Easter is approaching, but skeptic John Loftus doesn’t believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. What’s more, he thinks you’re delusional if you do. I happen to believe in the Resurrection, but I freely admit that I might be mistaken. I think Loftus is wrong, and his case against the Resurrection is statistically flawed; however, I don’t think he’s delusional. In today’s post, I’d like to summarize the key issues at stake here, before going on to explain why I think reasonable people might disagree on the weight of the evidence for the Resurrection.
The following quotes convey the tenor of Loftus’ views on the evidence for the Resurrection:
What we have at best are second-hand testimonies filtered through the gospel writers. With the possible exception of Paul who claimed to have experienced the resurrected Jesus in what is surely a visionary experience (so we read in Acts 26:19, cf. II Cor. 12:1-6; Rev. 1:10-3:21–although he didn’t actually see Jesus, Acts 9:4-8; 22:7-11; 26:13-14), everything we’re told comes from someone who was not an eyewitness. This is hearsay evidence, at best. [Here.]
The Jews of Jesus’ day believed in Yahweh and that he does miracles, and they knew their Old Testament prophecies, and yet the overwhelming numbers of them did not believe Jesus was raised from the dead by Yahweh. So Christianity didn’t take root in the Jewish homeland but had to reach out to the Greco-Roman world for converts. Why should we believe if they were there and didn’t? [Here.]
…[F]or [Christian apologist Mike] Licona to think he can defend the resurrection of Jesus historically is delusional on a grand scale.[Here.]
My natural explanation is that the early disciples were visionaries, that is, they believed God was speaking to them in dreams, trances, and thoughts that burst into their heads throughout the day. Having their hopes utterly dashed upon the crucifixion of Jesus they began having visions that Jesus arose from the dead. [Here.]
My natural explanation [additionally] requires … one liar for Jesus, and I think this liar is the author of Mark, the first gospel. He invented the empty tomb sequence. That’s it. [Here.]
Loftus is not a dogmatic skeptic; he allows that he can imagine evidence which would convince him that Christianity is true. However, it is his contention that the evidence of the New Testament falls far short of this standard. The problem, to put it briefly, is that evidence for the authenticity of a second-hand report of a miracle does not constitute evidence that the miraculous event described in the report actually occurred. This evidential gap is known as Lessing’s ugly broad ditch, after the 18th century German critic, Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781), who first pointed it out.
In this post, I will not be attempting to demonstrate that the Resurrection actually occurred. Rather, my aim will be to outline the process of reasoning whereby someone might conclude that it probably occurred, while acknowledging that he/she may be wrong. I’ll also endeavor to explain how another person, following the same procedure as the tentative believer, might arrive at a contrary conclusion, which would make it irrational for him/her to espouse a belief in the Resurrection.
The key facts required to establish the Resurrection
Before I begin, I’m going to make a short list of key facts, whose truth needs to be established by anyone mounting a serious case for the Resurrection.
Key facts:
1. The man known as Jesus Christ was a real person, who lived in 1st-century Palestine.
2. Jesus was crucified and died.
3. Jesus’ disciples collectively saw a non-ghostly apparition of Jesus, after his death.
N.B. By a “non-ghostly” apparition, I mean: a multi-sensory [i.e. visual, auditory and possibly tactile] apparition, which led the disciples to believe Jesus was alive again. I don’t mean that Jesus necessarily ate fish, or had a gaping hole in his side: many Biblical scholars now think that these details may have been added to the Gospels of Luke and John for polemical reasons. Are they right? I don’t know.
Readers will note that none of the key facts listed above makes any mention of the empty tomb. My reason for this omission is that St. Paul’s account in 1 Corinthians 15, which is the only eyewitness report, makes no explicit mention of Jesus’ empty tomb, although it seems to imply this fact when it says that Jesus was buried and raised. I won’t be relying on the Gospel accounts here, as they are probably not eyewitness accounts: most scholars date them to between 70 and 110 A.D. By the same token, I won’t be relying on the accounts of St. Paul’s encounter with Jesus in the Acts of the Apostles, which some scholars date as late as 110-140 A.D. St. Paul simply says of his experience: “last of all he appeared to me also.” That makes him an eyewitness.
It will be apparent to readers who are familiar with debates regarding the resurrection that my list of “key facts” is more modest than Dr. Willam Lane Craig’s list of minimal facts which he frequently invokes when he is debating the subject. Craig assumes that Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea, and that the following Sunday, his tomb was found empty by a group of women followers of Jesus. I make neither of these assumptions, although I happen to think he is right on both. For those who are inclined to doubt, Dr. Craig’s article, The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus, is well worth reading.
Two types of skepticism
I propose to distinguish between two kinds of skepticism: Type A and Type B. Type A skepticism casts doubt on people’s claims to have had an extraordinary experience, while Type B skepticism questions whether a miraculous explanation of this extraordinary experience is the best one. In the case of the Resurrection, Type A skepticism seeks to undermine one or more of the key facts listed above, whereas Type B skepticism doesn’t question the key facts, but looks for a non-miraculous explanation of those key facts.
Carl Sagan’s maxim that “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs” is often quoted when the subject of miracles comes up. But we must be careful not to confuse extraordinary claims with extraordinary experiences: the former relate to objectively real occurrences, while the latter relate to subjective experiences. There is nothing improbable about someone’s having an extraordinary experience. People have bizarre experiences quite often: most of us have had one, or know someone who has had one. However, extraordinary occurrences are by definition rare: their prior probability is very, very low.
The distinction I have made above is a vital one. The key facts listed above imply that Jesus’ disciples had an extraordinary experience, but as we’ve seen, there’s nothing improbable about that.
On the other hand, the prior probability of an actual extraordinary occurrence (such as the Resurrection) is extremely low. So even if we can show that Jesus’ disciples had an extraordinary experience which persuaded them that he had risen again, one still needs to show that the posterior probability of all proposed non-miraculous explanations of this experience is less than the posterior probability of a miracle, given this extraordinary experience, before one is permitted to conclude that the miraculous explanation is warranted. And even then, one is still not home free, because it makes no sense to posit a miracle unless one has independent grounds for believing that there is a God, or at the very least, that there is a small but significant likelihood that God exists.
To sum up, in order for belief in Jesus’ Resurrection to be reasonable, what one has to show is that:
(i) the total probability of the various Type A skeptical explanations listed below is less than 50%; and
(ii) given the key facts listed above, and given also that there is a reasonable likelihood that a supernatural Deity exists Who is at least able to resurrect a dead human being, if He chooses to do so, then the total [posterior] probability of the various Type B skeptical explanations listed below is far less than the posterior probability that Jesus was miraculously raised.
What’s wrong with Loftus’ argument, in a nutshell
Basically, there are two errors in John Loftus’ case against the Resurrection: first, he overlooks the fact that the probabilities of the various Type B skeptical explanations are posterior probabilities, rather than prior probabilities; and second, he thinks that because the prior probability of a resurrection is very small, any Type A skeptical explanation whose prior probability is greater than that of the Resurrection of Jesus is a more likely explanation of whatever took place. The following excerpt from a 2012 post by Loftus illustrates these errors (emphases mine – VJT):
In what follows I’ll offer a very brief natural explanation of the claim that Jesus resurrected. Compare it with the claim he physically arose from the dead. You cannot say my natural explanation lacks plausibility because I already admit that it does. As I said, incredible things happen all of the time. What you need to say is that my natural explanation is MORE implausible than the claim that Jesus physically arose from the dead, and you simply cannot do that.
As it happens, I’d estimate the probability of Loftus’ preferred explanation for the Resurrection of Jesus to be about 10%. That’s much higher than the prior probability that God would resurrect a man from the dead, even if you assume that there is a God. However, I also believe that there’s a 2/3 3/5 probability (roughly) that Jesus’ disciples had an experience of what they thought was the risen Jesus. If they had such an experience, and if there is a God Who is capable of raising the dead, then I think it’s easy to show that the posterior probability of the Resurrection, in the light of these facts, is very high.
Type A skeptical hypotheses regarding the Resurrection
The following is a fairly exhaustive list of skeptical hypotheses that might be forward, if one wishes to contest the “key facts” listed above.
1. Jesus didn’t exist: he was a fictional person.
2. Jesus existed, but he didn’t die on the cross: either (i) he fell into a swoon on the cross, or (ii) it was actually a look-alike who was crucified in his place.
