Logician(s) Needed

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Tomdstone said:
Why ask for criticism of your statement?
I gave a criticism, which you said was welcome, and now you say it is off topic?
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Because we are not writing defenses of the premises in this thread. Nor are we attempting to defend any of them at this time.

We are working on developing the premises and the form of the syllogism itself.
 
Here’s my corrected attempt:


  1. *]The Bible is historically accurate.
    *]The Bible says that Jesus claimed to be God.
    *]The Bible says that Jesus promised to rise from the dead as proof of His divinity.
    *]Jesus rose from the dead.
    *]Therefore, Jesus is God.
    *]The Bible says that Jesus promised to build a Church.
    *]The Church cannot teach error in God’s name; it is prevented or protected from doing so.
    *]The Church teaches infallibly that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
    *]Therefore, the Bible is inspired.

    Criticisms about the logic and construction of this syllogism are welcomed. :yup:

    We will not be attempting to defend the premises at this time.
 
We have yet to prove that the bible is historically accurate. So far all we have is that Jesus existed and that he was an influential figure. If we are approaching the NT as any other historical records we should be a bit more circumspect about accepting the stories of miracles and the claims it makes about His teachings. But you are not doing that - like I said, there is only one account of these things (the NT) and you are accepting it as historical. There are many claims about people raising from the dead, but most people never accept them at face value like that. Why are we treating the NT differently?

Anyways, any logical argument can be internally consistent - but that doesn’t prove anything, as any logician should know. So unless the premises can be defended and proven it is not a valid argument.
 
Randy_Carson said:
Here’s my corrected attempt:


  1. *]The Bible is historically accurate.
    *]The Bible says that Jesus claimed to be God.
    *]The Bible says that Jesus promised to rise from the dead as proof of His divinity.
    *]Jesus rose from the dead.
    *]Therefore, Jesus is God.
    *]The Bible says that Jesus promised to build a Church.
    *]The Church cannot teach error in God’s name; it is prevented or protected from doing so.
    *]The Church teaches infallibly that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
    *]Therefore, the Bible is inspired.

    Criticisms about the logic and construction of this syllogism are welcomed. :yup:

    We will not be attempting to defend the premises at this time.
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  1. And, to be honest 5 doesn’t follow from 2, 3 and 4. Resurrecting from the dead is not exclusive to Jesus in the NT. So unless, Lazarus is also of the same divine nature as Jesus, it does not follow that resurrection proves divinity. Besides the fact that we have no good reason to accept premise 4. And neither did the apostles, none of which actually witnessed the crucifixion.
 
Randy_Carson said:
If the New Testament is shown to be reliable when compared side by side with non-biblical reportage, does this increase the credibility of the authors about things we cannot verify objectively?
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But it hasn’t been shown to be reliable. It has only been shown to be coincidental in the broadest aspects of historical context, which tells us practically nothing of relevance. The question is “is it reliable on its own subject matter, on which it is the only work?”
 
They all fled. The only possible witness is “disciple whom Jesus loved”, which is only mentioned in one account, that of John. It is believed to be John himself by default, but it speaks of him in the third person, which seems odd. We don’t actually know who it was, if he was really there, and what the person’s relation is to John’s gospel.

Even if we allow that one account is possible we still have three which are not. It is widely accepted that the gospel authors copied from each other, and this only damages the credibility of the accounts, as a historical record, even more. If we had four fully independent accounts we could cross reference them and use them as evidence for one another, just as when we compare them against other historical texts. But since they copied from one another we have less ways of verifying their accuracy internally, meaning that it takes more goodwill than reasoning to accept them as historical accounts.
 
In other words, we can’t appeal to a wide variety of evidence when it is all cloned evidence.
 
paziego said:
And, to be honest 5 doesn’t follow from 2, 3 and 4. Resurrecting from the dead is not exclusive to Jesus in the NT. So unless, Lazarus is also of the same divine nature as Jesus, it does not follow that resurrection proves divinity. Besides the fact that we have no good reason to accept premise 4. And neither did the apostles, none of which actually witnessed the crucifixion.
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Lazarus was raised by someone else.

