Stand to Reason Blog

Some atheists attempt to undermine Christianity by arguing that Jesus never existed - He's a myth like many other god-myths in history.  The dying-and-resurrected-messiah myth is one such attempt that Greg dismantled in Solid Ground earlier this fall.  These critics claim Josephus, a Jewish historian who records that Jesus lived and His followers believed He was the Christ, is completely compromised.  That's not true - even taking the most severe questions into account, Josephus's record remains intact.  It's simply not the case that there is serious question among scholars that Jesus didn't exist.

Recently on the radio show, Mike Licona mentioned an interesting bit of information.  Even the Jesus Seminar, a group with radical skeptical views of the Bible, don't consider the question of Jesus' existence a serious question of debate.  They're anxious to debate many of the New Testament details of Jesus, but not the fact of His existence.

They turned down an offer to publish an artcile by Early Doherty on Jesus as myth.  Doherty reported:

A recent proposal [was] made to the editor of the Fourth R, the magazine of the Westar Institute, the umbrella organization for the Jesus Seminar. This person, who is familiar with and has admired my work (no telling the crazy things some people will support, right?) noted to the editor that the Fourth R has a tradition of presenting some pretty liberal viewpoints for examination. He offered to donate $5000 to the magazine if they would print a substantial article by myself on the Jesus Myth question, accompanied in the same issue by an equal counter-article by any scholar of their choosing, to be followed in a subsequent issue by shorter rebuttals by both myself and the other scholar. (This offer, by the way, was made without my prompting or even my knowledge, until he informed me after it was made.)

This was the response he received:

I'm not presently inclined to devote an issue to questioning the existence of Jesus. The topic is a perennial one among skeptics. If someone wants to doubt the existence of Jesus, my experience is that no evidence or argument will change his mind. Such is the nature of skepticism. But the existence of Jesus is not a living issue among historical Jesus scholars. Perhaps it should be, but it just isn't, at least at present. With so many other living issues to explore, I don't think it would be responsible to devote the limited space in the 4R to your suggestion.

So even one of the most liberal groups dismisses these myth claims as unserious.  

And here is Mike Licona's review of the film "The God Who Wasn't There" that is mentioned in the link above.  Mike critiques the case that Jesus is merely a myth.

Licona on Ehrman

Mike Licona will be Greg's guest on the radio show Sunday discussing his debates and critique of Bart Ehrman's claims that the Bible isn't reliable.  You can watch debates between Licona and Ehrman here.

November Conferences

Here are some of the conferences next month STR speakers will be at and you might like to be at, too.

The Case for Christianity, Veritas Seminary, Diamond Bar, CA - November 6-7

National Apologetics Conference, Southern Evangelical Seminary, Charlotte, NC - November 13-14

Apologetics Institute, Smithfield, RI - November 13-14

Come, Let Us Reason, EPS Apologetics Conference, New Orleans, LA, November 19-21

A Few Thoughts about Atheism and Debate

I attended a discussion last night between David Berlinski and James Underdown about Darwinism sponsored by the American Freedom Alliance.  (There are more events scheduled.)  I tweeted the highlights during the event, but I have a few overall thoughts the I concluded after thinking over what I heard last night - and previous similar engagements.

First, after reading and listening to numerous discussions with atheists it's very clear that they have never taken seriously the other point of view, attempted to understand or engage the arguments offered for theism or Intelligent Design, and I wish they'd have the epistemic honesty to at least make this fundamental rational effort.  Over and over last night and on other occasions, atheists exhibit no serious familiarity with the evidence for theism or the historical Jesus, the arguments for Intelligent Design and the differences from young-earth creationism.  It could be that such engagements never result in any agreement or change of opinions, but at the very least, it's a rational duty and virtue to understand the other side.  I think this consistent evidence for epistemic laziness displays the atheists hubris and disdain for theism, ID, and creationism, and illustrates that they aren't "free thinkers" as they like to say because they've actually never thought seriously about the other side.

Second, Hitchens, Dawkins, and Underdown at the event last night all cite God's judgment and vengeance as good reason to reject "that kind of God."  What sadly is missing from their characterization of the God of the Bible is His lovingkindness, His mercy, His grace, His patience.  If they've never heard this Good News, then that's our fault for not clearly communicating the Gospel.  If they have heard of it, which I think is more likely, then I think their selective focus on those attributes of God are used to justify their rejection of God.  It's sad to hear the judgment of God mentioned without also His overwhelming love.  The Law bring condemnation, not life because we can't fulfill it.  But the Law was meant to show us this and point us to grace offered through Jesus.

Finally, Berlinski believes that mathematics is the field that can bridge the divide between the two realms of science and the mind, as he talked about them last night.  Mathematics is the study of immaterial entities with real existence that interact with the physical world in an orderly way.  Mathematics engages both realms.  It seems that science, theology, and philosophy are all used to engage the debate over theism and Darwinism, but mathematics hasn't been widely employed.  I suspect that's because there are so many fewer mathematicians than biologists, physicists, even theologians.  Our culture hasn't values mathematics much for quite probably well over a century.  We've valued the hard science since the 50s.  I'm really curious to study Berlinski's proposal and find out more about what mathematics can bring to the debate and how it might offer useful ways of bridging the divide.  I'm starting with Berlinski's A Tour of Calculus.

