Thanks to everyone for giving tips and examples that I used in my email to refute Mr. Larmer's arguments. Here is what he says in reply:
A crucial difference between say Luke and Dickens, is that Dickens makes no claim to be giving a historical account, whereas Luke does. It seems a fair principle of evaluating sources which claim to be historical that if they are reliable on the facts that we can check, they have a greater claim to be reliable on the facts that we cannot. As regards your claim that people in the first century were so gullible that they would believe almost anything, I think it is mistaken. For example, Joseph is not portrayed as readily accepting Mary's story.
Concerning your remarks about anecdotal evidence, I think that you need to take into account how central a role testimony plays in science. No scientist is able to duplicate all the scientific claims he or she believe. Rather, they accept the claims on the basis of testimony from people they take to be reliable.
There are many well-verified accounts of modern day 'miracles', i.e. events plausibly seen as the result of supernatural intervention. If you want to do some reading on the issue, Craig Keener's very recent book would be a good place to start. I also have collected some case studies. As to questions concerning the historical reliability of the gospel records, you might wish to look at Craig Blomberg's book on that topic.
Finally, what I directly argued, is that if God exists he can produce miracles without violating the laws of nature. Whether or not this has in fact happened cannot be pronounced on a priori, but one cannot dismiss miracles as antecedently improbable on the basis that they would violate the laws of nature. I do in fact believe in God and the occurrence of miracles, but my argument for distinguishing between the two forms of the Principle of Conservation of Energy and for affirming that miracles need not violate the laws of nature does not depend on making the claim that God does in fact exist.
A crucial difference between say Luke and Dickens, is that Dickens makes no claim to be giving a historical account, whereas Luke does. It seems a fair principle of evaluating sources which claim to be historical that if they are reliable on the facts that we can check, they have a greater claim to be reliable on the facts that we cannot. As regards your claim that people in the first century were so gullible that they would believe almost anything, I think it is mistaken. For example, Joseph is not portrayed as readily accepting Mary's story.
Concerning your remarks about anecdotal evidence, I think that you need to take into account how central a role testimony plays in science. No scientist is able to duplicate all the scientific claims he or she believe. Rather, they accept the claims on the basis of testimony from people they take to be reliable.
There are many well-verified accounts of modern day 'miracles', i.e. events plausibly seen as the result of supernatural intervention. If you want to do some reading on the issue, Craig Keener's very recent book would be a good place to start. I also have collected some case studies. As to questions concerning the historical reliability of the gospel records, you might wish to look at Craig Blomberg's book on that topic.
Finally, what I directly argued, is that if God exists he can produce miracles without violating the laws of nature. Whether or not this has in fact happened cannot be pronounced on a priori, but one cannot dismiss miracles as antecedently improbable on the basis that they would violate the laws of nature. I do in fact believe in God and the occurrence of miracles, but my argument for distinguishing between the two forms of the Principle of Conservation of Energy and for affirming that miracles need not violate the laws of nature does not depend on making the claim that God does in fact exist.
