I think it is reasonable at this point to review the claims that I have made, and subject them to Knockemoutt’s critiques.
- Claim 1: There is no inconsistency between believing in the God of Jesus Christ and acting rationally in holding this belief. C ⊃ CAI – if C (Christianity) is true, it is not unlikely that Christianity will appear irrational (CAI)
The appearance of irrationality seems to me to be a false-positive… as it is not unlikely that the appearance of irrationality is exactly what one should expect if Christianity is true. Long before Darwin or even modern science, it seems to be claimed… in the New Testament that Christianity is intended to appear irrational
- Claim 2: There is no persuasive argument against the God of Jesus Christ
In response to claim 1, you say…
Knockemoutt, I appreciate the comments. I myself have spent much time likewise questioning the logic I am using in fear that it is not sound. However, I do not think it has been refuted and let me explain why. Though you have parodied my argument a bit, even if I take your words literally and entirely seriously—“none of it makes sense, that’s because it is not supposed to”—this is not an illogical claim. Say that I was an abstract artist and made a painting that when looked upon by a traditional medieval artist looks like nonsense. He may not consider it a painting at all. However, my abstract artist made the art for the very reason of getting the traditional artist to question what really it means to make art in the first place. It does not follow that such a sitation is impossible simply because the painting was intentionally not supposed to make sense to a traditional way of looking at things.
It also seems to me that you are claiming that my assertions here are ad-hoc, as you seem to take these as simply excuses in the face of the evidence. However, this is one reason why I quoted the New Testament, as it is long before Darwin or modern biblical criticism which questioned biblical inerrancy. However, no one doubts that the New Testament is the foundational document of Christianity and occurred long before Darwin or even modern science. Since the claims are found in strong terms in the New Testament itself, it doesn’t seem fair to accuse me of offering an ad-hoc explination as the explination was there long before the objection. (if I am correct that this is what you are doing.
I would also like to clarify the position that I am debating. When I agreed to this debate, I saw myself as maintaining a negative case against the claim that Christianity is irrational. Therefore, I agreed to defend the position that Christianity is not irrational. However, I am not taking this as equivalent to the claim that Christianity is rational. Before anyone judges me as playing games with words, please let me explain. To show that justified Christianity belief based upon the experience of God is rational, I would be required to show that this experience is actually from God. However, as such experiences are inward and so cannot be demonstrated externally as proof of God, I am unable to produce these experiences. However, I do not see any argument sufficient to disprove one who has had experiences from God after subjecting them to questioning. Therefore, since the arguments against Christianity’s rationality are external, they are something that I can deal with, and so seemed a fair topic of debate… especially when claims to know that Christianity is irrational are everywhere found on posts here. So I will not be demonstrating that Christianity is rational, as it would require me to produce something which is impossible to produce—the experience of God. However, I can defend the belief that even if one has not experienced God in a Christian way, this person is no position to say that Christianity is irrational. (and this is what I have been defending) This seems to be a very significant claim to me, (and no small one) as many people seem to take if for granted that we know that, or it is highly probable that Christianity is irrational.
The other claim I am maintaining is this: there is no successful argument against the God of Jesus Christ
Here I still think it is the case that historical objections against Jesus teaching in a Christian or somewhat Christian manner would not be a conclusive argument against Christianity even if I were to grant that they are sucesseful as it could be seen as adding further to the irrational crust of the rationally inwardly tender steak of Christianity (forgive me, I desire a steak a the moment…) However, I do see no reason to grant that any historical objection that you have raised as calling into question the picture of Jesus painted in the New Testament. I will first quote your comments relevant to this, and then respond.
I do not believe that your skepticism about the historical Jesus painted in the Gospels is warranted, and let me explain why.