Dawkins' Materialism

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Richard Dawkins last week.  I thought that this answer was perfectly illustrative of Dawkins' materialism and scientism - the way he limits the evidence he'll consider to only physical facts that science provides.

HH:  So when you consider before the big bang, what does Richard Dawkins think was there?

RD:  I don't consider the question, because I recognize that it's an intuitively appealing question.  I recognize that I, along with everybody else, wants to ask that question.  Then I talk to physicists who say you can no more ask what came before the big bang than you can ask what's north of the North Pole.

Well, certainly if you reach the North Pole and never think to look up, you'd think there was no other direction to go.  Dawkins doesn't seem to consider that when you've reached the North Pole, that line of investigation might be exhausted, but there could be another way to discover what lies beyond the North Pole (i.e., the solar system and galaxy).  Certainly, if you never considered another mode of investigation, he would think he's exhausted what there is to discover rather than realizing the inherent limits of his chosen area of study.  When the geographer takes you to the North Pole and can take you no further, the astronomer or astronaut can give you another way to find out what else there is to investigate.  The North Pole is the last stop only if you limit the method of study.

Dawkins is a materialist and believes that physical facts are all there are to know, the physical facts of this universe.  He believes that science is the only valid area of knowledge about the universe.  That is the presupposition that handicaps his investigation. 

Note what he says about talking to physicists who say you can't ask what came before the Big Bang.  Well, they've got it wrong.  Physics may not be able to tell us what came before the Big Bang because this world and its laws is all physics can study.  But there are other areas of study the give us facts about the world that can be turned to when science reaches its limits.  Philosophy and theology are also valid areas of study - unless of course, they've been dismissed a priority by a materialist presupposition. 

Hugh Hewitt does a good job of pressing Dawkins on the historical evidence for Jesus, and Dawkins betrays his limited familiarity with this area of study.  Certainly, we all have specialties and have to focus our expertise, but that should lead Dawkins to offer up his thoughts on the historical evidence for Jesus in a much more tentative tone.  This epistemic confidence without justification betrays one of Dawkins' most serious intellectual failures.  He dismisses things he's disagrees with out of his presuppositions and doesn't seriously study the justification.

Hugh makes one serious error at the end of the interview and unwittingly concedes Dawkins' own view of "faith" as contrary to reason and fact.  He describes faith as belief against or without evidence.  He concedes the lack of conclusive evidence for God's existence and creation as an opportunity for faith.  

HH:  ...I'm saying that the world has been made as it is to allow for faith, because if it was made too easy for the simple-minded, it would simply be routine, and everyone would believe, and then there would be no faith.

In other words, faith only exists when evidence, facts, and justification cannot guide us.  This is not the biblical definition of faith.  Faith isn't faith because it's rare and unusual.  Biblical faith would still be just that if every single person had faith in God and His revelation.  People don't believe because of lack of evidence, as Romans 1 explains, but because of their sin and rebellion.

Greg explains the difference between the common misconception of faith and Biblical faith.

The New New Atheists

Atheism 3.0. (It didn't take long to replace v 2.0.)

We've already heard from some classic atheists that the "new atheists" were an embarrassment in their reckless and sweeping claims and judgments about religion, science, and reason.  And now there seems to be a third camp of atheists - perhaps reviving the spirit of classical atheism, so maybe it's back to v 1.0.  These atheists want to engage the discussion about God, religion, and morality rather than dismissing theists as irrational.  They express the classical sense of tolerance for different views in the public square, rather than the desire to eradicate religion from public life. 

USA Today reports:

Bruce Sheiman doesn't believe in God, but he does believe in religion.

Setting aside the question of whether God exists, it's clear that the benefits of faith far outweigh its costs, he argues in his new book, An Atheist Defends Religion: Why Humanity is Better Off With Religion than Without It....

"More than any other institution, religion deserves our appreciation and respect because it has persistently encouraged people to care deeply — for the self, for neighbors, for humanity, and for the natural world — and to strive for the highest ideals humans are able to envision," Sheiman writes.

Another atheist makes this intriguing point:

Atheists who insist that religion be removed from the public square are doing themselves a disservice, argues Austin Dacey, a former United Nations representative.... A godless public square not only shields religion from public criticism, it also circumvents a broader debate on morality, he argues.

"If they privatize faith, they also won't be able to criticize it," Dacey said of the New Atheists an interview.

Trustworthy Gospels? (Video)

Why should we trust the Gospels?

The Devil's Delusion

David Berlinski, author of The Devil's Delusion:  Atheism & Its Scientific Pretension, will be Greg's guest on the radio show Sunday.

Israelites in Egypt

One objection to the historical reliability of the Old Testament is the lack of archaeological evidence that Israel was ever in Egypt matching the time of slavery described in the Pentateuch.  Recently, an Egyptian coin bearing the name and image of Joseph with mint dates consistent with the Biblical account.

Archeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the biblical Joseph, Cairo's Al Ahram newspaper recently reported. Excerpts provided by MEMRI show that the coins were discovered among a multitude of unsorted artifacts stored at the Museum of Egypt.

...The period in which Joseph was regarded to have lived in Egypt matches the minting of the coins in the cache, researchers said.

(HT:  Riddleblog)

Tactics & Talk

The first part of Greg's discussion with the White Horse Inn guys about Tactics is posted.