3(a) The fraud hypothesis: Jesus’ disciples didn’t really see an apparition of Jesus; their story that they had seen him was a total lie. For thirty years, they got away with their lie and attracted quite a following, prior to their execution during the reign of the Emperor Nero. (James the Apostle died somewhat earlier, in 44 A.D.)
3(b) Jesus’ disciples saw what they thought was Jesus’ ghost, but much later on, Christians claimed that the disciples had actually seen (and touched) Jesus’ risen body – either (i) because of deliberate fraud on the part of some individual (possibly St. Mark, in John Loftus’ opinion) who first spread the story of an empty tomb, or (ii) because Jesus’ body had already been stolen by persons unknown, which led Christians to believe Jesus’ body had been raised, or (iii) because the body had disappeared as a result of some natural event (e.g. a local earthquake that swallowed it up), or (iv) because a later generation of Christians (living after the fall of Jerusalem) was no longer able to locate Jesus’ body (or his tomb), which led them to speculate that Jesus had in fact been resurrected from the dead.
3(c) Jesus’ disciples initially thought they had seen Jesus’ ghost, but shortly afterwards, they came to believe that what they had seen was a non-ghostly apparition of Jesus’ resurrected body – either (i) because of the unexpected discovery that Jesus’ tomb was empty or (ii) because of the mis-identification of Jesus’ tomb with another empty tomb nearby.
3(d) Jesus’ disciples experienced individual (rather than collective) non-ghostly apparitions of Jesus, on separate occasions, which convinced each of them that he had risen, and which made them willing to be martyred for their faith in that fact.
[UPDATE: New hypothesis added.]
3(e) Jesus’ disciples experienced a collective non-ghostly apparition of Jesus, which they all saw, but only one of the disciples (probably Peter) actually heard the voice of Jesus. It may have been because Peter was able to talk to Jesus that they were convinced that he was not a ghost; alternatively, it may have been because Jesus was not only visible and audible (to Peter) but also radiant in appearance that the apostles concluded he had risen from the dead.
Type B skeptical hypotheses
Supposing that one grants the key facts listed above, I can think of only two skeptical hypotheses by which one might seek to explain away the disciples’ non-ghostly post-mortem apparition of Jesus, without having recourse to a miracle. Either it was a purely subjective experience (i.e. a collective hallucination), or it was an illusion, created by mind control techniques.
4. Jesus’ disciples had an apparition of Jesus after his death which was so vivid that they came to believe that what they had seen was no ghost, but a resurrected human being. In reality, however, their experience was a collective hallucination, caused by either (i) the grief they were experiencing in the wake of Jesus’ death or (ii) Jesus hypnotizing them before he died and implanting the idea that he would rise on the third day.
5. Jesus’ disciples had a collective non-ghostly apparition of Jesus after his death, but in reality, either (i) aliens or (ii) supernatural beings (demons) were controlling their minds and making them see things that weren’t objectively real.
The Resurrection: Varieties of skepticism
Broadly speaking, there are resurrection-skeptics who believe in a God Who is capable of working miracles, and then there are resurrection-skeptics who have no particular religious beliefs.
Resurrection-skeptics who believe in a God Who can work miracles disagree with the claim that the total probability of the various Type A skeptical explanations listed above is less than 50%. For their part, Jews have traditionally favored explanation 3(a) [fraud], while Muslims favor explanation 2(ii) [a look-alike died in Jesus’ place]. Personally, I find the Muslim explanation wildly implausible: try as I might, I simply cannot imagine anyone volunteering to die in Jesus’ place, and managing to fool the Romans, the Jews, and (presumably) Jesus’ family and friends into believing that he was Jesus. The mind boggles. The fraud hypothesis was put forward by the Jews back in the first century. In the second century, St. Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (c. 160 A.D.) records a Jewish skeptic asserting that Jesus’ disciples “stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and ascended to heaven” (chapter 108). I have to say that I regard this explanation as a much more sensible one. If I had nothing but the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection available to me, I might be persuaded by it, but for my part, I find it impossible to read the letters of St. Paul to the Corinthians without becoming convinced of their author’s obvious sincerity. The man wasn’t lying when he said that Jesus appeared to him.
Non-religious skeptics who deny the Resurrection fall into different categories: there are both Type A skeptics and Type B skeptics. Among the Type A skeptics, there are a few Jesus-mythers (G.A. Wells, Earl Doherty, Robert Price, Richard Carrier) favor hypothesis 1, while swoon-theorists such as Barbara Thiering and the authors of the best-seller, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, favor hypothesis 2(i). However, most skeptics tend to either favor the Type A hypothesis 3(b) [the disciples saw a ghostly apparition; later Christians made up the resurrection – this is Loftus’ proposal] or the Type B hypothesis 4 [Jesus’ disciples had a collective hallucination, which was so vivid that it caused them to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead]. Hypothesis 3(c) has few proponents, and I don’t know anyone who advocates hypotheses 3(d) or 5.
My personal evaluation of skeptical explanations for the Resurrection
Reasonable people may disagree in their estimates of the probabilities for the various skeptical hypotheses listed above. However, my own estimates of the probabilities of these hypotheses are as follows:
Type A skeptical hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1 – Jesus never existed. Probability: 1%.
Pro: There’s no contemporaneous pagan or Jewish attestation for the amazing miracles Jesus supposedly worked (healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the 5,000), which is puzzling. Also, certain aspects of Jesus’ life (e.g. the virgin birth, dying & rising again) are said to have mythological parallels.
Con: No reputable New Testament historian doubts the existence of Jesus. Professor Graeme Clarke of the Australian National University has publicly declared: “Frankly, I know of no ancient historian or biblical historian who would have a twinge of doubt about the existence of a Jesus Christ – the documentary evidence is simply overwhelming.” Indeed, there is pretty good attestation for Jesus’ existence from Josephus (Antiquities, book XX) and Tacitus. Miracle-workers were a dime a dozen in the Roman Empire; one living in far-away Palestine wouldn’t have attracted any comment. The mythological parallels with Jesus’ life are grossly exaggerated. In any case, the question of whether Jesus existed and whether most of the stories about him are true are distinct questions. Perhaps there was a small kernel of truth behind the stories: Jesus healed some sick people.
Hypothesis 2 – Jesus didn’t actually die from crucifixion. Either (i) he fell into a swoon on the cross, or (ii) a look-alike was crucified in his place. Probability: 1%.
Pro: (i) Some individuals were known to survive as long as three days on the cross. Jesus’ death after just a few hours sounds suspicious. (ii) Some of Jesus’ disciples appear not to have recognized him, when they saw him after he was supposedly crucified.
Con: (i) Jesus was flogged, and pierced in the side, if we can believe St. John’s account. That would have hastened his death. But even if Jesus had survived crucifixion, he would have been severely weakened by the experience, and his subsequent apparition to his disciples would have alarmed rather than energized them. (ii) What sane person would volunteer to take Jesus’ place on the cross? Also, wouldn’t someone standing by the foot of the cross have noticed that it wasn’t Jesus hanging on the cross? Finally, the appearance of a risen Jesus who didn’t bear any of the marks of crucifixion would surely have made the disciples wonder if he really was the same person as the man who died on the cross.
Hypothesis 3(a) – fraud. Probability: 10%.
Pro: The perils of being a Christian apostle in the first century have been greatly exaggerated. The apostles Peter and Paul, and James brother of the Lord, lived for 30 years before being martyred, and even the apostle James lived for 11 years. During that time, the apostles would have been highly respected figures. Maybe they were motivated by a desire for fame and/or money. And maybe the apostles were killed for political rather than religious reasons, or for religious reasons that were not specifically related to their having seen the risen Jesus. We don’t know for sure that they were martyred for their belief in Jesus’ Resurrection.
Con: The fact remains that some apostles were put to death, and as far as we can tell it was for their testimony to the Resurrection. St. Clement of Rome, in his (first and only) Epistle to the Corinthians (Chapter 5), written c. 80–98, reminds his readers of Saints Peter and Paul’s martyrdom: “Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most just pillars of the Church were persecuted, and came even unto death. Let us place before our eyes the good Apostles. Peter, through unjust envy, endured not one or two but many labours, and at last, having delivered his testimony, departed unto the place of glory due to him. Through envy Paul, too, showed by example the prize that is given to patience: seven times was he cast into chains; he was banished; he was stoned; having become a herald, both in the East and in the West, he obtained the noble renown due to his faith; and having preached righteousness to the whole world, and having come to the extremity of the West, and having borne witness before rulers, he departed at length out of the world, and went to the holy place, having become the greatest example of patience.” Additionally, there is no doubting St. Paul’s obvious sincerity when he writes in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27:
Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.