As one scholar writes,
“…historians frequently trust ancient authors who wrote about events that preceded them by greater spans of time than forty to sixty years and who were not directly connected to the events they wrote about…for example, much of what historians believe we know about first-century Jewish history comes from a single source—Josephus—writing about events that in some cases predate him by more than a century. So too, much of what historians believe we know about the Persian wars comes from a single source—Herodotus—writing roughly seventy years after the fact. And a good deal of what we think we know about Alexander the great comes from a single source—Arrian—writing roughly four centuries after Alexander lived.” (The Jesus Legend, p. 93)
It is also the case that we have multiple independent sources represented in the gospels… I am not referring to the gospels themselves, but the source material that scholar suppose that they contain. (The material that is in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark is one example) So it seems that there is no good reason to distrust the gospels based on the few decades between their being written down and Jesus’ life. We also find an almost (if not entirely) unprecendented amount of manuscripts which are close to the origional texts from which we can know that the texts we receive are reliably consistent with the origonals.
I do not intend my personal experience as evidence… forgive me if that is how I came across. I am only claiming that there is no rational inconsistency in beliving that Christianity is true based on an experience one believes that they have had with God provided that they subject their experience to questioning. Correct that the Church probably influences people to think they have experienced God when they have not… however, that is not to say that people could not have experienced God in truth. Also, it seems to me irrational to disbelieve in the possibility of people experiencing God simply because you have not experienced God yourself. Call it the default belief or whatever you want, but I don’t see how it is rational to do this.
I don’t want to delay my post longer, so I will respond only briefly to this… though I do think my response is still adequate to quell your objection. The fact that Christianity has existed only for two millennia (though one could say it is a form of Judaism which existed for about three times that long), doesn’t show that it is false unless you suppose that it must also be the case that the Christian God must have only existed one all of his properties have been revealed. It is also not the case that if Christianity is true that we must suppose that all people before Christ went to hell, as even the bible states that people before Christ such as David, and even (by implication of the story) people who were not even Jews like Job went to heaven. Furthermore, I could point out how even some humans (if I remember correctly) like 30,000 years ago believed in the afterlife as they would bury themselves with their tools. It is also the case that the bible never claims to be a record of everything that God ever did, (it actually says that all of the books in the world are unable to hold the accounts of all the things God has done) so it is quite possible that Christianity be true and God had revealed himself in some way to previous generation. Ultimately, though they seem at first quite appealing, upon further investigation, I don’t see much logical force in Knockemoutt’s comments here.
P.s. I think we should agree to a number of further replies so that this debate doesn’t go for infinite time. What do you think about 2 more replies each?
- Claim 1: There is no inconsistency between believing in the God of Jesus Christ and acting rationally in holding this belief. C ⊃ CAI – if C (Christianity) is true, it is not unlikely that Christianity will appear irrational (CAI)
The appearance of irrationality seems to me to be a false-positive… as it is not unlikely that the appearance of irrationality is exactly what one should expect if Christianity is true. Long before Darwin or even modern science, it seems to be claimed… in the New Testament that Christianity is intended to appear irrational
- Claim 2: There is no persuasive argument against the God of Jesus Christ
In response to claim 1, you say…
Quote:So basically, the bible explains it all away by saying "and if none of it makes sense, that's because it's not supposed to." I don't see how that means it's rational to believe in the God of Jesus Christ, if anything it sounds more like an excuse for being irrational. Even then, your arguments there are on the basis that Christianity is true, which is a pretty big "if." Biblical errancy aside, using the bible to justify the contents of the bible is rather redundant if you're trying to be convincing (unless of course you're going to try to use the fear of Hell.)
Knockemoutt, I appreciate the comments. I myself have spent much time likewise questioning the logic I am using in fear that it is not sound. However, I do not think it has been refuted and let me explain why. Though you have parodied my argument a bit, even if I take your words literally and entirely seriously—“none of it makes sense, that’s because it is not supposed to”—this is not an illogical claim. Say that I was an abstract artist and made a painting that when looked upon by a traditional medieval artist looks like nonsense. He may not consider it a painting at all. However, my abstract artist made the art for the very reason of getting the traditional artist to question what really it means to make art in the first place. It does not follow that such a sitation is impossible simply because the painting was intentionally not supposed to make sense to a traditional way of looking at things.
