In mathematics we define most things precisely, and usually the solutions to problems are presented as a step by step progression starting from clearly defined things and finishing with an answer that is proven to be a correct solution.

But it is sometimes useful to jump straight to consideration of a final solution, asking “Suppose there were a solution to this problem, let us call this solution X, what properties must X have?”

This can be a useful approach and, even for problems that turn out to have no valid solutions, we would still consider the signifier “X” to be something that we have succesfully ascribed meaning to: we could talk about “X” to other mathematicians and they would respond back to us in a manner that we can predict based upon the supposition that they share with us an understanding of what “X” is intended to refer to.

The same applies when we consider the meaning of words, rather than the meaning of mathematical symbols.  Words can acquire meaning inductively, based upon sense data, the way a child learns language.  But words can also be defined deductively, as solutions to problems set up by applying logical conjunctions to propositions or by analogy.

And, as with “x”, just hypothetical definitions can be useful and should be considered meaningful, even if there is no actual thing to which they can refer, or it is unknowable as to whether the referent exists.

Brain in a Vat

Putnam (Putnam, 1981) argues that a Brain in a Vat couldn’t think or reason about Brains or Vats because the thing it referred to as “Brain” could only be the simulation of a Brain fed to it by the supercomputer maintaining its illusory world, rather than the actually piece of flesh sitting in the jar.   However suppose the Brain engaged in thoughts upon the following lines:

I am going to refer to the world accessible to my sense data as “World 1″, and use the phrase “Type 1 Brain” to refer to the sort of physical thinking organ that my senses tell me exist in World 1.

I am going to refer to the virtual world running on the computer on my desk as “World 2″, which is a subset of World 1, and use the phrase “Type 2 Brain” to refer to the locus of thought of any being whose perceptual universe is limited to World 2.

I am going to refer to any hypothetical superset of World 1 that is larger than World 1 as “World 0″, and use the phrase “Type 0 Brain” to refer to a hypothetical type of thing that bears the same relationship to Type 1 Brains as Type 1 Brains do to Type 2 Brains.

The phrase “Type 0 Brain” does indeed contain the word “Brain” which the Type 1 Brain originally defined, as a child, by reference to parts of World 1 that it could sense.  But the phrase itself is more than the sum of its constituent parts.  It is a hypothetical definition, and as such can be said to meaningfully refer to things the Type 1 Brain will never directly sense.

If, for instance, the Type 1 Brain wrote down in on a piece of World 1 paper “Hello World 0, please reply”, a computer programmer in World 0 examining the bits of data in the computer running the World 1 simulation could decode this message and program the simulation to make appear a piece of paper in response, carrying the message “Hi, this is Frank, how are you enjoying my simulation, would you like me to make you a pet unicorns ?”.   They could engage in  a meaningful dialog, even though the Type 1 Brain would still be limited to its Type 1 senses.

And, just as a mathematician can consider what properties a valid solution would have to have, and perhaps elliminate some from consideration by demonstrating that two contradictory properties would both be required, by engaging in thought about our hypothetical World 0, and then looking around our World 1 and noticing the lack of pet unicorns, we can start to place constraints upon what World 0 is likely to contain.

Doubt all that can be doubted?

Descartes (Descartes, 1641) advocated starting by doubting all that can be doubted.   But that takes us nowhere, because everything can be doubted.

The Ken Thompson Hack (Thompson, 1984) explains why, once the security on a machine has been fully breached, you can not necessarily detect this by using the compromised tools.  The same applies to reason.  We may think that valid syllogisms always produce true conclusions if given true premises.  Indeed, that may even be how we define what “valid” means.  But our only means of deciding which syllogisms are valid depend upon our memory and those same syllogisms.

Suppose Frank, a World 0 computer programmer, in order to write a paper on the nature of logic, decided to see if he could create a World 1 simulation in which all the intelligent inhabitants thought that “If A can see B, and B can see C, then A can see C” was a valid syllogism.  Could he do it?  Well, he might have to ensure that evolution gave the beings in the simulation visual telepathy so that, in most cases, the reasoning did work in practice and the beings didn’t die off.  But yes, there is no intrinsic reason why he could put a routine in the simulation that ensure that whenever a particularly philosophically inclined World 1 being started trying to reason it out, the conclusion was places in his thought stream that the syllogism was valid.

Indeed, there is no intrinsic difficulty preventing Frank from including in the simulation a method for the beings to arrive at conclusions that was more reliable than reason, such as sacrificing an animal while chanting certain words, then meditating for a few minutes and awaiting an internal emotion or insight inclining the being towards or away from certain options they were deciding between.

Don’t doubt just for the sake of doubting

So, if doubting everything gains us nothing, can we gain anything by doubting some things but not others?

To answer that it is helpful to consider our purpose.  What Descartes was seeking, that he hoped to gain by his method of doubt, was truth and certainty.  That, alas, is overly ambitious, but suppose we think of reason as a tool with many uses.  People can try to use the tool to find pure truth, but it can also be used in everyday life to helping us avoid mistakes and delusions.  So, setting aside the possible existence of other tools, let us restrict ourselves to the purpose of honing the tool of reason, and ask ourselves how we may use doubt to increase the effectiveness and reliability of this tool.

Reason

The first thing we can allow ourselves to stop doubting is reason itself, because doubting it has no predictable advantage for our purpose.  Our purpose allows us no outside check on the effectiveness of  reason compared to outside tools, and, if we are being deluded by some higher agency into thinking that various invalid syllogisms are valid, there is nothing that reason can tell us about the consequences of that so, as far as reason is concerned, following the syllogisms we believe to be valid might be just as effective at reaching true conclusions as rejecting them.  And, since we have no basis to decide which syllogisms to reject as pranks by Frank, and Frank could just as easily be fooling us into thinking invalid some syllogisms that actually are valid, we do not reduce the false-positive rate of our tool by not making the assumption.  So:

WORKING ASSUMPTION 1 : First-order logic is sound

Probability

Deductive reasoning, by itself, can’t take us far enough to affect our decisions.  It needs something to work upon, and for that we need inductive reasoning (of the non-mathematical kind) and, for that we need probability.  The minimum set of axioms needed is Zermelo and Fraenkel’s extensions of Paeno, with the addition of the axiom of choice, which mathematicians refer to as ZFC.

WORKING ASSUMPTION 2 : ZFC

Occam’s razor

Duns Scotus wrote (translated) “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity” which is a dictum that can be traced back to much earlier philosophers, and is best known in the version attributed to Occam.  The reason why this is wise advice has now be demonstrated by Hutter (Hutter, 2005) who has proven that, other things being equal, the simpler theory is actually more likely to be true (Reay, 1988).   This is a key result however, since it is a direct consequence of our first two working assumptions, we don’t need to list it as an additional one.

Reality

So we now we have a way to make decisions, we have a decision to make.  Consider the standard mental model of how ‘reality’ functions.   There is an external world which our body perceives through our senses that translate into electrical and chemical changes in the physical brain, some of which our conscious ‘mind’ is aware of and experiences subjectively as qualia and these, plus what we think of as our direct perception of our memories and thought processes constitute our internal worldview based upon which our conscious (and subconscious) mind reacts or makes decisions that direct our body and our further thoughts and emotions, which get stored as further memories.

Which parts of this model must we choose not to doubt, for our purpose, or are there at this point several possibilities that still leave reasoning as an effective tool?

Some would argue that we might be brains in a vat, so we should definitely doubt the reliability of an apparent regularities in the external (World 1) reality, and so the logical starting point is to accept our own existance and the qualia as that ‘we’ perceives them.

Others argue that various psychiatric ailments are known to interfere with memory and sense of self; and that the body’s perception system has known defects (eg optical illusions) which makes assuming an objective shared external reality a more reliable starting point.

If we craft the wording of our next working assumption carefully enough, we can remain agnostic on this point, accepting both possibilities, and using Occam’s Razor to allocate probabilities to them.

WORKING ASSUMPTION 3 : There is sufficient regularity to the reality that can be accessed or modeled by the reasoning process we identify as our own being, that we can apply inductive reasoning to it with better than random results.

Time

A corollary of adding this third working assumption is the nature of time, because it assumes the concept of results – of testability.  The concept of having a model of how reality works, using reasoning to form a prediction based upon that model, then later getting a result (an action guided by that prediction achieving or failing to achieve the anticiapted result) at a later time.

It is logically possible that Frank only started his simulation running 5 seconds ago, and everything we think happened before that time is merely what we were programmed to think by the initial starting state.  It is also possible that there are regularities in the simulation, but that at midnight Frank is going to upload a software patch that changes the laws of nature in the simulation, and that everything will work differently from that point on.

This is known as The Problem of Induction.  Just because induction has worked in the past, that’s no evidence that induction will work in the future, because that would be using induction to support induction which is circular reasoning.