There is little doubt among scholars that Paul is the author of this letter.
Hypothesis 3(b) – the disciples saw what they thought was Jesus’ ghost. Probability: 10%.
Pro: St. Paul writes that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” and it seems that his own experience of Jesus was just a vision. He never claims to have touched Jesus.
Con: St. Paul speaks of Jesus as the first person to be raised from the dead: he is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” If being raised simply means “being seen in a vision after one’s death,” this would make no sense. Post-mortem visions were common in the ancient world. Jesus wasn’t the first to be seen in this way. Nor would it account for St. Paul’s assertion that the resurrection of other human beings would not take place until the end of the world – “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” If a post-mortem appearance by a ghost counts as a resurrection, then many people are raised shortly after their death, and will not have to wait until the Last Day.
Hypothesis 3(c) – the discovery of the empty tomb tricked the disciples into thinking their visions of Jesus’ ghost were really visions of a resurrected Jesus. Probability: 10-15%.
Pro: It’s easy to imagine that people who’d had a post-mortem vision of Jesus might think it was something more than that, if they subsequently found his tomb empty. They might think he really had risen from the dead, after all.
Con: Despite its ingenuity, this hypothesis is at odds with all of the accounts of the Resurrection. In the Gospel narratives, the discovery of the empty tomb occurs before the appearances of Jesus, while in St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, there’s no explicit mention of the tomb being found empty, and no suggestion that its discovery led to a belief in the Resurrection.
Hypothesis 3(d) – the disciples saw the risen Jesus individually, but never collectively. Probability: 3%.
Pro: It’s easy to imagine that over the course of time, the apostles’ individual post-mortem apparitions of Jesus were conflated into one big apparition, especially when many of them were being martyred for their faith in the Resurrection.
Con: The hypothesis assumes that the apostles (including St. Paul) were passionately sincere about their belief that Jesus had appeared to each of them, but that during their lifetimes, they did nothing to stop a lie being propagated: that they had seen him together. St. Paul himself propagates this statement in 1 Corinthians 15 when he says that Jesus appeared “to the Twelve”: are we to presume he was lying?
[UPDATE]
Hypothesis 3(e) – the disciples saw the risen Jesus collectively, but only Peter [and maybe James] were able to talk to Jesus and hear him speak. That may have been what convinced the others that Jesus was not a ghost; alternatively, it may have been because Jesus looked radiant. Probability: 10%.
Pro: There have been apparitions in which all of the seers experienced a vision, but only one seer was able to talk to the person seen – e.g. Fatima, where only Lucia was able to talk to Our Lady. (Jacinta heard her, while Francisco saw her but did not hear her, and did not see her lips move.) The hypothesis would also explain the pre-eminence of Peter [and James] in the early Church, since those who could actually hear the risen Jesus’ message would have been accorded special status.
Con: Seeing and hearing alone would not make a vision non-ghostly. Think of the Biblical story of Saul and the witch of Endor. The ghostly apparition frightened the witch, and even though Saul was able to communicate with the spirit of Samuel, that did not stop him from thinking it was a ghost. Appearing radiant doesn’t seem to have been enough either; in the Biblical story of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17, Mark 9) it is interesting to note that even though Moses and Elijah were visible, radiant and heard conversing with Jesus, the apostles did not conclude that Moses and Elijah were risen from the dead. On the contrary, the early Christians expressly affirmed that Jesus was the first individual to have risen from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20). [Please note that it does not matter for our purposes if the Transfiguration actually occurred; what matters is what the episode shows about Jewish belief in the resurrection in the 1st century A.D. Evidently, being radiant, visible and audible did not equate to being resurrected.] Finally, it is worth pointing out that St. Paul also claimed to have spoken to the risen Jesus – see Galatians 1:12, 2:2.
Total probability of Type A skeptical hypotheses: 35-40%. 45-50%.
Type B skeptical hypotheses:
Let me begin by saying that if one has prior reasons for believing that the existence of God is astronomically unlikely, then the evidence for the Resurrection won’t be powerful enough to overcome that degree of skepticism. (John Loftus is one such skeptic.) If, on the other hand, one believes that the existence of God is likely (as I do), or even rather unlikely but not astronomically unlikely (let’s say that there’s a one-in-a-million chance that God exists), then the arguments below will possess some evidential force. I have explained elsewhere why I believe that scientific knowledge presupposes the existence of God, so I won’t say anything more about the subject here. I would also like to commend, in passing, Professor Paul Herrick’s 2009 essay, Job Opening: Creator of the Universe—A Reply to Keith Parsons.
Hypothesis 4 – collective hallucination. Posterior Probability: Astronomically low (less than 10^-33).
Pro: Collective visions have been known to occur in which the seers claim to have seen and heard much the same thing (e.g. the Catholic visions at Fatima and Medjugorje). And if we look at the history of Mormonism, we find that three witnesses testified that they had seen an angel hand Joseph Smith some golden plates.
Con: There has been no authenticated psychological study of a collective vision where the seers all saw and heard pretty much the same thing. It stands to reason that after having had the experience of seeing Jesus alive again after his death, the apostles would have cross-checked their reports, to see if they were in agreement about what they saw, before accepting the veracity of such an extraordinary miracle as a resurrection from the dead. If we very generously calculate the odds of one of Jesus’ apostles having a non-ghostly apparition of Jesus on some occasion as 10^-3, the odds of all eleven of them (Judas was dead) seeing and hearing substantially the same thing at the same time are: (10^-3)^11, or 10^-33. [See here for a more detailed explanation by Drs. Tim and Lydia McGrew.] And for a longer message delivered by the risen Jesus, (10^-3)^11 would be far too generous.
Re Catholic visions: it turns out that the Medjugorje seers didn’t all hear the same thing: they got different messages. Additionally, there is good reason to suppose that they were lying, on at least some occasions (see also here). The Fatima seers, on the other hand, were undoubtedly sincere, but only two of them heard Our Lady and saw her lips move; the other visionary, Francisco, didn’t hear her and didn’t see her lips move. Of the two seers who heard Our Lady, Jacinta never spoke to her and was never directly addressed by Our Lady; only Lucia spoke to Our Lady. The parallel with the Resurrection is therefore a poor one. [See also my post, Fatima: miracle, meteorological effect, UFO, optical illusion or mass hallucination?]
Re Mormon visions: each of the three witnesses who saw the angel hand Smith the golden plates had experienced visions on previous occasions. Also, the angel who handed Smith the plates did not speak, whereas Jesus’ disciples spoke with him on multiple occasions. Not a very good parallel.
Hypothesis 5 – alien or demonic mind control. Posterior Probability: Far less likely than the Resurrection.
Pro: An advanced race of aliens could easily trick us into believing in a resurrection-style miracle, if they wanted to. And if demons are real, then they could, too.
Con: The key word here is “if.” While this hypothesis is possible, we have absolutely no reason to believe that aliens or demons would bother to trick people in this way. The straightforward interpretation of the events – namely, that they actually happened – is far more likely.
That leaves us with the hypothesis of a miracle.
Resurrection hypothesis – Jesus was miraculously raised from the dead. Posterior Probability: Well in excess of 10^-11. Arguably close to 1.
Rationale: The number of human individuals who have ever lived is around 10^11, and well over 90% of these have lived during the past 2,000 years. Given the existence of a supernatural Creator Who can raise the dead, then in the absence of any other information, the prior probability of any individual being raised from the dead is 1 in 10^11, by Laplace’s Sunrise argument. Given the evidence listed in the key facts above (a death, and a post-mortem apparition with many witnesses substantially agreeing about what they saw and heard), the posterior probability of a resurrection is much higher. But even if it were only 10^-11, that’s still much higher than 10^-33, as in hypothesis 4.
Conclusion
Since my estimate of the total probability of the various Type A skeptical explanations is less than 50%, and since the posterior probability of the Resurrection is much greater than that of the various Type B explanations, belief in the Resurrection is rational, from my perspective.
