I don’t believe there were any eyewitnesses. The Bible merely makes the claim that there were many eyewtinesses, but there has never been one single extra-Biblical proof or writing by any of the alleged witnesses to back up this claim.But the technology was not there but it was recorded by over 500 eye witnesses who could testify to seeing the Risen Lord. This is the proof by the only means available in their time. Eye witness testimony is good.
Your falling into logical fallacy here. This is a non-sequitur also known as “argument from absence.”I don’t believe there were any eyewitnesses. The Bible merely makes the claim that there were many eyewtinesses, but there has never been one single extra-Biblical proof or writing by any of the alleged witnesses to back up this claim.
No, he is most certainly not committing that fallacy you are accusing him of.Your falling into logical fallacy here. This is a non-sequitur also known as “argument from absence.”
Your saying because we don’t have a written account from these witnesses, the witnesses must not exist.
I don’t have a written account from every person who witnessed the first Super Bowl, but that doesn’t mean the witnesses weren’t there. It doesn’t even mean they didn’t write down what they saw and experienced. It only means I don’t have their written account.
For starters, I am bewildered why anyone would attempt to try to prove such a thing.Since you reject the argument already presented, how would you prove the inspiration of Scripture?
That’s not what he said.No, he is most certainly not committing that fallacy you are accusing him of.
It’s sad that you accuse someone this way.
Maybe there were witnesses; but since we don’t have independent accounts from them, we can’t rely on those witnesses.
Maybe he meant what you’ve added, but based on what he said I’m left with the conclusion that he believes the witnesses didn’t exist because we have no written records from any of them. That’s argument from absence. The same as if you don’t believe I have a car because you haven’t seen me drive it.I don’t believe there were any eyewitnesses. The Bible merely makes the claim that there were many eyewtinesses, but there has never been one single extra-Biblical proof or writing by any of the alleged witnesses to back up this claim.
???For starters, I am bewildered why anyone would attempt to try to prove such a thing.
It is certainly important to believe that Scripture is inspired.???
Why does this bewilder you? Do you not think it’s important to know whether or not Scripture is inspired?
You are falling into the exact same thing, except you believe the converse to be true. There is an absence of writings, but for some reason you still think they’re there. Amidst all the discoveries we’ve made about the ancient world, we’ve never come across any eyewitness proofs or writings. Based on this fact and what we have to work with thus far, I find it more plausible to conclude that there are none.Your falling into logical fallacy here. This is a non-sequitur also known as “argument from absence.”
You’re saying because we don’t have a written account from these witnesses, the witnesses must exist. I don’t find this plausible or even logical.Your saying because we don’t have a written account from these witnesses, the witnesses must not exist.
Except if you really wanted to dig up facts about who witnessed the first Super Bowl, you could easily obtain them. You can watch the Super Bowl, for instance, and see the thousands of people who were in attendance. You could go with the tv network’s data to see how many households were tuned in. But, this is a poor comparison nonetheless, as no one is trying to convince me to give up my life and put all my energy, effort, and money based on who watched the first Super Bowl.I don’t have a written account from every person who witnessed the first Super Bowl, but that doesn’t mean the witnesses weren’t there. It doesn’t even mean they didn’t write down what they saw and experienced. It only means I don’t have their written account.
I haven’t said anything of the sort. I’ve simply pointed out that your argument is “it can’t be true because there’s no evidence it is.”You are falling into the exact same thing, except you believe the converse to be true. There is an absence of writings, but for some reason you still think they’re there. Amidst all the discoveries we’ve made about the ancient world, we’ve never come across any eyewitness proofs or writings. Based on this fact and what we have to work with thus far, I find it more plausible to conclude that there are none.
You’re saying because we don’t have a written account from these witnesses, the witnesses must exist. I don’t find this plausible or even logical.
Yes, I can see a TV projection of thousands of people in a stadium. But there is no evidence those people actually are there. Nor is the fact that 100,000 people are on a TV screen evidence that someone who claims they were there actually was.Except if you really wanted to dig up facts about who witnessed the first Super Bowl, you could easily obtain them. You can watch the Super Bowl, for instance, and see the thousands of people who were in attendance. You could go with the tv network’s data to see how many households were tuned in.