However we can bootstrap induction supporting induction if we can find an initial reason to think that induction is even just slightly more likely to be correct than not.  And Occam’s Razor gives us that reason, because the theory that Frank will upload a software patch a midnight contains an additional piece of information (the time of the change), which increases its Chaitin-Kolmogorov complexity (Chaitin, 1987).

Our third working assumption isn’t quite the same as ontological naturalism or Hume’s Principle of Uniformity of Nature, but it leans sufficiently far in that direct that we can perform physics, while still leaving open the technical possibility of a World 0 and supernatural intervention in World 1.

And alternative formulation of our third working assumption might be “There are, in our lives, at least some decisions (choices between possible options for an action to take) where reason can help us predict what some of the likely consequences would be of choosing each option, with better than random odds.”

From ‘Is’ to ‘Ought’

These first three working assumptions are sufficient to let us function in reality, and act towards goals.  But they tell us nothing about what goals to set.  For that we need one final step:

WORKING ASSUMPTION 4 : At least some of the decisions in our life will matter.

This a safe assumption to make because, if none of the decisions matter, then our decision (to make a false working assumption) doesn’t matter (because it is one of the decisions we made in our life).

Once we have this fourth working assumption, we may apply Occam’s Razor to the various competing theories of what matters, to find the simplest that has at least as much predictive power as any of the others.

References

Chaitin, G. J. [1987] “Algorithmic Information Theory“ Cambridge University Press ISBN: 0521343062

Descartes, René [1641] “Meditations on First Philosophy” http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/

Hutter, Marcus [2005] “Universal Artificial Intelligence: Sequential Decisions Based On Algorithmic Probability” ISBN 3-540-22139-5 http://www.hutter1.net/ai/uaibook.htm

Putnam, Hilary Whitehall [1981] “Reason, Truth, and History” ISBN-10: 0521297761

Reay, Douglas William Windle [1988] “Reay’s Lemma” http://www.toothycat.net/wiki/wiki.pl?ReaysLemma

Thompson, Ken [1984] “Reflections On Trusting Trust” http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html

1) The reliability of scripture
2) The self-deception of atheists
3) The presupposition of God in my reasoning

¹Response to the “Reliability of Scripture”

Bolt writes:

Scripture is reliable and is the source of my claim that Nocterro believes both ‘God exists’ and ‘Nocterro does not believe that God exists’. Scripture is also the source of my claim that Nocterro presupposes God in order to reason at all.

Bolt bases his other claims on the claim that scripture is reliable. But how does he know scripture is reliable? He writes:

From the providence of God and the results of textual critical science it can be known that we currently posses substantially correct transcriptions of the autographa of Scripture. Nocterro must assume from the outset of the discussion that God has not spoken clearly and that He has not provided us with an adequate means of learning what He has said if Nocterro is to call into question the reliability of Scripture.

It is interesting here that Bolt is not defending the claim that scripture is true, rather he is defending the claim that our current texts match the originals. Also interesting is that one of his justifications for this claim is “the providence of God” – going on to state that:

Nocterro must assume from the outset of the discussion that God has not spoken clearly.

He claims that scripture is the source of his claim that I (and presumably everyone else) must presuppose God in order to reason. He is presupposing God in order to show that scripture is true. But surely scripture is correct only if both the Christian God exists and one must presuppose the existence of God to account for reason.

Bolt must show both that the Christian God exists and that we must presuppose the existence of him to account for reason but cannot use Scripture alone to do so. To do so would be to assume the very thing in question. Bolt can’t use that which necessarily depends on the existence of the divine to argue for the existence of the divine using its proposed divinity as a reliability-maker.

Response to “Self-deception”

He also writes:

It is worth noting that the second-order belief mentioned influences the way that Nocterro interprets evidence. Nocterro suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. This feat is accomplished through rationalizing away evidence of the existence of God, ignoring obvious points, dodging anything which might challenge his anti-Christ presuppositions, etc.

There are a few things to say about this:

a) Can Chris point to anything I have ever written that is an example of me rationalizing away evidence of the existence of God?
b) What “obvious” point or points does he feel I have ignored?
c) What have I ever dodged?

Apparently Bolt feels that I have been intellectually dishonest in this discussion by not addressing the issue directly.

Scripture, according to Bolt, states that I am self-deceived. But why believe Scripture? If Scripture is false, then it seems Bolt has no reason whatsoever to claim that I am self deceived, but as we have seen above, we may not simply assume that Scripture is true since it is obviously false if God does not exist, and if I do not have to presuppose him.

Further, if there are good arguments which reduce the probability of God’s existence then so too is the likelihood of Scripture’s being true reduced and by proxy this reduction extends to my being self-deceived. Granting that there are such arguments and coupled with the fact that I have a privileged access to the contents of my own mind, in that I experience them directly, it seems even more unlikely that I am so deceived.

To quote Richard Swinburne:

The adequacy of grounds is often expressed in terms of probability—both by the externalist and by the internalist. The grounds for a belief are adequate to the extent to which they render the belief probable. (And if the grounds for one belief B consist of another belief C, then, for B to have adequate grounds, Cs grounds must make B probable. (Epistemic Justification, pg. 56)

In other words, a belief on a certain matter is justified if it is more probable than other mutually exclusive beliefs on the matter. So, if this argument is sound, then I am justified in my belief that I am not self-deceived.

Response to “Presupposing God”

This is quite clearly the most important portion since Bolt’s justification for all the previous sections is based on the success of his argument here. That is to say, if Bolt does not succeed in showing that God exists and that I must presuppose him in order to reason he has, by proxy, not succeeded in showing that scripture is reliable, and that I am self-deceived.

Bolt writes:

Given his anti-theistic worldview, Nocterro cannot posit the notion of right or wrong ways that beliefs should either come about or be held and hence his position is reducible to absurdity.

Bolt assumes here either that (1) no atheistic epistemic justifications have ever been offered; or (2) all such justifications offered fail. As for (1), even a simple Google or Wikipedia search will show this is blatantly false. Regarding (2), Bolt has a grand task indeed if he must offer objections to ALL forms of non-theistic theories of justification.

He states:

There is no absolute person or persons on an atheistic view which provides an account for epistemic normativity.

This assumes that any justification must necessarily be based on an absolute person or persons (by which I assume he means a deity) – it begs the question against atheism.

He continues:

The character and command of God and His having created us in His image and obligated us toward Him provides for the epistemic normativity necessary to right belief.

It seems quite odd to me that while several philosophers have written entire books on epistemic justification, Bolt’s justification consists of merely a single sentence – a sentence which, all things considered, doesn’t really tell us much at all. All Bolt does here is state that his theory of justification is based on God; he does not explain how or why, he gives no details. How exactly is it that belief in Yahweh leads to correct beliefs? Is it Bolt’s claim that if one is a believer, then Yahweh will prevent that person from ever believing something which is false? I’m also not sure what Bolt means by “right belief”. Is a right belief a belief with is justified? Is it a belief which is true?

Truth be told, this conversation seems eerily similar to Bolt’s conversation with Mitch LeBlanc regarding another formulation of TAG (Transcendental Argument for the existence of God), the laws of logic, and conventionalism in which LeBlanc states:

[The TAG] is no better than a God of the Gaps argument, applied to logical justifications. Why can’t epistemology rely on the possibility of there being justifications? If you’re saying that the case is such that these three justifications have been shown to be false, and Christianity has not, therefore we must choose Christianity, I think you’ve just begged the question in favor of Christianity. If the arguments in the bulk of my paper hold up, it is an incoherent notion to state that logical principles can be grounded in the existence of God.

To which Bolt replies:

I can deny that lightning is caused by Zeus and even come up with other explanations for it, even other unscientific explanations, and not be concerned about my entire epistemology crashing down. You actually cannot, however, deny that Christianity is the precondition for logic and come up with other “explanations” for it and not be concerned about your entire epistemology crashing down. If you are actually unable to account for logic then you are reduced to absurdity and unable to even entertain allegedly possible justifications for logic. You have no place to stand.

All this ties in closely with the notion of the ”impossibility of the contrary”. Bolt’s overall argument here (modified to reflect our current discussion) is:

1) Christianity gives a sound epistemic justification.
2) Nocterro cannot give a sound non-Christian epistemic justification.
3) Therefore, Nocterro must borrow from Christianity for epistemic justification.

However, Bolt has merely asserted (1). He has offered no real defense of this, or even explained how Christianity does so. Until he can do that, (3) does not follow from (1) and (2). Furthermore, even if he successfully defends (1), he must still defeat any epistemic justification I could possibly offer in order to show that (2) is true.

Leblanc touches upon this notion in a paper by referencing presuppositionalist Greg Bahnsen’s attempt at avoiding having to show all possible justifications false:

As such, in an attempt to avoid the arduous task of showing that all flavours of the aforementioned possible justifications are false (and thereby that any worldviews that employ them are false), he seeks only to show that they all depend upon a particular claim, that ‘Christianity is false’, and that this claim renders everything unintelligible….