Based on the evidence, I estimate that there’s about a 60-65% 55-60% chance that Jesus rose from the dead. That means I accept that there’s a 35-40% 45-50% chance that my Christian faith is wrong.
However, I can understand why someone might rate the probabilities of hypotheses 3(a), 3(b) and 3(c) at 20% each, instead of 10%. For such a person, belief in the Resurrection would be irrational, since the total probability of the Type A skeptical hypotheses would exceed 50%.
Summing up: a strong case can be made for the reality of Jesus’ Resurrection. However, a responsible historian would not be justified in asserting that Jesus’ Resurrection is historically certain. As we’ve seen, such a conclusion depends, at the very least, on the claim that there is a significant likelihood that there exists a supernatural Being Who is capable of working miracles, which is something the historian cannot prove. In addition, estimates of the probabilities of rival hypotheses will vary from person to person, and there seems to be no way of deciding whose estimate is the most rational one.
What do readers think? How would you estimate the likelihood of the Resurrection?
Recommended Reading
“Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?” Online debate: Jonathan McLatchie (a Christian apologist) vs Michael Alter (a Jewish writer who is currently studying the Torah with Orthodox Jews, as well as with non-Orthodox Jews). Originally aired on the show, Unbelievable, hosted by Justin Brierley, on March 26th 2016.
The Resurrection: A Critical Inquiry by Michael Alter. Xlibris, 2015. Meticulously researched, by all accounts. (I haven’t read it yet.) Probably the best skeptical book on the Resurrection available.
The Resurrection of Jesus by Dr. William Lane Craig.
The Historicity of the Empty Tomb of Jesus by Dr. William Lane Craig.
The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth by Drs. Tim and Lydia McGrew.
The odds form of Bayes’s Theorem [Updated] by Dr. Lydia McGrew. Extra Thoughts, January 6, 2011.
My Rebuttal to the McGrews – Rewritten by Jeffrey Amos Heavener. May 13, 2011.
Alternate Critical Theories to the Resurrection by Dr. John Weldon. The John Ankerberg Show, 2004.
Origen, Contra Celsum, Book II. Chapters 57-70 provide an excellent historical summary of pagan arguments against the Resurrection of Jesus in the late second century, and Origen’s rebuttal of those arguments in the mid-third century.
Good and bad skepticism: Carl Sagan on extraordinary claims by Vincent Torley. Uncommon Descent post, March 15, 2015.
Cavin and Colombetti, miracle-debunkers, or: Can a Transcendent Designer manipulate the cosmos? by Vincent Torley. Uncommon Descent post, December 1, 2013.
Hyper-skepticism and “My way or the highway”: Feser’s extraordinary post by Vincent Torley. Uncommon Descent post, July 29, 2014.
Is the Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Better Than Mohammed’s Miracles? by John Loftus. Debunking Christianity, March 6, 2012.
Oprah Winfrey’s Half-Sister and The Odds of The Resurrection of Jesus by John Loftus. Debunking Christianity, January 21, 2012.
A New Explanation of the Resurrection of Jesus: The Result of Mourning by Gerd Lüdemann, Emeritus Professor of the History and Literature of Early Christianity, Georg-August-University of Göttingen. April 2012.
Michael Licona’s Book is Delusional on a Grand Scale by John Loftus. Debunking Christianity, July 22, 2011.
Dr. John Dickson To Me: “You are the ‘Donald Trump’ of pop-atheism” by John Loftus. Debunking Christianity, April 2, 2017.
You assume a number of things. You assume, for example, that the accounts of the disciples seeing the risen Jesus are derived from statements by the disciples. What if somebody (one person would be sufficient) made up the accounts and used the disciples’ names to add credibility? You assume that if a preacher named Jesus existed, at least some of his tamer miracles — healing, for example, can be credited. You assume there would have been no cult of Jesus without the resurrection story. You assume that discovery of an empty tomb would affect the interpretation of a vision only if the vision happened before the discovery. I would suggest that an empty tomb would, if anything, prompt subsequent visions. In general, you examine objections to your disposal of objections much less closely than you examine the objections themselves. You are seeing (and calculating) with the eyes of faith.
And of course you assume a high probability that god exists, perhaps the least likely of all your assumptions.
I never found the gospel accounts of the resurrection to be convincing. Back when I was a tentative believer, I took the resurrection to be a spiritual kind of thing, rather than a physical thing.
On my reading, Loftus says “deluded.” He does not say “delusional.”
There’s quite a difference. “Delusional” would suggest mental illness, while “deluded” merely suggests being wrong.
I would look at the number of well-confirmed resurrections of humans whose deaths have been affirmed with near-certainty.
That number being less than one.
There seems to be no good reason to believe that anyone has been or will be resurrected once irreversible damage has reached the point at which life cannot be sustained.
Glen Davidson
Neil,
You might want to mention that to Alan. He has trouble with the “mentally ill” vs. “wrong” distinction.
keiths,
It might be a difference between British/Australian usage and American usage.
No, just childishness and hypocrisy on Alan’s part.
He had already given his true reason for moving the comment:
keiths:
Alan:
The ‘delusion’ business was just a later rationalization on his part, after he realized that he’d shot himself in the foot.
Vincent,
That’s excellent progress!
As I poured through the extensive response to Loftus’ view, I said, “has to be vjTorley.” VJ, I highly respect your perspective. I just don’t have the energy to digest the whole thing. I do have a bit of a different, simpler, take on Loftus’ view:
1 – everything we’re told comes from someone who was not an eyewitness.
Huh? Matthew was a disciple. He was in the upper room when Jesus showed up. He was there when Thomas queried Jesus’ validity.
John was spoken to by Jesus while he hung on the cross. John was one of the first two disciples to see the empty tomb. He had multiple encounters with the risen Jesus.
On point 1, Loftus is plain wrong!
Point 2: they knew their Old Testament prophecies, … did not believe Jesus was raised from the dead by Yahweh.
There are actually very few prophecies that clearly indicate Jesus’ resurrection. There are painfully vivid prophecies of Jesus’ crucifixion. Psalm 22 for example.
For people to have not realized that Jesus would rise from the dead, even knowing OT prophesies, is not surprising in the least.
Point 3: For Licona to think he can defend the resurrection of Jesus historically is delusional.
Any other historical event with as much first and second-hand accounts as this would not be written off. The only reason to disbelieve that Jesus rose from the dead is that it is impossible — it would take a miracle.
Point 4: My natural explanation is that the early disciples were visionaries, that is, they believed God was speaking to them in dreams, trances, and thoughts that burst into their heads
But they chose to die martyr’s deaths for their perspective. Further, neither the Romans nor the Jews chose to quash the whole nonsense by bringing forth Jesus’ dead body.
Point 5: one liar for Jesus, and I think this liar is the author of Mark
Yeah, and contrary to cultural norms, he had women be the first to discover the empty tomb. Then he had to have Matthew and John perpetuate and embellish the lie — that makes three liars. Because after all, point 1 is totally wrong, we have two very clearly first-hand accounts. Not zero.
Loftus’ argument is painfully weak.
Hi Neil Rickert and keiths,
Re deluded and delusional: it’s true that the link I provided in my OP says “deluded,” but I also had in mind another link, which is the first one in the list of quotes from Loftus, which is titled, Michael Licona’s Book is Delusional on a Grand Scale. The last sentence reads: “But for Licona to think he can defend the resurrection of Jesus historically is delusional on a grand scale.” It sounds to me as if Loftus is using the terms more or less interchangeably. (If you’d asked me for a definition, I would have said that “delusional” means “prone to having delusions,” while “deluded” means “currently in the grip of a delusion.” But I’m Australian, and you may define them differently in the U.S.)
John Harshman writes:
St. Paul says of Jesus that “he appeared to Cephas [Peter], and then to the Twelve.” He adds that he is teaching “what I received.” He also knew the apostles personally (see Galatians 2, for instance). I don’t think it’s reasonable to doubt that Jesus was seen by the apostles. However, I don’t make use of the Gospel accounts of the appearances, as these were written at a later date.
Come on. There are lots of faith healers who heal people: the late Kathryn Kuhlman, Benny Hinn and others. I’m not saying that miracles are required to heal people; I’m just saying that there were some spectacular healings (e.g. of blindness), which might have appeared miraculous, even if they were due to autosuggestion. I think a historian could concede that much. It’s hard to see how Jesus could have gotten such a following if he didn’t heal anyone.