Again with the logical fallacies. This time a red herring.But, this is a poor comparison nonetheless, as no one is trying to convince me to give up my life and put all my energy, effort, and money based on who watched the first Super Bowl.
That isn’t my arguement, since my arguement is about the bigger picture as to why I should believe there were many witnesses. With the information that I have available to me, it doesn’t make sense to believe there are witnesses. Now, there might have been some other witnesses, sure, but might isn’t good enough. Might isn’t a good reason to lay down my life for.I haven’t said anything of the sort. I’ve simply pointed out that your argument is “it can’t be true because there’s no evidence it is.”
This is false. There most certainly is evidence, if you were that deadset on finding it. You could look to concession stand sales, as an example, for proof that people were actually there and what you saw on tv wasn’t just a massive hologram of people.Yes, I can see a TV projection of thousands of people in a stadium. But there is no evidence those people actually are there.
This is false. You could corroborate their statements with other events that took place during the Super Bowl, that would be known only to people who were in attendance.Nor is the fact that 100,000 people are on a TV screen evidence that someone who claims they were there actually was.
I don’t believe the Bible is presented by a third party. I am of the belief that the Bible is heavily biased with an agenda to promote, namely the spreading of Christianity. The TV network data is third party evidence and can be corroborated with other pieces of evidence to verify its claim. The same cannot be said for the Bible.Your example of the TV network data as “proof” is easily analogous to the Biblical record. You’re basing the existence of “witnesses” on a third-party record, and because of that record assuming the event actually took place.
You haven’t disproven it.I’ve pointed out this is false logic, and gave a contemporary example to further disprove your logic.
No, neither of these statements is talking about the historical accuracy of the Bible. Both of them assume historical accuracy and then draw conclusions. The first one draws the conclusion that Jesus must have been either divine or a madman or a liar (an idea that had some merit in the limited context in which C. S. Lewis proposed it, to counter the silly sentimental pseudo-Christian piety of WWII-era Britain, but in that strong form doesn’t work well against thoroughgoing skeptics). The second quote, obviously, is talking about the hsitorical evidence for “the rudiments of what we see in the Catholic Church today.”This is the part you seemed to skip over:
“Using what is in the Gospels themselves and what we find in extra-biblical writings from the early centuries…”
“Both the Bible (still taken as merely a historical book, not yet as an inspired one) and other ancient works attest to the fact that Christ established a Church with the rudiments of what we see in the Catholic Church today—papacy, hierarchy, priesthood, sacraments, and teaching authority.”
Both of these statements the historical accuracy of the Bible is judged by the extra-biblical sources from the same time.
Specifically for the inspiration of the Bible, I am moved by the following:Given the above, what do you find is good evidence to think that the Bible is divinely inspired?
This last part is great! I agree with you that many people forget about this. We definitely shouldn’t ignore the distinction between what is plausible and what is definitively proven. After all, we know there was at least one faction in the early Church teaching heresy during the first century: the Judaizers. There are others from the 1st and 2nd century as well, and all thought they had it right.In neither of these contexts are extrabiblical sources very helpful in telling us what Jesus did. The canonical NT, with the possible addition of the Gospel of Thomas and the Didache (I don’t myself rate Thomas’ authenticity very high, but it’s the one other source that some would put on the same level as the canonical texts), is pretty much it. Citations from Ignatius and other similar figures work well in discussion with Protestants who accept the Catholic NT canon, the Incarnation, etc, because they can’t throw out the Apostolic Fathers altogether without cutting of the limb they sit on. But thoroughgoing skeptics of the tradition of Walter Bauer (like Bart Ehrman and Elaine Pagels) who talk about the diversity of early Christianity and question whether Ignatius and his Roman allies were anything but one faction within early second-century Christianity–it’s not so easy to counter them on purely historical grounds. We can show that it’s quite plausible to believe the claims of the early-second-century Catholics to be the true continuation of the faith of Jesus’ original disciples. But that’s not the same as proving that this is so. (The failure to make that distinction plagues this entire discussion.)