To paraphrase this section of LeBlanc’s paper:

i) One must have knowledge of all possible non-Christian justifications in order to show that they all share this claim in common.
ii) If one shows that this claim “Christianity is false” is false, then the TAG is no longer needed.

On Warrant

Perhaps the most prevalent view of warrant in contemporary philosophy is that of proper function, as employed comprehensively and famously by Alvin Plantinga. To say that warrant is proper function is to say that some persons true beliefs are justified in counting as knowledge if they have arisen by virtue of the proper functioning of some cognitive faculties.

Plantinga outlines some criteria in his paper “Epistemic Justification” (Nous, 1986):

A) Your faculties must be in good working order.

This is of course not a problem for the theist, since he will believe that he was designed with faculties in good working order. However, I think two points need to be brought up:

1) Many theists can believe this, not just Christians.
2) Even an atheist may employ an “epistemic veil of ignorance”; that is, he may use God merely as a hypothetical, just as Rawls did in discussing how we may decide what is moral.

In regard to (2), Plantinga writes:

Even if [the atheist] doesn’t think we human beings have been designed and created by a powerful and highly competent being who proposed to endow us with the ability to achieve true beliefs, he may nonetheless think of this idea as a convenient and useful fiction [...] he may say that our cognitive faculties are working properly when they are working in the way they would work if the theistic story were true. He may therefore treat this story the way corresponding stories are treated by some who accept ideal observer theories in ethics…

B) You must be epistemically dutiful.

This merely means that you make real, honest efforts to come to hold true beliefs.

C) Your environment must be appropriate for your particular repertoire of epistemic powers.

Plantinga asks us to imagine:

You awake on a planet near Alpha Centauri. There, conditions are quite different; elephants (or their counterparts) are invisible to human beings but emit a sort of radiation that causes human beings to form the belief that a trumpet is sounding…

…The problem is that your cognitive faculties and the environment in which you find yourself are not properly attuned. The problem is not with your cognitive faculties; they are in good working order; the problem is with the environment.

So basically, it must be the case that our faculties are “suited” to our environment.

Warranted Neo-Confucian Belief

Bolt states:

Given his anti-theistic worldview, Nocterro cannot posit the notion of right or wrong ways that beliefs should either come about or be held and hence his position is reducible to absurdity.

Based on this statement, and drawing from other conversations that Bolt has had, it seems that he is making the claim that only the Christian God can provide the type of warrant required for knowledge. That is to say, he is attempting to prove the truth of Christianity by showing that a denial of Christianity necessarily leads to a denial of warrant, and thereby a denial of knowledge. This, however, is dubious for it is certainly not clear that only the Christian worldview can account for warrant. As one example, David Tien shows that Neo-Confucianism meets the criteria for warrant² (should Bolt also want to claim that his belief is properly basic, Tien’s discussion attempts to show that warranted Neo-Confucian belief provides a defeater for Christian theism).

Briefly, in Neo-Confucian belief, the liangzhi is the “perfect state of mind”. The li (or principle) is the way things ideally ought to be. So, if it can be said that one has a liangzhi state of mind, one’s state of mind is ideal, natural, or perfect. A Christian may consider the mind of God to be liangzhi.

Tien states:

The liangzhi operates as a faculty of the mind that discerns flawlessly, naturally, and spontaneously between right and wrong. It not only forms correct beliefs, it also produces correct affective responses.

I will not delve too much into affective responses here, as I do not think it is important to the discussion. However, the Chinese scholar Wang Yangming states that all humans innately possess liangzhi.

In response to one seeming problem with such an account of the mind,  how does Wang account for our poor moral choices? He offers this explanation:

All things in the universe are a combination of li and qi. Qi is the stuff of which the universe is made. It exists in various grades of purity. Although all things possess all the li of the universe within them, because of the impurity of the qi of which they are composed, some li are obstructed, thereby accounting for the differences between things.

Wang’s view is that while humans possess both li and qi, we are able to purify our minds and eliminate qi. He says that qi is manifested mainly as self-centered desires. Qi can thus be compared to the Buddhist concept of negative karma, or the Christian concept of sin.

In Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief, he states that, according to the sensus divinitatus, Christians have warrant for belief because they have a faculty that produces true beliefs. Thus, Christian belief is warranted (the SD being created by God). However, Wang’s Neo-Confucian beliefs also meet Plantinga’s criteria for warrant.

Tien writes:

First, the liangzhi, once it is discovered and utilized, is a properly functioning (and affective) faculty. Second, the world of li and qi is an appropriate cognitive environment for the operation of liangzhi. Third, the liangzhi faculty of our original minds is simply the conscious aspect of li, which is itself descriptive and normative truth; li conveys the truth about the way things are when they are the way they should be.

Plantinga defends his warrant by stating that if his model is true, then Christians and non-Christians are in different epistemic situations. He also states that one who holds to a non-Christian worldview is necessarily assuming the Christian worldview is false. If this is the case, then it is also the case that the Christian is assuming all non-Christian worldviews are false. Plantinga holds that the claim of arbitrariness only works if the Christian and non-Christian are in similar epistemic situations. If, however, the Christian account is epistemically superior, then the objection is not sound. Since the Neo-Confucian account for warrant is at least internally consistent, and the Neo-Confucian account is epistemically similar to the Christian account, then the Neo-Confucian may accuse the Christian of arbitrarily assuming the falsity of non-Christian belief, just as the Christian may likewise accuse the Neo-Confucian. Thus, Plantinga’s response is self-defeating.

Later on in his paper, Tien examines the overall issue:

And all along, I have claimed that Neo-Confucian belief is probably warranted only if Neo-Confucian belief is true, and Plantinga has claimed the same for Christian belief. The de jure objection is dependent on the de facto objection. If Wang’s description of ultimate reality is true, then Wang’s Neo-Confucian beliefs probably are warranted. If it is false, then they are probably not warranted.

To conclude:
1) If Christian beliefs are possibly warranted (by Plantinga’s method), then Neo-Confucian beliefs are also possibly warranted.
2) If Christian beliefs are true, then they are probably warranted; and likewise for Neo-Confucian beliefs.

As such, if Bolt intends to make the claim that only Christian theism can account for epistemic warrant, it seems that he is simply wrong. Further, it is also an open issue as to whether or not Neo-Confucianism is overall a preferable system to Christian Theism, as well as whether or not Bolt’s system succeeds in providing what he hopes it does. One might discover that I am not presupposing God to reason, but rather, that Bolt is presupposing Neo-Confucianism (and further, possibly deceived about his doing so!) It seems to follow that Bolt should make a case not that Christian belief (and only Christian belief) is warranted, but that it is in fact true.

Assumption vs. Existence

Further, even if Bolt is correct in saying that I must presuppose God, it obviously does not follow that God exists. Bolt seems to be operating with a principle similar to: If I can do Q by assuming P and P only, then my assumption is true where Q is account for reason, or having warranted beliefs and P is that God exists. However, would it not be more accurate to say: If I can do Q by assuming P and P only, then I must assume P? Does the necessity of assuming P entail that P is true? I think not. So, even if Bolt is correct in that I must presuppose that God exists (and I do not think he is), that would mean only that Bolt’s belief in God is possibly justified, not that God actually does exist.

Conclusion

As such, our three topics are really one topic. Of that one topic, it does not appear to me that Bolt has presented any sufficient case or convincing reason to accept that (i) his Christian theism provides warrant, (ii) no non-Christian system can possibly provide warrant. Indeed, the internal consistency of Neo-Confucianism and that it meets the criteria for warrant seems to render at least (ii) obviously false. Given that one does not need to presuppose the Christian God in order to satisfy the requirement of warrant in knowledge, one does not need to accept the authority of scripture and given that, one need not to accept that they are self-deluded if they think differently than Bolt does.

___________________________

¹Any time the word “God” is used, it refers to specifically the Christian God, unless stated otherwise.

²Tien, David W. “Warranted Neo-Confucian Belief: Religious Pluralism and the Affections in the Epistemologies of Wang Yangming [1472-1529] and Alvin Plantinga” in International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 55:1 (2004).

ML: What if God is deceiving you?

RK: “…in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested, [even] His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior…” (Titus 1:2-3) . God cannot lie.

ML: But God was the author (or inspiration) of those very words. If his intent was to deceive, he has just succeeded. I ask again, what if God is deceiving you?

RK: For if [the] dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith [is] futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. ~ 1 Cor 15:9

ML: Again, all scripture and proposed action of God are immediately discounted if the motivation in fact was to deceive. Can you show that God is not deceiving you in all your knowledge of him?