Jesus rose under His own power.

John, the Apostle, was at the scene of the crucifixion.

John 19
25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman,** here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.**
 
paziego said:
They all fled.
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Not exactly.

John 18
15 Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest’s courtyard, 16 but Peter had to wait outside at the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the servant girl on duty there and brought Peter in.

According to John’s account, he and Peter were both present at this point.
 
Randy_Carson said:
Lazarus was raised by someone else.

Jesus rose under His own power.

John, the Apostle, was at the scene of the crucifixion.

John 19
25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman,** here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.**

An equally plausible reading is that the miracles Jesus performed were only possible by the authority given to him by the father, Matthew 9:8 being an example of this. And we could argue that the same power, not inherent in Jesus but coming from God, is what raised both Lazarus and Jesus. Whenever there seems to be a case that Jesus has human limitations and depends on the Father for his miracles it has usually been taken as a sign of His being of two natures. But that concept not in the text.

I have mentioned the difficulties with the possible presence of John; and in John 18 15 Peter is about to deny Jesus 3 times, after which it is unknown what happens to him, other than he goes outside and weeps.
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paziego said:
An equally plausible reading is that the miracles Jesus performed were only possible by the authority given to him by the father, Matthew 9:8 being an example of this. And we could argue that the same power, not inherent in Jesus but coming from God, is what raised both Lazarus and Jesus. Whenever there seems to be a case that Jesus has human limitations and depends on the Father for his miracles it has usually been taken as a sign of His being of two natures. But that concept not in the text.

I have mentioned the difficulties with the possible presence of John; and in John 18 15 Peter is about to deny Jesus 3 times, after which it is unknown what happens to him, other than he goes outside and weeps.
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I was kinda hoping we could focus on the syllogism itself and leave the development of the defenses of each until another time. :o
 
Randy_Carson said:
we conclude that either Jesus was just what he claimed to be—God—or he was crazy. (The one thing we know he could not have been was merely a good man who was not God, since no merely good man would make the claims he made.)
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Just in case you didn’t notice, this bit is C S Lewis’ argument, except he has Jesus as either God or bad man, rather than God or mad man. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis%27s_trilemma

I think when you get to defending the whole thing, you’ll have your work cut out.
 
Randy_Carson said:
I was kinda hoping we could focus on the syllogism itself and leave the development of the defenses of each until another time. :o
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Yes, Lazarus and John and Peter, etc. are red herrings. (Although the text is clear - that the disciple whom Jesus loved was at The Cross)

Randy, I think in order to make a strong/valid sylogism the best way is to start with the conclusion and ask… “Why must this conclusion necessarily be true?” And then work backwards through the premisses and see if they unavoidably rule out any OTHER possible conclusion.

I think you also need to ask why, if such an actual argument could indeed be successfully constructed, why hasn’t it been done already?
…by really really ridiculously smart folks who can haz the brains and all that stuff. 😜
 
Lion_IRC said:
Yes, Lazarus and John and Peter, etc. are red herrings. (Although the text is clear - that the disciple whom Jesus loved was at The Cross)

Randy, I think in order to make a strong/valid sylogism the best way is to start with the conclusion and ask… “Why must this conclusion necessarily be true?” And then work backwards through the premisses and see if they unavoidably rule out any OTHER possible conclusion.

I think you also need to ask why, if such an actual argument could indeed be successfully constructed, why hasn’t it been done already?
…by really really ridiculously smart folks who can haz the brains and all that stuff. 😜
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Well, as you can see from the OP, the argument has been thought out…Catholic Answers has been using it for a looong time…it appears in Karl Keating’s book, Catholicism and Fundamentalism.

But I suspect Karl got it from Radio Replies, Volume 1, which was first published in 1936.
 
Yes, I agree, the overall argument qualifies as the “best explanation” in terms of persuasive power based on what we know of human nature.
But it even if all it’s primary and underlying premises ARE accepted, the conclusion is still problematic IMHO.
a) Because its terms remain ambiguous. Define ‘inspired’. ETC.
b) Because its hard to see the compelling link (necessary inference) between premis and conclusion even if you do understand the bible as theophany.
 
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