At any rate, I ignored the tract’s references to extrabiblical sources because it wasn’t clear that they were bearing any weight. They weren’t being used to prove the authenticity of the Biblical text–their authenticity along with that of the Biblical text was simply taken for granted, and then both kinds of sources together were appealed to to prove the divinity of Christ and the authority of the Church as something Christ established. Also, it wasn’t clear what extrabiblical sources were meant.
The fact remains that the only actual argument made in the tract for the historicity of the Biblical account appears to be the textual one.
The underlined is where you lost me. Can you please clarify?Edwin
Sort of. All I meant was that the tract is supposed to be about how we know the Bible is inspired. Extrabiblical sources were mentioned twice (vaguely) to support claims about Jesus’ divinity and about Jesus’ establishment of something more or less like the present Catholic Church. They seemed to be thrown in there because they are part of the picture (and rightly, because they are) when the argument stood or fell on whether its claims about the reliability of Scripture were plausible. In other words, if we can’t trust Matthew, there’s probably no point arguing about Ignatius. Furthermore, even less effort was made to show the historicity of the extra-Biblical sources than to prove the tract’s claims about the historicity of the Gospels.The underlined is where you lost me. Can you please clarify?
It seems like you’re saying because the tract doesn’t talk about efforts to prove the authenticity and accuracy (both textual and historical) of the extra-biblical sources, they aren’t being given equal, if any, weight. And because the other sources weren’t talked about in detail - names, dates, how we know they’re textually and historically accurate - the only evidence in the tract to prove inspiration is that we can be sure we’re working on an accurate text.
If I’m wrong, then please clarify for me.
Your original argument you said nothing about the big picture. It wasn’t until I challenged the argument you seemed to be making that you brought that up. Yes, the big picture changes how we react to the evidence at hand. However, your only evidence that the witness did not exist is we have no known records from those same witnesses.That isn’t my arguement, since my arguement is about the bigger picture as to why I should believe there were many witnesses. With the information that I have available to me, it doesn’t make sense to believe there are witnesses. Now, there might have been some other witnesses, sure, but might isn’t good enough. Might isn’t a good reason to lay down my life for.
Example:
You arrive at a friend’s house and see that their lights are off, their car isn’t in the driveway, no one answers when you ring the doorbell or call their home, and it’s 10 a.m. when they work a 9 to 5 job. The logical thought would be that no one is home. An illogical thought would be, given the circumstance, that someone is home despite all the indicators that they aren’t. The only thing that would make this illogical thought become logical, is if you have a strong reason to suggest they were indeed home, despite all the given factors.
This is a great example, except just because the evidence suggests no one is home does not prove no one is home. The argument you were making before is that because I have no evidence the person is home, there is no possibility they are home.The strong reason from the example hasn’t been provided or discovered, so with the info I have, I must go with logic and reason.
This is false. There most certainly is evidence, if you were that deadset on finding it. You could look to concession stand sales, as an example, for proof that people were actually there and what you saw on tv wasn’t just a massive hologram of people.
How can I conclusively prove from either of these that someone was actually at the game? Isn’t it also a possibility that someone purchased enough food/drink/souvenirs to make it appear a large crowd was at the game? Isn’t it possible for others to lie about events that took place to support someone else’s claim?This is false. You could corroborate their statements with other events that took place during the Super Bowl, that would be known only to people who were in attendance.
First, I did not say the Bible was written by a “third-party,” and if I accidentally inferred/implied it then I’m sorry for the confusion. What I was referring to was the Bible being a third-party in relation to the witnesses it mentions. In other words, the Bible is not the record of those witnesses. It is a separate record, probably a first-hand account, but it is not the account of the witnesses in question.I don’t believe the Bible is presented by a third party. I am of the belief that the Bible is heavily biased with an agenda to promote, namely the spreading of Christianity. The TV network data is third party evidence and can be corroborated with other pieces of evidence to verify its claim. The same cannot be said for the Bible.
I’ve proven it is incorrect to conclude something did not exist because we have no evidence that it existed.You haven’t disproven it.