RK: If God intended to deceive, He would not be God. He would be Satan. Therefore, you would likely have to use the TANS argument. A God of that character is not God at all, and therefore, yet again, another impossible (redefinition) advanced as an argument. If we could win by redefining things, debates would be fairly short affairs

ML: “If God intended to deceive, He would not be God. He would be Satan.” – Is this statement not based off of information expedited to you from the same deity in question?

RK: A God who is evil instead of good, who is a liar rather than the truth, is mutable rather than immutable, and imperfect rather than perfect, unjust rather than just… we could go on. Your questions all seem to entail redefinitions. “if God had an impossible definition for any being claiming to be the God you believe in, or any god at all, could he do _X_”. To claim that the antithesis of the self-existent and omnipotent God that I believe in is possible – seems to be.. a stretch.

ML: I cannot help but feel you are being evasive at this point. Every bit of the knowledge of God you have, comes from his proposed self-revelation. If God’s intent was surely to deceive you, are you saying he could not? Would you know? Your argument is as follows: God does not deceive. Proposed being X deceives. Therefore X is not God. You are begging the question RK.

RK: Sir, I’m not going to change my answer because you continue to ask it. “God” entails the properties already outlined. If a being does not conform to those properties, as I answered in response to your very first question – that is no god at all. I’m not going to contradict myself so that you can continue your argument. Further, I’ve stated, multiple times, that God is axiomatic to all human reasoning. You’re asking me, on the basis of your presupposition, to overthrow everything I’ve said thus far, to answer a question the way you prefer.

If at this point in the article you have not watched Chris Bolt’s video response, I suggest you do so now.

Bolt’s first problem is with the very question itself, he states that it comitts a complex question fallacy. Seeing as this was a Q and A, I do not see the harm in asking a question such as the one I asked to RazorsKiss. I did not present a false dichotomy of a yes or no, in which case I would agree that a labelling of my question as fallacy would be warranted.

Consider if I asked: (1) “Do you know that God is deceiving you?” rather than (2) “What if God is deceiving you?”

(1) is clearly riddled with problems, providing only two possible answers, both of which may fail to accurately convey a true statement. However, my question (2) does not force an answer in a similar manner. It is a hypothetical, and though Presuppositionalists love to discount the value of hypotheticals, during my questioning period I feel apt to ask such a question.

Both RazorsKiss and Chris Bolt present the same objection to the question, immediately pointing out the fact that they disagree with my very “presumption”. As you can see from the quoted text, and the video from Chris Bolt, both of them agree that a God who lies is not the God in whom they believe, a lying God is not the Christian God.

I would first like to explain that while the idea of a lying God is logically absurd on a Thomist conception of God, it is not logically absurd on a Presuppositionalist conception.

From Presuppositionalism, all that is known of God is that which is revealed and furthermore the axiom (if you can call it that) by which said revelations are made apparent is the Bible.

I’ve said that a lying God is logically absurd on a Thomist conception because a Thomist (or an evidentialist) may not appeal directly to the Bible to justify one of God’s characteristics. They, in fact, would probably do so ontologically by establishing a deductive argument. However, on the presuppositionalist side qualities of God are not subject to such deduction because of the proposed axiomatic nature of both himself and his revealed text.

So whereas a Thomist may appeal to Anselm’s defining of God as that which none greater can be conceived, and conclude thereby that God must be honest rather than a liar, it seems they are apt in doing so:

1. God is the being that which none greater can be conceived

2. It is greater to be honest than to be a liar

3. Therefore, God is honest.

 But a presuppositionalist cannot make such a deduction as God is not a conclusion, but rather an axiom! This means that God is proposed as being foundational prior to all further thought or analysis, this includes deduction!

We do not prove or demonstrate our axioms, they are self-evident by their very nature. Consider the axiom “existence exists”, this is not a deduction but rather a precondition for all further thought. Since the presuppositionalist is providing God as an axiom, God cannot be subject to any deduction.

It is important at this point to reintroduce the two axioms upon which Presuppositionalists claim to build a foundation of knowledge. I will quote RazorsKiss from our debate:

3. As a Christian, I have two axiomatic, interrelated foundations for my epistemology, and for everything else I encounter through the grid of that epistemology. The Triune God of Scripture – who created the universe and all it contains; who established and even now maintains the laws which govern that creation. That is foundation one.

4. The self-revelation of that self-existent, self-conscious, self-sufficient, omniscient, omnipotent, all-wise, immutable, eternal, and sovereign God; The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, are the self-communication of the extent, nature, and specifics of His eternal properties – which are the guarantor of the laws and assumptions which we, as creatures in the image of that God, require to operate rationally and coherently. That is foundation 2.

Thus we have axiom #1: The Christian God and axiom #2: The Christian Scriptures

First, one must analyze from where the revelation that God is honest arises. Axiom #1 merely asserts the existence of God, but does nothing to ascribe it attributes outside of a referent to the scriptures. Thus, we must turn our attention to axiom #2.

Prior to doing so, it may be prudent for those unfamiliar to explain that the presuppositionalist establishes the truth of its worldview from the inability of all other proposed systems to account for rationality. I won’t get too involved in this claim right now, as it is covered in depth in the aforementioned debate.

Currently we are presented with three following claims:

(A) All knowledge depends on two axioms: (1) The Christian God, (2) The Christian Scriptures

(B) This dependence is affirmed by the impossibility of the contrary

and specific to our conversation:

(C) God cannot lie

My point in the debate, I think, was quite clear. If the reason that one accepts that God cannot lie, is that the Bible states that God cannot lie (as RK asserted) they are in an awkward position if the proposed God is, in fact, a liar.

Thus, my assertion outlined essentially the following:

(1) The God of the Triune Scriptures may be deceiving me in my knowledge of him

(2) The Bible is God’s word as revealed by him to humanity

(3) The Bible may be deceptive in nature

Both RK and Bolt reject (1), stating as we’ve previously heard that God cannot lie. But what is the manner in which they assert that he cannot? The Bible itself.

It should be clear that if it is possible that God be deceptive, the Bible and any subsequent revelation by him to humanity cannot be affirmed as absolute truth. I do not think that RK and Bolt disagree with me on this, but rather they disagree with my assertion that God might be deceiving humanity.

On a presuppositionalist worldview, one accepts that God is honest because the Bible states that he is honest (and therefore because he has revealed to humanity that he is honest). Since the Bible is an axiom of presuppositionalism this is assumed not to be open to question.

But is there not a hidden presupposition at this point? For as one reads the Bible, do they not already PRESUME that what they read is the true word of God? This seems to be a matter of temporal cognition:

Does one read the bible and then determine it is true or does one determine the Bible is true, and then read it?

Should one read the Bible and then determine it is true, I am curious as to the basis on which this is done and how this criteria excludes the possibility of God’s deception without vicious circularity. If one determines the Bible is true prior to reading it, I am curious as to how they know it is God’s revealed word in the first place.

A presuppositionalist may point to axiom #2 as already clarifying this issue, but I do not see how it does. To say that the Bible is the self-communication of God’s nature and this fact should be taken as axiomatic raises the a variation of the same question.

An axiom must, as I’ve said before, be self-evident. But consider the two different proposed manners of self-evidence:

(1) Existence exists

(2) A finite whole is greater than any of its parts

(3) The Bible is the word of God

(1) and (2) are true by virtue of nothing other than themselves. They are not subject to the question I’ve posed regarding (3).

While I may ask of (3): “Does one read the bible and then determine it is true or does one determine the Bible is true, and then read it?” How can I ask the same (or any similar variation) of (1) and (2)?

Perhaps the presuppositionalist will appeal to the “impossibility of the contrary” at this point, stating that axiom #2 must be granted because it is impossible for knowledge to stand upon anything else! But surely I can ground knowledge upon the proposition that God MIGHT be lying to me, and therefore possess faith in his honesty. Presumably, this is unacceptable to the Presuppositionalist as they seek certainty. As such, I am interested to hear an answer as to the means of acquired certainty regarding my aforementioned question.

Even if I could not ground such knowledge, there is still ample discussion to be had on whether or not contrary to Christianity is truly impossible (See: Bethrick’s Article).

Furthermore, it should be called into question whether or not axiom #2 meets the criteria for an axiom (See: Bethrick’s Article)! For if my dichotomy is a true dichotomy (I’ll leave it to Chris to show that it isn’t) there are other axioms that preclude the reading of the Bible! For precisely how does one establish that the Bible exists, or that their identification of the Bible as the Bible is warranted? Presumably, through the very axioms I presented in my debate against RK.

1. Existence exists

2. A thing is what it is (A=A)

3. Consciousness is consciousness of objects

Are these being presupposed in one’s analysis of the Bible as well?

In conclusion, I do not yet see reason to accept that speaking of God as lying is as speaking of a God with fur insofar as they are not the God that presuppositionalists refer to. I am referring to the very same God they are, with a question as to its nature and surely my question cannot be dismissed on the account of mere definition without justification.

