case it looks like I was attacking straw Silmariens lol