Good chat! Now we understand each other!Sort of. All I meant was that the tract is supposed to be about how we know the Bible is inspired. Extrabiblical sources were mentioned twice (vaguely) to support claims about Jesus’ divinity and about Jesus’ establishment of something more or less like the present Catholic Church. They seemed to be thrown in there because they are part of the picture (and rightly, because they are) when the argument stood or fell on whether its claims about the reliability of Scripture were plausible. In other words, if we can’t trust Matthew, there’s probably no point arguing about Ignatius. Furthermore, even less effort was made to show the historicity of the extra-Biblical sources than to prove the tract’s claims about the historicity of the Gospels.
You were suggesting that the extrabiblical sources were appealed to as evidence for Scripture’s reliability. I didn’t see the tract arguing that at all.
It seems to me that in fact a great deal depends on whether we trust the testimony of the second-century Church. And this point works in favor of Catholics. So why adopt this strange convoluted method which depends on untenable claims about being able to prove the reliability of Scripture and looks in fact like something adapted from the Old Princeton school of Protestant theology? (That may not actually be where it came from–certainly the argument was not invented by Karl Keating, as I used to think, but is found in the Catholic Encyclopedia. But what strikes me about the argument is precisely that it doesn’t appeal to the testimony of the second-century church to support the claim that Scripture is reliable.)
Edwin
Moved. I appreciate that term.Specifically for the inspiration of the Bible, I am moved by the following:
And then there are the Psalms. Consider Ps 139. Here we have a man who praises God. This man is glad that God made him, and made him so wonderfully! In Ps 144, David gives credit to God for his skills, for his abilities. This isn’t a “You should thank God”, it’s actual giving thanks and credit. And similarly in many other psalms.
- In the OT, the fact that ancient Hebrews responded to the Babylonian exile not by abandoning faith in YHWH but by understanding the exile as YHWH’s work and by articulating a monotheistic faith with great depth and power (see especially Isaiah 40 ff.)
I consider the events concerning Jesus from an entirely moral perspective, so my stance is unaffected by historical or scientific evidence or lack of thereof.
- Of course, much the same is true in the NT in the way Jesus’ followers responded to Jesus’ death.
Again, my consideration is ahistoric here. It seems only reasonable that there be only one true church, and the Catholic seems to fit this description best.
- Historically, Scripture has functioned as the book of the Church./…/ And more to the point, for all the evil the Church has done, it has carried a message of hope and redemption through the centuries that remains powerful and persuasive to many, including myself, today.
Absolutely. That subjective “burning in the bosom” I too consider of vital importance.
- And that brings me to the subjective “burning n the bosom” that Keating treats so scornfully in the Catholic Answers tract. I think it’s indispensable, though not sufficient. The Bible is, to put it simply, compelling.
thinkandmull said:Pius X in *Pascendi *
All this, Venerable Brethren, is in formal opposition to the teachings of Our predecessor, Pius IX, where he lays it down that: “In matters of religion it is the duty of philosophy not to command but to serve, not to prescribe what is to be believed, but to embrace what is to be believed with reasonable obedience, *not to scrutinize the depths *of the mysteries of God, but to venerate them devoutly and humbly.”
The Modernists completely invert the parts, and of them may be applied the words which another of Our predecessors Gregory IX, addressed to some theologians of his time: “Some among you, puffed up like bladders with the spirit of vanity strive by profane novelties to cross the boundaries fixed by the Fathers, twisting the meaning of the sacred text…to the philosophical teaching of the rationalists, not for the profit of their hearer but to make a show of science…these men, led away by various and strange doctrines, turn the head into the tail and force the queen to serve the handmaid.”
It’s not clear how it could be proven that the Bible is divinely inspired.But the specific name that those inspired by the Bible have used to describe why it is so significant is “divine inspiration.”
But why would one need reasons to believe something important?Now this is only the barest outline. The real reasons for believing anything important (and for not believing it) are always far too numerous to list.