July 8, 2009

Debate Transcript

urbanphilosophy.net

Is The New Testament Reliable?

Affirmative: Fisher

Negative: Hackenslash

Fisher
I would like to begin my presentation with a quote from Drs. Norman Geisler and William Nix:
The influence of the Bible and its teaching in the Western world is clear for all who study history. And the influential role of the West in the course of world events is equally clear. Civilization has been influenced more by the Judeo-Christian Scriptures than by any other book or series of books in the world.
(Source: Norman Geisler and William Nix. General Introduction to the Bible. p. 196)

The Bible undoubtedly has its place in history. It is especially significant as it is a book that billions around the world place their faith in. In particular, the New Testament tells the story of the man Jesus Christ: A man whose influence in history has been so great that 2.2 billion people around the world profess to believe that He is the son of God.

But is this story true? In the past two centuries, there has been an intensified debate over whether it is right for us to put our faith in the scriptures. The question has been posed over and over again, with new arguments and new evidence being brought to the table as our knowledge increases. I would like to present the evidence that supports the Christian position. 

To show that these are well-documented and scholarly facts, I will include references to show where the information comes from, so that others may verify them for themselves, not to mention that I rely on well-trained and well-educated scholars and historians. I would contend that the facts as presented can only be explained by the Christian worldview.

First, I would like to go through the manuscript evidence. Some have suspected that the New Testament text is so far-removed from the events that they cannot be trusted as eyewitnesses. On the contrary, the manuscript attestation to the events of the Gospels is second to none. As biblical scholar K.A. Kitchen explains:

Among works of classical (Greek and Latin) literature, the writings of the New Testament–4 gospels, 21 letters, the history of Acts and visions of Revelation–have a manuscript attestation second to none, and superior to most. No one blinks an eyelid at depending for the Latin text of Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars (Composed within 58-56 BC) upon manuscripts all of which are 900 years later than Caesar’s time, only nine or ten of the manuscripts being good textual copies. No-one doubts that we still read the real text of the works of Herodotus or Thucydides (450 BC), even though the oldest available full manuscripts (only eight or so) date from 1,300 years later!

For the New Testament, how different and how vastly superior is the manuscript evidence. Some 5,000 Greek MSS (whole or fragmentary) are known, not a mere eight or ten. The most notable MSS are the Codexes Vaticanus and Sinaiticus of c. 350 AD–only 250 years after the end of the New Testament period (100 AD), not 900 or 1,300 years! Older still are the Chester Beatty and Bodmer biblical papyri, including six new Testament MSS of the second and third centuries AD, only 150 years after the New Testament period.

Further back still, there is a Rylands fragment from a manuscript of John’s Gospel (18:31-33, 37f.) datable by its script to about 130 AD–little more than a generation after the New Testament period itself. As this fragment came from Egypt, it is evident that John’s gospel had been composed, recopied and begun to circulate well beyond Palestine before 130 AD. Hence, on this evidence alone, it must have been composed (at latest) by 90/100 AD, and more probably earlier.
(Source: Kenneth Anderson Kitchen. The Bible and Its World. p. 131.)

Also: The fidelity of the New Testament text rests on a multitude of manuscript evidence. Counting Greek copies alone, the New Testament is preserved in some 5,656 partial and complete manuscript portions that were copied by hand from the second through the fifteenth centuries. (Source: Norman Geisler. General Introduction to the Bible. p. 385.)

And if you add manuscripts that were translated in other languages (Latin, Coptic, Syriac and Armenian), then you would have between 25,000-30,000 manuscripts in total.
(Source: Daniel Wallace. The Case for the Real Jesus. p. 83.)

If you are going to cast doubt on the textual reliability of the New Testament, then you might as well be consistent and cast doubt on the reliability of every ancient writing prior to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, since no other book is as well attested to in such a large number of manuscripts as the New Testament.

Next, I will head on to the subject of the New Testament canon, and I will only deal with this topic briefly, lest Dan Brown type conspiracies regarding the NT Canon start coming up. It is a common misconception that the Council of Nicea decided that the New Testament would have four gospels. On the contrary, the Nicene canons do not cover the topic of the canon at all. In fact, the fixed canon of four gospels has been recognized since the second century. Irenaeus, writing in 180 AD, attests to this when he writes:

It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the “pillar and ground” of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh.
(Source: Irenaeus of Lyons. Adversus Haereses. Ch. XI.)

Renowned biblical scholar Bruce Metzger confirms this when he states:
When the pronouncement was made about the canon, it merely ratified what the general sensitivity of the church had already determined. You see, the canon is a list of authoritative books more than it is an authoritative list of books. These documents didn’t derive their authority from being selected; each one was authoritative before anyone gathered them together. The early church merely listened and sensed that these were authoritative accounts.

For someone now to say that the canon emerged only after councils and synods made these pronouncements would be like saying, ‘Let’s get several academies of musicians to make a pronouncement that the music of Bach and Beethoven is wonderful.’ I would say, ‘Thank you for nothing! We knew that before the pronouncement was made.’ We know it because of sensitivity to what is good music and what is not. The same with the canon. 0:54
(Source: Bruce Metzger. The Case for Christ. p. 68.)

Next, I will cover the extra-biblical corroboration for Jesus and His ministry. One must understand that due to the area that Jesus grew up in, it is not likely that that many would take not of Him. Yet, what we do have from non-Christian sources is in and of itself quote noteworthy.

For example, there is the testimony of Flavius Josephus, as found in book 18 of his “Antiquities of the Jews.” This passage has caused quite a lot of controversy over the decades, with some sceptics going so far as to declare the entire passage as a forgery, but I think this is going a bit too far. Anyway, here is the text from Josephus:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man [, if it were lawful to call him a man], for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. [He was the Christ,] and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him [;for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him]. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.
(Source: Flavius Josephus. Antiquities. Book 18, chapter 3.)

Now, the bracketed portions are probably later interpolations, as they are not characteristic of Josephus’ writing. Besides that, however, the rest of the text is generally considered to be authentic. As scholars have said before:
“Few have doubted the genuineness of this passage.”
“Today there’s a remarkable consensus among both Jewish and Christian scholars that the passage as a whole is authentic, although there may be some interpolations.”
(Source: Dr. Edwin Yamauchi. The Case for Christ, p. 79.)

One thing is certain: The Testimonium cannot be dismissed as a late fabrication. The text is quoted in its entirety by fourth-century Church historian Eusebius in his History of the Church. Eusebius was a meticulous scholar, who thoroughly researched his sources. Despite his obvious enthusiasm for defending and furthering the Gospel, there is no evidence he wilfully used fraudulent source material to prove his point. 0:55
(Source: Timothy J. Dailey. Mysteries of the Bible: Exploring the Secrets of the Unexplained. p. 190)

Finally, it is noteworthy that there are no manuscripts of Josephus’ antiquities that do not have this passage. Thus we can be certain that truly does belong there. So here we have established the authenticity of the passage in general. What does that lead us to conclude? John Meier writes:
Read the Testimonium without the [bracketed] passages and you will see that the flow of thought is clear. Josephus calls Jesus by the generic title “wise man.” Josephus then proceeds to “unpack” that generic designation (wise man) with two of its main components in the Greco-Roman world: miracle working and effective teaching. This double display of “wisdom” wins Jesus a large following among both Jews and gentiles, and presumably—though no explicit reason is given—it is this huge success that moves the leading men to accuse Jesus before Pilate.

(Source: John Meier. The Testimonium: Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible. p. 23.)
It is also noteworthy that elsewhere in his Antiquities, Josephus mentions James, the half-brother of Jesus:
..so he assembled the Sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned…

As far as I can tell, nobody doubts that the passage regarding him is authentic. Given this account of Josephus talking about “the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ,” it shouldn’t be surprising at all for him to refer to Jesus and the Christian movement.

And then there are these events, which reportedly took place during Jesus’ death:
It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. (Luke 23:44, ESV)

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. (Matthew 27:51, ESV)

Interestingly enough, these events are corroborated by pagan sources:
Phlegon, a Greek author from Caria writing a chronology soon after 137 A.D., reported that in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (i.e., 33 A.D.) there was “the greatest eclipse of the sun” and that “it became night in the sixth hour of the day [i.e., noon] so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea.”
(Source: Paul Maier. Pontius Pilate. p. 366.)

There is also a certain quote by a historian from 51 A.D. by the name of Thallus. Although the original copy of his work is lost, it is quoted in the writings of Julius Africanus in 221 A.D. Julius quotes:

On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness, and the rocks were rent down by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.
(Source: Julius Africanus. Chronography. Chapter XVIII, 1.)