Well, if he didn’t heal anyone and didn’t rise from the dead, what else would have started the “cult”?
Lots of people’s tombs are found empty – Charlie Chaplin’s, for instance. Do their fans suddenly start seeing visions of them on that account? No; they assume instead that the body has been stolen.
Hi brucefast,
Thank you for your comment. Just a quick note before I head off to work: most scholars don’t think the apostle Matthew wrote Matthew’s Gospel, and there is some dispute as to whether the apostle John wrote John’s Gospel, too. Loftus probably knows that, as he has a Masters in Divinity, and of course, he would tend to minimize the apostolicity of the Gospels.
Vincent,
Something to think about, related to our discussion of contradictions in the Bible:
The resurrection of Jesus is a central doctrine of Christianity. I find the evidence rather weak, but let’s set that aside for the moment and assume that the resurrection actually happened. Why is God hiding the evidence?
You’ve estimated a 35-40% chance that your Christian faith is wrong, and you’ve acknowledged that others can rationally reject the resurrection based on the (lack of) evidence.
Why does God allow something so important to go unbelieved by rational and open-minded people? Why does he allow your own faith to teeter on the threshold? Doesn’t he care whether people believe?
(Obvious answer: He doesn’t exist. There’s no God to notice that the evidence is thin, and no God to correct the situation by providing more evidence.)
Loftus is not known for ability to make such differences.
Silly Vincent, sad probabilist.
What is 100% clear now is that your faith in IDism, the ideology of the Discovery Institute, was wrong. What is still very unclear though is if you’ve learned how to MEASURE anything at all after your (yeah, Axe is a step-down from retired Dembski, who is a step down from the people Vincent *could* be reading instead of wasting his time on IDists) divorce from the DI. What measures of ‘Intelligence’ have come out of your personal brand of ‘ID science’?
Do you even know clearly why mature honest Catholics, like Edward Feser, Francis Beckwith and Stephen Barr, reject IDist ideology, while they are well-enough acquainted with ‘it’ (whoever’s particular IDT is in question, flip-flop)? It doesn’t seem so because you’ve been asked before and didn’t answer. Using the DI’s probabilistic argumentation style in trying to make USAmerican protesting ID-like apologetics obviously hasn’t yet left you, evidence this column.
I hope there is more than a 35-40% chance you’ll eventually heal from Expelled Syndrome, Vincent, and a >80% that you’ll soon stop posting at TSZ after finding something better to do with your creative time, along with of course finally dropping the concept duo ‘intelligent’ + ‘design’ from your hyper-USAmericanised/evangelicalised view of the topic. I do hope you’ll find something more useful to do than post such things here & no doubt a group somewhere would value your ‘extended quill.’
Are you really not familiar with *any* Catholics who responsibly, properly, respectfully and carefully reject IDism? If you are, familiar, then I’d suggest sharing THEIR views here instead of spouting off with ‘Intelligent Design-style’ crucifixion & resurrection apologetics.
Here, Vincent:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6092
Oh, and this too. Must reading for Easter!
http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Brook-Kerith.html
No, he’s absolutely correct. The gospels bearing the names of the disciples were written anonymously. The available evidence does not support the claim that they are eyewitness accounts.
There are no first hand accounts of any of Jesus’ life nor are there any contemporaneous writings that support the idea that he even existed. There is literally no non-biblical evidence of his crucifixion let alone resurrection.
Perhaps because he never existed and the events never took place.
If people died for “their perspective” it merely shows that people can strongly believe things. It says nothing about the veracity of those beliefs.
Do you find the claims of Mormonism and Scientology, to pick just two examples, credible because of the number of followers each has?
People, possibly genuine believers, possibly not, who were seeking power.
Heal thyself. Ah, wait, I see — writing like a creepily stalkerish, bloviating, sanctimonious prick is your creative outlet. Thank goodness it’s not your real life personality.
Is that how Mohammed got such a following?
Charisma? Don’t take this wrong, because I’m not comparing Jesus to Hitler, but how did Hitler propel the Nazi cult (at least it had many religious overtones) from being a tiny party to a major force? It doesn’t take a miracle.
Was he a religious leader to whom a number of people had devoted their lives?
Yes, and likely many people did assume that the body was stolen. It was possible, of course, that he’d never died, and had recovered, too.
How would we know, actually? That is the point, in fact.
Glen Davidson
Hi Gregory,
You write:
I’ve crossed swords with Edward Feser before, and all I’ll say here is that the argument which he puts forward for the existence of a Divine Intelligence guiding natural objects to their built-in ends is full of holes, in its present form. I’ve discussed this in detail in my article, Feser’s Fifth: Why his up-to-date version of Aquinas’ Fifth Way fails as a proof, and how to make it work. Feser keeps claiming he has an iron-clad proof of God’s existence. He doesn’t. See also my post, On not putting all your theological eggs into one basket for an extended discussion of the Five Ways. Please note that I’m not saying the Five Ways are wrong; I’m just saying they need a lot more philosophical work, to make them convincing to a modern audience. My first article describes how Aquinas’ Fifth Way could be patched up, for instance.
I’d now like to turn to Beckwith and Barr. They both make the same mistake, of assuming that ID’s explanatory filter is meant to identify all entities, and only those entities, that are products of design. They also assume that according to ID, anything which is the product of law is not designed. Wrong on both counts. ID is meant to pick out those entities which can be scientifically identified as products of design. Because of its own built-in limitations, science is unable to identify entities which are produced in a law-like fashion as being products of design – although the fine-tuning argument, which is the cosmological (as opposed to biological) version of ID, shows that the laws of nature are themselves designed. Of course, philosophers are welcome to argue that objects produced by the ordinary course of Nature are designed, and Dembski has repeatedly declared that he views the entities we find in Nature as having been designed. He writes:
The reason why ID steers clear of purely philosophical arguments is that they are rooted in metaphysics – which cuts no ice with millennials.
You want evidence that Beckwith and Barr misunderstand ID? Let’s have a look at Beckwith, in his 2010 Biologos article, Intelligent Design and Me, Part 2: Confessions of a Doting Thomist (emphases mine – VJT):
This passage reflects either wicked misrepresentation or complete ignorance on Beckwith’s part.
And now Barr:
More of the same. There’s no evidence that Barr understands the concepts of front-loading or the Law of Conservation of Information (and no, I’m not a fan of LCOI, but it does refute the objection voiced by Barr that ID requires miracles or the supernatural in order to make a design inference).
If Beckwith and Barr cannot even get the basics of ID right, and if the alternative theological proofs they put forward contain logical gaps of their own, then why should I pay any attention to them?
Now if there’s a Catholic writer I do respect, it’s Jimmy Akin. He’s a very fair-minded man, and I’d commend to you his online article, What Is the Difference Between Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design?
Yes, that’s the view of Butler, Moore, and G.B. Shaw. Very compelling, IMHO. Much more sensible than any “rising from the dead” story certainly. I mean, maybe if he hadn’t been seen again and if Joseph hadn’t been soooo interested in getting him down from there……
In any case, the burden has certainly been shifted from the cray-cray story.
Hi GlenDavidson,
Thanks for your comments. You write:
The religion of Mohammed was spread by the sword from the get-go. That largely accounts for his success.
Ditto. Militarism – and also nationalism. Jesus rejected both. (“Render to Caesar,” “Turn the other cheek,” etc.)
Can you produce one case of a person who was crucified, but was taken down from the cross and returned to normal life? Also, wouldn’t someone with four nail marks and a gaping wound in the side eventually succumb to infection and die, even if he were taken down from the cross?
Hi Patrick,
You ask:
Scientology resorts to mind control. That’s how it wields influence. Mormonism is a more interesting case. I think it spread because it had a miraculous claim that looked at least semi-credible (thanks to The Three Witnesses and The Eight Witnesses), and because of its interesting take on the problem of evil. People were looking for something new.
For my part, I find dualistic systems philosophically unsatisfying. If good and evil have been locked in an eternal battle, who’s to say that good will win? And how can matter just be there from all eternity, as Mormonism teaches?