It also seems to me that you are claiming that my assertions here are ad-hoc, as you seem to take these as simply excuses in the face of the evidence. However, this is one reason why I quoted the New Testament, as it is long before Darwin or modern biblical criticism which questioned biblical inerrancy. However, no one doubts that the New Testament is the foundational document of Christianity and occurred long before Darwin or even modern science. Since the claims are found in strong terms in the New Testament itself, it doesn’t seem fair to accuse me of offering an ad-hoc explination as the explination was there long before the objection. (if I am correct that this is what you are doing.
I would also like to clarify the position that I am debating. When I agreed to this debate, I saw myself as maintaining a negative case against the claim that Christianity is irrational. Therefore, I agreed to defend the position that Christianity is not irrational. However, I am not taking this as equivalent to the claim that Christianity is rational. Before anyone judges me as playing games with words, please let me explain. To show that justified Christianity belief based upon the experience of God is rational, I would be required to show that this experience is actually from God. However, as such experiences are inward and so cannot be demonstrated externally as proof of God, I am unable to produce these experiences. However, I do not see any argument sufficient to disprove one who has had experiences from God after subjecting them to questioning. Therefore, since the arguments against Christianity’s rationality are external, they are something that I can deal with, and so seemed a fair topic of debate… especially when claims to know that Christianity is irrational are everywhere found on posts here. So I will not be demonstrating that Christianity is rational, as it would require me to produce something which is impossible to produce—the experience of God. However, I can defend the belief that even if one has not experienced God in a Christian way, this person is no position to say that Christianity is irrational. (and this is what I have been defending) This seems to be a very significant claim to me, (and no small one) as many people seem to take if for granted that we know that, or it is highly probable that Christianity is irrational.
The other claim I am maintaining is this: there is no successful argument against the God of Jesus Christ
Here I still think it is the case that historical objections against Jesus teaching in a Christian or somewhat Christian manner would not be a conclusive argument against Christianity even if I were to grant that they are sucesseful as it could be seen as adding further to the irrational crust of the rationally inwardly tender steak of Christianity (forgive me, I desire a steak a the moment…) However, I do see no reason to grant that any historical objection that you have raised as calling into question the picture of Jesus painted in the New Testament. I will first quote your comments relevant to this, and then respond.
Quote:27 to 47 years may be short by the standards of history itself, but for an individual (and that's what we're talking about here; the lifetime of a man) that's plenty of time to more or less have their way with otherwise undocumented history. Of course, that's assuming the bible is a reliable historical record.
I do not believe that your skepticism about the historical Jesus painted in the Gospels is warranted, and let me explain why.
As one scholar writes,
“…historians frequently trust ancient authors who wrote about events that preceded them by greater spans of time than forty to sixty years and who were not directly connected to the events they wrote about…for example, much of what historians believe we know about first-century Jewish history comes from a single source—Josephus—writing about events that in some cases predate him by more than a century. So too, much of what historians believe we know about the Persian wars comes from a single source—Herodotus—writing roughly seventy years after the fact. And a good deal of what we think we know about Alexander the great comes from a single source—Arrian—writing roughly four centuries after Alexander lived.” (The Jesus Legend, p. 93)
It is also the case that we have multiple independent sources represented in the gospels… I am not referring to the gospels themselves, but the source material that scholar suppose that they contain. (The material that is in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark is one example) So it seems that there is no good reason to distrust the gospels based on the few decades between their being written down and Jesus’ life. We also find an almost (if not entirely) unprecendented amount of manuscripts which are close to the origional texts from which we can know that the texts we receive are reliably consistent with the origonals.
Quote:You ask how I could know that people could not have experienced God. To that, I will respond similarly; how can you know that they have? Many people in the world may very well claim experiences of this god, but how do we know for certain that it is indeed a divine experience and not something else? The church encourages the belief that these are in fact experiences of God, so naturally that's what adherents would believe. My assumption that these experiences are not divine is not an unjustified assumption, but a default position. I will assume a lack of existence or effect unless I have evidence to the contrary. A personal experience without any way to substantiate it cannot be submitted as evidence.