Thus, we see that a significant event that occurs at the moment of the crucifixion is recorded for us in two different pagan sources. Surely this should be enough to convince even the most ardent sceptic that the events of the crucifixion are historically grounded

I would also like to bring up an interesting fact: The gospel of Luke and the book of Acts (both written by Luke) could not have been written later than 64 A.D. The reason for this is twofold:

oh wait
I’ll skip that part and head to the real important stuff

Now, there is then the testimony of Jesus’ burial in the tomb, and the fact that it had been found empty 3 days later: events which as far as I know are well-attested to by both Christian and Jewish witnesses, not to mention most recognized scholars and historians up until now. Paul Maier writes:

Where did Christianity first begin? To this the answer must be: “Only one spot on earth-the city of Jerusalem.” But this is the very last place it could have started if Jesus’ tomb had remained occupied, since anyone producing a dead Jesus would have driven a wooden stake through the heart of an incipient Christianity inflamed by His supposed resurrection.

What happened in Jerusalem seven weeks after the first Easter could have taken place only if Jesus’ body were somehow missing from Joseph’s tomb, for otherwise the Temple establishment, in its imbroglio with the Apostles, would simply have aborted the movement by making a brief trip over to the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea and unveiling Exhibit A. They did not do this, because they knew the tomb was empty. Their official explanation for it-that the disciples had stolen the body- was an admission that the sepulchre was indeed vacant. (Source: Paul Maier. “The Empty Tomb as History,” Christianity Today, vol. 19, March 28, 1975. p. 5.)

However, it is not the empty tomb that convinces the disciples of Jesus that He is risen (with the possible exception of John). This is where we arrive at the post-resurrection appearances. These are recorded by the apostle Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians, where he writes:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Corinthians 5:3-8, ESV)

Now, sceptics often explain away this account by saying that everybody in question merely experienced hallucinations. This is the explanation championed by noted atheist philosopher Richard Carrier, who states this:
I believe the best explanation, consistent with both scientific findings and the surviving evidence…is that the first Christians experienced hallucinations of the risen Christ, of one form or another…In the ancient world, to experience supernatural manifestations of ghosts, gods and wonders was not only accepted, but often encouraged.
(Source: Richard Carrier. The Spiritual Body of Christ. p. 184.)

However, despite what Carrier would have you believe, the hallucination theory is not “consistent with both scientific findings and the surviving evidence.” The theory does not explain why the sceptical half-brother of Jesus or the anti-Christian Saul would experience hallucinations of that type. Moreover, it is extremely improbable that 500 people would simultaneously experience the same illusion. As renowned psychologist Gary Collins explains:

Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren’t something which can be seen by a group of people. Neither is it possible that one person could somehow induce a hallucination in somebody else. Since a hallucination exists only in the subjective, personal sense, it is obvious that others cannot witness it.

Thus, I would conclude, along with Dr. Gary Habermas, “That these different individuals in each of these various circumstances would all be candidates for hallucinations really stretches the limits of credibility.”
(Source: Gary Habermas. Beyond Death. p. 120.)

Thus, we see this string of facts and evidence that taken as a whole, provide a solid testimony for the Christian faith. I do not think that the naturalist worldview can explain all of these facts with anywhere near the same level of clarity, consistency and persuasiveness as the biblical worldview. If the atheist chooses to balk and deny the faith that has been once for all delivered to the saints, he does so at his own risk, for in doing so he runs against the entire testimony of history.
Thank you.

Hackenslash

I am going to be arguing on one premise, and providing instances from the NT that show that, as a historical document, it cannot be relied upon. And then I will briefly rebut Fisher’s opening. Is that OK?

Clock on.

I would argue that any source, without independent corroboration of specific statements, cannot be relied upon as a historical source.

So, in order to present my case, I figured I’d go straight for the jugular. In order to show that the NT is an unreliable source without critically robust independent support, it becomes suspect in terms of its actual veracity.

I only need find one instance of contradiction to cast doubt on the veracity of the stories.
So, we’ll start with genealogy
Matthew Chapter 1 V. 6-16. 29 Generations from David to Jesus. Luke C 3 v. 23-31, 43 generations. Between those two lists, only three names are in concurrence.

When Christ tells his disciples where to go after the resurrection: Matthew 28:10 and Mark 16:7 say Galilee, while Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:4 say he tells them to stay in Jerusalem.

In the book of John alone, between only two chapters, John flat out contradicts himself, saying in 3:22 that Jesus was performing Baptisms, while in 4:2 he says it was only the disciples who were performing them

I have done a quick sketch in bullets to rebut your opening.

1. Your opening was a massive argumentum ad populum. The influence of a work is no guide to its veracity, so that’s a massive non-sequitur before you even begin.

2. No argument that the bible is a historic document, following on from that and through your opening. Historical, however, is not the same as historic.

3. Argument from manuscript. Contemporary sources only, please/

4, Josephus. Any interpolation renders the whole document suspect

5. Critically robust sources please for the suspension of the natural laws, i.e. miracles.

7. Argument from improbability re hallucinations. Group hallucinations are a known phenomenon.

Fisher
First off, I’m glad Hack pointed out the genealogies example

It’s one of the most famous arguments. In fact, I used it myself back in my agnostic days, but it can be quite easily explained.

Ben Witherington writes:
It has been traditional to assume that Matthew’s genealogy traces Jesus’ lineage through Joseph (his legal genealogy), whereas Luke’s genealogy traces his lineage through Mary (his natural genealogy). [This solution finds] support from the fact that the Matthean birth narrative focuses more on the role of Joseph than of Mary, while Luke’s narrative makes Mary the more central figure in the drama. It also comports with the ancient conjecture that Joseph is ultimately the source of much of the Matthean birth narratives, while Mary is the source for most of Luke’s material.
(Source: Witherington, Ben III. The Birth of Jesus. p. 65.)

Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe expand upon this in their book “When Critics Ask,” where they write:

[The genealogies] are two different lines of ancestors, one traced through His legal father, Joseph, and the other through His actual mother, Mary. Matthew gives the official line, since he addresses Jesus’ genealogy to Jewish concerns for the Jewish Messiah’s credentials which required that Messiah come from the seed of Abraham and the line of David (cf. Matt. 1:1). Luke, with a broader Greek audience in view, addresses himself to their interest in Jesus as the Perfect Man (which was the quest of Greek thought). Thus, he traces Jesus back to the first man, Adam (Luke 3:38)…
..Further, Luke does not say that he is giving Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph. Rather, he notes that Jesus was “as was supposed” (Luke 3:23) the son of Joseph, while He was actually the son of Mary. Also, that Luke would record Mary’s genealogy fits with his interest as a doctor in mothers and birth and with his emphasis on women in his Gospel which has been called “the Gospel for Women.”

(Source: Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe. When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties. p. 385-386)

Also, the John 3 and John 4 thing is not a contradiction either. It’s pretty easy to simply say that since Jesus works through His disciples, whatever the disciples are doing is attributed to them in general.

As for the Galilee/Jerusalem discrepancies: Is Jesus even talking to the same groups of disciples? Given the number of them, it’s most likely that some were stationed in Galilee, while others remain in Jerusalem.

Finally, I’d like to address this idea of “word-for-word” correspondence, as it is terribly anachronistic and misleading.

The inspired truth of Scripture does not depend on word-for-word agreement among all biblical manuscripts on or between parallel accounts of the same event.

In the first place, the notion of word-for-word agreement is a relatively recent historical development. “In times of antiquity it was not the practice to give a verbatim repetition every time something was written out.” To b e sure, I don’t believe that one passage of Scripture ever directly contradicts other passages. Yet, when someone asks, “Does everything in Scripture and in the biblical manuscripts agree word-for-word?” that person is asking the wrong question. The answer to that question will always be a resounding no.

(Source: Timothy Paul Jones. Misquoting Truth. p. 31-32.)

The variations in the resurrection narratives tend to support, rather than undermine, their authenticity. They demonstrate that there were several independent traditions stemming from some event that must indeed have happened to give rise to them.
(Source: Paul Maier. In the Fullness of Time. p. 180.)

If the gospels were too consistent, that in itself would invalidate them as independent witnesses. People would then say we really only have one testimony that everybody else is just parroting.
(Source: Craig L. Blomberg. The Case for Christ. p. 45.)

There is enough of a discrepancy to show that there could have been no previous concert among them; and at the same time such substantial agreement as to show that they all were independent narrators of the same great transaction.
(Source: Simon Greenleaf. The Testimony of the Evangelists. Vii.)

Interestingly, hack has not at all addressed the pagan corroboration for the eclipse

or the earthquake, for that matter

And he claims that the entire Josephus text is suspect, which brings me to my question:

Do you know of any manuscripts that do not contain the testimonium? If so, provide a source for this. If not, then explain why you think a partial interpolation is tantamount to a total one (which goes against responsible historical scholarship).

Hackenslash
I will answer your question first, then I have some issues with your rebuttal.

I never said it was tantamount to a total interpolation, only that any interpolation renders it suspect as a critically robust evidential source.

