tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640364935021532561.post8690878098212979126..comments2015-05-26T01:53:47.781-07:00Comments on Telos of the Ordinary: 14. Arguments for and against God: JesusBrucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05791587899672940996noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640364935021532561.post-66952603586500239852015-05-21T06:50:19.103-07:002015-05-21T06:50:19.103-07:00Excellent response. Your close reading rewards my ...Excellent response. Your close reading rewards my confidence in you, John.<br /><br />You challenge the facts about Jesus' birth, death, and resurrection. I understand that, and understood that going in. Without doing the hard work here of explaining why it's worthy of belief, i.e., that it's historical knowledge and not mere opinion or fable, I will merely assert that it's true. For the sake of the argument, I ask that you provisionally grant it/them as premises to see where it goes. (For real life, though, I ask that you believe me.)<br /> <br />Your refutation, when I feel the heat, hinges on: <br /> "Bruce claims that if Jesus was raised from the dead that then it follows that everything that Jesus said, taught or claimed must be correct. This, in and of itself, is a clear non-sequitur."<br /><br />Maybe. Here's my expanded argument on this point. My main interest originally was escaping intellectual nihilism. If God revealed himself to the Jews in general and in Jesus Christ in particular, then Jewish metaphysics (of God existing and revealing himself, of nature actually being Creation, of generally reliable sense knowledge, of objective morality in general, and more) would be sound. The details could be nuanced, but the outline would be established.<br />My next inference is that Jesus would be the One, the authoritative revealer of the truth about God and Man, the Messiah and all that this entails. Here is where my argument needs some reinforcement.<br /><br />To wit: even if everything the scriptures foretell, or explain after the fact, about the Messiah is true, I still do not know how much of what he taught (in the whole Special Revelation of God in Israel and the Church teaches) is culturally compromised, analogical, imprecise and so forth. For example, even if all we say about Jesus is true, Jesus as the Son of Man had less knowledge than Jesus as the second person of the Trinity. Proof of principle is that he did not know when he would return, and he did not know who would sit on his right hand and his left; yet in the Trinity in his divine person there ought not be this gap in knowledge. Therefore, I do not know the limits of Jesus Christ's knowledge, even if I grant the strongest claims about his identity as Messiah, Christ and second person of the Trinity. <br /><br />--And, I assert, we can and should grant the strongest claims about Jesus Christ, Son of Man, Son of God, Second Person of the Trinity. But I'm preaching here, not arguing.<br /><br />--Again, even though I present this quote from Paul as a logical argument, it is actually a proclamation with logical implications. God he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and he has given proof of this by raising him from the dead. Therefore, we need to repent and believe.<br />Again, I'm preaching.<br />Brucehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05791587899672940996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8640364935021532561.post-76238081097845118722015-05-20T20:32:56.539-07:002015-05-20T20:32:56.539-07:00This argument naturally breaks down into two parts...This argument naturally breaks down into two parts. Firstly, we a have a quotation of some verses from the Bible (Acts 17) which I'll look at in a moment and secondly we have an argument by Bruce which uses these verses to infer the existence of God.<br /><br />Let's first take a look at the verses which describe Paul and some companions travelling around through Greece, from synagogue to synagogue converting many Jews along the way. To make a long story short Paul winds up in Athens alone. While there, he finds an altar dedicated 'to an unknown God'. As in previous locations he's been, here he also tries to spread the good word. This causes him to be brought to the Areopagus, the courthouse, where he is asked to explain what it is that he is preaching. Paul then claims that the unknown god the Athenians worship is his god. He claims that this god, who made everything and is Lord of everything, doesn't live in temples and isn't made of gold, silver or stone. He claims that in the past this god forgave such ignorance, but now wants everyone to repent. As proof of this claim he cites the resurrection of Jesus.<br /><br />Bruce takes the previous story as the basis for his own argument, which generalises from Athenians to all religious people. He adopts Paul's claim that Jesus was resurrected. He claims that this means that Jesus' view on religion and everything Jesus ever said, taught or claimed must be correct. He deduces that religious Athenian philosophers should become Christians and, a fortiori, any religious peron should become a Christian.<br /><br />I agree with Bruce that if you accept the conclusion that religious Athenian philosophers should become Christians, you should accept that any religious person should become a Christian. I do however wonder where that leaves me as an atheist.<br /><br />That aside, do I accept his conclusion? To not accept his conclusion, I would have to either demonstrate a flaw in his reasoning or not accept the assumptions upon which his reasoning is based.<br /><br />Actually I choose to do both. I'll start with what I consider to be a flaw in reasoning.<br /><br />Bruce claims that if Jesus was raised from the dead that then it follows that everything that Jesus said, taught or claimed must be correct. This, in and of itself, is a clear non-sequitur. Even if I accept that Jesus was raised from the dead, this does not logically imply what Bruce claims it does. Logically it would still be quite possible that God looking down from on high thought to himself : "This guy got a raw deal. You know what, I'll bring him back. He may have had some wierd idea's but he deserves a second chance. After all it said that I work in mysterious ways." In no way does the resurrection of Jesus mean that he was right about everything, even if he predicted it. This is a major flaw in the reasoning.<br /><br />Now, onwards to the assumptions. Was Jesus resurrected? Was he executed? Was he even born?<br /><br />I will simply, for the sake of argument, accept that Jesus really existed and was in fact executed. I am not totally convinced, but there are at least some plausible arguments that this might be the truth. Then there remains only the question : was he resurrected? I would have to say that there is absolutely no evidence that this ever happened outside of the bible itself. There are many who would refer to other historical sources and claim that this is evidence, but when reading these sources they basically all just claim "It is said that ....". They merely repeat the story as a tale told. The only contemporary source might be Josephus, however it is common consensus that the single reference to the biblical story is a later interpolation.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01948216346058401593noreply@blogger.com