I do not intend my personal experience as evidence… forgive me if that is how I came across. I am only claiming that there is no rational inconsistency in beliving that Christianity is true based on an experience one believes that they have had with God provided that they subject their experience to questioning. Correct that the Church probably influences people to think they have experienced God when they have not… however, that is not to say that people could not have experienced God in truth. Also, it seems to me irrational to disbelieve in the possibility of people experiencing God simply because you have not experienced God yourself. Call it the default belief or whatever you want, but I don’t see how it is rational to do this.
Quote:As for the conceptual size of God, I will explain… Let's think for a moment about the size of religion compared to the populace. Judaism has been around for about 5,000 years. For the most part they don't take any converts, so it's mostly who's been born into the faith. Christianity has existed for just under 2,000 years. Even if we combine these Abrahamic faiths, it's still not a very large amount of people, given how many people it is we're talking about. As of 2012, Christians make up between 31-35% of the current world population of an estimated 7 billion, less than half of the world. If we consider the age of these religions compared to the age of the human race, about 100,000 years (using scientific data, not religious text), we find that this god has only existed for about 5% of mankind's existence. If we compare all of this to the total number of people estimated to ever have been born, we find that only about 1.75% (barring fluctuations in demographics; this number isn't perfectly accurate but it's a basic estimation, the real number is perhaps smaller) of people who have ever lived (estimated in 2011 to be 107,602,707,791) believe or believed in the God of Jesus Christ.
This, however, is not even the full picture. We must also take into consideration the other religions which have existed throughout human history. The classical faiths of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians were polytheistic, and quite materialistic in comparison to other faiths; their beliefs in no way match up with the monotheistic religions we have today, and they are largely rejected as "pagan." In antiquity, however, they were quite widespread. Human civilization was in a constant state of flux, with every conquering or change of dynasty bringing with it a new faith to which all in the land were expected to convert. The sheer number of the gods created by man (estimated to be around 4000, but we can't account for those of which there is no surviving documentation) testifies to one thing: the Abrahamic god is not special. The only thing that separates him from Zeus, Thor, Shiva, Amun-Ra et al. is the fact that he currently has the most followers. But this, as history has taught us, means mostly nothing. The Roman religion was spread throughout the empire, which was between 30-40% of the world population at that time, larger than Christianity's hold on the world today. But then, where is Zeus now?
The point I'm making is that the God of Jesus Christ, or really any god for that matter, is small, and that is only compared to the human race, let alone the planet. In comparison to this grand and complex universe, he is miniscule. If this god is the one true god, it really doesn't make sense that documentation and worship of this god would make up such an incredibly minute piece of the universal puzzle. Earlier you asked how I could be right and so many others be wrong, now I've got to ask you the same. So with that in mind, why would it be rational to think this god is more real and worthy of worship than any other?
I don’t want to delay my post longer, so I will respond only briefly to this… though I do think my response is still adequate to quell your objection. The fact that Christianity has existed only for two millennia (though one could say it is a form of Judaism which existed for about three times that long), doesn’t show that it is false unless you suppose that it must also be the case that the Christian God must have only existed one all of his properties have been revealed. It is also not the case that if Christianity is true that we must suppose that all people before Christ went to hell, as even the bible states that people before Christ such as David, and even (by implication of the story) people who were not even Jews like Job went to heaven. Furthermore, I could point out how even some humans (if I remember correctly) like 30,000 years ago believed in the afterlife as they would bury themselves with their tools. It is also the case that the bible never claims to be a record of everything that God ever did, (it actually says that all of the books in the world are unable to hold the accounts of all the things God has done) so it is quite possible that Christianity be true and God had revealed himself in some way to previous generation. Ultimately, though they seem at first quite appealing, upon further investigation, I don’t see much logical force in Knockemoutt’s comments here.
P.s. I think we should agree to a number of further replies so that this debate doesn’t go for infinite time. What do you think about 2 more replies each?
"the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate" (1 Cor. 1:19)