Now, then. Group hallucinations and what we really know. We now that the human brain is an illusion generator par excellence. It can provide us with complete sensory input where there is none. It is also clear that all of our sensory input is tainted by our preconceptions, and by stimuli that we are not even aware of. May I direct your attention to this video.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1OVhlRpwJc

You can watch it later, but it deals with the influences on us that we are not even aware of.

hallucinations are subject to the same principles, and confirmation bias is a well-understood phenomenon.

Galilee/Jerusalem. You are making that up on the spot. These are different accounts of what he’s supposed to have said, and any conjecture on your part about what circumstances MAY have surrounded it does not support your argument, it supports mine. I only need reasonable doubt, remember.

OK, my question: If the genealogies were traced through different lineages (which would be interesting in and of itself, since Judaic practice always traced through the father), why do they both lead back to David?

Fisher
David did not have just one son. He had plenty of them. If you look closely, one traces His lineage through Solomon, the other through Nathan (not to be confused with the prophet of the same name).

Also, the bid about Judaic practices is irrelevant for one reason: Luke, the one who is tracing through Mary, is Greek. He is also writing for a Gentile audience. Thus, your parenthesis about Judaic practice is a complete non-sequitur.

Now, I would like to talk about the bit about hallucination

Hackenslash
Excellent, because now you’re getting into science.

Fisher
Group hallucinations do sometimes happen. However, from what I understand, they generally don’t hallucinate the exact same thing, and a crowd of 500 is pretty hard to influence that way

Also, It does not explain why Saul, the great persecutor of Christians, and James, the sceptical half-brother of Jesus, saw Him as well. If anything, they would be primed -against- seeing such hallucinations.

So my question is this: How do you account for James’ and Paul’s visions?

Hackenslash
Right, but we don’t have testimonies to their accounts, we only have the assertion that they were there. Further, recent studies on eyewitness accounts have shown major discrepancies

Interestingly, when my brother died many years ago, I saw him everywhere for the first few months. This is well-documented, and coupled with what I was saying earlier about hallucinatory stimuli, renders your points entirely moot. Further, to take your argument seriously, it would have to be axiomatic that miracles are possible, and that the natural laws can be suspended. I believe I asked for critically robust evidence for this in my opening. Care to address that?

The problem with your question is that presuppositions make you rule out any possibility of suspension of natural laws. Thus, even if you were presented with the various such experiences that have been documented even up until recent decades (there’s a wide variety of examples: jewels falling from the sky, the Roman Catholic marian apparitions, Hindu statues drinking milk etc) you would dismiss them out of hand.

(Disclaimer: Just because I gave a certain example of a miracle doesn’t mean that I endorse it. Even if it is likely to be supernatural, I would disagree as to their origin, but that is an inter-theist debate, so I won’t go further into that.)

Also, arguing from a personal anecdote doesn’t count for much when a debate is in question, I think you know that. On that note, you may claim James and Paul are giving personal anecdotes. However, they, unlike you, had no motive or predisposition to hallucinate. It is also possible that they are lying, but why would they? Look what that got them: Nothing but persecution, humiliation and death

And now for my final question: I mentioned before that non-Christian sources documented the eclipse in Luke 23:44, not to mention the earthquake in Matthew 27:51. Do you dispute these corroborations? If so, why?

Hackenslash
No. No presuppositions. Here’s the thing, and this is the root of the scientific method. I investigate that which is evident. So, I see what is, and then I formulate a hypothesis, and then I test it. The rules of logic and science determine that I dismiss anything which a) has no explanatory power, b) is not supported by any critically robust evidence and c) constitutes any unnecessary assumption. There is no evidence, as far as I am aware, that such a suspension is possible, so it is discarded, until there is evidence to support the viability of such a hypothesis. This has not been forthcoming.

Further, your response constituted a complete evasion of my question. About that evidence…?

I will be happy to forego my last question, and give the floor to the audience, as long as I get an answer to my first question.

Fisher
Well, you can always look up the examples I gave you. The Jewels, the apparitions, the Hindu drinking statues.

I haven’t seen those things first-hand though, so I can’t speak for the ones who saw/heard them directly

Hackenslash
They can all be dismissed under the rubric of what I have presented, and the principle of the shaving implement of the late, lamented cleric of Norfolk

Fisher
Also, would you like to answer my final question as well?
I’d like to know what you think of Thallus and Phlegon
If you don’t feel like going through the transcripts, I can paste the quotes back up

Hackenslash
A tiny correlation. Further, I have made my case, because all I need is doubt to render your document suspect as a historical source. I leave it open to the judgement of the audience, since my objections were evaded, rather than answered, IMO.

ProoF
It’s like 3 parts
Hold on
Hack, is my understanding correct at you trying to argue that people were pretty much seeing things when Jesus appeared to them?
Or did I get that wrong
The 500

Hackenslash
I am arguing that it is one of many possible explanations that are not considered within the confines of the doctrine. Most of them have a degree of parsimony that far exceeds the biblical account.
So arguing for it against only one other is a false dichotomy.
There is a vast range of possible explanations, and most of the can be explained by group[ hallucination and the power of suggestion.
Does that answer your question?

ProoF
Okay. So my question is, would it be more plausible to argue that all of them were mistaken or seeing things, that includes sceptics. Or would it be more plausible that Jesus did really appear to them?

Hackenslash
False dichotomy. They could have seen someone who looked like Jesus. They could have been hallucinating. Some of them may WANT to have seen Jesus, which is a powerful suggestive force, and well documented.
The rest may be Chinese whisper, or broken telephone to our US cousins.
Parsimony is a valuable tool in discerning between hypotheses.

ProoF
That is fine. Thanks for answering. I came to my conclusion. Just needed to hear your input.

Hackenslash
So I can provide an explanatory example from multiple fields of science to support my contention. However, I have yet to see anything that would suggest that suspension of the natural laws is possible. Occam’s Razor wins

RazorsKiss
For both debaters: Hackenslash says that you only need a “reasonable doubt.” By what universal standard, applicable to another human being, and not merely to yourself, is something reasonable or unreasonable – such as a ‘reasonable’ doubt?

Fisher
Hack is arguing from a personal, subjective standard when he states things “reasonable doubt” and “absurdities.” Heck, even appealing to Occam’s Razor. All of this presupposes the Naturalistic worldview is true. However, I contend that Hack’s explanations for the evidence provided, rather than providing the most “reasonable” explanation, actually strains at the evidence.

For example

Hack says that a predisposition to want to see what the people who saw Jesus saw accounts for their hallucinations But, as I said before, Paul and James actually were predisposed AGAINST such hallucinations. Remember, the former was an opponent of Christianity before his conversion, and the latter was very sceptical of his own half-brother. Granted, they could have lied, but as I said, they have no reason to do so. It only resulted in their persecutions and death.

Hackenslash
You mean that they had motive for it not to have happened? This is precisely the thing I’m talking about. This gives enough stimuli to bring on a hallucination, and if you look at the study on witness testimony, you can see that these two combined can provide exactly the circumstances you describe. The working of the mind is increasingly well-understood.

They didn’t necessarily have to lie. They only had to believe. Argument from belief is just as fallacious as argument from popularity My first question has not been answered. I require critically robust, peer-reviewed material that suggests that miracles are possible. If that is not forthcoming, I think we’re done.

I would say that doubt is reasonable when a) the source is suspect in terms of i) veracity ii) tampering iii) corroborative contemporary evidence iv) provenance or b) i) source ii) motive.

The NT actually fails on most of these counts.

RazorsKiss
My question was: On what universal standard, applicable to any person, id something reasonable – such as doubt – the same question applies to each of your individual reasons listed. On what basis are those objective, not subjective?

Fisher
Well, if you want me to provide a quick answer to that
We have a set of facts and evidences.
Both sides have a set of presuppositions
My standard of reasonability would be which side’s presupposition can explain the facts better

Facts: I’ve mentioned the testimonies and statements of various persons, both biblical and extra-biblical, Christian as well as non-Christian.

Presuppositions: We both believe certain things about the world, even if those beliefs are non-religious or naturalistic.

So the question is whose worldview fits with the facts

Hackenslash
I have no beliefs of any description

Fisher
So……………………………………….. you’re a Nihilist?

Hackenslash
Nihilism, by the way, IS a belief. It is the belief that it’s all pointless.
I have a question:
What are these presuppositions I have, as per your earlier assertion?

Fisher
Hackenslash What are these presuppositions I have, as per your earlier assertion? <<< Your presupposition, based on what I gather from the way you speak, is that only what is natural and can be verified empirically is to be considered real.

RazorsKiss
No, my question is: what makes any of those listed reasons reasonable descriptors of whether something is, or is not, reasonable?

Hackenslash
That is not a presupposition. It is an evidentially supported position. There is no reason to suspect that it is otherwise, especially since the 
scientific method has provided us with the only real answers we have ever had.