That kind of apologetics strikes me as entirely secular. It takes secular principles, and then presumes to build a case for the divine based on those principles.One of my problems with the kind of apologetics represented in the OP
One would be wise to seek as much truth as they can regarding beliefs which involve facts and fiction. It should be understood that God is the Author of Right reasoning, He endowed man with rational intelligence and inspired beliefs. If it can be proven that a belief is reasonable to believe from existing facts, and reason, then one becomes predisposed to accept the belief. Any effort to prove anything about God is not misguided. Some do not understand that St. Thomas synthesized the union of reason and faith. Faith is a gift given by Jesus Christ, but reason can bring you to the threshold of faith. It is grace that carries you over the threshold. Once over then things become much clearer in retrospect.Moved. I appreciate that term.
I just read this:
It’s not clear how it could be proven that the Bible is divinely inspired.
If man is a dependent, contingent being, then he cannot prove anything about that which is bigger than him, precedes him, or contextualizes him. Therefore, all efforts to prove anything about God are misguided.
But why would one need reasons to believe something important?
Reasons or justifications for believing things are determined as valid or invalid by whoever one is trying to convince or justify oneself to.
That kind of apologetics strikes me as entirely secular. It takes secular principles, and then presumes to build a case for the divine based on those principles.
I think this is truly pernicious. I fear people who do that and who impose such things on me. Many Catholics, and other Christians do this.
Have you ever read Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy? Most of what’s written there is nothing but the Mosaic Law, especially in Leviticus. Do you really get inspired by reading law books? If so, more power to you. But I daresay most people do not. So if I’m not “moved” by a section of Scripture, how do I know what I’m reading is Scripture?Moved
And then there are the Psalms. Consider Ps 139. Here we have a man who praises God. This man is glad that God made him, and made him so wonderfully! In Ps 144, David gives credit to God for his skills, for his abilities. This isn’t a “You should thank God”, it’s actual giving thanks and credit. And similarly in many other psalms.
I find this very moving.
Now we’ve gone from, “you can’t prove it apart from feeling inspired” to, “we can reasonably conclude the Catholic Church is the One, True Church.”Again, my consideration is ahistoric here. It seems only reasonable that there be only one true church, and the Catholic seems to fit this description best.
And we’re back to accepting personal, subjective feelings over logic and reason?Absolutely. That subjective “burning in the bosom” I too consider of vital importance.
Be careful speaking for others, especially people you don’t know. I believe the reason many apologists place more emphasis on logic and reason is because they are trying to convince a world that rejects things it can’t arrive at without logic. As someone has already mentioned, logic/reason cannot be totally separated from faith. St. Thomas Aquinas is a Doctor of the Church for precisely this reason. He spent a lifetime studying the great philosophers (Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, etc.) and the great theologians (Augustine, John Crysostom, etc.) and unified them into a logical proof of God’s existence.It seems that some modern apologists are too embarrassed to place much value on it, or are so vain that they want to look good and save face in the eyes of secular people, which is why those apologists downplay the role of they mystical, the “subjective,” the it-just-is.
God wants us to be in relationship with Him, and He tries to reveal Himself to us through the world around us. He wants us to be sure, so He gave us the ability to reason. Using that very gift He gave us, we can be reasonably sure of His existence.It’s not clear how it could be proven that the Bible is divinely inspired.
If man is a dependent, contingent being, then he cannot prove anything about that which is bigger than him, precedes him, or contextualizes him. Therefore, all efforts to prove anything about God are misguided.
Because as I’ve already stated several times in this post, we are rational creatures. Especially living in today’s world where logic is supposed to be the supreme god, it is important to have reasons for continuing to believe and to live your life by the code of that belief system.But why would one need reasons to believe something important?
Not exactly. 2+2 still equals 4 regardless of whether the other person wants to accept it.Reasons or justifications for believing things are determined as valid or invalid by whoever one is trying to convince or justify oneself to.
Again, there is a reason apologists build their case with “secular” reasoning. We live in a world that worships logic and reason, so modern apologists are going to build a case based on those “gods” to show people there really is a God.That kind of apologetics strikes me as entirely secular. It takes secular principles, and then presumes to build a case for the divine based on those principles.
I think this is truly pernicious. I fear people who do that and who impose such things on me. Many Catholics, and other Christians do this.