You suggest that Christianity was started by “[p]eople, possibly genuine believers, possibly not, who were seeking power.” Hmm. St. Peter speaks of himself as a “fellow elder” in 1 Peter 5:1, and James warns against favoritism in James 2:1-9. St. Paul calls himself the least of the apostles in 1 Corinthians 15:9. These were the three most influential people in the early Church. They don’t sound too power-hungry to me.
walto,
Thanks very much for the book recommendations. I’ll have a look. I must confess I haven’t read anything by Samuel Butler, but I really should.
For my comments on the swoon theory, see comment #22 above and the OP.
Con: (i) Jesus was flogged, and pierced in the side, if we can believe St. John’s account. That would have hastened his death. But even if Jesus had survived crucifixion, he would have been severely weakened by the experience, and his subsequent apparition to his disciples would have alarmed rather than energized them.
That’s all discussed (in excruciating detail) in the books I suggested.
Whereas of course you have no problem with your particular deity existing for all eternity.
I’m afraid that Vince will always be able to find a reason why Christianity differs from any other religion, even if that reason is unique to comparison A and doesn’t hold for comparison B. There’s always something else he can use for comparison B. Vince will find what he needs to find.
The question is, how does the evidence look to outsiders who grew up in communities not full of Christian churches. Presumably to adults and not to children.
To people not in desperate need of food or medicine that might be offered by missionaries.
Let’s just say, to a middle aged, middle income person, sitting back in his lounge chair, enjoying a pipe, and reading about Christianity for the first time. Perhaps having the leisure to compare many revealed faiths.
I don’t really get how you think Islam spread. Did Mohammed get his first supporters by threatening them with the sword? Did he get a few dozen followers and start forcing conversions in Mecca, then in Medina? Doesn’t any group more or less have to grow by persuasion, at least in the beginning?
Christianity took up the sword when it could. Should I just credit force for being the only reason Christianity grew? I don’t, because it makes no sense, nor does it for the other religions.
Whatever. The Nazis used plenty of street thuggery, but so did communists, other right-wing groups, and probably even the centrists. Why did you ignore the charisma question? True, we’re not very compelled by Hitler, but he carefully honed his theatrics and delivery to work on his particular audiences. That had a lot to do with his getting enough votes to get into government, then to manipulate and intimidate his way into full power.
No, when I crucify people they always die. Or what the hell am I supposed to say in response? I can’t produce anyone who was crucified, thank God.
Am I to take the Gospels at their word? Anyway, people sometimes survive what you would think they wouldn’t. How am I to know?
Anyway, as John Harshman notes, you’re going to find some sort of saving grace for your beliefs whatever is said.
Glen Davidson
Yes, I can. Conan the Cimmerian was crucified, managed to get off the cross under his own power, and went on to become king of Aquilonia. Says so right in the scriptures.
No, it reflects that ID critics understand ID better than ID-ists do. And it’s getting old.
For one, if things that get past explanatory filter can be scientifically said to have been designed, then what happens to things that don’t get past the filter? Their designed-ness remains scientifically un-established. And this conflicts with Thomism and classical theism in general. As per them, everything is designed – laws of nature themselves are manifestation of design, while Dembski’s explanatory filter works in the opposite direction, aiming to rule out laws of nature (“necessity”).
Second, complexity is a nonsense way to argue for design. After all decades of explanation, it has become clear that Behe’s irreducible complexity and Dembski’s specified complexity dont lend themselves to a coherent definition and they are of no practical use. They have had less effect on scientific community than Dawkins’ memes, sadly. As Beckwith says,
The time for experiments is over. Behe and Dembski have calculated nothing and have not detected anything.
Third, design (as formal and final causality) is not observable (knowable with the intellect, not with the senses). Therefore not empirically measurable. Therefore not scientifically detectable. Therefore ID is on the wrong foundation altogether. According to classical theist view, Behe and Dembski had no chance of detecting anything in the first place, and they haven’t.
Like so much crazy.
Josephus provides a description of exactly the case of a person surviving crucifixion.
Every time I see an apologist citing the gospels to construct a proof of the veracity of the gospels, I know I’m seeing a True Believer.
A few comments on the “Key Facts”…(which I think are really presuppositions…)
1. The man known as Jesus Christ was a real person, who lived in 1st-century Palestine.
Yes, possibly, but probably a much more quotidian figure than that depicted in the gospels, which we know were not written in contemporaneous times (whoever this Jesus was he certainly didn’t get the attention of any authors living at the time). And those stories have certainly been embellished and changed over time, sometimes deliberately, often just through human error (see Bart Ehrman, “Jesus Before the Gospels” which brings in a whole psychological perspective on the unreliability of oral transmission, human memory and eye witness accounts).
2. Jesus was crucified and died.
Given the response to #1 above, best we can say is…perhaps. Again we have zero contemporary records of this event, let alone true eyewitness accounts. Best we have are writings from many years (decades) later, written by…well, we don’t know exactly…and we don’t even have any original copies either…
3. Jesus’ disciples collectively saw a non-ghostly apparition of Jesus, after his death.
We have an account that this happened…written many years later, based on hearsay, written by anonymous authors…again, it is a stretch to call this a fact.
But Vince’s analysis is very impressive. Who is he really trying to convince though?
Which apologist were you referring to there? I hope it wasn’t Vince, because he didn’t.
Hi timothya,
You mention that Josephus describes a case of a man surviving crucifixion. Here’s how Wikipedia summarizes it:
Josephus’ account is here (Life 75:420-21 – scroll down to paragraph 75).
So even if you were taken down from the cross and cared for by a physician, you still had a 2 in 3 chance of dying! And I imagine the guy who survived wasn’t too healthy, either. Remember: to motivate someone to die for you, re-appearing after you’ve supposedly died isn’t good enough. You’ve got to appear healthy and robust, as well – as a true Immortal would appear.
Allow me to quote the words of the 19th century rationalist theologian David Strauss: “It is impossible that a being who had stolen half dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill and wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to his sufferings, could have given the disciples the impression that he was a conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of life: an impression that lay at the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the impression which he had made upon them in life and in death, and at most could only have given it an elegiac voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship.” (The Life of Jesus for the People, vol. 1, 2nd edition (London: Williams and Norgate, 1879), p. 412.)
And as if that were not enough, medical authorities W. D. Edwards, W. J. Gabel and F. E. Hosmer offered the following analysis in regard to the New Testament Greek and the medical data:
Erik,
May I remind you that this is a thread about the Resurrection, not Intelligent Design. I’ll keep my responses brief. You write:
No, it doesn’t. Thomism and classical theism are concerned with the philosophical question of design, not with the scientific evidence for design.
As I’ve stated above, Dembski himself believes that the laws of Nature were designed by God. But he’s also aware that when arguing with a scientist about design, it makes no sense to appeal to metaphysical beliefs.
Behe’s irreducible complexity was never intended to be a knockdown argument for design, but rather, a probabilistic one. The empirical question, then, is whether we may conclude, in the case of a very complex molecular machine with several hundred parts, that rival explanations (e.g. exaptation) are astronomically improbable. If that is indeed the case, the explanatory filter could be invoked to justify a design inference. So the problem here lies not with the explanatory filter, but with the original probability calculation.
Re specified complexity: may I remind you that while Elizabeth Liddle has criticized specified complexity as an indicator of design (one of her favorite counter-examples is Chesil beach), she herself has acknowledged that functional specified complexity is a much more defensible hallmark of design. May I also remind you that it was Orgel, not Dembski, who coined the term “specified complexity,” and that it was physicist Paul Davies who wrote: “Living organisms are mysterious not for their complexity per se, but for their tightly specified complexity.”
Complexity is certainly a relevant criterion when identifying designed objects. If we were looking for such objects on other worlds, which objects would we look at first: simple objects or complex ones? You tell me. The real question is: what kind of complexity indicates design? Say what you like about Dembski: at least he is barking up the right tree.
You quote Beckwith as saying: “But I am suggesting is that the fight between the atheists and the ID advocates is precisely over the question of whether the EF works as a design detector.” No, it isn’t. The fight is over whether the EF ever gets it wrong when it declares: “This object is designed” on the basis of a probability calculation. There may well be flaws in the probability calculations (e.g. Doug Axe’s famous 10^-77 figure for proteins), but the basic idea behind the EF itself appears sound enough to me.
Oh, come on. Design is not observable? We observe design all the time. You wouldn’t have any hesitation in pronouncing a monolith on the Moon to have been designed. And if design is not scientifically detectable, then what’s SETI all about?