RazorsKiss
in other words – how do you decide those are valid descriptors of “reasonable? by what standard?

Hackenslash
RK, by the standard that they it is the only standard which has provided us with real, usable information about how the world works. It is simply a matter of standard of evidence. In my opinion, the NT doesn’t stack up, and there is enough doubt concerning its veracity to render it useless as a historical source. This was the central point of my opening, and one which my opponent has singularly failed to address. The other thing he’s failed to address is my request for evidence that a suspension of the natural laws is in fact possible. He has also failed to do this. All I need is sufficient doubt in the source, and my argument is made.

RazorsKiss
So, you don’t have an objective basis. Thank you.

Hackenslash
That IS an objective basis. It deals with only that for which reasonable evidence can be provided.

nickels
You mentioned a few lines ago that only science (i.e. the scientific method) can provide for us knowledge? Have I understood you correctly or is this a straw man?

Hackenslash
Although, give me a second. I have drunk much wine, and I need to see to the animals.

I didn’t say that only science can provide knowledge, so in a sense, yes. What I said was that the scientific method has given us the only way of looking at the universe with clear eyes, and has provided for us the world in which we can discuss these things over so many miles.

In other words, it is a mechanism by which we can know, while all other worldviews that have so far been advanced have only provided guesses and conjecture.

That’s not to say that it’s infallible in the short term, but the long term is process of refinement and revision, so it’s self-correcting, in a way that no other system of thought is.

nickels
Science by its very nature can only produce results. Those results have to be interpreted by the preconceptions of the scientist. For example, physics, as far as I know, relies heavily upon the theorems about Calculus developed by mathematicians. Mathematics, as opposed to science, starts off with an axiomatic system and reasons deductively, not inductively.

Therefore, science itself is subject to preconceptions. That’s not really a question, I know, but how would you respond?

Hackenslash
Science has only one preconception, and that is that we can know, if we keep looking. I can respond thus. Mathematics is axiomatic precisely because we understand the system that describes it. Science is not the same, as it deals with no axia.

That is why the word ‘proof’ is only applicable in mathematics. A proof is an axiomatic construct, ‘proving’ the applicability of certain axia. Hence, the axiom is that the summing of two integers give the product. The proof of that would be 1+1=2 That is what a proof is.

nickels
Technically, 1+1=2 is not one of the Peano axioms but rather is derived from them.

Hackenslash
And that’s why proof is not applicable in science, and why the highest an idea can achieve is ‘theory’. It is a proof of the axiom Do you see what I’m getting at? Anybody else have a question, or can we wrap up?

nickels
I believe so. However, we are still left with the conclusion that science is not the beginning of knowledge. Proper mathematics and logic must known first.

EmpireOfZombies
1. Hack, why do you consider Fishers argument is not reasonable? Summarize it, if possible.
2. Hack, Fisher provided many testimonies to support his argument. Is there any reason these do not support him or are irrelevant?
3. Hack, final question. can you give us an example of evidence that would lift reasonable doubt (for you) from Fisher’s argument?

Hackenslash
1. Because it is circular, in that it relies on the occurrence of miracles. Unless one can provide evidence that such an occurrence is possible, I have to go with the parsimonious explanation for these events. The demands of parsimony dictate that I rule out anything which constitutes an unnecessary assumption or cannot be supported by critically robust evidence.

2. They all constitute hearsay. The nearest contemporary source is Josephus. His work was pretty good in many respects, but unfortunately all of it is rendered invalid by the least suspicion of interpolation or tampering. Further, his second entry constitutes hearsay, which has been shown to be an unreliable source of historical data.

EmpireOfZombies
2. Why do they constitute hearsay?

Hackenslash
3. I answered this in my initial post. Provide critically robust evidence that a suspension of the natural laws is even viable for the consideration of scientists to look at.

2. Because they only talked about what other people believed or said concerning the events.

EmpireOfZombies
3. I was hoping for something more specific.

Hackenslash
More specific than ‘there is no critically robust evidence to support your postulate’? I don’t know how I can be much more specific than that. I would require a robust correlation with reliable contemporary diarists or historians that concurred with the bible. I would also require some evidence to support the ridiculous notion that miracles can occur, and that magic man is responsible. Neither of these has been shown to my satisfaction, and further, my opponent has singularly failed to answer my questions and objections.

EmpireOfZombies
Fisher. What do you consider an objective basis for determining anything? What do you consider reasonable evidence?

Fisher
EoZ, one thing I would like to stress is that we -all- have a certain way of looking at the world. The question is whether this way of looking at the world is consistent, both with itself and the facts. I have mentioned various facts, such as that various 1st century witnesses corroborate the testimonies of the gospel writers, not to mention the testimony of the gospel writers themselves. Of course there is the possibility that they are lying, misinterpreted the facts or have merely imagined what they wrote down. But the question is whether these accusations are warranted. As far as I see, they are not.

Hackenslash
Good questions, BTW.
Again with the facts. Where is the critically robust evidence for these ‘facts’?

EmpireOfZombies
I don’t agree with calling witness testimony factual.
testimony is just that.
A recount of their perception of what happened.
Which is entirely subjective.
Which does not answer my question.
I asked what your basis for objective reasoning was.

Fisher
Like I said, internal consistency and corroboration. Unless I’m interpreting your question wrong

EmpireOfZombies
It was a general question.
If you were looking at anything.
Not this specifically.
Third question. How is Hack subjective if subjectivity refers to emotions, feelings, and predispositions?

Fisher
Not sure where I called Hack subjective. BUT, I would say that some of Hack’s statements are subjective, such as his stating “believability” as a criterion for accepting or rejecting a certain account as true. Remember, what is believable for one person may be completely incredulous to another.

EmpireOfZombies
You did during the questions.
Someone asked a question and you specifically stated he was subjective.

Hackenslash
Which is precisely why I don’t do belief

Fisher
Ahh right, now I remember
And Hack, everybody believes certain things
Doesn’t matter whether those things are considered “religious” or not.

Hackenslash
No, I believe nothing. I can give you the full set, if you like, and a justification for my assertion.

Fisher
The question is whether those beliefs (and yes, I’m using that term broadly) can be corroborated

EmpireOfZombies
Yes. It’s actually the first question I had, but I saved it for last because it’s not exactly important compared to my other two.

Hackenslash
I have no beliefs. It is that simple: Beliefs are the eyelids of the mind – David Zindell

Fisher
Hack, am I real person?Hackenslash
Ah, the argument from solipsism is about to rear its ugly head

Fisher
It’s not that. What I’m saying is
You take it for granted that you are debating a human being, though this could easily be an advanced AI or a well-trained chimpanzee.
So if you say I’m a real person, that would be considered a belief.

Hackenslash
I have no critically robust evidence to suggest otherwise, and all the evidence from my interaction, and the interaction of those I know, is only a construct. That fails the principles as well, for the simple fact is that my assumption about the rest of the world being out there is evidentially supported, and doesn’t exceed the demands of parsimony. We have only consistency.

Fisher
“Belief – something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat. ” -dictionary.com

Hackenslash
So to dismiss you as a real person, given your interaction, would fail the demands of parsimony, and leads only to solipsism, which can teach us nothing.

Hackenslash
You can quote definitions all you like. I did offer my justification, but you had already made your mind up that I was wrong.

Fisher
Gee, that’s one of the things right…
You constantly clamor for facts and evidence. Remember who it is that provided virtually all the references and sources during the course of this debate.

EmpireOfZombies
Fisher, there have been many psychological studies regarding the power of suggestion and hallucination. For example, if someone tells
you a house is haunted, you are more likely to see a ghost in that house. These studies would argue against your point
that scepticism provides a predisposition against seeing something not there. In regards to your original point that what they saw could NOT be hallucinations based solely on the fact of their scepticism, how would these studies stand?

Hackenslash
If you had taken me up on my offer of an explanation, you would have been more enlightened. Instead, you chose to decide what it means.
When we have hard evidence from reality, belief is superfluous.
You may have provided sources, but I had no need to provide much supporting evidence, because my point was entirely in the realm of logic, and required no support. Where it was required, I provided video evidence in support of my postulates. Your sources were all non-contemporary and hearsay, apart from the one source I focused on. And you singularly failed to answer my questions. In fact, you didn’t answer my first question, and you haven’t.

Fisher
Well, if merely seeing something is insufficient for you, Paul also went blind for three whole days after seeing what he saw. Can hallucinations cause blindness? Also, I’m not well-versed in psychology. From what I understand though, even if you can induce a large crowd to experience mass hallucinations, it is highly unlikely that they’ll see the exact same thing.

Hack, do you want to continue, or conclude?

Hackenslash
Blindness is a known trigger of hallucination. Perhaps there is a more parsimonious explanation…
I think we’re done.