Vincent,
I’m still interested in your response to this:
No it can’t. You need to find the evidence of artifice, of rationality, of differing from the evolutionary patterns. All you’re doing is trying to define life as designed, which is nonsense.
It is if you have genuine designed objects. If you’re just assuming that complexity means design, you have nothing but your own prejudices.
We’d probably look first for simple objects, since any intelligent beings will likely make simple objects, while complex functional organization may be life and not design.
The real question is, how would we differentiate between designed objects and life if the latter were vastly different from our own (silicon-based, or some such thing, not resembling animals or plants). I’ll tell you how we’d do so, we’d look for evidence of biologic evolution, along with all of its peculiar blindness and difference from design (extremely derivative of ancestors), vs. the rationality and ability to survey possibilities in separate lineages of which intelligence is capable. If we found the evidence of biologic evolution without apparent intervention, we’d be fairly sure that the entities exhibiting that evidence were not designed.
How could it be otherwise? We would never expect designers to be limited by biologic evolutionary mechanisms, nor evolutionary processes to exhibit the awareness and rationality of designers. That’s the real test for design, not the absurd notion that complex entities exhibiting the patterns expected of evolution have been designed just because they are functionally complex.
Glen Davidson
Hi keiths,
You ask:
Good questions. Speaking for myself: although I happen to think the likelihood of the Resurrection, based on an objective assessment of the evidence, is about 60 to 65%, I also think that one may reasonably interpret events in history and in one’s own life as additional confirming signs, if one wishes – although it would be wrong to appeal to such signs in a debate with a skeptic.
Let’s look at history. Skeptics have charged that Christianity is responsible for the deaths of as many as 56 million people – a ridiculous figure which atrocitologist Matthew White takes apart here. Having looked at the evidence, I’d say Christianity is responsible for about 20 to 25 million equivalent deaths. (If an ideology is 1/3 responsible for the deaths of, say, 3 million people, then it’s responsible for 1 million equivalent deaths.) Be that as it may, I’ve also calculated that Christianity is responsible for saving hundreds of millions of lives – mostly from (a) female infanticide in the late Roman Empire and in medieval and Renaissance Europe (a point discussed by Rodney Stark in The Rise of Christianity – one can calculate that 20 million more girls than boys were killed in the pagan Roman Empire per century, and I’m also assuming that if Christianity hadn’t become the dominant religion, it would have been another 1,000 years before some other religion arose that could have put a stop to the barbaric practice – which is realistic, if we consider modern-day India and China, where it continues to this day), but also as a result of (b) sparing the lives of disabled people because it was believed they had immortal souls, as well as (c) the prevention of suicides in medieval Europe (a point acknowledged by Lecky in his History of European Morals). So on strictly utilitarian grounds, Christianity, for all its faults, turns out to have been a big blessing for humanity. Does that make it true? No. Does that help confirm belief in its truth for someone who is already a tentative believer, such as myself? Yes.
Re personal experience: I haven’t witnessed any miracles, seen any visions or heard any voices, but there are strange, fleeting moments in one’s life when one encounters the still, small voice of God, or a strange sense of the presence of God. Most of these I associate with Christianity. What to make of these experiences, I cannot say. I’m inclined to view them as signs.
As for why God allows the Resurrection to go unbelieved by open-minded people: I think there’s a three-step process. First, the Resurrection has to appear at least possible, in the real world. And for that to be true, you have to believe in God. If you have an atheistic world-view, then you’ll never get to this step. So the real problem here is why God allows atheism. Second, there has to be evidence for the Resurrection that might warrant serious consideration. Overall, I think Christians have done a fairly good job of satisfying this requirement, thanks to the apologetics books they’ve published. You may think their arguments are bad, but the mere fact that you try to refute them online shows you think some people might come to believe them. Third, the evidence has to be presented in an appealing way that makes the Resurrection actually appear creditworthy. This is the last and trickiest step, because there’s an ongoing polemical “arms race” between Christianity and skepticism: books that might have seemed highly persuasive as little as ten years ago – think of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ” –
can end up on the scrap heap really quickly. Chalk that one up to human ingenuity, on both sides of the controversy. The only way God could counter this is by booming messages from On High all the time, in response to this or that skeptic, or by Heavenly tweets sent from above. Do you really want Him to stoop that low?
Why not personal signs for everyone, then? That sounds fair, doesn’t it? If we’re talking about people’s personal experiences, I think there are all kinds of bad or negative experiences that can shut out the signs. The “still small voice” gets drowned out. To experience that “voice,” if you can call it that, one has to be receptive, in a suitable environment, and not too psychologically scarred by events in one’s own life. One also has to have met people who unselfconsciously radiate (or otherwise impart) a sense of the presence of God. All these conditions are not easy to meet – and they’re getting more difficult to satisfy, with the passage of time. When I was a child, back in the 1960s, the sense of God’s presence was so vivid that I could practically taste it in the air. I couldn’t imagine a child feeling the same way today, surrounded by the Internet, TV talkshows and Nintendo games. God can’t get a word in edgewise. Silence has gone from our lives. What will happen next? I would guess that civilizations in which the voice of God is extinguished will gradually go under, only to be replaced by other ones whose members are more open. But I could be wrong.
Hi GlenDavidson,
You write:
What kinds of simple objects? Salt crystals are pretty simple, after all.
You make a very good point about the rationality of designers, but I’d still like to know how you’d distinguish this process from evolution, given that design itself is generally an incremental process. (Of course, I agree that intuitive leaps, if they occurred, would be evidence of design.)
Re complexity: in theory, an evolutionary process could produce an object of arbitrary complexity, but in practice, there are limits to what it can do over a fixed period of time. For that reason, if I encountered a structure on an alien planet whose intricate complexity placed it far beyond the capacities of our top scientists, my first thought would be that it was artificial. To convince me otherwise, I would want, at the very least, a back-of-the-envelope calculation showing that its level of complexity could have emerged over a period of billions of years. I’ve never seen such a calculation for even a simple cell – mainly because life is so staggeringly complex that no-one even knows how to measure it properly.
Exactly. Crystals tend to look designed, rather more so than, say, birds, because they’re relatively simple and rational. But anyhow, you look for things that aren’t going to be “natural” yet are simple and rationally planned. A knife might do, or a clay pot. Archaeologists aren’t exactly looking for complex creations, by and large. Complexity has a relationship to design, but it’s not clearly a marker for it at all, rather it is the thinking of the entity that made it that matters.
Yes, I did actually mention some things. Biologic evolution is not the same as technologic evolution. About the only artifacts that I’ve seen that might have developed in a manner reasonably analogous in appearance to biologic change were certain religious (Buddhist, I think) artifacts, owing to the conservatism of religious objects. Normal objects simply aren’t reliant upon past design like organisms are, and like religious artifacts may be. I did write this:
Why ignore the differences that are mentioned in general and thus to ask for what was already supplied?
And so is known design ability. You keep ignoring that fact, although it’s obvious why you do so, your designer is a limitless (if hardly in evidence) God. Nevertheless, I certainly have no reason to think that intelligence can deal better with complexity in biology than can evolution, indeed, the evidence appears to be to the contrary.
Oh come on, that’s far too open-ended to be a useful analogy, either way. Complexity of structure certainly is not difficult to get, just leave it alone a few years and let it weather and erode.
But I don’t really doubt that, say, something similar to current Intel chips found on a planet would point to design. There are any number of reasons to think so, from manufacture marks, to rationality of design, the materials, and beyond to the evident purpose (at least some sort of information processing). However, organisms lack manufacture marks, they are not rationally designed (being limited, rather, by evolutionary processes), the repertoire of materials is good but really quite limited (life teaches us chemistry, but on the other hand organic chemistry includes much that life never has come close to doing), and they have no evident purpose. What points to design of the organism? You want to say complexity, because that’s indubitably present, but that useless criterion is chosen because you really don’t have anything that points to design.
However, an archaeologist would never demand something so ridiculous. That’s not how design is determined, it is only the way in which IDists try to inveigle their beliefs into science.
Fancy that. What are the odds that the cell would happen to contain the sorts of information that would be expected from the limitations of the processes of biologic evolution and be something that the smartest known designers in this region of the universe could not do? It’s almost like there’s a connection somehow….
Glen Davidson
You brought an envelope opener to the duel and got destroyed, teacher Vincent. No doubt your local students will support you anyway. It was amateur vs. professional, Uncommon Descent blogger vs. professor of philosophy. It was a heterodox Catholic vs. an orthodox Catholic. You didn’t persuade Feser and you didn’t persuade the elephant of anti-IDists to follow you. What did you gain from that exchange again?
Vincent, let me speak more clearly to what ‘smell’ we get from the IDist camp. You haven’t even accepted the POSSIBILITY of IDT becoming IDism and what that might look like. I am suggesting that YOU, Vincent J. Torley is a self-defined IDist, meaning an Intelligent Design (capitalised = theology) ideologist.
Barr and Beckwith are solid men in the mainstream working with both religious and secular people. They listen to atheists about science, but they also listen to the majority of non-atheists about science. And they ‘follow the evidence where it leads.’
I’m sorry to say it, Vincent, but you still ‘write’ like a conspiracy theorist born and raised in Seattle, Washington on the knee of Bruce Chapman (who was an Anglican -> Catholic convert).
When you capitalise ‘Intelligent Design’ it is intentionally meant to signify that it is *NOT* a ‘strictly scientific’ theory. You have said that essentially yourself. Yet when you tricky-Dick it into “ID is … can be scientifically identified” don’t you think we can see that move?
“There’s no evidence that Barr understands the concepts … Beckwith and Barr cannot even get the basics of ID right”
Yada yada, IDist arrogant blather – “We get it, you don’t, nananana!” You don’t fool people with such intellectual arrogance and posturing that you cannot back up, either by your academic work (which you don’t do, even with a PhD) or by your blog arguments. There is no Japanese priest who is standing beside you when you write this stuff, is there Vincent? I would suggest to you that is because IDism is distorted ideology, even if it comes with good, honest, pure motives. Sorry if that hurts you.
I would not be so strict in healing and cure-oriented towards you, Vincent, if Expelled Syndrome wasn’t the obvious diagnosis for hardcore IDists. Maybe the Lord doesn’t want you *EVER* in your life to heal from ideological Intelligent Designism? It is not my business what you decide, but it cannot be said that you haven’t been shown a better route in this debate, which you haven’t allowed yourself yet to accept.
As for Jimmy Aiken, yeah, I read that article. We agree. And of course, Aiken isn’t an IDist like you, Vincent. You know that, right? You know theists, including Catholics, can in good faith logically reject ‘strictly scientific’ ‘Intelligent Design’ theory as nonsense?
As for ‘wicked,’ no, I do not wish that label on you, Vincent. You malign anyone ‘anti-ID’ because you are still, even after soft common law divorce with the DI, you are still a hyper-IDist, even though your ‘Intelligent Design’ approach absolutely and unequivocally ‘starts with theology.’ I don’t think you are wicked. Just misguided, far away from most Catholics involved in the conversation, partly fanaticised by the DI’s charismatic rhetoric, yet unaware of the DI’s duplicity and divisiveness (e.g. USAmerican exceptionalist Board) or covering up for it in silence, etc. In short, Vincent, you seem to be stuck on an irrelevant foreground, whereas the background is where all of the interesting and important action is happening.
Please don’t talk about (Japanese) ‘millennials’ to me, Vincent, when you and the Discovery Institute intellectually piss on them without knowing it. Yes, it rains a lot in Seattle! But you’ve never experienced that personally, have you?
No. Without a definition, nobody knows what it means to look for a designed object. What exactly are we looking for? What characteristic? What criterion? As said, for classical theists, everything is designed (=created), so this is not something to look for. We look at what has been created, not whether it’s been created.
So you are not asking a meaningful question to begin with. You’d have to explain your version of design and then also “specified” and “irreducible” and “functional” and whatever you use there. These have never been operationally defined, only been thrown out there in the hope something would stick.
So Dembski is not barking up the right tree. He is just barking. Was. He basically stopped by now. The movement is irreducibly specifiedly dead now.
vjtorley
So when we look at our biology, with it’s multi-layer overlapping codes (thanks BA77) and extreme complexity and interconnectedness do you see
A) The result of design
B) The result of evolution
In my experience human designers strive for the opposite of what we actually observe in biology. Do you agree?
With regard to ourselves, what intervention do you observe? If you can’t say, you are agreeing that we evolved, right?
VJT: “Can you produce one case of a person who was crucified, but was taken down from the cross and returned to normal life?”
Josephus can:
“Josephus (b. 37 C.E.) is our best literary source for the practice of crucifixion in Palestine during the Greco-Roman period. As a general in command of the Jewish forces of Galilee in the Great Revolt against Rome (66-73 C.E.), he reports his attempts to save the lives of three crucified captives by appealing directly to the Roman general Titus. One survived the cross under a physician’s care, the other two could not be saved.
Life 76
And when I was sent by Titus Caesar with Cerealins, and a thousand horsemen, to a certain village called Thecoa, in order to know whether it were a place fit for a camp, as I came back, I saw many captives crucified, and remembered three of them as my former acquaintance. I was very sorry at this in my mind, and went with tears in my eyes to Titus, and told him of them; so he immediately commanded them to be taken down, and to have the greatest care taken of them, in order to their recovery; yet two of them died under the physician’s hands, while the third recovered.”
That’s from https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/james-tabor/archaeology-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls/josephus-references-to-crucifixion/
I’d also like to offer this theory about what happened at the crucifixion. It’s not original with me, but I forget where I read it.
Jesus was crucified on the Friday before Passover. Passover begins at sundown Friday and lasts until Sundown Saturday. During this time believing Jews are severely restricted in their movements.
Suppose someone, such as Joseph of Aramathea, didn’t want the Passover to be profaned by the dead body of Jesus lying about, so he had his servants move it to his private vault. This is done Friday before sunset, then everybody goes home to celebrate Passover.
At sunset Saturday, Passover ends and Josephus sends his servants to get that nasty body out of his family tomb and put it wherever condemned criminals bodies are normally put, which I believe involves a dump and being eaten by scavenging dogs.
Sunday morning, one or more women arrive at the tomb to find it empty. A miracle!
While I’m at it, I am always amused by apologists who ask, “Then why didn’t they just produce the body of Jesus? This would’ve proven that he was not resurrected.” This in a hot country which did not practice embalming!
davemullenix,
No doubt the production of the crucifix survivor that Vincent requested will nudge his carefully concocted estimate for the truth of The Resurrection to 66.666%
BTW, IMO, having Joseph take Jesus down in a swoon rather than as a corpse has the benefit of also explaining several people seeing him walking around a few days later. Both birds thus shot.
I find it amusing how xtians believe Jesus is SOOOOO special, but somehow not special enough to have survived a cut side and puncture wounds in his hands and feet. How could this guy (who raised Lazarus, multiplied loaves and fishes, walked on water, etc), have lived through a crucifixion?! I mean, let’s not get carried away here! Look at the science, and the capability of medicine at the time!! Atheists are so silly!
Guilty.
vjtorley,
If you assume the “facts” and assume the existence of a god, you’re effectively just assuming your entire conclusion. You need to demonstrate that those claims are reasonable first.
Your fairly exhaustive list excludes the possibility that there were one or more individuals upon whom the Jesus stories are based but that the crucifixion never happened. There are no contemporaneous accounts of it.
So what? That’s nothing more than an argument from authority after admitting that there is no evidence for the existence of an historical Jesus. How many “reputable New Testament historian[s]” are theists? How much impact can that bias have?
The Josephus excerpt is widely recognized as a later forgery. Tacitus writes about the existence of Christians, he does not provide evidence for the existence of an historical Jesus.
Hypothesis 2a — The whole crucifixion story was invented.
You’re just yanking probabilities out of your nether regions, but even that’s going to result in something greater than 10% if you’re being honest.
Why? On what basis would you say aliens are less likely to exist than are gods?
Your numbers are utterly unsupported by any reason or evidence. You could have saved a lot of time by simply writing the quoted sentence and leaving it at that.
You have not made one here.
Most religions, including the various Christian sects, depend on childhood indoctrination to preserve their membership.
Just like first century Christianity, then. Why don’t you consider Mormonism credible, given your argument in favor of Christianity?
You really don’t want to start comparing irrational claims. Christianity won’t come out looking good.
What people in power say and how they act are two very different things. My point is that there are many reasons for people to found religions. The actual truth of the belief system is not supported by the mere existence of the religion.